RedHanded - Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Following the conviction of Charlie Adelson in November 2023, his mother Donna allegedly attempted to flee the US for Vietnam. Arrested on the runway, awaiting take off, the 73 year old now denies any involvement in the murder of her son-in-law, Dan Markel. In this concluding episode we take a look at the entire Adelson clan, with a focus on what the “grieving ex-wife” Wendi Adelson likely knew, and when…Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus Content Follow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed, where we haven't yet recovered from last week's episode, but it's going to be even worse this week. No, but I did bring my fake boobs with me. Oh, good. Thank God. I didn't. So at least one of us is prepared. I did bring my owl.

So, yeah, let's pick up exactly where we left off last week. It's 2016, two years since Dan Markell was killed. And Latin King's gang member, Luis Rivera, was already in prison on racketeering charges by the time that police connected him with the murder. Thanks to that green Prius. Rivera claimed that Sigfrido Garcia, his childhood friend, made him carry out the hit for his ex-girlfriend, Katie Magbanua,

who was getting the money from her other ex-boyfriend, dentist Charlie Adelson. Everybody following? Good. Rivera also claimed that it was Garcia who did the actual shooting, so he wasn't about to go down for this. Rivera was offered this plea deal. Dish the dirt on the others and take an additional seven years on top of your existing 12-year sentence for racketeering. Or don't and risk a jury trial that could land you on death row. So, of course, Rivera cooperated and the police arrested Sigfrido Garcia. But, as we told you last week, investigators had both of their probable cause affidavits sealed.

And, just in case you need reminding, a probable cause affidavit is a document that outlines the evidence and justifications for an arrest. And the police sealed these documents because they were full of accusations made by Rivera against the Adelson family. Accusations that investigators were not ready to be made public just yet. Because despite the fact that Rivera was pointing the finger at Charlie and the fact that the mystery payments from the Adelson Institute to Katie had been signed off by Donna,

making them both look suspicious as fuck, State Attorney Willie Meggs dismissed the probable cause affidavits as speculation and refused to issue a warrant for the arrests of Donna, Katie or Charlie Adelson. Now many suspect that this was because Megs knew that the Adelsons were very wealthy and the sort of lawyers that they would have brought to the game could have caused quite a bit of embarrassment for the state if they didn't have enough evidence. Which like look, look, it's fair enough. Tell the police to go get more evidence. But the way that Megs publicly threw the Tallahassee Police Department under the bus

in terms of how dismissive he was of their case against the Adelsons was pretty shocking. Regardless, investigators weren't about to let the Adelsons just walk away. So at this point, the FBI got involved and they put a wiretap on basically every phone the Adelsons just walk away. So at this point, the FBI got involved and they put a wiretap on basically every phone the Adelsons and Katie Magbanawa had. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. In cases we have covered before, you might be lucky enough to get a few recordings here and there. This is like some sort of audio book of every single word any of these people ever uttered to one another. It's House of Loops. Yes. I was just like, how can I be hearing all of these conversations? They tabbed everything.

But before we get into what the FBI uncovered, let's have a little look at Charlie and Donna Adelson and what sort of people they seem to be. Because it wasn't Rivera who actually first pointed the authorities in the direction of the Adelsons. Remember Wendy's new boyfriend, the one that she got after her and Dan divorced, Jeff LaCasse? We said last week that we would come back to Jeff and his police interview, and I think that now is a good time to do just that.

If you recall, during her first initial police interview, Wendy said, what if Jeff did this? So of course the police had to speak to him. And the clips we're about to play you come from Jeff's first interview with investigators on the 21st of July 2014. And we are actually going to use both of Jeff's police interviews a lot in this episode. Because everyone else has an agenda, everyone else lies, and everyone else is the very unreliable narrator. So Jeff's statements about the entire situation, in the lead up to the murder, everything in the aftermath, are very insightful. And his evidence also played a pivotal role in court. I'll tell you something, somebody told me, somebody else told me.

Yeah, I mean, and you'd have to tell me what it was, and I would have to say, okay, is this something that can be excluded from the report, or is it something that's inculpatory? Is it something that... Maybe I can just make it simpler than that. Maybe I could just say, I would be investigating trial at Adelson. Okay. Maybe it's that simple. What makes you say that?

He's very angry about Danny. And if you met, I know he's down there, you can't get in front of him, but you're an experienced investigator. If you got in front of this guy, he'd set off your radar. I'm set off mine. I used to do juvenile justice. I used to do forensic psychiatry. He set off my radar a little bit.

He's a weird guy. Strange guy. He's a conduct disorder kid. So here you have Geoff telling the police, very early on, that they needed to have a look at Charlie Adelson. And Geoff absolutely has Charlie's number. And then he implicates Wendy. Wendy had reported to me that Charlie had considered all the options possible to take care of this problem. Put it that way. He's a very successful dentist, but he reeks of antisocial behaviour. Just one quick point in case people are thinking that Jeff is one of those

internet weirdos throwing out terms like narcissist and sociopath willy nilly Jeff actually has specialisations in forensic psychology, social work, clinical social work and mental health and psychiatric medication so I think he is fairly well placed to make those kinds of assessments What did she say to you specifically?

Something like, Charlie, I don't know how much it would cost to have someone killed. Something like that. Some statement like that. Did she give you a dollar amount? But that's the other thing. He's a dentist, but he's an independent businessman. He has a bunch of practices, and he's a Ferrari. I think he's a millionaire, this kind of stuff. So he has a lot of resources.

Then Jeff recounts with police a conversation he had with Charlie one day when he was hanging out at his fancy house in his hot tub with Wendy. I'm not trying to play cop here, but I do know one thing you'd be looking for is a lump sum of money moving around if some kind of crazy stuff happened. And I think there's a lot of financial irregularities. I think there's a lot of tax fraud kind of stuff, of putting stuff up for people's names and moving money around, and there might be cash. I don't know exactly what, but he's not doing anything on the up and up on his finances. It was pretty clear. It was pretty open about that. So I thought about it. If you guys do look into it, I don't know that…

What… have the exact conversation in the hot tub go? He was just talking about, you know, I put that in dad's name, I put that in mom's name, and it was just clear that… Hiding resources? Yeah, yeah. Monetary resources. Yeah, yeah. So if you have to do an investigation, that's something you guys should know

because I think there's a lot of... I don't know if it's illegal, but I know there's a lot of... He plays the system, you know. And this bit of information from Jeff is super important. Remember, Dan had accused Wendy of hiding assets. Now this could well actually have been Charlie's money that he had maybe put in Wendy's name to hide it and avoid tax.

So it would, if discovered, have totally fucked Wendy because it would have wrecked her legal career if she was caught lying like that. But if it was Charlie's money money it could have also totally fucked him so I think this gives Charlie yet another motive to have silenced Dan but it didn't stop there Jeff had more to tell the police about some weird stuff that went on that afternoon in the hot tub. This guy's so inappropriate. We're sitting... Please don't write this down. He's so inappropriate, we're sitting in the hot tub and he starts talking about sex acts with his girlfriend

that he did to punish her for bad behaviour in front of his sister. I'm like, this is the... And I didn't know what to do. I just met him. I talked to him with my girlfriend. This is just so weird, you know. It's like this guy's social radar is way off. His sense of right and wrong, just norms is just off. He set off my radar. Now I don't know if he did this. If you're looking at somebody, don't miss him.

