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Rich Husband Found Murdered After Discovering Wife’s Affair · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's January 23rd, 2017, and we're in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Picture the quintessential Southern California luxury suburb, right? We are
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: talking massive gated driveways, pristine sun-drenched lawns, and that kind
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of absolute insulated quiet that, you know, costs millions of
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: dollars just to live in.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Right. It's the pinnacle of the Los Angeles dream. It's
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: designed to keep the chaos of the city completely out. Exactly.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So... A 16-year-old girl named Isabella is coming home on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a winter afternoon. She has just finished up a job
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: interview at a local Italian sandwich shop, and she's expecting
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: to just walk into the warmth of her family home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: A completely normal teenager's afternoon.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally normal. Instead, she opens the door leading from
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the garage to the kitchen and realizes the walls are
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: covered in blood.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, God.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: She finds her father out back by the pool. He
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: has been brutally stabbed to death.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: The visual contrast at that moment is just shattering. You
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: have this idyllic, heavily secured fortress of wealth, and right
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: in the center of it is this scene of chaotic,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: close-quarters violence.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It's horrifying.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And looking at the initial details, the missing luxury sports car,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the ransacked drawers, it immediately broadcasts a specific narrative. It
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: looks like a random, horrific home invasion gone wrong. You know,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: A nightmare scenario where the outside world just violently spills
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: over those gates.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But the reality of what happened in that backyard wasn't
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: random at all. You're joining us for a deep dive
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: into an incredibly dark, deeply unsettling true story. We are
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: unpacking the murder of a Hollywood celebrity hairstylist. And we're
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: doing it not just as a tragic event, but as
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a lens into two very specific realities.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the layers here are complex.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: First, we are looking at how the blinding illusion of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a perfect life can hide deeply rooted, almost incomprehensible greed.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And second, we're exploring why the concept of the modern
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: perfect crime is practically impossible in an age where our
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: devices track, well, our every breath.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: When we look at violent conspiracies, our instinct is to
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: view them through the logic of a movie plot, right?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Where criminal masterminds execute these flawless plans.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Like Ocean's Eleven, but for murder.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the reality of this story shows that human error,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: emotional volatility, and digital metadata leave a trail that is
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: incredibly loud.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So loud. The man at the center of this tragedy
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: is Fabio Cementilli. He was 49 years old, and to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: understand the weight of what was taken from him, you
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: really have to understand the life he built. He was
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the quintessential hard-earned success story.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: A self-made man in every sense. Right.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: An Italian immigrant who grew up in Toronto, Canada. He
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't handed a silver spoon or a trust fund or anything.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: He actually dropped out of DeLau College High School when
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he was just 17 because he knew exactly what he
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to do with his life.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: He had that singular focus. Yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: By the time he was 19 in 1987, he got
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: his hairstyling certification and literally opened a salon in a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: basement with his sister.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Which, I mean, starting a business in a basement requires
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: a very specific kind of grit. It's grounded. Humble beginning
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: that forces you to build your reputation client by client,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: haircut by haircut.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It's all word of mouth at that point.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And Fabio possessed this relentless drive. He didn't just
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: stay in that basement. He leveraged his talent, his charisma
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: to transition onto major Hollywood film sets.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And we are talking about styling hair for massive international stars.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Jackie Chan, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Lopez.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Huge names. But the truly fascinating pivot in his career
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: is that he didn't stop at being a celebrity stylist.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: He understood the business of beauty.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He scaled up massively on the corporate side. By 2007,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: he's a creative director in Canada for Wella, which is
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest cosmetics companies in the world.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: A massive jump. Yeah.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And then by 2010, he gets promoted to the North
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: American Professional Division. He eventually becomes the vice president of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: education at Cody Professional Beauty. This guy, who started in
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a freezing basement, was managing more than 500 employees, overseeing
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: massive creative studios in Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Operating at that executive level, especially in a creative field,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: requires an immense amount of emotional intelligence. You're managing 500
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: creative professionals across three major international cities.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: It's like herding cats.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: It really is. That demands interpersonal skills, deep patience, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: just natural leadership. And that aligns perfectly with how the
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: industry viewed him. He was known affectionately by his peers
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: and employees as Big Daddy.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I love that nickname so much.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It paints such a vivid picture of a guy who
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: just walks into a room and takes care of people.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It speaks to a protective instinct.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: He was a mentor. He brought this jovial, good-natured approach
