Profit Killer: Dorothea Puente

[MUSIC] As children, we all hear, what do you want to be when you grow up? Once we get older, we realize what they're actually asking is, how will you make money? While some people do become firemen and astronauts as adults, others pursue alternative money-making schemes, like murder. They become the final type of killer in our series, those who kill for money. Criminologists do a Ronald Holmes and Stephen Holmes call them hedonistic comfort killers, because they desire creature comforts. Others call them profit killers or gain killers. Whatever you call them, the crime is a means to an end. They're victim, nothing more than a paycheck. Or in the case of today's killer, a social security check. She took in borders to get their payments mailed to her address. Then kept caching them long after her victims were buried. Welcome to serial killers, a Spotify podcast. Every Monday, we bring you the true crime stories that stand out. I'm Janice Morgan. We'd love to hear from you. Follow us on Instagram at serial killers podcast and share your thoughts on this week's episode. Or if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and leave a comment. And today, you might want to listen to the very end for an update about the show. This episode includes discussions of murder, violence, and mutilation. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. Stay with us. This is the final episode in our series on the Holmes and Holmes typology, where we're covering their six categories of serial killers. For more info on the typology and its history, check out our first episode on Ted Bundy. Today, we're talking about the final hedonistic killer. Comfort. Like lust and thrill killers, they're motivated by pleasure. But unlike the other two hedonistic types, their motive isn't psychological. It's material. Criminal psychologist Scott Bond describes them as "perhaps the oldest recognized and least complicated type of all serial killers." According to Holmes and Holmes, most women serial killers fit this archetype. So today, we're telling the story of a woman, Dorothy Appuente. Dorothea always yearned for financial stability. She was born just months after the Great Depression began to parents with five kids to support already. Her father faced health issues dying of tuberculosis when Dorothea was eight. Some accounts say her mother tried to support the family with sex work, but before long, Dorothea and her siblings became wards of the state. Dorothea spent the following years floating between distant family members and foster homes. In 1945, 16-year-old Dorothea moved out and began her own career as a sex worker. Still, she forged checks to get by. When she was caught, Dorothea served four months in jail. She made no effort to change her ways, eventually working as a madame in Sacramento, until undercover cops ran a sting on her operation. Dorothea spent another 90 days in jail. Over the years, Dorothea had four husbands. None lasted, but she did keep her third husband's last name, Puente. Later, she'd used this name to claim she was Mexican. She was not. Around 1968, Dorothea opened a rehab center. She advertised stability and structure for people who needed help turning their lives around. On the outside, it seems like she'd turned over a new leaf, starting a business that would help others. But in secret, Dorothea still aimed to enrich herself through less than legal means. As a condition of care, Dorothea took charge of her client's finances. But instead of helping them manage their money, she stole the checks, forged signatures, and signed the money over to herself. For about a decade, Dorothea thrived off this scam. She spent the money on expensive clothes and jewelry. But to sustain her lifestyle, she needed tonnance to keep moving in, which meant sustaining a charitable image. So Dorothea gave away bundles of clothes and cooked free meals for the community. She donated to charities and political campaigns. Eventually, her reputation as an advocate for the less fortunate took off. She got invitations to gallows and dinners, rubbing shoulders with governors like Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown. Movie stars like Rita Hayworth and socialites like Jackie Kennedy-O-Nasses. At least, according to Dorothea, it appears some of her celebrity encounters were invented, as was her favorite tale of dancing as a radio city rocket. She likely made up the glamorous stories to enhance her image as a wealthy benefactor. It was only a matter of time before someone caught on to her griffs. In 1977, a tenant who'd moved out to serve a jail sentence realized his social security checks were still being sent to the boarding house. He tried to track them down, but