Luis Mata Jr.
speaker
75 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Luis Mata Jr.’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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.
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.
Laredo, Texas is a city on the southwest U.S.-Mexico border. 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.
She was a very educated woman. She was actually a RN. 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.
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.
Contrary to popular belief, Laredo averages roughly 10 to 15 homicides a year. 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? The problem is we also investigate shootings, stabbings, and deaths that we deem have to be ruled out of foul play.
So a young person in her early 30s passing away in her home without being ill, that automatically sparks an investigation. Now, More times than not, it's undiagnosed medical conditions. It is suicide, but we always have to go and do the death investigation.
I made contact with Officer De La Cruz, but Officer De La Cruz told me that the spouse, which is Joel Peyote, he had said that Maria and him had had sex. He went in to take a shower. He came out. He thought she was asleep. And then he got dressed. Ten minutes later, he goes and checks on her and she's unresponsive. And he sees a bottle of prescription pills that belonged to him.
So that he initially said that he believed that she had overdosed on those pills and she had died.
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.
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.
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.
He was initially told that, hey, this, you know, we are completely sympathetic and understanding, but we still have a job to do.
What threw a curveball was I couldn't exactly do a walkthrough of the home. And the reason is because, remember, as much of 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. 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. I expressed my condolences. And then I asked the routine question was, do we have legal authority to be in your home?
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, 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.
And then I asked him why, what the issue was, is if he was scared. And he said, no, I live a very private life. All I need you to do is just, you know, get her body and get out of here. So that's fine. I said, that is absolutely right. Nobody's going to go inside. We're going to secure the crime scene while we apply for a search warrant.
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. 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.
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.
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