Going West: True Crime - Death House Landlady // 492

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

In 1988, Dorothea Puente, an elderly and seemingly sweet landlady in Sacramento, California, was arrested after a series of mysterious disappearances plagued her boarding house. When investigators uncovered the remains of several bodies buried on her property, the true horror of her actions came to light: she had been drugging and killing vulnerable elderly and disabled individuals under her care, cashing in on their benefits. As the full extent of her gruesome crimes emerged, a shocking pattern of manipulation and murder was revealed. This is the story of the Death House Landlady.

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host T and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going West Hello everybody. Hope you're doing well today to my surprise nobody recommended this case I stumbled upon this recently Keith I know you already knew this story, but I didn't like how did I not know about this this story? It's such a big tale. It is it really is It's a very interesting story that not a ton of people know about and I just want to say we talk about a ton of Different killers on this show Every single week

But I think this one today is gonna surprise you guys. Yeah, very unassuming person behind all of this and Just a lot of a lot of horrors like this is truly we're gonna be talking about a true house of horror I'm actually surprised that they haven't made like some sort of horror movie about this There is a Netflix documentary on this that some of you have probably actually watched. I don't know I feel like this is such a sensitive subject the the victims that we're gonna talk about today are also Vulnerable and I think it's also just such a disturbing story, you know, it's a little different. Yeah, it's definitely different But let's not waste any more time time let's get right into this one guys all right guys this

is episode 492 of going west so let's get into it I'm gonna be a good boy, I'm gonna be a good boy In 1988, Dorothea Puente, an elderly and seemingly sweet landlady in Sacramento, California, was arrested after a series of mysterious disappearances plagued her boarding house. When investigators uncovered the remains of several bodies buried in her yard, the true horror of her actions came to light. She had been drugging and killing vulnerable elderly and disabled individuals under her care, cashing in on their benefits. As the full extent of her gruesome crimes emerged, a shocking pattern of manipulation and murder was revealed. 1426 F Street is a historic Victorian home built in 1895, located in downtown Sacramento,

just a mile or 1.6 kilometers from the state capital in California. After all that happened inside this house, a plaque was positioned outside that read, trespassers will be drugged and buried in the yard, which in my opinion is a harsh attempt at making light of the horrifically dark events that took place behind those walls. But before we dive into the shocking details, let's go back and try to figure out how this woman got to be the way that she was. Dorothea Gray, better known as Dorothea Puente, was born on January 9, 1929 in Redlands, California, which is about two hours east of Los Angeles. It's in San Bernardino County. Now joining parents Trudy and Jessie, Dorothea was the sixth of seven children.

And she and her siblings had a pretty rough life from the start. Their mother Trudy was a lifelong alcoholic who alternately abused and neglected her children, turning to sex work to support herself and subsequently losing custody of her kids in 1938 when Dorothea was nine. On the other hand, Dorothea's father Jesse was chronically ill, both physically and mentally, and even once reportedly attempted to take his own life in front of his children.

Now he died when Dorothea was just 8 years old, so before their mother lost custody following a bout of tuberculosis, and then Trudy, their mom, passed away the following year after getting into a motorcycle accident. So for the next few years, Dorothea was like shuffled between family members and foster care where she was sadly reportedly sexually assaulted. Having dropped out of school she headed north to Olympia Washington at the age of just 16 never again seeing or speaking to her siblings and with no money, no family, no education to speak of she also turned to sex work to take care of herself. In 1946

still at 16, Dorothea met and married one of her clients, 22 year old Fred McFall, who was a soldier returning from serving overseas. They settled in Gardnerville, Nevada, which is near Lake Tahoe, and they were reportedly very excited to start a family. But ultimately, when she became pregnant,

Dorothea decided to give the baby, a daughter, to a family member to raise instead. Then less than a year later, she gave birth to another daughter and this time decided to, you know, kind of properly give her up for adoption. So she still didn't really want to be a mother. Though I will also add, later in an interview for Sacktown Magazine, Dorothea claimed that she had also given birth to twin daughters, but that they had tragically taken their own lives one week apart in early adulthood.

But I don't know, the details on this situation are basically non-existent to the public, like she never gave their names, where this happened, or even the name of their father. But it definitely wasn't Fred because they divorced in 1948 which was only two years after they got married and I'm not saying that this wasn't true But she was known to embellish a lot about her life. Oh, yeah We're gonna talk about how she was just a massive liar So it's it's possible that, you know, the two daughters that were taught that she was talking about were the daughters that she gave up in order to not make herself look bad.

I don't know why she would. Why would you say that? Why would you say that your two daughters took their lives a week apart when they were in their early adulthood? Like why would you make that up? But it's also like, I don't know, you're about to get into more stuff. I was going to say possibly just to get some sort of sympathy, but who knows. But as we're also gonna talk about, she was reportedly a pathological liar, so maybe she just couldn't help it.

Yeah, true. Well, afterwards, Dorothea moved back to San Bernardino, California, near where she grew up, to start anew, but was quickly arrested for forging a check. grew up to start anew, but was quickly arrested for forging a check. After serving four months in jail, she relocated to Riverside County, which is near LA, and eventually she wound up in San Francisco where she met her second husband, Axel Johannesson. During this time in her life, Dorothea had a ton of stories about how she was a rock head until she broke her leg dancing, which apparently gave her ample opportunities to meet famous politicians like Jackie Kennedy and John F. Kennedy that she toured with the ladies professional golf association to compete in professional golf tournaments.

