Non-Responsive (Maria Muñoz)

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Speaker 4 About an hour into the interview is when I asked him about the needle pricking in her elbow crease. Joel, why is that there? I don't know.

Speaker 4 I asked him point blank that night, Joel, did you inject your wife with anesthesia?

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 4 No, I love her. I love her.

Speaker 2 I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

Speaker 3 I'm Anasega Nicolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

Speaker 2 And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Speaker 3 All marriages have their ups and downs, and most couples will tell you that it takes a lot of patience and hard work to make a healthy partnership endure.

Speaker 2 When times do get tough, there are numerous ways to cope, from confiding in friends and family to couples therapy to keeping a private journal, all of which can be powerful tools for healing, and in some cases, powerful testimony to a person's emotional state or the state of a struggling marriage.

Speaker 3 But of course, some marital discord can prove too challenging to overcome, especially when it comes to infidelity, abuse, or other other trauma.

Speaker 2 And in those cases, a record of a couple's problems does not just become a window into their private lives. It can become evidence.

Speaker 4 My name is Luis Mata Jr. I am a sergeant of the Laredo Police Department's Crimes Against Persons Robbery and Homicide Bureau here in the Laredo Police Department in Laredo, Texas.

Speaker 3 Growing up in Texas, Luis Mata thought he might one day become a sportscaster, but his dad was a police officer right in Laredo and he never could get used to the idea of leaving his hometown.

Speaker 4 Laredo, Texas is a city on the southwest U.S.-Mexico border.

Speaker 4 We are a large city with a small town atmosphere in the sense that for having half a million people, we still have a lot of people that know each other if you go to the grocery stores and things like that.

Speaker 2 That sense of community drew him to a career in law enforcement.

Speaker 2 And as an investigator, he is often given access to the private lives of his neighbors, especially when those private lives become embroiled in very public criminal investigations.

Speaker 3 Case in point, the story of 31-year-old Maria Muñoz and her husband, Joel Payote. Maria and Joel met when she was a nursing student, and he was an ambitious nurse anesthetist, 11 years her senior.

Speaker 2 The couple married in 2011 and eventually moved to to Laredo, Texas, where Joel built a successful career and Maria dedicated herself to being a supportive wife and mom to their two sons.

Speaker 4 She was a very educated woman. She was actually a RN.

Speaker 4 However, she never got the chance to practice because right after she graduated, she became pregnant. And then that's when she basically became a stay-at-home mom.

Speaker 3 To the casual observer, Joel and Maria appear to be a happy, attractive, and a well-off family living in an upscale Laredo neighborhood, but looks can be deceiving.

Speaker 2 And when unresolved conflict is left to simmer just beneath the surface of any relationship, the picture of a perfect marriage can shatter in an instant.

Speaker 3 In the early morning hours of September 22nd, 2020, Laredo police received a 911 call from Joel and Maria's home in North Laredo.

Speaker 5 They're nine one with the address of emergency. I'll hold my right sent her to fancy.

Speaker 5 And I'm kind of scared if she's not breathing.

Speaker 5 She may have taken some pills. Okay, what is your address?

Speaker 2 Joel described finding his wife Maria unconscious in their bedroom. He suspected that she had ingested a dangerous amount of prescription medication.

Speaker 2 Whether it was accidental or intentional, he didn't know.

Speaker 5 I gave her a bottle of pills.

Speaker 5 Okay, sir. And do you know what kind of pills they were? Yes, Lena has has a pen.
And do you know if she took those on purpose? Like, has she ever tried to. She's been pretty detracted, okay?

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 5 It doesn't seem to problems.

Speaker 5 Is somebody coming?

Speaker 3 A uniformed officer from the Laredo PD was first on the scene, and his body cam captured his encounter with Joel as he entered the house.

Speaker 6 Hello?

Speaker 6 What's going on?

Speaker 6 But I can't feel a pulse.

Speaker 2 Officer Dela Cruz found Joel wearing his teal surgical scrubs, performing CPR on his wife, who was lying at the top of the stairs near the master bedroom.

Speaker 6 How long were you to find it?

Speaker 6 Like,

Speaker 6 maybe like 20 to 25 minutes ago.

Speaker 3 CPR was continued, but Maria was unresponsive. Her eyes appeared fully dilated and she had no pulse.
Shortly after paramedics arrived, Maria Muñoz was declared dead.

Speaker 3 All the while, her two sons, just five and two, were still sleeping only a few feet away.

Speaker 2 In the body cam footage, Joel appears visibly distraught, and you could hear Officer Dela Cruz encourage him to sit down on a stool in the kitchen and try to explain what happened.

Speaker 6 She's been super depressed.

Speaker 6 She's been super depressed.

Speaker 6 I've been ignoring her.

