Michael Abatti, a 63-year-old California farming magnate, faces first-degree murder charges for allegedly shooting his estranged wife, Kerri Ann Abatti, 59, at her Arizona home last November. Court documents unsealed this week detail how Abatti told family he was hunting before driving seven hours to the scene. The shooting occurred amid an acrimonious divorce involving a $200 million trust.
Michael Abatti allegedly informed his family he was going 'hunting in the desert' on the day of the killing, according to a police affidavit. His Ford pickup truck was tracked by license plate readers leaving his usual hunting area in California around 1:30 p.m., appearing in Globe, Arizona, at 6:30 p.m. Deputies found Kerri Ann Abatti dead from a gunshot wound in her Pinetop home around 9:20 p.m., after her nephew heard a loud bang and discovered her bleeding from the face in the dining room. A bullet hole in a dining room window and a gun-sniffing dog's alert 30 yards outside indicated a higher-powered rifle fired from afar, the affidavit states. Abatti's truck was later spotted in Globe at 11:41 p.m. and back in California by 4:40 a.m. He called 911 afterward, telling emergency workers, 'He attempted to kill himself because of an incident involving his wife.'