The Little Old Landlady from Hell | Dorothea Puente
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Rules and restrictions may apply. The smell coming from the little old lady's house on F Street was enough to burn your skin. It was like rotten fog over the tiny Sacramento neighborhood. It was putrid and pungent, yet oddly sweet. Like grandma's perfume mixed with the rotting corpse. Even in the blistering heat, neighbors refused to run their air conditioners.

The fans sucked the smell in, and the stench peeled the paint off their walls. Dorothea Puente insisted it was the sewer.

Sometimes, she blamed the rats. Other times, she blamed the fish emulsion she used to fertilize her flowers. Dorothea was as cliche as they come. The 59-year-old had curly white hair and wore thick grandma glasses. She was always cooking, cleaning, or gardening, and a neighbor never passed by without receiving a friendly smile and wave. Dorothea was self-conscious about the smell.

You'd often see her outside dumping bags of bleach and lime on her yard to cover it up. She sprayed lemon-scented air fresheners inside until a thin mist blanketed each room. But no matter how hard she tried, the smell always came back. Luckily, her business partners didn't mind. Dorothea's two-story home served as a boarding house for the elderly, destitute, and mentally challenged.

She took in those that society had largely forgotten about. Nobody asked many questions when they began going missing. Then, one day, a concerned social worker called the police. The worker represented Alvaro Bert Montoya, a 51-year-old mentally disabled man who barely spoke English. In fact, he hardly spoke at all, at least to people. Bert preferred the company of trees.

Trees spoke every language and could understand his low mumble. Trees never tried to hurt him either, not like people did. The only person who ever seemed to care about Bert was his social worker, Judy Moise. Her life's mission was to get Bert off the street and under a safe and loving roof. Her quest brought her to Dorothea Puente's pale blue Victorian boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento.

Bert would have his own room, his own TV, and his own bed. He'd get two home-cooked meals a day. Dorothea even offered to make Mexican for him. Judy left Dorothea's home with a warm feeling in her heart. She turned and waved goodbye to Bert, like a mother dropping off her child on the first day of school. He was supposed to be happy. He was supposed to be safe. Judy didn't know it, but she had just sentenced Bert to death.

Dorothea Puente would give any con man a run for his stolen money. She was a pathological liar and a lifelong thief who preyed on people's disability checks. She'd lure you in with a smile and a fresh baked pie. Then she'd rob you for everything you're worth. The game changed when Dorothea learned she could kill her boarding house tenants and steal their social security benefits.

She'd poison them with their own prescription pills. Then she'd bury them in the yard among the tulips and the daffodils. That horrid, rotten smell blanketing the neighborhood wasn't a backed-up septic tank. It wasn't the dead rats or the fish emulsion on Dorothea's lawn. It was the graveyard under her garden. Dorothea was old. She could only dig so deep. Part 1: Born of a Broken Man

Dorothea Puente was born in 1929 in San Bernardino, California. She was the sixth of seven children, though she always claimed to be the youngest of 18. Her mother, Trudy May, was a callous woman from Oklahoma. Her father, Jesse Gray, was a broken World War I veteran. He fought on the front lines and was the victim of a savage mustard gas attack.

The fumes caused irreparable damage to his lungs, making it a chore to breathe. Alcohol numbed the physical pain, but worsened the depression and PTSD. To Jesse, the world was a cruel place full of heartless people. You are the only person who will ever have your back. He imparted that worldview on his children before routinely trying to kill himself in front of them. Sometimes he'd climb the water tower and threatened to jump.

But most times, Jesse would press a gun to his head and tremble while his children begged him to stop. Where life had worn Jesse down, it toughened Trudy up. She hung around biker gangs for fun and prostituted for extra money. And despite having seven children, Trudy Gray never considered herself a mom. Jesse's worsening condition forced the Grays to move closer to the Veterans Hospital in Los Angeles.

He couldn't breathe and, therefore, couldn't hold a job. His government compensation was hardly enough to feed himself, let alone his family of nine. The kids had to fend for themselves regarding food and clothes. They'd venture into the night and beg. The price was often sex. Even little Dorothea had to contribute. By day, they worked on farms outside the city.

Some of Dorothea's earliest memories involve picking and pickling vegetables under the California sun. The older siblings eventually broke free and left to start their own lives, leaving Dorothea alone to cope with her miserable existence. She'd retreat to her wild imagination, often fantasizing about living a better life. In time, those fantasies became her reality.

Meanwhile, Jesse's lung condition grew worse by the day. Eight-year-old Dorothea became his caretaker as he withered away in bed. She watched him shrink to about 118 pounds. She cleaned him when he soiled himself and told him to s**t when he struggled to speak. Jesse's death wish came true in 1937, when tuberculosis finally killed him. Trudy lost custody of her children after Jesse's death.

State authorities split the kids up between other family members or Catholic foster homes. For Trudy, it was a blessing and a curse. The woman who never considered herself a mom ran off with her new biker gang boyfriend, only to die in a motorcycle accident in 1938. Dorothea spent the late 1930s and early 1940s shuffling between California foster homes.

