00:00:00
Tonight on Dateline. It was heartbreaking to listen to her trying to save her dad.
00:00:12
Just too much. Why? Why would someone do this to my brother? Hey everybody, Fab here.
00:00:18
He was an icon in the hairdressing industry. Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt, many other celebrities as well.
00:00:26
She said it was a home invasion robbery. Somebody killed him. They took his car, they took money.
00:00:32
I saw the video of the two guys running. No question those are your killers. No question.
00:00:36
This was definitely a coordinated planned attack. Probably took him out right away.
00:00:41
This was about killing him, this wasn't about stealing anything. 100%. Somebody masterminded all this.
00:00:47
Duped everybody, including my brother. They just sit back and say, how could this be?
00:00:53
The last name you expected to hear. Shook us to the core. greed and betrayal glamour and murder who killed the celebrity stylist I'm
00:01:04
Lester Holt and this is Dateline here's Josh Mankiewicz with the widow of Woodland Hills how lucky am I to have
00:01:21
lived the greatest love story of all time a story that people only read about a story that movies are made of.
00:01:30
A story like a movie? That could not have been more true. The question is, what kind of movie?
00:01:39
And in this story, he's the main character. This is what Timo Dali does, and this is where they do it.
00:01:47
He was glowing, a star in his business. I've done a lot of movie work, working on people like Jennifer Lopez,
00:01:53
on Jennifer Love Hewitt, on Portia De Rossi, on Jackie Chan. And you know what? It's my time to shine now.
00:02:00
Celebrity hairdresser. Pretty much, yeah. Celebrity hairdresser. His name? Fabio Cementelli.
00:02:07
His scissors, his skill, his creativity. Funny you should come in today. And his charm all work together to help Fabio build the kind of successful life people dream about.
00:02:20
Take you over to Monica. Get your makeup done. His wife Monica at his side in marriage, in business, and in life.
00:02:28
They were beautiful, beautiful couple. There's the Italian flair, you know, the music comes on and they start dancing.
00:02:37
He said, I got a beautiful house for my queen. He was so proud of his kids, such a big love for his family.
00:02:45
Who could have imagined it would end like this? This is a fire. This is a fire. This is a fire.
00:02:58
This is a fire. This is a fire. January 23, 2017. The Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles.
00:03:14
It was just before 5 p.m. when 16-year-old Isabella Sementilli walked into her backyard
00:03:21
and found her father seated on the patio in his favorite chair. Except he was slumped over in a pool of blood, and she called 911.
00:03:36
It was heartbreaking to listen to her on the phone trying to save her dad. Mitzi Roberts was a veteran detective with the LAPD, 29 years on the job,
00:03:50
most of them in the Robbery Homicide Division, the unit that handles the city's biggest and most complicated cases.
00:03:57
The paramedics arrive, and they realize, you know, he's been stabbed multiple times.
00:04:02
There's no hope of reviving him. He was dead when the daughter found him. Just a few minutes later, Fabio's wife, Monica, returned home.
00:04:11
Soon, LAPD officers were also in the backyard. The TV was on. The fire pit lit. Blood was everywhere, and it pointed the way for police.
00:04:24
The original officers and detectives that responded that day followed sort of a blood trail out through the house.
00:04:30
It led them from the backyard to the kitchen, down a hallway, and into a bedroom.
00:04:38
The house looks like somebody's gone through it. There were areas. There was a concentrated area in the master bedroom
00:04:45
where there was ransacking. Drawers were pulled open, their contents on the floor.
00:04:52
Investigators also learned the Sementelli's housekeeper had finished working at the home just a couple of hours earlier.
00:04:59
The maid came early in the morning, which was important for us as well, because she had cleaned the entire house before she left.
00:05:06
So anything out of place happened because of the murder, presumably. Yeah, any blood in the house.
00:05:11
Detectives found more blood in the kitchen, on the floor, on the sink, and an empty bottle of vinegar.
00:05:20
So there was obviously, to us, that means attempts to clean up some of the crime scene.
00:05:26
And something big was very clearly missing. When you get to the garage, it's obvious that Fabio Cimentelli's Porsche had been taken.
00:05:35
Brand new car? It was a used car, but it was new to him, and it was his dream car.
00:05:40
He always wanted one. He had purchased it, maybe had it for about a month. Inside the empty garage, detectives saw the circuit breaker box.
00:05:51
Nearly half of the breakers had been switched off and one of the garage doors was left open That led detectives to believe the killer had cut power to the house then manually opened the garage and left in Fabio car What had happened here
00:06:10
This was not a fight. This was an execution. A murder had robbed Fabio's children of their
00:06:16
father and left his wife a widow. She was absolutely broken. Wouldn't stop crying.
00:06:27
The investigation into Fabio's murder would uncover unlikely suspects and secret relationships.
00:06:34
Can you guys see what's going on there? It was rather intimate. What I would consider in layman's
00:06:40
terms two kids on prom night. Lust, greed, betrayal. We're all trying to figure this out,
00:06:49
banging our heads left, right and center. How could this be? And that points people to murder.
00:06:53
Exactly. Tale as old as time. News of Fabio Sementilli's murder spread fast and far, more than 2,000 miles away to his hometown of Toronto.
00:07:21
Monica called Fabio's sister, Morella. Monica telling me that they killed Fabio.
00:07:30
It was a bad line, bad connection, and it was on and off. They killed Fabio. And I'm like, what? Can you say that again?
00:07:38
I remember asking over and over again until the phone went dead. I don't know if I passed out. I don't remember what happened.
00:07:46
My sister's husband called me and said, you need to get here right away. Lori Pichello is Fabio's other sister.
00:07:55
So I got there and my sister was, she couldn't hold herself. Like, she was, what the heck is going on with Mirella?
00:08:03
what happened? And she told me Fabio had died. I go, what? Fabio? I just fell to the floor.
00:08:16
Lori and Mirella couldn't wrap their heads around it. Fabio, their baby brother,
00:08:21
had been stabbed to death. They'd been as close as can be, growing up here on Greenlaw Avenue,
00:08:28
near Toronto's Little Italy. So he was pretty much the king of Greenlaw. He had hockey street nights.
00:08:38
My mom always opened up the house for him to have friends over. So you're four or five years old, you'd walk down here.
00:08:45
Joe Mercurio also grew up on Greenlaw. Man, you're bringing me back to memories. Wow.
00:08:51
And that's his house. That's his house here, and I'd come to his front, which would be here, and I would just call him over,
00:08:57
Ravioli, come outside. Ravioli. Ravioli. How'd you come up with that name? He looked like a ravioli, right? Ravioli,
00:09:03
come outside, and Ravioli would come outside. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
00:09:09
All the fun they had on Greenlaw, the mischief they stirred up, playing hockey and dreaming big.
00:09:17
We would build things. I vividly remember building an airplane, a mock-up airplane,
00:09:21
like a remote control. No remote control. It was two pieces of wood, right? And we would build on
00:09:27
the ground. Also not a real airplane. It went on our mind. It was real. It was a dream to fly,
00:09:32
to get somewhere to another place, I guess. Dreams to get to another place. He achieved
00:09:37
that dream. 100%. He flew high and far. You got him in a hairdressing, maybe deliberately,
00:09:47
maybe inadvertently. I'm guilty. Yes. While I was going to hairdressing school, I would
00:09:53
be downstairs working on models and he'd come down and start playing the drums and it wasn't
00:09:59
always nice you know so teaching him to do hair was a way of getting him off the drum set pretty
00:10:03
much yes fabio went on to work with his sister before opening his own salon fabio's son luigi
00:10:12
remembers those days vividly i spent a lot of time there hearing him laugh his laugh fill the
00:10:19
room watching him work, work his beautiful hair magic. Fabio was married to Luigi's mom,
00:10:25
but the marriage didn't last. In part, Luigi says, because Fabio met Monica. As my mom likes to say,
00:10:33
there were too many people in the marriage. And that's when Monica came into our lives as well.
