In December 2025, a routine evening at a Miami Dollar Tree turned into a scene no one could have imagined. Inside a commercial freezer at the back of the store, the body of Dr. Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez, a respected anesthesiologist and mother of two from Nicaragua, was reportedly discovered under circumstances that immediately raised disturbing questions. * How did a successful physician end up inside a locked freezer in a retail store? * Who last saw her alive? * And what happened in the final hours before she was found? Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, I walk you through the known details of the case, exploring Helen's life, her final movements, and the troubling gaps in the timeline. As investigators attempt to determine what led to this shocking discovery, the story reveals how easily someone can disappear, even in a crowded city, without anyone noticing. A haunting case that reminds us how fragile life can be, and how many stories still wait to be told. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine-tingling, unusual, and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey guys, we're back. Sorry, I had to take a few weeks off. Christmas has been crazy. This year, it was just crazy. I didn't put my tree up until three days before Christmas, but I actually took it down.
00:47
Gosh, when was it? Before the first. I took it down before the first. Curious about y'all, how long did you wait to put it up? And when did you actually take it down? Because this year I was on point when it came to buying gifts.
01:03
Like I had everybody's gift spot. I actually even started wrapping early, which normally I'm up Christmas Eve and I'm busting it, trying to get everything wrapped so that everything is done before everyone gets here on Christmas.
01:19
But it's different when your kids get older and it's different when they don't live at home anymore. You kind of get a little more time, but good grief. I mean, it was just a madhouse and the stores were crazy.
01:33
I feel like everybody's maybe financially a little better off this year because the stores were packed. Last year, I don't feel like the crowds were quite that bad. But I tell you what, I was kind of glad to get it over with.
01:48
I was glad that family was together. But this year, I just wanted everybody to unwrap their presents and get all their stuff out of my house. And I wanted to take my tree down. Not being a Grinch or anything, but it was just, it was very hectic.
02:04
And as you know, I retired from my job at the medical examiner's office right before, well, the day before New Year's Eve. It's crazy to not have two phones on my hip. And it's crazy to not have to worry about my phone ringing at 5 a.m.
02:24
I do miss the voices of some of the dispatchers that I talk to on a daily basis. And I miss my coworkers. I wish I could say that life had calmed down a little bit since then, but it's been more hectic.
02:39
You know how it is when you own your own business or you're an entrepreneur, you just push yourself harder. And it feels like for every job you give up, you gain two or three more. And so that's kind of where I'm at right now.
02:54
I'll be doing some investigations for American Forensics in Garland, Texas. And I will also continue to be at the MedSpa working on social media and the administrative part of that business, as well as injecting and then also managing the podcast.
03:14
And I have some speaking events coming up. I will be on Crime Cruise this year. I will also be on the live podcasting stage and be at the podcaster Mingle at Beyond the Crime. And then I also plan to be at CrimeCon, and then I will be a speaker on the women in podcasting cruise this year.
03:40
So, it's a lot, and that spans all the way from March to November. Very much open to additional speaking engagements, but right now that keeps me pretty busy. My last class for school starts today. I have not even logged in to see if I have an assignment.
04:02
Now, I was unable to sleep last night, and so I got up at like 2.30 and I logged in thinking there might be something I can do because I was wide awake and my professor had not uploaded the syllabus yet.
04:16
So, I just kind of sat there and perused the internet like we do when we can't sleep. And I think I'm just more hard on myself now than I used to be because I feel the pressure to get all these things done that I couldn't do before.
04:34
So many of you who are entrepreneurs can probably relate to that. There's a lot of good stories out in the news right now, but I want to cover one that just happened this past December. And the cause of death, the cause and manner are undetermined at this time.
04:54
Still, we don't have answers. So, let's look a little bit into the story and curious to see what your thoughts are. But this is disturbing in a way that lingers. So, it does not really shock with violence.
05:10
There's no violence involved. But the absence of knowledge as far as what happened is unsettling. A woman enters a store and never walks out. She never screamed. There were no witnesses. There was no struggle caught on camera.
05:31
Just that her body was discovered hours later in a place meant to preserve products but not end lives. A walk-in freezer. So, a locked door and a morning discovery that would leave employees shaken and leave her family devastated.
05:51
We are talking about the death of Helen Garay Sanchez. She was a 32-year-old physician. She was a mother of two, and she was found dead inside a Dollar Tree store, and this was in Miami, Florida. Now, police say there's no foul play.
