Everything that could possibly go wrong on a live television segment at a haunted spot happened the morning of Oct 26th, 2010. As I was preparing for investigating the site with GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO # 31 (KMAX-TV) the transmitting cable on their truck went haywire forcing them to bring in another truck, and the mikes for Marianne McClary, anchor and seasoned reporter, went dead and had to be changed several times.  I knew then that we were in for a bumpy ride.  Chalk another up to restless spirits causing excitement.

The Dorothea Puente Murder House in Sacramento , California at this moment is a powder keg waiting to explode.  Especially at floor level.  The percolating Victorian house located at 1426 F. Street is building to a crescendo with all the negativity and horror that has happened there.  The release can only come when the women known to have caused the misery, killing so many and then burying them on the property, dies.  The new owners are waiting and watching for strange occurrences at the property.  They have plans to relax and live there eventually and hopefully in total peace and comfort.  It is common that once a perpetrator of horrible crimes dies, the negative energy of what they created releases, having nowhere else to go.  The imprint of the event can remain, but the charged energy will start to dissipate. This murderer's death is eminent and slowly closing in.  Today, the property waits as it gives off an air of strangeness, uncertainty, pain and uneasiness. You easily feel vertigo at the site.  And of course disruptive energy causes things to go haywire, which is typical on these kinds of investigations. 

For those of you who do not remember, this home in Sacramento , California was the site of national headlines in the late 1980's.  A known and repeated felon on several accounts, gray haired, pixie and 'cute as a button' soft-spoken grandma looking Dorothea Puente somehow fell through the bureaucratic cracks and was able to get yet another license as a care provider.  She became well known in the community as someone who would take in ‘difficult’ cases, homeless, those with a history of drugs, violence and mental disorders.  She set up ‘shop’ in a two-story blue Victorian house on an old section of Sacramento , a tree lined street with other beautiful and stately homes.  Looking back, it must have seemed like a good place to hide a crime, it was a good neighborhood and only a few blocks from the Governors Mansion .  Today, it's quite eerie traveling down, this unsuspecting street with the manicured lawns and yards only to remember what happened there.  For quite some time, no one suspected anything strange or odd going on for a long time way back then though, with the exception of her immediate neighbors.  The odor coming from the house and property was unbearable. They insisted on wanting to know what the ‘stench’ was that was coming from her yard.  Sweet little old Ms. Puente made a host of excuses as she smiled at them - sewer problems, rats, to perhaps it being the fertilizer she used in the yard. Of course she kept one small fact to herself, and that was not mentioning that the majority of that fertilizer was human flesh decaying.  Always the accommodating pleasant neighbor, old lady Puente tried her best to camouflage the odor coming from her yard with continual bags of lime and the planting of roses and trees and other plants with lingering flower smells.  Puente kept a deep dark secret. She was drugging and killing her residents when they angered her or became too needy and annoying for her to deal with.  Moreover, she got rid of most of the bodies by burying them in the yard.  As a bonus, she continued to keep their social security checks coming in each month.  It remained a lucrative business for her for a long while, bringing in as much as $5,000 a month off her dead ex-tenants checks.

Over time this little lady lavished herself with furs and designer clothes and some say expensive jewelry as well.  It is told that she provided herself with an upstairs well stocked bar with the most expensive liquor, bottles of $100 perfume, and toiletries.  Other than those perks she provided for herself, life went on for the outside world as if nothing was amiss in the life of Dorothea Puente for a good long time.

But then, fortunately, social workers began to notice that they could not make contact with some of the people that were supposedly living in that house.  They alerted the authorities who, on these tips, decided to visit.  On November 11,1988, Detective John Cabrera and some of his officers went to the Puente house looking for one of the missing persons, Alvaro “Bert” Montoya.  By all reports this tenant was a mentally-retarded person.  His social worker was worried about him and after visiting the Puente house and not finding him there, recorded him as missing.

