Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / ‘She-Hulk’ Bodybuilder Killed in Brutal Hammer Attack

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‘She-Hulk’ Bodybuilder Killed in Brutal Hammer Attack · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Zunilda Mendez was exactly 17 days away from stepping onto
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: one of the world's most elite bodybuilding stages. Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Just 17 days out.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We are talking about a woman whose entire daily
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: existence was dedicated to, you know, forging her body into
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: this weapon of absolute perfection.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The discipline required for that is, I mean, it's
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: just staggering.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It really is. But then when Spanish national police finally
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: broke down the door of her coastal rental home on
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a Wednesday afternoon, the scene they found inside was just
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: incredibly gruesome.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was an absolute nightmare scenario.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: But the crazy thing is, legally speaking, the moment they
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: walked into that locked room, they were looking at a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: scene that technically wasn't a crime.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Right, because the only two people who would actually tell
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: us what happened inside that room, Zunolda and her husband, well,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: they were both dead.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack this. Today, we are taking a
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: deep dive into a truly labyrinthine case. We're basing this
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: on analysis from the YouTube show Sidebar, which is produced
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: by the Law and Crime Network.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating source, yeah.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: It really is. And we're focusing on the horrific death
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of Zunilda Amy Hoyos-Mendez. She was this international bodybuilding champion,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and she was known to her thousands of fans as She-Hulk.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And she was found dead in a coastal town in Spain.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Right, with her husband, Jared Gelling, as the prime suspect
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in what looked like an apparent murder-suicide.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: So our mission today is to take you, the listener,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: far beyond those initial chucking headlines.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You aren't just getting some standard true crime recap here.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. We are going to dissect the
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: absolute anatomy of a complex international legal investigation. I mean,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: we'll explore the mechanics of how circumstantial evidence is actually
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: weighed when there were literally no human witnesses left alive
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to take the stand.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Which is such a wild concept to wrap your head around.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It is. And we're also going to untangle the incredibly
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: strict rules of hearsay regarding digital messages, like how a
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: court looks at your casual WhatsApp texts when you aren't
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: there to explain what you meant.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, that part is so interesting. And we'll also delve
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: into the civil liabilities surrounding domestic violence. And the potential
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: legally complicated role of performance enhancing drugs.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Right. So whether you're interested in the granular mechanics of
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: the law or the sociology of volatile relationships or even
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: just the intense hidden corners of elite professional sports.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This deep dive is going to challenge how you
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: perceive the pursuit of justice when the prime suspect is
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: already dead.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So let's start by understanding the massive footprint of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: the person at the center of all this.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Zunilda Amy Hoyos-Mendez, though she went by Amy.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Right, Amy. She was an absolute force of nature in
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the fitness world. I mean, she had over 75,000 highly
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: engaged Instagram followers.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Which is huge.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It is. But she wasn't just, you know, a fitness
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: influencer posting aesthetic photos. She was a rising star in
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: elite competitive bodybuilding. And she was prepping for a major
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: international show in Portugal.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And achieving that level requires a lifestyle that borders
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: on the unfathomable for most people. Trial attorney Bob Hill,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: who was analyzing this case for the Long Crime Network,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: he really highlighted her background to contextualize the environment they
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: were living in.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Right, because Amy's defining career moment came during her second
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: place finish at the 2021 NPC Worldwide Latin American Championships.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Which is a massive deal in that world.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: It's huge. That specific placement earned her the Elite IFBB
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Pro title. That's the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And earning an IFBB pro card is, well, it's essentially
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the holy grail of that ecosystem. It separates the highly
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: dedicated amateurs from the global elite.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And to give you an idea of the mechanics
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: behind this, you don't just like work out and eat
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: chicken and broccoli.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: No, it's way beyond that.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Way beyond. Earning that pro card takes years of punishing
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: microscopic discipline. We're talking about weighing every single gram of food.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Every single gram. Yeah.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And manipulating water intake down to the milliliter. Plus, enduring
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: immense mental fatigue as your body fat drops to these
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: unsustainably low levels for stage presentation.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: She was operating at the absolute peak of human physical endurance.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: She really was. And her husband, Jared Gelling, he was
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: completely embedded in that exact same intense subculture.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Right. He owned a supplement store in Florida called Southern Muscle. Yep.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: And he was a competitive bodybuilder himself. He placed fourth...
