Tough Childhood
Dorothea Helen Gray, famously known as Dorothea Puente, was born in 1929 in California. To say that she had a tough childhood would be an understatement, as both of her parents were violent alcoholics who would constantly fight and abuse their children.
Dorothea, along with her six siblings, were often neglected and had to witness the awful things their parents were doing. Her mother was a sex worker who would usually bring her clients to the house, while the children were there.
Trauma
Not only did she have to see her parents drink and fight constantly, but she also had to see her mother perform sex work in front of her. As time went by, things only got worse for Dorothea.
Her father passed away when she was eight years old and two years later her mother did as well. At only ten years old, Dorothea was an orphan hopping from foster home to foster home.
Coping Mechanisms
Obviously, she had a horrible childhood. Everyone handles trauma differently, and Dorothea completely shut off any memory of her past and created new memories instead.
She would lie constantly and compulsively, and people would actually believe her at first because she sounded so convincing. It was only when her lies became too entangled and exaggerated that people would realize what was going on. Still, she would continue to lie compulsively for the rest of her life.
On Her Own
At age 16, Dorothea began working as a sex worker and met a man named Fred McFaul, who was 22 at the time. The two quickly got married in 1945 and decided to start a family.
Their happy days didn't last, however, as Fred was abusive. Not only that, but Dorothea had two children with Fred and gave both of them up for adoption. The couple got divorced after almost a decade together.
More Trouble
Though it has never been confirmed, it is believed that Dorothea had even more children with other men and gave all of them up for adoption. She was also arrested several times for using false names and cashing fake checks.
After divorcing Fred, Dorothea met Axel Johanson, and this marriage was the same, if not worse. The two were in a turbulent marriage for 14 years until they finally called in quits.
A Complicated Life
All through her first two marriages, Dorothea worked as a sex worker, was arrested several times for petty crimes, as was even entered into a psychiatric facility. She was known by everyone around her as a compulsive liar and she would always make up crazy stories that were obviously not true.
But when she met Roberto Puente in 1968, whose last name she took, Dorothea decided to change her life. Roberto was 16 years younger than her, but the age difference didn't seem to bother either of them.
Changing Her Path
Although her marriage to Puente only lasted for two years, she still wanted to change her life. She eventually stopped doing sex work and got a job as a nurse's aide. She would care for elderly people in their homes, and she really enjoyed it.
For some time, it truly seemed as though Dorothea had found her calling. She wasn't involved in anything illegal and she was actually helping people! But of course, this did not last.
Her Own Business
After some time, Dorothea took over a three-story house at 2100 F street in Sacramento, which she would run as a care home. People who could not take care of themselves and needed a place to stay such as alcoholics, people with disabilities, and ex-convicts who just got out of prison could stay there.
Dorothea was in charge of everyone's finances. Her tenants would give her their benefit checks trusting that Dorothea would keep their money safe as long as they were in the care home. But of course, knowing Dorothea, she kept all the money to herself.
Getting Greedy
Dorothea was making a lot of money from her care home. She was essentially taking all of her tenants' money and only give them a small amount back. Her tenants were vulnerable, and Dorothea took advantage. She started bringing more and more tenants in until her care home was completely full.
Dorothea would spend the days at the care home and the nights at local bars. She would purposely meet older men who were receiving benefits, seduce them, and get information out of them. She would then forge their signature and cash their benefits.
More Shady Activity
She was making a total of around $5,000 a month with all her illegal activities. While she wasn't caught stealing from her tenants, she was caught for stealing from random men at bars, but she only received probation for it.
At this point, it doesn't come as a surprise that Dorothea got married yet again. She married a man named Pedro Montalva, who was much younger than her. Although everything was perfect at the beginning, he quickly realized who Dorothea really was and their marriage came to an end.
Getting Caught
In the early '70s, Dorothea's bad behavior caught up to her. One of her tenants ended up getting arrested and while he was in jail, police noticed that his government checks were getting cashed somehow. How could he cash the checks if he was in jail? The police decided to investigate and quickly found out that she was illegally cashing the checks of not only this man, but also all her tenants.
So, what was Dorothea's punishment this time? Probation, of course. Many people believe that because she looked like an innocent, harmless grandma, she got off easy - and they might be right. However, one of the conditions of her probation was that she could not run a care home anymore.
Moving Around
During her five-year probation, Dorothea moved around a lot but once it was over, she decided to go back to Sacramento. Even though she had been caught before, she desperately wanted to run a care home again.
