#268: The TikTok Star Who Killed His Wife (Case of Ali Abulaban)

28:59I don't think that she was faking it. I think that just most domestic violence victims mask the abuse. that's just fame or not. You don't want your friends or others to worry about you. You don't want to be embarrassed. And a big part of it is you probably feel like it's your fault. You probably feel like you did something wrong. So why would you want people to know that? There are a few incidents of reported domestic violence, though. A neighbor reported Anna had knocked on their door asking to use their phone to call the police. She allegedly stated that Ali had hit her and taken her phone so that she could not call the police herself.

29:35The police showed up, but he wasn't arrested. Which is kind of interesting because later one of the police would even tell multiple news stations that they had been called to the unit multiple times. I think in the three months leading up to the murders, there had been nine calls to their apartment in the span of three months. Wow. Ali was never arrested. That's almost like once a week. Yeah, what's their explanation? I don't know. Maybe both of them were like, hey, it's not a big deal. Like we were just fighting. It's very interesting why they didn't do anything. Now, October 18th, 2021, Anna had reached her tipping point.

30:12Ali had been yelling at her on live streams, accusing her of being a bad mother and blaming her for his drug use. Okay, let me explain. So this guy goes on live to do a line of cocaine. Yes, he did a line of cocaine on live. He's losing it, right? People didn't know if it was a skit. They were like, oh, maybe that's fake cocaine. But the way that he was acting was so unhinged and erratic. They were like, that has got to be real. Like, there is no way. He later apologized. But instead of taking accountability for his own actions because you're a grown adult, he starts blaming his wife. He starts blaming Anna.

30:47He said that he was just so stressed from watching their child all the time because his wife is always out partying. He would get on live and call Anna a bitch. He would talk about how he moved her to San Diego. Those were the words he used. He did this for her and all she wanted to do was hang out with her friends. He alleged that her friends were bad influences and he said that he loved his wife, but all of her friends were people who cheated on their high spins and their boyfriends and just nasty. He allegedly even said, and this is really gross, but he said to Anna, you're not even a US citizen.

31:23I moved you here. Name one other guy that would do that for you. he's giving those people are so insecure so he will talk about anything that make himself seem bigger right the gun the follower counts the follower comments and the citizenship so anything to make himself feel that's come from like someone who's so inferior yeah like this is he keep mentioning these things and it's just i mean i think the fact that he even used citizenship as like a way to try and wield power over her is so bizarre yeah i've never seen that in a relationship like that is i mean to even make her potentially maybe even fear deportation or things like that that's very scary and i don't know her residential status but the fact that he was the type of guy to use it against her just tells me everything i need to know about this guy so anna is over it she's done her tipping point was when he showed their daughter a loaded gun and let her hold it.

32:22He also started abusing her in front of her daughter and that was kind of like the final straw for Anna. She kicked him out of their apartment. Ollie moved into a motel and Anna was planning on filing for a restraining order and filing for divorce. So soon to be ex-wife. Now, Anna was emotionally and mentally over it. Like she had cut these ties with Ollie long before she actually kicked him out. So she had already moved on and now this was just the action of like, okay physically I'm gonna separate myself from you and we're gonna go through the process. She was done with him. She did everything right.

32:56He abused her. He was toxic and now that was being shown and traumatizing their daughter. She's not gonna stand for it. There's no way she's taking him back. By the time that she kicked him out she was completely over their relationship and ready to move on. Ali was not on the same page. The minute that he was kicked out I think that he realized that he had messed up a little bit but he was adamant. He genuinely thought well Adam's going to take me back. It's she's going to take me back. Of course. He didn't even realize that the falling apart of their relationship was his fault. He would talk to his cousin and whine about it and he would blow up Anna's phone begging for her to come back.

33:31He would blow up Anna's friend's phone demanding that they ask her to call him back. And the more that she's not responding, the more he starts spiraling. Maybe in his head he felt like he was Tony Montana in a spy movie. And I'm not saying that to say that he was having a psychotic break or that he was he complete insanity. That's not what I'm saying. But maybe he thought he was in like a spy movie because what he does next, I don't even know how to describe it. He made a copy of the apartment key. He takes his daughter's iPad, installs some sort of spyware app. Most people think it's some sort of baby monitoring cam system.

