Serialously with Annie Elise - 97: Wealthy Family Thinks They're The Sopranos & Hires Hitman: The Brutal Murder of Dan Markel

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

In July of 2014, renowned criminal law professor Dan Markel, a respected figure at Florida State University, was murdered–shot in the head– in his garage. As police investigated who could have done this, they began uncovering a web of lies, conspiracy, a wealthy family from Southern Florida, and a murder-for-hire plot. Ouai Go to https://theouai.com/ for 15% off sitewide when you enter promo code AE. Better Help Visit https://www.betterhelp.com/ae today to get 10% off your first month. Athena Club Use code AE at https://www.AthenaClub.com at checkout for 20% off your purchase. Zoc Doc Go to http://www.Zocdoc.com/ANNIEELISE and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Shop the Merch: www.shop10tolife.com   Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast     Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise    All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_    SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/    About Me: https://annieelise.com/    For Business Inquiries: [e-mail]  Sources: ABC 20/20 CNN CBS Tallahassee Democrat Law & Crime Associated Press Sarasota Herald Tribute Miami Herald Tallahassee Democrat Audio Credits: Tallahassee Democrat Law & Crime ABC 20/20

My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. He hurt their daughter. They're very angry with him. But even my family, who felt like I had been mistreated, would never do something like this. Never. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. Hey everybody, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. Boy oh boy, do we have a case to talk about today. Now for those of you who have never

listened to this podcast before and have absolutely zero clue who I am, nice to meet you. My name's Annie and this is kind of a spinoff of my YouTube channel, 10 to Life. 10 to Life is where we do deep dives on all sorts of different true crime cases, whether they're old, cold, current, all the things. So then now we have Serialistly, which is the podcast version, and it's a little bit different in terms of it's still the same deep dive cases, but we talk about it more in just kind of a casual best friend type of way. Something, and the way I would explain it to my sister in a lot of these cases, where we have the ability to say a little bit

more than we are on YouTube because they like to censor a lot of stuff, and we're kind of able to just talk through these cases together. And that is exactly what we're going to be doing in today's case, because today's case is an especially wild one. It has to do with a very complex family tree, multiple arrests in the case, drug deals, wealth, bribery, murder for hire plots, I mean honestly you name it. Now this case has been in the media a little bit here and there more recently than I had seen it in quite some time. And it's been really difficult to keep everything straight. So what I'm going to be doing in today's episode is breaking down the entire case for you start to finish,

but explaining it in a more simplified way so that it's easy to follow, easy to digest, easy to understand all of the things. But don't get me wrong, there are a lot of twists in this case, and a lot of points and a lot of moments where the math really ain't mathin'. Just, you know, actually, I'm actually wearing my math ain't mathin' sweatshirt today from our merch store, so it's perfect for this case. And these twists and unmathable moments, if you will, happen all the way through until the very last detail. My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. He hurt their daughter. happen all the way through until the very last detail. My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else.

He hurt their daughter. They're very angry with him. But even my family, who felt like I had been mistreated, would never do something like this. Never. But does an innocent person say if they had any evidence? Isn't it true, doctor, that they're not going to have any evidence because you were careful? You were smart. Did she call him an asshole? Yes. A narcissist? Yes. A bully? Yes. Religious zealot? Yes. Bastard. That I don't remember. Page five.

In July of 2014, in Tallahassee, Florida, a renowned criminal law professor named Dan Markell, who was also a respected figure at Florida State University, was murdered, shot in the head. And this all happened at his own home in his garage. A neighbor had heard loud bangs, then called the police, and they quickly responded to Dan's home. Okay, tell me exactly what happened. We heard and looked in. The garage door was up, and I thought the gentleman was backing out, and I went back to my house, but he never backed out, and I came back over, and his driver's side window is shattered, and he's battered and can't answer. He's inside.

I don't know if somebody tried to shoot him or if he shot himself or what. I don't know. He needs to get an ambulance and a RA. He's still alive. He's moving. Okay. What's going on with him? I don't know. The driver's side window is all bashed in and he's got blood all over his head.

He's not responding to me. I think he needs to hurry. Police found Dan critically injured, but there wasn't any sign of robbery or even a break-in, so Dan was rushed to the hospital, but unfortunately later he died from his injuries. Now, police believed that this was a targeted homicide, but the question was who, and more importantly, why? Now, let's talk for a minute about who Dan Markell was. That way, we could figure out who would want to do this to him. Originally from Canada, Dan Markell was a Harvard Law School graduate. He was a brilliant legal mind, a respected law professor at FSU, and he was a devoted father to two young boys with a beautiful wife named Wendy Adelson. After graduating from Harvard, Dan had moved to D.C.,

where Wendy, his now wife, was also working at the time. Wendy was working in D.C. with an internship while attending University of Miami Law School. The two of them met on a dating app called J-Date, which is actually a very popular dating app that is aimed at Jewish singles. Both Dan and Wendy were Jewish. However, for Dan, religion was extremely important to him, and he embraced more of the day-to-day traditional Jewish values, more so than Wendy did, and he had even spent a year in Israel at one point. So one day while Wendy was online browsing JDate for potential suitors, she came across Dan's profile. Now what's different a little bit in Wendy's case is as she was looking online at this website, her mom was looking with her, which I

guess isn't that uncommon. I've just never really heard of it before, but I guess they were doing it together, and I suppose that makes sense for a mother and daughter. I don't know. I guess you want your mom to weigh in. It just seems a little personal for me. But anyways, so she's like perusing through JDate, and she comes across Dan's profile, and her mom really encouraged her to make a connection with him based off of what his profile had to say, that he was this strong Jewish man, had these great values, so she decided to proceed with it. So Wendy and Dan hit it off. They dated, and then they eventually got married, with both sides of the family contributing to the wedding. Now, while both sides of the families contributed to the

