Ciaobella Masterson was the president of the Ciao! fashion company and married to the chairman and founder Gregor Uwe-Steeb. As she treated her employees disrespectfully, especially her assistant Emily Bloom, she was not a very well-liked boss.
When Gregor was murdered, Ciaobella jumped to the top of the suspect list after Shawn and Gus find out that she had been grilling her employees about who among them was sleeping with him. This theory of revenge is quickly discarded, however, when Ciaobella herself dies at her husband's funeral. An autopsy reveals that someone had poisoned her by adding arsenic to her green super food powder. Both Emily and affiliated model Sigrid were at first suspected of her murder, but no concrete evidence was found against them. Just as the SBPD seemed to be hitting a wall, Shawn put all the pieces together and figures out that Ciaobella did want revenge for Gregor's affair and therefore electrocuted him with a sabotaged mic stand using the knowledge of electrical wiring she gained from one of her projects. Gregor in turn wanted to kill Ciaobella so that he could retain full ownership of the company, half of which he would have lost due to their nearing 10-year wedding anniversary, but Ciaobella's bulimia meant that his poison took effect very late.
Trivia[]
- Karen refers to Ciaobella as a "homegrown celebrity", so it would seem she was born and raised in Santa Barbara.
- Ciaobella married Gregor on Abaco, a small island in the Bahamas. Since this was a private ceremony, however, most people (including Shawn and Gus initially) were under the impression that the two only got married two years later and were approaching their 8th anniversary instead of their 10th.