Latest / The Mind of a Man / This Story Will Break Your Heart_ No Movie Can Match This Tragedy_ True Crime Documentary

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This Story Will Break Your Heart_ No Movie Can Match This Tragedy_ True Crime Documentary · The Mind of a Man

0:14
Speaker 1: At 1.29 in the morning, a call came into Laredo
0:18
Speaker 1: Emergency Dispatch. A man's voice, shaking, told the operator that
0:23
Speaker 1: his wife had swallowed almost an entire bottle of pills.
0:28
Speaker 1: He said her name was Maria. He said he loved her.
0:32
Speaker 1: He said he was trying to save her. But when
0:36
Speaker 1: police arrived at that house on the outskirts of Laredo, Texas...
0:41
Speaker 1: Nothing about the scene matched the story they were being told.
0:45
Speaker 1: There was no pill bottle emptied on a nightstand. There
0:49
Speaker 1: was no vomit, no slurred confession, no obvious signs of
0:54
Speaker 1: a woman who had swallowed a fistful of clonazepam. Instead,
1:00
Speaker 1: officers found a fresh needle mark in the crook of
1:02
Speaker 1: her right arm. They found a man in surgical scrubs
1:06
Speaker 1: kneeling over her body, performing CPR on with what one
1:10
Speaker 1: officer would later describe as strange, almost mechanical detachment, and
1:16
Speaker 1: they found a husband who, when questioned about a missing
1:20
Speaker 1: pill bottle, quietly slipped it into his own pocket. The
1:24
Speaker 1: man's name was Joel Pellett. He was a certified registered
1:29
Speaker 1: nurse anesthetist, a medical professional trained to administer some of
1:34
Speaker 1: the most powerful drugs in modern medicine. And by the
1:38
Speaker 1: time the sun rose that morning, his wife, 31-year-old Maria
1:43
Speaker 1: Eugenia Munoz, was dead. It would take almost four months
1:48
Speaker 1: of toxicology testing to reveal that Maria never took the
1:52
Speaker 1: pills her husband said she took. What was actually coursing
1:56
Speaker 1: through her bloodstream was something far more calculated and far
2:01
Speaker 1: more damning. This is the story of a marriage that
2:05
Speaker 1: collapsed under the weight of an affair. a woman who
2:09
Speaker 1: was finally choosing herself, and a man whose professional skill
2:14
Speaker 1: became the weapon used to make sure she never got
2:17
Speaker 1: the chance. Unreal True Crime launches its new book, Unreal
2:59
Speaker 1: True Crime, Latin Edition. 35 shocking true murder cases from
3:05
Speaker 1: across Latin America. Buy it now on Amazon. This is
3:14
Speaker 1: the story of a marriage that collapsed under the weight
3:17
Speaker 1: of an affair, a woman who was finally choosing herself,
3:23
Speaker 1: and a man whose professional skill became the weapon used
3:26
Speaker 1: to make sure she never got the chance. Maria trained
3:31
Speaker 1: as a registered nurse in Puerto Rico. It was there,
3:35
Speaker 1: at nursing school, that she met an older nursing student
3:39
Speaker 1: named Joel Pellett, roughly 11 years her senior. They dated
3:44
Speaker 1: for about a year before Pellet's mother, Miriam Carasquillo, even
3:50
Speaker 1: met Maria. Carasquillo would later say she developed a 12-year
3:56
Speaker 1: mother-and-daughter type bond with her future daughter-in-law. Around 2010 or 2011,
4:05
Speaker 1: Maria and Joel married. A few years later, the couple
4:09
Speaker 1: relocated to Laredo, Texas. where Joel pursued advanced training and
4:14
Speaker 1: eventually qualified as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, a highly
4:20
Speaker 1: specialized role that involves administering general anesthesia, powerful sedatives, and
4:27
Speaker 1: opioid painkillers capable of suppressing a patient's breathing and heart function.
