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Death House Landlady · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion is it by him needed murder. Before Dorothea Puente became the serial killer
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known as the Death House Landlady, she was a little girl growing up in
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a deeply troubled family. Born in nineteen twenty nine, Dorothea was raised by
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two alcoholics, and throughout her childhood, her father would often stand in front
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of his own children and threaten to take his life, but he never followed
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through on this threat. Instead, when Dorothea was eight years old, he
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died from a tubercularis infection. The next year, his widow was killed in
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a motorcycle crash, and Dorothea spent the rest of her childhood in an orphanage
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where she suffered from repeated sexual abuse. At sixteen years old, Dorothea left
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the orphanage to marry an older man, a soldier named Fred McFall who had
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just returned to California after serving in World War II. That happy couple had
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two daughters. The first one was sent back to Sacramento to live with Dorothea's
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family, and the second one was quickly given up for adoption. The marriage
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only lasted for three years, and soon afterwards Dorothea was arrested for the first
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time after she was caught paying for shopping with forged checks. She spent three
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months in jail and was released, and then she met her second husband,
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Axel Johansson. And Axel Johansson sounds like the lead singer of a rock band,
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but Axel was not a lead singer of a rock band. He was
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a seaman, and by semen, I don't mean that, I mean he
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was a sailor. And while he was away, Dorothea would spend his money
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gambling with men she invited over to the house. And she also created an
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elaborate persona pretending to be an Israeli and Egyptian woman going by the name Teya
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Singola Niarda. Axel was concerned about his wife's well being, so he had
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her hospitalized, where she was diagnosed as a pathological liar. After she was
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then divorced for the second time in her life, Dorothea created another identity for
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herself. This time she was a modest traditional Christian by the name of Sharon
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Johansson. Acting as Sharon, Dorothea attempted to become a trusted member of the
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local community, opening up her home to women who were suffering from domestic violence
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or poverty. The deception worked, and before long, Sharon was known as
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a caring, selfless woman. Dorothea's next relationships ended in similar way ways,
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the third after a messy divorce resulting in a man fleeing to Mexico, and
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the fourth marriage only lasting a week. After that third divorce, Dorothea fully
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committed to appearing to be a trusted member of the community, wearing dated clothing
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and reading glasses, and growing her gray hair out to appear older than she
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actually was. She decided to open up a full blown boarding house in Sacramento,
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which she advertised as a refuge for the homeless, the mentally ill,
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and those struggling with addiction. There was no reason for the people around to
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suspect otherwise. Dorothea even ran AA meetings from the boarding house, helped people
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sign up for Social Security benefits and help to fund scholarships and charities. In
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nineteen seventy eight, Dorothea was arrested for illegally cashing her tenants checks and was
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sentenced to five years of probation. She'd spent her entire adult life lying,
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conning, and manipulating. It seemed to be the only way that she was
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able to earn a living, and her arrest and time on probation did not
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change that. Before long, she was back to her old ways, slipping
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drugs into the drinks of elderly people to incapacitate them before stealing their cash,
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credit cards, and jewelry. On the twenty eighth of April nineteen eighty two,
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a sixty one year old woman who had been staying with Dorothea for two
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weeks suddenly died after consuming enough codine to cause her to stop breathing. Although
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her death was ruled as an undetermined overdose, Ruth Monroe would later be counted
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as Dorothea Poente's first murder victim. Three months after Ruth passed away, Dorothea
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was back in prison for theft. While she was behind bars, she started
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writing letters to a seventy seven year old man in Oregon named Everson Gilmouth.
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He became completely devoted to her and wanted to help out in any way possible.
