48 Hours - Who Killed Fabio?

Episode Date: March 11, 2018

A famed Los Angeles hairstylist is killed in his backyard.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,
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Starting point is 00:01:00 to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. The LAPD now warning residents to be on alert, especially if someone knocks on the door. Police urging residents not to be confrontational with the criminals as it could quickly turn dangerous.
Starting point is 00:01:40 The LAPD released new surveillance video of knock-knock burglars caught in the act. Okay, so this is LAPD footage. Yeah, they know what they're doing and they know what they want. I mean, they're running wild. Yeah, they're moving just as quick as they can. In and out in about three minutes, they ransack a bedroom, find some jewelry and get out. Since January, at least seven celebrities had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry taken. High-profile victims included $300,000 from former Laker star Derrick Fisher,
Starting point is 00:02:14 $175,000 for Nicki Minaj, and $2 million from Alanis Morissette's Brentwood home. What do you call these guys? Call them the Knock Knock Burglars. Forty's now investigating if Knock Knock Burglars may be to blame for the January murder of hairdresser Fabio Samantelli. It was at nine o'clock and I get a phone call and it was Monica. nine o'clock and I get a phone call and it was Monica. She was crying and distraught and she was saying they killed Fabio. Everybody welcome Fabio. Fabio was bigger than life in the industry. I love it. He
Starting point is 00:03:00 was the iconic guy, the international hairdresser that came to the U.S. Oh, it's beautiful. It's going to be tough to beat. Fabio was fabulous. I'm Mirella Rota. Hi, Fabio. I'm his sister. My job is done. He mentored so many people. I was so proud of him.
Starting point is 00:03:18 Oh, my God. Hey, everybody. Fab here for another Fab Style Friday. Fabio, when he walked into a room, when he walked into the salon, what was it like? It resonated. Good morning, and he'd call out everybody's name. What kind of a dad was Fabio? He was a great dad, and he would bring in a glam squad for their prom. He took the time to be in their lives.
Starting point is 00:03:48 So he was cool. Oh, for sure. I mean, as far as dads go, I had a pretty cool dad, yeah. They had a big house, the house that Monica wanted. My queen, he called her. She loved it because it had a huge kitchen. She said that he would come home, drop his bags, sweep her off her feet, and dance with her. Detectives searched them until he's home
Starting point is 00:04:16 for evidence of what led to his death. It looked like a textbook break-in. It was the end of the day. Fabio was relaxing by his pool, a lot like this one. He probably was out there enjoying his cigar on the phone, speaking out loud. Didn't hear someone walking behind you. There was immense suspicion as to the explanation of a robbery from my perspective.
Starting point is 00:04:50 Didn't sound right. Didn't sound right, but I couldn't put anything else together. We're here to announce the arrest of two individuals in connection with the murder of Fabio Senantilli. I'm like, you sure? That was a huge shock. I was absolutely shocked. There wasn't a red flag. It was like a twist in a nightmare. This is a particularly vicious murder. This individual was murdered in his own home.
Starting point is 00:05:46 I'm Justin Eisenberg, Chief of Detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department. When police found 49-year-old Fabio Cimentilli, he was collapsed on his poolside deck. He had stab wounds to his face, neck, and body. Detectives quickly learned Sim and Tilly had been a superstar in the world of hairdressing.
Starting point is 00:06:11 Welcome to Hollywood. Possibly red. So I heard you wanted a makeover. Funny you should come in today. I heard you were the best around here. You know what, Roseanne, you heard right. I am the best. And now I'm going to prove it to you.
Starting point is 00:06:29 All right. He was a happy man. Fabio Cimentelli's sister, Morella Rhoda. And he wanted everybody around him happy. All right, and now it'll go backwards, you say? Yeah. The best way to describe my dad really is like a cup of coffee in the morning. Luigi Cimentelli, Fabio's son.
Starting point is 00:06:52 He gets you going. He lifts your spirits. He gets you determined to charge the mountain of life. Did your friends say, hey, Luigi, is that your dad? Absolutely, yeah. It was kind of a fun thing. You know, it's hard to avoid him when you type in Sementilli on Google. It's very hard. In fact, when you type in my name, Luigi Sementilli,
Starting point is 00:07:11 the first thing that comes up is his profile. He was my mother's son. Fabio and Mirella, a brother and sister. Fabio and Mirella grew up together in Toronto, Canada. Everything was about our brother. Sometimes she'd have get-togethers and she'd be like, Fabio, what do you want to eat?