4:34
Speaker 1: He worked at Doctors Hospital of Laredo and later at
4:38
Speaker 1: Laredo Medical Center. Former colleagues described him as intelligent, hardworking,
4:45
Speaker 1: and ambitious. He often showed co-workers photos of Maria and
4:50
Speaker 1: their growing family, and by every outward appearance, he was
4:55
Speaker 1: a devoted husband and father. Maria, for her part, put
5:00
Speaker 1: her own nursing career on hold. The couple had agreed
5:04
Speaker 1: she would stay home with their children until both boys
5:07
Speaker 1: were old enough for school, and then She would build
5:11
Speaker 1: her own professional path. Friends remembered her as organized, warm,
5:17
Speaker 1: and completely devoted to her sons. Alejandro, born first, and
5:22
Speaker 1: later Valentino. She took the boys to parks and swim lessons,
5:27
Speaker 1: read to them every night, and structured her entire life
5:31
Speaker 1: around their routines. People who knew her described her as
5:36
Speaker 1: happy and bubbly in those years. deeply religious and proud
5:40
Speaker 1: of the family she had built. But around 2018, something shifted,
5:46
Speaker 1: according to Maria's own journal entries. Joel began telling her
5:51
Speaker 1: that her role as just a stay-at-home mom left him
5:55
Speaker 1: unmotivated to stay in the marriage, a comment that confused
5:59
Speaker 1: and wounded her since staying home had always been their
6:03
Speaker 1: shared plan. Arguments grew more frequent. In one entry, Maria
6:09
Speaker 1: wrote that Joel called her crazy and a moron and
6:13
Speaker 1: complained that in a divorce she would take his money.
6:18
Speaker 1: What Maria did not yet know was that Joel had
6:21
Speaker 1: already begun an affair. Janet Arredondo, a surgical nurse who
6:26
Speaker 1: worked alongside him, later testified that their relationship began in
6:31
Speaker 1: October 2018, the same period Maria gave birth to their
6:37
Speaker 1: second son, Valentino. Arredondo knew Joel was married. The two
6:43
Speaker 1: of them began taking lavish international trips together, Spain in
6:47
Speaker 1: the spring of 2019, and later a vacation through France
6:53
Speaker 1: and Greece. Maria eventually discovered the affair after finding a
6:58
Speaker 1: plane ticket receipt. By the spring of 2020, Joel had
7:03
Speaker 1: moved out of the family home and was living with Arredondo.
7:07
Speaker 1: And yet, he continued moving between both women, in a
7:11
Speaker 1: way that kept Maria emotionally tethered to him. At one
7:16
Speaker 1: point that year, he took her on a lavish trip
7:19
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas and bought her expensive designer handbags, gifts
7:24
Speaker 1: a friend later understood as a kind of guilt payment
7:27
Speaker 1: for the vacations he had taken with his mistress. What
7:31
Speaker 1: Maria still did not know was just how far the
7:35
Speaker 1: relationship with Arredondo had gone in other ways. The two
7:39
Speaker 1: of them had begun keeping stolen hospital medications, propofol, ketamine, midazolam, fentanyl, morphine, meparidine,
7:49
Speaker 1: and lidocaine, in an upstairs closet at Arredondo's house, using
7:55
Speaker 1: them recreationally on each other through IV access ports. Arredondo
8:01
Speaker 1: would later testify to this under a proffer agreement with prosecutors.
8:06
Speaker 1: It meant Joel not only had professional access to powerful
8:11
Speaker 1: anesthetic drugs, but hands-on personal experience using them outside of
8:17
Speaker 1: any hospital setting. By September 2020, Maria was done waiting.
8:24
Speaker 1: She had begun studying to reactivate her Texas nursing license.
8:28
Speaker 1: filling notebooks and scattering pages of study material and math
8:32
Speaker 1: formulas around the bedroom. She was learning to play the piano.
8:37
Speaker 1: She looked into selling the family home and was considering
8:41
Speaker 1: leaving Laredo altogether, even asking her sister Marisol to help
8:46
Speaker 1: her buy a plane ticket back to Puerto Rico. She
8:50
Speaker 1: was preparing to meet with a divorce lawyer. And in
8:54
Speaker 1: the middle of all this upheaval, She was still planning ordinary,
8:58
Speaker 1: hopeful things. Halloween costumes and a birthday celebration for Valentino.
9:06
Speaker 1: On Saturday, September 19, 2020, Maria and a friend drove
9:11
Speaker 1: to Arredondo's house. After spotting Joel's car parked outside, Maria
9:17
Speaker 1: stood at the door, trying to explain to Arredondo that
9:21
Speaker 1: she still wanted to save her marriage. Arredondo called the police.
9:27
Speaker 1: Before officers arrived, Joel convinced Maria to get into her
9:31
Speaker 1: own car, which he had been using, and drove her
9:35
Speaker 1: to a park. There, he yelled at her and broke
9:38
Speaker 1: her windshield. It was a breaking point. In the days
9:42
Speaker 1: that followed, Maria stopped hoping for reconciliation and started moving
9:48
Speaker 1: decisively toward divorce. On Sunday, September 20th, Maria texted Joel
9:55
Speaker 1: that she accepted he no longer wanted to repair the
9:58
Speaker 1: marriage and that she intended to move forward with her life.
