Wendi Adelson and Dan Markel - Part 3 of 3

0:00 After years of slow progress and dead ends in the Dan Markell murder case, investigators finally have identified the hitmen and have connected the dots back to the Adelson family through an intermediary, Catherine McBanois. Now they need to build the case, but it won't be easy. This is part three of the Wendy Adelson and Dan Markell story. I'm Tina. And I'm Rich. Welcome to Love, Marry, Kill. Hi, Dina. Hey, Rich. I just realized I completely forgot to bring a snack.

0:46 Well, you better make that better pretty quickly here. I know. I just was like, something is not right. We're starting the podcast and I don't have a snack. I do have one downstairs. In this room, in that closet, there is all the leftover Halloween candy from a year ago. So you could just grab a Snickers bar if you want. I was wondering where that leftover Halloween candy was. Now I know. Good to know. You didn't know that? No, I had no idea. No, I do have a snack. I just forgot to grab it. Do you think it's bad that we're going to hand out candy bars that are a year old? I don't think the kids care too much. Yeah, I don't think they care at all. I think it'll be great. Okay, we did take a little break and I went and got the snack. But before we get to that, I wanted to ask how your burn book work is going today.

1:32 I think you're referring to the date, October 3rd, which is also known as Mean Girls Day. You sent a text out this morning. I had no idea October 3rd was Mean Girls Day. And I said something about I'm working on my burn books. And honestly, the older I get, the less beef I have with anyone. I want everyone to be happy and live well and prosper. Nothing to put in the burn books? No, not really. Well, good. You've really evolved as a person. I truly have. Because at times I hate, I mean, I still hate everyone sometimes, but most days I love everyone. It's much more common for me to love everyone. How about you? Same. I don't have any burn books. I have no desire. No, I'm pretty good. I'm good with everybody in the world. Yeah.

2:18 Well, we're pretty, we have a pretty good life, so we really don't have much to complain about. And it is a beautiful fall day here today. Gorgeous. We're in a pretty chipper mood considering you just watched the Michigan game. I was just about to say we are not going to talk about college football. They lost the little brown jug. Yeah, they lost the little brown jug. It's not a great season for Michigan, it looks like, but that's okay. It's a rebuilding year. It is. All right, so what's this snack? Oh, well, I bought this a long time ago. I was just in the grocery store. Oh, that's my favorite. I know. And I thought it looked interesting. It's called Pop'Em's. They are light and crispy pretzel snacks, and I got the sea salt flavor. That's great.

2:58 Yeah. I also brought you some grapes, too. I love some grapes. Can I break the news to you, though? Okay. We had those before. No, we did not. We sure did. We have not. We sure did. A lovely listener recommended them, and we ate them. I don't believe it. I can tell you already. Oh, okay. You're going to have to pull up the episodes. You're in denial. Oh, we're having them again. I really do like them. I think they're one of those things that... I've been eating so much darn protein lately. As long as it's not chicken breast or string. Cheese, I'm happy. Oh, this will be a nice break for you. A nice carb for me to chew on. They look really good. They're very light. They're really good. You've had them before, sir. I probably got at least two flavors, if I remember correctly. But it's okay. It's a good snack. I feel like sometimes we go over and above on our snacks. We just feel like we have to make a home. I think it's nice to reflect things that we actually eat in our house normally.

3:50 I think it's nice just to buy something at the grocery store that looks interesting. Even if we've had it before. How long ago did you, what's the expiration date? Oh gosh. I'm sure it's not expired yet, but I bought it. I probably bought it two months ago at least. Where is this? Do you have a whole snack arsenal in your office somewhere? Yeah. It's secret. All right. Let's have them again. How did you like those pop-ums that we've never had before? Well, maybe if the package hadn't been expired, I would have liked them a little more. They didn't taste expired, though. How long ago? Is there a receipt in the bag? How long ago did you buy them?

4:31 I don't think I saved the receipt. I didn't think it was that long ago, but I did find the date, and they expired in February. of this here. We're really playing with fire around here lately. They still taste good. I still can't believe I've never had them. For some reason, I have this uncanny ability to tell when things are, well, I guess it's not that uncanny. I could tell that they were expired because they tasted a little off. Really? Yeah. But you didn't think they tasted off? No, I thought they tasted really good. Because I think oils turn like rancid and I can just like, when a nut is expired, I can always tell. But anyway, it's a delightful snack. If you like that kind of thing. If you like expired snack foods. That you've had before. They're still good. It's one of those things I could probably eat half a bag in one sitting.

