Puente's reputation in the boarding house was mixed. Some tenants resented her stinginess and complained that she refused to give them their mail or money; others praised her for small acts of kindness or for her generous home-made meals. Puente's motives for killing tenants were financial, with police estimates of her ill-gotten income totaling more than $5,000 per month. The murders appear to have begun shortly after Puente began renting out space in the home at 1426 F Street. In April 1982, 61-year-old friend and business partner Ruth Monroe began living with Puente in her upstairs apartment, but soon died from an overdose of codeine and Tylenol. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. They believed her and judged the incident a suicide.
A few weeks later, the police were back after a 74-year-old pensioner named Malcolm McKenzie (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging) accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him. She was convicted of three charges of theft on August 18, 1982, and sentenced to five years in jail, where she began corresponding with a 77-year-old retiree living in Oregon, named Everson Gillmouth. A pen-pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving just three years of her sentence, he was waiting for her in a red 1980 Ford pickup. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. They opened a joint bank account and paid $600-a-month rent for the upstairs apartment at 1426 F Street in Sacramento.
In November 1985, Puente hired handyman Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. For his labor and an additional $800, Puente gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup in good condition, which she stated belonged to her boyfriend in Los Angeles who no longer needed it. She asked Florez to build a box 6 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet to store "books and other items". She then asked Florez to transport the filled and nailed-shut box to a storage depot. Florez agreed, and Puente joined him. On the way, however, she told him to stop while they were on Garden Highway in Sutter County and dump the box on the river bank in an unofficial household dumping site. Puente told him that the contents of the box were just junk.
On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the box sitting about three feet from the bank of the river and informed police. Investigators found a badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. Puente continued to collect Everson Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She maintained a "room and board" business, taking in 40 new tenants. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years.
Puente continued to accept elderly tenants, and was popular with local social workers because she accepted "tough cases", including drug addicts and abusive tenants. She collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses." During this period, parole agents went and visited Puente, who had been ordered to stay away from the elderly and refrain from handling government checks, a minimum of fifteen times at the residence. No violations were ever noted.
Suspicion was first aroused when neighbors noticed the odd activities of a homeless alcoholic known only as "Chief", whom Puente stated she had "adopted" and made her personal handyman. Puente had Chief dig in the basement and cart soil and rubbish away in a wheelbarrow. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. Chief later took down a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared.
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