And then there's this. I don't think Charlie would have done it, by the way. What would he do? He'd get his buddy in the Special Forces to do this, There's this. into how much it would cost last summer. Wendy told you that? She did. That Charlie had looked into how much it would cost. Yeah. So she said it in a dead serious chilling uncomfortable kind of way. The family is so unhealthily enmeshed so completely enmeshed that Wendy is not really an adult. When she drives to South Florida, every single time, those two parents drive up here and drive what they're down. They don't trust her to drive from Tallahassee to Miami. They're just, it's not a normal family.

It's not like she's a 35-year-old and has two kids and come down to see us. It's complete enmeshment. It's a matter of, they didn't vandalise her. She's considered the baby still. She's 35 years old. The trial protects her. This interview happens a few days after Dan is shot and Jeff is just like, Charlie did it. You should look at Charlie. He wouldn't have done it himself. He would have got some seedy guys from the Cuban neighborhood. It's literally like Jeff knows exactly what happened it's unbelievable and also everything that jeff says here about the intensely enmeshed nature of the adelson family how desperate they were to get wendy back to miami and how unhealthy their infantilizing of wendy was

it just screams of motive he's literally telling them who how how and why. Yeah. Now, of course, the police need that evidence, like, to back up what Jeff is saying. But he really, Jeff is, like, on the internet, everyone just calls him Shylock Jeff. Shylock Jeff Lacasse. Because he knows. He knows. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul. The man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be hon honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs.

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from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me

into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast Haunted Canada as

we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. But investigators quite clearly did not take Jeff seriously at the time. It would actually be years before they had Charlie Adelson on their actual radar. So yeah, Charlie, as Jeff explained in this interview, was a fucking weird guy. He was a successful periodontist, which to me just sounds like a dinosaur, but it's a dentist.

It's like a super dentist. It's like a super gum dentist. And actually, Charlie did so well that he actually did buy his dad's business, the Adelson Institute, off him. On top of this, Charlie did a lot of wheeling and dealing as well and had amassed quite a fortune for himself. He owned a limo, which is very 90s of him, a massive boat and a palatial home with a giant pool and a hot tub in Fort Lauderdale. He also, and you're going to absolutely hate this, drove a Ferrari with the license plate Maestro. And Maestro, just in case you're wondering, was a nickname that according to his own friends, Charlie had given himself. God's sake.

Because he considered himself to be the very best dentist in the Sunshine State. Yep. That tells you a lot about Charlie Adelson. Yeah. That's like LL Cool J being like, yeah, ladies love Cool James. No, they don't. You made that up yourself. Charlie. This is so fucking classic.

Anybody, in my opinion, with a vanity plate is this person. Ben. Charlie had been a very small child. So as an adult, he was obsessed with bodybuilding. He worked out constantly. And he supplemented his exercise regime with countless steroids. And even though steroids shrink your penis, he managed to be quite the womaniser,

and he had a new girlfriend every month. He had a son with a lady called Brianna Taylor, although he doesn't seem to have been in his kid's life that much, because he was too busy being the maestro and taking regular trips to south america for a little bit of sex tourism yeah vile yeah so jeff actually is the one who brings this to people's attention and i haven't included that clip because again jeff is interviewed by the police for a whopping five hours which I watched twice at times fucking five speed and

my brain felt like it was gonna melt but Jeff tells the police that Charlie openly like the first couple of times they've met as his little sister's new boyfriend Charlie told Jeff oh yeah I go down to South America all the time to have underage sex he doesn't put it like that, but that's what he's going there for. So yeah, he's a pretty vile human being. Now one of these many girlfriends that Charlie had in the US was Katie McBanawa. They started dating in the autumn of 2013, and while it didn't work out, they did keep in touch. And when Charlie decided that he wanted Dan out of the picture for good, because yes, spoilers, presumably he knew just who to call. After all, Katie had gang connections.

So now the police are taking these accusations made by Jeff a little bit more seriously. Let's have another clip from Jeff's second police interview. I told Officer Hale that her and Charlie went to dinner maybe three weeks after the crime. Charlie called it a celebration dinner via text. She puked on the table during the dinner after Charlie said something. She wouldn't tell me what he said.

She said, Charlie made a remark and I just puked everywhere. Celebration dinner? That's what Charlie called it. You can look up, maybe she got access to text, you can find out. Yeah, that's what Charlie called it. You can look up, if you have access to text, you can find that. Yeah, that's what she called it. She said the kids are having problems, but not because of Danny's murder. So the kids are peeing in the bed and having natural kid stuff, not because of Danny's murder. That's a really weird thing to say.

Most people would say they're upset because their father just got killed. It seems to be important to her that it not be because of that. She's very upset that I attended Danny's memorial service. When the Tallahassee Democrat ran the story they put, what was the worst nightmare, front and center picture of Jeff O'Cats. I go through all that in my head. I come to the conclusion as you said a minute ago that she was at least aware this was going to happen and I think probably involved in it. She made, well first of all what, does she still have the same phone number? She switched her phone three or four days after the shooting because she thought you guys had bugged it.

Okay. Alright, do you have the new number? I don't. I think she has the same number. She has a different phone. Oh, different handset? You don't need to put a bug on a phone physically. I mean, it's funny. Why would she be concerned about people bugging her phone or police bugging her phone, I guess, is what she's specifically concerned about.

She's not concerned about that. She told me that. Did you ask why? No, I knew she would. I immediately thought she did this. And so she told me 50 times, Jeff, I had nothing to do with this. And I always just let it be silent, sorry.

I just let it be silent because I didn't want to go there. I didn't want to play my hand. I've never said anything to her. I just wanted to listen. I was hoping she might give me something interesting and I would come tell you guys. Because she's erratic enough, I thought she might say something stupid. She must have said 50 times, I had nothing to do with this. And you saw her statement in the press. She's worried for the safety of her and her children. No one's suggesting a serial killer looking for Jewish lawyers, you know?

I mean, this was pretty targeted, so... Yeah, you think... Well, she's concerned for her children's safety. Wendy plays the victim so well. To me, it looked like classic Wendy. Everybody else felt bad for her. I thought, holy crap, she did this. you know, have all the data you Mr. Gehrig. How's that? No. I'm very interested in this. I want to make sure that I understand it completely and thoroughly. And I can see that it's been weighing on you heavily.

Well it has because it sounds crazy to people. Although I've told a couple people the whole story, like I told it to you start to finish, and no one else has said I'm crazy. My therapist said, one thing I forgot to tell you, I had to go get a damn therapist. That's what was so crazy. So I tried to manage her. I tried to get some advice on relationships.