10:02
Speaker 1: She suggested they might even share the same divorce attorney
10:06
Speaker 1: to keep things simple. Joel replied that they should try
10:10
Speaker 1: to keep lawyers out of it as much as possible,
10:13
Speaker 1: citing the cost. On Monday, September 21st, Joel sent Maria
10:19
Speaker 1: an emotional email. He said he was hurting and wanted
10:24
Speaker 1: a calm private conversation, a heart-to-heart. Maria agreed to meet
10:29
Speaker 1: him that evening. Before he arrived, she texted her friend
10:34
Speaker 1: Yasmin Martinez, asking her to pray for her because she
10:38
Speaker 1: and Joel were about to talk. It would be her
10:41
Speaker 1: final message to Martinez. That same day at work, A
10:46
Speaker 1: co-worker watched Joel gather an unusual collection of supplies, syringes, needles,
10:54
Speaker 1: IV starter kits, catheters, and extension tubing, and placed them
10:58
Speaker 1: in his personal bag. When asked about it, he said
11:02
Speaker 1: he was heading home. The co-worker found this odd. These
11:06
Speaker 1: weren't the kinds of supplies Joel typically needed outside the hospital,
11:11
Speaker 1: and he seemed unusually rushed and on edge. At around
11:16
Speaker 1: 8 p.m., Arredondo saw Joel dressed in medical scrubs. He
11:22
Speaker 1: left her house roughly 30 minutes later, telling her he
11:26
Speaker 1: had picked up an overnight shift before his regular morning
11:29
Speaker 1: shift began. That was not true. Instead, the garage sensor
11:35
Speaker 1: at the family home recorded his arrival at 9.21 p.m.
11:38
Speaker 1: He was going to see Maria. What happened inside that
11:44
Speaker 1: house over the next several hours was never captured on video,
11:49
Speaker 1: and no one else witnessed it. But garage door records
11:53
Speaker 1: tell part of the story. At 1.26, 1.27, and 1.28
11:56
Speaker 1: in the morning, the garage door opened repeatedly. Then, at
11:59
Speaker 1: approximately 1.29 and again at 1.32 a.m., Joel called 911.
12:12
Speaker 1: He told the dispatcher that Maria had possibly overdosed, that
12:17
Speaker 1: he had given her a full bottle of pills and
12:20
Speaker 1: only two remained. The dispatcher walked him through CPR instructions.
12:26
Speaker 1: Maria was declared dead inside the home at 3.58 a.m.
12:32
Speaker 1: The first officer on scene, Gregorio de la Cruz, arrived
12:37
Speaker 1: to find Maria on the floor of the upstairs loft
12:40
Speaker 1: near the bedroom, and Joel, still in his teal surgical scrubs,
12:45
Speaker 1: attempting CPR with a technique the officer considered ineffective. Joel
12:51
Speaker 1: appeared sweaty, nervous, and agitated. He seemed to cry, but
12:56
Speaker 1: the officer noted he never actually saw tears. De La
13:00
Speaker 1: Cruz saw a fresh puncture wound in the crook of
13:04
Speaker 1: Maria's right arm. Near the staircase, he found an IV-type
13:09
Speaker 1: needle and cap. In the bedroom closet, a syringe wrapper,
13:13
Speaker 1: and inside, Joel's black medical bag, more syringes, tourniquets, vials,
13:20
Speaker 1: and IV supplies. When asked about the pills Maria had
13:25
Speaker 1: supposedly taken, Joel retrieved a clonazepam bottle from the bathroom cabinet,
13:31
Speaker 1: a prescription in his own name, not hers. The officer
13:36
Speaker 1: set the bottle aside to keep working. Body camera footage
13:40
Speaker 1: later revealed caught Joel quietly picking it back up and
13:44
Speaker 1: slipping it into his pocket. When asked where it had gone,
13:48
Speaker 1: he returned it. Other details at the scene didn't add
13:52
Speaker 1: up either. The shower Joel claimed to have used was
13:56
Speaker 1: bone dry, with no steam or moisture. Only one side
14:01
Speaker 1: of the bed looked disturbed, contradicting his account that the
14:05
Speaker 1: two of them had slept there together after having sex.
