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Published: 2012-10-11 15:09:00
Updated: 2012-10-11 15:37:13

Search warrant: Raleigh mom was shot in head


Police respond to shooting
Police respond to shooting
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A woman whose estranged husband confessed to killing her outside her Raleigh apartment this summer was shot in the head, according to search warrants made public Wednesday.

Agata Flipska Vellotti, 43, was fatally shot Aug. 30 as she was returning to her home on Colbert Creek Loop from walking her 6-year-old son to school.

After the attack, her husband, Mario Vellotti, 64, drove to the downtown Raleigh police substation, where he told officers that he shot her and wanted to surrender, according to the warrants for Vellotti's car, home, cellphone and computers.

In an affidavit to obtain both Vellottis' cellphone records, investigators say that police found Agata Vellotti lying on the sidewalk with her phone, flipped open, in her left hand.

Several witnesses also saw the shooting, and their descriptions of the shooter and car matched Mario Vellotti and the silver Lexus he had been driving when he surrendered.

A search warrant affidavit for Mario Vellotti's home also indicated that a neighbor called 911 shortly after the shooting, reporting that Mario Vellotti was pacing in the neighbor's yard with a gun in his hand.

In a 911 call released last month, that neighbor said that he was a witness for Agata Vellotti in a court case and that Mario Vellotti had threatened him and his family.

Those who knew Agata Vellotti said she had recently moved out of her husband's home and also had a domestic violence protective order against him.

The two were involved in a custody dispute over their son, according to friends and the search warrants. But the warrants don't provide any other possible motive for the crime.

Vellotti is being held in the Wake County jail without bond.


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greg69 - "This is so tragic how a relationship can push a person to perform actions that normally they arent capable of."

His past record shows he was entirely capable of this. His abuse is what lead his wife to leave him in the first place. His threats to neighbors who were going to testify for her about his abuse are verification of her allegations against him.

"Just another sad reminder that domestic violence protective orders aren't worth the paper they're printed on."

You mean they aren't bullet proof or somehow stop others from their own free will? Weird...

It's what they law offers. Imagine the outrage if we could just throw people in jail because they could go do something.

"I hope he can somehow find peace in all of this." Are you kidding me?! He should rot in a prison until the end of his days for murdering the mother of his child and leaving the child effectively orphaned. His past experience seems to indicate he WAS "normally capable" of this violence. ugh.

"A woman whose estranged husband confessed to killing her outside her Raleigh apartment this summer was shot in the head, according to search warrants made public Wednesday."

It required a search warrant to find a hole in a woman's head? Well at least there was a gun handy. Otherwise he might have bee restricted to punching her in the snoot.

Just another sad reminder that domestic violence protective orders aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

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