Crime Weekly - S3 Ep178: Dan Markel: The Maestro (Part 6)

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In July of 2014, Florida State University professor Dan Markel dropped his two young sons off to preschool and made a quick stop at the gym before heading to his home in Tallahassee, Florida. Within minutes of arriving home, Dan Markel was shot execution style in his garage. In the aftermath, a lengthy investigation would follow that would include financial and phone records, surveillance cameras, wiretaps and a FBI sting operation, and what this investigation would uncover would shock everyone. In the case there have already been three criminal trials, four murder convictions and a fifth arrest, but new details and allegations are emerging every day, suggesting that there may still be more that we do not know about the shocking and tragic murder of 41-year-old Dan Markel. Use code CRIMEWEEKLY at www.CrimeCon.com for a discount on your CrimeCon 2024 Nashville tickets! Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. GoHenry.com/Crime - Set your kids up for success and get started today! 2. HelloFresh.com/CrimeWeeklyFree - Use code CRIMEWEEKLYFREE for FREE breakfast for life! 3. Prose.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your FREE in-depth hair consultation, 50% off your first subscription order, PLUS 15% off and free shipping on every order after that!

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Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Single item at regular price. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into part six of the Dan Markell series. But before we do, we just want to give a quick reminder that tickets for CrimeCon coming up in May, at the end of May in Nashville, are available now. And if you use our code CRIMEWEEKLY, you will

get a discount on your badge for CrimeCon. And we were basically talking about it a little bit in Crime Weekly News, but we've already sold a ton of passes and we'd like to sell as many as possible. We'd like to have as many people who are supporting Crime Weekly, as many Crime Weekly family members in Nashville at CrimeCon as possible so we can take over the whole convention because we roll deep when we go to CrimeCon. The more the merrier, the more people that are there, the more fun we're going to have. So go to CrimeCon.com or just click the link that's going to be in the description box. Use code Crime Weekly, get a discount on your CrimeCon badge,

and let's just take over this entire convention. Stephanie, what's your goal for CrimeCon 2024? Total domination. That's your goal. Total domination. Yes, total domination. So obviously CrimeCon goes to different places every year, and they've all been great. Obviously, there's a method to their madness when they're selecting locations. But I will say, and we've both been there for podcast movement, Nashville's awesome. If you haven't been to Nashville, you definitely want to check it out. So yes, the convention will be there. A lot of the people that you listen to or watch will be there as well. It's a huge event. But in addition to that, if you're going down

there with family members or friends, it's a great opportunity to visit a new place and you'll have a great time. I can promise you that. So we hope to see you there. We will be there for sure. And like last time we'll have coffee, we'll have merch. We usually stay in the booth. We were in the booth almost the entire time. Couldn't leave the booth. We really didn't. We really didn't. We were there almost the entire time. Couldn't leave the booth. We really didn't. Yeah. We really didn't. We were there almost the entire time. But that was great because we had the line the whole time

and we got to meet everybody and that was awesome. So like I'd rather be able to meet everyone than to just be like wandering about, you know, aimlessly. I agree. I agree. It's a great time.

We hope to see you there and we will keep you guys updated if anything changes as far as any discounts or anything. But right now, the best price you're going to get is to go over to CrimeCon.com, use our code CrimeWeekly. I believe it's 10% and all that's left is standard badges, but that will get you everything you need. You have full access to us, so it won't inhibit you at all. Definitely recommend the standard pass if that's what's left.

Yeah, it's going to be fun. The gold VIP and platinum VIP are already sold out. Standard badges are still there. And you can get our discount and you can come hang out with us and we're going to have a great time. So yeah, party. Party in Nashville. Stephanie wants to be carried around on one of those chairs. Yeah, yeah.

And then we can just roll around the hotel and be like, this is our convention. This is crime weekly. Oh my God. You'll get us kicked out. This might be our last one. Yeah. They'll be like, you guys just, you know, you brought too many people with you. Yeah.

And we'll be like, that's how we roll. Not a bad thing. Entourage. So, so Dan Markell, part six, where we've been going through the details, all the little nuances of this case. And I believe last time we led off, we left off with Charles Adelson. I've heard it both ways, by the way. I was talking to someone this weekend about the names in the story, and it reminds me a lot of my last name because I've heard Levasseur, Levasseur, Levasseur per Nancy Grace. That was a new one.

Levasseur, Levasseur. So I've heard it different ways. Some of you guys will correct us in the comments and you give us the different pronunciations. You may be right. We're doing a lot of cases. We do research it. But if you go to news outlet videos or you go to the actual court cases, they all pronounce it a little differently. We try our best. In the trial, everybody's saying Adelson. Adelson.

But if you watch the bump video, the undercover officer says Adelson. He's mispronouncing it on purpose. He might be. That's what he said he did. There was an interview with him? Not with him, but with the main guy during the trial when he was um on the stand like the main guy you know he he mentions like oh and um uh i forget the agent's name who was undercover and who approached donna sue but he said something like oh she he

like purposely mispronounced her name so there's something to sort of you know uh like almost act like i know you but i don't really know you. You know what I mean? The other name is, uh, Catherine, uh, Magbunua or Magbuna or Magbanua. I've heard a few different ways and you guys are writing phonetically in there. We're trying our best. We're doing all these names. So let's focus on the information, the case. We're going to do our best with the name pronunciations. Some of them are not the easiest. My understanding, and I've been saying it this way too, it's Magmanua, but then there's also been people who said Magbanua. Magbanua sounds like it might be, yeah. It might be it. Listen, we're not arguing. I've heard it at the civil, I did look this up. The court case, the video of the sentencing, Magbanua was the way they said it.

We're trying. We're trying here. So bear with us. Bear with us. We are doing our best. We're not doing it intentionally. No, we're not trying to piss you off. But it's a lot of names.

And Stephanie, it's mostly you that's having to, I'm writing them down, but you do a great job with this. Yeah, and I'm the worst person. I'm the worst person. I'm the worst person for names because I have ADHD and my brain is not normal and I'll see things. And then once I say it the wrong way once, it's almost like it's cemented in my brain that way. Well, in fairness to you, some of the people that are correcting our pronunciations are the same people spelling my

name, D-E-R-E-K, when my name comes across across the screen every week d-e-r-r-i-c-k that is so and we're about three years into this bad boy there's been a few episodes we're what have we done like almost 200 episodes feels like it feels like 2000 yeah yikes enough to know your name enough so again it's all in fun we don don't take it seriously. We hope you don't. I don't give a shit when people, I'd love you to spell my name, right? But again, it's one of those things where we're trying our best.

Honestly, these are the perpetrators as well. Like I'm not really overly concerned. These people took somebody's life, took a father away from his son. I'm not super overly concerned about giving them the respect to say their name properly every single time. That's a good point.

If it's a victim's name, we really emphasize that. But also it's funny, we were recording, I'm like's name, we really emphasize that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, it's funny, we were recording, I'm like, at this point, I'm like, Stephanie, just say Katie. Yeah, because I was having, I've been having a lot of,

I have to, I wrote it phonetically, Magbanua. Even then you just said it wrong. On my note, Magbanua. I think it's Magbanua. Magbanua? See, here's, exactly. Magbanua.

Let's go with that. Either way, like, let's's go either way like it's not easy all right clearly we're proof we're proving it so again there's no we're not trying to be talking fast and like that magbanua like in my mouth feels wrong we're gonna call it k-dog tonight yeah kdm kdm um so what i was saying charles adelson that's kind of where we left off last week. We're really getting into the case now. We had the bump last week as well. So that's kind of how this trickled off where they target Donna. I'm sure there was a rationale behind that. They probably saw her as the weak link, maybe where they could actually infiltrate this case where she would get the most, the anxiety would be the highest with her. She'd be the most. They didn't know they were

dealing with an ice cold bitch, honestly, because she rolled with it. Charlie's like, pay them the ransom. And Donna's like, I got this. You're not getting a cent from me, mister. Go to the police. I wish you would. on this target. So we might have the target of the investigation. We may know the drug dealer. We may see them make multiple hand-to-hand transactions, but we don't know where they're storing their drugs or the money. And it could be two separate houses. So what I would do or what another undercover agent would do, we'd infiltrate that group. We'd build a rapport with them. And essentially at some point you want to nudge them or bump them where you say, Hey, listen, man, you know, I got your back. Word on the street is so-and-so, your competitor, they're going to rob you tonight.

They're going to catch a lick, as they used to call it. They're going to catch a lick tonight. They're going for the money and the drugs. Really? Yeah. All right. Thanks for the heads up. I walk away.

But the other surveillance team is monitoring this person or their phones or with video. And normally, most of the time, because of that anxiety we've now created through that social engineering, what are they going to do? They're going to go right to the houses where the money and the drugs are. So now just with that little nudge, we have all the addresses where the whole operation is and we can build our case off of that. So that's what it's intended to do. There are some people, and I just had a conversation with a defense attorney this weekend, shout out Sarah Azari. She was like, you know, I don't like these. They're very close to being entrapment. If you don't have the goods on the person,

you shouldn't be able to do this. And as I said to her, and I'll say it now, you have to remember, and you have to go look at that video. The undercover detective never asked or incentivized Donna to commit a crime, which negates the whole premise of entrapment, right? He didn't ask her to go do something. And she, from what we know, never committed a crime after that. Simply the detectives, they threw a line in the water. She took the bait and essentially incriminated herself and her son even more, which is only confirming what investigators' suspicions were anyways. So that's essentially what it is. It's not more than that. It doesn't always work. But obviously, as we're going to get into more tonight, this is what exposed us to Charles Adelson.

