Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - She Had the Perfect Hollywood Life...UNTIL // The Monica Sementilli Murder Story

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Monica Sementilli masterminded the 2017 murder of her husband, Fabio Sementilli, a prominent Los Angeles celebrity hairstylist and beauty company executive. Monica conspired with her secret lover, Robert Louis Baker, to kill her husband in order to collect on a life insurance policy.

So this entitled woman has a great life. Her well-known and respected husband pays for everything. So why does she want him dead? Now, the woman's name is Monica, and Monica's 44 when all this starts, and she's living in Los Angeles, California. And Monica, she's got a lot going for her. She lives in a big house, she drives a nice truck, she has a cleaning staff, someone who cleans her pool,

a membership to an upscale fitness club, and she has all that because her husband is rich, and well known. Now her husband is this guy, Fabio. And Fabio is a hairstylist and he is an icon in the beauty world. Like he's done hair for a few major Hollywood movies and even for some famous celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Russell Crow and Jennifer Love Hewitt. I mean you get the point. He's a big deal in that world. And apparently he's a really great guy. But regardless of how great he is, and the fact that they've been married for 20 years, and the fact that they have kids together, Monica doesn't want to be with him anymore.

But she won't get a divorce. She refuses to, because then she'd have to give up this luxury lifestyle that she's now comfortable in. But one day in 2016, her whole life changes. Because she goes to a fitness club and she signs up to play racquetball. And there she meets this guy, Rob Baker. And Rob Baker is the racquetball league director there. And Monica thinks Rob Baker's kind of fine, and he's into her too.

And pretty quickly, they start hooking up and having an affair behind her husband's back. And at some point during this affair, Monica decides that she wants out of her marriage completely. And we know she's not going to get a divorce. But if her husband were to die, then she'd get around $1.6 million in life insurance payments. So she decides that's what's going to happen. She's going to have her well-loved, well-respected husband killed. Now, obviously, she can't commit this murder herself, so she goes and asks Rob Baker if he'll do it. Now, Rob Baker, he's an interesting guy, to say the least.

He's a former porn actor, so that's fun. But he's also a registered sex offender. And I don't know all the details in this, but it involves lewd acts with a minor, and it got him thrown in prison for a while. Not to mention that that minor was his 14-year-old stepdaughter. And once he got out of prison, he married that stepdaughter for a period of time. So yeah, he's not the most moral guy in the world. So anyway, so when Monica asks him if he could kill her husband, Rob Baker's like, all right.

Now from here, he goes and he recruits this other goon to help him out. Goon's name is Chris. And so Rob Baker and Chris, they map out this entire hit. They're gonna show up and do it when Fabio is out on the back patio because Fabio sits out there every single day to take his work calls. And from here, Monica gives Rob Baker the passcode to the home security system so that he can access the security cameras remotely, so that he can see where they're located in the house, and he can also see what blind spots they have, and it also lets him confirm when Fabio is home alone. Then, on the day of the hit, Monica and Fabio are at home, and Monica leaves to go run some errands because she needs an alibi.

But, on her way out, she leaves the door unlocked. That way, Rob Baker and Chris can get in. Once she leaves, she messages Rob Baker to let him know that it's go time. Then she goes to a local target, and she watches a live feed of the security cameras to make sure the whole plan goes down properly. A bit later, Rob Baker and Chris arrive at the house. And they go inside and they sneak through the place. And just like Monica planned, Fabio is out back on the patio sitting in a chair completely alone. And both Rob Baker and Chris have a knife.

And boom, they ambush him and they start stabbing him over and over again. And sadly, Fabio dies. while Monica is at Target looking at her phone watching all of this play out through the cameras. After that, they go through the house and they start tearing things up because they're trying to make this look like a burglary gone wrong. And they're able to steal about $11,000 worth of cash and some other valuables. Then they go into the garage and they rip the DVR box off the wall

and they steal it because this has the recordings of any security footage on it. Then they steal Fabio's Porsche and they leave. This is actually security footage of them driving away. And about one minute goes by and Fabio and Monica's daughter comes home and she goes out onto the back patio and she sees the body and she calls 911. Shortly after, Monica returns home from her supposed errands and she, of course, pretends to be completely shocked. Later, police arrive, and they start investigating. And to them, this all seems like a robbery gone wrong. Then, later that night, Monica is on the phone with Fabio's son from his first marriage,

and she starts hitting him up with questions about Fabio's life insurance policy. Talking about when is she going to get the money? A few days later, before Fabio's viewing service is even held, she starts calling up the insurance company and pressuring them to give her the 1.6. million dollar insurance payout. Now, during all this, police are still investigating, and they find some of the killer's blood at the scene. But that's still waiting on the DNA test results to come back.

So right now, they don't have enough to make any arrests or anything like that. While Monica and Rob Baker, they don't seem to be worried about this at all. In fact, during Fabio's funeral service, Monica sneaks off somewhere and she texts Rob Baker nude picks of herself. So it seems like if Monica and Rob Baker can just keep playing it cool, that they'll actually be able to get away with all this. Legendary has arrived at Alberta with BetMGM Sportsbook. Sign up to unlock access to hundreds of pregame and live betting options for all your

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1.11.ca. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with the Alberta Eye Gaming Corporation. Standard message and data rates may apply. Until. Until Fabio's memorial. See, Fabio had a couple of memorial services because he had friends and family in different locations. But one of his memorial services is held at his house in Los Angeles, and a bunch of his friends and family show up. And for whatever reason, Rob Baker also.

shows up. And throughout the gathering, he and Monica are talking, and people can, they can tell that these two are kind of close. And people start wondering who this guy is, and they're like kind of giving him the side eye. So, one of the neighbors, low-key, starts taking pictures of him. And later, this neighbor sends those pictures to the LAPD, asking them to look into this guy because he seems really suspicious. So police, they're looking at these photos of Rob Baker, and they notice that he has a bandage on his left index finger, because apparently he had accidentally cut himself while he was stabbing Fabio, which left some of his own blood at the crime scene. And so police, they start thinking, I wonder if this guy is the killer. Like, did he cut his

own hand during the murder? And so eventually, the DNA test results come back for the blood that they found at the crime scene, and it is, in fact, a match for Rob Baker, whose T&A was already in the database because, like I said, he's a registered sex offender. So now police are on to him and Monica. Meanwhile, only weeks after her husband's murder, Monica is out here having a great time. Like, she's still together with Rob Baker, and they're going out to bars and comedy clubs, and they take a vacation to Las Vegas, and Monica is paying for all of it, because, you know, she's got money now.

But eventually, police have enough evidence, and so, bam, they arrest Monica. Here's her mugshot. And bam, they arrest Rob Baker. Here's his mugshot. And much, much later, bam, they finally find and arrest Chris. Here's a picture of him in court. And so Chris takes a plea deal and he gets sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. Rob Baker pleads no contest and he gets life in prison.

While Monica goes to trial, she's found guilty and she also gets life in prison.