5:14 They're really good. Yeah. And I think for lunches, you know, for like your kid's lunch, it might be good. There's other flavors, too. I remember I think we had two different flavors. But anyway, thank you for the snack. I appreciate you. Today, we're going to finish off the Wendy Adelson and Dan Markell story. Would you like to give us a quick recap of part two? Sure. On a Friday morning in July 2014, Dan Markell dropped his sons off at preschool, completed a workout, and pulled into his garage. Moments later, someone fired two shots through his car window. He died the next morning. Wendy spent that day at lunch with friends and later sat through a five-hour police interview. Within days, she and her parents left Tallahassee for South Florida, and no one in the Adelson family would speak to police again. Detectives chased a mystery Prius caught on gym, bank, and city bus cameras.

6:07 They ruled out Wendy's ex-boyfriend, Jeff LaCasse, along with students, colleagues, and others. A cell tower dump finally turned up two Miami men, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, who had rented that Prius and driven to Tallahassee. Both were tied to the Latin Kings gang. The missing link was Katie McBanwa, Garcia's on-again, off-again partner who was also dating Charlie Adelson, Wendy's brother. Her phone records connected the Hittman to the family and the money trail pointed the same way. Cash deposits, a new motorcycle, and no-show paychecks signed by Donna. Still, without enough evidence to arrest the Adelsons, the FBI staged The Bump, a fake blackmail scheme meant to rattle Donna and Charlie into saying something incriminating. It worked to a point.

6:55 As we ended part two, the detectives working the case, along with the DA, decided it was time to start making arrests. Remind us how much time has elapsed between Dan's murder and where we are now. We are now in the spring approaching summer of 2016, so almost two years since Dan was killed. The investigative team decided that they had done all they could. Now it was time to start making arrests. But working with the DA's office and deciding who to charge turned into a contentious debate. The investigators felt like they had enough to move forward with arrests for Sigfredo Garcia, Luis Rivera, Katie Magbanwa, and Charlie Adelson, but the DA disagreed. In the end, they agreed to move forward with an arrest for Garcia, but not yet for Katie. Rivera could wait.

7:45 He was actually already in custody. Detectives showed up at Garcia's workplace, he had been working his first legitimate job in years, and asked if they could talk to him. He denied everything, saying he didn't know Luis Rivera, had never met Dan Markell, in fact he said he'd never been to Tallahassee. Eventually he shut down, telling them he wouldn't say another word without his lawyer. They let him go for the moment, but they had eyes on him as he went to Walmart and bought two burner phones. It seemed like he was thinking about fleeing, so they swooped in and arrested him in May 2016. Nearly two years after Dan's murder, the first domino had finally fallen.

8:26 Investigators had hoped to keep the Adelson family's suspected involvement quiet, at least for the time being, but the arrest warrant, which named Charlie and Donna as unindicted co-conspirators, leaked almost immediately. Luis Rivera had been off the streets for the past year by this time, swept up in a federal operation targeting the Latin Kings. He was one of 29 South Florida residents indicted on charges ranging from drug trafficking to kidnapping, robbery, burglary, and murder. In January 2016, he pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and received a 12-and-a-half-year sentence, which he was serving at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex north of Orlando.

9:09 Two days after Garcia's arrest, Detective Isom and FBI agent Sanford drove up to talk to him. Rivera already knew his best friend had been arrested for Dan's murder. After being read his rights, he initially denied any involvement, claiming he had never even traveled north of Orlando or Tampa. But when investigators showed him the ATM still image from the night of the murder, he stopped denying it. That was him, he admitted, and that was Garcia. They had rented a car and driven to Tallahassee, but only to check out the FSU campus. A warrant for his arrest on first-degree murder charges followed within days. He was charged on June 28 and transferred to a detention facility in Tallahassee with a trial date set for October 24th, three weeks ahead of Garcia's. Both men were facing the possibility of a death sentence. But prosecutors made him an offer that was too good to refuse. In exchange for pleading guilty to second-degree murder and cooperating fully, including truthful testimony at any future trials, Rivera would be sentenced to 19 years to be served concurrently with his existing federal sentence.

