Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. For the rest of her life, she maintained her innocence, insisting that all of her boarders had died of "natural causes". Pathologists testified that they hadnt been able to fix the cause of death for any of the corpses. FacebookDorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. The police returned and searched the house, finding nothing, so they asked permission to dig up the garden so they could tell the social worker theyve done all they can. Using the name Donna Johnson, she approached Charles Willgraves at a bar, but once Willgraves realized why "Donna" looked familiar, he called the police. Between 1982 and 1988, she killed nine people, all of whom were renting rooms at her boarding house. Puente died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes; she was 82. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". Although Monroe's family told the district attorney of their suspicions, the DA decided that since the death looked like a suicide and Puente was already jailed, there was no point in pursuing a conviction. In 1993, many residents of Sacramento were shocked when they realized that an old woman was behind a series of murders in her own boarding house. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. 'She Was Just Pure Evil': How Dorothea Puente, 'The Death House Landlady,' Got Caught. In 1961, Johansson had Gray briefly committed to DeWitt State Hospital after a binge of drinking, lying, criminal behavior, and suicide attempts. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. Instead, Puente found a husband. [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. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. EXCLUSIVE: Grandmother, 86, who arranged for her daughter-in-law, 27, to be lured to India and murdered in Could WhatsApp be BANNED in Britain? The boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento was included in the 2013 home tour held by the Sacramento Old City Association. 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 contents might be what you'd never expected. What followed was a string of marriagesand criminal convictions. Meanwhile, another six bodies had been found in Puentes back garden, including those of 51-year-old Alberto Montoya, 64-year-old Dorothy Miller, 55-year-old Benjamin Fink, 62-year-old James Gallop, 64-year-old Vera Faye Martin and 78-year-old Betty Palmer. When questioned by police initially, Puente remained calm and denied everything. Like us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/TheSunUSand follow us from our main Twitter account at@TheSunUS, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, Dorothea Puente's 1993 trial was heavily covered by the media. 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. This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE, Do not sell or share my personal information. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty Images. [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. She then drugged three elderly female patients and stole their money and valuables, a scam that landed her in prison in 1982for five years, according to "Murders At The Boarding House." Gray assumed the identity of "Sharon Johansson", hiding her delinquent behavior by portraying herself as a devout Christian woman. Preview. according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. Petitioner raises several claims and a request for a federal evidentiary hearing. But soon, in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, Puente started going around as if she were a doctor, offering "vitamin" injections and medical advice to local residents. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. 104-107. Dorothea Helen Puente (ne Gray; January 9, 1929 March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. According to Sactown Magazine, the jury deliberated for 24 days, "the longest deliberation in a murder case in state history," and convicted Puente on three out of the nine killings in August 1993. 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 . Afterward, she gave Gillmouth's red pickup truck to Ismael Florez, a carpenter she'd hired, and got him to unknowingly dispose of Gillmouth's body in a river. When she was just 16, she started engaging in sex work, although she eventually met and married a World War IIveteran. According to Sactown Magazine, "Puente's vanishing ignited a manhunt that stretched to Mexico," and it took police five days to track her down. '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. Gillmouth lived in Oregon, and when Puente was released after serving three of her five years, he drove out to pick her up at her halfway house in Fresno. Dorothea Puente awaiting arraignment in Sacramento, California on November 17, 1988. It is a flame of humanity that has burned inside Dorothea since she was young That is reason to give Dorothea Puente life without the possibility of parole. They were met by Dorothea Puente, an elderly woman with big glasses, who repeated her story that Montoya was simply on vacation. Despite the seven bodies found in her yard (and the two other murders she was accused of), Puente pled not guilty to the nine charges against her. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. During this time, according to Radford University, Puente was arrested for vagrancy, which was the charge often levied against sex workers. I had been removing it from the bone, one says in the documentary. Puente passed away in 2011 from natural causes at the Central California Facility in Chowchilla, aged 82. Preliminary hearings began in 1990, and the trial and sentencing took place in 1993. Although Puente was eventually charged with the murder of nine individuals, it's likely that there were more victims. Now Playing. She was given five years probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. After an autopsy was done, medical examiners found a large amount of codeine in her system, and although her death was labeled "undetermined cause," it was believed to be a suicide. According to Serial Killer Timelines by Chris McNab, after her first marriage ended, Puente became involved in criminal activity. The Los Angeles Review of Bookswrites that "Puente was released in 1985, under the terms of parole that she not handle other people's social security checks or work with the elderly. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. She was later charged with two more murders in addition to the seven, bringing the total number of victims she had to nine. This piece follows what appears to be the most accepted timeline of Puente's life, but some things remain known only to Puente herself. [11], Puente has been featured on numerous true crime television shows, including Crime Stories,[12] Deadly Women,[13] A Stranger in My Home,[14] World's Most Evil Killers,[15] and Worst Roommate Ever.[16]. "In 1948, she stole some government checks and used them to buy clothes" in San Bernardino. This is the untold truth of Dorothea Puente, the Death House Landlady. After sixteen months, the couple separated, with Gray citing domestic abuse. In the documentary, police say: This could be my grandma, she was the little old lady next door. 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. 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. In the 1980s, she ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and murdered various elderly and mentally disabled boarders before cashing their Social Security checks. She eventually gave one child to relatives and put the other up for adoption, according to Sactown Magazine. 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.. If anyone had their suspicions, they didn't voice them. Even when someone disappeared from the boarding house, Puente was ready with an excuse. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. Investigators were initially searching for . Theyd gotten so close that Puente had even told her children to Call me Grandma. Since she wasn't a suspect at the time, police said yes, at which point Puente promptly left the house and fled to Los Angeles. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. Gillmouth disappeared not long after he and Puente moved to F Street. The following year, she died in a motorcycle accident. Walt Zeboski/AP Dorothea Puente's crimes were revealed in 1988 after homicide detectives searched for a missing man at his last known address: Puente's house in Sacramento, California. She passed away at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California. Dorothea Puente, the Sacramento Victorian boarding house Landlady where police found seven bodies buried in her yard. The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office. Despite this, their marriage lasted until 1966. Dorothea Helen PUENTE . In 1988, seven bodies were found buried in the backyard of the boarding house she ran for the indigent and elderly. Murderpedia . Her time in prison was spent visiting the prison chapel, reading John Grisham books, and watching TV. Betty Palmer, 78. During that time, it appears that they had two children together, although one was sent to live with relatives and the other was put up for adoption. Her business parter, a 61-year-old woman named Ruth Monroe, died suddenly in 1982, shortly before Puentewas arrested for drugging herthree elderly patients. Clymo responded by evoking Dorothea the child and caregiver. Volunteers of America had placed him at Puente's boarding houseand she was alarmed to learn he had seemingly vanished in October 1988, according to Sactown Magazine. Their dismembered bodies were then placed in holes in the garden she'd paid ex-convicts to dig. After Puente opened up her boarding house at 1426 F Street, a string of people died there. She denied killing anybody. Silver-haired, dressed in a long red coat and wearing large rounded glasses, the 59-year-old resembled just a regular grandmother - proving looks truly can be deceiving. Some of the bodies were mummified in cloth, bed sheets and duct tape. This video answers the question: Can I analyze the case of Dorothea Puente?Support Dr. Grande on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/drgrandeSubscribe to the Be. Once there, Puente drugged him. The social workers knew that Puente had a tendency to exaggerate, but they didn't realize that she was also pretending to be a doctor. Shed also been linked to another two previous deaths that were now seen as too similar to ignore. A well-researched play by Mark Loewenstern entitled "Dorothea Puente Tells All!" In Female Serial Killers, Vronsky writes how Puente's patients often ended up in the hospital, and Puente's name kept coming up to the same doctor who treated the patients. Instead, Puente opened up her second boarding house. She was released just three years later, although a state psychologist diagnosed her as a schizophrenic with no remorse or regret who should be closely monitored.. She was put on trial in 1993 for the nine murders. That is a human quality that deserves to be preserved. 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). Vera Martin, 64. By 1982, Puente was sent to prison for her thefts. Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente awaiting arraignment in Sacramento, California on November 17, 1988. John OMara, the prosecutor, called over 130 witnesses to the stand. She served four months in prison for writing a check under a false name, and spent another 90 days behind bars after being caught in a police raid at a brothel, according to Sactown Magazine. The older woman presented herself as a caretaker, running a boarding house in Sacramento, Californiathat took in the kind of people society often abandons: the homeless, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill. She gladly put a roof over their heads but inexchange, she stole their Social Security and disability checks and murdered them. 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.. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. She was the sixth of seven children but didnt grow up in a stable family environment. One of the bodies was missing its head, hands and feet, Body parts were also found scattered across the property. Benjamin Fink, 55. 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