Page "Dorothea Puente" Paragraph 5

She divorced Johansen in 1966 and married Roberto Puente, a man 19 years her junior, in Mexico City.

The marriage only lasted two years.

Shortly after it ended, Dorothea Puente took over a three-story, 16-bedroom care home at 2100 F Street in Sacramento, California.

Puente got married for the fourth time in 1976 to Pedro Montalvo, who was a violent alcoholic.

The marriage only lasted a few months, and Puente started to spend time in local bars looking for older men who were receiving benefits.

She forged their signatures to steal their money, but she eventually was caught and charged with 34 counts of treasury fraud.

While on probation, she continued to commit the same fraud.

According to California Court of Appeal records, in 1981 Puente began renting an upstairs apartment at 1426 F Street in downtown Sacramento.

The nine murders with which she was charged in 1988 ( she was convicted in 1993 of three ) were associated with this upstairs apartment and not her previous 16-room boarding house.