In the picture, the old woman is God's dandelion, who, it seems, is not able to harm anyone. Probably Charles Willgues, a retired carpenter who walked into a local bar for a beer, thought so too, and saw a gray-haired, elderly, elegantly dressed woman in bright red high-heeled shoes on the doorstep of the establishment. She entered the bar and ordered a screwdriver and took a seat at the end of the bar. Mr. Vilgess warned her in a friendly way that she had chosen not the best place = "The heat from the refrigerator motor comes out right where you are sitting."
The woman thanked him and sat down with him. She introduced herself as Donna Johansson and said that she came to Los Angeles from Sacramento. She explained that her husband had died a few months ago and had gone to Los Angeles to escape grief and start a new life. But here she got into trouble - she took a taxi from the Royal Viking Motel and the car left with all her suitcases, including her purse. Now she, left without money and things, is forced to look for a place where she could spend the next night.
Charles, like a true gentleman, offered his help and began by giving the woman $ 3 so that she could pay for the order at the bar. They continued to communicate and Charles did not notice, as he told almost everything about himself. He even told her that he was receiving $ 576 in Social Security. Donna said that she knows a way to bring this amount up to $ 680. Charles thought Donna knew what she was talking about.
Donna Johansson had an idea. Thanksgiving was approaching and she asked how Charles felt about letting her cook a gala dinner at his house. He replied that he would think about it and left her a business card, writing his address on the back. They agreed to meet the next day.
Back home, Charles could not shake the impression that he had seen the woman from the bar before, but he could not remember exactly where and under what circumstances. Finally he remembered that her face had been shown on the local news. In any case, she looked like the heroine of a television plot. Charles watched television all evening, hoping that the woman's photo would be shown again, but this did not happen. He did not want to go to the police, fearing a mistake and not wanting to harm an innocent person. Therefore, Charles decided to contact the television company.
Gene Silver, editor of KCBS television, arrived at his home that evening and showed a clipping from the Los Angeles Times of a photograph of a woman. Charles looked at the picture for a long time until he said that it might really be Donna Johansson. The agitated TV man immediately called the Los Angeles Police Department.
After a while police cars with sirens howling stopped outside the Royal Viking Motel. Sergeant Paul von Lutzow knocked on the door of one of the rooms, and soon a woman appeared on the doorstep, whom poor Vilgess knew as Donna Johansson.
Promotional video:
In response to the demand for documents, the woman, who remained completely calm and unperturbed throughout the communication with the police, brought from the room a driver's license in the name of Dorothea Helen Puente. Sergeant Luttsov, on the other hand, looking worried, reached for his radio and announced that at 10:40 pm Dorothea Puente, who had been on the run since November 12, 1988, had been arrested.
Cadaverous smell
It all started with a fog hanging over the outskirts of Sacramento, because of which it was impossible to see anything, but everyone who was in those places could smell it - a disgusting putrid stench. The residents of the nearby houses knew exactly where he was coming from - from the courtyard of a small Victorian house on 1426 F Street, where Dorothea Puente rented out rooms for the elderly and infirm. In summer, the smell was so strong that people preferred to turn off their air conditioners and suffer from the heat, rather than let it enter their homes.
The 59-year-old owner of the boarding house answered all the questions that the cause of the smells was in problems with the sewage system and in the rats, which she poisoned, and they crawl under the floor and rot there. Dorothea Puente claimed to have tried to get rid of the foul smell with lime, gallons of bleach and lemon-scented air freshener, but that did not help. The eerie stench seemed to be forever the curse of this place.
But on the morning of November 11, 1988, the true cause of the "curse" was established. Detective John Cabrera and his companions visited the house on 1426 F Street in search of Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, Alvaro "Bert". The day before, a social worker visiting residents of the boarding house Dorothea Puente noticed that one of the guests was absent. According to the rules, he immediately reported this to the police.
Mrs Puente did not interfere with the inspection of the house and invited the police inside. She behaved kindly and looked completely calm. There was nothing in the house that attracted the attention of the police - the usual old lady's trinkets, miniature vases, china dolls and napkins were gathering dust everywhere. Nothing unusual.
