O'Mara's closing argument focused on Puente's acts of murder: Does anyone become responsible for their conduct in this world? She answers without pause. The total included a man she had met after her release from prison in 1985 whose body turned up the following year in a wood box next to the Sacramento River; Ruth Munroe, her former business partner; and the seven boarders found in her yard, among them Montoya, whom police speculated may have been unwittingly recruited by Puente to carry wrapped-up bodies out of the house, then perhaps learned the truth and paid with his life. The four women and three men, ages 52 to 79, had boarded at the two-story, powder-blue Victorian. Puente's deceptive appearance would later go on to confuse the jury presiding over her trial. Or about the white-haired woman who turned the yard into a mass grave. Dismembering their corpses, she threw their remains into a mass grave in her garden, telling neighbors the foul smell emanating from the ground was sewage and dead rats, rather than dead residents. George Deukmejian and Bishop Francis Quinn decorated her home at 1426 F Street But setting aside such fleeting charity-event encounters, her stories hew closer to fable than fact. She had seven. Her bedroom was on the second floor. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). No one else would want that name., Prison protocol bans inmates from talking to each other in the hall apart from brief exchanges. McFaul left her in late 1948.[5][6]. An undercover cop posing as a trucker arrested her after she offered to perform fellatio on him; she served 90 days in county lockup. Given Montoyas history as a transient, his disappearance would have escaped notice without the persistence of Judy Moise. Some might interpret that as a kind of confession, I finally say. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. Then there was the riddle of Puente. By 1952, she had wed Johansson, whom she met in San Francisco. In turn, I know that when she receives my letter telling her as much, shell cut off contact. She moves toward the front of the room, where a guard seated behind a metal desk tells her my table number. It wasn't until the first body was found in her backyard that authorities realized Dorothea was not the sweet old woman she first appeared to be. Shes making me lie for her.. [1] Sua contagem total chegou a nove assassinatos confirmados e seis no . Infamous serial murderer . He stares at the photo and points at her purse. During the initial investigation, Puente was not immediately a suspect, and she was allowed to leave the property, ostensibly to buy a cup of coffee at a nearby hotel. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty Images. Hayden spent months processing thousands of pieces of evidence related to the case, including a shovel used to dig up human remains. The home belonged to seemingly sweet Dorothea Puente, who was arrested in 1988 and later convicted as a serial murderer. She professed her innocence until she died. By 1948, McFaul asked for a divorce and Puente drifted south to California. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. On her fourth day as a fugitive, she dropped by a dive bar near the motel, introducing herself as Donna Johansson to a retired carpenter named Charles Willgues. Her father died of tuberculosis when Puente was eight while her mother, an alcoholic, routinely abused her children and died in a motorcycle accident a year later. (Photo by Jeremy Sykes). Once, when I asked if she ever hears from her surviving siblings or two daughters, she shook her head. Those cases were lies, she says, voice flat. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. The police dug up 78-year-old Leono Carpenter and then six more bodies. A pen pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving three years of her five-year sentence, he met her outside the prison, driving a red 1980 Ford pickup. Sitting knee to knee, they stare without speaking, eyes wet. Only after unearthing seven corpses at 1426 F Street in November 1988 would prosecutors charge Puente with killing Munroe. Others disparaged the closet alcoholic who on occasion punctuated roof-raising, cuss-filled tirades with a piece of furniture heaved down the stairs. In the end, Cabrera erred on the side of skepticism. A pair of Christmas ornaments made by Puente in prison. Granddaughter Of Dorothea Puente Victim Visits Boarding House Exclusive Granddaughter Of Dorothea Puente Victim Visits Boarding House Dorothy Miller was eventually found buried in the yard of Dorothea Puente's boarding house. One-time hitman Julio Santana (right) stopped counting after he reached 492 kills. But Puente has lodged in his psyche as the rarest predator he confronted: in age, gender and disposition, she inhabits an extremely narrow strata of serial killers. She consented again, even lending a shovel to the men, who had brought only two. Would you want that to happen to your children? Her father died of tuberculosis when Puente was eight while her mother, an alcoholic, routinely abused her children and died in a motorcycle accident a year later. In the narrative of her life that unfurled at her murder trial and in news reports and books about the case, she grew up poor, deprived in equal measure of material comforts and parental nurturing. She came on a little hard, what with her questions about his Social Security benefits and abrupt suggestion that they consider living together. I dont know what to tell you, she said. Inmates enter one at a time at irregular intervals through a gray metal door along the rear wall. Scant evidence exists to suggest she socialized with Reaganwhen he divorced Wyman, Puente was 20 years old and living in the Bay Areaany more than she danced with the Rockettes. Dorothea - Dorothea (also spelled Dorothe, Dorotea or other variants) is a female given name from Greek (Drotha) meaning "God's Gift". A lot of people get old in here really quickly cause they just kind of stop doing anything., Ruth Munroe, believed by authorities to be Puentes first victim (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives). In 1967, she attempted to serve him with a divorce petition[inconsistent], but Puente fled to Mexico; the divorce wouldn't be finalized until 1973. She established her reputation as a caregiver, providing young women with a sanctuary from poverty and abuse without charge. Puentes next two marriages would be short-lived. Her escape intensified interest in a lurid tale that for a time made Sacramento the center of the media universe. Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to Sacramento. Police found seven bodies. In 1993, facing nine counts of murder after prosecutors linked her to two other deaths, she stood trial without testifying. Instead, Puente found a husband. As far as theyre concerned, Im dead.. The subject of personal health preoccupies Puente as much as the next octogenarian. During discussions that typically lasted two to three hours, she proved by turns defiant and self-pitying, disavowing she killed anyone while reserving words of sorrow for herself. Acres of almond trees and farmland border the prison, a vast archipelago of dun-colored, low-slung buildings moored inside electrified fences topped with razor coil. I ask why the cops targeted her. Maybe I would have been better off. Investigators opened the box and found the badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. This is the disturbing story of Dorothea Puente, the Death House Landlady.. (AP Photo/Walt Zeboski). Though born in Redlands, Puente, who speaks passable Spanish, claimed Mexico as her birthplace, a ruse she perpetuated by alternately using the surnames of her last two ex-husbands, Roberto Puente and Pedro Montalvo. The next spring, with her husband hospitalized by terminal cancer, the 61-year-old Munroe moved in with Puente to save money. She folds the towel several times into a tight square before clasping her hands together on her lap like a child attending Mass. It wasnt until 1988 that suspicions first arose about Puente, after one of her tenants, 52-year old Alvaro Montoya, went missing. Theres a waiting list of people who want to be in my room. (This is true in the broadest sense: The prisons population hovers around 4,000 from month to month, roughly double its capacity. She gave birth to a daughter in 1946 followed by a second less than a year later, but public documents suggest she inherited her mothers aversion to childrearing. Between 1982 and 1988, the elderly and disabled people living in Dorothea Puentes house had no idea that was she was poisoning and strangling some of her guests before burying them on her property and cashing their Social Security checks. The comments below have not been moderated. The wanted bulletin for, I think she truly wanted to rehabilitate [her tenants] as she could not the people in her own family, psychiatrist William Vicary says. [citation needed]. She seems entirely harmless. Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. Once free of the throng, Cabrera stopped and watched the pair until they entered the hotel. Dorothea Puente's House Has Been Bought. She got in serious trouble for the first time in her life after bouncing a check in San Bernadino and spent four months in jail. Her rapid decline perplexed her loved ones until they read the coroners report: the death was labeled a suicide caused by an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. She was just pure evil, Ballenger says. Ive given up hope of getting out, she says. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. Rene C. Byer Sacramento Bee file. However Harder insists that's where he draws the line. Dorothea Helen Gray, ms conocida como Dorothea Puente, naci el 9 de enero de 1929 en Redlands (California, Estados Unidos), en el seno de una familia trabajadora. For Puente, the distortions of her past have congealed into a personal reality that grows ever more fanciful. The Victorian on F Street. Time has deepened the creases between her potato-like nose and dumpling cheeks, and her blanched skin has slackened at the neck. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day When they came to me, they were so sick, they werent expected to live.. Multiple murder suspect Dorothea Montalvo Puente, right, is brought back to Sacramento from the LA area in the early morning hours of November 17, 1988. I think you can only truly understand why so many people testified and asked you to spare Dorothea's life only if you have ever fallen down and stumbled on the road of life and had someone pick you up, give you comfort, give you love, show you the way. Play it now! 104-107. But no one noticed. Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the . We next met days before Thanksgiving, when the recent election of Barack Obama had boosted her hopes for the countrys future, and again in mid-December. "They immediately died," says Warren's grandson, Warren W. Bogle, who today serves as President and Vineyard Director. Despite being convicted of murder in 1993 and sent to prison, Puente. With Jeff Rechner, Joelle Uzyel, Mikel Welch. Drugs Puente used to knock . Dorothea Puente is one of the criminals whose crimes are detailed in 'Worst Roommate Ever.' Puente was known in her neighborhood for housing individuals who were homeless, elderly, or otherwise unable to care for themselves. Then, she asked if it would be ok if she went to buy a coffee. Dorothea Puente Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Hershey's Canada releases HER for SHE bars featuring a trans activist, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE. Puente has told me during previous meetings that her case still attracts worldwide attention, and that she recently spurned interview requests from a British newspaper and an Australian TV station. Arrested for the scam in 1978, court records show, she received five years federal probation, the terms of which proscribed her from operating a boardinghouse. In 1998, Puente began corresponding with Shane Bugbee. She would flee the city that morning. In his sessions with her, Vicary had inched up to the subject of guilt, knowing that she would withdraw if he asked directly whether she had killed people. A man identifying himself as a talent scout for the Radio City Rockettes, the famed New York City dance troupe, sized her up and, on the spot, invited her to fly east for an audition. A state psychologist who evaluated Puente before her release from prison in 1985 diagnosed her as schizophrenic. I talk about the foggy drive to the prison, she recounts her trip to the visitors hall. Puente took in so-called shadow people people who were marginally homeless without close family or friends. In any case, after more than 20 years behind bars, and despite the withering of her features, she retains a physical vitality and a fondness for cosmetic excess. Published: 17:09 EST, 21 January 2019 | Updated: 17:42 EST, 21 January 2019, Dorothea Puente was arrested in 1988 after the dismembered bodies of seven residents were found in the garden of her home in Sacramento, California. She tends to wear thick violet eye shadow and pink lipstick, both of a hue common to Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, and her body lotion of choice, Victorias Secret Love Spell, gives her the subtle bouquet of cherry blossoms. A 22-year-old soldier who had returned to the U.S. from the Pacific after World War II, he married Dorothea in 1945, and they moved to Gardnerville, Nevada to start a family. A gentle bear of a man, the 52-year-old Montoya suffered from untreated psychosis, a condition that for years had consigned him to the streets and homeless shelters. Her demeanor is, for the most part, politely docile, and I begin to perceive how so many could consider her trustworthy. He was a good-hearted man, very kind, she says. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. But you gotta do something so you dont go crazy.. Her father died of tuberculosis in 1937; her mother, who worked as a sex worker, lost custody of her children in 1938 and died in a motorcycle accident by the end of the year. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Everybodys heard of me. As the story goes, while shopping at a department store called The Emporium in San Francisco in 1948, a 19-year-old Puente felt a tap on her shoulder. But, behind the scenes, Puente had embarked on a path that would lead her to murder. Someone reached across the table at one point and almost got into a fistfight with him, says Hewlett, who now lives in Oregon. Finding nothing, they asked permission to dig up the yard. In June 2020, the house was featured in a ten-minute documentary with 60 Second Docs about the purchase and renovation of the house by the current owners. Her escape brought coast-to-coast ridicule of Police Chief John Kearns and his department while authorities chased dead-end leads from Las Vegas to Mexico. Designers Joelle and Mikel visit the current owners to replace the home's negative energy with a new makeover. Her words return to me. Next, Dorothea Puente went to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. Another tenant, John Sharp, backed her up. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. [6], Gray and Johansson divorced in 1966, although she continued to use Johansson's name for some time following their separation. WITH her chiffon dresses, thick-rimmed glasses, grey hair and litter of kittens, Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet old lady - even insisting to some, "Call me Grandma". At the time of her 1988 arrest on murder charges, photos of Puente with Jerry Brown, former California Gov. World's Most Evil Killers - Season 2, Episode 8 - Dorothea Puente - Full Episode FilmRise True Crime 676K subscribers 160K views 1 year ago #truecrime #famous #truecrimedocs In 1988, Puente had. The infamous home Dorothea Puente lived in is along F Street in Sacramento. The inmates know who she is, the official says. Suspect left her residence for a walk but never returned.. I leave through a different door and make my way out of the prison, stepping into the cool afternoon air. High-profile cases dotted his career, including those of convicted mass murderer Morris Solomon and the Unabomber. Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. She was the sixth of seven children but didn't grow up in a stable family environment. Dorothea Puente's reign of terror began in 1982 when her friend, Ruth Monroe, was found dead in a boarding house Puente was running at that time. Coverage spanned from the national networks and Time, Newsweek and The New York Times to the National Enquirer, National Examiner and news outlets from as far away as England and France. Within two weeks, Munroe fell ill, her body so weak she struggled to stand. In 1993, after several days of deliberations and a deadlocked jury (due in part to her grandmotherly disposition), Dorothea Puente was ultimately convicted of three murders and received back-to-back life sentences. She also mentions undergoing major cancer surgery in 1961 to remove her reproductive organs and part of her intestines and stomach. And