But again, she is a well known liar. And I it's so weird because her story about not being a rockhead anymore, she said that she did it for a while and then there was like an incident on stage where a girl like fell on her and they both fell and then the girl became paralyzed like the other dancer became paralyzed. And there is like this is such a big story that you're like, surely somebody else would know that this happened. Surely there would be records somewhere

that a girl, a rockette became paralyzed after falling during a performance, but there is none. So it's like, uh. Yeah, and there's also nobody to verify that she met John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy. You know what I mean? She's a bit of an embellisher. Well, we know for sure that Dorothea and husband Axel

later settled in Sacramento, where Axel alleged that Dorothea and husband Axel later settled in Sacramento, where Axel alleged that Dorothea's heavy drinking, compulsive cheating, and excessive shopping began to pick apart their marriage. Then in 1961, at the age of 32, she spent time in a psychiatric ward. Hmm. Well, because Axel worked as a seaman and traveled frequently, Dorothea was kind of at a loss about how to fill her time here. She again found herself in the sex work industry, but this time opening up a brothel, which she both ran and worked at until it shut down.

And though she served jail time for this, she maintains that she had only been at the brothel to visit a friend. Such a colorful character, Dorothea is. Yeah, sure you were just there to visit a friend, okay. Well, Axel divorced Dorothea in 1966, but she says that they remained friendly for decades afterwards. Then, two years later, she was at the altar for a third time, but this time to 23-year-old Roberto Puente, 16 years her junior, and he reportedly only sought her money and a chance at citizenship as he was an undocumented Mexican immigrant at the time.

Well, they split up just one year later though, as you can tell, but Dorothea hung on to his surname for the rest of her life. In one of her many fables, she would later tell people that she was born a puente, but the truth is that she just married one. So facing her third divorce in her 40th year, Dorothea opened a boarding house to keep herself afloat. And this would be her business venture

until her eventual arrest, though she made most of her money by illegal means and not from the rent paid by her tenants. In 1976, Dorothea married for the fourth and final time, this time to a man named Pedro Montalvo, who reportedly also used her for American citizenship and then divorced her later that year. But to be fair, Dorothea kind of used her last two husbands to like entrench herself in Sacramento's Mexican-American community anyway. Like she portrayed herself as a veteran nurse who served in World War II

didn't happen and started providing low-cost medical care to her tenants and community and was frequently seen with medical equipment and a leather doctor's bag, despite having no healthcare background whatsoever. Okay, so she's just kinda playing doctor here. Yeah, again, like what, who is she? Who is this woman? But something I will say that's positive that she did do was donate to arts and education programs for Mexican immigrants immigrants and she advised various

Mexican women who were seeking divorces from their husbands. So she was in some way helping some people in her community while she was taking advantage of a lot more. And she was well known because her prevalence in the Spanish speaking and immigrant community of Sacramento even earned her the nickname La Doctora. La Doctora. Can't fucking roll my R's. Yeah, she can't. Daphne cannot roll her R's.

So for her charity work and outreach with addicts and the homeless, she attended many fundraisers and galas rubbing elbows with Sacramento's elite, including two California governors. I don't know what's up with her and politicians, but. So Dorothea moved into a spacious home near downtown Sacramento, offering up her space to the most in need and at risk citizens in the area, including recovering addicts, the elderly, and people with both mental and physical ailments.

Now, with how Dorothea laid out the home, she could sleep more than two dozen guests. So she. Oh, my gosh. Twenty four people in one house. Yeah. See, I mean, that's obviously a lot, but she was she was like making space so that she could have a lot of people in there, even if it wasn't necessarily the most comfortable or private situation. But like, don't go thinking that Dorothea is a good person because she began helping herself to the social security benefits given to her most vulnerable boarders, signing the

checks over to herself before they had the chance to access them. But she was caught and arrested for this in 1978 and was placed on probation, forbidden from taking in future tenants because the law is like, we know what you get up to and we don't want you to do that to anybody else. Yeah, you got caught. You can't, you can't board people anymore. Well, in 1982, 53 year old Dorothea was arrested again, this time for the more serious crime of drugging three women and one man to steal their checks, their money, and their valuables, putting her on the hook for forgery, robbery, theft, and violating the terms of her parole,

of course, in addition to the drug charges. Sacramento man Malcolm McKenzie, who claims to have met Dorothea at a Sacramento dive bar called Zebra Club, brought charges against her, alleging that she drugged him and then robbed him before his very own eyes, after she had temporarily paralyzed him.

So terrifying. Crazy. Well, after adding a powerful sedative to 74-year-old Malcolm's drink, she went home with him and he collapsed, lying frozen as he watched Dorothea strip his home of all its valuables, even slipping a ring off of his damn finger as she left. This poor man. I mean, that's just crazy. This whole story is crazy, but as he's lying there frozen. She's like oh, I didn't I didn't get everything She slips the finger or the ring off of his finger

This is so her though as you guys will see she doesn't care how old you are What's going on in your life? She doesn't give a shit. No no fucks given Well for this she was granted a five-year prison sentence, of which she served all five. When asked about the drug and fraud conviction, she said matter-of-factly, quote, Those cases were lies. I didn't drug anyone. I'm not that kind of person. Oh, honey, I think you are. Yes, you are. And, uh, you should all know that before her release, she was evaluated by a psychologist,

that before her release she was evaluated by a psychologist who diagnosed her as a schizophrenic and described her as having antisocial and psychopathic traits, as well as, of course, being a pathological liar. In his assessment, he described, quote, "...this woman is a disturbed woman who does not appear to have remorse or regret for what she's done. She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and or employment should be closely monitored. Well, as she tried to rebuild her status in her late 50s,