00:10:40
Monica Crescentini worked near the salon. She started off as a client, then an employee at
00:10:47
Fabio's business. Now this is my chance to show Canada what I've got. He adored her. Stephanie
00:10:54
Evola is married to Fabio's nephew. She adored him just the same. I can remember so many times
00:11:01
them singing together, doing karaoke together. Merry Christmas everybody. Just like really
00:11:07
enjoying each other and they were beautiful together. Fabio and Monica married and had two
00:11:13
daughters, Jessica and Isabella. And when Fabio landed a big job as an executive at Hair Care
00:11:20
Giant Wella, the family moved from Toronto to L.A. He held high the American dream to be able to
00:11:30
succeed and reach the top. And he felt America was about that. The bigness in thinking. Loved
00:11:37
America for that reason. The Cimentilles ended up with the big house, the pool, the Porsche,
00:11:44
and the patio. The backyard patio area next to the pool was his throne, so to speak,
00:11:51
and he would rule his professional world from his iPad It been a great summer They sending emails and coordinating sat there like a prince in his palace Now Fabio was gone Monica Monica
00:12:05
I'm very sorry. I'll get to meet like this. Detectives spoke with Monica just hours after the murder.
00:12:12
So tell me what happened to me from the morning. What time did you get up? Six days.
00:12:19
Monica gave detectives the family's rundown for the day. Her daughter Isabella had left the house for school in the morning,
00:12:27
after which their housekeeper showed up to clean. Later, she and her other daughter Jessica went to the gym together.
00:12:34
What time did you guys go to the gym? Well, we came home. Okay, we came home, and where was Bobby?
00:12:43
He left at the kitchen. After lunch, Monica said Jessica left for a babysitting job,
00:12:51
and Monica left too. So you first hit Target and then you hit Ralph's. Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary.
00:12:59
Then she returned home. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm everywhere. And found a frantic Isabella on the phone with 911
00:13:08
and Fabio covered in blood. I'm telling you to pick it up and move it. Detectives asked Monica about security cameras at their home.
00:13:19
You guys have a camera system, don't you? Yeah. Good. Okay. What kind of camera system do you have?
00:13:26
I don't know. She told detectives the DVR system that stored the images from those cameras
00:13:32
sat on top of a white cabinet in the garage. Cameras were on today? Yeah, they were.
00:13:39
Do you have access to it on your phone? No. Detectives tried their best to reassure her.
00:13:46
We're going to do everything in our power to find out we did this. There's video everywhere I'm going to start with that.
00:13:52
Woodland Hills is a nice neighborhood full of high-dollar homes, good schools, safe streets,
00:13:58
and a lot of security cameras, including one just a few houses down from the Cementilles.
00:14:06
And what a story it would tell. No question those are your killers. No question.
00:14:18
What am I going to do? Fabio Cimentelli was suddenly gone, and his wife Monica was just starting to absorb that.
00:14:36
You guys are going to be able to get through this, okay, all right? Family friend Pete Castellanos went to check on Monica.
00:14:43
She was absolutely broken. She was absolutely distressed and wouldn't stop crying to the point we were concerned.
00:14:53
Concerned about her? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. My wife was in the medical field.
00:14:59
She was asked, you know, can we give her something? I mean, she's very distraught.
00:15:05
Fabio's sister, Morella, got to L.A. as quickly as she could. What did you think this was?
00:15:12
Mistaken identity. I thought maybe they thought he was somebody else. No chance that he was involved in something illegal.
00:15:20
Absolutely not. It was just, you know, the wrong place at the wrong time in my mind.
00:15:25
Even though she was miles away, Fabio's niece Stephanie was frightened. Maybe we're going to get hit.
00:15:33
Maybe this is something personal. We had locks, additional locks put on all of our doors.
00:15:39
We bought all of this stuff to cover our windows that people couldn't see inside our house.
00:15:45
It was terrifying. Fabio's son, Luigi, had a different thought. It just seemed like sort of a random act of violence to someone who lived in an affluent community for the sake of taking what they had.
00:15:59
Woodland Hills has struggled with a rash of so-called knock-knock burglaries in recent years, but few have turned violent or deadly.
00:16:06
It just so happened at the time that there was a series of burglaries in the area,
00:16:12
and they were dubbed the knock-knock burglaries. And basically it was people who go up to your door and knock on the door to figure out if you're home or not.
00:16:20
If you answer the door, then they go away and just wait for you to leave, or if you don't answer the door, then obviously they break in.
00:16:28
And sometimes when you're at the front door, somebody's trying to break in at the back door.
00:16:32
That same week, about four miles away from the Simentelli's home, Former L.A. Laker Derek Fisher's home was broken into.
00:16:40
Former Lakers star Derek Fisher also not home in January when thieves broke into his Tarzana home.
00:16:46
More than $300,000 worth of jewelry stolen in broad daylight. Fabio's friend Pete believed Fabio had been caught in the middle of a similar break-in.
00:16:58
I've been a couple of times to his house. Safe part of town. Very safe part of town.
00:17:02
Home invasions don't usually happen in bad parts of town, but still. not something you'd expect.
00:17:08
No, that was during a time where there was quite a few home invasion robberies. I know in some cases they were beating people up to get their money.
00:17:16
Yeah, so now they're hitting homes when people are home. And they're a little more violent.
00:17:20
You know, people getting pistol whipped and people getting tied up. And then it hit home when this happened because here it is.
00:17:26
Your friend just got killed and it's all, everyone's pointing in the direction this was a home invasion.
00:17:32
And they killed him. Did you have anything valuable in your room? It looks like drawers were pulled out.
00:17:38
But, but, but, but, but. Their closet safe, where Fabio kept his gun and gold coins,
00:17:47
was still closed, apparently undisturbed. What was missing was their cash. There was some money that was unaccounted for Monica told detectives they always kept a drawer full of cash more than 10 US in different currencies and some jewelry was gone Monica said she was missing some costume jewelry
00:18:11
so was that digital video recording system Monica had mentioned to police they took the entire DVR
00:18:19
of the system that would have captured the exterior cameras of the house, people coming and going.
00:18:26
So whoever broke into Fabio's home was sophisticated enough to cover their tracks.
00:18:33
Well, to an extent, there were other cameras in the neighborhood. And this one captured something
00:18:41
provocative. Two individuals running and turning into the street that led to the Cementelli home
00:18:48
at 4.18 in the afternoon. So it's more than one person. It's more than one person.
00:18:56
35 minutes later, you can see Fabio's Porsche driving away. They tried to conceal their faces.
00:19:04
They're aware there's cameras. The whole neighborhood says there's cameras. These guys are aware of that, and they're clearly trying to disguise who they are.
00:19:10
They pulled their hoodies so tight that it's just a little piece of their faces.
00:19:15
No question those are your killers. No question. because we see the same hooded sweatshirt leaving in the Porsche.
00:19:22
The killers caught on video speeding away in Fabio's dream car. Detectives put out an alert.
00:19:31
Two days later, their phone rang, and there was the Porsche. Once forensics get out there and start going through it,
00:19:39
then they start finding little tidbits of greatness. Fabio Sementilli's approach to life was simple.