34:06He goes into Anna's home, trashes the entire place, destroys everything, rips things apart, throws things around, throws dishes on the floor. There's broken glass everywhere, flipping chairs, pulling down shelves. He was so angry with Anna for being her own individual, for being someone that he couldn't control. He channeled all of that rage into this apartment. And what's crazy is even after this, he felt like Anna was going to come back to him. so he trashes the place slips the daughter's ipad underneath anna's bed and walks out this was the beginning of his rage and his revenge he wanted her to be as upset and as uncomfortable as he currently was so when you're going through a divorce i think it's natural to want to surround yourself with happy people you know with friends that make you feel positive and i feel like that's how you move on.

34:55Rayburn Barron was that kind of person for Anna. We don't know the extent of their friendship or exactly how they met or how close they were when all of this went down. But everyone who knew Rayburn said he's just the type of guy that you would want in your corner. Like he was genuinely so happy. He literally loved to laugh. He just had this very contagious energy about him. I mean, why would you not want a person like that in your life when you're going through a dark time or just like in general. Like he's the type of friend that makes it so much easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel because he's like holding a flashlight down the tunnel for you.

35:28That's Rayburn. I mean, I could see why anyone wanted to be friends with him. He was 29. Anna was 28. And a little bit more about him. He was born in Mexico, dedicated to his family. People said he was the glue of the family. Like, you know, all those people that have like the extended family parties and these birthday parties. He was the one that was organizing it. He was the one that was like, okay, I'm going to facilitate everything. At parties, if you were feeling shy, he would bring you and introduce you to everyone and maintain conversations with you. That was Rayburn. Now, that day in October, Anna had invited him to her place while her daughter was at school.

36:03October 21st, 2021. This is like 2pm. Anna's neighbor's camera caught them walking into their apartment. It's believed that Ollie knew Rayburn. He was somewhat of a mutual friend, but he was probably closer to Anna than Ollie. Either way, Ollie's hidden camera heard the two of them enter the apartment, and he heard them giggling, talking. The neighbor's nest camera caught Ollie pass through the hallway towards Anna's unit not too long after. The mic picks up six gunshots and a man screaming, Anna, Anna, Anna! Later, both Anna and Rayburn would be found with gunshots to their head and upper bodies.

36:40The next thing that we know for sure that happened was the 911 call. The call itself has not been released since the case is still ongoing, but it's been confirmed that Ali was the one who called the police. So six gunshots were heard from the apartment after Ali was seen running into the apartment. Then he dials 911 and tells them that he came home to find his wife dead on the couch next to her friend and they had both been shot. The operator asks him to stay on the scene and wait for the police to arrive, but he says, no, I can't. I gotta go. He hangs up the phone. He goes to his daughter's school around 3 p.m.

37:12and picks her up early. It's not time for her to be dismissed from class yet. We don't know if the teacher or the office worker's statements or what they said to the police. We don't know if he looked or acted strange. There's a possibility that his clothes didn't have any blood on them. There's a possibility that he was a good enough actor that they didn't notice anything strange. Or even if they did, what are you going to say? No, dad, you can't take your own child. But this is the chilling part. He carries his five-year-old daughter out of her elementary school, buckles her into the car seat in the same car with his handgun that he had just allegedly used.

37:49I would not want to imagine what riding in a car with the person and the weapon that just killed your mother could do to like a five-year-old's mind when they grow up. Allegedly, Ali confessed everything to his daughter in the car that day. It's said that he didn't go into specifics with her, but he did say, Daddy hurt mommy. Then allegedly, he called his own mom to tell her everything that happened in more specific terms. Keep in mind, his daughter is in the backseat. So if he did really, in fact, call his mom and confess to murdering his wife, his daughter heard it all. I don't know what that does to their brain, right?

