Cut, Color, Kill | 2. The Stranger at the Wake

In the days after Fabio’s death, grief turns to suspicion. As mourners gather at his house for the wake, an unfamiliar face stands out. Want the full story? Binge every episode of Cut, Color, Kill ad-free now by subscribing to The Binge+. You’ll unlock over 60 true crime series instantly, get early access to drops on the first of every month, and hear exclusive bonus episodes. Search for the channel on Apple Podcasts or head to GetTheBinge.com. For behind-the-scenes details, join our free newsletter at Patreon.com/TheBinge. Cut, Color, Kill is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Novel. Follow @sonypodcasts and discover more at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices at podcastchoices.com/adchoices. The Binge — feed your true crime obsession. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day, the creator and host of How to Fail. It's the podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right, and what, if anything, we've learned from those mistakes to help us succeed better. Each week, my guests share three failures, sparking intimate, thought-provoking, and funny conversations. You'll hear from a diverse range of voices, sharing what they've learned through their failures. Join me Wednesdays for a new episode each week. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Listen to every episode of Cut, Color, Kill, ad-free, right now when you subscribe to The Binge. You'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes, and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap Subscribe, or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. The Binge: Feed your true crime obsession.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  In a ballroom in Las Vegas, the stage is lit with purple neon lights. There's a glittering backdrop and a long catwalk that extends out into the audience. Thousands of spectators fill row upon row of seats, all dressed to the nines. It's clearly a high-end runway crowd. This is the grand final of the North American Wella Trend Vision Awards. It's like the Super Bowl of hairdressing. The best stylists from across North America come to compete for gold. A line of models strut down the catwalk. This is high fashion. Their hair is teased, tousled, and sculpted into wild shapes.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  One model looks like a dragon, another like some kind of glamorous alien empress from another galaxy.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Then, center stage, a spotlight. A big bear of a man with a well-trimmed beard and an enormous smile bursts onto the stage.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Welcome to the North American Transvision Awards. Can I hear some noise?

• 2:20Speaker 01

  The crowd erupts as he whips them into a frenzy.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  My name's Fabio Semantili. Or DDA. The Daddy. I want to thank you for all your love, for all your support, and number one, for all of your passing.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Fabio Semantili, the big daddy of hairdressing. The superstar hairstylist from Canada turned executive at one of the largest hair corporations in the world. He's living up to his name. And the crowd loves him. Watching him, it's clear he's approachable, warm, charismatic. The kind of person where you'd see their glow up and say, "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

• 3:02Speaker 02

  At Wella, we're all hairdressers at heart. Love you guys.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  So cool.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  So, yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  What a buoyant person. Always smiling, seems very warm to the people around him.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was just like, that was Fabio.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Melanie Garabey and I watched this video together. I catch glimpses of her as it plays, her eyes well up. But she's also smiling. We're watching a major milestone for her. Melanie put on this event back when she was the national show director for Wella. Back when Fabio was still alive.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  My job at the time was producing, you know, big, huge hair fashion shows, if you will. These are million-dollar presentations for, you know, 4,000 people, 5,000 people.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Melanie's life is very different now. She runs a wine business in Simi Valley, about an hour and a half north of LA, depending on the traffic. Melanie's a small business owner, but she stays cool with magenta streaks in her hair. We're sitting in her tasting room, and I'm here to talk with her about her boss, Fabio.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  She remembers the last time she saw him. It was one of those small moments, you know, the kind you replay in your mind later. A snapshot that doesn't tell the whole story of a person, but takes on new meaning after everything that happened. It was January of 2017. She'd arrived at work, parked her car. She was walking in when she ran into Fabio.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  I had gotten a new car, got my, you know, new Corvette. And Fabio had, you know, just gotten his Porsche.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  A shiny, black Porsche 911 convertible. A dream car.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  He got the good parking space, like, right at the front. And I remember the last thing he said to me in the parking lot. Wow, you know, nice car. And he's like, don't think you're gonna get away without letting me have a ride in there. And I was like, yeah, you know, like, you're not gonna, not gonna fit in here, Fab, but, um, but yeah. That was the last time and the last thing that I remember Fabio said.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Six days later, Fabio was dead.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  You can't rationalize it. You can't figure it out. It's happening, but you're still so close to it that you're like, I still was like in denial. I was in disbelief.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  In disbelief because this was her friend. Still, the people at work don't always know what's actually happening in our lives, what darkness could have crept in unannounced. Melanie couldn't imagine who could have had it out for Fabio. But it turns out his killer had a very particular reason for wanting him out of the picture. And the clue that would send cops in the right direction would have something to do with Fabio's beloved Porsche. From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is Cut, Collar, Killed. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. Episode two, The Stranger at the Wake.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Fabio is dead. The leadership at Wella calls an emergency meeting. Carol Portat is there. Her jet black hair is styled in a spiky pixie cut. She's the senior director of education at Wella and Fabio Semantili's right-hand woman. The night before, she got a call from Sal, their CEO, telling her that Fabio had been murdered.

