Wife to stand trial for killing celebrity hairdresser husband after her adult movie star lover pleaded guilty to murder

“My family comes first,” – Fabio Sementilli began in a 2015 interview with American salon. “You’re sitting in the backyard and I’m like, ‘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 murdered while sitting in his favorite chair in the backyard of his home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, on January 23, 2017.

His wife, Monica, who was shopping at a local Target store at the time, watched through a home security camera connected to her phone as two hooded figures pinned down her partner and punched her seven times.

“He left. I am no longer a wife,” she cried that evening on her friend’s shoulder The Times.

It took prosecutors nearly six months to indict the first two suspects: Robert Baker, a burly racquetball coach who worked as a porn star, and Monica, the victim’s wife.

Prosecutors alleged that Monica, 52, and Baker, 61, engaged in an 18-month affair and conspired to kill the stylist in an attempt to embezzle Sementilli’s $1.6 million life insurance policy.

Only Baker confessed to the murder and is now serving a life sentence. He still claims that Monica “didn’t do shit.”

Monica and her legal team were at a pre-trial hearing this week discussing discovery before she goes to trial next month.

The Baker Case

After relocating in 2007 from Toronto, Canada, the Sementillis have thrived in their Los Angeles home.

Sementilli rose to the top of the hairdressing world, cutting the locks of Hollywood icons ranging from Jennifer Lopez to Jackie Chan.

He became vice president of education at hair products company Wella and earned the nickname “Big Daddy” after mentoring tens of thousands of aspiring stylists.

Therefore, when more than seven years ago the death of a 49-year-old girl was reported in the newspapers, the hairdressing world was shaken.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, about a year and a half before Semenatelli’s murder, Monica allegedly had an “intimate relationship” with Baker.

He worked as a racquetball coach at a Los Angeles fitness center near the defendant’s home in Woodland Hills. Despite his athletic exterior, Baker harbored a dark secret.

In 1993, he was convicted of statutory rape with his 14-year-old teenage stepdaughter, whom he later married after his release from prison, according to records. CBS.

Baker later entered the world of pornography, appearing in nearly 80 adult films during his career in the late 1990s.

Plot

Six months before the crime, Monica and Baker allegedly hatched a plan to spy on Sementilli.

According to police, she installed a network of cameras around her home that would broadcast live information to their phones.

Then a series of suspicious incidents occurred.

Baker sent a heartbreaking message on Facebook to his friend. “I don’t live with her yet,” he wrote. “But that’s soon.”

According to police, there were 20 phone calls between Monica and Baker in the week before the murder.

And on the day Sementilli was killed, Jan. 23, 2017, Los Angeles police said two men were seen jogging toward the home.

Baker, armed with a knife, allegedly headed towards Sementilli with Christopher Austin, who is also due to appear in court next month following his arrest in October. Earlier that day, Baker and Monica had been watching the barber on their cellphones.

Prosecutors said Austin held the victim down while Baker stabbed Sementilli repeatedly in the face, neck and body. In total, the autopsy recorded seven stab wounds.

The victim fell on the pool deck and was found when his 16-year-old daughter came home. Authorities later pronounced him dead at the scene.

While walking through the aisles of Target, the wife watched everything that was happening on her cell phone, police said.

Consequences

“It was nine o’clock … and I got a call and it was Monica …,” Sementilli’s sister, Mirella Rota, said. CBS. “She was crying, distraught and saying, ‘They killed Fabio.’

The prosecutor’s office believes that these were crocodile tears.

At Sementilli’s funeral, Monica gave what appeared to be a moving eulogy.

“He wanted to be the best person he could be,” she said. “He gave us unconditional love and made our whole life an adventure.”

Baker later appeared at a memorial service held at the family home where the stylist was killed.

Following Sementilli’s death, Monica also took to social media to share her husband’s loss with a number of photos and status updates.

But, again, the police said it was all for show.

The same evening Monica posted the posts, authorities said she “had a sexual relationship with Robert Baker in a Las Vegas hotel room.”

Arrest

On June 14, 2017, Baker and Monica were arrested for Sementilli’s murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

After slashing Sementilli’s finger to death, leaving blood and DNA at the scene, Baker had little chance of getting the charges dismissed. His DNA was previously in police records because of a 1993 criminal record.

The murder was initially believed to be a botched home invasion robbery, with a safe stolen and his prized black Porsche missing.

Then authorities noticed an interesting detail: Sementilli’s $8,000 Rolex watch remained on his wrist.

After months of investigation, detectives determined his death was the result of a $1.6 million life insurance scheme, LAPD Robbery Unit Capt. William Hayes said.

Two days after their arrest, the pair were charged with murder, which carried the death penalty, with the special circumstance of murder for selfish ends.

In July 2023, Baker pleaded no contest to each count of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He also pleaded guilty to special circumstances charges of murder for financial gain and manslaughter.

All this time, Monica and Baker claimed her innocence.

“Monica did not know. She didn’t know,” Baker told CBS News in March of this year. “If she had found out, I would have been in (jail) much earlier.”

Both prosecutors and Los Angeles police investigators say there is a large body of evidence pointing to her involvement in the murder.

Last month, they charged a third suspect: Christopher Austin.

After months of delays, Monica and Austin are scheduled to appear in court in December.

Throw behind bars

Baker and Monica continued their romance 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, according to a tape released by police on the day of their arrest, which was later played on CBS. 48 hours.

A 2017 love letter between the couple in prison was signed “your wife…Monica Baker until death”.

In one face-to-face meeting (which was quickly ended), authorities said they “talked to each other and engaged in masturbation and other sexual games.”

In a four-page letter, on CBSMonika wrote: “Somehow it hurts when you are not touched, fucked, licked and loved.”

According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office in 2021, they later used an encrypted code in letters and records to avoid suspicion from the authorities: OMM (I think); LOML (love of my life); R or D (ride or die).

Meanwhile, Monica’s defense has repeatedly argued that the duo’s relationship does not necessarily link the defendant to the crime.

They said: “The sexual and romantic details of their affair were simply irrelevant to the question of whether they conspired to kill Fabio Sementilli.”