10:22 In practical terms, it added only six and a half years to the sentence he was already serving. For Rivera, it was a no-brainer. For prosecutors, the trade was worth it. Without Rivera, the chain connecting the actual shooting to the people who had paid for it remained vague. That seems like a very light sentence for Rivera. So did they know that Sigfrido Garcia was the gunman? I don't know if they knew it. That was definitely Rivera's story, that he was the driver and Garcia was the gunman. And the surveillance footage supported that Rivera was the driver, so I think they believed him. On Friday, September 30, 2016, Rivera sat down with his lawyer and detectives Isom and Sanford and told his story. He confirmed that he and Garcia had made two trips to Tallahassee, the first in early June 2014. Rivera said he initially believed the job was a robbery. Despite being a member of the Latin Kings, he claimed that he had never actually killed anyone before. It was only once they were already on that first trip that Garcia told him the truth.

11:27 They had been hired to kill a guy. Rivera would earn $ 35, 000 just for driving. The first trip turned into a bust, though. They scoped out Dan's house and tried to track his movements, but they kept losing him, and every time they circled back, his garage door was closed. Eventually they gave up and spent most of the trip drinking and smoking pot in their hotel room instead. Garcia had received $ 5, 000 in cash up front for that trip, and by the time it was over, they had spent all but $ 600 of it. Rivera said the money had come from Katie, who had gotten it from, quote, the other lady. As Rivera understood it, the motive and money traced back to one thing, quote, Throughout the trip, Katie stayed in constant contact with Garcia, working as the intermediary, holding the whole arrangement together. About a month later, Garcia told Rivera it was time to finish the job. Rivera said he didn't want to go. He blamed Katie for pushing it. She and Garcia were split up at the time.

12:39 after she had kicked him out and Garcia was trying to win his way back into her good graces. Rivera said he never knew Charlie's actual name, only that Katie was involved with a dentist. As for the money, Rivera understood the total payout for the hit to be $ 100, 000, split roughly $ 40, 000 to Garcia, $ 35, 000 to himself, and the rest to Katie, though he later came to believe her actual cut was closer to $ 50, 000 or $ 60, 000, based on things he heard afterward. The Thursday morning before the murder, the two men drove through the neighborhood and spotted a woman walking with two young boys along Trescott Drive. Rivera asked what was going on. Why was she looking around so much? Oh, that's the lady, Garcia told him. That's Wendy.

13:28 According to Garcia, she was there to make sure everything went smoothly. Dan was scheduled to leave town late the next day, which meant the hit had to happen that Friday morning before he left. I should say that Wendy would later testify that this could not have actually happened. The boys would have been at preschool at that time, and she said she never walked down Trescott Drive after the separation. So defense lawyers in various cases would later use this to claim that Rivera was not a credible witness. That Thursday evening, while driving around in the rental Prius looking to buy cocaine, Garcia was fidgeting with the revolver he had brought along when he accidentally fired a round through the floorboard of the car. The Prius began losing speed almost immediately. The bullet had punctured the gas line.

14:15 They made a stop at an auto zone for a replacement hose and fixed it themselves. That night, back at the hotel, the two of them partied. Rivera noticed an owl in the parking lot, snapped a photo, and posted it to Instagram. Minutes later, Katie called Garcia furious.' Tell him to take that shit down,' she said, asking if Rivera was stupid. I mean, you're going out on a hit. You shouldn't really post pictures to Instagram from your location. Right. These two are not the world's smartest criminals, it sounds like. Friday morning, they waited near Dan's house until a little after 8.30 when they spotted his car and followed him to the preschool, then the gym, and then back to his house, pulling into Dan's driveway just as his car was entering the garage. Rivera stopped the Prius a few feet behind Dan's rear bumper. Garcia got out, walked to the driver's side of Dan's car, raised a. 38 caliber revolver to the window and fired twice, then ran back around to the passenger seat. The two men immediately started the 500-mile drive back to Miami. Partway there, they pulled off onto a bridge over a body of water, and Garcia got out and threw the gun into the water below.

