Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Victims of Dorothea Puente

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

In the mid 1980s a nightmarish story swept the nation. One man’s disappearance in Sacramento, California, led officials to investigate a boarding house with a sinister past…and horrifying secrets buried beneath its garden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of murder and mutilation. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. A note before we begin, though today's story is true, certain moments have been fictionalized and dramatized by actors. In 1980s, Sacramento, California saw booming prosperity. people flooded in to take part in the thriving economy. But in the eyes of many, there was one ugly mark on the otherwise glowing city, the unhoused population. An incredible number of people called the streets of Sacramento home.

This was partly because California had significantly reduced the budget for social programs, including state-funded mental health institutions. So these people often had nowhere else to go. But rather than lend a hand, many locals prefer to ignore the crisis. When they came across an unhoused person, they averted their eyes, walked faster, and continued to enjoy Sacramento's golden age. Perhaps that's why nobody noticed when in the mid-80s those on the fringes started to go missing. One by one, it was like people vanished into thin air.

With no one to report them missing, the unhoused proved to be the perfect victims for an unlikely killer. Welcome to Solved Murder's True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm your host Carter Roy. And I'm your host Wendy McKenzie. Every Wednesday we step into the world of true crime's most fascinating murder cases and tell the tale of how real-life detectives close the case. You can find episodes of solved murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free exclusively on Spotify. This is our episode on the victims of Dorothea Puente, a nightmarish story that swept the nation in the 1980s. We'll explore how one man's disappearance led officials to investigate a boarding house in Sacramento.

We'll uncover the house's sinister past and dig up a horrifying truth beneath a guard. Garden of Rosebushes. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. One day in late September, 1988, Judy Moise hung up the phone feeling uneasy. She hadn't heard from Bert Montoya in a few weeks. And as his social worker,

she considered the 52-year-old her responsibility. This was the second time she'd called in to check on him with no success. Judy, also around 50 years old, first met Bert through her job at the Volunteers of America Detoxification Center, or Detox for short. His birth name was Alvaro Gonzalez Montoya, and he was born in Costa Rica. When he was 16, Bert moved with his family to the southern United States. Around the same time, he began hearing voices and experiencing intense paranoia and delusions. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Overwhelmed, Bert's parents put him in a mental institution where he received shock therapy and medications that made him sick. When he got out, Bert went as far away as he could. He left the South and made his way to Sacramento. And there, he mostly lived on the streets until he met Judy. Bert's gentle manner stood out to her, and his story broke her heart. For the next few years, Judy supported him in very long. ways. Then, in 1988, she managed to pull some strings to get him into a boarding house. Finally, after decades on the streets, Bert would have some stability in his life.

The room she found for him was at a well-reputed home in Central Sacramento. It was located at 1426F Street and run by a 59-year-old woman named Dorothea, Puente. Dorothea was well known to the local social services. She had a reputation for accepting people nobody else wanted to take care of, the mentally ill, people suffering from alcoholism and addiction, and those with other serious health issues. But she didn't just take care of her tenants. She was also a beloved figure in the community.

Judy learned that Dorothea was active in local politics and donated to charities. She often gave away bundles of clothes and cooked free meals for the unhoused. Needless to say, Judy felt like they'd hit the jackpot. Dorothea's would be the perfect place for Bert. And when they visited the house, she was only more impressed. The building was a lovely historical home with light blue panels, white decorative trim, and a large inviting porch. The tenants seemed happy and well taken care of.

Judy even ran into a former client, a man named John Sharp. John said he liked living there. It was more than a shelter. It was a home. Dorothea herself was a sweet, grandmotherly figure who spoke to Bert in soft Spanish. Dorothea gave him and Judy a tour of the house. We imagine this is how it went. Entra, enter, for favor.

This will be your room. I hope you like it. Here is your bed and your TV and chair. Tell me, te gusts los burritos. I make burritos once a week. Now, to business. Judy tells me you plan on paying rent with your social security checks. Do you have someone who could receive the check on your behalf?

If not, I am the payee for several tenants and would be happy to assist you as well, whatever you need. In February of 1988, Bert moved in. It was everything Judy had hoped for. Over the next several months when she came to visit, Bert was always bathed, well-groomed even. He looked like he was improving. But by September, seven months after Bert moved in,

Judy hadn't heard from him in a while. She called to check on him and he wasn't there. Instead, Dorothea gave her some unusual news. Her family in Mexico was hosting Bert for a vacation. This shocked Judy. Bert was uncomfortable navigating Sacramento. She couldn't imagine him in a new country. It didn't sound like something he would do.