Puente greeted investigators warmly at the door, wearing her standard one strand pearl necklace and nicely pressed blue dress.  Friendly and inviting, she asked them in and stated she had no problem with them checking out the yard. When looking around the property the officers noticed newly disturbed dirt and to be thorough they called for shovels and started digging in the yard.  Cabrera jumped into one of the holes thinking he was helping things along by pulling up a stubborn tree branch.  To his dismay what broke off was a human leg bone.  By the following day, Ms. Puente had to know they were on to her. Still, undaunted, she feigned no responsibility and in fact, appeared as shocked as the authorities when the bodies were unearthed from her yard.  Over several days, neighbors and onlookers hung onto the wrought iron gate and perched themselves up in trees around the property as law enforcement officials, forensic anthropologists and folks from the coroners office dug up decaying, decomposing and skeletal remains of seven people – five men and two women.  At one point during the excavation Puente asked if she could go 'down the street' to the Clarion Hotel for a cup of coffee.  From there, with at least $3,000 in her purse, she went to a bar, chugged a few stiff drinks and hitched a ride out of town.  When she did not return, an all points bulletin was issued.  Puente was on the lam.  Later two other deaths would be attributed to Puente, a woman thought to be Puente's business partner who had died earlier in the house of an overdose of codeine and Tylenol, and a man whose remains were found by a fisherman near the bank of the Sacramento River in a make-shift wooden coffin.  She was eventually apprehended in So. California and brought back to stand trial for her crimes.  She was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and today is serving her time in a Central California prison.  Puente is currently in the hospital and is fighting cancer.

October 28th was the date of the first investigation. I, as the Celebrities Psychic, along with McClary from Good Day Sacramento, Robert Reppert of our Gold Rush Ghosts International Paranormal Investigations (WWW.GOLDRUSHGHOSTS.COM), my agent Bill Bradley of ME Communications, and Cat Noble, one of our head investigators, came to the scene early in the morning.  It was foggy, cold, and a little damp - great atmospheric condition for an investigation.  Besides all the other things that went wrong with the equipment, when the new owners arrived they gave us more bad news. They could not get the key to go inside the house until later that day.  Undaunted, we decided to explore the outside grounds as that is where the bodies were buried, hoping to 'dig up' (pun, sorry) as much information as possible.  When the cameras finally began rolling, McClary and I walked the property.

It was strange and eerie.  Looking up to the house it felt like it was expanding and contracting.  We went up the stairs to the second landing and McClary and I both felt off-centered.  I asked the camera person to get a wide shot, so the audience could hopefully experience this with us. 

During the second segment of the morning, we continued to walk the yard.  A feeling of foreboding was there, solemn and still very off-centered.  Twice I braced myself so that I did not fall over.  Although cement had been poured over where the bodies were originally found, the lingering ghostly images (imprints of what happened) were easy to assess.  Our meters went off the charts.

I was approached by one spirit, a man who called himself Gus and told us he was also known as Guy.  He kept walking in circles, and as our time for this segment was limited we only followed him for a short time after which a man in spirit came into view.  His name was Harold, and he wanted to tell me that he was someone living in the area at the time and that he did odd jobs.  He stated that he had on several occasions helped dig holes in the yard.  If he were referring to the time that Puente had the house this was great to know, because there was no way this little woman could have dug those holes without help.  He stated later to me that he 'made a few dollars' for doing this, and he would be coaxed to continue digging as he was told the hole was not big enough for a tree to go into.  When the dirt became too hard and packed to dig through he had 'help' as 'the woman' would soak the soil with water from the hose.  He did not refer to the woman by name.  There was more information for me to give our audience concerning this property than was known about at the time.  I could sense an indentation at the front of the property and knew that a body had been buried there at one time and then dug up and placed elsewhere.

As time grew near to leave, we knew we had to come back at another time to go inside the house.  We hoped the equipment would accommodate us and not fail on the next visit.

