The Gym Reaper

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Welcome to ten Minute Murder, brief
and binge able true crime. Hello,

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I'm Joe. I'm the host,
and thank you for joining today. I

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feel like I should probably let you
all know that I started a new TikTok

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account. The last one I had
got banned for some reason. I don't

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know why they They didn't give me
a warning or anything. That just boom,

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it was gone one day. I
didn't care so much because I honestly

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wasn't doing very much with it.
But that is now changing, just in

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time for TikTok to get maybe shut
down in the United States if they do

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keep the light on, I'm putting
content over there. So if you have

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a TikTok, hop over there and
give me a follow, please and thank

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you. If this is your first
time listening to ten Minute Murder, please

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see the visuals that were talking about
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like this episode, please leave a
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minute murder dot Com for all things
ten Minute Murder Now to today's story.

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By all accounts, Tom Coleman lived
a pretty normal life. He'd been married

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to his wife, Linda for more
than a decade, and the pair were

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raising their kids together in a small
town just outside of New York. Tom

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worked as a physical therapy supervisor,
and as he got older, his life

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had settled into a comfortable routine.
He hit the gym every morning like clockwork.

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He spent time with his family and
friends, and in November twenty eleven,

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it was no different. After spending
time off work and relaxing with his

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family and watching football, Tom woke
up early the morning of November twenty ninth,

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twenty eleven, and began his usual
routine. He headed to Planet Fitness

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to get a workout done before his
day began, but this time he didn't

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make it to work. A no
call, no show was totally out of

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character for the very reliable Tom,
so Linda was immediately worried about her husband.

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She drove straight to the last place
that Tom had been and found his

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car still in the parking lot of
Planet Fitness. For a moment, Linda

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was relieved when she spotted Tom still
behind the wheel, but when she got

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a closer look, she realized that
something had gone terribly wrong. Tom was

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freezing cold when Linda touched his hand, and his nails and lips had turned

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blue. Linda realized that he wasn't
breathing and called nine one one for an

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ambulance, but it was too late. At the age of forty four,

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Tom Coleman had suddenly died. A
toxicology report was run on Tom's body and

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it revealed something strange. There was
a drug called medazoleum in his system.

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In BT dubs, I may be
saying that wrong. Medazoleum is a sedative

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which can be fatal in high doses, but the levels in Tom's blood were

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not high enough to be fatal.
However, Tom did have sleep apne and

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disorder, which might have made him
more sensitive to the effects of the drug.

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Regardless of whether medazoleum killed Tom,
the question remained. Tom wasn't being

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prescribed any sedatives, so where had
he gotten the medazoleum and why was he

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taking it in the first place.
There was another strange factor in the way

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that Tom's body was found. His
belt had been undone, his seat was

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reclined and his shirt was pulled up
zipper down, as if he had been

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having some type of sexual encounter.
In the car, The DNA of an

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unknown male was discovered on the inside
of his undone belt. Had Tom been

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meeting someone at Planet Fitness, maybe
even cheating on his wife? Investigators were

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suspicious, so they pulled the CCTV
footage from Planet Fitness. The footage showed

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Tom pulling into the parking lot at
his usual four thirty am, next to

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another car, a white SUV with
an unusual fault in its fog lights.

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One of the lights hit the ground
much more closely than the other. The

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SUV pulled next to Tom's car and
remained there for almost half an hour,

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but the footage did not capture whether
either of the vehicles opened or closed their

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doors. You couldn't really see it. After twenty eight minutes, the SUV

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pulled away. Tom's car remained in
the parking lot. The strange pattern of

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the SUV's fog lights matched one car
in particular, Doctor Gilberto Nunez his white

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Nissan Pathfinder, which had a fault
in its mounting that caused one of its

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lights to dip down. Doctor Nuniez
was a friend of both Tom and Linda

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and worked as a dentist nearby.
Talking to doctor Nuniez quickly made investigators realize

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that Tom and Linda's lives weren't all
they seemed to be. Gilberto wasn't just

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a close friend of Tom's, he
was also close with Linda, very close

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under Tom's nose. Gilberto and Linda
were having an affair, which had continued

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for almost a year before Tom's death. However, it seemed that the affair

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fizzled out for Linda. She decided
that she wanted to work on her marriage

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with Tom instead of leaving him for
Gilberto. Meanwhile, Gilberto did not share

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those same feelings. He'd even bought
an engagement ring for Linda in the hope

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that they could start a life together. Strangely, Tom had found out that

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Linda was sleeping with Gilberto, but
he didn't get angry or cut the dentist