Speaker 6 We're going through some problems.

Speaker 6 And I think the doctor, like, we were just talking.

Speaker 3 According to Joel, he had arrived at the house after his shift at the hospital.

Speaker 3 He explained how he and Maria had been having some marriage trouble and he had promised to come home to have what he called a heart-to-heart.

Speaker 6 So you're not staying here right now?

Speaker 6 We had sex, we took a shower, and I

Speaker 6 thought she was like knocked out.

Speaker 6 Hey, what's up? What's going on?

Speaker 2 Joel claimed that Maria had been demonstrating signs of depression for some time.

Speaker 2 So his first thought was that she had overdosed on clonazepam, an anti-seizure medication sometimes used to treat severe anxiety. He even produced the near-empty bottle from an upstairs bathroom.

Speaker 4 I got a call. I got woken up at roughly just before 2 a.m.
The initial information that my sergeant at the time told me was that we have a death and it was initially indicative of a suicide.

Speaker 3 You may be asking why a homicide detective will be called to the scene of an overdose, accidental or otherwise. But as Luis explains, it doesn't take a knife or a gun to make a death suspicious.

Speaker 4 Contrary to popular belief, you know, Laredo averages roughly 10 to 15 homicides a year.

Speaker 4 So people think, oh, well, you only had 15 homicides a year. You don't have to, you know, really, how much can you do?

Speaker 4 The problem is we also investigate shootings, stabbings, and deaths that we deem have to be ruled out of foul play.

Speaker 4 So a young person in her early 30s passing away in her home without being ill, that automatically sparks an investigation. Now,

Speaker 4 More times than not, it's undiagnosed medical conditions. It is suicide, but we always have to go go and do the death investigation.

Speaker 2 Luis arrived at the scene and immediately got the rundown from the responding officer.

Speaker 4 I made contact with Officer de la Cruz, but Officer de la Cruz told me that the spouse, which is Joel Peyot, he had said that Maria and him had had sex. He went in to take a shower.
He came out.

Speaker 4 He thought she was asleep. And then

Speaker 4 he got dressed. 10 minutes later, he goes and checks on her and she's unresponsive.
And he sees a bottle of prescription pills that belong to him.

Speaker 4 So that he initially said that he believed that she had overdosed on those pills and she had died.

Speaker 3 But according to the officer at the scene, there were some things about Joel's story that weren't adding up.

Speaker 6 What's a deal like that?

Speaker 6 No,

Speaker 6 they've been separated. They've been going through some problems.

Speaker 6 So he came over and they idioted.

Speaker 6 He was in the shower. He came on and she was like,

Speaker 6 he drug her out here he said

Speaker 6 he brought her out here from in the room that I mean that's the just the preliminary I didn't get in depth with him okay

Speaker 6 but that's what he said

Speaker 6 so um

Speaker 6 but why would she be out here

Speaker 6 but he said that she he thinks she took these why these he went all the way into the medicine cabinet and brought these

Speaker 2 The officer showed Luis the bottle of clonazepam that Joel had retrieved not from beside the bed where he found his wife, but from the bathroom.

Speaker 4 The konazepam was of Joel's, but the clonazepam bottle still had two pills. When somebody overdoses, they're not going to leave two pills behind.
They're going to take the whole damn thing.

Speaker 3 But that wasn't the only thing about the scene that had gotten law enforcement's attention.

Speaker 6 Hey, there's a needle right here.

Speaker 6 There has to be a vial somewhere. You give him something

Speaker 6 in the closet over here.

Speaker 4 On top of that, the officer de la Cruz found a needle on the stairwell and he found a wrapper, kind of like what you find syringes at a hospital facility.

Speaker 2 Joel explained away the presence of needles and syringes found in the house as just tools of his trade as a nurse anesthetist.

Speaker 2 But rather than giving detective modest comfort, the fact that Joel was trained in administering powerful medication only gave him pause.

Speaker 3 Joel's erratic behavior was also attracting attention.

Speaker 3 He was sweating profusely through his scrubs, and he was growing impatient with the police, insisting that his wife had to be transported to the hospital before the sun came up and before the neighbors began wondering what had happened next door.

Speaker 4 He was punching walls. He was kicking furniture and he was screaming.
We were afraid he's going to scare neighbors. And then once we found that syringe, we're like, hey, relax.
Have a seat here.

Speaker 4 Detectives are going to talk to you. We can't have you all over the place either.
It's still the crime scene. But we emphasize that, obviously, and I go there.
He wasn't detained at any point.

Speaker 4 He was

Speaker 4 initially told that, hey, this, you know,

Speaker 4 we are completely sympathetic and understanding, but we still have a job to do.

