Update, December 8, 3:15 p.m.: After a five-month investigation into the midnight hour shooting July 17 that claimed the life of 49-year-old Dean Patrick Maldonado, the Orange County District Attorney's Office has concluded there is insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against the shooter, Brian Scott Ostrom, a 51-year-old airline pilot with homes in Newport Beach and Arizona.
An argument outside the Rancho Santa Margarita home of Maldonado's ex-girlfriend, fitness instructor Linda Shaw-Sprowl, spilled into a bedroom inside the two-story Stonetower Drive house, where bail bondsman Maldonado was fatally shot.
]
Neighbors saw Maldonado yelling outside the home before presumably entering through an unlocked sliding door. As someone inside called 9-1-1, Maldonado was shot several times in the chest with Ostrom's handgun.
According to the Orange County Register, the OCDA sent a letter to the sheriff's department indicating, “we are of the opinion there is insufficient evidence to warrant the filing of criminal charges against the shooter, Brian Scott Ostrom, and to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Related Post, July 30, 9:10 a.m.: “Slayings Awake Sleep Rancho Santa Margarita”
Original Post (by Kevin Short), July 19, 4:08 p.m.: A fatal shooting Saturday night jolted the sleepy neighborhood of Robinson Ranch in Rancho Santa Margarita.
Dean Patrick Maldonado, the 49-year-old owner of the Dean Maldonado Bail Bonds in Newport Beach, was shot and killed inside a home in the 21300
block of Stonetower.
Neighbors reported loud screaming and cursing and immediately called authorities.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department reports that Maldonado entered the suburban home through the rear sliding door. At 11:50 p.m., deputies were dispatched to investigate a family dispute. By the time they arrived, Maldonado had incurred multiple bullet wounds and laid dead in the suburban home.
Echoes of the shots and shrieks were heard from blocks away.
Over 36 hours after the shooting, police still report that Maldonado was killed by a 51-year-old male guest, visiting the home of Linda Shaw-Sprowl. She is reportedly a personal
trainer who owns and operates a business called Body Balance.
No arrests have been made and the anonymity of the shooter remains protected.
Maldonado, an avid body-builder, is survived by three children.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.