Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Raging MOTHER-IN-LAW ORDERS HIT ON MURDERED LAW-PROF SON IN LAW?

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Daniel Markel and Wendi Adelson date for a couple of years, and then the young, well-educated couple marry. Daniel Markel is already a a professor at Florida State University School of Law and Wendi Adelson is a third-year law student at the University of Miami. The couple have two children, but then Dan Markel comes home from a business trip to find the house nearly empty. His wife and two boys, as well as most of the furniture, are gone. There are divorce papers on the bed. For the next six weeks, Dan Markel doesn't know where his children are much less his soon-to-be ex-wife.  Their divorce is finalized and the order is for them to share joint custody of their children, but Wendi Adelson tries to move with the boys to Miami, Dan Markel heads to court and files an order to keep them from moving. Dan wins that battle, but a custody battle continues.   Markel, now a Florida State University criminal law professor, pulls into his driveway and is talking on his cell phone when he was fatally shot. The killer was waiting for Markel outside his home then followed him into the garage, shooting him in the side of the head, through the window of his car.  Who planned the murder for hire? Joining Nancy Grace Today: Tamara Demko, DrPH, JD, RN - Harvard Law School Classmate and Friend of Dan Markel; Facebook: Justice For Dan Dave Aronberg - Palm Beach County State Attorney and Friend of Dan; X: @aronberg, Facebook/TikTok/Instagram:@davearonberg, YouTube:  @davearonbergFL  Caryn Stark – NYC Psychologist, Renowned TV and Radio Trauma Expert and Consultant; Twitter: @carynpsych, Instagram: carynpsych, and FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice Robert Crispin – Private Investigator, Former Federal Task Force Officer for United States Department of Justice, DEA and Miami Field Division; Former Homicide and Crimes Against Children Investigator, “Crispin Special Investigations;” Facebook: Crispin Special Investigations, Inc. Dr. Jan Gorniak – Medical Examiner, Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner (Las Vegas, NV), Board Certified Forensic Pathologist Joel Waldman- (Miami, FL) Host of ‘Surviving the Survivor’ Podcast; Twitter: @PodcastSTS, Instagram: @SurvivingTheSurvivor See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A mother-in-law so consumed with rage, with anger over her daughter's divorce and subsequently not having visitation with her grandchildren that she commits murder? She murders her own son-in-law over visitation? It's really hard to imagine that. You know so often when we hear about a violent crime, many people will make excuses. Oh, they were under stress. They grew up in a bad family. They're uneducated.

They're this, they're that. They were using drugs. They were using alcohol. A million excuses. Let me tell you about this mother-in-law. family, highly educated, called a five-star family by politicians, lawmakers, rabbis, friends of the family's neighbors. No one within their circle can accept this woman, the matriarch of a very wealthy, very educated family would ever do such a thing. But guess what? I agree with police. She did it. She had her own son-in-law murdered because he refused to give up his children.

I can hardly believe it. You know, women, grandparents, in-laws, all over the world, only wish their son-in-law would pay attention to the children. Be a good father. Show up. Be there. Nurture. He was doing that. And now he's dead. Shot in the head because of the mother-in-law. Are you kidding me? Sadly, it's no joke. It's real. I couldn't make

this up. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. It's a lot to take in. Let me just start with our friends at Crime Online. Donna Adelson, the mother of recently convicted murderer Charlie Adelson, is caught by police trying to board a plane leaving Miami and heading to Vietnam. Her husband Harvey is with her as police take her into custody, the latest person to be arrested in the murder-for-hire plot killing of Dan Markell. WFSU reports Donna Adelson is now in Tallahassee and will be held without bond in the Leon County Jail. In charging documents and a warrant request, prosecutors noted that on recorded jail phone calls, Adelson discussed killing herself and leaving the country following Charlie Adelson's conviction. He is facing a mandatory life sentence.

Three other people have also been convicted in Markell's murder. Donna and Harvey Adelson had one-way tickets purchased for Vietnam. Vietnam has no extradition agreement with the United States. Okay, let me understand this. We have to make an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first to Joel Waldman joining us out of this jurisdiction in Florida, host of Surviving the Survivor. Joel, the mother-in-law.

