Dorothea Puente Finds Easy Marks for Money and Murder

After last week’s case of the heartbreaking murders Cary Stayner committed in Yosemite, we stay in California. Dorothea Puente ostensibly ran a boardinghouse in Sacramento in the 1980s. In reality, she targeted elderly people to steal their money, then killed them when the money was gone. This earned her the nickname of “The Death House Landlady.”

Dorothea Puente

Dorothea Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray in Redlands, California in 1929. She had a rough childhood. Both her parents were abusive alcoholics and her father died of tuberculosis when Dorothea was 8. Her mother lost custody of her children two years later and died in a motorcycle accident later the same year. Dorothea and her siblings ended up in an orphanage where she claimed she was sexually abused.

An early snapshot of Dorothea Puente
An early snapshot of Dorothea Puente

Dorothea married for the first time at age 16 in 1945. Her husband, Fred McFaul, had recently returned from the Pacific Theater of World War II. Between 1945 and 1948, they had two children together. One she sent to live with relatives while she put the other up for adoption. McFaul left her in 1948.

Dorothea Puente Has Legal Troubles

Over the next three decades, Dorothea would have a series of run-ins with the law. In 1948, police in Riverside, California arrested her for buying women’s accessories with forged checks. She pled guilty to two counts of forgery and served four months in jail.

In 1962, Dorothea was arrested for owning and operating a house of prostitution that masqueraded as a bookkeeping firm. She claimed, unsuccessfully, to be staying with a friend and not knowing the place was a brothel. A court found her guilty, and she served 90 days in jail.

Dorothea Puente awaits her arraignment, November 17, 1988 (Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee)
Dorothea Puente awaits her arraignment, November 17, 1988 (Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee)

Following her release from the Sacramento jail, Dorothea made an effort to show herself as a resource for the down-and-out members of the community. She opened a boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento. Many of her boarders were homeless and without family connections. As part of her effort to appear caring, she held Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the house.

The house at 1426 F Street (Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee)
The house at 1426 F Street (Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee)

But Dorothea soon faced another legal problem. In 1978, she was charged and convicted of illegally cashing thirty-four state and federal checks belonging to her tenants. She received five years’ probation and was ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution.

Between 1952 and 1978, Dorothea married and divorced three more times. Her name changed a lot, too, although she finally settled on the name of her third husband.

The Murders Begin

Fifty-two-year-old Ruth Munroe went to live with Puente in April 1982. She soon died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. Dorothea was able to convince authorities that Munroe, depressed over her husband’s terminal illness, had committed suicide.

A few weeks later, 74-year-old Malcom McKenzie accused Dorothea of drugging him and stealing his money. She was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. While incarcerated, she began corresponding with 77-year-old Everson Gillmouth, a retiree from Oregon. When California paroled Dorothea in 1985, Gillmouth moved down from Oregon to be with her. He soon disappeared, but Dorothea continued to cash his pension checks. She even wrote letters to his family, telling them the reason he hadn’t been in touch was because he was ill.

Investigators dig in Dorothea Puente's back yard
Investigators dig in Dorothea Puente’s back yard

Dorothea Puente continued to take in boarders. Her parole was conditional on her staying away from the elderly and not handling government checks. However, despite her parole officers visiting the home at least fifteen times, they didn’t note any violations.

Dorothea’s Murders Come to Light

In 1988, a social worker with Volunteers of America placed Alvaro “Bert” Montoya in Puente’s boardinghouse. Montoya was a 51-year-old developmentally challenged man who suffered from schizophrenia. He had no contact with his family. The social worker took an interest in Montoya and called Dorothea regularly to check on him. The social worker thought it odd, then, when she called, and Dorothea said Bert had gone to Mexico with his brother. After a few days of Dorothea’s shifting stories, the social worker filed a missing person report.

A police officer went to the F Street boardinghouse to take a missing persons report. All the tenants confirmed Dorothea’s story that Bert had left with a relative. But one of the boarders, John Sharp, passed the officer a note scribbled on the back of an envelope. It said, “She wants me to lie to you.” He later told investigators that he didn’t know what happened to Bert, but that what Dorothea was saying was not true.

