Ex-Porn Actor Killed Celebrity Hairdresser: Why He’s Defending the Lover Accused of Orchestrating It

Fabio Sementilli was found stabbed to death on Jan. 23, 2017 in the backyard of his Woodland Hills, Calif. home as he was watching television.

The 49-year-old Canadian hair executive, known as “Big Daddy” by his friends and family, was attacked from behind, suffering seven stab wounds to the neck, chest and thigh. His femoral and carotid arteries were cut.

Prosecutors say his wife, Monica Sementilli, concocted a plan with her lover Robert Baker, a convicted sex offender and ex-porn-actor-turned-racquetball instructor, to kill Fabio to collect his $1.6 million life insurance money.

But Baker, who has admitted to the killing, took the stand recently, he told a Los Angeles jury that Monica had nothing to do with her husband’s death.

“I murdered him because I wanted her,” Robert Baker testified, the Los Angeles Times reported. “She had nothing to do with it.”

Baker entered a no contest plea to killing Fabio in 2023 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He claimed that Monica was not aware of the plan to murder Fabio, the Times reported.

Prosecutors allege Baker and his accomplice Christopher Austin, both wearing hoodies, jogged up to the couple’s Woodland Hills home, snuck onto the property and attacked Fabio while he was home alone in the backyard.

After the vicious attack, Baker and Austin ransacked the couple’s bedroom and removed the DVR from the garage where the home security footage was stored. They then fled in Fabio’s 2008 Porsche 911, which was found abandoned about five miles away two days later.

Austin, who previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, testified that Monica had left the door of their home unlocked for them the day of the killing and that Baker had told him she wanted Fabio “gone,” per the Times.

“Everything he did he did after he got a text message, which told me he was talking to her via text message,” Austin said, according to the Times. “I did not hear him talk to her on the phone … but everything happened in sequence.”

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After the killing, Baker testified that he didn’t talk to Monica for a while but they started up again after they met at a bar.

“I never told her we killed her husband,” he testified, according to the Times.

At first, Los Angeles police believed his murder was the result of a home invasion burglary gone awry. But soon, their focus moved closer to Baker, who cut his finger during the attack. His DNA was later found in the couple’s home and Fabio’s Porsche.

They also zeroed in on Monica, who allegedly began pressuring both the life insurance company and police about her husband’s policy, demanding to know why it was taking so long to get the payout within days of Fabio’s death.

Almost five months after the murder, police arrested the couple and charged them with murder, with the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and financial gain.