Dorothea Puente
Dorothea Puente Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. As most serial killers, Dorothea had a rough childhood. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. After her mother passing Dorothea and her 18 siblings (Dorothea being the sixth) went into foster care in separate locations. Throughout her life, Dorothea Puente was known to be a compulsive liar, claiming to be the youngest of 18 children, when in reality, she was the sixth (Nichols, Background on Serial Killer Dorothea Puente). Often she would pretend to be the sister of the ambassador of Sweden. She also told people that she and Rita Hayworth who was a top box office star and a sex symbol of the 1940s (Nichols, Background on Serial Killer Dorothea Puente). This is just some of the compulsive lies she would tell. Dorothea eventually landed in Olympia Washington and became a stripper and worked at an ice cream parlor at age sixteen. When Dorothea Puente was 22 she met Fred McFaul, and soon married him in Reno, NV. She eventually moved to Los Angeles, California and had two kids with him. He soon left her. McFaul’s mother and adoptive parents raised there kids that McFaul and Puente had together. In 1952 she married Axel Johansson. The marriage lasted 14 rocky years. In 1968 now 39, Dorothea married her third husband, 21 year old Robert Jose Puente. In 1976 when she was managing a boarding house, she married again to one of the tenants, Pedro Angel Montalvo. Dorothea Puente was convicted of her first crime when she was 19 years old. She was convicted of forging a check to buy clothing and accessory items. For this crime she served 4 years. When she was released from prison in 1952 she immediately broke from probation and left town (Nichols, Background on Serial Killer Dorothea Puente). In 1960 she was convicted of living in a whore house and was
Cited: Connell, Rich. "Dorothea Puente Dies at 82; Boarding House Operator Who Killed Tenants." Latimes.com. Los Angeles Times, 28 Mar. 2011. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. . Nichols, Kristen. "Background of Serial Killer Dorothea Puente." Suite101.com. N.p., 15 Jan. 2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2012. . Scheeres, Julia. "Dorothea Puente." , Killing for Profit — "Sewer Problems" — Crime Library on TruTV.com. TruTv, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2012. .