it was so counter to her strenuous effort all her life to be somebody who was respected, somebody important., Puente received a prison term of life without parole after the jury deadlocked on whether to give her the death penalty, an ending that deepened William Clausens bitterness. For her and the others, one factor in particular undercut Puentes claim of innocence. Eleven jurors were convinced of Puentes guilt in killing the seven boarders found in her yard; one juror disagreed. See that one? she asks, nodding toward a gaunt, gray-haired woman with stooped posture. Over the next few years, she adapted by working as an in-home caregiver, affecting a matronly mien with her modest dress, oversized glasses and tremulous voice. The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office. With Bill Courage, John Cabrera, Bill Clausen, Judy Moises. James Gallop, 62. The family suspected Puente of poisoning her. As reported by Dailymail, seven year after Puente's death, a man named William Harder had claimed to be his grandson. I was bewildered as to what in the world was going on with all these people in her yard.. Six months after her release, she left Riverside. Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. Ill be waiting for her.. [citation needed], On November 11, 1988, police inquired after the disappearance of tenant Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, a developmentally disabled man with schizophrenia, who had been reported missing by his social worker. Slight and demure, with her ivory-white hair and solicitous demeanor, the landlady resembled any other elderly woman with a kitchen full of pots and pans and a cat calendar hanging next to the stove. Social workers in the 1970s looked upon Dorothea Puente and her boarding house with admiration. She then asked Florez to transport the filled, sealed box to a storage depot. Dorothea Helen Puente, rozen Grayov (9. ledna 1929 - 27. bezna 2011) byla americk sriov vraedkyn.V 80. letech 20. stolet provozovala penzion pro seniory v Sacramentu v Kalifornii, kde zabila nkolik starch i mentln postiench klient, aby zskala jejich finann prostedky.Na jejm kont je devt vrad; za ti byla odsouzena a porota trvala na . The authorities left the cause of death as undetermined, since there was such an excessive amount of both these drugs, and she was bedridden at the time. When we discuss her health or the books she reads, when she makes a rare inquiry about my job or background, the conversation tracks as normal, even mundane. I am led to believe if there is any reason for us to be living here on this Earth, it is to somehow enhance one another's humanity, to love, to touch each other with kindness, to know that you have made just one person breathe easier because you have lived. [citation needed], A few weeks later, the police returned after Malcolm McKenzie, a 74-year-old pensioner (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging), accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him. Johansson divorced Dorothea in 1966. These were peoplethe Salvation Army wouldnt take them. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. Clausen checked on her in April 1982 and saw his pallid, suddenly enfeebled mother, who rarely drank alcohol, sipping crme de menthe. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. (A charity she declines to name sends her $15 a month, her sole source of money.) Following her year-long trial which ended in 1993, Dorothea was convicted on three counts of murder and was. I started working her, Cabrera says, but all along, she was working me. Clymo responded by evoking Dorothea the child and caregiver. I watch as she pushes away the empty plastic container of fried chicken strips and french fries that she finished eating earlier. The visitors hall at the Central California Womens Facility in Chowchilla brings to mind a church social as hosted for state convicts. La historia de Dorothea Puente: la dulce abuela que mataba jubilados y los enterraba en el jardn La anciana era duea de una casa para adultos mayores. 'I saw her as a human - despite her crimes.'. In her note, written on plain lined paper in a grade-schoolers swirling cursive, she invited me to visit. The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. Disguised as a kind-hearted boarding house owner, Dorothea Puente allegedly murdered tenants who lived on her property, and buried them in her backyard, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the landladys presence, he corroborated her story about Montoya. Bogle Family Vineyards Ryan, Jody & Warren Bogle Thank goodness the potato crop failed. They belong to a litany of famous names she drops during our meetings. Judy Moise, an outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, became suspicious when Montoya vanished. I stroll up the paved outdoor path that runs between the check-in station and the visitors hall, a walkway flanked with manicured rose bushes of the sort Puente once might have planted and pruned. To give strength to other people. She lifts the paper towel to her eyes. Nonetheless, with decades to mull what she might say about her case, she sounds as unpersuasive now as during her plane ride from Los Angeles. Puente offered a place where they could hang on. This was a money-making scheme, but I do not believe she was a murderess.. At the same time, they agreed she had an evil side brought on by the stress of caring for her down-and-out tenants. Others spoke of a calculating criminal who feigned altruism to mask her avariceand a homicidal bent. But in reality, he contends, she is the nation's most prolific female serial murderer ever . Trapped by tan cinderblock walls that climax in a Tsteepled ceiling, chatter and laughter create a kinetic mood amid the dense scent of microwaved pizza, burgers and fried chicken strips. She resembles a wizened owl. A lot of women shouldnt be here., She counts herself among them, even while conceding few people believe in her innocence. Im here until I die.. People were always coming and going. On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the suspicious looking coffin-like box near the river and called police. So when I wrote to Puente last summer, nearly 20 years after the discovery of her victims, I had little expectation she would respond, let alone agree to talk. Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. Working in my yard. Finally, four days after she skipped town, authorities traced her to a tumbledown motel in Los Angeles. Hes not a flirt.. The house at 1426 F Street, now painted a shade of gingerbread, appears occupied on the first floor and empty on the second, where she used to sleep. All three revolve around murder, a fact she notes without irony or self-consciousness. So you knew she was a liar.. Newspapers dubbed Puente the "Death House Landlady". Prison persuades some inmates to repent, their perspective evolving with time as they forsake their younger selves. At the time, she was serving two life sentences and a concurrent 15-year-to-life sentence. Cooking what I want. After their deaths she continued to draw their social security cheques. On a later visit, she brags that she won $10,000 on a 1950s game show on NBC called Feather Your Nest; another time, that she played a few tournaments on the fledgling LPGA tour in the 50s. In addition to the usual fare sold in the halls chow line, there are heart-shaped boxes of chocolates for $7. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. She wants me to buy dozens of food and beauty care items for her from a prison-approved vendor that will mail the goods to her. Despite being convicted of murder in 1993 and sent to prison, Puente denied killing the victims until the day she died . Throughout the trial, Dorothea Puente was portrayed as either a sweet grandma-like type or a manipulative criminal who preyed on the weak. I have listened to the lingering grief and anger of a man whose mother died mysteriously while in her care. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. John Cabrera sits at a long wooden conference table inside Sacramento Police headquarters on Freeport Boulevard. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. She recalls the future president and his first wife, Jane Wyman, as her good friends. When I mention the Gippers second wife, she frowns. Old bones sometimes turned up in downtown and midtown yards, vestiges of the early 20th century, when families unable to afford a cemetery plot interred loved ones on their property. Again and again, it is not her. 31 of the Royal Viking. It is late March and after midnight, the hour when shepossibly with the help of an unsuspecting Montoya or another accomplice, a mystery police never solvedburied bodies in the yard. An outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, she had visited Puente before placing him in her care. The visit was my first of six with Puente, who turned 80 in January. I didnt know if anyone was going to look after him.. After her mother passing Dorothea and her 18 siblings . Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. Several were referred there by social workers who viewed the home as a last-resort refuge for their ailing or most erratic clients. Know Her Death House Now After several days of deliberations, the jury was deadlocked 75; Judge Michael J. Virga declared a mistrial when the jury said further deliberations would not change their minds. To soothe her anxiety, she wanted to walk to the nearby Clarion Hotel with one of her boarders to meet her nephew for a cup of coffee. [citation needed], O'Mara called over 130 witnesses; he argued to the jury that Puente had used sleeping pills to put her tenants to sleep, then suffocated them, and hired convicts to dig the holes in her yard. A search of the home showed nothing amiss. Both have died, and police cleared them early in the investigation. The business supplied her with steady revenuesteady and, apparently, inadequate. Going to church every day. Sacramento landlady Dorothea Montalvo Puente was found guilty Thursday of murdering three of her tenants for their government benefit . Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". An alarmed Ballenger urged fellow counselors to steer clear of Puente. Cabrera, lead detective on the Puente case, stands with the shovel that she lent to law officers to dig in her backyard on Nov. 11, 1988. Clymo concluded his closing argument by showing a picture commonly used in psychology that can be viewed in different ways and saying "Keep in mind things are not always as they seem." In a low, almost plaintive voice, she replies, Puente. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Bee/Genaro Molina). The theory, while perhaps logical to anyone unfamiliar with Puente before her name hit the headlines, brought disparate reactions from those who already knew her. At age 16, she drifted off on her own to Olympia, Wash. Comely and flaxen-haired, with soft blue eyes and a beguiling smile, she worked as a prostitute to earn money and caught the attention of Fred McFaul. A person like her, the retired sergeant says, theres no forgetting. (Photo by Jeremy Sykes). They all know who I am, she says. This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. The Victorian on F Street. Speaking softly, she asked, Am I under arrest? When the detective told her no, she explained that the police presence and the growing mob of onlookers had her on edge.