Dorothea assured Judy that he would be back home in a few days. But when Judy called back later that month, Dorothea said he was still traveling. It went on like this for weeks. Judy found Dorothea's lack of concern, suspicious. She started to believe that Bert had somehow gotten lost or hurt in Mexico, and now Dorothea was trying to cover up her mistake. So Judy made it clear if she didn't hear from Bert by November 7th, she would call the police.

Judy received a call at her office from a man who identified himself as one of Bert's family members. He said that he'd been trying to get a hold of Bert for a while, and after he'd found him, he took him back to his home in Utah. Judy didn't believe this for a second, but she didn't trust Dorothea to tell her the truth. So she contacted John Sharp, the other tenant she knew staying at Dorothea's. John said that Bert didn't live at the house anymore, but that as far as he knew, none of the tenants had gone to Mexico. Worried, Judy asked if everything in the house was okay.

John paused, then replied, She's been digging a lot of holes. Judy wasted no time. She called the Sacramento Police Department and filed a missing person report on Bert Montoya. Within a few hours, a patrol officer drove to 1426F Street. Dorothea took him on a tour of the house, including the Immaculate Backyard Garden.

John Sharp happened to accompany them, and soon the officer began asking questions. Based on our research, here's how that conversation may have played out. Is it normal for a tenant to leave so abruptly? They can come and go as they please. If Bert wants to be with his family, he's free to do that. I just wish I could have said goodbye. I was gone when they came to pick him up.

And John, were you here when Bert left? Yes. It all happened just like Dorothea said. All right. I'll reach out if I have any more questions. What's the... Thank you for coming, sir. It was nice talking to you.

Just as the officer was leaving, John Sharp slipped him a piece of paper. On a crumpled envelope in simple cursive, a message read, She wants me to lie to you. Coming up, Sacramento Police exhumed. Dorothea's past. And now, back to our story. After an officer received a secret note from Dorothea Puente's tenant, John Sharp, police realized there was something very wrong happening at 1426F

F Street. If John was telling the truth, Dorothea was lying to them about what really happened to Bert Montoya, and she was forcing her tenants to lie too. The Sacramento police sprung into action. Within a couple of days, Bert's case was assigned to Detective John Cabrera. As Cabrera read into Dorothea Puente's history, he quickly learned the elderly landlady was far from innocent. Dorothea Helen Gray was born in Redlands, California in 1929. Her early life was turbulent, marked by family hardships, abuse, and eventually a few rocky marriages. But at some point in that chaos, Dorothea turned to crime. In 1960, an undercover cop busted her for working in a Sacramento brothel

and threw her in a county jail for 90 days. She was 31 and in the middle of her second marriage. Six years later, she married her third husband and took the last name Huente. Like with her other marriages, Dorothea quickly moved on. But around 1968, before the relationship ended in divorce, she opened her first boarding house. She advertised it as a refuge for the less fortunate. The 40-year-old took in clients that other houses turned away, people with severe mental illnesses and problems with drugs and alcohol. Often, they had nobody looking after them,

and Dorothea used this to her advantage. Many of her tenants received social security checks. As their caregiver, Dorothea was often the payee for this money, which meant she could claim the checks. But even in cases when Dorothea wasn't the payee, she often stole the checks, forging her tenant's signatures and then signing the money over to herself. For about a decade, Dorothea thrived off this type of scam,

but in order to sustain it, she had to protect her image. She did this by donating to charities and political campaigns. Eventually, her reputation as an advocate for the less fortunate took off. She got invitations to gala's and dinners. According to Dorothea, she met governors, U.S. senators, and movie stars. Perhaps to fit in among the social elite, Dorothea often invented far-fetched glamorous stories about her past.

stories that probably sounded something like this. I first joined the Radio City Rockheads when I was 19. Didn't have a lick of dancing experience before that. A Talon Scout saw me while I was shopping at a department store. Years later, I met John Kennedy and Jackie O. I ran into them while out with Rita Hayworth. Dorothea lived this way for years, but it couldn't last forever. In 1978, her scam was exposed when,

one of her former tenants realized his social security checks were still being sent to the boarding house. And much to his shock, Dorothea had faked his signature and cashed them. 49-year-old Dorothea was arrested and convicted of forging checks. But somehow she didn't earn any jail time. Instead, she received five years of federal probation. She was barred from ever running a boarding house again and from working with the mentally ill and elderly, but Dorothea wasn't one to take orders. According to author William Wood, the deputy DA who prosecuted Dorothea Puente in 1982 and later wrote a book about her, Dorothea completely ignored her parole.