First of all, who's Charlie Adelson? Charlie Adelson is the brother-in-law. And he's not just the mother-in-law trying to flee the jurisdiction to Vietnam. But this is just after her son is convicted in the murder. Let's just start. Why is the mother-in-law at the airport with her husband Harvey with a one-way ticket to Vietnam? Tell me how that whole thing went down. Well, Nancy, in a word, she didn't want to be arrested. And she knew that it was coming.

And it's really a remarkable story. It's one of the most fascinating true crime stories that you'll probably ever hear of. Hey, Joel. Yes. Just right there. I'm a crime victim. My fiance was murdered shortly before our wedding. And I know it seems fascinating and I agree with you.

The dynamic here is fascinating and interesting. It's kind of like looking at one of those beautiful snakes under a glass case. You know, fun for some people to look at them. To me, it's revolting. It's revolting because I remember what it feels like to have the thing you love the most in the world taken away forever. So when we say fascinating, remarkable, I've been to a lot of murder scenes.

The blood gets sticky. It's got hair in it. It smells. And almost within a couple of hours, the victim, there's some kind of a smell attached to it. I can't describe it. It's horrible. So when we say remarkable and fascinating, yes, I agree with you. But these children are growing up without a father. And I find it revolting.

I find it horrible that they would do this. No matter how angry they are about the divorce, they would do this. So with the victim in mind, I want you to tell me everything you know, Joel Waldman, because you know a lot. I mean, I could not agree with you more about the way you rephrase me there, Nancy. And I have to say that I'm in constant touch with the Markell family. And everything we do on the podcast is really to get justice ultimately for Dan Markell. What a lot of people don't know is that this happened over nine years ago. So they've been waiting for justice all these years. The two convicted hit men are in prison, as is the

middlewoman. But just to get back to your original question about Donna Adelson, it was on a Monday that Charlie Adelson, the ex-brother-in-law, was convicted. And then exactly a week to the day, Donna Adelson is arrested at Miami International Airport, which is just a stone's throw from where I am sitting. And what we found out since then is almost immediately after Charlie's conviction, Donna and her son, Charlie, were on the phone for 35 hours that week. Good Lord in heaven. 35 hours in one week. Guys, you're hearing Joel Waldman. He's the host of an incredible podcast, Surviving the Survivor. Joel, don't lose any of those thoughts.

Because I've got to tell you, just talking to you at the beginning gave me chills all up and down my arms. Because I'm thinking of my husband, who I love so deeply. He's a saint. The thought that someone would take him away from me and my twins, who need that father figure so much. It's very upsetting. Dave Ehrenberg is joining us, Palm Beach County State Attorney and friend of Dan Markell. Also with me, Tamara Dimko. I've got that she is a doctor, a JD, an RN. She went to Harvard Law School, but aside from all of her education and her achievements, she's a close friend of the murder victim, Dan Markell. And again, this case is like,

my head is spinning around with all the ins and outs of this case, but to break it down, this law professor, Dan Markell, young, attractive, devoted father, he goes out of town. He comes back, half the furniture is gone and the children are gone and he can't find the children. That starts a very acrimonious divorce with Wendy Adelson. Okay. It's her mother that just got nabbed on a one-way ticket to Vietnam, dragging along the father. What did he know? Harvey. Is he just along for the ride or did he know anything? Long story short, David Ehrenberg, before I go to Tamara, Dave, I heard you say something that I researched intensely. You were describing Wendy's brother, the brother-in-law now convicted of murder. And you referred to him as the maestro.

And you mentioned he drives around town in his Ferrari and his name tag. I mean, the license plate actually says the maestro. Yes, Nancy, it's good to be with you. Yeah, he is someone who's very self-assured. That's one way to put it. Right. It was a book by Bob Woodward years ago about the maestro. I think it was Alan Greenspan, how he controlled the world economy. This is how he sees himself in that same vein that he controls things. So, you know, that's a pretty interesting piece of evidence to show that this guy, self-assured to use a euphemism, is the kind of guy who would help plan a murder and think he could

get away with it. He thinks he just is smarter than everybody in the room. What? They can't read that sign at the jail that says this is being recorded? Hello? Exactly. read that sign at the jail that says this is being recorded hello exactly you know he was so cocksure himself throughout the trial the fact that he took the stand and spun this preposterous lie that he was the victim of extortion which made no sense and he believed he had won over at least

