A celebrity hairstylist, his wife, her porn star lover – and an alleged $1.6m life insurance ‘plot’ that led to murder
Fabio Sementilli rose to the top of his game, styling the hair of Hollywood stars, before his life was cut short in a savage stabbing at his home. His widow will soon face a judge to decide her fate, James Liddell writes
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“My family comes first,” Fabio Sementilli began in a 2015 interview with American Salon. “You sit in the backyard and I say to myself, ‘What do I want to be remembered for?’ ... I want to be remembered for the relationships I’ve built.”
Eighteen months later, the celebrity hairstylist was killed while sitting in his favorite chair in the backyard of his Woodland Hills, Los Angeles home on January 23, 2017.
His wife Monica, who was shopping in a local Target at the time, watched via the home security camera connected to her phone as two hooded figures pinned down and stabbed her partner seven times.
“He’s gone. I’m not a wife anymore,” she cried on a friend’s shoulder that evening, according to The Times.
Prosecutors took almost six months to bring charges against the first two suspects: Robert Baker, a burly racquetball coach who’d worked as a porn star, and Monica, the victim’s wife.
Prosecutors alleged that Monica, 52, and Baker, 61, had been involved in an 18-month-long affair and conspired to kill the stylist in an attempt to pocket Sementilli’s $1.6m life insurance policy.
Only Baker has admitted to the murder and is currently serving life behind bars. He still maintains that Monica “didn’t do s**t”.
This week, Monica and her legal team have been at a pre-trial hearing arguing discovery issues, before she goes to trial next month.
The Baker affair
After moving in 2007 from Toronto, Canada, the Sementillis were thriving in their Los Angeles home.
Sementilli had raced to the top of the hairdressing world, snipping the locks of Hollywood icons ranging from Jennifer Lopez and Jackie Chan.
He became the vice president of education for hair product company Wella and went on to earn the nickname “Big Daddy” after mentoring tens of thousands of up-and-coming stylists.
So when the 49-year-old’s death was splashed across the papers more than seven years ago, shockwaves were sent through the hairdressing world.
About a year-and-a-half before Semenatelli’s murder, Monica allegedly was engaged in an “intimate relationship” with Baker, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
He worked as a racquetball coach at an LA Fitness not far from the defendant’s house in Woodland Hills. Despite the athletic exterior, Baker harbored a dark secret.
In 1993, he was convicted of statutory rape with his 14-year-old teenage stepdaughter, whom he would later marry after his release from prison, according to CBS.
Baker later entered the pornography world, starring in nearly 80 adult movies during the span of his career in the late 1990s.
The plot
Six months before the crime, Monica and Baker allegedly came up with a plan to spy on Sementilli.
According to police, she set up a network of cameras around her home which would live-feed to both their phones.
Then came a series of suspicious incidents.
Baker sent a chilling Facebook message to his friend. “Not yet living with her,” he wrote. “But it’s coming soon.”
A week prior to the murder, there were 20 phone calls between Monica and Baker, police say.
And on the day Sementilli was killed, January 23, 2017, the LAPD said two men were seen jogging up to the home.
Baker, wielding a knife, allegedly along with Christopher Austin – who is also set to face trial next month after his arrest in October – headed towards Sementilli. Earlier that day, Baker and Monica had been watching the hairstylist on their cellphones.
Prosecutors said that Austin held the victim down while Baker repeatedly thrust his blade into Sementilli’s face, neck and body. The autopsy recorded a total of seven stab wounds.
The victim collapsed on his poolside deck and was found when his 16-year-old daughter arrived home. Authorities later declared him deceased at the scene.
While walking the aisles of Target, the wife was watching everything unfold on her mobile phone, police said.
The aftermath
“It was at nine o’clock… and I get a phone call and it was Monica…,” Sementilli’s sister Mirella Rota, told CBS. “She was crying and distraught and she was saying, ‘They killed Fabio.’”
Prosecutors believe these were crocodile tears.
At Sementilli’s funeral, Monica gave a seemingly touching eulogy.
“He aspired to be the best person,” she said. “He has given us unconditional love and made all our lives an adventure.”
Later, Baker showed up at the wake which was held at the family home where the stylist had been slain.
After Sementilli’s death, Monica also posted on social media lamenting the loss of her husband with a string of photos and status updates.
But, again, police said that was all for show.
The same evening Monica made those posts, she was “having sexual relations with Robert Baker in a Las Vegas hotel room,” authorities said.
The arrest
On June 14, 2017, Baker and Monica were arrested for Sementilli’s murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Having cut his finger stabbing Sementilli’s to death leaving blood and DNA at the scene, Baker had little chance of beating the charges. His DNA was previously on police records due to his 1993 conviction.
The murder was initially believed to be a home-invasion robbery gone wrong, with a safe taken and his prized black Porsche gone.
Authorities then noticed a curious detail: Sementilli’s $8,000 Rolex watch remained on his wrist.
After months of investigation, detectives determined that his death was the result of a plot to collect $1.6m in life insurance, according to LAPD Robbery Homicide Captain William Hayes.
Two days after their arrest, the pair were charged with capital murder with a special circumstance of murder for financial gain.
Baker pleaded no contest in July 2023 to one count each of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He also admitted the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait.
All the while Monica and Baker claimed her innocence.
“Monica did not know. She didn’t know s**t,” Baker told CBS News in March this year. “If she did find out, I would have been in [jail] a lot sooner.”
Both prosecutors and LAPD investigators contend that extensive evidence shows she was connected to the killing.
Last month, they brought charges against a third suspect: Christopher Austin.
After months of delays, Monica and Austin are due to face trial in December.
Fling behind bars
Baker and Monica continued their love affair behind bars.
“He’s not just my lover, he’s my confidant, he’s my everything,” Monica told an undercover officer posing as a cellmate as per a recording released by police on the day of their arrest, later played on CBS’s 48 Hours.
A 2017 love letter between the pair in jail was signed off “your wifey… Monica Baker ‘til death.”
In one face-to-face encounter (which were quickly put to an end), authorities noted they were “talking to one another and engaging in masturbation and other sex games”.
In a four page letter, per CBS, Monica wrote: “It kind of hurts to not be touched or f***ed or licked or loved by you.”
According to a prosecution filing in 2021, they’d later use cryptic code in letters and recordings in order to avoid suspicion with authorities: OMM (on my mind); LOML (love of my life); R or D (ride or die).
Meanwhile, Monica’s defense has repeatedly argued that the duo’s relationship doesn’t necessarily connect the defendant with the crime.
They said: “The sexual and romantic details of their affair were simply irrelevant to the question whether they conspired to murder Fabio Sementilli.”