But going out into the backyard and overcoming their disgust at the unpleasant smell, the detectives noticed that the ground in the garden was disturbed. Then John Cabrera ordered shovels to be brought.
As soon as they started digging, very soon scraps of fabric appeared on the surface and what at first was mistaken for beef jerky. Pulling too hard on the edge of the fabric, John pulled a human hand out into the light with it.
Hearing the noise, Mrs. Puente ran into the garden and looked into the pit herself. Seeing the find, the old woman was shocked and even clapped her hands on her cheeks: “How could this have happened ?! I thought it smelled like dead rats!"
She probably played the surprise so naturally that the police said that they would come tomorrow with reinforcements and left her alone.
Mountain of corpses
The next morning, a team of forensic experts and officials from the coroner's office arrived at the scene, continued excavations, and first dug up the skeletonized corpse of an elderly woman with white hair.
As the team proceeded to drill the concrete slabs that formed the path in the garden, Mrs. Puente came up to them, wearing a cherry-red coat and holding an elegant purple umbrella. She asked if she was detained, to which John Cabrera replied: "No." And then Dorothea, innocently looking into the eyes of the detective, asked if she could go to the Clarion Hotel, which is located a few blocks away, and have a cup of coffee there. Surprisingly, John not only allowed her to leave, but did not even instruct colleagues to accompany her. Moreover, he helped her through the crowd of onlookers and journalists, after which he returned to work. And there was a lot of work. Three corpses were extracted from under the concrete slab, one by one, and one more was found under the gazebo.
With every minute there were more and more questions for the hostess. When authorities noticed that Mrs. Puente had not returned from the hotel, she was already hundreds of miles from Sacramento.
In the end, the horrific harvest of Mrs. Puente's garden brought the corpses of seven people.
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Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, 51, schizophrenic. He spoke to the voices in his head in Spanish and called Dorothea Puente his mom. His body was found in the back of the garden, under the newly planted apricot trees. |
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Dorothy Miller, 64, alcoholic. Dorothy was a descendant of American Indians. Found with her arms folded across her chest, taped with duct tape. |
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Benjamin Fink, 55-year-old alcoholic. Shortly before her disappearance, in April 1988, Mrs Puente said she was going to "take Ben upstairs and make him feel better." The body was found wearing striped boxing shorts. |
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Betty Palmer, 78 years old. Body found without head, arms and legs. The burial site turned out to be just a few steps from the sidewalk in front of the house. |
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James Gallop, 62 He survived a heart attack and surgery to remove a brain tumor, but did not survive the meeting with Dorothea Puente. |
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Vera Faye Martin, 64 years old. Her clock was still ticking when the body was removed from the ground. |
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Leona Carpenter, 78 years old. In February 1987, she was discharged from the hospital under the care of Dorothea Puente. Leona's burial was near the fence. It was her body that was found first by Detective Cabrera. |
All bodies were severely decomposed. Police officer Joy Underwood, who was sent to the morgue to escort the bodies, later told The Associated Press that she vomited every time she thought about the case or saw a television report. She had an obsessive desire to shower at the slightest opportunity, since it seemed that she could never free herself from the dirt and smell of decaying corpses. In addition, she stopped being a vegetarian because she could not eat vegetables grown in the land.
An inn for potential victims
After all the bodies were found and transported to the city morgue, detectives began a detailed examination of the house. Very soon a picture of what had happened loomed before them. In Mrs. Puente's room, they found bottles of expensive champagne, nice clothes and expensive perfumery. Also, the police got into the hands of documents, receipts and checks, from which it followed that she was robbing her guests to the skin, using their disability benefits, social insurance and cashing their checks. In total, she "earned" about $ 5,000 a month from her dead guests.
We interviewed people who at different times lived in a boarding house. This also gave a result and the image of Puente began to acquire more and more tangible features. A cruel and domineering woman appeared in front of the police, who did not stop at nothing when it came to money. Each guest paid Puente $ 350, receiving for this place in the house and two meals a day - breakfast at 6:30 am and lunch at 15:30. It's all. At other times, access to the kitchen was ordered. Also, residents were forbidden to touch the phone and use mail.