Dorothea moved into what is now an iconic house in the area given its dark history. And all of this brings us to the beginning of today's story. The historic Victorian house on F Street in Sacramento. And we are going to post a street view for anybody who wants a visual of the surroundings, but from the outside it's a cozy home accompanied by others very similar in style across the street and alongside it. It's not secluded or vast, not the type of house you'd necessarily imagine would hold the secrets that this one did, while Dorothea did what she did. As we know, while on parole for these crimes, she was specifically barred from running a

boarding house or working as a caretaker, but she continued to do so illegally, of course. caretaker, but she continued to do so illegally, of course. And somehow, in the three years between her prison sentences, Dorothea, who was visited by parole officers at least a dozen times, evaded questions about the tenants there. Like, there were parole officers coming over to her house knowing damn well that she was not allowed to board it or take care of anybody, and there's people living in her house and nobody is saying a damn thing about it. And I'm absolutely positive that Dorothea had some sort of excuse about this. Like, oh, well that's like my brother or these are my cousins or something,

you know? Well, it's interesting because the social workers loved her. Like she was a favorite among them because they thought that she was gentle and caring and, you know, they liked that she seemed like this woman who was willing to take anybody in no matter how dire their situation was. So they almost admired her for it and, like, ignored the fact that she was stealing from them. Like, yeah, like you're a criminal, but also like you're taking in these people. But the one thing I will say about her, the one thing that she's very, very good at is being manipulative.

She's so good at manipulating people and making them think that she's a great person. Yeah, and I think honestly, the fact that she was a woman, you know, I don't want to say she was an older woman. We're going to talk about her age a little bit later But I think maybe these social workers looked at her like a matronly figure, you know and this this sweet lady Yeah, of course

It's it's easy to see that they were pretty duped by just this unassuming woman. Well in 1988 59 year old Dorothea took in a fellow schizophrenic who was said to have had the mental aptitude of a 10- to 12-year-old. Alvaro Jose Rafael Gonzalez Montoya, better known simply as Burt, was born in Costa Rica in 1936 and moved to the United States with his family as a teenager. But his family really struggled under the weight of his care, and horrifically, Burke was subjected to shock therapy as a last resort to help him.

And obviously this is in a time when they did horrific things with people or two people with mental disabilities. Oh my God, I mean, these idiots back in the day thought that they could shock anything out of anyone. Yeah, or like give you a lobotomy because you have bipolar disorder, you know? Like, they used to do the worst shit. And obviously these types of tactics do not help.

So he hated this. He did not want to experience shock therapy. It wasn't helping him. So because of this, Bert left his family and was shuffled in and out of many different homes and care facilities, eventually spending a significant amount of time on the street. Because of his condition, he would often talk in Spanish with voices that nobody else could hear. Though tall and formidable, he was known as a gentle guy and described as a teddy bear.

One social worker, Judy Moise, took a particular interest in Burt and, recognizing that Burt was brought to a new country and abandoned, she approached him trying to help. Now, Dorothea's boarding house was recommended to her by a fellow social worker who said that she had had about 19 other people placed in Dorothea's care in recent years. So Judy placed him there and Bert seemed to be adjusting well to life at Dorothea's. The two talked in Spanish and he even addressed her as mama. But surprisingly, after some time in Dorothea's care, he reached out to Judy and asked her if he could be transferred elsewhere. And when I say surprisingly, I don't mean to us, I mean to Judy,

because she thought that this was a great fit, and now he's saying, I don't want to be here anymore, and there's no real explanation there. Yeah, it's kind of alarming when he says that he, you know, when he first moved there, he was doing great. He was loving it there. He's calling Dorothea mama. And now he's like, you need to get me out of here. Yeah, so of course, Judy wants to learn the backstory here. So she goes to Dorothea and says, you know, hey, what's going on?

And she suggests, Dorothea suggests, that Burt go to Mexico to stay with her brother, which is an offer that Judy declined because she didn't want Burt to be so far away. But the next time Judy checked in, Dorothea said that Burt had gone to Mexico anyway. Also, I feel like I keep saying, I keep going between Dorothea and Dorothea, and I think my brain is just like glitching on that word because I

never I never talk about that name. It's a tough one definitely. The only reason why I know it is because it's it was literally my grandmother's name. Dot. Grandma Dot. Granny Dot. Dorothea. Alright. Well Judy continued to contact Dorothea to check on Burt's whereabouts, but she maintained that he was safe and he was happy in Mexico. But shortly afterwards, she updated her story, telling Judy that Burt was bound for Utah with his nephew. And Judy just wasn't really feeling right about any of this.

She hadn't spoken to Burt herself in three months. And caring greatly for Burt, she reported him missing on November 7th, 1988. Actually it was Judy's persistence that is credited with solving Burt's missing persons case, as well as the cases of eight more unsolved murders and disappearances that we are going to get into today. But it all starts with Burt and the investigation into his disappearance. So four days later, on Friday, November 11, 1988, the Sacramento Police Department detectives stop by Dorothea's home to inquire about Burt. When they asked the residents about Burt's trip to Mexico, they all maintained that he had gone to Mexico

and then left with a relative, as Dorothea said. But one of the other tenants, John Sharp, passed the detective a note. And it read, quote, "'She's making me lie for her.'" Ugh, that's so creepy. Oh, God, yeah, it sends a shiver down my spine. And imagine these people, they're all saying,

Oh yeah, Burt's in Mexico, yeah! And they just know that they... they can't falter from the story that Dorothea gave them. Yeah, or they're gonna be punished. Well, when they spoke with John further, he told them that they actually hadn't seen Burt in three months, just like Judy. Luckily, John and Judy had been in touch about this, with John telling her that Dorothea had been digging holes

in her backyard. John is letting it out. This just reminds me of a scene from the movie, sorry, the movie. The movie, the burbs, you know how the late at night they see somebody digging holes in the backyard. It's just got to be something similar to that, you know? Yeah, and honestly amazing that he told Judy, he feels like Judy is a person he can trust. He cares about Burt as well and just also is noticing that something isn't right.

