Man Kills Estranged Wife, Then Himself : Moorpark: Shootings shock upscale neighborhood. Couple's children were at home when incident took place there.

By CHRISTINA LIMA

Feb. 10, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Two days after filing for divorce, a Moorpark woman was fatally shot Wednesday morning by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself, sheriff’s deputies said.

While the couple’s three children watched television on the first floor of their home, Carl Abe, 49, fired two shots from a .38-caliber handgun at his wife June, 35, in a second-floor bathroom, investigators said. One shot missed but the other struck the woman in the head, investigators said.

After hearing the shots, the oldest child--a 6-year-old girl, ran upstairs, investigators said. Her father told her to go across the street and summon a neighbor, identified by deputies as Randall Dickey. As the little girl ran to the neighbor’s house she heard another shot, investigators said.

Dickey raced to the house and found Carl Abe’s body lying on the master bedroom floor and June Abe’s nude body in a dry bathtub. Dickey summoned Ventura County sheriff’s deputies, who received the call at 7:44 a.m.

The shooting shocked residents of the upscale neighborhood of southwest Moorpark.

“They seemed like the happy American family--a beautiful couple with the most beautiful children. I can’t get over it,” said Mary Anne Jorgense, 39, a neighbor who knew the Abes for two years.

The couple had been renting the house for about four years and seemed prosperous, judging by their full-time housekeeper and matching, phone-equipped Volvos.

Neighbors described June Abe as a beautiful woman who worked out of her house making fancy country-Western hats and shirts, which she sold in country dance clubs.

Carl Abe owned a promotional sales business in Newbury Park that operated seminars on buying and selling discounted trust deeds. He billed himself as “Mr. Mortgage.”

Residents in the neighborhood saw the Abes as a close family who would take their three children--the 6-year-old girl, a 3-year-old boy and an 18-month-old boy--on bike rides during the weekends. Deputies said they have never been called to the home before.

But people closer to the couple said that both the husband and the wife had recently complained about domestic problems.

Last Friday, June Abe told a friend--country-Western dance instructor Rick Henderson--that she was having problems in her marriage and that she might not go through with a business proposal they had discussed to teach workshops on country dancing.

And Carl Abe worried aloud to a business associate that his wife had filed for divorce and wanted half of his business and property. Two weeks before, Carl Abe asked Andy Nemtusak, who works at a business adjacent to Carl Abe’s office in Newbury Park, and two others to be witnesses to a will he had just drawn up.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Nemtusak said.

But Henderson, who described June Abe as a nice, outgoing person, said he was surprised to hear of the marital discord. Only a month ago, he said, June Abe had told him she was a “happily married woman” and was concerned about pickup attempts at the country nightspots where she danced.

Henderson said he often saw June Abe at country bars, either alone or with a family friend, dance instructor James Dean. “She told me that (Dean) was the only guy her husband trusted her going dancing with,” Henderson said.

When he spoke with June Abe on Friday, Henderson recalled, “She said, ‘If you don’t hear from me in a couple of days, the best of luck with everything.’ At the time, I thought she was just going to pack and boogie out of town.”

Paula Squier, 39, a neighbor whose children used to play with the Abes’ children, said she learned about the couple’s problems early Monday when she ran into June Abe at the East County Courthouse.

“She told me that she was filing for a divorce because of a lack of communication,” Squier said.

June Abe told Squier that the only way she communicated with her husband was through the children, who would pass messages between the couple.

Andy Nemtusak’s father, Joe Nemtusak, met June Abe when she worked at her husband’s business before having children.

“She was a little rough, kind of a tough lady,” Joe Nemtusak said. “But he was always kind of mellow, really nice. . . . You just never know.”

On Tuesday, Carl Abe dropped in at Joe Nemtusak’s office and said he believed his wife, after filing for divorce, had broken into his office Monday night and stolen some of his files.

“He asked would I please watch the office, and if I saw her do anything, to tell him,” Nemtusak said.

Virginia Susman, the regular postal carrier for the industrial complex where Carl Abe worked, said he seemed upset over the divorce on Monday.

“He told me that his wife wanted half his business, and half of this, and half of that,” Susman said. “He told me he’d been working his rear end off for his family and his kids.”

The children were being cared for by Ventura County Public Social Services.

Times staff writer Constance Sommer contributed to this story.