finances in the wedding, Wendy's family paid for all of the catering in the family, which normally wouldn't strike you as anything specific. But here's where things got interesting with that. During the wedding, Dan had found that all of the food that was being served was not kosher. And if you remember, all of his traditional Jewish values are very important to him. So now seeing his new wife's family, who volunteered to pay for all of the catering, had done so but hadn't kept kosher for any of it, really upset him. It really bothered him. But little did he know that this one move would truly set the table for he and Wendy's entire marriage, including his

relationship with his now-in-laws. After they got married, Dan received a job offer from FSU, so the two of them built a life together in Tallahassee, Florida. However, in 2012, after seven years of marriage, Wendy had filed for divorce. Now, according to court documents, Dan returned home from a business trip, and he found his family completely gone. A majority of the furniture in the house was missing, and the divorce papers that Wendy had signed were just left laying on the bed. A complete abrupt move out, divorce, it apparently shocked Dan completely. And not only was the divorce itself and the announcement of it abrupt, but after his split with Wendy, who was also now a lawyer and a

professor at FSU as well, their divorce was anything but amicable, including a very nasty custody battle over their two children long after their divorce was finalized in the summer of 2013, which happened to be one year before Dan's death. Now, even though the two of them were divorced, Wendy was still Dan's next of kin. So the day that he died, police went to go and find her to notify her and alert her what had happened. And they did locate her because she happened to be at lunch with some of her friends. So they immediately notified her and then brought her in to be interviewed. There was a shooting at your home or your ex-husband's home at 2116 Trescott. Your ex-husband excuse me Daniel all right

has been taken to the hospital he's not going to survive okay I'm so sorry. I'm a visitor in this party. 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? And then once we've established all that, I can give you more details. Okay.

Do you understand why I wanted you to come here before I discuss this? No, I don't. Now, during this interview, Wendy appeared to be absolutely devastated. And she gave the impression, like, despite the fact that she and Dan had their differences in court, he was still her boy's father. And this was completely devastating to her, and she was heartbroken. Wendy's interview was also over five hours long, and it didn't take her long to say that she had absolutely nothing to do with this, and also for her to give some ideas to the police of who could have done this. She even suggested that someone might have targeted Dan for her, on her behalf, but without her knowledge. And then she said that it might have been a man named Jeff Lacoste, who was also another professor at FSU. Apparently, Wendy and Jeff had previously dated, but they were now broken up. So Wendy

casually mentions this to police, saying, okay, it might have been Jeff we dated. He knew about the issues that Dan and I were having. Then she casually mentioned that her brother Charlie also knew the intricate details of their tumultuous divorce, saying that at one point, her brother Charlie even bought her a TV as a divorce present, making a joke and saying, I was going to hire a hitman, but a TV was less expensive. Do you know anybody that would have a beef against your ex-husband? Who would do this? I don't know. That's why I'm, that's why you're here. He didn't like Danny because Danny hurt me. I see why he's a good suspect.

It's like, what if it's Jeff? And I did this by asking for some time away from him. I made him crazy. My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. He hurt their daughter. They're very angry with him. But even my family, who felt like I had been mistreated, would never do something like this. Never. Danny has been shot.

Well, my parents sounded really surprised, so it's at least a relief. I was trying to think of who would be angry enough to do something to him. My parents would be angry, but they're not capable of this. Thank God. I really couldn't handle that right now. Now, in that interview, after speaking to her parents, Wendy said that she was relieved that her parents were surprised because that meant that she knew that they weren't in on it, which is a really weird thing to say, right? Because why would she even think that that would be a possibility in the first place, that her parents were in on the murder of her ex-husband and father of her children?

Well, it turned out that Wendy did have a reason to believe that her family hated Dan, and we're going to get to that in just a bit. But also, just as a side note here, when police had searched Wendy's phone, she had pretty alarming and interesting Google searches. She had Google searches of Dan's new girlfriend, the girlfriend's ex-husband, as well as searches for student-teacher pornography. Now, we're going to get into all of that in a second, but for now, in the immediate aftermath of Dan's murder, the police told the public that they believed that this was a targeted murder, but they didn't know who was responsible. Anyone in Dan's neighborhood that was there at the time that he was killed was urged to come forward if they had any information.

The neighbor that called 911 had mentioned that he believed that he saw a light gold-colored vehicle that he believed might have been a Prius speeding away just after he heard those loud bangs. So at the time, that was really all the police had to go off of. Initially, based on the crime scene, police thought that Dan knew his killer. But this ultimately changed when police learned that Dan was actually on the phone with someone at the time of his death. And this person that Dan was on the phone with said that Dan said that a car was approaching him, a car that he didn't recognize. And then shortly after that, they heard the shots, and then they didn't hear Dan again. Dan's death was not only a loss for his family, but also a complete shock to all of his students and colleagues. But the biggest question remained, who would want him dead? Was this a disgruntled

student? Was this somebody that Dan pissed off maybe? He was extraordinary. He was a gifted young man. Gifted. Donald Weider, former dean of the FSU Law School, says the intense and driven Markell was a superstar. Our second speaker is Dan Markell. A renowned scholar who commanded attention at prestigious legal seminars around the country. But the sentencing issue is distinct from the criminalization question. In the classroom, Markell was regarded as a tough but fair taskmaster. Dan was demanding of himself and of others. He was always exhorting people to do their best, to think independently, to think critically. And hopefully this will book some conversation. Thanks.