In '44, 15-year-old Dorothea went to live with her older brother's family in Napa. In high school, Dorothea used her wild imagination to reinvent herself. Her brother's wife was Portuguese. Dorothea told everyone she was too. She pretended to struggle with English and conned people into doing her homework. In 1945, 16-year-old Dorothea left her brother's home and moved north to Olympia, Washington.

She called herself "Sherry" and got a job working in an ice cream shop. When that didn't earn her enough money, Dorothea decided to follow in her mother's footsteps. She and a friend became prostitutes. They'd service clients in run-down motel rooms, often targeting veterans coming home from World War II. She met her first husband, Fred McFall, while working the Washington streets.

He was a 22-year-old veteran who just returned from fighting in the Pacific Theater. On their Reno, Nevada marriage license, Dorothea listed her name as Sherry Ale and claimed to be 30 years old. Fred didn't mind the lying. In fact, he found it amusing. He'd laugh when Dorothea told people she was an up-and-coming model or an actress or a princess descended from English royalty. Fred worked as a bartender in Reno.

Most of his money went toward funding Dorothea's expensive tastes. Material goods were the only things she ever cared about. Much like Trudy, Dorothea wasn't cut out for motherhood. She and Fred had two daughters between 1946 and 1947. Dorothea loathed domestic life and put the girls up for adoption without even asking Fred. One went to live with Fred's mother while the other was taken into a foster home.

Dorothea and Fred's marriage deteriorated after that. The final straw came when Dorothea began prostituting again and was impregnated by a guy in Los Angeles. The betrayal pushed Fred away for good. As for the baby, Dorothea suffered a miscarriage soon after finding out she was pregnant. For her, it was the best news she could have gotten. But now Fred was gone, and so was the money.

Rejected, alone, and penniless, Dorothea returned to Southern California, where she vowed to make it by any means necessary. Her silver tongue was her greatest asset. It was about time she used it.

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Dorothea Puente could talk her way into anyone's personal life. She was beautiful enough to disarm men and tragic enough to tug on female heartstrings. She targeted anybody receiving government checks, from the sick and elderly to the mentally handicapped. She'd steal and cash their checks, then treat herself to new shoes, hats, and purses. Her kleptomania caught up with her in the spring of 1948.

when she was arrested in Riverside, California, while trying to buy $80 worth of shoes. In today's money, that would be like spending over $1,000 on heels. A psychiatric examination while in custody revealed that Dorothea felt an uncontrollable urge to steal whenever given the opportunity. Her doctor believed that she didn't steal out of pure greed. Instead, she was a deeply unhappy woman who dreamed of a life beyond her means.

They had no reason to consider her dangerous or insane. She was a troubled girl from a terrible background. Who could blame her? Ultimately, Dorothea pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery and only served four months in jail. Six months later, she fled Riverside and never looked back. In 1952, Dorothea met and married a traveling Swedish merchant named Axel Johansen,

She spun a wild story about being a former rockette whose dancing career ended after a tragic accident. She called herself Taya Singuala and claimed to be the Muslim daughter of an Egyptian man and an Israeli woman. Axel bought every word of it. His seafaring job pulled him away from their Sacramento home for several weeks at a time. While he was away, Dorothea gambled his money and turned tricks out of their home.

Axel only found out when the neighbors complained about random cars parked on their street at night. But Dorothea was getting older. A prostitute in her 30s isn't getting as much work as one in her late teens or early 20s. Since it was the only business she knew, Dorothea decided to open her own. She opened several brothels in the Sacramento area disguised as various bookkeeping services.

She worked as the madam while still servicing clients on occasion. Business boomed until 1960, when one of her landlords suspected foul play. He called the police, who opened an investigation into Dorothea's so-called "bookkeepers." They learned about a secret phone number one could call to reach the real business behind the bookkeeping facade. The house special was a blow job for $7.50.

They called and ordered two for a pair of undercover cops. Dorothea was arrested for pimping and prostitution, but talked her way into a juicy deal. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of being in a house of ill repute and was sentenced to only 90 days in jail. Upon her release, Dorothea spiraled into an alcohol-fueled depression.

She tried to kill herself, at which point Axel had her committed to a state hospital in Stockton. Medical records describe her as infantile and very obese. She told the doctors she could speak many languages, from Greek and Spanish to Swedish and Arabic. They diagnosed her as a pathological liar and believed she was suffering from an unstable personality disorder.

The lies and suicide attempts, even after she returned home from the hospital, pushed Axel to the brink. He divorced Dorothea in 1966, leaving her alone and penniless once again. Old fashioned crime wasn't cutting it, and Dorothea wasn't about to get an honest job. She began thinking about her parents, her mother especially. Dorothea always had a warm place in her heart for the chronically drunk and clinically insane.

She could handle them, whereas others were happy to be rid of them. From that moment on, she dedicated her life to helping others, as long as there was something in it for her. Part 3: Good Samaritans In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ tells of a Jewish traveler who is stripped, beaten, robbed, and left to die. Several people pass him by without thinking twice to help. Finally, a charitable hand reaches out.

