Mónica Santa María

Mónica Janette Santa María Smith (Lima; — ) was a Peruvian model and TV hostess. Born in Lima, she was one of the two original presenters of Nubeluz, a popular Peruvian children's TV show during the first half of the 1990s, for which she was also known as the Dalina chiquita.

Early life Santa María was born in Lima on , to Danilo Santa María, from Trujillo, and Judith Smith, from Canada. The second of three sisters, she grew up in the San Antonio neighbourhood of the district of Miraflores, at a house in Roca y Boloña avenue. She developed depression and attempted suicide for the first time in late 1991 by overdosing on medicine, being taken to the and starting a treatment, which included the consumption of barbiturates to be able to sleep, after her release. In late 1992, she met Constantino Heredia, known as "Tino" by friends, the son of the then owner of PepsiCo in Peru.

The success of Nubeluz caused her to develop psychological stress and worsened her depression due to her lack of privacy, leaving the show in 1993 to spend more time with Heredia in the US. Despite this, Heredia had to make constant business trips to Peru, which led her to return to the show alongside Gomelsky, Lilianne Braun and Xiomara Xibillé. She then drove to her empty apartment building in La Molina, purchased five months prior.

Heredia received a call from Santa María at 11 p.m., who claimed that she was going to use his pistol to commit suicide. This caused him to contact her parents before leaving to be with friends in a beach south of Lima. Santa María's parents arrived at her residence and left after she claimed that Heredia's claims were false and that she was too tired and needed to rest. After her parents left convinced of what she told them, she called him again telling him to not call her parents and that, after she was done with it, he would get his gun back soon from César Coello—the engineer in charge of their new apartment—saying that it was the only thing he was interested in.

In a 2024 interview with Verónica Linares, Santa María's co-star, Almendra Gomelsky, claimed that Santa María called her phone in Miami the night prior to the party about her sadness over an argument with Heredia. Gomelsky suggested that she fly to the US, where she could relax and go shopping with her and Lilianne Braun, with whom she was vacationing. Santa María agreed and bought the plane tickets. After becoming aware of her suicide, they immediately returned to Peru. Gomelsky was tasked with the announcement of her death in Nubeluz, which began to decline until it ended in the summer of 1996. Monica was buried in the Jardines de la Paz cemetery in La Molina, at "Los Pinos F" pavilion.