- Mum Maria was shattered when she learned her husband was having an affair
- Bravely confronting him, he agreed they should talk things through
- But soon after coming home, he rang emergency saying he’d found her unresponsive
Maria Munoz and Joel Pellot were both working as medical students when they met at hospital.
While Joel was 11 years older than Maria, the chemistry between them was undeniable.
Their relationship soon deepened with their shared passion for helping others.
However Maria put her dreams on hold after the couple married in 2011, when she became a stay-at-home mum to their son Alejandro.
Meanwhile, Joel got a lucrative job as a nurse anaesthetist.
She was a dedicated mother who loved taking her son to the park and reading him books.
But when she gave birth to the couple’s second son, Valentino, in 2018, Joel began secretly seeing a woman called Janet Arredondo, a surgical nurse he met at work.
He jetted her away to France, Spain and Greece, while Maria was at home with their young sons.
When Maria found two plane tickets had been purchased for Joel’s trip, his secret affair was out.
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Devastated, Maria kept a diary to help her work through her thoughts.
I don’t want to be sad anymore. I don’t want to hurt. I don’t want my mind to be in torture, she wrote.
She also spoke of her fear of losing her family. But by September 2020, Maria had had enough.
What is it that I want? #1 Move forward! she penned.
When Maria told Joel she was going to hire as divorce lawyer, he didn’t fight for his marriage
Instead, he coldly responded, ‘We can do this with minimal lawyer intervention. It’s too much money.’
But the following day he changed his mind, emailing Maria about having a ‘heart to heart’.
I am so sad I am hurting inside, he pleaded.
Maria agreed to meet him.
Before he arrived at the family home, she texted her friend Yazmin Martinez, I just ask if you can pray for me. Tonight we are going to talk.
She’s not breathing, she may have taken some pills
However things took a turn for the worse, when Joel called emergency services in the early hours of the following morning.
‘I found my wife unresponsive,’ he told the operator.
‘She’s not breathing. She may have taken some pills.’
First responders rushed to the scene but sadly, Maria couldn’t be revived. She was just 31 years old.
When asked what drugs Maria might have taken, Joel said he thought it might have been Clonezepam, a drug usually prescribed to treat anxiety.
‘She’s been pretty depressed lately,’ he told the police.
He showed them an empty pill bottle, but the officer noted it was Joel’s name on the label, not Maria’s.
Police claimed Joel waited until she was close to death before calling emergency
Later, when police looked for the bottle to collect for forensic testing, they were unable to find it.
Then, they claimed, he deliberately waited until she was close to death before calling emergency services.
Authorities immediately launched an investigation.
Was Maria’s death a suicide, an accidental overdose, or something far more sinister?
Joel was taken into the police station for questioning.
Meanwhile, searching the home, police found syringes, a needle catheter and a medical bag.
When they reviewed the body cam footage from the original scene, they spotted Joel pocketing the empty bottle of Clonazepam that officers had been trying to find.
Police also found Maria’s journals, detailing Joel’s affair, her love for her kids, and her plans for her future.
A medical examiner confidently ruled out suicide.
So how had the drugs ended up in Maria’s system?
At her funeral, Joel was seen uncontrollably crying over her coffin.
Then, an autopsy revealed a small puncture mark on the inside of Maria’s elbow and a mixture of drugs in her system.
A more detailed toxicology test showed there was no trace of Clonazepam.
Instead, there was seven other drugs found, including morphine, ketamine and propofol – drugs that are commonly used for sedation and pain relief in surgeries.
Police believed instantly it was Joel who had administered the deadly mixture.
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Joel Pellot was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
At his trial in March 2023, prosecutors said Joel had wanted out of the marriage but did not want to pay for a divorce or split his assets.
And, while Maria’s journals confirmed that she was sad, she was looking to move on with her life, not end it.
They believed Joel had put some of the sedative drugs in Maria’s coffee, and waited for her to pass out, before injecting her with the deadly dose of propofol.
All while their two young sons slept in their nearby rooms.
Janet, who’d agreed to testify against Joel in exchange for immunity, said he’d admitted injecting Maria with a cocktail of drugs on the night she died but he claimed he had done it to ‘calm her down’.
She also said Joel had admitted to her he’d got rid of some of the medical evidence before officers arrived at the scene.
Joel’s defence team agreed he’d injected his wife – but said he wasn’t trying to kill her; he was trying to save her.
They claimed Maria had already taken an overdose before Joel arrived at the house, and he had injected Narcan, a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose.
But the prosecution countered that Narcan is not a reverse agent for propofol – the drug that eventually stopped her heart from beating.
The jury took just one hour to found Joel guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.
It was justice for Maria. And thanks to her diary entries, she’d been the star witness in her own murder trial.
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