The only time they were in good health was when they stayed at my home. (Puente tells me she also had twin daughters who as young adults committed suicide one week apart. They had two daughters between 1946 and 1948; Gray sent one child to live with relatives in Sacramento, and placed the other for adoption. Around the same time, she slipped a heavy sedative into the drink of a 74-year-old man she met at the Zebra Club in midtown. Know Her Death House Now Puente's crimes were featured on the Netflix show . And then theres the contradiction: beneath this house there are all these bodies. 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. However, in 1978, she was convicted of illegally cashing state and federal assistance checks that belonged to her tenants. They dont have all the facts, she tells me one morning, dismissing those who judge her a murderer. I wonder what she wants when death does come. We hold each others stare. They all know who I am, she says. That was my tomcat. Gray assumed the identity of "Sharon Johansson", hiding her delinquent behavior by portraying herself as a devout Christian woman. An officer dispatched to the house that morning interviewed Puente and one of her tenants, John Sharp. We next met days before Thanksgiving, when the recent election of Barack Obama had boosted her hopes for the countrys future, and again in mid-December. 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. Dorothea Puente is an American chronic executioner. Her words return to me. She reveals as much when, unbidden, she yanks down her shirt collar, baring a white patch the size of a silver dollar stuck to ghostly blue-veined flesh. Her goodwill earned her the honorific title la doctora and flattering write-ups in local Spanish publications. (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. He was good to me. (Johansson did not respond to interview requests.). That is mitigating. Waking at 5:30 a.m., I drove 135 miles south to Chowchilla, slowed by low-hanging fog as opaque as her reasons for ending years of public silence. These were peoplethe Salvation Army wouldnt take them. But in truth, I approach this task without optimism, anticipating that our meeting will stick to the pattern of previous visits. For the first time, her gaze squarely meets mine. Puente drugged three women with tranquilizers to steal checks, money and valuables from their homes in the early 80s, as recounted in court records. Disguised as a kind-hearted boarding house owner, Dorothea Puente allegedly murdered tenants who lived on her property, and buried them in her backyard, according to the Los Angeles Times. Our visit winds down. Puente had welcomed him into her home that February. Dorothea Puente is one of the criminals whose crimes are detailed in 'Worst Roommate Ever.' Puente was known in her neighborhood for housing individuals who were homeless, elderly, or otherwise unable to care for themselves. I dont know what to tell you, she said. When they returned to his apartment, he watched in a stupor as Puente helped herself to his checks and cash; before leaving, she slipped a diamond ring off his pinky. He claims to have had a regular relationship with her, The Founder of MurderAuction, a website that sells serial killer memorabilia, Harder says he sees his grandmother as human, despite her crimes (pictured: Harder with cult leader Charles Manson). Four days later, Munroe died at Puentes home. Trapped by tan cinderblock walls that climax in a Tsteepled ceiling, chatter and laughter create a kinetic mood amid the dense scent of microwaved pizza, burgers and fried chicken strips. [citation needed]. Scant evidence exists to suggest she socialized with Reaganwhen he divorced Wyman, Puente was 20 years old and living in the Bay Areaany more than she danced with the Rockettes. 13 and watch the prisons visitors hall gradually fill, my doubts that she will appear grow with the rooms din. A woman known as Dorothea Puente runs a boarding house for those less fortunate, but her seeming benevolence belies motives that are much darker. But volatility seemed to follow Puente wherever she went and the new couple argued frequently about Puentes drinking and gambling. Grandson of killer granny Dorothea Puente, who laced cakes with sleeping pills and then smothered them at her California boarding house, reveals how he shared a 'real connection' with her and. Retired social worker Mildred Ballenger first met Puente in the late 1970s. She would flee the city that morning. She was a respected figure to the Mexican community, says Donald Dorfman, a longtime Sacramento criminal attorney who handled some of Puentes legal affairs before her 1988 arrest. Chief later dismantled a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Investigators soon found the decomposing body of an elderly man inside. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. To reduce chest pain, she wears a nitroglycerin skin patch. Me and Nancy, she says, shaking her head. And it was so counter to her strenuous effort all her life to be somebody who was respected, somebody important., Puente received a prison term of life without parole after the jury deadlocked on whether to give her the death penalty, an ending that deepened William Clausens bitterness. Its sick., Clausen knows Puentes appeals ran out last year. He escorted her out of the propertys wrought-iron front gate, a moment captured in a photo lying on the conference table. Isabel Vincent. The Montoya file landed on Cabreras desk within a day. 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. She answers without pause. Would you want that to happen to your children? Witnesses, including her long-lost daughter, testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers. Sitting knee to knee, they stare without speaking, eyes wet. 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. But 26 years after her conviction - and seven years after her death - a man who claims to Puente's grandson, William Harder, has stepped forward to reaffirm his grandmother's claim that she wasn't always bad. The only time [the boarers] were in good health was when they stayed at my home, Puente insisted from prison. In the 1970s, she opened her first boarding house in Sacramento. Puente offered a place where they could hang on. As police exhumed corpse after corpse, TV crews jammed F Street while gawkers scaled trees to peer into the yard. Inmates eat breakfast and dinner in a dining hall separate from their building units; after breakfast, they receive a cold boxed lunch that they take back to their cells. The checks I cashed, yes. In a cryptic aside, she added, I used to be a very good person at one time., The public heard little from Puente for more than 20 years after that clip aired. One decomposed leg was found on one side of the garden, and a foot was found on the other (Pictured: Investigators compile miscellaneous body parts found in the ground, 1988). James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. The jury was deadlocked eleven to one for conviction on all counts, and the lone holdout finally agreed to a conviction of two first-degree murder counts, including special circumstances, and one second-degree murder count. Its the same thing. She does not smile, laugh or joke much in my presence, but nor does she betray malevolence. Get Sactown's top stories in your inbox by signing up for our weekly newsletter. She had breached her federal probation by running a boardinghouse, yet admitted to the offense when asked. Prison persuades some inmates to repent, their perspective evolving with time as they forsake their younger selves. She is a California native, born in Redlands, Calif. 