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: at the 2014 NPC Team Universe competition.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And crucially, he was also her coach. Right.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: So you have two figures whose entire lives, physically, financially,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: and professionally, are totally intertwined in this high-stakes subculture.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: A subculture that demands physical perfection and extreme behavioral control.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And that dynamic is vital to understanding the timeline
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: in Spain.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the couple actually lived in Dubai, but they
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: were staying in a rental home in a coastal town
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: in southern Spain. Cuencarola, I think it is, in the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: province of Malaga.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Right. They had been there for about a month, primarily
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: because Jelling was recovering from knee surgery.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: So picture the daily routine of a professional bodybuilder who
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is exactly 17 days out from a major international show.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It's absolute clockwork.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a closed-loop system of eating... training, recovering, and,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you know, updating family or coaches.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly how the alarm bells first started ringing.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Right, because Amy was incredibly close with her family back
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: in Colombia. She spoke to them on a daily basis.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Every single day.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: And then suddenly, on Saturday, June 15th, that communication abruptly stopped.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Total radio silence.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't just the digital silence that triggered the panic, right?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: No, because she was so deep into competition prep, Amy
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: was a fixture at the local gym in Spain. She
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: had quickly become this well-known, admired figure among the regulars there. Right.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: People noticed her.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So her sudden absence from her workouts was an
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: immediate real-world aberration.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Because you just do not miss a training session a
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: few weeks out from a stage appearance. Not unless you
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: are physically incapacitated. The psychology of an IFBB pro simply
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: doesn't allow for a, you know, a rest day that
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: isn't meticulously scheduled months in advance.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Right. So her missing that gym session is the modern
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: equivalent of firing off a distress flare.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I keep thinking about this idea of a digital heartbeat.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: In modern life, we all have one.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great way to put it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Right. Think about your daily habits. You send that morning
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: WhatsApp check-in to your family. You swipe your key fob
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: at the gym turnstile. You post a quick story on Instagram.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a constant rhythmic pulse of data that proves
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: we are alive, moving around, interacting with the world.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And in Amy's case, that pulse just flatlined on
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: June 15th.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Just stopped completely.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And what strikes me is that when that digital
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: heartbeat stops, the investigation actually begins by the community days
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: before law enforcement is even officially notified.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Right, because the disruption of routine is the first true
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: piece of forensic evidence.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It really is. By June 18th, just a few days
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: after she went silent, the panic reached a boiling point.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Amy's nieces, Uleda and Angie, they launched this desperate search.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: They flooded social media and WhatsApp groups with a haunting
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: photo of the couple smiling together, just begging for any information.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And that same day, a friend filed an official missing
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: person report in the nearby town of Torremolinos.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: And less than 24 hours after that report was filed,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: so this is on June 19th, just before 2 p.m.,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the Spanish National Police forced entry into that Fundarola rental home.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: And the scene was devastating.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Horrific. Amy was found dead with obvious signs of extreme violence.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Authorities stated her injuries were consistent with multiple hammer blows.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. Yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And Jared Yelling was found lifeless in the nearby bathroom
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: with the parents' self-inflicted stab wounds. Investigators recovered a bloodstained
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: hammer right there at the scene.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: It is a staggering, intimate level of violence.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: It really is. But finding the bodies is not the
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: end of the legal process. And Bob Hill tackles a
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: massive misconception that people have when looking at cases like this.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Right. The idea that if the killer is dead, the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: case is just automatically closed.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: People.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Assume the police just, you know, bag the evidence, carry
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: out the bodies, file some paperwork, and move on to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the next call.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: But that couldn't be further from the truth. The investigation
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: is actually just beginning the moment that door is breached.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Really? Yeah, because authorities have a strict legal mandate. They
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: must definitively establish the facts of the deaths, reconstruct the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: sequence of events, and completely rule out outside foul play
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: before they can officially stamp it A murder-suicide.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. They can't just guess based on
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the layout of a room.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They have to build what we call a ghost timeline.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: A ghost timeline. I love that term. Because if I'm
