Deadly Mischief

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Speaker 4 They claimed that I, this grandma, was the mastermind behind the murder.

Speaker 6 Never in a million years would I have wanted Danny to be harmed or killed.

Speaker 1 A stunning new turn in a twisted family saga of murder and betrayal. The 70-something-year-old woman who bakes banana bread and takes care of her grandchildren.

Speaker 8 It's hard to embrace that she could commit such a heinous act.

Speaker 9 Her son, Charlie, knew how to get it done. He was Donna's right hand.

Speaker 10 The daughter, Wendy, is at the center of this entire story.

Speaker 12 I was not involved in any plot to kill Danny.

Speaker 1 The estrange son, Rob Adelson.

Speaker 14 Who's the leader in the family? Who tends to run a show?

Speaker 15 I think my mom.

Speaker 8 A very powerful witness. He had direct evidence to offer.

Speaker 17 I am an innocent woman.

Speaker 18 She's just being a parent, not a killer. She's a meddler, not a murderer.

Speaker 19 We, the jury, find the defendant.

Speaker 20 Shock.

Speaker 8 It's such a traumatic moment.

Speaker 1 A dad gunned down in his garage. A family turned toxic.
Ten years of twists come down to a shattering moment in court. I'm Lester Holt, and this is State Line.

Speaker 9 Here's Dennis Murphy with Deadly Mischief.

Speaker 1 For 50 years, contestants have been spinning that wheel and trying to solve that puzzle. It's a bit like trying to solve a crime.
Each clue revealed brings a bigger picture into focus.

Speaker 22 And that brings us to a certain contestant in 1989 we now meet Donna Adelson from Coral Springs Florida want to hear all about you Donna let's go well

Speaker 1 I'm a domestic coordinator a domestic coordinator back then Donna did just great on wheel of fortune she solved the puzzle on wheel the idea of the game is to fill in the blank do you remember what hers was I remember it well Donna

Speaker 1 yes mischief maker mischief maker yeah that's it

Speaker 1 and oh what fatal mischief Donna Adelson would make

Speaker 1 Here she is, 34 years later, riding in a police van under arrest.

Speaker 8 And she's now become the wheel of misfortune, if you will.

Speaker 1 So exactly who is this 75-year-old grandmother? Depends who you ask.

Speaker 25 She's a terrific human being, believe it or not.

Speaker 9 There is something purely evil inside that woman.

Speaker 1 And just how did she find herself in a jumpsuit facing trial for murder?

Speaker 26 Please come up with the witness stand, Miss Adelson.

Speaker 27 Donna, in my mind, is the architect.

Speaker 28 I didn't do this.

Speaker 1 Tonight we bring you the latest chapter in this hair-raising tale. This is not justice.

Speaker 29 It is vengeance. Mrs.

Speaker 19 Adelson, control yourself.

Speaker 1 With brand new evidence.

Speaker 30 She actually called me her jail daughter.

Speaker 1 All the explosive testimony, including the prosecution's newest star witness.

Speaker 14 How do you know the defendant in this case, Donna Adelson?

Speaker 15 She's my mother.

Speaker 1 But first we have to roll back the years to the summer of 2014 in sunny Tallahassee, Florida. The opening scene of what I've come to think of as a Shakespearean-like drama.

Speaker 1 A tale of bitter divorce, dueling grandparents, twisted family ties, and the custody of two little boys that all started with one tragic and mysterious murder.

Speaker 12 It's right next door to my house.

Speaker 1 11 a.m. on July 18th.
A man heard gunshots from a neighboring garage and quickly called 911.

Speaker 31 He's inside. the car is running, and he's got blood all over his head.

Speaker 1 He was Dan Markell, a beloved and accomplished law professor at Florida State University. Markell had just arrived home from the gym when he was shot twice in the head.

Speaker 1 His car window smashed, his eyeglasses broken. His assailants apparently pulling away.

Speaker 23 My car was backing up. It was light-colored, white, or silver.
I want to say it was the freest.

Speaker 1 When Dan's friends, Jared and Heather Ross, first heard about a shooting in town, they couldn't believe it. Then Jared got word who the victim was.

Speaker 10 I went into the bedroom and I kind of woke Heather up. I said, it was Danny.
And she kind of looked at me like, what, what? And I said, the shooting on Trescott, it was Danny.

Speaker 1 Tallahassee authorities reached Dan's parents, Ruth and Phil Markell, that afternoon. Shot, that doesn't make sense.

Speaker 3 No. Who would ever want to shoot Dan Markel?

Speaker 27 For me, it was an out-of-body experience. Like, I can't, you know, even, don't even want to think about it in terms of that.
The moments were so horrific.

Speaker 1 They quickly made their way to Tallahassee, but never did get to say goodbye.

Speaker 1 Dan Markell died overnight in the hospital.

Speaker 32 It's tough to talk about until now.

Speaker 1 Dan's friend Josh Berman got the call at home in New York.

Speaker 32 I put the phone down. I sat there on the bed with my head in my hands.
I was like, you know, speechless.

Speaker 1 Dan Markell was just 41. A loving friend and father was now gone.
Not to mention a brilliant legal mind.

Speaker 33 Our second speaker is Dan Markell.

Speaker 1 A native Canadian and Harvard graduate, he was a sought-after speaker at legal conferences across the country, including this appearance for the Federalist Society.

Speaker 33 I guess I've been working in the realm of punishment theory for the last dozen years or so.

Speaker 34 Incredibly gregarious guy.

Speaker 1 Mark Spotswood was a colleague of Dan's at FSU Law School. What was his passion?

Speaker 3 What drove him in the law?

Speaker 34 His research focus and his passion was figuring out why we ought to punish people, really digging into the philosophical justifications for punishment to think about how could we make better choices about sentencing.

Speaker 3 His goal was to make the law school at FSU one of the top 10 schools, and that was part of Danny's abilities. He just met people and he wanted to put people together.

Speaker 1 Back in 2004, Dan connected with a law student named Wendy Adelson on the Jewish dating app, J-Date.

Speaker 32 They were like visibly lovey-dovey.

Speaker 1 Wendy hailed from South Florida from a family of well-to-do dentists. What do you think the glue was mutually, the attraction?

Speaker 32 Wendy's definitely a sharp cookie. They had some overlapping interests, but quite candidly, they just seemed to be in love with each other.

Speaker 1 The couple married in 2006 and settled in Tallahassee, where they eventually had two sons.

Speaker 27 Dan loved the boys more than anything else in the world.

Speaker 10 I think we all love being a parent, but I don't know that I've ever seen anyone love being a father more than Danny Markell.

Speaker 1 But after six years, Wendy and Dan's relationship began to crack. The day of reckoning came in September 2012.

Speaker 1 While Dan was away traveling for work, Wendy packed up the kids and left divorce papers on the bed. Surprise news for their getting divorced, huh?

Speaker 24 It was, it was a shock.

Speaker 1 Stephen Webster was a divorce attorney for Dan and became a friend. As I understand it, Wendy Adelson wanted to take the children with her and move closer to her family in South Florida.

Speaker 1 Was that the question?

Speaker 37 That was the initial question.

Speaker 1 And family law courts said you cannot do that.

Speaker 37 If the children are here in a stable environment and the father can participate fully with the raising of the children, the law prefers that and should. That motion was denied.

Speaker 1 Wendy stayed in Tallahassee with the boys as the court required, eight hours away from her parents' home in South Florida. Her divorce from Dan became final in 2013.

Speaker 1 But the custody arrangement remained a sore point on both sides.

Speaker 1 50-50 sharing arrangement with each other.

Speaker 37 Absolutely. And he availed himself of every second and quite frankly, you know, wanted some time that maybe she found offensive.

Speaker 1 Offensive enough to kill her ex-husband? Now police were about to talk to Wendy, who would be remarkably forthcoming about their bitter divorce and a whole lot more.

Speaker 24 Danny didn't treat me very well.

Speaker 1 Setting the stage for a painstaking march toward justice that would rip apart two families.

Speaker 3 I'm sitting there thinking these people are the ones that killed my son.

Speaker 12 I was not involved in any plot to kill Danny.

Speaker 6 Never in a million years would I have wanted Danny to be harmed.

Speaker 13 I believe that the truth has a way of coming out.

Speaker 1 The investigation into the death of Florida law professor Dan Markell was just hours old when his ex-wife Wendy Adelson first spoke to police.

Speaker 39 There was a shooting.

Speaker 40 Your husband, your ex-husband, excuse me, Daniel, all right, has been taken to the hospital.

Speaker 41 He's not going to survive. Oh my God.

Speaker 41 Okay.

Speaker 41 I'm so hungry.

Speaker 41 I'm a muscle turret this morning.

Speaker 41 What happened?

Speaker 41 Well,

Speaker 39 before we get into everything, I have to establish where you were and who you were with

Speaker 41 and so forth.

Speaker 43 Okay.

Speaker 1 Through tears, Wendy told the detective she'd been at her home that day having her TV repaired, five miles from the crime scene.

Speaker 43 I didn't leave until noon.

Speaker 42 Okay.

Speaker 24 Oh my god. And I tried to drive up Trescott and I saw that it was blocked.

Speaker 40 Do you know anybody that would have a beef against your ex-husband? Oh my god. I hate to ask it now, but I have to do it now.
You understand?

Speaker 24 He always meant well, but he would sometimes rub people the wrong way. Okay.

Speaker 24 But

Speaker 24 Nani often would do something like this.

Speaker 21 Oh my god,

Speaker 21 kiss.

Speaker 21 Oh my mom.

Speaker 40 Where is your closest family at?

Speaker 24 My parents are in Coral Springs. Okay.

