Teen daughter finds bloody footprints at home before grim discovery

After a successful career as an international celebrity hair stylist, Fabio Sementilli became a vice president at Coty, one of the world’s largest beauty companies. Canadian-born Fabio’s creativity and personality made him a well-liked executive, and he was also admired for making everyone feel like they were important.

Fabio, 49, and his second wife, Monica, lived in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, in a $2 million home with their two teenage daughters. Fabio also had a son from a previous relationship. Monica and Fabio had been married almost 20 years and enjoyed hosting friends by their pool. It appeared they had a loving marriage, but then tragedy struck.

On 23 January 2017, Fabio’s youngest daughter arrived home to find bloody footprints. Then she found her dad in a pool of blood with several knife wounds. Distraught, she called 911 and tried to stop the bleeding. Fabio had been watching television and smoking a cigar on his poolside patio and had been violently attacked from behind with an eight-inch hunting knife.

He had seven stab wounds to the neck, chest and thigh, and his femoral and carotid arteries were cut. Paramedics couldn’t save him. At first it appeared that he had been the victim of a brutal home invasion, as there had been a few in the area targeting wealthy homes. Fabio’s Porsche 911 had been stolen and used as a getaway car, although it was quickly found abandoned nearby. A bedroom had been ransacked but the police were suspicious as Fabio was still wearing his $8,000 Rolex watch.

The home had CCTV but when investigators went to look at the footage, they noticed the digital video recorder in the garage had been taken. It wasn’t an obvious place to find it – and why spend time looking for that, rather than taking other things in the house that were worth a lot of money?

Monica Sementilli held a memorial for her husband at the house, days after his death, on the very patio where Fabio had died. People were suspicious of a man with a bandage on his hand who was there with her. A neighbour took a photo of him and forwarded it to the police. Investigators were getting closer to the unidentified man.

Blood had been found at the crime scene and in the stolen Porsche. When it was put into the criminal database,there was a match: Robert Baker. He was a convicted sex offender, who had a conviction for acts with a minor. He had also appeared in adult sex films. Baker was now a racquetball instructor at the local fitness club that Sementilli attended and had coached her. Further investigation showed they were having an affair.

The community was shocked when Sementilli and Baker were arrested six months after Fabio’s death. Another man, Christopher Austin, 39, was also arrested. He was a parole and probation officer dealing with at-risk youth in Oregon.

Motivated by money

The police determined that Sementilli was the mastermind behind the plot to kill Fabio and that she had left the door unlocked so that Baker and Austin, who Baker had recruited, could enter the house and murder Fabio. The motive was suggested to be a $1.6 million life insurance policy.

With Sementilli’s family being Italian-Catholic, divorce wasn’t an option. As the case unfolded, it became more shocking and more salacious. It was revealed that Baker and Sementilli had an extremely physical relationship, and she had even sent him a naked photo on the day of Fabio’s Toronto funeral. The media dubbed her the “naked widow”.

Baker also said Sementilli shaved his initials into her pubic hair and called him “master” and “maestro”. He admitted that when they were in cells that were visible to each other, he instructed the widow to partially undress and perform a sexual act, which she did.

Officers monitored their correspondence in prison, where the pair used code words and encouraged sex acts that they called “jailing”. At one point, the police seized a toothpaste tube with Baker’s semen in it that he was going to send Sementilli. The intention for it was never revealed.

In July 2023, Baker, 63, entered a no contest plea and was sentenced to life without parole. In January this year, Austin pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and received 16 years to life in prison. At the trial, he said that although he hadn’t had anything to do with her, Baker had told him Sementilli wanted Fabio “gone”.

At Sementilli’s trial this year, the prosecution said she and her lover had plotted to kill Fabio so they would get the life insurance payout. On the day of the killing, the pair traded 95 messages through an encrypted messaging app called Viber. The jury saw video evidence of Sementilli watching a live feed of the house shortly before the stabbing to ensure Baker had a clear path to her husband.

Baker was called by the defence team, and he testified that Sementilli didn’t know about the plot to kill Fabio. “I murdered him because I wanted her,” he testified. “She had nothing to do with it.”

He said the plan was his because he wanted to be with her.

A liar and a cheat

The prosecution said she was the mastermind. “She’s a liar, she’s a manipulator, she’s a cheater and everything that comes out of her mouth has to be taken with a large grain of salt. Large enough so that you could choke on it,” they said. The jury agreed.

Sementilli was convicted of murder and allegations involving financial gain and “murder while lying in wait”. In June this year, Sementilli, 53, was sentenced and there were emotional statements from those who mourned Fabio.

“The person responsible wasn’t a stranger but the woman we had welcomed into our family for over 20 years,” Fabio’s sister Loretta Picillo told the judge. “We treated her like family, and she betrayed all of us.

"Monica walked out knowing full well that within minutes her husband Fabio would be viciously attacked and held down. Only a demon could orchestrate the murder of a loving husband and savagely time it so her own daughter would come home and find her father’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood."

Sementilli got life without the possibility of parole. Her two daughters continue to maintain her innocence. Fabio’s death was the result of a scandalous love triangle that he didn’t know he was part of. The talented stylist had his life cut short by the woman he loved, in the home he should have been safe in.