Speaker 2 Joel was placed in the back seat of a patrol car to calm down while investigators prepared to scour the home for any potential evidence that could either confirm or contradict Joel's version of Maria's sudden death.

Speaker 4 What What threw a curveball was I couldn't exactly do a walkthrough of the home and the reason is because remember as much as a death investigation consists of the first thing that we have to do as investigators is we have to obtain that we have legal authority to be in that home.

Speaker 4 So when I arrived Joel was already outside in the back of a squad car so my first thing was I went up to him I introduced myself.

Speaker 4 I expressed my condolences and then I asked the routine question: Was, do we have legal authority to be in your home?

Speaker 3 As the homeowner, Joel had the legal authority to grant police or not his consent to recover any evidence from inside the house. But to Luis's surprise, he denied that consent.

Speaker 4 He says, why do you need legal consent? What are you going to do? Can't you just pick up the body and go on your way? I said, no, it doesn't work like that. And I explained to him, for example,

Speaker 4 if she overdosed, she has pills next to her, We need your permission to be in there and get the pills because it is your home. You have a right to your home.

Speaker 4 And then I asked him why, what the issue was, is if he was scared. And he says, no, I live a very private life.
All I need you to do is just, you know,

Speaker 4 get her body and get out of here. So that's fine.
I said, that is absolutely your right. Nobody's going to go inside.
We're going to secure the crime scene while we apply for a search warrant.

Speaker 3 It sounds suspicious, right? But as a prosecutor, I always have to think about it from the other side, too. Some people are just not fans of law enforcement.

Speaker 3 And there's always the possibility that he's just scared or traumatized. And his refusal to cooperate with police is not an indication that there's anything sinister going on at all.

Speaker 2 And Anna Sinka, I've had that happen in my experience in law enforcement. And, you know, I kind of give somebody a little bit of a side eye, but I don't really take that much into consideration.

Speaker 2 But this is where an investigator's experience and intuition intuition come into play.

Speaker 4 I had been doing that by that time almost three and a half, four years. And obviously at that time, I had been in law enforcement 15 years.

Speaker 4 I completely understand most of the time it's a grieving spouse. And I'm respectful of that.
But there's a difference between a grieving spouse and someone that has something to hide.

Speaker 3 Joel soon realized that his attempt not to make a scene actually did exactly that. They made a crime scene.

Speaker 4 So I told the officer, let's get the kids out. Nobody goes in, put yellow tape around it.
It is now a crime scene. And he said, Well, what happens if the sun comes up?

Speaker 4 And I go, well, if the sun comes up, Joe, well, the sun comes up. He goes, well, are neighbors going to see everything? And I said, yes, because they, this is going to put a delay in it.

Speaker 4 I mean, you're delaying it. That's fine.
But if we have to hold the crime scene for a couple of hours and your neighbors see, I mean, we can't control that. No, no, no, no.
I live a very private life.

Speaker 4 I don't want as much attention on this. I'll sign it.
I'll sign. I'll give you the consent.
So he changed his mind and he signed the written consent.

Speaker 2 Luis led the search of the house and it was immediately clear that there were no signs of any kind of struggle or domestic abuse. No overturned furniture or broken glass.

Speaker 2 Signs that may have indicated that Maria and Joel had gotten into a fight.

Speaker 4 For starters, Maria was a very organized and clean person.

Speaker 4 And I say that because my wife is a clean freak and she reminded me of my wife in the sense sense that it was everything was so organized, very clean home.

Speaker 3 But that's not to say that there weren't things that seemed out of place, starting with Maria's body itself.

Speaker 3 If Maria had passed away in bed, as Joel had claimed, why was her body on the floor at the loft at the top of the stairs?

Speaker 2 And then there was a state of the bathroom in the master bedroom, which was conspicuously clean.

Speaker 4 Joel's first statement was that he was in the shower and when all this happened.

Speaker 4 So what happens when you take a shower for example what are you going to notice in the restroom condensation steam mirrors sometimes smeared for whatever reason with water a a soaked towel a damp towel the smell of soap the smell of shampoo

Speaker 4 that restroom was dry

Speaker 4 Absolutely dry. It looked like it hadn't been used and it looked like it had been cleaned at 8 a.m., 9 a.m.
and hadn't been moved since.

Speaker 4 There was no restroom that had any evidence of a shower being used.

Speaker 3 And if Joel had showered as he claimed to have, why was he back in his work scrubs when police first arrived?

Speaker 4 He had already told me he arrived in scrubs, which is understandable. He's a CRNA.
He just got out of work. I go, you just took a shower.
Why did you change back into scrubs if it's your home?

Speaker 4 And he thought about it and he said, well, it's because I'm not supposed to be here.

Speaker 4 And I said, well, this is your house. What do you mean you're not supposed to be here? He goes, oh, it's because

Speaker 4 I have a girlfriend somewhere else and she doesn't know that I'm back visiting my wife. My wife and I were separated.

