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. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. Throughout the trial, Puente was portrayed as either a sweet grandma-like type or a manipulative criminal who preyed on the weak. While the police were digging, Dorothea Puente asked if she could run out to buy a coffee. Even probation officers who stopped by accepted Puentes explanation that the people living at her house were guests or friends not boarders. "Sometimes [he] held a gun to his head and threatened to kill himself in front of his children," wrote the LA Times. Who is Senator Brian Schatz's wife Linda? This story has been shared 122,375 times. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. The boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento was included in the 2013 home tour held by the Sacramento Old City Association. She was a tenant of Puente's when she vanished. 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. Unbeknownst to Puente, the pensioner recognized her as the woman he saw on television news reports. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Dorothea Puente believed herself to be an able caretaker. Dorothea Puente was charged with the murders of the seven individuals whose bodies were found in her backyard, as well as the murders of Ruth Monroe and Everson Gillmouth, whose bodyremained unidentified until police connected itto Puente. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. But in fact, it's believed that Puente murdered Gillmouth in late November or early December 1985. 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. Ultimately, Puente was never convicted in relation to Monroe's death. The disappearances of these so-called shadow people went unnoticed for years, until eventually a social worker Judy Moise who speaks in newNetflixdocumentary Worst Roommate Ever reported a tenant missing. Monroe had just moved in with Puente when she died of an overdose but a coroner couldn't determine if it was homicide or suicide,The Los Angeles Times reported in 1993. [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. Dorothea Puente (birth name Dorothea Gray) was born in 1929 in Redlands, California. This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced here with permission. Dorothea often took in the elderly and homeless and placed them as her tenants. Puente, who took in people who were older, disabled, or otherwise ailing, would steal their Social Security and benefits checks and poison them by lacing their food with prescription medicine, according to The Los Angeles Times. For five days, Dorothea Puente was on the lam. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. When questioned by police initially, Puente remained calm and denied everything. Puente ran a boarding house on F Street in downtown Sacramento in the 1980s and was convicted of drugging, killing and burying her tenants in the backyard. She was eventually let go, although the next day investigators converged on the home to continue searching the backyard. She would later kill them by poisoning or strangling them. 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. Here's what you need to know about Dorothea Puente, the subject of the new two-partOxygenspecial "Murders At The Boarding House," airing on Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18 at 7/6c on Oxygen. The charges against her were largely circumstantial: There was her criminal past and of course, the corpses at her home. Shes making me lie for her.. Dorothea Puente is an American serial killer. According to California Dreaming, Puente kept cashing his pension checks and writing to his family as though Gillmouth was alive. "She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored.". Murderpedia . In April of 1982, a 61-year-old woman named Ruth Monroe moved into Dorothea Puentes house. Puente was charged with a total of nine murders: Puente's boyfriend, Everson Gillmouth, 77; and eight tenants who lived at the boarding house: Ruth Munroe, 61; Leona Carpenter, 78; Alvaro "Bert/Alberto" Gonzales Montoya, 51; Dorothy Miller, 64; Benjamin Fink, 55; James Gallop, 62; Vera Faye Martin, 64; and Betty Palmer, 78. During one fundraiser, she even danced with California Governor Jerry Brown. She split with her first husband in 1948. In the documentary, police say: This could be my grandma, she was the little old lady next door. The two would continue to have a turbulent relationship, and Gray filed a restraining order in 1975. Her time in prison was spent visiting the prison chapel, reading John Grisham books, and watching TV. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. 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. At one point, she tried to earn a living as a sex worker in Washington state. She met and married Fred McFaul in 1945. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! But looks can be extremely deceiving and, in this case, the innocuous landlady was actually a terrifying serial killer who committed at least nine murders inside her boarding house in Sacramento,Californiathroughout the 1980s. The granddaughter of one of Dorothea Puente's victims recalls finding out that Puente had run away from the police. She died in prison in 2011, age 82, reports Crime Museum. Her time in prison was spent visiting the prison chapel, reading John Grisham books, and watching TV. This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE, Do not sell or share my personal information. When police arrived at 1426 F Street in Sacramento, they noticed some disturbed soil in a vegetable patch, but not thinking Puente to be a suspect they allowed the grandmother to flee the scene, In her absence, the officers dug-up the entire garden (left) where they discovered seven bodies. The jury deliberated over a month and eventually found Puente guilty of three murders. 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. Preview. In April 2020, the house and current owners were showcased in the Quibi series Murder House Flip. Puente was accused of murdering nine people between 1982 and 1988 and cashing their government support checks. But at one point, "a tenant named John Sharp quietly flashed a note to a detective," which read "She wants me to lie to you." Their dismembered bodies were then placed in holes in the garden she'd paid ex-convicts to dig. Does she have to be killed?" She set about creating a more matronly image with her clothes and makeup, added years to her age, and became an in-home caretaker. 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. 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. The 59-year-old looked like an ordinary grandmother when she was arrested after a five day hunt across California. 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. The fourth episode titled "Call Me Grandma" detailed her killings and how Dorothea was ultimately caught and convicted by law officials. 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. "She sat there so totally motionless and emotionless, one juror said of Puente's demeanor during the trial, the outlet reported. Serial killer Dorothea Puente House Now- where she buried her victim is notably famous for paranormal activities. Now Playing. Witnesses, including her long-lost daughter, testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers. Gray would continue to use the surname Puente for more than twenty years. He alerted the police to her presence and she was arrested. There, she quickly got back to her old tricks. In 1963, after Puente found it harder and harder to secure clients herself, she transitioned into becoming a madam who ran a brothel, which led to another arrest, though she avoided a pimping charge. 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. According toLARB, the only person who seemed to notice something was Brenda Trujillo, Puente's former cellmate, who lived at 1426 F Street briefly. 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. She even wrote a cookbook from behind bars: "Cooking with a Serial Killer.". [citation needed], In November 1985, Puente hired a man named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. 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. The following year, she died in a motorcycle accident. Despite this, their marriage lasted until 1966. Preview. Social workers in the 1970s looked upon Dorothea Puente and her boarding house with admiration. Vlautin spoke gently about Puente's childhood touching on the traumatic aspects that shaped her life and urged the jurors to see the world through her eyes. Suspicions first arose about Puente in 1988, after Judy, an outreach counsellor with Volunteers of America, noticed 52-year-old Alvaro Montoya someone shed placed at Puentes house had vanished. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. 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