One year after 96-year-old Montecito resident Violet Alberts was smothered to death in her Park Lane home, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office announced it was posting a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer. To help jog loose any captive recollections, the department released two photos depicting what Sheriff’s spokesperson Raquel Zick described as the car driven by the suspected murderer on the night of Albert’s death. Zick declined to comment on how or where the photos were gleaned or whether it had been shown to Alberts’s many neighbors along Park Lane.
The reward offer and release of the photos also comes just days after Judge Thomas Anderle issued a mixed ruling in the preliminary hearing of Pauline Macareno , the Los Angeles County real estate operator who has been held in county jail the better part of a year on $1 million bail for charges of elder fraud and related conspiracy charges in connection with an alleged real estate scam in which Alberts signed over the deed to her Montecito home, said to be valued at $4 million. Judge Anderle ruled there was sufficient evidence to try Macareno on the elder fraud charges but not enough to try her on the conspiracy charges. Although Macareno remains in county jail, it’s only a matter of time before her attorney, Ron Bamieh, petitions the court to reduce her bail. It’s worth noting that Alberts was murdered not long after an attorney claiming to represent her — Aldo Flores out of Ontario, California — sued Macareno for fraud.
Flores had sued Macareno earlier for real estate fraud in separate case, which he lost. It’s also worth noting that the bail bonds company that initially posted Macareno’s bail pulled the plug on Macareno, claiming she failed to live up to the terms and conditions of her bail bond. Moreover, they claimed, Macareno used Alberts’s home as collateral for her bail, noting that ill-gotten gains that occasioned the criminal action against Macareno could not legally be used for bail.