DUBLIN, Calif. -- A couple found beatened to death in their posh East Bay country club home had been dead a week before their bloodied bodies were discovered, according to Alameda County Sheriff's Department investigators.

Charlene Abendroth, 57, and Ernest Scherer, 60, had been married 31 years when they were brutally beaten to death inside their home in the Castlewood Country Club in unincorporated Alameda County near Pleasanton, Sheriff's Sgt. Scott Dudek said Monday.

The couple had gone out to dinner at the country club on the evening of March 7. They left the restaurant at about 8 p.m., Dudek said at a press held at the sheriff's office in Dublin.

The next day, Scherer didn't show up to a Saturday meeting he had scheduled, leading investigators to believe the couple was killed sometime between 8 p.m. March 7 and the morning of March 8, Dudek said.

The couple's adult daughter, who spoke with her parents daily, was the first to become concerned. She had called several times and still hadn't heard from them, Dudek said.

At first she thought they might have gone on a trip, since they often traveled in the winter and early spring, but it would have been unusual for them not to have told her, so she notified the sheriff's office.

On March 14, at about 12:30 p.m., the sheriff's office received a call from a country club employee who had looked in a window of their home at 18 Castlewood Drive and saw what appeared to be a body.

Sheriff's deputies responded and made entry into the two-story, 2,000 square-foot home, where they found the two bodies lying in close proximity to each other in the front of the house, Dudek said. Both victims were wearing their pajamas.

"We've been working non-stop ever since," Dudek said, who confirmed that the two deaths are being investigated as a double homicide.

Dudek said the couple's two children, a son and daughter, are devastated by the murders.

"It's a hard time for the family. It was a brutal scene," Dudek said.

Some things inside the home had been disturbed, but Dudek said it was too early in the investigation to tell whether a burglary had taken place or whether someone had tried to make it look like a burglary.

Investigators have still not been able to determine a motive for the murders and don't know whether or not they were a random act.

"Do I believe it's a random act? No. Can I prove it wasn't a random act? No, I can't," Dudek said.

The family is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the killer or killers. Sheriff's investigators are asking that anyone who saw anything that might be considered suspicious around the time of the murders to contact them.

"There's only one way in and one way out of Castlewood," Dudek said.

Although it is not a gated community, Castlewood Drive runs in a circle between the two greens of the golf course and is the only access route.

Dudek asked that anyone who might have seen a suspicious vehicle entering or leaving the country club grounds to come forward.

Abendroth was a long-time lecturer at California State University, East Bay's College of Business and Economics and a Certified Public Accountant. She had been teaching undergraduate and graduate accounting courses at the university since 1976, but had taken the semester off to travel with her husband.

"This is a heartbreaking tragedy and a tremendous loss for Cal State East Bay," university President Mohammad Qayoumi said in a prepared statement. "Charlene Abendroth dedicated more than 30 years to teaching Cal State East Bay students and was a friend and valued colleague to countless faculty and staff. Her loss is irreplaceable and our thoughts and prayers are with her family."

Scherer was an avid poker player and a member of the Alameda County Republican Committee.

Prior to joining Alameda County Republic Party, Scherer was an active volunteer with the Contra Costa Republican Party and a former member of the San Ramon Valley School Board, according to a letter issued Sunday by the republican committee.

"In the aftermath of a tragedy such as this, it is hard to make any sense of the world around us," read the letter written by Alameda County Chairman Paul Cummings. "We will all miss Ernie and Charlene."