Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office Offers $10,000 Reward in Unsolved Montecito Murder

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.

Attorney Bamieh said his client Macareno did not kill Alberts, could not have killed her, and had no motive to kill her. To the extent law enforcement investigators are waiting for a witness to come along and implicate Macareno in Alberts’s murder, he said, they are wasting their time. 

“There are a bunch of scoundrels and ne’er-do-wells involved in this mess,” Bamieh commented. “There are much more legitimate suspects. Give me six months and a badge, and I could solve this.” 

Bamieh said when he worked for the Ventura County District Attorney’s office, he handled unsolved murder cases much like Alberts’s. “Let me put it this way: I know I can do their job better than they can,” he said. 

Bamieh questioned how a woman he said was in the throes of dementia could have hired an attorney like Flores. He pointedly wondered how Alberts — given her stated state of mind — could have been competent enough to have changed her will shortly before her death, leaving her property to a longtime caregiver who Flores happened to represent. Three phone calls to Flores for comment remained unanswered by deadline.

Bamieh, known as a skilled courtroom brawler, acknowledged his client has some tough questions to answer for. It came out in the preliminary hearing that Macareno had loaned Alberts — who had outlived the considerable assets she had inherited upon her husband’s death and was in hot financial water — $250,000 at 15 percent interest. In exchange, Alberts had also agreed to sell Macareno her property for $1.9 million even though it had been valued at $4 million.

At the time of her death, Alberts had been living alone for some time and had cut off relations with surviving relatives. She reportedly had no children and left the bulk of her estate to a nonprofit that would look after cats. Bamieh said prosecuting attorney Casey Nelson had initially offered his client an 18-year sentence. Judge Anderle, Bamieh said, knocked that down to eight years. But that, he added, was before the conspiracy charges had been rejected. 

What happens now to Alberts’s Montecito property is anyone’s guess, but a protracted probate battle is not unlikely. 

For the time being, Macareno remains in county jail. Another defendant in the elder fraud case was released on $500,000 bail and has not yet faced charges at a preliminary hearing.