The ominous behavior of a beauty queen found dead in her home amid a bitter divorce battle has been revealed.
Kerri Ann Abatti, 59, was found dead inside the $1.6 million home in Pinetop, Arizona on November 20.
She shared the home with her husband of 31 years, Michael Abatti, 63 – a prominent agricultural figure in California‘s Imperial Valley.
The pair split in August 2023, with Kerri leaving their primary home in El Centro, California, to reconnect with her roots in Arizona’s Pinetop-Lakeside community.
Kerri’s family had lived in the closely-woven community for generations, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The murder victim’s cousin, Cathy Penrod, 72, told the outlet that since leaving her husband, Kerri had been searching for a sense of belonging.
In turn, she had been tending to her family’s private cemetery in Pinetop, where six generations of Penrods have been laid to rest – in a chilling foreshadowing of her own fate.
The town was originally settled by Kerri’s Mormon ancestors, William and Polly Penrod, who had moved their family from Utah to the mountain community more than a century ago.
Eerily, Cathy said Kerri had placed poinsettias on the graves of her relatives from her family’s sixth generation – which is her generation – in the days before she was killed.
‘I realize now that was what she was craving: a bond, a connection to her family. It’s what she needed to do,’ Cathy told the LA Times.
Kerri Ann Abatti, formerly Kerri Ann Penrod, had been visiting the grave sites of her ancestors before she was found dead
Pictured: Investigators at load a black gun safe into a truck from Michael Abatti’s property on December 2. Michael has not been named a person of interest or a suspect in Kerri’s death
‘She came back because this was the center of her universe. It’s where her soul belonged.’
Kerri had grown up in Pinetop and was known as an outgoing and charismatic community member.
She attended Blue Ridge High School, and yearbooks from 1983 and 1984 detail her accomplishments.
Kerri was a Girl Scout, a cheerleader and a member of the school’s orchestra. When she was a high school senior, she was named Miss Navajo County and earned a $1,000 scholarship to the University of Arizona, according to the LA Times.
However, divorce records indicate that she never graduated from college. She obtained a real estate license and became an EMT.
She eventually let those certifications lapse as she went on to work as an office manager for a third-party company and as a bookkeeper for the Abatti family company, Abatti Farms LLC.
When her second of three children was born, she worked solely as a bookkeeper for Abatti Farms until 1999, when she stopped working altogether to focus on her family.
Cathy told the LA Times that she does not know how Kerri and Michael met, but speculated that she felt abashed about the divorce.
‘She must have felt so much shame,’ Cathy told the outlet. ‘But she also must have known how deep her family’s love was for her. That no matter what, this was her home.’
Kerri Ann Abatti was the wife of Michael Abatti, pictured here, a land baron who has considerable influence over a large portion of southern California
Kerri was found inside the family’s $1.6 million home in Pinetop. Pictured: An aerial shot of the property
The Daily Mail previously revealed the messy relationship between Michael and his estranged wife before she died.
The pair was entrenched in a battle over finances – as Kerri claimed that her millionaire husband had left her a ‘measly’ allowance after she left him, according to court records.
Filings from October 2023 allege that Michael expected her to run the 14-acre Pinetop property single-handedly while paying her $5,000 a month as part of a spousal agreement – a sum she deemed insufficient.
Michael is one of Imperial Valley’s most successful farmers with 20,000 acres under cultivation, with crops bringing in over $10 million a year.
Michael was accused of being miserly with his wife despite having a $12.5 million ranch in Wyoming. Kerri claimed that she had little knowledge of his finances.
In the documents, Kerri detailed how her husband managed their large farming and real estate business, Abatti Farms, while she brought up their three children.
In January, a judge ruled in Kerri’s favor, increasing her monthly spousal support payment to $6,400.
The mother-of-three’s death is being probed as a homicide, according to the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office.
Pictured: Officers carrying out a search warrant on the property in California where Michael Abatti lives on December 2
Michael Abatti is one of the area’s most successful farmers with 20,000 acres under cultivation (pictured)
Officials confirmed she was found dead with a gunshot wound.
No one has been arrested or charged with her murder, but Michael’s El Centro property was raided in connection with an investigation into his wife’s murder.
A large black gun safe was among the items taken from the property, as captured in images by Imperial Valley Press.
‘We’ve got multiple roads we’re looking at. [Michael is] certainly an investigative lead and that’s not to say there’s not other investigative leads as well,’ Chief Deputy Brian Swanty told Briana Whitney on December 12.
Swanty said that Michael is not an official person of interest in this case.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Michael for comment through his business and an attorney.
On Monday afternoon, the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office told the Daily Mail that there are no updates on the investigation’s progress.