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to a corporate environment that can honestly often be incredibly cutthroat.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the beauty industry is notoriously tough.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: It is. In a 2015 interview with American Salon, just
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: two years before he died, he was asked about his priorities.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And he said, for me, the first thing is my
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: family comes first. My parents taught me that. I have
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: sisters who I adore. And my own family unit is
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: the most dear to me.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And in that same conversation, he talked about sitting in
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: his backyard, the very backyard in Woodland Hills we just mentioned,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: looking around and asking himself what he wanted his legacy
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to be. He said he wanted to be remembered for
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the relationships he built, for how he made people feel
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: in a positive light.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It is. It's devastating to hear those words, knowing that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: specific piece of property would become his final resting place.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: There is a stark contrast developing here, though. Fabio possessed
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: a genuine understanding of the immigrant hustle. He valued the grind,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: the loyalty, the relationships. But as he climbed the corporate ladder,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: when he moved his family to Woodland Hills in 2011—
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: immersing them in the superficial glamour of Los Angeles wealth.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: He valued the hard work required to achieve the status,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: but the environment he brought his family into increasingly valued
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: the status above all else.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: It's like Fabio spent his entire life building this beautiful,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: incredibly sturdy house, brick by brick. He laid the foundation
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in that basement in Toronto. He built the walls through
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: decades of grinding on movie sets and in corporate boardrooms.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: A true labor of love.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He finishes this beautiful mansion only to have someone
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: else move in, completely admire the luxury of the house,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but deeply resent the builder.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: That's a profound way to look at it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: The absolute tragedy is that this was a man whose
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: entire professional life was dedicated to making other people look
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and feel good. And he ended up being targeted by
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the people sleeping under his own roof.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: He created an entire ecosystem of privilege around them. Housekeepers, gardeners,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: a pool guy. Exotic luxury vacations to Hawaii, Cabo, St. Thomas.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The dream life.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He built a fortress to protect his family from
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: the struggles he faced early on. But the breach of
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: that fortress came from the inside, which brings us to
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the meticulously orchestrated timeline of January 23, 2017.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Let's lay out the players in the house. Fabio and
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: his wife of 20 years, Monica, had two daughters together.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And Fabio had a son from a previous marriage. Isabella,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the 16-year-old we mentioned earlier, is finishing up her day. Right.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: The one who found him. Yes.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: She had been at school, went to her job interview
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: at the sandwich shop, which, by the way, tells you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Fabio was actively passing on that immigrant work ethic. She
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't just relying on his VP salary. She was out
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: there getting a job.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: It's a critical detail about his parenting style. He was
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: trying to instill consequence and value in an environment that
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: often lacks both. You don't see a lot of kids
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: from Woodland Hills mansions working at local sandwich shops. Exactly.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So Isabella finishes her interview and intends to head straight home.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: But her phone rings. It's her mother, Monica.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And this is where it starts. Yeah.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Monica tells Isabella that her prescription eyeglasses are ready to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: be picked up and instructs her to go run that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: errand before coming.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Back to the house.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: This deliberately delays Isabella's return to Woodland Hills.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: The psychological weight of that specific phone call is tremendous.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Just staggering when you look at it in hindsight. It's sick.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It really is. It is a mother manipulating her own
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: teenage daughter's schedule, essentially keeping her out of the house
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: just long enough for a brutal murder to occur, but
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: ensuring she would be the one to eventually walk into
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the aftermath. She weaponized an everyday errand.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Just incredibly cold. Because of the detour for the glasses,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Isabella doesn't pull into her driveway until around 4.15 p.m.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: And the timing here is crucial. Right.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: The first thing she notices is that her dad's black
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Porsche is missing from the garage. She punches in the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: keypad code, the garage door rolls up, and she walks
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: toward the interior door that leads to the kitchen. There's
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a large window looking out toward the backyard pool area.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: And that is the exact threshold where the idyllic suburban
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: life ends forever for this family.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Through the glass, she sees her dad out by the pool.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: At first, you know, her brain tries to normalize it.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: She thinks he's just sitting outside, relaxing.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Your brain will do anything to avoid accepting trauma.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But as she pushes the door open and steps
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: into the house, the reality hits her. The kitchen is
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a bloodbath. There is blood on the floor, smeared on
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the walls, on the doorframe. She runs out to the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: backyard and finds him slumped over, suffering from catastrophic injuries.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Unimaginable for a 16-year-old.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: She dials 911, and the sheer terror in her voice
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: on that tape is haunting. She's asking the operator, Dad,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: will you die?