Not long after receiving probation, she began working as an in-home caregiver. It was around this time that she tried out a new image. She started wearing pattern dresses and giant Coke bottle glasses. She even told her clients she was 10 to 15 years older than she actually was. Essentially, she was trying to appear harmless. The more Dorothea looked apart of a sweet old lady, the more people trusted her. She also used her last name in basic knowledge of Spanish to target Spanish-speaking people. But maybe her most unsettling lie was that she told her clients she was a medical professional.

During this time, Dorothea started to pump her patients with medicine they didn't need. She gave at least three women tranquilizers and robbed them while they were unconscious. Over the next few years, Dorothea stole jewelry, money, and checks from her clients. As far as we know, this was when she first, began to physically endanger her victims. And once she started, it's possible there was nothing else holding her back. Shortly after 1979, Dorothea began living at 1426F Street. She was instantly enchanted by the historic home.

And because one of her close friends owned the building, she was able to rent the entire second floor. By all appearances, things seem to be turning around for Dorothea. At some point after moving in, she met 61-year-old Ruth Monroe. The pair quickly became friends. After a few months, they decided to start something resembling a catering business together. In the hopes of opening their own restaurant one day, they created a joint bank account. However, in 1982, their plans were interrupted when Ruth's husband fell ill.

Based on our research, this is what we think may have happened. I know. It's horrible timing, and I'm sorry, but I simply can't put any more money into the business. With Howard's hospital bills, I'm running out of options. Nonsense. This is our dream. We'll make it work. What if you moved in with me? Think of how much you'd save. Really? That sounds perfect. Ruth's children who knew Dorothea well supported the decision, and in April of 1982, they helped their mother move into 1426 F Street.

If anything, they were grateful to Dorothea, it was clear how much she cared about their mom. Unfortunately, they weren't able to see the full picture. Ruthie, dear, you look exhausted. Here, I fixed this up for you. Sweetie, you know I don't drink. Yes, but, crim de ment soothes the stomach and the nukes. nerves. Trust me, with everything going on, this little home remedy will fix you right up.

Well, okay. Thank you, Dorothea. I don't know what I'd do without you. Oh, stop your flattery and drink up. Also, I've been meaning to ask, did your bank transfer go through? When Ruth's son came to check on her a week or so after her move in, he was surprised to see his mother drinking. But when she explained that it was just one of Dorothea's remedies, he relaxed. The family trusted Dorothea, especially because she had told them she was a nurse. However, soon Ruth started to feel ill, and it was clear that it was no common cold. She seemed to get worse each day. Eventually, all she could do was lay still, eyes wide open, saying nothing. Nobody understood what was happening, but Dorothea insisted every day. She said everything was under control. Sometimes she didn't even allow anyone to see Ruth because she was

resting. Then on April 28th, Dorothea summoned the kids back to the house with terrible news. Ruth had died. She asked them to come collect her things, which only consisted of an empty purse. Her money and jewelry were nowhere to be found. Ruth's family was devastated by the sudden loss. Less than a month ago, she'd been fine. They waited anxiously for the coroner's report, and when they got the results, they were shocked. Officials declared Ruth's death a suicide. They said that she passed away due to an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen.

It didn't make any sense to the family. It was all they could do to mourn together, but after the funeral, their grief turned into suspicion. While going through Ruth's finances, they remembered that she'd shared a checking account with Dorothea. They did some digging and discovered that the account had been completely cleared out. Thousands of dollars vanished. Some of Ruth's family considered the possibility that Dorothea had murdered Ruth for the money. But Dorothea was her best friend.

The idea seemed unbelievable, impossible even. At least until a couple of months later, when Dorothy's scandal came to light. In January of 1982, just months before Ruth moved in, 74-year-old Malcolm McKinsey was sitting at a bar in Sacramento. There he struck up a conversation with another customer, a woman who appeared to be around his age. After two drinks, Malcolm invited her over to his house. The woman accepted his invitation.