15:28 Once they made it back, Garcia went to collect the payout from Katie. On Saturday, October 1, 2016, Katie dropped her daughter off at Garcia's sister's apartment so she could run some errands. She stopped at a nearby strip mall and was pulling out of the lot when police converged on her from every direction. Guns drawn, instinctively, she threw her hands into the air. Officers were shouting at her to put the car in park, but she froze, too terrified to move. One of them opened her door and reached in to shift the car into park himself. then ordered her out of the car. She was arrest number three in the murder of Dan Markell. While Katie was being processed in the parking lot, Detective Craig Isom's phone rang. The caller identified himself as David Marcus, Charlie Adelson's attorney. Marcus told him, quote, Look, if you have a warrant for my client's arrest, there's no need to ambush him like we understand you just did with Katie. I can assure you that we will have him surrender to you in Tallahassee Just let me know in advance and we'll make those arrangements. Isom thanked him for the call and said the request would be given appropriate consideration. But they weren't ready to arrest Charlie.

16:43 Not yet. It didn't take long for Katie's lawyers to understand that she was arrested as leverage. They knew that she wasn't the mastermind, but they wanted to pressure her into flipping on Charlie. Prosecutors were even willing to discuss immunity in exchange for her cooperation. But Katie wouldn't budge. she insisted she knew nothing about Dan Markell or why anyone would want him dead. Her attorneys pushed for bond, assuming it would be a formality because Katie had no prior arrests, but the judge denied it. Katie would sit in jail until her trial. Her trial was originally slated for February 2017, but it would end up getting delayed multiple times for various reasons until September 2019. it was decided that Katie and her husband, Sigfredo Garcia, would be tried together. Through those two and a half years, none of the Adelsons were arrested, a fact that gnawed at investigators and at Dan's family and friends. By this time, Isom and his colleagues at the Tallahassee Police Department believed they had enough evidence to charge both Donna and Charlie.

17:51 They couldn't convince the state's attorney's office to move. They wanted to be patient and hope that Katie would eventually decide to cooperate. On the Friday before jury selection began, the prosecutor, Georgia Kappelman, got a call from Katie's attorney saying that she wanted to meet. Kappelman was hoping she was finally ready to cut a deal, but all Katie wanted to do was profess her innocence one more time. The meeting ended with the prosecution team feeling that Katie had wasted their time. They were going on trial together, but the stakes were different. Garcia was facing the death penalty. Katie wasn't. That made jury selection a long, complicated process.

18:33 But eventually, a panel came together. Ten women and two men, plus two alternates. Opening statements began on Thursday, September 26, 2019. Both defendants faced the same three charges. First-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. Garcia's attorneys built his defense around a simple claim. There was no physical evidence that Garcia had pulled the trigger, only Rivera's word. The entire case, he argued, rested on the testimony of a cooperating witness, with every incentive to lie to make himself look better. He floated an alternative theory.

19:15 Why would Garcia risk everything to help Charlie Adelson, a man sleeping with his own girlfriend? It made more sense that Charlie had gone directly to Rivera, the actual leader of the Latin Kings chapter. Maybe Charlie was buying drugs from him. He conceded that Garcia had, in fact, been in Tallahassee with Rivera that day, but said he went as part of a drug deal and that Rivera had pulled the trigger. These two are childhood best friends, right? Yeah, they are. And it's kind of interesting that Rivera, I mean, first of all, Rivera was part of a gang where, you know, turning and cooperating with the police would be considered a no-no for sure. And not only that, but he's also turning on a guy that he talked about as a brother that they grew up together.

20:01 And if you're in this Latin Kings gang, the repercussions would reach you in jail, possibly, right? Yeah, Rivera said that it really affected his life in jail. He had to be very careful. He had to be isolated a lot. Of the time. Once you're a snitch. Katie's attorney took a similar tack, arguing that she'd done nothing wrong beyond exercising terrible judgment in the men she chose to date. She pushed back on the idea that Katie was the sole link between the Adelsons and the hitman. pointing out that Garcia had placed at least one call directly to Harvey Adelson's phone 17 days before the murder. The most highly anticipated witness was Wendy Adelson, who took the stand on day two of the trial. Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman had called her as a witness for the state, but had no idea what she would actually say. She was, for all practical purposes, a hostile witness who had no intention of helping the prosecution's case. Wendy testified that she had genuinely liked living in Tallahassee and that she was actually relieved when the judge denied her relocation petition because she'd been happy with her job at FSU.