to his shock, Dorothea had faked his signature and cached them. Dorothea was once again arrested for forgery. She received five years of federal probation and was barred from ever running a boarding house again, so she pivoted careers to in-home caregiving. Around this time, she tried out a new image. She dawned patterned dresses and giant coke bottled glasses. She evened older clients, she was 10 to 15 years older than she actually was, so in her 50s, claiming to be in her 60s. The more Dorothea looked the part of a sweet old lady, the more people trusted her. So no one batted an eye when she told her in-home care clients she'd previously worked as a nurse in World War II. In believing this, clients trusted Dorothea to medicate them, with prescriptions they didn't need. She gave at least three women tranquilizers and robbed them while they were unconscious. Dorothea stole their jewelry money and checks. This is the first known instance of Dorothea hurting people for her own gain. And even though she hadn't killed yet, Dorothea already fit the profit killer type. Criminologist Scott Bond notes that this type often uses drugs or poison and most notably arsenic on their victims. Around 1979, Dorothea moved into 1426 F Street in Sacramento. She was instantly enchanted by the historic home. The building had light blue panels, white trim, and a large inviting porch. She was able to rent the entire second floor. In her new neighborhood, Dorothea became a regular at local bars. That's where she met Malcolm McKenzie. After two drinks, Malcolm invited Dorothea back to his house. However, once they arrived, Malcolm started feeling strange. He lay down and sudden paralysis overtook him. Malcolm realized Dorothea had slipped him something. In mobile, he watched her walk around his house, pocketing whatever cash she could find. Finally, she shuffled over to him and removed the pinky ring from his finger. Then she disappeared into the night. When Malcolm regained mobility, he called the police. A few days later, officers arrested Dorothea after she was caught using Malcolm's tracks. She insisted she was innocent and aged 72, even though she was not innocent and 53. Still, she was released with her preliminary hearings set for three months later. But Dorothea didn't seem worried at all. She was on to the next scheme. At some point in the early 80s, Dorothea had met Ruth Monroe. They were fast friends and within months went into business together. In the hopes of opening their own restaurant or catering company, they created a joint bank account. By 1982, Dorothea invited Ruth to move in with her. Ruth's husband was sick with cancer. His care was expensive and their marriage was struggling. Ruth agreed. Ruth's children, who knew Dorothea well by this point, supported the decision. In April 1982, they helped their mother move in to 1426 F Street. Unfortunately, Dorothea treated Ruth just like her in-home care clients, giving her drugs she didn't need in order to rob her. When Ruth's son came to check on her after her move in, he was surprised to see his mother drinking. But when she explained 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, Ruth started to feel ill, getting worse each day. Eventually, all she could do was lay still eyes wide open saying nothing. But Dorothea insisted everything was under control. Sometimes she didn't allow anyone to see Ruth because she was resting. On April 28th, just weeks after Ruth had moved in, Dorothea summoned Ruth's kids back to the house. She gave them the terrible news. Ruth had died. She gave them Ruth's purse. Empty. Ruth's family was devastated and shocked. Less than a month ago, she'd been fine. All-topsie results showed lethal levels of both coding and acetamedifin in Ruth's system. The coroner believed it was suicide. Ruth's family wasn't so sure. While going through Ruth's finances, they remembered she'd shared a bank 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, yet Dorothea was her best friend. The idea seemed impossible. But it followed the prophet killer archetype to a tee. Dorothea spent years getting close to Ruth and months gaining access to her money. She poisoned her and made it look like she didn't. This was an organized kill. And she managed it while under police investigation. Around the time Ruth died, several of Dorothea's prior victims had contacted law enforcement. Deputy DA William P. Wood raced to assemble a case against her, which she chronicled in his book The Bone Garden. Finally, three months after Ruth's death, Dorothea was arrested, but not for anything related to Ruth Monroe's murder. These were lesser crimes, including her attack on Malcolm Mackenzie. Dorothea eventually pleaded guilty to five felonies, including legally