On Monday, November 8th, 2010, Marianne (GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO ) and I, along with Reppert made our way back to the property with the cameras rolling.  It was 7:00 am, a cold drizzly morning when we opened the door and went into the Dorothea Puente Murder House.  It was an unnerving and a heartfelt assignment even for as seasoned an investigator as myself.  I have been in worse situations such as conducting exorcisms with clergy or investigating facilities that tortured poor innocent people, and all of these places took a back seat to this house. I announced to our audience that there were two kinds of energy I was finding at this site, ghostly imprints (a videotape if you will of things that had transpired), and there were spirits of several deceased that were willing to talk to us.  Of course you cannot communicate with a ghost, but it was not long before a man in spirit came forward and took my arm.   I asked him prior to going on the air if he had something to say to me and to the audience. He told me "I dug my own grave."  He looked sad remembering that time.  He was a tall man so I had to look up to connect with those piercing eyes, and as I did I asked him "At the time, did you know it was to be your grave?"  He answered "No, but it was."  He also stated that when the earth was too hard to continue digging, Puente would pour water into the hole so that he could keep digging.  "I kept saying that the hole was plenty big enough for a trees root," he said. "But she kept telling me that the hole had to be wider, not deeper."  I looked at his calloused hands with cuts on them.  I told him how sorry I was and shivered knowing this was his fate. He looked down, "I was poisoned" he said.  "And she" he stated, "Too many pills."

As we walked on through the house, I noticed several places that were uncomfortable, especially on

the first floor.  It was known that Puente kept her tenants on the first floor, herself living upstairs.  It was obvious that the upstairs of the building was more stately, groomed and well kept.  And, there was less activity on the top floor.  This unraveled a secret for GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO .  In most reports of the time, it was stated that Puente when confronted with a difficult tenant she was about to dispose of, would tell the other tenants "I am going to take him/her upstairs and make them feel better."  From my observation and from the energy, it was plain that she may have said that, but rarely did she ever take one of her charges upstairs but instead, as the night became quiet, took them into her kitchen where she slowly drugged and poisoned them.  This made it quite convenient to drag them out the side door and into the waiting graves.

On this investigation McClary spoke with the current owners of the house.  They stated that the activity that they have experienced so far is a banging and rapping sound that comes at night, every night, and at the same time.  It appeared to be from the kitchen/stairs area.  They investigated the first few times and found nothing...nothing they could see.  Eerie.  I promised to come back once they get settled in or at any time that they have a problem that they are concerned about or need my expertise for. They do need more answers. I have come to love these people, the deceased as well as the  new owners of the property.  If they get through moving in over the holidays, my crew is prepared to come back in January with our special equipment and record any continual ghosts and spirits that roam the property.

This is an ongoing investigation.  As you know spirits come and go.  There is much more we will be investigating as things transpire.       

And so we wait!

As a side note, a person emailed me and said "I was baby-sat as a child by Dorothea Puente in that house.  My mother thought she was a sweet old lady."  Another woman stated, "My mother worked for the state and recommended the Dorothea Puente facility to several difficult people to place.  Two of them eventually were found dead and buried on the property.  Today she feels terrible about it."  I told her to tell her mom she did nothing wrong, she was a victim of circumstance, there was no way she could have known.

Sad story.  Lovely House. Shudder! 

The segment can be seen by going to GOODDAYSACRAMENTO.COM and pull up NANCY BRADLEY.

The Celebrities Psychic NANCY BRADLEY is one of the top ten Psychics and Life Coaches in the world.  She is the best selling author of many books, among them THE INCREDIBLE WORLD OF GOLD RUSH GHOSTS, BE A GHOST BUSTER WITH INVESTIGATING THE UNKNOWN (her television show) and BIZARRE AND GHOSTLY TALES FOR THE CAMPFIRE.  She currently lives in the Sacramento area with her husband, her 7 cats and two dogs where she conducts Readings and Life Coaching Sessions and teaches psychic development classes.  She is a regular on Good Day Sacramento, Channel #31, KMAX.