00:20:00
He would always give us this little piece of sage advice, be smart, be strong, and charge the mountain.
00:20:08
Charging the mountain seemed to be exactly how Fabio had planned to kick off that year.
00:20:14
He was turning 50, and in true Fabio style, he knew how he wanted to celebrate. He'd already bought himself that Porsche, and was organizing a trip that included some of his favorite things.
00:20:29
Not whiskers on kittens, but cigars, golf, fine food, and good liquor. He sent this email to his friends and family.
00:20:39
Lori didn't mind being left out as long as Fabio was happy. He always said, I don't know if I'll ever reach the age of 50.
00:20:55
Dad died at such a young age. Their dad died unexpectedly at 39. So he was happy to reach 50.
00:21:05
It was to be a four-day trip to Pebble Beach in Northern California. Fabio wrote,
00:21:13
By the way, I know it's a haul, and the timing may not be right for all, but we shall never meet so young again.
00:21:22
Fabio's childhood friend Joe was looking forward to spending time with him. And it never happened.
00:21:27
It never happened, yeah. One day after that email was sent, Fabio Sementilli was murdered.
00:21:35
And so, instead of gathering to celebrate his birthday, those who loved him came together to grieve his loss with Monica.
00:21:44
She was in pain. She was sad. We're all trying to understand what the hell happened. You're shattered.
00:21:50
On Fabio's favorite chair, a tequila shot, a cigar, his big daddy hat, Monica had posted Fabio's spot on Instagram.
00:22:01
where you belong forever. I will always keep the fire on for you, waiting. And right there in the backyard,
00:22:11
a childhood memento he'd brought back from Toronto years earlier, the sign for Greenlaw Avenue, where Fabio grew up.
00:22:19
It was in his favorite spot in the backyard, and very symbolic of his mentality, symbolic of his character,
00:22:27
that he never forgot where he came from. So many memories and so many close friends to share them with.
00:22:35
I don't know anybody, but they're all presenting themselves. Hi, I work with Fabio. I'm so-and-so.
00:22:42
Everybody was really nice. And then someone else showed up at the gathering. After a while, there's a knock on the door.
00:22:51
And Monica goes to answer the door. And she comes back out where all the guests were.
00:22:57
and she's sitting there with this individual like me and you right now. They're, you know, very close.
00:23:05
You know, you couldn't hear nothing because it was a round little table with two chairs.
00:23:11
The man seemed more interested in Monica than in Fabio. I didn't know him. I didn't know who he was.
00:23:19
What did he look like? He was an older person, bad hair, bad choice in clothing.
00:23:27
I remember following him into the house, and I can see bald spots at the back of his head.
00:23:32
So he's just this scruffy guy. Scruffy, and his leather jacket, or his plastic jacket, was peeling.
00:23:38
And I thought, oh, he's probably up to no good. Does Mr. Pleather have a name? She did introduce me to him as Rob.
00:23:46
The Sementillies knew him from the gym they belonged to, where they sometimes played racquetball.
00:23:53
So Rob came to the Sementilly home to pay his respects. He didn't stay very long.
00:23:58
And Mirella remembers He made everyone feel uncomfortable, including Monica's mom.
00:24:05
So as I was walking by her mom, she goes, oh, now that she's a widow, these men are going to prey on her.
00:24:10
Like this is some guy, like, jumping in to take advantage. What? The body's barely cold.
00:24:18
Yeah, and he's there. Again, when the mother said, these people are going to prey on her now, it clicked because my mom was a widow.
00:24:26
And it's true. We were always protective of my mom because it would always be these stray men and people who wanted to try and take advantage of my mom.
00:24:35
And now Monica's the heir to whatever money he has and the house and, you know, everything that goes with that.
00:24:44
I thought, yeah, that's probably what's happening here. Perhaps Morella was right.
00:24:50
And while Fabio's family worried about Monica, detectives had something else on their minds.
00:24:56
A phone call police received from a homeowner who lived just a few miles from the crime scene.
00:25:01
They just called about this car that had been sitting in front of their house for two days.
00:25:06
A patrol unit goes out. Once a unit gets out there and checks it, they realize that it's the Porsche, the Fabio's Porsche.
00:25:15
Across the street, detectives found another camera. We pulled surveillance from the neighborhood and saw the car the night of the murder on January 23rd
00:25:24
pulling up around nine o'clock at night, parked the car in a single male, walk away from it.
00:25:31
Couldn't tell who it was. What can you tell by looking at the car? To the naked eye, really nothing. You know, just his Porsche. But once forensics get out there and
00:25:41
start going through it, then they start finding little tidbits of greatness. Meaning clues that could lead to a killer.
00:25:50
There was some blood on the pedal. And that comes back to Fabio. So presumably the driver stepped in Fabio's blood and then got in the car.
00:26:00
Exactly. There was also blood found on the driver's side door panel, on the seat controls and the steering wheel.
00:26:09
And that blood did not belong to Fabio. Well, if that's not Fabio, maybe that's your killer.
00:26:16
Exactly. Because if you're stabbing somebody, pretty good chance you might get cut.
00:26:21
Right. Right. And we know the suspect was driving the Porsche because how else would Fabio's blood get on the pedals?
00:26:30
Detectives were able to get a DNA profile from that blood sample. They uploaded it to see if it matched anyone in the system.
00:26:39
How often when you submit a blood sample do you get a hit back from CODIS? Not all that often. Sometimes you get lucky.
00:26:45
Would luck or maybe science be on their side? Days were going by, and still no one had been arrested for Fabio Samentelli's murder.
00:27:14
His son Luigi was hoping it would not take long. All I could do was just put my trust into the justice system.
00:27:22
and the great detectives that work in L.A., some of the best in the world. LAPD detectives were certain they had their killers on camera,
00:27:32
arriving on foot, and then leaving the scene in Fabio's Porsche, which was the most valuable item taken from the Cementelli home.
00:27:42
Brutal, violent burglars. Except, as detectives took a closer look, only part of that was making sense.
00:27:51
For starters, Fabio's Porsche was abandoned, and it was not stripped for parts. Then, there was Fabio's watch, still on his wrist.
00:28:04
If you're going to take a Porsche, you're going to take a Rolex, if you're a thief.
00:28:09
If you're a thief, right. According to the timestamped security camera video, the burglars would have had about 30 minutes to go through the Cementelli home.
00:28:20
burglars would ransack the entire house because you never know where the jewelry or other valuables are going to be.
00:28:26
Right, right, right. And that did not happen. Drawers were open, but not like you would expect
00:28:34
from individuals that were there to burglarize the place. It was almost like an afterthought was what it looked like.
00:28:43
There's always a lot of talk about, well, gee, maybe this was a burglary that went wrong somehow.
00:28:48
But like when you surprise burglars, like the biggest danger is that you're between them and the door.
00:28:55
And you're going to see a fight. And there was no signs of a fight. This was definitely a coordinated planned attack where they caught Fabio off guard.
00:29:06
He didn't have time to even react. They disabled him very quickly and probably, you know, took him out right away.
00:29:15
And Fabio's blood was found in the bedroom, meaning the killing happened first. And only after that did the bedroom get tossed.
00:29:27
The blood told the story. This wasn't a burglary gone wrong. It was a murder gone right.
00:29:35
This was about killing him. This wasn't about stealing anything. One hundred percent. This was not about stealing.
00:29:40
The big question is, who didn't like Fabio? Who'd want to hurt him? Right. And there was nobody.
00:29:45
There was nobody. People just loved him. They loved his energy. He was very motivating.
