Discretion is advised.

Ten-minute murder.

Before Dorothy Appointe became the serial killer known as the Death House Landlady,

she was a little girl growing up in a deeply troubled family. Born in 1929, Dorothea was raised by two alcoholics, and throughout

her childhood, her father would often stand in front of his own children and threaten to take his

life. But he never followed through on this threat. Instead,

when Dorothea was eight years old, he died from a tuberculosis infection. The next year,

his widow was killed in a motorcycle crash, and Dorothea spent the rest of her childhood in an

orphanage where she suffered from repeated sexual abuse.

At 16 years old, Dorothea left the orphanage to marry an older man,

a soldier named Fred McFall, who had just returned to California after serving in World War II.

That happy couple had two daughters.

The first one was sent back to Sacramento to live with Dorothea's

family, and the second one was quickly given up for adoption. The marriage only lasted for three

years, and soon afterwards, Dorothea was arrested for the first time after she was caught paying

for shopping with forged checks. She spent three months in jail and was released,

and then she met her second husband, Axel Johansen. And Axel Johansen sounds like the lead

singer of a rock band, but Axel was not a lead singer of a rock band. He was a seaman. And by seaman,

I don't mean that, I mean he was a sailor.

And while he was away, Dorothea would spend his money gambling with men she invited over to the

house. And she also created an elaborate persona, pretending to be an Israeli and Egyptian woman,

going by the name Tea Singola Nyarda. Axel was concerned about his wife's

...