Disturbed Ground

by NORTON, CARLA

  Dr. Vicary had suggested that the tenants at 1426 F Street were so unruly that they'd somehow ignited Puente's smoldering hatred, but O'Mara pointed out that this paradigm didn't hold true for either her friend and business partner Ruth Munroe, or for her fiancé Everson Gillmouth.

  O'Mara asked about his euphemistic use of the term missing, and Dr. Vicary made a surprising admission: "I guess that's one way of saying people were being murdered. I assume—with all due respect to the jury—that all the people that were missing were murdered."

  (The defense cringed at this bit of candor from their expert. "Their faces fell like cakes in an oven," a juror later noted.)

  The psychiatrist also admitted that Dorothea Puente was conscious of her actions and knew the difference between right and wrong. She did not kill in a blind, murderous rage; she did not hear voices; she was not psychotic. Dorothea Puente was in control.

  Finally, Dr. Vicary had virtually guaranteed Puente a mouthpiece in the courtroom, having told her that everything she told him would be funneled into court; there was no confidentiality, no doctor/patient privilege. So, asked about each of the nine victims, she'd claimed to have known this one since the seventies, that one since the sixties… She claimed they were all longtime friends, yet she hadn't the faintest idea how these dear old friends, about whom she cared so deeply, had ended up buried in her yard. Of course, they had plenty of health problems, she told him, which she ticked off one by one, including Ruth Monroe's "fatty liver." She'd clearly been paying attention to testimony.

  Dorothea had also hastened to point out that she'd always had trouble sleeping. She rarely slept more than four hours a night, even after swallowing a double dose of Dalmane. That's two thirty-milligram tablets, she noted, in case the doctor might miss it.

  Dr. Vicary dutifully testified to each transparent embellishment, each classic bit of Puente fabrication. To the end, she just didn't understand that she couldn't lie her way out of this one, that in trying to shield herself, she only revealed herself.

  It seemed unlikely that Dorothea Puente would get the death penalty. Not in the state of California. After all, there was no pain; whether with pills or pillows, she was killing them softly.

  But prosecutor John O'Mara had other criteria for the death penalty. By his moral standards, Puente had earned the highest possible sentence. So, on October 6, 1993, he stood—bearded now, and angry— with righteousness blasting through him. Paraphrasing Robert Louis Stevenson, he said, "Eventually, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences," then paused, letting his theme sink in.

  Either sentence—life without parole or the death penalty—would protect society, he pointed out, so this was a "nonissue." But, he asked, "is that the end of the inquiry? Isn't there some measure of justice? Isn't there some question of accountability, some responsibility that lies at the foot of this woman?"

  Voice rising, he went on, "That's what this trial is all about. She killed three people! Some of you think she killed seven people, some of you think she killed all nine of them! How high does the body count have to be?”

  His question boomed through the room.

  O'Mara brushed aside Puente's traumatic past. "She's not twenty years old, still suffering the ravages of an abused childhood. She wasn't some teenager; she was on the advent of her sixth decade! This woman was fifty-eight years old when she killed Leona. She was fifty-nine years old when she killed Mr. Fink."

  Returning to his theme, he demanded, "Does anyone ever become responsible for their conduct in this world? Shall we dismiss this person because she had an abused childhood?" Dr. Vicary had said, "Sick people make sick choices." But, O'Mara asked, "Isn't that a way to minimize her culpability?"

  He found Dr. Vicaiy's explanation of Dorothea Puente's festering anger and exploding rage simply fatuous. "Is she symbolically killing her mother? Is she symbolically killing her father? That would be convenient," he scoffed.

  "If she had a thing about abusive drunks, why didn't she kill John McCauley? He was the most abusive of them all! If this is inevitable, why didn't she kill Pat Kelley? Was she able to control that rage?"