one member of the jury and so he was shocked You should see the face when he walked in after a short deliberation because he knew his goose was cooked. And he just put his head down like, I can't believe somebody has finally called me on my S-H-I-T. He finally, finally had to answer up that he arranged the hit on his sister Wendy's husband. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. With me, Tamara Demko, a very dear friend of Dan Markell's, was living in Tallahassee when Dan was murdered. Tamara, I hardly even know where to start, but why don't we start with the day of the murder? What happened? Good to be with you, Nancy. I did not find out about Danny being shot until he had already passed. So the 19th of July, I received an email from

a law school friend that said, I just heard what happened to Dan. Are you okay? And she knew that I was very close to Danny. So I went to Facebook, and I looked, and I saw the awful news, and it was horrifying because he was shot in broad daylight before noon on the 18th at Friday. I was working two miles down the road while my dear friend was being murdered, and the thought was just horrifying. It broke my heart to hear the news and it it was very devastating tamera i think you'll agree with me women all over the world only wish

their husband would take the children to school in the morning do the school run i happen to love that's my favorite part of the day. But be involved, play with the children, do something with the children. And I mean, I got lucky because my husband does, but so many women feel that it's all on them. And here's a guy, your friend, Danny Markell, who is fighting tooth and nail for his children. What, if anything, do you know about his battle with his wife and his in-laws over the children? I think you're absolutely right, Nancy. Danny was just so passionate for life and he was most passionate about his boys. He was a loyal friend, someone who would go out of his way to see you and to support you.

And he was a blessing to everyone he met. But the boys were his life and he would even take time out of his schedule to go meet up with the boys just for snack time. That's the kind of dad he was. He'd also sing them to sleep at night and he would play with them. He was just a wonderful, wonderful dad and the boys deserved and still deserve to know him and who he was. The divorce was very contentious. Boy, that's one way to put it Tamara. I mean, because did I have those facts right? He goes, he's a professor. It's FSU, correct?

Danny Markell was a professor at FSU? Florida State University, correct. And was apparently in the academic world very well regarded. He was also devout. Because Joel Wallman, I'm diverting away from tamara but i want her answer isn't it true that we find out the mother-in-law donna adelson she quit work and spent her whole life cultivating her three children like they were hothouse plants going to the right schools, going to the right camps over the summer, getting this award and that award and the whole shebang. And I'm not denigrating that.

I'm applauding that. But isn't it true that she tried to get Wendy to bribe Danny with a million dollars to give up the children, essentially, and let them move seven or eight hours away to be close to her, the grandma. And then when that didn't work, she wanted Wendy to threaten to raise them as Catholics. Yeah. And have them baptized. And they were devout Jews thinking that would throw them over the edge. And Wendy, to her credit on that, well, ostensibly would not do it. Didn't that happen, Joel Waldman? Nancy, this just shows you how demented the matriarch Donna Adelson is. At the wedding, obviously, prior to all the acrimony, Dan Markell, as you just mentioned,

was becoming more and more involved in his Judaism. He really wanted a kosher wedding and lo and behold at the wedding itself they pulled all the kosher food it was something that was perplexing to the Markell family they couldn't understand it they had friends who were coming who would only eat kosher food and then as things heated up and as this divorce got more and more whoa whoa whoa whoa Joel whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Joel, wait. Isn't this, was this the big wedding with 200 guests in Boca Raton? Yes, it is. 200 plus guests.

And it was in the New York Times. You know how hard it is to get your wedding? I did not try, Jackie. Don't look at me that way. I was lucky to get it in the Macon Telegraph. Oh, and the headline was something like, Grace secretly marries husband converts. From Baptist to Methodist. Okay, converts.

Anyway, something to that effect was in some paper. Long story short, it was so big, it was in the New York Times. Lavish. Wait, this is the first I've heard that they pull the kosher food. Who pulled the kosher food? This is the Adelson family. They pulled the kosher food, and all the guests there, you know, probably a good portion would only eat kosher food? This is the Adelson family. They pulled the kosher food, and all the guests there, you know, probably a good portion would only eat kosher food.

So there goes the wedding meal for a lot of people. I bet Markel threw a fit like nobody's business. Yes. Karen Stark, psychologist at KarenStark.com. Karen with a C. Go, Karen, go, go, go. The mother-in-law may have given them a wonderful education, but there are no good values or morality that we're talking about.