38:24For me and you, it would be terrifying. Yeah. So I don't even know how would a five-year-old process that. I feel like you don't really know until they get older, right? True, yeah. Because I feel like when you're five, maybe you don't understand the impact of it. and then you grow up and then you're like, oh my God, what did I hear that day? So if he really did call his mom, I mean, that's terrifying. Five-year-olds may not know right then and there what death is, but they can recognize death. They can recognize when they're in a scary situation. And I can't even begin to imagine what sort of confusion and fear that little girl was going through.

38:58So he's on the highway heading out of San Diego while he's talking to his daughter and his mom. Meanwhile, the police go to the scene at the East Village apartment and immediately they did a system check on Anna's husband. They ran his phone number through the system. He had used his phone to call the police, so it was very easy to get his number. They sent out a bolo beyond the lookout for his license plate and car. Police caught him on the highway. They had a very rough time. Okay, it wasn't that rough, but they had to be very, very sensitive to pulling him over because he was with a loaded weapon.

39:31He had a five-year-old in the car. They had no idea what he was going to do. They did pull him over eventually and he was calmly arrested, peacefully arrested. But there were like six entire police vans lined up around his Jeep. So I don't think that he had really much of a choice than to be peacefully arrested. So they take him into custody and they immediately charge him with double homicide. They send him to jail, wait for the pretrial hearings, and Ollie pleads not guilty. Despite video evidence that he was seen in and out of that hallway, the audio evidence of the gunshots, his mother's story, his mother even came out to the police and was like, yeah, he confessed to everything.

40:13All of that, he pled not guilty. In custody, Ali starts spinning a whole new tale about what happened. He stated that he was minding his own business. He happened to walk into the apartment for whatever reason. I mean, they still share a child, so I guess it's not entirely unreasonable, right? but he said, I saw with my own two eyes, my wife and her friend were dead on the couch. The couch that I paid for in the apartment that I pay for. He was worried about their daughter's safety. He didn't know where she was. He called 911 and he said that he couldn't stay because he needed to go check up on his daughter.

40:47He went to the school and guess what? His daughter was there. He put her in the car and started driving her to the safest place that he could think of, which was an uncle's house outside of San Diego. He wasn't on the run. He didn't do anything. It's a wild story. For a while, that's about all he said. His lawyer told him, you know what? Stick to that story, okay? Stick to it. Don't say anything else. That's all you need to say. Ollie does not follow his lawyer's advice. So after cases like this, news stations come like piranhas looking for a bite of the story. Journalists, reporters, news stations, they're like, mm, I can smell blood in the waters.

41:23So Kelsey, a reporter from Fox 5, reached out and told them that, you know, we'd like to do a prison interview with you or a jail interview with you basically she was shocked to hear back from Ali she said we usually don't hear from folks awaiting trial often because you're awaiting trial why would you want to do that I wrote to him and said hey we're doing a story on what happened if you'd like to talk to us we'd love to hear from you he called us back we're really surprised I asked him at the end of the interview and it's a very long interview 45 minutes and I said, does your lawyer know that you're speaking with us?

41:56Yeah. Well, what did she say about that? She told me not to talk to you. Okay, so then why did you choose to talk to us if that's against the legal advice? I wanted to get my side out. Now, this Fox interview is one of the most unhinged things you will hear to date. The video is up and posted on Fox 5's website, but you cannot see it outside the US without a VPN. I'm going to attach a few video clips here, but if you're listening to the audio, the whole interview strange. I don't know a better word for it. Ollie's tone switches from calm and collected to loud and passionate and angry at the switch of a button.

42:33He slaps the jailhouse table to accentuate his sentences when he's angry and he's gripping. So he's like on the jail telephone with the pexiglass in front of him and he's like gripping the phone so hard that you can see sweat on his hands. I mean, he's crying during the interview at one point. He rarely breaks eye contact with the reporter, but it comes off very unsettling. It doesn't come off as he's engaged and being honest. It comes off just like, whoa, what's going on? He moves his eyebrows a lot. I mean, so do I, but I'm just saying it almost feels like he's acting like the way he's so expressive for every statement feels a little weird.