She began working as a private caretaker for families while she figured out how to get her care home back. Although she was in her '50s, she realized that looking older gave her an advantage, so she purposely made herself appear older than she really was.
The First Victim
Dorothea had committed many crimes in the past, but she had never actually hurt anyone physically. While she was working as a caretaker for different families, she met Esther Busby, a wealthy elderly woman.
Dorothea stole from Esther every single time she saw her but because Esther was very old, she did not realize. This went on for a while until Esther's health condition began getting better, which meant she would not need Dorothea's care anymore.
Suspicious Circumstances
Even though Esther was getting better, things quickly changed. Her family and doctors were shocked when her condition started to get worse and worse without any explanation - until they realized what was going on.
The people around Esther noticed that she was only feeling bad after Dorothea's visits, so they got suspicious. Her doctors actually visited Esther at home while Dorothea was there just to see how she was being cared for, and that's when things took a turn.
Running Away
Dorothea realized that the doctors were suspicious, so she began taking Esther to a different doctor. What she did not know was that all doctors knew each other, and the first doctors warned the new ones about Dorothea.
This prompted the new doctors to do a toxicology report on Esther and sure enough, they discovered that Esther was being drugged with all kinds of substances that only Dorothea had access to.
No Way Out
It was clear that Dorothea was drugging Esther so that she wouldn't lose her job and could keep stealing from her. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough evidence to bring her to the police, but at least Esther's family fired her.
This didn't serve as a lesson for Dorothea, who tried to do the same thing to another person. Although Esther made it out alive, Dorothea's next victim wouldn't be so lucky.
Her Next Victim
After losing her job with Esther, Dorothea moved in with one of her best friends, Ruth Monroe. Ruth's husband had recently passed away, so she wanted to live with her friend so that the two could support each other.
Sadly, Ruth had no idea what kind of person Dorothea really was. As time went by, Ruth's children realized that their mother was acting increasingly weird and spaced out ever since she moved in with Dorothea. Then one day, things took a turn for the worse.
Bad News
Not long after Ruth moved in with Dorothea, her health started to decline. Ruth's children got a disturbing call from Dorothea, saying that Ruth had passed away. When the police arrived, the scene looked like a typical suicide.
Apparently, Ruth had overdosed on her medication on purpose and lost her life. The case was quickly closed, but her children always knew that something was fishy. It was only discovered many years later that Dorothea had killer her by giving her a lethal dose of drugs.
Getting Away With It
Dorothea successfully got rid of her friend Ruth and got away with it. This made her think that she could keep doing the same thing and never be caught because the police would think her victims were committing suicide.
Before she killed again, Dorothea kept drugging people she met at bars and stealing from them and eventually got arrested for it. For the first time ever, she went to jail, where she started corresponding with a man named Everson Gillmouth, who would almost become her fifth husband.
Released
Dorothea was released after three years and as soon as she left prison she got engaged to Everson in 1985. But only a few months into their relationship, things would change. Everson had children from another marriage and all of a sudden, he stopped speaking to them.
Dorothea would be the one to talk to Everson's family and let them know he was OK, but they would never actually speak with him. Meanwhile, Dorothea hired hired someone to make a custom box for her to store books. However, this box would end up serving as a coffin.
Everson's Death
The worker who built the "box" unknowingly helped Dorothea carry the box all the way to a river bank after Dorothea told him it was full of junk and she just wanted to get rid of it. The two of them dumped the box in the river.
Sadly, Everson's body was inside. Dorothea had given him a lethal dose of drugs and gotten rid of the body so that she could cash his government checks. For years, his family thought Everson was alive, as Dorothea regularly communicated with them and told them he was OK.
The New Boarding House
After getting away with murdering two people, Dorothea began her plans to run another boarding house, even though she was not allowed to. As part of her probation she was not allowed to work in that field again, yet she was never visited by her probation officer - not even once.
She managed to get a hold of a house on the same street she had run her previous care home on: F street. She quickly set it all up and started getting tenants. Meanwhile, someone who was walking along the river discovered Everson's body.
No Leads
Sadly, Everson's body was so badly decomposed that it was impossible to identify him and, therefore, link this murder to Dorothea. She was living her best life, and Everson's family believed he was still alive for years while Dorothea cashed his government checks.
This pattern would repeat itself with all of her victims. This is why the police believed that she killed people for only one reason: money. The next unfortunate person to cross paths with the killer grandma would be Betty Palmer.
Betty Palmer
Betty Palmer was an 80-year-old woman who was known for her happy character and eccentricity. She was always loud, cheerful, and made everyone laugh. But within a few weeks of becoming one of Dorothea's tenants, Betty lost her sparkle completely.