For more info:

WWW.NANCYBRADLEY.ORG

WWW.GOLDRUSHGHOSTS.COM

(530) 622-0977

	Cooking with a Serial Killer Recipes From Dorothea Puente by Shane Bugbee
	The Bone Garden by William P. Wood
	Human Harvest: The Sacramento Murder Story by Daniel J. Blackburn

Dorothea Puente

Dorothea Helen Puente (born January 9, 1929) is a female convicted American serial killer. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and cashed the Social Security checks of her elderly and mentally disabled boarders. Those who complained were killed and buried in her yard.

Puente's reputation in the boarding house was mixed. Some tenants resented her stinginess and complained that she refused to give them their mail or money; others praised her for small acts of kindness or for her generous home-made meals. Puente's motives for killing tenants were financial, with police estimates of her ill-gotten income totaling more than $5000/month. When apprehended, Dorothea was in possession of expensive perfume and silk dresses.

The murders appear to have begun shortly after Puente began renting out space in the home at 1426 F Street. In April 1982, 61-year-old friend and business partner Ruth Monroe began living with Puente in her upstairs apartment, but soon died from an overdose of codeine and Tylenol. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. They believed her and judged the incident a suicide but many believe that Ruth was another one of Dorothea's victims.

A few weeks later, the police were back after a 74-year-old pensioner named Malcolm McKenzie (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging) accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him. She was convicted of three charges of theft on August 18, 1982, and sentenced to five years in jail. While in jail, she started to correspond with a 77-year-old retiree living in Oregon, named Everson Gillmouth. A pen-pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving just three years of her sentence, he was waiting for her in a red 1980 Ford pickup. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. They opened a joint bank account and paid $600-a-month rent for the upstairs apartment at 1426 F Street in Sacramento.

In November 1985, Puente hired handyman Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. For his labor and an additional $800, Puente gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup in good condition, which she stated belonged to her boyfriend in Los Angeles who no longer needed it. Dorothea Puente then asked Florez to do one more thing: build a box 6 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet to store "books and other items." She then asked Florez to transport the filled and nailed-shut box to a storage depot. Florez agreed, and Puente joined him. On the way, however, she told him to stop while they were on Garden Highway in Sutter County and dump the box on the river bank in an unofficial household dumping site. Puente told him that the contents of the box were just junk.

On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the box sitting about three feet from the bank of the river and informed police. Investigators found a badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. Meanwhile, Puente continued to collect Everson Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She also maintained a "room and board" business, taking in 40 new tenants (most of whom were alcoholics and drug addicts). Although she was making a good profit doing this, she wanted more money and therefore started to frequent bars looking for new customers. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years.

Puente continued to accept elderly tenants, and was popular with local social workers because she accepted "tough cases," including drug addicts and abusive tenants. Puente collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses."

During this period, parole agents went and visited Puente, who had been ordered to stay away from the elderly and refrain from handling government checks, a minimum of fifteen times at the residence. No violations were ever noted.

Suspicion was first aroused when neighbors noticed the odd activities of a homeless alcoholic known only as "Chief," whom Puente stated she had "adopted" and made her personal handyman. Puente had Chief dig in the basement and cart soil and rubbish away in a wheelbarrow. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. Chief later took down a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared.

Dorothea Puente is a hedonistic serial killer.She would be classified in a sub-category of hedonistic known as the comfort killer. The comfort killer kills for “creature comfort” reasons.These reasons take the form of things for the killer to gain.This can be money or material goods that "nourish" the killer in some manner. The main reason for such a killer to commit his or her crimes is to use their gains to enjoy life or to get what he or she needs. For the comfort killer, killing is just a step in order to gain what they need to live life. Displays of aggression are not the characteristic of this type of killer. Most comfort oriented killers kill quietly.

On November 11, 1988, police inquiring after the disappearance of tenant Alvaro Montoya, a developmentally disabled schizophrenic whose social worker had reported him missing. After noticing disturbed soil on the property, they uncovered the body of tenant Leona Carpenter, 78. Seven bodies were eventually found, and Puente was charged with a total of nine murders, convicted of three, and is now serving two life sentences.

