Mitzi Roberts
Appearances
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Tonight on Dateline. It was heartbreaking to listen to her trying to save her dad.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
They took the entire DVR of the system. That would have captured the exterior cameras of the house, people coming and going.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Yeah, they pulled their hoodies so tight that there's just a little piece of their faces.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
No question, because we see the same hooded sweatshirt leaving in the Porsche.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Once forensics get out there and start going through it, then they start finding little tidbits of greatness.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
They just called about this car that had been sitting in front of their house for two days. A patrol unit goes out. Once a unit gets out there and checks it, they realize that it's the Porsche, Fabio's Porsche.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
We pulled surveillance from the neighborhood and saw the car the night of the murder on January 23rd, pulling up around 9 o'clock at night, parked the car in a single male, walk away from it. Couldn't tell who it was.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Meaning clues that could lead to a killer. There was some blood on the pedal.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Right. And we know the suspect was driving the Porsche because how else would Fabio's blood get on the pedals?
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
drawers were open, but not like you would expect from individuals that were there to burglarize the place. It was almost like an afterthought, was what it looked like.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
And you're going to see a fight. And there was no signs of a fight. This was definitely a coordinated planned attack where they caught Fabio off guard. He didn't have time to even react. They disabled him very quickly and probably, you know, took him out right away.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Right. And there was nobody. There was nobody. People just loved him. They loved his energy. He was very motivating. Just a nice guy, a great father, and a great husband.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Not all that often. A lot of times, you know, what ends up happening is you have to identify a suspect and then ask for a direct comparison. You know, sometimes you get lucky and you do get a CODIS hit, and those are great.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
He was in the system because he was a felon. He had been in prison and he was a sex registrant.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
He's met Fabio maybe once or twice, because Monica had Fabio go in for some racquetball. But he doesn't know Fabio, but he's distraught. Monica's almost consoling him. And just, there was a weird vibe. Everybody at the party and the family was like, who is this guy? They just thought it was very strange how close he was, how he was engaging with Monica.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
He's got this job coaching racquetball at L.A. Fitness and runs a league.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
It was heartbreaking to listen to her on the phone trying to save her dad.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
It was a group of friends from L.A. Fitness. They all liked to play racquetball. It was a group of mostly girls, mostly girlfriends, and the person that ran the league was Robert Baker, and he was kind of part of the friend group.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Go out for drinks, go out for sushi, things like that. Seems innocent. Yes.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
The paramedics arrive and they realize, you know, he's been stabbed multiple times.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
The original officers and detectives that responded that day followed sort of a blood trail out through the house.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
We have the two lives that Monica is living here. The life that she's portraying to her friends and Fabio's friends, which is, you know, almost daily on Instagram, posting tributes to Fabio.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
He was the love of her life, but she's in Vegas, and we have pictures where she's grabbing Robert Baker's crotch, kissing Robert Baker.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
There were areas. There was a concentrated area in the master bedroom where there was ransacking.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
An unknown individual all of a sudden comes into frame and enters the passenger side of Monica's truck. It's very brief. He's in there very briefly.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Can't tell. The video is too grainy. Just that it's a solo individual.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Then that individual gets out and Monica then moves her truck closer to the entrance of Target. Then Monica heads into Target. She's in there for about an hour. As she's leaving the Target, she is transfixed to her cell phone. Enough so that she's staring at it so intently that she almost misses the exit to the Target. And then she kind of catches herself and redirects.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
The maid came early in the morning, which was important for us as well, because she had cleaned the entire house before she left.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
And so, of course, an investigator, why is she so glued to this phone?
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
There was a huge amount of data that was cycling through her phone.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
Right. Either that or it was worth the risk to her. Like, she didn't consider her daughter enough that it was worth the risk.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
So there was obviously, to us, that means attempts to clean up some of the crime scene.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
When you get to the garage, it's obvious that Fabio Cimentelli's Porsche had been taken.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
It was a used car, but it was new to him, and it was his dream car. He always wanted one. He had purchased it, maybe had it for about a month.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
to try and figure out if there were any individuals that not only Baker was talking to, but Monica as well, and at the same time.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
There was one message via Facebook Messenger, which was just a few days after the murder.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
No question. This was definitely a coordinated, planned attack. Probably took him out right away.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
I wrote a series of search warrants for airline manifests. And the last one I wrote, I just asked for any records for Christopher Austin that he flew between basically the day before the murder and after. And bam, I get a hit. He was on an Alaskan Airlines flight.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
We found a citation where Austin was actually cited in the vehicle that they rented to commit the crime, to drive to the crime scene.
Dateline NBC
The Widow of Woodland Hills
It just so happened at the time that there was a series of burglaries in the area, and they were dubbed the knock-knock burglaries. And basically it was people go up to your door and knock on the door to figure out if you're home or not. If you answer the door, then they go away and just wait for you to leave, or if you don't answer the door, then obviously they break in.