06:13
Surveillance video actually shows footage of no one forcing her into the freezer. The death, again, remains undetermined. And this is her story and the quiet chain of events that led to her final hours.
06:31
So before discussing the freezer, the store, or even the investigation, it is very important to understand who she was as a person. And that's one thing that I like to do in cases like this. She's not just a headline.
06:47
She was a human being who lived a full and very demanding life. She was an anesthesiologist, so she specialized in congenital heart disease. This is not a casual specialty, y'all. It requires a lot of precision and patience and a tolerance for stress that most people really never experience.
07:09
Her patients were children born with complex heart conditions and children who depended on her steady hands and constant viligence during some of the most critical moments of their lives. Her work required a lot of focus.
07:27
And so, you can imagine the stress on her. Anesthesia is unforgiving. A slight miscalculation can change everything. And I know y'all have seen the stories about people under anesthesia, not able to come out of it or under anesthesia at the dentist's office went for just a crown or to have a tooth pulled and never woke up.
07:50
So, physicians in this field train for years to manage the pressure and anticipate the complications and respond instantly when something does go wrong. Colleagues and family described Helen as disciplined and dedicated and someone who took her responsibilities very seriously and understood the weight of the lives entrusted to her.
08:17
She was originally from Nicaragua. Her two children lived there. And friends say that her children were the center of her world. And she worked abroad to support them and build a future for them. Now, this detail matters because it kind of frames her decisions and her sacrifices.
08:36
She was not disconnected. She was not drifting. She was building something for her family, even if it meant that she had to be physically separated from them, which I can imagine is so difficult. Now, on Saturday night, this night in December, December 13th, Helen entered a Dollar Tree in the little Havana neighborhood of Miami.
09:02
It was weird at first because when I heard this story, I was like, does Dollar Tree have a freezer? But come to think of it, they do have a little freezer section. I don't normally go there for food unless it's like canned goods on the run or, I don't know, a snack, candy chips, whatever.
09:19
Something not good for me. But they do have a freezer in the back in the employee section to store all these foods. So, surveillance footage actually shows her walking into the freezer alone. She did not make a purchase.
09:37
She did not really browse the aisles for very long. She didn't really interact with employees in any notable way. But at some point, she accessed this restricted area marked for employees only. This is where the story begins to fracture into questions a little bit.
09:57
How did a customer access an employee-only area without intervention? I mean, we all know that some of the smaller stores in the rural areas don't have 100 people working there. It's not Walmart. There may have only been, I mean, we have a Dollar General here close to us, and many times there's only two or three people working there.
10:16
And if they're busy, they're all up front. They're not really monitoring the employee-only area. Was the freezer door unlocked? Is a question a lot of people asked. Was it improperly marked is another question.
10:32
Was there a lapse in oversight? Another question. Investigators have not publicly detailed the store layout or any kind of safety issues. What is known is that she entered the stockroom area where the walk-in freezer or cooler was located.
10:52
Now, police say that she entered the freezer, but they don't know why. They have not stated whether the freezer door locked automatically or whether it had an internal release mechanism. These details do matter.
11:09
Walk-in freezers are typically designed for safety, at least in theory. But again, they do fail and malfunctions happen and human error also happens. I can remember years ago when I worked at Pizza Inn, y'all.
11:25
We had a walk-in cooler. It wasn't really a freezer. Super cold though. And I can remember a couple of times that mechanism inside locked and I had to like be on the door to get out. It's probably not uncommon.
11:41
Now, the store eventually closed for the night, and employees locked up and left, and no one realized that there was still someone in the building. No one noticed movement in the stockroom. No alarm was triggered.
11:54
There was no safety system that alerted anyone that someone was trapped inside the freezer. And so Helen actually remained there in the freezer overnight. Sunday morning arrived, December 14th, unlike any other business day.
12:11
At around 8 o'clock in the morning, an employee arrived to open the store. And as part of the routine preparation, the employee entered the stockroom and what they found would haunt them. Inside the walk-in freezer was Helen.
12:30
She was unresponsive. She was completely naked. And she was deceased. Now, dispatch recordings later captured the moment that she was found, and police responded quickly. The store was secured, and the area became a crime scene, even though investigators would later say that no crime occurred.
12:54
But until that's determined, every scene is a crime scene. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. When there's a death, every scene is considered a crime scene until the police and the investigators at the medical examiner's office determine that there was no crime committed.