Speaker 2 And with that, a key piece of the puzzle was revealed. Not only were Joel and Maria separated, but Joel had a girlfriend.

Speaker 3 And if investigators were able to uncover evidence that Maria's suspicious death was the result of foul play, the revelation of infidelity or a possible love triangle could be the first hint of a potential motive.

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Speaker 2 On September 22, 2020, police and paramedics were called to a house in Laredo, Texas, where they discovered the lifeless body of 31-year-old Maria Munoz.

Speaker 3 According to her husband Joel, Maria's death was likely the result of an intentional overdose on a powerful prescription medication.

Speaker 3 But evidence found at the couple's home was starting to raise suspicions about his story.

Speaker 2 Maria's body showed no signs of physical trauma, no bruises or cuts or blood on her or anywhere in the house.

Speaker 2 So you can imagine the results of an autopsy would be crucial in determining the exact cause and manner of death.

Speaker 2 But in the meantime, investigators hoped Joel could help shed more light on his wife's mental state and the circumstances surrounding her apparent overdose.

Speaker 4 So at that time, while he gave us the consent, we went to go interview him at the station so that we can get just some background information about his spouse, which is very routine.

Speaker 3 In the moments before the interview started, cameras recorded Joel alone in the interview room.

Speaker 3 And I have to say, he demonstrates some bizarre behavior, even when you consider the fact that just hours before he had lost his wife. He was pacing, crying, even slamming furniture.

Speaker 3 And in a way, something you can't put into words, but when you watch it, just something seems off.

Speaker 2 And of course, you can never predict exactly how a grieving husband might react to the loss of his wife but as a detective you can compare his behavior to hundreds of previous experiences to conclude that this was out of the ordinary and in a homicide investigation anything out of the ordinary is suspicious I start off my interview with just the backstory of both of their relationship and then I got the information as far as why they were separated and he confessed to me that he had fallen in love with a co-worker of his

Speaker 4 and she had found out about the affair back in

Speaker 4 April

Speaker 4 and they had agreed to separate until he, quote, decided what he was going to do.

Speaker 3 The co-worker's name was Janet, and it was her house where Joel had been staying.

Speaker 3 But according to Joel, he and Maria had made plans to have what he called a final heart-to-heart about the state of their marriage.

Speaker 3 And that explained why on that night he had driven to Maria's house, not Janet's, after getting off of work.

Speaker 4 Okay, what did you do when you got there? Oh, I can't remember. I don't know.
Like, did you shower? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Which restroom did you use? The master restroom. Okay, why isn't there any steam there? Oh, I don't know.
I don't know. Why do you...
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 That was for everything it was. I don't know.

Speaker 2 According to Joel, the couple had made up and had actually slept together before he supposedly took a shower and then discovered her unconscious body in their bed.

Speaker 4 And I asked, well, why if she was on the bed, did she end up in the loft? And he thought about it and he's like, I needed a flat surface.

Speaker 4 Okay, well, why wasn't the carpet or the floor on your bedroom used? Oh, well, I wanted to give the paramedics easier access so that they can go straight up.

Speaker 3 When asked about the syringes and IV equipment found in the home, Joel initially said they were work-related, but couldn't explain why they were located outside of his medical bag or why he would have brought his medical bag into the house to begin with.

Speaker 4 I I asked him, did you work? And he said, yeah, he worked. I go, what time did you get out? I don't know.
Well, more or less, I think at four or five. Okay, where'd you go afterwards?

Speaker 4 I don't know. I don't know.
Why are you asking me this? Like,

Speaker 4 my wife just died. And so he started becoming evasive and defensive.

Speaker 2 And remember when I said that Maria's body showed no signs of physical trauma? Well, as it turns out, that wasn't exactly true.

Speaker 4 While I'm there interviewing Joelle, I find out that there was a suspicious needle prick mark on Maria's elbow crease. One mark.
One.

Speaker 4 Not indicative of someone that uses repeatedly. It looked like it was fresh.
It looked like somebody had just drawn blood from her. That was suspicious.

Speaker 4 And we found out that the hermedics that responded did not start an IV.

Speaker 4 So what in the hell is that mark doing there? Why is it fresh?

Speaker 3 As an anesthetist, Joel administered IVs for a living, and police found both the equipment and the drugs of his trade in the house. A very dark picture of a potential crime was starting to emerge.

Speaker 4 About an hour into the interview is when I find NY confirm, and I asked him about the needle pricking in her elbow crease. Joel, why is that there? I don't know.

Speaker 4 I asked him point blank that night, Joel, did you inject your wife with anesthesia? What?

Speaker 4 No, I love love her. I love her.

