Puente was caught and convicted of forgery, and after serving six months of a four-year sentence, she was released. Puente's alleged grandson, William Harder (pictured), insists his grandmother wasn't all bad. "In 1948, she stole some government checks and used them to buy clothes" in San Bernardino. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Dorothea Montalvo Puente (hereinafter "Petitioner") petitions for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C 2254 challenging her 1993 conviction following a trial by jury. When police officers first came to search for Montoya in Puente's house, they didn't find anything suspicious. Next, Dorothea Puente went to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. They agreed to let her go. [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. 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. She alerted police, who went to the house, where they were met with the same answer that Alvaro was on holiday. She was released early in 1990, but not before a state psychiatrist evaluated her and diagnosedher with schizophrenia. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, there are conflicting reports about Puente's early life, with some accounts claiming that she was one out of 18 children. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. Her time in prison was spent visiting the prison chapel, reading John Grisham books, and watching TV. Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the . This wasn't the first time she had drugged and robbed someone. Judy also questioned another of Puentes tenants, John Sharp, who told her: Something is wrong. 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. 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. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". 'We had a real connection,' Harder told VICE. But in 1978, her house of cards started to falter. Dorothea Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray in Redlands, California, on January 9, 1929. [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]. Investigators were initially searching for . The police returned and searched the house. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. These were people the Salvation Army wouldn't take them. 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? Then learn about Aileen Wuornos, historys most terrifying female serial killer. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. She also suffered a miscarriage. 'The contents might be what you'd never expected. 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." Using the name Donna Johnson, she approached Charles Willgraves at a bar, but once Willgraves realized why "Donna" looked familiar, he called the police. In 1982, Puente picked up a man in a bar, and they went back to his apartment together. Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. 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. In Female Serial Killers, Peter Vronsky details how Puente hosted a dinner for social workers and the residents who suffered from alcoholism every few weeks "where the quality of her food and care was put on display.". This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE, Do not sell or share my personal information. For the rest of her life, she maintained her innocence, insisting that all of her boarders had died of "natural causes". She changed her public image to that of a respectable older matron by putting on vintage clothing, wearing large granny glasses, and letting her hair turn gray. Some social workers and doctors, aware of the problem, steered their clients and patients away from Dorothea, but officially absolutely nothing was done.". In the documentary, police say: This could be my grandma, she was the little old lady next door. The tenant backed Puente up but then slipped the cop a note saying thatPuente was forcing him to lie, the magazine reported. The 1991 film Evil Spirits, starring Karen Black and Arte Johnson, is loosely based on the Puente murders. On November 29, 1987, Trujillo wrote a letter to the Social Security Administration detailing her suspicions that Puente was stealing her SSI checks. Gray-haired landlady, Dorothea Puente, made headlines as one of the most shocking serial killers in Sacramento history. She eventually gave one child to relatives and put the other up for adoption, according to Sactown Magazine. When she was released in 1985, they moved in together, but he abruptly disappeared. Together, they moved back to Sacramento. Florez agreed, and Puente assisted him. The reality, in fact, was that across a period of 10 years, Puente had meticulously murdered at least seven tenants at the boarding lodge she ran in Sacramento, California. But to the end of her life, Dorothea Puente insisted that she was innocent and that she had been taking good care of the people under her charge. It was difficult to determine, though, whether she had poisoned the tenants or if they had taken the fatal overdoses themselves, according to Sactown Magazine. I dont think anyone would pick this kind of life. Season 1 Episode 2 - Videos. The prosecution stated that Puente used sleeping pills to drug her tenants, suffocated them, and then hired convicts to bury them in the yard. Granddaughter of Dorothea Puente Victim Talks About Her Disappearance. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. Sactown Magazine reports that Puente "granted few interviews [after the trial], observing a self-imposed gag order," and she maintained her innocence to her death, claiming that all the residents had died of natural causes. Does she have to be killed?" For a while, social workers looked past what they considered to be Puente's "eccentricity" and admired her for dealing with "tough cases." [citation needed], The defense called several witnesses, who showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her. On New Years Day, a fisherman spotted the box, noticed that it looked suspiciously like a coffin, and informed the police. The boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. Jodi Picoult mentions Puente's crimes and cookbook in her novel House Rules. This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. But after installing a concrete slab in the boarding house basement and one over the foundation of the garage, "Chief" disappeared. He says he's often inundated with requests from crazed fans and fellow murder enthusiasts who ask to buy his grandmother's ashes. 1:29. Boy, 14, accused of murdering Logan Mwangi, 5, 'seen playing Call of Duty hours after body pulled from river'. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. She and Gillmouth moved into 1426 F Street, where Puente opened up a boarding house again. Months earlier, they had been told Puente was killing and burying her tenants, but they dismissed the claims because the informant had a heroin addiction, The Los Angeles Times reported. Puente's trial was still looming, so she decided to flee Sacramento after emptying the joint bank account she had shared with Monroe. "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. Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. Puente had become interested in him after learning he received disability checks, The Los Angeles Times reported. In 1967, she attempted to serve him with a divorce petition[inconsistent], but Puente fled to Mexico; the divorce wouldn't be finalized until 1973. On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the suspicious looking coffin-like box near the river and called police. She met and married Fred McFaul in 1945. After her conviction, Dorothea Puente started working as an in-home caregiver, and over the next four years, shekept coming up on people's radar. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. 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. 104-107. According to All That's Interesting, Puente "told them that they were welcome to do so, and even provided an extra shovel.". [2], Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California, to Trudy Mae (ne Yates) and Jesse James Gray. 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. 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. Serial killer Dorothea Puente House Now- where she buried her victim is notably famous for paranormal activities. Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the tenants' murder and burying them in her backyard and garden. They had two daughters between 1946 and 1948; Gray sent one child to live with relatives in Sacramento, and placed the other for adoption. She sent one child to live with relatives while another was put up for adoption. Up the drugging by carrying out the her novel house Rules 's trial was still,. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and they went to! ' murder and burying them in her backyard and garden the foundation of the most shocking serial Killers VICE! 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