In 1945 when Dorothea was sixteen and a particularly attractive girl, she married twenty-two-year-old Fred McFaul, a soldier who had just returned from the Philippines. The marriage produced two daughters. One daughter went to live with Fred’s mother, and the other she had adopted. In 1948, Dorothea had a miscarriage. Shortly after this, her husband, much to her humiliation, left her. Fred had become weary of Dorothea’s constant lies and fabrications and her expensive tastes in clothes and silk stockings. Rather than admit the truth, Dorothea lied to friends and family that he had died of a heart attack.
Dorothea, now single, attempted to forge checks to help fund her expensive taste in clothes and silk stockings. This career move was not a success as she was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. After six months, she was paroled, became pregnant by a man she hardly knew, and gave birth to a daughter whom she gave up for adoption. In 1952, Dorothea married Axel Johanson, a Swedish merchant seaman. This was the beginning of a turbulent 14-year marriage. Axel would be away at sea for long periods of time and on many occasions when he came home he would find other men residing with Dorothea. Axel and his wife would then fight, separate, and then make up in a pattern that lasted throughout their marriage.
In 1960, Dorothea was arrested for prostitution in a downtown, seedy, Sacramento house of ill repute and was sentenced to 90 days in the Sacramento County Jail. Following her release, she was arrested for vagrancy and sentenced to another 90 days in jail. Following her release from her second 90 days Dorothea found work as a nurse's aide, caring for disabled and elderly people in private homes.
In 1966, Dorothea divorced Axel Johansen. On February 23, 1968 when Dorothea was thirty-nine, she married a man nineteen years her junior, Roberto Puente. The marriage barely lasted two years. Following the marriage, she began operating "The Samaritans,” a half-way house for alcoholics. Dorothea was married for the fourth and last time in 1976, at the age of 47, to Pedro Angel Montalvo, one of her tenants. Pedro was a 51-year-old laborer from Puerto Rico. This marriage lasted only a few months. He soon became unhappy with Dorothea’s spending and incessant lying. They had married in Reno, Nevada; on the wedding certificate, she had written her father’s name down as Jesus Sahagun and her mother’s maiden name as Puente. Dorothea had told him that she was a Mexican doctor and that she owned property in Mexico. After a month, he walked out on her but like her earlier marriage to Axel Johanson, they would argue, separate, and make up, a pattern that continued even after the divorce. The halfway house closed down after she accrued a $10,000 debt on the business and was found to have forged thirty-four checks she had taken from her alcoholic tenants. Dorothea was sentenced to five years probation. The judge also ruled that she should receive counseling; one psychiatrist who examined Dorothea thought that she was schizophrenic and in his opinion a "highly disturbed woman." While on probation, she continued to commit the same fraud by spending time in local bars looking for older men who were receiving benefits. She would then forge their signatures and steal their money. On occasion, she would drug their drinks and fleece them for what she possibly could.
Dorothea took over a three-story, spacious, 16-bedroom care home at 2100 F Street in Sacramento, California. The neighborhood had, at one time, been the fashionable area of the state capital. Just two blocks away stood the former governor's enormous mansion. Since then, the area had depreciated and many of the once-fine and luxurious homes were now flophouses or boarded up. Here, Dorothea took in elderly and mentally disabled boarders and stole their social security checks. Sometimes she had as many as 30 boarders. Dorothea projected to her neighbors’ an air of respectability and of a hard-working landlady. Her house was clean with well-polished floors and efficiently well run.
In late 1981, when Dorothy dressed to the nines and in her high heel shoes, dropped into one of her regular watering-holes the “Round Corner” she befriended Harold Munroe and his wife Ruth. During the course of the ensuing conversation, Ruth told Dorothea that she was seeking employment. Dorothea inquired whether she might be interested in investing in a restaurant with her. Dorothea explained that the owner of the “Round Corner” wanted to rent out the restaurant part of his bar at lunchtimes. Dorothea had said she wanted to take it over but needed a partner who could drive, as she didn’t. Ruth was excited and at the age of sixty-one said she wanted a new challenge. After hours of discussion, they agreed to go into business. Dorothea would run the kitchen, and Ruth would take care of handling supplies and transportation. Ruth withdrew the funds for her share of the partnership and handed it over to Dorothea.
