Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
Puente was a diagnosed schizophrenic who had already been
in trouble with the law. She had previously served prison time for check
forgery, as well as drugging and robbing people she met in bars. After her
release, she opened a boarding house for elderly people. Beginning in 1986,
social worker Peggy Nickerson sent nineteen clients to Puente’s home. When some
of the residents mysteriously disappeared, Nickerson grew suspicious. Puente’s
neighbors, who reported the smell of rotting flesh emanating from her vicinity,
validated Nickerson’s concern.
Although all the buried bodies were found to contain
traces of the sedative Dalmane, the coroner was never able to identify an exact
cause of death. Still, during a trial that lasted five months and included thousands
of exhibits, prosecutors were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
Puente had murdered her boarders, most likely to collect their Social Security
checks. Though she was formally charged with nine counts of murder and
convicted on three, authorities suspected that Puente might have been
responsible for as many as two dozen deaths. She received a life sentence
without the possibility of parole and died in 2011 of natural causes at the
Chowchilla Central Women’s Prison facility.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the award
winning author of seven nonfiction books that includes In the Company of Evil Thirty Years of California Crime, 1950-1980.
Visit his website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:
