Prosecutor lays out case against woman accused of plotting to kill prominent LA hair stylist

ByTERRI VERMEULEN KEITH City News Service logo
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Wife of slain LA hair stylist didn't plot his killing, attorney says
A woman is charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with the stabbing death of her celebrity hair stylist husband, Fabio Sementilli, in his Woodland Hills home in 2017.

LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- A defense attorney acknowledged Wednesday that a woman who is on trial in a murder case had been involved in an extramarital affair, but told jurors that she was not involved in any plot with her lover to kill her husband at the couple's Woodland Hills home.

Monica Sementilli, now 53, is charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with the stabbing death of her 49-year-old husband, Fabio Sementilli, in his back yard on Jan. 23, 2017, shortly before the couple was set to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary.

The murder charges include the special circumstances of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait.

Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told jurors during the second day of the prosecution's opening statement that Sementilli "destroyed her family" and "was willing to risk everything for (her lover) Robert Baker and some money," while defense lawyer Blair Berk said that the evidence will show that the charges are "untrue."

Baker, now 62, pleaded no contest in July 2023 to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and admitted to the two special circumstance allegations. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole -- the same sentence that Sementilli could face if she is convicted as charged.

A third defendant, Christopher Austin, who was arrested late last year following a lengthy investigation by Los Angeles police, pleaded guilty earlier this month to second-degree murder. The now 39-year-old man agreed to testify truthfully in exchange for a 16-year-to-life state prison term.

Sementilli's attorney told jurors early on in her opening statement that her client was having a sexual relationship with Baker without the knowledge of her husband, a prominent hairdresser. She said Sementilli probably made the "most fatal mistake of her life" when she entered into the extramarital affair after meeting Baker at a gym where the former military policeman -- whom Berk described as "charming" and "manipulative" - coached racquetball.

But the defense attorney said Baker decided to take things into his own hands and kill Sementilli's husband without any involvement from her after she made it clear that she had no interest in leaving her husband.

"Her sexuality, her choice ... to have an affair has nothing to do with wanting her husband dead," Berk said, telling jurors that Baker started to "formulate a plan to kill Monica's husband."

Sementilli had "absolutely no reason, no desire that she would have ever wanted her husband, Fabio, to be dead," the defense lawyer told jurors. She described Sementilli and her husband as "each other's best friends."

Berk said there was "no financial motive" for Sementilli to want her husband dead, saying that she was not the sole beneficiary on the life insurance policy her husband had through his employer.

The defense attorney said Sementilli would have "been far better off with Fabio alive and thriving and not gone" and that she could have instead divorced him.

Sementilli's lawyer described her client as facing "real devastation" when her husband was killed, and told jurors that her client "sought comfort" from Baker while having "no idea that Robert Baker had done the awful thing that he did."

The Los Angeles Police Department quickly learned that Baker's blood had been found inside the family's home after the killing and that he was having an affair with Sementilli, prompting surveillance units to follow them and detectives to "set all of their sights" on her, Berk told jurors.

She noted that Sementilli has "steadfastly maintained that she is not guilty of these charges" since she was arrested about 7 1/2 years ago.

In her opening statement last Friday, the prosecutor told jurors that Sementilli was the "mastermind" behind her husband's killing and was the only one who knew the narrow time frame when he would be alone at the family's home.

"... He had no idea what's going on behind his back ... He never saw what was coming," the prosecutor said of the victim, saying that one of the couple's two daughters found Baker sleeping in Sementilli's bed on one occasion.

The woman sent hundreds of naked photos of herself to Baker during their affair, in which they were "also swinging with other people" while she was simultaneously "living two lives," according to Silverman.

"She was the mastermind," the deputy district attorney said, telling jurors that the slaying wouldn't have happened without Sementilli.

The defendant let her 16-year-old daughter return home first, where the teenager discovered her father's bloody body and made a frantic 911 call, while the victim's wife tried to distance herself from the killing, the deputy district attorney said.

After her husband's killing, Sementilli posed as a "grieving widow" while continuing her torrid affair with Baker, leading her two teenage daughters to question why she was out so late at night, Silverman said.

Sementilli subsequently behaved as if there was no danger after the killing of her husband, a Canadian celebrity hairstylist-turned-Wella company executive, and left her teenage daughters home alone while she went out with Baker, according to the prosecutor.

The prosecutor showed the jury a photo of Sementilli's "own words written in lipstick" on a mirror - "Mrs. Baker," and said the defendant also used "Mrs. Baker" in several jailhouse letters she subsequently wrote to her co-defendant while behind bars.

"She and Baker decided Fabio was getting in the way," the prosecutor said, explaining that financial gain was one of the motives in the case.

Sementilli used an encrypted app to communicate with Baker, the prosecutor said.

Sementilli's attorney countered in her opening statement that the evidence would show that it was "impossible for Monica Sementilli to have orchestrated the murder of her husband."

Sementilli and Baker were arrested by Los Angeles police in June 2017 and charged with murdering her husband, with a conspiracy charge subsequently being added against them. The two were indicted just over two months later on the same charges, and have remained behind bars.

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