Yeah, something is definitely not right here. So wondering if Dorothea was lying, considering that she did have a lengthy criminal history, detectives obtained a search warrant for the house, which yielded a myriad of pills and medicines, empty pill casings, and a book on prescription drugs, as well as identification from someone named Dorothy Miller. But then, something really disturbing happened. In one spare bedroom near the kitchen, the room's bed sat atop two throw rugs. Pulling back the carpet, Detective John Cabrera was overwhelmed with the smell of decay.

Soaked into the rotting wooden floor was fluids seemingly from a dead body, which formed the shape of a person lying in the fetal position. Oh my god. So creepy. So there's obviously no body here, but there is the clear shape of a body along with these fluids as though a dead body had been lying there for a while. And it's so disgusting because the tenants had actually been complaining about this smell in the past, but Dorothea just blamed the faulty water pipes, and she even called somebody out to come to the house and check on it and in reality this is where that smell came from.

And when we talk about these fluids and stuff like if anybody has ever seen photos of where a person's body has been lying like if they've been lying there for a week or two or however long, usually there's like an outline. Like you can really see the outline of where that person's decaying body was. It's horrific. Which is very, very horrifying. But imagine stumbling upon that. Yeah, and especially knowing that they're looking

for a missing person, they're saying, was this, or they're thinking like, was this Bert's body? Where is it now? Like what is going on? So upon finding this, they knew that somewhere, hidden somewhere, had to be the body that previously was in that spot. And again, they don't know if it's birds or if it's somebody else's. Yeah, but they know it's somebody's, you know? So acting on this, along with a tip from Judy

about the large mounds of dirt in the yard, Detective John Cabrera asked Dorothea if they could dig in her yard, to which she actually agreed. She said, yeah, I got nothing to hide. And to their shock, during the dig, the detective started pulling up pieces of fabric that looked like rotting, tattered pieces of clothing, as well as pieces, this is so horrific, of what appeared to be tarnished leather, which was tough to the touch.

I'm sure you can already tell where this is going. Detective Cabrera then came across what he thought was the root of a tree, but when he was able to wrench it free from the soil, he realized in horror that it was actually a human femur bone. Meaning the pieces of what he thought were leather had actually been skin.

Oh god, it's so... We keep saying it's horrifying, but it is! It's horrifying! Yeah, and you can imagine that they expected to find something like this, but actually finding it is just a whole other thing. But here's the other thing, the other other thing. Obviously they had been looking for Burt. So for like a split second there, they're like, this has to be Burt. But they knew very quickly that it couldn't be because the remains were just

clearly too old. Burt had only been missing for three months. These remains seemed far older than that. This body was severely decomposed. So who else was buried back there? Well, officers combed the records of her tenants, comparing them against the records of social workers and nursing homes in the area who had sent patients to live with her.

And they were able to account for all but 13 names. and nursing homes in the area who had sent patients to live with her. And they were able to account for all but 13 names. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of missing people. Meanwhile, John Cabrera brought Dorothea in for questioning, and he recalls her demeanor as cold, calculated, and emotionless as he asked her about what the hell was going on at her house. John remembered, quote, I started working her, but all along she was working me.

She was tough. She never blinked. She never broke a sweat across the table. Dorothea maintained, quote, I haven't killed anyone. My conscience is not bothering me, so I have nothing to hide. I'm an old lady. I couldn't drag a body any place." But she really wasn't an old lady because the detective found out that she was only 59, despite looking much older and telling everybody else that she was in her 70s. And this is such a weird thing. You've seen pictures of her, of course.

Yeah, of course. She looks a lot older than 59. Yes, she definitely does. And I think that was kind of part of the con as well. Yeah, I agree. And you know, I was thinking of the Golden Girls because like Betty White, for example, in season one of the Golden Girls was like 61 or something. But she, in my opinion, kind of looks more like what a woman in her maybe late 70s or

80s would look like, I guess, depending where you are in the world. But I just feel like maybe people used to look older. But she looked a lot older than she was. And I agree with you, I do think that made all the difference. And she was telling people that she was in her 70s, which is part of her con. Right. So why would they not believe her? I mean she had the the short curly gray hair and the glass, the thick glasses. Yeah. So again, very unassuming, but this is how she was getting away with all of this stuff. Well, when asked if there was any other bodies to be found,