Police remove the sixth bod from 1426 F Street, November 14, 1988
Police remove the sixth bod from 1426 F Street, November 14, 1988

Detectives and her parole officer arrived at Dorothea’s boardinghouse and, with her permission, searched it. Finding nothing of significance, asked if they could dig in her yard. She agreed to this as well. The two detectives and the parole officer started digging. It wasn’t long before they discovered human remains.

The Arrest and Conviction of Dorothea Puente

Detectives took Dorothea along with her tenants in for questioning. She maintained the she had no knowledge of anybody buried in her yard. At this point, police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest Dorothea. But they did return to the F Street house with an anthropologist and a crime scene expert to continue the search.

While the search was in progress, Dorothea asked if she could go to the motel coffee shop across the street for a cup of coffee. Since she wasn’t under arrest, detectives let her go. It was a ruse. Instead of having a coffee, she fled to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, searchers discovered another body buried in the yard. They would eventually find a total of seven.

Detective John Cabrera flies Dorothea Puente back to Sacramento from Los Angeles where she fled during the search of her yard
Detective John Cabrera sits next to Dorothea Puente as they fly to Sacramento from Los Angeles where she fled during the search of her yard

Police immediately put out a BOLO on Dorothea Puente. In Los Angeles, she befriended an elderly pensioner she met in a bar, possibly her next victim. However, he recognized her from television news coverage of the case and called the TV station. They called police.

Dorothea Puente went on trial in October 1992. She faced eight charges of first-degree murder, one for the seven bodies found in her back yard and for Ruth Munroe. Prosecutors added a ninth charge when the body of a John Doe found three years earlier proved to be that of Everson Gillmouth.

The jury convicted Dorothea of first-degree murder in the cases of Dorothy Miller and Benjamin Fink, and second-degree murder in the case of Leona Carpenter. They deadlocked on the other six counts. Regardless, the first-degree convictions carried a sentence of life without parole.

Dorothea Puente, February 21, 2009 (Central California Women’s Facility)
Dorothea Puente, February 21, 2009 (Central California Women’s Facility)

Epilogue

Dorothea Puente died in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla on March 27, 2011. She was 82 years old. While she admitted cashing her victims’ checks, for the rest of her life she maintained they had all died of natural causes.

Seven of Dorothea Puente's nine victims
Seven of Dorothea Puente’s nine victims

There are many books about Dorothea Puente and her crimes. If you want to read more, you can check out Human Harvest: The Sacramento Murder Story, The Bone Garden: The Chilling True Story of a Female Serial Killer, or Disturbed Ground. There are other books as well and several true crime television shows have featured the case.

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Cary Stayner: Emerging Serial Killer Found in Yosemite

Last week’s case took us to Lake Orion, Michigan where, in 1984, Carol Ege brutally murdered Cindy Thompson. She was jealous over Cindy’s involvement with Carol’s boyfriend, Mark Davis. This week, our case takes us to Yosemite National Park. Often a destination for people trying to relax and commune with nature, it was anything but in early 1999. There, in February or March, Cary Stayner murdered a woman and two teenage girls. He killed another young woman before police caught him.

Cary Stayner

Cary Stayner had a troubling background. When he was eleven years old, pedophile Kenneth Parnell abducted Cary’s younger brother, Steven. Parnell held young Steven captive and abused him for seven years until he managed to escape. During that time Steven was missing, Cary lived with an uncle, Jesse, who he claimed molested him. In 1989, Steven died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24. The following year, someone murdered Jesse.

Cary Stayner mugshot at the time of his arrest
Cary Stayner mugshot at the time of his arrest

All this might make one think that Cary’s early life was a factor in his becoming a serial killer. Yet Cary told investigators after his arrest that he’d fantasized about murdering women since he was seven years old. This was long before Steven’s kidnapping or the alleged (but never proven) molestation.

Cary Stayner Murders a Woman and Two Teenagers

In February 1999, Carole Sund, 42, her 15-year-old daughter Juli, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, took a brief vacation to Yosemite National Park. Pelosso was Juli’s friend and an exchange student from Argentina. They checked into the Cedar Lodge motel in El Portal, California. After Valentine’s Day, they disappeared.

