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'I saw her as a human - despite her crimes.'. She answers without pause. Frequent quarrels and separations marred the marriage, with much of the discord brought on by Dorotheas appetites for drinking, gambling and other men. Play it now! I rise as she approaches and shake a hand that feels skeletal and small. At the time, she was serving two life sentences and a concurrent 15-year-to-life sentence. Drugs Puente used to knock . Intense news coverage led to Puentes trial moving to Monterey. 13, as designated by the plastic placard atop its faux-wood surface. The impending anniversary, if tracked only by media types and those who sell serial-killer novelties online, had stirred my curiosity. My question about the incident draws an explanation akin to the one Puente gave a county judge nearly a half century earlier: I was there visiting a friend when the cops came. She refuses to elaborate. John OMara, the prosecutor, called over 130 witnesses to the stand. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images. Most of the lot has been paved over. Beneath a black and white mug shot of Puente wearing a polka dot dress and round glasses, the bulletin reads, The above suspect wanted for murder after several bodys (sic) found buried in her backyard. In 1952, Gray married merchant seaman Axel Bren Johansson in San Francisco. Gawkers gather outside 1426 F St. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives), Domestic bliss and her maternal instinct failed to take root. He says he's often inundated with requests from crazed fans and fellow murder enthusiasts who ask to buy his grandmother's ashes. One girl was placed in the care of relatives, the other put up for adoption. I am led to believe if there is any reason for us to be living here on this Earth, it is to somehow enhance one another's humanity, to love, to touch each other with kindness, to know that you have made just one person breathe easier because you have lived. (One woman later discovered checks and jewelry missing from her home; her case played a part in Puentes 1982 arrest on theft charges.) He called over Cabrera and Brown, and after he scooped away more soil, they saw what resembled a tree root. I wondered whether, when thinking back to 1988, she saw her past as her own or that of a different Dorothea Puente, one who, over time, had faded into something of a stranger. WITH her chiffon dresses, thick-rimmed glasses, grey hair and litter of kittens, Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet old lady - even insisting to some, "Call me Grandma". The initial jolt of uncovering a dead body on Nov. 11 ebbed as Cabrera weighed three factors. Despite the guilty verdict of her . However, in 1978, she was convicted of illegally cashing state and federal assistance checks that belonged to her tenants. As far as theyre concerned, Im dead.. O'Mara's closing argument focused on Puente's acts of murder: Does anyone become responsible for their conduct in this world? But police tracked her down in Los Angeles after a man in a bar recognized her from TV. (To the question of which verse most resonates with her, she shrugs and replies, All of em.) She then quietly gathers the clothing of her slumbering roomies to wash later in the morning, when prisoners are allowed out of their cells. Granddaughter Of Dorothea Puente Victim Visits Boarding House Exclusive Granddaughter Of Dorothea Puente Victim Visits Boarding House Dorothy Miller was eventually found buried in the yard of Dorothea Puente's boarding house. She was a respected figure to the Mexican community, says Donald Dorfman, a longtime Sacramento criminal attorney who handled some of Puentes legal affairs before her 1988 arrest. 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. The forensic psychiatrist, assigned to evaluate the alleged serial killer as her case proceeded toward trial, would spend 12 hours talking with her over the next four years. The subject of personal health preoccupies Puente as much as the next octogenarian. Puente passed away in 2011 from natural causes at the Central California Facility in Chowchilla, aged 82. In November 1985, Dorothea Puente hired a handyman named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her home. The home belonged to seemingly sweet Dorothea Puente, who was arrested in 1988 and later convicted as a serial murderer. Her statement hangs between us. We break the ice. Puente passed away in 2011 at the Central California Women's Facility at age 82 from natural causes. 