She became quiet, distant, was always tired, and just stopped talking to everybody. Then one day, just one month after she began living in Dorothea's boarding house, she disappeared. When the other tenants asked about her, Dorothea told them she just wasn't living there anymore.
The Death Room
But the truth was that Dorothea murdered Betty Palmer the same way she murdered her other victims: by drugging her. What changed with her third kill was how she got rid of the body, which would become a very important part of her case.
The boarding house was huge and there was a big room that nobody was using. So, Dorothea began using this room to store the dead bodies of her victims until she had the opportunity to bury them in the yard. This would be known as the "death room".
Her MO
While Dorothea had the bodies in the death room, she would make sure to get rid of any identifying characteristics of the bodies so that, in case anyone ever dug the bodies up, they wouldn't be identified.
She cut off Betty Palmer's head, hands and feet and got rid of all her teeth so that there was no trace of her identity before she buried her in the garden in the middle of the night. Betty's head, hands, and feet were actually never found.
James Gallop
Dorothea's next victim was James Gallop, a man who stayed at her boarding house because of his alcohol dependency. Much like what happened to Betty, James suddenly vanished one day. Dorothea told the other tenants that James had just left, but he was actually buried in the yard next to Betty.
The way Dorothea got the drugs to kill her tenants was by ensuring that most of them got Dalmane, a powerful sedative, prescribed. She would hoard massive amounts of this drug and gradually lace her victims' food with it until they overdosed.
Vera Faye Martin & Benjamin Fink
Vera Faye Martin was Dorothea's next victim. She was particularly vulnerable because she suffered from several health conditions. Unlike the other victims, Vera was only under Dorothea's care for one week before she was murdered.
Not long after that, Dorothea murdered a man named Benjamin Fink, who actually had been at the home for quite a while. It is believed that she killed him right after they had a heated argument and most likely suffocated him.
Raising Suspicions
Because Dorothea had to leave the bodies of her victims in the death room for a few days before she was sure she could bury them in the yard undetected, the bodies would decompose in there, leaving a horrible smell.
Their bodily fluids would actually seep into the carpet and the wooden floors, making the stench permanent. She always kept the room locked, but her tenants grew suspicious of this mysterious, smelly room.
Leona Carpenter & Dorothy Miller
It didn't take long for Dorothea to murder two more tenants: Leona Carpenter and Dorothy Miller. At this point, her yard was a full-on graveyard. And yet, she kept getting away with it.
But Dorothea's luck would soon run out and she would murder her last victim before getting caught: Bert Montoya. After Bert suddenly disappeared, one of his friends began getting suspicious.
Calling The Police
Bert's friend kept calling Dorothea and asking about Bert, but she kept giving her different stories. The woman had enough and finally called the police so that they would go check on Bert at the boarding house. Dorothea told all her tenants to lie to the police if they had any questions.
Surprisingly enough, all of her tenants complied and when the police came and asked questions about Bert, they all told them the same story. However, one tenant in particular slipped a note to a police officer asking him to meet him at another location.
John's Confession
The tenant, named John Sharp, came clean and told the police that Dorothea had asked him to lie about Bert. Thanks to this, the police realized that something strange was going on in that house and that they needed to investigate.
John gave the police an interesting piece of information: whenever a tenant mysteriously disappeared, a new hole would appear in the yard. Dorothea was often working in the garden, yet there were no plants or any kind of project there. This is why they asked Dorothea if they could search her house, and she actually agreed.
Discovering The Bodies
It didn't take long for the police to find all the bodies in the yard. However, since a lot of people lived in that house, they couldn't really arrest Dorothea without having some more proof. This allowed Dorothea to flee the scene and run away to Los Angeles while the police were still digging up the corpses.
She was allowed to leave the scene to go for a coffee because the police did not think she was a threat. It was the same story all over again: Dorothea seemed like an innocent, harmless grandma, and so the police did not think she was dangerous.
The End
Upon further investigation, Everson's body was finally identified and Ruth Monroe's murder was also acknowledged. All of her victims' families would finally get the justice they deserved once Dorothea was captured.
Dorothea was eventually found and arrested, putting an end to the horrors of her boarding house. After her trial she was unfortunately only convicted of three murders because the bodies were too badly decomposed and no cause of death or DNA evidence could be found on them. Still, she received life without parole and spent the rest of her days in prison. Until her death, she maintained her innocence and changed her story multiple times, but of course, nobody ever believed her.