The penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara. Dorothea Puente's house now: All you need to know - TheNetline Now she watched from her second-story porch as the trio began to dig. Others disparaged the closet alcoholic who on occasion punctuated roof-raising, cuss-filled tirades with a piece of furniture heaved down the stairs. The two then separated, with McCauley returning downtown and Puente taking another cab to Stockton, where she hopped a bus to Los Angeles. The house at 1426 F St., where police found seven of Puentes tenants buried in the yard, as it looks today. Thats between me and my God., Until 2006, Puente rotated through assorted prison jobs, cleaning cells, giving haircuts, toiling on a landscaping crew. 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. In 1998, Puente began corresponding with Shane Bugbee. People were always coming and going. The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. McFaul split from his young wife in 1948. If you lived in Sacramento in the late 80s, you recognize her name. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Bee/Genaro Molina). 3 min read. A few days later I drive to Chowchilla for my final visit with her. One was missing its head, hands and feet. Cooking what I want. The home belonged to seemingly sweet Dorothea Puente, who was arrested in 1988 and later convicted as a serial murderer. Prison persuades some inmates to repent, their perspective evolving with time as they forsake their younger selves. I just dont believe that strongly in coincidence. Her narrow lips, pinched and lined at the corners, curl slightly upward. Many of them found dead and buried in the boarding house's yard. Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. That didnt seem right, but Dorothea had conned our whole family into thinking she was a nurse.. At the time of her 1988 arrest on murder charges, photos of Puente with Jerry Brown, former California Gov. She sent one child to live with relatives while another was put up for adoption. To vary her diet, Puente sometimes cooks in her room, making tamales with tortillas, canned chili, cheese and other ingredients bought in the prisons canteen or mail-ordered through a food-delivery service. I think they needed somebody and I was the easiest one around., Yet the most illuminating aspect of talking with Puente in prison arises from her silence about the dead. I wait for her to speak. Those cases were lies, she says, voice flat. Beneath the rooms ashen lighting stand neat rows of small round tables, some 50 in all. [citation needed], In November 1985, Puente hired a man named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. According to Dailymail, seven years after the death of Puente, a man named William Harder had claimed to be her grandson. 13 and watch the prisons visitors hall gradually fill, my doubts that she will appear grow with the rooms din. Her passivity subdues suspicion. (Puente tells me she also had twin daughters who as young adults committed suicide one week apart. She recalls the future president and his first wife, Jane Wyman, as her good friends. When I mention the Gippers second wife, she frowns. 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. 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. EXCLUSIVE: 'I killed JonBent Ramsey! Convicted pedophile Rose West's son breaks silenceto tell how his killer mother Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to Sacramento. Sharp also told police that Puente had hired prisoners on work furlough to dig and fill large holes in the backyard, and that some of the holes were covered with concrete. 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. I didnt know if anyone was going to look after him.. Her lawyers argued that she might be a thief, but not a murderer. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. Though born in Redlands, Puente, who speaks passable Spanish, claimed Mexico as her birthplace, a ruse she perpetuated by alternately using the surnames of her last two ex-husbands, Roberto Puente and Pedro Montalvo. The police bulletin sent out after Puentes escape (Courtesy of John Cabrera), Throughout our meetings, Puente furtively points out inmates and comments on their crimes. 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. Im certain they were just dying of natural causes, and she started burying them so she could keep the checks coming. They wanted to question her about Bert Montoya, her onetime tenant who had been reported missing. . Grandson of Dorothea Puente, shared a 'real connection' with her This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. 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. Jodi Picoult mentions Puente's crimes and cookbook in her novel House Rules. Sir, she said, I have not killed anybody. She explained that she had buried excess trash in the backyard holes that a tenant mentioned to police, and covered some of them with concrete to stunt weed growth. The Bone Garden: The Chilling True Story of a Female Serial Killer A pen pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving three years of her five-year sentence, he met her outside the prison, driving a red 1980 Ford pickup. 