Edhat Staff
By the edhat staff
Santa Barbara Police are investigating an incident last week where an elderly woman was forced to hand over her entire life savings to two unknown suspects.
At 11:20 a.m. Friday, February 16, Rosa Valdez was entering the Smart & Final grocery store in the 200 block of E. Gutierrez Street in Santa Barbara.
According to the victim’s granddaughter, a tall Spanish-speaking man asked for directions to a local attorney. Valdez stated she did not know the address and continued towards the entrance to pick up the store’s weekly advertisement. She picks up the ad and returns towards the parking lot to her car where she notices the man is following her and a Spanish-speaking woman is waiting at her car.
Suspect caught on surveillance camera, scroll above for more photos (courtesy)
Valdez’s granddaughter states the two suspects prevented her grandmother from entering her own car and lured her to their vehicle. The suspects threatened her, took her identification card and drove to her address on the card.
Once inside the house, the suspects put on gloves and threatned to harm her if she didn’t turn over all her money, jewelery, and gold to them immediately. Valdez turned over her and her husbands life savings of $65,000.
The suspects then forced her back into the vehicle and dropped her off at the Westside Market on Micheltorena Street and said if she tells anyone, they will come back for her and her family.
The Santa Barbara Police Department states the suspects were driving a gray four-door sedan. The male is described as a six-foot-tall, older white male with black hair, who speaks Spanish and stated he’s from Cuba. The other suspect is described as a six-foot-tall, older white woman with brown hair who also spoke Spanish and said she’s from Costa Rica.
Surveillance video of the parking lot interaction can be seen here.
Anyone with information about the suspects or the incident is asked to the Santa Barbara Police Department. If the suspects are seen, call 9-1-1.
Rosa Valdez (courtesy photo)
Valdez was born in Herreras, Durango and moved to Santa Barbara when she was a teenager, finding work as a seamstress. She met her husband in downtown Santa Barbara in 1967, they married, and soon started a family. Her husband started Valdez Gardening Service in 1975 and she became a housekeeper in the 1990s. To this day, at age 77, she continues to work.
“Both are very hard working, good people that have been robbed of their retirement money they had been saving their entire life,” said Valdez’s granddaughter.
The Valdez family has started an online donation page to recoup the lost funds. Donations can be made here.
Omg. 65k in cash at home? Oh no 🙁 this is very sad.
Just thinking out loud & changing suspect/victim roles. Why would I walk to a store to get a flyer and then walk back towards my car? Of course there are numerous reasons, but again, I’m thinking out loud to myself. Would I ever be so lucky as to kidnap a woman and be directed to her home where she turns over $65,000. What are the odds? I can’t think of the last time I heard where a person was forced off the street and directed to their home to be robbed. If I was in fear of the suspects enough to turn over $65k the suspects likely did not know was anywhere in my house, would I not also fear the suspects enough to keep my mouth shut (as instructed) fearing they might return and harm me? When I was making my getaway, would I take a victim with me? I agree this is a sad story for hard working victims, but the manner in which this crime occurred does leave an opening for questions.
Doulie are you seriously blaming the victim? I often have gone to a grocery store, picked up their weekly ad and gone back to my car to revise my shopping list. Pretty disgusting that you’re pointing blame at an elderly woman and not these horrible criminals who clearly have experience in scaring and threatening elderly women into giving them cash and jewelry.
2-24 05:07 – Contrary to a post at 09:28, I did not say this could be a “setup.” I can’t say what the suspect(s) did or did not know relative to cash at the victim’s home. All I’m saying is I simply find it unusual for a person to return to their car to revise a shopping list. They’re then kidnapped near the car, the suspects drive to the address on her ID card where the victim releases $65,000 cash that the suspect’s (most likely did not know) was in the house. Then, the suspects take the victim with them only to release her at a nearby market. Call me crazy. I put all these circumstances together and I find this to be a very unusual incident.
She is lucky the SB Police are assisting. My mother lost $250k and Santa Barbara County Sheriff / DA didn’t bother to send an officer to her house. After two attempts to have her taken by the same parties, attempt to re-key her house locks, and sending Frontier to make contact with her and call them…never did a SB County Sheriff Officer come to her house. Sadly the taxi driver who was sent to take her noted he experienced the same issues more than a handful of times over a month. This is a real problem in Santa Barbara.
This happened 7 days ago.
Was on KEYT and Noozhawk and Edhat finally “forced themselves” to talk about it today!
I guess one should “avoid” to talk about any of that lest it become obvious what Fond has been saying now for years: things are going from bad to worse in “zero tolerance (re/ Mayor Rouse)” S.B.
As I’ve been saying: it happens more and more often and it’s only going to get worse!
Oooops : I’m going to be called “racist” because, unlike so many here : I DENOUNCE this increasing (and condoned) lawlessness.
Keep closing your eyes, keep refusing to fight it and it won’t get any better !
Yikes Fond, you’re pretty unhinged. Maybe take all that energy and help find the suspects who did this?
“I’m going to be called “racist” because, unlike so many here : I DENOUNCE this increasing (and condoned) lawlessness.” – If you are attributing “lawlessness” to a particular race, then yeah, you ARE a racist. Nothing new though, you’ve made it perfectly clear and have no shame in your racism. Disgusting and pathetic, but at least it’s genuine.
Shopping at this location is scary enough, I just back from my Cherry Coke pickup from there. I’m always super Grateful if there’s enough of my bike left to ride home, like I said scary. The employees are great (esp. Stephen, dudes really helpful), and that Lilia (sup/mgr?) always looking out…
Not their fault, being next to Debbie’s Delights.
As for this older couple, Rosa Valdez I hope the community helps out to some extent.
Scary, maybe the PD will help (not related to any other recent articles here), I’d pray that happens!
so as a “wrap-up” SCARY
Odd to me that the suspects disclosed their countries of origin. Why would they provide these clues? Maybe they lied, huh? Strange case. Then there’s the $65K…
OMG – half of the comments here are the same self-back-patting commenters who always argue in the comments. You should meet once a week at a park, drink coffee, and pick a topic to argue about. You can start by arguing about the park.
In the meantime, maybe we can help this unfortunate woman and hope nothing bad ever happens to us.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/889eg-my-grandparents