They didn't seem to get that at all. What an outrageous story. You have guests who can't eat. Karen, you do know there's been a murder. So let's not get too hung up on the wedding. Although I agree with you that, I mean... I know, Nancy, but you know what? The thing that really gets to me the most

beside the murder are the children. Yes, I agree. Back to the children. Thank you. Let's get the ship right and get out of the weeds and back on the road and since we're so much on the road and we're out of the weeds joel waldman isn't it also true that there's a third sibling you've got um wendy who was married to the murder victim and to this day everyone insists she knew nothing about the plot by her mother and

brother to kill him. You got Wendy. You got the brother, Charlie, who's convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his brother-in-law. And you've got a third sibling that was in love with an Indian girl who was Hindu. And the parents, the Adelson's, through such a fit, he broke off, married someone that they would accept. That marriage fell apart after a couple of years. And he went back to his original first love. And they're together today. Is that right, Joel Waldman? That is 100 percent correct.

There is just such thick irony here. And I have to say this because the podcast is called Surv called surviving the survivor because my dear mother is a holocaust survivor and this Jewish grandmother Donna Adelson at one point threatened to have her own Jewish grandchildren march down the street in Nazi uniforms uh Dan Markell was too Jewish Dan Markell was Jewish. But Rob Adelson marrying a non-Jewish woman, she was just beside herself. So they dug their noses into that relationship, insisted that Rob Adelson, the now estranged son of the Adelson family, marry a Jewish woman. He did for a short time. He was not in love. And then later he reconnects with this Indian doctor, this woman, and now he is happily married and completely disconnected from the Adelson family.

Dave Ehrenberg, I'm having a hard time believing what I'm hearing. Yeah, it is. Joel is 100% correct. They are not going to win parents of the year. There was an article that came out from a supporter of the adelson's which was a little suspicious because of the timing it looks like perhaps it was from a paid uh supporter someone who said he's known the adelson's forever and they would never do something like this they must be innocent but then it was revealed that the author of the piece hadn't spoken to the Adelson's in 25 plus years, hadn't seen them in more than 25 years. So they don't have a lot of defenders right now, Nancy.

And the big question is if and when, and we expect it to be a when, Donna is found guilty, what's the next shoot-a-fall? Because I don't think prosecutors will be done there. You mean you believe prosecutors are going to go after the father-in-law Harvey Adelson, who was with Donna Adelson on his way to Vietnam, didn't he go, hey, why are we going to Vietnam? I mean, or why don't we have a one-way ticket to Vietnam? We're not coming home? Yeah, you know what that is. Yeah, there's that and several of the phone calls that are under suspicion. Of course, the feds got in on this. Guys, we cannot sign off without talking about the bump. Okay, which I'll get to. But his phone, Harvey Adelson's phone,

took a lot of the phone calls around the time of the murder. But you know what? Let's bring it home. Let's bring it home just a moment. Let's take a listen to our cut to the 911 call. Dan Markle, father of two, I mean, beautiful boys, dead. He drops them off at school. He goes to work out. He's in his own garage, sitting in his car. I don't know. Oh, he's on a phone call, making calls,

and he's shot in the head. Listen to this. Okay, what's going on with him? I don't know. The driver's side window is all bashed in, and he's got blood all over his head. To Tamara Demko, she is a doctor. She is a JD. She is an RN. She is a Harvard Law School classmate with Danny Markell. She's known since 1997, was at work a few blocks away when Danny was murdered. When I think of this, I know he was brilliant. I know he's a Harvard law grad. I know he's a law professor, wrote all sorts of very impressive works of legal acuity. I know that. But a dad so involved, so full of life, it's very hard for me to take in that his own in-laws would have him killed. Very hard for me to wrap my mind around that, too.