Speaker 2 There was another disturbing fact that was not lost on Detective Mata.

Speaker 2 While Maria's body was being transported to the medical examiner and Joel was being interviewed by police, their two sons, just five and two, had been placed in the custody of Child Protective Services.

Speaker 4 At no point did he say, I need to go back to my children. They're without their mom.
No. You know what his primary reason that wanting to leave was? He needed to go get to Janet.

Speaker 4 I need to go to Janet's house. Can you drop me off at Janet's house? Keep in mind their sons just lost their mom, but that was not his focus or his concern.

Speaker 4 His concern was to get back to his mistress.

Speaker 3 However, pending an autopsy and a full toxicology report, investigators still did not know the cause or manner of Maria's death.

Speaker 3 So even if they did suspect foul play, and clearly they did, there was still no evidence that a homicide had even taken place. And for that reason, Joel was released.

Speaker 4 He begged the officer to drop him off at Janet's, but the officer didn't. The officer took him back to his house.
And while he's over there, I'm at Janet's house.

Speaker 4 So he was trying to beat me to Janet's.

Speaker 2 Just a few hours had elapsed since Maria had passed away from causes still unknown.

Speaker 2 But Luis was eager to meet Joel's love interest and get her statement before she had any chance to possibly communicate with Joel.

Speaker 4 So I arrived at Janet's at six in the morning. I ring the doorbell.
She has a poodle or some type of schnauzer dog that was barking away and she never answered the door.

Speaker 4 Apparently she called the police on me, saying that there was a man outside ringing the doorbell repeatedly.

Speaker 4 And when the dispatcher told her it's one of our detectives that's out there wanting to speak to you, It still took her roughly 10 minutes to come down.

Speaker 4 And then she came down and she agreed to be interviewed at the station. Initially, yes, she seemed adamant of wanting to know why, what's going on.
And I go, well, we'll tell you at the station.

Speaker 4 She kept asking, what's it about? And I go, we'll tell you at the station.

Speaker 3 I am a firm believer that you can often learn more from someone's reaction to news than you can from their actual words.

Speaker 3 And according to Luis, news of Maria's death did not seem to take Janet by surprise.

Speaker 2 What did was the fact the police already knew about her relationship with Maria's husband, Joel.

Speaker 4 She initially was reluctant to say that she had a boyfriend. She finally cooperated that she had a boyfriend, Joel, and she was initially under the belief that he had gone to work.

Speaker 3 Janet admitted that Joel frequently stayed at her house, but denied seeing him before or after Maria's estimated time of death.

Speaker 4 I released Janet at roughly 7.30 in the morning and she agrees to be cooperative.

Speaker 4 And I said, Janet, if needed, will I be able to get video from your home that just shows the ins and outs of that night?

Speaker 4 And in my mind, I wanted to make sure that if, because it was already getting suspicious, if this is a homicide, I want to find out if Joel had been going back and forth or if Janet participated and they came back after the death to stage it together.

Speaker 2 But 48 hours later, Luis received a phone call, not from Janet, but from a local attorney.

Speaker 4 Says Janet's retained our services. She's not going to talk to you anymore.
If you need anything, talk to me.

Speaker 3 And this is where the lawyer has to chime in and say that retaining a lawyer is anyone's right. And it is by no means an indication of guilt.

Speaker 3 But of course, from an investigator's point of view, any perceived obstacle in an investigation does tend to fuel suspicions.

Speaker 4 We had suspected the possibility that Janet, whether directly or indirectly, was a participant in this, whether it was by destroying the anesthesia, getting rid of the evidence, having knowledge.

Speaker 4 We suspected something that she knew that she wasn't telling us.

Speaker 2 Joel had claimed that despite their separation, there was no bad blood between he and his wife, or Maria and Janet.

Speaker 2 But when police subpoenaed the ring doorbell footage from Janet's house, they found evidence to the contrary.

Speaker 3 Footage from just three days before Maria's death showed Maria arriving at Janet's home, banging on the door and demanding that Joel come outside.

Speaker 4 So she was going to confront them both to A, catch Joel in the act, catch him in his lie, and B, confront him with the news that she's getting a divorce.

Speaker 4 However, she never, neither Joelle nor Janet answer the door. So Maria leaves.

Speaker 2 But that's not the end of it. Even as Maria was leaving, Janet escalated the situation.

Speaker 4 While Maria leaves, Janet calls the police department on Maria and says that there's the ex-wife. This is what she described: the ex-wife of her boyfriend harassing her and outside her door.

Speaker 4 So that prompts an officer to get dispatched there. So Joelle's gone by the time the officer gets there.

Speaker 4 The officer talks to Janet, goes, Okay, look, what I can do right now is give her what's called a criminal trespass warning.

