A celebrity hairstylist, his wife, her porn star lover – and an alleged $1.6m life insurance ‘plot’ that led to murder
“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.
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.
