Disturbed Ground [Hardcover]

Carla Norton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 21, 1994

The author of Perfect Victim reveals the truth behind the shocking case of Dorothea Puente, the genial Sacramento landlady who was actually a psychopathic killer who buried the corpses of her indigent and homeless victims in her lovingly tended garden.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The story begins with Bert, a gentle, unassuming street person who mumbled to himself and talked to trees. He wasn't an alcoholic, but he hung out at a detox center in Sacramento, where a volunteer named Judy took an interest in him. Judy was overjoyed when she found a home for Bert with a silver-haired grandmother, Dorothea Puente, who ran a tidy boarding house in a blue-and-white Victorian. Little did Judy know that Puente (just one of the woman's many aliases) would soon become her obsession. By the end of the story, Bert has disappeared, and the cops are digging up seven corpses from the backyard of the boarding house. Author Carla Norton (Perfect Victim) skillfully unfolds the many-layered character of this classic Arsenic and Old Lac-style serial killer: "At the pinnacle of her fame and glory, Dorothea was like a junkie with a philanthropic habit... Everyone dipped into her pot and benefited from her largesse." She was ultimately tried on nine counts of murder, and sentenced to death. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In August 1993, Dorothea Puente of Sacramento, Calif., charged with nine murders, was found guilty of three, with the jury hung on the other six. Norton ( Perfect Victim ) masterfully portrays a white-haired, grandmotherly woman who, affecting compassion for her city's mentally ill, alcoholics and other down-and-outers, ran a model boardinghouse known for its cleanliness and good food. She was finally unmasked as a killer motivated by greed for the Social Security and disability checks of her boarders. Concern on the part of social workers and employees of a detox center for a sweet, mentally slow drifter helped reveal the horror, and seven bodies were eventually dug up from Puente's yard. The most striking thing about Norton's book, besides the incomprehensible verdict which found the jury able to agree on just three of the murders, is its illustration of the contention that U.S. jurisprudence is concerned with winning, not justice, in allowing the other six murders to remain unresolved. Puente is now serving a life sentence. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 415 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (June 21, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688097049
• ISBN-13: 978-0688097042
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,787,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carla Norton has spent a lot of time in courtrooms. When Colleen Stan's shocking seven-year captivity first hit headlines, she wedged herself between reporters and sketch artists to cover the kidnapper's trial, and later wrote Perfect Victim in collaboration with the prosecutor. The book became a #1 New York Times bestseller and was put on the reading list for the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit.

Carla next covered the nine-murder-count trial of Dorothea Puente, a white-haired landlady who was caught burying bodies in her rose garden. In writing Disturbed Ground, Carla again puzzled over psychological issues, visited crime scenes, and molded forensic information into her narrative.

Carla has promoted her books on radio and television, including Geraldo and Larry King Live. When she's not writing about notorious California crimes, she writes fiction, essays, and articles for publication in print and online.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read, September 13, 2011

By 

Mike C - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Disturbed Ground (Paperback)

The facts and information offered in this book are great . I recommend this book to anyone wanting to know about this interesting, but sad case.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched - well written, January 11, 2011

By 

WordPower (California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Disturbed Ground (Kindle Edition)

Fascinating account of a grandmotherly serial killer. The author obviously did her research and has written a compelling story of how "she almost got away with it." It continues to amaze me how law enforcement officials tend to work with blinder on, make assumptions based or first impressions and appearances, and fail to truly investigate a crime. This is also a story of how the California parole system failed much as it failed Jaycee Dugard. This is an unusually well written true crime account that reads much like a fast paced legal thriller or an episode of CSI.

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting True Crime Story...Facinating!, June 29, 2008

By 

Amy Graham (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Disturbed Ground (Paperback)

I picked this up on a whim walking through the library...I think I'm genetically disposed to be attracted to any book with the world diabolical in the title...this was an interesting case...I am, as always fascinated by people who are, for whatever reason, compelled to kill. The subject here was fascinating to me because I don't remember this case at all and it leaves me wondering what the heck I was doing at the time that I'd never heard of Dorthea Puente at all...but then I realized that for much of the time this case was on trial, I was living in National Parks and not really having access to a TV. While reading the book, it is painfully obvious that the person writing it was once a former writer for the Los Angeles Times as the entire thing read like a really, really, really long newspaper article...but still, it's packed with details of Dorthea's life, the victims, and the trial from start to finish...so one doesn't want for left out details. Overall a good read, but not quick...it took me three days to get through it all because it was fact dense and not as fluid as I might have liked.