Dorothea said no before catching herself and saying, quote, I didn't even know that one was there. And this is absolutely wild because the body found in her yard was not burnt and they didn't even know that one was there. And this is absolutely wild, because the body found in her yard was not Burt, and they didn't know who it was. So they just didn't have anything to hold Dorothea on. And her claims that she didn't know anything about the remains in her yard could very well be true. Yeah, like for all they knew,

somebody who lived there before her had buried somebody there, Which is a scary thought. That you can move into a house and who knows what is in the yard. Sure, and you know, because they really didn't have any physical evidence tying her to the bodies that were found in the backyard, she was released from questioning and she was allowed to return back to her home. Though an officer stood watch outside the house to make sure that she didn't attempt to flee in case she was actually lying to them. The following day, which was November 12th, word had spread around the neighborhood about

the discovery, and reporters had descended upon the house. As officials continued to dig up her yard, Dorothea requested to step out with one of her tenants, John McCauley, to meet her nephew down the street for a cup of coffee and settle her nerves. So, detectives obliged, and she headed just a block or so away to the Clarion Hotel. But John Cabrera's regret set in almost immediately, when just 21 minutes later, they pulled yet another body from the soil. And it only took that long for Dorothea Puente to vanish. As As soon as word broke of Dorothea's escape, the Sacramento Police Department was met with very harsh criticism for letting her leave the house, and the investigation they were running was torn to shreds.

Again, you know, they're thinking, she's just this old lady, she just wants to go get a cup of coffee, she's just this old lady. She just wants to go get a cup of coffee. She probably didn't do this. Yeah, I mean, come on, guys. Like they did. They took responsibility, yet they didn't. So basically, the lieutenant, who was Joe Enloe, kind of spoke in their defense at first and said, the woman was free to go.

She was not under arrest. We had no right to do that, which to be fair is true, but with what they knew about her, like you really got to keep tabs on her because, and they did acknowledge this because during a press conference on this matter, the chief of police, John Kearns, admitted that they made a grave mistake. He told the press, quote, the Sacramento Police Department made an error. She should have been followed.

She should have been tailed very closely. She's the prime suspect in a homicide case, and there isn't any excuses as far as I'm concerned. Good job, John. But now they have to really work hard to fix their mistakes, you know, so they're scouring flight logs and bus records to see if she fled the city. As officials continue to pull body parts from the dirt in her yard on F street. And word was spreading so fast with people obviously appalled at the findings.

You know, so many people in the area saying there's bodies being pulled from this yard, so like locals, people who lived in this area, were going to the house and scooping dirt from her front garden in hopes of finding things to sell off. I mean, that's extremely a scummy thing to do. It goes so much farther, though. There were vendors selling shirts featuring pictures of her.

Obviously, this didn't happen on day one, but, you know, as the search continued, like pictures of her holding a shovel and then yard signs read nightmare on F street. So people were like having fun with it, even though it was such a horrible thing that was happening. But it was such a shock. People couldn't believe the story.

It was like, it couldn't be real. This was a total media frenzy. And it reminds me of when Ted Bundy was put to death yeah there was people there was people outside the prison actually selling like Ted Bundy shirts of like him getting electrocuted or whatever the fuck yes I saw one of those on like eBay years ago yeah yeah when we were looking into this originally when we first found like like, they're out there. Well, as this search continued, finally they found Burt's body.

Police knew it was him immediately due to how tall and broad he was, and because his remains were the newest. His body had been tightly bound with a shower curtain, you know, like a page out of the psycho screenplay, and it was also accompanied with a blanket and a tarp. So she used three different materials to wrap Bird up and then buried him. Yeah, and she like sewed these things together so that they would stay, he would stay wrapped up in them. He sewed them shut, or she sewed them shut. Well, obviously, you know, you could see her being capable of sewing these materials together.

Yeah. But it's hard to believe that an older woman would be able to pull Bert's body to the backyard and bury him because he was such a large man. And John Cabrera was almost certain that she had help moving the bodies outside. However, one former tenant of 1426 F Street claimed that Dorothea was deceptively strong. She kept cement on hand to pour into the gardens over the bodies, and she told the residents

that it was to combat weed growth. But still, detectives questioned her friend and roommate, John McCauley, but he refused to offer up any information describing her as, quote, a nice lady, and saying that neither of them had anything to do with the remains being pulled from the dirt outside, even laughing in their faces. But John did seem like the most likely person here to help her, as he was the only one of her tenants whom Dorothea truly considered a friend and companion, and not, like, a responsibility.

She made the residents sleep on the main floor and kept the upstairs apartment for herself, but she shared that floor with John, who was in the adjacent room. However, unbeknownst to police at the time, he had been the one to help Dorothea escape. After arriving at the Clarion Hotel, the two hailed a cab and headed to a bar in West Sacramento, where Dorothea drowned her sorrows with multiple screwdrivers seated right next to John who was drinking a beer. I could so see her drinking a screwdriver. Yeah, absolutely.

She's like, well, I'm probably going to go to jail, but I'm going to down a bunch of screwdrivers first. But John actually didn't stay with her. They actually parted ways at the bar. And detectives lost track of Dorothea, but they received a tip from the taxi driver who believed that he had picked her up that day. He had taken her to a bar called Tiny's where she went inside to drink, making him wait outside before asking him to drive her to Stockton, about 50 miles or just over 80 kilometers

south of Sacramento, and he lost track of her after that. So as police are out there searching all over the state for her, they continued to find more remains in the backyard. Sadly, because she preyed on vulnerable individuals, most of them weren't even reported missing. Dorothea was collecting so many social security checks from her borders, both dead and alive, that she was raking in over $5,000 a month, or about $13,500 a month by today's standards. A few days into the search, a man came into the Los Angeles Police Department, which is hours south of Sacramento, to report a tip about Dorothea's whereabouts.