14:09
Speaker 1: and forensic testing later found no trace of his DNA
14:14
Speaker 1: in Maria's vaginal or anal swabs. Toxicology took nearly four
14:20
Speaker 1: months to complete. When the results finally came back, they
14:24
Speaker 1: upended everything Joel had told police. Maria had no clonazepam,
14:29
Speaker 1: no alcohol, and no marijuana in her system. Instead, her
14:34
Speaker 1: blood contained propofol, ketamine, midazolam, morphine, meparidine, lidocaine, and naloxone,
14:42
Speaker 1: a cocktail of powerful surgical anesthetics and opioids, along with
14:47
Speaker 1: reversal medication. Dr. John Hunsinger, head of anesthesiology at a
14:53
Speaker 1: Laredo hospital, and Joel's former supervisor, testified that Maria's morphine
14:59
Speaker 1: level was in overdose range, and that her propofol concentration
15:04
Speaker 1: was the highest he had ever personally encountered. Armed with
15:08
Speaker 1: this evidence, investigators obtained a murder warrant. On January 16, 2021,
15:14
Speaker 1: Joel Pellett was arrested. He posted a $ 200, 000 bond 11
15:23
Speaker 1: days later and was released, only to be re-arrested that
15:27
Speaker 1: same day on a separate charge of tampering with evidence.
15:31
Speaker 1: He posted an additional $ 100, 000 bond two days after that.
15:37
Speaker 1: A Webb County grand jury indicted him on both counts,
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Speaker 1: murder and tampering with physical evidence. While out on bond,
15:47
Speaker 1: prosecutors turned their focus to Janet Arredondo. Investigators learned that
15:53
Speaker 1: after Maria's death, Arredondo had wrapped the stash of stolen
15:57
Speaker 1: hospital drugs from her closet in a garbage bag and
16:01
Speaker 1: thrown it away far from her house. She also deleted
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Speaker 1: camera footage from the relevant dates, footage she said Joel
16:09
Speaker 1: had specifically instructed her to remove. Facing potential charges of
16:14
Speaker 1: her own, Arredondo agreed to a proffer arrangement with prosecutors.
16:20
Speaker 1: In exchange for truthful testimony, her statements could not be
16:24
Speaker 1: used to prosecute her. Under that agreement, she revealed that
16:29
Speaker 1: Joel had told her he removed the IV catheter from
16:33
Speaker 1: and medication vials from the scene before police arrived, and
16:37
Speaker 1: that he had staged a needle and syringe near Maria's
16:41
Speaker 1: body to explain the puncture wound. Digital evidence added another layer.
16:47
Speaker 1: Maria's home security system, which she had installed largely to
16:51
Speaker 1: help monitor her older son, showed suspicious activity in the
16:56
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of her death. Within a day or two,
17:01
Speaker 1: Someone attempted to access or modify the account, and a
17:05
Speaker 1: phone was activated using Maria's old number. The footage from
17:10
Speaker 1: that system could not be recovered. A recorded jail call
17:15
Speaker 1: also captured Joel asking his mother to delete a Facebook
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Speaker 1: post he had written against Maria and to remove Maria's
17:23
Speaker 1: Facebook page entirely. His mother refused, saying she wanted the
17:28
Speaker 1: page preserved so the family could eventually post something in
17:33
Speaker 1: Maria's memory. The trial began on March 20, 2023, in
17:39
Speaker 1: Webb County's 406th Judicial District Court, before Judge Oscar J. Hale, Jr.
17:47
Speaker 1: Chief Assistant District Attorney Maricela Jackaman led the prosecution. Over
17:53
Speaker 1: roughly eight days of testimony, prosecutors built a case arguing
17:58
Speaker 1: that that Joel had incapacitated Maria, possibly through sedatives slipped
18:04
Speaker 1: into her coffee, before establishing an IV line in her
18:08
Speaker 1: arm and administering a lethal combination of anesthetic drugs, then
18:14
Speaker 1: waiting until she could no longer be revived before finally
18:18
Speaker 1: calling 911. The defense argued there was no eyewitness, no confessions,
18:25
Speaker 1: and no definitive homicide ruling from the medical examiner, who
18:30
Speaker 1: classified Maria's cause of death as mixed drug intoxication, but
18:35
Speaker 1: listed the manner of death as undetermined. They pointed to
18:39
Speaker 1: Maria's documented struggles with depression and anxiety, torn journal pages
18:46
Speaker 1: referencing dark thoughts, and testimony that she had used marijuana
18:51
Speaker 1: gummies with a friend during the Las Vegas trip. suggesting
18:55
Speaker 1: she may have voluntarily used drugs, possibly recreationally with Joel,
19:01
Speaker 1: and either accidentally overdosed or intentionally taken her own life.