I actually grew up in the same town as the Adelsons. My family is a mile away from their home, and I guest lectured for Wendy Adelson in her law school classes. It was really something that I did not want to consider as a possibility, and it's heartbreaking in and of itself. Tamara, of course, you were not on Charlie Adelson's jury, the maestro, but now that you are seeing the evidence unfold, what do you think? I think that there was a very concerted effort and a long time planning. I believe the Adelson's are planners. I'm very grateful for

everyone who's worked hard for justice in this case. And I firmly believe and hope that justice will continue to happen and we'll continue to seek it to the point where everyone involved is held accountable. And that a callous disregard for life and the cold calculation of the murder is not something that a self-serving, this kind of self-serving, premeditated and heinous act should never be viewed as inconsequential and repeated by anyone. And that's the kind of justice that I'm looking for. Tamara Demko joining us. Did you know Donna Adelson, the mother-in-law? I had been to their home in Coral Springs. I had also been to Wendy's home on Aqua Ridge. And yes, I've met Donna several times. I've had drinks with her. I've had dinner. I've gone to high holiday services with the family as well. Can you just tell me what she is like, what Harvey Adelson is like, what Charlie Adelson is like? There are people, even when confronted with the evidence,

and it's pretty strong evidence, including $56,000 in cash put in the go-between account, Charlie Adelson's girlfriend who arranged for her common law husband and his friend to do the hit. Her account gets all this money poured into it. The hit men get money. And Charlie Adelson said, hey, Dave Ehrenberg and Joel Wallman, jump in if I've got this wrong. There are a lot of meticulous facts in this case, but Charlie Adelson had a habit. He, whenever dealing with cash, would staple the money together. I've never seen that in my life. And they would get cash stapled together. Is that right, Dave Ehrenberg?

That is correct. It's like a fingerprint. You know, that was a unique thing that only Charlie did. And for the defense lawyers, they had a problem. How do you explain that the killers had in their possession these stapled stacks of bills? How do you explain that? Well, Charlie, I think that he built his defense around that, where he tried to explain it by saying that he was the victim of an extortion plot. And that's why

he had to pay the killers or else they would kill him and his family. Of course, it didn't make any sense. Well, then how come he's still alive? Well, and that's like and also somehow extortion works where the killers go and first murder your enemy. And then they come back and they say, OK, we've killed your enemy. Now we're going to kill you and your family unless you pay up. Why not just skip ahead to just say pay us or we're going to kill you and your family. So none of this made any sense. He hated Dan Markell.

Correct. Charlie Adelson hated Dan Markell. So that's theory is completely basskell. Correct. Charlie Adelson hated Dan Markell. So that theory is completely bass-ackwards. Exactly. It made no sense, and the jurors didn't buy it either. Tamara Demko, back to you. I was asking you, what were the Adelsons like? Specifically Donna.

Donna seemed like an involved and loving mom. She was great to have chit-chat conversations with, and she was very proud of her children, very much involved with the grandchildren as well. I think from the surface level, they seemed like a normal family. If you were to go to their home in Coral Springs, there are pictures up on the wall of the kids. She spent a lot of time supporting Wendy. There was nothing abnormal on the surface. I would say that Harvey

always came across as a little bit more quiet, but certainly friendly. And Charlie was very lively. He was always on the go and enjoyed partying quite a bit. Dave Ehrenberg joining us, Palm Beach County State Attorney and friend of Danny Markell. He has been, Charlie Adelson has been referred to as thinking he was James Bond, but in fact, he's a periodontist. What does that mean? Well, I'm from South Florida, and as Joel and Tamara would say, that's not that uncommon.

He loved the fast life with his Ferrari and his fast women and his clubbing lifestyle and drugs, and it was well known that he was involved with steroids. And here was a guy who was a nerd back in high school who then became this wealthy, flashy, fast living guy who thought that he could get away with murder. And that's the kind of person who would commit this kind of crime because people said, why do you think you could get away with it? Well, when you're hopped up on steroids and you think you could get away with it? Well, when you're hopped up on steroids and you think that you're smarter than everyone else, yeah, you think you're above the law and you wouldn't get caught. And it took nine plus years for there to be

justice for Charlie and the FBI. God bless the FBI. God bless them. Look, I was a fed for three years. I hate the federal government, except the IRS. I love you. Please don't look at me. Joel Waldman, could you please explain what I'm talking about as the bump? Charlie Adelson would never have been convicted of murdering his brother-in-law over visitation with grandma. And Donna Adelson would not be in a jail cell up in her 70s trying to flee to Vietnam right now if it hadn't been for wiretaps and surreptitious recordings. One of the most amazing ones that actually worked, Joel Waldman, and I'm going to hear from Robert Crispin and Dr. Gorniak, a renowned forensic pathologist. I want to circle

back to Dr. Gorniak on what Danny Markell experienced because when the neighbor came up, he was still rolling his head around and moving, which in my mind means he was suffering after he was shot. Joel Waldman, as it's called, the bump. If Adelson's had kept their trap shut, they wouldn't be in jail right now. Tell me about the bump, as it is called. So the bump is now an infamous FBI sting. So the feds got involved once this case started to move and they thought that the Adelson's were possibly involved. So it's interesting you bring it up. I just did a tour for my podcast of the location where the bump happened and it happened to take place right in front of where the Adelsons were living.