And I think that's where we're starting tonight as well, right? Talking about Charlie. Good old Charlie. Talking about Charlie. Yeah. All right. So nicknamed Screech during his time at Terra Vela High School, Charlie Adelson was scrawny, skinny, but surprisingly athletic, especially on the tennis court. During his time at the University of Central Florida, where he majored in micro and molecular biology,

Charlie began working out and developed a fit, muscular body that girls began taking notice of. Charlie Adelson also developed a liking for sex and guns. It was said that he kept a gun underneath the driver's seat of his car. And although he didn't perform as well academically as his sister Wendy or his brother-in-law Dan Markell, Charlie did finish in the top 15% of his class before moving on to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. In 2003, Charlie got his dental license and started his residency at the Adelson Institute, which would be renamed to the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics and Implant Dentistry after Charlie became a specialist in periodontics. A periodontist has special expertise in gum disease, and they also focus on treating the

structures that support your teeth, along with placing dental implants. With Charlie being trained in extractions, implants, and bone grafts, he was able to start bringing a lot more money to the Adelson Institute and into his own pocket. By 2012, Harvey Adelson sold Charlie the practice, which was great, but Charlie wasn't happy with that completely because he was building an empire. Using his superficial charm and megawatt smile, Charlie Adelson formed relationships with other dental practices all over South Florida, where he would travel several times a week to perform procedures. He also owned and operated a New York-style deli called Nosh, and it was rumored that he had once hired an individual with Down syndrome to dress up and dance outside of

the deli while Charlie made fun of him to anyone who would listen. According to Wendy, in her interview with Detective Craig Isom, her brother Charlie worked a lot, from very early in the morning until late at night, and he rewarded himself for the hours he put in. Parked in the garage of his over $1 million, over 10,000 square foot mansion in Fort Lauderdale were several luxury cars, including a Ferrari with a vanity plate that read Maestro, a self-given nickname. In its most used form, Maestro usually refers to someone who is very skilled at playing or conducting classical music, an artistic genius, if you will, and maybe Charlie felt that his

dental implants were literal artistic masterpieces, but at its most boiled down, maestro is from the Italian word meaning master or teacher. So maybe Charlie's use of this word as his nickname may have been more about his control over others, the way he could pull their strings and make them dance, the way he was superior to those around him, and they were all there to serve him. Whichever way he meant it, Charlie Adelson certainly thought very highly of himself, often posting shirtless pictures of his muscled physique on social media and seeking validation from the many women who were drawn to his looks, money, and status. Charlie earned a reputation for being a ladies' man, the kind of guy who couldn't keep his eyes on one woman no matter how beautiful she was.

And his sex drive was never satiated. So he made multiple sex tourism trips out of the country. When he moved to South Florida in 2012, Ryan Fitzpatrick became close with Charlie Adelson, and eventually they would become business partners. I met Charlie through mutual friends. You know, Charlie went to UCF. I went to University of Florida.

So what were your initial impressions of him? Charlie, a successful, charismatic guy, a maestro or whatever, a little bit annoying, a little bit arrogant, but he was fun to be around. And then when all this started coming to fruition, it was fun to be around and then when all this started coming to fruition it was hard to be around him it was annoying he was agitated very self-centered very narcissistic very just everything was about him you know he would never call me up and say hey how's your day going it was about him and his problems and i would be like well you

created these problems so you knew him during that time that he was dating katie so what were your impressions of her i only met katie in passing and to be honest i didn't pay attention to any of the girls that Charlie had around. It was just like, whatever, you know, like, hey, how you doing? I'm like, hey, I want to get to know you. I didn't care because it was just. He had so many, right? Yes, he did. Maestro did.

Yes, ma'am. Why did how did you wind up doing business together? Charlie had a lot of money and i got into a legal funding business where he and another partner or the i guess the money guys or whatever they gave me a credit line and i would loan money advance money on their potential injury settlements and i would buy medical receivables for personal injury lawsuits. And it just, you know, looking back, I mean, maybe they were trying to use me to launder money or something. I don't know.

It obviously didn't work out well, as you've heard in testimony, but it was good for a little bit. I just totally had more money and you know what to do with. Yeah. Hard money lending. It's something that's used a lot, but it's not always on the most up and up. What is hard money lending? So I'm not an expert on this and I'm sure I'm going to get roasted in the comments, but my understanding is essentially there's people out there that obviously have more money than they know what to do with, right? And they'll be a middleman where they may have a client who wants to buy a property. I'm going in the context of real estate from what I understand, where the property they're going to buy, they can't take a loan out on it. So they're going to buy the property through a hard money lender, which is

an individual. And this middleman will connect you to their hard money guy. And the hard money lender will come in and buy the property outright. So let's say it's $100,000. They'll pay for it in cash. So now that hard money lender owns the property and then you'll pay the loan back to them at a higher interest rate than you would to a bank. Now there's not a ton of protections in these. There's not a ton of protections in these situations. There are some. Obviously, there's contracts. The hard money lender can go after them civilly. But from what I have understand, the hard money lenders are usually people you don't want to cross. And so if you are late on a payment or you stop paying at all, they're not necessarily going to go through the court systems, right?

There's other ways to incentivize you to pay. So it's a dangerous game you could be playing with this type of money. I'm not putting a black cloud over hard money lending because some people do do what they want to do, cash buys, and it's completely legitimate and it's contractually protected, whatever, but it's a game with it. It's definitely a game and it's a different system. So I'm making it very simple here what they were doing, but it seems like Charlie was investing or hard money lending out to these other individuals who wanted to buy this medical sales equipment. And again, it's high return. You could be getting charged 10, 12% to pay the hard money lender back.

So it's an opportunity for Charlie to throw in 100 grand and maybe make 120, 130 really fast. Yeah. And we're going to talk more about this next episode, but there was some shady things allegedly happening with some of the Adelson's finances, and we're going to get into that next time. But during this interview that Ryan Fitzpatrick had with the YouTube channel A.A. Legal Focus, he mentioned how he would always make fun of Charlie for giving him money that was stapled. And Charlie would testify at trial that he'd always been fond of collecting cash since he was a little boy. And he would keep this cash at his home, stapled together in stacks of $1,000. This little idiosyncrasy that Charlie had would come back to bite him when the police arrested Luis Rivera for the murder of Dan Markell and began questioning him. Now, initially, Rivera denied having any involvement in the murder

of Dan Markell, only changing his story when he was faced with the ATM photographs showing himself and Sigfrido Garcia in the rented Prius. Luis admitted that he had rented the car, but that he had done this so that he and Garcia could visit the Florida State Campus. Yeah, so nobody believed that. Luis Rivera would not give police anything further until he was assigned a court-appointed lawyer who immediately got to work trying to secure his client a deal with law enforcement. The deal that was eventually offered was as follows. Rivera would plead guilty to second-degree murder with a sentence of 19 years, and in return, he would have to tell the police and the prosecutors everything he knew about Dan Markell's death. Since he was already behind bars for other crimes, Luis Rivera would inevitably only serve an additional

six years for his part in the murder-for-hire plot. We're going to take our first break. We'll be right back. Luis Rivera told detectives that he'd been approached by his childhood friend, Sigfrido Garcia, and Garcia told Luis he had a job for them to do. Was there a time when Mr. Garcia approached you about coming to Tallahassee? Yes, ma'am. And when was that? 2014. Okay. Do you know how long before the homicide it was that Mr. Garcia first approached you about coming to Tallahassee?

A few months. Alright, and what did Mr. Garcia say when he approached you about coming to Tallahassee? He said, um, I got a job. They made a job I gotta go do. He said he had a job? Yes ma'am. And the job was in Tallahassee? Yes ma'am.

And did he ask you to come with? Yes, ma'am. And the job was in Tallahassee? Yes, ma'am. And did he ask you to come with him? Yes, ma'am. Did you ask any questions about what the nature of the job was, why you needed to go all the way to Tallahassee or anything like that? No, ma'am. Why not? Just that my best friend let's trust him. So you were automatically in to do whatever it was he wanted you to do?

Whatever he wanted to do over the road. Alright. was money discussed as far as how you'd be compensated for this job? Yeah. Tell us about that. He was gonna give me some money. He said, take a ride with me to Tallahassee and I'll give you some money.

Did he say how much? At that moment, yeah, he did, 35. all right 35 what 35 000. you were gonna get 35 000 for this job yes ma'am all right and did you have another conversation in the car on the way to tallahassee yes ma'am how many trips did you make to Tallahassee? Like twice. All right, and were both trips with Mr. Garcia? Yes, ma'am. Was anybody else in the car on either of those trips? Not at all. All right, tell us about the conversation

on the way to Tallahassee. Was this the first trip or the second trip? This was the first trip. All right, tell us about that. We was just taking a ride up there. My concern, I thought we were going to go robbing. Say that again? My concern, I thought we were going to go robbing. You thought you were coming to Tallahassee to do a robbery?

Yes, ma'am. Did you assume that or did somebody tell you that? No, I assumed them like, you know, it was just a job. Alright, so you knew it was a job in Tallahassee and you assumed it was a robbery. Did you learn something additional about what it was on the way to Tallahassee? Yeah, on the way coming up, halfway there, we just, he said we were going to have to kill the man. So you were going to have to kill the man?

Yeah. And what was the second part of what you said? For some kids. For some kids. All right, anything else? What did that mean to you, kill the man for some kids? It's for a kids. All right. Anything else? What did that mean to you? Kill the man for some kids? It's for a lady. I guess the lady wanted her kids back. Luis Rivera asked Sigfrido Garcia who exactly had hired him for this job, and Garcia responded

that Katie had told him some lady was paying for the hit. The paper that Garcia showed Rivera was a picture of Dan Markell, along with his name and address. And the first time they drove to Tallahassee, they sat outside of Dan's house and waited for him to leave. When he did leave, the two men followed him in their rented Nissan. But after he dropped his sons off at school, Rivera and Garcia lost Dan's trail. Feeling that the day was a loss, the two men went to their hotel room, got drunk, and smoked weed. The next morning, they once again followed Dan to his son's preschool, but they must have missed him leaving the building, and they lost him again.

So they went back to the hotel to drink, and this time they did cocaine. The short trip to Tallahassee was expensive. Garcia had been given $5,000 in cash for expenses, and when they headed back to Miami, they only had six hundred dollars left now this mainly was from buying weed and cocaine on their first drive to tallahassee katie called sigfrido garcia multiple times to make sure he was following the plan and luis rivera heard garcia tell katie this lady better have the money and katie, telling the father of her children to make sure he did everything right and not to do anything stupid. Of course, Luis Rivera would claim that even after he knew that the job was to kill Dan Markell,

he still felt like he was just along for the ride. And he had no intention of killing anyone, saying, quote, I wouldn't have enough balls to fucking shoot somebody for some kids, man. My mind was like, for some kid? We're going to kill this guy for some fucking kids? Are you serious? Why can't she just get full custody? End quote. Louris Rivera was also helpful when it came to the murder weapon. He told Detective Issam that both he and Sigfrido drove to Tallahassee with a gun. Rivera had a black.38 caliber Smith & Wesson that he'd purchased from someone in his neighborhood for $150, and Garcia had his own personal.38 caliber Taurus, which he wanted to use to kill Dan. They also purchased 12 bullets in Miami, but at the end of the day,

they'd lost Dan twice, so they returned home with no plan to go back to Tallahassee. Rivera speculated that the only reason he and Sigfrido returned to follow through with Dan's murder was because Sigfrido was deeply jealous of Katie's relationship with her rich dentist boyfriend, and maybe she had promised the father of her children that if he did this for her, there was a chance they could get back together and be a family again. They returned to Tallahassee on Wednesday, July 16, 2014, and they returned to Dan's house the following morning. And that's when Luis Rivera claims they saw Wendy Adelson.