Once they got home, however, Malcolm started to feel strange. He laid down, and that's when sudden paralysis overtook him. Malcolm realized the woman had slipped him something. Immobile, he watched her walk around his house, pocketing whatever cash and blank check she could find. Finally, the woman shuffled over to him and removed the pinky ring from his finger. Then she disappeared into the night. Several hours later, Malcolm was able to move again.

He slowly got up and dialed the police. Apparently, Dorothea had given him her real name and left enough clues behind for officers to track her down. Dorothea was arrested and later released while the prosecution built a case against her. It's unclear if Ruth or her kids knew about the charges against Dorothea, but if they didn't then, they certainly did once the case. case went to trial. In July of 1982, three months after Ruth's death, Dorothea pleaded guilty to five felonies,

including illegally administering a controlled substance, grand theft, and forgery. Apparently, while investigating one crime, the prosecution had found a slew of others. The case was so big it made the news. It didn't take long for Ruth's family to find out. They felt a new sense of shock and betrayal as they recalled how Dorothea had given their mother medical care and insisted on serving her cremned menf. Their suspicions that Dorothea had poisoned Ruth were gaining credibility. The family took their theory to the police, but Sacramento's criminology lab wasn't advanced enough to analyze Ruth's body in 1982. And so her death legally remained a suicide case.

Dorothea had dodged a murder charge, but she hadn't avoided prison. She was sentenced to five years at the California Institution for Women in Corona. But after only three years, she was released on parole for good behavior. In 1985, Dorothea went home to 1426 F Street, but not without a dark cloud surrounding her. A state psychologist warned her parole officers, quote, This woman does not appear to have remorse or regret for what she has done. She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and or employment should be closely monitored. The state did monitor Dorothea.

On 14 different occasions they visited her at 1426F Street, still no one seemed to realize she'd reopened her boarding home. It's unclear whether the 57-year-old reached an arrangement with the friend she'd been renting the second floor from, or if she simply didn't tell him what she was doing. While she lived upstairs, several people lived on the first floor. Just over two years after Dorothea returned, Bert Montoya became one of those residents. This brings us back to Detective John Cabrera. It's hard to know exactly what he felt after Lerre. learning about Dorothea's past.

She was an expert con woman and a dangerous one at that. It seemed clear that she had something to do with Bert's disappearance. Especially when Cabrera learned that Bert wasn't the first of her tenants to vanish. At some point in his investigation, he discovered that a man named Benjamin Fink went missing a few months before Bert had. Apparently, Dorothea had nursed the man back to hell. after a bender and then he just disappeared. Cabrera was stunned. They weren't dealing with just one missing person's case. Now there were two. It was time to take

action. On November 11th, 1988, Cabrera, another detective and Jim Wilson, Dorothea's parole officer, knocked on the door of 1426 F Street. Dorothea answered, smiling. She welcomed them in. D'Ethia stuck with her original story about Burt's vacation in Mexico. She also admitted that Benjamin Fink was a tenant, but she claimed that she threw him out for getting too drunk and hadn't seen him since. With Dorothea's permission, the detectives searched the house.

Their first red flag was a massive amount of blue pill capsules found all over the home. A closer look revealed it was a mix of diazepam and florazepam. Diasapam is a depressant, often used for anxiety disorders. Fluorazepam is typically used to treat insomnia. Cabrera also found white powder lye around the house. Lye is most often used to cure meat, make soaps, and in some cases, digest the tissue of animal carcasses. Of course, one could use the substance on human tissue as well.

Cabrera felt that something was seriously wrong. and there was still one more place he wanted to check. Before coming to the house, Cabrera had spoken with Judy Moise, Bert Montoya's social worker. Judy told Cabrera the ominous detail John Sharp had relayed to her, that lately Dorothea had been digging a lot of holes in her garden. When Cabrera told Judy he was going to search the house, she had a piece of advice for the detective, bring shovels. Oddly, Dorothea gave the detectives her full permission to dig up the backyard.

Cabrera and the others got to work. They picked a spot and started digging. The whole time, Cabrera was aware of Dorothea's gaze watching him from the second floor balcony. As he dug deeper, Cabrera found pieces of torn pink cloth. After a few more inches, he discovered large chunks of what seemed to be leather. He set everything aside. Then the detective shovel clanged against something hard. He tried to dig around it, but he couldn't free whatever it was.