You see, Dan could be pretty argumentative and had very hot takes on controversial opinions that he put on his online blog. Some of Dan's colleagues had speculated that he had received threatening posts in the past. In one instance, an anonymous person wrote, bullies like this need to be made radioactive. Their arrogance and imperiousness speaks for itself. All means necessary must be employed. Police were never able to identify who that post came from, but would someone actually come over and kill him over that? Nobody really knew. Despite an extensive police investigation, no suspect was arrested or even named. And eight months after Dan's murder, his parents were starting to get frustrated, and they began to worry that this was going to become a cold case.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, his dad, Philip Markell, said, We want to see the killer caught and brought to justice. It is frustrating as we are at a standstill, and that means we cannot have closure and just have to live with it. That is not the best situation. I have my own theory about who killed Dan, but I do not have the proof, and I am unwilling to share them. After Dan's death, Wendy ended up moving from Tallahassee to be closer with her family in South Florida, where she grew up. She also accepted a position working for a federal judge, and then later, she moved to an upscale apartment in Miami with her two children. She also had their last names legally changed from Markell to Adelson. While working for the federal judge, Wendy took a

creative writing class that had a podcast where she spoke about her divorce experience. Thought I could cheat the system and marry a man I lacked passionate love for. Our marriage dissolved after the children arrived as the loneliness of being married to someone that didn't view me as an equal crept in. Now let's get into a little bit more of background on Wendy and why her family had their reasons for hating Dan apparently. Let's start with Wendy being the youngest child of her parents, Donna and Harvey Adelson. Adelson was raised among the soaring palm trees and beaches of sunny South Florida. Her well-heeled family operated a lucrative dentistry clinic named

the Adelson Institute near Fort Lauderdale. Her father Harvey and brother Charlie. I am a periodontist owner. Handled the drilling and filling and her mother Donna coordinated patient care. Donna and Harvey live in the Coral Springs area of Miami where they have lived for a pretty long time. They have three children in total, Robert, Charlie, and Wendy. Their oldest son, Robert, became estranged from his family after

getting married. But it seems like Wendy and Charlie had always been a little bit closer siblings from the get-go. They attended high school at the same time. They were closer in age, just things like that. They always were a little bit closer than she and Robert. Now, their oldest son, Robert, became a doctor, and then Charlie went into the family dental practice as a periodontist, doing surgical implants, things like that, and Wendy decided to go to law school. So not bad. Two doctors and a lawyer in your family. I would say you pretty much hit the jackpot there. So growing up, the family was all pretty close. This happy cookie-cutter life, right? Well, after Wendy had filed that ambush-style divorce and moved out while Dan was out of town on that business trip, she tried to

move to be back closer to family in that Coral Springs area, which was about an eight to nine hour drive from where she and Dan lived with their kids. Well, Dan was apparently livid by this, and rightfully so. He didn't want her to take the children that far away from him, so he filed a motion against her in court. However, Wendy and her family were determined to move her and her boys to South Florida, where the rest of the Adelson family lived. But Dan refused this and successfully fought it in court.

The judge ruled that Wendy could not move that far away from Dan, period. And this really pissed off Wendy's mother, Donna, the matriarch of the family. And when I say that, Donna really had taken on this role of the cliche overbearing matriarch who called the shots for all of her adult children, not just Wendy. In fact, it's been speculated that the reason her oldest son, Robert, is estranged from the family is because his mom, Donna, didn't approve of his wife. Just truly overbearing, wants to have a hand in everything that her kids are doing, even though they're adults. Then when they do something that she doesn't agree with, it doesn't align with what she wants, she banishes them, pushes them away, or gets really angry. And that's what was happening now. Dan

won in court. Wendy wasn't able to move back home to be closer to her family with her kids. So now Donna was coming off the rails. But surely that wouldn't be enough to commit murder, would it? So who was responsible for this? That's not motive enough. So then more time passed. And a year after Dan's murder, nobody was arrested. Then the two-year mark happened. Still, nobody had been arrested, and people were now beginning to think that this was going to end up being a cold case, an unsolved case. And people were worried that this huge mystery of who murdered Dan would just never be solved. However, in the background, investigators were still looking into Dan's murder, and they finally caught a lead in May of 2016,

right around the two-year mark after Dan's murder. You said there was another vehicle that you saw driving away? Yes, and it left the scene rapidly. It looked sort of like a Prius. Investigators are asking anyone with information about this vehicle or similar vehicles to please call the tip line.

The Prius was really the thing that they focused on initially. They had surveillance video of it from city buses that it had driven by. Intersection cameras were able to capture it. This is a picture of the actual suspect vehicle. There are four things about this car that we're asking our viewers to look at. The first thing is going to be the color. Silver pine mica. Silver pine mica. It means it's going to be sometimes silver, sometimes green, depending on the light. How many silver pine mica Priuses

are there around Tallahassee? I guess there's probably a lot everywhere. But this one was pretty unique, because it had a black passenger side mirror. On the driver's side, it's the same color as the car. On this side, it's black. They're supposed to be the same color as the vehicle. It was missing a tow cap. If you look down here in the corner, there is a hole where you would put a tow vehicle into it. A toll card

reader, it appears, in the front windshield. Apparently, at that time in Tallahassee, there weren't any toll roads, and most people didn't have E-Z Passes displayed in their windshields. So this led them to believe that the car was most likely from central or southern Florida. Tallahassee police dug deep into their investigation because they needed to now find this car, and eventually they did. They tracked the car all the way to Miami to a very small car rental shop, and from there, police were able to identify who had rented that Prius back in July of 2014. It was two men, Luis Rivera and Sigfrido Garcia. Luis and Sigfrido had grown up together and knew each other for a very long time. Now, since police now had names, they were able to go

through phone records. And it turned out that back in July of 2014, their phone locations did not do them any sort of favors whatsoever. On July 16th of 2014, police said that the suspects, Luis and Sigfredo, traveled to Tallahassee from North Miami, this based on cell phone records, surveillance footage, and car rental information. The following day, on July 17th, Sigfredo and Luis arrived in Tallahassee just after midnight, this again according to cell phone records. Records also pinged their phones near Dan's house. Now initially there was a witness who turned out to be a self-confessed drug dealer who told police that he actually sold cocaine to Sigfredo and rented a hotel room in his own name for Sigfredo and Luis. Then, the following day, around 11 a.m. on July 18th, Dan Markell was shot in the head.