43:11It feels like an audition, honestly. I mean, this could just be my biased opinion after knowing some of the case details, but I just don't know how I would interpret his body language if I saw this video with no context. Let me know in the comments what you think, but let me break down the interview for you. The reporter just straight up asks Ali if he killed Anna, and he responds, Don't ask me that. Don't ask me that. You know, I was listening to the house on the iPad. So when you heard Rayburn's voice, I didn't recognize him. I didn't know who he was. But what were you thinking? I was freaking out.

43:43Oh my god, oh my god, I was freaking out. I caught her. Oh my god, oh my god. She brought a man and that's a man. And then guess what I hear? Like a fucking nightmare. R &B music. And he's like banging his hand on the table. And he's screaming. I'm driving and I'm like screaming, don't have sex, Anna. Don't have sex, Anna. Don't do it. And I'm screaming. As you're driving to the apartment, as I'm driving, I'm screaming, I'm crying. I'm like, don't do it. What happens when you get to the apartment? I go up and I see them. What do you think? They, nothing. I didn't see anything. I don't know. It's a blur.

44:19I felt like I was in the passenger seat of my whole body. When I opened the door, I saw what it was, and it just fucking broke my heart. He's like literally shaking with what I presume to be rage at this point. And I see her kissing Ray on my couch with his feet on my table with my wife, my money, my apartment, my life. Yeah, you just caught it. I'm so confused. So he's saying they're alive now? Yeah, so he told the police that they were dead when he walked in. And now he's saying he caught them kissing. Oh, wow. So he's actually mad mad at that point. He just spilled it all out. There's a couple different interpretations.

44:59Some people think that he is a raging narcissist with no control over his emotions. I would say that's a bigger majority of what people think. Some people think that he's trying to get some five seconds of fame. I don't know if I believe that one. or the last one people think that he's trying to portray himself as so unhinged that he can work some sort of deal i doubt it like it's just so dumb yeah i can see the first scenario because yeah it really reminds me of that kind of personality type of people yeah i think there's not that many out there but you'd be surprised when you meet someone who genuinely even for their own good cannot keep their emotion in check yeah yeah like they just have these outbursts right.

45:40And he's screaming, my daughter sleeps in the furniture that I put together. What do you expect a man to feel? Happy? And almost in that mocking tone, he goes, well, I guess that's the end of my marriage. I never admitted anything. Police say they have evidence against me. I don't know what it is. So the prosecution says that you admitted to your mother that you did this, and then you pled not guilty. Can you explain that? No, no, I can't. I can't. The journalist switch tactics and asked him about his daughter. Why did you pick her up? I picked her up from school. Why did you pick up your daughter from school?

46:15And like right there, again, this is my personal opinion. It kind of looks like he's acting. So the whole time he's looking at the journalist, he acts like the camera isn't there, which is interesting because you're literally on camera. He's dead focused on the interviewer's eyes. And the minute that he's kind of taken off guard by this question he glances at the camera for a brief second and that to me kind of reminds me of someone when you know like if someone lies and you know that that's a lie they kind of glance at you to see if you caught them or like to try and just like analyze you maybe it's like a split second he just glances at the camera and it's just so strange he continues and says well i picked her up because i thought it was safer so how did he explain that they're dead again.

47:02So now the reporter asks us again, did you know what happened to your wife and Rayburn? About what? Your wife being shot. I'm the one who called the police. I reported it. I found them. When I found them, my first instinct was to go get my daughter for her safety, to drop her off at a safe location. I wasn't running away. I wasn't doing anything. I have nothing to hide. What happened when you found them? Without breaking eye contact, Ali laughs and shakes his head. no are you shaking your head no no yeah he's just like and she's like no are you saying no like you don't want to answer the question no and he's like no the next part of the interview feels like the only genuine part he says i miss making my videos i miss everything it's my craft it's my baby i love what i do i wanted to be an actor and i was right there i was right there The weekend before all this happened, I was in LA at the comedy store.