He set his shovel aside and jumped into the hole. Then he gripped the item and yanked. The object gave way and Cabrera stared in horror. He was holding a human femur bone. He realized then the pieces of leather he'd found. were human skin. Coming up, a nationwide manhunt for the world's most terrifying landlady. And now, back to our story.

On November 11, 1988, Detective John Cabrera followed Bert Montoya's missing person case to the Garden of 1426F Street, where he uncovered human remains. He believed they belong to Bert Montoya. 59-year-old Dorothea Puente insisted she had no idea that there was a body in her backyard. Still, Cabrera took the landlady into the station for questioning. Under interrogation, Dorothea maintained her alibi. But something bothered Cabrera. She showed almost no emotion during the interview.

He tried to get her flustered to trip up her story, but she remained cold and collected. Cabrera could at least rely on the fact that the coroner was examining the remains. However, this only led to more questions. Bert was a man of large stature. He'd usually tower over those around him, but the corpse found in Dorothea's garden was small, much smaller than Bert. Not to mention, the body was fairly decomposed. After a quick examination, the coroner ruled that his coroner ruled that his body was fairly decomposed.

It had been buried at least several months before Bert went missing. Cabrera and the other detectives wondered if the person could be another one of Dorothea's tenants, Benjamin Fink. Benjamin hadn't technically been reported missing, but Cabrera knew he'd vanished suddenly. But the state of the body didn't match Benjamin either. After further inspection, it appeared to be a petite, gray-haired woman. Dorothea had only lived in the house for a few years.

She pointed out that it was possible that someone else disposed of the corpse before she got there. With evidence still lacking, Cabrera allowed Dorothea to go home. And perhaps to show her full cooperation, she gave him permission to dig up the rest of her yard. The next day on November 12, 1988, people gathered outside of 1426. F Street, neighbors watched curious about the yellow caution tape and the authorities swarming the house. News reporters were already on the scene, but with so few answers, they could do nothing but wait. Cabrera had returned with about 20 more officials. While some dismantled the small gazebo and metal toolshed, everyone else got to work with shovels and back hose. It was time to see if

anything else was buried in Dorothea Puente's garden. Dorothea and her tenants all remained inside. It wasn't until mid-morning that she stepped out to ask Cabrera if she could go get a coffee at the hotel down the block. Her nephew worked there and she wanted to get away from the noise. At first, Cabrera wasn't sure. It felt strange to let her leave in the midst of everything. But then Dorothea asked in point blank,

am I under arrest? She wasn't, which meant it was illegal to detain her in any way. Cabrera relented and even walked the landlady over to the hotel. He watched her go inside, then he headed back to the house. Some time later there was a shout from the back left corner of the yard. Cabrera ran over and stood at the edge of a hole. 18 inches below the dirt, a human corpse, lay in the fetal position swaddled in cloth. The body was sprinkled with white-powered lie.

Cabrera's commanding officer looked at him and said, where's Dorothea? The detective likely felt his heart dropped to his stomach. He took off toward the hotel, but when he arrived, she was nowhere to be seen. It seemed Dorothea had decided to make a run for it. unbeknownst to the authorities, Dorothea had taken a cab to a bar in Sacramento with one of her tenants. After a drink, she took another cab to Stockton, where she got on a bus to Los Angeles. From there, she could travel practically anywhere. Sacramento officials put out the word for the missing landlady. Dorothea's innocent-looking face filled TV screens across the country.

Breaking news this evening as the prime suspect in a multi-homicide case, goes missing. Fifty-nine-year-old Sacramento resident Dorothea Puente has fled the city and is at large. Authorities fear that she may have already fled to Mexico. Within 24 hours of discovering the second body, police orchestrated an international manhunt for Dorothea. Meanwhile, there was still a lot of ground to cover in the backyard. Shortly after the second body was exhumed, officials found a third. This person was very tall and weighed over 200 pounds and didn't appear as decomposed as the first body. Cabrera knew instinctively what the coroners would later prove. They finally found Bert Montoya.

Judy Moyes was devastated. Over the course of the investigation, officials learned that Bert's experience in Dorothea's house was not the paradise that Judy believed it was. Apparently in August of that year, Bert showed up at detox looking for help. He claimed Dorothea had been mean to him and he wanted to leave. But with nowhere else to house him, detox officials simply drove Bert back. He vanished a few weeks later. We don't know if Judy was involved in that decision, but it likely haunted her all the same. She thought she'd finally found Bert a home, a fresh start.