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a detective walking into that room, my biggest problem is
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: that my two best witnesses can't talk. I have to
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: figure out a way to, like, interview the room itself. Right.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Investigators must build a complete narrative out of negative space.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Bob Hill points out the mechanics of this process, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: it's fascinating.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: What do they do first?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Well, they have to identify the absolute last points of
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: contact for both individuals.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: They pull neighborhood surveillance video to see who came and
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: went from the property.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: But the bulk of the work is extracting data from
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: electronic devices left at the scene. Phones, smartwatches, laptops.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, like checking the router logs.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. They dive into the router logs in the
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: rental home to see exactly what minute a specific cell
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: phone disconnected from the Wi-Fi. Or they check Apple Health data.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: to see the exact moment a heart rate monitor stopped
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: registering a pulse.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Wow. They're essentially doing an autopsy on the digital footprint.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect way to describe it. And this brings
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: up a major point about how juries, and the public
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: in general, view evidence. We are so conditioned by movies
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to always demand the smoking gun.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. We want the eyewitness who saw the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: hammer swing. We want direct evidence.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: But in a closed room scenario like this, you only
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: have circumstantial evidence. And society tends to view circumstantial evidence
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: as inherently weaker. Like it's just guesswork.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Right. But Bob Hell breaks down how the law actually
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: views it. Let's define the difference for you because it
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: is the bedrock of how this case is analyzed.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do the puddle analogy.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Right. So direct evidence is a witness taking the stand
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and saying, I saw it raining outside.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Clear cut.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But circumstantial evidence is a witness saying, I went
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to sleep, the ground was dry, I woke up, the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: ground was wet, and there are puddles everywhere. He didn't
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: see the rainfall, but the circumstances lead to a conclusion.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And in this case, the puddles are the hammer conditions.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the locked door, the silenced phones.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And Hill explains that in a court of law, if
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: a body of circumstantial evidence leads to only one reasonable conclusion,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: it is legally entitled to the exact same weight as
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: direct evidence.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? The exact same weight?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: The exact same weight.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So in this Spanish rental home, the locked doors, the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: specific defensive or offensive injuries, the location of the blood spatter,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the timeline of the digital heartbeat stopping all of these
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: circumstantial puzzle pieces... are gathered to see if they point
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to one single reasonable conclusion.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Which is that Jared Gelling committed this act before taking
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: his own life.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And it is crucial for us to pause here and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: emphasize a core legal principle. As we analyze this case
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: based on the facts reported by the Law and Crime Network,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we are maintaining absolute impartiality regarding Jared Gelling's guilt.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Right, because in the eyes of the law, the presumption
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: of innocence persists even in death. We were just exploring
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: how the justice system processes these grim facts rather than,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: you know, delivering a final verdict ourselves.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And to process those facts, investigators have to look
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: for a catalyst. And according to Amy's family, this tragedy
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: did not happen in a vacuum.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: No, it didn't. There was a dark, escalating history that
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: provided a very clear potential motive.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: What did the family say?
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Well, the family provided a tragic backdrop of a relationship
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: that was really fraught with tension. They stated there was
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a history of abuse lasting over a year. Wow.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Over a year?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the couple had previously separated. They actually broke
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: up and spent time apart before eventually reconciling.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: But according to the family, the mistreatment continued even after
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they got back together.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It did. And the spark that may have ignited this
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: final confrontation was a secret Amy was keeping.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: She had confided in her family via WhatsApp, voice notes,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and videos that she planned to divorce Jelling. Right.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Her plan was to finish her major competition in Portugal
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: and then return to Colombia alone to finalize the separation.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Her niece, Uleta, actually referred to this trip to Spain
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: as a farewell.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Which is just chilling. And that timeline is legally highly significant.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: It establishes a potential motive for an escalation in violence. However,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: the analysis also addresses a heartbreaking reality common in domestic situations.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Which is that Amy never filed a formal police report
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: regarding the alleged prior abuse. But legally, if she never
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: filed a police report, doesn't that torpedo any future case?