Charles Wilgus, who was a retired carpenter to whom Dorothea introduced herself as Dorothea's whereabouts. Charles Wilgus, who was a retired carpenter to whom Dorothea introduced herself as Dorothea Johanneson, remember that was her ex-husband's last name, met this fugitive at a bar in northwest Los Angeles. They made plans to meet up the next day, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen her somewhere before. Charles recalled that she had asked him very probing and personal questions about his finances and seemed especially interested in the status of his Social Security payments. Girl doesn't quit. She's going right in.

But he had actually been keeping tabs on the murder investigation in Sacramento. Remember, this is all in California, so it was really big news throughout the state and really just everywhere at this point. But he was becoming suspicious that this woman was the one that they were looking for. So he tipped police off about her lodging arrangements, which was room 31 at the Royal Viking Motel. On November 16th, 1988, police descended upon the motel, and Dorothea gave herself up immediately, though she was maintaining her innocence in the murders. While being flown back up north to Sacramento,

Dorothea said very little, but muttered to one reporter, quote, I have not killed anyone. The checks I cashed, yes, I used to be a very good person at one time. By the end of the investigation conducted at her home, there would be seven victims dug up from her yard and two more who were laid to rest elsewhere, bringing her grand total up to nine. 78-year-old Leona Carpenter's remains were the skin and femur bone that were pulled from Dorothea's yard first, and her remains later confirmed her identity via X-ray.

Now, after her identification, an obituary was printed on her behalf that stated, quote, There are no next of kin or friends in the Sacramento area. But, we dug up as much as we could about her life. According to the brief tribute about her that was released in the press, she was born on October 10th, 1908 in Iowa, to parents whose names were listed as W.A. Pousy and Ella McKee. But based on census records from 1910, their surname is actually Poush and not Pousy. Her birth year is listed as 1903, 1908, and 1909, but most of the records are consistent

with the 1908 date offered in her obituary. If we're to believe the media coverage released about her at the time, and this Leona is in fact the correct one, she was born and raised in Leon, Iowa, which is a town of fewer than 2,000 people near the border of Missouri. Leona married Rexford L. Carpenter after high school, but they split within two years. In her early twenties, she then began dating James Rose, a 20 years older divorcee, and they ran away together. But horrifically in 1931, while in Oakland, James tragically fell to his death from a

hotel window after drinking too much. And although Leona was briefly detained for possible involvement, she was released when his death was ruled accidental. She later moved to Sacramento and married a man named Teddy in 1943, but filed for divorce the next month due to, quote, extreme cruelty. After that, she never remarried and she never had children. But in 1978, she was listed as a long time friend in another man's obituary,

suggesting that they may have been in a relationship. Leona lived a very quiet life in Sacramento until her stint in Dorothea's home put her back in the news again. And as for how she got there, we know that in February of 1987, Leona was released to Dorothea's care after a hospital visit left her without anywhere else to go.

Like Heath just said, she didn't have any kids, she wasn't married, so she had nowhere to stay. And as we know, Dorothea really took in anybody that needed help. But I will say this was very short-lived because fellow tenants recall her staying on the couch for just two weeks, deteriorating and suffering quietly before she disappeared and was never heard from again. Her cause of death was a drug overdose so it seemed like she was drugged, she died,

and then she was buried in the backyard. Again, she was the first one that was found. And as you guys will see, as the rest of Dorothea's victims in this mass grave were identified, autopsies revealed that they had met similar fates. 78-year-old Betty Palmer was identified via her hip replacement, and she was the only victim recovered from the front yard and was the only one to have been dismembered as Dorothea had removed her head, hands and legs.

Tenants recall her being so sick when I say her I mean Betty Palmer and weak that she barely moved or spoke in her brief time at the boarding house. But when Betty was suddenly absent from the home, Dorothea claimed that Betty's daughter had come to pick her up. Meanwhile, she was buried in the front yard, so this is one of Dorothea's many, many lies. Another victim found in the yard was Dorothy Miller, which should sound familiar, I'll get into that soon, but she was just 65 at the time of her death and was an actual World

War II nurse who struggled with PTSD after what she experienced. She had been living with family in Texas previously, but her alcoholism, due to her severe PTSD, was just becoming too much of a challenge for them, and she was moved to a care facility for veterans right there in Texas, which is the last place her family saw her. So you can imagine their shock that the next thing they knew of her was that she was being pulled from a yard in Sacramento. But as for her absence at the boarding house, Dorothea told the other tenants that Dorothy Miller had been caught and arrested for shoplifting, and thus needed to find somewhere else to

live. So going back to why her name should sound familiar is because earlier Heath mentioned that an ID card for a Dorothy Miller was found inside the house. Maybe you thought that was like an alias for Dorothea, but this was hers. It was found in the house. So if Dorothea is saying that she shoplifted and was arrested and had to live somewhere else, why is she holding on to her identification? It's because Dorothea is the one that buried her in her own yard. Yep exactly and also I will add that Dorothea used Dorothy's ID many times after her death well the next victim 55 year old Benjamin Fink had been arrested previously and had fingerprints on file

So police were pretty easily able to confirm his identity after finding his remains in that backyard Like Dorothy Miller. He was a lifelong alcoholic still in the throes of his addiction when he arrived at the boarding house According to other residents he had been drunk and causing a ruckus one evening So Dorothea told everybody that she was gonna make him feel better and dragged him upstairs everybody that she was going to make him feel better, and dragged him upstairs. After that, he was just never seen again. Probably just gave him a pill. Yeah, exactly. Well, the next victim, 55-year-old James Gallop, was identified by brain surgery scars from

a recent surgery that he underwent to remove a brain tumor. And he was actually sent specifically to Dorothea's boarding house to recover from this surgery. Sadly, during his time at the house, he confided in another of the boarders that he was being pressured by Dorothea to sign over his social security checks, but that he didn't want to. That's so sad. I know, she's just taking advantage of everyone. James also complained that she was giving him too much medication and that it kept him

tired, docile and immobile, which we can imagine was obviously her goal. It's just so sad that so many of these people knew that she was doing something that they didn't like and were talking to each other about it and feeling scared of her. Well, right after he, uh, you know, mentioned this to another resident at the boarding house, he disappeared. Next, the murder of 64-year-old Vera Faye Martin is one of the most disturbing. Vera was moved there from a senior center and was last heard from in February of 1988. Her body was found beneath what was described as a pocket of air, which actually led investigators to believe that it's possible that she was buried alive.

