PLEASANTON, Calif. -- Alameda County investigators have named the son of a Pleasanton couple found slain in their country club home in March as ‘a person of interest’ in the case and have issued a plea to users of the gambling911.com website to come forward if the 29-year-old owes them any money.

Sgt. Scott Dudek said Thursday that police are interested in the gambling habits of Ernie Scherer III in connection with the death of Ernie Scherer Jr., 60, and his wife Charlene Abendroth, 57.

However, Dudek would not go as far as to call the 29-year-old a suspect.

Scherer and Abendroth bodies were found in their posh home on March 14.

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. 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.

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. Both victims were wearing their pajamas.

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

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.

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.