Starting point is 00:07:30 He says, Ma, make your lasagna. And we all had to eat lasagna because that's what Fabio wanted to eat. I didn't have a lot of connections in the industry. I did have my sister who was a stylist, but you know how it is with your sister and all that. Fabio and his sister started out as hairdressers. I would always try to run a really elegant salon, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:52 a salon where there's like a little bit of peace or oasis. And my brother was like, oh, chill. Like, hey, how's it going? Ten years after they started working together, Fabio divorced Luigi's mom. He married for the second time in 1997 to Monica, a customer and makeup artist. Now this is my chance to show Canada what I've got. What attracted him to her? She was incredibly charming. She was attractive.
Starting point is 00:08:22 Good looking woman. Right? Not bad, yeah. Definitely goodlooking woman. Right? Not bad, yeah. Definitely a good-looking woman. Restaurateur Joe Mercurio grew up with Fabio. We were kids, grew up together on the same street. And I called his name out, and his name was Ravioli to me. Ravioli.
Starting point is 00:08:37 Ravioli, yeah. I probably didn't know his name. Joe was best man at Fabio's wedding to Monica. The wedding was incredible. We were dancing right to the very end. We saw their relationship as a love story. Fabio was also in love with his career. He and his sister, Mirella, were getting famous. Hey, sis, you ready to go?
Starting point is 00:09:01 Hi, Fabio, yeah. They became what's known in the beauty business as platform artists. This is a five and a half inch offset. Experts who demonstrate techniques. I can do some good cutting. Motivate other professional hairdressers and compete internationally.
Starting point is 00:09:18 We've got Fabio Cimitelli and we've got Mirella Rota. Thank you, it was a privilege and an honor to be out here. We would travel the world. We would be in Russia or in Germany or in Italy, and we would be up on podiums winning gold medals, just like being on the top of the world, feeling fabulous. This award means the world to us. In 2011, Fabio's charismatic personality got him promoted to an executive position at the beauty giant Wella. I'd love to recommend something new.
Starting point is 00:09:51 He moved away from his sister Mirella in Toronto. Thank you, Mirella. And took his whole family to L.A. Oh, there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas. Fabio and his wife Monica settled into a life most of us can only dream about. Living here in a million dollar home. He drove a Porsche. Yeah. What man doesn't want a Porsche in Los Angeles? You're absolutely right. He and Monica were raising two teenage daughters, Jessica and Isabella. My own family unit is the most, most dear to me.
Starting point is 00:10:32 Fabio led a charmed life... Peace. ...until that day on January 23, 2017. Tuesday morning, my wife tells me there's a phone call early in the morning from L.A., and I'm in disbelief, saying, what, what, what? And then when I went online, I saw the police in front of the house. Fabio's attackers had ransacked his bedroom and stolen his Porsche. Suspicion immediately fell to the knock-knock burglars,
Starting point is 00:11:13 those gangs of crooks who hit fancy L.A. homes, mostly stealing jewelry and cash from celebrities. They even hit the other Fabio, the cover page guy from all those romance novels. Pretty much took whatever was there. I worked gangs for a long time, and these guys are gang members. I have a couple of videos to show you. Okay.
Starting point is 00:11:39 Los Angeles Police Department Detective Bill Dunn has hours of videotape of the knock-knock burglars in action, all over wealthy Los Angeles neighborhoods. This one comes from a home just seven miles from Fabio's, months after his murder. They seem to know what to look for. Right. They're looking for jewelry. They're looking for cash. Look at him. Yeah. See, he's checking clothes. He's feeling the clothes to see if somebody's put jewelry or cash in some of those pockets. See, now he's seeing that safe. See, and now he tells his buddy, hey, look at what we found. Now look at how many seconds. And
Starting point is 00:12:16 this is a real heavy safe, but they're very determined. They put a lot of effort into it. And it's so heavy, he can't lift the thing, but look at how he's just going to slide that thing out. So they got the safe, that's pay dirt, and off they go. Yep, you see, they're gone. Homicide detectives were hoping that there would be some surveillance video to help them solve Fabio Cimentilli's murder. And there was.
Starting point is 00:12:50 A neighbor had cameras pointed at the street just down the block from Fabio's house. At approximately 4.15 in the afternoon on January 23rd, two individuals were observed jogging towards the victim's residence. Two individuals were observed jogging towards the victim's residence. You can see two guys right here in hoodies running right toward Fabio's. It's the right time of day. And then, 35 minutes later, you can see them make their getaway in Fabio's black Porsche. Turns out, Fabio's house also had a set of outdoor cameras. But when detectives went to look for the video, they were stunned.