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It is the most visceral, raw reaction to trauma imaginable.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: And while she is on the phone, desperately trying to
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: comprehend what is happening to her father, Monica, her mother,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: suddenly arrives at the house.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Right on cue.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: But she doesn't come through the front door or pull
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: into the driveway. She comes walking in through the backyard.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Which is so weird. They attempt to resuscitate him, but
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: the injuries are too severe. Paramedics arrive just after 5 p.m.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and pronounce Fabio dead at the scene. He had been
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: stabbed multiple times in the face, neck, and upper body
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in a frenzied, violent attack.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a clean hit. It was messy.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: The LAPD arrives, they secure the sprawling property, and they
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: immediately have to formulate a working theory. And the most
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: obvious narrative staring them in the face is a home
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: invasion that escalated into a homicide.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: We have to contextualize what Los Angeles was experiencing in
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: 2017 because it plays right into this theory. Affluent areas
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: like Woodland Hills, Encino, and Sherman Oaks were being aggressively
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: targeted by organized burglary rings known locally as the Knock
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Knock Burglars.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing about those on the news constantly.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: They were everywhere. These were highly sophisticated, coordinated crews that
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: would target high-end homes during the day when wealthy residents
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: weren't typically at work.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: The M.O.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Was simple. Knock on the front door to see if
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: anyone answers.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And if they do, you just pretend you're a delivery
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: driver or something.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But if the house is empty, they break in
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: through a rear slider, grab high-value, easily-fenced items like jewelry,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: designer bags, and cash, and they are gone in under
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: five minutes.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: The scene at the Samantilli house seemed to fit this
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: pattern perfectly. When detectives start knocking on neighbors' doors and
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: pulling CCTV footage, they find a camera that captures two
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: hooded figures running onto the property.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Classic burglary crew behavior.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Inside the house, the master bedroom is tossed, drawers are
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: pulled out, clothes are thrown on the floor. The luxury
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: black Porsche's gone. And, perhaps most impressively, the killers had
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the logistical foresight to locate and steal the entire physical
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: DVR hard drive for the house's internal security camera system.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: It looks like the work of an incredibly professional crew.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: They know where the central nervous system of the security
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: apparatus is, they neutralize it, they steal the high-end getaway vehicle,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: and they toss the house for valuables. It is textbook
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: burglary staging.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: But the staging falls apart the second you apply logic
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to it. If you look at the crime scene, there
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: is one glaring, almost ridiculous flaw that completely derails the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: burglary theory. When Isabella found her father bleeding out by
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the pool, he was wearing an $ 8, 000 Rolex watch on
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: his wrist.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: And the killers left it completely untouched.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Which is insane. Let's really break this down. If you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: are a professional burglar looking for a quick, lucrative score,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: why would you take a massive, highly trackable sports car
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: with a VIN number and a GPS... and a heavy,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: cumbersome DVR hard drive, but leave behind an easily pocketable,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: entirely untraceable $ 8, 000 piece of jewelry.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: It contradicts the entire motive of a burglary.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: It makes zero logical sense. It would be like robbing
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a bank, stealing the security cameras, hijacking the marked armored truck,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: but leaving a stack of untraceable $ 100 bills sitting right.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: On the counter. That's a great analogy.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: The contradiction exposes a fascinating vulnerability in criminal psychology. When
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: amateurs attempt to stage a crime scene, they're essentially play-acting.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: They're doing what they think looks like a crime. Exactly.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: They act out what they think a burglary looks like,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: based on movies and television tropes. Toss the drawers, steal
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the fancy car. But they fail to understand the practical
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: risk-reward behavior of an actual professional burglar. A real burglar
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: wants high value, low weight, untraceable items.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: A Rolex is perfect for that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: A luxury watch is the holy grail of a daytime break-in.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Leaving an $ 8, 000 watch on a victim's wrist immediately signals
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: to an experienced homicide detective that this event was never
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: about stealing property. It was about eliminating a human being.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: So the tossed drawers and the missing Porsche were just
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a terrible, messy magic trick designed to distract the LAPD.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And while the killers thought they were being incredibly clever
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: by stealing the security DVR to eliminate the video evidence,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: they made a catastrophic error in the physical realm.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: The physical realm always gets them.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Always. The untouched Rolex proved it wasn't a robbery. But
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: the identity of the killers came down to a single
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: drop of careless biology.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: The bloody breadcrumb. While forensics teams are combing through the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: chaotic crime scene in the kitchen and the backyard, they
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: swab various bloodstains. And they isolate blood that does not
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: belong to Fabio Cementilli.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: The attacker got injured.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Yep. They run this foreign DNA through CODIS, the national database,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and they get a direct hit. The blood belongs to
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a 54-year-old man named Robert Baker.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Robert Baker's background is a master class in contradictions. And
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: it is absolutely essential to understanding how this violent conspiracy
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: took shape. He was born in Germany and moved to
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the United States when he was three years old.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: He had a military background, right?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: He did. He had a structured military background, serving as
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: a staff sergeant in the Army. But his military career
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: ended in profound disgrace.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: In 1993, he was discharged and criminally convicted for lewd
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and lascivious acts with a minor who tragically happened to
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: be his own stepdaughter. He was a registered sex offender.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And that conviction is the only reason his DNA was
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: sitting in the criminal database waiting to be matched. So
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: you have this former military man now carrying the heavy
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: societal and legal stigma of being a registered sex offender.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Which limits your options severely.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Severely. His employment options are almost non-existent. He's living in
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: a shared house with a roommate, barely making ends meet,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and taking roles in adult films just to generate income.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: But his primary legitimate cover, his day job, is teaching
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: racquetball at an L.A. fitness in Canoga Park.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And geographically, this is crucial. Canoga Park is right there
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: in the San Fernando Valley, physically bordering these incredibly affluent
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods like Woodland Hills.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: The contrast is right there. Yeah.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So you have this guy scraping by, teaching a country
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: club sport to the wealthy elite of Los Angeles, celebrities,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: sports figures, corporate executives, and the Cementilli family.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: The collision of these two socioeconomic worlds is staggering. On
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: one side, you have Fabio and Monica Cementilli living a
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: life of Exotic vacations, massive corporate influence and Hollywood glamour.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: The absolute peak of LA life.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And on the other side, you have Robert Baker, a
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: marginalized figure carrying the weight of a horrific sex offense,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: living with a roommate and doing whatever it takes to
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: survive on the fringes of that wealth.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: The connection between the two of them is chilling. The
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: LAPD discovers that Robert Baker was actually invited to Fabio's wake.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Which is just beyond belief.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Just six days after Fabio is butchered in his own backyard...