administering a controlled substance, grand theft, and forgery. The case was big enough that it made the news. Ruth's family felt a new sense of shock and betrayal as they recalled how Dorothea insisted on serving Ruth cocktails. They suspected Dorothea poisoned their mom the same way she'd poisoned Malcolm and took their theory to the police. In 1982, Sacramento's criminology lab wasn't advanced enough to analyze Ruth's body any further. Legally, her death remained a suicide. Dorothea had dodged a murder charge, but she hadn't avoided prison. She was sentenced to five years. Even in prison, Dorothea looked for her next paycheck. She became pen pals with Everson Gilmouth, a man in his seventies. The two became so close Everson believed they'd get married. And when Dorothea was released, Everson agreed to move in to 1426 F Street. Mirror weeks into parole, Dorothea had her next victim in sight. When Dorothea Puente was released from prison in 1985, a state psychologist warned her parole officers, quote, "This woman does not appear to have remorse or regret for what she has done. She has to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored." And the state did monitor Dorothea. On 14 different occasions over the next few years, they visited her at 1426 F Street. Unfortunately, Dorothea still slipped under their radar. Her prison pen pals Everson Gilmouth vanished after September 1985. On this time, 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, about the size of a coffin. A day or so after the handyman dropped it off, Dorothea asked him to 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 gave confusing directions. Finally, lost and frustrated, she told him to just dump the box by the Sacramento River. All the while, Dorothea kept up correspondence with Everson's sister, sometimes pretending to be a new woman who Everson had run off with. Dorothea didn't report Everson's death and continued caching his social security checks. Then Dorothea opened up her home to borders. Now, some profit killers attack rich family members or business associates, some are black widows who poison their husbands or bosses who kill their employees. Dorothea chose people who'd agreed to have their male sent to her address. Advertising it as a refuge for the less fortunate, Dorothea took in clients other landlords turned away. People with severe mental illnesses, disabilities, and problems with drugs and alcohol. Most were poor, elderly, or had no one looking after them. To lure them in, she relied on her image. Dorothea carefully cultivated her luck to appear old and harmless. Sacktown magazine later described her as "a white haired land lady who handed out homemade tamales and fussed over her rose beds in vegetable garden." The tamales were targeted. Dorothea used her last name and basic knowledge of Spanish to Lauren's Spanish speakers. Students who had a language barrier between them and social services also targeted knights at the bar. Sipping on vodka and grapefruit juice, Dorothea targeted people who might be struggling with alcohol abuse. She bought rounds of drinks for those she saw as potential tenants. And lastly, she sought out people living on the streets. In the 1980s, California had significantly reduced the budget for social programs, including state-funded mental health institutions. So these people often had nowhere to go, and no one to report the missing when they disappeared. And disappear they did. Over the next three years, Dorothea Puente took in dozens of borders. These tenants included Betty Palmer, who was 78 and experienced mental illness, within about a month Betty vanished. Then there was Leona Carpenter, who lived with Dorothea, between stays at the hospital. Dorothea waited two months before attacking Leona. But meanwhile, Dorothea met James Gallup at a bar and moved him in when she learned he had social security benefits. However, he refused to sign them over, so Dorothea gave him a medication overdose and learned how to forge his signature. Caching her tenants' checks, Dorothea lived what homes and homes call "the good life." Wanting for nothing, she even used her victim's names to buy luxury goods from mail order catalogs. And she kept the disappearances under wraps, moving in Dorothy Miller and Vera Fey Martin during 1987. Vera vanished within a matter of weeks. By this point, Dorothea had perfected her MO. Like many profit killers, Dorothea used proximity to her advantage. Homes and homes say this type of killer usually kills people they live with. This makes it easier to cover up the murder and provides ample opportunity for their most common weapon, poison. In Dorothea's case, she moved her tenants in, drugged them with sleep medication and likely suffocated