It belongs to a man from Samaria who has every reason not to help the Jewish traveler, due to the bitter rivalry between their tribes. Christ tells this story in response to the question: "Who is my neighbor?" The parable suggests that your neighbor is anyone who shows mercy on you, no matter what. In 1968, 39-year-old Dorothea opened her first halfway house called the Samaritans.

She focused on Sacramento's older alcoholic community, as most of them lived off disability or social security checks. Dorothea took an in-bulk approach to stealing this time. She'd open her doors as an attractive alternative to living on the streets or public halfway houses. She'd earn their trust, and they'd grant her access to their assets and government money. These downtrodden locals could hardly take care of themselves.

Dorothea didn't want them worrying about their finances too. Meanwhile, the aging prostitute was going through a steep period of reinvention. She ditched the flashy clothes and jewels in favor of vintage dresses and granny glasses. She presented herself as a devout Christian dedicated to helping the poor and needy. For her scheme to work, Dorothea had to be in good standing with the local Latino community.

which made up a significant portion of Sacramento. She began supporting different Latino American causes, such as charities and radio shows. She also provided hot meals to battered and impoverished girls. She cemented her place within the community when she met and married 21-year-old Roberta José Puente. Their turbulent marriage lasted 16 months. Dorothea filed for divorce under the guise of domestic abuse.

Meanwhile, Roberto fled to Mexico in Dorothea's car after assaulting one of her tenants. Word of the toxic atmosphere inside the Samaritans spread throughout Sacramento. Social workers began pulling their clients out, leaving Dorothea holding the bag. She was $10,000 in debt when the Samaritans closed its doors for good. Dorothea was used to starting over by now.

It's unclear how, but she managed to lease a three-story Victorian-style home on F Street in Sacramento. The Victorian was a spacious building with 16 small bedrooms, each equipped with everything a tenant could need. The social workers came crawling back. Dorothea was the only woman in town willing to house the high-risk drunks. She ran a tight ship while striking a unique balance between loving mother and harsh disciplinarian.

For example, she'd make her tenants breakfast every morning, but chastise them for coming home drunk at night. She filled all 16 rooms, but that didn't stop her from taking in more tenants. The lower-class tenants, or those who didn't bring in enough government money, were relegated to the basement, where they lived in tiny cubicles divided by hanging curtains. They all shared a single toilet and were kept in the dark when new prospects arrived.

The early 1970s were kind to Dorothea. Business was booming and her confidence was through the roof. She began calling herself La Doctora, or the doctor, and hanging fake medical diplomas on her walls. Legitimate doctors didn't question Dorothea's alleged qualifications. Some even hired her as an assistant to help perform checkups on her tenants. With their blessing, she gained access to all their medical records.

She knew which drugs they were taking and which, if taken in bulk, might cause an overdose. Dorothea met her fourth husband in 1975. Pedro Montalvo was a laborer from Puerto Rico who worked the grounds on F Street and stayed with Dorothea as a tenant. "She told me she fell in love with me as soon as she saw me," he said. They got married in Reno, Nevada in August of '76, but the marriage only lasted a week.

That single week was filled with a lifetime of turmoil. Her personality shifted on a dime. She'd be kind and sweet one minute, then ultra-aggressive the next. She spent every penny they had on new clothes, jewelry, and expensive makeup. "She wanted new pantyhose every day," Montalvo later told the Sacramento Bee. Pedro wasn't an angel himself. There's a reason he was living in Dorothea's boarding house before they got married.

He was a violent, drunk, and physically abusive, according to Dorothea. She claims Pedro liked to kill animals and once tried to stab her between the eyes. Of course, it's hard to believe anything that comes out of her mouth. After four failed marriages, Dorothea decided never to chase love again. Instead, she'd pursue men for their money. She'd drain every penny and cast them aside, just as life had done to her.

Part 4, Murder on Her Mind.

Dorothea Puente was riding high in 1977. She was rubbing shoulders with wealthy Sacramento politicians who likely saw their friendship as a means to score more votes from her older clientele. Meanwhile, one of her former tenants, Robert Davis, was in a local prison. He was serving time for petty crimes and eagerly awaiting his social security checks, but the money never came, and Robert couldn't figure out why.

Soon, he learned that his checks had already been signed and cashed. He was a drunk and a petty thief, but he knew he didn't sign them himself. He thought about Dorothea, whom he'd lived with for three years. She was always paranoid about the mail. Nobody was allowed to open it, even if the letters were addressed to them. Suddenly, it clicked.

Dorothea had been stealing from Robert the whole time. He reported her to the police and an investigation soon uncovered 34 other checks with forged signatures. All of them traced back to Dorothea. She never bothered to alter her handwriting. In December of 1978, Dorothea was convicted of fraud and sentenced to five years probation. She was also ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution, money she didn't have.