• 6:44Speaker 04

  I just, I had no words. I could not believe it. What are you talking about? It was just like someone had just punched me. Like, there must be a mistake. He's gonna be okay, you know?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Carol hung up the phone. She went into the living room and turned on the TV. CBS LA had the story.

• 7:04Speaker 05

  Tonight, as police search for his killer, celebrity friends are fondly remembering icon Fabio Semantili.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  The media is all over this story, repeating every gruesome detail. A murder in LA is not unusual, but this one is. Fabio's glamorous lifestyle and sleepy suburban setting in Woodland Hills have an allure that news editors could not resist. He was found dead on the back porch of his Woodland Hills estate Monday evening. Sure enough, her ears had not deceived her. It was true. Horrible and unimaginable, but true.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  There was, you know, helicopter over his house and then showing and talk about this celebrity hairdresser who had been murdered on his patio.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  I'm going like, wait, what?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Alicia Truesdale is Fabio's executive assistant.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  I had just spoken to him that Monday.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  She got the call from Sal last night, too. He told her to assemble the team first thing.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  We all meet in Fabio's conference room when the head of HR and Sal come in and talk to us. There's tears, crying. People are dumbfounded, can't even put it together, what's going on. Just numb and shocked, crying. Like, this isn't happening, but it is happening.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Melanie was there, too.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  We were grieving, we were trying to process, we were trying. There was just so much, like, so much.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  I took my immediate team in my office. Fabio was a fan of tequila. So we opened a bottle of tequila and we all had a shot for Fabio. That's how we kind of somehow made it, you know, through the day.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  No work is getting done today. Just quiet conversations punctuated by long stretches of grief. And it didn't take long for colleagues to wonder who had taken his life.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Like stabbing is just so personal and so brutal. And you know, you're thinking like, how can this even be happening?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Someone's heard that the police are looking into the knock-knock burglary crews operating in LA.

• 9:22Speaker 06

  We're thinking it's that Fabio had been sitting out at his pool, taking calls, smoking a cigar. We're thinking he probably didn't hear if somebody knocked at the door, they came in.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Right from the beginning, the people who knew and loved Fabio have questions. Rumors and speculation began to swirl.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  We kind of all started to think, this is just not right. Who did Fabio piss off?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Fabio didn't just light up the stage. He lit up the office, too. He made work bearable, dare I say, fun for his colleagues.

• 9:57Speaker 06

  When he came in the morning, you knew he was there. That passion, that love of the art of what you're doing and the showmanship of it. He just brought all of himself when he came.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Carol and Fabio were kindred spirits. They worked together on mentoring a new generation of hairstylists. And they gave them a platform at big hair shows and competitions.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  They even had nicknames for each other.

• 10:23Speaker 06

  I called him Papa Bear. A lot of people called him Papa Bear, but he also had a nickname in the industry that was Big Daddy. I never really liked Big Daddy. I thought he was a little eh. I preferred Papa Bear. And then I was Mama Bear. He was a big man and big heart, big voice, big laugh.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  And of course, a big success story, too. Fabio would frequently host parties at his home in Woodland Hills and invite his coworkers to come over.

• 10:51Speaker 06

  Now, where's this caterer that he loved? This Nana's, she did tacos like nobody's business. And she'd set up around the pool and he'd have a fire pit going and blankets all over for the girls to stay warm and music playing and everything. And we just would have a really good time having dinner. That's the way the Samentili's were, was welcoming, my God.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Fabio's wife Monica often joined in at these gatherings, too.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  The two of them would dance together and joke around. Even after 20 years of marriage, they seem smitten. Makes Fabio's death all the more tragic, looking back.

• 11:31Speaker 06

  He worshipped the ground she walked on.

• 11:34Speaker 04

  I was like, I wish my marriage was like that, you know, sometimes because they look like the perfect family.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Carol got to know Monica pretty well.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Bonded very quickly, hung out a lot, would call each other on a regular basis. So, yeah, we became friends. Monica felt really lonely moving to LA because, you know, obviously Fabio was working a lot. The girls were in school. She missed home a lot. She talked about missing home a lot and eventually moving back to Canada. So that's why I think she really appreciated when there were people around coming to the house because it gave her, obviously, you know, the sense of family that she was missing from moving away from Toronto where the rest of her family was.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  In the days after Fabio's death, some of his coworkers quickly turned their attention to supporting his family, his wife Monica and his daughters. They were, as expected, in impossible emotional pain and turmoil.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  I'm immediately on the phone. I'm getting lists from Monica who should come and I'm making arrangements for his family, his immediate family to come in and some close friends.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  In a few days, friends and family will arrive in LA. Ordinarily, there's a kind of expectation of finality about these events, the chance to say goodbye, pay your respects. But there is nothing resolved about this case. Everyone is searching for answers and aside from the knock-knock theory, there's very little to hold on to.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  At the offices of the Valley Bureau homicide department, Detective Ryan Verna is making calls, sifting through different theories about what had happened to Fabio. Since the news about the murder went public, he's been inundated with tips.

• 13:24Speaker 07

  Like, oh, it was a guy named Blue something who was from South Central that, you know, claimed responsibility for this and, you know, just all sorts of stuff. None of it. was panning out. It was all leading to dead ends.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  But there's one thing detectives have on their side.

• 13:42Speaker 07

  It was very, very evident there was going to be a lot of video based on the neighborhood. It's an amazing array of cameras. I mean, I personally never seen a homeowners association with cameras that are this good.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  An officer was trawling through the footage from the day of the murder and they found something.

• 14:01Speaker 07

  Two, what we believe to be men, dressed in oversized clothing, kind of pants, sweats, with sweatshirts that were over their head. The hoodies were cinched tight, so they were looking through a tiny hole. And they had the sleeves of their hoodies pulled down over their hands. You could tell in the video that they were running with a purpose.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  The hooded men run up to the Semantili house at 4:18 PM. Then at 4:53, Fabio's black Porsche appears, going in the opposite direction. Through the window of the car, there's a glimpse of a green hoodie. In that time, just over a half hour, Fabio was stabbed.

• 14:46Speaker 07

  We knew right away, those are our guys.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  It's two days on from the murder, when Fabio's colleagues Melanie and Carol arrive on the doorstep of the Semantili house in Woodland Hills. They're here with a couple of other work friends to drop off some groceries for Monica.

• 15:12Speaker 04

  We brought white wine for Monica. She liked that Pinot Grigio at the time. Cigarettes, she was smoking like a chimney at the time, obviously. So we made sure that she didn't have to go anywhere. We took care of them the best we could.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Monica invites them into the house. They take a seat on the back patio.

• 15:33Speaker 04

  He had his favorite chair in the patio where he would always sit. Everybody knew that was his chair in the patio outside.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  A chair that now was empty, except for some carefully chosen items placed in the seat by Monica.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  There was a little shrine for Fabio. There was his hat that said Big Daddy on it. There was a cigar, a bottle of tequila, a glass. And then Monica was wearing, he had like one favorite kind of off-white sweater. I remember always when he was wearing it, he felt great in it. She was wearing his sweater. She was wearing his watch. And she just kept rocking in the chair in denial of what had happened, right? So we didn't quite know what to say.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  It was a little chilly that night. Someone offered to light the fire pit.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  And she kept saying, no, no, Fabio is going to be here soon. He always starts it when he gets home from work. Just Fabio's going to do it. Fabio's going to do it. And we were like, heartbroken, you know? Like, yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  That will always stay in my mind.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Carol and Melanie tried to comfort Monica. It was a surreal moment. All gathered there together, just feet from the spot where Fabio had been brutally murdered.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  Try to be as normal as you can, but at the same time, there's obviously a, you know, drama unfolding and knowing that he had been murdered. Where we were sitting was another thing that was extremely uncomfortable.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  My thought was like, why are you in this house? Because if my husband was brutally murdered, I wouldn't feel safe.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  I kept asking, well, why are you staying here? Just go away. Go in a hotel, you know? Come to my house, whatever. Do something different. Don't stay in this house where this happened. But she kept saying, no, that was his dream house. He would want us to stay. This is what he would want.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Carol and Melanie leave the house in Woodland Hills. They both said they felt uneasy, worried for Monica and her girls. Were they safe there? At the Seminole House, the DVR system, which had been taken offline during the murder, is still out of action, and the murderers are still on the loose. That same day, Detective Ryan Verna gets a call.

• 18:04Speaker 07

  A homeowner had noticed that a black Porsche had been parked in his neighborhood for several nights.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Fabio's prized Porsche 911, the car that was a symbol of his success. It had been abandoned about 10 minutes away from the Seminole House, with the windows left rolled down.

• 18:25Speaker 07

  As it was being impounded, we were able to open the doors up, gloves on, of course, and kind of use our flashlights to look around inside the car. We could see that there was what appeared to be bloodstains inside the vehicle. I believe it was on the driver's side, door panel, near the seat. We knew that that was going to be of the ultimate importance.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  The detectives send the blood swabs to the DNA lab. They already had suspected that one of the attackers might have been injured at the scene of the crime. If this blood belongs to one of them and not Fabio, it could be the key to cracking this case.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Observe: The North American Dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle, no one called him "boss." He's still on the couch, astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. I'm Josh Manikowitz, and I hope you'll join us for season five of Dateline: Missing in America. In each episode of Dateline's award-winning series, we will focus on

• 19:56Speaker 01

  One missing persons case and hear from the families, the friends and the investigators all desperate to find them. Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search Dateline Missing in America to listen completely free or subscribe to Dateline Premium to unlock new episodes early.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  It's January 29th, six days since Fabio's death. Viewing is about to begin. You know how in movies cops always go to these memorials to see who shows up, to try to get a read on the room and which people choose to attend? Cops didn't come that day. But the people who loved Fabio noticed something that just didn't fit.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  At a mortuary in the valley, Luigi Semantilli is sitting in the waiting room. Music is playing faintly in the background. Luigi's waiting to see his father's body.

• 20:54Speaker 07

  Walking into that viewing room, I remember my knees buckling and my dad's best friend having to kind of help me back up. And I had been to many funerals before and didn't expect it to hit me as hard as it did, but I remember it did hit me really hard seeing him in the casket.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  The viewing room is simple and modern. There are rows of wooden pews and a round stained glass window. Fabio is lying in a casket at one end. Smartly dressed mourners, all in black, file into the room.

• 21:31Speaker 07

  Countless names and faces coming up to me, shaking my hand, giving me their condolences.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Alicia Truesdale has organized everything according to the family's wishes. There is going to be a separate funeral in Canada a few days later, but for everyone who knew Fabio in California, this is their chance to say goodbye.

• 21:48Speaker 06

  Everyone, it's just such a, like zombies almost. People brought their husbands and wives and things, you know, because they, we all knew Fabio.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  A lot of folks from the LA beauty industry are here to pay their respects. Monica is Sitting in the front with the two girls and Fabio's Canadian family's there too.

• 22:09Speaker 06

  And she has a thing over her like a blanket or something like that.

• 22:17Speaker 06

  And crying, but the sobbing was so loud.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  When Carol approaches, Monica tries to usher her towards the body.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  I couldn't go to the casket. I cannot do that. And she kept saying, go say goodbye, go say goodbye. I can't. I just, I just can't. That's not how I want to remember him.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  As Melanie looks at Fabio lying there, the enormity of what has happened dawns on her.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Just that life was gone and it was not only like his physical being, but just that ray, that huge light that he just shined on everyone that he interacted with. It was just gone and it was really sad.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  After the viewing at the mortuary, everybody heads to the wake over at the Semantili House in Woodland Hills. Alicia has made all the arrangements and brought in Fabio's favorite caterers from the taco place he loved.

• 23:21Speaker 06

  People are coming up, people are kind of eating, people are mingling around. I've done this whole week of bringing food up to the family, arranging shuttles for them to go places and that type of thing, arranging things for them, just taking care of them.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Alicia has set the Canadian relatives up in a hotel. Luigi didn't want to stay at the house in Woodland Hills. Being here for the wake was bad enough.

• 23:47Speaker 07

  I didn't want to be there and just very weird, especially being out in the backyard, precisely where he was killed, because that was where he spent most of his time when he was at home.

• 23:58Speaker 07

  His absence was very loud, too. That he was the only one who wasn't there and the whole family was there, but not him.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Normally, a party in the backyard would be full of music and laughter. Fabio might burst into songs spontaneously or take Monica by the hand and whirl her around. Tonight, the atmosphere is muted.

• 24:18Speaker 04

  People talking to each other in little groups and exchanging memories that they've had personally with Fabio and getting together. I think it felt good to be together in a moment like that, to not feel like you're alone in that grief.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Some of Fabio's relatives are sitting here on the sofa. Monica's there, too.

• 24:41Speaker 06

  She was in a separate chair or something on the side, and there was a man there.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  One of Fabio's work friends points the guy out to Alicia. He has short brown hair. He looks in shape, and he's wearing a leather jacket.

• 24:55Speaker 06

  She said something to me about, who is this guy? And it kind of went over my head, like I'm going like, you know, a friend, a neighbor, I don't know.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  They're the only ones who notice him. He catches Carol's eye, too.

• 25:12Speaker 04

  He kind of stuck out. You know, nobody knew who he was. And then a lot of people that were there, they were people from Walla, right? So everybody had a certain look. When you're part of the industry, you have a certain look to you, you know, the way you're dressed, you know, put together, you know, fashion forward, and he just didn't fit.

• 25:32Speaker 04

  And we were very protective of Monica, like, who's this guy? Who does he want from her, you know? And someone said, that's her coach from the racquetball club. He's a friend from the gym.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  And I was like, OK, well, you know, Monica has a life outside of here, too, but just, just he stood out like, so sore thumb.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  The air is thick with questions that night.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  There were definitely hushed conversations, you know, who could do this? And, you know, why is she still in this house? And you're trying to just wrap your head around the brutality of this. And this whole knock-knock burglar thing made no sense to anybody.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  All these burglars, like, they don't... They don't kill, you know, if they get surprised, they beat you up and they run away. It felt very personal, the way he was stabbed.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Melanie finds herself wondering how well she really knew Fabio's life.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Wow, did Fabio, like, somebody, you know, really, somebody really must hate him or something? Or like, did he cross a, and, you know, Fabio's Italian. I'm not throwing anything out there, but it's like, you know, this was like a mafia hit. I mean, you know, you just don't want to think it, but it's just like, that is somebody who is pissed off.

• 26:54Speaker 07

  Of course, there was rampant speculation about everything.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Luigi is trying his best to keep out of it, but lots of his family members have questions, too. Are you like the more sensible, let's not rush to judgment person? Or are you usually the one who would be like, you know, the first one to weigh in?

• 27:17Speaker 07

  No, the last to weigh in, if I weigh in at all. When I studied philosophy in school and my, my area of competence was skepticism. I was just doing my best not to jump to conclusions, to listen to what the detectives and other people were telling us about what had happened.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  But the whispers from the wake travel quickly. That night, Detective Ryan Verna's phone pings. Deborah Obad, a family friend, has sent Verna a photo.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Basically, what it shows is Monica and this male, he was there, he was kind of weird and taking up a lot of her time. And we noticed that on, in one of the pictures, it appeared that there was, you know, maybe a bandage on one of his fingers. So, interesting, okay. You kind of put in your back pocket, there's not, there's not a ton there, it's interesting.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  The officers take it on board, but they're inundated with speculative leads that go nowhere.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Detective Verna has his mind on the Porsche and the blood found at the scene in Fabio's car. Investigators have to remain objective, clear-headed. But understandably, Fabio's friends and family are emotional. They want answers, and fast.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Nobody knew what was going on. And we were all getting a little frustrated. Like, why is it taking so long? You know? I mean, a friend is gone. Get your act together. You know what I mean?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Did you start to get frustrated at all with lack of answers?

• 28:47Speaker 07

  I wouldn't say I was frustrated, but I was definitely feeling hopeless. Feeling hopeless that this was just another nameless, faceless criminal among the horde of criminals in the world. And the not knowing, not being able to wrap your mind around this crazy event was, was really adding to the pain, adding to the suffering, adding to the grieving.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  We get our DNA hit back on the 14th of February.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Detective Ryan Verna has been waiting for the blood samples to come back for three weeks. Finally, something concrete.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  We are told that Rob Baker matches the DNA profile of the blood that's been recovered.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Robert Baker. He's 54 years old, short brown hair, and athletic build. Which makes sense, because he's a coach at a racquetball club. The racquetball club where the Semantiles go. A man they've taken lessons from. And now his DNA could place him at the scene of the crime.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  I believe not only from the house, but also the Porsche.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  And we've met him before. The blood staining Fabio's stolen Porsche belongs to the strange guy in the leather jacket at the wake.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  So that's our guy, Rob Baker.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  But why would a racquetball coach want to kill Fabio?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Next time on Cut, Color, Kill. The cops find out.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  We need to get surveillance up on this guy. We need to find out, you know, who he is, where he is, what he's doing, when he drives, everything.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  This is Cut, Color, Kill, an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, hosted by me, Jonathan Hirsch. Caroline Thornham is our senior producer. Catherine Godfrey is our editor. Mohamed Ahmed is our assistant producer. Mark Pittman is our engineer. Additional engineering by Daniel Kempson. For Novel, our executive producer is Max O'Brien. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and me, Jonathan Hirsch. Production management from Cherie Houston, Joe Savage, and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact checking by Fendil Fulton. Research by Myron Kaplan. Story development by Nell Gray Andrews. Novel's director of development is Selena Metta.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Special thanks to Carolyn Schur Levin at Miller-Korsak Raymond. And a big thanks to the whole Sony Music Entertainment team.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Kayak searches and compares hundreds of travel sites. But unless I repeat the word kayak, Kayak thinks you won't remember that. So Kayak asked me to say kayak as many times as possible. Kayak! Kayak. Kayak. Kayak, kayak, kayak. Kayak! Search and compare travel deals with Kayak. Got that right.