A young mother's final diary entry helped convince a jury that she did not commit suicide but was actually murdered by her cheating husband.
Maria Munoz, 31, was heartbroken when husband Joel Pellot left their Laredo home, leaving her to care for their two young sons.
He claimed she had overdosed on prescription pills when police found her dead in their home after he returned for a “heart to heart.”
But the anesthetist had injected her with toxic drugs stolen from the hospital where he worked in an attempt to avoid a costly divorce.
And Maria's diary and cellphone recordings helped investigators uncover her husband's abuse and track her journey through grief to recovery and renewed faith in the future.
'What is it that I want?' she wrote the day before she died, “#1 Move Forward!!”
Maria Munoz, 31, was killed by her husband after he begged to meet for a 'heart to heart'
The mother-of-two had kept a detailed diary documenting her tempestuous marriage
Cheating husband Joel Pellot killed his wife with a lethal injection of drugs in their Laredo home for hours after learning she was preparing to divorce him
Maria had met her husband when she was a young nurse in Puerto Rico, and he was an ambitious medical student, eleven years her senior.
They married in 2011 and settled in the Texas border town, where she gave up her career to support her husband.
But in 2020, Maria discovered her husband was cheating on her when she found a plane ticket with a colleague from his hospital for a European vacation he was planning to take.
Matters came to a head on September 19, the Saturday before her death, when Maria saw his car outside the home of his lover Janet Arredondo.
Arredondo called the police, who in turn called Maria while she was traveling home with her husband.
“Hey, I'm fucking talking to you right now,” they heard Pellot say to her when she answered, “Hang up the damn phone.”
He smashed the windshield before they got home, and she texted him the next morning to tell him she was hiring a lawyer.
“We can do this with minimal attorney involvement. It's too much money,” he shot back.
Hours later there was a change in tone.
“I'm so sad I'm hurting inside,” he emailed her.
'I want to sit down with you and talk, without arguing. From heart to heart.'
Maria had given up her own medical career to support her husband after they married in 2011
The couple had made previous attempts at reconciliation, including a vacation to Nevada
Pellot was dressed in medical scrubs and “sweating profusely” when police arrived at the home he had shared with Maria, where they found her dead
Pellot was taken to the police station for an interview, where surveillance cameras caught him crying, screaming and pushing furniture around when left alone
Maria was nervous as she prepared for what would be their final meeting.
“I'm just asking if you can pray for me,” she sent a message to her friend Yazmin Martnez on Monday, “we'll talk tonight.”
Police received another call in the early hours of Tuesday morning, this time from Pellot, who told them his wife was not breathing and may have taken some prescription pills.
They found him dressed in surgical scrubs and performing CPR on his now deceased wife while the couple's two young boys slept in the next bedroom.
Pellot went to a bathroom cabinet to get the prescription of clonazepam that he said she had overdosed on, but pocketed the bottle when police tried to revive his wife.
“Yes, she has been very depressed,” he told them.
Pellot was taken to the police station for an interview, where surveillance cameras caught him crying, screaming and pushing furniture around when left alone.
He admitted that the syringes and intravenous equipment found in the house were his, but that they were part of his daily work equipment.
Investigators were also curious about a flat tire on Maria's arm, but it took four months for toxicology results to come back and they had few leads.
Pellot claimed that Maria had overdosed on her prescription for the sedative clonazepam, but a toxicology report ultimately found nothing in her system.
Meanwhile, Pellot attended his wife's funeral, where he wept over her coffin.
“What made me angry was that he was standing by the casket,” Martinez said CBS 48 hours.
'Crying for her, giving her kisses. Like why now? You made her suffer and cry so much and now you're doing this?'
But what the detectives did have were Maria's diaries.
“Life is so unfair,” she wrote in one post. “My husband, the man I love so much, hurts me so much.”
“I don't want to be sad anymore, I don't want my heart to hurt, I don't want my mind to be tormented,” she wrote in another post.
And they spoke of a continued hope that her marriage could be saved.
“Lord, this means a lot to me,” she wrote, “all I really want is to see change in him.”
Police also found cell phone video recordings Maria had taken, including an angry altercation in their car.
'What do you want me to do?' she asked Pellot at one point, “What are the expectations you have for this marriage?”
“If you walk out that door, we're going to get divorced,” she warned him.
“Okay, fine, you got it,” Pellot shot back, slamming the car door.
The medical examiner had found drugs in Maria's body, but the diaries and recordings were enough to rule out suicide.
Pellot's boss at the hospital, anesthesiologist Dr. John Huntsinger, was suspicious of the results and urged police to investigate further, but it took four months before the toxicology report showed there was no clonazepam in Maria's system.
Instead, seven other drugs typically used during surgery were used, including Propofol, which can only be given by injection.
“I was very shocked when I saw Propofol,” said Dr. Huntsinger. 'Her level was the highest level I have ever seen.
“I believe this was death by Propofol.”
Arredondo had been questioned by police and admitted that Pellot had routinely brought medications, including Propofol, from the hospital.
She also revealed that Pellot admitted to injecting his wife the night she died.
“He just wanted to calm her down,” she told them, “so he did it with medication.”
Pellot was arrested and claimed in court that he gave her Narcan, a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose.
“Someone tried to revive her, and it wasn't the paramedics, it wasn't the police. It was Joel,” his lawyer Roberto Balli told the court.
'So he didn't want her dead. This was a terrible accident.'
But the jury took less than an hour to find Pellot guilty of his wife's murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in March this year.
Prosecutor Marisela Jacaman said the most important witness at the trial was Maria herself, whose diaries showed she had gotten over her husband.
“She loved him, and she adored him,” said Maria's friend Angela Montoya, “she just loved him too much.”
Prosecutor Marisela Jacaman said the most important witness at the trial was Maria herself, whose diaries showed she had gotten over her husband.
“I've heard of emotional abuse, I've seen it, I've worked around it, but I never realized how prevalent it is even in our lives, where you can relate to some of the things that Maria experienced,” she explained . .
“And she was a great mother, she was just a great person.
'And that energy? We felt it.'
“She loved him and adored him,” said Maria's friend Angela Montoya.
“She just loved him too much.”