21:07 That seems like a clear lie based on everything we know. Like she fought for relocation. And then when the judge ruled against her, she said, oh, I was relieved. It makes no sense. Wendy said she couldn't recall much of what Dan had alleged against her in the divorce filings. Again, highly unlikely. She acknowledged that her parents and Charlie had been deeply protective of her during that period and that her parents had been angry with Dan. She also testified that she and Katie had met a couple of times, that Charlie had introduced them at a dinner in South Florida, and that she'd gone to the beach with Katie and a friend about a month before the murder. A photo from that outing survived. Wendy was lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, shoulder pressed up against Katie's, both of them smiling for the camera. Under questioning, Wendy revealed that she'd legally changed the boy's last name from Markell to Adelson for their safety, she said, since their faces had been broadcast nationally. And she'd also changed Ben's middle name, which had originally honored Dan's late grandmother, his Bubby Helen.

22:09 So again, there's no indication that the boys were in any danger whatsoever. And changing his middle name just seems like really just a slap in the face to the Markell family. What was Ben's middle name? It was Amakai. It had some Hebrew meaning that was important to his grandmother. That honestly makes my blood boil. I know. It really makes my blood boil, too. The subject of Dan's parents came up, too. Ruth and Phil Markell hadn't seen or talked to their grandsons in three years by that point. On the stand, Wendy said that she had cut off visitation after learning that Ruth had been talking to the prosecutor about an emergency custody plan for the children in the event that Wendy was taken into custody. But Wendy said that she was ready to resume visitation and that she'd been talking with Dan's parents about arranging it. In the gallery, Ruth and Phil Markell visibly reacted, gasping, shaking their heads. Whatever discussions that Wendy was referring to in their view It really just been a PR effort by her, knowing that the question would come up at trial. After the trial, they didn't hear from her on the subject again for a long time.

23:17 So another thing that makes my blood boil. So Ruth and Phil, Dan's parents, they had called the prosecutor because they were thinking that Wendy might get arrested. And so they were just concerned that the kids would have someone to go to. And so they called to talk through that. And that information leaked out. And Wendy took that as, oh, they're trying to get the kids. And so she, you know, basically cut them off from her grandparents after that point and then acted like she was, you know, going to have them have visitation again only because the trial was coming and she knew it would look bad. These people are so entitled. Their behavior is reprehensible. It really is. Jeff LaCasse also testified, describing an interaction with Wendy on June 4, 2014, the day Garcia and Rivera left on their first scouting trip to Tallahassee. That evening, he said, Wendy had been a nervous wreck, anxious enough that she'd left the house just to buy Pepto-Bismol, though she wouldn't tell him why she was so anxious. He also directly contradicted her claim of being relieved about the relocation hearing, testifying that she'd actually been quite bitter about it, And he repeated under oath that he'd already told investigators that five days before the murder, Wendy had confided in him that Charlie had, quote, explored all options to deal with the problem, including looking into having Dan killed and that she'd even mentioned a price, either $ 15, 000 or $ 50, 000, he couldn't recall which. Luis Rivera was flown in from

24:48 a maximum security facility in Tucson to testify. On the stand, he came across as mild-mannered, soft-spoken, almost likable, though his illiteracy occasionally slowed things down since both attorneys on both sides wanted to walk him through documents to refresh his memory or catch inconsistencies. He repeated what he had told investigators, the two trips, the shooting itself, Garcia's call to Katie right afterward. Asked where he believed the money had come from, Rivera said, well, we knew that lady, Wendy- was paying it, although he admitted that he never spoke directly to Wendy. Under cross-examination, the defense chipped away at parts of his account.