Speaker 24 And my brother, I have two brothers, but I'm very close to one of them who is in Fort Lauderdale.

Speaker 21 Oh, my God.

Speaker 43 I can't believe this is happening.

Speaker 1 After Wendy got control of her emotions, she phoned her mom, Donna.

Speaker 24 Mom, I need you to sit down. Danny has been shot

Speaker 24 and I don't think he's going to make it. And I'm at the police station, and I'm trying to help them figure out who may have done this.

Speaker 1 Her mom said she'd rush up to Tallahassee to be with her.

Speaker 24 Love you too. Bye.

Speaker 1 Then Wendy hung up.

Speaker 42 My mom handled that pretty well.

Speaker 1 Tallahassee police took photos and swabbed her hands for gunshot residue. None was found.

Speaker 1 Georgia Kappelman is chief assistant state attorney in Leon County, Florida, and would review Wendy's interview with law enforcement.

Speaker 13 She told the truth about the status of their relationship.

Speaker 1 That it wasn't a happy marriage in the end and it was a very bad divorce.

Speaker 3 Correct.

Speaker 24 His litigious, so we have ongoing litigation where he, I filed a motion to the court to have him pay me what he said he would.

Speaker 13 It certainly was of interest to law enforcement that there was an ongoing nasty divorce and litigation concerning these children.

Speaker 1 That's part of a classic recipe for homicides. Yep.

Speaker 1 But detectives later checked out her alibi and confirmed that she could not have shot her ex-husband. Now they wondered if someone she knew could be behind it.

Speaker 24 Danny didn't treat me very well. And I'm so scared that maybe someone

Speaker 24 did this.

Speaker 24 Not because they hate Danny, but because they thought this was good somehow.

Speaker 1 Wendy told them she'd been seeing another man after the divorce. Jeffrey Lacos, an associate professor of social work at FSU.

Speaker 24 We've been dating since the end of October. We had like a fight at the end end of June and it was weird.

Speaker 24 I asked him to just no contact for a week just so I could kind of figure out whether I wanted to be with him or not.

Speaker 39 When did you ask him then?

Speaker 24 Monday night after yoga.

Speaker 1 Just a few days before Dan Markell was gunned down in his garage. Wendy said she wanted to cool things off because Jeff had become increasingly jealous.

Speaker 40 Is Jeff a violent person? No. Not at all?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 40 Jeff owned a gun?

Speaker 24 I don't think so. I mean, he certainly could have a gun and I wouldn't know about it.

Speaker 1 So the Tallahassee Police tracked down Jeff Lacasse, who had a lot to say about Wendy.

Speaker 40 Have you met Wendy?

Speaker 41 Not personally. No.

Speaker 41 Very charismatic and very good at.

Speaker 44 Once you take this great, it's too many things for. I'm not the only man that's been under Earth, Tom.

Speaker 1 Jason Newland is the chief investigator for the Leon County State Attorney's Office and worked closely with the Tallahassee Police and the FBI on the case.

Speaker 1 Did you think Lacasse was still head over heels for Wendy?

Speaker 45 Oh, definitely. I think he would have loved another chance.

Speaker 1 To police, Jeff Lacos seemed straight out of central casting. The jilted boyfriend, a man who made no secret of his dislike for Dan.

Speaker 43 And you've never had any kind of physical contact with Danny.

Speaker 44 No. I'm surprised you guys didn't call me earlier, though, because I probably said a hundred times in public that I like to kick his ass because he kept

Speaker 44 really making Wendy suffer and things like that. Right, but no, I would never.

Speaker 41 I'm a professor, and I'm a p. I didn't do do anything like that.

Speaker 1 And it turned out he didn't. He was 500 miles away when Dan was shot.
So he's got an alibi that holds up.

Speaker 37 He does.

Speaker 1 Whoever is in the driveway is not him. Correct.
So who was in that driveway? Not Wendy. And not her ex-boyfriend.

Speaker 1 It was only day one of an investigation that would soon involve law enforcement agencies across the state of Florida. The detective's first mission, find the car that neighbor saw driving away.

Speaker 45 This is the date of the homicide, and you can actually see the Prius pull up to the ATM.

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Speaker 1 Dan Markell's Jewish faith had been deeply important to him, and his memorial service at his Tallahassee synagogue was packed with friends and family. including Wendy and her parents.

Speaker 1 Did you see Wendy at the service?

Speaker 10 I did. She kind kind of came in in shock.
It was a really sad, sad and harrowing scene.

Speaker 1 Then just days after the service, Wendy moved back to South Florida with her two boys to be near her family.

Speaker 1 Up in Tallahassee, homicide detectives started following the best lead they had, that possible getaway car a witness described.

Speaker 23 It was light-colored, white or silver. I want to say it was the freest.

Speaker 1 Detectives suspected that car may have been following Dan that morning, so they retraced his travels and searched for clues.

Speaker 1 So Jason, he's dropped the kids off at the preschool roughly, what, five minutes to nine, something like that?

Speaker 31 Close to that. And then he's driving right down this road to go to the gym.

Speaker 1 That's when Dan left this voicemail for Wendy. Hey, Wendy, it's Danny.
Good morning. It's 9 o'clock on Friday.
I was hoping to pick the boys up early this afternoon and take them swimming.

Speaker 1 Cops found security video of Dan as he arrived at the gym at 9.13 a.m.

Speaker 45 You can see him checking in. We did see him scan his key card in.

Speaker 1 Then police checked security cameras outside the health club and hit a forensic home run.

Speaker 1 What do you know? There was a Prius. And it was following Dan when he drove in.
At 10.34 a.m., Dan leaves the gym. When Dan drives out of the parking lot, the Prius is 20 seconds behind him.

Speaker 45 He leaves the parking lot here and is headed back towards his house.

Speaker 1 At that point, he is being hunted. They're not going to let him out of their sights.

Speaker 45 They're not.

Speaker 1 Over Over the next few months, police gathered more video of that Prius from cameras on local buses and spotted something else. A Sun Pass toll tag on the Prius windshield.

Speaker 1 Investigators suspected the car had traveled from out of town, and it turned out that Sun Pass had dinged at toll sites on I-75 between Miami and Tallahassee at times that fit the window of the shooting perfectly.

Speaker 45 It was assigned to an actual business.

Speaker 1 The Sun Pass business account came back to a small car car rental agency in North Miami. The renter, one Luis Rivera.

Speaker 1 Also on the paperwork, cops found a cell phone number that led them to another man, a close friend of Rivera's.

Speaker 45 And that's how you end up establishing Sigfredo Garcia.

Speaker 1 Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, two names already known to law enforcement. Both were from the Miami area and had criminal records.

Speaker 1 Garcia had been arrested for robbery and burglary, and Rivera was a member of the Latin King's gang. A little more investigation turned up bank records.

Speaker 45 And they were able to locate a withdrawal from a bank down in Pembroke Pines.

Speaker 1 And this is on the day of the murder.

Speaker 45 This is the date of the homicide. And you can see Luis Rivera driving and Sigfredo Garcia sitting in the passenger seat.

Speaker 1 There on the day of Dan Markel's murder were their two prime suspects. together in a silver Prius that was a perfect match for the vehicle seen stalking Dan.

Speaker 1 It had taken investigators nearly two years to put the puzzle pieces together. And in the summer of 2016, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera were arrested and charged with the murder of Dan Markell.

Speaker 1 But it was anything but case closed. It was not a random act that they came up here for him.

Speaker 32 These guys, Garcia and Rivera, they didn't wake up one fine morning and say,

Speaker 32 we've got two options. We can hang out on the beach and drink.
Or we can go rent a car, drive to Tallahassee, go murder some guy we never met point blank in his garage, and then drive back.

Speaker 32 I mean, the police have called this a murder for hire, and these guys didn't hire themselves.

Speaker 1 Investigators discovered that right after Dan Markell's death, the two men went on a spending spree, buying cars and motorcycles. It seemed they'd come into major amounts of discretionary cash.

Speaker 1 But where had it come from? Who was the paymaster with the money, the malice, and the desire to see Dan Markel dead? Detectives went back to their first theory.

Speaker 1 Could his ex-wife Wendy have been involved or maybe her family? Stephen Epstein is an attorney and author of a book about the Markell case, Extreme Punishment.

Speaker 1 Steve, what are some words that describe the relationship between these two families, the son-in-law and the Adelson's?

Speaker 9 In the months leading up to the murder, it was toxic.

Speaker 10 Definitely toxic.

Speaker 1 How toxic did it get?

Speaker 1 Well, Wendy herself hinted at it in a seemingly offhand remark during her police interview.

Speaker 24 My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. He heard their daughter.

Speaker 1 And as they dug into the the court documents from her divorce with Dan, investigators learned Wendy had a forceful person in her corner, her mother, Donna Adelson.

Speaker 1 In a series of emails, she encouraged Wendy to go low, fight dirty. Hi, honey, it's time for action.
Let's show this F what will make him absolutely miserable.

Speaker 1 But first, Donna told Wendy the family was going to make Dan a big money offer to back down.

Speaker 1 Investigator Jason Nulan learned that even Wendy's brother Charlie was planning to kick in a few hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 45 There was communication between Wendy and Donna about just to offer him a million dollars until

Speaker 1 here's a million bucks. Yeah.
A million dollars to relocate the kids to South Florida closer to grandma. But the Adelsons ultimately never did make that offer.

Speaker 1 So had Wendy's family done something else to make Dan go away?

Speaker 1 That seemed improbable given their circumstances. Her dad, Harvey, was a prominent dentist who, along with her mother, Donna, ran the Adelson Dental Institute in Tamarack, Florida.

Speaker 1 Donna was very much the happy homemaker. Her kids were her main focus, as she mentioned when she charmed the Wheel of Fortune audience in 1989.