2. A prison official describes her as very low-key, very quiet. If discreet, however, Puente, who stands 5-foot-3, bears an outsized notoriety. In any case, after more than 20 years behind bars, and despite the withering of her features, she retains a physical vitality and a fondness for cosmetic excess. On Nov. 11, 1988, acting on the concerns of a social worker looking for a client who had disappeared, homicide detectives dropped by the mans last known address: a boardinghouse for derelicts and the mentally ill that Puente operated at 1426 F Street, within a mile of the Hall of Justice and the Capitol. Time has deepened the creases between her potato-like nose and dumpling cheeks, and her blanched skin has slackened at the neck. McFaul split from his young wife in 1948. Shes dying of cancer. 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. Puente was convicted in. William Vicary spoke with Puente for the first time about two months after her arrest. As most serial killers, Dorothea had a rough childhood. In 1952, Gray married merchant seaman Axel Bren Johansson in San Francisco. That is a human quality that deserves to be preserved. Instead, Puente opened up her second boarding house. [6], In 1968, Gray married Roberto Jose Puente. Cabrera, lead detective on the Puente case, stands with the shovel that she lent to law officers to dig in her backyard on Nov. 11, 1988. The inmates know who she is, the official says. The business supplied her with steady revenuesteady and, apparently, inadequate. She then asked Florez to transport the filled, sealed box to a storage depot. Several were swaddled in bed sheets that matched linens found in the house. Her narrow lips, pinched and lined at the corners, curl slightly upward. 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. She married Roberto Puente in 1968, but the relationship dissolved sixteen months later. It is a stifling backdrop in which to live out the years. At the time of her 1988 arrest on murder charges, photos of Puente with Jerry Brown, former California Gov. As most serial killers, Dorothea had a rough childhood. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. Tempers spiked as the impasse stretched to its third week. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. 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. Her memories, I come to understand, blend rote recitation of illusory events with blatant omission of her crimes. Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. They were men and women who had skidded toward lifes edges. Her upstanding reputation concealed a habit of forging the signatures of tenants on their benefits checks before signing them over to herself. Her bedroom was on the second floor. 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!' Shes not hurting there in prison, he says. Cops hauling away body bags. The jokes on me. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. Dorothea Puente - Dorothea Helen Puente (January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. During her trial, the persecution said. I dont want to be a burden on anyone.. Despite this, their marriage lasted until 1966. In the 70s, while running her first boardinghouse at 21st and F streets, Puente cultivated a strong rapport with social workers. I dont feel like confessing my sins to anyone, she says sharply. Puente passed away in 2011 from natural causes at the Central California Facility in Chowchilla, aged 82. That didnt seem right, but Dorothea had conned our whole family into thinking she was a nurse.. 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. (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. Nor could anyone rule out that the four women and three men had taken the drugs on their own, considering their assorted substance addictions, physical maladies and mental illnesses. MONTEREY . A stream of people tour Dorothea Puente's former home on Sept. 15, 2013. She lost her life in a motorcycle wreck the same year, orphaning Dorothea before she turned 10. Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. Today the 59-year-old Cabrera works cold cases for the department as a retired sergeant. Clausen checked on her in April 1982 and saw his pallid, suddenly enfeebled mother, who rarely drank alcohol, sipping crme de menthe. (One woman later discovered checks and jewelry missing from her home; her case played a part in Puentes 1982 arrest on theft charges.) Someone reached across the table at one point and almost got into a fistfight with him, says Hewlett, who now lives in Oregon. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Hershey's Canada releases HER for SHE bars featuring a trans activist, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE. ), Thanks to her ties to Reagan, Puente tells me, she met Vice President Spiro Agnew and U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, and in the mid-70s, she ate dinner with longtime Republican booster Clint Eastwood when he visited town. The press dubbed Dorothea Puente the 'Death House Landlady.' The name sharply contrasted with her perception in the community. (She garnished her war story with accounts of surviving the 1942 Bataan Death March, a lie she repeated to The Sacramento Bee in a 1982 article on the march; in truth, she was 13 years old and living in California at the time.) No one else would want that name., Prison protocol bans inmates from talking to each other in the hall apart from brief exchanges. In 16 years at the facility, she has accrued only two rules violations, the last occurring in 2004. And she didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left on vacation. FacebookDorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. Two decades after he yanked the leg bone from the ground behind the boardinghouse, his dark hair has shaded silver and he has shaved off his boomerang-curved mustache. Word reached Cabrera. Police and forensics experts swarmed Puentes property the next morning. Marathon Man 63m Wearing purple pumps and a long red coat over a pink dress, Puente carries a large maroon purse and pink umbrella, her eyes cast downward to watch her step. (Clymo died in 2006.) Cooking what I want. Her body shapeless under a long-sleeve T-shirt and dungarees, she has pulled back her snowy plume of hair with a pink scrunchie. Beneath a black and white mug shot of Puente wearing a polka dot dress and round glasses, the bulletin reads, The above suspect wanted for murder after several bodys (sic) found buried in her backyard. Her rapid decline perplexed her loved ones until they read the coroners report: the death was labeled a suicide caused by an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. I have talked to her attorneys, to the cop who unmasked her, to the prosecutor who tried her for murder, to jurors who found her guilty. The two talked through the afternoon, with Willgues both attracted to and wary of the well-dressed stranger who sipped screwdrivers. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City.