And in April of 2014, he tells me, look, he's wrote one. I've got to be honest with you, there's two possibilities. One is she's just getting over a divorce, she's drinking too much, and she'll settle down over time, maybe live happily ever after. Second option, she sounds an awful lot like a sociopath to me. That's an objective person. And I said, sociopath to me that's an objective person and i said sociopath he said yeah high functioning but she doesn't seem to have a conscience and i said oh jesus when i got myself into it because

i was in love with her and i wasn't going to leave at that point but that's the kind of feedback i've got when i tell people what she's actually like i prefer that you guys catch somebody else, obviously. Right, right, right. When was the last time you talked to her? Or had any conversation? I could find it for you. It would have been in, uh, around August 20th. Oh, that long ago? Yeah. She cut off all contact because I didn't tell her I was dating. It was just bizarre. That was the time, it was about the time of commencement, summer semester commencement. There's another thing as far as narcissism and a crazy person. You know what Wendy was mostly upset about? That she told me this? The fact that she had to cancel her commencement speech because Danny was shot. The attorney said it's a bad idea to get yourself in front of the media like that. Inside edition

I'll show up. You can't do it. She was devastated. It's bizarre. So yes, here I think there's even more information that really makes Wendy look like she was involved in Dan's murder. We will come back to Wendy. I promise. I know I keep saying it. We will. Because, honestly, she is by far the most complicated character in this story.

And one of the most interesting. But for now, let's go back to Jeff's 2015 interview. So this is the second interview he does with police. And listen to what he had to say about the entire Adelson family. Some sick dynamics where Wendy at one point told me that dad was extremely violent and I thought well this makes sense why you're so gun shy and you know hair trigger and then later I said with your history of family violence you said I never said that that I never so there was a lot of inconsistencies in line but uh I don't think Charlie's been up here.

If you were, with your experience and instincts, you were to talk to Charlie, I assure you, you're something off about that guy. What about this FBI thing? I heard through the grapevine that the FBI talked to Rob up in New York. That's what Wendy told you? No, I think that's what Jane McPherson told me. Okay. And I try not to wear anything I hear

because misinformation's everywhere. Well, if Jane McPherson heard it, she most likely got it from Wendy. Yeah, well, that's true. But he's like an outside, he's not really a part of the core family. They don't have a relationship, basically. And the impression is he's a guy who wants nothing

to do with his family there's something that happened in that house and he wants nothing to do with it okay and i just think there's uh i mean that's the other theory which will sound super crazy but the people that have visited the house in miami said to me uh has anyone considered remember the whole family is in on this this is a, people don't do that. I said, well, you go in that house, it's real strange in there. It's real secretive. It's real weird. Have you met her parents? I have.

Is there anything that you can tell me about them? Everyone in that family suffers from a severe lack of empathy for other people. She learned that somewhere. Pillars of the community, you get on his website. I mean, years ago I went on it. He was polite to me, but dad's polite, mom's kind of rude, actually. I know that father has been speculated about. They hate Danny in a way.

I have a wife. I've been through a divorce. I get life. I've never seen this kind of obsession. Like their hobby is hating Danny. It was like really strange. I mean, I fell into this because Wendy could convince you of it and maybe she convinced the parents.

But they were going to put a... She said he'd hooked up some emails, but not others. At one point, Wendy was going to get a restraining order against Danny, which, in retrospect, is bizarre because he was a good dad. And you heard it. Jeff is very clear. He says, look at the entire whole family, every single one of them. Jeff is like a savant. He's like Mystic Jeff.

He knows exactly what's happened. And in this incident that Jeff mentions, the one that drove the eldest Adelson son Rob away, let's have a little look at it because it is actually very enlightening when it comes to Donna Adelson's character. So Rob, the Adelson's eldest child, is a doctor. He now lives with his wife and kids in Albany, New York. And for years Rob has had nothing to do with his family, living almost completely estranged from them, all thanks to his mum Donna. Because when Rob was in medical school, he met and fell in love with another student, Haritha Tripali. But Donna was not happy. Haritha is an Indian American, and Donna told Rob,

if you continue this relationship, we will disown you. So, Rob and Haritha break up. They get back together, and then they break up, over and over again. And then finally, Rob caves to family pressure and marries a quote-unquote nice Jewish girl. But almost immediately, Rob regrets his decision. And you can listen to him talk in detail about this on season three of the podcast Over My Dead Body. He feels awful, but he knows that this isn't right for him. So the pair of them get their marriage annulled just a few weeks after the wedding,

and Rob begs Haritha to take him back. And after this, he pretty much cuts all contact off with his family, and, like we said, he and Haritha are now happily married, living far away from the Adelsons all the way up in New York. And I think that gives us a pretty clear insight into just how controlling Donna was. So while I do think that Charlie was probably the one who ordered the hit, I think Donna was absolutely instrumental in the whole situation. For example, there was always a consistent pattern of calls.

The chain of phone conversations always went, Donna calls Charlie, calls Katie, calls Garcia, who calls Rivera. And then back again. I really feel like this points to Donna as the real mastermind and Charlie was maybe more of the enforcer. Now many have speculated that Charlie was acting the big man very much. Watch me take care of my baby sister and get her and the kids back to my parents which is what everyone wants. I'll fix this for us and then everyone will know that I'm the alpha in the family. Like I do feel like that's very much Charlie Adelson's vibe.

So the police really thought that they could shake something loose from the Adelsons. But then in June 2016, the state was forced to unseal the probable cause affidavits for both Luis Rivera and Sigfrido Garcia. These documents named Charlie and Donna Adelson as co-conspirators and immediately the Adelsons began to close ranks. Yeah, because they desperately tried to keep these PCAs under wraps so that the Adelsons think, oh yeah, they got the two guys that did it, but they're not onto us yet.

Which I don't even know why you would be that stupid because obviously the minute they do that, they're going to turn on you. But I think Charlie Adelson thinks, because I've gone through Katie Magbanawa, they don't actually know who I am. They can't point the finger back at me and they haven't arrested Katie, so maybe I'm fine. But a newspaper basically forces the state to unseal the PCAs, which then tells the Adelsons that they are very much on the police's radar. Straight away, Wendy Adelson had her son's last names changed from Markel to Adelson,

and then she completely cut off the Markel family's visitation. And there was nothing that Dan's parents, who up until then had been seeing the boys four or five times a year, could do about it. And they wouldn't see their grandsons for the next six years. But despite the fact that their cover was now blown, the police kept going. And on the 19th of April 2017, the police decide it's time for a little undercover work. This is one of my favourite things that ever happens in any true crime case ever. And I would love to play you the audio recording of this, but it is terrible because it's recorded outside. There's so much car noise. It's really horrible.

You can't really understand what they're saying, but I will tell you what it said. A cop pretending to be Luis Rivera's brother walks up to Donna Adelson in the middle of the street and hands her an envelope. Now, this is what is exactly said in this recording. Excuse me, Mrs Adelson. I wanted to give you this. I just wanted to let you know that we know that your family have been taking care of Katie and Tuto. Remember, Tuto is Garcia.

Luis Rivera is King Potato. We know that you've been taking care of Katie and Tuto for some time. My brother is incarcerated and I know my brother helped you with a problem you guys had up north and we wanted to make sure that he's taken care of like you've been taking

care of Katie and Tuto. Donna then went home and called Charlie. And mother and son talk to each other in a very weird and coded way. Like, Donna doesn't actually say what's happened. It's very odd. She's just like, something happened today. Somebody gave me a document.