Speaker 4 So when the officer calls Maria, hoping to talk to her, well, you can hear him in the background, hang up the goddamn phone. I'm talking to you.
And he's in a rage and Maria hangs up the phone.

Speaker 2 So Anasteaga, this clearly is some direct evidence that the story that Joel was giving, that the separation between he and his wife were amicable.

Speaker 2 This also shows that Joel's girlfriend, Janet, was learning just how much Joel's wife didn't know about the relationship.

Speaker 3 I mean, look, it's clear that it was contentious. Maria's not happy.
And in Joel's eyes, she's giving him a hard time.

Speaker 3 Whether Whether it's because he doesn't want to lose her, doesn't want to lose Janet, or just doesn't want the headache of a divorce. I mean, who knows where that lies?

Speaker 3 But one thing does seem clear, and that is that he was angry. But still, investigators did not have the evidence to prove that Joel or Janet were involved in Maria's death.

Speaker 4 That was the most frustrating part. And to Maria's family's credit, they understood and they were so patient.
We were waiting for the toxicology. And yeah, Joel's free.
He's not charged.

Speaker 2 And unfortunately, getting the results of that full talks screen was going to take weeks, not days.

Speaker 2 But that didn't mean that detectives stopped investigating, focusing especially on whether Maria was displaying warning signs of depression or self-harm in the weeks prior to her death.

Speaker 4 So during that time, we're interviewing many, I want to say character witnesses.

Speaker 3 And according to those people who knew Maria, including her sister and close friends that she emailed with regularly, Maria had never contemplated taking her own life.

Speaker 3 And while she was upset over her husband's infidelity, she was also resolved to move on with her life.

Speaker 2 In fact, Maria had even begun making plans to restart her nursing career, studying to recertify her credentials in Texas. Not exactly the actions of a woman planning to end her own life.

Speaker 3 But the most telling information was provided by Maria's own journal, one in which she routinely confessed her private thoughts, even in the days leading up to her death.

Speaker 2 The diary revealed years of pain, betrayal, and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of her husband, Joel.

Speaker 2 But it also showed her resilience and a determination to leave him, with no indication that she was severely depressed or suicidal, as Joel claimed.

Speaker 3 In addition to Maria's journal, investigators were able to search her phone records and recovered numerous messages between Maria and her friends, documenting Joel's violent outbursts and her fears of his growing hostility.

Speaker 3 One chilling text sent just the night before her death read: I just ask if you can pray for me. Tonight, we are going to talk.

Speaker 4 What was going to rule everything was a toxicology, and it wasn't a standard toxicology that our medical examiner checks for. This toxicology was going to go more in depth.

Speaker 2 The growing consensus was that Joel not only had the opportunity and the means, he had the motive to somehow deliver a fatal dose of drugs against Maria's will.

Speaker 2 And Luis expected the tox screen would help prove it.

Speaker 4 I'm anticipating it's going to show high-potent anesthetics that are only found in a hospital setting. I was confident of that.

Speaker 4 The hardest part is proving that he injected her and that she wasn't a willing participant.

Speaker 3 In other words, the tox screen may show cause of death, but it would not necessarily prove the manner of death, specifically whether it was homicide, death by suicide, or accidental.

Speaker 4 Poor Dr. Stern, I was being an annoying guy.
I called her every day for almost a month straight.

Speaker 2 And then finally, four months after Maria's death, the results were in.

Speaker 4 She reads it and she says, okay, no clonazepam. That's very important.

Speaker 3 Instead, her system showed a deadly cocktail of six other powerful drugs.

Speaker 4 Positive for propofol, Demerol, Versent, Narcan, Lidokaine, and ketamine.

Speaker 2 These, of course, are not over-the-counter medications. Some of them are powerful surgical anesthetics that are rarely administered outside of a hospital setting.

Speaker 2 And propofol, in particular, which was determined to be the main cause of death, can only be administered by injection.

Speaker 3 There's just no plausible reason why Maria would have had access to those drugs. More importantly, the results of the talk screen directly contradicted statements Joel had made to police.

Speaker 4 So he just kept saying she was very depressed. She was drinking every night.
She was on a

Speaker 4 very hard depression. Okay.

Speaker 4 Well, we find out during the toxicology that she had zero alcohol.

Speaker 2 The fact was, it was Joel Payote who had access to these powerful drugs. He had the tools to administer them and he had the knowledge of exactly what they would do.

Speaker 4 We had interviewed several of Joelle's co-workers who are actually CRNAs, same professional as Joell.

Speaker 4 And I remember asking one of Joelle's supervisors, I said, do you guys have the ability to kill us if you wanted to without hesitation? Oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 4 Hypothetically, if you wanted to kill me, if you wanted to kill somebody, how would you do it? And he said, you know what I do?

