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 side 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 pi
pes 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.
Afternoon drinks turned into a chicken dinner at a nearby fast food chain. Over dinner, Dorothea startled Charles by suggesting they should live together. She said she was an excellent cook and as they were two lonesome people on their own, they would be pleasant company for each other.
Charles said he thought they might need a bit more time to get to know each other and quickly changed the subject. After they had finished eating, they bade each other “goodnight,” after arranging to meet and go shopping on the following day to replace essential items for Dorothea the taxi driver had stolen.
As Charles wandered back to his downtown apartment, he wondered about the woman he had met. Why did she feel so familiar to him? As he wondered this he walked past a newsstand and there staring at him on the front-page of a newspaper was the face of the woman he had just spent the last few hours with. A sudden chill ran down his spine. Back at his apartment, he phoned a local television station and told them his story. The TV station phoned the police.
Later that same night at around 10.45 p.m. the LA police descended on the cheap downtown motel where Dorothea was holed up and placed her under arrest. The Local TV station filmed it all. On the flight returning to Sacramento, Dorothea told a reporter that she had never killed anyone, but she did cash their checks.
TRIAL
Dorothy Puente’s trial for the murder of nine people did not begin until February of 1993, four years after her arrest. Dorothea had pleaded not guilty to nine counts of murder on March 31st, 1989. The court case was continually dogged by delays and changes of the prosecuting team and the defense’s desire for a change in venue from Sacramento. In Sacramento, due to the extreme publicity the case had aroused, they thought it would be difficult to get a fair trial. The trial venue was moved to Monterey County two hundred miles south. Here, the media converged in February of 1993 on the courthouse en masse.
One would think that the prosecution having dug up the remains of seven corpses in Dorothea’s garden would have a straightforward murder case, but the decomposed remains of the bodies were a formidable problem for the forensic team. They could not prove a cause of death except in the case of Ruth Munroe. Ruth Monroe had died from a codeine overdose and had been prescribed codeine by her own doctor even though she was allergic to it.
The other significant problem for the prosecution was that with over 150 witnesses, not one could testify that they had seen Dorothea kill anyone or bury anyone. The only consistency was that all the bodies buried in the garden were found to have traces of Dalmane, a prescription strength sleeping pill that can be deadly when taken with the wrong combination of medication. Everson Gillmouth’s body, the one found in the box by the Sacramento River, in the toxicology examination showed no signs of Dalmane or any other drug.
Without a cause of death, could the prosecution prove murder?
The Defense argued that if you can’t show how the victims died, it’s impossible to determine unlawful killing. The defense was intent on proving death by natural causes, and the prosecution was intent on proving murder.
The Prosecutor, Mr. John O'Mara, opened the case with a blunt and simple accusation: Dorothea Puente killed her tenants and Everson Gilmouth with Dalmane to steal and cash their checks from the government and that she murdered her friend and business partner Ruth Munroe for financial gain. He went on to allege that over the course of time, she had stolen more than $58,000 from her victims.
Dorothea sat in the courtroom between her attorneys, looking much older than her sixty-four years: a frail little old lady, with skin paler than ivory, white hair neatly lacquered, and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders covering a flowered print dress.
Dorothea’s attorney´s opening statement described her as a compassionate woman who generously cared for society´s cast offs who had nowhere else to go. He claimed that the money from her boarders barely covered Dorothea and her operating costs. She may have stolen funds to cover costs, he suggested, but that did not make her a murderer. The defense argued that her tenants had died of natural causes and that Dorothea did not call the authorities because she did not want to be sent to prison for violating her parole conditions by associating with elderly individuals.
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