A distinguished California farmer was arrested Tuesday within the Imperial Valley on suspicion of murdering his estranged spouse, who was discovered mortally wounded in November in Arizona.
Michael Abatti, 63, was taken into custody in El Centro at about 3:20 pm, in line with a information launch from the Navajo County Sheriff’s Workplace.
Kerri Ann Abatti was shot and killed on Nov. 20 in Arizona’s Navajo County, authorities say.
Michael Abatti was booked into the Imperial County Jail on costs of first-degree homicide and is awaiting extradition to Arizona.
Earlier on Tuesday, detectives offered testimony to the Navajo County grand jury and obtained an indictment and an arrest warrant from the county’s Superior Court docket.
The arrest comes after weeks of investigative police work in each Arizona and California. On Dec. 2, detectives served a number of search warrants on Abatti household residences and properties, in addition to automobiles and camp trailers, in El Centro.
The couple lived in El Centro earlier than Kerri Abatti left in 2023 for Pinetop-Lakeside, Ariz. — her hometown within the jap White Mountains. The couple was embroiled in a bitter and contentious courtroom battle over spousal help.
Divorce filings present Kerri accused her husband of stonewalling her makes an attempt to be taught the complete image of their earnings and actual property holdings whereas he made modifications to their funds with out consulting her or her lawyer. In the meantime, she contended, she was struggling to remain afloat on the a number of thousand {dollars} in month-to-month spousal help that the courtroom quickly awarded her because the proceedings stretched on for greater than two years.
“Because the investigation continued, a major quantity of proof was seized, a few of which remains to be being analyzed, main the detectives to establish Michael Abatti” because the suspect within the homicide of his estranged spouse, wrote officers from Navajo County in the information launch.
The multistate investigative workforce discovered proof suggesting that Abatti had traveled from California on Nov. 20 to Pinetop-Lakeside, the place he’s “believed to have shot and killed Kerri Ann Abatti” earlier than instantly returning to California, in line with the discharge.
“We prolong our honest condolences to Kerri’s household and to all these affected by this tragedy,” Navajo County Sheriff David Clouse mentioned.
He additionally thanked different police businesses that had labored on the case, together with the Imperial County Sheriff’s Workplace, the Imperial County district lawyer, George Marquez, and “all the Arizona businesses which have been instrumental on this investigation.”
Abatti owns a big farming operation within the Imperial Valley, rising crops together with sugar beets, alfalfa and melons.
He has been an influential determine locally. He served as a board member of the Imperial Irrigation District from 2006 to 2010. He later sued the irrigation district in a dispute over water rights.
The Abatti household has been farming within the valley for greater than a century. Different Abatti family members run their very own separate farming companies.