And it's like charades. Like, Charlie's on the other end of the phone going like, what document? Are you being subpoenaed? Have you been served? It's like a guessing game. But Donna never confirms because Charlie never guesses what it is because it's so bizarre. And then in the end, she's just kind of like, I'm sure everything will be fine.

Okay, bye. I'm like, what? It's really weird. But you know one thing from that call that they know there is a very real possibility they are being listened to. And then they just try to ignore the situation with Rivera's brother, which obviously isn't a situation at all. But the cops escalate. They keep texting Donna and they even drop off another letter at her house, so Donna calls the police.

Just kidding, obviously she did not do that. She called the undercover cop and she just says over and over that she doesn't know what he's talking about. She doesn't know his relative and she implores him to just leave her alone. But he is persistent. And then a few days later, on the 28th of April 2016, Charlie Adelson calls the undercover cop instead. And this call. These people have medical degrees. Like, this is insane to me.

Yeah. Donna Ederson used to be a teacher. No one in this is actually stupid. But let's have a listen to that call. Hello? Hello? Hola, amiga. Hello, amiga. Who is this?

Who's this? Someone's been calling my family and trying to figure out who this is. In reference to what, man? Someone by the name of Sandy called? Yeah, that's me, man. All right, what's going on? Well, what's going on is my brother Tato. Okay, my brother Tato has not been taken care of.

His family has not been taken care of. I talked to a dentist. Why are you calling me? Who are you? I gave the number to a lady. I don't know Tato. You don't know Tato? You don't know Tato? No.

I'm sure you know Katie and Tuto. They've been taken care of since the family problem been taken care of up north. I don't know who you are. You don't? Well, this time you're going away, my friend. Because let me tell you something. I was at Broward with Dato, and he told me the

whole story. He told me nobody was taking care of him. Nobody was taking care of his family. The family was taking care of Katie and Puzo, and nothing's been taken care of with Dato. So we know. We know what's going on. And Dato needs to be taken care of, do the right thing. The lady already has the paperwork, she knows what I'm talking about. We know Katie, we know Tuto, we know we've been taken care of. Alright, let me look at your thing. No more around, man, no more around. This ain't going away. Tato needs, you guys need to do the right thing for Tato.

That's my brother, man. That's my brother, and he needs to be taken care of. His family needs to be taken care of, just like Katie and Pooch have been taken care of. I've never met this people, but let me call you back, okay? That's bullshit, man. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You know this lady. I don't know your relationship with this lady,

but we know what the fuck is going on. Just take care of yourself. Just like you take care of Katie and Tuto, man. Let me call you back. Oh, my God. This call to me is proof if you need proof that charlie adelson is playing the big man right he's like mum i'll handle this give me that guy's number and he's like someone's been calling my family and i'm trying to figure out who it is shut the fuck up

charlie he's such a twat i cannot stand him and also what he's saying in the school makes no sense. Let me look into things. Let me call you back. What innocent person would say that to someone who is extorting them? Why would you say that? If you were innocent, you would call the police and let them handle this man who is clearly threatening you if you really have no idea what they're talking about. But none of the Adelsons, during the entire time that this undercover cop, Louisa Rowe's fake brother, is threatening them, ever, ever, ever call the police. Instead, there is a surge of phone activity between Donna, Charlie and Katie. And we are not going to play all of those calls for you here. But it is pretty clear that Charlie, who thinks he is so smart, is speaking in code the entire time. He talks about pot-bellied pigs and bonsai trees, things that make absolutely no sense given the context. And at one point,

Katie even yells on a phone call that is being recorded, I don't care about all of this code shit. Well, you should, Katie. Shut the fuck up. You can just... Charlie is the kind of guy who's just like, Katie, we talked about this. My name is Black Hawk Down. It's Maestro.

Maestro. No, they'll be onto me. So eventually, Charlie tells Katie that enough of these phone conversations, they need to meet and discuss this very serious issue of the fact that they are being threatened. So the two of them arrange to have a chat at a Mexican restaurant called Dolce Vita in a strip mall near Katie's work. But little do they know that the FBI were following. And again, the audio from this recording is really bad quality. So we'll just talk you through the conversation that the two of them had. Charlie tells Katie about the note. He tells her to pay the guy off saying, call him, tell him, I got a call from some friends saying What the fuck? Charlie Adelson explains that if it is the police trying to set anyone up,

then they won't actually meet you, let alone take the money. It's the like, you have to tell me if you're a policeman. He thinks he knows everything. He thinks he is so smart and he can outwit the whole system. He's like, listen, Katie, you call him and tell him this. If they're the cops, they won't even meet you. He thinks he's in a fucking 80s detective show. He thinks he's in Miami Vice. Yes. Which he kind of is. Have you seen pictures of him? He really does look like he's in Miami Vice. He goes on to say stuff like,

if it's not the police and it is real, then at least they will know. And they better kill Rivera's fake brother because he's going to be a big problem. And then Charlie finishes off with, if you can't do it, i.e. kill this person, I'll have someone else do it. He's so cash. We'll just kill all of our problems. We'll kill our way out of this situation.

And he also told Katie that he wasn't worried about being arrested, but if he thought police had any evidence on him or his family, quote, we would have already gone to the airport. And go the fuck where, my friend? You ain't going anywhere. Again, this is all being recorded. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes.

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Start your free trial today. So after this meeting with Katie, Charlie calls his mom Donna, who is presumably sat at home having absolute kittens. And he tells her, again, more code, I gave her some relationship advice, relationships aren't easy, but don't worry, everything is fine now. Everything was, however, very far from fine. Because on the 1st of October 2016, the police arrested Katie Magbanowa. Now, initially,

Katie was actually offered a plea deal, and she could have walked away from this completely scot-free if she had turned on Charlie Adelson. But she refused to take the plea, claiming that she'd done nothing wrong. So, Garcia and Katie, the star-crossed lovers, were tried together in 2019. And Luis Rivera, fucking King Potato Head, testified against them both. Garcia was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. But the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict for Katie McBanawa,

and the judge declared a mistrial. Katie had her retrial in May 2022. And this time, the secret FBI recordings from the Mexican restaurant and the fact that Katie couldn't give a clear explanation for the things like the money she was receiving from the Adelsons sealed the deal for her. Katie McBanawa was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder,

and she was sentenced to life. In a show of mild romance, Garcia refused to testify against Katie, but no-one would be coy about anything when it came to the next trial. Because, yes, at long last, on 21st April 2022, Charlie Adelson was finally arrested and charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.

And you can bet your arse, Garcia, Rivera and Katie all lined up to testify against him. And they had to, because Charlie's entire defence was based on pointing the finger squarely back at the three of them. Charlie Adelson's trial kicked off with his sister's own words from her first police interview,

where she openly and bafflingly acknowledged her family's motives to kill Dan, including the now infamous joke that Charlie had made about buying her a TV as a divorce present because it was cheaper than hiring a hitman. The prosecutors accused Charlie of organising the hit on Dan to get Wendy back home to Miami, like his family wanted, and of using his ex-girlfriend Katie as a way to distance himself from the killers. And the pattern of calls that circulated between Charlie, Donna, Katie and Garcia seemed to match this. There was also evidence that Katie had actually gone over to Charlie's house on the night of the killing and then miraculously the next day she had the cash to pay Garcia and Rivera. There was also ample evidence of Katie having been paid by the Adelsons

yet there was no evidence that she had ever worked for them. In which case why was she being There was also ample evidence of Katie having been paid by the Adelsons, yet there was no evidence that she had ever worked for them, in which case, why was she being paid? On one of their many phone calls after Rivera and Garcia were arrested, Charlie even offers Katie his boat. He's literally like, I've got a big boat. Do you want the boat? I can just give you the boat. I can hand it over to you tomorrow.