But at Dorothea's, he only experienced more suffering. But if it hadn't been for Judy's persistence, he may have never been found. Perhaps none of them would. And tragically, Bert wasn't the last victim discovered at 1426 F Street. Over the next few days, officials recovered four more bodies from Dorothy. Thea's property. In the end, there were seven in total. The corpses were in various states of decay, so it took a long time to identify them. But eventually, authorities were able to put names to the unknown victims. There was 55-year-old Benjamin Fink.

64-year-old Dorothy Miller. Seventy-year-old Leona Carpenters. 78-year-old Betty Palmer. 62-year-old James Gallup and 64-year-old Vera Faye Martin. Every single person had lived at Dorothea's boarding house, and records showed that Dorothea was still collecting most, if not all, of their social security checks. As for the cause of death, the coroners struggled to reach a definitive answer. Experts tested the bodies and found that each one contained a variety of anti-convulsives.

antidepressants, antipsychotics, painkillers, and tranquilizers. But in all of them, they found traces of florazepam. One of the blue pills police found scattered in Dorothea's home. However, it was impossible to test how much florazepam was in the bodies. Officials couldn't say if they ingested a lethal dose or simply took the medicine to fall asleep and died of other causes. Cabrera did find another troubling piece of evidence in the house. After carefully going back through each room,

the detective realized the carpet of one room was more padded than the others, almost spongy. Cabrera found the room had several layers of carpeting. The more material he pulled up, the more a horrible stench filled the air. When he got to the hardwood, he found giant ominous stains, the undeniable traces of putrified body fluids. It seemed Cabrera found where Dorothea killed her victims,

or at least prepared them for burial. But while detectives uncovered each nightmarish piece of Dorothea's crimes, the landlady herself was nowhere to be found. For several days, the media splashed pictures of her name and face everywhere. Still, officials feared she'd taken off to Mexico. Mexico, or somewhere else, they may never find her. But in the early hours of November 17th, just five days after she vanished, detectives discovered that she hadn't fled.

Not exactly. In fact, she was hiding in plain sight, still running her cons. The previous night on November 16th, Dorothea Puente walked into a bar in Los Angeles. Instead of fleeing the country, it appeared she decided to do. to stay put and wait until things died down. But she couldn't seem to stay inside out of the public eye. When she got to the bar, she spotted Charles Wilgus sitting by himself. She struck up a conversation with him, introducing herself as Donna Johansson. Wasting no time, she asked Charles about his social security checks. She also suggested, only partly joking,

that they should move in together. Eventually, Dorothea left, but first she gave her drinking companion her number and motel room information. Just hours later, Charles was baffled to see Donna Johansson's face on the news, except Donna wasn't Donna. She was a wanted killer who'd hid seven corpses in her backyard. Shaken, Charles called the police, and before long, authorities stormed the motel where she claimed to be staying. Sure enough, Dorothea was there. She was dressed to the nines in a pink and purple outfit complete with an umbrella and maroon purse filled with about $3,000. The handcuffs clicked around her wrists and all at once, the hunt was over.

As she was transported from L.A. back to Sacramento, news reporters followed her, shouting question after question. in the glaring camera flashes, Dorothea appeared frail and scared. She didn't talk much, but she did say this. I used to be a very good person at one time. By late November, Dorothea Puente was officially behind bars, an awaiting trial. But it seemed that John Cabrera's job wasn't done. Dorothea's past started coming out of the woodwork. Cabrera was contacted by the family of Ruth Monroe.

They'd seen the news about Dorothea and decided to try pressing charges. They didn't have a murder case in 1982 when they believed Dorothea poisoned their mother, but they certainly did now. Cabrera likely knew about Ruth Monroe from his research into Dorothea. But soon, he received a call about a man he had never heard of, 77-year-old Everson Gilmouth. Everson first encountered Dorothea in the early 1980s while she was still in prison. Somehow the two connected and became romantic pen pals.