00:29:51
Just a nice guy a great father and a great husband A couple of weeks after Fabio murder Monica paid tribute to his positive energy via Instagram in honor of their 20th wedding anniversary
00:30:06
My heavy heart misses you. I am forever thankful for these short 20 years. I know what you were saying right at this moment.
00:30:15
Chin up. Charge the mountain. Sementilly power. They had plans to return to Canada and grow old together.
00:30:25
Instead, that February, Fabio went home for the last time, from Los Angeles, back to Toronto, in a box.
00:30:34
My dad's funeral in Canada was truly the most insane funeral I've ever seen and probably will ever see or be a part of.
00:30:42
The line for guests to come in and pay their respects was going out the door around the building.
00:30:49
Fabio's niece, Stephanie, was overcome by it all. I couldn't understand it. I didn't understand why we were out there.
00:31:04
Just everything about it was so wrong. So many people wanted to just comfort us and want to comfort Monica.
00:31:17
On the other side of North America, detectives were waiting for the results of the unknown blood sample found in Fabio's Porsche.
00:31:27
Presumably, it came from one of his killers. Crime scene techs had uploaded the DNA profile of that blood to CODIS, the National Criminal DNA Database.
00:31:39
How often when you submit a blood sample do you get a hit back from CODIS? Not all that often.
00:31:44
A lot of times, you know, what ends up happening is you have to identify a suspect and then ask for a direct comparison.
00:31:52
You know, sometimes you get lucky and you do get a CODIS hit, and those are great.
00:31:56
And this was one of those times. And this was one of those times. Three weeks after the murder, on Valentine's Day, a match.
00:32:05
For detectives, a sweet gift. Very quickly, a hit. It came back to a man who'd spent time behind bars.
00:32:14
Why was he in the system? He was in the system because he was a felon. He had been in prison, and he was a sex registrant.
00:32:24
What was his crime? He actually molested and abused his stepdaughter. Who was this man?
00:32:35
And why would a sex offender want Fabio Sementilli dead? Less than a month after Fabio Cimentelli's murder, LAPD detectives got a break.
00:33:00
A DNA hit that identified a man they believed was one of Fabio's killers. He was a convicted sex offender.
00:33:10
And his name? Robert Baker. Robert Baker is a name you've heard before. Right. He's the weird guy at the memorial party.
00:33:19
That's right. Robert Baker, whose blood was Ian Fabio's Porsche, was Rob, the guy in the imitation leather jacket.
00:33:29
The one Monica's mom thought was preying on a new widow. Right after the memorial,
00:33:36
a family friend passed his name to investigators and also reported some behavior she thought was odd.
00:33:45
He's met Fabio maybe once or twice because Monica had Fabio go in for some racquetball.
00:33:52
But he doesn't know Fabio, but he's distraught. And Monica's almost consoling him.
00:33:59
And just, there was a weird vibe. Everybody at the party and the family was like, who is this guy?
00:34:05
They just thought it was very strange how close he was, how he was engaging with Monica.
00:34:12
And mourning Fabio, who we barely knew. Right. And while Rob was at the house, leaning into Monica,
00:34:20
friends saw something. They noticed he had a bandage on his finger. I noticed it too.
00:34:27
That bandage, plus Rob's affinity for all things Monica, was enough for the friends to document that.
00:34:34
A friend of Fabio's said, you know, Fabio never really liked them. Do you think we should take a picture of him?
00:34:42
We said, yeah, sure. They were able to take pictures without them noticing. Those photos were shared with detectives, who at first didn't seem to think much of it,
00:34:53
until Robert Baker's blood ended up matching the blood in Fabio's car. And in that photo, he's got a bandage on his hand.
00:35:03
On his finger. A finger on his left hand, which would be right in the area of the bloodstain that you found in the Porsche.
00:35:11
Right. Baker's blood was also found inside the Cementelli home and on that bottle of vinegar left in the sink.
00:35:20
As detectives excavated Baker's past, they found a diverse resume. He was a 54-year-old Army veteran who served as a staff sergeant and recruiter for more than a decade.
00:35:34
And there was this professional detour. He's upstairs. I know. A nearly 20-year career in the adult entertainment business.
00:35:47
Baker both acted in X-rated movies and also managed other performers. By 2017 he was a registered sex offender because of that previous conviction And was working at the gym where Monica was an active member He got this job coaching racquetball at LA Fitness and runs a league
00:36:09
Investigators had more than enough evidence to arrest Rob Baker. Instead, they left him alone
00:36:17
and decided to return to the Sementilly home and speak again with Monica, who was still living at
00:36:24
the scene of the crime. What they really wanted to learn more about was her racquetball instructor.
00:36:39
Detectives decided to avoid any mention of the DNA hit. Instead, they talked about
00:36:45
the day of the murder, and Monica recounted how she spoke with her daughter Isabella
00:36:50
before heading home after shopping. I was parking on a bus or getting in or out of a bus.
00:36:57
And I said, oh, OK, I'm on my way home, too. I knew that she'd make it home before me.
00:37:02
And unfortunately, she did. I'm sorry to remove this with you. OK. He was, you saw Bobby up here?
00:37:11
Yeah, on the, over here, on the ground. OK. And then where was Bella? Bella was here.
00:37:18
She was trying to kick him out. And they kept saying, kick him up, kick him up. So I was just, I was just spitting out and she was being the adult.
00:37:28
And then I guess it was just everywhere. So you had, you got blood on you. Yeah.
00:37:36
I imagine Bella did as well. Bella had a lot more than me. The detectives and Monica walked through the house as Monica again pointed out the items she was missing.
00:37:47
How many necklaces? Two necklaces, maybe one pearl and one is like a little thing, gold.
00:37:53
It was a long, cold bar, but it's not really cold. Detectives did not reveal why they had already moved past the burglary theory.
00:38:02
In fact, they suggested just the opposite. You think you're having your own direction?
00:38:07
It was a burglary cruise. What detectives really wanted to know was more about Monica's gym pals.
00:38:15
It was a group of friends from L.A. Fitness. They all liked to play racquetball.
00:38:19
It was a group of mostly girls, mostly girlfriends, and the person that ran the league was Robert Baker.
00:38:27
And he was kind of part of the friend group. They'd all get together and what, go out for drinks?
00:38:32
Go out for drinks, go out for sushi, things like that. Seems innocent. Yes. Prior to Fabian's death, the only Jim Presser that had been in your house, my crew.
00:38:43
Well, the at least in the bank. They prodded further. Okay, who else is part of that?
00:38:49
Oh my gosh. Let's see. That is it. Paula. Rob is a lead director for a rap call.
00:38:59
I was a rap call. What's Rob's last name? I think it's Peter. Monica sounded as if she didn't know Rob all that well.
00:39:08
Has Rob ever been in? No. Maybe Baker showing up at her husband's memorial a few weeks earlier had slipped her mind.
00:39:17
or maybe there was more to their relationship than Monica was letting on. This is not just racquetball.
00:39:25
No. Love and loyalty were about to be put to the test. And when something called truth was finally revealed,
00:39:34
whose version would be believed? And you still love her, right? That's why you're here.
00:39:40
I love her. Of course I still love her. I think I blacked out. I'm hoping this is not true
00:39:45
because I can't make any sense out of this. I'm so sorry. If this case comes back with a not guilty verdict,
00:39:55
can you live with that? I can't. I can't. The Sementilles had suffered an unimaginable loss.
00:40:20
The murder of their beloved husband and father in the same home that once provided so much security and so much happiness.
00:40:30
16-year-old Isabella, who made the horrific discovery, was having a particularly hard time.