After the shooting, ATM video surveillance captured both men in the Prius, further establishing that these two guys were who the police needed to look at. So now that they had their two guys, police were stuck with the job of figuring out how the hell these two guys were involved with Dan. Why would they want to murder Dan? Why would they be involved in this horrific homicide at Dan's own house, shooting him in the head? So they started looking back at the people that they initially interviewed. And one of those people was Wendy, Dan's ex-wife. And she had mentioned that she didn't know if somebody would have set something up to kill Dan on her behalf, if you remember, and she even had mentioned her ex-boyfriend Jeff. Now remember,

Jeff and Wendy had dated for about nine months until just before Dan was murdered. In Jeff's interview, he said, I'm the paranoid ex-boyfriend. I was surprised that you guys didn't call me earlier though, because I probably said a hundred times that I'd like to kick his ass because he kept really making Wendy suffer. He also mentioned a few other things in his interview, and Jeff backed up Wendy's story earlier about her brother Charlie, except in his interview, Jeff didn't think that it was a joke. She told me that Charlie had looked into having Danny killed in the summer of 2013. She meant it dead serious. Not like I joke around, I'd like to kill Dan McCarroll and that's different. She said it in a dead serious, like i joke around i like to kill them or carlos that's

different she said it in a dead serious chilling uncomfortable kind of way in the moment i was like my stomach flipped i was like whoa on may 25th 2016 sigfredo was arrested on charges of first degree murder and possession of cocaine the next day tallahassee pd held a press conference where they also named l Luis as a suspect. But there weren't any other details given other than that, because the documents were sealed. Then, on June 2nd, the documents were unsealed, and what came from that unsealing was a huge shock to the community. In what came as an extremely shocking twist to the public, who didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, police had established a connection between the Adelson family and Sigfredo, along with a detailed timeline and phone records linking what they had found. Now, I cannot stress enough just how damning

some of this evidence was at this point. Investigators had spent a very long time making these connections and had sifted through an enormous amount of phone records, emails, and had even called in the FBI to make some wiretaps. On June 17th, both Sigfredo and Luis were indicted on murder charges, meaning the state wasn't going to have a preliminary hearing of any sort, and both of the men pled not guilty. Then, in a very shocking twist, another one, police made another arrest. The third arrest was the arrest of a woman, a woman who investigators said had ties to both the Adelson family and ties to the shooters. We're going to take a quick break in today's case to hear from our sponsors of today's episode.

This woman was Catherine Mann Bagua, who was 31 at the time and also goes by Katie. In documents released by the police, detectives alleged that Katie had a romantic relationship with Charlie Adelson, Wendy's brother. And not only that, but she actually lived with Sigfredo and had two children with him. According to court documents, in the weeks leading up to Dan's murder and for a long time after, there were hundreds of calls between Charlie and Katie and between Katie and Sigfrido, and some of them were literally right after the other, like some sort of criminal phone tree. You call one person, they call the next, and you go all the way ping-ponging down the line. However, with all of this, Charlie was not charged. As the three of their trials approached, Luis accepted a plea deal from prosecutors where he actually ended up flipping on Katie and Sigfrido, and this was in a wild confession that was actually videotaped. Non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, non-speaking, quality to come to tell the high season very first time. And so the first time I went, I was coming over here,

and I don't want to come in the first time. You know, it's a very normal time. That's what I see in some of the more competitive community teams in the world. So before I invited the club, we had a conversation which took place in Washington about two months ago. Actually, I don't know, just going to shiina, mou tshirat. tui mona auta mona, et hoi toni, nisun, unha mona et te moni, futa, et te nebea,

te nebea, et te kusina. Ane, et te nebaa, a te maunat, pro la. I don't know if you know, but it's my idea in the room. So do you care in the room? Will you tell me about the name? You told me you really love the name, so you don't care. So you know, all of these driver are out for trouble. You've got to know how to name. This is just more welcome. I've got some ideas. So this car, I'm coming to it as a family of this path of chemical disease, of family and human life. Especially when you tell me about the most effective ways in which you can get out of the eyes of a man who has a problem with his chest. The main most effective way is that you can't force him with the keys,

because he can't react to all the pressure. Now, at the time of the play, I was thinking, how can we make the key work? I had two or more methods. Key to get those keys online. a lot of the time it's a clear house to be, a full house of people. I'm, I'm terrible at that. Can you give those kids a word? Kids are weird, they're weird. When you're just asking them, they all know that for sure.