Dorothea worked hard in the restaurant every day at lunchtime but within a short amount of time told Ruth that more funding was needed. Ruth handed over thousands of dollars to Dorothea. Ruth was distracted from the business as her husband Harold had become seriously ill. Early in 1982, Harold was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was confined to a hospital. Dorothea generously offered to let Ruth come and stay in her boarding house for free rather than fret at home on her own. Ruth leapt at the offer and on April 11th, 1982, with the help of her son’s, moved into Dorothea’s house. Just two weeks later, Ruth Monroe became sick with a mysterious illness. Her children came to visit her and were aghast at her appearance. Dorothea reassured them that she would take excellent care of their mother, telling them that she used to be a nurse. Then Dorothea, on the morning of April the 28th, phoned them to tell them their mother had died. The coroner’s report put the cause of death as an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen and judged the death a suicide.
The children were upset and could not believe their mother would commit suicide. They became even more suspicious when they discovered that Ruth’s bank accounts had been emptied and that a large quantity of her jewelry was missing.
Meanwhile, Dorothea’s other illegal activities had caught up with her and, in 1982, she was convicted of three counts of theft and sentenced to five years in the California Institution for Women at Frontera. One elderly man related to the court how she had drugged him, then ransacked his home, stealing his valuables, as he observed so stupefied he was unable to move or speak.
When Ruth’s children read of Dorothea’s arrest, they contacted the police and requested that they investigate their mother’s death. The investigation went nowhere, and the file, much to the frustration of Ruth Munroe’s children, just gathered dust.
While in prison, Dorothea started a correspondence with Everson Gillmouth, a seventy-seven-year-old man from Oregon. After serving three years, she was released on parole in 1985. Part of her parole conditions were that she was forbidden to have contact with the elderly and prohibited from handling government payments of any description that were issued to others. On her release, Everson was sitting outside the prison in a red 1980 Ford pickup truck waiting for her. He had left Oregon, telling his sister that he was going to marry Dorothea, and he had even gone so far as to make Dorothea a signatory on his bank account.
Everson drove Dorothea to 1426 F Street, a blue and white two-story house. This was a house owned by Ricardo Ordorica, who she had become friends with when she ran her large boarding house. Ricardo and his wife visited Dorothea in prison and offered her the top apartment in his house on her release.
Dorothea and Everson moved into the apartment. Before long, Ricardo and his wife and children moved out of the first story into larger accommodations. Dorothea then took over renting the entire house. She began to renovate the first story to rent out to boarders. In November of 1985, she hired an ex-felon, Ismael Florez, from a halfway house to install some wood paneling in the apartment. Dorothea paid him $800 and gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup which she said her ex-boyfriend from Los Angeles no longer needed. Dorothea also requested that Ismael make her a 6 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet box for storage. A week later, Dorothea called Ismael and asked him to help her deliver the heavy and nailed-shut box to a storage depot. Dorothea sat beside Ismael in the truck and issued directions. As they were driving along in Sutter County, by the s
ide of the Sacramento River, Dorothea told Ismael to pull over and unload the box “of junk,” as she called it on the river bank in an unauthorized household dumping site. The box sat there on the riverbank until early1986, when it was eventually found by a fisherman. Upon opening the box, it was found to contain a rotting corpse which was subsequently removed to the nearest city morgue. The corpse remained unidentified for three long years.
Once Dorothea had the first story renovated, she set up her boarding business, in complete violation of her parole conditions. She networked and contacted social services to let them know she was willing to take in “difficult boarders,” the ones no one else were willing to take, the ones who needed a room and care. Many boarding houses refused to take people with alcohol problems or the mentally ill and for overworked and underpaid social workers, this could be a nightmare trying to accommodate such people. Within a short period of time, Dorothea had social workers calling on her asking her to house their homeless clients. Dorothea neglected to inform the social workers about her five prior convictions for doping and stealing from the elderly, and the social workers failed to conduct any checks on her.