  And if she'd been so emotionally brittle, so angry inside, why had she been able to make so many friends over the years? Why had so many people come to testify for her? And why hadn't her friends—or even her psychiatrist, Dr. Doody—observed that she was on the brink? How had she been able to conceal her uncontrollable acts? "If this was an explosion that occurred over time, how was it that she was so lucky that she could commit three, seven, nine murders, and nobody saw or heard anything?''

  In O'Mara's view, Puente hadn't been irrepressibly compelled, but rather, had coldly elected to kill these people. She'd had three years in prison to ruminate on the fact that those who had lived had filed charges against her in 1982, while Ruth Munroe lay silent in her grave.

  Clearly, the dead caused fewer problems.

  "Antisocial personality disorder," he said, waving the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,the "Bible" of psychiatry, "is characterized by lying, cheating, stealing. No conscience. What is the ultimate antisocial act? Murder!”

  O'Mara was indignant, his voice rising in emotional cadences. "They were human beings! They had a right to live! What did they have? They didn't have cars—they had their little Social Security checks and their lives. She took their checks away, she took their lives, and then they didn't have anything!"

  He recalled that, in a juror's questionnaire filled out nearly a year ago, one of them had written, "The punishment should fit the crime." Now it was time, he declared, for Dorothea Puente to "sit down to the banquet." Scoffing at the defense's appeal for mercy, he declared. "She should be afforded the same mercy she showed to Leona Carpenter, Dorothy Miller, and Ben Fink!"

  Abruptly, he lowered his voice and said, "I've yelled at you enough. I apologize. And whatever your decision, the People of the State of California thank you."

  After his thunderous speech, the jury exited looking pale and shaken.

  Finally, Peter Vlautin addressed the jury in confidential tones. Intentionally contrasting with O'Mara, in a voice so low it was almost a whisper, he began, "We are here today to determine one thing: What is the value of Dorothea Puente's life? That is the question. Does it have value? Does she have to be killed?"

  Vlautin spoke gently about Puente's childhood, touching upon the traumatic aspects that had shaped her, urging them to try to see the world through her eyes. "You have heard about the despair which was the foundation of her life, the anger, and the resentment.... If anyone says that what Dorothea Puente went through wasn't that bad, ask them, would you want that to have happened to yourself? Would you want that to happen to one of your children?"

  Vlautin spoke almost poetically of mitigating factors, and of the people who had come to testify on Puente's behalf. "I am led to believe that, if there is any reason for any of us to be living here on this earth, it is to somehow enhance one another's humanity, to love, to touch each other, to know that you have made even just one life breathe easier because you have lived. And I submit to you that is why these people came, because Dorothea Puente made their lives easier."

  He continued in hushed tones, saying, "I think you can only truly understand why this unprecedented array of people came to Monterey if you have ever been lost in this world. If any of you have ever fallen down and stumbled on the road of life, and had somebody pick you up, give you comfort, give you love, show you the way. Then you will understand why those people came in here and testified. Because that is what Dorothea Puente did for them. That is mitigating. That is a human quality that deserves to be preserved. It is a flame of humanity that has burned inside her since she was young," he concluded quietly, "and that is reason to give Dorothea Puente life without possibility of parole."

  On October 7, 1993, the jury began deciding whether Dorothea Puente would join the four other women waiting on California's death row.

 
She was a most paradoxical killer. She could be argued convincingly from either side because. Not schizophrenic. Not insane. And never what she seemed. She was an enigma for the jury to try to fathom.

  So now, her web unraveled, her beauty faded, she waited to hear her sentence.

  On October 18, 1993, Oprah was interrupted for breaking news from Monterey: Dorothea Puente's jury had deadlocked in the penalty phase.

  Judge Michael J. Virga was declaring a mistrial, and the DA's office had decided not to retry the penalty phase. Puente would get life without parole by default.

  "Dorothea is relieved; we're all relieved," said an ebullient Peter Vlautin.

  Kevin Clymo nodded, saying, "Thank God it's over."

  That sentiment was echoed by the jury. They'd hung seven-to-five in favor of life without parole, but they were unanimous in their expressions of relief.

