A sick obsession that led to brutal stabbing death of Celeste Manno

Today’s case is an extremely sad case, where a stalker ended the life of beautiful Celeste Manno. Could this have been prevented?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Today, we are going to talk about the murder of a young woman from Australia, Celeste Mano.

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From the moment she was born, she became the embodiment of light and love. From a young
age, she was very playful, very loving, and at four and a half years old, she became a
big sister to her brother Alessandro. She also had an older half-brother, Jaden, and
her family had always been one of the most important parts of her life. From a young

(00:26):
age, she had already developed a strong sense of kindness and inclusivity. She was one of
those kids who would notice when someone else felt left out in the group and would make
the extra effort to make them feel included. It really was her dream in life to be effective
in the lives of others, and she was planning to do so by becoming a psychologist, which
was one of her many career aspirations. She studied criminology and psychology at the

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Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and was fueled by her dedication towards helping
others. People who knew her described her as someone who really had a zest for life
and could find joy in even the little everyday moments.
Let's talk about what happened and discuss how preventable this was. Going back to 2019,
Celeste was 23 years old, just really starting out her life. For the last two and a half

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years of her life, she had been working at a call center for the company Circo Group.
Her mom, Aggie, says that Celeste got a job there to gain some real-world experience,
and before her death, she was enrolling in her last honors year. It was there, at work,
that Celeste ended up meeting the man who would brutally and horrifically take her life
for literally no reason.

(01:36):
The sorry excuse for a human being, the beast, is named Lou Seiko. In 2019, while Celeste
was working at this call center, he was working there as well. He got a job there in April
of 2018, but in June of 2019, he was fired because of performance-related issues. It
wasn't until the day he was fired that she had any real interaction with him. She was

(01:58):
the team leader, and when he was fired, she was tasked with walking him to the door of
the building. It's been reported in some places that she walked him all the way to his car,
which is not the case.
Being the nice person she was, Celeste did what any nice person would do in such a situation.
As he was being shooed out of the building, she offered a handshake and said, you know,

(02:20):
good luck, or something along those very normal lines, right? This weirdo then reaches out
and gives her a kiss on the cheek. She was so confused about why he would do something
like that. It's obviously an extremely strange thing to do. She even told her mom that she
was embarrassed by it and that it made her uncomfortable, but she thought, okay, weirdo,

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off you go. Hopefully, I will never see you again. Not knowing how dangerous this man
was, Aggie told Celeste that maybe she was being a bit dramatic and that he probably
just had a crush on her that she never knew about. Now, in hindsight, she sees everything
completely differently, but she thought in that moment, that was weird, but at least

(03:01):
he's gone. You'll probably never see this person again, or at least that's what she
thought. Then, about a week after he was fired, Celeste received the first of what would end
up being 140 Instagram DMs from this beast. In those early months, the messages were primarily
love letters saying how crazy in love he was with her, how he couldn't function without

(03:22):
her, and how he couldn't hold a job because of how much he loved her. These were obviously
disturbing and bizarre things to be sending someone you literally do not know in any capacity.
There was no relationship whatsoever. Even though Celeste never showed any interest in
him and never reciprocated any of his emotions or feelings, he did not stop. She politely

(03:43):
told him a handful of times that she wasn't interested in him, that she was uncomfortable
with these messages, and to please leave her alone. However, he wouldn't stop. Here's an
example of one of her messages to him.
Hi, Louay. Those are really sweet words, and I appreciate you saying all of that to me.
I'm a bit surprised to read this as this is all new to me. As much as I appreciate this,

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I only feel in a professional way towards you, and I wish you all of the best in your
new job and journey.
When that didn't deter him, and he continued to send her these creepy, disturbing messages,
she decided to block him like most people would do. She thought that would be enough
for him to get the hint to leave her alone, but it didn't. Every time she blocked him,

(04:25):
he would just make a new account and continue to send her the same neurotic messages. Unfortunately,
at this point in time, and I don't know if there ever will be, a lot of these messages
aren't available to the public. I completely understand why, but here is one of the messages
that has been released, so you can get an idea of how disturbing they really were.
I'm so infatuated with you and it's now becoming unhealthy. I know my words don't help me.

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I'm sorry for coming on so strong Celeste. I'm just another rival for your affection.
I am truly sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. I really just wanted to speak with you and
I honestly thought you were ignoring me. My impression of you has been changed. You are
no different than the majority of women. I'll remember you in this lesson for all my life,
and I will devote every ounce of energy I have to climbing up and proving to the world

(05:14):
that I'm somebody. That is my promise to you and my final contact with you.
I'm sure you can guess that was not his final contact with her. He continued to send her
DM after DM, professing his undying love for her and obsession with her. He was basically
just doing this to a blank screen most of the time because that's how little Celeste
was engaging with him. The few times she responded, she was such a kind person that she tried

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to set boundaries and get him to stop in a very polite way. Her mother, on the other
hand, was so pissed off by how he was acting towards her and these messages as any mother
would be. Aggy, Celeste and Alessandro, her brother, were all living together at this
time, so she was very aware of everything that was going on with the situation. She

(06:00):
didn't think that being polite was the best way to deal with them. There were even times
when she would message him in all caps, basically screaming at him to leave her daughter alone,
but he wouldn't stop. In fact, the messages became more and more deranged over time. From
July to about December, they were just hoping that one day he would give up and go away,

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that maybe her lack of response and constant blocking of every account he would make would
just make him stop. But in December, it was clear that this guy, this beast, was never
going to stop. That month, his messages went from love letters and poetry to extremely
sexually explicit and almost angry and desperate. This new shift in his tone was really starting

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to worry them, especially Aggy. Aggy felt like this was a sign that things were escalating
to a dangerous level and that they needed to get help involved. So, Aggy convinced Celeste
that they needed to make a report about this guy and get some other people involved who
could hopefully help, hopefully being the key word here. At first, Celeste didn't want

(07:02):
to do it, quite frankly, because she was just such a kind person. She was worried that if
they escalated this further, he might potentially hurt himself, which tells you everything you
need to know about the type of person she was. Even for this person she didn't know,
who was being so inappropriate and beyond creepy, she was still concerned that reporting
this might negatively affect him. She didn't want anyone to feel pain or hurt themselves.

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So, about six months after it all started, she and her mom went to the police, which
leads me to the first of many failures. The two of them went to the police station and
they were told by an officer to just ignore him. That's right, that's all they had to
say, just ignore him. Obviously, that is what Celeste had already been doing and she had
taken it a step further by blocking him, but he continued to make new accounts and message

(07:51):
her anyway. When they tried to explain, they were told, well, that's really just the nature
of social media and if you don't like it, then you just shouldn't be on it. It's ridiculous
because that is not the nature of social media. Yes, those things happen on social media,
but that's not how it should be handled if it happens and it should not be accepted as

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the norm. What's even crazier is that at no point during this interaction with the officer
did they even write down Lou's name or do anything to show that they wanted to help.
Celeste and Aggie were even told that since no crime was committed, nothing could be done,
but a crime was committed. I'm not talking about her murder. I'm talking about harassment
on social media. Online harassment is a crime in Australia, but clearly not a crime that

(08:37):
the government cares about enough to protect people against it. By the time July of 2020
rolled around, enough was enough. Lou was clearly not going to stop and it was affecting
every facet of Celeste's life. She was truly living in fear. There was one new positive
thing in her life at this point and that was a new boyfriend, a wonderful man named Chris

(08:58):
who she had met through work. They were really starting to build a great relationship. They
had been friends for a long time and she wasn't always sure if she wanted a relationship with
him or not, but not long before her murder they did begin dating. He was good to her
throughout all of this, but there was no denying that the situation with the Beast was beyond
hard on her, no matter how much support she had from loved ones. It was clear that legal

(09:22):
action needed to be taken. So, on July 1st, she and her mom went back to the police station
and laid it all out on the table. They explained everything. They pulled up the messages and
made sure that a proper report was filed and thankfully this time it was. It even went
a step further. On July 3rd, Celeste and Aggie went to the Heidelberg Magistrates Court and

(09:44):
were granted an interim personal safety order to protect a person from physical or mental
harm caused by an individual who is not a family member. When one of these orders is
granted, the person served the order has rules or conditions they need to follow and a brief
breach of these rules is a breach of the law. Lou was served the order on July 8th and was
instructed that he could not have any contact with Celeste whatsoever. At first, this worked

(10:09):
at least for a little while, a very short while to be honest. From about July through
mid-August, everything just appeared to stop. During that time, Celeste and her mom sought
for the interim order to be made final. After the Beast refused to consent to the final
orders, a hearing was scheduled for March 9th, 2021. Also, during that time, he was

(10:31):
interviewed at the Craigieburn police station where he admitted to sending repeated messages
from various social media accounts. But of course, he said that he wasn't at fault. This
is maddening and completely ridiculous. But he said that if his messages were causing
her distress, she could just stop reading them and that sending them was, quote, therapeutic
for him. He also said that because Celeste filed an intervention order, he was no longer

(10:56):
interested in her, basically alluding to the idea that he was over her and was not going
to send her any further messages. But this statement was false because he was still interested
in her and was not going to stop. On August 15th, he breached the order and sent her an
Instagram DM that had a link to a document attached. It turned out to be a three and

(11:16):
a half page letter. Celeste wasn't sure at first if the message was from him and didn't
want to open the link, thinking it might contain a virus or something like that. After work
that day, she took her phone to the police station so that they could open it. That's
when they realized that it was, in fact, from him, which meant he breached the order. What's
interesting about this letter is that when Celeste read it, she felt bad for him and

(11:40):
so did her mom. It was basically a plea for her to drop the intervention order, claiming
it was ruining his life. According to her mom, he used the word please in the letter
43 times.
Please see reason Celeste. Please Celeste, the ball is in your court. Only you can end
this now Celeste. Please end this nonsense by withdrawing the order and stopping the

(12:04):
charges against me for stalking and harassment. And if you make the right choice Celeste,
both of us can move on and we can finally have peace of mind.
He also said that because of the order, he was facing 10 years and wouldn't be able to
look after his sick mother. Just a bunch of things to make it seem like she was ruining
his life over some harmless DMs, which obviously were not harmless at all. Celeste did absolutely

(12:27):
nothing wrong by filing the intervention order. In fact, she did the right thing on all counts,
but she had a caring side for all people and she felt bad and so did her mom. At first,
when they read this letter, they both had a moment of doubt, wondering if they did the
wrong thing here.
Aggie even ended up calling the officer they reported him to and asked about what dropping

(12:49):
the order would be like, what options they had. When they did that, they said if they
dropped it, there was nothing they could do to protect Celeste. That was the moment Aggie
said it really hit her. She knew her daughter needed that protection and she was not going
to stand in the way of that. Plus, a lot of red flags became clear. She realized that,

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more than anything else, this letter was a threat of what Louay would do if Celeste didn't
drop it. So, she didn't drop it, which was absolutely the right move.
But it's also another instance of how Celeste failed. Even when this beast breached that
order, they did nothing to protect her. That letter itself was a breach of the order and
proved that he was still an active threat towards her, yet nothing was done about it.

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There were no legitimate consequences for him to face and he was just able to go about
his normal life. In an interview after the breach, he did say that he'd stop reaching
out to her and, technically speaking, he did. After the letter was sent, the messages stopped
and for a few brief weeks, they thought maybe this time Celeste was safe. But she wasn't
safe because they did nothing to stop him. On November 16, 2020, her life was stolen

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from her in an unbelievably brutal way. Just hours later, shortly after 3.50 a.m., he scaled
the fence to her backyard and used a hammer to shatter her bedroom window. After that,
he entered her bedroom and proceeded to stab Celeste 23 times as she lay in bed asleep,
with the fatal blow being a stab to her heart.

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CCTV footage from a neighbor's house determined that from the time he left his car to the
time he returned, he was gone for only 2 minutes and 39 seconds. That's how quickly this happened.
In those 2 minutes and 39 seconds, he managed to take away the life of a beautiful young
woman whose life was only just beginning. Watching interview clips of her poor mother

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describing what this night was like is beyond devastating. It's just horrific. For her
to even have the strength to talk about what that night was like is amazing to me. She
was there the night it happened. She heard it happen. She was sleeping and heard the
glass shatter. She said it sounded incredibly loud. At first, she was really confused and

(15:02):
thought maybe she was having a horrible nightmare. Obviously, when you get woken up by a loud
sound like that, it's very disorienting. But when she heard Celeste gasp out, she knew
that this was real. She ran right into her room. Right over the broken glass, screaming,
Celeste, don't leave me. She did what every mother would do in that situation and tried

(15:25):
her best to perform CPR, hoping that would be enough to save her life. Obviously, in
a situation like that, most of the time you're in a haze, like you can't fully comprehend
what is happening. She was very confused. She didn't even realize that this was a murder
at first. She was trying to make sense of the whole situation. But after the first responders

(15:46):
arrived, they told her, stop. This is a crime scene. We just found a knife. It was at that
moment that she realized exactly what happened and exactly who did this.
It was like something I just never heard. It was like a million pieces of glass just
crashing. And all of a sudden I heard, oh, so I remember just going, Celeste. And I just

(16:13):
ran out of bed and I'm just screaming her name down the hallway. Celeste, sweetie, what
happened? And I realized that I'm running all over glass. I'm seeing blood. I still
don't get it. And I'm pulling her out of the bed. She's not helping me at all. But I see
all that glass. And so I didn't want to drop her and all that.
Outside, security footage shows Seiko fleeing in his car. As the paramedics arrive inside,

(16:39):
Aggie is desperately fighting to save her daughter's life.
Breeze, sweetie, please don't leave me. Don't leave me. And then one of them stops me and
he says, this is a crime scene. We found a knife. And in that moment, all I said was,

(17:00):
what? Oh my God, he killed her. He said, you know who did it? I said, yes. Yes. Yes.
What happened next was quite surprising. And I think a lot of you will be too. Up until
this point, this didn't seem like something Louay would do. But rather than hide or wait

(17:24):
for the authorities to come and find him, he ended up just turning himself in. At 3.57am,
he just shows up at the police station and asks an officer to shoot him and then proceeded
to explain what he had done. Meanwhile, back at the house, the scene was being processed.
Officers not only found the knife that he had left behind, but they also found the hammer

(17:45):
that he had used to break the window. Plus, a little bit down the road, they ended up
finding a phone that he clearly tried to ditch. There just aren't words to properly describe
the pain that her family felt both on that day and every day since. Celeste was laid
to rest at the end of November, just after what would have been her 24th birthday. So

(18:05):
young. It's been an uphill battle for their family ever since. From the end of 2020 through
2023, there were countless hearings and psychiatric evaluations to determine Louay's ability to
stand trial and if there would even be a trial and what the nature of his mental impairment
truly is. Despite some initial conflicting opinions, it was ultimately determined that

(18:27):
he was mentally fit to stand trial. So, the trial was scheduled for May of 2023. A month
before it began, he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty, meaning he would no
longer need to go to trial. Instead, there would just be a hearing in front of the judge
to determine the length of his sentence. There were a few more delays after that, but ultimately

(18:49):
his hearing was scheduled to begin on January 29th, 2024. And guess what this guy did right
before? Once again, he said that he wanted to represent himself. Louay said that he wanted
to dispute the autopsy because he didn't believe he actually stabbed Celeste 23 times. He claimed
he only stabbed her twice and the other 21 injuries were caused by the broken glass.

(19:13):
It started on January 29th, 2024 and ended up going on for three days. Just as a reminder,
they were not trying to prove whether or not he did it. That had already been decided.
What they were arguing about was how much time he should end up serving in prison. To
add insult to injury, the judge's final ruling is appalling. In the end, Judge Jane Dixon

(19:35):
sentenced Louay Seiko to a mere 36 years in prison with parole eligibility in 30 years.
Yes, you heard that right, 36 years, with parole on the table in 30 years. From there,
there aren't even words to describe how insane that is. Thanks for joining us today. Please
tell me what you think in the comments below. Did you get off to easy? Until next time,

(19:58):
please stay safe out there.