Former beauty queen gunned down in her $1.6 million home in Arizona, farming mogul estranged husband arrested month after

63-year-old Michael Abatti, a farming tycoon, has been arrested a month after his estranged wife, a former beauty queen, Kerru Ann Abatti, was gunned down in her $1.6 million home. Abatti was arrested in Imperial Valley, California, around 2 pm Tuesday. The couple were married for 31 years are were going through a bitter divorce battle. Kerru Ann Abatti was the former Miss Navajo County.

The New York Post reported that the farming tycoon was arrested for first-degree murder and was booked into jail in Imperial County. He is now awaiting extradition to Arizona, police said.




The former beauty queen, in the divorce filings, accused her husband of hiding truths about their finances. He had made changes to their finances without consulting her or an attorney, the filings said. She complained that she was struggling with only a few thousand dollars in monthly spousal support while her estranged husband hid his properties.

Following her split from her husband, Kerri Ann Abatti had moved back to her hometown in California, where her family had roots going back over a century, the LA Times reported. She was prom queen and student body president, as well as the band’s drum major and first-place winner of the talent show during her senior year at Blue Ridge High School, according to the paper. That same year, 1984, she was named Miss Navajo County, receiving a $1,000 scholarship to the University of Arizona to study music education and studio performance.

Abatti didn’t graduate from college, but acquired an Arizona real estate license in 1989, and also had an EMT firefighting license, according to divorce filings.

She worked as an office manager and did her family’s bookkeeping, but quit both jobs in 1999 to focus her “time and attention on raising our young family,” a decision her husband supported, according to divorce filings.