Speaker 24 I'm responsible for the activities, classes, and lessons of my son Robert, who is 16, Charlie, who is 12, Wendy, who is 10.

Speaker 1 When they grew up, the oldest Rob moved away and saw the family less and less. Donna made sure her middle child, Charlie, remained closer to to home.

Speaker 8 My name is Dr. Charlie Adelson, and I am a periodontist.

Speaker 1 He eventually joined the family business and had a lucrative implant practice.

Speaker 8 What I love about what I do is being able to restore people's smiles.

Speaker 1 Dr. Charlie was also a flashy figure around the Miami area, driving a Ferrari with a license plate that read Maestro.

Speaker 1 Dan Markell's friend Jared Ross had grown up in South Florida and knew the Adelsons too. He and Charlie were in the same high school class.

Speaker 10 He was really outgoing. He was kind of a party guy.
You could tell he was loving that South Florida lifestyle.

Speaker 1 Wendy was the baby of the family, and investigators learned that Charlie was her protective older brother.

Speaker 1 In her police interview, Wendy talked about how her parents and brother rallied around her during the divorce. My brother,

Speaker 24 the one, his name is Charlie, the one I'm really close to, he knew Danny treated me badly, and it was always this joke. He said,

Speaker 24 I looked into hiring a hitman, and it was cheaper to get you this TV, so instead I got you this TV.

Speaker 24 I mean, he would never.

Speaker 24 He's my big brother.

Speaker 1 That story certainly got the prosecutor's attention.

Speaker 13 According to Wendy Adelson,

Speaker 13 it was suggested by the brother in the form of a joke.

Speaker 1 But it's a very strange thing to say.

Speaker 17 Very.

Speaker 13 In light of the circumstances, it wouldn't be any big deal if he was alive and well with us.

Speaker 1 It was all very interesting, this smoke gathering around Wendy Adelson and her family of dentists. Then word came from the Leon County Jail.
One of the state suspects wanted to talk.

Speaker 1 The two hitmen accused of killing Dan Markell sat in jail for months, while Tallahassee investigators kept trying to figure out who had hired them for the job. Then, one of them decided to confess.

Speaker 1 Louis Rivera pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a reduced sentence. He told investigators that Garcia said he had a contract to kill Dan and needed the gangbanger's help.

Speaker 47 I'm going to kill this guy. You're going to get paid this much,

Speaker 47 $35,000. We're driving.

Speaker 47 He showed me a picture of my cat.

Speaker 1 The night before the murder, Rivera said, they checked into a motel not far from Dan Markel's home. Friday morning,

Speaker 47 went to Markel's house. Followed him to the gym, waited in the parking lot for a while.
So when he came out of the gym, I followed him home. Restier jumps out,

Speaker 47 he goes around the car, shot him twice, got in the car, we left.

Speaker 47 Kids driving.

Speaker 13 I mean, it's as cold-blooded a killing as you can get to drive all the way to Tallahassee and pull up into someone's driveway that you don't know and just shoot them in cold blood.

Speaker 13 I don't even know that.

Speaker 1 And Rivera offered an answer to the cop's biggest question.

Speaker 1 What was the motive for Dan Markel's murder?

Speaker 47 Because I asked him, why are you going to kill this guy? Because

Speaker 47 the lady wants her two kids back.

Speaker 47 She wants full custody of them kids.

Speaker 1 The lady who wanted full custody of the kids? It sounded like he was talking about Wendy Adelson.

Speaker 1 Rivera went on to tell police that after his partner Sigfredo Garcia killed Dan Markel, they quickly hit the road back to Miami and Garcia made a phone call.

Speaker 47 He called her and he said, everything is done. Make sure you have my money.

Speaker 15 I'm on my way.

Speaker 1 But the woman on the other end wasn't Wendy. It was Garcia's romantic partner, the mother of his children, Katie Magbonowa.
And who is she?

Speaker 45 She was employed at a couple dental practices. She was employed at a bar at one point.

Speaker 1 A modest income at best. Yet, in a curious bit of timing, Katie's cash flow and South Florida standard of living suddenly improved after Dan Markell was murdered in Tallahassee.

Speaker 45 Her bank account for the end of 2014 through 2015 went from a minimal low-income bank account to $100,000 cycling through in less than a year.

Speaker 1 But where did the money come from? More digging turned up a tantalizing clue.

Speaker 17 She was getting a paycheck from the Adelsons.

Speaker 1 $400 in change.

Speaker 48 Correct.

Speaker 1 Was there any obvious work that she was doing?

Speaker 13 There was no obvious work that law enforcement was able to uncover. Yet she's drawing a paycheck.

Speaker 1 Check signed by none other than Donna Adelson, Wendy's mom. But it turns out, Katie's connection to the Adelsons ran a lot deeper than a few cash checks.

Speaker 13 Because she is the girlfriend or recent ex-girlfriend of Charlie Adelson, Wendy Adelson's brother.

Speaker 1 So there's your heavy, your hit guys. One of them has a girlfriend, Katie McBonawa, who has also been a girlfriend of Charlie Adelson.

Speaker 48 Correct.

Speaker 1 Boy, that's straddling two worlds.

Speaker 1 Investigators learned Katie received more perks from the Edelsons, including Alexis, and some other upgrades.

Speaker 45 We were informed at one point that Charlie paid for half of her breast augmentation.

Speaker 1 Done by a guy known in South Florida circles as Dr. Bubner.
Dr.

Speaker 3 Bubner, yeah.

Speaker 1 Putting it all together, investigators had formed a tidy theory that these two criminals gunned down Dan Markell in a hit set up by Katie Magbanova and paid for by Dan's angry in-laws.

Speaker 1 But a theory isn't evidence.

Speaker 45 There's just no communication with anybody that we can find or that anybody will tell us that says the Edelsons are involved.

Speaker 1 Investigators had been tapping the Edelsons' phones and decided to put a squeeze on the family. They launched an undercover sting operation targeting Donna Edelson.

Speaker 1 In police terms, it's called a bump.

Speaker 49 You're going to be wearing green, black, and white tops.

Speaker 1 FBI agents knew Donna was a doting grandma who frequently looked after Wendy's two boys. They surveilled her near her luxury high-rise condo as she headed to pick up her grandsons from school.

Speaker 21 Excuse me, Mrs. Adelson?

Speaker 21 How you doing? Just want to give you this.

Speaker 13 He's an FBI agent, and he is going to approach Donna Adelson on the street and imply that he is somehow affiliated with Louis Rivera and give her a piece of paper which contains an article about the homicide and written on the letter is $5,000 and a phone number.

Speaker 21 I'm not scared.

Speaker 21 Don't be scared. Listen, I just want to let you know that we know that your family has been taking care of Katie and her friends and adults for quite some time after your problem of more than solving.

Speaker 1 Tuto is a nickname Garcia used.

Speaker 13 He says something to the effect of, you're taking care of Katie and Garcia, but you're not taking care of my boy. He doesn't say the name, but the implication is that it's Rivera.

Speaker 21 I want to let you know that my brother, he's incarcerated. He helped your family with this problem you guys had up north.
I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 Donna walked home to her condo and immediately called Charlie.

Speaker 21 I've got some

Speaker 1 paperwork hand-delivered to me.

Speaker 21 You're being sued?

Speaker 49 No.

Speaker 23 Does it involve me or other people?

Speaker 21 Well,

Speaker 1 probably both of us.

Speaker 21 What's that?

Speaker 1 Probably the two of us.

Speaker 23 So you probably have a general idea what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 After that cryptic conversation with his mother, Charlie Adelson called Katie, which, of course, is exactly what investigators were hoping for.

Speaker 3 Hello.

Speaker 21 Hey, what's going on?

Speaker 1 Investigators believe they were inching closer to solving the puzzle of Dan Markell's murder.

Speaker 1 After they staged that bump confronting Donna Adelson, FBI agents were listening as Charlie quickly called his one-time girlfriend, Katie McBonawa, the only known link between the hitmen and the Adelsons.

Speaker 53 I don't know what's going on,

Speaker 21 but my mom, she said that someone approached her on the street,

Speaker 53 but something regarding her son,

Speaker 53 something regarding his ex-girlfriend,

Speaker 53 and the person

Speaker 49 asking my mom for some money.

Speaker 1 Katie didn't say anything incriminating on that call, but the fact that Charlie called her told investigators they were on the right path.

Speaker 1 Law enforcement kept close tabs on Katie, Charlie, and Donna Adelson for weeks and found them in constant communication after the bomb. Hello.

Speaker 49 Hey.

Speaker 49 How are you? Is everything okay?

Speaker 1 The investigators kept hoping one of them would explicitly say they had planned Markell's murder, but the chatter was vague. At times, it seemed as though they were speaking in code.

Speaker 49 Good properties come up all the time.

Speaker 45 I mean, it's suspicious, but it doesn't get us there.

Speaker 9 If you're going to try somebody, you want to make sure your evidence is as good as it possibly can be. So the thought all along was, go after the low-hanging fruit first.

Speaker 9 hope that more of the low-hanging fruit individuals flip and turn state's evidence.

Speaker 1 That was their hope for Katie. Prosecutors thought they had enough evidence against her to pull the trigger.
So in October 2016, she was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 1 But she didn't flip. She pleaded not guilty and three years later went on trial.

Speaker 1 Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman laid out the evidence against Katie and Sigfredo Garcia. her alleged co-conspirator and father of her children.

Speaker 50 Catherine Magbanawa was hired to solicit Garcia, who in turn solicited Rivera to come to Tallahassee and to execute Mr. Markell in cold blood.

