At first, it seemed like Maria Muñoz committed herself, but her diary writings and toxicology reports threw her husband Joel Pellot in a lifelong prison.
The husband of a young Texas mother found dead in her home made her murder look like a suicide, but the woman’s final diary and toxicology autopsy report result in a life sentence for her death.
It was announced.
Anesthesiologist and nurse Joel Perrott called 911 in the early morning hours of September 22, 2020, to report that his wife, Maria Munoz, 31, was unresponsive.
She was “extremely depressed” and told police she may have overdosed on prescription drugs.
Her subsequent investigation, and the discovery of Muñoz’s final diary, which painted a very different picture of her husband, was featured on CBS’s “48 Hours.
” Mr.
Perrott, 45, recently left his home in Laredo and when he returned to tell the story, he found the mother of his two children dead, he said.
.
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When Laredo police arrived, Munoz’s husband, wearing a lab coat, was performing CPR on Munoz, and her sons were sleeping in the next room.
Her investigators, however, immediately began to question Perot’s report, noting Perot’s nervous demeanor, her excessive sweating, and her inability to answer simple questions.
When paramedics arrived, they reportedly found a syringe case and needle catheter on the floor of her home.
When asked what medication his wife could have taken, he went into another room to get a prescription for clonazepam, but pocketed the bottle as police took over resuscitation efforts.
Investigators interviewed for the special investigation noted that people who overdose on pills are usually found with a bottle next to them.
Investigators found that pills were also prescribed in Perrott’s name, not Munoz’s.
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Video of Pellot’s ensuing interview at the Laredo Police Department headquarters was obtained by “48 Hours,” which revealed that when the man was left alone, he cried, screamed, and pushed furniture haphazardly in the room. Authorities considered this behaviour to be peculiar.
He acknowledged that the syringes in the house belonged to him, but he insisted that he had nothing to do with his wife’s death and that they were simply part of his regular tools of the trade. He went to his wife’s house to discuss their failing marriage and admitted to the police that he was staying at the residence of another woman. He informed the authorities that Muñoz had to have taken drugs to end her life at some point following their chat. A medical examiner later found no pill residue in Muñoz’s stomach – but he did spot a tiny puncture mark on her right elbow crease.
According to the programme, although Muñoz’s death was considered a result of combined drug intoxication by the medical examiner, detectives were sceptical that her death was self-inflicted after speaking with her acquaintances. Upon Following Muñoz’s death, Dr. John Huntsinger, Pellot’s supervisor, contacted a detective involved in the investigation to express his suspicions and urge the Laredo Police Department to request a thorough toxicology screening..
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A companion thought Pellot looked theatrical when she sobbed over Muñoz’s casket during her funeral before the toxicology screening was completed.
According to Yazmin Martinez, “what made me feel angry was him near the casket,” she said to “48 Hours.”
Martinez remembered “crying over her, giving her kisses.” Like, why right now? You’re doing this now after causing her so much pain and tears?”
Four months after the report was finished, Muñoz’s system contained no clonazepam.
Rather, according to the special, Muñoz passed away from a lethal mix of morphine, Demerol, Versed, propofol, ketamine, lidocaine, and Narcan—virtually all medications often used in surgery. Her husband, a nurse anaesthetist, would also have access to these medications.
Huntsinger informed the filmmakers that she had so much propofol in her system that it would have stopped her breathing. Propofol can only be given by injection. Pellot’s mistress, Janet Arredondo, claims that he also used the substance recreationally.
One day before she was discovered dead, the woman wrote in her diary, reflecting more of a change-ready women’s thinking than that of a bereft, abandoned spouse: “What is it that I want? #1 Take Action Now!”
Later, an all-female prosecution team contended that Muñoz wanted to keep her family together but acknowledged that he wanted to be with someone else, according to her earlier diary entries.
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She said in her meditations that she was looking for “new beginnings” and “a better tomorrow.”
According to the woman’s diary and acquaintances, on the Saturday prior to Muñoz’s passing, she discovered an airline ticket for a vacation to Europe that her spouse had scheduled with a female coworker.
When she noticed her husband’s car parked outside her house, her suspicions about an affair with Arredondo were validated.
Following the altercation, Arrendondo phoned the police, who then called Muñoz, as heard on tape and obtained by “48 Hours.”
Pellot’s wife was heard saying to him, “Hey, I’m f—ing talking to you right now,” while she answered. “Hang up the f—ing phone.”
The following day, she texted Pellot to inform him that she was hiring a lawyer because, according to the special, he had punched a hole in her windscreen the night before they had arrived home.
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We don’t need the involvement of a lawyer in this. Too much money,” he replied in a text.
But later that day, Pellot apologised to his wife via email and asked for their ill-fated “heart-to-heart.”
After agreeing to meet, Muñoz was discovered deceased the following day. According to the special, Muñoz texted her close buddy, expressing concern, before their scheduled conversation.
She wrote Martinez, “I just ask if you can pray for me.” “Tonight we are going to talk.”