And she's like, I can have your boat. It's so ridiculous. So it's reasonably obvious that he is trying to keep her quiet because he thought that the net was closing in. Now, Charlie's defence for all of this had a very different story to tell. They claimed that Charlie was a victim of extortion. That gets better. And of course, Charlie the maestro Adelson took the stand. And prepare yourself because this is something. Charlie claimed at trial that in the spring of 2014, Katie McBanawa had heard him making the fucking hitman joke. He said it was stupid, the stupidest joke he ever made. But he made it again and again and again for years. And he claimed that he had, quote,

spoken too freely about his family's issues to Katie, including telling her that the Adelsons had offered Dan $1 million to let Wendy move back to Miami. And this was actually true. The family had offered Dan this, and Dan had told them where to get off, because he quite literally would rather be a good dad to his kids than have a million dollars. And when Katie found out about this, according to Charlie, she had been shocked by how much money he had. Then, according to Charlie, after Dan was killed, Katie came to his house crying and saying,

this is all my fault. I spoke in too much detail about your family problem. Like your sister's ex-husband and the million dollars you offered him to some friends of mine. And it was one of my friends who killed Dan Markell, but now he wants a third of the million dollars. Why a third of the million dollars. Why a third of the million dollars?

Why a third? They thought that he was going to give Dan a million. Why would you kill him? And they'd be like, I'll just have a third. I'll just have $333,033. Why? It doesn't make any sense. And this makes even less sense.

Apparently, Katie refused to tell Charlie who this friend actually was. So he says that's the reason I was giving the money to her because she refused. So I just gave the money to her and she was paying her friend. What? Now Charlie claimed at trial that he refused to pay the money at first saying I won't be a part of this. It really sounds like you're trying to extort me Katie. But Katie explained I'm not trying to extort me, Katie. But Katie explained, I'm not trying to extort you, but if you don't pay in 48 hours, he's going to kill you. According to Charlie, he told Katie, we should just go to the police. But again, Katie told him, if you go to the police, they will kill you.

You just have to pay them. However, Charlie now told Katie that he didn't have a third of a million dollars after all. He only had $138,000 in cash. And a boat. And a boat. And a boob job. But so desperate to protect his family and himself, Charlie said he gave this money to Katie. And the two of them came up with a payment plan for the rest. Yeah, big size.

Because if anybody is famous for their payment plan processes, it is the cartels of Miami, Florida. They're like, we will accept a payment plan. Yeah, we won't break your legs. Then, for some reason, Charlie said that he told his mum Donna everything, which, why would you do that, immediately incriminating your own mother? Charlie said that he did that in case he was killed, so then at least someone would know what happened to him.

What? But this line is obviously to explain away why Donna is constantly involved in the communications around the murder for hire. Now, the prosecution tear a bunch of holes in this story from Charlie. Like why his messages with Katie in the two years after she started extorting him, but before any arrests were made, were so casual and chatty. Because remember Charlie saying that Katie turned up at his house the day after Dan was killed and started like saying you need to pay these people but Garcia and Rivera aren't arrested for like a year or two after the murder but during that time Charlie's texts to Katie are along the lines of like it's such a beautiful day I think I'll go to the gym now what why she's extorting you

I don't know none of it makes any sense. In all of their conversations, Charlie very much seems to not have a care in the world. He thinks he's got away with it, remember? But now he's claiming that during that time, he'd actually been being threatened by gang members who were out to murder him and his entire family. To this, Charlie said that he was just trying to act normal. But then why did he offer to buy Katie and her mum a cruise,

give her his boat and buy her some boobs? It seems much more like he was trying to keep his co-conspirators happy and on his side. Because as far as he's concerned, Katie's the only one who knows who he is. And on tapped calls where Katie and Charlie discuss the police having found the green Prius, Charlie tells her, the car won't lead anywhere. They won't find any evidence.

Like, I know it's a seven-hour driveway, but he hires in-state. Anyway, why would you, that aside, be arguing that the car wouldn't lead anywhere if you were the one being extorted? It's like he's trying to put Katie's mind at ease when the car is found. When they finally track down the green Prius after a year of looking for it, he's like, it's not going to lead anywhere. Why would you say that? Surely, if you were being blackmailed,

it would be good for you if the police were led to Rivera and Garcia via a car hire that they had made. If you were being blackmailed, yes. So, yes, Katie, Rivera and Garcia all testified against Charlie at his trial, with both of the men stating that Katie had never been shooting her mouth off about Charlie's money or about his sister's problems with her ex-husband and that neither of them had ever had any contact with the Adelson family. They didn't even know who any of them were. So it flies directly in the face of this idea that Garcia and Rivera had shot Dan Markell,

knowing full well all of the problems, knowing full well his connection to Charlie Adelson, the man they thought had a million dollars or a third of a million dollars. So yeah, the extortion defence was all bogus as far as these three were saying. And the state questioned Charlie on why, if he was truly being extorted, why he didn't come forward to the police after Garcia and Rivera were arrested. Once the police had them, surely he was safe to report what had happened. But he never did that. Also, why would these two bother to kill someone and risk getting caught to extort someone like Charlie Adelson? If they found out from Katie that he had all of this money, why didn't they just threaten his life and take his money?

Charlie claimed that this way they could extort him for life because he was paying them $3,000 a month. But again, that doesn't really make any sense because they could just get rid of you. Why do you need to do a 14-hour round trip from Miami to Tallahassee to shoot a man you don't know to then extort Charlie Adelson with no proof that he had made you do it. If you were just after his money, you just go to his fucking house after you found out from Katie McBanawa that he's got a million dollars or a third of a million dollars in cash in his house and burgle him. It makes no sense. And in the end, the jury agreed. And on the 6th of November 2023, so, so recently, this is how long this bloody case has been going on, literally a few months ago.

Nine years after the murder of Dan Markell. Following just three hours of deliberation by the jury, Charlie Adelson was found guilty on all charges. And on the 12th of December 2023, he was sentenced to life. Charlie Adelson is an arrogant twat who thought that he was smarter than everyone else. He figured that he would play the big man and that he was going to save his little sister

and make his mum so very proud of him. And he was convinced that if it came down to it, the police would take his word over that of a street-level gangster. He was, of course, the best dentist in Florida. The maestro. And I also do absolutely think the financial irregularities that Jeff LeCasse brings up are super, super important. I think for Charlie Adelson, the murder of Dan Markell was many birds, one stone. It was getting Wendy back home, making Donna proud of him,

being the big man. Also, I think he's got a bit of that viciousness in him that he just wanted to kill somebody. I think he probably also did hate Dan Markell. But I also think that accusation that Dan had made during their divorce proceedings, pointing the finger at Wendy, saying she's hiding financial assets, I think that was a big fear for Charlie

that that would get revealed. Because if it did, I think that money was get revealed because if it did I think that money was actually Charlie's where did Wendy have that kind of money it doesn't make sense where did she get that money Charlie was rich and I think he was hiding money to avoid paying taxes under the name of different family members who he knew he could control and I think that was also a part of his motivation. But our story doesn't end with Charlie. Because he called his mum, Donna, every day he was incarcerated. And a whopping 86 times in the days following his conviction.