Speaker 1 In a risky and dramatic move, Katie took the stand in her defense and she didn't give an inch.

Speaker 56 Did you have anything to do with the murder of Don Markel?

Speaker 12 No, ma'am.

Speaker 57 Did you

Speaker 56 get the father of your children, Mr. Garcia, to commit a murder on behalf of Mr.
Charlie Edelson.

Speaker 24 No, ma'am.

Speaker 1 Her lawyer walked her through some of the state's most damning allegations, including the charge that the Edelsons had given her thousands of dollars. Katie said no, she supported herself.

Speaker 1 She said she worked as a bottle girl, promoting liquor brands at bars and clubs. And as she told it, tips were good.

Speaker 55 What was a good night for you at the club?

Speaker 55 I can walk out of there with $1,000 to $1,500.

Speaker 1 No blood money from the Edelson, she said. Not even for that augmentation surgery.
Charlie didn't pay for that.

Speaker 56 How did you pay for your birth and funds?

Speaker 55 Or from my cash tips.

Speaker 1 All along, the state had hoped Katie would turn and reveal other figures as the real masterminds of the murder. But she didn't.

Speaker 1 Still, Katie couldn't deny that she was intimately connected to Charlie and the Edelson family. Charlie's own sister came to court and provided evidence for that.

Speaker 55 My name is Wendy Adelson.

Speaker 1 Wendy was given some immunity to testify. Her statements on the stand couldn't be used against her.
She told the jury she had never met the alleged hitman, Sigfredo Garcia, but she had met Katie.

Speaker 1 The state showed the jury this photo of the two of them on the beach together in June 2014, just a month before Dan's murder.

Speaker 21 And you know where the photo was taken?

Speaker 55 I think that's South Beach.

Speaker 3 Close to where your parents were living in the gondo?

Speaker 43 Yes.

Speaker 36 And did you say how you know who's in that grandma?

Speaker 55 She was dating my brother.

Speaker 1 But the idea that Katie was part of a conspiracy that involved her family, Wendy pleaded ignorance.

Speaker 50 Were you involved in any way in a plot to kill Dan Markell?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 50 Do you have any knowledge of anyone being involved in a plot to kill your husband?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 2 Basically.

Speaker 1 The other Adelsons, Charlie and parents Donna and Harvey, were not to be found in the courtroom. But the jury did hear from them in the evidence, including that video from the bump.

Speaker 1 And prosecutors had another recording. They played the jury a bit of this video.
That's Katie and Charlie talking in a Miami restaurant called Dolce Vita.

Speaker 1 The video was grainy and the audio hard to hear, but it showed the two in close contact after the bump. And of course, the state brought in one of the admitted conspirators to court as well.

Speaker 1 Luis Rivera told the jury how he drove with Sigfredo Garcia from Miami to Tallahassee to shoot the law professor.

Speaker 27 Soon it was in, Garcia jumped off, jumped out of the car, and went around, went to the driver's side, and shot him.

Speaker 1 He said he got paid $35,000.

Speaker 13 Who was responsible for getting the money?

Speaker 30 I believe Katie.

Speaker 14 Was it Katie or not?

Speaker 30 Yes, it was Katie.

Speaker 1 Now it was up to the jurors. They went off to deliberate on the charges against the alleged hitman and Katie Magbonawa.
After 10 hours,

Speaker 1 they came back with a verdict.

Speaker 59 State of Florida versus Sigfredo Garcia. The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 1 But what about Katie? That was a different story.

Speaker 60 Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Speaker 62 Each week, I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions.

Speaker 64 Where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned?

Speaker 52 New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tig Nataro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

Speaker 65 You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter Call-In Show episodes where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.

Speaker 62 Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 67 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 68 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

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Speaker 16 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen. Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 69 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

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Speaker 1 A Tallahassee jury had just just rendered a guilty verdict for hitman Sigfredo Garcia in the murder of Dan Markell.

Speaker 1 Now Dan's parents awaited the fate of the other accused co-conspirator, Katie McBanoa.

Speaker 27 It was quite tense for us.

Speaker 3 I was very nervous.

Speaker 1 But on the question of Katie's guilt or innocence, the jurors were deadlocked.

Speaker 59 As to Miss McBanoa, I will declare this case mistried.

Speaker 27 The mistrial experience was actually quite upsetting, shocking, and we had to pull ourselves together.

Speaker 1 Prosecutors believed Katie was the central link in a chain of conspiracy to kill Markell, connecting the hitmen to Charlie Adelson and his family, and they were determined to retry her.

Speaker 8 So what's next for you then?

Speaker 13 Regroup and try to do it better next time.

Speaker 1 As they regrouped, prosecutors kept the Adelsons in their sights. Wendy was working as an immigration attorney in Miami with her two boys, not far from her parents and brother Charlie.

Speaker 1 Preparing for Katie's second trial, prosecutors took that surveillance video of Charlie and Katie in a restaurant known as the Dolce Vita tape to an audio technician who'd once worked for the CIA.

Speaker 1 Maybe he could make it easier to hear, and he hit payter.

Speaker 1 The audio of their conversation is still low but easier to understand. In the first enhanced clip, Charlie tells Katie,

Speaker 1 suggesting, according to prosecutors, that if he really feared arrest, he'd be on a plane.

Speaker 1 And in another moment, later in the conversation, Charlie is wondering why the scary character in that FBI sting targeted his mom and not him.

Speaker 1 Is that the best evidence you have tying Katie to this family?

Speaker 13 It's the best evidence we have tying the Adelsons

Speaker 13 into this crime.

Speaker 1 Specifically, Charlie Adelson, the loyal son and Wendy's protective big brother.

Speaker 1 It had taken nearly eight years to get here, but in April 2022, FBI and police arrested Charlie at his house in Fort Lauderdale.

Speaker 1 The charges, first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation of murder. Dan Markell's friend, Josh Bruman.
How'd you hear Charlie was busted? They'd taken him down.

Speaker 32 Oh, I probably got five texts at once and,

Speaker 1 you know. And you said what?

Speaker 32 Something profane. Like it's about

Speaker 32 end time. Time, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Charlie Adelson was transferred from Miami to the Leon County Jail. And just a month later, he got more bad news.

Speaker 1 In her second trial, Katie was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. though she continued to deny any involvement in a conspiracy.

Speaker 59 The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 1 So, in October 2023, the stage was set for the People vs. Charlie Adelson.

Speaker 1 Dan's parents, Phil and Ruth, returned to Tallahassee with the hope that prosecutors were closing in on the real masterminds behind their son's murder.

Speaker 27 When you actually walk in a courtroom and you recognize the offender, who he's from, and the family, that was a really different experience.

Speaker 1 One of the state's first witnesses was Wendy's ex-boyfriend and one-time potential suspect, Jeff Lacos.

Speaker 19 You may take your seat.

Speaker 1 He testified that Charlie had bragged to him about having contacts in the criminal underworld. He also told the jury an explosive story.

Speaker 1 Wendy confided in him that Charlie had gone much further than merely joking about a TV being cheaper than a hitman.

Speaker 29 In a very serious tone of voice, told me that Charlie had investigated all possible options to take care of the problem of Danny Markell, including hiring a hitman.

Speaker 55 So definitely not the to be confused with the TV joke.

Speaker 29 No, I'd heard that joke repeatedly. This was something very different.

Speaker 1 Charlie's devoted parents, Donna and Harvey, didn't attend the trial. They watched at a friend's beach house.

Speaker 1 But his sister Wendy did show up, again testifying for the state under that limited immunity agreement. Still, that wouldn't protect her from a withering direct examination.

Speaker 72 Your family had your ex-husband killed to try to help you, didn't they?

Speaker 20 No, that's completely

Speaker 1 For a few hours, it seemed like she was the one on trial.

Speaker 72 Were you involved in any way in the plot to kill your ex-husband?

Speaker 20 Absolutely not.

Speaker 72 Did you know what was going to happen, but maybe not know the details?

Speaker 20 I knew nothing.

Speaker 72 Did your brother ever mention hiring a hitman to kill Dan Markell?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 1 But Kappelman reminded Wendy that she was the one who first told that story about Charlie and a hitman on the day of the murder.

Speaker 24 He knew Danny treated me badly, and it was always his joke. You know, I looked into hiring a hitman, and it was cheaper to get you this TV.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 72 And one of the possible ideas was that your brother could have murdered your child's father.

Speaker 20 I didn't really believe that was possible.

Speaker 72 Was part of the plot for you to be able to have plausible deniability about this?

Speaker 20 Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 Then Katie Magbonawa returned to the stand to testify against her one-time boyfriend Charlie, this time as a witness for the state.

Speaker 73 Please raise your right hand.

Speaker 1 Katie had sat in this box and sworn under oath that she had nothing to do with the murder of Dan Markell.

Speaker 1 But now she was testifying as a convicted killer, serving a life sentence.

Speaker 72 Were you in the middle?

Speaker 74 Yes, ma'am, I was.

Speaker 1 After years of denials, Katie finally admitted her involvement in the murder, and not just hers.

Speaker 72 Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markell?

Speaker 7 Charlie.

Speaker 1 It was a seed planted in earnest nine months before the murder with a simple question.

Speaker 28 What was the question?

Speaker 74 Do you know anybody that can harm someone?

Speaker 72 And did you know anybody that could harm someone?

Speaker 74 Yes, ma'am, I did.

Speaker 7 Who was that?

Speaker 74 Sigfredo.

Speaker 1 Katie says she convinced Sigfredo Garcia to commit the murder. Then Charlie gave her specific instructions.