And that's the challenge of so many of them, you know? I don't know that. When you have kids, these kids are not caring for that. And then, you know, people can hold it and they can do it. It's just that I don't know that it's like, come on, we're not gonna do So at this point, Luis was really spilling the beans on everybody involved, including the Adelsons, who up until this point had denied any involvement of any kind. Yet he claimed that Katie, who was in a relationship with Wendy's brother Charlie, put the two of them up to this murder-for-hire plot. Part of Luis's confession

was accepting a guilty plea to second-degree murder, and he was sentenced to a seven-year prison term in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors. Sigfredo's attorney spoke out in an interview and said, these are dentists. They aren't the Sopranos, okay? The prosecution admittedly didn't have enough evidence, so it went out and bought some by giving away the farm to a murderer. Seven years is just offensive. That's not a search for truth. That's a deal with the devil. So who was really telling the truth here? Katie and Sigfredo went to trial together, where they both adamantly said that Luis was lying. He was full of shit, and there was absolutely no plot whatsoever.

Katie even took the stand, which was an interesting move since the prosecutors apparently had a lot of evidence against her. They had proof that her bank account received a little over $50,000. She had checks from the Adelson Institute, the dental practice, and these checks were signed by Donna, the matriarch of the Adelson family. These checks were then deposited into Katie's bank account when she was not an employee there or did not work for them. There was also a direct phone record trail where she would talk to Charlie, then call Sigfredo, and vice versa, making it blatantly obvious that she was this middleman between the whole thing. Also, in a weird detail, the prosecution also believed that Charlie had paid for her to get a breast augmentation, and that her new Lexus was previously registered to Harvey Adelson, Wendy and Charlie's dad. Everything just very oddly interconnected, and certainly looks like damning evidence, right? So after seven days of testimony, prosecutors presented this information, as well as what they say were covert discussions over an FBI wiretap. They presented it as evidence

that she helped hire her longtime boyfriend, Sigfredo, to kill Dan in a murder-for-hire plot by Dan's ex-in-laws, the Adelsons. There were also numerous FBI wiretaps where Charlie was implicated in being part of the payments from the dental practice to Katie. Hey, what's going on? If payments from the dental practice to Katie. Erica, Erica. Yes. Do me a favor. I'm not there right now. Uh-huh. And I'm in surgery. Uh-huh. But it's not my office. It's my dad's office.

Uh-huh. So I can't give anything out. Why? I mean, I don't have access to it. I don't know where anything is. I would not speak to anybody. Uh-huh. I mean, listen, you can talk to whoever you want. I shouldn't say I don't know where anything is. I would not speak to anybody. I mean, listen, you can talk to whoever you want.

I shouldn't say I'll talk to anybody. I mean, it's not my office. The office was sold back to my dad actually a long time ago. So tell them that you will. So it's actually you're talking to the wrong Dr. Adelson. I mean, it's not your office. You can't do that, right? Yeah, they say within 20 days of the Florida statute,

provide a birth cause. Are they there now? They're there, but you know, I'm in the back. They're just waiting for me to come back. Oh, and they want records? Yes. Do me a favor. I'm going to call you from a landline on your cell phone, okay?

Okay. All right, bye. Sigfredo was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2019. However, Katie's case went a little differently. Her defense said that her money came from her work in nightclubs and also working bottle service in Miami, and also from Sigfredo, who was the father of her two children. Additionally, her defense denied that the recordings implicated Katie whatsoever. Instead, they believed it showed that she was coerced into helping her boyfriend at the time,

her boyfriend Charlie. Katie's trial ended in a hung jury mistrial, but she was again tried in 2022, where she was ultimately convicted for her role in the murder plot and sentenced to life in prison. However, this time, there was now a fourth arrest that came to light. Wendy's brother Charlie was indicted for murder. Eight years later and more arrests in the murder of Florida State University professor Dan Markell. In jail tonight, his former brother-in-law now facing first degree murder charges in his death. Dan Markell was killed in the driveway of his home.

A grand jury has now indicted Charlie Adelson in Markell's death. The uncle of Dan Markell was killed in the driveway of his home. A grand jury has now indicted Charlie Adelson in Markell's death, the uncle of Dan Markell's two children. Adelson was arrested at his home in Broward County at the center of this investigation and charges I don't know if a badge comes up to you. No, have a nice day, officer. If they want to charge you with something, charge me. If not, I don't talk to cops. Sorry. This FBI footage recorded in 2016 shows Charlie Adelson and Catherine McVanawa having a conversation about the investigation into the murder of Florida State University professor Dan Markell in 2014.

It has now been enhanced to a look into a conversatio between the two in south video presented to a gran on the BBC. This is the b talking about investigat family and friends. You' This was up in the morning in America. This was up in New York. This was in a basement. You can see the two talking about investigators talking to family members, calling the investigation a scare tactic,

and the worldwide news coverage the case has had since 2014. Assistant State Attorney Georgia Kappelman said the enhanced evidence is a big piece of what they needed to help their case. Well, the piece of evidence was something that I did think was important. And I've always felt like if we could just get that clarified, that would make a big difference potentially in the case. So I was really happy to have that piece of evidence to present to the grand jury. Now, recently, Charlie Adelson, as well as his family, has been back in the news because Charlie just went to trial for his alleged role in the Hitman for Hire plot to murder

his ex-brother-in-law Dan. And it gets very, very interesting because we are not done with the arrests yet and we are not done with how tangled this web truly is. In Charlie's trial, multiple text messages and phone calls were played after investigators had wiretapped Charlie's phones. Hello, you guys, who is this? Who's this? Someone's been calling my family and trying to figure out who this is. Update, 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? 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 is where I'm going away, my friend. Because let me who you are. You don't? Well, this is 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 Puto, and nothing's been taken care of without them. So we know. We know what's going on. And Tuto 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.

All right, 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 Tuto been taken care of. I family needs to be taken care of just like Katie and Tuto have been taken care of. I've never met this people, but let me call you back, okay? That's bull, man. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You know this lady. I don't know your relationship with the lady, but we know what the is going on.