Once again, Dorothea tumbled to the bottom of the barrel without a penny to her name. And, once again, she cheated and stole her way back to the top. It was a chilly evening in January of 1982, but 74-year-old Malcolm McKenzie wouldn't let the cold keep him from his favorite drinking hole. He wasn't an alcoholic though. At most, Malcolm could drink two beers before calling it quits.

He liked the atmosphere and the people. He also liked flirting with pretty women. He was smitten when Dorothea Puente approached him. They talked the night away and left the bar around closing time. They climbed into a cab and went back to Malcolm's home. He stumbled as he walked inside, as if drunk, but that was impossible. Malcolm had spent the evening nursing two drinks.

His legs felt shaky, his vision blurred. Soon, Malcolm was falling onto the couch. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. He could see though. He watched Dorothea rifle through his drawers and closets. She found an old suitcase and began stuffing it with Malcolm's valuables. Then she strutted up, sat beside him and slipped the ring off his pinky finger. Dorothea was long gone by the time Malcolm regained control of his body.

As soon as he could, he reached for the phone and called the police. Two days later, officers found Dorothea attempting to cash checks that belonged to Malcolm McKenzie. "He gave them to me," she said. The cops laughed and slapped the cuffs on. Her silver tongue bailed her out of another theft charge. She convinced the cops that she suffered from an unknown psychiatric condition that caused her to do things and then immediately forget them.

She said Malcolm was a bitter old drunk who wanted revenge when Dorothea rejected his advances. He gave her the checks as payment for sex. The he said, she said case hung in limbo until April of 1982, when Dorothea convinced the judge she wasn't a threat and walked away a free woman. The Malcolm saga taught her that the elderly were easy targets.

While posing as an in-home nurse, she stole a diamond ring and large quantities of prescription sleeping pills from 82-year-old Irene Gregory. She pulled similar scams on other elderly women, making off with thousands of dollars in checks, jewels, and prescription meds. Her victims were too old and frail to remember her. More importantly, they'd never be able to stand trial. At least, that's what Dorothea thought.

Police believe Dorothea committed her first murder in 1982 when she lured 61-year-old Ruth Monroe to her home on F Street. Ruth and Dorothea were soon to be business partners in a catering business Dorothea wanted to start. Ruth had recently retired and was bored in her golden years. She was still in good health and ready to hit the ground running. They opened a joint account and funded the business venture with their savings.

Of course, Ruth contributed significantly more than Dorothea. To make things easier, Dorothea invited Ruth to move in. The retiree poured herself into the work, and things seemed to be going well. Then, Ruth's health and behavior suddenly changed. She began drinking heavily and carrying thousands of dollars in cash in her purse. By late April of 1982, Ruth was beginning to look sickly.

She couldn't remember eating or drinking or sleeping. She didn't know where she was anymore. On April 25th, she struggled to tell a friend. "I am so sick. I feel like I am going to die." Then, three days later, she passed away due to respiratory failure. An autopsy painted a sickening image of Ruth's final days.

Her liver was bloated, a clear sign of alcoholism. The only thing in her stomach was crème de menthe, which is an alcoholic beverage, suggesting she was drunk and starving when she died. Dorothea had been forcing the minty liquid down her throat, along with copious amounts of codeine, Tylenol, and Miltown, a tranquilizer that Ruth had been prescribed. Without enough evidence to call it murder, the coroner deemed Ruth's death a suicide

For a month, Dorothea believed she'd gotten away with murder. However, her crime spree against the elderly was about to come back and bite her. Police had been quietly building a case against her since Malcolm McKenzie. She was arrested and found guilty of drugging and robbing four more elderly people in the Sacramento area.

She couldn't sweet-talk the judge this time. On August 18th, 1982, Dorothea Puente was sentenced to five years in prison. Ruth's children saw the story on TV and recognized Dorothea as their mother's landlord and business partner. They were convinced that Dorothea had killed their mother and stolen her money, and they were ready to spend the rest of their lives trying to prove it.

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Part 5. Jailbird. Dorothea Puente's five-year sentence and future probation came with one strict rule. She was to have no contact with the elderly and could not handle any government checks that weren't hers. She broke the first rule in year three of her sentence when she began corresponding with 77-year-old Everson Gilmouth.

Everson was a retired widower from Oregon who began writing Dorothea as a pen pal. They were two lonely souls looking to start a new life. He wanted companionship, she wanted money. He made the fatal mistake of telling her that he earned a healthy government pension. Dorothea was a model prisoner

Her good behavior sliced two years off her sentence, and she was slated for release in September of 1985. She told Everson they could move in together if he came to pick her up. She still had the house on F Street, despite multiple convictions and thousands of dollars in restitution payments. Everson didn't hesitate. He packed his pickup and drove from Oregon to Sacramento, smiling like a love-struck schoolboy the whole way.

His sister, Reba, didn't share her brother's excitement. She couldn't believe her ears when Everson suggested that he and Dorothea might get married. But there was no stopping a man in love. She wished him the best and told Everson to call when he got settled. Weeks went by without a word. Reba's worry got the better of her, and she called the Sacramento police to check on her brother. "Were the police there?" Reba asked when Everson finally called.