25:31 He had some mix-up on his timelines and incorrectly claimed that he hadn't driven at all on the first trip. They also landed a real blow by getting Rivera to admit that Garcia had been intensely jealous of Katie's relationship with Charlie, once telling Rivera, I should just take this truck and smash them and run their asses over while they're eating. Garcia hated Charlie that much, why would he do a job for him? Garcia chose not to testify on his own behalf, but Katie did. On the stand, she was visibly nervous, very polite, but also stiff and uncomfortable. Her lawyer often had to lead her through the answers rather than just let her simply tell her own story. She testified that Charlie had arranged for the Adelson Institute to place her on its payroll at a token salary.

26:18 mainly as a favor so she could get health insurance for her kids. Kaepelman's cross-examination didn't go well for Katie, pressed on why she'd gotten so involved helping Charlie navigate the fake blackmail scheme if it truly had nothing to do with her. Katie's answer meandered without ever landing anywhere coherent. I can't tell you why. Like I did, I mean, he's asked me weird stuff before, but somebody mentioned my name and that's what piqued my interest. I was like, Why would somebody approach your mother saying my name? And then I didn't know about Tuto's name until later on. When Kappelman put up a chart showing a sharp spike in Katie's bank deposits at exactly the same time of the murder and asking her to explain, Katie stared at it in silence for a long time before finally admitting, From your diagram, I can see that, but I don't recall that. Meeting the bump in her deposits. We'll be back after a break.

27:23 During deliberations, the jurors began talking candidly among themselves about Wendy. Although she wasn't the one on trial, they had come away from her testimony repulsed. There was something about her sitting comfortably removed from the case while her ex-husband's murder unfolded around her with a sense of privilege and detachment that grated on them. And I will say, based on online comments, most people seem to feel the same about Wendy. You've watched some of this trial. Yeah, I've watched a lot of Wendy's testimony. Is that your feeling too? Yeah, I mean, she came across as helpful, but there were times when she just seemed somewhat arrogant, I would say. And she was the only Adelson that testified?

28:03 She was. That seems very strange. It is, because they were obviously so deeply involved. But I think both prosecution and defense felt like It wasn't going to help either of their cases to have them testify. I would think it would. No, I guess it wouldn't help the prosecution because they wanted to convince the jury that Katie and Sigfredo were the ones that were guilty. Right. Okay. The jury was also bothered by how thoroughly Wendy had worked to erase Dan and his family from Ben and Lincoln's lives, even changing their last names and Ben's middle name. Her testimony struck them as evasive at best and dishonest at worst. What stuck with several of them was her demeanor when asked on the stand about the possibility that she herself might face charges someday. She laughed and said, The state isn't going to arrest me.

28:54 It struck the jury as incredibly arrogant and inappropriate. Most of them concluded she likely knew more than she was letting on. Overall, the jury was bothered that the people they believed were actually behind Dan's murder were wealthy, comfortable, still driving around in nice cars and living in waterfront homes. while Katie and Garcia were on trial. On the second day of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict on Garcia, guilty. Katie's case was a different story. One holdout juror refused to budge on convicting her, convinced that the state hadn't met its burden of proof. She was also reluctant to take both parents away from their two young children. Eventually, the jury sent a question to the judge. Could they render a verdict on one defendant while remaining deadlocked on the other? The answer was yes. Shortly after, they told the bailiff they had a verdict, but only for one of the two. Garcia was found guilty. Judge Hankinson then delivered what's called the Allen Charge, or the Dynamite Charge.

29:55 an instruction urging the deadlocked jury to keep working toward a decision on Katie rather than let the case end in a mistrial. They tried, but the holdout juror convinced another to join her side, and Hankinson eventually had no choice but to declare a mistrial on Katie's charges. She was returned to jail to await a second trial and a new jury. At Garcia's sentencing, Ruth Markell addressed the jury directly. Because of the acts of a few, she said, without naming the Adelsons directly, my son Dan's life was cut very short. She spoke about his achievements, his brilliance, his drive, but said, I was most proud of the father Dan was to his beautiful boys, Lincoln and Ben.

