96-Year-Old Woman Killed in Murder-for-Hire Plot While Baking Cookies, Cops Say

A 96-year-old woman who was found dead in her Montecito, California, home in May 2022 was the victim of a fraud scheme that turned into a murder-for-hire plot when the perpetrators grew frustrated that she wouldn’t die quickly enough, local authorities revealed Thursday.

Violet Alberts, 96, was an elderly widow, described as warm and social, who played an active role in the local community, even though she had recently fallen on financial hardship. She was getting ready to bake cookies for her upcoming birthday when the killers struck—responding cops found the ingredients on the kitchen table, and Alberts dead in her bed.

A shattered window in the bedroom and the results of an autopsy led police to investigate Alberts’ death as a murder, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Paul Brown said during a press conference on Thursday. Alberts died of asphyxiation, and the coroner ruled her death a homicide.

Read more at The Daily Beast.