Silvina Pelosso (L) and Carole Sund (R) in Yosemite
Silvina Pelosso (L) and Carole Sund (R) in Yosemite

On March 18, 1999, someone found the burned-out shell of Carole’s rented Pontiac Gran Prix in the remote town of Long Barn, California. The next day, March 19, investigators discovered two bodies in the trunk. Both were burned beyond recognition. Through dental records, authorities identified one victim as Carole Sund and the other as Silvina Pelosso. It wasn’t until police received a map with a note saying, “We had fun with this one” that they discovered 15-year-old Juli’s body.

Investigators search the torched remains of Carole Sund's rented Pontiac (Al Golub/The Modesto Bee via AP)
Investigators search the torched remains of Carole Sund’s rented Pontiac (Al Golub/The Modesto Bee via AP)

Cedar Lodge employed Cary Stayner as a handyman since 1997. Police interviewed him along with the other motel employees. They did not consider him a suspect because he had no criminal history and nothing about his demeanor aroused suspicion. Carole Sund’s wallet turned up in Modesto, California, over 100 miles from El Portal and less than 70 miles from Long Barn. Yet this discovery did not lead to a break in the case.

Silvina Pelosso (L) and Juli Sund (R) in Yosemite
Silvina Pelosso (L) and Juli Sund (R) in Yosemite

Stayner Murders Another Woman

There was no progress in the Sund/Pelosso murders for four months. Then, in July 1999, the decapitated body of Joie Armstrong was found near Yosemite. Joie was a naturalist working for the Yosemite Institute. Witnesses reported seeing a blue International Scout parked outside her cabin. This tip eventually led police to Cary Stayner.

Joie Ruth Armstrong, Cary Stayner's fourth and final victim
Joie Ruth Armstrong, Cary Stayner’s fourth and final victim

FBI agents Jeff Rinek and John Boles found Stayner at the Laguna del Sol nudist resort in Wilson, California. They arrested him and took him to Sacramento for questioning. His interview proved to be a shocker. Not only did he confess to killing Joie Armstrong, but he also confessed to murdering Carole Sund and the two teenage girls. He further admitted to sending the note with the map that led to the discovery of Juli Sund’s body.

Joie Armstrong lived in this cabin while working in Yosemite
Joie Armstrong lived in this cabin while working in Yosemite

A Plea, A Trial, and a Conviction

Because the murder of Joie Armstrong occurred on federal land, Stayner faced trial in federal court. Instead, to avoid the death penalty, he pleaded guilty. During his sentencing hearing, Stayner suddenly broke down, burst into tears, and apologized for the murder. Joie’s mother, Lesli Armstrong, was in the courtroom and believed the apology was genuine. For this murder, Stayner received a sentence of life without parole.

Cary Strayer sent this map to police, leading to the discovery of Juli Sund's body
Cary Strayer sent this map to police, leading to the discovery of Juli Sund’s body

A California state court tried Stayner for the murders of Carole and Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. However, on August 27, 2002, a jury convicted him of three counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and one count of kidnapping. He was sentenced to death.

Epilogue

Now 60 years old, Cary Anthony Stayner remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison twenty miles north of San Francisco. Since California has not executed anyone since 2006, it is unlikely that he will face the needle anytime soon.

Cary Stayner, T-75166 in 2010
Cary Stayner, T-75166 in 2010

FBI agent Jeff Rinek, now retired, writes about the case in In the Name of The Children. The book covers Rinek’s 30-year career pursuing killers like Cary Stayner.

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Carol Ege: Horrific Murder of a Love Triangle Rival

In our previous case Eugene “Cotton” Thompson hired a hitman to kill his wife, St. Paul housewife Carol Thompson. This week, we stay in the Midwest, Michigan this time, for another domestic murder. In 1984, Carol Ege brutally murdered Cindy Thompson, jealous over Cindy’s involvement with Carol’s boyfriend, Mark Davis.