All of those calls, just like pretty much every other conversation that Charlie Adelson had had in the years leading up to it, was of course recorded. But for some reason, Donna and Charlie aren't at all careful. In a call after Charlie was found guilty, Donna tells her son that she's getting things in order, creating trusts for the grandkids. She discusses plans for suicide and also plans to flee to a non-extradition country. So it wasn't the biggest surprise in the world when a week later the police discovered that Donna Adelson had purchased her and her husband Harvey one-way tickets to Vietnam via Dubai the day after Charlie was found guilty. I do have a question about that. I thought you couldn't buy one-way tickets to places because they were like, please show us that you're leaving

this country. Yeah, but somehow she does it. Now the police only found out about these flights at 8am on the 13th of November 2023. The plane was set to take off 12 hours later at 8pm that night. And somehow in that time, the police managed to get an arrest warrant for Donna Adelson. And they actually arrested her on the plane as it was sat on the tarmac waiting to taxi. You know, Donna Adelson thought, I'm in the... Oh yeah, she thought she was long gone. She thinks the kids are with Wendy, we've set up trust, everything will be fine. Charlie's been convicted. Yeah, that sucks. But I'm getting on this plane. Me and my husband are out of here. She's like putting her little seatbelt on, getting ready. Bang, the police are here.

And it was an extremely close call because if that plane had taken off, game over. Getting Donna back from either Dubai or Vietnam would have been next to impossible. But it wasn't to be. At her arraignment hearing, Donna Adelson, who is now 73 years of age, pleaded not guilty in a murder-for-hire plot. And then went on to act all sorts of crazy in court, shouting and shrieking when the charges against her were read out. And we will have to wait and see what happens in the trial of Donna Adelson,

but it's pretty likely that she'll be convicted. There's so much evidence of her involvement, including emails that she sent to Wendy, like this one. The rest of your life, Dad's, mine and even Charlie's life will be affected by how you can perform slash act on July 31st, which is the day that Wendy gave evidence at Charlie's trial. You can be a good actress when you want to. I've seen you in action.

Well, you need to put on the performance of your life. Gibbers hasn't beaten the Adelsons yet. He's dead. Fuck. She fucking sends us as an email. What is happening? I have no idea. And, like, look, I just think you would be hard-pushed to argue to me

that Donna Adelson is not a narcissist, as much of a narcissist as her son Charlie is. I mean, he gets it from somewhere. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the idea that she thought, that Donna thought she had some sort of right to have her adult daughter, who was 35 years old, and her grandkids live near her because that's what she wanted. And the idea that she thought that was more important than those boys having a relationship with their father is mind-boggling. The arrogance of it. So yeah, I think that Donna was probably

likely the one in charge. And I do also think there's just like everyone has a motive here. Wendy wants to get out of Tallahassee. Charlie wants to cover up these financial irregularities and be the big man. And I think for Donna, Dan's attempts to reduce her access to the grandkids by only allowing her supervised visitation would have been a real kick in the teeth. I think for Donna Dan's attempts to reduce her access to the grandkids by only allowing her supervised visitation would have been a real kick in the teeth I think that was a real like nail in the coffin for her that expedited this move because remember the hearing as we said last week was set for a week after Dan was shot and I think she just wasn't going to let him get away with it and our story is still not over because we have to finish by talking about Wendy Adelson.

Astonishingly, some people still think that she didn't know anything about this plot to kill her ex-husband. And it does sort of seem like Wendy plays the damsel in distress very convincingly and that's why people think that but not everyone is fooled. Some actually think that Wendy might have been the ringleader herself. Now I don't really know what I think. Wendy does come across as incredibly naive but I could also believe that she maybe asked her family to solve this problem for her. And Wendy, through all of the people you speak to who know about her, she was absolutely like the spoilt baby of the family. And I do wonder if maybe her sort of naive request of something like just killing Dan was just something that they were going to make happen and deep down Wendy knew that but she

also knew that was her only way out of Tallahassee. But whether Wendy was in charge or the first one to put forward the idea of killing Dan or not there is no doubt in my mind that Wendy knew exactly what was going to happen to Dan and when. Wendy had a lot to lose, not just staying in Tallahassee for 16 more years at least, but possibly also losing her legal career over the accusations that Dan was making against her. Because remember, he was accusing her of hiding assets. And in January 2022, Wendy was publicly, for the first time,

named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Up until that point, Wendy's name hadn't really been brought up by the police at all. In the years after Dan's murder, they had sort of openly said that they weren't looking at Wendy Adelson, they didn't think that she knew what was going on. And then it was only through papers that were released in the lead up to the retrial of Katie McBanawa that we saw in one line, just very casually, Wendy Adelson is also considered to be an unindicted co-conspirator. I'm sure Wendy got a nasty shock when she saw that all over the internet. So yes, she has been named as such, but otherwise she's still, as of the 12th of January 2024,

when we're recording this, Wendy Adelson has still not been arrested. Right now, Wendy has limited use immunity, which means that her testimony can't be used against her. But crucially, because I see a lot of people on the internet being like, Wendy Adelson has immunity, Wendy Adelson has immunity. No, she does not have what's known as transactional immunity, which is a sort of blanket immunity that would protect her from any type of prosecution for this crime at all. She does not have what's known as transactional immunity, which is a sort of blanket immunity that would protect her from any type of prosecution for this crime at all. She does not have that. So basically, the police just need evidence against Wendy that she hasn't testified to.

And to be honest, if you look at this case, the way in which the police have worked, very slowly, but they got Rivera, they got Garcia, they got Katie, they got Charlie, now they're working on Donna. They just seem to be going one by one. We think for now that the state is focusing on getting a conviction for Donna and then they will most likely, we hope, turn their attention to Wendy. Because there is a lot of evidence that Wendy knew. There were things on her phone that were deleted before Wendy handed her phone over to the police the day that Dan was killed. She had a calendar entry in for fixed TV on the day that Dan was shot, which was deleted

prior to the police getting the handset the same day. Why would you do that? It's all more code. It's all more code. It's so weird. And there was also a text from Donna to Wendy saying, Best Buy just called me. They were on their way to help you with the TV in your living room. Wendy replied, this is so sweet, but you knew it was happening because it was in your calendar. And then, of course, these texts were deleted. She deletes the text before she hands her phone to the police. And she knows, as a professor of the law, that they can find them. It is mind-boggling. I think she genuinely had her.