Just take care of your life. Take care of Tato just like you take care of Katie and Tu, man. Let me call you back. Charlie testified in his trial where he tried to explain that the prosecution had all of this entirely wrong. Instead, he said that Katie was aware of the situation that Wendy was going through and that she knew at one point that the Adelson family had actually offered Dan $1 million in exchange to allow Wendy to move with the boys to South Florida, an offer in which Dan apparently refused. Because that just shows what kind of man Dan was. There wasn't a price tag on

having limited access to his children. No price would be high enough because all he wanted was to be near his children. He was a good father who loved his kids. So according to Charlie and his defense team, Charlie said that because Katie heard this, she told Sigfredo, the father of her kids, who also happened to have ties to the Latin kings. And according to Charlie, Sigfredo and Katie then came up with a plan to blackmail Charlie, basically saying that they murdered Dan so that they could blackmail Charlie since it would look like he was a part of it in the first place. Again this all according to Charlie and his defense team during his trial. Now this was a pretty crazy defense I have to say but in fairness I guess they had to at least give it a shot since their case was absolutely in the toilet at this point

and had already been completely blown apart by the prosecution. But the prosecution wasn't buying any of this, not at all. And for this custody dispute, the judge ended up ruling in Dan Markell's favor. So Wendy Adelson was not permitted to move to Miami with the children. Unless, of course, something happened to Dan Markell. A review of Wendy Adelson's emails revealed that her mother, Donna Adelson, hated Dan Markell and was desperate to find a way for Wendy and her children, who were Donna Adelson's grandchildren, to be able to move to Miami. Donna Adelson suggests in these emails that y'all will hear about several ways that Wendy Adelson could threaten or bully Dan Markell into submission, into getting what she wanted him to do. Donna Adelson even suggested offering Dan Markell a $1 million bribe to allow the relocation

and even said that this defendant, Charlie Adelson, would pay a third of that million-dollar bribe to Dan Markell to make that happen. The evidence in this case will show that Donna Adelson's closest confidant was her son, the defendant. She and the defendant talked multiple times a day, every day. He was the person with whom she would constantly vent and complain to about Wendy's situation. The defendant was also the person that Donna Adelson relied on to solve her problems. And this was a big, big problem for Donna Adelson. And she made it the

defendant's problem to solve. Some of the evidence presented hadn't been shown before, and some of it wasn't all about Charlie either. It implicated his mother Donna, the matriarch of the family. And some of the most damning information by far to convict Charlie was intertwined with Donna's actions as well. As part of an FBI sting that was referred to as the bump, an undercover officer ran into Donna while she was walking to pick up the boys from school. He gave her a piece of paper that was an article about Dan Markell's death, and then he basically threatened her, basically saying, we know what you did, and now you need to help me out and give me some money. Donna was visibly shaken after this, and the FBI wiretapped calls that she made

immediately after that directly to Charlie showed that she was obviously worried and says, no, it probably has to do with both of us. Why did you select Donna Adelson to be the recipient of this phone? Because we noticed the pattern of calls leading up to the murder and around the time of the murder. The calls were always Donna Adelson to Charlie Adelson to Catherine McBanwa to Sigfredo Garcia and then back. It was always going back and forth pretty much in that order. So we wanted to start it on one end and see what would happen, see if it would travel that same

line of person, people. Excuse me, Mrs. Adelson? Hey, go. I just want to give you this. Listen. You? That's scary. Those don't be scary.

Listen, just want to let you know that we know that your family has been taking care of Katie and her friend, Lutho, for quite some time after your problem up north has been solved. And I want to let you know that my brother, he's incarcerated. He helped your family with this problem you guys had up north. And we want to make sure that he's going through some rough times, and we want to make sure that you take care of what he's going through, the way you're taking care of Katie and Tudor. Well, this will explain it.

Thank you. Did someone write a letter to you or something? I got some, I got some paperwork. Hand delivered to me. You're being sued? No, that's what I thought it was. I didn't mean to talk to you. Did Dad know about this?

I guess it worked for me, fortunately. What's, uh, I don't know, IRS? You know, those IRS people, they kind of bother you sometimes, but fortunately not now. Okay. So I will talk to you. I'll give you a heads up if I'm going to drive up that way. All right. I think.

Does it involve one year? No, no, no. So let me just talk to you later. Is everyone's health okay? Yeah. Does it involve me or other people? Well, probably both of them. Who was that?

Probably the two of them. So we probably have a general way idea what I'm talking about. Right. So let's just find some time to talk to each other and check the books for a while, okay? There were multiple instances where it was blatantly obvious that his mother Donna and Charlie were talking in some type of code, but essentially talking about things that made no sense other than a plot to kill Dan, and also how they attempted to cover their tracks in the aftermath. Additionally, a lot of communication between Donna to Wendy and Charlie was introduced during this, where she went absolutely nuts during Wendy's custody battle. She called Dan a fucker,

pressured Wendy to threaten Dan to convert the boys to Catholicism, knowing that it would make Dan furious because of how religious he was and how instilled in the Jewish faith he was, and she said over and over how much Dan could not win their custody battle, and almost seemed like she was getting angry with Wendy with how the judge was ruling in the custody case, something that Wendy clearly had absolutely no control over. I mean the emails are wild and are almost like Donna was staying up all night fixating on this and would just send these random bizarre and obsessive rants that literally looked like the ramblings of a complete psychopath in my opinion and honestly when I was watching some of this trial I couldn't even believe that this was real. However, the rest of your life and

consequently dad's, mine, and yes, even Charlie's will be affected by how well you can perform slash act before July 31st. You need to be a good actress when you, or you can be a good actress when you want to. I've seen you in action. You need to put on the performance of your life. Gibbers hasn't beaten the Adelson family yet. Who's Gibbers? Gibbers, she's referring to Danny. Generally speaking, does your mom manipulate the personal lives of her children? No. Did your mom call Dan any disparaging names around this time frame? Well, I just read them in the emails, but I don't remember them independently. Okay. Did she call him an asshole? Yes. A narcissist? Yes. A bully? Yes. Religious zealot? Yes. Bastard? That I don't remember. Page five. Okay.

