A prominent California farmer was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of murder in the shooting death of his estranged wife in a remote mountain community in Arizona, the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office said.
Michael Abate, 63, was arrested in El Centro, California, and booked on a charge of first-degree murder. He is awaiting extradition to Arizona.
Authorities say they believe he drove to Arizona on Nov. 20 and shot Kerry Ann Abate, 59, before returning to his home in California. She was found dead in her family’s leafy vacation home in Pinetop, Arizona, where she had moved after separating from her husband.
An attorney for Michael Abate did not immediately respond to an email and text message seeking comment.
Authorities searched his home in southern California on December 2 as part of the investigation into his wife’s death.
Gregory Paul/AP
A Navajo County grand jury indicted Michael on Tuesday and deputies obtained a warrant for his arrest. CBS Phoenix affiliate KPHO-TV reported.
El Centro, population 44,000, is located just minutes from the Mexican border in the crop-rich Imperial Valley, the largest user of Colorado River water and known for growing leafy greens, melons and forage crops.
Michael Abate comes from a long line of farmers in the area bordering Arizona, and his grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was among the area’s first settlers. His father, Ben, helped found the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association, and Abate’s name is known throughout the region and is associated with agricultural foundations, scholarship funds and leadership on local councils and groups.
Michael Abbate grew onions, broccoli, cantaloupes and other crops in the Imperial Valley and served on the board of directors for the Imperial Powerhouse Irrigation District from 2006 to 2010.
Michael and Kerry Abate married in 1992 and have three children.
Kerry Abate is a descendant of one of the first Latter-day Saint families to settle in Pinetop in the 1880s. Located 190 miles northeast of Phoenix in the White Mountains, the community was briefly called Penrodville after Kerry ancestors before the name Pinetop was adopted.
The couple separated in 2023 and Keri Abbate filed for divorce in proceedings that were pending in California at the time of her death.
The Abates had been arguing about finances, with Kerry telling the court the couple had lived an upper-class lifestyle during more than three decades of marriage. They own a large house in California, a vacation home in Pinetop, ranch land in Wyoming, and vacation in Switzerland, Italy and Hawaii while sending their children to private school, she said.
After the separation, Kerry received $5,000 a month in temporary spousal support, but last year asked for an increase to $30,000, saying she could not maintain her standard of living because she left her job as an accountant and office manager for the family farm in 1999 to stay home with the couple’s three children. Kerry, who previously held an Arizona real estate license, also requested an additional $100,000 in attorney fees, court filings show.
“I barely survive each month, handling all the manual labor on our large Arizona property and maintaining it,” she wrote in court filings earlier this year, adding that she lived near her elderly parents. Kerry said she also needed to buy a newer car because her 2011 car had more than 280,000 miles on it and was in desperate need of repairs.
Michael Abate said in a legal filing that he could not afford this increase after two bad agricultural years that negatively affected his monthly income. He added that European shifts in crop purchasing to support war-torn Ukrainian farmers and high shipping costs were to blame, along with an unusually cold and rainy winter.
He said in mid-2024 that growing an acre of wheat costs $1,000 and can sell for $700, and that he was receiving about $22,000 a month to run the farm as the company struggled to pay its creditors in full.
“Disposable income at this time does not warrant any increase in the amount stipulated by the parties, let alone an increase to $30,000 per month,” Lee Hejmanowski, an attorney for Michael Abate’s family, wrote in court papers.
Days later, Michael Abate agreed to increase his temporary spousal support payments to $6,400 a month, court filings show.
He studied in the agricultural business management program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins before returning to California, according to a 2023 book on water issues written by his college friend Craig Morgan called “The Ethics of Deception.”
Morgan wrote in the book that in 2009, Michael Abate nearly died from an infection caused by flesh-eating bacteria, and was taken to the hospital and placed in a medically induced coma to receive treatment.