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: If you're a defense attorney, don't you just stand up
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and say, if it was so bad, why didn't she
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: call cops? She must be making it up.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Bob Hill provides a really pragmatic look at how the
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: law handles that exact defense strategy. From a strictly criminal standpoint,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: the lack of a prior police report isn't a fatal
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: flaw to the investigation. Really?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Really. Why not?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Because police know that victims of domestic violence often avoid
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: reporting out of a very real fear of worsening the
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: relationship or losing financial support or triggering immediate retaliation. The
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: absence of a report doesn't legally mean the abuse didn't happen.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But the defense will still try to weaponize that silence.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. If this were to move into civil litigation,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: which we will explore shortly, defense attorneys representing Jellings estate
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: would absolutely use that lack of a report. to question
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: the severity of the alleged abuse.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It is a harsh reality of adversarial law. They will
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: force a jury to question why there is no official
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: paper trail.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they will.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Here is where the legal mechanics get incredibly fascinating to me.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: We know Amy communicated her fears and her plans for
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: divorce through WhatsApp voice notes and videos to her family.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: But how do you actually get those messages into a courtroom?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That is the million dollar question.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Let's use a hypothetical. If I text my wife, The
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: neighbor's dog just bit me, and then I tragically slip
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: into a coma. She can't just print out my text
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: message and show it to a judge to sue the neighbor, right? Right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Because the neighbor's lawyer can't cross-examine my iPhone.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You have perfectly illustrated the core problem of the
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: hearsay rule.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Ah, hearsay. Yes.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Hearsay is fundamentally an out-of-court statement offered to prove the
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: truth of the matter asserted. And courts generally despise hearsay.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: They exclude it.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Because of the confrontation clause. Yes.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: The bedrock of the justice system is the ability to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: confront your accuser and probe their statements for truthfulness through cross-examination.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Right. A jury needs to evaluate a witness's demeanor, probe
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: their memory, and question their motivations.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And you cannot cross-examine a WhatsApp voice note.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: So do all of Amy's messages to her family just
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: get thrown out? Do they mean nothing in the eyes
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: of the law?
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Well, this is where the law becomes an intricate puzzle
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: of exceptions. Bob Hill details how these digital breadcrumbs might
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: actually survive the hearsay hurdle. One major exception is the
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: excited utterance.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Excited utterance.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so if a person texts someone in the heat
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: of a terrifying moment, say, while a physical argument is
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: actively happening, the law assumes they didn't have the time
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: or cognitive capacity to fabricate a lie.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: The sheer stress of the moment acts as a substitute
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: for cross-examination, making the statement legally reliable.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: But what about her telling her niece she planned to
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: divorce him after the Portugal competition? That doesn't sound like
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: an excited utterance. That sounds like a calm, premeditated logistical plan.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Correct. You couldn't use the excited utterance exception for that.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: For a calm statement of future intent, lawyers use a
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: different legal maneuver.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Which is?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: They might introduce the message not to prove the truth
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: of the matter. So, not to prove that a divorce
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: was actually legally filed or drafted, but simply to prove
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: her state of mind.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So it proves she believed she was leaving him.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Alternatively, they might introduce it just to prove the
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: statement was made at all, which helps establish a timeline
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: of a deteriorating relationship for the jury.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: That is fascinating.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I want you to really think about this for a second.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Think about your own casual text messages. If you weren't
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: here tomorrow, how would a court interpret those fragmented thoughts,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: those emojis, those quick voice notes? without you sitting on
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: the witness stand to provide the human context.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: It's honestly unnerving. Our digital lives are treated as absolute fact,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: but they lack all the human nuance when we aren't
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: there to explain the tone.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And speaking of environments that lack nuance and demand absolute extremes,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: we have to look closely at the specific ecosystem where
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: this tragedy occurred, the elite bodybuilding subculture.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Right, because the environment always plays a crucial role in
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: understanding the totality of of the circumstances surrounding a crime.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: And the analysis from Law and Crime brings up a
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: very specific element regarding elite-level bodybuilding competitions. They often do
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: not require drug testing.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Which leaves the door wide open for the use of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: performance-enhancing drugs, specifically anabolic steroids.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Now, again, maintaining our strict impartiality here, there is absolutely
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: no confirmation of any substances in Jared Gelling's system, or