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: there are photographs of Robert Baker mingling with the grieving
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: family at the wake. And in those photographs, Robert has
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a visible, fresh bandage on his finger.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: The audacity of that act is difficult to overstate. Attending
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the wake of the man you just murdered, shaking hands
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: with his grieving friends while the very wound you sustained
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: during the violent struggle is visibly bandaged for everyone to see.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: It's psychotic.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: It speaks to a level of sociopathy, arrogance, and detachment
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: that borders on the surreal.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: The police obviously recognize they have their prime suspect. In February,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: they bring Monica in for questioning. They sit her down
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and start casually asking about people who might have visited
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the house, slipping Robert Baker's name into the conversation.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Testing the waters.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Right. And Monica looks the detectives in the eye and lies.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: She claims she only knows him casually from the gym.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: She tells police she doesn't even know his last name.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And she explicitly states he had never, ever been inside
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: their home.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It's a desperate attempt to build a firewall, but it
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: unravels almost instantly.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Because the reality was Monica and Rob were deeply, obsessively entangled.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: They were not casual gym acquaintances. They had been carrying
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: on an intense, highly secretive affair for a full year,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: from January 2016 right up to the murder in January 2017.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: A long-term affair.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And he had absolutely been in the house. In fact,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: their 17-year-old daughter, Jessica... had walked out of a bathroom
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: one morning and found Rob Baker sleeping in Monica's bed.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: The psychological scrambling Monica must have done in that exact
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: moment is intense. Your teenage daughter discovers a strange man
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: in your marital bed.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: When Jessica confronted her, Monica actually tried to excuse it
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: by claiming they had a large party the night before.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Rob wasn't a big drinker, he got too drunk to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: drive home, and he was just sleeping it off. Wow.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Which is such a flimsy, pathetic excuse when you live
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in a massive mansion with multiple empty guest rooms.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: It is flimsy, but in the short term, it functions
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: because children inherently want to trust their parents' narratives. They
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: want to believe the excuse because the alternative destroys their reality.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: But analytically, Monica bringing Robert into that house is a
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: profound violation of the sanctuary Fabio spent his life building.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: It is a literal Trojan horse. Fabio built the walls
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of Troy to keep his family safe, insulated, and comfortable.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And Monica is the one on the inside quietly opening
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the gates in the dead of night.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: She is slowly smuggling the very instrument of her husband's
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: demise right past her own children. She's bringing a registered
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: sex offender, who she is sleeping with, into the bed
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: she shares with her husband under the same roof as her.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: her teenage daughters. The hubris and pure selfishness are blinding.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: It is a Trojan horse. And what's terrifying is that
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: she didn't just open the gates. She actively plotted the invasion.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: You have to ask the fundamental question, why?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Right. What's the motive?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: What drives a woman who seemingly possesses everything society tells
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: us to strive for, financial security, a devoted husband, healthy children,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: a sprawling home, to detonate her life so spectacularly? It's wild.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: The answer lies in a staggeringly cold calculated financial and
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: digital trail.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Let's dig into the context of this marriage and the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: grievance that fueled the greed. Fabio and Monica met back
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: in 1997 in Toronto. She was working as a makeup artist.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: She came into his salon and they fell in love.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: A classic industry romance.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And for a long time, the partnership seemed to work.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: They make the big move to Los Angeles in 2011.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And Monica thoroughly enjoyed the lavish lifestyle, the luxury trips,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the household staff, the status. But somewhere along the line,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a deep, restless dissatisfaction set in.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: It is a classic manifestation of the hedonic treadmill. the luxury,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: the money, the status, it all becomes the baseline. It's
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: no longer special. It's expected.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: It's just normal to her now.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Right. And once the lifestyle ceases to provide a thrill,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: she starts looking for external validation. But what's truly fascinating
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: is how entirely transactional her view of the marriage had become.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: In 2015, her behavior starts escalating. She actually hits on
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: her personal trainer at the gym, a guy named Matt Nurse.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: She downloads photos from his personal social media. actively pursues
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: him and asks him out for drinks.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Very aggressive. Very.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: He turns her down romantically, but she continues to confide
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: in him. She tells Matt she is miserable, that she
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: suspects Fabio is cheating on her, that she feels trapped.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And Matt, applying just basic rational logic, says to her,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: if you're this unhappy, why don't you just get a divorce?
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Her response to that simple question is the skeleton key
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: that unlocks her entire psychological profile.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: She looked at him and said, why throw away 20 years?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: But she wasn't talking about 20 years of emotional connection
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: or shared history. She meant why throw away the lifestyle?