And it's an iconic. The iconic. The icon, yeah. The icon, yes, yes. And it's a very lavish building. I think units start around $2 million. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The icon condo building, the units start at $2 million?

That is correct, Nancy. Welcome to Miami, yes. And it's interesting, this tour I did, I was curious to see these different spots. So I also went by Charlie Adelson's house. Wait a minute. Did you video that? I did. It's on my website on the YouTube channel. Oh, so we can see. I can't wait to see this. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. So Charlie's house is nothing like what you'd expect. It's sort of a rundown home right off the highway.

And keep in mind, this is a guy who in court admitted that he was making three and a half million dollars a year between 2014 and 2018. So that goes back to the James Bond question, because that is not really the salary of the periodontist. But we do know through these wiretaps that he was illicitly dealing steroids as well. But back to the bump. So this bump happened right in front of this Icon building in South Beach. It's a beautiful area. You can literally, this is what's so sad, you can literally take a stone from where the bump happened

and throw it and it hit the school that the two Markell children attended. And Donna was on her way to pick up her grandchildren. You mean after they killed Danny Markell and moved the children down to South Florida, right? That's where they're going to school. And change their name from Markell to Adelson. So these two young boys are going to have a lot, a lot. And Nancy, I know you know this firsthand, a lot of grieving to deal with and a lot of understanding about what happened to their family as they become these young teens that they are

now. Not only changed their last name from Markel back to Adelson, the maiden name of the mom, but took away the oldest son's middle name, which had been the Hebrew name of Dan Markell's grandma, right? So all trace of Dan Markell has been removed from their life. It's difficult to process. It really is. So this, you know, this bump happened literally across the street from the school that they were attending at the time. And ultimately, when they got the, you know, that video and audio, there's no doubt that that is, you know, a big piece of evidence that influenced jurors.

And then there's one other piece of audio from a restaurant, the so-called Dolce Vita tapes that have the middle woman, Katie McBanawa and Charlie Adelson talking. So it's a combination of this evidence that people believe blew this case wide open. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let's start with the bump. The bump is a fad pretending to be a bad guy. Literally just comes up and kind of bumps into the mother-in-law, Donna Adelson, outside of her two million dollar condo. And he has like a press release about the killing and says he you tell me he wants five thousand dollars. Yeah, he wanted five thousand dollars, basically scribbled a number down, said that he was a brother of the person in in prison, implying that he's one of the hit men, Luis Rivera.

And as soon as this bump happens, Donna Adelson immediately is on the phone with Charlie Adelson. And they are once again, as they had been doing many times before, speaking in code. Right, like pot-bellied pig, we can't figure out they're talking about the cops. Yeah, it's disturbing, but it's also intriguing, but very, very disturbing. You know what? If I tried, even tried, Robert Crispin, Robert Crispin joining me, private investigator, former federal task force officer for the U S department of justice. Now Crispin investigations.com. Robert Crispin, can you even imagine me trying to talk to my husband in code? I mean, when he drives through the McDonald's, they're like, what did you say? Much less, you know, so trying to,

who talks in code? And not only this, Joel and Dave jump in if I'm wrong, but she says something like, I just got handed some paperwork. We need to meet right now. And the brother-in-law goes, is it about me and you? And she goes, whispers, probably. And he goes, what? Probably both of us. She yells it. And instead of, she goes, we can't talk on the phone. Well, right there, that's a red flag. So they meet at the condo and they go outside. They won't speak inside their condo and they go huddle off in the corner beside the pool to have this conversation. And the whole time the feds are watching them and recording everything that's

