Going to church every day. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. Some were in an almost mummified state, wrapped tight with cloth, bed sheets and duct tape. Prosecutor John OMara, then as now head of the Sacramento District Attorneys homicide unit, recognized the difficulty of cultivating compassion for victims he dubbed the shadow people. He had the added burden of building his case with witnesses of the same ilk: alcoholics, the homeless, once and future convicts. After the notorious female serial killer Dorothea Puente died in prison at the age of 82, the filmmaker Nick Coles stumbled upon her obituary. 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. After their deaths, Puente collected . On New Years Day, a fisherman spotted the box, noticed that it looked suspiciously like a coffin, and informed the police. His eyes popped wide. I have also done this: Late at night, when it is said her deeds turned darkest, I have pondered the vastness of human nature as I stood outside the tiny yard where she buried her victims. Some play Scrabble, Sorry! 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Another tenant, John Sharp, backed her up. The next day, under suspicion but not yet under arrest, Puente, then 59 and ostensibly the essence of grandmotherly virtue, fled the city. That I can die peacefully in my sleep without being sick or being a cripple. It's been 20 years since Sacramento's most notorious murderer, Dorothea Puente, buried seven bodies in the garden of her F Street boardinghouse. One was missing its head, hands and feet. She was the sixth of seven children but didn't grow up in a stable family environment. How Did Dorothea Puente Kill Her Victims? Again and again, it is not her. 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. As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. If you lived in Sacramento in the late 80s, you recognize her name. Its like she was watching a movie she wasnt particularly interested in., Jury deliberations commenced in July 1993 and soon stalled. I wonder if she ever wishes she had received the death penalty. We both fell into the orchestra pit and I broke my leg. The other dancer? She steams the tamales in plastic bags placed in a pan of water warmed with two electric immersion coils. The 59-year-old looked like an ordinary grandmother when she was arrested after a five day hunt across California. 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 answers without pause. For the first time, her gaze squarely meets mine. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Despite maintaining her innocence until the day she died, Puente has been immortalized as one of America's most notorious female serial killers. Be Careful of the Quiet Ones 45m When college student Maribel Ramos goes missing, detectives turn their focus to her roommate, K.C. But a bit of digging in the backyarda tenant had reported seeing large holes excavated and filled behind the houseunearthed a human leg bone and a decomposed foot. As we talk on Valentines Day, I broach her long-ago brushes with the law, only to find myself stymied again. And she didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left on vacation. READ: Serial Killer Puente's Former Home Becomes Classroom For Law. I leave through a different door and make my way out of the prison, stepping into the cool afternoon air. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. Cops hauling away body bags. 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. On her lap bounces a pony-tailed girl in a red-buttoned vest who giggles Mama! Two tables over, a stout, fortyish black woman with a toothy smile banters with her parents and younger brother, to judge from the physical semblance. 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. She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. I get pushed in a wheelchair. She speaks in clipped sentences, her voice, so rarely shared with journalists, scratchy but strong. But you gotta do something so you dont go crazy.. Cooking what I want. As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. For William Clausen, by contrast, the bodies buried in Puentes yard confirmed what he already considered fact: she killed for profit. Dorothea Helen Puente (ne Gray; January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer.In the 1980s, she ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and murdered various elderly and mentally disabled boarders before cashing their Social Security checks. Between 1982 and 1989, Puente would take in the vulnerable and homeless people. The candy proves popular with youngsters, whose sporadic laughter pierces the rooms hum. Thats when the gray door clanks open once more. Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. Sometimes she includes small handmade gifts. They first spoke with Dorothea Puente, who ran the clean, cozy home as a boardinghouse for low-income tenants. The 9/ . 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. She this Dorothea Puente, was an elderly lady (think a widow at that) that housed boarders, a care home, or is it care house? A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. Vera Martin, 64. Satisfied, the authorities ruled Monroes death a suicide and moved on. 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. He remains convinced of her innocence, arguing that her crimes were limited to filching the benefits checks of her tenants. Dorothea often took in the elderly and homeless and placed them as her tenants. Puente had stayed poised a day earlier when Cabrera showed up with a fellow homicide detective and a federal probation agent. Tom Williams and Barbara Holmes are the new landlords of the "haunted" house. How did I know where they were? Absolving herself, Puente fingers McCauley and another former tenant as the possible murder suspects. 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. A pair of Christmas ornaments made by Puente in prison. I dont think anyone would pick this kind of life, she says, drying tears with a piece of coarse brown paper towel. The three men carried shovels as they fanned out across the backyard of the two-story Victorian at 1426 F Street. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives), Dorfman drew up Puentes will years agoI dont know if its any good anymore; shes probably given away stuff she doesnt [even] ownand still receives Christmas cards from her. 4. But the jury had a difficult time believe the matronly grandmother was capable of carrying out such menacing crimes. When we discuss her health or the books she reads, when she makes a rare inquiry about my job or background, the conversation tracks as normal, even mundane. ), Puente relates that, as a Rockette, she met John Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, and his wife, Jackie, and befriended actress Rita Hayworth. 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. Puente watched the images flicker across the TV screen in her Los Angeles motel room. The case rested on the shifting sands of circumstantial evidence. Then there was the riddle of Puente. Her shovel was used to dig the hole that yielded a human leg bone, a decomposed foot inside a dress shoe and what looked like pieces of tattered fabric that in fact were rotting flesh. In another twist to the case, Sacramento police escorted her back to the city on a plane chartered by KCRA for its news crew. No, Dorothea Puente is no longer alive as of 2022 as she died on March 27th, 2011. In 1993, facing nine counts of murder after prosecutors linked her to two other deaths, she stood trial without testifying. Many of them found dead and buried in the boarding house's yard. People were always coming and going. Grandson of Dorothea Puente, shared a 'real connection' with her - Daily Newshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGIQ4XcqArGYqiw70QoKcvw?sub_confirmation=1Grand. 3.23. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. She folds the towel several times into a tight square before clasping her hands together on her lap like a child attending Mass. With Bill Courage, John Cabrera, Bill Clausen, Judy Moises. The serial killer shuffles into the room with a chickens hitched gait. 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. A year earlier, he had probed the case of Morris Solomon, a Sacramento handyman who would be convicted of murdering six women across the city. Isabel Vincent. 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. She tends to wear thick violet eye shadow and pink lipstick, both of a hue common to Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, and her body lotion of choice, Victorias Secret Love Spell, gives her the subtle bouquet of cherry blossoms. When attempts to extract it with a shovel failed, Cabrera climbed into the hole. (To the question of which verse most resonates with her, she shrugs and replies, All of em.) She then quietly gathers the clothing of her slumbering roomies to wash later in the morning, when prisoners are allowed out of their cells. I wonder what she wants when death does come. She gasped at sight of the remains, hands bracketing her cheeks.