Ugh. Because basically the writhing movements that she was making when she was underneath the soil formed what Detective Cabrera described as a bridge above her. Yeah, because if she had been buried, if she was dead, the soil would have just fallen in place and packed down. But because there was space in the soil, it made them believe that she was moving around. Yeah, oh my god. And inside her grave, her watch was still ticking.

The discovery of those seven victims was the end of the mass grave at the House of Horrors on F Street, though detectives also wondered if she had disposed of other bodies in a similar manner but just in a different location. All of Dorothea's victims were essentially shrouded in pajamas, you know, either boxers or a nightgown, and wrapped intricately with sheets, towels, blankets, tarps, or shower curtains, and tightly sewn or taped into their wrappings. So, Detective Cabrera issued a BOLO for any unidentified remains that were found in the area and were disposed of in a similar manner.

And guess what? There was one record that matched. A John Doe whose body had been discarded on the side of the road in a wooden box. Dental records were able to confirm that the remains belonged to a man named Everson T. Gilmuth. Everson had actually been Dorothea's prison pen pal when she was serving for three years for the four people she drugged and robbed. He had been a lonely man in his 70s who was living in a trailer behind his truck and took to exchanging letters with imprisoned women. He and Dorothea hit it off and when she was released from prison he actually moved in with her, settling in her home right there on F Street. After this unofficial union in 1985, Dorothea began exchanging letters with his family who were calling and writing

in hopes of reaching, of course, Everson. But identifying herself as Irene, Dorothea wrote to his family that they had gotten married and described herself as an elderly woman with three grown kids who was deeply in love with Everson, which is not what is going on here. But when his family tried to reach him, Dorothea would write that they were traveling or that Everson had tried to call them and hadn't gotten through, always promising to follow up with them later, though of course, he was never able to do so. The next year in 1986, the Office of Social Security Administration received a letter

supposedly from Everson, but it was written in Dorothea's handwriting, demanding payments on lapped social security checks. And get this, detectives managed to speak with Dorothea's handyman, whose name was Ishmael Flores, who claimed that he had built a wooden box for Dorothea, supposedly to store some items. And after filling and sealing the box herself, she asked him to help her move it. He remembers it being far heavier than he thought it was going to be, unaware of its true contents, which if you can't guess, it is Everson's body.

Together, Dorothea drove them to dispose of it and directed him to leave it on the riverside where it was later found. She even later offered to let him buy Everson's truck from her, very well knowing that he wouldn't be coming back to drive it. Dorothea's first victim, taken before she served her three-year prison stint, is believed to be Ruth Monroe, who died in 1982 at the age of 61. Dorothea knew Ruth's husband Harold through working at a club, and as Ruth and Dorothea became friends, they decided to go in on a joint business venture, opening the

Round Corner Tavern in Midtown Sacramento in late 1981. But the restaurant wound up being a money pit and closed even after Ruth sunk her entire life savings into it, allowing Dorothea to handle the financial side of the operation. When Harold was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ruth was lost, and Dorothea, being a warm and beloved friend of hers, offered to let her stay at her boarding house. And they were so close that Ruth's kids even called Dorothea Grandma. But to the shock of nobody listening to this episode right now Ruth's health declined drastically after beginning her stay with Dorothea

So Ruth's son William who stopped in on Ruth regularly Visited her one night after work and Dorothea discouraged him from going into Ruth's room to see her telling him that she was ill But he insisted upon checking on his mom anyway. I mean yeah, it's his mom. Of course he's gonna go see her. Yeah, that's exactly what he's there for. He's gonna see his mom. Especially if she is ill.

He's like, okay, well let me go see how she's doing. Well William remembers that his mother was so weak that she couldn't move or even speak. And when he sat next to her on the bed telling her that she would be okay, that Dorothea was taking care of her, and that he would see her tomorrow, he recalled seeing a tear run down her cheek, which is just so heartbreaking. Because you can only imagine what was inside her head

that she couldn't relay because she couldn't move, she couldn't speak, so maybe the tear rolled down. I mean, it could be just as simple as she was feeling so ill, she knew she was at the end and she was sad that this was maybe one of the last times she was going to see her son. Or on the flip side, it could be she can't ask for help, but she wants to because she knows what Dorothea is doing to her. I know that we bring up movies a lot in this show, but if you guys have seen the movie

What Lies Beneath, when like Michelle Pfeiffer is, she's paralyzed, she's in the bathtub, and she can't move or do anything and you just see that single tear run down her cheek. Exactly. This is giving me that same vibe. Yeah, like all the emotion and the thought behind that tear when you cannot say a thing. Well, after William saw this this tear run down his mother's cheek and he left for the night, early the next morning around 5 30 a.m. Dorothea called Ruth's daughter to tell her that their mother had passed away.