30:40 It is hard to capture in words the joy and excitement I felt when Dan became a father and I became a grandmother. She called him a present, devoted, loving, supportive, and selfless father. The jury next had to consider whether to give Garcia the death penalty. Those who knew Dan's work saw the irony. Throughout his academic career, Dan had written extensively about his fierce opposition to the death penalty. In the end, the jury spared Garcia's life. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, with an additional 30 years tacked on for the conspiracy conviction. Katie's retrial was supposed to move quickly. Instead, it stalled for years. First, there was COVID. Then Judge Hankinson retired and the case was reassigned to Judge Robert R. Wheeler, a judge with a reputation for fairness and integrity. Eventually, the trial date was set for February 2022.

31:35 So she was in jail that whole time? Yeah, she sat in jail the entire time. The long delay gave prosecutors time to try and fix what had gone wrong the first time around. One of the biggest problems at trial had been the audio from the recorded meeting at the Dolce Vita restaurant where Charlie and Katie had met the day after the FBI's bump operation. The audio was so muddy that the judge hadn't allowed the jurors to see a transcript along with it, which severely limited its value. Convinced the conversation held real incriminating value, Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman's team went looking for someone who could clean it up. Expert after expert told them it couldn't be done. Then they found Keith McElveen, a former CIA war crimes investigator who had spent years developing technology to isolate individual voices out of noisy, crowded recordings. The work was so specialized that he had half a dozen patents on it. Prosecutors handed McElveen the Dolce Vita recordings in November 2021, which gave him only a couple of months before the scheduled trial. By mid-January, he still needed more time.

32:46 In an unusual twist, both sides asked the court for another delay to let him finish the work. Katie's defense was confident the cleaned-up recording would prove her innocence, while Kappelman's team was certain of the opposite. Judge Wheeler granted the continuance, pushing the trial again to May 16, 2022. When McElveen finished his work, the result was amazing. Whereas previously only snippets of the conversation could be heard, now Charlie's side of the conversation, at least, was much clearer. What emerged was damning. Charlie could be heard reasoning through the blackmail threat, walking through what police would and wouldn't be able to prove, and what evidence actually existed against them.

33:32 At one point, he asked Katie a question that investigators found telling. He said, quote, When everybody was there the next day, did any of you take any money? It was an apparent reference to the meeting where Katie had given Garcia his and Rivera's payout. The question told investigators that Katie had been present for that money drop while Charlie hadn't been. In another statement, Charlie remarked, While it was still not a smoking gun, it came across as a man conscious of his own guilt. Instead of acting like a terrified extortion victim, Charlie was relaxed, in control, and analyzing the situation as a co-conspirator, trying to figure out if they were being set up by law enforcement.

34:19 For years, the prosecutor had held out hope that Katie would eventually flip, and that would be the key to finally charging Charlie. But Katie had sat in jail for more than five years with no sign of turning. But the newly cleaned up Dolce Vita recording changed their thinking. Prosecutors felt like Charlie's words on the recording were close to a confession and they decided they no longer needed Katie's cooperation to move forward. They took the case to a grand jury which agreed that there was enough to indict Charlie. They planned the arrest carefully. Charlie was a well-documented gun enthusiast and the team assigned to take him into custody treated the operation accordingly. Roughly 20 FBI agents and local police officers assembled in full riot gear a couple of blocks from his home, just before 5 a.m.

35:09 on April 21st, 2022. They surrounded the property from every direction, with a pair of agents even positioned on a boat behind the house in case Charlie tried to flee by water. Officers stationed at the rear fence got the order to advance, only to discover that the fence was topped with razor wire. It was a good indication of just how paranoid Charlie was. The lead agent tried calling Charlie's cell phone to talk him into a peaceful surrender, but got no answer. Floodlights went up on the front of the house, and an agent picked up a bullhorn and ordered Charlie to come out with his hands raised. Officers crouched across the front yard, weapons trained on the door. Still nothing. For a tense stretch, it looked like the only remaining option was to force entry.

35:55 The lead agent tried Charlie's phone again, and this time he picked up. Moments later, Charlie walked out the front door as instructed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. Once he was cuffed and officers walked him back inside so he could get dressed, they got a clearer picture of the house. Guns and rifles were everywhere, many near windows and doorways, one even mounted on a tripod aimed out a window. It was the kind of setup that could easily have turned the arrest into a dangerous standoff. Wow, so he was not surprised that he was arrested. No, I'm sure he knew it was coming. I'm just a little surprised they didn't arrest him when he was out and about somewhere. That seems like how they usually do it. He's in a car, in a parking lot.

