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At the same time, they agreed she had an evil side brought on by the stress of caring for her down-and-out tenants. For someone who insists she worried over the well-being of her tenants, Puente tells me that, after her arrest, she fretted about Sam. She tells me they appreciate the advice she provides them, whether informal legal counsel on their cases or how to traverse the social services network after their release. 22 ratings3 reviews. Maybe I would have been better off. She did not strike me as a person who had a major mental illness. Thats when the gray door clanks open once more. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. Her escape intensified interest in a lurid tale that for a time made Sacramento the center of the media universe. 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. Puente drugged three women with tranquilizers to steal checks, money and valuables from their homes in the early 80s, as recounted in court records. The seven tenants who had lived at 1426 F Street died with a variety of drugs in their bodies: anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, painkillers, tranquilizers. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. She was just pure evil, Ballenger says. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. I ask why the cops targeted her. As reported by Dailymail, seven year after Puente's death, a man named William Harder had claimed to be his grandson. 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. She stuck to her story that he had left for Utah after a trip to Mexico, and agreed to let her three visitors search the two-story house. Dorothea Montalvo Puente might seem like "a grandmotherly figure," says prosecutor John O'Mara. [citation needed]. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. The discovery prompted Cabrera to summon Puente to the backyard. Some were in an almost mummified state, wrapped tight with cloth, bed sheets and duct tape. 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. This was a money-making scheme, but I do not believe she was a murderess.. An Asian woman in her mid-thirties, with sharp cheekbones framed by long glossy black hair, wears standard-issue prisoner garb: white T-shirt with long navy blue sleeves, dungarees and blue sneakers. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. 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. Look at Job, John, Paul, Moses. Shes not hurting there in prison, he says. Dorothea Helen Gray, ms conocida como Dorothea Puente, naci el 9 de enero de 1929 en Redlands (California, Estados Unidos), en el seno de una familia trabajadora. Puente's alleged grandson, William Harder (pictured), insists his grandmother wasn't all bad. Ringed by four chairs, each serves as the setting of a reunion between a prisoner and those she knows from the outside. 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. She came on a little hard, what with her questions about his Social Security benefits and abrupt suggestion that they consider living together. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. Her demeanor is, for the most part, politely docile, and I begin to perceive how so many could consider her trustworthy. After what was then the longest deliberation in a murder case in state history24 daysthe jury convicted her of three killings. Its sick., Clausen knows Puentes appeals ran out last year. She established her reputation as a caregiver, providing young women with a sanctuary from poverty and abuse without charge. She professed her innocence until she died. Julio Santana dropped to his left knee and propped his right elbow on his . Being escorted to a police car after her capture in 1988, serial killer Dorothea Puente told gathering reporters 'I used to be a very good person, at one time'. Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house for down and outs. '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. Nonetheless, with decades to mull what she might say about her case, she sounds as unpersuasive now as during her plane ride from Los Angeles. Authorities unearth a corpse buried in the lawn of 59-year-old Dorothea Puente's home in Sacramento, California.Puente operated a residential home for elderly people, and an investigation led to . Puentes mechanical response echoes what she has told me during prior meetings, and what I will hear on subsequent visits. She married Roberto Puente in 1968, but the relationship dissolved sixteen months later. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Despite this, their marriage lasted until 1966. [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. They dont have all the facts, she tells me one morning, dismissing those who judge her a murderer. Montoya struggled with mental health issues and had been homeless for years. Puente had welcomed him into her home that February. [6], Following her divorce, Gray focused on running a boarding house located at 21st and F streets in Sacramento. Despite maintaining her innocence until the day she died, Puente has been immortalized as one of America's most notorious female serial killers. As the search expanded, cabin fever seized Puente. "Someone. Frequent quarrels and separations marred the marriage, with much of the discord brought on by Dorotheas appetites for drinking, gambling and other men. But every time youd go to see her, Ballenger says, her cancer had moved from her brain to her breast to her liver. Others spoke of a calculating criminal who feigned altruism to mask her avariceand a homicidal bent. A gentle bear of a man, the 52-year-old Montoya suffered from untreated psychosis, a condition that for years had consigned him to the streets and homeless shelters. In theory, the blend of narcotics detected in the victims could have proven lethal, or weakened them to the point of defenselessness against suffocation with a pillow or blanketa nearly untraceable cause of death. It occurs to me that if I were unaware of her past and talking with her outside of prison, she could come across as the little old lady next door. Her words return to me. The police returned and searched the house. Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. Given Montoyas history as a transient, his disappearance would have escaped notice without the persistence of Judy Moise. Gray would continue to use the surname Puente for more than twenty years. . [9], Puente continued to accept elderly boarders and was popular with local social workers because she accepted referrals of the "tough cases", including drug addicts and abusive tenants. After learning about the murders inside Dorothea Puentes house, read about the serial killer known as the Angel of Death. In 2004, she released a cookbook titled Cooking with a . 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. I could give her my answer now, but there are a few more questions to ask. Drab and worn, the space, about the size of a single-car garage, has scuffed concrete flooring, dull fluorescent lighting and two windows; one faces a grassy prison courtyard, the other an interior hallway. By 1952, she had wed Johansson, whom she met in San Francisco. How many other boardinghouses have one person die? The two would continue to have a turbulent relationship, and Gray filed a restraining order in 1975. Through her early teen years, young Dorothea found herself handed off to a series of relatives and foster homes, bouncing between Napa and Los Angeles, court records reveal. Procedural wrangling moved the trial to Monterey, after a judge ruled that the intense media coverage of Puente in the Sacramento region would preclude her from receiving a fair trial here. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. He was going with another movie star, she says. Cooking what I want. Going to church every day. Between 1982 and 1988, the elderly and disabled people living in Dorothea Puentes house had no idea that was she was poisoning and strangling some of her guests before burying them on her property and cashing their Social Security checks. Behind them, a twentysomething blonde clutches the hands of a young man with a sun tattoo on his forearm. Investigators soon found the decomposing body of an elderly man inside. Setting his feet, he grabbed hold of the object and, with a violent jerk, loosed it from the earths grip. She will send me the list in a few daysthe bill will total $114.70but I already know I wont oblige. Ive given up hope of getting out, she says. Puente watched the images flicker across the TV screen in her Los Angeles motel room. I scan the room out of empty impulse, certain I havent missed her. A lot of people get old in here really quickly cause they just kind of stop doing anything., Ruth Munroe, believed by authorities to be Puentes first victim (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives). Drugs Puente used to knock . James Gallop, 62. 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. 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.