Man to get at least 30 years for shooting wife outside Chapel Hill school

Ali Cherfaoui pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree kidnapping as part of a plea deal in the 2012 shooting death of estranged wife outside a Chapel Hill elementary school.

Posted 10:29 p.m. Oct 14, 2014 — Updated 10:42 p.m. Oct 14, 2014

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — A man who authorities say gunned down his estranged wife outside a Chapel Hill elementary school more than two years ago pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree kidnapping as part of a plea deal that will put him in prison for the next 30 to 42 years of his life.

Ali Cherfaoui, 51, has already been sentenced to a maximum of 3½ years after recently pleading guilty to charges of discharging a weapon on school property and possession of a weapon on school property in connection with the May 25, 2012, death of Chahnaz Kebaier, 40.

Police said Cherfaoui shot Kebaier multiple times as she waited for their 4-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter to be dismissed from Mary Scroggs Elementary School.

Authorities have said the case was the result of an "ongoing domestic dispute," and court documents indicate Kebaier had obtained a domestic violence protective order in which she claimed he threatened to kill her if she took the children.

Cherfaoui was initially charged with first-degree murder – a sentence that carries a minimum of life in prison without the possibility of parole – but is expected to enter a second-degree murder plea on Oct. 27, according to Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall.

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