Is it page five from the first email? Tucker? Yes. Yes. Do you agree or disagree that there have been some financial benefits to you and your boys as a result of Dan's death? I disagree. When was the last time you talked to your mom? Did you talk to her today? Yesterday? I talked to her yesterday.

In her emails, and we referenced one of them while you've been here on the stand, she talks about you giving performances and playing roles. Did you discuss anything about what you would do here today in court with your mother? No. 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. Is that why you went to the crime scene on the day of the homicide? I did not go to the crime scene on the day of the homicide. Do you know who all was involved in the murder? Well, I learned today, but at the time, no. Okay. Have you ever privately confronted your brother about his role or possible role in the murder? My attorney has advised me not to have conversations

with anyone in my family about the case. But you had a close relationship with your brother at the time of the murder, right? I absolutely had a close relationship with your brother at the time of the murder, right? I absolutely had a close relationship with my brother. And how soon after the murder did your lawyer advise you not to talk to your family about it? In 2016. Okay, so what about the two years in between? Did you talk to him about it then?

I mean, I talked to him about the fact that a murder occurred, but I guess I don't understand the question. But you never talked to him about the suspicions you raised in the law enforcement interview that your brother might have done it? No, I did not. You suspected your brother could have been a part of this, right? I suspected lots of people could have been a part of it. But he was one of the people, right? 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. Is it better for both you and your brother if you don't know the details of this? I don't even understand the question that you're asking me. When did you first become aware that you might be a suspect in this case? I mean, as the ex-wife, I assumed I was a suspect from the beginning. What was your first thought when you were asked if anyone might have murdered Dan Markell for your benefit? I thought, oh my God, maybe if I hadn't divorced him, he would still be alive. Maybe this is my fault because I complained to the wrong person.

Maybe Danny gave a student a bad grade and they came after him. I just was trying to think of who possibly could have wanted to hurt him. But you didn't say any of that before. I mean, the first thing you said was Charlie, right? I don't think so. Page 25 of your interview, line 5 through 15, do you have any reason to dispute? Page 25, not five hours into it, you say Charlie might have done it, right? Do you want the culpable parties held accountable for murdering the father of your children? Absolutely. I'm grateful they're already in jail. But not if it's your family. It's not my family. I mean, somebody hired them, right? Not necessarily. Somebody paid them. I learned something this morning. Yeah, me too.

You didn't want them held accountable if it was your family members. Didn't you tell law enforcement that? That's not what I told law enforcement. What did you tell law enforcement? I told them that the person who did this should be held responsible and that I had nothing to do with it. Page 122, lines 7 through 12. If somebody tried to kill my ex-husband, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The investigator says, regardless of who it is, and your answer is, I mean, it would be different if I thought it were my brother. But I don't think it was my family.

It's different now, isn't it? No, it's not different. That's exactly what I said right here. No, that's not right. No further questions. If, you say, if they had any evidence, we'd have already gone to the airport. And I know you already testified about this, but does an innocent person say if they had any evidence? Right. Katie Katie saying it's the police and I'm saying we're innocent they're not gonna have any evidence to show we were part of something that we were part of it we had any part of this we'd be going to the airport right now doctor that they're not gonna have any

evidence because you were careful no because we weren't a part of this you were smart no who weren't a part of this you walled yourself off I was they were not going to have evidence to show I did something I didn't do. So we're not running to the airport. And you're untouchable, right? No, we didn't do a murder. I wasn't part of a murder. There's no reason to run to the airport. 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. Was your explanation to the jury over the last little over a day the simplest explanation? It was the truth. Do you, I mean, you have a thorough explanation. Would you agree with that? I told you what happened.

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. I want to go through some of that. You claim that you were extorted on July 18th 2014 by Catherine Magdano and also in the background some Latin kings, probably Garcia and Rivera, right? Is that accurate? No, I wasn't extorted by Catherine Magbanua. You weren't?

That's not what I believed in 2014. Okay, I'm sorry. I understood you to say you believe that today. Today I do, yes. All right, so who extorted you? I believe that it was Catherine McFinders' friend that she ran her mouth to. Did you ever hear Donna Adelson refer to Dan Markell as stupid? No. Were you laughing when Wendy was on the stand and I read all the names that

Donna referred to Dan Markell as? No, i laughed when you said the word fucker in court okay what did she mean when she said dan markell was trying to take her sunshines away do you know my mom never said that oh so that was that was made up and he put it in a court filing and then now it becomes something that my mom said because someone made it up and put it in a court filing and then on 2 19 of 14 donna texts you again to tread lightly with wendy and refers to dan markell as an asshole and a fucker right sorry he made me laugh sorry that's what i'm here for is that what happened that text did my mom use a foul word to describe him yes sir asshole and fucker to be specific sorry um she she used a curse word correct

all right guys we're going to take the last break in today's episode to hear from the final sponsors for today charlie was ultimately convicted on all charges, murder, conspiracy, and solicitation. After the verdict, Assistant State Attorney Georgia Kappelman said that the investigation into Dan's death is ongoing, and she did not comment any further on whether any other members of the Adelson family could face charges in the future. Well, that came sooner than later, when news broke just a few weeks ago that Donna was arrested. Donna was arrested on a Monday night at an airport while allegedly trying to flee the country. So get this.

