Next, Dorothea Puente went to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. "Someone. Witnesses, including her long-lost daughter, testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers. She never blinked, never broke a sweat. After the interview, he allowed her to return to the house, where a patrolman stood sentinel outside through the night. His head cocked to the side, he looks back at her, preparing to usher her past the crowd that looms outside the frame. Grandson of Dorothea Puente, shared a 'real connection' with her - Daily Newshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGIQ4XcqArGYqiw70QoKcvw?sub_confirmation=1Grand. Puente was charged for seven murders, but her trial wouldn't begin for another four years. 3 min read. 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. According to Dailymail, seven years after the death of Puente, a man named William Harder had claimed to be her grandson. During a brief in-flight interview with reporter Mike Boyd, she said, I have not killed anyone. Tom Williams and Barbara Holmes are the new landlords of the "haunted" house. They had a turbulent marriage; Gray took advantage of Johansson's frequent trips to sea by inviting men to their home and gambling away his money. 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!' Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. A pair of Christmas ornaments made by Puente in prison. And, she says, They like my tamales.. Her body shapeless under a long-sleeve T-shirt and dungarees, she has pulled back her snowy plume of hair with a pink scrunchie. 'Never judge a book by its cover,' said retired police officer John Cabrera in 2018, the lead investigator on the case. But on the way to the storage facility, Puente abruptly asked Florez to pull over near a riverbank and just push the box into the water. The detective had yet to realize that, in the 59-year-old Puente, he had another serial killer on his hands. An alarmed Ballenger urged fellow counselors to steer clear of Puente. Get Sactown's top stories in your inbox by signing up for our weekly newsletter. Prosecutors charged Puente with killing nine people. 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. For the rest of her life, she maintained her innocence, insisting that all of her boarders had died of "natural causes". Years later, her granddaughter visits the spot. Cooking what I want. They prized her willingness to accept alcoholics, drug addicts and other difficult clients into her home, a sprawling, three-story Victorian that could sleep more than two dozen tenants. Do not sell or share my personal information. And she didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left on vacation. The founder of MurderAuction - an auction house for serial killer memorabilia - Harder's macabre obsessions have also seen him befriend the likes of Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez. Then, she asked if it would be ok if she went to buy a coffee. She consented again, even lending a shovel to the men, who had brought only two. Some praised the soft-hearted landlady who cooked big meals for her low-income tenants, handed out vegetables from her garden to neighbors and adopted stray cats. So after that, I was out in New York on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then Id come back to California the rest of the week. Known at the time as Dorothea McFaul, the last name of her first husband, whom she had recently divorced, she performed on stage as Sharon Neyaarda. In her telling, after showering and dressing, she prays, recites the rosary and reads a few pages of the Bible, favoring Proverbs and Romans. We both fell into the orchestra pit and I broke my leg. The other dancer? Instead, Puente found a husband. Puente continued to collect Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She continued to maintain a boarding house, taking in forty new tenants. 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. Exploiting her appearance of the sweet old lady, Puente would lure unsuspecting tenants to their grisly deaths by baking them cakes laced with sleeping pills. He was a good-hearted man, very kind, she says. But as the police prepared to leave, Sharp slipped them a message. She gasped at sight of the remains, hands bracketing her cheeks. Inside Dorothea Puente's Tragic Childhood. It doesnt fit., At least three peopledefense attorneys Kevin Clymo and Peter Vlautin and their clientharbored scarce empathy for the prosecutor. He speculates that running a boardinghouse began for her as a humane endeavor rooted in a desire to undo painful childhood memories. A few days later I drive to Chowchilla for my final visit with her. For five days, Dorothea Puente was on the lam. Forensic testing had failed to determine a definitive cause of death in any of the victims. For someone who insists she worried over the well-being of her tenants, Puente tells me that, after her arrest, she fretted about Sam. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. Puente has told me during previous meetings that her case still attracts worldwide attention, and that she recently spurned interview requests from a British newspaper and an Australian TV station. He called over Cabrera and Brown, and after he scooped away more soil, they saw what resembled a tree root. The Monstrous Crimes Of The Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady. Isabel Vincent. As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. A 22-year-old soldier who had returned to the U.S. from the Pacific after World War II, he married Dorothea in 1945, and they moved to Gardnerville, Nevada to start a family. She responds with a burst of words, scanning the room as she talks. Dorothea Puente - Dorothea Helen Puente (January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. Con su simpata lograba escapar de la. This was a money-making scheme, but I do not believe she was a murderess.. Once, when I asked if she ever hears from her surviving siblings or two daughters, she shook her head. Police later accused Puente of lacing food or drinks she served her victims with a lethal mix of prescription drugs, poisoning them to collect their Social Security checks, a scheme that netted more than $5,000 a month. The press dubbed Dorothea Puente the 'Death House Landlady.' The name sharply contrasted with her perception in the community. Her passivity subdues suspicion. She came on a little hard, what with her questions about his Social Security benefits and abrupt suggestion that they consider living together. The police returned and searched the house. 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. She holed up in the Royal Viking Motel for the next three days, seldom leaving her room. Vera Faye Martin, 64. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and . MONTEREY . Subscribe to Sactown Magazine . 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. The string of thefts led to her arrest, and in 1982, a Superior Court judge sentenced her to five years in prison at the California Institution for Women in Corona. Back in Sacramento, police were digging up five more bodies, including Bert Montoyas. She met and married Fred McFaul in 1945. The lone drug present in all of them was Dalmane, a sedative for which Puente had obtained more than three dozen prescriptions of 30 pills each between October 1985 and November 1988, according to court records. Puente sah aus wie die Gromutter aus der Nachbarschaft, aber in Wirklichkeit war sie eine kaltbltige Mrderin. She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day. The infamous home Dorothea Puente lived in is along F Street in Sacramento. They first spoke with Dorothea Puente, who ran the clean, cozy home as a boardinghouse for low-income tenants. My question about the incident draws an explanation akin to the one Puente gave a county judge nearly a half century earlier: I was there visiting a friend when the cops came. She refuses to elaborate. But Puente has lodged in his psyche as the rarest predator he confronted: in age, gender and disposition, she inhabits an extremely narrow strata of serial killers. She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. The impending anniversary, if tracked only by media types and those who sell serial-killer novelties online, had stirred my curiosity. The 9/ . She also mentions undergoing major cancer surgery in 1961 to remove her reproductive organs and part of her intestines and stomach. Later that year, Dorothea moved to San Bernardino and picked up her first criminal conviction after trying to float a check under a false name. However, in 1978, she was convicted of illegally cashing state and federal assistance checks that belonged to her tenants. On subjects unrelated to her misdeeds, she will open up, weaving anecdotes that are sometimes embroidered, sometimes made from whole cloth. Following her year-long trial which ended in 1993, Dorothea was convicted on three counts of murder and was. 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. How Did Dorothea Puente Kill Her Victims? Working in my yard.. The psychologist morphed into a prophet with the discovery of seven bodies in Puentes backyard in November 1988. 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. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. I wondered whether, when thinking back to 1988, she saw her past as her own or that of a different Dorothea Puente, one who, over time, had faded into something of a stranger. In summer 1982, Clausen and his siblings spotted a story in the Bee about Puentes conviction on theft and forgery charges related to her drugging four elderly people. Rene C. Byer Sacramento Bee file. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California.
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