being said, that's not normal. If a guy comes up to me on the street and went, hey, I want $5,000, I'd call the police. You know, Nancy, the bump operation is usually used when things start to get a little cold or we need to start tickling, as we call it, tickling the case to get some more leads and to get some more people involved to start getting some more information or probable cause to start, you know, taking people out in this. This worked extremely well. This did exactly what it was supposed to do. It got them talking and it took it to the part where they were able to get an indictment and an arrest on these guys you know along with all the other stuff that has been going on since the homicide with how this all started with a grainy image of a prius and it just spiraled

from there all the way to where the fbi took it to the bump and i think with everything from the time they had the grainy image to getting the second image from a bus stop that gave them a transponder, to having high-speed detectives understand that that transponder is out of a rental car. They got the transponder report data from the turnpikes. They tied a particular car back to Miami. They pulled the rental agreement. Lo and behold, on the rental agreement was a phone number that tied it back to one of the guys involved in the killing. They pulled the GPS data. They pulled

the cell phone data. It gave a bread trail from Miami up to Tallahassee. And on the day of the murder, stalking around the victim's house. It all started to come together, but it started to get a little bit cold. And I think that's when the bump took off. Yeah. I mean, they knew who did it, but they didn't have the evidence. And so they wire up an undercover cop,

a fed. He goes and bumps into the mother-in-law, demands money on behalf of a hit man. And instead of calling cops, she immediately meets with the brother-in-law, her son, to discuss, hey, am I in trouble? I'm going to put what Crispin just said in non-cop talk. So they get a grainy image, probably off of a doorbell cam, a ring cam, a sum cam, of a silver Prius at the murder scene at Danny Markell's. Then they get a transponder. They get

information about that Prius, like there's tinted windows. There's a missing side mirror on the passenger side. They get all the part of a screwed up trailer hitch on the back. The transponder is from that Florida is what's it called? A sunshine pass or a Florida pass where you can go through all the tolls. That's the transponder. That's the sun pass. Sun pass. Yes, that's it. That's it. Robert Crispin, who's joining me from Florida. And so they trace that sun pass back to a rental car and the hit man and his cohorts name. They trace them to the girl, Charlie Adelson's girlfriend who works in the dentist practice. The rest is history. And you

know, another thing, is this true, Dave Ehrenberg, that Donna Adelson, the mother-in-law gets on the phone, hello, you're being recorded and says that she's putting her affairs in order for the grandchildren that she's fought so hard to have near her. And she's putting her affairs in order for the grandchildren that she's fought so hard to have near her and she's either going to commit suicide or leave the country to a non-extraditable country like vietnam she actually says that and it's on tape yeah she went to uh and spoke with charlie while charlie was incarcerated after he was found guilty she was on the phone with him telling him that she had her affairs in order, just like you said. And that's how law enforcement knew that she was about to bolt.

And they stopped her when she was on the jetway and walking onto the plane, literally, and stopped her in Harvard. She almost got away with it because once she goes to Vietnam, it's very hard to get her back. The bump worked spectacularly well, as you said, Nancy. One thing that was interesting to me was how Charlie reacted when he saw that someone was trying to extort his mom out of $5,000. So Charlie wanted to kill the person who tried to do that. How dare you try to extort us for $5,000, which made it so much more preposterous when at his own trial, he said that when he was extorted by Katie McBanua and the killers, he willingly and quickly gave over the money, pretty much no questions asked. And after he couldn't afford the full payment of $300,000 plus, he entered into a payment plan with these gangbangers.

Idiot. Yeah, he's an idiot. I've saved Dr. Jean Gorniak to the end. She is incredible, brilliant, board-certified forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, Clark County, Las Vegas. As you know, I love to say, Dr. Gorniak, never like a business in Las Vegas. Dr. Gorniak, I want to talk to you about Danny Markell, who I believe was shot in the head. And if I've got that wrong, anybody jump in and correct me. But the fact about when the neighbor came up, Dr. Gorniak, he was still

moving around, still alive. And it makes me feel nauseous thinking of him sitting there. He's just dropped his children off. He comes home. He's making probably business calls. And the person on the other end hears a loud sound. He's still alive, Dr. Gorniak. Is he thinking about his children? Is he thinking, what the hell just happened? Is his head hurting? Is he in shock?