"I just left," he said. "I'm sorry. I should have written." Reba could tell there was something off about her brother. He kept repeating, "I should have written. I should have written," and then hung up. That was the last time she ever heard his voice. Everson's life ended when he made Dorothea a signatory on his bank account. It's unclear when Dorothea killed him, though it was likely sometime in October of 1985.

A letter from Dorothea to Everson's sister claimed that the couple had gotten married on November 2nd. Shortly after, Dorothea contracted a handyman named Ismael Flores to build her a six-foot storage box. Dorothea agreed to give him Everson's pickup and $800 as payment. After completing the box, Flores returned a few days later to make some repairs on the house. He saw the box in the kitchen with the lid nailed shut.

Dorothea asked if Flores could move it into storage. He struggled to load the 300-pound box into his new truck. Then, Dorothea climbed in the cab and began giving directions. They drove outside of town to a remote section of the Sacramento River. Dorothea told Flores to leave the box by the water. She claimed it was full of junk. Flores didn't ask any questions.

On New Year's Day 1986, a fisherman discovered the box and called the police. They arrived and pried it open, revealing an older man's rotting corpse. The body was wrapped in plastic and surrounded by mothballs. Everson Gilmouth was so badly decomposed that the police couldn't identify him. Months after his death, Reba received a "Thinking of You" letter from her brother.

It was obviously written by Dorothea in an attempt to cover her tracks. Part 6: The Landlady from Hell Dorothea's next victim was 78-year-old Betty Mae Palmer, who arrived at the F Street boarding house in the fall of 1986. She was a peculiar woman with heart problems and severe hip pain. She had an affection for pain pills and doctors, and would often demand pelvic exams from male physicians.

Then, she'd boast about having fictitious affairs in the doctor's office. In that way, she and Dorothea Puente were alike. But Betty Mae was a family woman who maintained regular contact with her children. She only moved into Dorothea's house after losing her own home to medical debt. Betty was protective of her finances. She made it so she couldn't cash her social security checks without presenting a photo ID.

This proved to be an annoying hurdle, but one that Dorothea would inevitably jump. One evening, Dorothea plied Betty Mae with drinks laced with prescription pills. She died due to a lethal dose of antipsychotic drugs and benzodiazepines. Now came a new dilemma. Betty Mae had close relatives in Sacramento.

They could ID her body if anyone ever found it. Even worse, the police could easily link her to the F Street home. So, Dorothea began cutting. Or at least, she had one of her handymen do the cutting for her. Betty Mae's head was severed above the third vertebra. Her hands were cut off at the wrists, and her legs were removed below the knees. For good measure, Dorothea also got rid of the kneecaps.

When the cutting was over, Dorothea buried Betty Mae's torso in a shallow grave in her front yard. Her head, hands, legs, and knees were never found. On October 14th, 1986, Dorothea applied for and obtained a California ID card with her photo and Betty Mae's name. She'd go on to cash over $7,000 worth of Betty's benefits.

Leona Carpenter was 78 years old when she arrived at Dorothea's boarding house. She'd been in good health until a cancerous tumor ravaged her brain, leaving her feeling drained and constantly exhausted. Dorothea felt bad at first. Watching Carpenter suffer on the couch reminded her of her father. The feeling faded after two weeks, and Dorothea dosed Carpenter with a prescription cocktail.

It wasn't enough to kill her though. Carpenter was admitted to the hospital for a Florazepam overdose. Her doctors believed the woman had simply dosed herself. She was a widow and never had any visitors. Perhaps the pain of life had taken its toll. Dorothea summoned a notary to the hospital and was given power of attorney over Carpenter's finances.

She began cashing Carpenter's social security checks and continued doing so long after Carpenter returned to F Street. This time, Dorothea dosed her with enough meds to kill a horse. She then buried Carpenter intact in the southeastern corner of the yard. Dorothea's most sickly tenant was 62-year-old James Gallop. A brain tumor had caused his right eye to swell and protrude. While it was benign, the tumor was also inoperable.

No amount of radiation could get it to shrink. It would grow and grow and grow until James lost control over the right side of his face. Gallop also suffered a heart attack and was waiting for the results of another biopsy to tell him if the growth inside his stomach was cancer. He was a dying man. Dorothea simply sped up the process. Despite his bleak prognosis, Gallop maintained a tight grip on his finances.

He threatened to call the police if Dorothea tried to take control of his money. He avoided her and spent most of his time locked away in his room. But Gallup still had to eat. In the summer of 1987, Dorothea grounded up a lethal number of pills and mixed them into Gallup's food. He died hours later and was buried in the backyard.

When his doctors called looking for him, Dorothea told him that Gallup had moved to Los Angeles for a second opinion. Dorothea's shortest-lived tenant was 61-year-old Vera Faye Martin, an alcoholic who had suffered the trials of street life. She'd been assaulted, raped, and beaten more times than she could count. She was a regular at local ERs, often checking in with blood alcohol levels between .34 and .82.