them after. Then she buried the bodies in her backyard. She may have even scammed people into helping her. At least one tenant assisted with landscaping. And Dorothea also hired local inmates for landscaping work. It appeared she was giving opportunity to those down on their luck. In truth, she used their cheap labor to conceal her victim's bodies. Before long, Dorothea conned social workers into bringing new victims right to her door. Dorothea boldly walked the social workers through the boarding house, convincing them she offered exemplary care. This included Beth Valentine and Judy Moise. They met Dorothea while seeking a home for one of their cases, Bert Montoya. She first met Bert a few years before, through her job at the volunteers of America Detoxification Center. Bert's gentle manners stood out to her, and his story broke her heart. Bert was a Spanish-speaking immigrant with schizophrenia, now in his early 50s. He'd been abandoned by his family and mostly lived on the streets, making him Dorothea Puente's exact victim type. Of course, Judy and Beth didn't know that. They saw what Dorothea wanted them to. A perfect fit. As Judy checked out Dorothea Puente's home, she noted that the tunnel seemed happy and well taken care of. At the house, Dorothea was raising kittens, feeding them from a bottle. Judy even ran into a former social work case, a man named John Sharp. John said he liked living there. It was more than a shelter. It was a home. That sealed the deal. In February 1988, Bert moved in. First, it was everything Judy had hoped. 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, Bert stopped calling. As his social worker, Judy considered Bert her responsibility. She called to check on him, and Dorothea eventually delivered some unusual news. Dorothea's family in Mexico was hosting Bert for a vacation. This shocked Judy. Bert was uncomfortable navigating Sacramento. She couldn't imagine him traveling to a different country. But Dorothea assured Judy he'd be back in a few days, so Judy stayed patient and returned to check on Bert later that month. Dorothea said he was still traveling. It went on like this for weeks. Judy found Dorothea's lack of concern suspicious, so did her fellow social worker Beth. They both worried Bert was lost or heard in Mexico, and now Dorothea was trying to cover it up. So Judy made it clear. If she didn't hear from Bert by November 7, she'd call the police. Not long after her ultimatum, Judy received a call at her office. It was 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. Bert didn't have contact with his family. At this point, she didn't trust Dorothea to tell the truth, so she contacted John Sharp, the other tenant she knew. John said that Bert didn't live at the house anymore, and 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. He's been digging a lot of holes. Wasting no time, Judy called the Sacramento Police Department and filed a missing person report on Bert Montoya. Within a few hours, a patrol officer drove to 1426 F Street. Dorothy greeted him with her tonnant John Sharp alongside. The officer asked questions about Bert and both Dorothy and John confirmed the earlier story, Bert was in Mexico. But as the officer was leaving, John slipped him a piece of paper on a crumpled envelope and simple cursive, a message read, "She wants me to lie to you." With this, police realized there was something very wrong. Its case was assigned to Detective John Cabrera. Looking into the history, Cabrera learned that Bert wasn't the first of Dorothy as tonnants to vanish. A man named Benjamin Finquant missing a few months before Bert had. Apparently, Dorothy and Nurse Benjamin back to health after a bender before he disappeared. Cabrera was stunned. That made two missing people. On November 11, 1988, Cabrera, another detective, and Dorothy as parole officer knocked on the door of 1426 F Street. Smiling, Dorothy welcomed them in. As the officers asked questions, Dorothy stuck with her story about Bert's vacation in Mexico. She admitted that Benjamin Finquant was a tonnant, acclaimed she threw him out for getting too drunk and hadn't seen him since. With Dorothy as permission, Detective searched the home. Their first red flag was the massive amount of blue pill capsules. They were a mix of diazepam and flurazepam. Diazepam is a depressant often used for anxiety disorders. Flurazepam is typically used to treat insomnia, and the pills were everywhere. Cabrera also found white powder lie. Lie is most often used to cure meat, make soaps, and in some cases, digest the tissue of animal carcasses. Cabrera sensed something was seriously wrong, and there was still one more place he wanted to check. Before coming to the house, he'd spoken with Judy