The idyllic residence at 1426 F Road appeared identical to some other within the quiet neighbourhood of Sacramento, California. Owned by an older lady who diligently maintained its flower-filled garden, the Victorian bungalow operated as a boarding home within the Nineteen Eighties for Sacramento’s most weak.
Landlady Dorothea Puente’s caregiving was extremely praised by social employees, who had been determined to search out their shoppers a protected and dependable residence. Then the tenants started to vanish.
The eventual discovery of seven our bodies in Puente’s yard threw the whole lot into query – was this innocuous-looking girl actually chargeable for their deaths?
It quickly emerged that Puente had certainly murdered her tenants as a method to money of their social safety cheques.
The invention of Puente’s crimes got here in November 1988, after one in every of her tenants hadn’t checked in together with his social employee. When police first requested Puente in regards to the disappearance of 51-year-old Alvaro Montoya, she stated she hadn’t seen him. However officers quickly noticed a disturbed patch of soil.
Puente reportedly shrugged off any questioning from police. She instructed them, “Dig in my yard. I don’t know what’s on the market.”
Inside minutes, officers discovered a decomposing physique. Then, they got here throughout six others.
Amid a sea of forensic specialists who had descended on the property, Puente slipped out the gate and commenced working. A widespread search was launched, with Puente later apprehended.
Regardless of being linked to the seven our bodies in her backyard – in addition to two different deaths, together with that of her former boyfriend – Puente was solely convicted of three murders. She was sentenced to life in jail in 1993.
An area social employee later instructed The Examiner, “I’ve accomplished placement with homeless individuals, helped them get their cash and stabilise their lives. Now I ponder if they might have been higher off in the event that they’d stayed homeless.”
Puente’s stage of deceit continued in jail, utilizing her “grandma picture” to control different inmates. She additionally wrote a cookbook titled Cooking with a Serial Killer.
“Different inmates noticed her as this heat maternal determine. I imagine some known as her ‘mum’ and ‘grandma’,” creator Genie Ortiz instructed Mamamia’s True Crime Conversations podcast.
“She actually wished to create this picture of herself as somebody that may be admired, and this didn’t cease in jail … despite the fact that there was nothing monetarily to realize from it.”
Puente died in jail in 2011 aged 82. She was described in her Los Angeles Instances obituary as being “one of the ‘chilly, calculating’ feminine serial killers the nation had ever seen”.
Former Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness additionally stated Puente served as “a dwelling illustration of the notion that one can not choose a guide by its cowl”.
Searching for extra crime tales? Take a look at the articles under:
