Dorothea Puente, Serial-Killing Landlord, Dies in Prison

Worse than a slumlord

​The notorious Dorothea Puente, a landlord in the '80s who was convicted for killing her tenants and burying them in her backyard, died on Sunday while still serving her sentence, according to media reports.

She was 82.

Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, which she rented out to elderly, homeless, and mentally-disabled tenants. She was known for giving her tenants home-cooked meals -- her method of drugging her victims.


She later went to prison for drugging her victims and cashing their social security checks. Upon her release, she reopened her boarding house -- a two-story Victorian in Sacramento.

Police began investigating her again in 1988 after a social worker suspected something was "just not right" with the boarding house. 

And she was correct.

The social worker, Judy Moise, had referred Alvaro Montoya, a 51-year-old mentally-disabled homeless man, to the boarding house. Moise reported him missing when Montoya disappeared after a few months.

Police descended on Puente's boarding home and began digging up bodies; meanwhile she fled to Los Angeles where she was later found in a bar and arrested.

Authorities dug-up seven more bodies in Puente's backyard. She was convicted in 1993 of three murders, for which she received two life sentences.

She died from natural causes at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday.

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