00:40:37
However, the family stayed in the house. How you would continue to live in a home with two young girls after a home invasion that murdered your husband, that your daughter found, who would want to live in that house just never made sense.
00:40:59
Monica reminded everyone of the words Fabio lived by. She said, this is Fabio's house, and we have to charge that mountain, because he used to always say it,
00:41:10
Cementilli power and charge that mountain. If you ever had any, you know, pitfalls, he'd always say, you got to get up and charge that mountain.
00:41:20
Back in Los Angeles, LAPD homicide detectives were not climbing any mountains. But they were trying to get a better view of the widow in that house.
00:41:30
and what exactly her connection was to Rob Baker, the racquetball coach from the gym,
00:41:37
and also the man whose blood was found at the crime scene. What's Rob's last name?
00:41:44
They already were at least suspicious of Fabio's wife, Monica. That's correct. To help connect the dots,
00:41:53
LAPD detectives turned to the department highly skilled undercover surveillance unit the Special Investigation Section or SIS I heard you describe SIS as surveillance on steroids
00:42:08
Right. Rob Burke was one of the SIS detectives. SIS has this ability to use tactics, tools, resources, and a number of personnel where
00:42:20
where we can work very complex investigated cases. And it allows us to be far more complex in what we do
00:42:26
and more elaborate and more sophisticated in some ways, let alone more successful in surveillances
00:42:32
because we have the resources to do that. Following people invisibly is what SIS is known for.
00:42:41
Burke's assignment on this case, work with his team to observe both Monica and Rob Baker.
00:42:47
They bring you in because what they want to know, like what's their relationship their relationship who else is involved what's their behavior like
00:42:57
is monica's behavior consistent with what you would expect a grieving widow now her behavior
00:43:02
to be like within a month of when her husband was brutally murdered with maybe a dozen detectives on
00:43:09
any given surveillance operation sis works like an orchestrated symphony to stay on target sight
00:43:17
unseen. In a unit like SIS where you're working very complex and high profile cases, if you're
00:43:25
compromised, that could very well compromise the case. Because if the people that you're following
00:43:29
see you and realize, oh, the police are following us, they're onto us, that changes everything. It
00:43:34
absolutely does. That's correct. And that's where there's just no room for failure in this team.
00:43:40
A little more than a month after Fabio's murder, SIS set up on Rob Baker's apartment.
00:43:45
They watched Rob leave his place and walk to this gas station across the street.
00:43:51
He's carrying some bags with him, and then she pulls up in the pickup truck, and obviously they connect and meet.
00:43:57
She was Monica Sementilli, meeting with the man detectives believed was her husband's killer.
00:44:04
Gas station security video captured these intimate moments. They seem very comfortable with each other.
00:44:11
Absolutely. Beyond friendly. SIS detectives watched Monica going through the bags and pulling out clothes.
00:44:18
He's bought some clothes or has some clothes for her, and she's holding them up as if she's seeing if they'll work for her.
00:44:24
And then after a few minutes, they put the bags in the truck. Correct. She gets in the back seat.
00:44:30
Correct. He goes around, gets in the front seat, and they drive away. But they don't go to his place, which is like walking distance.
00:44:37
Right. Where do they go? directly across the street behind us to a lot diagonally across the way.
00:44:43
Can you guys see what's going on there? We have team members that have put themselves in a position to be able to see what was going on.
00:44:49
And? It was rather intimate. What I would consider in layman's terms, two kids on prom night.
00:44:56
Two kids on prom night, like what, a month after her husband is killed? Approximately.
00:45:01
After prom night, SIS watched Monica and Rob head out for what looked like date night.
00:45:08
the adult version. SIS followed them to this bar and then to the Laugh Factory, a comedy club.
00:45:16
Any sign that Monica and Baker had any idea that you guys were following them? No, not at all. It appeared to us that they were far more interested in each other
00:45:25
and what they had going on between them than they were interested in what was going on around them.
00:45:31
When they're inside the Laugh Factory, that's when you guys put a tracker on Monica's truck.
00:45:35
That's correct. How long does that take? If we've done our job right, it's done in a few seconds.
00:45:41
And that tracker worked for a long time. It sure did. A couple of weeks later, that tracker put Monica on a weekend getaway to Las Vegas with Rob Baker.
00:45:53
We have the two lives that Monica is living here. The life that she's portraying to her friends and Fabio's friends, which is, you know, almost daily on Instagram posting tributes to Fabio.
00:46:08
Posts like this one. A thousand moments taken for granted, mostly because I assumed there'd be a thousand more.
00:46:18
Monica and Rob returned to Sin City six weeks later to celebrate Rob's birthday,
00:46:24
where friends snapped these photos. He was the love of her life, but she's in Vegas,
00:46:30
and we have pictures where she's grabbing Robert Baker's crotch, kissing Robert Baker.
00:46:36
None of it was the best look for a supposedly grieving widow. At the same time, it also was not criminal.
00:46:45
Cops did have something else, something from the day of the murder, something that would cast this investigation in a different light.
00:46:54
You see anything in it other than what I see? I see a lot. It's very telling. LAPD detectives were looking hard at Monica Sementilli.
00:47:19
Investigators watched her carry on what looked like a red-hot affair with one of the men they believed had murdered her husband.
00:47:29
Nearly four months after Fabio's killing, detectives went back to the Sementelli home to see if Monica would stick to her story.
00:47:40
So what's missing then, just so we know? They continued to talk about burglars turned killers.
00:47:48
I'm so angry. I get so much time to death. Once again, detectives ask Monica about that security system the killers swiped on the way out.
00:48:00
Was there any other way to see video from that day? The camera, your digital system, did you have the ability to monitor those from your home live?
00:48:11
I don't know, she does. Fabio, she said, knew more about that security system than she did.
00:48:17
I don't know anything about her teeth or care of that. I don't even know the company name. I don't know even what it is.
00:48:25
Then detectives turned back to Monica's whereabouts the day of the murder and that shopping trip to Target.
00:48:34
Do you remember any interactions with anyone in the parking lot of this day? Did anyone stop to talk to you or anything like that that you remember?
00:48:43
I don't think about it. Her memory may have been fuzzy. Investigators had already found some security video that told them more than Monica did.
00:48:56
Here's Monica pulling into the Target parking lot in Woodland Hills at 3.29 p.m., about an hour before the murder.
00:49:05
And contrary to what she told police about not talking with anyone in the parking lot that day.
00:49:12
An unknown individual all of a sudden comes into frame and enters the passenger side of Monica's truck.
00:49:20
It's very brief. He's in there very briefly. You can't tell who it is from the video.
00:49:24
Can't tell. The video is too grainy. Just that it's a solo individual. Detectives suspected that person in the parking lot was Robert Baker.
00:49:34
Then that individual gets out and Monica then moves her truck closer to the entrance of Target.
00:49:41
Then Monica heads into Target. She's in there for about an hour. As she's leaving the Target, she is transfixed to her cell phone,
00:49:53
enough so that she's staring at it so intently that she almost misses the exit to the Target.
00:49:58
And then she kind of catches herself and redirects. And so, of course, an investigator, why is she so glued to this phone?
00:50:09
Investigators thought they knew the answer. While Monica told police she couldn't access her home security system from her phone,
00:50:17
detectives believed that was exactly what she was doing while she was at Target.
00:50:23
It's all based on her phone records. There was a huge amount of data that was cycling through her phone.
00:50:31
Investigators think she was watching the cameras outside her house, playing Look Out for Rob while she was in Target.
