On this day, Nov. 11, in 1988, police in Sacramento, Calif., unearthed seven bodies in the front yard of a grandmotherly woman’s boarding home.
Dorothea Puente, 59, rented the first floor of her Victorian to old and alcoholic boarders to help get them back on their feet. Instead, she killed off her victims with prescription drugs and cashed their Social Security checks, spending the money on expensive liquor and face-lifts.
For years the city overlooked the stomach-churning smells emanating from the house until detectives visited Puente to look for a missing man. After digging around the back yard, investigators found a decaying foot inside a shoe.
Puente was later charged in the deaths of nine people, convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison.
She remains behind bars at age 81.
— Scott McCabe
