Granny from hell- one of the most notorious serial killers in history

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When the sweet grandma from next door handed out snacks she had baked over her well-tended rose bush to neighbours, little did they know there was a mass grave behind her

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In 1988, police began investigating the mysterious disappearance of one of Dorothea Puente's tenants, Alberto Montoya and decided to search her boarding house.

But when they went outside they were suspicious about something - in amongst the vegetable patches and pristine rose bushes was a mound of soil.

After probing it, they decided to dig up the whole of her yard, and that's when they made their first grim discovery - the body of 78-year-old Leona Carpenter, as well as six more corpses

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Some were in a mummified state - wrapped in cloth, bed sheets and duct tape - and one was missing their head, hands and feet.

A human leg bone and decomposed foot were unearthed separately.

Post mortems showed the victims had been poisoned - and Dorothea admitted lacing her tenants' meals with toxic quantities of sleeping pills.

Once incapacitated, she suffocated them in their beds.

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One is quoted as saying, in reference to the state's death penalty at the time, after the trial: "Executing Puente would be like executing your Grandma."


She maintained her innocence until the end, insisting that her deceased tenants had all died of natural causes (although how they ended up buried in her back garden she hasn't appeared to address).

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