The social workers who called saw that Dorothea had a fresh, clean house and didn’t mind taking in the “difficult ones.” She appeared to be a respectable woman in her late fifties, but who looked closer to seventy, with her white hair and print dresses and apron. The house seemed homely, and there were always delightful aromas of homemade smells emanating from the kitchen. The garden was neat and well-tended with a vegetable patch. The boarders, for a fee of $350 a month, lived downstairs in their own private rooms equipped with televisions and were provided with two hot meals a day: breakfast and dinner. They were only allowed to venture upstairs to Dorothea’s quarters for meals.
The fact that her apartment was separate from the boarders is probably why the parole officers that checked on Dorothea failed to realize what she was up to. When they called, she charmed them and made them cups of tea and homemade cakes, and it looked as if she was living in a small two bed-roomed apartment by herself.
To her neighbors, she seemed like a harmless, hard-working widow and small-time socialite. She attended church regularly in smartly tailored clothes and helped out at various charitable events. She was a supporter of the Mexican-American youth association and the police officers’ association.
Every day, Dorothea would rise at five in the morning and at the first light, she would be watering and sweeping her garden. She would have a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes on the table for her boarders at six. If any of the boarders needed medication, she would ensure they took it. She would meticulously jot down her boarders’ appointments with doctors, dentists, and social workers and made sure they kept their appointments. For the social workers, she seemed like a godsend. Dorothea served dinner at 4.30 sharp. The other rules that Dorothea was extremely strict about was that no one was permitted to touch or use the phone or handle the mail except her; and woe betide anyone who did. It was then the tenants would see the other side of their kind landlady: one with a gruesome temper, and she would threaten to throw them out on the street. The other rule Dorothea was extremely strict about was drinking on the premises. While she had a well-stocked drink cabinet for herself in her apartment, drinking by the boarders on the premises was strictly prohibited.
In the evenings, Dorothea would dress up in her expensive clothes, high-heels, and perfume and visit various bars in the city such as the “Round Corner” or “Harry’s Lounge.” In the various bars, the bar staff and other customers thought she was a widow, even though all four of her ex-husbands were alive. Some people thought Dorothea was a retired doctor, others a nurse even though she had never had any kind of medical training. Her favorite drink was a vodka and grapefruit juice, and she frequently had many people surrounding her listening to her stories, like being in the movies with Rita Hayworth. The landlady at Harry’s would listen in amusement to the number of outlandish tales Dorothea would come up with but saw no harm in it. Harry’s Lounge was a particular favorite of Dorothea’s as it was next door to a Center for Senior Citizens who would often drop into the bar. Dorothea would befriend them, buy them plenty of drinks, and question them about their financial situation. If she liked what she heard about their income, she would offer them an invite to move into her lodging house.
In February of 1988, a volunteer social worker, Judy Moise, brought Dorothea a schizophrenic named Bert Montoya, having had the house highly recommended to her by other social workers. Judy was particularly fond of Bert and had worked long and hard to get his papers and social security payments sorted out. Judy’s own son was a schizophrenic, and she had a lot of time for Bert who she felt was a gentle, good man but like many mental health patients was being let down by society. Dorothea’s well-run establishment and her equally apparent concern for Bert impressed her. Dorothea agreed to accept Bert even though his payments from the social security had not yet begun. On her weekly visits to Bert, Judy was pleased to note that Bert’s physical and mental health seemed to be improving under Dorothea’s care. Over time, her visits to Bert’s became less as other more pressing cases took over her time.
During the spring of 1988, Dorothea had some significant landscaping work done in her garden. To her neighbors’ annoyance, she had now done this two years running, and they had to contend with the noise and dust it entailed. To add to this inconvenience, a dreadful smell began to hover over the house: a thick, sickly sweet odor. Dorothea explained to the neighbors that the sewer pipes were acting up and that there were dead rats under the floor boards. Neighbors complained to public health officials who, on a visit, could find no explanation for the putrid smell. As the weeks passed, the smell gradually lessened.
It was the beginning of October in 1988 before Judy found time to call in at Dorothea’s and visit Bert. To her shock, Dorothea told Judy she’d taken him on a visit to Mexico to visit her family, and Bert had decided to stay on for another week. Throughout October, Dorothea repeatedly told Judy he‘d be back next week. At the beginning of November, Dorothea told Judy that Bert had come back and was now staying with relatives in Utah. Every instinct in Judy’s body told her Dorothea was lying. Bert had never mentioned having relatives to her.