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Starting point is 00:16:05 Naveed Saluk is a home video security expert. And while he didn't work on Fabio Cimentilli's home, he set up a high-tech system for us in another house. How many views do you get? Here you got six. You can go to even up to 16, 32, 16, 32. So you can go up there with as many cameras as you want. This is us here. Where is the camera? Oh, is that it there? Yeah, so you got the camera, for example, up there. That's the living room, the bedroom, front door.
Starting point is 00:16:37 This is the backyard. If somebody is, let's say, walking through the backyard trying to get into the house, everything is being surveyed and everything is being recorded. So they can easily go back and see who was passing by. Like, for example, here, that's the front door. Wow. You can see the person.
Starting point is 00:16:55 What controls it? So the camera signal goes to the DVR. Where is that? I got the DVR. It's all being recorded. So this runs the whole shebang? This runs the whole shebang. This is the brain. But without this?
Starting point is 00:17:07 Without this, nothing. This is a similar system to the one Fabio had. Cops should have been able to grab the video and maybe ID the suspects. But when police went to look for the backup video, it was gone. The physical thing, the black box, the DVR, it vanished. And it had been hidden in the garage. You almost had to know where it was to take it. Pete Castellano was
Starting point is 00:17:35 Fabio's colleague. Not knowing who did this, you're thinking, you know, it could have been a specialized team of burglars, right? But wow, professional. This was a professional job. And there was something else. The knock-knocks have never killed anyone. This was new. And people were afraid. We put together a special task force in January 2017.
Starting point is 00:18:05 Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch Englender. And this is your car? This is our volunteer citizens patrol. I'm going to take you down a street that we've had one or two knock-knock burglaries on, and you'll see how quiet this is and how away from the public. This is what they're looking for. Sometimes they'll wear a vest and look like a utility worker or carry a clipboard, so they sort of blend into the neighborhood.
Starting point is 00:18:35 Would she be a possible... Well, yeah, you've got somebody that's wearing headphones and a backpack carrying a clipboard. You want to circle back and kind of give it a look? We can do that. Okay, so this is a clipboard. You want to circle back and kind of give it a look? We can do that. Okay, so this is a great example. She walked up to the door carrying tape, carrying flyers. She's got missing dog posters in her hand.
Starting point is 00:18:54 Really? That's very, very suspicious. They're doing things like that. Want me to ask her? Hi. What are they? Can I have one? Hi. What are they? Can I have one of those? What are these?
Starting point is 00:19:11 Oh. Certified pool pump replacement. Oh. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. While the councilman patrols and the community is on guard, Fabio Cimentilli's family mourned his loss.
Starting point is 00:19:31 Monica took center stage at the memorial. How lucky am I to have lived the greatest love story of all time? The story that people only read about. The story that movies are made of. He was the love of her life, and I couldn't imagine the grief that she was feeling. Elise Blewell was a friend of Monica's. What happened on the day of the murder? That night, at about five-something, I got a text saying,
Starting point is 00:20:02 come to my house, I need you. There were fire trucks outside of her house, and I was like, oh gosh. There was no police, yet it was just the first responders. It was her and her daughters sitting in chairs in a row in their dining room. She just kept saying that he's gone, that I'm not a wife anymore. I just held her. I just held her.
Starting point is 00:20:32 It was so painful, just the weeping, the not being able to breathe. She was beyond devastated, beyond devastated. We must have sat in there for like 10 or 15 minutes, and then the first round of police came and asked us to leave the house and go outside. Had you seen the body? Had you seen... Didn't.
Starting point is 00:21:02 I just wanted to be... the best possible comfort. I didn't know how to comfort that. She couldn't speak in complete sentences until like the fourth day. And as weeks passed with no arrests, Fabio's sister says Monica grew more anxious. The cops weren't saying much of anything, so Monica started calling them every day. What did she want to know? If she was maybe shaking hands with the murderer right now, if she was, I could literally be shaking hands with the murderer of my husband. Overall, upset about the fact that there was no leads.
Starting point is 00:21:45 What did you see that as being? Desperate. Monica may have been desperate and frustrated, but around her people were starting to ask awkward questions. For example, if the knock-knock burglars really were running wild and they were suspects in Fabio's murder, why would Monica and the kids continue to live in that house? It was assumed that it was a couple guys that had, you know, jumped the fence and it was a robbery. I was hearing about break-ins.