13:13
The woman was identified as Helen Garay Sanchez, 32 years old, a physician and a mother far from home. The Dollar Tree location closed for several hours as police actually conducted their initial investigation.
13:30
Customers stood outside and were very confused and, you know, people are curious. It's just human nature. Employees were questioned. Surveillance video footage was reviewed. Investigators started kind of reconstructing the timeline from the moment she entered the store until the moment she was found.
13:52
And police kind of made several statements early in the investigation. They had made it clear that Helen was not an employee, that she was not forced into the freezer. The surveillance footage did not show another person accompanying her into the restricted area.
14:09
There were no signs of a struggle, no evidence of assault, and no indication of robbery. So, they did state and made it perfectly clear that there was no foul play. So, her death was classified as undetermined.
14:27
And this is a critical distinction. And so that means that the medical examiner has not yet determined whether the cause of death was accidental, natural, or intentional, which would be basically like a suicide.
14:47
It leaves the door open for further investigation and analysis. And it's just a pause until a conclusion is reached. And this happens in many cases. Many times we never know. If the person had no history of suicidal ideations, then there would really be nothing to fall back on as far as it being a potential suicide.
15:13
If there were no health problems or mental health problems, it's really hard if there's not a documented history of those things. You know, was it an accident? Did she get locked in and just wasn't able to get out?
15:31
One of the most troubling details in the case is that Helen was found naked. And it's fueled a lot of speculation, but forensic science provides context. In cases of severe hypothermia, which is when your body temperature is really low, there is a phenomenon called paradoxical undressing can occur.
15:54
As your body temperature drops, your nervous system basically misfires, and the brain falsely signals to you that you're intensely hot. And people will remove their clothing in an attempt to cool down.
16:10
This behavior is documented and it doesn't indicate sexual activity. It doesn't indicate sexual assault. I've always kind of talked about this before because in a lot of my cases where people are home alone and are deceased, they're completely nude.
16:28
Now, whether or not they were ready to get in the shower or had just gotten out of the shower in most cases was not true. In most cases, they were in the living room or in a bedroom and their clothing was right there near them, indicating that they may have just taken it off.
16:46
So, the paradoxical undressing is definitely a thing. Now, a walk-in freezer is an extreme environment, and cold exposure affects the body pretty rapidly. People get cognitively impaired. Their judgment kind of starts to deteriorate.
17:08
Their decision-making becomes slightly erratic. And eventually, motor coordination is going to fail and panic can set in, especially if they see that they can't get out. Now, if the freezer door was heavy or difficult to open or malfunctioned, a person inside could become trapped within minutes.
17:31
Cold is going to impair muscle strength, so it's going to make it harder to get the door open if it's difficult and heavy. Your hands are going to become numb, which is also going to make those things difficult.
17:44
Your fine motor skills are going to disappear. And even someone intelligent and physically capable can become helpless under these conditions. Investigators will also examine toxicology to see if there's any alcohol in her system.
18:03
They would look at prescription medications. Some of these tests can sometimes take months. They'll look for other substances. These tests will kind of help determine whether or not impairment played a role in her death as an anesthesiologist, not being accusatory, but she did work around some powerful medications, but there has been no public confirmation of any substance found in her system.
18:31
So, until toxicology results are released, that is just speculation. Police also were exploring whether Helen had been dealing with personal or mental health challenges, if there was any history of personal health challenges.
18:49
This is standard in unexplained deaths, and I always had to report that to family or tell them, you know, I'm not implying that there were suicidal ideations or that this was a suicide attempt, but I do need to know if there's a history of that.
19:05
There's a nice way of asking that question without making the family feel like you think a death could be a suicide. But I guess we have to ask all those questions just to understand the context. We have to know how stressed someone was at work.
19:23
Were they exhausted? Were they grieving from something? Did they lose a job? Did they lose a spouse? Were they isolated from family? This across all professions can affect people. And high achievers are not immune.
19:40
Surveillance footage provides information, but it also has limits. Cameras show movement, but they don't show intent. They don't show fear. They don't show confusion or internal struggle. And no foul play does not mean there was no failure.
20:02
It doesn't mean that systems worked as intended. Restricted areas exist for safety, and walk-in freezers should have internal release mechanisms. Alarms should function, and training should emphasize accountability.