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: She wanted the freedom of being single and the adrenaline
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of an affair, but she absolutely refused to surrender the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: financial benefits and social standing of being Mrs. Fabio Cementilli.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: She wanted to sever the emotional relationship but retain the assets.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Divorce in the state of California is means splitting assets evenly,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: potentially losing the Woodland Hills mansion and adjusting your standard
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: of living drastically.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants to go back to a condo after living
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in a mansion.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Right. Murder, however, particularly when there is a substantial life
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: insurance policy involved, means the surviving spouse inherits everything. And
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Monica was acutely obsessed with that life insurance.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Obsessed is an understatement. When detectives first interviewed her, they
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: naturally asked if Fabio had a life insurance policy, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: she completely denied knowing about one.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Another lie.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: But her actions on the ground told a completely different story.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: On the very night of the murder, while her daughters
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: are in absolute shock and her house is surrounded by
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: crime scene tape, she calls a neighbor named Deborah. Deborah
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: later told investigators that Monica was freaking out about money.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: She was panicking that the funds wouldn't be available to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: her immediately.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Her husband's blood is literally still on the floor of
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: her kitchen. And all she can think about is how
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: fast the check is going to clear. The level of
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: cognitive detachment is terrifying. She has completely dehumanized Fabio, reducing
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: him to a payout.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: It gets even colder. Fabio's son from his previous marriage, Luigi,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: flies down from Canada to help the family make funeral arrangements.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Monica immediately corners him. She doesn't comfort him. She starts
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: talking about the life insurance.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: To his son? Yes.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: She tells Luigi there is a lot of money coming
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to him and aggressively hints that she expects him to
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: help them out with his portion. Luigi is devastated, trying
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to mourn his father, and he later describes a moment
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: that is just sickening.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: It's a hard detail, the stomach.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: He watches Monica looking at the life insurance document, the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: specific paper that names her as the primary beneficiary, and
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: she is literally smiling and petting the piece of paper.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Petting a financial document in the wake of a brutal stabbing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: It is a visceral, almost cartoonish display of greed.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the millions in insurance. She was
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: nickel and diming his memory everywhere she could. Just before
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Fabio was murdered, he was getting ready to celebrate his
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: 50th birthday. Monica had organized a massive luxury golf trip
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: for him and his closest friends.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: A big milestone trip.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: She paid for the bookings up front and the friends
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: all agreed to reimburse her. One of Fabio's friends testified
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that he handed her $ 3, 000 in cash for his share.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Of the trip. A trip that obviously never took place
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: because Fabio was killed.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Right. But Monica kept the money. She pocketed the $ 3, 000
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: from a grieving friend and never offered to return it.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It reveals a pathology where every single dollar extracted from
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: her husband's existence and his non-existence was justified in her mind.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: It's an all-consuming greed.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: But to actually execute the ultimate extraction. She needed a weapon.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: She needed Rob Baker. And the digital footprint these two
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: left behind is one of the most astonishingly arrogant aspects
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of this entire case.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: When we talk about the impossibility of the perfect crime
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: in the modern era, this is the prime example.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Think about how much you communicate with a significant other. Now,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: guess how many times Monica and Rob called each other
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: during their one-year affair? over 26,000 times in a single
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: 12-month period.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: That number is just baffling.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: She called him 9,000 times. He called her 17,000 times.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: If you break that down mathematically, 26,000 calls over 365
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: days averages out to roughly 71 phone calls a day,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: every single day without fail, including weekends and holidays.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: How is that even logistically possible when you are married,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: raising teenagers, and living in the same house as your husband?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: You'd have to be on the phone constantly.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: You would have to be constantly sneaking into the bathroom,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: texting under the dinner table, making up excuses to go
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: sit in your car in the driveway. It isn't just
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: an affair. It is an absolute all-consuming obsession.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: It's a full-time job.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And the craziest part is they thought they were being
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: criminal masterminds. They used an encrypted messaging app called Viber.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Rob.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: testified later that he did everything possible to keep the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: relationship secret. Meanwhile, Monica was out introducing herself to people
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: as Monica Baker, taking his last name and promising to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: buy him a house in Las Vegas with the impending
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: insurance money.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: This highlights the profound delusion of the modern criminal. They
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: download an app that says end-to-end encryption, and they genuinely
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: believe they have turned invisible.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: They think it's magic.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: They do. They confuse the privacy of the message content...
