A 96-year-old woman killed as she prepared to make cookies in 2022 was the target of an elaborate murder-for-hire plot after four suspects were angry she was taking too long to die on her own, police said.
Violet Alberts was found dead in her bed in her Montecito, Calif. home on May 27, 2022, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Paul Brown revealed during a press conference on Thursday.
Alberts’ caretaker found her body, noting the “vibrant” member of the community had ingredients laid out on her kitchen table to make cookies for her upcoming birthday.
Officers found a shattered window in her bedroom, prompting them to investigate the home thoroughly.
An autopsy revealed that Albert’s death was from asphyxiation — when the body doesn’t receive enough oxygen — and was ruled a homicide, Brown said, citing the coroner’s report.
Investigators found she was the victim of “a tangled, evil web of financial exploitation.”
Pauline Macareno, 48, became the key figure in “the manipulation and deceitful targeting” of the “cherished” Montecito, Calif. community member.
“Through deceptive means, Macareno orchestrated a series of transactions, including forging documents and establishing fraudulent entities to gain control over Alberts’ assets unlawfully,” Brown explained.
Macareno allegedly fooled the elderly woman when she offered her a misleading reverse mortgage in 2020, but “ultimately led to the fraudulent acquisition of her property,” investigators found.
Alberts’ two-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom home is estimated to be just under $6 million, according to the real estate site Zillow.
The widow’s home was located in a wealthy Santa Barbara neighborhood, notable for its famous residents, including Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markel, according to KTLA.
However, the fraudster grew tired of waiting for Alberts to die to inherit her estate and masterminded a plot to kill the widow, according to Brown.
She enlisted the help of three men, Harry Basmadjian, Henry Rostomyan, and Ricardo MartinDelCampo, to pull off her murder-for-hire plot.
Investigators discovered MartinDelCampo and Rostomyan took a “scouting trip” three days before Alberts was murdered.
“This pivotal discovery shed light on the premeditated nature of this crime, underscoring the perpetrators’ calculated efforts to survey Alberts’ home and to plan their vicious and reprehensible actions,” Brown noted.
Officials released photos of a Porsche Cayenne in June 2023 that was believed to be the getaway vehicle in Alberts’ murder.
In the following months, investigators spent countless hours piecing together the “sequence” of events, ultimately leading to the arrest of all three men
Rostomyan and MartinDelCampo, arrested in February and Mach respectively, are currently being held in the Santa Barbara County Jail without bail on charges of murder and conspiracy of murder.
Basmadjian was arrested in January on charges of conspiracy of murder. Still, while in federal custody in Los Angeles on an unrelated charge, suffered a “life-threatening medical emergency” and is now “essentially brain dead,” Brown said.
Macareno was arrested in June 2022 for elder abuse and was slapped with a six-year prison stint for capitalizing on “Alberts’ vulnerability” by defrauding her.
She is pending additional charges since the murder-for-hire plot has been unearthed, Brown said.
Alberts had lost her husband, David Alberts, in 1993 and “relied on her friendships and connections within the neighborhood, through which she achieved a sense of belonging with a tight-knit community,” Brown said.
“Despite facing challenges with her memory and cognition, Violet’s spirit remained undaunted” until she was murdered.
