TikTok star Ali Abulaban on trial for murdering wife and her lover ‘snapped’ after finding them cuddling
A TikTok star on trial for shooting dead his estranged wife and her lover told jurors he “snapped” after seeing them cuddling on the couch — and just couldn’t stop spraying bullets at them.
Ali Abulaban, 32, took to the stand to testify in his own defense Wednesday after being charged over the October 2021 slayings of his wife, Ana Abulaban, 28, and her friend Rayburn Cadenas Barron, 29, in San Diego, NBC7 reported.
The social media personality copped to punching his wife three times in the face in an earlier argument in which she claimed to have slept with one of his friends.
He grew so paranoid about her cheating that he used his young daughter’s iPad to bug the luxury high-rise apartment they’d once shared — then burst in and found Ana and Barron embracing.
“I couldn’t take the (expletive) betrayal,” Abulaban told jurors, adding that the next thing he knew, “I’m shooting and I can’t stop.”
Abulaban testified that the shooting spree unfolded while he was “in the passenger seat of my own body.”
Jurors heard how he called him mom to confess — and even sent her a photo of the bodies, which he said he could not remember taking.
He then picked up his 5-year-old daughter from her school and told her, “I hurt Mommy,” the trial was told, according to NBC7.
Prosecutors had earlier argued that Ana kicked Abulaban out of their 35th-floor apartment just days earlier and was done with their marriage following a string of alleged domestic violence incidents.
Abulaban, however, told jurors that he thought reconciliation was still in the cards and that he was “giving her space” by checking into a hotel.
In the hours before the murders, Abulaban said, he’d ordered groceries and roses to the apartment but became suspicious when Ana supposedly gave a nonchalant answer to the delivery.
Abulaban testified he then drove to the apartment and found some of the groceries outside, as well as the flowers crushed.
When he texted his estranged wife to find out where she was, Abulaban told jurors, she lied and said she was at the apartment — a move he says sent him into a rage and resulted in him trashing the dwelling and installing a listening app on his 5-year-old daughter’s iPad.
Abulaban said he was listening to the app back in his hotel room later that day when he heard his wife talking and laughing with Barron.
He raced back over to the apartment, barged through the door and opened fire, the jury heard.
“I couldn’t believe that she could do that to me,” he told the court.
Abulaban had testified earlier in the week that Barron had made flirty remarks about his wife when he’d run into him at parties in San Diego.
His defense attorney denies it was first-degree murder, claiming he was “not in his right mind” at the time of the slayings.
Meanwhile, prosecutors peppered him with questions under cross-examination about a slew of alleged domestic violence incidents — including one in which he punched his wife in the face.
Abulaban also admitted to hitting Ana in the face just days before the fatal shooting and that he’d previously urged her not to call the cops, the court heard.
He told jurors the pair had been arguing frequently about alleged infidelity on both sides and that Ana had claimed during a July 2021 fight to have slept with one of his friends.
Abulaban, who copped to being high on cocaine, said the remark made him snap and he punched her three times in the face.
Abulaban, who went by JinnKid on TikTok and had nearly a million online followers prior to the shooting, made a name for himself posting comedy skits and celebrity impersonations, including “Scarface” character Tony Montana.
He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.