Speaker 74 He had a manila envelope that was sealed. He told me, Katie, do not open it and basically relate you know give that paper to

Speaker 74 the other person

Speaker 1 did he express any concerns about fingerprints being on the envelope or the contents yes ma'am he said he wore a glove so that there's no fingerprints on it and what about licking the envelope and that he didn't lick the envelope katie testified that after the murder she went to charlie's house to get the payment And Charlie had the money packaged up for her, stapled in stacks.

Speaker 1 She also said her payment for the killing included those checks from the Edelson Institute signed by Donna.

Speaker 72 Did you perform any job at the Adelson Institute?

Speaker 47 No, ma'am, I did not.

Speaker 1 Author Stephen Epstein, is this finally the unvarnished truth from Katie McBono?

Speaker 9 It's certainly a lot closer to the truth than what we heard from her before, which was that she knew nothing.

Speaker 1 But according to Charlie's attorneys, the real unvarnished truth about Dan Markell's murder was something nobody, not even the prosecutor sitting at the next table over, had heard before.

Speaker 71 On that day,

Speaker 75 two crimes occurred.

Speaker 76 The first one, the state knows about.

Speaker 77 The other one,

Speaker 71 they don't know about.

Speaker 7 But before we get there, I like cliffhangers.

Speaker 1 So do we. On that day.
And you won't believe the story you're about to hear from Charlie Adelson himself.

Speaker 74 But this was Charlie basically saying this the whole time.

Speaker 1 Charlie Adelson's ex-girlfriend, Katie McBonawa, was unswerving in her testimony against him.

Speaker 1 But Charlie's attorney, Dan Rashbaum, says she did plenty of swerving in the years leading up to this appearance on the stand.

Speaker 25 She's told more than two versions. She's lied when she was arrested.
She's lied in the first trial.

Speaker 75 She's lied in the second trial. And then her story changes again when she's on the stand.

Speaker 74 I told you, I lied in my first and second trial to save myself.

Speaker 75 Just like you're lying here to save yourself, right?

Speaker 74 I'm not saving myself. I'm telling the truth this time.

Speaker 1 What happened after that was a high-stakes gamble for the defense.

Speaker 71 We called Charlie Adelson.

Speaker 1 Charlie Adelson himself took the stand with a brand new version of events.

Speaker 76 And this guy gets out of the car.

Speaker 1 Startling, head-spinning, and totally out of the blue.

Speaker 1 He claimed two crimes had been committed: The murder of Dan Markell and the extortion of Charlie Adelson. When you heard it, you know this case so well.
What did you think?

Speaker 9 My jaw dropped open.

Speaker 75 Did you cause the death of Professor Dan Markell?

Speaker 76 Absolutely no.

Speaker 1 Charlie told the jury his own nightmare began the very day Dan was murdered. Katie came over to his house that night and she was in a panic.

Speaker 76 And she said, listen, this is all my fault. I spoke in too much detail about your family's personal problems, about about your sister, Dan Markel, and the million-dollar offer.

Speaker 1 That would be the million dollars the Adelsons talked about giving Dan if he'd let his children move to South Florida.

Speaker 75 What did you say?

Speaker 76 I'm like, what are you talking about? And she's like,

Speaker 76 she's like, my friend killed Dan, and he wants to be paid a third of a million dollars.

Speaker 75 What happened next?

Speaker 76 I stood up and I started cursing it. I'm like, what the f ⁇ ? Are you kidding me? And she's like, no.

Speaker 78 I'm like, who did this?

Speaker 76 Who's your friend that did this? And she's like, I don't want to say. I can't say.

Speaker 71 And I'm like, Katie, I'm not going to be part of this shit. Like, I'm not going to be part of paying for a murder.

Speaker 76 This is insane. And she's like, look, if you don't pay in 48 hours, they will kill you.

Speaker 76 And I said, Katie, I feel like I'm getting extorted now.

Speaker 1 He testified he didn't have that much money, but he did have $138,000 in his safe.

Speaker 76 She put it in her purse.

Speaker 76 And she asked me, she goes,

Speaker 76 how can you get the rest?

Speaker 1 Charlie said he couldn't ask his parents. They'd go right to the police.

Speaker 76 She asked me, she said, well, can you pay like

Speaker 76 can you pay like $3,000 a month?

Speaker 76 And

Speaker 76 I said, yeah,

Speaker 76 I can do that.

Speaker 1 And while most killers don't agree to installment plans, these guys apparently did.

Speaker 1 Then Charlie testified that Katie seemed to want to get in on the extortion money herself. She asked for a cut of the $3,000 monthly payment and suggested he put it in a payroll check for her.

Speaker 76 I said, I'll do it for you.

Speaker 78 No problem.

Speaker 76 I wanted to keep her happy.

Speaker 1 Charlie said his mother did the books for the dental practice, so she set up the payments for Katie to go through the company payroll.

Speaker 76 And she's like, well, what's Katie going to be doing? And I go, oh, she's just going to be helping me out with some stuff and different things.

Speaker 1 As for the key evidence, that newly improved video that helped pave the way for Charlie's arrest, he he had an explanation for that too why didn't you specifically mention the word extortion in dolcevite i was being real careful when i spoke to katie i would never say the word extortion to her you've got a very complicated theory which addresses all the dots and t's that need to be crossed but what about the fact that these guys are strangers to Dan Markel?

Speaker 1 I mean, that doesn't seem to make sense. We're going to kill this guy and then hope we get 300,000?

Speaker 25 But that's the same exact thing in the murder for hire theory too, because the testimony is clear that they didn't get paid before the murder.

Speaker 25 So they're doing a murder for hire, according to the state, with the hopes of getting paid later. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 Outrageous as it all sounded to Dan Markell's family and friends, Charlie's detailed defense did make some of them nervous. Did you worry that he was going to find one juror to believe it?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 32 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Right. Right, but as you say.
If prosecutor Georgia Kappelman was worried, she didn't show it. In her cross-examination, she didn't even try to hide her disdain.

Speaker 72 Doctor, have you ever heard the saying that the simplest explanation is always the most likely?

Speaker 5 Have you heard that?

Speaker 78 I've heard that theory before, yeah.

Speaker 72 Do you agree that the only problem with having an explanation for everything is that there's just so many explanations.

Speaker 76 There's no explanation.

Speaker 71 I explained what happened.

Speaker 1 According to the prosecutor, nothing Charlie did was consistent with someone who was a victim of extortion.

Speaker 1 She asked Charlie about his cozy relationship with Katie, which continued even after all the danger he claimed she'd brought into his life.

Speaker 72 What's the purpose of keeping Katie happy?

Speaker 72 Was she gonna sick the the Latin kings on you if you made her unhappy?

Speaker 76 She was protecting me.

Speaker 71 I didn't know what would happen.

Speaker 58 Did you offer that she could use your Range Rover anytime?

Speaker 76 I said she could borrow the car, sure.

Speaker 72 Did you pay for the breast augmentation?

Speaker 76 No, I did not pay for her boo job.

Speaker 1 On the stand, Charlie seemed to have an explanation for everything.

Speaker 72 Do you think you can talk your way out of this?

Speaker 76 No, I don't.

Speaker 78 I'm not part of a murder.

Speaker 1 Now the jurors would have to decide if Charlie was a victim or part of a murder conspiracy, as others wondered if anyone else from his family was involved.

Speaker 60 Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Speaker 62 Each week, I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions.

Speaker 64 Where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned?

Speaker 52 New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bowen, Ted Danson, Tig Nataro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

Speaker 65 You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter Call-In Show episodes where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.

Speaker 66 Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 67 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 68 But with Zen Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 16 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 46 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 16 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction. But there's only one Zen.
Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 69 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 70 Dermatologists have long highlighted the benefits of indoor humidity for healthy, glowing skin. Dry air can start damaging your skin in just 30 minutes.
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Speaker 70 Recommended by leading dermatologists, the Canopy Humidifier is a completely reimagined humidifier with invisible clean moisture, the best kind for your skin.

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Speaker 1 By the fall of 2023, Charlie Adelson had transformed from suave Miami bachelor to criminal defendant facing a life sentence.

Speaker 1 All that remained was to hear from the group of jurors who were deliberating his fate. So, what are you thinking? I mean, you're out there in the gallery.
Did you think you had it this time?

Speaker 27 We knew we had a good chance. We've already been around this stuff a little too long.
We're over nine years now. So, the deliberations are just a very, very worrisome time.

Speaker 73 Everyone can be seated.

Speaker 1 But word came much sooner than the Markels anticipated. The jurors had reached a decision.

Speaker 27 Definitely surprised at like the three-hour mark.

Speaker 73 Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?

Speaker 26 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 1 It had taken nearly a decade to bring Charlie to trial, but this jury's verdict was quick.

Speaker 24 The defendant is guilty of percentary murder.

Speaker 1 Thousands were live streaming the verdict, including author Stephen Epstein.

Speaker 9 I think Charlie thought he was about to walk out of the courtroom a free man.

Speaker 1 Three hours later, he wasn't.

Speaker 9 No. And you could see his reaction.
It was a look of surprise, of shock.

Speaker 9 His head sank to the table, and he mouthed one word,

Speaker 9 no.

Speaker 27 In the moment, it's like a feeling of relief, almost celebration.

Speaker 27 It's a good feeling because you were waiting for this to happen.

Speaker 1 And yet you can't really celebrate because you have this stark, awful moment of grief in your life that this is all about.

Speaker 27 Yes.

Speaker 1 Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman took a quick victory lap, then hinted that Charlie's conviction was not the end of the conspiracy chain.

Speaker 8 Is this the last prosecution we're going to see in the Dan Martell murder, or will there be others?

Speaker 13 I don't know the answer to that question yet. So stay tuned.

Speaker 1 As Kappelman left the courthouse, Charlie Adelson settled in behind bars. And when they put him away, there's a telephone there.
There is. And who's at the other end of the line?