Puente regularly visited all local bars in search of new victims. She sat down with lonely old people and, having drunk them, tried to find out the details of the family and financial situation, so that later she could offer accommodation in her boarding house. This was told by 67-year-old John Terry, whom Puente was unable to persuade to move to her, thanks to which he survived.
Dorothea's life story
The biography of Dorothea Puente turned out to be eventful. She was born as Dorothea Helen Gray in San Bernardino, California. The father died of tuberculosis when the girl was 8 years old, and a year later her mother also died in a car accident. Dorothea had to live in an orphanage until relatives from Fresno took her to their place.
In 1945, 16-year-old Dorothea mostly worked as a waitress in a cafe, serving milkshakes, and in the evenings she went to the bar. There she was picked up by 22-year-old soldier Fred McFaul, who had returned from service in the Philippines.
From a very young age, Dorothea was an excellent liar. When she was 13, she revealed that she had survived the famous Battle of Bataan and the bombing of Hiroshima. Those who knew her at the time might have learned that her brother was the US ambassador to Sweden and that the famous actress Rita Hayworth is her close friend.
She told Fred that she was 30 years old, and having demonstrated all her seduction skills in a nearby motel, she managed to fall in love with the poor fellow. Fred knew her by the name Cheryl Ruskil, which was recorded in the marriage certificate a few months later.
She bore him two daughters in 1946 and 1948. But she did not intend to bring them up: she sent one girl to relatives, and the other was transferred to the guardianship authorities for subsequent adoption. Soon a third pregnancy followed, which this time ended in a miscarriage. Fred was fed up and left his wife, but soon died unexpectedly of a heart attack.
In the same 1948, she began her acquaintance with the American penitentiary system. After being convicted of forging checks, Dorothea was sentenced to four years in prison.
In 1952, Dorothea married Axel Johansson, a merchant sailor. Their marriage was very specific, since there were cases when a spouse returning from a voyage could well find that someone was already living with his wife. Despite such "free" behavior on the part of Dorothea, they remained married for 14 years.
In 1960 - a new term. Dorothea was convicted of working in a brothel in Sacramento. And although at the time of her arrest she said that she had come to visit her friend and had no idea that she was engaged in such an unworthy business as prostitution, she could not get out. She was poisoned behind bars, however, only for 90 days.
Axel Johansson's cup of patience was finally overflowing and in 1966 they divorced.
But being alone was not for her, and in 1968, 39-year-old Dorothea married 21-year-old Robert José Puente. The marriage lasted only a year and when the amount of debt in the family budget reached $ 10,000, the couple broke up.
In 1972, Dorothea Puente settled in a boarding house on 1426 F Street in Sacramento, and in 1976 she already married the tenant of the boarding house Pedro Montalvo (Pedro Montalvo). The new husband quickly realized who he was dealing with. In a conversation with a friend, he gave her an apt description: "She thinks she is rich."
Dorothea's requests always exceeded her capabilities, and already in 1978 she again came to the attention of the police. She was charged with stealing from one of the residents, sentenced to a suspended five-year term and a mandatory psychological examination, during which she was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia.
The journey of becoming a serial female killer
Authorities claimed that Dorothea Puente's first murder was in the spring of 1982, when 61-year-old Ruth Munroe died of a drug overdose, shortly after moving to a boarding house on 1426 F Street, and all of her belongings and $ 6,000 disappeared.
Ruth Monroe was a business partner of Dorothea Puente and her husband, a terminally ill man, lived there, in Puente's house. Ruth happily worked in partnership with Dorothea and tried to be optimistic about the future.
However, three days before her death, her mood changed. Ruth had a presentiment of trouble, which she said at the beauty salon she visited. “I feel like I’m going to die,” she said to the hairdresser, but when asked why, she replied: “I just feel that way.”
