Dorothea Puente was that rarest of murderers: a female serial killer. On a fall day in 1988, police in Sacramento, California began digging up the backyard of a quaint Victorial boardinghouse run by Puente. Before the weekend was over, the police had unearthed seven badly decomposed bodies. This shocking story of murder for profit was written by William Wood, the Deputy D.A. who had earlier prosecuted Puente for drugging and robbing elderly people.