She would later kill them by poisoning or strangling them. While staying at the Royal Viking Hotel in Los Angeles, Puente tried to go back to her old technique of picking up men at a bar and then proceeding to drug and rob them. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. 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. "KRON Newscenter 4 11/13/88 Part 1 of 2", 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, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by California, Serial killers who died in prison custody, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. James Gallop, 62. She immediately began doing both of those things." [citation needed]. In fact, Puente was a serial killer who committed at least nine murders inside her boarding house in Sacramento, California throughout the 1980s. A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. On March 27, 2011, Dorothea died at the age of 82 from natural causes. "She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored.". Some of them began to disappear. Moise alerted police, who went to the boarding house. But her behavior didn't change. Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. That is the question. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. 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. But in 1978, her house of cards started to falter. But police tracked her down in Los Angeles after a man in a bar recognized her from TV. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. For more on Puente's story, watch thenew two-partOxygenspecial "Murders At The Boarding House," airing on Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18 at 7/6c on Oxygen. In the documentary, police say: This could be my grandma, she was the little old lady next door. Puente's first victimmay not have been one of her boarders, though. She died in prison from natural causes at the age of 82, on 27 March 2011. It wasnt until 1988 that suspicions first arose about Puente, after one of her tenants, 52-year old Alvaro Montoya, went missing. Not yet considering the sweet lady to be a suspect, the officers obliged at the 59-year-old's request to go down the street to buy a cup of coffee - but she had no intention of returning. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, I told my wife she should get a nose job and now she might leave me, I used to get allergies and congested at night why you should ALWAYS sleep in socks if you want a good nights rest, My neighbors X-rated dog name is offensive, Expert reveals the common duvet mistake were all making and its ruining your nights sleep. During the preliminary hearing, she was even re-arrested for another set of check forgery charges from an additional victim. 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. Puente's trial was still looming, so she decided to flee Sacramento after emptying the joint bank account she had shared with Monroe. She was eventually let go, although the next day investigators converged on the home to continue searching the backyard. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. Preliminary hearings began in 1990, and the trial and sentencing took place in 1993. She also established herself as a respected member in Sacramento's Hispanic community, funding charities, scholarships, and radio programs. She was the sixth of seven children but didn't grow up in a stable family environment. According to Radford University, both of Puente's parents suffered from alcoholism, and Puente experienced physical abuse while they were alive and was often underfed. Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to 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. In the 1970s, she opened her first boarding house in Sacramento. The fourth episode titled "Call Me Grandma" detailed her killings and how Dorothea was ultimately caught and convicted by law officials. But volatility seemed to follow Puente wherever she went and the new couple argued frequently about Puentes drinking and gambling. She collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses". Gray assumed the identity of "Sharon Johansson", hiding her delinquent behavior by portraying herself as a devout Christian woman. She even. The 59-year-old looked like an ordinary grandmother when she was arrested after a five day hunt across California. 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." An outreach counselor withVolunteers 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. When she was just 16, she started engaging in sex work, although she eventually met and married a World War IIveteran. But once more, she was released on bail. 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. 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 . This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE, Do not sell or share my personal information. 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. 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. This is the disturbing story of Dorothea Puente, the Death House Landlady.. Puente's early life is also difficult to pin down because she was known for exaggerating and being a pathological liar. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. Unbeknownst to Puente, the pensioner recognized her as the woman he saw on television news reports. On November 29, 1987, Trujillo wrote a letter to the Social Security Administration detailing her suspicions that Puente was stealing her SSI checks. She and Gillmouth moved into 1426 F Street, where Puente opened up a boarding house again. She maintained her innocence until her death. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. Many of them found dead and buried in the boarding house's yard. 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. The following year, she died in a motorcycle accident. Dorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. They were met by Dorothea Puente, an elderly woman with big glasses, who repeated her story that Montoya was simply on vacation. Throughout the trial, Dorothea Puente was portrayed as either a sweet grandma-like type or a manipulative criminal who preyed on the weak. Another of the victims was Everson Gillmouth, a 77-year-old retiree, who had developed a pen pal relationship with Puente when she was in prison. 'The contents might be what you'd never expected. There, she quickly got back to her old tricks. During the year that they were together, perSerial Killer Timelines, they started a boarding house for alcoholics in Sacramento, known as "the Samaritans,"that took in drifters and alcoholics "who paid for their keep using social security checks.". But Puente presented herself as a harmless old woman who was given gifts, and the police let her out on bail. 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 penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara. Their dismembered bodies were then placed in holes in the garden she'd paid ex-convicts to dig. Dorothea Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray in Redlands, California, on January 9, 1929. [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. After their deaths, Puente would collect . [citation needed]. She was released early in 1990, but not before a state psychiatrist evaluated her and diagnosedher with schizophrenia. 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. Between 1982 and 1988, she killed nine people, all of whom were renting rooms at her boarding house. But no one noticed. Shortly after, they found a second body. '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. Puente struck out on her own when she was 16. One was missing its hands, head and feet. 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 eventually gave one child to relatives and put the other up for adoption, according to Sactown Magazine. 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. Sacramento has had more than its share of serial killers, but none as unlikely as grandmotherly Dorothea Puente. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. Preview. [citation needed]. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. 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