15 Notorious Female Serial Killers - The Lineup The Monstrous Crimes Of The Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady. Cabreras superiors approved her request, deciding they held insufficient evidence to detain her. Puente got the second-degree charge for Carpenter's death, as. Isabel Vincent. Shes got everything she needs, her life is taken care of. Dorothea Puente - 838 Words | Studymode High-profile cases dotted his career, including those of convicted mass murderer Morris Solomon and the Unabomber. Granddaughter Of Dorothea Puente Victim Visits Boarding House 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 claims he has sent her Christmas cards in prison, and as she talks about that small act of kindness, her eyes mist over. A couple who braved the stigma of the house's curse purchased the home, fully aware of the history. Her escape intensified interest in a lurid tale that for a time made Sacramento the center of the media universe. [6], In 1968, Gray married Roberto Jose Puente. Puente was charged for seven murders, but her trial wouldn't begin for another four years. Investigators opened the box and found the badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. The comments below have not been moderated. We lapse into a short silence, and in that span, the incredible feats of a younger Dorothea diminish in the distance. Others spoke of a calculating criminal who feigned altruism to mask her avariceand a homicidal bent. Then, she asked if it would be ok if she went to buy a coffee. [citation needed]. Infamous serial murderer . Thats when the gray door clanks open once more. 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. Tests revealed high levels of unprescribed drugs in their systems, and in time, the physicians fingered her as the culprit. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and . She met and married Fred McFaul in 1945. Gray assumed the identity of "Sharon Johansson", hiding her delinquent behavior by portraying herself as a devout Christian woman. She parried, unwavering in her account of Montoyas departure, her voice calm as the detective pressed her. In effect, every cell has a waiting list.) She had seven. Mental health experts testified of Puente's abusive upbringing and how it motivated her to help the less fortunate. Sacramento Co. By Remy Millisky / March 14, 2022 11:13 am EDT. I didnt drug anyone. The three law officers had stopped by the house to try to learn the whereabouts of Alvaro Bert Montoya, who had gone missing three months earlier. Several were swaddled in bed sheets that matched linens found in the house. Police and forensics experts swarmed Puentes property the next morning. An undercover cop posing as a trucker arrested her after she offered to perform fellatio on him; she served 90 days in county lockup. Slight and demure, with her ivory-white hair and solicitous demeanor, the landlady resembled any other elderly woman with a kitchen full of pots and pans and a cat calendar hanging next to the stove. And she didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left on vacation. Puente had already been convicted and executed in the media, and the attorneys understood the long odds of winning in court. She declines to disclose the fathers name, when and where they were born and died or the circumstances of their deaths.). Once free of the throng, Cabrera stopped and watched the pair until they entered the hotel. Puentes next two marriages would be short-lived. When Puente offered to perform a sex act on an undercover cop at a house of ill-repute, her husband sent her to a psychiatric ward. 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. [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. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). In his sessions with her, Vicary had inched up to the subject of guilt, knowing that she would withdraw if he asked directly whether she had killed people. The jokes on me. 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. She was the sixth of seven children born to Trudy Mae Gates and Jesse James Gray, whose "lungs were damaged from a gas attack" while fighting in World War I. and other board games that the prison makes available to visitors. In November 1985, Dorothea Puente hired a handyman named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her home. A state psychologist who evaluated Puente before her release from prison in 1985 diagnosed her as schizophrenic. Her words return to me. Unchanged are his lean, square-shouldered build and animated manner, his eyebrows spiking and hands windmilling as he recounts the investigation. Get Sactown's top stories in your inbox by signing up for our weekly newsletter. 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. She collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses". 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. 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. Betty Palmer, 78. She married Roberto Puente in 1968, but the relationship dissolved sixteen months later. First off, I was getting the checks. How to pronounce Dorothea | HowToPronounce.com 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. 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. [19] It was then the subject of the 2015 documentary short The House Is Innocent and was again opened to tours for one day in conjunction with a local film festival's showing of the film.[20]. If Im thinking about getting away, you think Im going to ask permission?, Police escort Puente after apprehending her in L.A.; Cabrera walks behind her. Its about a mile from my building to here, she says. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener.
