Former TikTok star trial: Jury hears 911 call from weeks before deadly shooting

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — On the third day of the anticipated four-week long trial of Ali Abulaban, the former TikTok star accused of double murder, the jury heard from a 911 dispatcher, a police officer and friends of his slain wife.

Abulaban is accused of killing his wife, Ana Abulaban, and her friend, Rayburn Barron.

Clare Bennamon, Ana’s friend of two years, testified Monday, calling Ali’s behavior “unpredictable.” She said in 2021, Ali would hit Ana “very often,” but then she would continue to give him chances because she loved him. Around September 2021, Ana and Amira, her daughter, lived with Bennamon on the Marine Corps base during their rocky marriage. Bennamon said there were about three times Ana and Amira packed a bag and moved into her house, and then would sometimes go back to the apartment in an attempt to mend things with Ali.

Bennamon testified about Ana’s reason to move in with her, saying, “Ali became very abusive and she could no longer take it,” Bennamon said. Then “she wanted to give Ali a chance,” so she would move back into the apartment with Ali.

“No one’s gonna like you,” Bennamon remembered Ali telling Ana. Bennamon said Ali would call her ugly, control her, tell her what to wear and who she could be around and not be around.

Bennamon claims she was not aware if Ana and Barron were having an affair. The prosecuting attorney said during this time, Ana and Ali were separated and “allowed to see other people.”

Bennamon said anytime the friend group was together, drugs were present. She claims Ana told her Ali had a drug addiction.

Bennamon said Ana had told her Ali was also violent when they had lived together in Virginia. She said there were multiple instances in San Diego where she personally saw Ana with bruises and scrapes, including on her face, specifically beginning that September. In one instance, she said, Ali and Ana were out to dinner on Convoy Street when Ali became violent, took her purse and punched Ana on her left cheek while Amira was in the back of the car. Since Ali took Ana’s belongings including her pass to get onto the base, where Bennamon lived, and where Ana was staying, Bennamon had to meet her that night to get her in, and that’s when saw bruises on Ana.

Sept. 8, 2021

Shortly more than a month before Ana was shot and killed, she made a 911 call reporting domestic violence. In court Monday morning, the prosecution played the call, during which Ana alleged Ali had hit her. During the call, Ali could be heard calling Ana names in the background. This was during the time he went live on TikTok to his nearly one million followers.

When San Diego police arrived, Ali had already left the house. Ana told police she was attempting to remove clothes from her suitcase because Ali was leaving, and had packed his clothes into her suitcase, instead of his. On the body-worn camera video, she said as she was bending down unpacking her suitcase, he pushed her, and she hit her head on the footboard on the bed.

The prosecution claims it took police a little less than an hour to arrive at the home after the 911 call came in.

Sept. 15, 2021

On the elevator, on the way up to her new apartment that she had just moved into that day, a 19-year-old woman met Ali in the elevator of the Spire apartment.

The woman testified Monday that she had been crying in the elevator after fighting on the phone with her ex-boyfriend, and was grieving the loss of her brother. She recalled that Ali asked her what was wrong and told her that she was pretty, and then Ali had invited her over, and told him that he had wine and they could talk.

She said they were inside the apartment for a couple of hours, during which time she alleges she and Ali did cocaine and drank before things got sexual. She said Ali spent a lot of time showing her his TikTok videos, in which he impersonated “violent characters” such as “Scarface” and “John Wick.”

She said at the time, Ali had told her that his wife had left and walked out on him and that their daughter was everything to him. She recalled that Ali told her he didn’t like when his wife did anything that didn’t involve him and didn’t like her friends.

“Throughout the night he was complimenting me a lot,” she said, adding that he kept calling her beautiful and would make comparisons between her and his wife, since they were both Filipino.

“Things did get kind of sexual,” she said, adding, “there was an attempt,” and they started to have a sexual encounter.

She recalled that he got frustrated and started talking about his wife. She said “I felt gross,” and took a shower in his apartment. She said she noticed hangers scattered on the floor of the primary bedroom, and asked Ali about them, who responded that his wife had walked out on him the day before. The woman testified that she left then, and Ali had called her multiple times later and asked her to get together.

She recalled that during the three hours they hung out in his apartment, that when he would talk about things Ana did that made him mad, that he had a look he would get on his face and his eyes would get really big.

Several weeks after the woman and Ali were together for the one night, she said Ali reached out to her and asked if she would lie for him, to his wife Ana, about whether they slept together. At first, the woman said she was scared of Ali because he sounded panicked and slightly aggressive, and she claimed that she didn’t know what he was capable of, especially since he already knew where she lived.

Ana called the woman and said during the first phone call, she withheld all the information that they had been together sexually, and she told Ana that Ali was comforting her and they just talked, but she later ended up confessing what happened and that they had a “brief” sexual encounter in their their apartment.

“If I don’t lie, something bad might happen … I thought he could get violent, my mind kind of went everywhere,” the woman said on the stand, about what she was thinking during this interaction.

“At the end of the day he cheated, and that’s what she needed to hear,” she added.

One of her text messages to Ana read, “sorry I wanted to say this the first time but I was still scared cuz like…idk ali like that or what hes capable of and I didn’t wanna get him mad when he know where I live yk.”

Oct. 1, 2021

On Oct. 1, 2021, Ali had messaged his cousin Anthony Elias, claiming he saw Ana with another man, and Ali had texted Anthony, “I’ll kill him.” The text messages show Ali asking Elias to call Ana’s phone number to try and get information on a man she had allegedly been with, and pretend to be someone else.

Ali had told Elias to tell Ana, “I’m scared he might hurt himself.”

Elias said he didn’t do it, but instead left Ana a voicemail asking what was going on and to hear her side of the story.

Elias claimed he thought Ali and Ana were still together, and didn’t know they were separated, and didn’t know any of the background behind the status of their marriage.

Elias said he and Ali were not close as adults, and had never even met Ana before.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News.