Moise, Bert's social worker. Judy told Cabrera the ominous detail John Sharp had relate to her. That lately, Dorothy had been digging a lot of holes. When Cabrera told Judy he'd visit the house, she had advice. When the Sacramento Police visited Dorothy, a Puente's home to investigate the disappearances of Bert Montoya and Benjamin Fink, they suspected there might be buried evidence. Surprisingly, Dorothy gave them her full permission to dig up the immaculately landscaped backyard, so Cabrera and the others started digging. Dorothy awatched from the second floor balcony. In the dirt, Cabrera found pieces of torn pink cloth. After a few more inches, he discovered large chunks of what seemed to be leather or beef jerky. Then the detective shovel clanged against something hard. He tried to dig around it, but couldn't free whatever it was. He set a shovel aside and jumped into the hole. Then he gripped the item and yanked. The object gave way, a human femur. Cabrera realized then the pieces of leather he'd found were human skin. After this find, Cabrera took Dorothea in for questioning. Dorothea insisted she'd had no idea there was a body in her backyard. There wasn't evidence to connect these remains to Dorothea, so the officers let her go home, but only after securing her permission to dig up the rest of her yard. The next day, November 12, 1988, Detective Cabrera arrived with about 20 more officials. While some dismantled the small gazebo and metal tool shed, everyone else got to work with shovels in a backhoe. Neighbors watched, curious about the yellow caution tape and the authorities swarming the house. News reporters flocked to the scene. But Dorothea and her tenants stayed inside. Around 9 in the morning, she stepped out to ask Cabrera if she could get a coffee at the hotel on the block. Her nephew worked there, and she wanted to get away from the noise. At first, Cabrera wasn't sure, and felt strange to let her leave, but then Dorothea asked him 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 Dorothea over to the hotel. It didn't take long for Cabrera to second guess it. Not long after, the investigation found more human remains. But officers realized this corpse was small, much smaller than birth. The body was fairly decomposed and appeared to be a petite, gray-haired woman. Cabrera's commanding officer looked at him and said, "Where's Dorothea?" The detective raced to the hotel, but when he arrived, she was gone. Unbeknownst to authority, is Dorothea had taken a cab to a nearby bar 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. They'd let her go at the worst possible time, because they went on to uncover a second body that day. This victim was very tall and weighed over 200 pounds, and didn't appear as decomposed. Cabrera knew instinctively what the coroner's later proved. They'd found Bert Montoya. Tragically, Bert wasn't the last victim discovered at 1426 F Street. Over the next few days, officials recovered four more bodies in various states of decay. According to Sacktown Magazine, "Somewhere in an almost mummified state, wrapped tight with cloth, bed sheets, and duct tape, one was missing its head, hands, and feet. And total officers recovered seven sets of remains." Bert Montoya, Benjamin Fink, Dorothy Miller, Leona Carpenter, Betty Palmer, James Gallup, and Vera Faye Martin. Every single one had lived at Dorothea's boarding house, and records showed that Dorothea was still collecting most, if not all, of their social security checks. Experts tested the bodies and found that they contained a variety of anti-convulsants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, painkillers, and tranquilizers. All held traces of florazepam, the blue pills 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. It wasn't enough to confirm that Dorothea had killed them, but the evidence was stacking up. Inside the house, Detective Cabrera realized the carpet of one room was more padded than the others, almost spongy. Cabrera found the room had several layers of carpeting. As he ripped up material, horrible stench filled the air. He found giant ominous stains, putrified body fluids. But while detectives put together the puzzle, the landlady herself was nowhere to be found. Officials feared she'd taken off for Mexico or somewhere else they'd never find her. But in the early hours of November 17th, just five days after she vanished, detectives discovered Dorothea was hiding in plain sight, still running her cons. At the previous night, November 16th, Dorothea Puente had walked into a bar in Los Angeles. She spotted a man sitting by himself and introduced herself as Donna Johansson. Wasting no time, she asked him about his social security checks. She also suggested only partly joking