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: with the invisibility of their actions.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Well, let's break down why that is so absurd. It's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: like trying to hide an elephant under a cocktail napkin,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: all right? Even if the LAPD can't immediately read the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: exact text of every single message you send, the sheer
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: volume of metadata alone is a giant neon sign pointing
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: right at you. Encrypted content does not mean invisible metadata.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Let's explain how metadata actually works in a criminal investigation,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: because it's the mechanism that destroys these conspiracies. When you
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: send a message on an encrypted app, the telecom provider,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: AT & T, Verizon, whoever, doesn't know if you said,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I love you or let's commit murder.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: But they absolutely record the envelope that carried the message.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: They log that phone A connected to phone B. They
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: log the exact second the connection was made, the duration.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: and the specific cell phone towers both phones were pinging
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: off of at that exact moment.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: So they are essentially drawing a map of your entire life.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It establishes what analysts call a pattern of life.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: When homicide detectives see a wife whose husband was just
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: butchered communicating 71 times a day with a convicted sex
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: offender whose blood was found in her kitchen, they don't
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: need to read the texts to understand the conspiracy.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: The pattern is the smoking gun.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: The pattern of the communication is the evidence. The metadata
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: proves the obsession, the proximity, and the timeline.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: So Monica possessed the motive, unadulterated, blinding greed. And Rob
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: possessed the willingness to act. He was desperate, broke, and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: entirely consumed by her promises of a new life. But
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: they quickly realized they couldn't just wing a daytime assassination.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: No, you can't just walk into Woodland Hills and wing it.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: To execute a hit in a gated, heavily surveilled suburban community...
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: They needed a terrifyingly synchronized timeline. And they needed a
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: third accomplice.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: The inclusion of a third party elevates this from a
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: sudden crime of passion into a deeply premeditated multi-state conspiracy.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Rob knows he needs physical backup. So he reaches out
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to a trusted childhood friend from North Carolina named Christopher Austin.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Chris had since moved up to Alaska, but Rob pays
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: for his plane ticket. And Chris flies down to Los
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Angeles on January 20th, just three days before the murder.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: So the wheels are fully in motion.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: As a quick side note, there was another friend named
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Al Birdsong down in Texas who was initially a prime suspect.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: He had been present during early planning conversations where Rob
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: explicitly stated the wife wanted it done for the insurance money.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: So he knew about it.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: He knew. But Al had a watertight alibi for the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: actual day of the murder. So the physical execution fell
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: squarely on Rob and Chris.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Flying someone in from Alaska requires logistics, funding, and clear intent.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: You don't buy a plane ticket for a friend to
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: help you commit a crime of sudden passion. It proves
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: they spent weeks, if not months, refining the plan.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the timeline of January 23rd. This
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: is where you see how truly cold-blooded Monica was, operating
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: as the architect of the entire day. At 3.30 p.m.,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Monica drives to a local Target, but she doesn't go
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: straight inside to shop. She meets Rob in the Target
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: parking lot. They have a final conversation right there in
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the car.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Confirming the final green light.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. Then, at 3.47 p.m., back at the Woodland Hills house,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: her 17-year-old daughter Jessica leaves to go babysit. Remember, earlier
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon, Monica had already told Isabella to delay
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: coming home to pick up her glasses. So Monica has
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: effectively cleared the board. She knows the house is completely empty,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: except for Fabio.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: It is a terrifying level of logistical control. She is
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: manipulating her family members, moving them around like pieces on
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: a chessboard to create the perfect isolated window for her
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: husband's slaughter.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: After her parking lot meeting with Rob, Monica goes inside
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the Target, and the store's CCTV captures her behavior. She
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: is not absentmindedly browsing for household goods.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: She's on a mission.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: She is glued to her smartphone. She is actively logging
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: into her home's security camera system, watching the live feeds,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: monitoring her own house while she establishes her rock-solid alibi
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of being at Target.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: That behavior is the definition of chilling. She is utilizing
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: modern technology to be present at the murder of her
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: husband without being physically in the room.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It makes me think of a twisted, sociopathic movie director.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: She's wandering the aisles of a bright, fluorescent Target, casually
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: looking at dish soap and throw pillows while on her screen,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: She's watching the live feeds of a horror movie she
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: produced starring her husband as the victim.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: The detachment is staggering.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: The psychological detachment required to do that and not physically
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: collapse in the aisle is profound.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: While she's watching those feeds, Rob and Chris execute the
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: physical plan. They park their car about a mile away
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: from the Cementilli house to avoid neighborhood license plate readers. Smart.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: They put on dark hoodies. to obscure their faces from
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: doorbell cameras, and they jog to the property. Chris Austin
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: stands watch outside as the lookout. Rob creeps inside, looking
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: for Fabio.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: He finds Fabio out back by the pool. But Fabio
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: wasn't just going to quietly accept his fate. He caught
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Rob off guard.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Fabio was a fighter.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Fabio turned around, saw this intruder in his sanctuary, yelled
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: out and fought back with incredible ferocity. He grabbed Rob
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: by his hoodie, grabbing his chest, violently trying to defend
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: himself and his home. But Rob was armed with a knife,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and he just kept swinging, kept stabbing, until Fabio was
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: weakened by blood loss and finally let go.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: A knife fight is a brutal, chaotic, close-quarters struggle. And
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Fabio's desperate fight for his life is the exact reason
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Rob's blood ended up at the scene. By fighting back,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Fabio managed to wound his attacker. ensuring his killer would
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: leave an undeniable biological signature behind.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: After Fabio falls, the cover-up begins. Rob and Chris start
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: pulling out drawers, throwing clothes around to stage the fake
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: home invasion. They steal the black Porsche. They steal the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: security DVR, which, by the way, investigators discovered Monica had
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: actually emailed Rob the security login details and passwords back