She checked into F Street on October 2nd, 1987, and was dead within a few hours. By October 5th, Dorothea had forged Vera's signature and cashed over $7,000 in Social Security checks. The next victim was 65-year-old Dorothy Miller, a Native American Army veteran who suffered from PTSD and severe night terrors.

To help her sleep, Miller's doctors prescribed her powerful sleeping pills. She arrived at F Street on October 21, 1987, and resided in an upstairs flat. She grew to like her new landlady and believed the two were friends. She didn't hesitate when Dorothea handed her a Florazepam martini.

In late November, Dorothea called a local carpet cleaner to remove a pile of foul-smelling slime in what used to be Miller's room. She'd go on to cash $11,000 worth of Miller's benefits. Dorothea operated with impunity. Her "little old lady" act kept people from digging too deeply into her past or her yard.

According to one Sacramento social worker, Dorothea Puente was the best the system had to offer. She alone sent 19 elderly clients to live at F Street between 1987 and 1988. Dorothea accepted the hardest clients to place: the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the sick, the dying, the schizophrenic, and the clinically insane.

Another social worker named Peggy Nickerson stopped sending her clients to Dorothea after she overheard the landlady cussing one of them out. By then, it was too late. Four of her clients were already buried in Dorothea's backyard. How she got away with it is inconceivable. Remember, Dorothea's parole deal forbade her from having any contact with the elderly.

And yet, during 15 visits to Dorothea's home, parole officers never noticed that she was running a boarding house for the elderly. Either they didn't notice or they simply didn't care. Thankfully, somebody did.

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Part 7: Bert Judy Moise began to worry when she learned that her client, Bert Montoya, might be alone in Mexico. According to one of his street friends, Dorothea had taken him south of the border in late August of 1988 to visit her family in Guadalajara. She claimed her brother-in-law fell in love with Bert and wanted him to stay. Bert seemed to enjoy himself. So, Dorothea said her goodbyes and left.

Judy couldn't shake the awful feeling in her stomach. It kept her up until 5:00 a.m. when she finally worked up the nerve to call Dorothea. "Oh, Bert's in Mexico," Dorothea said excitedly when Judy asked how her client was doing. She told the same story about visiting her family and her in-laws wanting Bert to stay. "I just love him," she said. Nothing made sense. Why would this woman's family take in a schizophrenic stranger they had just met?

That's when Dorothea said something that grabbed Judy's attention. "He'll be back next week," she said. Judy was confused. For a moment, the worry washed away. "Next week?" Judy asked, making sure she heard Dorothea correctly. "Yes, next week. If he's out of the country for over two weeks, he'll lose his social security." But a week passed, and Bert was still missing. Judy called again, this time extra worried.

There was a fiesta that he wanted to stay for, Dorothea said. But he'll be back next week. Judy implored Dorothea to have Bert call as soon as he got in, but no call ever came. October came and went, and Judy had just about had it. Dorothea, do you have something to tell me? She asked, her voice demanding. There's nothing. Bert will be back next week, I promise. Dorothea hung up after that.

On November 7th, Judy received a call from someone in Shreveport, Utah, claiming to be Bert's brother-in-law. He said Bert was with him and there was nothing to worry about. "Bert doesn't have a brother-in-law," Judy said. She knew it was true, but the man insisted. "Yeah, he does. We've been close for many years." Judy wanted the man to prove it. She asked to speak with Bert, but the man claimed Bert was under the weather.

"What do you mean he's under the weather?" Judy asked. The man got angry and suddenly claimed to be calling from a payphone on the side of the road. Judy asked for his home phone number, but the man claimed they were moving and didn't have a phone yet. He hung up and Judy never heard from him again. She called the number for missing persons without having to look it up. At this point in her career, Judy knew it by heart.

Officer Richard Ewing arrived at F Street to investigate the Burt Montoya case. Dorothea welcomed him in, and nothing seemed amiss inside the boarding house. Dorothea claimed that Judy was overreacting,

Bert was with family in Utah. He was healthy and happy. Why would she ever force him to come back? Officer Ewing spoke with a skinny tenant named John Sharp. Judy had told him to seek John out specifically. He was a smart man and a good source of information. John regurgitated the Mexico story. He said Bert's brother-in-law had picked him up last Saturday and that the pair had left for Utah.

"I saw him moving out," John said. "He and this other fellow were loading his things into a red pickup truck." Satisfied, Officer Ewing asked Dorothea for one last look around the home. While they were gone, John Sharp scribbled something on a piece of paper. He forced the note into Ewing's hand when they returned. The seasoned Sacramento cop got the hint. He glanced at the note covertly and read, "She wants me to lie to you.

Ewing pulled John into a side room and turned the TV up. They spoke privately, and John agreed to meet with Ewing outside the F Street home. The pair met with Judy, who was eager to hear the truth about Bert. Instead, John told them of another man named Ben Fink. The 55-year-old had arrived on March 9th, 1988, and had vanished by mid-spring. John told them that Dorothea had ex-convicts digging holes in her backyard.