Three days later, Ruth Monroe died of an overdose of Tylenol and Codeine. The conclusion of the investigation is suicide. At that moment, the police did not have sufficient evidence to qualify the incident as a murder.
Yet, three months later, Dorothea Puente was arrested on charges of drug poisoning and theft of four elderly people. One of the victims (a 74-year-old man) stated that he himself saw Puente robbing his home when he was unable to speak or move.
The judge sentenced Dorothea to five years in prison, but three years later, in 1985, she was released with a ban on approaching the elderly.
She violated this court decision while in custody when she entered into a correspondence with an elderly gentleman named Everson Gillmot, who made a big mistake by telling her about his rather big pension and the car trailer he owned. On it, Everson arrived at the prison gates to meet Dorothea.
Everson soon informed his sister that he was going to marry. At the same time, he forgot to add that he transferred all his property to the chosen one and changed his will in her favor.
In January 1986, his body was found by a fisherman on the banks of the Sacramento River. The corpse was placed in a makeshift coffin, wrapped in plastic and lined with mothballs. The remains of Everson Gillmott for three years remained unidentified in the city morgue, while his fiancee continued a string of murders.
Dorothea lived in the same boarding house that she once ran. After the owner of the boarding house decided to move, she formalized the lease of the first floor and decided to rent rooms to the elderly through the state support program. Social workers soon appeared on the doorstep. Of course, Dorothea did not tell them about her imprisonment, or about the injunction, or about anything that could discredit her.
Thus, 19 elderly people lived in the boarding house at 1426 F Street in 1987-1988. This is because “Dorothea Puente was the best the system had to offer lonely retirees,” the social worker put it.
When it became known about the crimes of Dorothea Puente, the system received a serious blow. It seemed inconceivable that federal agents who visited her 15 times in the two years prior to her arrest had not noticed any wrongdoing. This is extremely strange, because she kept a boarding house with elderly people in violation of the conditions of early release, and social services did not have any information, not only about this ban, but in general about the convictions of her ward.
Process
After being arrested in Los Angeles, Dorothea Puente was taken to Sacramento. At the first court hearing, which took place on March 31, 1989, Dorothea appeared in a modest blue dress and a pearl necklace.
Four years passed before all nine charges were considered, 153 witnesses were interviewed and 3,100 pieces of evidence were processed, including even a dollhouse-like model of the Puente boarding house. He stood on the table throughout the entire trial.
Dorothea's lawyers cultivated in the courtroom the image of a sweet grandmother who devoted her life to caring for the sick and infirm, among whom were drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill, with whom the state social protection authorities did not want to deal.
But all these "lyrical" digressions invariably shattered on the murderous arguments of the prosecution, during which Mrs. Puente managed to maintain a calm air or, as the Americans say, "Poker Face". The USA Today newspaper reported that when the prosecutor showed photographs of decomposed corpses removed from the ground, Dorothea looked at the images through thick glasses without flinching.
After a grim photo exhibit, Attorney O'Mara told the jury: “Dorothea Puente killed nine people. Don't turn your back on her."
However, the prosecution failed to prove all nine episodes. But three were enough for a conviction.
On December 10, 1993, Dorothea Puente was sentenced to two life terms in prison, without the possibility of parole. She was 64 when she was sent to California's Central Women's Prison.
California Central Women's Prison
On March 27, 2011, Dorothea Puente died in custody from natural causes at the age of 82.
Photo of Dorothea Puente in the women's prison
It remained a mystery how this "sweet old woman" killed and dismembered corpses, unnoticed for everyone, dug graves and hid victims. Whether she did it herself or someone helped her - this secret went with her to the grave.
House Museum
The former house of the old murderer was sold to an enterprising couple who restored it to its original appearance and opened a museum dedicated to Dorothea Puente and her high-profile crimes.
Contemporary photograph of a boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento
To make things worse, an old killer dummy with a shovel was installed in the yard
The museum is glad to see everyone who is interested in this terrible story.
Materials from sites truecrime.guru and truecrimecases.blogspot.ru were used