On Monday, a TikTok celebrity with almost a million followers pleaded not guilty to shooting and killing his newly estranged wife and a man she was with at a San Diego high-rise last week.
The Union-Tribune has reported that Ali Abulaban had secretly planted a listening device on his 5-year-old daughter's tablet, and when he overheard his wife and another man chatting, he went to her apartment and shot them to death.
Deputy District Attorney Taren Brast said Abulaban picked up his daughter from school after the shooting while still armed.
The details were revealed at Abulaban's hearing in San Diego County Superior Court, when he pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and special-circumstance claims of additional homicides, the newspaper said.
Abulaban, 29, is a TikTok star known as JinnKid, with over 940,000 followers on the social networking platform, Brast said outside of court. Comedy skits and impersonations of Tony Montana from the 1983 film "Scarface" are featured in his account.
During the hearing, Abulaban's lawyer remained silent on the charges.
Ana Abulaban, 28, of San Diego, and Rayburn Cadenas Barron, 29, of National City, were the victims, police said.
The courtroom was filled with almost two dozen family members and friends of the two victims. As Brast described the killings in San Diego's East Village neighborhood last Thursday, several of them sobbed.
Ali Abulaban confessed to cops and accused his wife of infidelity, Brast disclosed, while the prosecutor suspects Barron was a friend.
Ana Abulaban, Brast said, had begged her husband to leave on October 18. He booked a room in a hotel.
Ali Abulaban returned to the flat three days later, Brast said, and trashed it while his wife was away. On his daughter's iPad, he also installed the listening software.
Abulaban was listening to the app when he heard his wife and another man talking and laughing, Brast said, and he dashed back to the high-rise. He was seen running out of the elevator to his unit on security camera footage.
Abulaban allegedly shot Barron three times before killing his wife, Brast added. Brast also said Abulaban immediately called his mother and confessed to the crime.
