A woman is found dead in her home. A syringe found nearby would lead to answers, and her death being ruled a homicide. View source material and photos for this episode at: anatomyofmurder.com/non-responsive/Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc
Chapter 1: What happened to Maria Muñoz?
About an hour into the interview is when I ask him about the needle pricking in her elbow crease. Joel, why is that there? I don't know. I asked him point blank that night. Joel, did you inject your wife with anesthesia? What? No, I love her. I love her.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murder.
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.
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.
But of course, some marital discord can prove too challenging to overcome, especially when it comes to infidelity, abuse, or other trauma.
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.
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.
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances of Maria's death?
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. Hello?
Officer De La 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.
Like, maybe like 20, 25 minutes ago.
CPR was continued, but Maria was unresponsive. Her eyes appeared fully dilated and she had no pulse. Shortly after paramedics arrived, Maria Munoz was declared dead. All the while, her two sons, just five and two, were still sleeping only a few feet away.
In the body cam footage, Joel appears visibly distraught, and you can hear Officer De La Cruz encourage him to sit down on a stool in the kitchen and try to explain what happened. She's been super depressed.
She's been super depressed. I've been ignoring her. We're going through some problems. I came to talk to her. Like, we were just talking.
According to Joel, he had arrived at the house after his shift at the hospital. 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.
So you're not staying here right now?
We had sex. We took a shower. Then I heard she was, like, knocked out. I was like, what's up?
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Chapter 3: What evidence raised suspicion about Joel's story?
But he said that he thinks she took these YVs. He went all the way into the medicine cabinet and brought these.
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.
The clonazepam was of Joelle'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.
But that wasn't the only thing about the scene that had gotten law enforcement's attention.
Hey, there's a needle right here. There has to be a vial somewhere. He gave us something. In the closet over here.
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.
Joel explained away the presence of needles and syringes found in the house as just tools of his trade as a nurse anesthetist. But rather than giving Detective Modest comfort, the fact that Joel was trained in administering powerful medication only gave him pause.
Joel's erratic behavior was also attracting attention. 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.
He was punching walls. He was kicking furniture. And he was screaming. We were afraid he was going to scare neighbors. And then once we found that syringe, we were like, hey, relax. Have a seat here. Detectives are going to talk to you. We can't have you all over the place either. It's still a crime scene. But we emphasize that, obviously, and I go there. He wasn't detained at any point.
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Chapter 4: What was found at the crime scene?
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? And I go, well, if the sun comes up, Joel, well, the sun comes up. He goes, well, are neighbors going to see everything? And I said, yes, because this is going to put a delay in it. 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. 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.
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. Signs that may have indicated that Maria and Joel had gotten into a fight.
For starters, Maria was a very organized and clean person. I say that because my wife is a clean freak and she reminded me of my wife in the sense that it was everything was so organized, very clean home.
But that's not to say that there weren't things that seemed out of place, starting with Maria's body itself. 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?
And then there was a state of the bathroom in the master bedroom, which was conspicuously clean.
Joel's first statement was that he was in the shower. and when all this happened. 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 soaked towel, a damp towel, the smell of soap, the smell of shampoo. That restroom was dry. Absolutely dry.
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. There was no restroom that had any evidence of a shower being used.
And if Joel had showered as he claimed to have, why was he back in his work scrubs when police first arrived?
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Chapter 5: How did Joel's behavior change during the investigation?
The co-worker's name was Janet, and it was her house where Joel had been staying. 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. And that explained why on that night, he had driven to Maria's house, not Janet's, after getting off of work.
I asked him for the events that transpired that day that led up to the death. And that is when I realized that he could not account for his time period. The most simplest questions of them all, such as what time did you arrive? Well, I don't know. Okay. What did you do when you got there? Oh, I can't remember. I don't know. I go, did you shower?
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. 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. Okay, well, why wasn't the carpet or the floor on your bedroom used?
Oh, I wanted to give the paramedics easier access so they can go straight up.
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.
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? I don't know. I don't know. Why are you asking me this? Like, my wife just died. And so he started becoming evasive and defensive.
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.
While I'm there interviewing Joel, I find out that there was a suspicious needle prick mark on Maria's elbow crease. One mark. One. 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. And we found out that the hair medics that responded did not start an IV.
So what in the hell is that mark doing there? Why is it fresh?
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Chapter 6: What was the significance of the syringe found?
What did was the fact that police already knew about her relationship with Maria's husband, Joel.
She initially was reluctant to say that she had a boyfriend. She finally incorporated that she had a boyfriend, Joel, and she was initially under the belief that he had gone to work.
Janet admitted that Joel frequently stayed at her house, but denied seeing him before or after Maria's estimated time of death.
I released Janet at roughly 7.30 in the morning, and she agrees to be cooperative. 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? 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.
But 48 hours later, Luis received a phone call not from Janet, but from a local attorney.
Says Janet's retained our services. She's not going to talk to you anymore. If you need anything, talk to me.
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. But of course, from an investigator's point of view, any perceived obstacle in an investigation does tend to fuel suspicions.
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, we suspected something that she knew that she wasn't telling us.
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Chapter 7: What did Joel reveal about his marital issues?
So during that time, we're interviewing many, I want to say, character witnesses.
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. And while she was upset over her husband's infidelity, she was also resolved to move on with her life.
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.
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.
The diary revealed years of pain, betrayal, and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of her husband, Joel. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. And Luis expected the tox screen would help prove it.
I'm anticipating it's going to show high-potent anesthetics that are only found in a hospital setting. I was confident of that. The hardest part is proving that he injected her and that she wasn't a willing participant.
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Chapter 8: What were the conclusions drawn from the investigation?
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. Ketamine. And I remember him saying that ketamine is the most important thing. Once you have them on ketamine, it's fair game. You can do whatever you want with them.
A toxicology report revealed that Maria Munoz 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.
Without hesitation, our prosecutors and I, this is murder. This is cold-blooded murder at the highest degree.
But if this was indeed a homicide, the only question that remained was how her husband could have injected her against her will.
The toxicology report also showed us was that Maria had a high amount of caffeine. Maria was a big, avid fan of coffee. 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 Versed, that's all tasteless. He went to town and he killed her with propofol.
The official cause of death was determined to be acute intoxication, but the medical examiner listed the manner of death as undetermined.
In other words, there was nothing in the autopsy or toxicology that could definitively prove, however unlikely, that these medications were not self-administered.
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.
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. And I can also see it if I'm looking at the other way. 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
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