Carol Ege, Mark Davis, and Cindy Thompson

Cindy Thompson and Mark Davis dated in high school but broke up before graduation. Both moved on. Mark got a new girlfriend, Carol Sanders (as Carol Ege was known at the time). Cindy married Ken Woodward and together they had a son and daughter. After six years, though, the marriage fell apart. So, in 1982, Cindy found herself a single mother with uncertain prospects. She moved in with her friend Cheryl in her hometown of Lake Orion, Michigan and let the children go with their father.

Cindy Thompson
Cindy Thompson

Cindy happened to run into Mark and their old romance rekindled. Supposedly, Mark told Cindy that he and Carol had split up. However, he continued to live with Carol and pursued relationships with both women. That should have been drama enough but, of course, it wasn’t. In October 1982, Cindy and her friend Barb came home to find two women in her apartment. She caught Carol and another woman ripping up T-shirts and a watch case Cindy had bought for Mark.

Carol Ege Takes Action

In the summer of 1983, Cindy learned she was pregnant with Mark’s child. It would be her third but his first, and he was excited about the prospect of fatherhood. Mark’s mother, on the other hand, disliked Cindy and was unhappy about the pregnancy.

Carol Ege mugshot
Carol Ege mugshot

Carol, as one might imagine, was furious. She wanted Mark to convince Cindy to abort the pregnancy. Failing that, she insisted that she and Mark should adopt the baby.

In December 1983, Cindy was at her sister’s house. A man and woman forced their way in. Cindy and the woman fought while the man kept Cindy’s sister and her fourteen-year-old niece from intervening. But Cindy happened to be on the phone with a friend. She shouted for the friend to call the police and the man and woman fled. The woman was Carol Sanders (Carol Ege).

Carol Ege Murders Cindy Thompson

In February 1984, Cindy, seven months pregnant, moved into a house her friend Barb owned in Pontiac, Michigan. Mark had begun moving some of his things into the house as well. People who knew the couple believed he planned to commit to Cindy and raise their child together. What happened next destroyed that chance forever.

Cindy Thompson shortly before the murder
Cindy Thompson shortly before the murder

In the early morning hours of February 22, 1984, Mark went to Cindy’s house and discovered she’d been brutally slain. She had severe blunt force trauma to her head from a ball peen hammer and had suffered multiple stab wounds. And if that wasn’t enough, her killer had disemboweled her, ripping out the fetus and some of her organs.

Not surprisingly, Mark was initially the prime suspect, but no physical evidence pointed to him. His alibi was strange, though: he had been at Carol’s drinking heavily and smoking weed. Police investigated Carol as well since her hatred for Cindy was no secret. They also considered Cindy’s ex-husband, Cindy’s friend Barb’s boyfriend (he disliked Cindy), and Mark’s mother. After the initial investigative flurry, Cindy’s case went cold.

New Evidence Points to Carol

In the early 1990s, investigators took another look at the now cold case. In the autopsy photos, they noticed a pattern of bruising on Cindy’s cheek they hadn’t made note of before. Forensic odontologist Dr. Allan Warnick determined that this was a bite mark. Comparing the mark with potential suspects, Dr. Warnick identified Carol Sanders (now Carol Ege) as the person who made the mark.

An undated photo of Carol Ege
An undated photo of Carol Ege

Based on the bite mark and other evidence, a jury convicted Carol of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Epilogue

In 2005, an appeals court overturned Carol’s conviction based on unreliable evidence. Bite mark evidence in general has fallen out of favor with forensic scientists. But in this case, Dr. Warnick has seen his expert opinion successfully refuted and even proven wrong. In this instance, a pathologist testified that the bruising was not a bite mark at all. Instead, it was livor mortis, the natural settling and pooling of blood in a body after death.

The State of Michigan retried Carol in 2007 using the same evidence minus the bite mark. The result was the same: guilty and life without parole. She is currently (March 2022) incarcerated in the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Investigation Discovery produced an episode in Season 4 about the Cindy Thompson murder. Kiss of Death first aired on April 6, 2020.

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Carol Thompson: Murder for Money and Love

Last week, we met the California man who tried to murder his wife by having rattlesnakes bite her. Robert “Rattlesnake” James had to finish the job by beating Mary James to death. He paid on the gallows. This week, we travel far from the glitz and glitter of Hollywood and Los Angeles to the staid suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota. There, in 1963, Carol Thompson was the victim of a vicious murder engineered by her husband. T. Eugene Thompson hired a hitman to kill Carol, but, got caught anyway.