When Dorothea finally got out in 1985, Everson moved into 1426F Street, and the pair started planning their life together. Everson called his sister in mid-September, 1985. After that, nobody ever saw or heard from him again. Dorothea had kept up correspondence with Everson's sister, sometimes pretending to be a new woman who Everson had run off with. The family hadn't spoken to Everson himself in several years, but Dorothea's letters seemed to appease them to a certain extent.

that is, until they saw her on television. While Everson wasn't found at the property, after hearing about Dorothea's garden of corpses, his family wondered if he was one of her victims. A little bit of research unearthed a tragic possibility. In January 1986, four months after Everson was last heard from, officials found a male body in a box by the Sacramento River. The man was too decomposed to identify or to determine the cause of death,

but Cabrera and the other officials now realized it could have been Everson. Especially because in 1985, in the weeks between Everson's disappearance and the discovery of the body, Dorothea hired a handyman to make a custom box. She requested it be five to six feet long, two to three feet wide, and two feet deep. A day or so after the handyman dropped it off, Dorothea asked him to come help her drive it somewhere. He returned to find the box nailed shut and very heavy. They started driving to a storage facility, but Dorothea kept giving him confusing directions. Finally, lost and frustrated, she told him to just dump it by the Sacramento River.

Every time authorities thought they knew the body count, it seemed like, like they discovered another victim. What started as one missing person's case had turned into nine charges of first degree murder. However, Dorothea wasn't ready to accept this fate. She denied the murder charges wholesale. Instead, she and her defense lawyers insisted that she cared for her tenants well

and they had died of natural causes. Because she wasn't legally allowed to run a boarding house, Dorothea claimed that she only disposed of the bodies so she wouldn't get into trouble. But she did admit to pocketing the Social Security checks, which over the years amounted to over $100,000. She would confess to theft but not murder. Jury selection for the trial of Dorothea Puente began in November of 1992, four years after officials dug up her backyard. While the 63-year-old didn't testify, her lawyer stressed the fact that there was no way of knowing that the drugs found in any of the victim's bodies were actually fatal.

Meanwhile, prosecutors accused Dorothea of praying on the fringe members of society. According to prosecutor John O'Mara, she chose her tenants because of their disadvantages. No family to look after them, no friends to miss them. and little power to save themselves. She profited off their weakness, then she profited off their deaths. The jury deliberated for 24 days, which at the time was the longest deliberation

for a murder trial in California's history. One juror wasn't convinced that Dorothea intentionally murdered anyone. Perhaps they, like so many others, fell for her frail grandmotherly act. In the summer of 1993, the jury delivered their verdict. Of all the charges, they found Dorothea guilty of just three murders. As a result, she was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

For the rest of her life, Dorothea maintained her innocence. She barely talked to reporters, but when she did, she kept up her act, choosing to focus on the good deeds she did in her life. She remained behind bars until March 27, 2011. That year at age 82, Dorothea Puente died of natural causes, a privilege her victims never had. The house at 1426F Street was built in the 1890s and was therefore protected as a historical location.

Despite the tragedy that stained its halls and gardens, it could not be torn down. Today, it's new owner. have made the house into a sort of attraction, complete with crime scene tape, mannequins in the garden, and signs reading, quote, trespassers will be drugged and buried in the yard. The impact of Dorothea's murders far surpasses a distasteful haunted house. Her victims may have been alone in the world, but they were real people with hopes, fears, dreams, and feelings. Though Bert Montoya and the others died tragically,

Judy Moise said that she believes Bert was destined to expose Dorothea Puente. When it comes to appearances, society trusts the elderly socialite do-gooder over someone like Bert. But thanks to the compassion and dedication of a few individuals, his death brought a serial killer to justice. Thanks again for tuning into solved murders. For more information on Dorothea Puente and her victims, among the many sources we used,

we found The Bone Garden, the chilling true story of a female serial killer by William P. Wood, and the Netflix documentary, Worst Roommate Ever, Call Me Grandma, to be extremely helpful to our research. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. You can find all episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Solved Murders, True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. Our head of programming is Julian Bois row. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash with Nick Johnson as our head of production and quality control by Lisa Marie Gallegos. Stacey Nemek is our supervising editor

and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode, The episode of solved murders was written by Kit Fitzgerald, edited by Sarah Batchelor and Alex Garland, fact-checked by Bennett Logan, researched by Mickey Taylor, produced by Joshua Kern, and sound design by Brian Gullab. It stars Melissa Medina, Jen Wong, Charlie Wes, and Brian Green. Our hosts are Wendy McKenzie and me, Carter Roy.