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. He was a good-hearted man, very kind, she says. Some praised the soft-hearted landlady who cooked big meals for her low-income tenants, handed out vegetables from her garden to neighbors and adopted stray cats. She does not smile, laugh or joke much in my presence, but nor does she betray malevolence. The Story Of The Unsolved Delphi Murders And The Chilling Video Evidence Left Behind, Scaleless, Slimy, And Extremely Rare: Introducing The Deep-Sea Oarfish, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images. Instead, Puente opened up her second boarding house. Over the next few years, she adapted by working as an in-home caregiver, affecting a matronly mien with her modest dress, oversized glasses and tremulous voice. Their theory hardened into subjective truth when they discovered that, following the funeral, the nurse had drained thousands of dollars belonging to Munroe from a joint business bank account. (She garnished her war story with accounts of surviving the 1942 Bataan Death March, a lie she repeated to The Sacramento Bee in a 1982 article on the march; in truth, she was 13 years old and living in California at the time.) Puente was found guilty of the murders of 64-year-old Dorothy Miller, 55-year-old Benjamin Fink, and 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. She holed up in the Royal Viking Motel for the next three days, seldom leaving her room. We spent 2 hours in here looking and reading most of the items. In April 2020, the house and current owners were showcased in the Quibi series Murder House Flip. Six more corpses would follow, but Puente was still on the run. Shes not hurting there in prison, he says. She has sent more than 15 letters and postcards in the months since I first wrote to her. She eventually met and married Pedro Angel Montalvo, though Montalvo abruptly left the relationship a week after their marriage. During my meetings with Puente, a number of prisoners softly greet herHi, Miss Dorothea; How are you, Miss D?as they walk past. Dorothea Puente at the Central California Womens Facility, February 21, 2009 (Courtesy of Central California Womens Facility). It is a stifling backdrop in which to live out the years. Do not sell or share my personal information. This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. Soon after, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. Old bones sometimes turned up in downtown and midtown yards, vestiges of the early 20th century, when families unable to afford a cemetery plot interred loved ones on their property. On her way back, she insisted to reporters that she hadnt killed anyone, claiming: I used to be a very good person at one time.. She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. Me and Nancy, Puente says, shaking her head, we never got along. (A similar epitaph could apply to her marriage to her fourth husband, Pedro Montalvo, who left her in 1976, the same year they exchanged vows in Reno. Unlike many who passed through Puentes boarding house, however, someone had their eye on Montoya. High-profile cases dotted his career, including those of convicted mass murderer Morris Solomon and the Unabomber. An extensive five-day search for the elderly fugitive ended when a stranger she'd befriended in Los Angeles recognized her face from the news and turned her into police. She also mentions undergoing major cancer surgery in 1961 to remove her reproductive organs and part of her intestines and stomach. After their deaths, Puente collected . 13 and watch the prisons visitors hall gradually fill, my doubts that she will appear grow with the rooms din. Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. For a moment the prisons visitors hall feels bereft of other people and sounds. Maybe I would have been better off. The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. La historia de Dorothea Puente: la dulce abuela que mataba jubilados y los enterraba en el jardn La anciana era duea de una casa para adultos mayores. She gave them clothing, she gave them food. Its like she was watching a movie she wasnt particularly interested in., Jury deliberations commenced in July 1993 and soon stalled. Witnesses, including her long-lost daughter, testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers. The next spring, with her husband hospitalized by terminal cancer, the 61-year-old Munroe moved in with Puente to save money. Prison persuades some inmates to repent, their perspective evolving with time as they forsake their younger selves. I just dont believe that strongly in coincidence. John Cabrera sits at a long wooden conference table inside Sacramento Police headquarters on Freeport Boulevard. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Following her year-long trial which ended in 1993, Dorothea was convicted on three counts of murder and was. I dont know what to tell you, she said. has sold out to audiences at the California Stage, Wilkerson Theatre, UC Davis, and in January 2023 at Saramento Theatre Company. His head cocked to the side, he looks back at her, preparing to usher her past the crowd that looms outside the frame. My oldest grandson is 15 and wanted to do this attraction. Again and again, it is not her. Instead, after buying the coffee, she fled immediately to Los Angeles, where she befriended an elderly male pensioner whom she had met in a bar. [citation needed], In November 1985, Puente hired a man named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. No one else would want that name., Prison protocol bans inmates from talking to each other in the hall apart from brief exchanges. The police returned and searched the house. Designers Joelle and Mikel visit the current owners to replace the home's negative energy with a new makeover. Puente's deceptive appearance would later go on to confuse the jury presiding over her trial. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared. I felt like someone had pulled my insides out.. Her shovel was used to dig the hole that yielded a human leg bone, a decomposed foot inside a dress shoe and what looked like pieces of tattered fabric that in fact were rotting flesh. 'Never judge a book by its cover,' said retired police officer John Cabrera in 2018, the lead investigator on the case. But she has shown too much interest in my visits for me to believe her. All three revolve around murder, a fact she notes without irony or self-consciousness. Inmates eat breakfast and dinner in a dining hall separate from their building units; after breakfast, they receive a cold boxed lunch that they take back to their cells. Around the same time, she slipped a heavy sedative into the drink of a 74-year-old man she met at the Zebra Club in midtown. I watch as she pushes away the empty plastic container of fried chicken strips and french fries that she finished eating earlier. The lone drug present in all of them was Dalmane, a sedative for which Puente had obtained more than three dozen prescriptions of 30 pills each between October 1985 and November 1988, according to court records. [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. George Deukmejian (second from left) in this undated photo. That was my tomcat. With age and health concerns relieving her of work duty, she considers her self-assigned morning chores, attending chapel and other diversions a means of survival. A person like her, the retired sergeant says, theres no forgetting. (Photo by Jeremy Sykes). She parlayed its success by pumping money into political campaigns and charitable causes, contributions that bought her the appearance of legitimacy and access to elite circles. The two would continue to have a turbulent relationship, and Gray filed a restraining order in 1975. ), Thanks to her ties to Reagan, Puente tells me, she met Vice President Spiro Agnew and U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, and in the mid-70s, she ate dinner with longtime Republican booster Clint Eastwood when he visited town. She professed her innocence until she died. Dorothea Puente is one of the criminals whose crimes are detailed in 'Worst Roommate Ever.' Puente was known in her neighborhood for housing individuals who were homeless, elderly, or otherwise unable to care for themselves. He ferried Puente to police headquarters and grilled her for two hours. After Florez finished the job, Puente had one more request: to build her a six-foot-long box so she could fill it with books and a few other assorted items before the pair of them would bring the box to a storage facility. The visit was my first of six with Puente, who turned 80 in January. The wanted bulletin for Dorothea Puente. A well-researched play by Mark Loewenstern entitled "Dorothea Puente Tells All!" Setting his feet, he grabbed hold of the object and, with a violent jerk, loosed it from the earths grip. [citation needed], The defense called several witnesses, who showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her. I dont want to be a burden on anyone.. Dorothea Puente war eine feste Gre in ihrer Gemeinde - sie kmmerte sich um ihre Nachbarn, spendete hufig fr wohlttige Zwecke und nahm diejenigen auf, die die Gesellschaft beiseite geschoben hatte. The conversation soon veers toward why I want to interview her, and before I finish explaining, she interrupts. On her release from prison, she began killing her victims. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, '2023 will be our year of victory! The house at 1426 F Street, now painted a shade of gingerbread, appears occupied on the first floor and empty on the second, where she used to sleep. The checks I cashed, yes. In a cryptic aside, she added, I used to be a very good person at one time., The public heard little from Puente for more than 20 years after that clip aired. The serial killer shuffles into the room with a chickens hitched gait. These people were human beings, they had a right to live-they did not have a lot of possessions-no houses-no cars-only their social security checks and their lives. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. 31 of the Royal Viking. Peter Vlautin addressed the jurors in confidential tones, contrasting with O'Mara's shouting: We are here today to determine one thing: What is the value of Dorothea Puente's life? Her father died of tuberculosis in 1937; her mother, who worked as a sex worker, lost custody of her children in 1938 and died in a motorcycle accident by the end of the year. After their deaths she continued to draw their social security cheques. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. I am waiting for Dorothea Puente. The Victorian on F Street. But while digging a second hole, Wilson heard a muted thud as his blade struck something hard three feet down. I didnt drug anyone. Puente's crimes were featured on the Netflix show . To soothe her anxiety, she wanted to walk to the nearby Clarion Hotel with one of her boarders to meet her nephew for a cup of coffee. [citation needed], Suspicion was first aroused when neighbors noticed the odd activities of a homeless alcoholic known only as "Chief", whom Puente stated she had "adopted" and hired as her handyman. 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. I wonder what its like to be known as a murderer. To give strength to other people. She lifts the paper towel to her eyes. But eventually, police searching for a missing tenant spotted a patch of disturbed dirt near the boarding house and uncovered the first of several bodies. She consented again, even lending a shovel to the men, who had brought only two. They were men and women who had skidded toward lifes edges. After the notorious female serial killer Dorothea Puente died in prison at the age of 82, the filmmaker Nick Coles stumbled upon her obituary. I now see them as tokens of loneliness, trifles to mark the time. She answers without pause. Despite lacking formal dance training, she says, I went out there and they hired me. 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. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and . Puente drugged three women with tranquilizers to steal checks, money and valuables from their homes in the early 80s, as recounted in court records. (A charity she declines to name sends her $15 a month, her sole source of money.) (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). The psychologist morphed into a prophet with the discovery of seven bodies in Puentes backyard in November 1988. Puente died of natural causes at the Central . Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years. She killed her husband after he abused her and her kids. A Latino woman with shoulder-length dark hair passes our table and whispers hello to Miss Dorothea. So you knew she was a liar.. In the 1970s, she opened her first boarding house in Sacramento. Julio Santana dropped to his left knee and propped his right elbow on his . A contrary perception derived from Puentes strong ties to Hispanic residents living in downtown and midtown. She was known as the "step house lady" after filing nine homicides. Grandson of Dorothea Puente, shared a 'real connection' with her - Daily Newshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGIQ4XcqArGYqiw70QoKcvw?sub_confirmation=1Grand. Johansson divorced Dorothea in 1966. Nor could anyone rule out that the four women and three men had taken the drugs on their own, considering their assorted substance addictions, physical maladies and mental illnesses. A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. 'Executing Puente would be like executing your grandmother', one juror is reported to have said in response to the death sentence looming over the defendant at the time. Her past crimes belied her pose of pure benevolence, yet she had submitted to the house and yard searches without protest. She attends services held at the prisons chapel, but avoids joining inmate worship groups. I have also done this: Late at night, when it is said her deeds turned darkest, I have pondered the vastness of human nature as I stood outside the tiny yard where she buried her victims. Cooking what I want. Vlautin spoke gently about Puente's childhood touching on the traumatic aspects that shaped her life and urged the jurors to see the world through her eyes. EXCLUSIVE: 'I killed JonBent Ramsey! Convicted pedophile Rose West's son breaks silenceto tell how his killer mother Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. Puente had Chief dig in the basement and cart soil and rubbish away in a wheelbarrow. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. Puente continued to collect Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She continued to maintain a boarding house, taking in forty new tenants. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. In Olympia, Washington, she tried to make a living as a prostitute. Cabrera, lead detective on the Puente case, stands with the shovel that she lent to law officers to dig in her backyard on Nov. 11, 1988. For the rest of her life, she maintained her innocence, insisting that all of her boarders had died of "natural causes". She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. 104-107. I had such a sick feeling, he says. A nonfiction book, "The Bone Garden" (1994), is the definitive account of serial killer Dorothea Puente, who was the subject of a nationwide hunt after nine bodies were dug up from her Sacramento, California yard. Even probation officers who stopped by accepted Puentes explanation that the people living at her house were guests or friends not boarders. According to an interview in the documentary, The House is Innocent, and the couple believed that changing the . Through her early teen years, young Dorothea found herself handed off to a series of relatives and foster homes, bouncing between Napa and Los Angeles, court records reveal.