Starting point is 00:22:22 I was hearing about home invasions, and I'm thinking that's, I don't know if I, I would stay in the house. I had trouble even walking in that house again. I feared for them. We, I wanted them to have surveillance. I wanted them to have security guards, and she didn't want any of that.
Starting point is 00:22:37 And something else seems strange. The only thing I thought that was unusual is why didn't they take more? Why didn't they take his watch? The suspected burglars left an $8,000 Rolex on Fabio's wrist. As time goes on, you're thinking, was there something that was going on that we didn't know about? To find out more about the Knock Knock Burglars,
Starting point is 00:23:03 join us on Facebook at 48 Hours. These fighters are taking us to the front line, which is at the top of this mountain range. Have you lost family members? Have you lost friends? A developing story, a major twist in a brutal murder that stunned the San Fernando Valley. It was a big secret. Nobody except investigators knew it at the time. But there was blood on the scene that didn't belong to Fabio. That meant they had DNA to work with. We were able to develop forensic evidence.
Starting point is 00:23:59 Some of that was DNA which identified Robert Baker. Robert Baker is a name you will hear a lot from here on out. He had been a racquetball league director at a Los Angeles gym, not far from Fabio's house. That's where Elise met him. How would you describe Rob Baker? He was cool. He was cool. We all really liked him. He was one of those gym guys, you know. Elise played in his league. He was very alpha. He was a very alpha male. There was also kind of a sexually thing about him. There was something sexual about him. You know how some guys
Starting point is 00:24:47 just have this sexual kind of... I don't know, he was very manly. He was in shape, and he was kind of, you know, kept everything, he was in charge. I think I knew that he had been military police. It turns out Rob Baker was a man with quite the colorful past. He'd been in the Army, then he got tangled up in the porn industry.
Starting point is 00:25:14 Elise heard about Rob's movie career from a friend who happened to spot him in an adult film. That's like the kind of gossip you just need to tell someone. Who did you tell? I told Monica. Monica Simontilli, Fabio's wife. Monica was also in Rob Baker's racquetball league. What was her reaction? Well, it was pretty anticlimactic, I'll tell you.
Starting point is 00:25:39 Really? Yeah, because a lot of times when we would have girl talk, she'd get a little prudy, like a little prude. Cops were sure Rob Baker was connected to the murder. After all, they say his DNA was at the crime scene. And as it happened, Baker's DNA had been in the police database for years. Baker was a registered sex offender. Robert Baker has a 1993 conviction out of a Long Beach case. It's for lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. Police say Baker served time for that offense against a 14-year-old girl. But what was his
Starting point is 00:26:20 connection to Fabio's murder? Was Baker a knock-knock burglar? For months, police watched him. They tracked his movements and his phone activity. And they discovered two things. First, he was not one of the knock-knock burglars. And second, he made hundreds of calls and texts to, of all people, Monica Cimentilli. Over the past several months, investigators have developed information and identified Robert Baker, 55 years old, of Canoga Park,
Starting point is 00:27:01 and Monica Cimentilli, 45 years old, of Woodland Hills, who is the wife of our homicide victim, as responsible for his murder. This community in shock. Forty-five-year-old Monica Cimentilli under arrest now on suspicion of murdering her husband and being held without bail. My instant and thorough and complete reaction was, there's no effing way. There's no effing way. She loved him.
Starting point is 00:27:34 He was the love of her life. There was just no way. I was there. She was decimated. 20-some years in my life, she was like a sister. She was a cool aunt to my kids. She was lovable. My whole family felt that way about her.
Starting point is 00:27:57 It's just too painful to think that he loved her so much and that she may have a hand in this is very painful hard to digest in the pacific ocean halfway between peru and new zealand In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn.
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Starting point is 00:29:46 It appeared that the murder had occurred during a home invasion robbery. Monica Cimitelli and Robert Baker were involved in an intimate relationship that has predated the murder and it looks like they were together for approximately a year and a half. So police come to you, oh my God, never in a million years you said would you have imagined this woman to be involved in the murder of your brother. So what convinced you she was involved? Time. A little bit of time. In the beginning, I thought there would be a shadow of a doubt, but then she had no bail, and then the indictment. It's a very detailed outline of the plot to commit murder.