that they should move in together. Eventually Dorothea left, but not without giving her drinking companion her phone number and motel information. With hours later, the man was baffled to see Donna Johansson's face on the news. Except Donna wasn't Donna. She was a wanted killer who'd hit seven corpses in her backyard. Shaken, the man called the police. And before long, authorities stormed the motel. They found Dorothea dressed to the nines in a pink and purple outfit, complete with an umbrella and a maroon purse filled with about $3,000. The handcuffs clicked around her wrists. The hunt was over. Dorothea was charged with nine counts of first-degree murder. As Dorothea was transported from LA back to Sacramento, news reporters followed her shouting questions. In the glaring camera flashes, Dorothea said, "I used to be a very good person at one time." In custody, she denied the murder charges wholesale. She and her defense lawyers insisted she cared for her tenants well, and they died of natural causes. Dorothea claimed that she only disposed of the body so she wouldn't get into trouble with her parole officer. But she did admit to pocketing the social security checks, which over the years amounted to over $100,000. Dorothea was found guilty of three murders, sentenced to life in prison, and died there. While the end of her day is she'd confess to theft, but never to murder. Because for a profit killer, that's what it's about. Thaft. Murder is just a tool. Take it from other cases of profit killers. Mary Elizabeth Wilson killed four husbands after ensuring she'd inherit their estate. H.H. Holmes got engaged to women only to kill them and steal their savings and later killed his employees for their life insurance. Faye and Ray Copeland hired farmhands and instructed them to use their credit to buy cattle. They'd then kill the farmhand, get the debt forgiven, and take the cow. Criminologist Holmes and Holmes also cite Richard Koklinski, aka the iceman as a comfort killer. Koklinski was a hitman, murder was how he made his living. However, the classification of contract killers as profit killers has been disputed. Are they comfort killers, or are they another archetype entirely? They usually don't know their victims, don't live with them, and don't take their victims money. And hitmen's MOs vary widely, which brings us to the end point of our typology series. It's human nature to seek patterns, to organize, to rationalize, but serial killers don't always fit neatly into boxes. They go against human nature, beyond the average person's understanding. As much as we want to understand them, sometimes the scariest part is, we can't. But there is a use for typology, helping stop serial killers and protecting the innocent. If law enforcement officers observe crimes that fit a typology, that can put them one step closer to tracking a killer down. For example, in 1989, law enforcement suspected that over a dozen recent murders were the crimes of someone nicknamed the Genesee River Killer. If theorized the killer was motivated by lust, so when they found a man named Arthur Shawcross near an old crime scene with his pants unbuttoned, they brought him in for questioning. Under interrogation, Shawcross confessed to 11 of the murders. And when it comes to a trial, understanding a killer's motives through typology can help determine appropriate punishment and rehabilitation. A visionary killer likely benefits from mental health treatment, while a mission killer might be more likely to break parole. It's not a perfect system, and it can't answer all our questions. But if it prevents even one murder, it's worth consideration. For more information on Dorothy Appuente 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 Worcesterumate Ever, Call Me Grandma, to be extremely helpful to our research. Thank you for listening to serial killers, and thank you especially for tuning into this past set of episodes. The end of this special series marks the end of my time with the show, and I have so enjoyed being your guest host. That said, there's much more in store for this podcast, including a brand new host who we think you'll love. We'll be taking a short break to prepare for the big debut. Thanks for sticking with us as we searched for the perfect fit, and we can't wait for you to see what's next. Be sure to stay subscribed everywhere you listen and follow us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast so you don't miss a beat. In the meantime, stay safe out there. This episode was written by Kit Fitzgerald and Maggie Admeyer, edited by Maggie Admeyer, researched by Mickey Taylor, fact checked by Bennett Logan and Avon Kim, and Sound Designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Janice Morgan.