Judy visited the police department and reported Bert as missing. She badgered the police to launch an investigation into his disappearance, never for a minute suspecting the awful truth as to what had actually happened to the mentally ill man she had entrusted into Dorothea’s care.Early in the morning of November 11th, 1988 Detectives John Cabrera, Jim Wilson, and Terry Brown called in on Dorothea at the neat, lace-curtained house at 1426 F Street. A grandmotherly, small figure with ice-blue eyes and white hair opened the door to the detectives. The detectives explained they were seeking help in locating a Bert Montoya. Dorothea said he had left a few days ago to stay with relatives in Utah. They asked if they could enter the house. Dorothea politely asked them in and offered the detectives some candy. They declined. The detectives looked out onto the garden and complimented her on it. Dorothea seemed pleased, and they all stepped outside. One of the detectives noticed some freshly dug earth and asked permission from Dorothy to dig. She consented, and the detectives went to their car and returned with shovels. After an hour of digging, they unearthed what resembled a badly decomposed human body. Dorothea appeared shocked and agitated at the find. The detectives called for reinforcements. A forensic team, coroner office officials, and a work unit with heavy digging equipment arrived at the property.
With all the commotion and police cars in the street, it was not long before onlookers gathered outside the house, quickly followed by the media.
As the police teams began to drill their way through a wedge of concrete and prepare to excavate under it, Dorothea casually strolled into the garden and approached Detective Cabrera. She wore a cherry red coat and on her feet wore purple pumps. In her hands was a pink umbrella. She inquired of the detective whether she was
under arrest. He told her that she was not. Dorothea then asked for permission to go to the Clarion Hotel, just a couple of blocks away, to get a cup of coffee. Detective Cabrera said that was fine and escorted Dorothea through the crowds of curious onlookers and media before he returned to the grim yard work.
By the time the detectives noticed that the fragile-looking, white-haired, colorfully dressed landlady hadn't returned from her cup of coffee, more than four hours had elapsed and seven bodies had been found buried in the garden: seven social misfits who had booked into Dorothea’s boarding house on the advice of social services and had never booked out alive.
During the search of Dorothea’s apartment, a note was found in which Dorothea had written the first initial of each of the bodies found in the garden and beside the initial she had written the amount she was collecting from their Social Security and disability checks. Dorothea was earning around $5,000 a month from her dead boarders.
As more and more bodies were carried out of the house in body bags, the media frenzy grew enormous with every news agency looking for a unique angle. Dorothea, meanwhile, had called a taxi from the Clarion hotel and made her way to another bar a long way across town. Seated discreetly in a darkened corner, she downed several vodkas before taking another taxi to Stockton. Here she caught a greyhound bus to LA. Dorothea had plenty to think about on the six-hour trip to Los Angeles. She had on her $3000 in cash and a fervent desire to reinvent her life.
On arrival in LA, she booked into a cheap $25-a-night, nondescript, downtown motel. After two days, she ventured out to a nearby bar, the ‘Monte Carlo,’ and ordered a vodka and orange. Sitting on his own at the bar was fifty-nine-year-old retired wood-worker, Charles Willgues, enjoying an afternoon beer. Dorothea went to join him and sat on the bar stool beside him. She made herself known to Charles by the name Donna Johansson. She told him that she was a widow from Sacramento and that her husband had died the month previously. She told Charles that with her beloved husband gone, she could no longer bear to be in Sacramento with all the memories and so had moved to LA to begin anew. She said that she had not had a very enjoyable start in LA. The taxi driver who had left her at the motel had disappeared with her luggage containing all her worldly possessions and the heels on her shoes, she said indicating her purple shoes and flashing him an ankle, were broken. Charles, feeling sympathy for the widow, offered to take her shoes across the road to a shoe repair shop. When Charles returned to the bar with the repaired shoes, they carried on chatting. Charles felt that he knew the woman, she seemed strangely familiar and so in a way he felt comfortable with her and slightly attracted. Before long, Dorothea questioned him as to how much money he received from the government every month, He truthfully replied that he received $574 a month.
Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century Page 11
