Boardinghouse Killings Denied by Landlady

SACRAMENTO —  The Sacramento landlady suspected of murdering seven of her tenants to collect their Social Security checks declared her innocence during a controversial interview Thursday a few hours after her arrest in a motel near downtown Los Angeles.

“I have not killed anyone,” Dorothea Montalvo Puente told a television reporter during a charter flight back to Sacramento in police custody. “The checks I cashed, yes. . . . I used to be a very good person at one time.”

Assistant Public Defenders Kevin D. Clymo and Peter Vlautin, representing Puente, who was formally charged with murder here Thursday, later criticized police for allowing the interview aboard a plane chartered by a Sacramento television station without an attorney present to represent the suspect.

“Here we have the Sacramento Police Department enlisting the aid of the media in order to create a circus atmosphere,” Vlautin said. “It is unheard of that a police agency enlists the aid of a news organization to transport a suspect to jail.”

Sacramento Police Chief Jack Kearns said he did not learn until after the fact that Puente and Sacramento police officers returned to Sacramento in a plane chartered by KCRA-TV and that a reporter and cameraman from the station were allowed to interview the suspect en route.

Asked whether it was appropriate to allow such an interview, Kearns said the “matter is being looked into at the present time. . . . I don’t have the information now, so I am not going to comment on it.”

Spokesmen for KCRA defended their actions, saying the station chartered the jet to cover the story, offering the police a free ride, which was accepted. Station news director Bob Jordan said the reporters complied with a police request not to question Puente about the crime and said Puente volunteered her comments.

Twelve hours after her arrival at Sacramento’s Executive Airport, the 59-year-old suspect was arraigned in Sacramento Municipal Court on one count of murder in the death of Alvaro (Bert) Montoya, one of her missing tenants. The case was continued until Dec. 15 and Puente, who appeared at the arraignment in an orange jail jumpsuit and blue and white canvas slippers, was ordered held without bail.

A Sacramento police spokesman, Sgt. Bob Burns, said that although only Montoya’s name is listed on the arrest warrant, Puente is expected to be charged eventually in the murders of all seven of the people whose bodies have been excavated from the back yard of the Victorian house she rented near the state Capitol.

Assistant Dist. Atty Dan Kinter said special circumstances will be cited when the additional charges are filed, making Puente eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

None of the bodies found in the back yard have yet been identified.

State health officials were asked by police and the coroner’s office Thursday to search their files for the names of Medi-Cal recipients who resided at the boardinghouse where the bodies were found. The state documents may help locate dental and medical records useful in identifying the victims, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health Services.

The Sacramento County coroner’s office reported that a second and third victim underwent autopsies Thursday but the examinations found no evidence of “recent trauma” or injuries and were unable to determine the cause of death. Tests for drugs or poisons may not be complete for some time, a spokesman said.

The three victims autopsied thus far were a white man, age 50 to 60, a woman of about 60, and another woman, about 65.

Kearns, whose officers drew fire for allowing Puente to walk away Saturday without putting her under surveillance, told a press conference Thursday that he was very relieved by her arrest.

Kearns said that Puente probably had an accomplice who helped her flee from Sacramento, but police gave no indication of who this accomplice might be.

The chief said detectives have determined that when Puente left the capital city she went to West Sacramento, a small community across the Sacramento River, and from there took a taxi to Stockton, about 50 miles away. From there, he said, she took a bus to Los Angeles.

Registering under the name of Donna Johansson, Puente checked into the Royal Viking Motel at 3rd and Alvarado streets on Sunday, the day after investigators began uncovering the bodies.

Her arrest at the motel at about 10:40 p.m. Wednesday stemmed from a tip police received from a disabled pensioner who said he met Puente at the Monte Carlo bar, a short distance from the motel, on Wednesday.

Charles Willgues, 59, said the woman, who identified herself as Donna Johansson, did not immediately arouse his suspicions. He said the two of them spent much of the afternoon at the bar together, then made arrangements to meet Thursday morning and go shopping.

But Willgues said that when he got home at around 5 p.m., something gnawed at him.

“I knew I had seen this woman before; I couldn’t get her face out of my mind,” he said.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to him this might be the landlady they were looking for in Sacramento.

He watched the 5 p.m. news on KCBS, hoping the station would show the woman’s photograph again. When no picture was aired, Willgues called the station.

“I didn’t want to call the police because I didn’t want to get an innocent person involved in something that I wasn’t sure of,” he said.

KCBS assignment editor Gene Silver drove to Willgues’ apartment and showed him a copy of Puente’s photograph that had run in The Times.

“It could be her,” Willgues said he told Silver.

Silver notified the Los Angeles Police Department and a short time later officers surrounded the motel a few blocks west of the downtown area.

“I knocked on the door and talked briefly to her,” Police Sgt. Paul von Lutzow said. “When I asked her for some ID, she went to her purse and got her driver’s license.”

The license identified the woman as Dorothea Puente Montalvo.

Meanwhile in Sacramento, some of the older men who live in the senior citizen hotels downtown and frequent the nearby bars gossiped Thursday about the notoriety surrounding the woman who used to ply them with drinks and gifts to entice them to move into her boardinghouse.

Despite the latest news, there were few at Henry’s Lounge on Thursday who spoke ill of Dorothea Montalvo Puente, although they acknowledged she was a person of strange ways and habits--a well-dressed, matronly woman who circulated in the world of poor, elderly men.

John Terry nodded sagely from his favorite stool, reminding everyone that he had drunk a lot of “freebies” but resisted Puente’s suggestions that he move out of the senior citizens hotel next door and into her boardinghouse.

“That’s why you’re alive today,” boomed a voice from the other end of the bar. Everyone laughed.

“ ‘Bout every time she came in here she bought me a drink,” Terry said. “She knew I have a labor retirement and Social Security check coming every month.”

Marjorie (Mitch) Harper, the bartender at Henry’s, said Puente would frequently leave a wad of cash with instructions that free drinks were to be bought that day for specific regulars. The cash came so regularly that Harper began posting the freebies list behind the cash register.

One man who did accept Puente’s offer to move, John G. Corrigan, said he left the boardinghouse after three weeks because he found Puente boring.

“She was too sweet--saccharine sweet,” he said.

Later, he said, he discovered that she had forged two of his blank checks and cashed them for $200. He has since filed charges.

Eric Malnic reported from Los Angeles and Jerry Gillam from Sacramento. Times staff writers Virginia Ellis, Paul Jacobs and Carl Ingram in Sacramento also contributed to this story.