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By the time she was released in September ninenineteen eighty five, Everson was
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waiting outside to pick her up. In October, Dorothea sent a letter to
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Everson's sister letting her know that she and Everson would be getting married the following
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month. Shortly after sending the letter, Dorothea hired a handyman, Ismail Flores,
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who she asked to build a six foot long storage box. As well
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as a cash payment, she promised that she would allow him to keep Everson's
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vehicle in exchange for his services. If it had occurred to Ismail that the
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dimensions of the box were uncannily similar to the size and shape of a coffin,
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he did not express his concerns. When he returned the next day to
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find that Dorothea had put something inside the box and then nailed it shut,
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he didn't say anything about that either. In fact, when Dorothea asked Ismail
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for his help transporting the box, which was several hundred pounds heavier than it
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had been, he either genuinely wasn't suspicious or he didn't care. Dorothea left
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the box on the shores of the Sacramento River, where it remained undiscovered until
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January of nineteen eighty six. The box, of course, contained the body
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of Dorothea's soon to be husband, Everson Gilmouth. In early nineteen eighty eight,
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fifty one year old Alvaro Gonzales Montoya, known as Bert, came to
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stay with Dorothea in the boarding house. Shortly afterwards, an application was filed
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for Dorothea to be the paye for Bert's government benefits. The last time anybody
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saw Bert was the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty eight. After that,
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he missed a series of important appointments and his social worker was unable to reach
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him. The social worker became suspicious. The social worker became suspicious, so
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Dorothea asked an acquaintance to pose as Bert's brother in law, hoping to smooth
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things over, Claiming that he was Bert's brother in law, Michael Abergonne,
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Dorothea's acquaintance contacted the social worker saying that he had recently dropped Burt off in
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Utah. The ruse did not work. The social worker was even more suspicious
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about what had happened to Bert and told Dorothea that she was going to the
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police. On the seventh of November nineteen eighty eight, the police interviewed one
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of Dorothea's former residents, John Sharp, hoping to find out more information about
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Bert Montoya's disappearance. John insisted that he had only seen Burt just a few
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days ago, but he passed a note to one of the officers. There
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was handwritten and it read, She's making me lie. Four days later,
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a detective arrived at Dorothea's boarding house and noticed an area of the garden where
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the soil appeared to have been recently disturbed. He asked Dorothea if he could
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dig up the soil, and she agreed. But half an hour later,
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when the detective dug up the first set of human remains, Dorothea managed to
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slip away from the authorities. Posing as a harmless old woman. She was
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able to disappear. The forensic investigation into Dorothea's property was seemingly endless. What
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it started as a search for one missing man became a grim discovery of poorly
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buried corpses, all belonging to vulnerable people who had genuinely trusted Dorothea. Bert
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Montoya's body was found in the southeast corner of Dorothea's yard, buried next to
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another missing person, Leona Carpenter. Next to the shed was a cement filled
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hole where the remains of fifty five year old Benjamin Fink were found and sixty
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one year old Vera Fey Martin was buried directly underneath the shed. Near Dorothea's
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rose bushes. There was a heavy concrete slab which covered the body of sixty
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five year old Dorothy Miller. Another victim, seventy eight year old Betty May
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Palmer, had been dismembered and buried in a shallow grave, but despite an
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extensive search, her feet, hands, and head were never found. Forensic
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examination of the victims revealed that they had each been killed by a drug overdose,
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often using the sedative drug florazepam, which is often used to treat insomnia.
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After their deaths, they had been wrapped up in plastic sheets and bed
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linen before being dragged outside to be buried in the yard while investigators were searching
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for human remains on her property. Dorothea remained on the run for five days
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until she was discovered at a Los Angeles motel under a fake name. She
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was initially only charged with the killing of Bert Montoya, but the complaint was
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quickly amended, adding charges for nine counts of murder and officially qualifying the case
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with the death penalty. Still, Dorothea pleaded not guilty. By the conclusion
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of Dorothea's trial, the court had seen testimonies from more than one hundred fifty
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witnesses and viewed more than three thousand exhibits. On the twenty sixth of August
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nineteen ninety three, Dorothea Puente was convicted for three of the killings, but
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even after more than a month of deliberation, the jury remained deadlocked on six
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more murders. Dorothea managed to escape execution. Instead, she received a life
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sentence without parole. While in prison, Dorothea achieved something that she had stolen
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from each of her victims. At eighty two years old, she died peacefully
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natural causes. That's ten minute murder for today Brief and bingeable True Crime.
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Anyway, the real reason for this email. As a guy, and assuming
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you aren't a pilot, if the pilot passed out or had a medical emergency,
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do you think you could land the plane? Emily in Manchester? And
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Emily, what a weird question. I know I couldn't land the plane.
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I've flown a plane like with my hand. I've flown it like sitting in
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a little two seat plane. Someone that I knew it was a pilot took
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take off, I didn't land. I just maneuvered the plane a little bit
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even with that limited knowledge, there's absolutely no way I could land a plane.
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Have you been inside of a cockpit? All the buttons and the gauges
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and the knobs and the dials, and some of them aren't labeled. No,
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there's no way I could land a plane. I could keep it up
12:33
in the air long enough that would let everyone tell their friends and families goodbye
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because things are not about to go well. But I could not land it.
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No, And I feel like this is Emily, Are you trying to
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trick me? I feel like this is a trick question, like you've asked
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me something, You're setting me up for some kind of answer, You're going
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