00:50:39
And they believed Monica was really shopping for an alibi that afternoon, placing herself away from home while the murder plot unfolded.
00:50:51
Now, remember how Monica told police she spoke with her daughter Isabella after she left Target?
00:50:58
You think clearly Monica's plan was that her daughter would find Fabio? Yes, I do.
00:51:05
Thus getting Monica off the hook. In other words, proving that Monica wasn't there at the time.
00:51:09
Right. Either that or it was worth the risk to her. Like, she didn't consider her daughter enough that it was worth the risk.
00:51:16
How lucky am I to have lived the greatest love story of all time. Four months after the murder, there was Monica on stage in Toronto
00:51:25
telling the story of what she called a made-for-the-movies romance with Fabio. Morella and so many other supporters stood behind her
00:51:35
at a ceremony for professionals in the beauty industry. as Monica accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award on Fabio's behalf.
00:51:44
He's an educator. He was an icon. He was award-winning. So it was only a matter of time that they were going to give him the Lifetime Achievement Award.
00:51:54
We all know what he is telling us right now. So let's look at Fabio's motto. Chin up, charge up, cementally power. Thank you.
00:52:05
Chin up. Monica would need that and more for what was about to happen next. Just days after accepting that award, Monica was back in L.A.
00:52:15
She and Baker were driving in her brand new Mustang when police pulled them over and placed both under arrest for murder.
00:52:26
We got a phone call. I think I blacked out. And I was just out of breath, hyperventilating that I'm hoping this is not true.
00:52:34
because I can't make any sense out of this. It's Monica. It's Monica. The last name you expected to hear.
00:52:44
Yeah, that was a... It shook us to the core. Like, what? Monica? Monica had a lot to say about Fabio after his death.
00:52:57
Now behind bars, what might she say about the other man in her life? He's not just a lover.
00:53:04
He was my confidant, she was everything. Monica Sementilli was under arrest for murder.
00:53:25
She did not have an attorney yet, and investigators saw a chance to keep building their case.
00:53:31
My husband was murdered. Oh my God. January. They put her in a cell with another inmate, who, unbeknownst to Monica, was actually a member of law enforcement.
00:53:45
Her job, keep Monica talking and see what she would spill. That's like a bad movie, you know.
00:53:51
My youngest daughter found him. She came home I came home maybe 30 seconds after her and pulled in And she found died first Wow How do you get that out of your head
00:54:06
And I'm sure you just... You don't. It's every day. And now this? As the undercover worked Monica inside the cell,
00:54:17
detectives strolled by on the other side of the bars, sharing details of their investigation.
00:54:24
We've had no surveillance for a long time. Sure, I would imagine. So we understand completely about the relationship that you and Bob have.
00:54:33
Detectives wanted to see if that might spark any conversation between Monica and the undercover.
00:54:40
And it did. Monica had initially told the cellmate she and Baker were just friends.
00:54:48
Now she was revealing a lot more. Monica admitted the affair, but that was all. About the murder, she seemed to be in disbelief when detectives told her this.
00:55:21
They have determined that Robert Baker was involved in Robert Baker. That cannot be. That cannot be possible. Oh, my God.
00:55:31
Monica and Rob Baker both entered pleas of not guilty to charges of murder and conspiracy.
00:55:37
They were in jail as a year went by, then another. Then came COVID and more legal delays.
00:55:45
It weighs over you like a shadow. The delays frustrated Fabio's son, Luigi. You feel like you're in transit, like you're just waiting for your train stop to come,
00:55:55
and it just keeps getting further and further away. Six years after the murder, in July 2023,
00:56:03
Rob Baker made a move that caught almost everyone by surprise. We're on the record.
00:56:09
He was a baker. The defendant is present. He appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom and changed his plea.
00:56:16
How do you plead? No contest. I stand a plea. No contest is the same as a plea of guilty.
00:56:21
There is no difference. You understand this? Yes, sir. Translation, he did it. And Monica wasn't involved.
00:56:30
He takes a plea and he doesn't ask for a deal. Nothing. Monica and Fabio's daughters spoke at that hearing
00:56:37
and made it clear to everyone they were supporting their mom. You took our beautiful mother's selflessness
00:56:44
and our amazing father's life down with you. We just want to put this chapter to an end.
00:56:49
We want to clearly state that we will continue to stand by our mother as we have done for the last six years, and we will fight for her innocence.
00:56:57
Baker would now be a witness for Monica's defense. Her attorney, Leonard Levine, spoke with reporters.
00:57:04
We are confident that Robert Baker's guilty pleas and his truthful testimony will finally establish once and for all that Monica Cimentelli had nothing to do with the planning or the murder of Fabio Cimentelli, her husband.
00:57:24
The prosecution case against Monica just became a lot more complicated. And now they really need it to find this guy.
00:57:34
Remember, that camera captured two people running toward the Cementelli home that afternoon.
00:57:40
One was still unidentified. Detective Mitzi Roberts went through phone records looking for clues.
00:57:47
To try and figure out if there were any individuals that not only Baker was talking to, but Monica as well.
00:57:56
And at the same time. One needle in that haystack of phone activity stood out. There was one message via Facebook Messenger, which was just a few days after the murder.
00:58:11
That message was from Rob Baker to a man named Chris Austin, telling him to download an encrypted messaging app.
00:58:19
All it said was, download WhatsApp. Why is he saying download WhatsApp? Exactly.
00:58:25
It seemed to Detective Roberts that Baker was trying to secretly communicate with this Chris Austin.
00:58:32
in the days just after the murder. So what about before that? Baker's cell phone pings revealed he was near the Los Angeles airport
00:58:41
the morning before the murder. The question was why. I wrote a series of search warrants for airline manifests,
00:58:53
and the last one I wrote, I just asked for any records for Christopher Austin that he flew between these,
00:59:01
basically the day before the murder and after. And bam, I get a hit. He was on an Alaskan Airlines flight.
00:59:10
Close to 7.30 a.m., when Baker's phone was pinging near the airport, Austin's flight landed at LAX.
00:59:18
At the time, Austin was 31 years old. He lived in Alaska and had no criminal record.
00:59:25
Why he'd come to L.A. was unclear. Well, sometimes crimes are solved by the smallest of clues.
00:59:35
We found a citation where Austin was actually cited in the vehicle that they rented to commit the crime, to drive to the crime scene.
00:59:45
Austin had been pulled over for a seatbelt violation about an hour after the murder, less than five miles from the Cimentilli home.
00:59:53
He was driving a car that had been rented for Baker That was enough for an arrest warrant and police locked up Austin in October 2024
01:00:06
With Monica's trial date approaching, prosecutors needed Austin to be more cooperative than his
01:00:12
friend Baker. And just a week before Monica's trial began, that wish came true. How do you plead?
01:00:21
Guilty. Chris Austin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a sentence that could let him out in 16 years.
01:00:29
The catch? He would have to testify against Monica. With Baker on the defense witness list and now Austin on the prosecutors,
01:00:40
jurors would get a front-row seat to a dramatic courtroom showdown with Monica in the middle.
01:00:47
This is a homicide case that's going to look an awful lot like a Hollywood movie.
01:00:55
I mean, this case kind of comes down to the credibility of these two guys, both of whom are admitted murderers.
01:01:01
Yeah. January 24, 2025. Eight years almost to the day that Fabio Sementelli was murdered,
01:01:27
his wife Monica, accused of making it happen, went on trial. This is a homicide case that's going to look an awful lot like a Hollywood movie,
01:01:41
except that it's reality. Prosecutor Beth Silverman told the jury Monica was living a double life.