Speaker 9 Same person who's been at at the other end of the line throughout his entire life, his mama, Donna Adelson.

Speaker 2 I don't even know what to say.

Speaker 2 There's nothing to say. There's nothing to say.

Speaker 1 Charlie spent many hours on the phone with his mother, Donna, and father Harvey.

Speaker 27 This is a free call from Charlie, an incarcerated individual at the Leon County Jail. This call is not private.

Speaker 2 Hey,

Speaker 10 hey, Charlie.

Speaker 21 Charlie. How are you guys?

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 They commiserated over the verdict.

Speaker 4 I can't believe it's reality either.

Speaker 4 I can't believe this.

Speaker 1 Donna was especially critical of the jury. They didn't give you a chance.
They had their minds made up. You don't walk out for three hours.

Speaker 1 No, trust me, they didn't. Charlie said the trial played out like a particular TV show.
You know the one.

Speaker 21 When they realized they were losing, they had it turned it into Dateline.

Speaker 21 Nobody watches Dateline without coming away with their own

Speaker 21 thinking they figured it out.

Speaker 1 One Edelson was notably absent on those calls, Wendy. On one call, Donna was talking to Charlie.
Then his side of the call dropped.

Speaker 1 But for the next 25 minutes, she kept talking to her husband Harvey and others in the room, not knowing she was still being recorded. She read them a text she said she sent to Wendy after the verdict.

Speaker 54 I wrote this last night. We know you never asked anything about your brother, but we just got off the phone with him, and the first thing he asked was, How's Wendy holding up?

Speaker 54 I didn't have the heart to tell him that you never called up or asked about him. I just said, We weren't up to phone calls right now.

Speaker 54 Everyone looks to protect you. I bet you've got a lot to think about.

Speaker 7 But then she didn't answer.

Speaker 1 Eventually, Wendy, an experienced lawyer, replied. And Donna read that message out loud, too.

Speaker 54 I'm not responsible in any way for Charlie's situation. I am not guilty because I did not do anything wrong, and I was not involved in any way with Danny's death.

Speaker 1 Donna seemed to realize she was losing her grip on her adult children.

Speaker 2 I said to Harvey, I swear to God, our family was cursed.

Speaker 1 And Donna had an urgent reason to get Wendy back in the fold. Something she expressed on this same recording.

Speaker 54 I have a stay here. I want to give her pose.
We're going to be gone. I want her to have all this information.

Speaker 1 Gone?

Speaker 1 Where?

Speaker 1 The conversation soon turned from complaints about the trial to plans for the future.

Speaker 9 And they are just going back and forth and back and forth trying to figure out what do we do now.

Speaker 1 And oh, what a plan the mischief maker had hatched.

Speaker 54 There's a lot of things that we have to do when we've got a very tight timeframe.

Speaker 1 Donna and Harvey Adelson loved to go on extravagant vacations.

Speaker 1 Just seven months after Dan's murder, they traveled to Australia and posed for these pictures, including these shots, tourists mugging for the camera as convicts at a Melbourne jail.

Speaker 1 But now their son Charlie was in actual jail for murder, and their lives had changed dramatically. Here's Donna talking to Charlie about another big trip she was planning.

Speaker 1 Donna seemed to be planning to flee to a country that would not send her back to the U.S. for any prosecution.
And she said it all on that monitored jailhouse line.

Speaker 1 Authorities learned Donna and Harvey had booked one-way tickets to Vietnam the day after Charlie's conviction.

Speaker 1 When Dan Markell's friend Jared later heard about it, he believed it could mean only one thing.

Speaker 32 Jared, a one-way ticket.

Speaker 10 One-way ticket. They planned this.
They knew that if Charlie was convicted, they were coming for her next, and she wanted to one-up them and get out before they could.

Speaker 1 As Donna and Harvey made their way toward the plane, Tallahassee FBI agent Pat Sanford, leading a team of officers, some of them undercover, pounced.

Speaker 9 They're boarding the plane. They believe they're about to make their great escape, but Pat Sanford is there.

Speaker 9 And literally sees the phone in Donna's hand and grabs for it because he has a search warrant. Donna yanks it away from him as if she's got control and power.

Speaker 9 And the next thing you know, she's got her hands behind her back cuffed.

Speaker 9 And she's marching in the opposite direction off the jetway with a gaggle of officers surrounding her and Harvey utterly helpless to do anything.

Speaker 1 Harvey was sent home without being charged. When did they issue a warrant for what happened?

Speaker 1 Donna, seen here sitting in the back of a police car, was driven straight from the airport to a Miami lockup.

Speaker 3 It's an event with a lot of exclamation points.

Speaker 27 Oh, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 Where are we now?

Speaker 3 They've gotten Donna, the mother.

Speaker 1 And where does she fit in the grand scheme of things, do you think?

Speaker 2 Donna?

Speaker 27 In my mind, is the architect.

Speaker 1 In November 2023, nine years after Dan Markell's murder, Donna Adelson was transported up to the Leon County Jail in Tallahassee, writhing, shaking, and very far away from the high-rise condo in South Beach where she'd spent her life of luxury.

Speaker 1 Then she faced a judge.

Speaker 59 How does she plead?

Speaker 55 Not guilty, Your Honor.

Speaker 1 As she sat in the Leon County Jail, Donna lamented that she wouldn't be able to see her two grandsons, Wendy's kids, on their first day of school, as she wrote in this email obtained exclusively by Dateline.

Speaker 1 It breaks my heart that I can't see them or even pictures of them on this special day.

Speaker 1 If the state convicts me like they did to their uncle for a crime I had no part in, I want them to remember all the fun things we did together. I do not want them to visit me in prison.

Speaker 1 If I don't get out, then hopefully I die soon so that no one remembers me in prison garb behind bars. With her trial approaching, her attorneys argued Donna should be released on bail.

Speaker 1 At a bail hearing, Donna testified about the jailhouse conditions.

Speaker 28 I've gained more than a third of my body weight here. The diet is all carbs, no protein, and we have had no exercise at all.

Speaker 1 She said she felt unsafe and had even been assaulted by another inmate while she was brushing her teeth.

Speaker 28 What happened?

Speaker 4 Someone came up behind me

Speaker 4 and pulled my left hand away from the sink

Speaker 4 and twisted twisted my arm. And she said, unless you want those pretty white teeth knocked out of your mouth, you're going to buy me commissary.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 1 I said, okay. Donna said she bought the woman some snacks at the commissary, the jailhouse store, and she eventually left her alone.

Speaker 1 Prosecutors objected to bail and pointed out that the jail conditions were not unusually harsh.

Speaker 58 Ms. Adelson has complained about the jail being too loud.
The food is not good, but she is in jail.

Speaker 72 It's not the fourth season.

Speaker 1 What's more, the state argued Donna was an obvious flight risk, given that one-way ticket she'd booked for Vietnam. But Donna had an explanation for that.
It was a vacation, not an attempt to flee.

Speaker 28 My husband and I

Speaker 28 literally shocked and traumatized at what had happened to Charlie.

Speaker 4 It was his idea. He said, sweetheart, let's go just get away.

Speaker 1 That wasn't enough to convince the judge. Donna would stay locked up.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, Charlie was transferred to the same jail in Tallahassee so he could potentially testify in his mother's trial. He was apparently having a hard time there, too.

Speaker 1 Here he is, berating a deputy for opening the cell door on his toe.

Speaker 76 Congratulations.

Speaker 1 When you've opened a hatch, with someone standing here barefoot, you've opened a door into their toe.

Speaker 7 Excuse me, that was really f ⁇ ing stupid.

Speaker 1 Bring your lieutenant overall.

Speaker 7 Tell them how f ⁇ ing stupid you are.

Speaker 1 As Charlie and his mother awaited her trial, Donna's defense team geared up for a fight.

Speaker 18 She's just being a parent, not a killer. She's a meddler, not a murderer.

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Speaker 1 It had taken more than a decade to take down four links in the chain of conspiracy for Dan Markell's murder. The two hired gunmen, the go-between, and Charlie Adelson.

Speaker 1 Now it was Donna Adelson's turn, the grandmother who the state believed orchestrated it all, just to bring her grandchildren closer to her.

Speaker 1 In August 2025, Donna found herself in a Tallahassee courtroom to face trial, charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation of murder. The stakes couldn't have been higher.

Speaker 1 Sitting in the packed gallery were Phil and Ruth Markell. Across the aisle, Harvey Adelson, Donna's husband, sat alone.

Speaker 3 I could not understand how he could sit there like stone-faced. He never had a reaction.
Why?

Speaker 1 75-year-old Donna, in glasses and wearing a simple cardigan, looked every bit the grandmother. Her attorney, Jackie Fulford, praised her virtues.

Speaker 18 She's kind,

Speaker 27 caring, loving.

Speaker 18 She cares more about people

Speaker 18 than she does about herself.

Speaker 78 Makes interesting.

Speaker 1 The first defense witness was Donna's best friend, Ann Cunningham.

Speaker 28 Have you found her to be a hateful person?

Speaker 79 Never.

Speaker 28 Is she

Speaker 28 aggressive towards others?

Speaker 79 Never.

Speaker 28 Have you ever heard her threaten anyone?

Speaker 79 Never.

Speaker 1 She told jurors that Donna called her the day Dan was killed, sounding frantic, almost hysterical.

Speaker 79 She was very concerned and worried about Wendy and the boys, whether they were in danger. Okay.
And she did not know who had shot him.

Speaker 1 John Singer is an attorney and legal analyst who followed the trial.

Speaker 8 That testimony was for the purposes of somehow connoting that Donna wasn't involved, that Donna was shocked as everybody else was, that she played no part in this. She wasn't the orchestrator.

