Search warrant: Raleigh mom was shot in head

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.