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out of their lives. He allowed
the affair to continue. Andy kept being

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friends with Gilberto. Investigators later discovered
that Gilberto had actually been the one to

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tell Tom about the affair. Stranger
Still, it seemed that Tom hadn't just

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remained close with Gilberto. After this
revelation, the parrot actually even become closer

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friends. Originally, Gilberto denied having
any Medazzo Lamb in his possession, but

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it soon turned out that he had
a supply of the sedative in his dental

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office. It was possible that he
had taken some of his supply and administered

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it to Tom secretly. As well
as this, investigators discovered that Gilberto was

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aware of Tom's sleep apnea, and
his medical training meant that the dentist was

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aware of the dangers of a patient
with this disorder consuming a sedative like Medazzo

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Lamb. Also, it's worth mentioning
that Tom wasn't the exact picture of health.

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He weighed two hundred thirty pounds,
he had an enlarged heart and enlarged

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liver, and a history of hypertension, depression, anxiety, migraines, and

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insomnia. At first, Linda didn't
want to believe that Gilberto could have anything

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to do with Tom's death. He
was a trusted family friend, someone that

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Linda loved. They even celebrated their
one month anniversaries of the day their love

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affairs started. They were the sappy
couple that would be like happy four month

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anniversary, and they probably sat on
the same side of the table at restaurants.

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Unconfirmed, but as the evidence mounted, Linda began to confront the possibility

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that her lover had been the one
to kill Tom. Gilberto refused when asked

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to take a polygraph, which btw
many people look at as a sign of

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guilt. It could be, but
if you, like I have done,

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delve into the statistics of accuracy and
chances of false positive, you wouldn't take

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one either. There's a reason that
they are not admissible in court. No

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matter the circumstantial evidence, it was
not enough to make an arrest, and

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Gilberto didn't face any charges. In
fact, he married three years later after

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meeting his now wife on a dating
site. In the four years that passed

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since Tom's death, the family had
been struggling with a sudden loss. His

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teenage son, Bradley, committed suicide
at the age of eighteen, less than

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two years after his dad died.
While Gilberto was moving on with his life,

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Tom's family was struggling searching for answers. In October twenty fifteen, it

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seemed as if they might finally get
the answers They needed. Suddenly, Gilberto

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was arrested and he faced charges for
second degree murder. At Gilberto's trial,

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there was ample evidence showing his obsession
with Linda, and one of the emails

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shown to the courtroom, Gilberto told
Linda quote, I'm not gonna let you

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just walk away from me. Never
in his efforts to prevent Linda from ending

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the affair, Gilberto even told her
that he worked for the CIA, sending

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her a fake government ID as proof. This alone was evidence enough for Gilberto

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to be charged with forgery, if
not Tom's murder. However, the defense

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had a different argument, insisting that
Gilberto wasn't aware that Linda was ending the

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affair. Besides, he and Tom
were close, having texted each other over

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sixty times in the last few days
of Tom's life. Why would Gilberto go

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as far as killing Tom when their
friendship seemed to have survived the affair with

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Linda. The forensic evidence linking Gilberto
to the case was lacking. In fact,

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there was no forensic evidence at all. None of his fingerprints or DNA

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were found the scene of the crime, and the unknown male DNA on Tom's

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belt was not a match to Gilberto. Besides, even if Gilberto had given

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Tom the sedative, it had not
been a guaranteed fatal dose. They couldn't

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prove that the intent had been to
murder Tom, even though Gilberto had been

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aware of tom sleep apnea, which
might have made it more vulnerable to the

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drug. One key piece of evidence
was an email on Tom's phone. It

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was from a hook up website.
He'd received that email at one thirty am

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before arriving at Planet Fitness. This
supported the theory that Tom had been meeting

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in a fair partner at the gym, but although Tom and Gilberto had been

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incredibly close, there was no evidence
that the email was from Gilberto. The

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courtroom had to consider that Tom had
been meeting a completely unrelated person that morning.

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The trial dragged on for three weeks, and the ending was unsatisfying for

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Linda and her family. Doctor Gilberto
Nunez was charged with forgery and unrelated insurance

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fraud, but found not guilty of
Tom's murder. Linda angrily left the courtroom

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after the verdict, calling Gilberto psychotic. Gilberto spent two years in Altuna Correctional

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Facility, serving less than a third
of his potential seven year sentence, before

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he was given back his freedom.
His parole will end in October twenty twenty

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three. Ultimately, Gilberto lost his
license to practice dynastry, but Tom Coleman

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lost his life. The question of
why Tom died and who killed him seems

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as if it will remain unanswered.