Sweet Grandma with a Sinister Secret: How Dorothea Puente Turned Her Boarding House into a House of Horrors

Dorothea Puente, perhaps Sacramento’s most notorious murderer, was so seemingly non-threatening that authorities let her out of their sights time and time again — even after digging up seven bodies in her backyard in 1988.

Puente, a grandmother who ran a local boarding house, would ultimately die in prison in 2011 after she was convicted of three of the nine murders she was suspected of committing during the 1980s. But for years, the “white-haired landlady who handed out homemade tamales and fussed over her rose beds and vegetable garden,” as the Sactown Magazine once described her, had been hiding a dark secret behind her good deeds.

As the case has garnered renewed attention on social media recently, PEOPLE is looking back at the 1980s murders and how they were finally solved. Here’s what happened.

A Refuge Turned Into a House of Horrors

Throughout the 1980s, Puente opened her home as a boarding home to people with mental health and substance abuse issues, according to Sactown. Several social workers in the area would recommend potential tenants to her, and she gained a good reputation in the community, according to the magazine.

But, as KCRA reported in a true crime episode last year about Puente’s murders, the then-59-year-old had an evil secret. Puente murdered several of her tenants over the years and collected their social security checks, according to local KGPE. The outlet reports that Puente would even continue to write letters to her tenants’ family members for months following their deaths in order to cover her tracks and lead the families to believe nothing was wrong.

How Puente Was Caught

In February of 1988, Puente took Alvaro “Bert” Montoya into her care after social worker Judy Moise recommended him, according to Sactown. But when the 52-year-old man who was experiencing homelessness stopped showing up to meetings with Moise, she grew concerned — and then suspicious after Puente gave inconsistent answers about where Montoya had gone. Moise’s concern led to investigators sweeping Puente’s home for clues, eventually digging up the bodies of Montoya and six other people in the backyard.

Despite the bodies, police still didn’t initially suspect Puente and did not arrest her, according to Sactown. The next day, Puente fled to Los Angeles, finally sparking the police’s suspicion and a four-day manhunt that sent authorities searching for Puente all the way down to Mexico.

Puente was eventually taken into custody after an elderly man at a Los Angeles bar struck up a conversation with her and soon recognized her from the news. She faced trial for the murders in 1993, and according to Sactown, she was found guilty of three murders after 24 days of jury deliberation.

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Puente’s Local Legacy

Puente died from natural causes in 2011, but not before she finally broke her silence, agreeing to six jailhouse interviews with Sactown shortly before her death. “I’m not guilty,” she contended to the magazine, which described her as extremely routine-oriented and reported she claimed to be devoutly religious.

And what Puente missed most about the outside world after decades in prison? “Going to church every day. Cooking what I want. Working in my yard,” she said.

Puente’s property has become somewhat of a macabre tourist attraction in Sacramento, now owned by Barbara Holmes and Tom Williams, who purchased the home in 2010 at auction, according to The Sacramento Bee. Williams has since leaned into the house’s history, dressing up a Puente-like mannequin on the front porch and framing photographs on the wall that document Puente’s history there. Williams told the newspaper that people stop by multiple times a day to catch a glimpse of where some of Sacramento’s most notorious crimes took place.

“She truly was an evil … criminal in the body of a little old lady,” Williams told the newspaper. “An awful, horrible person.”