Starting point is 00:30:44 Mary Fulgeniti is a former federal prosecutor. She took a look at the criminal complaint for 48 hours. The charges here are capital murder with special circumstances. And then the second charge here is a conspiracy card for the two of them to commit murder. What is their motive? I mean, beyond wanting to be together, what were they after? It's money. I mean, it's sort of like this is the oldest crime in the book.
Starting point is 00:31:05 I mean, really, it's two lovers obviously wanting to be together and then wanting to get rid of one of the spouses for money, and in here it's a life insurance policy. And he had about approximately $1.6 million life insurance policy that they were hoping to cash in on once he was gone. Police say Monica and Rob tried to stage the murder to make it look like the work of the knock-knock burglars and throw the cops off their trail.
Starting point is 00:31:30 They staged it to be a burglary. You know, they ransacked the master bedroom as if they were looking for something and then stole the Porsche. They say his black Porsche was stolen and used as a getaway car. To begin with, six months before the crime, Monica and Rob allegedly came up with a plan to spy on her husband Fabio. Who do you think the DA believes is the mastermind? Monica.
Starting point is 00:31:55 Why? Monica's the one who, six months before the murder, made sure she had remote access to her surveillance video system. Monica was the one that fed all the information to Baker so that he could have access to the video system. Monica, according to the prosecution, is the one who showed him where the DVR was so that he could remove it from the house. Police say it was Monica who arranged for a company to set up her phone so she could watch a live feed
Starting point is 00:32:22 of the cameras around her house. So this is how it's transferred to the phone. We asked surveillance expert Naveed Salu to demonstrate how that would work. We can just simply download the software and connect to the camera remotely. You connect to the DVR remote and just go on any camera, any of the cameras that you want and view each one. So I can view it? That's right. Could I send this to someone else?
Starting point is 00:32:49 As long as you basically give them the information about the DVR with the password, another person can easily get in and just have the same exact view. According to police, Monica shared everything with Rob Baker. Her password, her IP address, her username, even the instruction manual for the system. On the day of the murder, police say both Monica and Rob were using their phones to monitor the Simintilly home surveillance system.
Starting point is 00:33:20 Is there a way for them to detect when she was logging into the system? Yeah, if they have their phone and they have the information from their phone, they could see her trying to access it. According to the DA, Monica and Rob Baker met here, in a remote corner of the parking lot at a Target store just two miles from her home. It was like something out of a crime movie. just two miles from her home.
Starting point is 00:33:44 It was like something out of a crime movie. They allegedly began to stage an elaborate alibi for Monica, making sure she'd be away from the home and would be seen shopping first at the Target and later at a supermarket. But police say Monica was following the action. All the while monitoring the surveillance video system remotely so she could see what was going on. Detectives allege that both Monica and Baker used the streaming surveillance
Starting point is 00:34:13 to be sure the coast was clear. Police believe Monica actually stayed away from her home until her youngest daughter, 16-year-old Isabella, came home. Isabella discovered her father's body. I can't understand how a human being can inflict pain to their children. It's counter nature and it's something that I can never understand. What's the most damning evidence against them? Yeah, with regard to Baker, they've got a smoking gun.
Starting point is 00:34:49 They've got his DNA at the scene of the crime, and that DNA happens to be blood. With regard to Monica, they don't have a smoking gun. They don't have her at the scene of the crime, and they don't have her, you know, obviously involved in the physical act of murder. So they've got only circumstantial evidence against her. Remember, Monica was clearly not home when Fabio was murdered, and she was outspoken in her grief for him. He aspired to be the best person. He has given us a condition of love
Starting point is 00:35:17 and made all our lives an adventure. She also went on social media, putting up pictures and posts. But according to police, that was all for show. They say at the very same time she was posting those messages, Monica was, quote, having sexual relations with Robert Baker in a Las Vegas hotel room, unquote. hotel room, unquote. It confuses us, thinking about how this could be possible, feeling deceived. But Fabio's sister thinks there's more to the story. How lucky am I to have lived the greatest love story of all time. A story that people only read about. A story that movies are made of.
Starting point is 00:36:27 Thank you so much. You had an executive husband. You had two beautiful daughters. You had a grown-up stepson. You had a beautiful home. You didn't work. You had cleaning ladies. You'd pool people. You had cars, money, you had it all. She took away so much. We don't know who else to blame. Morella thinks there may have been some clues about Monica that just about everyone missed. It begins with the move to Los Angeles.