They'd be dug at night and mysteriously filled by morning. John also spoke of the foul odor that had settled over F Street. He'd spent several years working in a Kansas City mortuary. He knew the smell, the rank and pungent smell of death. That night, John slept with the chair wedged under his doorknob, worried to death that Dorothea knew he was working with the police. He just had to survive 72 more hours.

Part Eight: The Boneyard It was the morning of November 11th, 1988. Dorothea Puente was dressed in her grandmotherly best when she answered a hard knock at the door. Detective John Cabrera stood on the other side, flanked by several police officers. He asked if they could look around. Dorothea said, "Go ahead." In the backyard, Cabrera spotted a disturbed patch of ground in the southeast corner.

He ordered his men to grab the shovels and spades they'd brought on a hunch. They dug until they turned up shreds of cloth and what looked like beef jerky. One of the shovels clanked on a thick tree root that hindered their dig. Cabrera grabbed the shovel and hacked at the root, trying to break it. After loosening it, he jumped into the hole and grabbed it with two hands. He yanked with all his might and fell backward when the root finally dislodged.

He looked down at his hands. He wasn't holding a tree root. He was holding a human leg bone. Dorothea heard Detective Cabrera yelp from inside the house. She went to investigate and looked into the hole herself. Like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone, she slapped her palms against her face and acted as surprised as ever. She watched as the cops kept digging, eventually uncovering a shoe with somebody's foot still attached.

Dorothea stuck to her story when Cabrera brought her in for questioning. Burt was in Utah, and she had no idea whose body was buried behind her home. Despite being in direct violation of her parole, the police chose not to charge or hold Dorothea while they dug. By morning, a crowd had gathered to watch heavy machinery excavate the F Street yard. Meanwhile, Dorothea watched from an upstairs window, plotting her next move.

As the team dug through the concrete walkway, Dorothea approached Detective Cabrera. She wore a cherry red overcoat and purple pumps. She shielded the sun with a small pink umbrella. "Mr. Cabrera, am I under arrest?" she asked. He said no, to which Dorothea asked if she could go to the nearby Clarion Hotel to meet her nephew for a cup of coffee.

Cabrera said yes and personally escorted her past curious onlookers and reporters from the Sacramento Bee. They found two more bodies as soon as she left, and more were about to pile up. November 12th, 1988 was an embarrassing day for the Sacramento PD. They'd just dug up a boneyard and had let their primary suspect walk away from the crime scene. They found Bert's body under a newly planted apricot tree in the side yard.

Dorothy Miller was found with her arms duct taped to her chest. Police found Ben Fink in a concrete grave buried next to a metal shed. They found Betty Palmer's torso buried almost ceremoniously below a statue of St. Francis of Assisi. They only identified her thanks to the serial number on a prosthetic device used to repair a broken hip. Her head and severed limbs have never been found.

It was Leona Carpenter's leg bone that Detective Cabrera initially pulled from the ground. When they found James Gallop, his wristwatch was still ticking. According to some reports, Vera Martin's grave had scratch marks on the inside, suggesting she may have been drugged and buried alive. As for Dorothea Puente, she hailed the first cab she saw when she arrived at the Clarion Hotel.

The cab dropped her off at a bar across town, where she chugged four vodka grapefruits before catching another taxi to Stockton. She boarded a bus to LA and put 400 miles between herself and the graveyard back home. And it wasn't long before she was up to her old tricks. Charles Wilgus was nursing an afternoon beer at his favorite bar when a fancy woman in a bright red overcoat stole the stool next to him.

The retired 59-year-old carpenter was ready to turn on the charm. The woman ordered a screwdriver and introduced herself as Donna Johanson. She said she had just arrived from Sacramento and that her husband had recently passed. To make things worse, the cabbie who dropped her off had stolen her suitcase. They got talking about social security. Charles told her he made $576 a month or about $1,600 today.

Suddenly, the strange woman was suggesting they move in together. She said they were two lonely souls who should keep each other company. Plus, she was an excellent cook. Charles changed the subject and agreed to meet the woman the next day to help her replace her stolen items. All the while, he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her from somewhere. It clicked in his head later that night. He'd seen her on TV. She was the landlady with all the bodies buried in her backyard.

He shook off the chills and called the police. Shortly after 10:30 that night, Los Angeles police surrounded the rundown motel where Dorothea was staying. She'd run out of places to hide. She wasn't spry enough to slip out the window. Instead, Dorothea opened the door and walked without incident into the waiting arms of the LAPD.

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Part 9. The Landlady Trial.

Dorothea Puente wore a shiny pear necklace over a granny blue dress as she pleaded innocent to nine counts of murder on March 31, 1989. Police also arrested Ismael Flores for his alleged ties to Dorothea's crimes. They later granted him immunity in exchange for his testimony regarding the murder of Everson Gilmouth. It took four more years to compile all the evidence against Dorothea,

Investigators and prosecutors had a literal lifetime of crime to sift through, with each small act leading to her eventual killing spree. In his opening statement, prosecutor John O'Mara described Dorothea as wanting people who had no relatives, no friends, and no family. She targeted those that society had cast aside. She preyed upon people whose age, disease, or alcoholism had become a burden on others.

