Murder victim. Bert Montoya was one of the nine people killed by Dorothea Puente, the four times-married boarding house operator who made a career of preying upon the unfortunate and the elderly for their Social Security checks and other meager possessions. Others who met their deaths at 1426 F Street were: Benjamin Fink, Dorothy Miller, James Gallop, Vera Faye Martin, Betty Mae Palmer, Ruth Munroe, Leona Carpenter and Everson Gillmouth. The first seven were buried in Puente's yard. Mr.Gillmouth's body was found in a box besides the Sacramento River in neighboring Sutter County. Betty Mae Palmer's corpse was minus its head, hands and feet. Puente used a mixture of prescription medicines to kill her victims. Amazingly, this female serial killer, this textbook sociopath, got off with a life sentence. Jury foreman Michael Esplin wrote a short poem about the case: "One by the river One in the bed Seven in the ground One with no head All dead."
Murder victim. Bert Montoya was one of the nine people killed by Dorothea Puente, the four times-married boarding house operator who made a career of preying upon the unfortunate and the elderly for their Social Security checks and other meager possessions. Others who met their deaths at 1426 F Street were: Benjamin Fink, Dorothy Miller, James Gallop, Vera Faye Martin, Betty Mae Palmer, Ruth Munroe, Leona Carpenter and Everson Gillmouth. The first seven were buried in Puente's yard. Mr.Gillmouth's body was found in a box besides the Sacramento River in neighboring Sutter County. Betty Mae Palmer's corpse was minus its head, hands and feet. Puente used a mixture of prescription medicines to kill her victims. Amazingly, this female serial killer, this textbook sociopath, got off with a life sentence. Jury foreman Michael Esplin wrote a short poem about the case: "One by the river One in the bed Seven in the ground One with no head All dead."
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