47:59I was talking to producers. I was about to have a talent agent. I was right there. Ali, your family says that your social media fame changed you. They say that you are doing cocaine and you didn't really care about any consequences. Nope. Are they right? That's false. My family doesn't know anything because they never cared about me. Do you think that made you snap? Do you think cocaine changed you? Now, remember, he's basically denying that he does cocaine. And then he's like, yeah, it messed with my brain. It made me violent. It made me like aggressive, you know, when I'm on it. Yeah. Were you feeling any remorse about the situation?

48:36Are you kidding me? I'm broken. I'm devastated. I lost my wife. My goal was to just try and get a hold of my family. It was slipping through my fingers. I lost. I'm the loser here. I lost. I lost. I lost the love of my life. I lost the love of my life. Everybody I reached out to when I was going through this problem, when I couldn't get a hold of Anna, they were like, dude, you gotta leave her. You gotta leave her. I know I gotta leave her, but I don't want to leave her. Dude, you're so handsome. You're so famous on the internet. You could get any model. I know. I know I can. But I don't want to.

49:10I want my wife. Could anyone else have Anna? Not while she was married to me. So to recap, he just really screws himself over in the weirdest ways in this interview i don't even know why he did this interview he went against his lawyer's wishes he's contradicting himself left right and center it just i mean it was a very unsettling everything about it was just very strange he did not act or behave like a normal human and i'm not saying he's a normal human because obviously normal humans don't do that but his behavior was very unhinged not like in the insane way where i think he should plead insanity, but just very strange.

49:51So the question is, were they dead or were they alive and making out? We don't know. Now, I just want to make it clear. We have no evidence that Anna was cheating. Prosecutors actually believe that Ollie thought Anna was cheating on him long before the murder occurred. That is just the speculation. And that is something that a lot of abusive people do. They constantly accuse their partner of cheating, even though they don't even have the opportunity to cheat. And another thing, I almost don't even want to mention it, but in the interview, he blames Anna for their troubles. He said that after moving to San Diego, all Anna cared about was, and he says this, Taco Tuesday, Woman Wednesday, Party Sunday, Bar Sunday.

50:32He said that she partied too much and tries to paint her as this horrible mom. As far as we know, that is literally not what happened at all. She was a great mom and Rayburn was just a mutual friend of both Ali and Anna. She had kicked him out of the house. She was done. She was filing for divorce. She had every right to just do whatever she wanted. She was a full grown adult. But he ransacked their family home that she was living in, bugged the apartment. I mean, she could have very well just have asked Rayburn over for some emotional support because of everything that she was going through. And even if she did cheat, who cares?

51:07There is like no reason to murder someone. Ali was charged with double homicide and sent to jail to await trial. Each first degree murder charge could land him 25 years to life in prison, but considering the circumstances of the murder, he could potentially be looking at the death penalty. I will say I feel like that will be highly unlikely since California hasn't executed someone since like 2005-2006, but there is a chance that he is facing the death penalty. Now during the preliminary hearings, Ali continued to cause a scene. Of course he did. But let's first talk about the prosecutor's theory that was discussed.

51:41So I'm not saying that this is what happened since the verdict has not been passed. But prosecutors believe that Ali rushes to the house. He had his gun. He was filled with rage. And he opened the door with the key that he had and saw them on the couch together and shot both of them. Three bullets were shot at Ray that entered his neck, chest and back of his head at close range and then he shot his soon-to-be ex-wife in the forehead allegedly executioner style then as quickly as he came he left while calling the police to report their bodies now at one point while he's listening to the prosecution discuss what evidence they have against him ollie stands up in his handcuffs and he shouts i can't do this i can't do this the judge looks over at him and he says Mr.