So we went around the house, we came back around, and we seen a lady walking through. Where was the lady? She was towards my right-hand side, towards his house. towards his house. Towards Markel's house? Okay was she in the street on the sidewalk? Okay. Did she have children with her? Yes ma'am. All right what happened when you saw this lady? Did she see you? Yeah she looked at the car. I was driving and I looked in my rearview mirror and I seen her looking. What happened next? I asked Garcia, so this lady, why she looking at the car? Yeah, that's that lady with the kids, man.

So you asked Garcia, hey, who's this lady that's looking at the car? Yes ma'am. And he said that's the lady with the kids. Yes ma'am. What did you take that to mean? That's the lady that wanted the kids. The lady that wanted you to do this job? Yes, ma'am.

All right. And were you worried about seeing her there? Yes, ma'am. Were you worried about her seeing you there? Of course. What did you do once you see this lady and Garcia tells you that's the lady that wants this job done? We drove off.

We left. Did Garcia make a phone call about seeing the lady? Well, I'm looking through the rearview mirror and I seen her making a phone call. I saw her get on the phone. The lady that you saw on the sidewalk? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then y'all drove off?

We drove off. Okay. And did Mr.. Garcia after seeing that and driving off did he make any phone calls? After we went back to the corner he got on the phone. All right and who did he get on the phone with? I believe he got on the phone with Katie. How do you know it was Katie he got on the phone with? Because she like the way he was talking it's only her he only talks to her. All right and what do you mean the way he was talking. It's only her. He only talks to her. All right. And what do you mean the way he was talking? How are you able to tell?

Like, um, when he spoke to her, she like, um, y'all get out of there. The lady just seen y'all. All right. And so y'all were worried

about this lady having seen you? I was worried. You were? Yes, ma'am. Now, when Rivera had spoken to police

years before this, when he was first questioned about his part in Dan Markell's murder, he had some additional details about this alleged Wendy Adelson sighting. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem.

Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Det er en stor problem. Now, I put this in here because it's very important. I don't want to seem biased. I don't want to just put in the stuff that makes it look like all of these people are guilty. What I wanted to do is show you that maybe Luis Rivera isn't the

most legitimate of witnesses, especially considering he was involved, especially considering he very much tried to downplay his own part in this. And I do think that this entire story about seeing Wendy Adelson at Dan Markell's house when they were stalking him and kind of casing the place is totally made up. It does call into question how much we can trust what Luis Rivera is saying because the Markell boys were at preschool that morning and they could not have been with Wendy on Trescott Drive at the time that Luis Rivera claims he saw them. So what I want to keep in mind is you can't believe just what you want to believe from Luis Rivera because it kind of supports your narrative and what you're already thinking and then completely discount the things he says that are provably false. And you have to kind of keep in mind this may not be the most reliable narrator.

They never are. Yeah. They never are. When you have someone who's not there on their under, well, they're there under their own free will. But let's be honest, the other option is life in prison. So they don't really have a choice. And what I have found in these types of cases, 99% of the time, even when they agree to cooperate, they still just give you just enough. You have to pull every single fact out of them. They don't offer or volunteer anything. You kind of saw a glimpse of it in this testimony where this prosecutor has to

ask essentially like a leading question through the entire ordeal because he's given like the one word answers. Well, were you offered money? Yeah. Well, how much? Thirty five. Thirty five. Thirty five. Thirty five grand or thirty five hundred. Thirty five thousand. It's like they just they can feel that undertone of like I'm snitching. But at the same time, I need to. And you got to literally pull it out of them. Like it's literally like pulling teeth. Boom. No pun intended. Charlie would know about that, huh? That's the pun. So it's one of those things where, yeah, he's going to tell officers what they need to know. And obviously there is truth to what he's saying because they can corroborate it through the facts of the case and the video and all this stuff. And this conversation that happened, the second video that was played out of the first two videos, this is a video that a lot of people who believe Wendy Adelson was directly involved hang their hat on. Because when you first hear it, even when you hear the testimony at court, he's implying that Wendy knew who they were. And she was making sure they were doing the job. Yeah. She knew why they were there.

And even in that last clip, it was almost like Wendy had called Katie and then Katie talked to Sigfredo Garcia and was like, hey, she saw you get out of there. There could be, like you said, we've already disproven his exact remembrance of what happened that day the kids were at school, but there could be a world where,

if she's not involved, right, where they're aware that they're doing this job for this woman, Wendy Adelson, but it's being facilitated through mom or brother. And it's not necessarily with at Wendy's direction, even though the whole thing is for Wendy and her kids. And I will say that the fact that when they saw her, they got scared that she would see them, that a little bit contradicts the idea that she's in on it. Like, what would they be afraid of her seeing them? Because she knows they're coming. She's expecting them. So the fact that they want to get out of there before being seen by her could suggest that maybe they know who they're there for, but not necessarily who

they're working for. Just the other side of the coin. Yeah. And I mean, I think that I didn't know that people hung their hat on this, but if you had just watched this. Yeah. Some people say, oh, Wendy knew. They were working for Wendy, not Donna. Yeah. If you just saw it and you didn't actually do the research, they tried to avoid even talking about this, the prosecutors during the trial, because they knew he had made it up. And they knew that the defense is already going to look for a reason of why Luis Rivera can't be trusted, because he's their he's their their guy. He's the prosecution's guy. He's a key witness. All open. Yeah. And he gets a sweet deal. You know, you took part in a murder and you're only serving six additional years in prison. And so they're going to keep trying to focus on this. Now, like you said, there's a lot of things that Luis Rivera did cop to where they can verify this through timelines, through having, you know, the ATM photos, cell phone records. They can verify, oh, well, Sigfrido then called Katie after we left. They can verify that. But the things that they can't verify, they're not going to focus on, which is fine because

what they could verify was enough to prove that both Siegfriedo Garcia and Luis Rivera were present at the time of Dan Markell's murder. And let's not skate over what you said, too, because it all is very important. This entire event for Luis Rivera was kind of a vacation. He's out there drinking, smoking, getting high on cocaine, all on someone else's dime. So more than likely,

80% of the time that he was in Tallahassee, he don't even remember half of it because he was so out of it. 100%. So that's also an element we have to consider. He was talking a lot about Siegfriedo, right? And how Siegfriedo's always drunk. Siegfriedo's always high.

And he was actually getting agitated at some point. So I feel like it's true because he showed some emotion and he's like, every time, man, I turn around, this guy's like drunk. And I'm like, what are we doing here? You know, like, why are you drunk again? And he's getting like, kind of agitated. So yeah, they definitely weren't in the most, um, coherent, the most coherent mind states, but Luis Rivera was able to fill in the blanks for detectives about the last moments of Dan Markell's life. On the way to the murder, I see only your car, the Prius, turning onto Benton Road. I do not see Mr. Markell's. Why is that? He went one way and went the other way. And what do you mean by that? He turned before you or after you?

He turned before me. Okay, so he turned to get to his house another way and you turned on Benton? Yes, the corner of his house. Okay, that corner right there by the park? Yes, ma'am. All right, and so when you were approaching Mr. Markell's residence, was he coming from the other direction? Yes, ma'am.

What happened once the two of y'all were headed toward each other? He pulled in and I pulled right behind him. How close did you get up behind him? Very close. All right and what was Mr. Markell doing when you pulled up behind him? He was on the phone. All right still seated in the driver's seat of his vehicle? Yes ma'am. And what happened once you pulled into his driveway? Soon as we pulled in, Garcia jumped off, jumped out of the car and went around. Not around, but in front of the car. Grabbing his car and in front of the car I was driving.

Went to the driver's side and shot him. He shot Mr. Markell? Yes, ma'am. How many times? Twice. Did you actually see Mr. Garcia shoot Mr. Markell? Yes, ma'am. How many times? Twice. Did you actually see Mr. Garcia shoot Mr. Markell? Of course. Were the shots close together?

Yes, ma'am. On their way back to Miami, Rivera pulled off the highway onto a bridge and Garcia threw the murder weapon into the water below. Then they called Katie Magbanua and told her the job was done. The following day, Luis Rivera traveled to the home of his then-girlfriend Jessica, where he says Katie and Sigfrido were waiting with a bag of money. All right, and tell us about the money. How was it packaged? It was in a brown bag. Like a brown paper bag or a plastic? A brown paper bag.

All right, and what about inside the brown paper bag? It was like a little clear plastic, a plastic bag inside of it as well. All right, and what was inside the clear plastic bag? Money, all hundreds. All hundreds? Yes, ma'am. And did you count the money? No.

How do you know how much was there? Because I trust them. All right, so you were told it was $35,000. Yes, ma'am. And did it seem like about that much to you? Yes, ma'am. And did it seem like about that much to you? Yes, ma'am. And you said it was all hundreds. Were they separated at all into stacks? They were stapled. Stapled? A thousand dollar staple, each one of them. So stacks of hundreds stapled together with like a stapler? Yeah, with a stapler. Not all of them together, but $1,000 each was stapled. Okay. So you had a bunch of stacks of $100 bills that were stapled into stacks of $1,000. Yes, ma'am. But there was something else significant about this money, and we'll hear about what that was

from Katie Magbanua, who would testify that she had received an envelope of information about Dan Markell from Charlie Adelson. And when Dan was dead, she picked up the money from Charlie as well. Luis Rivera said there was a paper that Sufredo had when they came to do the murder. Do you know anything about that paper? No, ma'am, I don't. All right. Did you provide a paper to Sufredo Garcia? Yes, I did. All right. And when you say you don't know anything about it, but you gave it to him, you obviously know something about it, right?

Yes, ma'am. Tell us how you came into possession of this paper that the killers had. Okay. One day, just a random night that I was over at Charlie's house, he had a manila envelope that was sealed. He told me, Katie, do not open it. Do not touch it. Do not look inside it. I didn't print this paper out from my office.

Printed it probably from another office. And basically, you know, give that paper to the other person. Who is saying this? This was Charlie. This defendant? Yes ma'am. So he says to you I have this paper how does he give it to you? I had a diaper bag so he showed me the envelope and I was like just put it in there. Did he express any concerns about fingerprints being on the envelope or the contents? Yes, ma'am. He said he wore a glove so that there's no fingerprints on it.

He was very specific about me not opening it and not looking inside it. And he also told me that he didn't print it from his office. All right. And what about licking the envelope? And that he didn't lick the envelope. He said he did not lick the envelope? He did not lick the envelope. And what was the purpose of that?

That's his DNA. How was the money packaged when you got it? It was in a plastic, the money was in a plastic bag, like a Ziploc bag, that was in a plastic bag like a ziplock bag that was inside a brown bag and then like a grocery bag over it. And was the money stapled? Yes ma'am it was. Can you explain how it was stapled like what size bills and what increments were stapled together? I believe it was stapled in I never counted it but it was like in a stack and it was stapled in the corner. Were they $100 bills or something else? They were $100 bills and there was some 20s and 50s. Okay. And was the money damp? Yes, ma'am, it was. Explain what you mean to the jury. A couple days after that, I went and I opened the bag and I called Sigfredo.

And I told him, I was like, there's mold on this money. And he's like, well, blow dry it. And I was like, well, why would there be mold on the money? And he's just, I don't know, just blow dry it. So I believe his parents or his mom might have washed the money. You mean like physically washed the money? Yes, ma'am. And why do you think his mom did it?

Because he was always adamant about telling me he didn't have any money in his house. And he told me that his parents had just stopped by right before I got there. So all of a sudden he had money to put in the trunk of my car. Was the money, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. I'm sorry. Was the money already sorted out and packaged when you first saw it or was he doing that? No, it was already stacked and sorted out. Okay.

And did he have to, so he didn't have to go anywhere to get the money. He already had it when you arrived. Yes, ma'am. So the washing of the money, this is an interesting thing for me because my, when I hear washing or cleaning the money, usually it relates to a behavior.

You'll drop it off at the casino or the strip club and you'll take $500. You'll drop it off. They'll give you 500 in poker chips. You go play one or two games and then you cash out and now they're giving you $480 back, but it's different money. So you've gotten rid of the money that you stole from the bank or whatever. There are, and I'm not an expert in this, but there are times where if using counterfeit money to make it look less new and more worn and harder to detect that it's fake, they will wash and dry the money in a machine to create the illusion that it's worn and run down and old, right? But in this particular circumstance, I don't know 100% what their rationale would be. Maybe it would be to remove their potential DNA from it by washing the money and not really drying it off well. And therefore, obviously, water, paper is going to

create mold, especially if in a dark contained environment like a bag. So that could be part of it. But normally when you hear about drying off money, like physically drying it off, my limited knowledge of that is usually for counterfeit money, which I don't believe the money in this situation was fake. It was real money. So it could have been a situation where they physically washed the money because they had watched a movie or something. And they felt like that was part of the process where if you wanted to remove your DNA or create the illusion that it wasn't directly pulled from a bank, maybe like new money, like an ATM, you wash it to give it that appearance of being old. I mean, that's my best speculative guess on

it. So no one really knows. And even the prosecutor was like, the money was physically washed. Because I think it's like, you might hear like, an experienced criminal. Yeah. Like, oh, you have to clean the money. And then maybe if you didn't know what that meant, and you also didn't want to start Googling it and looking up what it meant, you might be like, oh, well, I'll just wash the money. Physically clean the money. Yeah, it's going to be clean. So some people think that it was done. I mean, the only reason I can think it would be done would be to wash fingerprints and DNA off of it. Like maybe this is money you already had in your home and you didn't know how many times you'd handled it and you just wanted to avoid that issue. So you washed it.

I don't even know if that would work, but I think it would. I I could see the need to do that. But again, this is something where if you're printing new money, like counterfeit money, it looks fake, especially if it's not on the right type of paper. So to throw it off, you'll see criminals wrinkle up the money, crinkle it up, toss it around, shake it between their hands, maybe throw it in a dryer to give that illusion that it's kind of worn down and been circulated through the system a few times. That's normally when it's done. But yeah, I think on the surface level, they took cleaning money literally, and that's what they decided to do. Yeah. Also, apparently, I didn't know this, but it's illegal to staple U.S. currency. Oh, I didn't know that either. Yeah, I guess. Interesting.

Weird, but that's the least of their problems. That's the least of their criminal activity. Yeah, I completely agree. But it does help investigators because it's something that's not a normal practice. Some people use, you know, paper bands or elastics or they'll fold it a certain way. This was a characteristic that multiple people outside of this investigation knew that this was a behavior Charlie did often. So this was something that was, I mean, how many people do you know as you're listening or watching this video staple their money? I mean, it's not a normal thing. So it

does tie it back to someone 100%. And it's important when you're looking at this particular case, because arguments can be made that maybe Katie did this on her own, but when the money's stapled together like that, it does tie to someone else. And that's what the prosecutor's trying to do here is to say, hey, listen, Charlie's sitting up here right now. They had Katie point to him in the courtroom. Charlie's saying, hey, listen, I wasn't involved. I don't know what you're talking about. And the prosecutor's saying, not so fast. We have stuff that links back to you based on the behavioral traits that are associated with this money. So as trivial as it is and as minimal as it might seem, it's a really important fact. Yeah. And like you said, multiple people had already testified to the fact that this is how Charlie kept his money. Even Charlie, when he's asked about it, he's like, yeah, I did keep my money like that.

It's a habit since childhood. But it doesn't take like even I don't care if you've been doing it since you were three years old. That's how the money was given to them. You can't deny this. And that's it. So that that's going to tie right to him. And that's why when he goes to trial, he's going to have a defense, which we're going to talk about, of how this had nothing to do with him. Yes, it was his money, but he didn't willingly give it. Before we continue on, though, let's take a quick break.

We'll be right back. In late 2016, some law enforcement theories on members of the Adelson family being connected to Dan Markell's murder were released to the public after a records request from the Tallahassee Democrat. The released documents claimed that Katie McBanuel was the link between the two hitmen and the affluent Adelsons. The documents also outlined evidence we've already gone over. Wiretapped phone calls between Charlie and his mother and Katie, checks signed by Donna Adelson paid out to Katie, even though she was not an actual employee at the Adelson Institute. And of course, the motive was also there for everyone to see. The documents maintained that Wendy Adelson's family had tried to convince her to

pay her ex-husband $1 million so that she could take her two sons out of Tallahassee and relocate with them to the South Florida area. When that didn't work, the Adelsons began looking into hiring a hitman, and Charlie arranged it through his then-girlfriend Katie McBanua. The Tallahassee Police Department was certain that they were on the right track and that one or more of the Adelsons were involved in this plot. However, state's attorney Willie Meggs publicly put himself in opposition to the police, calling their theories speculation and refusing to issue an arrest warrant for Charlie Adelson or Katie Magbanua. He said, quote, My opinion after reading these documents is there is no probable cause here to make an arrest. We kind of believe they were involved, according to the

police. But what we believe and what we think doesn't count. What evidence do we have? When you read this stuff, you say these people have him killed. I don't read it like that. How do we prove this? End quote. The Adelson family rejoiced, and Charlie's lawyer put out a statement kissing Willie Meggs' ass, saying, quote, Mr. Meggs has spent the past four years as a prosecutor with 30 years as state's

attorney. And before that, he was a decorated police officer. He is one of the most experienced state's attorneys in their nation, and he knows probable cause when he sees it. We are thankful that he faithfully and honorably fulfilled his duties and did not approve the document, which amounted to no more than simple speculation after a truly exhaustive investigation, end quote. But that was before Luis Rivera pleaded guilty and implicated Katie as being the go-between in this whole murder plot. Katie McBanuel was arrested on October 1st, 2016, in the parking lot of a strip mall. Apparently, when she was approached by all these police officers, she urinated on herself because she was so terrified. And then she asked to call her lawyer before being read her rights

and transported to the Broward County Jail. Now, directly after this, before he'd even left the scene of Katie's arrest, Detective Craig Isom got a phone call from Charlie Adelson's lawyer, David Oscar Marcus. Marcus told Isom that if he had a warrant for Charlie's arrest, he didn't need to ambush him in the way they had just done to Katie. Charlie would go to Tallahassee and surrender. It was a generous offer, but the Tallahassee police were not ready to put cuffs on Charlie Adelson just yet. They had to talk to Katie first, and they offered Katie an even better deal than they'd given Luis Rivera. They told her that if she cooperated fully,

they would consider letting her off completely, and she'd be back home with her kids before she knew it. As mystifying as it was to everyone, Katie refused to implicate Charlie Adelson, and so she remained behind bars. Almost immediately, the state talked to your lawyers and offered you full immunity, a get out of jail free card, right? I don't know if that was immediately. Pretty soon after you got arrested, you were offered to cooperate with Charlie Adelson and the other Adelsons and you would get to go home to your kids, right?

Yes, sir. But you didn't take the offer. No, I didn't. Instead you stayed in jail for three years before your first trial, right? Yes, sir. You stayed in jail through COVID after your first trial hung. Yes, sir. You still didn't cooperate. The deal was still open, right?

Well, the deal was to give up Charlie. And you couldn't do that? Because in order to give up Charlie, I had to give up San Credo, the father of my children. So I couldn't do that? Because in order to give up Charlie I had to give up San Credo, the father of my children, so I couldn't do that. So while you're in jail, sitting in jail, during COVID, you knew there was still a deal possibility open for you, right? You could still take a deal. Your lawyers told you that. Before COVID? After my mistrial? Yes. I believe so.

And you still didn't take the deal, right? No. Charlie Adelson didn't force you to not take the deal, right? No, I had no communication with Charlie. He didn't pay for your attorneys? He didn't pay for my attorneys, but there was word that he was... My brother declined him paying for my attorneys. Ma'am.

I had anything to do with him. I know you have an agenda here, but just answer my questions. Yes, sir. Did Charlie Adelson pay for your attorneys? No, sir. He did not. Did anyone in the Adelson family pay for your attorneys? No, sir. Did anyone in the Adelson family pay any money to your kids? No, sir.

The real reason you didn't cooperate and you made it clear is because Charlie Adelson had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Professor Markell. Isn't that the case? I didn't cooperate because in order to give up Charlie, I'd have to give up Sifredo. Yeah. So obviously this video is Charlie's attorney and he's throwing a couple of jabs in there. You have an agenda, all these things, and it's pretty self-explanatory. He's trying to show her, you can't give up someone if you don't have the goods on them. That's what he's trying to say here. You didn't give up Charlie because he wasn't involved. You couldn't give law enforcement what they wanted, even though they offered you the son,

they offered you everything, but you couldn't give them what they want, even though they offered you the son, they offered you everything, but you couldn't give them what they want. You couldn't deliver on what they needed in order to, to fulfill that deal because any person in their right mind would have taken it, would have taken that deal immediately. But her argument's simple. Yeah, I would have gave up Charlie in a second, but I didn't want to give up the father of my children. And in order to do that, I wasn't going to be able to give law enforcement a partial story. I was going to have to implicate everyone, which included someone I really cared about. And herself. The father of my kids.

Herself, too, because she's saying she's completely innocent. The whole time she's in prison these three years, she's completely innocent. She has no idea what they're talking about. She did not set anything up with Charlie. So she also, I think, doesn't want to implicate herself. Maybe she thinks it's a trick. Maybe she thinks it's a innocent. She has no idea what they're talking about. She did not set anything up with Charlie. So she also, I think, doesn't want to implicate herself. Maybe she thinks it's a trick. Maybe she thinks it's a trick. Yeah.

But I mean, I'm sure they relate to her. Listen, we know you were involved. We know you facilitated everything. We will cut you. You didn't actually kill Dan Markell. You were just a messenger. If you tell us what happened and who was involved, you will go free. And frankly, if i'm

dan markel's family obviously i'd want everyone but if there was a world where we didn't have a case and we could we had to let one person go in order for them to work with us katie would be the person right because she's just a cog in the machine but i would want the hitman and i would want the hitmen in this case and i would want want the family that, you know, paid for it. So yeah, I mean, Katie, she definitely, I think you're right. I think psychologically she had been saying I'm innocent. I'm innocent. Maybe she was still hoping that she could beat the charges and everyone would stay free, but she knew that if she cooperated, yeah, for her own self-serving reasons, she would get out, but everyone else would be in prison. Everyone else that was involved in this would go down, and maybe she felt like it was worth the risk. I to pull a fast one on me. And then they're going to get to Sigfredo and Luis Rivera. And then Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia are going to tell them how instrumental she was, right? Because without her, this doesn't

happen. And she knows that. Correct. But at that point, if they sign that deal with her and she gives them everything and they're giving her a basically a get out of jail free card, like the attorney said, doesn't matter at that point. But I get what you're saying as far as- I think that she was like, I don't want them to come back and get me for something else. And then none of my kids have either parent. You know what I mean? So I'm curious though, why do you say you don't think she was loyal to Sigfredo? She don't give a shit about Sigfredo. You don't think so?

No, man. I disagree with you. I mean, I just don't think that, I think shefriedo. You don't think so? No, man. I disagree with you. I mean, like, I just don't think that, I think she didn't want her kids to go without any parents at all. And I think she was afraid because she realized how important her role was in this. Without her, Charlie never even gets to talk

to Siegfriedo Garcia. He's not just gonna approach somebody on the street and be like, hey, could you kill somebody for me? He needs her as the go-between. She's the linchpin. Without Katie McManua, this-between. She's the linchpin. Without Katie McManua, this never happens. She knows that. And she probably feels guilty. And she's like, they're not just going to let me walk free. Like, I orchestrated this.

So she's afraid maybe they'll come back and be like, oh, yeah, we told you we wouldn't get you for this, but now we can get you for this. And now neither of her kids have a parent out of prison. So I think she's just worried. And her lawyers genuinely thought she was innocent. They genuinely thought she was innocent. And they were arguing with the prosecutors on her behalf, saying that she had nothing to do with this. She doesn't even know what you're talking about. And they were probably telling her, like, if you're completely innocent, like you say, we can get you off of this. She's hoping that she can get out without having to put somebody else in in her place. And then eventually she's going to figure out that's not going to happen.

After Katie's arrest, state's attorney Megs was singing a different tune, saying, quote, I believe and investigators believe that at one point Meg Banua called Charlie to tell him the deal is done. What proof do we have? None at the moment. It will probably come, but we're not there yet, end quote. But he still didn't want to pull the trigger and have Charlie arrested. Law enforcement and prosecutors expected Katie to change her mind about talking as the date of her September 2019 trial approached, but she remained steadfast. Katie would share her trial with the father of her children, Sigfrido Garcia, which was awkward considering during opening statements, Katie's attorney Tara Quast said, quote, the only thing she's guilty of is terrible taste in men, end quote. Quast said that the

police really wanted Charlie and Donna Sue Adelson, saying, quote, the government made it very clear who is behind the killing of Dan Markell. Why aren't the Adelsons here? Why aren't they charged? Because they don't have the evidence to do it, end quote. Sigfrido Garcia's lawyer basically told the jury that the testimony of Luis Rivera couldn't be trusted, saying, quote, he becomes the prosecution's parrot. This case, Sigfrido's case, is premised around Luis Rivera because the only person who can put Sigfrido Garcia at the scene, the only person who can tell you that Sigfrido got out of the car and shot Dan Markell, is the guy who got a deal of a lifetime. End quote. During this trial, we also got to welcome back an old favorite of ours, Jeffrey LaCase. LaCase dropped a bombshell when he stated that

he believed Wendy had potentially tried to frame him for Dan Markell's murder. During that conversation, she didn't have any interest in spending any time with me for the rest of the week. So it kind of confirmed, like, you know, this is over. But then when she called me back, she had a series of detailed questions about what I would be doing on Friday. And Friday is going to be July 18th, right? Yes. And that's the date of the homicide? That's exactly right. What were her inquiries of you regarding that date? I had a short plan to Tennessee. She was aware that I was planning to leave about

11 a.m. on Friday. I need to get to Atlanta for a show and dinner, so with traffic. She knew I was departing at 11. And at the yoga studio in the parking lot, she had asked if I was still going. If I didn't go, why not? What route I would be taking. A lot of bizarre amount of interest in that trip that didn't make sense to me at the time, given that she didn't want to spend time with me. And how does it make sense to you now? Well if I had left on my trip at the scheduled time that she had known about for quite a while, I would have driven pretty close to Danny Markell's house about the same time as the murder in a similar looking car to the suspect vehicle. What type of vehicle did you drive? I drove a 2004 Nissan Sentra that was silver metallic gray color.

So if you had followed your original plans, you would have been passing by the Markel residence or nearby there around the same time as the killers were fleeing? Yeah, I would have been at Capital Circle in Thomasville. Sure, I would have been on the same cell tower, for example. I think my life could have been pretty complicated had I taken my original plans. All right, so you didn't, I guess,

take the original plans. No, I did not. I made a last-minute decision the night before to leave Thursday night instead. I had not informed Ms. Adelson about that because we weren't speaking. Actually, no, I don't know that anyone, I'm sure that anyone in Tallahassee knew I had changed my plans, just the people at the other end. All right, so you were actually in Tennessee at the time of

the homicide. I was. And when you were, we've heard you were called in as a potential suspect. You get called in, and were you able to provide documentation to show that you were in Tennessee and not in Tallahassee? Yeah I was excluded fairly quickly because investigators found Kmart surveillance footage of me at a Kmart in Tennessee using my credit card with my cell phone showing me there shortly after the murder so it was impossible that I was this year. And then was there also some similar type coincidences around the time of the trip that the killers made in June? Yes, on June 6th I had a business trip to Gainesville and I departed at 11 a.m. on a Friday, June 6th, which Ms. Adelson would have known about by March.

So really, I take two trips out of Tallahassee in my car the whole spring and summer semester. In about time, hit me and tried to kill Daniel Markel. Okay. Any further contact with Wendy after the yoga date? We, about 10 days after the murder, she reached out to a mutual friend and we had a few phone calls. And during one of those phone calls, did you learn about a dinner where Wendy had become ill at the table? Yes, I did learn about that. And what did you learn about that dinner? That she went out to dinner with Charlie for what he called a celebration dinner. He said

something to her, she spontaneously vomited on the table. And this would have been within how much time after the homicide? Within a few weeks. Was it specified that the celebration was in reference to Dan Markell's death as opposed to anything else? Wasn't specified. Okay. But whatever it was, that's the dinner where she vomited. That's right.

That's right. So first of all, this is a couple weeks after Dan Markell died that Wendy and Charlie had a celebratory dinner. Now Jeff says it wasn't specified that it was because of Dan being dead. But I mean. It's inferred. What is there to celebrate when your ex-husband and the father of your children has just been murdered?

What are you exactly celebrating? So. It's interesting. But it's interesting. Because if it's a celebratory dinner, then Wendy would have been aware of it. And she probably wouldn't have thrown up in that moment because she you know she would have known what they were going there for it sounds almost like if this is all true right that she uh she was surprised by what charlie said is that you know that would maybe that the nerve react nervous reaction to it i mean it could

have been like oh it's celebratory dinner and then while they're having dinner charlie is like oh you're welcome by the way yeah that's what i'm saying yeah exactly you know and then while they're having dinner charlie is like oh you're welcome by the way yeah exactly you know and then she all of a sudden is like realizes like oh shit what he did yeah either that or she knew and the scallops weren't good that's also possible or she knew and then charlie starts talking about like well the cops could do this so make sure you don't do this and do this and then she got stressed panicked yeah got panicked. Yeah, she panicked. And then threw up. But either way, Jeff feels that Wendy had potentially been setting him up for Dan Markell's murder. And it becomes more interesting when you consider this theory I found on Reddit, which was posted by somebody named Kate M14. Kate writes, quote, I truly think brother

and sister both used relatively new romantic partners to help execute their plan. Timing speaks volumes. Charlie discovers a cute dental receptionist relentlessly pursued her, someone's words can't recall who, possibly assumed she had bad boy connections, end quote. This Reddit user goes on to say that, per Katie's testimony, she and Charlie had their first or second date around Halloween 2013, and Charlie then asked Katie if she knew a person who could harm someone, and she told him that she did. So pretty much right off the bat, as soon as Charlie starts dating Katie, he's asking her, hey, do you know somebody who can kill somebody else, right? And Katie's like, yeah, I do. Charlie and Katie then dated for months. He bought her things. He took her on expensive vacations. All the while,

he was telling her about what was happening between his sister and her husband during their horrible divorce. Katie testified that Charlie told her his mother wasn't sleeping or eating because of all the stress. And he told her how they had tried to offer Dan a million dollars to go away so that Wendy could move with the kids. Katie said, quote, he painted this picture that this was a terrible man and was making his family go through a lot custody-wise with his kids. Katie said, quote, he painted this picture that this was a terrible man and was making his family go through a lot custody-wise with his sister, end quote. Let's go back to that Reddit thread where KM14 lays out why they believe Wendy selected Jeff to be her fall guy. She forced Jeff to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 on that broken television so that he would be able to confirm

that her TV was broken and in need of repair, which would give her that alibi of the Geek Squad guy at her house that morning. She shows up at a coffee shop that she knew Jeff went to a lot. So Jeff went to this coffee shop that she shows up to with this other man all the time. He was a regular there. So she goes there specifically so that Jeff will see her. And it's possible that Wendy wanted to create this jealous tension and maybe have Jeff confront her in public so there would be witnesses that he has this tendency to fly into a jealous rage so when her ex-husband turns up dead, well, you know, Jeff has a temper.

Jeff doesn't want Wendy talking to other men. He hates Dan Markell because Wendy hates Dan Markell. Wendy knew Jeff was going to be driving to Tennessee at almost the exact time Dan Markell's murder was supposed to go down, and she made sure to clarify with him the details of when he would be leaving and which route he would be taking. This is Jeff LaCasse saying this stuff. This isn't the police, isn't the prosecution. This is Jeff putting things together in the aftermath. And then during that exchange outside the yoga studio, Wendy seems fine.

But then after they leave, she goes home and sends Jeff an email asking for him to not contact her for a week so that she would have further evidence and a paper trail that he was jealous and that she was potentially scared of him. You know, this is a lot of stuff that's kind of gelling together. And there's some who wonder if Wendy was even dating Jeff, even though she had no plans to settle down with him or marry him, simply so that she could continue filling his head with so many negative things about Dan Markell that he would eventually go after Dan himself for her. So maybe she was trying to create this rivalry between the

two men to the point where she she knew you know that that Jeff was completely like obsessed with her Wendy knew she was able to cast a spell on men she even bragged to Jeff about it she knew Jeff was completely infatuated with her you know and Jeff said that all they ever talked about was Dan and how horrible he was and Wendy would flinch if Jeff raised his voice and he started to wonder if she'd become if she'd been physically abused by Dan. And he began to hate Dan just as much as Wendy and her family did until he started to talk to other people outside of the Adelson's and realized, hey, this Dan Markell guy is not really that bad of a guy. But Wendy made him seem terrible. Right. So either Wendy's trying to set him up for the murder or she's trying to cause enough anger in him because he's so in love with her that he would want to do anything for her, including taking you know, once the stress of the divorce and custody battle was removed, Wendy might feel more amenable to making a real commitment to him and they could live happily ever after. It is an interesting theory and certainly something to consider for people who think that Wendy was involved. It absolutely is. And shout out to KM14. Have a day, Reddit user on Crime Weekly. I think that's

a first for us where you've maybe you've done it before. I've done it before. Sometimes these Reddit users, man, they come up with some good stuff and I'm like, damn. When this gets back to her, she's going to be like, hey, you're on Crime Weekly. She'll be like, what? Yeah, with this great theory. And it does line up. A lot of the facts now could be a situation where, again, revisionist history, you're able to take what you know and make it fit a narrative. But I don't see it that way. And Kate M14, here we go, suddenly again, has no skin in the game. She's just being a good detective, looking at the facts of the case as she knows them and kind of filling in the blanks and the puzzle pieces work. They work. And I think that the theory she laid out is a very plausible scenario where they were looking for fall guys, especially when you tie this in with what Jeff said at trial.

We just listened to that video. It seems awful convenient. And the behavior which she displayed, as Jeff said, was very bizarre. It was an unusual interest in something that really was trivial. Didn't really matter. But at this particular point it did. And if we go back, I believe it was last episode or even the episode before tying it back to that interaction on the couch where there's like a perfectly good TV in the other room, but it didn't make so much sense

then, but she's insisting that they watch this video on this broken television screen. And we didn't really go any further than that with it in that episode. But here, bringing it back, now you hear that fact again and you go, wow, actually, that makes a lot of sense. So, again, shout out to KateM14 coming from the rafters with the Reddit post. Yeah. And I mean, basically, the whole thing is bizarre, right? So she goes to South Florida. Wendy goes to South Florida.

Her and Jeff aren't in like a ton of communication. They're kind of arguing. She comes back from South Florida. And all of a sudden, she wants to have a date. She wants to meet up with him. They have a fine date. And then they're leaving each other at the yoga studio, blah, blah, blah. She's like, hey, you still going on your trip to Tennessee, blah, blah, blah.

And then when she gets home, she sends him an email being like, don't contact me for a week. And that just so happened to be the week that Dan Markell's murdered. So she can now say like, oh, I don't know, Jeff. He was probably so mad because I said, don't contact me. And he had to lash out at somebody. But she still wants to make sure, like, you're still going to Tennessee on this day? Are you still going to be taking this route that's going to bring you by Dan Markell's house? Like, you know, she's checking in on things.

So it's suspicious. Like, you know, she's checking in on things. So it's suspicious. Like, why would she care so much? And I cannot seem to fathom why Wendy would care so much about Jeff's trip to Tennessee because I really don't think she really cared about Jeff all that much. Like, she clearly didn't want to be in a serious relationship with him. She was seeing other people. Why all of these things are happening, it's either she just has no self-awareness and she uses people, or there's a purpose for everything. And trying to figure out which one is which is not going to be easy, but either way, Jeff thought she could potentially be setting him up for this murder. And so we really need to take that into consideration.

Absolutely. Let's take our last break and we'll be right back. During the joint trial of Catherine Magbanua and Sigfrido Garcia, Garcia's lawyer told the jury that it was most likely Luis Rivera who was the driving force in Dan Markell's murder. It was Rivera, after all, who was a prominent leader in the Latin Kings. And this attorney did admit eventually that Siegfriedo Garcia had been in Tallahassee with Rivera at the time that Dan Markell was shot. But Siegfriedo had been there for a drug deal, not a murder for hire thing. It was not Siegfriedo who had shot Dan. It was Luis Rivera, the person who also most likely was selling Charlie Adelson drugs, which is how they knew each other. Right. So Siegfriedo's attorney is trying to cut Siegfriedo out of this altogether. Charlie Adelson contacted Luis Garcia because he knew him because Luis Garcia sold Charlie drugs that Charlie would

then sell to other people. And so, there's no Siegfriedo Garcia. There's no Katie McBanua. It's only Luis and Charlie. And they're trying to like kind of cancel Siegfried out altogether. Now, the state would bring in a forensic specialist with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. His name was Robert Sean Yao, and Yao testified that based on the downward trajectory of the bullets, he believed that the person who had shot Dan Markell was at least six feet tall, like Siegfried O. Garcia, who was 6'1", I believe, whereas Luis Rivera was only 5'4". So they kind of used these ballistics to show, yes, both Garcia and Rivera were there, but Garcia is over 6' tall, Luis Rivera is short, and therefore could not have been the person who shot this gun based on the trajectory of the bullets. When Detective Craig Isom was on the stand being

cross-examined by Katie's defense team, he had to admit that Luis Rivera had been given access to the police department's investigative reports during discovery, and so Isom would have no way of knowing if Rivera was telling the truth or just repeating the narrative already laid out by the Tallahassee Police Department. Detective Isom was also questioned about Rivera's first proffer statement not being recorded, so no one was able to compare his statement then to his trial testimony to see if they were consistent or if he had changed his story in important and relevant areas. The state also called Wendy Adelson to the stand during this trial, and Wendy put on a dazzling smile and poured on all of the charm, showcasing the same behavior as she had with Detective Isom during her police interview, although many of her and Wendy put on a dazzling smile and poured on all of the charm, showcasing the same behavior

as she had with Detective Isom during her police interview, although many of her statements contradicted things that she said during that interview. And her statements also contradicted things that many people had heard her say before, such as the fact that she hated Tallahassee and wanted out. During the trial, Wendy asserted that this was not true. She loved Tallahassee and wanted out. During the trial, Wendy asserted that this was not true. She loved Tallahassee. She said she was actually glad the judge had ruled against her motion to relocate because she was so happy in Tallahassee and happy with her job at Florida State University. When you separated initially in the fall of 2012, did you move to South Florida with the kids? No, I did not.

You didn't go to South Florida with the kids? No, I did not. Was it your desire during that time to move with the children to South Florida? I would say right then, no, it wasn't. Was there a time during the time that you were living there at Aquaal Ridge that you determined that you would like to move to South Florida with the children? There was. All right.

And were your parents very involved in trying to facilitate that relocation? My parents were supportive of me moving to South Florida. Would you describe your parents as being over-involved in your personal business? As compared to other people's parents? Yeah. I don't know. And you mentioned that you did develop a desire to move to South Florida.

Did you file a motion to that effect on January 14th, 2013? That sounds, that sounds, I did file a motion. I don't remember the exact date. Okay. But that sounds about right. Was that motion. I don't remember the exact date. Okay. But that sounds about right. Was that motion granted or denied? That motion was denied. And were you upset about being stuck in Tallahassee?

I was relieved. You were relieved. You wanted to stay in Tallahassee. I was happy at my job. So in my opinion, Wendy is doing this because she knows very well that the point of contention between herself and Dan at the time of his murder was this very issue. And she knew that the prosecution and the police believed it was the motive for members of her family to want Dan dead. And what gets me is that Wendy can't answer a question directly. And I suppose we would expect this because after all, she is a lawyer. But when the state's attorney, Georgia Kappelman, asks her about the divorce, she says, like, would you consider your divorce from Dan to be a nasty

one? And Wendy answers very primly, I think most divorces aren't very pleasant. And when Kappelman pushes her, asking Wendy, but this one was very unpleasant, Wendy responded, I found getting divorced to be unpleasant. Yes. And Wendy seems very forgetful about the details of her divorce, which doesn't make sense to me because not only is she a lawyer, and not only am I sure she went over each document involved in the proceedings herself, but there were a lot of personal attacks and bad tactics used on both sides that were not very nice. And you'd think she'd remember these things. Jeff LaCase said it was all she could talk about during that time, but suddenly her memory's foggy

because she's being very careful. She claims she doesn't remember Dan's allegations that Donna Sue, her mother, Donna Sue, had made disparaging comments about him or that she had said he was trying to take her sunshines away. She downplays the hate that her family held for Dan Markell, even though we heard her in the interview with Detective Isom saying, like, you don't get it. It's real bad. They really hate him. But all of a sudden, they didn't hate him that much. What about Dan Markell? Did your family like him? Do you want to specify a point in time? Well, I'm specifically thinking of a statement you made in the interview after his death,

where you indicated that your parents were very angry with him. Is that accurate? At that point in time, during our divorce, I do think they were angry with him. They felt like he had treated me badly. And the motion to preclude your mom from having unsupervised contact with your kids, that was still pending at the time of his murder, correct? That's possible. I mean, I don't think anyone took that motion very seriously. Okay. Did your mom take it seriously? I don't think so. Did Dan Markell take it seriously? I don't know how Danny felt about a motion. If he wrote the

motion, he was probably taking it seriously. I do have to say, not that it matters at all. She just comes off as very unlikable. Yeah, very, very. And I mean, again, it doesn't matter what we think, we like her or not. We're talking about guilt or innocence here. But I had to put it out there. It doesn't matter what we think, but she sucks.

She kind of just comes off as, like you said, I think you've even said arrogant, just very like condescending. Like it's not serious. Like nothing is serious. Okay. Like you forgot what you were there to talk about. And it's annoying because Donna Sue Adelson took this motion very seriously. You know, that Dan had said, I don't want her around my kids. I don't want my kids around their grandmother

because of what they're saying about me. She was livid. We read the emails. We saw the emails where she was like, this man has to be stopped at all costs. And Wendy's up here like, I don't think anybody took it very seriously. I think, you know, it's like it is what it is.

And it's like, come on, man. I do now. I have a new trigger now. And that's watching a lawyer, a cross-examined lawyer. It is mind-numbing. It's tough. It's tough because they're both very so like everything's strategic. The way she's asking the question and the way that the other one's answering it.

It's like everything is to. And as the lawyer's asking Wendy questions, she knows what she's trying to get out of it. So she's countering it with a question some reason it wasn't open and they just like ran straight into the wall and bounced back like this is what questioning Wendy has to feel like you just be running into that wall and bouncing back over and over again. She's the opposite of Charlie because Charlie's emotional. He's getting like sassy. You know, he's like letting the lawyer know how much contempt he has for her. Whereas Wendy is just like. She's measured. Yeah.

She's very measured. You're not going to shake me even though she's contradicting herself. Even though what she's saying couldn't possibly be true. But it's her opinion. I don't think my mom took it that seriously. Yeah. Well, what about all these emails? Well, that's just my opinion.

I don't think she took it too seriously. I'm not lying. But you are. You're lying because you knew she took it seriously. I don't know what Danny thought. I don't think she took it too seriously i'm not lying but you are you're lying because you knew she oh i don't know what i don't know what danny thought i don't know what he thought he he wrote the motion he must have taken it seriously but we we were we were just like whatever you know whatever go go off dan markel go off king like it's just so annoying and wendy does the same thing when asked questions about her brother, Charlie. And she answers these questions with her usual giggling and playful tone, as if none of what is happening is actually that important at all. It's almost as if she feels like it's ridiculous that she's even being asked these questions.

The entire time is as if she doesn't actually feel or realize the gravity of the situation, that they're there to discuss the murder of the father of her children. Charlie graduated high school? He did. did dental school he did so he has uh substantial educational background yes would you consider him to be book smart he did very well in his classes so that that would eventually be yes. What about street smart? Do you think he was kind of street smart? I think he's good with people. And would it be fair to say that he has a wide range of friends, different types of friends?

He has a lot of friends. Would you say, are there certain friends that he goes out night clubbing with? I don't know. He doesn't talk to me about night clubbing. Well, when he has social events, do you ever go out with him socially? I haven't in a long time. I'm pretty busy with my kids. But I have once or twice gone out with him. So your single brother is a pretty handsome guy, right? I think he's handsome. Right. We've seen his pictures. Good looking guy.

Never been married, right? No. And what kind of car does he have? For a while, what does he have? What is he driving right now? He likes cars. He has a lot of cars, right? And these aren't like Hondas or Toyotas.

They're Mercedeses and Ferraris, right? He drove an unmarked police car for a while. But that wasn't my question. My question was, did he ever have a Mercedes? I think so, yeah. Okay, and it wasn't like a C300. It was like a 5 Series, right? I honestly don't know anything about cars.

Well, it was the bigger Mercedes, right? Yeah, it was big. It was the bigger one. And he also had a Ferrari, right? I know he had one really fancy car, but I don't remember what brand it was. So you're telling this jury that you don't remember if your brother had a Ferrari? Cars are really not important to me. You saw mine.

I drove a minivan. Well, but you're not your brother, right? I am not my brother. No, I knew he had a fancy car. I just don't remember if it was a Porsche or if it was a Ferrari. It was something fancy. Something kind of brother, right? I am not my brother. I knew he had a fancy car. I just don't remember if it was a Porsche or if it was a Ferrari. It was something fancy. Something kind of fancy, right? Okay.

I'm not going to beat a dead horse here. She just comes off as unlikable. Maybe it's just her. You know, there's people that are really nice that, you know, my friends, there's people that I work with in television that I'll remain nameless that people are like, oh, I can't stand that person. And they're super nice in person, but in real life, but yeah, it happens. I'm sure you get that about me sometimes where people are like, wow, Derek really is just the worst on Crime Weekly and you have to defend

me. And I'm sure you defend me adamantly every time it happens. Of course I do. Of course I do. But this is objectively just annoying. Wendy is objectively an annoying person. It is. It's just the context and the way you set it up makes it 10 times worse because you reminded everyone what we're here for. The context makes it, the facts makes it worse. Makes it worse for her. Makes it worse for her. And I mean, it does seem like it's possible.

And maybe, guys, weigh on in the comments below, but it feels like the majority of people, even if you're not a car person, if your brother who you're super close with has a Ferrari, he buys a Ferrari, which I think universally, everyone recognizes there's two cars, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. They're very distinctive in the way they look. So it's more to me, and we have no way to prove it, where she knows this guy is not her friend. This person who's interviewing her, cross-examining her. And he's trying to play nice guy with her. So she, again, is just reciprocating that. But it's all fake.

It's all fake on both sides. And there's moments in there where you can see it because she's playing really dumb. And the lawyer's like, you don't know that your brother bought a Ferrari. Like, you don't know the difference. Like, I'm not asking you what you drive. You've seen Ferraris. You're living in Florida. You've probably seen a Ferrari or a Lamborghini before.

Yeah, she's living in Miami, dude. Tell me you aren't seeing freaking Ferraris all over Miami. Come on. Exactly. And the whole thing, they're super close they're super close they're super close but yet you don't know anything about them at the same time you're just it's annoying to me because she's a brilliant person well she's doing it on purpose she's doing it on purpose she's playing dumb but it's like we know your credentials wendy we know how smart you are So now playing dumb just seems manipulative.

You know what I mean? And when she's asked like, oh, is Charlie book smart? She gives like a little smirk like I'm smarter. She can't even just answer the question and be like, yes, he's smart. Like move on. She's got to add her little like Wendy ism to it. And it just drives me crazy. Every time in court, this happens a lot where

even the most simple answers, the witness or the defendant will give you the bare minimum. Because they know the lawyer who's cross-examining them is trying to set them up. They're trying to lead them somewhere. They don't know where that is yet. So they're going to create boundaries and hurdles along the way. And that's what she's doing here. She's just putting bump after bump in the road. So as this lawyer who has an idea, a preconceived plan of how they're going to ask her questions to set her up

for the final, like the knockout punch, she knows where that there's something coming. So she's just going to stumble along the way through so that it's not clean and concise. And it's, she's trying to lead him on like side quest. So he drove an unmarked police car.

Right. It's all just deflection. And so the jury members are sitting there. And instead of this lawyer, how he envisioned it in his head, like, so this happened. Right. And you knew about this car and he's a smart guy. Right. And then he hits her with with all that being said, how wouldn't he know?

Like, there's that final question that's obvious to the jury? She's she's trying to prevent that. Mm hmm. Which, I mean, is understandable. But at the same time, like she's just being so obvious about it that you couldn't really look at this and be like, this person has the best interest. Like she cares about this being solved. You know, she's not trying to help. And listen, I only want to play one more clip because it's literally hilarious. Minutes before this clip, this part of the trial where this clip

happens, Wendy had been asked about having certain names programmed into her phone and about having her ex-husband, Dan Markell's contact listed as Gibbers. Now, remember, her and her family called Dan Gibbers because he talked so much. So just a couple minutes after, you know, Kaplman asks her about having Dan Markell's name in her phone as gibbers. They're talking about Wendy and Donna Sue exchanging emails during which they refer to Dan as gibbers. And a humorous exchange happens between Wendy, the judge, and Georgia Kaplman, which I believe shows that Wendy is not completely honest about certain details. Like, not even not answering things directly, but just straight out lying about things. Divers was a nickname that I gave Danny when he was being really difficult

and causing me a lot of pain was sort of a nickname I gave him to make him feel less threatening. So it was a derogatory thing? I wouldn't say it was derogatory. Did you call him that to his face? No, I called him Danny to his face. Okay. And gibbers would be what? How would you spell that? I don't know that I ever spelled it out.

In the emails, I think it's spelled with a j but i guess you could spell it with a g j i b b e r s that would be one way to miss adelson you had mr markel's phone number programmed into your phone as j i b b e r s didn't you that's right yeah and Yeah. And again, being redundant here, this proves the point. She is in defense mode and like play dumb mode. And she continues that, not realizing that she's doing it with the judge, but she's continuing to give alternate options to everything, even the most simple things like how do you spell gibbers? She's not even going to give that one and say, you know what? Yeah. Gibbers is J I B B E R S. That's, you know, that's it. Well, there's alternate ways to spell it. You can do whatever you want. Everything has G if you want,

I suppose. Everything's a multiple option. And the judge, by the way, is just asking her for the spelling is probably taking notes. And because she's in that mode where even the most simple thing, like if the lawyer had asked her, well, it's sunny today, right? I mean, it mode she's in right now. Every time she gets a question, it's like, okay, how can I dilute this question and answer so that this interaction, this part of this examination becomes a moot point. And so when the judge throws her off and she turns to him, he's just asking a straightforward question. She's wrote the name in emails. She's in her phone. Well, that's why the lawyer said that, which was a great, which was a great move because as the lawyer's asking her a straightforward answer, because she's in that deflection mode, she's not even going to just say to him, yeah, I spelled the J I B B E Rb-e-r-s it's well you like i don't know it could be spelled with it i think even she almost said like i've only said it she might have said that in this thing but that's when the lawyer's like oh by the way in your phone

you have it as j-i-b-b-e-r-s but they just talked about it right like it's not even like it was like a surprise like we caught you It was like minutes before this. They had talked about how Wendy had programmed Dan into her phone as gibbers. And then Wendy's like, it was just a nickname, you know, that I gave him to take his power away and make me feel less scared. No, it wasn't. It was a nickname you gave him because you hated him and he talked a lot. And you and your family made fun of him behind his back using this name, even when you were married. So no, it wasn't, oh, I gave him that name to make him seem less scary.

That is stupid, Wendy. When he was mean to me. Here's what I'll say. And it's a little throwback to a Big Brother reference as far as my strategic play in there, right? It's not always what you say. It's how you make people feel. And the visceral reaction that you and I are having about this examination with Wendy,

there's a group of people called the jury that are human beings, just like you and I, who are also watching this interaction. And it doesn't take someone who covers true crime every week or a detective to see what she's doing and to see how some of the most simple questions are not being answered directly. And it's annoying and irritating. And if I had to guess, a lot of the jury members were very turned off by this interaction as well, which is not only going to hurt her credibility, but Charlie's credibility as well. They see what they're doing. Thank you. Thank you. I think her testimony hurt. I don't disagree. credibility but charlie's credibility as well they see what they're doing thank you thank you i think her testimony hurt i don't disagree but in the small snippets i've saw i'm turned off by it

because honestly the the defense attorney for charlie was pretty good like he pointed out the inconsistencies in luis rivera's testimony and he pointed out you know how the police hadn't recorded rivera's first proffer statement and basically saying, like, you guys just told him what to say. And the jury may have been buying it or at least maybe felt like that was enough, you know, of reasonable doubt. But then Wendy gets up there and starts acting like a damn fool, really acting suspicious, if you ask me. And the jury's like, hold on, hold on a second. What? There's something wrong with this family, right? So I think having her up there truly hurt him.

Doesn't sound like it helped based on what I'm hearing. Well, during Luis Rivera's testimony during this trial, and this would be Sigfrido Garcia's trial and Katie Magbanula's trial, he was forced to admit some things that didn't line up with the story he told law enforcement. First of all, Rivera had claimed to have been sitting in the driver's seat of the rented Prius at the time that Dan Markell was shot. Katie's defense attorney asked him if he knew that Dan had put his hand up to his face while being shot. And on the stand, Rivera said, yes, he did know this, not understanding that if he had seen what Dan's hands were doing at the time he was shot, it meant he probably was not sitting by the car. He was probably standing right next to his childhood friend, Sigfrido Garcia, when that trigger was pulled.

One of the last witnesses to take the stand was Katie McBanua herself. On the stand and under oath, Katie testified that she had nothing to do with Dan Markell's murder, she had not enlisted Sigfrido Garcia to commit the crime at the request of Charlie Adelson, and she'd never taken money from Charlie and given it to Luis and Sigfrido. Katie talked about how she'd been told that if she gave up Charlie, she could go home, and when her lawyer asked if she had information that Charlie was involved with Dan's death, Katie responded that she did not have personal information. She only knew what she had seen throughout the trial. Her lawyer asked Katie if, based on what she had seen,

did she think Charlie was involved with Dan's death? And Katie replied, yes. So she really does not give a shit about Charlie. She's not trying to protect Charlie. She literally is just trying to protect herself and Siegfriedo. And if she could have, during that first trial trial come out and just told the truth about everything, it would have meant Sieg. And she's probably going to think like, you know, these rich people,

these freaking rich white people always be getting off for these crimes. I'm going to go out and say something and this dude's still not going to get charged or at least convicted. And me and my husband are going to be behind bars and our children aren't going to have parents around. So she's being very careful. Were they married? I know they have a kid together. Were they married? So they weren't

married. She calls him, I always say husband because she refers to him as her husband and he refers to her as his wife. They have kids together. They live together. What do they call that? A common law marriage sometimes? Yeah. I mean, it's as good as being married. You're living together, have kids together. Congrats, you're married. But the jury would deliberate and ultimately decide that Sigfredo Garcia had been involved in the crime, but many of them couldn't find it in themselves to believe Luis Rivera 100% when he had pointed to Garcia as the one who pulled the trigger ending Dan's life. As for Katie, the jury didn't believe her fully either.

She had been caught in multiple inconsistencies and changing stories during her testimony, and the fact that she was sleeping with Charlie Adelson made it hard to view her as completely knowledge-free, considering this jury seemed to believe that one or more of the Adelsons had been involved with Dan's murder plot. So we have the jury for Siegfriedo and Katie's trial, and they're in the jury room like deliberating, and they couldn't really all agree on what was going on with Siegfriedo. They couldn't really all agree on what was going on with Katie, but they all seem to agree that Charlie Adelson was involved, right? They thought that there was enough evidence, even though it

wasn't his trial at all. And they're like, okay, so we definitely feel like Charlie's involved. So now we have to figure out like how involved was Katie and how involved was Sig Frito. They had cell phone records, call transcripts, money trails. Katie claimed she worked at the Adelson Institute to explain why she was getting checks, but they brought employees from the Institute in to testify. And those employees were like, no, we had never seen her here. She has not worked here a day in her life. She does not work here.

And at the end of the day, all jurors but one had decided to find Siegfriedo and Katie guilty. However, the one juror who was holding out was finally convinced to change her mind about Siegfriedo but not Katie. And then this juror even got another jury member to side with her about not, you know, going after Katie and finding her guilty. After hours of discussion, the jury returned with their verdict. They found Segufrito Garcia guilty of first-degree murder, but they had not been able to agree on Katie's involvement, leaving the judge to have no choice but to declare a mistrial. Katie would remain behind bars until a trial could be rescheduled for her,

but this was during COVID times, so the trial happened in 2019. At the end of 2019, then COVID hit. So this new trial kept getting pushed off and pushed off for another two years while she sat in prison. But after sitting in prison for a few years during COVID, Katie realized, hey, this sucks. I don't really want to be here anymore. And then she's finally going to start speaking out against Charlie. And at that point, Sigfredo's behind bars. Exactly. And then she's finally going to start speaking out against Charlie. And at that point, Siegfriedo's behind bars. Exactly. Siegfriedo's already been found guilty. So Katie has nothing to lose at this point. Absolutely. But while all of this happened,

and while they were waiting, the prosecution went back to work, intent on bringing at least some of the Adelsons to justice for their part in stealing a loving father and a brilliant legal mind from the world. And that's where we're going to pick up next time. Yeah. Looking forward to it. It's a great series.

We've kind of gone through this whole arc with you guys where we're on the back end of it. Now we have a couple, at least one or two parts left, but we've gone through the foundation of the story. We've gone through the actual incident. We've talked about the investigation. And now we're into the trial portions where the people that were identified through the investigation are now having their opportunity to explain their behaviors that were

displayed. And at this point so far, I think we can all agree they're not doing a very good job. And so we'll keep rolling with it. There's still a lot more to the story. And Stephanie was telling me before we started that there's even newer things that have come out that I might not be familiar with. Yeah, I got two more parts for you. I'm going to wrap it up. It'll be eight parts. This is six. We have seven and eight. I'll fit everything in there one way or the other. But yeah. And I appreciate everyone and all the positive feedback so far on this series. It's been very well received. And a lot of you are not going ahead. You may know the case, but you're not going ahead and diving into the details and allowing us to go through that with you. So really enjoying the series for what

it, you know, for what it is and to get that complete picture. And we're going to, we're going to, by the end of part eight, we're going to wrap this up and we're going to have a conclusion to most of this story. And, uh, I just want to reiterate, because we haven't talked about it a ton, except for the beginning, we're talking a lot about the offenders in this case, but let's keep in mind what happened here. We lost a guy who by all accounts was a brilliant man and most importantly, a great father. And there are two children that are affected by this, regardless of where you lie on this case. So it's entertaining to go through this investigation with you, but it's also, it's a little demoralizing to think

about why we're here because we shouldn't be. Yeah, it sucks. But I mean, at least we know that the people who were responsible are going down one by one behind bars. One by one, knocking them out, taking them out. As my uncle always says, one by one is good fishing. Absolutely. And I love that this whole group of people think they're smarter than the officials investigating it. How quickly they change their tune when they start to

get identified and start turning on each other and the cannibalization begins. It's great to watch. I love it. Is cannibalization a word? Yeah, I think so. It sounded great. Cannibalization occurs. It might be cannibalism. Cannibalization, I believe, is completely inaccurate. Probably not used a lot, but. If it isn't a word, it should be. We should ask Wendy. She's so smart. We'll ask her. Well said.

Guys, as always, we appreciate you being here. If you haven't already and you like what we're doing here, consider subscribing. You can subscribe right down below. Just click that subscription button. Turn your bell notification on. And if you're living under a rock, we never do this, but if you're living under a rock, Stephanie actually has a YouTube channel. I don't know if you know this, Stephanie Arlo. So if you're not already subscribed to her channel, go over there, check it out, subscribe to hers. You may or may not know

of her. She happens to have a few subscribers over there. It's a little thing she does on a weekly basis. So you may have, you may have heard of it once or twice. A side quest. It's a little side hustle she's got going on. And I also have a channel as well. It's Derek Levasseur. I do the podcast Detective Perspective over there. That's all I really have on that channel, but it is under my name. Go subscribe to that as well. We do different stuff on those channels. So we got plenty of content for you. If you have time during the week, we got plenty of options for you. That's going to do it for us. Everyone stay safe out there. We will see you next week. Bye.