TV Takes Justice to the Cleaners in Landlady Case

Remember the words of TV reporter Aaron Altman, the conscience of “Broadcast News”? “Yes,” he said, sarcastically, “let’s never forget we’re the real story.”

Ethical Aaron meant just the opposite, of course. No wonder he ended up in Oregon, far from the epicenter of major media. He just didn’t get it.

Television news is the story.

It’s the spilled milk, the cow that wandered out of the barn and devoured the garden, the genie that won’t return to the bottle. How can you reverse the irreversible? You can’t. It’s like blowing your nose and then trying to get it all back in.

Now comes the nationally publicized Case of the Sacramento Landlady, where one TV station was in on the arrest of Dorothea Montalvo Puente and another helped return her to Sacramento.

This is the ratings sweeps month of November, after all, when television not only feeds the crime-scare frenzy, it becomes part of the frenzy.

As everyone surely knows, the 59-year-old Puente is suspected by Sacramento police of killing seven of her tenants for their Social Security checks. A number of bodies have been discovered in the yard of the house she leased.

To the chagrin of police, she walked away last Saturday, slipped out of Sacramento and was unaccounted for before turning up in Los Angeles, where she was recognized by a man named Charles Willgues, whom she befriended in a bar.

So what did Willgues do? Did he call Los Angeles police and inform them that he had been having some drinks with a woman he thought might be the infamous Sacramento Landlady, a woman suspected of murdering her tenants? No.

He called CBS.

Maybe he thought Dan Rather would come out. Or the KCBS “trouble-shooter.” Or better yet, “The Equalizer.” TV has a funny way of playing with reality.

Instead, CBS News assignment editor Gene Silver drove out and showed Willgues a newspaper picture of Puente, from which Willgues made a tentative identification.

Then Silver called the police.

Unable to cover the story with its own personnel, the CBS News bureau notified KCBS, which rushed in two camera crews to tape the Wednesday capture of Puente.

And how was Puente then returned to Sacramento? By police transportation? No.

On a Lear jet chartered by Sacramento station KCRA, and with a KCRA camera crew aboard. During the flight, Puente said on camera that “I have not killed anyone,” but admitted, “The checks I have cashed, yes. . . .”

She was not represented by a lawyer.

The media are carving up this case like a Thanksgiving turkey. There’s been something in it for everyone.

KCBS got to be in on the pinch.

KCRA got to be in on the return.

Because KCRA is an NBC affiliate, other NBC stations shared KCRA’s in-flight coverage. Because KCRA also is a CNN subscriber, other CNN subscribers shared in the coverage, too.

Even ABC got itself an “exclusive” interview with Willgues.

Meanwhile, the news media are referring to the Sacramento “murders,” although, as of this writing, Puente has been charged only with the murder of Alvaro (Bert) Montoya, who is merely missing. And the Sacramento County coroner reported that the bodies dug up to date contained no evidence of “recent trauma” or injuries, and that the causes of death were unknown.

For all we know at this time, the dead were victims of cholera.

Given the wealth of circumstantial evidence, you’d have to say it’s likely this is a mass murder case, but news is supposed to be fact, not likelihood.

In an incredible interview, Sacramento Police Chief Jack Kearns said he expected to charge Puente with the other “murders.” When? he was asked. When he gets the “evidence,” he replied.

Yes, better button up that minor detail first.

Are these the Keystone Cops or what? First, Sacramento police allow Puente to get away, then they allow her to be returned and interviewed on a jet provided by a television station that had no business injecting itself into the story.

This case has arrived at an opportune time for TV news, filling the lull between the anniversaries of the Jack the Ripper killings and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

These things have a way of building, rumor upon rumor. Pretty soon, someone will remember seeing Puente in Dallas on the day Kennedy was murdered. Maybe she knew Oswald and Ruby, too.

When ratings are the prize, it never hurts to speculate.