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Amy's for that matter.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: No, the toxicology reports haven't been publicly released. We are
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: dealing in hypotheticals based on the known realities of that
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: particular sporting subculture.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: But the question is raised because the presence of anabolic
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: steroids could be a highly relevant factor when analyzing an
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: extreme and disturbing level of violence like multiple hammer blows.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the mechanics of how steroids work because
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: it's not just about building muscle.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Right. Anabolic steroids are synthetic variations of testosterone. When introduced
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in massive, unprescribed doses, they don't just attach to muscle receptors.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: They actually cross the blood-brain barrier.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they actively alter brain chemistry, specifically affecting the amygdala,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: which is the part of the brain that processes fear, threat,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and aggression.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: This is the physiological mechanism behind what people casually call
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: roid rage.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It lowers the threshold for impulse control and heightens
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: aggressive responses to even minor stimuli.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And that physiological alteration is why the toxicology report is
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the linchpin of the postmortem investigation. Right.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: The autopsy would reveal the presence of these synthetic hormones,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: though how long they remain detectable depends heavily on the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: specific ester of the steroid and the exact panels run
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: by the Spanish forensic pathologists.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: But let's play this out in a legal hypothetical. Let's
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: say Gelling had survived and he was put on trial
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: for murder. Could his defense attorney stand up and say,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, My client was suffering
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: from severe steroid-induced psychosis. His amygdala was compromised. He wasn't
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in his right mind. It raised the drug's fault. Is
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: that a get-out-of-jail-free card?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: The answer is a resounding no. Bob Hill breaks down
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the legal doctrine of voluntary intoxication.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Which means what, exactly?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: In criminal law, if you willingly consume a substance, whether
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: it's alcohol, recreational drugs, or unprescribed synthetic hormones... you are
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: legally consenting to the potential effects of that substance.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: So you own the consequences of the chemical you chose
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: to swallow or inject.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Entirely. You cannot voluntarily alter your brain chemistry and then
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: use that altered state as an excuse for homicide. The
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: only narrow exception would be involuntary intoxication. Like if someone
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: secretly slipped a hallucinogen into your drink without your knowledge.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: But adhering to a steroid regimen as part of a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: bodybuilding prep is a highly calculated voluntary act.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Criminally, it offers no shield whatsoever.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: But criminal court is just about jail time. Civil court
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: is about money, liability and damages. And there is a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: massive civil twist here that Bob Hill points out.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: A very complex one, yeah. Consider the potential for a
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: wrongful death lawsuit filed by Amy O's family.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Right. We established she was an IFBB pro, a rising star,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: highly marketable with tens of thousands of followers.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So a civil suit would target the lost potential earnings
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: of what could have been a very lucrative long-term career
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: in fitness modeling sponsorships and coaching.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Obviously, they would sue Jellings' estate.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: But if it was proven through toxicology that severe steroid
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: dependency fueled the violence, plaintiff's attorneys might cast a much
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: wider net.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, wait. If they cast a wider net, are you
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: saying they could theoretically sue the people who supplied him
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the drugs?
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: In civil litigation, yes, theoretically.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: If a dependency directly caused the tragedy, civil attorneys might
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: try to establish liability on whoever supplied the medications or
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: enabled the abuse, arguing they contributed to a foreseeable violent outcome.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It is a very difficult chain of causality to prove.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: But it illustrates how civil litigation operates so differently than
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: criminal law. It follows the chain of liability.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Because the burden of proof is entirely different. In criminal court,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: the prosecutor has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: You have to be almost entirely certain to take away
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: someone's liberty.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Like 99% sure.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But civil court is based on a preponderance of
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the evidence. That simply means it is more likely than not.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: 51% certainty is enough to hold someone financially liable.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Right. And the rules of evidence can sometimes be applied
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: more broadly. Bodhill notes that all the evidence gathered right
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: now by the Spanish police in this closed criminal probe,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the ghost timeline, the digital forensic data, the toxicology reports,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: all of it would be heavily utilized to lay the
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: foundation for any subsequent civil litigation.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It shows how a single isolated act of violence inside
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a locked room fractures into a dozen different legal battles
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that can span years and cross international borders.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: It's a massive ripple effect.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: It really is. But we can't just look at this
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: in isolation. Authorities in Spain are actively investigating this crime
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: as an episode of gender-motivated violence, placing it within a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: much larger, very disturbing regional context.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: The statistics provided for that specific region are really alarming.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: If confirmed as gender-motivated violence by the state, This would