There was no denying the bodies found in Dorothea's backyard. Her defense team argued that all her tenants died of natural causes. Dorothea knew she was violating her parole by having them in her home and didn't want to go back to jail. When the first one died, she panicked and buried them in the backyard. Every subsequent body became easier until it was routine. Dorothea was just a scared old lady who wouldn't live long in jail.

Yes, she stole from them. Yes, she violated her parole. Yes, she desecrated several bodies. But she wasn't a killer. The trial lasted five slow months. Over 150 witnesses took the stand for and against her. The jury saw over 3,000 pieces of evidence, while a scale model of the Victorian boarding house on F Street sat on a table in the middle of the courtroom like a macabre dollhouse.

Dorothea wore her best poker face beneath fluffy white curls and thick glasses. She donned several flowery and polka-dotted dresses and passed secret notes to her attorney like they were in school. She didn't flinch when prosecutors showed side-by-side pictures of her victims. On the left were the smiling faces of Burt Montoya, Vera Martin, and Leona Carpenter. On the right were their rotting corpses in Dorothea's yard.

Her defense team leaned on the fact that nobody had witnessed Dorothea killing anybody. The only cause of death the prosecution could prove was that of Ruth Monroe, who overdosed on her own medication. The other bodies were too badly decomposed to determine what killed them specifically. However, all of them had traces of Dalmain, a prescription-strength sleeping pill.

Dalmain is a brand-name version of Florazepam in the benzodiazepine family. It can be lethal when taken with alcohol or other sedatives, and is especially dangerous in older people. Dorothea could get the drugs in bulk thanks to prescriptions from three different doctors. Multiple tenants testified that Dorothea would force-feed them pills that made them sleepy. One recalled how James Gallop would often complain about feeling tired.

Before he died, Bert Montoya complained to an employee at a local detox center that Dorothea was giving him medicine that he didn't like taking. That employee confronted Dorothea, who flew into a fit of rage. How dare he tell her how to run her business? Fine, if he doesn't like it here, Bert can move back into the fleabag detox center. The employee backed down and told Bert that he was better off with Dorothea.

"I told him he'd be safe there," the employee testified. "I was wrong. I've got to live with this for the rest of my life." Among the prosecution's best witnesses was Donald Anthony, a seven-time felon and one of Dorothea's go-to handymen. He met Dorothea while living in a halfway house. She hired him to dig trenches and pour cement in her backyard. She claimed the work was for new pipes, though Donald never saw any pipes put in.

He eventually moved into F Street and performed more odd jobs for Dorothea. One of them involved calling Judy Moise and posing as Burt Montoya's fake brother-in-law. A handwriting expert took the stand next and testified that Dorothea had signed the names of her dead tenants on 60 federal and state checks.

All told, she was making about $5,000 per month on stolen benefits, or just shy of $14,000 today. His testimony and others provided plenty of circumstantial evidence. The prosecution knew there was no hard evidence against Dorothea. Nobody saw her kill her tenants. Nobody saw her dragging bodies into the backyard. Nobody saw her pick up a shovel or pour cement on her own.

But in the end, it was enough to find Dorothea guilty of murdering Ben Fink, Leona Carpenter, and Dorothy Miller. The jury couldn't decide on the other six murder charges, thus causing a mistrial in those cases. Some were relieved, others were shocked. Fink's case was strong, but Miller and Carpenter's were among the weakest. Burt, Ruth Monroe, and the headless Betty Palmer had plenty more evidence. Yet the jury still had doubts.

To this day, nobody knows why the jury deadlocked on six of the nine cases. Perhaps it was Dorothea's persona as the little old granny. Maybe they couldn't picture her dragging the bodies outside and burying them in the yard. Ultimately, it didn't matter. On December 10th, 1993, 64-year-old Dorothea Puente was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In 1998, Dorothea began meeting with an author named Shane Bugbee. In 2004, Shane published a cookbook called "Cooking with a Serial Killer." It featured over 50 of Dorothea's favorite dishes and included interviews, poetry, and some of her prison sketches. The F Street Death House became a tourist attraction in Sacramento until it was sold at auction in 2010 for just over $200,000.

The current owners are well aware of the property's history and have embraced the lore by hanging Puente memorabilia around the house. As for Dorothea, she lived to be 82 years old and died of natural causes on March 27th, 2011. But her legacy lives on as one of Sacramento's favorite local legends.

Every Halloween, hundreds participate in the Dorothea Puente Bar Crawl, which visits some of her favorite haunts around the city. At Henry's Lounge on 9th Street, you can even sit in her favorite stool. The second one from the far end gave her an excellent view of the bar and any potential victims that walked inside.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a quick rating for the podcast. It helps other true crime fans like yourself find the show as well. I really appreciate it. Stay safe out there, and I'll see you in the next one.