Speaker 4 If you really want to do it, you get somebody on ketamine and then you just go to town with them. After that, that ketamine will put you to sleep.

Speaker 4 Ketamine, and I remember him saying that ketamine is the most important thing. Once you have them on ketamine, it's fair game.
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Speaker 3 A toxicology report revealed that Maria Muñoz had a fatal mix of several powerful drugs in her system, and a single injection mark on her inner arm hinted at the delivery method.

Speaker 4 Without hesitation, our prosecutors and I, this is murder. This is cold-blooded murder of the highest degree.

Speaker 2 But if this was indeed a homicide, the only question that remained was how her husband could have injected her against her will.

Speaker 4 The toxicology report also showed us was that Maria had a high amount of caffeine. Maria was a big avid fan of coffee.

Speaker 4 I believe that he spiked her coffee and then went to town, got her unresponsive, got her in a paralytic state. And once she was under the influence of ketamine and some verset,

Speaker 4 That's all tasteless, he went to town and he

Speaker 4 killed her with propofol.

Speaker 3 The official cause of death was determined to be acute intoxication, but the medical examiner listed the manner of death as undetermined.

Speaker 2 In other words, there was nothing in the autopsy or toxicology that could definitively prove, however unlikely, that these medications were not self-administered.

Speaker 4 The problem that Dr. Stern had was we needed to prove that Maria was not a willing participant.
And that's when we just present our evidence, present our case before a jury.

Speaker 3 So, you know, Scott, and we say this all the time, you have to think about this from the defense perspective before you go into court or even file the charges. In many cases, you should.

Speaker 3 And I can also see it if I'm looking at the other way.

Speaker 3 At least you have to be able to think about they're going to come with this, like that she is so distraught because of the marriage breakup, him being with this other woman, that it's almost like, hey, you know, please, like, I love you.

Speaker 3 You don't want to be with me. Like, please end this for me.
Like, you can make it painless. You know how to do that.
Or maybe they were like taking drugs together. He gave her too much.

Speaker 3 Doesn't sound like that to me at all, but it is things investigators need to rule out because the defense may well go there if they don't.

Speaker 2 And if the science and Asega can't help the investigators here make this determination of whether it was self-inflicted or whether it was intentional, which would be homicide, they have to have a snapshot of her life and talk to the people closest to her and get really a determination of where the marriage was.

Speaker 2 What was her life like at the time? Was she severely depressed?

Speaker 2 Was there any indications or examinations that she may have had prior to her death that indicated that she may be interested in taking her own life?

Speaker 2 And you have to combine that part of the investigation with the science part of the investigation to really make a determination of where you go from here.

Speaker 3 The challenge in this case for prosecutors, the biggest one, it wouldn't be proving who killed Maria Munoz if that was the fact, but if a murder had been committed at all.

Speaker 2 There was significant circumstantial evidence to help make their case, but what they really needed was corroboration. And eventually, that's exactly what they got.

Speaker 4 We had our ace on the hole and ended up being none other than Janet.

Speaker 3 And with the realization that she could be held accountable for withholding key evidence or possibly even being complicit in a plan to cover up the murder, Joel's girlfriend was convinced it was time to make a deal.

Speaker 4 So our prosecutor, who we have a great relationship with, reached out to Janet's counsel and we made an agreement that if she, in exchange for her testimony and exchange for her being a witness, she was kind of given an immunity.

Speaker 2 The one exception to that immunity deal being if prosecutors discovered she had helped to plan, carry out, or cover up the murder.

Speaker 4 So Janet took up that offer and became our witness. And once we got the toxicology back, she came in for an interview and she confessed to us that Joel

Speaker 4 had basically gone over there to talk to her and he injected her.

Speaker 3 According to Janet, Joel had claimed that Maria's death was not suicide or homicide, but rather a terrible accident.

Speaker 4 His side of the story was that he went over there to tell Maria that it was over, that he chose Janet, that he's in love with Janet.

Speaker 4 And he told Janet that when he told Maria that, that Maria started having an anxiety attack and started screaming.

Speaker 4 So that he calmed her down and said, here, take some ketamine, relax, and that she just passed away accidentally.

Speaker 2 But he conveniently left out the rest of the deadly drug cocktail found in her system.

Speaker 2 And Peyote's attempts to cover up this supposed accident, lie to police, and get rid of damning evidence also belied his claims that he did not kill his wife.

Speaker 4 I did ask her, I go, did you get rid of anything? And she said, I believe I did, but unpino. It's because when he came back, he brought a bag that he had hidden and I threw it away.

Speaker 4 What that bag contained, she's like, I believe it contained the medicine that he injected her with. But I didn't know that at the time.

Speaker 3 Janet's account of Peyote's actions painted the picture not just of a manipulative abusive husband but a cold calculating killer

Speaker 2 in march of 2023 after four months of investigation peyote was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife and mother of his two children maria muñoz

Speaker 3 remained silent In his trial, prosecutors would argue that Payote intentionally and deliberately incapacitated his wife and injected her with a deadly mix of powerful drugs, then attempted to stage her murder as a death by suicide.

Speaker 4 The defense was that Maria and Joel would do drugs together, that they were having marital problems, that they resorted to doing anesthetics recreationally, and that on that night, Joel administered.

Speaker 4 Maria, but it was an accident that she passed away.

Speaker 2 Witnesses refuted this claim that Maria was a drug user. And after his pattern of lying to police, Peyote's credibility was shot.

Speaker 2 About the only thing Luis believed was Peyote's admission that it was him that administered the deadly injection.

Speaker 4 Right off the bat, I was ecstatic inside because just by me getting him to say that he injected her, I knew and I was confident with our prosecution team and our investigators.

Speaker 4 We were so certain that a jury would see right through this killer's eyes and find him guilty just by him even admitting that he injected her.

Speaker 3 As for motive, prosecutors argued that it went beyond Peyote's desire to be with another woman. They believed his motive might have also been financial.

Speaker 4 I believe when he found out that she's going to go to an attorney, that attorney is going to do that's best for his client. So, what is she entitled to in Texas? 50%,

Speaker 4 50% of his assets. And

Speaker 4 I can tell you this: that CRNA position is probably the highest, if not one of, if not the highest, medical positions, salaries that you can have in Laredo because there's so much in high demand that

Speaker 4 they give him so much bonuses. We believe that Joell was grossing maybe $600,000 a year.
So imagine Maria taking half of that. Plus, Joelle had properties.
in San Antonio, Texas.

Speaker 4 He had assets of properties here. He had land.
So I believe that's he came to the realization that, you know, Maria was going to take him to the house on the financial side.

Speaker 4 And I don't believe that he could accept that.

Speaker 2 The jury deliberated for less than an hour before delivering their decision.

Speaker 4 45 minutes, we came back with a guilty verdict. The punishment took a little bit longer, about three hours, and we were able to secure a 99-year sentence.

Speaker 3 Throughout the trial, Payot refused to admit any wrongdoing and showed little remorse for the murder of his wife.

Speaker 4 Joelle, throughout the trial, would pretend that he was crying.

Speaker 4 And I don't believe for one second that during the trial that those tears were real because they were the same type of tears that were shared the night of the incident.

Speaker 4 However, when Maria's sister Marisol looked Joel in the eye and told him, I loved you like a brother, and this is how you repaid us. Maria loved you.

Speaker 4 Maria loved you and would have taken a bullet for you she died literally for you and for you to kill her that is the only time in the

Speaker 2 investigation of me having this case for up to that point three years that joell's tears were real because he broke down for at least the moment he realized what he'd done Another example of how powerful and necessary victim impact statements can be both in sentencing and bringing a sense of justice for the survivors of deadly violence.

Speaker 4 People ask, well, how can you do this?

Speaker 4 How can you see what you see and then go home? And yeah, I'm not going to lie to you, sometimes it's tough in what you see. But when you get justice and you put a lot of hard work into

Speaker 4 a simple case that starts out as an overdose suicide death, and it leads you to this, and you see the satisfaction of bringing justice for your victim, you know, it makes it all worth the while.

Speaker 2 Here was Maria, carefully documenting her thoughts, fears, and daily life in the quiet pages of a journal, likely never imagining those very pages could become the key to uncovering her own killer.

Speaker 2 The true irony is that Maria's thoughts, those private moments, the ones she believed no one else would ever see, became the very thing that brought her justice.

Speaker 2 It's as if Maria reached out beyond the boundaries of life and death, her words, and led investigators to the truth she could no longer speak.

Speaker 3 Maria Munoz was a mother, a wife, a woman navigating her way through a marriage that wasn't working with a husband who was in a relationship with someone else.

Speaker 3 None of it's easy, and unfortunately, too many people understand the type of pain Maria was living. But that's the key.
She should have lived. She should have left him or stayed.

Speaker 3 They should have divorced or not. But that's it.
That's the type of decision people in relationships make, whether difficult or no longer viable.

Speaker 3 Those are the reasonable choices for every person to consider. Not murder, not taking a mother from her young kids, not taking a woman's life.
Maria Muñoz, we remember you.

Speaker 3 We hope that your boys are well and that they remember your strength, all the good qualities you surely passed down to them, and most importantly, that they still remember and feel your love for them both.

Speaker 3 Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an audio chuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

Speaker 2 Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

Speaker 3 This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Phil Jean-Grande.

Speaker 3 So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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