TikTok star Ali Abulaban, with more than 940,000 followers, appeared happily in his videos on the social network with his wife, Ana, and their 5-year-old daughter, as if they were a perfect couple.
In private, however, the story, as so often happens, was gloomy.
Ana, 28, was found dead last month in a San Diego skyscraper, and Abulaban, 29, was booked into the central jail in the Californian city on two counts of murder.
Prosecutors said Abulaban had installed a listening device on his daughter's tablet.
When he heard his wife and another man talking, he went to their apartment and fatally shot them.
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"He loved her so much that he became obsessed with her and wanted to control her," explained Abulaban's 23-year-old first cousin Louis Marinari to local station Telemundo 20.
"He couldn't handle his control over her because she had a great social life, and he couldn't control her anymore and that was driving him crazy. I think this is what led him to kill her," he added.
After the shooting, Abulaban, still armed, went to look for his daughter at the school, according to Deputy Prosecutor Taren Brast.
After picking up his daughter, he called the police while driving and they arrested him 45 minutes later.
The minor was in the vehicle.
Police identified a second victim, Rayburn Cadenas Barron, 29, from National City, a small town in San Diego County.
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According to the reconstruction of the events, Abulaban shot him three times before shooting his wife in the head, Brast said.
He then called his mother and confessed what he had done.
Abulaban also confessed the crimes to detectives and accused his wife of having deceived him;
the prosecutor believes that Barron was just a friend of his wife.
The man later pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder in San Diego County Superior Court.
Judge Kimberlee Lagotta ordered that Abulaban be imprisoned without bail and issued a protection order that forces him to be away from the minor, who has been left in the care of his family.
How could this happen
Some people wondered how someone so popular could be charged with murder if he looked such a good person on social media.
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But the experts are not surprised.
"There's a stereotype that abusers are lower-class tough guys. But that's not always true. Most abusers are the guy who lives next door," explained Julie Owens, a survivor of domestic abuse who advises on violence against women.
For the person who hurts, it is important not only to control others, but also to control their image.
This is why he is often portrayed as a "good boy" on social media, Leigh Goodmark, director of the University of Maryland Gender Violence Clinic, told USA Today.
"The abuser reverses a controlling, positive, loving and caring image of himself, because all of this helps to undermine the claims that his victim could make if that person decides to tell someone about it," he added.
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There are also reasons why a victim of domestic violence wants to maintain the image of a healthy relationship: from wanting to protect family members to fear of the reaction of the environment if the truth is known.
"Victims are prone to depression because they feel trapped. They are afraid that if they come out, there will be retaliation or the situation will get worse," Owens explained.
If you know someone who suffers from domestic violence, you can seek help in Spanish at
https://espanol.thehotline.org/
or call
800.799.SAFE
, which does not leave a trace in the registry.