T. Eugene Thompson and Carol Swoboda

Tilmer Eugene Thompson grew up in the small town of Elmore, Minnesota near the Iowa border. There he attended high school and played football with future senator and vice president Walter Mondale. Lying about his age, he joined the Navy to fight in World War II and served on a minesweeper.

After the war, Thompson attended Macalester College in St. Paul. There he met Carol Swoboda. Carol was a St. Paul native, born and raised in the area. She and Thompson (called “Cotton” because of white-blonde hair) married in 1948. Thompson attended law school and became a practicing attorney.

Carol Swoboda and "Cotton" Thompson at their 1948 wedding (Margaret Chula)
Carol Swoboda and “Cotton” Thompson at their 1948 wedding (Margaret Chula)

By the spring of 1963, the couple had four children ranging in ages from 6 to 13. Carol Thompson was the prototypical June Cleaver type of housewife. Bill Swanson, author of Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson put it this way. “She was active in her church (Edgecumbe Presbyterian) and active in the Scouts and did all the things that stay-at-home mothers did in those days. She had a million friends with whom she played bridge and got together for coffee parties.”

The Murder of Carol Thompson

March 6, 1963 was a cool early spring day in the Twin Cities. Carol Thompson went about her business in her home at 1720 Hillcrest Avenue. Suddenly, an intruder surprised her. The man hit her with a rubber hose and tried to drown her in the bathtub. When that failed, he tried to shoot her. But he’d loaded his gun, a Luger, with the wrong ammunition and it misfired. He then pummeled her face with the butt of the gun. For good measure, he stabbed her more than 50 times with a paring knife he got from the kitchen.

Carol Thompson with her four children
Carol Thompson with her four children

Yet Carol was still alive. She staggered to a neighbor’s house. The neighbor opened her door to find a barefoot woman with blood all over her head and face. She was unrecognizable as Carol Thompson.

Carol Thompson was transported to Ancker Hospital, where doctors removed a three-inch knife blade from her throat. But she was unable to overcome her wounds and died three hours later.

The Plot Unravels

Police were able to trace pieces of the Luger’s grip, which had broken off during the attack. This led them to Dick W.C. Anderson, an ex-convict from Michigan. He admitted attacking Carol Thompson, saying a former prizefighter, Norman Mastrian, had hired him to do the job for $3,000. Mastrian, he claimed, was acting as middleman for none other than Carol’s husband, T. Eugene Thompson. Thompson hired Mastrian, one of his former clients, to murder his wife. Unknown to Thompson, Mastrian subcontracted the job to Anderson.

T. Eugene Thompson is led into court (Pioneer Press)
T. Eugene Thompson is led into court (Pioneer Press)

With this information in hand, police soon arrested Cotton Thompson. In addition to the testimony of the two inept hitmen, investigators discovered that Thompson carried $1.1 million in life insurance (worth over $10 million in 2022) on his wife. Furthermore, although he had several “girlfriends,” there was one, Jacqueline Olesen, he seemed eager to marry.

Thompson’s murder trial began in late October 1963, lasted six weeks, and received massive press coverage. UPI had story about the trial running on its national wire when it had to interrupt with a bulletin that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

Between the testimony of the hitmen and the evidence of the large insurance payout, Thompson didn’t have much of a chance. Taking the stand in his own defense proved to be a mistake. Most observers felt he did himself more harm than good. After deliberating twelve hours, the jury found him guilty as charged. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Epilogue

T. Eugene Thompson continued to maintain hs innocence, but even his own children didn’t believe him. Thompson served 19 years in prison, most of it at the Stillwater correctional facility. He was released on parole in 1983 but, as a convicted felon, was unable to practice law. He remarried, dabbled in real estate, and died in the Twin Cities suburb of Roseville on August 7, 2015, his 88th birthday.

T. Eugene Thompson ca. 1987
T. Eugene Thompson ca. 1987

You can read more about this case in Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson by William Swanson.

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