![\"Imperial](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767059411_768_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nCorey McGarrahan and his wife were watching television in their rural Arizona home a little past 9 p.m. when they heard what sounded like a propane explosion outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe paused the television and looked at each other and said, \u2018Did you hear that?\u2019\u201d McGarrahan told The Times in a phone interview Monday.<\/p>\n
As the couple would later come to find out, that explosion was a gunshot. Their neighbor Kerri Ann Abatti, a daughter of the Pinetop, Ariz., community, had been killed.<\/p>\n
At a news conference Monday, detectives with the Navajo County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Pinetop Police Department shed light on the investigation into Abatti\u2019s killing and what led them to arrest her estranged husband, powerful Imperial Valley farmer Michael Abatti, on suspicion of murder.<\/p>\n
Kerri Ann Abatti was killed the night of Nov. 20. Authorities on Monday said their investigation led them to focus on her husband\u2019s whereabouts that day and the day after. And although they did not disclose what evidence they had gathered, Navajo County Sheriff David Clouse told reporters his detectives \u201chad strong reason to believe that Mr. Abatti had traveled from El Centro, Calif., on Nov. 20 to Pinetop, Ariz., committed the homicide and traveled back to California.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Michael Abatti\u2019s San Diego-based attorneys, Danielle Iredale and Owen Roth, Abatti plans to plead not guilty.<\/p>\n
The team said he surrendered in Imperial County and \u201cnow he awaits his day in court in Arizona.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abatti cannot post bail until he has been extradited.<\/p>\n
According to Clouse, Kerri Ann Abatti was found by her nephew in her home on the night of Nov. 20. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Michael Abatti, pictured in an Imperial County Sheriff\u2019s Office booking mugshot, is awaiting extradition to Arizona. <\/p>\n
(Imperial County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/p>\n
At the time she was shot, Abatti, 59, had been embroiled in a bitter divorce with her 63-year-old husband, with the amount of financial support she was owed at the heart of the disagreement, according to the couple\u2019s divorce filings. <\/p>\n
Kerri Ann Abatti\u2019s nephew, who was living on the property, found his aunt on the dining room floor near the kitchen counter, bleeding from the head and face and unconscious, according to the Navajo County medical examiner\u2019s investigative report. He thought she had fallen from counter height, according to the report. Law enforcement agencies were tied up on other calls in the area, so there was an extended wait for an officer, the report states.<\/p>\n
First responders showed up 10 to 15 minutes after the loud pop that may have been a gunshot, said Corey McGarrahan. The Abatti house is on 14 acres and tucked away from the road, where it is not visible to cars or emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n
According to the autopsy report, the emergency crew noted that Kerri\u2019s injuries were consistent with a gunshot wound to the head. She was pronounced dead in the emergency room, the report states.<\/p>\n
When investigators searched the home for clues, they found a broken window and determined the shot had been fired from outside in the backyard.<\/p>\n
Also, a bystander had called police that night to report a boom consistent with a large-caliber firearm, and Abatti\u2019s nephew told police he\u2019d heard a loud noise before he found his aunt, the report states.<\/p>\n
Once it was clear a crime had been committed, investigators from the Navajo County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Pinetop police secured the scene, acquired a search warrant and canvassed the neighborhood, according to Clouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were looking for all eyewitnesses, anybody that was home at the time,\u201d he said. They gathered evidence from home surveillance technology, such as doorbell cameras, and interviewed her friends and family \u2014 including her three adult children \u2014 so they could build a timeline of her activities in the days before her death.<\/p>\n
McGarrahan said that he does not have a camera at the house. He also said he did not hear any cars on the street until the emergency vehicles arrived.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, Kerri Ann Abatti moved to the 7,000-square-foot property in her hometown in the eastern White Mountains <\/a>in 2023 after leaving her husband and initiating divorce proceedings.<\/p>\n As part of their homicide investigation, detectives \u201clooked for anything that was out of the norm\u201d around the time of the woman\u2019s killing, Clouse said. They soon learned about the contentious divorce.<\/p>\n On Nov. 23, Clouse said the investigation moved to the Imperial Valley, where they executed search warrants at three different locations, including the Abattis\u2019 home in El Centro and Michael Abatti\u2019s business properties.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767059411_567_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n