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Women on Death Row: Dora Buenrostro
On October 27, 1994, a frantic mother led police officers to her San Jacinto, California, apartment. Dora Buenrostro had driven to the police station at 6:30 a.m. to inform officers that her husband was armed with a knife in her apartment. Her children were in danger.
A Terrifying Discovery
Once inside the apartment, police officers discovered the bodies of two children, 9-year-old Susana and 8-year-old Vicente. Both had been stabbed in the neck as they slept in the living room.
Her 4-year-old daughter, Deidra, was missing. Officers began searching for the young girl and Dora’s estranged husband.
Alejandro Buenrostro, Dora’s husband, lived in Los Angeles. The two had been fighting often, and Dora claimed he’d threatened their children. Officers put out an all-points-bulletin for Alejandro, and he was found at his work and brought into the station without incident. Deidra was still nowhere to be found.
At some point that day, a teenage girl heard a rumor from the children she was babysitting that there was a body in the abandoned post office nearby. Sure enough, the body of Dora Buenrostro was inside, still strapped in her car seat. The post office was in Lakeview, about 10 miles away from her home. She’d been stabbed with a knife as well as with a ballpoint pen.