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: in June 2016, seven months earlier. So he knew exactly
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: how the system worked, and where the physical hard drive
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: was located.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: That email proves the premeditation stretched back over half a year.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: She was laying the groundwork for the burglary narrative months
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: in advance.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: They flee in the Porsche, eventually dumping it miles away
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: later that night. But they leave Rob's blood smeared inside
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the car, too. And on the digital front, Monica and
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Rob exchange 95 encrypted Viber messages on the very day
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: of the murder.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: 95 messages.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Then Rob deletes the app entirely from his phone, assuming
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: that magically erases history. When the cops eventually ask Monica
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: for her phone passcode, she claims she is in too
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: much shock from her grief.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: To remember it. Shock is a highly convenient defense mechanism
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: when you are hiding a conspiracy on your lock screen.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Very convenient, especially since the police later figured out her
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: phone passcode was literally Robert Baker's birthday.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, come on. You cannot script this level of arrogance.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: The conspirators genuinely believed they had pulled off the ultimate
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Hollywood ending.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: They really thought they won.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: They thought the plan was flawless. The wife gets the
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: multi-million dollar insurance payout. The lover gets the wealthy wife.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: The hitman gets a cut of the cash. And they
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: all ride off into the sunset. But in the real world,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: the spotlight of a homicide investigation doesn't just fade to black.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: You don't get to roll the credits just because you
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: deleted a messaging app.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: But that delusion of a perfect crime couldn't survive the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: reality of their own arrogance. The cover-ups started falling apart
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: almost immediately. The post-murder behavior is what sealed their fate.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: They couldn't even pretend to be discreet while the heat
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: was on.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Their impulse control was non-existent.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Just one month after the murder, while the LAPD is
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: actively working a massive, high-profile homicide case, police surveillance units
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: catch Monica and Rob kissing outside a local bar.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: You have a supposedly terrified, grieving widow making out with
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: her secret boyfriend in public, while detectives are watching from
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: an unmarked car across the street.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates that once they survived the initial incident and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: the adrenaline faded, they truly believed they had won. They
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: thought the police were fooled by the missing Porsche and
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: the tossed drawers. But the police were watching every single move.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: And listening.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Because around this time, Monica actually types a search into Google.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: She searches, do the police have the right to tap
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: my cell phone?
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: If there is a single digital action that screams guilty conscience,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: It is Googling to see if law enforcement is surveilling
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: your communications.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: It's the most incriminating search ever.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It shows that despite her arrogance, she was starting to
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: feel the walls closing in. The paranoia was taking root.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: So in August 2017, the LAPD makes their move. They
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: arrest Monica and Rob, and they do it deliberately at
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the exact same time, putting them in holding cells where
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: they know they will try to communicate. And what do
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: they do? They act like a low-rent Bonnie and Clyde.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Of course they do.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: They're recorded on jailhouse calls saying things like, I love you,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I think we should get married. They're making explicit phone
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: calls from lockup, desperately digging for a way to explain
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: away the mounting physical evidence.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: The defense they attempt to concoct for the blood evidence
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: is spectacularly absurd.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: It's almost hilarious. They realized during questioning that the police
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: have Rob's DNA in Monica's house. So they collaborate to
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: invent this ridiculous story. Rob's blood is in the kitchen
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: because he and Monica were playing racquetball at the gym.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: He severely cut his hand on the court, and Monica
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: used her own personal towel to clean up his wound
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and then casually brought the bloody towel back to her mansion.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Even if a jury could suspend their disbelief long enough
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: to accept that a wealthy woman would bring a stranger's
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: bloody towel home from a gym, it completely fails to
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: explain the rest of the physical evidence.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Right, like the car.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: It doesn't explain why Rob's blood was also found smeared
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: inside Fabio's stolen Porsche, which was dumped miles away on
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: the night of the murder. The physical evidence completely boxed
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: them into a corner they couldn't talk their way out of.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: The dominoes start falling fast. Police dig into those phone
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: records and bank transfers we talked about, and they identify
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Christopher Austin up in Alaska. In October 2017, they bring
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Chris in for questioning. He realizes very quickly that the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: police have his flight records, his cell phone pings placing
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: him in Woodland Hills, and his connection to Rob.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: The jig is up for him.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: He folds almost immediately. He knows he's facing life in
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a California penitentiary, so he takes a deal. He pleads
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for testifying against Rob
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and Monica.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Chris's testimony is the structural collapse of the entire conspiracy.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: He shatters the narrative Rob had been trying to build.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Rob had been trying to claim it was just a
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: lover's quarrel, a spontaneous crime of passion that got out
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: of hand when he went to confront Fabio.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Which was always a lie.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: But Chris testifies under oath that Rob explicitly told him
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: weeks in advance they were doing it for the insurance money.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: and that Monica was the one who, quote, wanted it done.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: So with Chris flipping and testifying, Rob knows it's over.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: He pleads guilty and receives life in prison without the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: possibility of parole. But the psychology of what happens next
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: is fascinating.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets really strange.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Even after pleading guilty to life without parole, knowing he
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: will die in a concrete cell, Rob is called as
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: a defense witness in Monica's trial. And he actively perjures
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: himself on the stand, trying to protect her. He claims
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: she had absolutely no idea he was going to kill Fabio,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that she was totally innocent.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Just unbelievable loyalty.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: He threw his entire life away for a woman who
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: essentially used him as a pawn, as a blunt instrument
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: to get her hands on a life insurance payout. Why
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: does a person do that?
