Josh Mankiewicz and Blayne Alexander sit down to talk about Josh’s episode "The Widow of Woodland Hills.” In 2017, celebrity hairstylist Fabio Sementilli was stabbed to death in what appeared to be a home robbery. Blood left inside the victim’s beloved Porsche led detectives to uncover a killer and a torrid affair. Josh shares a podcast-exclusive clip from his interview with Fabio’s sister and tells Blayne what he learned about the special team of investigators who followed the two lovers suspected of the murder. Plus, they discuss Josh’s iconic accessory as they answer your questions from social media.Learn more about the SIS tactical surveillance unit: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/learn-more-about-the-lapd-s-special-investigation-section-237160005724.If you have a question for Talking Dateline, send us an audio message on social @datelinenbc or leave us a voicemail at (212) 413-5252.Listen to the full episode of “The Widow of Woodland Hills” on Apple: https://apple.co/43PyvARListen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2fWnwT6AQdvi0msB3JUp4i
Chapter 1: What is 'The Widow of Woodland Hills' episode about?
Hi, everyone. It's Blayne Alexander. And today we are talking Dateline. I am so happy to be joined by the one, the only Josh Mankiewicz. Hi, Josh. Hi. Hello. How you doing? I am great. So we're talking about your episode, The Widow of Woodland Hills. If you haven't seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed.
So go there, listen to it or stream it on Peacock, of course, and then come right back here. Quick recap, when Hollywood hairstylist Fabio Cimentelli was stabbed in his own backyard, investigators wondered if it was a burglary gone wrong. What they uncovered instead was an affair that turned deadly.
For this Talking Dateline, we've got an extra clip from Josh's interview with Fabio's sister and more about how the murder has torn this family apart. Okay, let's talk Dateline.
Let's talk Dateline.
You know, I think that this story is kind of what Talking Dateline is made for, because as we sit here recording, it's 3.36 p.m. Eastern time on a Friday. We just got the verdict two out three hours ago.
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Chapter 2: How did the investigation unfold and what was the verdict?
Something like that. Yeah. This was kind of a breaking news bit for us. And it's great when that kind of thing can happen, when we can go on the air at 9 o'clock on a Friday night and say, this happened today. That doesn't always happen that way. A lot of times we do stories that were adjudicated more than a couple of years before we went on the air.
But when we're covering a trial right down to the minute, it's great to be able to say, this is the latest news on this, the actual verdict.
And I think it's a testament to just... The dexterity of our producing team, of everyone who puts these shows on the air, because I mean, yes, to scramble and get that together and fill the holes that need to be filled. Yeah, it takes a team. It takes an effort.
No, no. I mean, Chet Najoshi, Jessica DeVera, Michelle Madigan. The producers who worked on this, Allison Orr, the senior producer, like these are the people whose names you don't know at Dateline. The people you don't see on TV are the big stars here. And as a result of the incredible organization of this team, we were completely ready to
Well, I love it. It's amazing to see. It's amazing to watch it. And, you know, at least from the podcast side, be part of it for today. So let's jump into this episode, Josh. I think the first thing that if you watch Dateline, you work on Dateline, you always know, okay, they're going to look at the partner first, right? This one, you had me fooled.
For a minute, because I'm listening to them talk about the marriage and the things she posted. And I'm like, no, this marriage is solid. So I was actually surprised when I heard about the affair. I actually did not see that coming.
No, I mean, I think nobody did. You know, I have friends who live in. lived in that part of Woodland Hills. And they knew the Sementilli family, not very well, but they knew them. Both my friends described life over there as extremely happy.
It was a house that seemed to be full of love, not full of anger, not full of distrust, which is why nobody, certainly nobody at first thought that Monica could have had anything to do with this because she seemed happy. He seemed happy. Nobody detected this.
So, I mean, one of the big themes of this, of course, we hear about this a lot in Dateline, but betrayal. And I really think that that's a it seems like that was certainly a running theme of the story. But when you talk about the betrayal of even if Monica was saying, you know, oh, he worked a lot or he was never home, it didn't seem like Fabio knew that that was an issue with them.
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Chapter 3: Who was Fabio Sementilli and what was his life story?
This seems like a good time to juxtapose Fabio with one Robert Baker, who was Monica's lover. I mean, you just ran down the man's CV in his life. And I mean, he really was just an impressive kind of larger than life figure. And then you have this man who is a former porn star. He's a convicted sex offender. He wears a pleather jacket that everybody liked to talk about.