20:19
So, tragedies like this often result from a series of small oversights aligning at the worst possible moment. Helen's family received the news from another country, so their grief crossed borders. They launched a GoFundMe campaign to bring her body back to Nicaragua, and their words described a devoted physician and a loving mother, a woman whose life was defined by service and sacrifice.
20:49
As we all know, doctors sacrifice a lot. Their goal was simple. They just wanted to bring her home. They wanted to lay her to rest with dignity and surround her with those who loved her. Now, when the store reopened, the shelves were restocked and customers returned and life kind of resumed at a normal pace.
21:09
But for Helen's family, everything stopped. Her children have to grow up now without their mom. Her patients lost their dedicated physician. The case doesn't end with any kind of arrest or a courtroom setting.
21:27
It ends with just a lot of unanswered questions. A doctor who saved children died alone in a freezer. And no foul play does not erase the fact that it was a tragedy. And it doesn't erase responsibility.
21:44
And it doesn't erase the need to examine where failure occurred in the system that allowed this to happen. Now, locked doors matter and safety systems do matter. Awareness matters because sometimes the difference between an ordinary knot and an irreversible loss is a door left unsecured and a moment unnoticed.
22:12
And we all know, like, Lord could imagine, what if a child had gone in there? Chances are the parent would have gone to look for them, but in this case, she didn't have anybody with her. Helen Garay Sanchez was not a mystery to those who loved her.
22:29
She was a mother and a doctor and a human being. And her death deserves careful investigation and honest answers. So obviously silence should not be the final chapter, but her death is officially ruled undetermined.
22:48
It's pending the medical examiner's full report. Now they're saying possibly hypothermia. And there's really no new news on this story since that time. I've been kind of following it, waiting to see if something else comes out on her cause and manner of death.
23:11
But at this point, we have undetermined, which basically means there's not enough proof to rule it one way or the other. Again, no struggle. And, you know, we all want answers. Like if somebody killed somebody, we want to see them go to court and go to trial and get convicted and go to prison.
23:31
But in this case, that will never happen because there was no other person. So that makes it really, really difficult. And my guess would be that this will remain undetermined because it would have been pending had they been waiting on talks.
23:51
So, I'm guessing our doctors, let me just say, would have pended the cause and manner until the talks came back. Normally, undetermined is a legitimate cause and manner if there's no proof of anything else.
24:12
So far, this is all we're left with. We don't have any other answers. So, I just remember thinking when that happened before Christmas, how interesting the story was. And I apologize because I did have to replay some old episodes because Christmas was just super hectic.
24:29
Now it's over. And again, I feel like I'm busier since I retired, y'all, than I was when I was still working that other full-time job. The med spa has been crazy. This is kind of a slow time of year.
24:43
Again, I've told y'all many times. My med spa, the filling station in Denton, Texas, offers virtual visits for weight loss. So, if you're interested at all in starting your weight loss journey, we can actually email you a link so that you can do an assessment online with our nurse practitioner and we can mail those medications.
25:07
So, I do have several podcast followers who are doing this and have been super successful. A couple have flown into my office to meet me and have been seen in the office but were initially seen virtually through the podcast.
25:23
I do have some new murder merch that I need to get put on the website. And I do also need to apologize. I had some people that ordered cereal boxes during December and there was a glitch in the system, and I never got the emails.
25:40
And so those orders went missed and those were mailed out just recently, but should be received within the next week, hopefully. I apologize and I think we got the glitch fixed. So soon there will be new items listed on the internet.
25:57
There are new items already on display at my murder merch store inside McCart Street Mercantile in Crumb, Texas. So don't forget about that. I am loving all my new followers and all the shout outs and all the questions.
26:15
Again, if you've asked a question, it's been hectic. I will personally email each of you. I just have not had a chance to get it back to everybody yet, but I will. I hope y'all are having a great year.
26:29
I ate my black-eyed peas. My husband had never heard of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. I had to explain that tradition to him. My grandpa's birthday was on January 1st, and I can remember when I was a kid, we'd always go to my grandparents' house and eat black-eyed peas on my grandpa's birthday.
26:47
This year, I didn't cook them, mind you. I ordered them from Cotton Patch, but they were delicious. And I made my husband eat a spoonful because if I'm going to have good luck, he has to have good luck too.
27:01
Anyway, I hope y'all are having amazing beginning of the year. I look forward to this year. I look forward to the great things that the podcast has coming around the corner. And I look forward to talking to y'all next week.
27:15
Bye, y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
27:32
Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.