Donna, who is 73 years old and, again, the matriarch of her wealthy family, was at Miami International Airport with her husband Harvey. And she was about to board a one-way flight to Vietnam, coincidentally a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., and that's when she was arrested. So this is pretty egregious and just flat-out moronic, in my opinion, if you ask me, but you know we love when criminals are truly this stupid. Because here's the thing, Why on earth would Donna think that she could talk to Charlie, her son, on a recorded jail call and tell him that she is getting her affairs in order, thinking of suicide, or possibly going to a non-extradition country? This after Charlie just went through a trial where Donna was implicated in many ways.

And remember, Charlie was convicted on how strong the evidence was. So then she just thinks that she isn't being monitored in general or ignores the fact of these jail calls being recorded and monitored. Despite the fact that in the beginning of these jail calls, it says verbatim that all conversations are recorded and reviewed by jail staff. It is just beyond me. Like, could you get any more stupid? Thank you again for being so stupid.

We love when criminals cannot think straight and think that they're above the law and that they're being sneaky. She thought, oh, I'm being sneaky. I'm going to Vietnam. This one-way ticket. They don't have the extradition treaty. I know they're probably investigating into me, but they won't be able to bring me back and charge me. But you make these plans on a recorded call with your son who was

just convicted and in jail now, knowing these calls are going to be reviewed by staff. Make it make sense. So Donna has been charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation to commit murder. And as a little fun fact, after she was arrested, she was first taken to the same facility that Courtney Clunney is being held in. And Courtney Clunney is the OnlyFans model who allegedly murdered her boyfriend. However, Donna has now been transferred to Leon County Jail in Tallahassee. She's being held without bail, too, given her obvious flight risk status. So after news that Donna was arrested nearly broke the internet, people online have been speculating that Wendy might be next, that Wendy might be implicated, and there has always been a suspicion around her that she knew more than she truly let on. She testified in Charlie's trial,

and also the trials of Catherine and the two hitmen. And there were times on the stand where, at least in my opinion, she was definitely dodging the truth, and honestly not really doing that bad of a job at it, especially because she is a lawyer herself after all. So now there have been five arrests in this case, showing how crazy this plot truly was. You have the two hitmen, you have Catherine, the girlfriend, the ex, the mom who like set it all up, you have Charlie, Wendy's brother, you have Donna, Wendy's mother. Five people who have been arrested. And the biggest question is how far exactly are all of these dominoes going to fall? Should Wendy be worried in all of this? Should Harvey, the father, be worried? Did they know anything? Were they involved? Well, I guess we're just going to have to see because we know that the investigators are still looking at things very closely. And I want to mention, I do think

it's possible that Wendy maybe didn't know what was going on. Possibly. Probably not, but possibly. However, Harvey, her father, maybe he wasn't a participant in the plot and the hire itself, but certainly he had to know what was going on and whoever was involved in this. Because wouldn't you think as a spouse, if your husband or wife was telling you, hey, I'm boarding a one-way flight to Vietnam, you'd kind of wonder why? You'd wonder if they were guilty of something? So certainly it's my opinion that he has more knowledge on all of this. But again, I guess we'll have to just wait and see and I definitely will be keeping you guys updated in this case. This is one of the more bizarre cases that I have covered in a while because of the complexity of it

all how many people are involved a true ruthless family it kind of gives you like Murdoch vibes in a weird way almost like the cover-ups the like entitlement of feeling like your family's untouchable and if somebody fucks with your family they are better off dead. I mean it really kind of gives me those icky vibes and it's also been a case that has been very heavily requested by so many of you listeners. So I hope you found this deep dive helpful as a way to explain the case so far because I know it is so confusing with how many players are involved in it. There have been so many things that have happened in this case over an almost 10-year time frame. So because of that, it's impossible to include every single detail. So if you guys are interested in an even deeper dive on certain parts of this case, definitely let me know in the comments if

you're watching this over on YouTube or let me know in the Q&A section on Spotify and if you're listening to this on Apple obviously there's not a place for you to comment but you can leave a review of the podcast it takes like 30 seconds and let me know in that review portion if you want a deeper dive on this because this case is just extremely complex and so so fascinating these are kind of the ones that I feel like so many of us are interested in because we're trying to understand the psyche of these people. Why not just divorce? Have a clean break. Make the annoying commute.

It sucks, sure, but surely life in prison sucks more, right? I mean, it just boggles my mind how entitled some of these people think they are. And again, just how stupid these criminals really, really are. So we'll see if Wendy gets arrested. We'll see if Harvey gets arrested. We'll see who else is arrested. And when Donna goes to trial, it's going to be really interesting to see what other evidence comes to fruition. What else happens when we get all of her phone records, when we get all of the information?

Is she going to flip on anybody? I mean, it's my opinion that a 73-year-old woman is not going to hack it in prison very well. Just my thoughts. So we'll see what happens. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Serialistly with me. Don't forget, if you have not followed the podcast yet, please, please, please take a quick second, click the corner, the little three buttons or whatever it is, follow this podcast so that you will be notified every time we upload a new episode. All right, guys, don't forget to snag all of those amazing deals while they last. I put links to all of them in the show notes below. We've got The Way with like the best smelling hair care I've ever used in my life.

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and then come back, watch the video if you want to see the visuals. All right, I'll stop talking now. Thanks again, guys. I hope you have an excellent week and I will be talking with you guys again very very soon all right until the next one bye