And one can't help but wonder like, How do you go from married to this guy to a very deep, steamy affair with that guy?
We don't know how it started. There's so much yardage between I met this guy at the gym and I'm going to fool around with him because I'm bored. My husband isn't around to I'm in love with that guy. I'm planning a life with him and I'm going to have him stab my husband. I mean, it's incomprehensible. And here's one more thing that's incomprehensible. This is.
in some ways, a familiar story on Dateline. Someone has an affair, and the person they're having the affair with decides, I want them for myself, so I'm going to get rid of the partner. That certainly has happened before on Dateline. Here's the part that hasn't happened before, or at least hasn't happened in the stories that I've done, is he takes the fall.
You know, this guy knows how the criminal justice system operates. He's been in it before. She doesn't. But he goes in and says, I did it. And she didn't have anything to do with it. She didn't even know it was being done. That, to me, is very unusual. Why he did that? I don't know. I would have loved to have asked him. I'm like, what's going on there? Is that love? I mean, what is that?
And he even said on the stand, they said, you still love her, right? He said, yes. And they said, do you hope that you'll still be together? And he even admitted, no, that's never going to happen. That's never going to happen. Right. Like knew that it's not like they were going to go towards some sort of far off happy ending here.
No, he pled to the top count. That's it.
He's going away, regardless of what happens to her. I want to talk about the affair, but I also want to talk about how it came to light. The SIS, the Special Investigation Section. Did you know about this branch of LAPD?
Yeah, it's not spoken of that often. Um, but they are an absolutely an elite unit. They're part of the robbery homicide division. They've been around for a while and their specialty is surveilling like robbery crews, people who are, who are, who are, they think are going to knock over a bank or are going to, you know, go into somebody's house for a home invasion. And they,
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Chapter 4: What role did Monica’s lover Robert Baker play in the case?
Yeah, well, you know, it's one of those assignments that people get within the LAPD and then they never want to leave. It's very kind of high tension and you have access to all this technology that other people don't have access to. I mean, you can do, you know, you can follow people with, you know, drones and trackers and helicopters and all kinds of stuff.
Interesting. You know, another thing that we saw in this episode was a lot of just different audio, but the undercover audio when Monica was being held with the cellmate, quote unquote, who was actually an undercover officer.
What an assignment that is. Inside law enforcement, that's known as Perkins. That's from a Supreme Court decision, Perkins v. Illinois, about statements that are made to law enforcement. For example, if you're charged with a crime and you say, I want an attorney and I'm not talking to the police, and then...
I'm a cop, and they put a jail uniform on me and shove me in there and say to you, hey, you know, I just committed murder. Blaine, what did you do? And you start talking. That frequently will get thrown out because I am the police trying to interrogate you Even though you have said, I'm not talking to the police, which is your right under the constitution.
So Perkins, the thing they did with Monica in this case is a way around that. And there are very specific rules for what you can and can't say to the person. So. They ran a Perkins operation, and it definitely produced some things, although it did not produce the admission that prosecutors were hoping for, which is Monica admitting, yeah, this was my plan.
The only thing that came out of that was she admitted the affair, and she gave some sense of how –
into baker she was to me the smoking gun piece of audio in this it's when baker and monica are in the patrol car and they've just been pulled over and arrested when they were out driving in monica's nice mustang and they put them both in the back of a police car and a lot of police cars um um a lot of black and whites are i think wired for sound and video but they did get monica whispering to baker which you saw in our episode and she says somebody must
have talked okay innocent people do not say somebody must have talked innocent people say what are we doing here why would they think we would have anything to do with this this is insane right somebody must have talked about what you know that's the yeah yes that that to me that's the smoking gun here absolutely is and who did they tell yeah
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Chapter 5: What is the LAPD Special Investigation Section (SIS) and how did they contribute?
When we get back, Fabio and Monica's daughters chose to stand behind their mother even after she was accused of killing their father. We've got a clip of what Fabio's sister has to say about that decision. You know, we learned a lot about Fabio from his son, Luigi. And obviously that's his son from a previous marriage.
I think that's important to point out because you kind of certainly see the different position that Luigi had versus, you know, their two daughters who shared with Monica. Yeah.
His relationship with Monica began as an affair. Thought he was married at the time, right? So she was having an affair with a married guy, which was him, right? There are people who will say neither one of those people should trust each other because they're willing to have an affair. And if they did it before, they will do it with you.
