A “vibrant” 96-year-old widow preparing to bake cookies for her birthday was killed at her Montecito, California, home in an alleged murder-for-hire plot, according to authorities who said the case involved a “tangled evil web of financial exploitation.”
Violet Evelyn Alberts was found dead in her bed on May 27, 2022. Deputies with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office began investigating her death after they found a broken window in the back of her home, Sheriff Paul Brown said at a news conference Thursday.
A medical examiner determined she died from asphyxiation and the manner was homicide.
During the investigation, deputies learned that Alberts had allegedly been tricked into signing over her home in the wealthy Santa Barbara County neighborhood. They also uncovered that she was the victim of a murder-for-hire scheme.
Brown said that investigators identified a woman named Pauline Macareno, 48, as the “central figure in the manipulation and deceitful targeting” of Alberts.
Macareno was “referred” to Alberts, who needed additional money after she “aged out” of her savings, according to the sheriff. Alberts, who did not have any immediate family in the area, lived in a “very valuable home,” Brown said.
It’s not clear who referred Macareno to the victim.
In 2020, Macareno allegedly “capitalized on Alberts’ vulnerability” and engaged in financial elder abuse by forging documents and establishing fraudulent entities to gain control of Alberts’ assets, Brown told reporters.
Macareno’s scheme involved her offering Alberts a reverse mortgage that “ultimately led to the fraudulent acquisition of her property,” he said.
Brown declined to go into detail on the motivation behind the murder, but said that “in the eyes of Pauline Macareno, Ms. Alberts was living too long.”
Macareno was arrested in June 2022 and charged with elder abuse, fraud, and manipulation of legal documents. She was recently sentenced to six years in state prison for fraud related to Alberts’…
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