She gets up in the morning. She's waiting for the TV repairman to come, which is also code for Dan's going to get shot. She has it in her calendar. She goes for her weird little drive. She pretends she doesn't see her calendar. She goes for her weird little drive. She pretends she doesn't see the police. She goes for lunch with her friends. And then when the police come and get her,

I think she sat in the back of that cop car for 20 minutes, not asking any questions, deleting all of these texts and then handing her phone over to them when she gets there. It is so stupid and so obvious. Now, I think there is also enough evidence to strongly speculate that Wendy wanted to get Jeff LaCasse, her ex-boyfriend, done for the murder. Even though the police cleared him very early on. Because remember, he had a stone-cold alibi.

Because as it turned out, during the year after Dan's death, Wendy moved back to Miami, of course, and spent much of her time telling anyone who would listen that Jeff was Dan's killer, despite the police having ruled him out. Now Jeff wasn't just gonna let Wendy run around talking shit about him. And on reflection, it became very clear to Jeff that he had been being used by Wendy as a potential patsy for the murder. So, in March 2015, Jeff requested to speak with investigators again, a whole year after his initial talk with them. And although it's now been nine years since this interview,

it's still fascinating in terms of what we learn about Wendy's character and her behavior around the time of the murder of Dan Markell. So I started dating Wendy in fall of 2013. We had mutual friends because a lot of our friends were in the Jewish community at the School of Social Works. We both talked to a lot of the same people after the investigation. Her name came up a couple of times. We both talked to a lot of the same people at the off-the-net investigation. Your name came up a couple times. We just have a lot of mutual friends and stuff. So that's how we met.

So we dated casually in the fall. She just got divorced, so had I, actually. And at the time, I mean, I came in here before, like, I thought Markel was a dick. I mean, that's what I had been taught by Wendy over time. I realized I was kind of misled. But in the fall, it was interesting. I just, let me start.

Danny had been describing Wendy as a pathological liar and a mentally ill narcissistic sociopath in a semi-joking manner. To you? To other people. I just heard that through the grapevine. Because people said, be careful with Wendy. She's a little unbalanced. And I said, well, she seems upset about her divorce, but I don't know if she's unbalanced. I just heard that through the grapevine. Because people said, be careful with Wendy. She's a little unbalanced. And I said, well, she seems upset about her divorce, but I don't know if she's unbalanced. I didn't take it seriously at the time.

That sounds extreme, right? I thought these two people are having a nasty divorce. He's calling names. I thought it was toy out of line. It's one of the reasons I was upset with him. Because, you know, you've seen the court documents. He got sick of her and really went after her legally in a really aggressive way and not knowing the background. I thought it was inappropriate. I thought it was taking things too far, trying to disbar your ex-wife. But one impression I'm left with is, I don't think I said this before, in December or January I thought that was totally out of line. By May, I don't know if those are technically

the correct words, but by May, I knew exactly what he was talking about. And this is a very troubled person, Wendy Adelson, deeply troubled person. And at first, she's gorgeous, she's smart, she's funny. I mean, I fell for this girl like a ton of bricks. Most men would. I mean, that was one of the reasons I stuck around too long. But just the overall impression of her.

And Danny says this in court documents, actually. Very manipulative person, pathological liar. Wendy was an alcoholic while I was with her. She drank her dinner most nights. Extremely fragile, extremely depressed. Many, many nights sitting. Hated Tallahassee so much that I thought we were a bunch of country bumpkins and we liked Tallahassee because she's from Miami.

Didn't hide that fact. Thought it was bizarre that I moved here from Phoenix. And the two conversations that we had every single day for nine months were Danny is an evil monster and Tallahassee is the worst place in the world to live and I can't believe I got stuck here because of Danny Markell. She was obsessed with those two concepts. So I got really tired of hearing that but I heard that every day for nine months. Wendy's very manipulative in that she plays the victim very, very easily.

Whenever we got into a confrontation, she'd pour me. Very sensitive to that. I work with DV victims. Women have been raped in the social work, all that kind of stuff. So I'm a sensitive Mr. Rogers kind of guy. So it's a very easy way to manipulate me, or Markel, for that matter. But she just wasn't stable, even in the fall. And able to cover it up here and there,

when people first 100 hours, you spend with her, you think she's amazing. 101 on, you're like, shit, what did I get myself into here? This person's kind of crazy. Yikes. I mean, look, nobody wants their ex-boyfriend to go and give a character account of them. But unstable, manipulative, obsessive in her hatred for dan and tallahassee

loves playing the victim tick tick tick tick tick and even the fact that jeff is like the more time i spent with her the more i understood what dan was saying about how fucking mental she was like it is as bad as it gets and then jeff gets into the details of how he believed that Wendy was very much trying to set him up. Things started to get really, really strange. And this is why I think I had a hard time getting across to Investigator Hale. So we have that fight. She goes to Portland for a weekend. She comes back.

It's now June. And June, I was walking around saying to all my friends, I don't know what is going on. Something is going on. We had a very frank talk about that and decided to stay together. She said, it's one guy. He's gone. He wouldn't have moved out of the area, as you probably know.

So in June, I was walking around saying to my friends, I don't know what's going on. It's just uncanny to think back walking around saying to my friends, I don't know what's going on. It's just uncanny to think back on it now. I said, I don't know what's going on, but something's gonna happen. It feels like there's drum beats. It feels like we're moving towards something. It's really, really strange.

I don't know what's going on. And one of the strange things that happened was we had a trip to California scheduled to see my parents the week that Danny was killed. And in early June, she rescheduled that trip. And I said, what's the problem with the trip? She says, well, I'm worried we'll get stuck in an airport and we won't be back on Friday after we pick up the kids from school. And I said, but we're coming back Thursday night.

It's not winter. I'm not going to land on the winter. I understand. There's no way we're going to get, we can rent a car. We have friends who could babysit. This is strange. I said, fine, cancel the trip. And that was going to be in early June? The trip was going to be the week that Danny was killed. Oh, okay. And I even said if you just don't want to go because you don't feel comfortable right now just tell me that's cool. She goes no I have to pick up the kids from school that day I just have to I don't I don't want to do anything to stop that you know and

she said I'll miss the kids at that point I said okay. She said I want to spend that Monday through Thursday with you. I said, great. Do you want to go to St. Augustine? She loves the beach. She hates Tallahassee. This, again, is just very strange and suspicious to me. Wendy Edison tells me, what I want to do is a staycation.

I want to stay home in Tallahassee. I said, you want to stay in Tallahassee the hottest week of the year? She said, yeah, we'll go to Tom Brown Park, we'll do this. I said, you hate it here. I'm offering to take you away. Why wouldn't you? It was just really strange at the time. I remember saying to my friends, like, Wendy wants, people act. I said, Wendy says she wants to stay in Tallahassee. Like, she leaves town, sure you know, every chance she gets, she leaves town.

Why would she want to stay? I said, I don't know. I have no idea. I finally managed to convince her to do a trip to St. Augustine, but we had to schedule it so that we were back basically by the time of the shooting. So that was just strange. It just, It was peculiar at the time. When we scheduled that trip to St. Augustine, I was sitting there and she has her calendar open. You can't just schedule everything with her. That's just how she was. At the time, I can remember sitting in her office trying to schedule this, and there was this weirdness about that weekend. We were scheduling other things, no problem, but that weekend she just was intent

on. That day meant something to me before Danny was shot. There's something weird about that week. I don't know what it is, but there's something weird about that week. It really seems like she's trying to keep Jeff there in Tallahassee around the time of the murder so that he can be a viable suspect. Why else would she do that? And then after the murder, Wendy comes right out, spreading stories that she was convinced that Jeff was the killer, even after the police had cleared him because he had a rock-solid alibi.

