Dorothea Puente, The 'Death House Landlady' Of 1980s California Dorothea Puente - Dorothea Helen Puente (January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. Unchanged are his lean, square-shouldered build and animated manner, his eyebrows spiking and hands windmilling as he recounts the investigation. Officers rushed to the hotel to arrest Puente, but by then, she had bolted. [citation needed], A few weeks later, the police returned after Malcolm McKenzie, a 74-year-old pensioner (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging), accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him. Puente drugged three women with tranquilizers to steal checks, money and valuables from their homes in the early 80s, as recounted in court records. Finding nothing, they asked permission to dig up the yard. I have talked to her attorneys, to the cop who unmasked her, to the prosecutor who tried her for murder, to jurors who found her guilty. "Crime Stories" The Boarding House Killer (TV Episode 2007) - IMDb Puente told them that they were welcome to do so, and even provided an extra shovel. The family suspected Puente of poisoning her. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). Working in my yard.. But volatility seemed to follow Puente wherever she went and the new couple argued frequently about Puentes drinking and gambling. Prison persuades some inmates to repent, their perspective evolving with time as they forsake their younger selves. On subjects unrelated to her misdeeds, she will open up, weaving anecdotes that are sometimes embroidered, sometimes made from whole cloth. 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Florez agreed, and Puente assisted him. He also knows what will happen if by some unimaginable spasm of fate she should ever walk free. At the age of 64, Puente - who was born Dorothea Helen Gray - was tried in 1993 for the murders of nine people after police found seven bodies buried in the garden of her home and two more. They prized her willingness to accept alcoholics, drug addicts and other difficult clients into her home, a sprawling, three-story Victorian that could sleep more than two dozen tenants. There, she quickly got back to her old tricks. They belong to a litany of famous names she drops during our meetings. Prosecutors said that Puente was one of the most cold and calculating female killers the country had ever seen.. I have read books and hundreds of news articles and file after file of court records related to her crimes. And it was so counter to her strenuous effort all her life to be somebody who was respected, somebody important., Puente received a prison term of life without parole after the jury deadlocked on whether to give her the death penalty, an ending that deepened William Clausens bitterness. 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Dorothea Puente - 838 Words | Studymode [6], In 1968, Gray married Roberto Jose Puente. After noticing disturbed soil on the property, they uncovered the body of tenant Leona Carpenter, 78. Dorothea Puente House Now - Sound Health and Lasting Wealth We next met days before Thanksgiving, when the recent election of Barack Obama had boosted her hopes for the countrys future, and again in mid-December. Drab and worn, the space, about the size of a single-car garage, has scuffed concrete flooring, dull fluorescent lighting and two windows; one faces a grassy prison courtyard, the other an interior hallway. READ: Serial Killer Puente's Former Home Becomes Classroom For Law. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. The inmates know who she is, the official says. Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. In late 1981, his mother, Ruth Munroe, went into business with Puente, leasing and running the restaurant side of the Round Corner Tavern in midtown. She'd later return to smother her incapacitated prey. [6], In April 1982, 53-year-old Ruth Munroe began living with Puente in her upstairs apartment, but soon died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. Several were referred there by social workers who viewed the home as a last-resort refuge for their ailing or most erratic clients. Is Worst Roommate Ever's Dorothea Puente still alive? - HITC She was paralyzed. (The Rockettes alumni association has no record of someone named either Sharon Neyaarda or Dorothea McFaul performing with the company, nor of two dancers tumbling into an orchestra pit. Dismembering their corpses, she threw their remains into a mass grave in her garden, telling neighbors the foul smell emanating from the ground was sewage and dead rats, rather than dead residents. Beneath the rooms ashen lighting stand neat rows of small round tables, some 50 in all. Ive given up hope of getting out, she says. By 1982, Puente was sent to prison for her thefts. Another tenant, John Sharp, backed her up. Procedural wrangling moved the trial to Monterey, after a judge ruled that the intense media coverage of Puente in the Sacramento region would preclude her from receiving a fair trial here. The detective had yet to realize that, in the 59-year-old Puente, he had another serial killer on his hands. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. He pieced the puzzle together a couple of hours after they parted, and later that night, police converged on room No. An undercover cop posing as a trucker arrested her after she offered to perform fellatio on him; she served 90 days in county lockup. Forensic testing had failed to determine a definitive cause of death in any of the victims. [citation needed]. She folds the towel several times into a tight square before clasping her hands together on her lap like a child attending Mass. I wonder what its like to be known as a murderer. Her demeanor is, for the most part, politely docile, and I begin to perceive how so many could consider her trustworthy. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. Her eyes would fill with tears, but she would never admit it, he says. As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. After the notorious female serial killer Dorothea Puente died in prison at the age of 82, the filmmaker Nick Coles stumbled upon her obituary. Who was Dorothea Puente and what happened to her? | The Sun That didnt seem right, but Dorothea had conned our whole family into thinking she was a nurse.. Throughout the trial, Dorothea Puente was portrayed as either a sweet grandma-like type or a manipulative criminal who preyed on the weak. She would later kill them by poisoning or strangling them. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. Finally, four days after she skipped town, authorities traced her to a tumbledown motel in Los Angeles. So after that, I was out in New York on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then Id come back to California the rest of the week. Known at the time as Dorothea McFaul, the last name of her first husband, whom she had recently divorced, she performed on stage as Sharon Neyaarda. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. The visit was my first of six with Puente, who turned 80 in January. A few wander over to a colorful mural of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet, who prance beneath a banner reading Family Is Love, Love Is Family. None of the kids acts bothered that mom or grandma or big sister is doing time. Grandson of Dorothea Puente, shared a 'real connection' with her - Daily Newshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGIQ4XcqArGYqiw70QoKcvw?sub_confirmation=1Grand. The Victorian on F Street. They know what shes done., Puente conveys a pride in her renown that, now and then, gives way to embarrassment, or perhaps weariness. On a subsequent visit, her vanity recedes when a guard, apparently new to working the visitors hall, asks her name. For the rest of her life, she maintained her innocence, insisting that all of her boarders had died of "natural causes". He was good to me. (Johansson did not respond to interview requests.). She sat there so totally motionless and emotionless, says Honey Hewlett, one of 12 jurors seated for the trial, who stopped buying Giorgio perfume after learning Puente also wore the scent. Her upstanding reputation concealed a habit of forging the signatures of tenants on their benefits checks before signing them over to herself. The truth about this notorious woman serial killer's spree finally emerged in October of 1954 after her fifth husband Samuel Doss died in a hospital in Oklahoma. [citation needed]. Sir, she said, I have not killed anybody. She explained that she had buried excess trash in the backyard holes that a tenant mentioned to police, and covered some of them with concrete to stunt weed growth. Granddaughter of Dorothea Puente Victim Talks About Her Disappearance The granddaughter of one of Dorothea Puente's victims recalls finding out that Puente had run away from the police. Next, Dorothea Puente went to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. Working in my yard. Puente occupies a lower bunk owing to her age and tenure at the prison, sleeping on the same kind of thin, lumpy mattress as other inmates. In April 2020, the house and current owners were showcased in the Quibi series Murder House Flip. Her statement hangs between us. April 27, 2019 1:12pm. Unbeknownst to Puente, the pensioner recognized her as the woman he saw on television news reports. A person like her, the retired sergeant says, theres no forgetting. (Photo by Jeremy Sykes). A search of the home showed nothing amiss. But their marriage was brief only three years and hinted at trouble beneath the surface. They made a date to go shopping the next day, but Willgues returned to his apartment shadowed by an inkling that he somehow knew her face. Cabreras superiors approved her request, deciding they held insufficient evidence to detain her. Dorothea Puente, also known as the Death House Landlady, was a little-old-lady serial killer who preyed on the elderly and drug-addicted men and women of Sacramento, CA in the 1980s. After their deaths, Puente collected . The next spring, with her husband hospitalized by terminal cancer, the 61-year-old Munroe moved in with Puente to save money. She never blinked, never broke a sweat. After the interview, he allowed her to return to the house, where a patrolman stood sentinel outside through the night. Dorothea Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray in Redlands, California, on January 9, 1929. Benjamin Fink, 55. But you gotta do something so you dont go crazy.. Others wave and smile. As the trial neared, Vicary found her in an agitated, paranoid state. Johansson divorced Dorothea in 1966. Suspect left her residence for a walk but never returned.. Dorothea Puente was arrested in 1988 after the dismembered bodies of seven residents were found in the garden of her home in Sacramento, California Being escorted to a police car after her. Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet grandmother but looks can be deceiving. Dorothea Puente Home - Part 1: Directed by Star Price. But while digging a second hole, Wilson heard a muted thud as his blade struck something hard three feet down. Puente surrendered quietly. Puente's deceptive appearance would later go on to confuse the jury presiding over her trial. A woman known as Dorothea Puente runs a boarding house for those less fortunate, but her seeming benevolence belies motives that are much darker. Her father died of tuberculosis when Puente was eight while her mother, an alcoholic, routinely abused her children and died in a motorcycle accident a year later. Inside Dorothea Puente's Tragic Childhood. "Which is gross," Hayden said. Somehow a neighbor got suspicious, when the police officers investigated the house, the back yard, at least five bodies were buried in her back yard! Being escorted to a police car after her capture in 1988, serial killer Dorothea Puente told gathering reporters 'I used to be a very good person, at one time'. She also suffered a miscarriage. But she has shown too much interest in my visits for me to believe her. [10] According to investigators, most of her victims had been drugged until they overdosed; Puente then wrapped them in bed-sheets and plastic lining before dragging them to open pits in the backyard for burial. During my meetings with Puente, a number of prisoners softly greet herHi, Miss Dorothea; How are you, Miss D?as they walk past. She tells me they appreciate the advice she provides them, whether informal legal counsel on their cases or how to traverse the social services network after their release. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. For my benefit, she recites her prison medical history: a tumor removed from behind one knee last year; angioplasty in 2003; repair of a ruptured artery in 1998. Going to church every day. Eleven jurors were convinced of Puentes guilt in killing the seven boarders found in her yard; one juror disagreed. In her telling, after showering and dressing, she prays, recites the rosary and reads a few pages of the Bible, favoring Proverbs and Romans. So we knew wed have an uphill battle in convincing the jurors that all of those were accidental deaths.. She married Roberto Puente in 1968, but the relationship dissolved sixteen months later. Puente got the second-degree charge for Carpenter's death, as. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. Before leaving, I decide to return to the subject of Los Angeles, to the despair that descended as she watched the news in her motel room. Puente had welcomed him into her home that February. She changed her public image to that of a respectable older matron by putting on vintage clothing, wearing large granny glasses, and letting her hair turn gray. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". Removed from her violent crimes, it actually makes perfect sense to use Puente's image on a cookbook, as she has the perfect visage of a kind old lady who probably knows a secret recipe or two that her tenants all would . The reality, in fact, was that across a period of 10 years, Puente had meticulously murdered at least seven tenants at the boarding lodge she ran in Sacramento, California. I ask why shes here. Who was Sacramento serial killer Dorothea Puente? | abc10.com - KXTV Serial Killer Dorothea Puente's Home Featured In 'Murder House Flip To reduce chest pain, she wears a nitroglycerin skin patch. On a later visit, she brags that she won $10,000 on a 1950s game show on NBC called Feather Your Nest; another time, that she played a few tournaments on the fledgling LPGA tour in the 50s. A person like her, he says, theres no forgetting.. Her shoulders shake as she laughs, her open mouth exposing a white flash of dentures. By 1952, she had wed Johansson, whom she met in San Francisco. She answers without pause. Dorothea Puente's reign of terror began in 1982 when her friend, Ruth Monroe, was found dead in a boarding house Puente was running at that time. He was going with another movie star, she says. But God always puts obstacles in peoples way. The prosecution stated that Puente used sleeping pills to drug her tenants, suffocated them, and then hired convicts to bury them in the yard. The guards will come by and go, What you got cooking today? , She marks much of the day reading mind-candy fictionshes a fan of John Grisham and Dan Brownand watching TV; her favorite prime-time shows include CSI, Criminal Minds and Cold Case. What he did know was that her public image as a shepherd of the dispossessed veiled the past of an ex-con who preyed on the weak. 12 Horrific Facts About Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady - Ranker On her lap bounces a pony-tailed girl in a red-buttoned vest who giggles Mama! Two tables over, a stout, fortyish black woman with a toothy smile banters with her parents and younger brother, to judge from the physical semblance. Her passivity subdues suspicion. I ask why the cops targeted her. Grandson of Dorothea Puente, shared a 'real connection' with her Puente had stayed poised a day earlier when Cabrera showed up with a fellow homicide detective and a federal probation agent. Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. She seems entirely harmless. [citation needed], The defense called several witnesses, who showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her. During discussions that typically lasted two to three hours, she proved by turns defiant and self-pitying, disavowing she killed anyone while reserving words of sorrow for herself. She recalls the future president and his first wife, Jane Wyman, as her good friends. When I mention the Gippers second wife, she frowns. The Untold Truth Of Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady - Grunge.com Despite being convicted of murder in 1993 and sent to prison, Puente. I dont give a shit what anyone else thinks., Did you like what you read here? In his sessions with her, Vicary had inched up to the subject of guilt, knowing that she would withdraw if he asked directly whether she had killed people. She resembles a wizened owl. Betty Palmer, 78. Yet for all the local, national and international coverage of the bizarre case in ensuing years, the public heard virtually nothing from its main character. Puente's heinous crimes were eventually discovered in 1988, when Alberto Montoya, a mentally disabled and schizophrenic tenant, was reported missing by a social worker. I have arrived seeking to somehow pierce Puentes carapace of denial, to find a crack or contradiction in her answers that might expose her deceit. She purchased the refills through a pair of doctors who, presumably oblivious to her past drugging of clients, trusted her stories that she simply wanted to help boarders sleep. How to pronounce Dorothea | HowToPronounce.com Inside Dorothea Puente's Tragic Childhood - Grunge A lot of people saw your running away as a sign of guilt. Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. During the initial investigation, Puente was not immediately a suspect, and she was allowed to leave the property, ostensibly to buy a cup of coffee at a nearby hotel. Marathon Man 63m Barring an unexpected transfer to another prison or a medical emergency, she will die inside this compound. When we discuss her health or the books she reads, when she makes a rare inquiry about my job or background, the conversation tracks as normal, even mundane. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared. Then, she asked if it would be ok if she went to buy a coffee. In 2015, the Ghost Adventures crew investigated the house, due to reports of hauntings by the victims and Puente herself. Unlike many who passed through Puentes boarding house, however, someone had their eye on Montoya. One decomposed leg was found on one side of the garden, and a foot was found on the other (Pictured: Investigators compile miscellaneous body parts found in the ground, 1988). She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. Sometimes she includes small handmade gifts. The theory, while perhaps logical to anyone unfamiliar with Puente before her name hit the headlines, brought disparate reactions from those who already knew her. They had two daughters between 1946 and 1948; Gray sent one child to live with relatives in Sacramento, and placed the other for adoption. Her eyes fix on the mural of Winnie the Pooh. No one else would want that name., Prison protocol bans inmates from talking to each other in the hall apart from brief exchanges. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. She never intended to show, I realize. In April of 1982, a 61-year-old woman named Ruth Monroe moved into Dorothea Puentes house. Dorothea Montalvo Puente (hereinafter "Petitioner") petitions for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C 2254 challenging her 1993 conviction following a trial by jury. Their first series of holes dislodged only soft dirt and a vague sense of futility. Puente passed away in 2011 at the Central California Women's Facility at age 82 from natural causes. The serial killer shuffles into the room with a chickens hitched gait. Dorothea Helen Gray met the world on Jan. 9, 1929, in Redlands, Calif., the sixth of seven children born to Jesse James Gray and Trudie Gray. Explaining away the corpses in her yard, she says, Not one person who worked for me saw me doing anything wrong. A couple who braved the stigma of the house's curse purchased the home, fully aware of the history. Dorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. [6], Gray was arrested in 1960 for owning and operating a bookkeeping firm as a front for a brothel in Sacramento;[5] she was found guilty and was sentenced to ninety days in the Sacramento County Jail. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images. I talk about the foggy drive to the prison, she recounts her trip to the visitors hall. She would flee the city that morning. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. The jury was deadlocked eleven to one for conviction on all counts, and the lone holdout finally agreed to a conviction of two first-degree murder counts, including special circumstances, and one second-degree murder count. The union lasted just two years. It is a stifling backdrop in which to live out the years. Lifestory of Serial Killer Dorothea Puente Analysis - GraduateWay Landlady Guilty in Murders of Three Tenants - Los Angeles Times But Puente has lodged in his psyche as the rarest predator he confronted: in age, gender and disposition, she inhabits an extremely narrow strata of serial killers. 3 min read. The infamous home Dorothea Puente lived in is along F Street in Sacramento. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Gawkers gather outside 1426 F St. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives), Domestic bliss and her maternal instinct failed to take root. A few days later I drive to Chowchilla for my final visit with her. 104-107. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty ImagesThe boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty Images. Even probation officers who stopped by accepted Puentes explanation that the people living at her house were guests or friends not boarders. She sits erect, legs crossed at the ankles and tucked beneath her chair. Then aged 63 (above), 103 witnesses were called to testify against her in the trial, Suspicion arose in 1988 when Alberto Montoya, a mentally disabled and schizophrenic tenant, was reported missing by a social worker, Puente's victims: (left to right)Everson Gillmouth, 77. Puente was convicted in. She trails Cabrera, his police badge clipped to the front of a dark blue jacket and his jeans tucked into knee-high black boots that he had donned for the days dig.