19:08
Speaker 1: They noted that Joel had also administered Narcan, arguing this
19:13
Speaker 1: proved he was trying to save her, not kill her.
19:17
Speaker 1: Prosecutors countered that Narcan does not reverse the effects of propofol,
19:23
Speaker 1: and did nothing to explain the presence of the other
19:26
Speaker 1: anesthetic drugs in her system. They also pointed out that
19:30
Speaker 1: the same torn notes the defense relied on reportedly stated
19:35
Speaker 1: Maria had no plan and had made no attempt to
19:39
Speaker 1: hurt herself, and the medical examiner, despite listing manner of
19:44
Speaker 1: death as undetermined, explicitly ruled out suicide after reviewing Maria's
19:50
Speaker 1: writings and speaking with her family, noting that Maria was right-handed,
19:57
Speaker 1: that the large puncture wound was in her dominant right arm,
20:01
Speaker 1: and that self-administering propofol intravenously with her non-dominant hand, then
20:07
Speaker 1: losing consciousness from the drug itself, made self-injection highly implausible.
20:15
Speaker 1: Joel did not take the stand in his own defense.
20:18
Speaker 1: On March 30, 2023, after deliberating for roughly an hour,
20:25
Speaker 1: the jury found Joel Pellett guilty of murder and of
20:29
Speaker 1: tampering with evidence. During the punishment phase, his defense asked
20:34
Speaker 1: for the minimum five-year sentence, pointing to his lack of
20:38
Speaker 1: any prior criminal record and his relationship with his sons.
20:42
Speaker 1: Maria's family and friends testified about the devastation her death
20:46
Speaker 1: had caused. The jury sentenced Joel to life in prison
20:51
Speaker 1: for murder and 10 years for tampering, to run concurrently,
20:57
Speaker 1: along with fines on each count. Joel's attorneys later filed
21:02
Speaker 1: a motion for a new trial, which the judge denied
21:05
Speaker 1: in June 2023. On appeal, Joel argued that the evidence
21:11
Speaker 1: didn't prove intent, that his early statements to police should
21:15
Speaker 1: have been suppressed, and that jurors should have been allowed
21:19
Speaker 1: to consider a lesser charge of reckless deadly conduct. On
21:24
Speaker 1: March 19, 2025, the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals unanimously
21:30
Speaker 1: rejected every argument and affirmed both convictions. As of the
21:35
Speaker 1: most recent reporting, Joel Pellett remains incarcerated, with a reported
21:41
Speaker 1: parole eligibility date decades away, meaning that despite widespread claims otherwise,
21:48
Speaker 1: his sentence is not technically life without the possibility of parole,
21:53
Speaker 1: even though it may functionally amount to the same thing.
21:57
Speaker 1: What makes this case forensically striking is is the specificity
22:09
Speaker 1: of the drug cocktail found in Maria's body. Propofol is
22:14
Speaker 1: an intravenous general anesthetic that cannot be swallowed or absorbed
22:19
Speaker 1: through the skin. It has to be injected directly into
22:23
Speaker 1: a vein, and it requires careful monitoring because it rapidly
22:28
Speaker 1: suppresses breathing and blood pressure. Outside a hospital setting with
22:33
Speaker 1: no oxygen support or airway management standing by, A large
22:38
Speaker 1: enough dose is capable of stopping a person's breathing entirely
22:42
Speaker 1: within minutes. Combine that with ketamine, midazolam, morphine, and meparidine,
22:49
Speaker 1: each of which independently depresses the central nervous system, and
22:54
Speaker 1: the risk compounds dramatically. This was not a bottle of
22:59
Speaker 1: pills swallowed in a moment of despair. It was a
23:03
Speaker 1: mixture that required medical training, IV access, and precise knowledge
23:09
Speaker 1: of dosing to assemble. The presence of naloxone, the opioid
23:14
Speaker 1: reversal drug sold as Narcan, complicated the picture. Investigators had
23:20
Speaker 1: to weigh whether its presence suggested an attempt to revive Maria,
23:25
Speaker 1: or whether it was administered too late, or in a
23:29
Speaker 1: way designed to create the appearance of a rescue attempt
23:32
Speaker 1: after the fact. Critically, Naloxone does nothing to reverse propofol's effects,
23:39
Speaker 1: meaning that even if Joel did administer it, it could
23:43
Speaker 1: not have counteracted the drug most directly implicated in Maria's
23:48
Speaker 1: respiratory collapse. The forensic puncture site analysis also mattered enormously.
