Newspapers dubbed Puente the "Death House Landlady". Well regarded for taking in substance abusers and the homeless, she had earned respect in political circles for her charity work. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. Johansson divorced Dorothea in 1966. 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. 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Dorothea Puente at the Central California Womens Facility, February 21, 2009 (Courtesy of Central California Womens Facility). The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. Get Sactown's top stories in your inbox by signing up for our weekly newsletter. She was ultimately convicted in three of the. Theyve never talked to me. On another occasion, she casts her circumstance in a biblical light. Puente's alleged grandson, William Harder (pictured), insists his grandmother wasn't all bad. 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. But, behind the scenes, Puente had embarked on a path that would lead her to murder. 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. The only time [the boarers] were in good health was when they stayed at my home, Puente insisted from prison. "They immediately died," says Warren's grandson, Warren W. Bogle, who today serves as President and Vineyard Director. Both have died, and police cleared them early in the investigation. She gave birth to a daughter in 1946 followed by a second less than a year later, but public documents suggest she inherited her mothers aversion to childrearing. 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. 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. 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. (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. Arrested for the scam in 1978, court records show, she received five years federal probation, the terms of which proscribed her from operating a boardinghouse. As jury foreman Mike Esplin recalls, the man simply said, Thats all Im going to give. Puentes composure cracked after the last verdict was read. While Puente was charged with the murders of nine people, she was convicted of only three of them in 1993: A jury could not decide on the other six deaths. We both fell into the orchestra pit and I broke my leg. The other dancer? The three men carried shovels as they fanned out across the backyard of the two-story Victorian at 1426 F Street. Cabrera scrambled out of the hole, pulse rate and thoughts quickening. Dorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. Behind them, a twentysomething blonde clutches the hands of a young man with a sun tattoo on his forearm. They belong to a litany of famous names she drops during our meetings. He ferried Puente to police headquarters and grilled her for two hours. Artifacts from the Dorothea Puente case splay out before him: a faded article published in a local Spanish newspaper with a black and white photo of a younger Puente; a pair of her mug shots, blue eyes dimmed and weary in both; a prescription label in her name for diazepam, a tranquilizer sold as Valium; the original wanted bulletin from Nov. 12, 1988, the day she went on the lam. She sits erect, legs crossed at the ankles and tucked beneath her chair. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. Their dismembered bodies were then placed in holes in the garden she'd paid ex-convicts to dig. Time has deepened the creases between her potato-like nose and dumpling cheeks, and her blanched skin has slackened at the neck. Ballenger began to suspect Puente of more nefarious behavior after learning that two elderly women in her care had suffered recurring spells of illness that baffled doctors. When the police arrived, Puente told them that Monroe had been depressed due to her husbands terminal illness. If you lived anywhere else, theres still a good chance you recognize it, or at least the rough outline of her crimes. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. A search of the home showed nothing amiss. Im certain they were just dying of natural causes, and she started burying them so she could keep the checks coming. Federal probation officers visited her numerous times in the next two years without suspecting she ran a business, lulled by her kindly facade and clean home as much as by her lies that those staying at the house were friends or guests. 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. In fact, Puente was a serial killer who committed at least nine murders inside her boarding house in Sacramento, California throughout the 1980s. Dorothea Puente is an American serial killer. ), 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. Her words return to me. One was missing its head, hands and feet. And she didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left on vacation. 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. She created a fake persona, calling herself "Teya Singoalla Neyaarda", a Muslim woman of Egyptian and Israeli descent. Julio Santana dropped to his left knee and propped his right elbow on his . Hes not a flirt.. His head cocked to the side, he looks back at her, preparing to usher her past the crowd that looms outside the frame. Now, as I sit at table No. She did not strike me as a person who had a major mental illness. Montoya struggled with mental health issues and had been homeless for years. The psychiatrist diagnosed Puente as suffering from antisocial personality disorder, a condition marked by deceit and manipulation of others without remorse. At 39, she was 16 years older than Roberto Puente, a Mexican migr whose interest in his heavyset bride concerned money and American citizenship, as chronicled in Disturbed Ground, a 1994 book about the Puente murder case. [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. I dont give a shit what anyone else thinks., Did you like what you read here? I have listened to the lingering grief and anger of a man whose mother died mysteriously while in her care. She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. 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. I was bewildered as to what in the world was going on with all these people in her yard.. He speculates that running a boardinghouse began for her as a humane endeavor rooted in a desire to undo painful childhood memories. Then working as an in-home caregiver, Puente displayed an odd obsession with her own health, lamenting to clients and caseworkers alike that she suffered from cancer. But a bit of digging in the backyarda tenant had reported seeing large holes excavated and filled behind the houseunearthed a human leg bone and a decomposed foot. Dorothea Puente's former boarding house is at 1426 F Street in Sacramento, California, between 14th and 15th streets. Satisfied, the authorities ruled Monroes death a suicide and moved on. For her and the others, one factor in particular undercut Puentes claim of innocence. I wonder what its like to be known as a murderer. Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. Exploiting her appearance of the sweet old lady, Puente would lure unsuspecting tenants to their grisly deaths by baking them cakes laced with sleeping pills. I dont know what to tell you, she said. The seven tenants who had lived at 1426 F Street died with a variety of drugs in their bodies: anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, painkillers, tranquilizers. 