Through tears, she said that it had been a suicide, to the great shock of Ruth's close family and friends. Yeah, not a fucking chance. Yeah, I mean it was it was pretty clear at this point that Dorothea had to have done something to her. So with their suspicions growing, the family ordered an autopsy, which found acetaminophen and a lethal level of codeine in her system. So the family was obviously suspicious, and to heighten this suspicion, after Ruth's memorial service, Dorothea drained what was left of the bank account.

There's her motive right there. Exactly, and that's always kind of been her motive, is just money, right? But even considering how close she was with Ruth, they were such good friends. Ruth's children refer to her as Grandma, and you're just killing her like it doesn't mean a thing? Well, as we talked about in this episode, Dorothea is just very cold, you know? She doesn't have any emotions. No remorse. No remorse at all.

Well, months later, in the summer of 1982, William and his siblings discovered that Dorothea had been arrested on theft and drug charges relating to four other elderly people, so with that, they brought their suspicions to police. But without enough evidence against Dorothea, the case did not move forward. William said frustratingly, quote, If she had been held accountable for murdering my mother, then maybe there wouldn't have been any other victims. The Sacramento Police Department reopened this case after her 1988 arrest,

and Ruth officially became Dorothea's ninth victim. Which is just so devastating that she was eventually considered one. But yeah, William is completely right here. If she had been considered a victim years earlier when it happened, the other people wouldn't have died because Dorothea would have been in prison. And again, you know, this is exactly how she does it. This is how she's able to manipulate people because I'm sure back then in 1982

You know that they're seeing her again as this Unassuming older woman. She has a boarding house. Of course. She she couldn't do anything like that, but she had a criminal record That's what's so annoying about it. If she didn't have a criminal record. I could understand that maybe it's like oh well Yeah, I don't know if that's true, but she had a criminal record She literally was held accountable for so many horrific things up to this point. Yeah, and I think that's exactly where police dropped the ball. They just didn't really look into it. Well, Dorothea's trial commenced in 1992

when she was 63 years old. And again, we will post photos, and you're gonna agree with us that she looks so much older than that. She'd be looking like 85. Truly. So most of her victims were found to have florazepam, which is like a sleep inducing sedative in their system,

and had even ingested the drug within an hour of their deaths. As for the motive, obviously we all know it, it was very simple. Dorothea continued to receive their social security benefits long after their death. She just wanted the cash. But I also, in my opinion, I think that was such a motivating factor, of course, but obviously

she has no problem with violence. So maybe she enjoys the violence, you know, because if she just wanted money, I don't see her murdering people just for that. There are other ways to get money from people that does not involve dismembering them, moving their bodies, wrapping them up, burying them. She went to great lengths. And this also goes back to the fact that she might have had some sort of narcissistic type of personality where, because when we talked about the fact that she had all these stories about John F Kennedy and how I was a rock hat and blah blah blah, you know, clearly

She's a liar and she wants people to think highly of her right? So, you know that kind of coincides with the fact that she didn't think she was gonna get caught Yeah, she thought that she was sly enough that she could you know Kind of pull this ruse over everybody's eyes or pull the wool over everybody's eyes and that she would never get caught because she was narcissistic. Yeah, maybe partially like a status thing. So to the frustration of the court, one juror was the holdout and could not contend that all of the murders were intentional even if the robbery element was so there was literally just one guy on the jury who was Like you know I don't think she could have done all this but everybody else was like come on She manipulated you too my guy

Exactly, so despite the fact again that the other eleven jurors were very much in agreement this one that the other 11 jurors were very much in agreement, this one refused. But finally, after 24 days, they returned the verdict of guilty in three of the murder counts. For Leona Carpenter, Benjamin Fink, and Dorothy Miller. Yet, they were deadlocked on the other six because of this one juror.

Well, at least for those three, Dorothea was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So it's like, she's not getting out anyway, but it's also, that's not what it's all about. It's about these other families getting the closure that they need to say, yes, the law says that she did this to my loved one.

And they didn't get that because of this one fucking juror. Yeah, there should be justice for everybody in every case. And I think we said this earlier, but um, Dorothea conducted very few interviews before and after her conviction and she declined to testify on her own behalf to make a statement in court because she maintained her innocence until the end. She said I didn't do any of this except I did try to take

their money and I did take their money, but I did not kill them. But in one of the last and only interviews that she granted just two years before she died, she said quote, I'm not guilty. They don't have all the facts which to me I'm like, so you're saying that you took these people's money and someone else Murdered them and buried them in your backyard without you knowing about it. Yeah, no get real girl There's not a chance

Dorothea died on March 27th 2011 at the age of 82 while still imprisoned in Chowchilla, California. The neighborhood wanted to have her house torn down, but because it's a historic property, the city barred it from doing so. Thus, it has turned into a place that has hosted various tours, though it's now someone's home, constantly reminding the neighborhood what happened behind its walls. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this Granny Killer episode. If you want to see photos from this case and all the other cases that we've covered on

this show, head on over to our socials. We're on Instagram at going west podcast. We're also on Facebook. There's actually a lot of really interesting photos associated with this case, not only of her. Sadly, there's really not a ton of the victims themselves, but there's a like, you know, them digging in her backyard and her house and there are a lot of photos available for this story, which I feel like is not typically the case.

So yeah, check them out. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. What a wild fricking tale. Yes, absolutely crazy episode. Thank you guys again for tuning in and we will see you on Friday All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world don't be a stranger the the the

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