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: be the third such murder in the Malaga province.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And the fifth in the wider region of Andalusia just
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: this year.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: The analysis cites other recent horrific cases, including a Spanish
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: woman killed in Marbella and a mother of three killed
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: in a Costa del Sol resort.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So we have a clear cluster. And Bob Hill poses
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: a really analytical, almost sociological question about this pattern. When
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: we see a cluster of domestic homicides like this, does
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: it indicate a genuine statistical rise in volatile, violent relationships
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: in that specific geographic area? Or.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Or are we just seeing a rise in prominent press
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: coverage because true crime algorithms and media attention have amplified
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: these specific tragedies?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It is the classic correlation versus causation debate in criminology.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Are there actually more sharks in the water or are
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: we just flying more helicopters over the ocean looking for them? Right.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: But regardless of whether it is an absolute statistical spike
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: or simply increased visibility, Recognizing these patterns is the vital
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: first step toward institutional action.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Because you cannot fix a systemic problem that you do
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: not track.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Identifying this as part of a pattern of gender-motivated
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: violence is what drives public policy changes. It dictates how
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: local law enforcement approaches domestic disturbance calls, how educational resources
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: are deployed in communities, and how alternative safe harbor options
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: are funded for vulnerable individuals.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: As much as we analyze the legal mechanics, the sociology,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and the digital forensics, we have to anchor this entire
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: discussion back to the raw human reality. We are talking
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about the permanent loss of a vibrant life.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: The tributes pouring in for Amy, they just strip away
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the legal jargon and leave you with the absolute devastation
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of the survivors.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: They really do. Her coach, Brandon Ray, posted a tribute
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: pointing out that they were just 17 days away from
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: shocking the bodybuilding world. He genuinely believed she was going
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to place in the top 10 globally this year.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: And his assessment of the tragedy is heartbreaking. He said,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: the closest person to you ended it too soon.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And then you have her friend, Ben Nazar, who called
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: her his sister, teammate, safe place. He mourned the shattered
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: dreams they had to travel the world and compete side
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: by side.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: These tributes perfectly illustrate a point Bob Hill made about
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: domestic violence. There is never just one victim.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: No. The shockwave of this violence doesn't stop at the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: walls of that rental home in Frangirola. The collateral damage
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: rips through families in Colombia, friendships in Dubai, and entire
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: global fitness communities.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It leaves a permanent scar on a community that revered her,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: not just for her physical discipline, but clearly for her character,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: her warmth, and her spirit.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? We started this deep
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: dive looking at a horrifying headline about a beloved athlete
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: found in a locked room.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: But to understand the reality of that room, we had
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to navigate a massive legal and investigative labyrinth.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: We saw how international police work has to adapt and
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: build ghost timelines when the suspects and witnesses are gone.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: We explored the heavy burden placed on circumstantial evidence to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: speak the truth when there is no smoking gun.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: And the incredibly complex dance of getting a digital plea
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: for help past the hearsay rule in a courtroom.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Plus a profound, rippling destruction caused by domestic violence. It
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: means that even in a closed room, the justice system,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: flawed and complex as it is, must find a way
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to speak for those who no longer can, piecing together
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: those digital breadcrumbs to establish the definitive truth.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: As we close, I want to leave you with a
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: final provocative thought that stems directly from our discussion of
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: the timeline.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: We noted how Amy's sudden silence on WhatsApp and her
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: absence from her rigorous gym routine were the very first
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: indicators of this tragedy. Her digital heartbeat stopped suddenly. It
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: forces us to ask a profound question about the future
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: of intervention. As our digital and physical routines become more
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: perfectly tracked, you know, more intertwined with smart devices, gym
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: fobs and predictive algorithms, could the sudden unnatural disruption of
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: a person's digital heartbeat eventually become an automated trigger?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Like a missed routine could ping law enforcement
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to conduct a wellness check.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Could an algorithm flag a sudden anomaly in a
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: known domestic violence situation before it escalates to a fatal conclusion?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Or does the price of that safety cost us our
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: fundamental right to privacy?
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: That is a haunting question, especially when you realize that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: in Amy Cher's case, the digital data was screaming that
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: something was wrong days before that door was ever forced open.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for taking this deep dive with us.