Speaker 1 And after after her son Charlie's conviction, the friend said she saw Donna slide further into despair.

Speaker 13 She was

Speaker 13 considering taking her own life.

Speaker 1 Echoing Donna, the friend testified that Donna wasn't planning an escape to Vietnam. It was simply a vacation.
And she had a return date in mind.

Speaker 18 In fact, she told you she was coming back, didn't she? Definitely. And she was coming back without a doubt to go to what?

Speaker 55 Lincoln's bar mitzvah.

Speaker 1 Lincoln is Wendy and Dan's son. His bar mitzvah was scheduled for January 2024, just a few weeks after their Vietnam flight.
Donna had even picked out a dress for the occasion.

Speaker 18 When she booked the ticket, there was no warrant. She was not doing anything wrong.

Speaker 1 The defense conceded that Donna was overinvolved in Wendy's life and indeed wrote some nasty things about her son-in-law.

Speaker 1 Like in that email where she called him the F-word and said she wanted to make his life miserable.

Speaker 1 But they said that wasn't evidence of murder.

Speaker 18 In all the evidence they have collected, she can't help herself but run her mouth. Not a single email,

Speaker 18 no phone calls that are recorded, no written documents, no emails, not one single thing that said anything about wanting Danny Markell killed.

Speaker 1 And her attorneys pushed back on the investigators' theory of the crime, that Donna would orchestrate a murder because of the relocation of her grandsons.

Speaker 1 They pointed out the fight over custody and relocation was in the rearview mirror, settled and done by a judge.

Speaker 18 Relocation was done for over a year. That's the motive.
There is not a single email that shows that my client,

Speaker 18 Donna Adelson, was continuing on a rampage about relocation.

Speaker 19 Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give today in this trial won't be the truth?

Speaker 1 Daughter Wendy returned to the stand with her limited immunity immunity agreement. Once again, she denied any involvement in the scheme.

Speaker 12 I was not involved in any plot to kill Danny.

Speaker 1 Wendy offered more insight into Dan and Donna's relationship.

Speaker 18 The week before he died, your mother was babysitting for Danny, wasn't she?

Speaker 55 Yes.

Speaker 18 And in fact, she actually made him banana bread, specifically the way he liked it, right?

Speaker 13 It was his favorite.

Speaker 18 Without nuts, but with chocolate chips. That's right.

Speaker 9 She babysat seven days before his murder. So that's the story from the defense that Donna isn't this diabolical.

Speaker 1 She's not the ogre that you're all hearing about.

Speaker 9 Yes, and she even baked Dan his favorite her banana bread. And that shows they had a very cordial relationship even a week before he was killed.

Speaker 1 Charlie Adelson was in a jail close by, waiting to testify in his mother's trial. But the defense never called him.
Rather, they focused on all of that surveillance evidence.

Speaker 1 They argue that investigators tried repeatedly through those wiretaps in the FBI sting operation to get Donna to blurt out anything incriminating, but she never did.

Speaker 1 Her confusion during that FBI bump seemed genuine.

Speaker 1 The defense played another tape, this one recorded by Donna herself. She called back the undercover agent and again expressed complete ignorance.

Speaker 21 Everybody knows what's going on.

Speaker 54 Well, I don't, you know, you're saying everyone knows. I know I lost my ex-son-in-law.
I did not have anything to do with it. It isn't me.

Speaker 54 You have got the wrong person.

Speaker 1 The defense insisted Donna was innocent and, in a surprising move, told the jury that might not be true for two of Donna's children.

Speaker 18 There's not a single piece of evidence that connects my client to that murder.

Speaker 70 Charlie Adelson?

Speaker 74 Yep.

Speaker 18 Potentially Wendy Edelson, she's the one who said she hated him.

Speaker 18 She's the one fighting with him in court. Donna Adelson, nothing.

Speaker 1 Instead, they urged jurors to see Donna for who she really was.

Speaker 18 She's just being a parent, not a killer. She's a meddler, not a murderer.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, prosecutors had been building their case against Donna Adelson, and they were ready with powerful new evidence, including a star witness, ready to lift the curtain on the Edelson family secrets.

Speaker 14 How do you know the defendant in this case?

Speaker 15 Especially my mother.

Speaker 1 After 11 years investigating Dan Markell's murder, prosecutors believed they had the final pieces of the puzzle. And they were about to reveal new evidence against Donna Adelson, the family matriarch.

Speaker 1 Assistant State Attorney Sarah Dugan.

Speaker 14 Who in in Dan Markell's life would hate him enough to hire a professional killer?

Speaker 1 Donna Adelson, of course. She was not the sweet granny who baked banana bread for her son-in-law.
The prosecution said she was angry, bitter, and vengeful over Wendy and Dan's divorce.

Speaker 13 Did your mom ever call Dan Markell any disparaging names around this time frame?

Speaker 27 She did.

Speaker 30 Okay, including piece of

Speaker 70 yes.

Speaker 13 A narcissist. Yes.
A bully?

Speaker 55 Yes.

Speaker 13 A bastard?

Speaker 70 Yes.

Speaker 1 They introduced another email exchange, with Donna urging Wendy to take bizarre steps to gain the upper hand in the custody fight. She used a nickname for Dan, Gibbers.

Speaker 1 If you dress your kids up in Hitler youth uniforms and brought them down here, Donna wrote, it would show Gibbers that he's not in control.

Speaker 1 If your children are baptized, it doesn't make them Christian. It's an act.

Speaker 8 Dan was devoutly Jewish. She wanted to put the kids in Hitler youth uniforms as a way of infuriating and angering Dan.

Speaker 13 Do you remember that?

Speaker 1 Prosecutors said Donna never gave up trying to get Wendy and her grandsons to move closer to her.

Speaker 13 She referred to being in Tallahassee that you were a hostage and a prisoner, right?

Speaker 55 Yes, she did.

Speaker 1 But they argued there was another legal flashpoint, far more explosive than the relocation issue. Prosecutors called it the grandma motion.

Speaker 8 The kids had allegedly told Dan that grandma says that you're stupid, grandma says that she hates you, and Dan had had enough of that.

Speaker 1 Dan was so furious, prosecutors said, that he filed a motion to limit Donna's contact with the boys. A family court judge scheduled a hearing on that motion.
But Dan didn't live to see it happen.

Speaker 1 So you put that court date in the timeline, it becomes more important.

Speaker 8 It definitely does. It It was still looming and had not been adjudicated as of the date that the murder took place.

Speaker 1 Once the murder plot kicked into gear, prosecutors said Donna was doing her part to see it through.

Speaker 1 While she never directly communicated with the two hitmen, investigators did find something that was crucial for the two men tailing Dan.

Speaker 8 Her calendar book had Dan Markell's license plate number of his car in it in 2014.

Speaker 8 And there would be no reason at that point, two years post-separation, for her to have that other than to provide that information to the ultimate individuals who effectuated the hit.

Speaker 1 Once again, prosecutors called the central link in the conspiracy chain, Katie Magbanoa. Katie described picking up the initial payment for the hit from Charlie's house the night of the killing.

Speaker 14 Did you go to Charlie Adelson's house to get the money on the night of the shooting?

Speaker 74 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 1 Prosecutors suspected that money came from Charlie's wealthy parents, Donna and Harvey. In court, they showed the jury this text message from Donna to her son Charlie earlier that night.

Speaker 8 Just three words, outside your house.

Speaker 8 And that's another very damaging piece of evidence.

Speaker 1 That puts mom, Donna, as the source of the money. That's correct.
Katie testified that the cash was bundled into stapled stacks. And this was odd.
The money was damped.

Speaker 48 Tell me that

Speaker 74 his mom washed the money.

Speaker 30 But she physically washed the money.

Speaker 18 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 8 Literally washed it ahead of time, perhaps to erase any traces of fingerprints or whatever else could have been on the money.

Speaker 1 And of course, the state showed jurors all those checks Donna had written out to Katie. Checks that she signed herself.

Speaker 1 And while it's true, Donna never said anything directly about the murder plot on those hours of wiretaps or recorded jailhouse calls. Prosecutors did play that call she made to Charlie after the bump.

Speaker 23 Does it involve me or other people?

Speaker 21 Well,

Speaker 21 probably don't think.

Speaker 1 What else, argued the state, could she be talking about besides the murder?

Speaker 13 That is direct evidence. If anyone in that jury room wants to acquit her, make them tell you how that is not a confession.

Speaker 1 Prosecutors thought it was absurd, even laughable, that Donna's defense called her trip to Vietnam a vacation.

Speaker 9 You're not flying to a non-extradition country to come back in a couple of months to surrender and have your hands coughed.

Speaker 9 You're flying to a non-extradition country with the hopes hopes that you'll get to live the rest of your life there.

Speaker 1 Then a new face in this saga entered the courtroom.

Speaker 38 I swear, you might take your seat.

Speaker 1 For the first time, Donna's eldest son, Rob Adelson, who'd been estranged from the family since Dan's death, took the stand.

Speaker 14 Who's the oldest child?

Speaker 3 I am.

Speaker 1 Rob testified that he watched his mother assume the role of fixer in Wendy's life, and Wendy led her.

Speaker 14 Did you observe that Wendy played a bit of a damsel in distress, in your opinion, in the divorce?

Speaker 76 Yes, I think that's a good way to describe it.

Speaker 1 And he described his mother's odd behavior after Dan was murdered.

Speaker 15 And I said, you know, what do you guys think happened?

Speaker 15 And she had said, you know, I don't know and I don't care. It doesn't concern me.