Starting point is 00:37:10 Fabio was definitely becoming the big daddy. Fabio was definitely growing and his personality was getting a lot bigger and she kind of took a little bit more of a step back. He'd be like, what are you wearing your hair like that for? And she'd be like, well, what's wrong with my hair? And he's like, no, I don't like your hair like that. Let's do it like that. And she would sit there and let him do it.
Starting point is 00:37:32 Really? Yeah. Monica shared that she wasn't entirely happy in L.A. I've had conversation with Monica where she felt that way. Of course, Fabio was 100% into building his relationship with Wella but for Monica she said she was a bit lonely. It couldn't have helped that Fabio was on the road all the time with a big new social life. Fabio was a very worldly individual for obvious reasons. He traveled quite a bit. He saw a lot. He had an incredible capacity of connecting with people. That's what made him incredibly special,
Starting point is 00:38:08 is his capacity to connect. I think it's time for a hug. Yeah. Not to mention he was incredibly charming, so imagine the individual that he was. I want to say thank you to... Monica stopped working. Her kids were growing up, and Morella began to notice changes just weeks before Fabio's murder. You went out to L.A. The one thing that I noticed when I was there, I noticed she was drinking a lot more, and she was smoking a lot more, and she wasn't cooking as much, and I know she loved cooking. How much more was she drinking? What was normal drinking? Let's say between five and nine o'clock she'd have a glass of wine. So was it earlier in the day? Yeah as early as 11 o'clock. That was a signal to you something was wrong. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:03 And then two days before he was murdered, Fabio announced he was going on a boys-only 50th birthday golf trip. All I want for my 50th birthday is to golf with my buddies at Pebble Beach. It's a dream come true for me. And he said, I'm sorry, girls. No girls this time. I love you. But this is something I want to do with the guys.
Starting point is 00:39:35 And there may have been other hints. Two years before Fabio's death, Monica apparently confided her unhappiness with the marriage to a friend. She shared something with my wife that I thought, well, that's interesting. What was that? One night at dinner, she just said, I don't like it here. I don't like the U.S. I want to go back to Canada. I'll leave and stay behind. Without her husband?
Starting point is 00:40:00 Without her husband. But what Fabio's friends and family found really strange looking back was something Monica did right after Fabio's murder. Monica invited her alleged lover and co-conspirator Rob Baker to join the mourners. You did meet him. I did. Where? Um, on the Saturday, there was a wake at the house. And then about a half an hour later, I saw her back outside again. The drink, smoking, and talking to this guy. One guest even snapped these pictures of Monica and Rob. You can just make out a bandage on Baker's finger.
Starting point is 00:40:47 Luigi noticed the bandage too. Robert and Monica were in the corner, talking to each other, sort of away from the party, and that he had bandages on his hands. Monica's friend Elise tried to make sense of it all. She imagined dozens of scenarios. Rob needed money, and Monica, you know, had money, and Rob probably seduced her and messed with her mind
Starting point is 00:41:15 and convinced her, and she was... Wrapped up. Caught up in this, and we had all sorts of theories. Monica and Robert Baker are currently in custody in Los Angeles. They both have pled not guilty. As of now, they are being tried together. Calling a case of people versus Robert Baker and Monica Semantellielli monica's lawyer leonard levine mr levine the only relevant question is whether or not my client had anything to do with the death of her husband and that she adamantly denies and there's one more loose end in all of this
Starting point is 00:42:00 police say there was a third person involved in the murder. Remember that video of the joggers hidden by hoodies? Police say one of them is Rob Baker. They believe the other person is an associate of his, but they haven't found him yet. In the meantime, Fabio's friends and family are left to grieve. I just know that my friend, my dear friend, my best friend, is no longer available to me and I to him. So what do you do now? I say a prayer almost every night, to be honest with you.
Starting point is 00:42:43 Praying for what? Praying that somehow he's still smiling or tries to put a smile on his face. I want him to smile again. I want him to smile again. Most of all, I want people to understand how great he was, that he was a great man, and that he deserved a lot better than what he got. As for Mirella, she just keeps remembering back to the time Fabio and Monica moved to Los Angeles.
Starting point is 00:43:18 Did she make a promise to your mother? Yeah. When? She told my mother that she was going to take care of my brother before they left for Los Angeles. My mom said, you take care of my son. She says, don't worry
Starting point is 00:43:33 Maria, I'm going to take care of him. The knock-knock burglars continue to hit homes in Los Angeles. The trial of Monica Cementilli and Robert Baker is expected to be later this year. To see more of Fabio Cementilli doing what he loved go to 48hours.com If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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