TikTok Star Turned Killer: Ali Abulaban’s Shocking Story Hits Peacock

Friends and family spoke out about the troubled past of former TikTok star Ali Abulaban, who is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday for the murders of his wife and her friend, in a recently released documentary on Peacock.
Abulaban was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in May. He shot and killed his wife Ana Abulaban, 28, and her friend Rayburn Barron, 29, inside the San Diego apartment Ali and Ana shared in 2021.
The couple which was separated at the time of the murders met in 2014 while Ali Abulaban was serving in the Air Force, stationed in Japan. Ana was originally from the Philippines.
Their story is the subject of the Peacock documentary TikTok Star Murders.
“I think she saw someone that was successful, that had a good head on his shoulders. He had a good ranking in the military and they had a lot of laughter and love,” Ana’s friend Kayla said in the documentary.
Another friend of Ana’s, Julia, said they were happy together at the time.
“She was attracted to his big personality, and he was a singer in a band and she found that very attractive as well,” Julia said.
The couple ran into trouble when he allegedly assaulted one of Ana’s friends. He was discharged from the military.
“Ali does have a very strong personality,” Julia said. “He definitely is jealous. Every time anyone would comment on Ana’s looks or how lucky of a guy he was to have somebody like Ana, he would be very bothered.”
She said she tried to raise her concerns to Ana.
“I told her ‘I feel like he’s a little bit controlling,'” Julia said. “And she explained to me that ‘he is, but I love him. You have nothing to worry about.’ But I just remember feeling uneasy around him.”
Ana then found out she was pregnant with Ali’s child and he decided to apply for a visa to bring her to the U.S. After Ana received the visa, the couple lived in Virginia with their child.
“Ana was a beautiful woman and she was also creative just like Ali, and I just saw like a match made in heaven,” Ali’s cousin Louie said.
Kayla said she loved being a mother.
“She was an amazing mother,” Kayla said. “She adored her daughter more than anything in the world. She loved dressing her up in cute little outfits that kind of matched hers.”
Ali began posting videos under the username “Jinnkid” on several social media platforms, including Instagram and YouTube, but he found popularity on TikTok. The videos were often short, comedic skits that featured him doing impressions and characters. One of his most popular impressions was Tony Montana from the movie Scarface.
“Jinnkid was an escape from Ali Abulaban being an actual human,” another friend Louie said. “He wanted to be this different entity that was super famous.”
Ana filmed and starred in various videos on Ali’s page.
“I would call her, she would tell me that she had to go because she had to film a short skit for Ali so they could post it online to TikTok,” Julia said.
As Ali’s social media fame grew, Ana gathered a following as well. Her friends said she viewed fame differently than he did.
“It wasn’t something she was doing for the followers or for the money. That mattered more to Ali than Ana,” Julia said.
Ana’s friend Rachel said she started to feel alone in Virginia.
“She told me that she felt like she had nobody else there that was there for her. I don’t think he really allowed her to have friends,” Rachel said.
Ana convinced Ali to move to San Diego, where several of her friends from her time in Japan lived.
“For Ali, it was a win-win. Moving to San Diego would help with his career, working with influencers based in L.A. and [it] also would make his wife happy,” Julia said.
The couple would share videos of them having fun together, including one where they claimed the relationship was “drama free.” Her friends said that was not the case.
“I think those are the moments that she really held on to, so she would post that content and show this side of them that she wanted the world to see,” Kayla said. “She wanted it to be good, but not everything online is real.”
Julia said the relationship slowly started to go “downhill.”
“They would hang out with only who he wanted to hang out with,” Julia said. “If he didn’t want Ana to come out with a girl’s night, she wasn’t going. He kind of just controlled how she spent her time in San Diego.”
Julia said Ali does “rub some people the wrong way” and “he loves to talk about himself.”
“Ali felt he was better than other people, and I think social media has a lot to do with that,” Louie said.
Ali then allegedly began to abuse cocaine.
“Ali really went crazy with this whole thing,” Louie said. “He’d have a bag of it, like a big bag of cocaine, in his pocket and he would just pull it out in the middle of a restaurant, in the middle of a movie theatre pretty much anywhere we would go. He would even do it on his livestreams, right in front of his audience.”
Friends of Ana claim things continue to get worse as Ali realizes that she is thriving in San Diego.
“He was not about to have that because for years, he had his wife on the sidelines, and that’s how he wanted her,” Julia said.
Julia recalled coming home from the gym with Ana and seeing Ali get “very angry with her.”
“The next thing I know, he’s throwing things at her,” Julia said.
Ali begins to think Ana is cheating on him, and he records some of the arguments they have.
“He would berate her for not having sex with him, almost demand it from her,” Julia said.
In the recordings, Ali hurls expletives at Ana, asks why she isn’t being intimate with him and tells her he’s the reason she is in America.
“I brought her to America. I gave her the American dream, therefore she is my property. That is how he felt,” Louie said.
Friends and family said Ana stayed with Ali and tried to keep the peace for her daughter.
“If Ana was deported out of America, she wouldn’t be able to see her daughter,” Louie said.
Ali allegedly threatened to commit suicide prior to killing Ana. In one of the videos, Ana said Ali had “a gun in his face” while his daughter was sleeping nearby.
“I’m just disgusted when I heard that he had his gun out around his daughter. It’s shocking,” Kayla said. “I think what she was hoping for was a change, but I think Ana knew that it wasn’t safe for her at home.”
The San Diego Police Department responded to the apartment for a domestic violence call from Ana. Cameron Jackson, one of the responding officers, said Ali recorded his interaction with police. He called it “highly unusual.”
“Most people don’t record their conversations with the cops,” Jackson said.
Officers did not arrest Ali at the time because Ana had no visible injuries.
Ali then started to speak out against Ana on his social media platforms.
“He would go on live and broadcast really bad fights,” Kayla said. “He was saying like, ‘This is what a b—- looks like.”
Ana’s friends said the “final straw” was finding out that Ali had been cheating on her. She moved out of the apartment with her daughter and they stayed with a friend.
“I did fear for Ana’s life,” Julia said. “I brought up that Ali has a gun. You know, do you know how far he would take this? And she would always reassure me, she said he would never do that.”
Ana eventually moved back into the apartment when Ali agreed to move to a hotel.
“I think that him offering her the apartment was all just a plan to get her in a room so he can do what he did,” Rachel said.
Ali is facing life in prison without parole.
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