And I don't think that is necessarily true because sometimes people meet the right person and they did seem extremely happy together. But yes, they began as an affair. And that's what ended the relationship with Luigi's mom.
I think it's also worth pointing out Fabio obviously chose divorce to kind of begin a new life with Monica. And some could say like she had the blueprint right there. Right. And in front of her, I thought that it was interesting to dive into why she didn't choose divorce. You and I have had this conversation plenty of times on Talking Dateline that, yeah, it may suck. You may be embarrassed.
You may get shunned by your family, but someone doesn't have to die. You don't have to spend the rest of your life in prison. Right. Like, how does that become the top choice?
Yeah, I mean, you'll be divorced like so many other people are in this country. And, you know, I mean, there should be no stigma about it. If relationships are not working, murder. It is the most astonishingly foolish, selfish, mistaken way to get out of a marriage. There is no worse way.
I felt terribly for their two daughters in all of this. They stood by their mom, maintained that she was innocent of this whole thing. One testified for her. I know that you asked Fabio's sister, Mirella, what she thought about the kids supporting their mom. We have a clip of that.
It was devastating. This has cut you off from your nieces. I know. It... I just look forward to the day that we could probably reconcile or be together again, you know?
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Chapter 6: What is a Perkins operation and how was it used in this case?
It's not unusual for children to take the side of the surviving parent because nobody wants to hear or say to themselves, you know, dad killed mom or mom killed dad.
Yeah, but she had an affair. She brought this into the house, right? And I just feel like the sooner they face reality, the more complete they would be.
That's a good example of something that we see all the time on Dateland, which is that kids frequently want to believe that the parent who lived and who is charged did not do it. And believe me, I get it.
My heart just goes out to them, especially the daughter who found her father stabbed to death on the patio. And The jury has decided Monica was responsible. And, you know, and the prosecutor's telling she essentially orchestrated for her daughter to to find her father bleeding out and stabbed to death because she wanted an alibi.
It's a terrible I mean, for a mother to do that to a child is something that's just fully beyond me.
This we have talked about, which is you think you're going to take away the parent of your kids and they're just going to be fine. Right. Like, they'll be okay because you're happy? It's nuts. It's just insane. I mean, it's a terrible thing to put your kids through. And, you know, in that way, in that sense, Monica and Robert Baker have something else in common, which is they were both willing to
to expose someone they loved, to enmesh them in this plot. Monica getting her daughter to find Fabio's body and Baker getting his lifelong friend, Chris Austin, no criminal record, somebody who looked at him like an uncle and who trusted him and who clearly did not want to be involved in this murder plot at the beginning and getting him to do it, making him a murderer.
Now he's wrecked his life and his family's life and he's going away too. I mean, it is astonishing display of selfishness and willingness to hurt people close to them for their own means. It's a terrible thing.
The level of manipulation, yes, is insane. Let's talk about Chris Austin. I can't remember being as glued to the screen for a portion of a dateline as I was when he was on the stand and describing what happened that day. I'm always stunned by just how almost easily someone can agree to be a henchman, if you will, or a sidekick in a murder, right?
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Chapter 7: How did Fabio’s family respond to the accusations and trial?
Chapter 8: Why did Monica choose murder over divorce?
to expose someone they loved, to enmesh them in this plot. Monica getting her daughter to find Fabio's body and Baker getting his lifelong friend, Chris Austin, no criminal record, somebody who looked at him like an uncle and who trusted him and who clearly did not want to be involved in this murder plot at the beginning and getting him to do it, making him a murderer.
Now he's wrecked his life and his family's life and he's going away too. I mean, it is astonishing display of selfishness and willingness to hurt people close to them for their own means. It's a terrible thing.
The level of manipulation, yes, is insane. Let's talk about Chris Austin. I can't remember being as glued to the screen for a portion of a dateline as I was when he was on the stand and describing what happened that day. I'm always stunned by just how almost easily someone can agree to be a henchman, if you will, or a sidekick in a murder, right?
He had no stake in this to do that and to be okay with playing a part in ending a life. It's just shocking to me.
I completely agree because it's pretty obvious he tried to sort of get out of doing it a couple of times. But when, you know, when the chips were down, Baker kind of just, you know, said, we're doing this. And he lacked the strength at that moment to say, you may be doing it, but I'm not.
He just didn't have the courage to.
act on it. Yeah, he just didn't have it.
The trial itself was full of a lot of kind of dramatic moments. This trial was long, two and a half months.
Yeah.
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