01:01:49
And at some point she realized these two worlds, they couldn't continue to coexist.
01:01:55
And the prosecution theorized divorce was not an option. She came from an Italian Catholic family.
01:02:03
And she knew if she divorced Fabio for someone with no future, a sex offender, she would be shunned.
01:02:14
She would be cut out from her social circle and especially from her Italian family who loved Fabio like a son.
01:02:23
The state said Monica had more to gain from murder than from divorce, including $1.6 million in life insurance.
01:02:33
Fabio's son took the stand. And we spoke for the first time after the murder. The first words out of her mouth were regarding life insurance money.
01:02:42
And a friend of Baker's told the jury how Monica was planning a lavish future with her
01:02:47
new man. Monica was going to buy a house in Vegas for Rob. So I asked Monica if she was planning to move to Vegas and she said, no, I'm just going
01:02:58
to come and go and we're going to travel to Italy and some other countries. Prosecutors told the jury murder was in the works for months, with Monica orchestrating all of it.
01:03:10
She had to be the mastermind because he's just the muscle. He doesn't know when Fabio's ins and outs are.
01:03:16
And yet Baker knew exactly when to go there at a time when Fabio was alone. Exactly. So that's pretty hard to get around that.
01:03:26
As was this, prosecutors argued. The day Monica and Baker were arrested, police put them together in the backseat of a patrol car and listened in.
01:03:38
Somebody did this three times. To prosecutors, that was Monica worrying someone who knew about their murderous plan had squealed.
01:03:52
If that's what she thought, she was wrong. Someone did talk. But seven years later...
01:03:59
Do people call Christopher Austin? Chris Austin, the third person in this alleged conspiracy,
01:04:06
told the jury how Robert Baker was friends with his dad, and Baker was like an uncle to him.
01:04:12
Did you trust him? Absolutely. Six months before Fabio's murder, Austin was living in Alaska and came to L.A. for a visit.
01:04:21
He said that's when Baker started talking about a job. It involved Baker's girlfriend and her inconvenient husband.
01:04:32
Baker said she wants him gone. She wants him dead. Monica wanted it. The wife wanted it done.
01:04:37
Austin said he wasn't interested, but testified that Baker continued to talk about it for months.
01:04:44
He said if you do this, I can get you anywhere between 30 and 50 grand. And there's plenty more where that came from.
01:04:52
Did he tell you where that money would come from? He said it was going to come from the defendant.
01:04:58
Once she gets this insurance money, we're going to be good. So in January 2017, Baker bought Austin a plane ticket to Los Angeles.
01:05:10
When you flew here, what was the purpose of coming to L.A. on this particular date?
01:05:15
to kill the victim. Austin said the plan was to kill Fabio at this strip mall where Monica was sending him to pick up dinner.
01:05:35
He showed me a picture of him, and he parked out back, and he made me get out of the car,
01:05:42
and I saw him, and I was like, I can't do this. And I went back to the car. He was like, what happened?
01:05:51
I told him, I couldn't get him. Can't do it. Well the very next day Austin said Baker got a text He kind of jolted He said yo he home alone He said she going to go to the store We have a small window
01:06:07
That's when Austin said he and Baker drove to Woodland Hills. As they jogged up to the Cementilly house, Baker handed him a knife.
01:06:17
He said the front door should be open. Did he tell you how he knew that? He told me, he said, she's going to leave the door open.
01:06:25
Austin said he followed Baker into the house. When I followed him in, he told me to stay low, and he creeped ahead and made sure he wasn't seen.
01:06:39
They went to the kitchen door that led to the patio. He said on the count of three, on the count of three, he's going to hold him down.
01:06:55
And he opened the door and he held his mouth and couldn't scream. And he started, he started stabbing him.
01:07:23
I'm sorry. Austin said he stabbed Fabio once. I'm so sorry. Then, while Baker rummaged through the house, Austin waited in Fabio's Porsche inside the garage.
01:07:40
Moments later, Baker jumped into the driver's seat with a pillowcase in his hand, and they drove away.
01:07:47
Within an hour, Austin was headed out of town, undetected, or so he thought, until he got that seatbelt violation on his way to the bus station.
01:07:58
Did you talk to him before you left about what you were thinking or feeling about what had just happened?
01:08:04
I did. I told him, I can't believe you had me do that. I'm never going to see you again.
01:08:12
And then he was like, you're good. You're still a good person. I was like, I'm not a good person.
01:08:19
Then he said, come on. And then he said, don't worry about it. She wanted him dead. It's done. Don't worry about it.
01:08:28
You're still a good person. He couldn't convince me that I was. Did he give you anything at this time?
01:08:39
Yeah, he stuffed a roll of coins in my pocket. He said, take this. He said this should be worth about ten thousand.
01:08:48
When you say coins, what kind of coins? They were gold coins. Investigators believe those coins came from the Cementilli safe
01:08:56
and that Monica had pulled them out for Baker hours before the murder. Years went by.
01:09:05
Austin got married, had a daughter, and was working as a juvenile parole and probation officer.
01:09:11
And he says he never told anyone about what he had done until after LAPD detectives arrested him.
01:09:21
Why did you want to talk to them? It's the right thing to do. Monica's defense told the jury Austin was just trying to save his own skin,
01:09:32
and his testimony implicated himself and Baker, but not Monica. For the truth, the defense said, listen to the other admitted killer,
01:09:41
who seemed to understand exactly why the woman he loved was a suspect. If you watch the date lines and all that, you look into the family members first.
01:09:51
Monica Sementilli hired a powerful team of attorneys to represent her at trial. Blair Burke, known for defending celebrities, had a clear message for the jury.
01:10:16
There was absolutely no reason, no desire that she would have ever wanted her husband Fabio to be dead.
01:10:29
The defense Monica Sementelli is offering is a familiar one if you watch Dayline.
01:10:35
It goes like this. I'm a liar. I lied to my husband. I lied to my friends. I lied to my relatives.
01:10:43
I lied about this affair because it suited me to lie. But murder? I would never do that.
01:10:51
And you can believe me. The person who should not be believed, the defense argued,
01:10:58
was the prosecution's star witness, Chris Austin, because he had no direct knowledge of Monica being involved in anything illegal.
01:11:09
You didn't hear her voice, correct? That is correct. You didn't see any text messages, correct?
01:11:15
That's correct. The defense said Austin traded a phony story for a deal. You knew you had to tell them that Monica Simentilli was involved in some way in order for you to get your deal.
01:11:32
Isn't that right? I knew I had to tell them the truth, sir. According to the defense and her sister Anna, Monica's love for Fabio coexisted alongside
01:11:43
her infidelity. I still think they had a great marriage. Yes. It is possible to love someone and cheat on them at the same time.
01:11:51
It happens all the time. Isabella testified about her mother's agony when she realized Fabio was gone.
01:12:00
She fell to her knees when she came home. She was screaming, crying. She couldn't stand up on her own.
01:12:10
The minute she walked outside and saw what was happening, she fell to the floor.
01:12:15
As for the financial motive... Monica Cimentilli would have been far better off financially.
01:12:24
With Fabio alive and thriving, and not gone. This wasn't about money, said the defense.
01:12:34
This was about one man wanting things his way. Shackled and poured into a borrowed suit,
01:12:45
confessed killer Robert Baker dropped by from state prison to testify on his lover's behalf.
01:12:52
Did she have anything to do with the planning or the execution of the plan to kill Fabio Cimentelli?
01:13:01
No. You're sure? I'm positive. Baker spoke about his relationship with Monica and how his role in the affair was to fill a void in Monica's life.
