McFaul left her in late 1948.[5][6]. Grandson of killer granny Dorothea Puente, who laced cakes with sleeping pills and then smothered them at her California boarding house, reveals how he shared a 'real connection' with her and . The authorities left the cause of death as undetermined, since there was such an excessive amount of both these drugs, and she was bedridden at the time. Axel Johansson rates as Puentes favorite of her four ex-husbands, a presumably unwanted distinction. Thats when the gray door clanks open once more. Marathon Man 63m As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. She was tough. Shes making me lie for her.. During the 1992 proceeding, investigators revealed that Puente - who was then 63 - had been killing the tenants for money, making $4,000 a month from cashing their social security checks. She tends to wear thick violet eye shadow and pink lipstick, both of a hue common to Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, and her body lotion of choice, Victorias Secret Love Spell, gives her the subtle bouquet of cherry blossoms. It was always moving. 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. 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. 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. Cabreras superiors approved her request, deciding they held insufficient evidence to detain her. "They immediately died," says Warren's grandson, Warren W. Bogle, who today serves as President and Vineyard Director. Some lauded the tireless advocate whose charitable work benefited the Hispanic community. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. With Bill Courage, John Cabrera, Bill Clausen, Judy Moises. I wonder what she wants when death does come. [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. 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. In 2004, she released a cookbook titled Cooking with a . As most serial killers, Dorothea had a rough childhood. Puente had welcomed him into her home that February. Puente and her siblings were subsequently sent to an orphanage, where she was sexually abused. I rise as she approaches and shake a hand that feels skeletal and small. Coverage spanned from the national networks and Time, Newsweek and The New York Times to the National Enquirer, National Examiner and news outlets from as far away as England and France. Its about a mile from my building to here, she says. She had seven. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. Some might interpret that as a kind of confession, I finally say. Puente surrendered quietly. After sixteen months, the couple separated, with Gray citing domestic abuse. Court files indicate Johansson had his wife committed to a psychiatric ward in 1961, and doctors placed her on antipsychotics. On Nov. 11, 1988, acting on the concerns of a social worker looking for a client who had disappeared, homicide detectives dropped by the mans last known address: a boardinghouse for derelicts and the mentally ill that Puente operated at 1426 F Street, within a mile of the Hall of Justice and the Capitol. Subscribe to Sactown Magazine . The advanced state of decay, meanwhile, suggested the person had died long before Montoyas presumed disappearance in August. 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. 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". & Brucato, Gary, Ph.D., The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books), pp. [17] The result was Cooking with a Serial Killer (2004),[18] which included a lengthy interview, almost fifty recipes, and various pieces of prison art sent to Bugbee by the convicted murderer. Thats between me and my God., Until 2006, Puente rotated through assorted prison jobs, cleaning cells, giving haircuts, toiling on a landscaping crew. They had a turbulent marriage; Gray took advantage of Johansson's frequent trips to sea by inviting men to their home and gambling away his money. She watched from her porch, and before Cabrera put spade to soil, she requested a moment of his time. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. Behind them, a twentysomething blonde clutches the hands of a young man with a sun tattoo on his forearm. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Dorothea Puente believed herself to be an able caretaker. But 26 years after her conviction - and seven years after her death - a man who claims to Puente's grandson, William Harder, has stepped forward to reaffirm his grandmother's claim that she wasn't always bad. The infamous home Dorothea Puente lived in is along F Street in Sacramento. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. [6], In 1968, Gray married Roberto Jose Puente. She settled her nerves not with coffee but a few vodkas with orange juice while he drank beer. Hes not a flirt.. Her upstanding reputation concealed a habit of forging the signatures of tenants on their benefits checks before signing them over to herself. She folds the towel several times into a tight square before clasping her hands together on her lap like a child attending Mass. The Bogle Family's winemaking story begins in 1968 when Warren V. Bogle wanted to try a new crop and planted potatoes on their farm just south of Clarksburg. She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. How to pronounce Dorothea | HowToPronounce.com 13, as designated by the plastic placard atop its faux-wood surface. Tom Williams and Barbara Holmes are the new landlords of the "haunted" house. He called over Cabrera and Brown, and after he scooped away more soil, they saw what resembled a tree root. Published: 17:09 EST, 21 January 2019 | Updated: 17:42 EST, 21 January 2019, Dorothea Puente was arrested in 1988 after the dismembered bodies of seven residents were found in the garden of her home in Sacramento, California. This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. Wearing purple pumps and a long red coat over a pink dress, Puente carries a large maroon purse and pink umbrella, her eyes cast downward to watch her step. So we knew wed have an uphill battle in convincing the jurors that all of those were accidental deaths.. First off, I was getting the checks. This was a money-making scheme, but I do not believe she was a murderess.. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. Granddaughter Of Dorothea Puente Victim Visits Boarding House Round-framed glasses too large for her face magnify a pair of pale blue eyes. It is late March and after midnight, the hour when shepossibly with the help of an unsuspecting Montoya or another accomplice, a mystery police never solvedburied bodies in the yard. Be Careful of the Quiet Ones 45m When college student Maribel Ramos goes missing, detectives turn their focus to her roommate, K.C. Cabrera scrambled out of the hole, pulse rate and thoughts quickening. Things happen for a reason., Nov. 12, 1988: Homicide detective John Cabrera (right) ushers Puente out of her home to a nearby hotel. 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It is a wistfulness that lays bare the depth of chaos that defined Puentes status quo long before they married in 1952. Multiple murder suspect Dorothea Montalvo Puente, right, is brought back to Sacramento from the LA area in the early morning hours of November 17, 1988. Between 1982 and 1988, the elderly and disabled people living in Dorothea Puentes house had no idea that was she was poisoning and strangling some of her guests before burying them on her property and cashing their Social Security checks. An Asian woman in her mid-thirties, with sharp cheekbones framed by long glossy black hair, wears standard-issue prisoner garb: white T-shirt with long navy blue sleeves, dungarees and blue sneakers. 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. 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. That is the question. [8], Puente told Florez to stop while they were on Garden Highway in Sutter County and dump the box of "junk" on the riverbank at an unofficial household junk dumping site. But on the way to the storage facility, Puente abruptly asked Florez to pull over near a riverbank and just push the box into the water. The family suspected Puente of poisoning her. 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. Between 1982 and 1988, she killed nine people, all of whom were renting rooms at her boarding house. Gawkers gather outside 1426 F St. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives), Domestic bliss and her maternal instinct failed to take root. More than 130 witnesses were called to the stand by the prosecution, and eventually the devilish landlady was convicted for three of the murderers and ordered to serve back-to-back life sentences. When attempts to extract it with a shovel failed, Cabrera climbed into the hole. 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. Rene C. Byer Sacramento Bee file. "KRON Newscenter 4 11/13/88 Part 1 of 2", Last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08, List of serial killers in the United States, List of serial killers by number of victims, "Death House Landlady Got Drugs From Doctor, Prosecutors Contend", "Dorothea Puente dies at 82; boarding house operator who killed tenants", "Guide to the California Superior Court (Sacramento County) case files for The People v. Dorothea Montalvo Puente (criminal case #18056) CNTY0004", "Dorothea Puente and the Boarding House of Death", "Watch Worst Roommate Ever | Netflix Official Site", "In Print: Dorothea Puente's killer cookbook", "Sacramento serial killer's former home renovated, ready for visits", "Tours, documentary focus on Sacramento house of murderer Dorothea Puente", "No Cause Determined in Deaths of Boarders", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dorothea_Puente&oldid=1140147573. At the time of her 1988 arrest on murder charges, photos of Puente with Jerry Brown, former California Gov. Her shoulders shake as she laughs, her open mouth exposing a white flash of dentures. 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. Dorothea Puente, The 'Death House Landlady' Of 1980s California After their deaths she continued to draw their social security cheques. Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. Dorothea Puente, la abuela asesina y su 'casa de la muerte' During this period, parole agents visited Puente at least fifteen times; though she had been ordered to keep away from the elderly and refrain from handling government checks, no violations were ever noted. I didnt need to kill anyone. A pair of Christmas ornaments made by Puente in prison. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. Orphaned, Puente and her siblings splintered off in different directions, bouncing between foster care and relatives homes. An undercover cop posing as a trucker arrested her after she offered to perform fellatio on him; she served 90 days in county lockup. Watch Granddaughter of Dorothea Puente Victim Talks About Her 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. As reported by Dailymail, seven year after Puente's death, a man named William Harder had claimed to be his grandson. I dont know what to tell you, she said. [citation needed], Granting a change of venue motion filed by Puente's lawyers, Kevin Clymo and Peter Vlautin III, a judge transferred the trial to Monterey County. Despite lacking formal dance training, she says, I went out there and they hired me. Her memories, I come to understand, blend rote recitation of illusory events with blatant omission of her crimes. Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. Unlike many who passed through Puentes boarding house, however, someone had their eye on Montoya. 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. She received a life sentence without possibility of parole, and as before the trial, she granted few interviews in its wake, observing a self-imposed gag order. For years, the disappearances of these so-called shadow people who lived at the margins of society went unnoticed. Waking at 5:30 a.m., I drove 135 miles south to Chowchilla, slowed by low-hanging fog as opaque as her reasons for ending years of public silence. Witnesses, including her long-lost daughter, testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers. I could give her my answer now, but there are a few more questions to ask. I just dont believe that strongly in coincidence. The detective had yet to realize that, in the 59-year-old Puente, he had another serial killer on his hands. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. It is a stifling backdrop in which to live out the years. I wonder what its like to be known as a murderer. They described a woman of contradictions. Sitting knee to knee, they stare without speaking, eyes wet. Now 80, she speaks out in a series of rare interviews on her crimes, her "relationships" with the Kennedys and the Reagans and whyin the endthe person she really wanted to kill was herself Martin Kuz Ruth was not just Puente's friend but was also her business partner and had moved in with her just three weeks before the murder. Dorothea - Dorothea (also spelled Dorothe, Dorotea or other variants) is a female given name from Greek (Drotha) meaning "God's Gift". Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the . [citation needed], In November 1985, Puente hired a man named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet grandmother but looks can be deceiving. In the 1980s, she worked as a personal caretaker who drugged her clients and stole their valuables. Puente was charged for seven murders, but her trial wouldn't begin for another four years. I pass through the check-in station, a process that requires visitors to pull pants pockets inside-out, remove their shoes and lift their stocking feet for inspection by guards. She parried, unwavering in her account of Montoyas departure, her voice calm as the detective pressed her. Sometimes she includes small handmade gifts. Its the same thing. When they finished without noticing anything suspicious, Cabrera asked if they could dig in her yard. But in reality, he contends, she is the nation's most prolific female serial murderer ever . Twenty-one minutes laterhe remembers the time preciselyhe exhumed sufficient evidence: the remains of a second body buried about a foot deep in the earth. Dorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. At the time, she owned a solid reputation among Sacramentos social workers, who referred clients to her that other boardinghouses turned away: the mentally ill, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, those with chronic physical maladies who had no one to care for them. Sacramento Co. By Remy Millisky / March 14, 2022 11:13 am EDT. But every time youd go to see her, Ballenger says, her cancer had moved from her brain to her breast to her liver. Puente sah aus wie die Gromutter aus der Nachbarschaft, aber in Wirklichkeit war sie eine kaltbltige Mrderin. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty ImagesThe boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. Clymo concluded his closing argument by showing a picture commonly used in psychology that can be viewed in different ways and saying "Keep in mind things are not always as they seem." The visitors hall at the Central California Womens Facility in Chowchilla brings to mind a church social as hosted for state convicts. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. People viewed Puente as a sweet grandmother committed to giving back to society: she housed the old and homeless, attended political events, and donated money to charitable causes. They all know who I am, she says. She got in serious trouble for the first time in her life after bouncing a check in San Bernadino and spent four months in jail. The first episode centers around one of the worst of all: Dorothea Puente, a Sacramento, California woman who has been dubbed Sacramento's most notorious murderer. Didnt know that at the time., The detective walked about halfway to the Clarion with Puente and her boarder, John McCauley. Scattered about the house were photos of her with the likes of California governors George Deukmejian and Jerry Brown, who once danced with her at a fundraising ball. Word reached Cabrera. I am not here to take part in a reunion; I have never so much as glimpsed the woman I am waiting to meet. Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. Intense news coverage led to Puentes trial moving to Monterey. Released after three for good behavior, she returned to Sacramento, with her federal probation extended to 1990 due to the state conviction. 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. The pensioner contacted local law enforcement who then quickly arrested Puente. [citation needed], On November 11, 1988, police inquired after the disappearance of tenant Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, a developmentally disabled man with schizophrenia, who had been reported missing by his social worker. Evidence from Dorothea Puente Case Preserved at Center for - FOX40 Her narrow lips, pinched and lined at the corners, curl slightly upward. We both fell into the orchestra pit and I broke my leg. The other dancer? 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. I get pushed in a wheelchair. She speaks in clipped sentences, her voice, so rarely shared with journalists, scratchy but strong. Questions about her criminal record will elicit short answers trailed by awkward silence, during which she will stare at the table or the far wall, in the direction of Winnie and friends. 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. The Untold Truth Of Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady - Grunge.com The visit was my first of six with Puente, who turned 80 in January. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. She inflated her age by 10 to 15 years to further disarm her elderly clients, whom she set about exploiting under the guise of ministering to them. Four days later, Munroe died at Puentes home. She pled guilty to two counts of forgery, serving four months in jail and three years' probation. That is mitigating. I leave through a different door and make my way out of the prison, stepping into the cool afternoon air. Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to Sacramento. 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. She established herself as a genuine resource to the community to aid alcoholics, homeless people, and mentally ill people by holding Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and assisting individuals to sign up to receive Social Security benefits. Her past crimes belied her pose of pure benevolence, yet she had submitted to the house and yard searches without protest. Today the 59-year-old Cabrera works cold cases for the department as a retired sergeant. Puente was convicted in. In 1952, Gray married merchant seaman Axel Bren Johansson in San Francisco. I have listened to the lingering grief and anger of a man whose mother died mysteriously while in her care. A few days later I drive to Chowchilla for my final visit with her. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). (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.) Six more corpses would follow, but Puente was still on the run. [4], Gray's first marriage at age sixteen, in 1945, was to a soldier named Fred McFaul, who had just returned from the Pacific theater of World War II. [citation needed]. Or about the white-haired woman who turned the yard into a mass grave. He sits in his downtown office, shock of silver hair combed straight back from his high forehead, untucked short-sleeved shirt spilling over his jeans. Meet Julio Santana, the world's deadliest hitman with 500 kills The only time [the boarers] were in good health was when they stayed at my home, Puente insisted from prison. The conversation soon veers toward why I want to interview her, and before I finish explaining, she interrupts. That didnt seem right, but Dorothea had conned our whole family into thinking she was a nurse.. Investigators soon found the decomposing body of an elderly man inside. The next day, under suspicion but not yet under arrest, Puente, then 59 and ostensibly the essence of grandmotherly virtue, fled the city. 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. In her note, written on plain lined paper in a grade-schoolers swirling cursive, she invited me to visit. I have read books and hundreds of news articles and file after file of court records related to her crimes. [6], In 1978, Gray was charged and convicted of illegally cashing thirty-four state and federal checks that belonged to her tenants. She resembles a wizened owl. When police arrived at 1426 F Street, Puente told the cops Montoya was on vacation, but they noticed some undisturbed soil among a vegetable patch in the garden. Her eyes would fill with tears, but she would never admit it, he says. Im certain they were just dying of natural causes, and she started burying them so she could keep the checks coming. 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. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Bee/Genaro Molina). These entities fall through the cracks, said Kathleen Lammers, executive director of the California Law Center on Longterm Care, about boarding houses like Puentes.