Grandma? Pt.2

Police began looking for a disabled schizophrenic that had been reported missing by his social worker. The police noticed disrupted soil on the ground, searched it, and found the body of Leona Carpenter. After investigating, seven bodies were recovered. Dorothea was tried for nine murders, convicted of three, and sentenced two life sentences.

Initially, Dorothea was not a suspect. She was allowed to leave the ground and have a coffee nearby. Instead, she fled to Los Angeles where she immediately befriended someone who recognized her and called the police.

The trial lasted a year. The prosecutor, O'Mara, called over 130 witnesses. He argued that the defendent would use sleeping pills to get the tenants to sleep, then she'd suffocate them, and hired convicts to dig holes in the backyard for the bodies. The jury deliberated for over a month.

She died on March 27, 2011 in a prison in Chowcilla, California at the age of 82 due to natural causes.

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