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.. I want to know what stopped her from killing herself. She was the sixth of seven children, all of whom struggled in a less-than-stable family environment, with little income and love to speak of in the Gray house. She pled guilty to two counts of forgery, serving four months in jail and three years' probation. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. On subjects unrelated to her misdeeds, she will open up, weaving anecdotes that are sometimes embroidered, sometimes made from whole cloth. Bogle Family Vineyards Ryan, Jody & Warren Bogle Thank goodness the potato crop failed. In 1993, after several days of deliberations and a deadlocked jury (due in part to her grandmotherly disposition), Dorothea Puente was ultimately convicted of three murders and received back-to-back life sentences. Puente was charged for seven murders, but her trial wouldn't begin for another four years. Prosecutor John OMara, then as now head of the Sacramento District Attorneys homicide unit, recognized the difficulty of cultivating compassion for victims he dubbed the shadow people. He had the added burden of building his case with witnesses of the same ilk: alcoholics, the homeless, once and future convicts. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years. For William Clausen, by contrast, the bodies buried in Puentes yard confirmed what he already considered fact: she killed for profit. The two would continue to have a turbulent relationship, and Gray filed a restraining order in 1975. In any case, after more than 20 years behind bars, and despite the withering of her features, she retains a physical vitality and a fondness for cosmetic excess. Puente and her siblings were subsequently sent to an orphanage, where she was sexually abused. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. Despite the guilty verdict of her . 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. 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. There, she quickly got back to her old tricks. She told me Dorothea had given it to her to help calm her down, says the 55-year-old Clausen, who runs a furniture upholstery shop in South Land Park. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. During her trial, the persecution said. Moise alerted police, who went to the boarding house. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. I felt like someone had pulled my insides out.. Alcoholics dont stay in one place for long. For Puente, the distortions of her past have congealed into a personal reality that grows ever more fanciful. Florez agreed, and Puente assisted him. Me and Nancy, she says, shaking her head. Infamous serial murderer . Shes dying of cancer. The prosecution stated that Puente used sleeping pills to drug her tenants, suffocated them, and then hired convicts to bury them in the yard. She watched from her porch, and before Cabrera put spade to soil, she requested a moment of his time. Trial began in October 1992 and ended a year later. 'Never judge a book by its cover,' said retired police officer John Cabrera in 2018, the lead investigator on the case. In November 1992, the same month jury selection started, she rejected a plea deal that would spare her the death penalty if she pleaded guilty to all nine murders. She sent one child to live with relatives while another was put up for adoption. Most of the luminaries are connected to her years in Sacramento, where she moved in the mid-50s with her second husband, Axel Johansson, who now lives in Orangevale. Instead, Puente found a husband. But as the police prepared to leave, Sharp slipped them a message. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared. In Olympia, Washington, she tried to make a living as a prostitute. Some of the remains were in a mummified state - bound in bed sheets, cloth and duct tape (above), Puente would lure her victims to their deaths by baking them cake laced with sleeping pills. Police soon figured out why, uncovering the remains of six more bodies. Her warmth for him appears unrequitedshe hasnt heard from him for awhile nowand reflects rose-tinted nostalgia for a marriage that, despite near constant turmoil, lasted longer than her other three combined. She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored. The following year, without a license and in violation of her federal probation, she opened a boardinghouse at 1426 F Street, with enough space for as many as eight tenants. 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. I know her only through the words of others. By 1982, Puente was sent to prison for her thefts. 104-107. On the other hand, when these people, as could be expected, would act upat that point, she snapped and decided to kill them., The Puente trial dragged on for five months, with more than 150 witnesses, thousands of pieces of evidence and unrelenting media scrutiny. 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. However Harder insists that's where he draws the line. & Brucato, Gary, Ph.D., The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books), pp. After sixteen months, the couple separated, with Gray citing domestic abuse. We break the ice. The only time they were in good health was when they stayed at my home. She has sent more than 15 letters and postcards in the months since I first wrote to her. She answers without pause. [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. The infamous home Dorothea Puente lived in is along F Street in Sacramento. 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. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. Today the 59-year-old Cabrera works cold cases for the department as a retired sergeant. Authorities alleged that, by poisoning her boarders, she wanted to collect their benefits checks without risk of them notifying social workers or police. 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. 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. Puente claims she spent time in the 70s with California governors Pat Brown, Jerry Brown and Ronald Reagan. Betty Palmer, 78. Despite maintaining her innocence until the day she died, Puente has been immortalized as one of America's most notorious female serial killers. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, '2023 will be our year of victory! Or about the white-haired woman who turned the yard into a mass grave. I wondered if she maintained her innocence or felt bowed by remorse. Things happen for a reason., Nov. 12, 1988: Homicide detective John Cabrera (right) ushers Puente out of her home to a nearby hotel. 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 wanted bulletin for, I think she truly wanted to rehabilitate [her tenants] as she could not the people in her own family, psychiatrist William Vicary says. has sold out to audiences at the California Stage, Wilkerson Theatre, UC Davis, and in January 2023 at Saramento Theatre Company. 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.

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