Speaker 14 Was that out of character for her to not be curious and not be asking some questions?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He told jurors how the FBI came to his home for an interview. And this is what his mother told him.

Speaker 15 And she had called me and said, the police come around.

Speaker 15 You know, don't talk to them.

Speaker 14 Okay, so she told you not to talk to law enforcement? Correct.

Speaker 37 And I said, I already did.

Speaker 1 And what did she say to that?

Speaker 15 She said, oh, well, you don't know anything anyway.

Speaker 1 You don't know anything anyway. Which assumes that somebody does know something.
Like Donna.

Speaker 9 Yes. The subtext of what she said is, I know what happened and you don't.

Speaker 1 When news broke that police had arrested the hitman, Rob spoke to his mother again.

Speaker 15 So I said, you know, they arrested someone who killed Danny.

Speaker 15 You know, there's no response. And I said it, you know, at least two or three times.
And then her response was, you know, I've got to go.

Speaker 14 And then did she hang up the phone after that?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 And they never spoke again.

Speaker 9 They never spoke again.

Speaker 1 Phil Markell was grateful that at least one Adelson was capable of standing up to Donna.

Speaker 3 I think the story was very, very important.

Speaker 3 Took unbelievable guts.

Speaker 1 The state said that even when she was behind bars, Donna Adelson wasn't done making mischief.

Speaker 63 Please raise your right hand from her.

Speaker 1 This was one of Donna's cellmates at the Leon County Jail, Drina Bernhardt.

Speaker 30 She actually called me her jail daughter, and she and I got close.

Speaker 1 Drina had spent time in jail with Katie McBonawa years prior.

Speaker 1 When Donna found that out, Drina said she tried to recruit her to create a cover story, that Katie McBonawa was the real mastermind and that she and Charlie knew nothing about the plot.

Speaker 1 The same extortion narrative Charlie himself had floated at his his trial.

Speaker 9 She wants Dreena Bernhardt to tell this jury, her jury, that Katie McBanner told her this is what happened.

Speaker 1 And it was, you will go into a trial someday, and you'll tell them that Katie admitted she lied, and this double extortion, crazy as it sounds, actually happened. Yes.

Speaker 1 The cellmate testified how Donna even drafted this handwritten script, spelling out exactly what she should say in court and suggested she memorize it.

Speaker 1 Cameras in the jail caught Donna walking up to a table and writing it out in the cellmate's notebook.

Speaker 8 Obviously, the recklessness of it, the foolhardiness of it, the thinking I'm not going to get caught because of it, was insane.

Speaker 13 What does she write in the script? Extort,

Speaker 17 underline.

Speaker 1 It was a mic drop moment for the prosecution. Now, one question remained: Would the meddling mother who had so much to say about her children's lives have anything to say to the jury?

Speaker 80 This decision affects the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 For nearly two weeks, Donna Adelson sat at the defense table listening to prosecutors portray her as the master architect of murder. Now it was up to Donna.

Speaker 1 Would she take the stand and answer to any of it?

Speaker 8 The conventional wisdom was that she was going to testify to try to save herself.

Speaker 29 Have you made a decision concerning this matter?

Speaker 80 I haven't. I'm not prepared to make that decision.

Speaker 80 This decision affects the rest of my life. I was hoping I would have some time to speak to my attorney.

Speaker 37 This has already been discussed, and what is your choice?

Speaker 9 The judge is infuriated. Like, you need to decide: are you testifying? And she's not able to make that decision.

Speaker 1 Five minutes later, Donna had her answer.

Speaker 80 This time, I don't want to test it.

Speaker 1 Now it was up to a jury to decide Donna's fate.

Speaker 1 And it didn't take long. After three hours, about as long as Charlie's jury, the jurors sent word they had reached a verdict.

Speaker 9 The jury files back in. Donna, she looks so nervous like she may pass out.

Speaker 19 We, the jury, find the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. Mrs.
Adelson, control yourself.

Speaker 9 She is so upset and she breaks down, starts crying. The judge admonishes her.
But the funny part,

Speaker 32 she didn't have a single tear rolling down her cheeks.

Speaker 9 There is something purely evil inside that woman and the coldness of a person to be crying hysterically and not being able to shed a tear.

Speaker 27 Dan's murder has shattered our family and caused deep permanent pain.

Speaker 1 Right after the verdict, the Markell family was allowed to give victim impact statements.

Speaker 3 My only short question to Donna,

Speaker 3 was it worth it? I'd like to have an answer from her.

Speaker 3 I don't think I'll ever get one.

Speaker 1 Deputies transferred Donna in a wheelchair from the courthouse to her jail cell.

Speaker 1 The matriarch, once said to control everything, was now a convicted felon. Have you arrived at a point of finding something that feels looks like justice, whatever that may mean?

Speaker 3 Only if and when everybody involved is brought to justice.

Speaker 13 I think I just feel kind of honored to be able to deliver this win for the Martels.

Speaker 1 Another victory lap. And once again, the assembled reporters wanted to know, was there more to come?

Speaker 80 Do we need to stay tuned? Stay tuned.

Speaker 70 Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 From the moment Dan was killed, his ex-wife's role has been the source of endless speculation. Prosecutors have previously named Wendy as an unindicted co-conspirator in court documents.

Speaker 1 She has never been charged with anything related to the plot.

Speaker 8 The case against Wendy is more difficult than the case against Donna and Charlie, but there is enough circumstantial evidence there to infer that Wendy took affirmative steps to help further the conspiracy.

Speaker 1 Legal analyst Singer points to two key actions that could tie Wendy to the conspiracy. Days before he was killed, Wendy sent a text to Dan asking about his travel plans.

Speaker 1 Was she making sure he'd be home for the scheduled hit?

Speaker 8 There was no reason for her to send that to Dan Markell unless it were to ensure that he was in fact going to be in town.

Speaker 1 And hours after the shooting, prosecutors argued, Wendy drove out of her way along Dan's street and saw the police roadblock there. Was she checking to see if the murder actually happened?

Speaker 1 Timmy, the step back point comes back to the old Latin phrase, cui bono. Who benefited from this awful thing? And you have to say, the widow, the wife.
Wendy was the beneficiary.

Speaker 1 She got exactly what she wanted. She got the children.

Speaker 8 Right. And does common sense tell you that her family, with whom she is so incredibly close, was going to have her ex-husband, the father of her children, murdered without her knowledge or imprimatur?

Speaker 1 Wendy, ever the careful attorney, has said over and over again in court testimony and in her police interview, that she had no involvement in the plot to kill her ex-husband.

Speaker 1 Her attorney did not respond to our request for comment. In October 2025, Donna returned to court for sentencing.
Her husband Harvey was there again to support her.

Speaker 1 After years of silence, the retired dentist finally spoke and went after both the prosecution and the judge.

Speaker 71 And I could not help but scream in my mind by the witnesses that were brought forward by the prosecution who told outright lies.

Speaker 1 A biased judge and jury were influenced by years of one-sided news pieces and social media.

Speaker 1 Dr.

Speaker 21 Ms. Wolfer,

Speaker 19 this has nothing to do with the character of the defendant.

Speaker 1 The judge shut down the husband's rant. Harvey paused, then continued.
This is not justice. It is vengeance, and it is wrong.
Then it was Donna's turn to address the court.

Speaker 4 I had no knowledge that this horrible evil act was going to take place.

Speaker 4 Where is the evidence before July 18th, 2014 at 1050 in the morning?

Speaker 77 Before you continue, Mrs.

Speaker 7 Agnes,

Speaker 77 you certainly can continue.

Speaker 26 However, the court can take into consideration the utter lack of remorse that you are displaying.

Speaker 1 Donna wasn't done with her denials, not by a long shot.

Speaker 6 Never in a million years would I have wanted Danny to be harmed or killed, nor could I ever do something

Speaker 6 that would leave these two small boys to grow up without him.

Speaker 6 I swear to you on my life, I was not involved in any way with Danny's murder. I was not.

Speaker 1 Then the judge sentenced Donna to life in prison without parole.

Speaker 1 For Ruth and Phil Markell, Donna's conviction has closed one chapter in this saga, but it is not the end of the story.

Speaker 1 Their grandsons, who have always been at the heart of the case, are now both teenagers and live with their mother Wendy.

Speaker 3 I don't have that relationship with my grandchildren, and of course, I don't have it with my son either.

Speaker 1 After Dan's death, Wendy changed the boys' last names from Markel to Edelson, saying it was to protect their privacy.

Speaker 1 The Markels say that over the years, Wendy has restricted their contact with their two grandsons.

Speaker 3 The last time that I actually saw the children, I actually spoke to Wendy and I asked her, wouldn't it be nice if we can arrange for the boys,

Speaker 3 you included, to come to Toronto, let them see where their father grew up, let them see where he's buried. And she said that'll never happen.

Speaker 1 Never happen.

Speaker 3 That's what she said to me. We want to be a part of their life.

Speaker 3 We want them to know how much love we have for them.

Speaker 1 It's been more than a decade since Dan Markell was gunned down in his garage.

Speaker 1 The brilliant law professor, who spent his career studying punishment and justice, became himself the victim of a murder plot that sent five people to prison.

Speaker 1 But for those who knew him, Dan's legacy isn't defined by courtrooms or convictions. It's defined by the people he loved the most, his family.

Speaker 27 He was such a phenomenal father. I mean, the best thing about Danny, everybody, you know, he's a scholar, he's internationally acclaimed, that all counts.

Speaker 27 But the biggest, biggest factor was the kind of father that he was.

Speaker 1 That's all for this edition of Dateline, and check out our Talking Dateline podcast. Dennis Murphy and Blaine Alexander will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode.

Speaker 1 Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9 8th Central.
I'm Lester Holm for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 7 Good night.

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