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For years, the disappearance of these so-called system-forgotten people went unnoticed. But eventually the police, searching for a missing tenant, noticed freshly dug up earth near the boarding house and discovered the first of several bodies.
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This is the story of the “mistress of the house of death” Dorothea Puente.
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Dorothy’s life before she became a serial killer
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Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929 in Redlands, California. She was the sixth of seven children. Dorothea’s father died of tuberculosis when Puente was eight, while her mother was an alcoholic who abused her children and died in a motorcycle accident a year after the children’s father died.
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Orphaned, Puente and her siblings were separated in different directions, being “tossed” between foster families and the homes of distant relatives. Puente started living independently when she reached the age of 16.
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In Olympia, near Washington, she tried to make a living as a prostitute. Instead of a career as a sex worker, Puente found her first husband.
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After a long relationship, she married Fred McFaul in 1945. Their marriage was short, lasting only three years. Dorothea had two children with McFaul, but she did not raise them. One of the children was sent to live with relatives and the other was given up for adoption. In 1948, McFaul filed for divorce, and Puente moved south to California.
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There, the former prostitute returned to a life of crime. She got into serious trouble for the first time in her life after laundering money in San Bernardino and spent four months behind bars. Puente was placed on probation when she was released from prison, but she left town instead.
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Puente then moved to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. But wherever she went, the criminal nature followed her every step. The young couple often quarreled over his wife’s drinking and gambling. The relationship between the two even went through such a stage when the husband arranged Dorothea for treatment in a psychiatric clinic.
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