SWEET-LOOKING, GRANDMOTHERLY WOMAN WAS A SERIAL KILLER

After more than 20 years in prison, justice is finally getting done as this lovable looking monster now meets her maker

DOROTHEA PUENTE, SACRAMENTO’S INFAMOUS KILLER DIES
By Sam Stanton

The Sacramento Bee
March 27, 2011

Dorothea Puente, the notorious F Street landlady convicted of killing her tenants and burying them in her backyard, died Sunday, state corrections officials said.

Puente, 82, had been seriously ill for months, and was transferred from the Central California Women's Facility near Chowchilla to an outside hospital in September 2010.

Even in a city with no shortage of infamous and gruesome murders, the Puente case stands out.

She was a sweet-looking, grandmotherly woman who ran a boarding house out of a rented two-story Victorian at 1426 F Street.

Puente began the business in 1980, renting out the top floor of the home, but she was sent to prison for three years for drugging her elderly tenants and stealing checks from them.

She was back in business by 1985, renting the entire house and offering rooms to elderly and disabled residents, some of whom she met while cruising bars in the area.

The case broke open in 1988, after social worker Judy Moise finally convinced police something was wrong at the boardinghouse. Moise, who worked for Volunteers of America, had referred Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, a 51-year-old mentally impaired homeless man, to stay at the boardinghouse, where Puente was known for lavishing her tenants with gifts and homecooked meals.

Montoya disappeared from the home after a few months, and Moise filed a missing persons report on Nov. 7, 1988, with Sacramento police. An officer went to the home to question Puente, and during the course of his visit a tenant slipped him a note that said Puente had asked him to lie.

Four days later homicide detectives John Cabrera and Terry Brown showed up at the house with Puente's federal parole agent, Jim Wilson, and some shovels. They began digging in the backyard and Cabrera unearthed what he thought was a tree root. It turned out to be a leg bone belonging to 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. Eventually, seven bodies would be unearthed from the grounds of the home.

But on the second day of digging, as police were discovering a second body, Puente strolled away from the home wearing a red coat, purple high-heeled shoes and carrying $3,000 in cash. She took two cab rides to Stockton, then went to Los Angeles as embarrassed police launched a nationwide search.

A few days later, Puente was recognized in a Los Angeles bar and arrested, and police detectives who had hitched a ride on a chartered jet from Sacramento television station KCRA returned with her in custody. During the flight, Channel 3's legendary police reporter Mike Boyd scored an interview with her, and she declared, "I have not killed anyone."

A jury would later disagree. Puente was charged with nine murders and faced trial in Monterey County because of the massive publicity over the case in Sacramento. Evidence would show she drugged her tenants and had cashed at least 60 government assistance checks belonging to them. During nearly five months of trial that included 156 witnesses, more than 3,100 exhibits and 22,000 pages of transcripts, she was convicted in three of the murders and sentenced to life. She never took the stand, and was sent to the prison in Chowchilla.

The case generated worldwide attention at the time and remains a subject of fascination. The court files from the case are stored at the Center for Sacramento History, and the Mansion Flats home on F Street was sold at auction last year to a Georgetown couple for $215,000.

Barbara Holmes and Tom Williams said at the time that they were aware of the home's history, but were not concerned.

"It's a sweet little home," Holmes said.