She's a Serial Killer - The Dorothea Puente Story
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Who is Dorothea Puente and what crimes did she commit?
So this old woman is about to kill a lot of people. Now the woman's name is Dorothea, and Dorothea is 53 when all this starts, and she's living in California. Here's the thing about Dorothea. She really loves money, and she seems to be willing to do all kinds of illegal things to get it. Like she forges people's checks, she recruits girls for prostitution, so basically she becomes a pimp. And because all that, she's been in jail more than once. But now she's out. But of course, she's not going to give up her life of committing crimes. No, no, no. She is determined to make as much money as possible.
What illegal activities did Dorothea engage in before opening her boarding house?
So one night in 1982, she goes out to a local bar. And there she meets this older guy and they hit it off and they have a couple of drinks. And after some time, they decide to leave and go back to his apartment. Once they're there, they keep drinking. But when the guy isn't looking, Dorothea slips a heavy sedative into his drink, and he drinks it, and soon he's knocked out. And that is when Dorothea steals a bunch of his things. She steals his money, his jewelry, everything she can take. Then she leaves. Later, the guy wakes up, and he realizes that he's been robbed, and he reports her to the police. And so, bam, Dorothea gets arrested. And she gets convicted, and she's sentenced to five years in prison.
Three years later, in 1985, she gets out on parole. And now she could clean up her act and stop committing all these crimes, but that's not what she's gonna do. Because again, she's determined to make as much money as possible. In fact, she's going to go even bigger this time. So she comes up with this insane idea. She's going to open a boarding house. This would be a place for like homeless people or alcoholics or people struggling with mental disabilities, vulnerable people with very little support. So she'll open this boarding house and these people will come and live with her. And she'll give them a room and meals and basic care. And then she's going to scam them. So she gets to work on this idea.
She rents this big house in Sacramento with several floors, and she starts taking vulnerable people in as tenants. Now normally, a boarding house like hers should be licensed, usually run by like trained nurses or certified caregivers. But Dorothea, she ain't got time for all that certification nonsense. Instead, she just lies to everyone and tells them that she's a registered nurse. And she lies to the tenants of her boarding house. She even lies to the social workers who come by to check on the condition of things. And she comes across as like a very nice older woman. So people believe her. And because everyone believes her, Dorothea keeps bringing in more and more new tenants. Until her house is full of people.
And here is where she starts scamming them. Because a lot of these tenants, they receive social security checks from the government for one reason or another. Either they're elderly or they're mentally disabled or what have you. And because Dorothea is now their caretaker, those checks are signed over to her as payment for housing and food and stuff. And she's supposed to spend the social security checks on these people. So she starts thinking, well, if I kill some of these tenants, their checks will still come, but I won't have to spend the money on them, because they'll be dead. And the sad reality is, she knows that a lot of these tenants are homeless or mentally unwell, so if they suddenly go missing, no one's going to notice.
So she targets her first victim in this scheme. This guy, Everson. Everson is an older man who lives with Dorothea because he's actually her boyfriend. Now, Everson typically receives around $700 a month from Social Security and pension benefits. And Dorothea knows this, and she wants all that money to herself. So she goes and poisons him. And he, unfortunately, dies. Then, Dorothea places his body in a wooden box, and she dumps it in a local river. After that, she starts taking all his money. She writes checks from his account, she forges documents to sell his truck and his trailer, and she, of course, redirects his social security benefits to herself.
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