EXPERT ARTICLE: Granny's Fatal Boarding Home

 

                                              

Granny’s Fatal Boarding Home

An Account of a Grandmotherly Serial Killer

The displaced folk. Those that are mentally challenged, drug addicts, recovering alcoholics. Where do they go? In the 1980’s, a sweet old woman by the name of Dorothea Puente took in these weary travelers. The entire community regarded her as a savior. She took care of her tenants with the care of a loving grandmother, and those in the community praised her for her charitable work (Kuz 2020). Nobody noticed all the strange excuses that came along with the disappearance of her tenants. Only in 1988 did a social worker file a missing person case for Alvaro “Bert” Montoya, a previous tenant of Puente that had gone missing three months prior. Three police officers went by Puente’s boarding house to inquire about his disappearance. Neighbors had complained about the smell of rotting flesh, so when the officers noticed loose dirt in the backyard, they decided to investigate (Kuz 2020). Nobody could’ve prepared themselves for the secrets they were about to unleash. 

Although Dorothea Puente presented herself as a gentle and soft-hearted old woman, she came from a troubled background. She was diagnosed by two separate psychiatrists as a schizophrenic and with antisocial personality disorder, a condition in which one feels no remorse from manipulating others. It’s no wonder that it is difficult to get the facts straight when Dorothea claims to have lived twenty different lives, ranging from being a Rockette to winning game shows to being born in Mexico (Kuz 2020). However, it is indisputable that seven bodies were discovered in Puente’s yard on that day in 1988. She was charged with nine murders and convicted of three (Goldfarb 2021). Through extensive research and checking government records, journalists have been able to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the dark past that makes up granny serial killer Dorothea Puente. 

Pre-Serial Killer Dorothea

Dorothea Puente was born on January 9, 1929 in Redlands, California. Her childhood was not what anyone would consider ideal. Puente was the sixth youngest out of her seven siblings. When she was eight, her father died of tuberculosis and a year later her mom died in a motorcycle accident, orphaning Dorothea and her siblings. Her mother was known to be abusive and an alcoholic (Kuz 2020). 

After living with different relatives and hopping between foster homes, Dorothea became a prostitute at the age of sixteen. Shortly after, she met her first husband, Fred McFaul, and married him in 1945. Strangely, Puente had two daughters with McFaul but didn’t raise either of them, putting one up for adoption and sending the other to live with relatives. Dorothea and Fred divorced after three years (Goldfarb 2021).

After the divorce, Puente began to dabble in illegal activity. She was arrested and sent to jail for four months after trying to float a check with a fake name. After she got out, she was supposed to serve probation but moved to San Francisco instead. She met and married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952 (Goldfarb 2021). The two had a troubled marriage that involved fights over Dorothea’s bad habits. These included drinking, gambling, and other men (Sambeck 2020). Puente was sent to a psychiatric ward in 1961 after she was caught offering to perform sexual activity on an undercover cop in a you-know-what house. Despite all the problems Dorothea and her second husband faced, they stayed married for 14 years. Johansson divorced her in 1966 (Blanco 2019).

Dorothea Puente had two other short marriages following her divorce with Johansson. In 1968, Dorothea married Roberto Puente. The two broke up a year later. Dorothea also married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left after a week (Kuz 2020). After four failed marriages, Dorothea decided to open a boarding house which is where the horrors began to unfold.

The Beginning of Puente’s Boarding Houses

In the 1970s, Puente opened her first boarding house in Sacramento. She was praised in the community for taking care of troubled people such as the mentally ill and recovering alcoholics/ drug addicts. Dorothea had a habit of telling wildly elaborate stories. During this time, she claimed she hung out with Ronald Reagan because of all the good publicity her boarding house got (Kuz 2020).

However, despite the steady income and status in the community, Puente began to steal her tenants’ benefit checks. She was caught and served five years of probation which banned her from running a boarding house (Goldfarb 2021). This wouldn’t stop Puente. However, she did take a break from owning a boarding house to being a personal caretaker. Puente started to act and dress older than she was, posing as someone at least 10 years older (Kuz 2020). While being an in-home caretaker, Dorothea could not break old habits. She drugged and stole from her clients which eventually resulted in her serving five years in prison. Because of her good behavior, she was released after three years. This is where her serial killer origin story began.

Puente’s Infamous Boarding House

Dorothea opened her second boarding house after getting out of prison despite the fact that her prior probation had banned it. As Puente was getting out of prison, a psychologist stated that she was unregretful and should be considered dangerous. She even diagnosed Dorothea as a schizophrenic. Despite these warnings, Puente got away with her business. Any time probation officers would visit, they believed her lies that the people living there were just visiting friends. 

In 1982, Ruth Monroe moved in. She died from a drug overdose shortly after. The police believed Puente’s story that it was a suicide. In 1985, Puente’s handyman Ismael Florez was ordered to do all sorts of suspicious activity. This included building a wooden box large enough to fix a human. Later, the box that was nailed shut by Puente was ordered to be dropped off at a riverbank. Three years later, the body would be identified as one of her tenants (Kuz 2020). 

Despite her suspicious past, social workers continued to send their clients there. Some might not have known while others ignored it due to desperation for their displaced clients. It wasn’t until 1988 that this all came to light. After a social worker filed a missing person case for Bert Montoya, officers came to his last known residence to investigate: Puente’s boarding house. Another tenant, John Sharp, backed up Puente’s story that Bert had gone on vacation. However, when police were leaving, Sharp slipped them a note. It read, “She’s making me lie for her.” This is when police decided to investigate further and found all the bodies (Sambeck 2021). 

They grilled Dorothea for two hours but didn’t have adequate evidence to arrest her. She asked to go on a walk and they obliged. She fled to Los Angeles and was incognito for five days until they found her (Goldfarb 2021).

The Verdict

Dorothea Puente was convicted of three murders and charged with nine; she received two life sentences. Puente had been drugging tenants and burying them in her yard. This was so she could cash their social security checks. However, she pleaded not guilty and tried to portray herself as a sweet grandmother (Kuz 2020). Even years later, Puente never admitted to any crimes and said she was innocent. Puente insisted that she took good care of those that had been displaced before they found a home with her. 

Dorothea Puente died on March 27, 2011, of natural causes in prison. Until the very end, she continued to concoct flagrant stories and insist she was innocent. 

Works Cited

Blanco, Juan Ignacio. “Dorothea Puente: Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers.” Dorothea Puente | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers, https://murderpedia.org/female.P/p/puente-dorothea.htm. 

Goldfarb, Kara. “The Monstrous Crimes of the ‘Death House Landlady.’” All That's Interesting, All That's Interesting, 28 Nov. 2021, https://allthatsinteresting.com/dorothea-puente. 

Kuz, Martin. “The Life and Deaths of Dorothea Puente.” Sactown Magazine, 31 Dec. 2020, https://www.sactownmag.com/the-life-and-deaths-of-dorothea-puente/. 

Sambeck, Becca van. “Did Serial Killer Dorothea Puente Ever Confess to Murdering Her Tenants and Burying Them in Her Yard?” Oxygen Official Site, Oxygen, 19 Apr. 2021, https://www.oxygen.com/murders-at-the-boarding-house/crime-news/did-dorothea-puente-ever-confess-to-murdering-her-tenants.