Nov 2, 2008 10:39 pm US/Pacific
The Puente House
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
Twenty years ago this month, the Dorthea Puente killings shocked the world. We went back to the crime scene and talked with the woman who now lives in the old Puente house.
It's a cool looking house, a quaint Victorian on F Street, but this is where Dorothea Puente lived and killed.
"I think people just couldn't fathom that this little old lade could kill seven people and bury them in her yard as though she was putting in geraniums," said a detective.
Concrete now covers the scene of the crime, and wildflowers sprout new life where death once consumed the ground.
Sacramento police dug up seven bodies in Puente's yard 20 years ago, but the home still stands. We spoke with the woman who now lives in the old Puente house, who did not wish to be identified.
She knew the history of the house, but says it doesn't faze her. "It's a good house," she said. "I get some good sleep and everything."
"It's just like any other house," she added. "Everything has a history to it."
Sacramento Police Sergeant John Cabrera would beg to differ. He helped crack the case and dug up the first body.
"It's amazing that 20 years has gone by," Cabrera said.
Cabrera now teaches a Sac State criminology course on crimes against the elderly and disabled, and Puente's crime spree is classic classroom material. Many of his students have visited the Puente house and are fascinated by what happened there.
The woman who lives there now shrugged off the visits.
"It's an interesting house," she said. She said she doesn't see Puente as a cold-blooded killer.
Puente would agree. At close to 80 years of age, she's doing her time here at Chowchilla State Prison, the current oldest female convict in a state penitentiary doing life without parole.
But like so many other convicted killers, she's never confessed to poisoning, then burying her victims.
"I'm sure she'll stand by that 'til the day they take her out in a bag," the detective said.
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