During the initial investigation, Puente was not immediately suspect, and was allowed to leave the property, ostensibly to buy a cup of coffee at a nearby hotel. Instead, she fled to Los Angeles, where she immediately befriended an elderly pensioner, who recognized her from police reports and called the authorities- but not before paying some of her expenses and entertaining her suggestion of cohabitation.

Her trial was moved to Montery County on a change of venue motion filed by her attorneys, Kevin Clymo and Peter P. Vlautin, III. The trial began in October 1992 and ended a year later.

The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office. Big and broad shouldered he had the shape of an ex-athlete undisguised by his pin stripped suit and suspenders.

Clymo was tall and bald with a "Hulk Hogan"mustache.He had an easy down to earth manner and was a veteran of the Vietnam War.It was his first capital case.

Vlautin who often wore ties that matched his fashionable red -rimmed glasses was cosmopoltian in dress and manner.He had successfully handled several death penalty cases and had just finished one against prosecutor O'Mara.

O'Mara called over 130 witnesses. He argued to the jury she had used sleeping pills to put her tenants asleep, then suffocated them, and hired convicts to dig the holes in her yard. The defense countered with many witnesses which put holes in O'Mara's scientific theories.

O'Mara told the jury since no one had seen her bury the bodies the jurors must look at the facts. He told them common sense and logic says Puente killed her tenants. Kevin Clymo skillfully countered O'Mara's closing argument. Clymo concluded his argument by showing a picture commonly used in psychology that can viewed in different ways and saying "Keep in mind things are not always as they seem."

The jury deliberated over a month and found Puente guilty of three murders. They could not agree on the others.

The penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara.

The defense called several witnesses that showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her and several other witnesses including her long-lost daughter.They testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers.

Mental Health experts testified of Puente's abusive upbringing and how it motivated her to help the less fortunate. At the same time, they agreed she had an evil side brought on by the stress of caring for her down and out tenants.

O'Mara's closing argument focused on Puente's acts of murder. He shouted at the jury "Does anyone become responsible for their conduct in this world?" "These people were human beings, they had a right to live-they did not have a lot of possessions-no houses-no cars-only their social security checks and their lives. She took it all... Death is the only appropriate penalty"

Kevin Clymo responded by evoking Dorthea the child and caregiver.

Peter Vlautin addressed the jurors in confidential tones, intentionally contrasting with O'Mara's shouting, almost in a whisper he began, "We are here today to determine one thing:What is the value of Dorthea Puente's life? That is the question. Does she have to be killed?

Vlautin spoke gently about Puente's childhood touching on the traumatic aspects that shaped her life and urged the jurors to see the world through her eyes. " You have heard of the despair which was the foundation of her life, the anger and resentment...If anyone in the jury room tells you it was not that bad, ask them would you want that to happen to yourself? Would you want that to happen to your children?

Vlautin spoke almost poetically of mitigating factors and of the numerous people who came to testify on Dorthea's behalf. "I am led to believe if there is any reason for us to be living here on this earth, it is to somehow enhance one another's humanity, to love, to touch each other with kindness, to know that you have made just one person breath easier because you have lived. I submit to you ladies and gentlemen that is why these people came to testify for Dorthea Puente."

Vlautin concluded in hushed tones, "I think you can only truly understand why so many people testifed and asked you to spare Dorthea's life only if you have ever fallen down and stumbled on the road of life and had someone pick you up, give you comfort, give you love, show you the way. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorthea's life is worth saving. That is mitigating. That is a human quality that deserves to be preserved. It is a flame of humanity that has burned inside Dorthea since she was young." Vlautin concluded quietly, "That is reason to give Dorthea Puente life without the possibility of parole."

After several days of deliberations, the jury was deadlocked 7-5 for life. The judge, Michael J. Virga, declared a mistrial when the jury said further deliberations would not change their minds. Under the law, Puente would get Life without the Possibility of Parole.

Puente is currently incarcerated at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Madera County, California. She maintains her innocence and insists all of the tenants died of natural causes.

It has been reported by the Sacramento Bee in September 2010 that Puente is seriously ill and could die at any time.

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