A prominent California farmer was arrested Tuesday in the Imperial Valley on suspicion of murdering his estranged wife, who was found mortally wounded in November in Arizona.
Michael Abatti, 63, was taken into custody in El Centro about 3:20 p.m., according to a news release from the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office.
Kerri Ann Abatti was fatally shot Nov. 20 in Arizona’s Navajo County, authorities say.
Michael Abatti was booked into the Imperial County Jail on charges of first-degree murder and is awaiting extradition to Arizona.
Earlier Tuesday, detectives provided testimony to the Navajo County grand jury and obtained an indictment and an arrest warrant from the county’s Superior Court.
The arrest comes after weeks of investigative police work in Arizona and California. On Dec. 2, detectives served multiple search warrants on Abatti family residences and properties, as well as vehicles and camp trailers, in El Centro.
The couple lived in El Centro before Kerri Ann Abatti left in 2023 for Pinetop-Lakeside, Ariz. — her hometown in the eastern White Mountains. The couple were embroiled in a bitter and contentious court battle over spousal support.
Divorce filings show that Kerri Ann Abatti accused her husband of stonewalling her attempts to learn the full picture of their income and real estate holdings while he made changes to their finances without consulting her or her attorney. Meanwhile, she contended, she was struggling to stay afloat on the several thousand dollars in monthly spousal support that the court temporarily awarded her as the proceedings stretched on for more than two years.
“As the investigation continued, a significant amount of evidence was seized, some of which is still being analyzed, leading the detectives to identify Michael Abatti” as the suspect in the murder of his estranged wife, officials from Navajo County wrote in the news release.
The multistate investigative team found evidence suggesting that Abatti had traveled from California on Nov. 20 to Pinetop-Lakeside, where he is “believed to have shot and killed Kerri Ann Abatti” before immediately returning to California, according to the release.
“We extend our sincere condolences to Kerri’s family and to all those affected by this tragedy,” Navajo County Sheriff David Clouse said.
He also thanked other agencies that had worked on the case, including the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office, Imperial County Dist. Atty. George Marquez and “all of the Arizona agencies that have been instrumental in this investigation.”
Abatti owns a large farming operation in the Imperial Valley, growing crops including sugar beets, alfalfa and melons.
He has been an influential figure in the community. He served as a board member of the Imperial Irrigation District from 2006 to 2010. He later sued the district in a dispute over water rights.
In a 2023 book, author Craig Morgan chronicled Abatti’s efforts to fight against a 2003 water transfer deal that he believed would be detrimental to agriculture and the community. Morgan presented Abatti in a positive light, as a person who ran for the district water board because he intended to “work toward making Imperial Valley a better place to live.”
“Mike was not interested in pursuing a political career. He only wanted to see Imperial Valley prosper and viewed protection of its water supply as critical to that mission,” Morgan wrote in his book “The Morality of Deceit: California’s Quantification Settlement Agreement and the Fight for Imperial Valley’s Water.”
Morgan met Abatti and his younger brother Jim during college at Colorado State University. Morgan, who served as a consultant to farmers opposing the water transfer deal, wrote about friendly meetings with Michael and Kerri Ann Abatti in El Centro.
“Sitting outside in Mike and Kerri’s backyard while our kids played and after testing our spouse’s patience with stories from our college days, the conversations eventually turned to the… water transfer agreements,” Morgan wrote. “The amount of water that was to be transferred was very large, and the impacts it would have on the community and the environment were significant concerns.”
The book also detailed Michael Abatti’s struggle with a severe bacterial infection. When he was hospitalized, his wife spent nights next to his hospital bed, and prayed in the hospital’s chapel. Eventually, he recovered and returned to his work farming and attending the irrigation district’s board meetings.
The couple funded the publication of the book, according to a February 2025 declaration from Michael Abatti regarding spousal report. In return for 50% of the book’s proceeds, the couple provided approximately $60,000 in 2023 to Morgan’s endeavor — roughly one month before Kerri Ann Abatti moved to Arizona.
“Unfortunately, the book has not made a profit and it does not appear that it will make a profit,” Abatti’s lawyers wrote in the declaration.
