Deliberations in Puente Case Set State Record

The jury considering the fate of accused boardinghouse murderer Dorothea Montalvo Puente met Wednesday for the 23rd day, setting a California record for the length of jury deliberations in a murder case.

At the end of the day, the jury sent Superior Court Judge Michael J. Virga a message, the contents of which were not made public. The judge said he will speak to the jury this morning about the matter.

Puente is accused of murdering nine people for their benefit checks and burying seven of them in the garden of her Victorian boardinghouse in Sacramento.

Prosecutors, however, were unable to produce any witnesses to the killings and relied on circumstantial evidence. Her defense attorneys conceded that she stole money from her tenants but denied that she murdered anyone.

The previous record for jury deliberations came in the 1989 “Night Stalker” trial, in which the jury considered the evidence for 22 days before finding Richard Ramirez guilty of murdering 13 people.

“I am surprised they just haven’t given up yet,” said Randi Danto, a San Jose public defender and chair of the State Bar of California’s Criminal Law Section Executive Committee.

Three weeks ago, jurors in the Puente case announced that they were deadlocked but Judge Virga ordered them to continue deliberating. At one point, the jury reported it was making progress but deliberations were halted for most of last week when one juror came down with pneumonia.