  It had been a long, frustrating ordeal. Eleven of them were firmly convinced that Puente had murdered not just three, but seven, eight, or all nine of the victims. A single person had them deadlocked, nearly causing a mistrial on all counts. In the end, they'd felt lucky to convict on even three.

  Asked why the jury hadn't convicted Puente for murdering Bert Montoya, postal worker Joseph Martin shook his head with regret. "Bert was a real obvious one to me," he said, adding dismally, "I argued about Bert for hours and hours."

  Asked about the holdout, Sergeant Gary Frost, the XREM1ST, shrugged and said, "I can't get inside his head." He added, "I don't see, as a reasonable human being, how you could ignore what was presented to us."

  At times the jury room had been filled with heat and noise. Eleven of the jurors had argued feverishly about other hung counts—Ruth Munroe, Vera Faye Martin, James Gallop—but nothing could persuade that single juror. (Strangely, the vote on Betty Palmer had split three for first-degree murder, six for second-degree, three for acquittal. On Everson Gillmouth, the split was eight for second-degree, two for manslaughter, two for acquittal.)

  During their record-breaking deliberations, they'd examined the evidence from all sides—the sequence of events, the credibility of witnesses, the toxicology results, the money trail—until they knew the case cold. Each juror had brought to deliberations some distinct talent or keenness of mind that dovetailed neatly with the others… except for that solitary holdout.

  He'd insisted there wasn't enough evidence. And—to the aggravation of everyone else in the jury room—he'd balked at the idea that pharmaceutical drugs could be synonymous with poison.

  Only after Judge Virga had urged them to try reverse role playing had he been convinced that Ben Fink, Dorothy Miller, and Leona Carpenter had been murdered. But only those three.

  "We had eleven frustrated jurors," one said, adding sadly that the families of the victims "were never forgotten."

  Citing reasons for the three convictions, jurors recalled that Dorothy Miller had been forcibly kept in her room by a hired man who said she had a "Phenobarbital drool," though Puente had told him she was drunk; that after Puente had taken Ben Fink upstairs to "make him feel better," workers burying "garbage" found maggots in the yard where Fink was later unearthed; that the evidence completely supported O'Mara's argument that "Betty" was actually Leona Carpenter, a woman too sick to have ingested anything without help.

  A couple of jurors, having scrutinized Puente for months, commented on her cold facade, her lack of remorse. Much as they'd tried, they said, they couldn't summon any compassion for the woman.

  Jury foreman Michael Esplin even shared a short poem he'd penned about the case:

  One by the river,

  One in the bed,

  Seven in the ground,

  One with no head,

  All dead.

  Lastly, a Catholic member of the jury noted that the religious figurine in the shrine over poor headless Betty Palmer's corpse was not Saint Francis, as it was often called, but Saint Anthony, the patron saint of missing things.

  And Saint Dorothea, she recalled, is the patron saint of gardening.

  EPILOGUE

  Before the trial, news crews stopped by the blue-and-white Victorian at 1426 F Street on two separate occasions to interview the renters. And both times, from two sets of tenants, they were told that Dorothea Puente's former home was haunted. The residents had wakened to strange sounds, to inexplicable moaning. Crossing themselves, they'd hung rosaries on the walls.

  After Puente's convictions, another news team visited her former boardinghouse, and a fresh set of tenants told them that the house was normal and quiet.

  Perhaps now, with some measure of justice served, the spirits can rest.

  The vagrants of Sacramento still wander from place to place, sleeping on cold concrete, waking in city shadows, mining dumpsters for some worthwhile refuse. These vulnerable souls, often unable to take care of themselves, make easy victims. They always will.

  But as one result of this strange case, the Social Security Administration has tightened controls on the representative payee program. Still, there are loopholes and budget cutbacks. The system is far from perfect.

