Moise contacted the authorities and detective John Cabrera visited Puente’s home. Nothing looked suspicious at first glance. Cabrera saw that the garden had been dug up, and following his instincts, asked permission to dig there. That’s when the bodies were discovered. A total of seven bodies were dug up in the following days, as reported by Absolute Crime. Puente fled the scene and went to Los Angeles but someone recognized her from a news broadcast and turned her in to authorities.

Upon her arrest, Puente denied killing the people buried in her backyard, though she admitted to cashing their social security checks. According to the Los Angeles Times, she was able to take in $87,000 from her scheme. As Sactown Magazine reported, forensic psychiatrist William Vicary evaluated Puente shortly after her arrest and had sessions with her for years. Vicary said of her crimes that Dorothea’s “eyes would fill with years, but she would never admit it.”

Dorothea Puente was given two life sentences. Until the end, she never confessed to the murders, even once saying, “I don’t feel like confessing my sins to anyone. That’s between me and my God.” Puente died at the Central California Women’s Facility in 2011. She was 82 years old.