On Jan. 23, 2017, Fabio Sementilli was home alone in the backyard of his Woodland Hills, Calif., home when two people wearing hoodies sneaked onto his property.
After the vicious attack, the assailants ransacked Fabio and his wife Monica’s bedroom and removed the DVR from the garage where the home security footage was stored. The intruders then fled in Fabio’s 2008 Porsche 911, which was found abandoned about five miles away two days later.
Around 5 p.m. that fateful day, Fabio’s youngest daughter Isabella arrived home, saw bloody shoe prints and blood on the floor and found her father slumped over in his chair outside.
Fabio and Monica Sementilli.
His shocking death, on the patio where he loved to smoke cigars, sip tequila and post motivational videos on social media, sent shockwaves through the hair care industry, where the globe-trotting hair stylist and Wella executive was a star.
“He would charm you with his personality and his wittiness,” adds friend Ramsey Sayah, a hair stylist and entrepreneur. “It was terrible to think that this is the way Fabio had died because he was such a great guy. You don’t think anyone deserves to die that way, but especially not a really good person, that you really love and you know is kind and loving. It just didn’t make any sense.”
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At first, Los Angeles police believed his death was the result of a home invasion burglary gone awry. But soon, their focus moved closer to home.
On June 14, almost five months after the murder, police arrested Fabio’s wife, Monica, and her lover, Robert Baker, a convicted sex offender and ex-porn-actor-turned-racquetball instructor, and charged them with murder, with the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and financial gain, which made them eligible if convicted to life without the possibility of parole.
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Prosecutors alleged that the lovers concocted the plan to kill Fabio in order to collect life insurance money.
Monica Sementilli.LAPD
Robert Baker.LAPD
“Monica fully intended for Fabio to be murdered,” Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told a grand jury. “She wanted him out of the way because she wants to be with Robert Baker. She’s unhappy in her marriage, even though at the same time she’s acting like the loving, adoring wife.”
Monica, now 49, and Baker, now 58, have pleaded not guilty.
“I wish we knew who the true murderer was,” says Monica’s attorney Leonard Levine. “All we do know is that it was not Ms. Sementilli. She loved her husband very much.”
Baker’s attorney declined comment.
“By dropping the special circumstances, justice is threatened,” Fabio’s son Luigi wrote to the court. “The truth cannot come to light in these circumstances.”
Luigi added, “I will never get to speak to my father again. I will never get to experience his warmth, his love, his confidence, or his endless generosity. None of us will. We lost the patriarch of our family.”
The trial is scheduled for April.
source: people.com