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Is it love? Is it delusion? It is a potent,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: tragic mix of delusion and the sunk cost fallacy. You
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: have to look at who Robert Barclay was before the murder.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: He was a man with a ruined reputation, a sex
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: offender registry status, and no real prospects for the future.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: He had nothing going for him.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Right. Monica represented not just sexual validation, but the promise
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: of a completely transformed life. A house in Vegas, endless wealth,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: A clean slate. When he plunged that knife into Fabio Cimentilli,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: he crossed an irreversible threshold.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: There's no going back for murder.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: To admit on the stand that Monica was just using him,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to admit that she manipulated him into throwing away his
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: freedom purely for her financial gain, would mean confronting the
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: reality that he destroyed his life and took an innocent
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: man's life for absolutely nothing.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: So he just doubles down.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: He clings to the delusions. He perjures himself because preserving
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: the fantasy of their epic romance is the only psychological
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: defense mechanism he has left against the grim reality of
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: spending the rest of his life in prison.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: He would rather be a tragic romantic hero in his
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: own mind than admit he was just a gullible hitman.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: But his lies on the stand didn't work. The evidence,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the 26,000 phone calls, the Target CCTV, the blood in
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: the Porsche was simply too overwhelming. Monica is currently awaiting sentencing,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: her glamorous, meticulously curated life entirely reduced to prison jumpsuits, handcuffs,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and court appearances.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: The contrast from the beginning of our discussion is absolute.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: The fortress of wealth she lived in, the status she
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: felt entitled to, was entirely dismantled by her own blinding greed.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: But there is a sliver of light in all this darkness.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: The story doesn't just end with the perpetrators in cages.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: It ends with Fabio's daughter, Isabella.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: The one who found him.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: The 16-year-old girl who was manipulated by her mother, who
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: found her father's body, who went through a trauma most
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of us cannot even fathom. She is actually following in
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: her father's footsteps. She has been working to become a
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: hairstylist in Hollywood, continuing the Semitelli legacy.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: That is true poetic justice. Fabio explicitly stated he wanted
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: to be remembered for making people feel positive, for the
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: relationships he built. And despite Monica's violent attempt to erase
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Fabio and hoard everything he built for her own selfish gain.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: His spirit, his work ethic, and his passion survived through
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: his daughter.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: It really is beautiful.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: It's a powerful testament to the resilience of the values
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: he actually cared about. Outlasting the superficial status Monica craved.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: As we step back and look at the totality of
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: this deep dive, we see a life of immense privilege,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: built from the ground up by a hardworking immigrant Meticulously
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: dismantled by a toxic, volatile mix of greed, lust, and
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: breathtaking arrogance.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: The arrogance is the defining characteristic of this tragedy. The
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: perpetrators operated under the fatal assumption that they were smarter
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: than the system.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: They really thought they were geniuses.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: They believed they could outwit forensic investigators with a few
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: deleted apps and a clumsily staged robbery. But every single
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: step they took to obscure their crime, the calls... the
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: target alibi, the Google searches, actually created a permanent, indelible
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: record of their guilt.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: And that is the real takeaway for you listening right now.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: In today's world, our digital footprints tell the true story
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: of who we are, no matter what carefully constructed mask
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: we wear in public. 26,000 phone calls, a Google search
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: about wiretaps, security cameras checked from a target aisle.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: It's all recorded.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: An encrypted app that leaves metadata everywhere. These things do
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: not vanish. The physical world might be easy to stage.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: You can pull out a few drawers and steal a Porsche.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: But the digital world is a meticulous, unforgiving accountant.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: It represents a profound shift in how we understand secrecy.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: This case proves that the perfect crime is an antiquated,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: fictional concept. Technology has evolved to the point where our intentions,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: our obsessions, and our plots are documented in real time,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: stored on servers, and waiting to be uncovered by anyone
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: who knows how to look for the patterns.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Which leads me to a final thought for you to
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: mull over as we wrap up. We spend an enormous
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: amount of time and energy curating our lives for the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: outside world. We curate our social media profiles, our professional networks,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the neighborhoods we choose to live in. We project this
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: image of stability, happiness, and perfection, just like the Samantellis
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: did behind the gates.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Of Woodland Hills. We all do it to some extent.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: But in an era where every single keystroke, every location ping,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: every deleted message, and every secret app can be resurrected
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: by a forensic team, is the concept of a secret
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: life completely dead? And if it is, how much of
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: our true intentions, our darkest thoughts, or our most hidden
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: desires are just sitting there on the devices in our
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: pockets right now, quietly waiting for someone to look?
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: That is a chilling question to walk away with.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. We'll catch
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: you next time.