He wasn't in town. She didn't contact me for 10 days. She told me that the police had instructed her that I was a suspect and she was not to return a text message that I sent her. She could not do that. I actually recently dated a criminal defense attorney just coincidentally and she thought that was bizarre because she said they don't want you talking, you want to incriminate yourself, they're going to get access to this stuff.

That didn't come from me. I don't think it talking, you want to incriminate yourself, they're going to get access to this stuff. That didn't come from me. I don't think it came from anyone. It was very strange. Well, I know legally you can't do that properly. No. I mean, it's, you know, at least you want to. So I wasn't in the room with her, I don't know how she acted or whatever, but it was implausible that I did this. And I don't know, she told me, she tried to protect you from the police.

They want to know where your house was, they want to know this. I said, I don't need protecting. How come none of your friends called me or texted me? Well, they told me later that she seemed to be concerned that I actually did this. Why would you do it? Look, if I know, why would I do it? I don't know. Why would I do it? Well, what did she say? Crime of passion.

We're breaking up and Jeff's upset. And of course, Jeff is pissed. Wendy is still saying that it's him. We love Jeff. Team Jeff over here. And he does come to this interview incredibly well prepared. And he just keeps it coming with more and more information that strongly points to Wendy having known about the murder-for-hire plot.

Relocation to Miami. How terrible it was to be stuck in Tallahassee. Crying, like, I got stuck here, I didn't choose this, I can't stand it. And she talked about the fact that the only way she could ever relocate is if something happened to danny now does she actually say that yeah she did yeah i mean she was miserable here she was here just because she came with danny she didn't like her job she didn't like the area she didn't like split custody i don't know that people knew how upset she was um anyway she just comes out of the blue and i said like just wish something i can't remember exactly people knew how upset she was. Anyway, she just comes out of the booth, and I said,

I can't remember exactly what I said, but I was like, you know, this isn't going to ever be fixed in the way you want it. You can wait until this man for your life. There's no fix for this, but you have to fix what you think and feel. And she said, well, you know, Charlie did look into having him killed last summer. He said it would cost about $15,000. $15,000? That's right.

Seems cheap to me, but you would know better than I. Wendy telling Jeff that her brother Charlie had looked into having Dan killed the summer before, bingo. Because that matches with what Rivera had told the police. Ah, yeah. Because remember, he told them, we went up to Tallahassee in 2013, a year before Dan was shot on that failed hit attempt. That wasn't public knowledge.

How could Jeff have known that? The heavy implication in Jeff's statements during this interview is that Charlie was most likely the one to have organised the hit. He had the motive, the means and the opportunity. Charlie hated Dan Markell. He knew the right people and he could very easily pay for it. But Jeff is also telling the police clearly that Wendy either at least knew about the plan and did nothing or was completely involved in the execution of her ex-husband. And I think a big question that makes some people wary of Wendy's guilt is why would she tell Jeff that Charlie was going to have Dan killed if she believed that it was really going to happen,

if she was in on it? And likewise, why did she tell the tv repairman the bloody cost benefit analysis joke made by charlie comparing hit men with new tvs and why would she also tell the police about this joke in her first interview i don't know wendy seems very unstable and she comes across a bit like someone who is unable to maybe stop herself from constantly talking and inappropriately revealing information. I suspect that some of it is because she thinks she's so convincing that she can talk her way out of anything. I also think some of it is absolutely self-preservation. Like if the truth comes out later, I can always point to the fact that I told them about this joke. Doesn't it make me look innocent? I also think some of it is maybe Wendy's strange desire to be liked and I also think some of it is just down to plain stupidity.

This isn't filling me with confidence in the law professors of FSU. I think Wendy is a strange immature person and just because her behaviour doesn't make sense from a rational point of view and we can't explain why she says things that hurt her family if she was in on it, that doesn't make her innocent. Jeff also later says in this interview that sometimes Wendy just didn't know when to stop talking. Jeff even tells the police that the night before Dan was shot, Wendy changed her profile picture from a very normal picture of her with her kids to a super photoshopped one of her looking like a Victoria's Secret model. Before that,

she changed her profile picture just twice in two years. Was it because she was getting ready for all of that media attention? Again, I know it's super like just random tidbits of information right but it really does match up with a lot of Wendy's very also like her mother and Charlie narcissistic tendencies I don't know who knows who knows why she did any of these things was Wendy involved I suspect yes. I think so. I suspect that she probably said, the only way I can come back to Miami is Dan dies. And her family were like, bingo. I also think Charlie would have been absolutely incapable of keeping it to himself. Oh, absolutely. And I think that Wendy was told.

Wendy knew about it because why else would she cancel that trip so adamantly with Jeff? And I think she was fully involved in the whole situation and she's lied and lied and lied. And I think Donna won't turn on Wendy, but I think Charlie might turn on Wendy. Oh, I think so. Sibling rival, are you joking? Yeah, because his whole life is done. He's in prison forever. That's it.

He's got nothing else to lose. No, he's lost all of his money. He's lost his cars. He's lost everything he ever had that was of value to him. No more womanising, nothing. And I don't know if he cared too much, but his kid was five when he went to prison. So he's never going to have a relationship with that boy.

So how far will Charlie stretch to protect Wendy? I don't know. There have been a lot of jailhouse calls in which Charlie has been lamenting to Donna before she was arrested that Wendy hasn't even come to visit him. So I don't know how long that dam's going to hold. So I think once the prosecution start looking at Wendy, I think Charlie's probably going to start singing but the problem is the problem why Charlie might not say anything is because he's still maintaining his innocence so he can't turn on Wendy until he admits what he did so that's the only reason he hasn't already done it so that's it well as far as what's going to

happen next in this bizarre and mammoth case who who knows? We're just going to have to wait and see. And I'm sure between us recording this and when you hear it, all sorts of crazy stuff will have gone down with Donna. And don't worry, we will revisit this case once we have more. But whatever happens next, I just feel so, so, so sorry for Dan and Wendy's boys. They've lost so much. And their lives undoubtedly will forever be impacted by the senseless murder of their father who loved them so much and wanted nothing

more than to be there for his sons and to be a good dad. Unequivocally every single person who speaks about Dan whether they liked him or not said that he was a good father. And also what's going to blight these boys lives forever is that whether their mother Wendy is indicted or not whether anything happens to her legally or not that suspicion that she was involved in the murder of their father will always be there and that is just so sad and absolutely reconfirms the Adelson's incredible selfishness in all of this. Not only that they robbed Dan Markell of his life, but that they robbed those two boys of having a father.

So yeah, that's it, guys. That is the conclusion of our two-part series on the Adelsons. Like I said, once more information comes out, when Donna is indicted, we'll come back and do an update. As for what's going to happen to Wendy. Let's wait and see. Yeah. And we'll see you next time for something else.

We will. Goodbye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two two I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met but a couple of years ago I came

across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan,

we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off,

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