01:13:14
I wanted her to have fun with everything, not just sexually, just everything. Everything. Sex was part of it, but everything.
01:13:20
I wanted her to enjoy her life, period. What led you to believe she wasn't enjoying life up to that time?
01:13:29
Because when we went out and when I took her places, she could be herself. And it made me feel good to see that.
01:13:36
Despite all that, Baker said he knew Monica would never leave Fabio. We touched on it lightly, but I could tell that she wasn't going to do that.
01:13:49
That wasn't going to happen. And eventually, did that become one of the reasons why you decided to murder him?
01:13:57
I murdered him because I wanted her. Baker said he started to think about getting rid of Fabio a month before the murder.
01:14:06
Fabio was staying home a lot. I couldn't see her. And it played a little number on me.
01:14:12
He says that's when he asked Chris Austin for help. Somebody I trusted, which was Chris.
01:14:19
Was there anyone you trusted more? No. Was he loyal to you? Yeah. On the day of the murder, Baker said Monica mentioned she was going out to run errands,
01:14:31
meaning Fabio was home by himself. The plan was what? The plan was to go up, get in there, try to take care of this as fast as possible.
01:14:43
And kill them? Yeah. Baker described the murder this way. I try to rush in as fast as I can.
01:14:50
Did he appear initially to see you? Oh he saw me He saw me I mean he did what he was supposed to do He was trying to protect his house and protect his family and his home What did he do He got up real quick and he grabbed me I trying
01:15:07
to get away from him. He's a pretty big guy. Then what? I took one stab to get him and let go of me.
01:15:12
He let go and I just kind of blacked out and just tried to get him off me and just kept cutting
01:15:17
until he stopped, until he got off me. After leaving his lover's husband wounded and bleeding
01:15:23
out. Baker staged the burglary, grabbed the keys to the Porsche, and then he and Austin put some
01:15:30
miles between themselves and their victim. You are a convicted murderer, correct? Yes. And you
01:15:40
committed a heinous crime. Yeah, I did. But are you telling the truth about what happened?
01:15:47
It's nothing to lose. Thank you, Honor. I'm nothing further. He had nothing further.
01:15:54
The prosecutor had been listening carefully and was prepared with some questions of her own.
01:16:01
We're going to be here for days. There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode,
01:16:12
listen to our Talking Dateline series with Blaine and Josh, Available Wednesday.
01:16:26
We're going to be here for days. In a lengthy cross-examination of Robert Baker,
01:16:31
prosecutor Beth Silverman wanted to show how Monica Sementilli was pulling the strings all along.
01:16:38
Police found this photo of Monica standing in front of a mirror with Mrs. Baker written in lipstick.
01:16:46
suggesting Monica was planning a future as Mrs. Robert Baker. In what became a familiar response,
01:16:55
Baker said he couldn't recall. You don't remember that? I don't. It's a long time ago.
01:17:00
The prosecutor argued that when it came to the planning of Fabio's murder, it was Monica who told Baker the exact window she would be running errands,
01:17:11
leaving her husband home alone. The defendant had to ensure everyone else is out of the house, leaving Fabio alone.
01:17:18
And she knows Fabio is working in the backyard. And we laid this information to Baker.
01:17:24
Prosecutors told the jury Monica and Baker were communicating on an encrypted app the day of the murder.
01:17:31
Those messages paused when Monica met up with someone in the Target parking lot.
01:17:37
Who that was can't be identified from that grainy video. But investigators later found Robert Baker on camera at that very same target, heading
01:17:47
out to the parking lot just minutes before Monica arrived. So you remember meeting up with Monica at the parking lot I really don remember It seemed like any other day when I met her Not so said prosecutors This was the day they planned to kill Fabio
01:18:07
And it was Monica who was playing lookout. Remember how Monica told detectives she didn't know much about the home security system
01:18:16
and couldn't access it from her phone? I don't know the company name. I don't know either.
01:18:21
After her arrest, investigators saw Monica had forwarded to Baker instructions on how to log on to that system.
01:18:32
The prosecution also showed the jury that video of Monica glued to her phone at Target while the murder was happening
01:18:40
and revealed what investigators found on that phone, an app that allowed her to live stream the security cameras.
01:18:48
This is a critical piece of evidence in this case, as it allowed the defendant to monitor who was coming and going from her home.
01:18:58
After the murder, that app was deleted. As for the motive behind it all, Baker said he killed Fabio because he wanted Monica for himself.
01:19:10
And you still love her, right? That's why you're here. I love her. Of course I still love her. Of course I do.
01:19:16
And according to the prosecutor, Monica's love for Baker continued behind bars, including when they were in holding cells before a court hearing.
01:19:28
Do the two of you engage in various sex acts right here in the disgusting, filthy lockup behind this courtroom?
01:19:36
I think they had us separated the whole time, so no. I think she showed herself, yeah.
01:19:40
She did, right? She showed herself. Meaning what? What did she show? herself there was one more thing the jury heard something impossible to unhear it
01:19:54
came before Baker took the stand the prosecution played a recording of a whispered conversation between Monica and Baker in the lockup
01:20:16
to a jury that they can't take it back. They take the blame. That's Baker saying out loud he had no
01:20:25
problem lying to a jury. You'd do anything to protect her too, right? That's what you do. If I could.
01:20:35
If I could. In his closing argument, Leonard Levine tried to explain away that comment,
01:20:42
pointing out it was recorded years earlier, before Baker admitted to the crime. The defense suggested he was actually lying to Monica about being innocent,
01:20:54
even as he was offering to take the fall. He a liar he a murderer but despite all his inconsistency he has remained consistent about one thing that Monica is innocent
01:21:09
As for the rest of the state's recordings, the defense told the jury to focus on what
01:21:14
they did not hear. You didn't see one bit of evidence where she says, my God, why did we kill him?
01:21:22
Now the ending of this story was up to the jury. The verdict came after nine hours of deliberation.
01:21:32
We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Monica Cimentelli, guilty of the crime of murder in violation of...
01:21:38
Monica sobbed as the jury found her guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances and conspiracy.
01:21:47
The sentence is automatic, life without parole. After the verdict, Monica's defense team spoke.
01:21:56
We continue to believe that Monica had nothing to do with her husband's murder. And we will pursue every legal avenue to obtain her eventual exoneration and her freedom.
01:22:09
Followed by Fabio's sisters. Our spirits are lifted. My brother can now rest in peace.
01:22:18
And the murderers that have deceived him are exactly where they belong today. We are overjoyed that she will spend the rest of her life in jail.
01:22:28
No parole. Justice for you, Fabio. For Fabio's family, the verdict doesn't turn back the clock.
01:22:37
Fabio is still gone. He did leave them an unexpected gift. A video his sister Lori discovered after his death.
01:22:48
Fabio was interviewed about his career for a beauty professional site where he spoke about his family and what was most important to him.
01:22:58
I have sisters who I adore, and my own family unit is the most, most dear to me.
01:23:06
His last message from him to us, I says, oh my Lord, I love him so much and miss him so much.
01:23:17
You know, when you kind of sit in the backyard, and I say to myself, you know, what do I want to be remembered for? And I always say to myself, I want to be remembered
01:23:25
for the relationships I've built. I want to be remembered for how maybe I've made people feel.
01:23:32
I hope that's what I'm remembered for. Fabio Sementilli probably will be remembered for that.
01:23:41
Mrs. Sementilli will be remembered for something else. That's all for this edition of Dateline.
01:23:50
We'll see you again Sunday at 10, 9 central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.