Grandma? Pt.1

She looks like your average granny: sweet, full of stories, and love. Full of stories she is, but the kind of stories she has to tell aren't exactly enjoyable. The story of this woman will blow your mind.

Dorothea Puente. She ran a boarding school in the 1980's in California. Every one chalked her  up to being the next great hero. After all, she was taking those in who needed her help and caring for them when no one else could or would. What they didn't know is that she was cashing the Social Security checks of her elderly and mentally disabled patients. Those who complained were killed and burried in the back yard.

This woman did not just wake up one day and decided to steal money and kill people. No, she had lived a rough life. She was born an only child. Her parents worked as cotton pickers. Her father died when she was eight from TB and her mother past in a motorcycle accident shortly there after. She was sent to an orphanage until relatives took her in. She began lying about her childhood saying that she was one of three children and that they were both and raised in Mexico. Looking back, it should have been clear that there was going to be a problem with this troubled, little girl.

She was married at the age of sixteen and had two daughters; one she gave up for adoption, the other she gave to her relatives. She began pregnant again shortly thereafter but suffered a miscarriage. Her husband was repulsed so he left her. Due to humiliation, Dorothea began lying about her marriage saying that her husband had died to a heart attack. She attempted to forge checks but was caught, sentenced to a year in prison, and then released on parole at six months. Soon after her parole, she was impregnated again; this time, by a man she barely knew. She gave birth to a baby girl and then gave her up for adoption. Later, she met Johanson who she would remain married to for fourteen years.

She continued in her pattern of divorcing and remarrying until she finally purchased the house that she turned into her boarding house.

When it came to the tenants of her home, there were mixed feelings. Some tenants dispised her while others praised her. Either way, she was killing them off. Without a doubt, her motive was money. The first murder was a close friend of Dorothea's who she poisoned with an overdose of tylenol and codiene. She told the police that her friend was very upset about her husband and they chalked it up to a suicide.

She kept killing using drug overdoses until finally something was discovered. Find out her fate in the nest post, Grandma? Pt.2