  Judy Moise still works in the mental health field, but has left her stressful job with the Volunteers of America. She can finally speak of Bert Montoya without tearing up, having "let go of the guilt" she felt for trusting Dorothea Puente. And she feels satisfied with her role in launching the investigation. Meanwhile, her lovely daughter studies acting and appears in TV commercials. And her son is finally responding to treatment for his schizophrenia, thanks to a breakthrough drug, Closiril.

  John O'Mara, who lost some thirty pounds during Puente's arduous trial, has returned to his family, to his five acres, and to his fourth-floor office, where he plows ahead in typical workaholic fashion. Though still heading up the homicide division, he has promised his family that he won't prosecute any more out-of-county cases.

  Peter Vlautin has decided to forgo any more capital cases for a while, handling other serious crimes, such as serial rape. After the Puente trial, he says, "It will be like working drunk-driving cases."

  Kevin Clymo has returned to his private practice in Sacramento, where buttons and stickers on his walls proclaim "Death-defying" and "DON'T KILL FOR ME, I oppose the death penalty." He's looking forward to a quieter life, out of the limelight. A little sailing would be nice, he says.

  He probably doesn't remember it, but during an interview in 1992, Clymo made a cryptic comment about Dorothea Puente. "She has an identity problem," he said, not knowing that Judy Moise had made this exact comment about Bert Montoya long before.

  In some ways, Bert and Dorothea were two sides of the same coin: deprived children, fully grown; one trusting, one untrustworthy. Like Dorothea, Bert wandered a tragic trail, from a bruised childhood in Costa Rica with an abusive father, to a psychotic adolescence in New Orleans with his distraught mother, to a rootless adulthood that eventually brought him and his voices to Sacramento.

  It would have been easy enough for Bert to have turned mean. But he was an honest, goodhearted man who never lifted a hand in anger to anyone. There was something deeply appealing about Bert Montoya, something timid and inarticulate that tended to draw out one's best impulses. Maybe people loved this simple man because of what he let them discover in themselves.

  Many wondered how Dorothea Puente, this apparently caring old woman, could have been so cold-blooded, especially in the case of Bert, for whom she appeared to have a genuine fondness. But Puente is a sociopath, and it's probably a mistake to think she had any true feelings for anyone. Egocentric, motivated purely by self-interest, sociopaths cannot form relationships in the usual sense. Her victims were a means to an end. Convenient. Disposable. Her affection for Bert was a ruse.

  Unlike male serial killers, who kill random strangers, Puente killed those who trusted her, who ate at her table. Most likely, every boarder she met was sized up first as a possible donor to her coffers. Some victims surely stood and watched as the digging went on, never guessing that they wer
e the intended occupants.

  Some believe there may be other bodies yet to be found. John O'Mara investigated two other missing people, but had too little evidence to press charges. With a shrug, he says, "There are some things we may never know."

  Dorothea Puente will probably live out her days without confessing to the nine murders that bear her signature. Serving out her life sentence, she is surely shepherding her "nieces" within the confines of the women's prison at Chowchilla, playing the godmother. At least she won't be shanking guards and shimmying out air vents.

  One can only wonder why painful childhoods beget both gentle souls and heartless killers. Are we born tabula rasa? Or with distinct personalities, good and evil? Decades of doctoral theses, of clinical studies, of philosophical speculation have brought us no closer to an answer than to an effective way to stop dogs from howling through the night.

  But if we give much heed to theories of behavioral patterning, to the subliminal influences of even the most neglectful parents, there remains a little nugget from Dorothea's past that may explain some imprinting that even she can't recall. Typed on her mother's death certificate is a telling detail, Trudie Gray's final lie: Her occupation, she claimed, was practical nurse.

  Dorothea Puente is extremely calculating, a master manipulator, a beguiling liar. She played many roles. But with all her aliases and all her stories, the woman born Dorothea Helen Gray never developed into a whole person.

  Who is she, in the end, but some sad, vast lie?

  Hollow.

  Empty as an open grave.