23:55
Speaker 1: A fresh, large-bore IV puncture in Maria's dominant right arm
24:01
Speaker 1: was difficult to reconcile with with any theory of self-administration,
24:06
Speaker 1: since inserting an IV line typically requires using one's dominant
24:11
Speaker 1: hand on the opposite, non-dominant arm. And Propofol works quickly
24:17
Speaker 1: enough that a person self-administering it would likely lose consciousness
24:22
Speaker 1: before completing a second, more dangerous injection, making a scenario
24:28
Speaker 1: of Maria progressively dosing herself with the full combination found
24:33
Speaker 1: in her bloodstream medically improbable. Finally, the scene itself contradicted
24:39
Speaker 1: the narrative Joel gave police. A dry shower stall undermined
24:44
Speaker 1: his claim of recent use, an undisturbed side of the
24:48
Speaker 1: bed conflicted with his account of intimacy, and the missing
24:52
Speaker 1: IV catheter and vials, which Joel later admitted to Arredondo
24:58
Speaker 1: he had removed, represented a deliberate effort to strip the
25:02
Speaker 1: scene of physical evidence before first responders arrived, a level
25:07
Speaker 1: of premeditated cleanup rarely seen in cases framed as accidental
25:12
Speaker 1: or self-inflicted. Family Aftermath The aftermath for Maria's family began
25:24
Speaker 1: almost immediately, with a painful dispute over her final wishes.
25:29
Speaker 1: Maria had reportedly wanted to be buried in Puerto Rico,
25:33
Speaker 1: near her mother's grave. Her sister Marisol testified that Joel
25:38
Speaker 1: insisted Maria had wanted to be cremated instead. Within roughly
25:43
Speaker 1: a day of her death, cremation arrangements were already underway.
25:48
Speaker 1: Maria's ashes were ultimately divided between her family and her husband,
25:54
Speaker 1: a resolution that left many in her family feeling that
25:58
Speaker 1: even in death, she wasn't given the choice she deserved.
26:02
Speaker 1: Her two young sons were placed temporarily with a family
26:06
Speaker 1: friend before custody transferred to Joel's mother, Miriam Carasquillo, who
26:12
Speaker 1: has continued raising them. Maria's sister has expressed her intention
26:17
Speaker 1: to pursue custody, though the public record doesn't confirm a
26:21
Speaker 1: final resolution. Reports from a few years after the trial
26:25
Speaker 1: say indicated the boys were still living with their paternal grandmother,
26:30
Speaker 1: with Maria's relatives in Puerto Rico maintaining contact through visits
26:35
Speaker 1: and calls, though out of respect for the children who
26:38
Speaker 1: were minors and, in every real sense, victims of what
26:42
Speaker 1: happened to their mother, further identifying details about their current
26:47
Speaker 1: lives have deliberately been kept private. At sentencing, Maria's father
26:53
Speaker 1: told the court, that he had welcomed Joel into the
26:56
Speaker 1: family and blessed their marriage, only to receive his daughter back,
27:02
Speaker 1: in his words, eleven years later, in an urn. Her
27:06
Speaker 1: brother Peter spoke about the missed calls from Maria he
27:10
Speaker 1: found on his phone after her death, and the guilt
27:13
Speaker 1: that has stayed with him since. Her sister Marisol described
27:18
Speaker 1: Maria as the maternal figure who raised her after their
27:22
Speaker 1: own mother died. and said that whatever fear Joel represented
27:27
Speaker 1: in life, Maria was now finally beyond his reach. Joel
27:32
Speaker 1: Pellett used the tools of his profession, the same tools
27:36
Speaker 1: meant to heal and to calm, to end his wife's life,
27:41
Speaker 1: and then to try to erase every trace of what
27:43
Speaker 1: he'd done. It very nearly worked, if not for a
27:48
Speaker 1: co-worker's suspicion, a mistress who eventually chose to talk and
27:54
Speaker 1: toxicology results that took four months to expose the truth,
27:58
Speaker 1: Maria Eugenia Munoz might have gone down in official memory
28:03
Speaker 1: as another tragic suicide. Instead, a jury needed less than
28:08
Speaker 1: an hour to see through it. If this case affected you,
28:13
Speaker 1: subscribe for more true crime investigations, and let us know
28:17
Speaker 1: in the comments what you think justice should really look
28:20
Speaker 1: like in cases like this one.