52:28Abulaban yes sir I'm sorry this is news to me this is really hard to take Mr. Abulaban we can't have any outbursts and I'm not going to allow you to speak my apologies but then later when a different law enforcement officer is on the stand telling the judge what Ali said to them he goes you think I wanted this you think I wanted this for my fucking daughter you think I wanted it two court security officers walk over and place their hands on his shoulders almost as a warning and he goes who the fuck are you Mr. Abulaban Mr. Abulaban I need you to stop my life is destroyed the judge calls for a recess and when the court gets back together a technician took the stand to analyze the autopsy photos of Anna and Rayburn while he's talking Ali lays his head down on the table and he starts sobbing and what's really infuriating about this is that when he wasn't putting on a show when he wasn't screaming out in pain if he heard the family's victims cry he would just kind of glance over and just have like straight face it's like okay the attention's not on me right now is the vibe so when they're showing the autopsy photos he's sobbing my baby my baby and then someone from the audience screams back and we later find out it's two victims family members i can't even imagine what they're feeling right now as he's having this outburst like you killed anna what do you mean your baby you are the reason that she is gone you're the reason they are gone so one of their family members stands up and said screams shut the fuck up shut the fuck up fuck you seriously but this is where people are mad the judge asked them to leave the courtroom netizens wrote the judge admonishes the victim's family members yet does not come down hard on the monster yeah they should not be the ones told to leave but in the end the judge ruled that there was enough evidence to try ali and has set his jury trial date later in September.

54:17He's still in the trial process, so no verdict has been announced. Ali's TikTok account has been suspended, but his bio was available on Instagram, and it did say for a brief moment, hashtag I'll be back. That is gone now, because can you imagine? And this is the worst part. There was a little bit of support for Ali online. Comments were saying, free Jin Kid. They were saying, I feel bad for him. He had great potential, and his wife really screwed him over. People said, I would also lose my mind if my wife did that to me. Some people were even, like, they didn't necessarily support him, but they were very generous.

54:52They wrote things like, wasted talent. He was a good one. I think he just took the character a little too far. That's not what happened. What are you talking about? So you think every actor and actress that plays a villain or a killer on TV or parodies, he's not even an actor. See, with this one, I don't even think it has anything to do with what he played. this is him i think he just got some fame and some power and then it showed it amplified yes yes he's more controlling than ever and more obsessive over his power and yeah these are like the same types of people that are like i would kill my family to protect my family and they don't see the problem in that and you're like what how do you not see that do you just have like a really thick skull that doesn't even make sense logically i think those are these people people were justifying yeah i mean she was cheating there's not even evidence that she was cheating and so what someone this this comment infuriated me men don't process feelings like women do so you can't blame him for having this outburst according to this comment then we should just put all men in daycare they need supervisors guardians with them they should not be able to open bank accounts because they can't like process emotions or thoughts or anything really.

56:12I will say most of the internet is not like that thankfully. There are a lot of supportive comments for Anna, Ray Byrne and their families and it just completely drowns out the negative ones. Anna's family had a GoFundMe up for her afterwards and they just wanted to bring their baby back home to the Philippines so that she could be buried in her hometown, her childhood home. They reached their goal of$20 ,000 and Anna's mom was able to fly to the US and bring Anna home. And Rayburn's family also had a GoFundMe and they said that they were just raising money for his funeral, but they didn't want to call it a funeral.

56:47It was his celebration of life. They too passed their GoFundMe goal. And as for Anna's daughter, as of right now, she's about seven years old. She's currently staying with family members. Ollie's cousin Louie said, you know, I'm really hurting for that girl because I know that her life will never be the same again. Someone is going to have to explain this to her someday and it's going to be one of the hardest things that someone is going to have to do and it's tough and it's going to be tough. Look I know the trial isn't over the verdict hasn't been passed but I do hope that if he is found guilty of the charges I hope that he gets a punishment that's going to bring peace to the families of the victims.

57:26I think the worst part though about this case like the very disheartening thing is an average on average nearly 24 people per minute are physically abused stalked or assaulted by an intimate partner in the u.s alone i imagine on a global scale the number is unthinkable and that's every single minute. And Ali is just one of the many, many terrifying abusers out there. So please, if you are watching this, and if you feel any similarities in your relationship, reach out to someone you trust, reach out to the resources that are available online over the phone, they're going to be links. And like I said, delete your call history, delete that internet browser history.

58:15And please, please be safe. And I'm going to see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye.