Dateline NBC - Family Matters

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Dennis Murphy reports on the latest twists in the murder-for-hire plot that left a Florida law professor dead, ripped apart two families, and ignited a decade-long search for justice.

Tonight on Dateline. Your family had your ex-husband killed to try to help you, didn't they? No, that's completely untrue. A new twist in this headline-grabbing case as a mother and son are accused. You've got this rich playboy period on us. My name is Dr. Charlie Adelson. And he's been charged with first-degree murder for killing his ex-brother-in-law, Dan Markell. My brother, he knew Danny treated me badly.

Do you think you can talk your way out of this? No, I don't. I'm not part of the murder. My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. Donna meddled in her children's business way more than most parents do. You see Donna as a prime mover in this? Yes. There's a lot of things that we have to do, and we've got a very tight time frame. They're boarding the plane.

We've been looking for places with no expedition. They believe they're about to make their great escape. I think the Adelsons became obsessed with Dan Markell, and obsession can make people do terrible things. Did you think, finally, the case has come to the doorstep of the family? It was an important new chapter, definitely. A murder plot unwinds and investigators say the trail leads to one family on a deadly mission. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with Family Matters. It all began like a typical vacation in November 2023.

A pair of senior citizens setting out for Miami Airport's international terminal. It is an Emirates airline flight that is leaving Miami bound for Dubai. They are ultimately going to connect and fly to Vietnam. Harvey was a prominent Florida dentist. Donna, his devoted wife. They're wealthy and they live a privileged life in Miami. Tickets and passports in hand. They check their luggage and head it for the gate. The passengers are all headed for the gate.

The passengers are all getting on the plane. They're boarding. Then everything changed in a snap. I was like, are you honestly kidding me right now? A team of federal agents and police officers swarmed the jetway. With guns and holsters, they surround this frail 73-year-old woman. Officers cuffed Donna and told her she was under arrest. They asked her to remove all her jewelry and personal effects, and she kissed her husband goodbye. Then it was off to the Miami Dade County Jail, where she posed for a mugshot that would blow up the internet. Her arrest was accelerated after investigators learned she was trying to leave the country. Soon she faced a

judge. Ms. Adelson, please keep your comments to yourself. So exactly who was this 73-year-old grandmother? Depends who you ask. Donna Adelson is like your meddling mother on steroids. The only thing Donna is guilty of is being a loving mother. And exactly how did she find herself in a jumpsuit facing a murder rap? Do you think that Donna is the

great villain in this story? I do. Donna, in my mind, is the architect. To get to the truth, we have to take you back to the summer of 2014 and the opening chapter of an epic crime saga in the Sunshine State. A tale of bitter divorce, dueling grandparents, twisted family ties, and the custody of two small boys that all started with a tragic and mysterious murder. Tonight, you'll hear all the newest hair-raising twists in a case that's full of them. The July day had begun routinely as Dan Markell, a beloved and accomplished law professor at

Florida State University, dropped off his two sons at school, swung by the gym for a workout, then drove up the driveway into his garage. Then, the quiet was suddenly shattered. A neighbor heard gunshots and called 911. He's inside, the car is running, and he's got blood all over his head. Dan Markell had taken two bullets to the head. His car window smashed, his eyeglasses broken, his assailants apparently pulling away.

My car was backing up. It was light-colored, white or silver. I want to say it was a Prius. It happened so fast, Dan's friends and neighbors, Jeremy and Tracy Cohen, didn't immediately realize what was wrong. I drove home and I drove by Danny's house and there was a police car in his driveway. What did you think had happened?

I just didn't dream that Danny could have been shot, you know, on a Friday in our neighborhood. It just didn't make any sense to me. Tallahassee authorities reached Dan's parents, Ruth and Phil, that afternoon. Shot, that doesn't make sense. No, who would ever want to shoot Dan Markell? For me, it was an out-of-body experience. Like, I can't, you know, even, don't even want to think about it in terms of that the moments were so horrific.

They quickly made their way to Tallahassee, but never did get to say goodbye. Dan Markell died overnight in the hospital. He was 41. It's tough to talk about until now. Dan's friend Josh Berman got the call at home in New York. I put the phone down. I sat there on the bed with my head in my hands. I was like, you know, speechless. So then the question is, who wants him dead? Right. And so that's when the theories started to fly.

There's a lot of moving parts and a lot of different agencies involved in this case. Jason Newland is the chief investigator for the Leon County State Attorney's Office and worked closely with the Tallahassee police and the FBI on the case. They started looking into Dan's life at the university. Could it be as simple as a student who got a bad grade or got thrown out of the law school coming back and taking his revenge? All of that was taken into consideration. Was it somebody that got a bad grade? Was it a co-worker? So investigators interviewed his students and fellow faculty members and combed through his email to see if there was any suspicious

correspondence. Nothing turned up. With his professional life not bearing any fruit, investigators took a hard look at Dan's personal life. Dan had been married to a fellow lawyer and professor at FSU, Wendy Adelson. She hailed from South Florida from a family of well-to-do dentists. Who do you think the glue was, mutually, the attraction? Wendy's definitely a sharp cookie. They had some overlapping interests, but quite candidly, they just seemed to be in love with each other. The couple had two sons and began raising them in Tallahassee. Dan loved the boys

more than anything else in the world. But after six years, Wendy and Dan's relationship began to crack. The day of reckoning came in September 2012. While Dan was away traveling for work, Wendy packed up the kids and left divorce papers on the bed. He called it his Pearl Harbor moment. Wendy got her own place in Tallahassee, and a War of the Roses-style battle began. I think it had been building and building. Stephen Webster was a divorce attorney for Dan and became a friend. As I understand it, Wendy Adelson wanted to take the children with her and move closer to her family in South Florida. Absolutely. Six, seven hours away. Was that the question?

That was the initial question. And family law court said you cannot do that. If the children are here in a stable environment and the father can participate fully with the raising of the children, the law prefers that and should. That motion was denied. We weren't going back there. Wendy stayed in Tallahassee with the boys as the court required, and her divorce from Dan became final in 2013. But the custody arrangement remained a sore point on both sides. 50-50 sharing arrangement with the kids. Yes, absolutely. And he availed himself of every second.

And quite frankly, you know, wanted some time that maybe she found offensive. According to court documents, Wendy was finding Dan's demands unreasonable. So Dan filed a motion for a hearing to work the issues out with a judge. On the scale of ugly, how ugly was this one? It was about to go off the Richter scale. Dan was killed before that hearing could happen. Now police were about to talk to Wendy,

who would be remarkably forthcoming about their bitter divorce and a whole lot more. Danny didn't treat me very well. Setting the stage for a Shakespearean tale that would rip apart two families. Baffle a team of law enforcement agencies.

You had this connection to the Miami underworld. You just thought, this can't be true. And ignite a decade-long search for justice. Were you involved in any way in a plot to kill Dan Markell? No. I believe that the truth has a way of coming out. The investigation into the death of Florida law professor Dan Markell was just hours old when his ex-wife, Wendy Adelson, first spoke to police.

There was a shooting. Your husband, your ex-husband, excuse me, Daniel, has been taken to the hospital. He's not going to survive. Oh, my God. Okay. I'm so sorry. I'm a monster and a spidey. What happened? Well, before we get into everything,

I have to establish where you were and who you were with and so forth. Okay. Okay? Oh, my God. I'm sorry. That's okay? Through tears, Wendy told the detective she'd been at her home that day, five miles from the crime scene.

Can you tell me what time you left your house this morning? Yeah, I was there. I didn't leave this morning. I didn't leave until noon. Okay. Oh, my God. And I tried to drive up triscott and i saw that it was blocked do you know anybody that would have a beef against your ex-husband oh my god i

hate to ask you now but i have to do it now you understand he always meant well but he would sometimes rub people the wrong way. Okay. But not, I don't know, do something like this. Oh, my God, poor kids. Where's your closest family at? My parents are in Coral Springs. Okay. And my brother, I have two brothers, but I'm very close to one of them who is in Fort Lauderdale. Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening.

Tallahassee police took photos and swabbed her hands for gunshot residue. None was found. Georgia Kappelman is chief assistant state attorney in Leon County, Florida, and would review the tape with law enforcement. She told the truth about the status of their relationship. That it wasn't a happy marriage in the end and it was a very bad divorce. Correct.

It certainly was of interest to law enforcement that there was an ongoing nasty divorce and litigation concerning these children. That's part of a classic recipe for homicides. Yep. But detectives later checked out her alibi and confirmed that she could not have shot her ex-husband. Now they wondered if someone she knew could be behind it.

Danny didn't treat me very well. And I'm so scared that maybe someone did this. Not because they hate Danny, but because they thought this was good somehow. Oh, are you saying that you think maybe one of your friends would have done something like this? Who would do this? I don't know. That's why you're here.

Wendy told them she'd been seeing another man after the divorce. Jeffrey Lacoste, an associate professor of social work at FSU. He's been my boyfriend. We've been dating since end of October. We had like a fight at the end of June, and it was weird. I asked him to just no contact for a week just so I could kind of figure out whether I wanted to be with him or not. When did you ask him that?

Monday night after yoga. Just a few days before Dan Markell was gunned down in his garage, Wendy said she wanted to cool things off because Jeff had become increasingly jealous. Is Jeff a violent person? No. Not at all? No. Jeff own a gun?

I don't think so. I mean, he certainly could have a gun and I wouldn't know about it. So the Tallahassee police tracked down Jeff LaCasse. Mr. LaCasse, I appreciate you coming in and talking with me here. Like I said, we're still in the preliminary stages of this investigation. Your name did come up. It's pretty clear, even from that initial interview, that the police, you know, they're interested in Jeff's relationship with Wendy. Journalist Matthew Scher created a podcast about the case called Over My Dead Body.

A case that says at least as much about marriage and love as it does about revenge and justice. Jeff, by his own admission, is in love, still in love with Wendy at that time. And yeah, look, of course the police must think, you know, Jeff didn't like Dan either, again, by his own admission. Have you met Wendy? Not personally. No. Very charismatic and very good at, I mean, once you date this girl, you just do anything for her.

I'm not the only man that's been under her thumb in that way. I mean, she really has this charisma and this sexuality, and so, you know, you throw yourself in front of a bus for this girl. Did you think Lacoste was still head over heels for Wendy? Oh, definitely. I think he would have loved another chance. To police, Jeff Lacoste seemed straight out of central casting. The jilted boyfriend.

A man who made no secret of his dislike for Dan. I certainly know the Danny, Markel, and Wendy story. I've been living through all this court s*** with her for the last nine months, you know, so. Wendy was afraid of Danny. Wendy would almost have a panic attack in front of Danny, which always made me... Wendy's pretty closed off. She doesn't disclose information easily.

I wonder if he used to beat her ass. I mean, I didn't know, you know, but she seemed out of proportion for a guy who's just kind of a general d***. Given everything Lacoste was saying about Dan, police had to wonder if he might have turned his anger into action. You've never had any kind of physical contact with Danny? No. I'm surprised you guys didn't call me earlier, though, because I probably said a hundred times in public that I like to kick his ass, because he kept, like, really making Wendy suffer and things like that.

Right. But no, I would never. I'm a professor and I'm a p***y. I didn't do anything like that. No, no. And it turned out he didn't. He was 500 miles away when Dan was shot. Friday I drove to Tennessee,

Harrogate, Tennessee, and I just got back. So he's got an alibi that holds up. He does. Whoever's in the driveway is not him. Correct. So who was in that driveway? Not Wendy and not her ex-boyfriend. It was time for police to find that car seen leaving the crime scene.

This is the date of the homicide. And you can actually see the Prius pull up to the ATM. Dan Markell's Jewish faith had been deeply important to him, and his memorial service at his Tallahassee synagogue was packed with friends and family, including Wendy and her parents. How did Wendy seem to be taking it? I mean, she cried after the ceremony, as you would expect, and she was overwhelmed and totally distraught. Then just days after the service, Wendy moved back to South Florida with her two boys to be near her family. Up in Tallahassee, homicide detectives were stumped.

Their best lead from the crime scene was a thin one, the possible getaway car a witness had told them about. It was light colored, white or silver. I want to say it was a Prius. The eyewitness was vague about the car's color, but the make and model provided a start. Detectives thought that car must have been following Dan that morning, so they retraced his travels and searched for clues.

So Jason, he's dropped the kids off at the preschool roughly, what, five minutes to nine, something like that? Close to that. And then he's driving right down this road to go to the gym. Cops found security video of Dan as he arrived at the gym at 9.13 a.m. You could see him checking in. We did see him scan his key card in. Then police checked security cameras outside the health club and hit a forensic home run.

What do you know? There was a Prius. It resembled the getaway vehicle described by the neighbor eyewitness. And it was following Dan when he drove in. In the video, you see them tail him across. Actually, this app is ruined right here. And then he cuts in and parks in one of these front roads right here, and they come on around this way. At 10.34 a.m., Dan leaves the gym.

When Dan drives out of the parking lot, the Prius is 20 seconds behind him. He leaves the parking lot here and is headed back towards his house. At that point, he is being hunted. They're not going to let him out of their sights? They're not. That's where the video trail stopped. Until police remembered, Tallahassee buses have their own cameras inside and out. They collected surveillance video from buses driving near Dan's neighborhood around the time he was shot. Bingo. There at 1047 a.m. on the southbound road Dan took home was the Prius, multiple angles of it driving toward the Markell house. And investigators discovered another video from another bus recorded moments after the

murder. There was the same Prius heading away from the scene of the crime. You have a lot of active movements in the passenger seat, which would make you believe there's two people in the car. Two killers? Forensic experts screened those surveillance videos again and again. They couldn't read the license plate, but did determine the Prius was a model released between 2006 and 2009. Police had spotted one more thing, a SunPass toll tag on the Prius windshield.

500 miles south, a silver Prius had passed a transponder on I-75 heading toward Tallahassee the afternoon before Dan was killed. What's more, the same SunPass dinged the very same turnpike exit in the opposite direction on the day Dan died. Timestamped 5.23 p.m.

The timeline fit the shooting window perfectly. It was assigned to an actual business. The SunPass business account came back to a small car rental agency in North Miami. The renter, one Luis Rivera. His true cell phone number and correct Miami address were on the form. Also on the paperwork, cops found another cell phone number marked simply brother. You get one name. How do you get the second name? The second name came through phone records and a whole lot more investigation. And that's how you end up establishing Sigfredo Garcia.

Two names known to law enforcement, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera. Both had criminal records. Garcia had been arrested for robbery and burglary, and Rivera was a member of the Latin Kings gang. A little more investigation turned up bank records. And they were able to locate a withdrawal from a bank down in Pembroke Pines. This is on the day of the murder? This is the date of the homicide, and you can see Luis Rivera driving,

and he sits forward, and you can clearly see Sigfredo Garcia sitting in the passenger seat. There on the day of Dan Markell's murder were their two prime suspects, together in a silver Prius that was a perfect match for the vehicle seen stalking Dan. It had taken cops nearly 22 months to make their case. Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera were arrested and charged with the murder of Dan Markell. Both men pleaded not guilty, But it was far from case closed. The arrests only deepened the mystery of Dan Markell's murder. Why would two guys from South Florida, who apparently had no contact with Professor Markell,

drive 500 miles to kill somebody they don't know? That's what we're all trying to get to. Nearly two years after Dan Markell was gunned down in his Tallahassee garage, cops had two men in custody. The accused, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera Rivera were occasional Miami construction workers with criminal histories. From the moment the pair were arrested, police suspected a larger conspiracy, a murder for hire. It was not a random act that they came up here for him. Dan's friend, Josh Berman, agreed. These guys, Garcia and Rivera, they didn't wake up one fine morning and say,

we've got two options. We can hang out on the beach and drink, or we can go rent a car, drive, you know, to Tallahassee, spend the night, go murder some guy we never met, point blank in his garage, and then drive back. I mean, the police have called this a murder for hire, and these guys didn't hire themselves. Investigators believed if they learned more about their suspects, they'd come closer to figuring out who put them up to the killing. Garcia has less of a criminal history than Rivera, but also, you know, pretty bad actor. They discovered that right after Dan Markell's death,

the two men went on a spending spree, buying cars and motorcycles. It seemed they'd come into major amounts of discretionary cash. But where had it come from? Who was the paymaster with the money, the malice, and the desire to see Dan Markell dead? Stymied detectives went back into their notes and delved deeper into the legal filings that flew back and forth during Dan and Wendy's divorce. Their documents led the cops down another path, one that took them from the shadiest side of the Miami underworld to a highly respected and prosperous family of professionals,

the Adelsons, Dan Markell's former in-laws. It had never been a particularly good relationship between Dan and Wendy's parents. There was not a lot of love lost between the two families. How toxic did it get? Well, cops discovered that in the divorce suit Markel vs. Markel, Wendy had a forceful person in her corner, her mother, Donna Adelson. In a series of emails, she encouraged Wendy to go low, fight dirty. Hi honey, it's time for action. Let's show this F what will make him absolutely miserable. But first, Donna told Wendy the family was going to make Dan a big money offer to back down. Investigator Jason Newland learned that even Wendy's brother, Charlie,

was planning to kick in a few hundred thousand dollars. There were emails that were collected throughout this process, and there was communication between Wendy and Donna about just to offer him a million dollars and tell him to raise the kids in a certain way. Just go. Here's a million bucks. Yeah. But Dan's tension and ill will toward his mother-in-law was off the charts. Three months before his murder, he filed a motion asking the court to prevent his sons from spending unsupervised time with Wendy's mother. What's the backdrop of this thing? One of the grandchildren

said, you know, basically grandmommy hates daddy and had made some other remarks around Danny that suggested that she had kind of referred to him in a derogatory fashion. So he, Dan, does not want grandma poisoning the kids? No. Wendy also put her parents smack in the middle of the homicide investigation with a seemingly offhand remark during her police interview. My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. He hurt their daughter. Wendy's folks harming Dan Markell seemed improbable given their circumstances. Her dad, Harvey, was a prominent dentist who, along with her mother, Donna, ran the Adelson Dental Institute in Tamarack, Florida. They were a five-star family as far as I could see. Ben Graber is a Coral Springs physician and former state representative.

He first met the Adelsons in the 1980s and became Harvey's patient. Seemed like a very nice guy. He had a good reputation, good feelings and those type of things. Seemed like a very nice guy. Had a good reputation, good feelings and those type of things. His wife was very pleasant. Donna was a go-getter too, who charmed the Wheel of Fortune audience when she appeared on the show

and solved the puzzle in 1989. Meet Donna Adelson from Coral Springs, Florida. I want to hear all about you, Donna. Let's go. Well, I'm a domestic coordinator. A domestic a domestic coordinator yes i'm responsible for the activities classes and lessons of my son robert who was 16 charlie who was 12 wendy who was 10 my husband harvey who's in the audience i used to laugh i can't believe she has the guts to do that you know her kids were her life and like most families things got complicated as they got older.

The oldest, Rob, moved away and saw the family less and less. The middle child, Charlie, faced disciplinary problems in school. My name is Dr. Charlie Adelson, and I am a periodontist. He eventually joined the family business and had a lucrative implant practice. What I love about what I do is being able to restore people's smiles. Dr. Charlie was also a flashy figure around the Miami area with some eye-catching rides. He lives the lifestyle of a single successful guy, right? He's got the sports cars with the license plate that say Maestro. Donna saw her youngest child, Wendy,

as someone who needed protecting, a task Charlie often took upon himself. Investigators quickly learned he was Wendy's confidant and had her back. She even brought it up in her police interview. My brother, the one, his name is Charlie, the one I'm really close to, he knew Danny treated me badly and it was always his joke. He said, I name is Charlie, the one I'm really close to. He knew Danny treated me badly, and it was always this joke. He said, I looked into hiring a hitman, and it was cheaper to get you this TV, so instead I got you this TV. I mean, he would never. He's my big brother.

According to Wendy Adelson, it was suggested by the brother in the form of a joke. But it's a very strange thing to say. Very. In light of the circumstances, it wouldn't be any big deal if he was alive and well with us. It was all very interesting, this smoke gathering around Wendy Adelson and her family of dentists. Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, those two suspected hitmen, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, sat in prison until one made a deal. Rivera flipped on Garcia and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a reduced sentence. He told investigators that Garcia said he had a contract to kill Dan and needed the gangbanger's help. I'm going to kill this guy. You're going to get paid this much, $35,000.

We're driving. He showed me a picture of Markell. The night before the murder, Rivera said, they checked into a motel not far from Dan Markell's home. Friday morning, went to Markell's house. Followed him to the gym, waited in the parking lot for a while. That's when he came out of the gym and followed home. We met him right in the parking lot for a while. So when he came out of the gym, I followed him home. We met him right in the garage. I was like, maybe like three or four feet away from his car. Garcia jumps out, goes around the car.

Think Markel was on the phone that day. Shot him twice, got in the car, we left. Kid's driving. I mean, it's as cold-blooded a killing as you can get to drive all the way to Tallahassee and pull up into someone's driveway that you don't know and just shoot him in cold blood. We dumped a gun towards a bridge. Can't remember that bridge. Hard as they tried, investigators never did find the gun. So do you believe this guy? He's got a bad record.

A lot of what he tells you can be corroborated with evidence, and that's what you go with. And Rivera offered an answer to the cop's biggest question. What was the motive for Dan Markell's murder? Because I asked him, why are you going to kill your dad? Because the lady wants her two kids back. She wants full custody of them kids.

That's what I went to go kill that man for. But how did Garcia know that? Katie. I guess Katie told him everything. Katie. Who was Katie? Police were about to hear a lot about her. And what they learned would set the stage for an elaborate undercover sting

with an unlikely target, Grandma Adelson. I'm scared. Luis Rivera told police that after his partner, Sigfredo Garcia, killed Dan Markell, they quickly hit the road back to Miami, and Garcia made a phone call. He called her, and he said, everything is done. Make sure you have my money. I'm on my way. The woman at the other end was Garcia's romantic partner, the mother of his children, Katie Magbanawa, a name the detectives already knew very well.

Their investigation had turned up some critical details about her. She was employed at a couple dental practices. She was employed at a bar at one point. A modest income at best. Yet in a curious bit of timing, Katie's cash flow and South Florida standard of living suddenly improved after Dan Markell was murdered in Tallahassee. Her bank account for the end of 2014 through 2015 went from a minimal low-income bank account to $100,000 cycling through in less than a year. In fact, on the day after the Markell murder,

Luis Rivera says Garcia and Katie personally delivered a bag full of money to his house. He says he got thirty thousand dollars and that Garcia ended up giving him a cut of his, which ended up putting it at like thirty five, thirty six thousand dollars. But where did the money come from? Once again, it was Katie's bank account that provided prosecutors with a tantalizing clue. She was getting a paycheck from the Adelsons. 400 bucks and change. Correct. Was there any obvious work that she was doing? There was no obvious work that law enforcement was able to uncover, yet she's drawing a paycheck. Check signed by none other than Donna Adelson, Wendy's mom.

But it turns out Katie's connection to the Adelsons ran a lot deeper than a few cash checks. Because she is the girlfriend or recent ex-girlfriend of Charlie Adelson, Wendy Adelson's brother. So there's your heavy, your hit guys. One of them has a girlfriend, Katie McBonawale, who has also been a girlfriend of Charlie Adelson? Correct. So she's in the middle of these two camps. She's been romantically linked to the victim's in-laws and to the actual killer.

Boy, that's straddling two worlds. Mm-hmm. A review of DMV documents also revealed that Katie was driving a Lexus that came from the Adelsons. She did get a car that was previously in the name of Harvey Adelson. Generous? You bet. But Jason Newland says Charlie Adelson hadn't finished providing Katie with certain upgrades. We were informed at one point that Charlie paid for half of her breast augmentation. Done by a guy known in South Florida circles as Dr. Bubner?

Dr. Bubner, yeah. By the summer of 2016, the investigators believed it all made for a tidy theory. That these two criminals gunned down Dan Markell in a hit set up by Katie McManua and paid for by Dan's angry in-laws. But a theory isn't evidence. There's just no communication with anybody that we can find or that anybody will tell us that says the Adelson's are involved. So investigators hatched a plan. In late April 2016, nearly two years after Dan's murder, they decided to put a squeeze on the family in the form of an FBI undercover sting on Donna Adelson.

Agents tracked her down as she headed to pick up her grandsons from school. She's going to be wearing green, black, and white tops. Would Grandma Adelson blurt out something incriminating? Excuse me, Mrs. Adelson? How you doing? Just wanted to give you this. He's an FBI agent, and he is going to approach Donna Adelson on the street and imply that he is somehow affiliated with Luis Rivera and give her a piece of paper which contains an article

about the homicide. And written on the letter is $5,000 and a phone number. I'm scared. Don't be scared. Listen, I just want to let you know that we know that your family has been taking care of Katie and her friends for quite some time. After your problem of North End has been solved. Tuto is a nickname Garcia used.

He says something to the effect of, you're taking care of Katie and Garcia, but you're not taking care of my boy. He doesn't say the name, but the implication is that it's Rivera. I want to let you know that my brother, he's incarcerated. He helped your family with this problem you guys had up north. I don't know that.

Well, this will explain it. She has the paper. They're walking away. He's walking down southbound. So this is an extortion, a blackmail letter. Yes. And it ruffles her feathers. Yes. And you know that because you're listening to her calls, too.

Correct. Well, I'm listening to Charlie's calls. She calls Charlie. She calls Charlie. I got some paperwork hand-delivered to me. You're being sued? No. Does it involve me or other people?

Well, probably both of us. What's that? Probably the two of us. So you probably have a general idea what I'm talking about. You think someone's trying to blackmail you? Maybe. Could be. No.

That's crazy. After that cryptic conversation with his mother, Charlie Adelson called Katie. Hello. Hey, what's going on? Which, of course, is exactly what investigators were hoping for. I don't know what's going on. Mm-hmm. But my mom, she said that someone approached her on the street, called her by name, handed her an envelope with something in it.

Yeah. And somebody was, she really wouldn't go into detail. I have no idea what this is in reference to. Uh-huh. I have no idea what this is in reference to, but something regarding her son, something regarding his ex-girlfriend, and the person asking my mom for some money. And there was another key conversation. It was caught on video in this Miami restaurant called Dolce Vita and suggested this Florida periodontist might have a violent streak. Though the audio was hard to make out, when investigators transcribed it, they believed Charlie was speaking with Katie about the blackmailer. You better kill him because he's going to be a big problem. If you can't do it, I'll have someone else do it.

He used the word we'd have to kill this guy, right? Yeah. It sounded suspicious, but because of the low audio, prosecutors weren't certain about the context. All the FBI surveillance produced some intriguing conversations, but in the end, it did not produce any evidence of complicity. There's no smoking gun. No one says, I, you know, this is exactly how this went down. But at least for Katie McBonwa, prosecutors believed they had a case they could make. In October 2016, she was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. She pleaded not guilty.

Good luck to you. Setting the stage for a momentous trial for McBonwa and her companion, Sigfredo Garcia, and one of the star witnesses would be Wendy Adelson herself. Sigfredo Garcia and Katie McBua had been partners in life and were now alleged partners in crime. Their trial began in Tallahassee in late September of 2019. Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman laid out the evidence. Catherine Magbanua was hired to solicit Garcia, who in turn solicited Rivera to come to Tallahassee

and to execute Mr. Markell in cold blood. Luis Rivera, who had taken a deal to turn state's evidence, gave his account of the murder. Soon as he pulled in, Garcia jumped off. He jumped out of the car and went around, went to the driver's side and shot him. He said he got paid $35,000. Prosecutors believe the money came from Wendy's family, who were not to be found in the courtroom.

But the jury did hear from the Adelson's in the evidence, including the video from that FBI sting operation. And the wiretap surveillance of Katie Charlie and his mother. You know, it sounds like a cop is fishing, that's where an investigator or someone's playing games. In the end, the case would come down to the testimony of the two women at the center of it. First up, Wendy, who testified for the prosecution. My name is Wendy Adelson. She was given some immunity to testify. Her statements on the stand couldn't be used against her.

Were you involved in any way in a plot to kill Dan Markell? No. Wendy told the jury she'd never met the alleged hitman, Sigfredo Garcia, but she had met Katie. The state showed the jury this photo of the two of them on the beach together in June 2014, just a month before Dan's murder. And she had a ready defense for her brother, Charlie. Did he ever joke about he looked into hiring a hitman, but buying you a TV as a divorce present would be cheaper? He did make that joke. He tended to repeat himself, and sometimes he would make jokes that weren't very funny,

about all kinds of things. When it was time to make their case, defense lawyers for Katie Magbanoa and Sigfredo Garcia ignored the Adelson family at first. Garcia's lawyer, Sam Zangane, told jurors the state star witness, Luis Rivera, was a lying snitch who flipped to save his own skin. The only person who can tell you that Sigfredo Garcia got out of the car and purportedly shot Dan Markell is who?

The guy who got the deal of a lifetime. Both defendants were offered an opportunity to testify on their own behalf. Sigfredo Garcia passed. But in a bold, perhaps risky legal maneuver, Katie Magbanwa took the stand in her own defense. Did you have anything to do with the murder of Dan Markell? No, ma'am. Did you get the father of your children, Mr. Garcia, to commit a murder on behalf of Mr. Charlie Adelson?

No, ma'am. Her lawyer walked her through some of the state's most damning allegations, including the charge that the Adelsons had given her thousands of dollars. Katie said no. She supported herself.

She said she worked as a bottle girl, promoting liquor brands at bars and clubs. And as she told it, tips were good. What was a good night for you at the club?

A good night for me? I can walk out of there with $1,000 to $1,500. No blood money from the Adelson, she said. Not even for that augmentation surgery. Charlie didn't pay for that. Who paid for your breast implants? I did. How did you pay for your breast implants?

Well, from my cash tips. All along, the state had hoped Katie would turn and reveal other figures as the real masterminds of the murder. And in her defense, she did point the finger at Charlie, sort of. Do you have information that Charlie Adelson was involved in this? Do I have information? I mean, based on everything that we've been seeing, but I don't have personal information. Based on everything you've seen, do you think Charlie was involved in this?

Yes. In closing arguments, the defense attorneys asserted that Charlie may have been involved, but without the help of their two clients. They were innocent. Now it was up to the jurors. They were about to stun the courtroom and send the investigation even closer to the Adelson family's doorstep. It had been more than five years since Dan Markell was shot in his driveway in one of the most cold-blooded killings Tallahassee, Florida had ever seen. Now Judgment Day had arrived for the couple on trial for the murder. Sigfredo Garcia faced a possible death sentence for pulling the trigger, and Katie McBonoa faced a possible life sentence for setting it up.

Dan's parents waited anxiously in court. We didn't have a feeling of any guarantees. It was quite tense for us. I was very nervous. Jury's in the courtroom. After 10 hours of deliberations, the jury came back with a verdict, but for just one defendant. State of Florida versus Sigfrido Garcia, the defendant is guilty of first degree murder. And what about Katie? The jurors could not reach a verdict. As to Ms. McBanawa, I will declare this case mistried. Outside court, prosecutor Georgia Kappelman vowed to try Katie again. So what's next for you then? Regroup and try to do it better next time. Phil and Ruth Markell were left with mixed feelings,

relieved by Garcia's conviction. But the mistrial experience was actually quite upsetting, shocking, and we had to pull ourselves together because it was like really something that we had not anticipated. The judge sentenced Garcia to life in prison for murdering her son Dan, setting a retrial date for Katie. But as the Markells sought justice, their primary goal was something else, to see their grandsons. I'm in love with my grandkids. That's the priority of my life. The two grandsons have been living with their mother Wendy in South

Florida ever since their father's murder. Grandma Donna would frequently babysit. After Dan's death, Wendy would arrange time for his parents to come down from Canada to visit the boys. But in 2016, that changed. Wendy not only put a stop to those visits, she changed the boys' last name. They're no longer going to be known as Markell, they're going to be Adelson's. She said she did it for their security. Does that make sense to you? Not at all. I could never figure that out. If you're going to change their names and hide them from the public, you'd name them Smith or Jones or some other name, certainly not

Adelson. In my opinion, she just wanted to eliminate the Markell family from their lives. Ruth and Phil took action. They worked with a legal team and Florida state legislators to pass the Markell Act. If the natural parent has civil or criminal charges towards the deceased partner, it gives the grandparents permission to go to before a court where they can get visitation. In February 2022, the bill passed in the Florida Statehouse and the Markells got an email from Wendy. It would lead to their first visit with the boys in six years. By then, they were 11 and 12 years old. And I said, can we give you a hug?

And we hugged, and it was unbelievable. There aren't words to express the feelings. I don't think that it could have been a better visit, you know, under the circumstances. During that visit, the Markells had no idea that investigators in Tallahassee had just made a major breakthrough. As they prepared for Katie's second trial, prosecutors took that surveillance video of Charlie and Katie in this restaurant, known as the Dolce Vita tape, to an audio expert to see if he could make it easier to hear. Stephen Epstein is an attorney and author of a book about the Markell case, Extreme Punishment.

Keith McElveen, who for 10 years was working with the CIA, his job was to figure out ways to pick individual voices out of noisy environments. Rattle and clatter of lunch hour at this place. To basically blur out that extraneous noise. And for 41 minutes of the Dolce via meeting, he did that. And there are some priceless gems in there. The audio of their conversation is still low, but easier to understand. In the first enhanced clip, Charlie tells Katie, suggesting, according to prosecutors, that if he really feared arrest, he'd be on a plane.

And in another moment later in the conversation, Charlie is wondering why this scary character in that FBI sting targeted his mom and not him. He just keeps pointing the finger directly at himself. Is that the best evidence you have tying Katie to this family? It's the best evidence we have tying the Adelsons into this crime. In April 2022, armed without evidence, prosecutors went to a grand jury, which indicted Charlie Adelson on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation of murder. The FBI arrived at Charlie's house in Fort Lauderdale a little before six the next morning. This is a residential neighborhood, and they surround it in every way. And one of the officers gets caught on either barbed or razor wire

because Charlie had it protected like a fortress. So they call Charlie. No answer. They call him on a cell. No answer. They try calling him one last time before they storm it. And this time, Charlie answers, and they tell him to come out. He walks out, shields his eyes, and what they see is a guy wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. And he looks at everything going on. He says, am I under arrest? How'd you hear Charlie was busted? They'd taken him down. Oh, I probably got five texts at once. And, you know. And you said what? Something profane. Like it's about time. Yeah, exactly. Charlie Adelson was transferred from Miami to the Leon County Jail.

And just a month later, he got more bad news. In her second trial, Katie was found guilty of first-degree murder. Thanks in part to that new and improved Dolce Vita tape. The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. Do you swear? And Katie's time on stage wasn't over. She would come to Charlie's trial with a new story. Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markell?

Charlie. You may see. Wendy would return to court, too, and face much tougher questions about Dan's murder. Your family had your ex-husband killed to try to help you, didn't they? Dan Markell's parents, Phil and Ruth, found themselves in both familiar and unfamiliar territory as they entered a Leon County courtroom in October 2023 for the trial of Charlie Adelson,

the accused mastermind of the plot to kill their son. When you actually walk in a courtroom and you recognize the offender, who he's from and the family, it was a really different experience. Dan's family listened intently as prosecutors Georgia Kappelman and Sarah Dugan presented their case against Charlie Adelson, often using his own words against him. You may take your seat. Jeffrey LaCasse, Wendy's ex-boyfriend, testified that Charlie had bragged to him about having contacts in the criminal underworld. He also told the jury an explosive story.

Wendy confided in him that Charlie had gone much further than merely joking about a TV being cheaper than a hitman. In a very serious tone of voice, told me that Charlie had investigated all possible options to take care of the problem of Danny Markell, including hiring a hitman. So definitely not the to-be-confused-with-the-TV joke? No, I'd heard that joke repeatedly.

This was something very different. It made my stomach flip. I found it disturbing. Prosecutors laid out all the electronic evidence they'd gathered over the years. Phone calls, text messages, and wiretaps that drew a link from Charlie to Katie to the killers. But that evidence took a back seat when a familiar witness took the stand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give? Wendy Adelson, the sister of the accused, again testified for the state under an immunity agreement, but that wouldn't protect her from a withering direct examination.

Your family had your ex-husband killed to try to help you, didn't they? No, that's completely untrue. Were you involved in any way in the plot to kill your ex-husband? Absolutely not. Did you know what was going to happen, but maybe not know the details? I knew nothing. In some of the earlier cases, they treated her more as just a witness. David Latt went to college with Dan Markell and has reported on the case extensively for his Substack original jurisdiction. And as more evidence has emerged, they do seem to believe

that Wendy was involved and their trial presentation reflected that. And in fact, prosecutors referred to Wendy in court documents as one of the co-conspirators to the murder, who had the motive, and along with her mom and brother, initiated the plot to kill Dan. How did the killers in this case know that Dan Markell was planning to leave town the day after the killing? I have no idea. You knew he was planning to leave town the day after the killing? I have no idea. You knew he was planning to leave town the next day, didn't you? I did, yes. Did you convey that information to anyone?

Absolutely not. But if she knew nothing about the murder the prosecutor pressed, why had she driven past the taped-off crime scene on the day Dan was shot, despite having no reason to be in his neighborhood, something investigators had long felt was suspicious. Did you attempt to call Dan Markell when you encountered the roadblock? No, I didn't think anything of it. I didn't think it was related to the house.

Wendy remained adamant that neither she nor Charlie was involved in the murder. Did your brother ever mention hiring a hitman to kill Dan Markell? No. But Kappelman reminded Wendy that she had named Charlie as a possible suspect the very day Dan was shot. He knew Danny treated me badly and it was always his joke.

You know, I looked into hiring a hitman and it was cheaper to get you this TV. While I was talking with law enforcement for six hours, terrified out of my mind, I offered them every possible idea I could come up with. Right. And one of the possible ideas was that your brother

could have murdered your child's father. I didn't really believe that was possible. Was part of the plot for you to be able to have plausible deniability about this? Absolutely not. When she stepped down from the stand, could you still believe that she was held inside these fire doors and knew nothing about what had happened? It's impossible to believe that Wendy has known all these years nothing about what's happened. Prosecutors clearly wanted the jury to view Wendy's testimony skeptically.

That's not for other questions. But when the other woman at the center of the case took the stand, prosecutors had a different goal. Please raise your right hand. And here comes Katie McBonoa again. So she comes into court this time around as a state's witness. Katie had twice sat in this box and sworn under oath

that she had nothing to do with the murder of Dan Markell. But now she was testifying as a convicted killer, serving a life sentence. Were you in the middle? Yes, ma'am, I was. After years of denials,

Katie finally admitted her involvement in the murder, and not just hers. Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markell? Charlie. The question for the prosecutors, how do you rehabilitate this person in the jury's eyes so they'll believe her? With details.

She described very specifically what Charlie did, starting with planting the seed in her mind. It was a seed planted in Ernest nine months before the murder, with a simple question. What was the question? Do you know anybody that can harm someone? And did you know anybody that could harm someone? Yes, ma'am, I did. Who was that? Sigfredo.

Sigfredo Garcia, the convicted trigger man in Dan's murder and the father of Katie's two children. And the person Charlie wanted hurt? How did the defendant refer to this person, if not by the name Dan or Danny Markell? Wendy's husband. Katie says she convinced Sigfredo to commit the murder, but felt he wouldn't do it if he knew it was for Charlie, because he saw him as a romantic rival. So she didn't tell him.

She explained to the jury how she passed the instructions from Charlie to Sigfredo without the two having to meet in person. 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, and basically give that paper to the other person. 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. And what about licking the envelope? And that he didn't lick the envelope or the contents? Yes, ma'am. He said he wore a glove so that there's no fingerprints on it. And what about licking the envelope?

And that he didn't lick the envelope. Katie testified that after the murder, she went to Charlie's house to get the payment. Charlie had the money packaged up for her, stapled in stacks, she said. And something else about the money was odd. It was damp. I believe his parents or his mom might have washed

the money. You mean like physically washed the money? Yes, ma'am. Katie believed Charlie's mom did that before dropping the money off at his house, her husband Harvey in tow. 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. Katie had just put Donna Adelson, Charlie's mother, smack in the middle of the conspiracy. She also said her payment for the killing included those checks from the Adelson Institute signed by Donna. Did you perform any job at the Adelson Institute? No, ma'am, I did not.

And finally, Katie explained to the jury exactly what was going on in that now infamous Dolce Vita tape. What he was speaking of was probably the FBI or Tato blackmailing their family. And by Tato, you mean Rivera? Luis Rivera, yes, ma'am. Is this finally the unvarnished truth from Katie McManua? It's certainly a lot closer to the truth than what we heard from her before, which was that she knew nothing. This version is a lot more believable.

But according to Charlie's attorneys, the real unvarnished truth about Dan Markell's murder was something nobody, not even the prosecutor sitting at the next table over, had heard before. On that day, two crimes occurred. The first one, the state knows about. The other one, they don't know about. They're about to find out like you. But before we get there, I like cliffhangers.

So do we. And you won't believe the story you're about to hear from Charlie Adelson himself. But this was Charlie basically saying this the whole time. Charlie Adelson's ex-girlfriend Katie Magbanoa was unswerving in her testimony against him. But Charlie's attorney says she did plenty of swerving in the years leading up to this appearance on the stand. She's told more than two versions. She's lied when she was arrested. She's lied in the first trial. She's lied in the second trial. And then her story changes again when she's on the stand. So in his cross-examination, Dan Rashbaum attacked Katie Magbanova's credibility. I told you I lied in my first and second trial to save myself.

Just like you're lying here to save yourself, right? I'm not saving myself. I'm telling the truth this time. Right, because now, all of a sudden, after eight years, you have developed a conscience. What happened after that was a high-stakes gamble for the defense.

We called Charlie Adelson. Charlie Adelson himself took the stand with a brand-new version of events. And this guy gets out of the defense. We called Charlie Adelson. Charlie Adelson himself took the stand with a brand new version of events. And this guy gets out of the car. Startling, jaw-dropping, and totally out of the blue. He claimed two crimes had been committed, the murder of Dan Markell and the extortion of Charlie Adelson. When you heard it, you know this case so well. What did you think? My jaw dropped open. Did you cause the death of Professor Dan Markell? Absolutely no.

Charlie told the jury his own nightmare began the very day Dan was murdered. Katie came over to his house that night, and she was in a panic. She said, listen, this is all my fault.

I had no idea anything was going to happen, but this is totally my fault. I spoke in too much detail about your family's personal problems, about your sister, Dan Markell, and the million-dollar offer. That would be the million dollars the Adelsons talked about giving Dan if he'd let his children move to South Florida. What did you say? I'm like, what are you talking about? And she's like, she's like, my friend killed Dan. And he wants to be paid a third of a million dollars.

What happened next? I stood up and I started cursing it. I'm like, what the f*** are you kidding me? And she's like, no. I'm like, who did this? Who's your friend that did this? And she's like, I don't want to say, I can't say. But it was clear they were talking about Sigfredo Garcia.

And I'm like, Katie, I'm not going to be part of this. Like, I'm not going to be part of paying for a murder. This is insane. And she's like, look, if you don't pay in 48 hours, they will kill you. And I said, Katie, I feel like I'm getting extorted now. Did she tell you that they would just kill you or they would also kill other people? She said, he'd come after you, he'd come after the family. Like, Charlie, you don't have a choice. Just pay the money. He testified he didn't have that much money, but he did have $138,000 in his safe. She put it in her purse and she asked me,

she goes, how can you get the rest? Charlie said he couldn't ask his parents, they'd go right to the police. She asked me, she said, well, can you pay like $3,000 a month? And

I said, yeah, I can do that. And while most killers don't agree to installment plans, these guys apparently did. Now, at this point in time, did you have any idea that she was part of the extortion? No, no. She kept saying it was all her fault

and that she didn't know any of this was going to happen. Charlie's version of how much money was involved and how it changed hands didn't always square with what investigators learned, but he added more details, telling the jury that a few weeks after the killing, Katie seemed to be looking for a cut of the $3,000 monthly payment. She said, can you do me a favor? I need to get health insurance for my kids. According to Charlie, Katie suggested he peel $1,000 off the extortion payment each month and put it in a payroll check to her.

I said, I'll do it for you. No problem. I mean, I wanted to keep her happy. Charlie said his mother did the books for the dental practice, so she set up the payments for Katie to go through the company payroll. And she's like, well, what's Katie going to be doing? And I go, oh, she's just going to be helping me out with some stuff and different things. As for the key evidence that knew and improved video that helped pave the way for Charlie's arrest, he had an explanation for that, too. Why didn't you specifically mention the word extortion in Dolce Vita? I was being

real careful when I spoke to Katie. I would never say the word extortion to her. Charlie Adelson's explanation of how he got sucked into a murder extortion plot was convoluted. Some just called it crazy. What did you think? Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I thought these guys were out of their mind. Even his attorney admits at first it sounded like a stretch.

So when I hear it the first time, I think it is, I think it sounds crazy. You've got a very complicated theory, which addresses all the dots and T's that need to be crossed. But what about the fact that these guys are strangers to Dan Markell? I mean, that doesn't seem to make sense. We're going to kill this guy and then hope we get $300,000? But that's the same exact thing in the murder-for-hire theory, too, because the testimony's clear that they didn't get paid before the murder. So they're doing a murder-for-hire, according to the state,

with the hopes of getting paid later. It doesn't make any sense. Attorney Rashbaum spent more than a day questioning Charlie about his alleged ordeal. But Charlie's time on the stand wasn't over. Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman was about to get her shot. Do you think you can talk your way out of this?

No, I don't. I'm not part of the murder. Inside the Leon County Courthouse, a lot of people watching Charlie Adelson's murder trial thought his defense that he was in fact a victim of extortion was just ludicrous. She said, ask me if I could pay $3,000 a month. But Charlie was detailed, thorough, and ready with an answer to every one of his attorney's questions. He had to come up with an answer for every text mail, intercepted phone message. Charlie seemed to be able to speak to all of that stuff. Did you worry that he was going to find one juror to believe it? Oh yeah, absolutely. Right. If

prosecutor Georgia Kappelman was worried, she didn't show it. In her cross-examination, she didn't even try to hide her disdain. Doctor, have you ever heard the saying that the simplest explanation is always the most likely? Have you heard that? I've heard that theory before, yeah. Do you agree that the only problem with having an explanation for everything is that there's just so many explanations. There's no explanation. I explained what happened. She zeroed in on one big overriding question. Why would these alleged extortionists even want to kill Dan Markell? Why did Garcia and Rivera or whoever did it need to kill someone to extort you? You gotta ask them. You could have gotten extorted for life just by the threat of death by Latin King, couldn't you, Doctor?

This was as real of a threat as you get. These guys aren't messing around. But, she asked, did he see any evidence that gang members were waiting outside in the dark, ready to kill him if he didn't pay up. Were you led to believe or told that the bad guys are outside, right outside your apartment or your residence? No, but I was led to believe what they did to Dan they were going to do to me. I heard you say that, but my question is, did she say, like, the car is running, I'm going to take the money out there to him right now? No, she never told me that they were waiting for me outside my house. In fact, she stayed the night with you, didn't she?

Yes, she did. And didn't exit your house with your $138,000 until the next day, right? Correct. According to the prosecutor, nothing Charlie did was consistent with someone who was a victim of extortion. She asked Charlie about his cozy relationship with Katie, which continued even after she brought so much danger into his life. Did you offer that she could use your Range Rover anytime? I said she could borrow the car, sure.

Did she talk about getting a boat and you offered to help her get a boat? I never offered to help her get a boat. I never offered to help her get a boat. I offered to help her look for a boat. Did you pay for the breast augmentation? No. So when she's saying at the same time she's the day of the breast augmentation, can I just put it on the credit card? Is she referring to something else, some other expense? I have no idea what she's referring to, but I did not pay for her boo job. Kappelman addressed that all-important surveillance video and how it seemed to reveal a tight, ongoing connection to Katie following the murder. What's the purpose of keeping Katie happy?

Was she going to sick the Latin kings on you if you made her unhappy? She was protecting me. I didn't know what would happen. Do you think you can talk your way out of this? No, I don't. I'm not part of a murder. Prosecutor Kappelman's cross-examination was detailed.

But to some observers, like Dan Markell's old college friend David Latt, Kaplman failed to land a knockout blow. I thought she was just going to really body-slam him here, and that didn't happen. But her closing argument was certainly hard-hitting.

She argued that Charlie's story, even with all those details, still did not make sense. Please think about that. These two dudes, with no connection at all to Dan Markell, and without two nickels to rub together, rented a car and paid for gas to come to Tallahassee in order to kill someone that this defendant hated. And for what?

To maybe get money? Why not just kill and rob him if what you're after is money and there's no hired hit? And through it all, the prosecutor made it clear that this deadly conspiracy didn't end with Charlie and Katie

and the two hitmen. Kappelman alleged that Donna Adelson and perhaps even Wendy also played roles in the crime. Wendy appears to be the weakling of the pack. She needs to be protected. Donna is the overbearing matriarch. And this defendant fancied himself the savior of this family.

Equal parts black sheep and mama's boy. He would often try to help Wendy at Donna's bidding. For its closing, the defense encouraged the jurors to look closely, objectively, at each detail in the case and consider the possibility that the simplest explanation is not always the truth. That proposition that the simple answer is the preferred answer is the exact opposite of what our criminal justice system is about. Sometimes things aren't so simple, and that's what we have in this case. Charlie's attorney argued he had no motive to kill Dan Markell. Charlie Adelson had a good life. His business was booming. He was supportive of his sister,

but he didn't wake up in the morning thinking about Professor Markell. His business was booming. He was supportive of his sister, but he didn't wake up in the morning thinking about Professor Markell. Good night, everyone. With the end of closing arguments, the trial of Charlie Adelson was over. Now it was the jury's turn to decide the nature of Charlie's role in this deadly conspiracy. Was he victim or mastermind? By the fall of 2023, Charlie Adelson had transformed from suave Miami bachelor to disheveled defendant, facing a life sentence. All that remained was to hear from the group of jurors who were deliberating his fate. So what are you thinking? I mean, you're out there in the gallery.

Did you think you had it this time? We knew we had a good chance. But as the Markells waited, one question nagged them. Would Charlie's testimony that he too was a victim, extorted in the plot to kill Dan Markell, sway the jury. We've already been around this stuff a little too long. Like, we're over nine years now. So you know that nothing is...

And nothing closes in a second. So the deliberations are just a very, very worrisome time. Everyone can be seated. But word came much sooner than the Markells anticipated. The jurors had reached a decision. Definitely surprised at like the three-hour mark. Totally surprised. Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict? Yes, Your Honor. It had taken nearly a decade to bring Charlie to trial, but this jury's verdict was clear. The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

Thousands were live-streaming the verdict, including author Stephen Epstein. I think Charlie thought he was about to walk out of the courtroom a free man. Three hours later, he wasn't. No. And you could see his reaction. It was a look of surprise, of shock,

and his head sank to the table, and he mouthed one word, no. In the moment, it's like feeling of relief, almost celebration. It's a good feeling because you were waiting for this to happen. And yet you can't really celebrate because you have this stark, awful moment of grief in your life that this is all about. Yes. Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman had never let her foot off the gas when it came to proving Charlie's involvement in Dan's murder. She and her team never stopped investigating, especially when it came to key evidence like that enhanced Dolce Vita recording. That's important. If she hadn't pursued that technology, you might not have ever gotten

Charlie. Yeah, so I have like a lot of compliments to Georgia. Kappelman spoke to reporters after the verdict. She took a quick victory lap, then hinted that Charlie's conviction was not the end of the case. Is this the last prosecution we're going to see in the Dan Martell murder, or will there be others? I don't know the answer to that question yet. So stay tuned. As Kappelman left the courthouse, Charlie Adelson settled in behind bars. And when they put him away, there's a telephone there.

There is. And who's at the other end of the line? Same person who's been at the other end of the line throughout his entire life, through all the wiretaps, his mama, Donna Adelson. I don't even know what to say. There's nothing to say. There's nothing to say. throughout his entire life, through all the wiretaps, his mama, Donna Adelson. I don't even know what to say. There's nothing to say. There's nothing to say.

Charlie spent many hours on the phone with his mother Donna and father Harvey. This is a free call from Charlie, an incarcerated individual at the Leon County Jail. This call is not private. Hey. Hey, Charlie. Charlie. How are you guys? Okay. Okay. And commiserated over the verdict.

I can't believe it's reality either. We just can't believe it. And what? That this is what happened. That there's no out of this. We just can't believe this. Charlie was especially critical of the jury. Donna agreed they weren't impartial. They didn't give you a chance. They had their minds set up to walk out three hours.

No, trust me, they didn't. They simply couldn't believe he'd be behind bars for life. They're very much like promotions. They go from, like, thinking you're getting out. They go, they go,

they're all set. I took a whole bunch of clothes from a couple of weeks ago. I packed up a suitcase for you. When you came, I had it ready for you to go to a hotel with it. I had everything ready for you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Charlie said the trial played out like a particular TV show.

You know the one. It was like sitting in the courtroom and watching Dateline. It deviated from being a trial to being a date. They realized they were losing. They had to turn it into Dateline. Nobody watches Dateline without coming away with their own thinking they figured it out. Pretty soon, the conversation turned from complaints about the trial to plans for the future. And they are just going back and forth and back and forth trying to figure out, what do we do now? What do we do now? We're going to have to talk when we have a moment about things that we need to take care of, okay?

And Donna reveals all kinds of stuff that she plans to do. And oh, what a plan she'd hatched. There's a lot of things that we have to do, and and Donna Adelson were in constant communication. We've got to take care of things, Charlie. We've got to take care of things. But one Adelson was notably absent on those calls, Wendy. On one call, Donna was talking to Charlie, but his side of the call dropped. But she kept talking to her husband Harvey and others in the room, maybe not knowing she was still being recorded.

She read them a text she said she sent to Wendy after the verdict. I wrote this last night. We know you never ask anything about your brother, but we just got off the phone with him, and the first thing he asked was, how's Wendy holding up? I didn't have the heart to tell him that you never called us or asked about him.

I just said, we weren't up to phone calls right now. Everyone looks to protect you. I bet you've got a lot to think about. But then she didn't answer. Eventually, Wendy, an experienced lawyer, replied. And Donna read that message out loud, too. I'm not responsible in any way for Charlie's situation. I am not guilty because I did not do anything wrong, and I was not involved in any way with Danny's death. Donna seemed to realize she was losing her grip on her adult children. But Donna also seemed to have an ulterior motive for wanting Wendy on her side,

something she expressed on this same recording. Gone? Where? Donna seemed to be planning to flee for a country like Vietnam, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. That means she wouldn't necessarily be sent back to Florida to face prosecution. If the plane crashed, no one's going to know where anything is or who belongs to what. So I would like her to come up here so she could see it. I don't think that's asking too much.

But of course, she said all of this on a jailhouse phone line, which is monitored. Authorities learned Donna and Harvey had booked one-way tickets to Vietnam the day after Charlie's conviction. One week after Donna watched her son, Charlie, be convicted of murder, and they were literally boarding the plane on the jetway. As Donna and Harvey made their way toward the plane, Tallahassee FBI agent Pat Sanford, leading a team of officers, pounced. They're boarding the plane. They believe they're about to make their great escape,

but Pat Sanford is there. And literally sees the phone in Donna's hand and grabs for it because he has a search warrant. Donna yanks it away from him as if she's got control and power. And the next thing you know, she's got her hands behind her back, cuffed, and she's marching in the opposite direction, off the jetway, with a gaggle of officers surrounding her, and Harvey, utterly helpless to do anything. Harvey was sent home without being charged. When did they issue a warrant? Donna, seen here sitting in the back of a police car,

was driven straight from the airport to a Miami lockup. Almost a decade after Dan Markell's murder, she was booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail, charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation of murder. Lawyer Dan Rashbaum, who represented her son, is now representing Donna. At the time when Donna Adelson went to get on a plane, she didn't do anything wrong. There's no warrant for her arrest. She was a free citizen like you and me. But on those many jail calls, Donna sometimes mentions Dan Rashbaum's name in relation for her arrest. She was a free citizen like you and me. But on those many jail calls, Donna sometimes mentions Dan Rashbaum's name in relation to her plans.

I don't know if we'll make it out in time. I really don't. But Dan said, you might. What's going on? Are you helping her with the fleet to a country with minimal extradition? The short answer to that is no. But the short answer is I'm limited in what I can say because I'm also representing her.

For Ruth Markell, Donna's takedown was yet another unexpected twist, even after years of them. It's an event with a lot of exclamation points. Oh, it's amazing. Where are we now? They've gotten Donna, the mother. And where does she fit in the grand scheme of things, do you think? Donna, in my mind, is the architect. But Donna denied that accusation in court.

How does she plead? Not guilty, Your Honor. The Markells continue their visits with the grandchildren. In 2022, Ruth released her memoir, The Unveiling. She hopes the story of how her own grief motivated her to become a grandparents' rights activist can help others too. But she knows another trial is coming.

That means a fourth trial for you. A fourth round. Yes, it is, yeah. Can you do it? Are you up for it? Well, I didn't expect it to come so soon. It's like almost you have to do your fitness for the Olympics, you know. I guess we'll be ready. And, of course, there's one last lingering question when it comes to just who was involved in Dan's murder-for-hire plot.

Wendy, your opinion. Do you think Wendy should be worried? I think everybody should be worried. It's been nearly 10 years since Dan Markell's murder. But for those who loved him most, his spirit is never lost in the barrage of headlines. His longtime friend, Josh Berman, even made Dan a part of his own family in a way. You know, my middle son is named after him. The Hebrew name is identical to Danny's Hebrew name.

And someday I'll tell Theo why he has that name. I think he's only six, almost seven. It'd be a lot to tell him now. But yeah, that sort of sums up how much Dan meant to me and to all of us. I see myself sitting talking to you as a representative of Dan's incredible network of friends here in Israel on the professor circuit in Florida, like wherever the guy went. He was such a phenomenal father.

I mean, the best thing about Danny, everybody, you know, he's a scholar, he's internationally acclaimed, that all counts. But the biggest, biggest factor was the kind of father that he was. That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast. Dennis Murphy and Josh Mankiewicz will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you again each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt.

For all of us at NBC News, good night.