He can't feel anything. What happened, Dr. Gorniak? Correct. He was shot in the head. From what I've read, he had two gunshot wounds up his head, one in the forehead and one in the left cheek. So it is consistent with him being in the driver's seat of the car. He also had gunshot wounds or injuries from gunshots on his left forearm. So he either could have seen one shot coming, you know what I mean, or his arm was just up on that left-hand

side of the car. So injuries to the brain, there's only one thing that kills you instantaneously, and that's what we call injury to the brainstem and that's where your respiratory centers sit where your cardiac centers sit so if you have an injury to your brainstem that would call in cause instantaneous death in this case it's apparent because he was still moving that his brainstem was not injured so So in a case like this, he had brain injury. So his brain isn't working properly, but he's not dead. He obviously, when the gentleman who found him, he said, obviously he's breathing because he's moving his head, but he's not speaking because of the injury of the brain itself.

I can only imagine what's going through Mr. Markell's mind at that point. Obviously, he was caught off guard, has probably no idea what's going on, but I can only imagine that when he does realize that he's injured, that he thinks of his family. It's just, it's sad to think about that. But also he has to fight for his life. I mean, because he was fighting for his children when he was alive. You know what I mean? All he wanted to do was care for his children.

And now this is happening. So I bet his children were, you know, literally on his mind in that moment. And unfortunately, we know he didn't die right away. He survived hours in the hospital. So just them trying to keep him alive, trying to save his life, he fought. He fought until he couldn't fight anymore. I want to go to Dave Ehrenberg and Joel Wallman on a question that Jackie here has just sent me. It's my understanding that at trial, Wendy Adelson said the reason she changed her children's names was out of fear because Nancy Grace put their pictures on TV without blurring their faces. Now, I've also been told that I did a hit on ABC and was speaking about the case and that while I was talking, the children's pictures came up.

I don't know if that's what happened or not, but when exactly, Dave Ehrenberg or Joel Wallman, did she change their names? I think it happened pretty quickly. She immediately moved the kids down to South Florida as she and her family had long wanted. And then as soon as she could, removed the name of Danny Markell, wiping out his history as their father.

Joel, that's my understanding. Would that be correct? Yeah, that is, as I understand it. I wasn't in the courtroom for that testimony, Nancy, but I can assure you she did try to throw you under the bus. And I can tell you that is not, uneivocally not why they changed the family name. But that is what she appeared to hang on to, at least during her testimony. It's been proven, though, that while she's on the witness stand, she has perjured herself multiple times.

And some people even wondered that's going to lead to some sort of perjury charge down the road. Now, wasn't she given limited use immunity? Yeah. Dave, I'm going to let you take that one. She was. And you can speak to that. She was. Yes. And so that limits what they could use. But look, if they establish evidence independent of her testimony against her, then it's game on. And they have some evidence against her. It's not as compelling as the evidence against Donna or Charlie or the others, but it's circumstantial. But there are a few things, like why was she in the area right after her ex-husband was shot?

Why does she lie or seem to not tell the truth on the stand when she said that she didn't see the cop and she turned around and she took this Trescot row, which was a shortcut, when none of that really made sense because she seemed to have driven out of her way to go buy some liquor, which the liquor store was close to her home as a gift. And then to be in her, Danny's neighborhood on the same block, right when it happened, looked like what happens when you are someone who commits a crime and you want to see the fruits of your labor. And then there are other things like talking in code about the TV. So it looks like she had a lot of information about this, but whether they could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, I think they're

waiting to see what the calls that Donna made. Maybe they are incriminating. Maybe getting Donna's cell phone can help point the finger at Wendy, because right now I believe the prosecutors don't believe they have enough evidence to charge her. Is it true that according to an ex-boyfriend, Wendy Adelson said many months prior to the murder that her brother, Charlie Adelson, was looking for a hitman to kill her husband? She she told investigators that right away. As soon as the murder happened and she was brought in, she threw her brother under the bus saying that he used to joke about, here's a TV, it's cheaper than hiring a hitman. And so that her brother, you know, didn't,

apparently didn't like that too much on the stand. He admitted that at times he had felt negatively towards Wendy. So if there's any Adelson family member who will flip on another, I think the only shot here is that Charlie facing life in prison will flip on Wendy. We know that Wendy Adelson was at one time officially named an unindicted co-conspirator. But as of right now, there's no indication that she will be formally charged and named in this murder. We wait as justice unfolds.

Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.