36:40 He may have been holed up at home knowing that this was coming. Three weeks after Charlie's arrest, Katie's second trial got underway. Her defense shifted dramatically from the first trial. Her attorneys now argue that Charlie and Garcia... had worked together without Katie's knowledge. Their theory was that Garcia might have agreed to kill Dan not just for money, but also to pressure Charlie into ending his relationship with Katie. There was no actual evidence supporting this, but the defense didn't need to prove it. Just plant enough doubt. They promised jurors that they'd show Charlie as a master manipulator, someone capable of using people to get exactly what he wanted, even without those people realizing that they were being used. As for the suspicious cash deposits, the new explanation was that the money had come from Garcia, trying to prove to Katie that he wasn't a deadbeat father. Money she had no idea was actually payment for a murder. Given this new theory, the obvious star witness would have been Garcia himself.

37:43 He was transported from prison in Alabama to be available. Katie's lawyer spoke with him and he indicated that he would testify in support of her story, The day before the trial, he changed his mind with no explanation. Katie didn't understand. She still loved him and felt that he had let her down. I would think Sigfredo, it would be in his benefit, his children's benefit, if he would testify on Katie's behalf. Yeah, it surprised me that he didn't testify. I'm not sure what his reasoning was. He was in jail for life with no parole. So he really has nothing to lose at this point. So why not testify and support Katie? But do you think his testimony would be perceived as less credible for that very reason?

38:27 Probably. Wendy took the stand again at Katie's second trial, and again her tone came across as inappropriate. She smirked while telling jurors that Dan had been sanctioned by the family court for misbehavior, which wasn't true. And she laughed while claiming Dan had fired or alienated all of his attorneys, when in reality both of them had gone through three attorneys over the course of their divorce. Luis Rivera returned as the prosecution's key witness. This time, the defense tried hard to get him to describe a conspiracy involving only Garcia and Charlie, with Katie left out entirely. Rivera wouldn't give them the answer they wanted. He testified, Katie's been involved the whole time, dog. She's involved. She's the mastermind.

39:11 She was in the middle of this. He added, whatever she tells Garcia to do, he jumps and do it. That's his weakness. Her, right there. Katie's friend, Indra Mascaro, testified for the prosecution and offered one of the trial's more important details, almost by accident. She was talking about a time that Katie had asked her to babysit her children. She didn't know the exact date, but suddenly on the stand she remembered something. She had taken a photo of the kids that night and posted it to Instagram. She had completely forgotten about it until then. During a short recess, she pulled up the post on her phone. and when she returned to the stand, she confirmed the date. Katie had asked her to watch the children on July 18, 2014, the day Dan was murdered. Jessica Rodriguez, Rivera's girlfriend and mother of her child, testified that Katie and Garcia came together to drop off Rivera's share of the money for the hit. Cell tower data confirmed that Katie was there that day. Because Garcia had refused to testify for the defense, Katie and her attorney felt she had little choice but to take the stand herself again, even though it didn't go well in the first trial. With Garcia unwilling to testify, she was the only person who could support the defense's theory that Charlie and Garcia had conspired without her knowledge.

40:30 Once again, it didn't go well for Katie. Again, she couldn't explain the large cash deposits she made starting the day after Dan's murder. And when the prosecution dug into the Dolce Vita recording, Katie basically conceded that Charlie had asked about the money drop and was trying to be sure that she and Garcia hadn't been spending conspicuously. After nearly eight hours of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict. Katie was found guilty on all charges, first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder charge, and 30 years each for the conspiracy and solicitation charges to run consecutively.

41:12 With Katie convicted and Charlie's trial just around the corner, prosecutor Georgia Kappelman decided it was time to take another run, getting Sigfredo Garcia and Katie to cooperate. They were both serving life sentences and would have nothing to lose. Garcia once again refused to cooperate, but Katie agreed with no strings attached, no promise of a reduced sentence or any other consideration. It was surprising as this was someone who had sat in jail for for almost six years without taking a plea deal, insisting that she was innocent. But now, she said, I believe that the truth needed to come out so the family could get closure. She wouldn't be the most credible witness, and she had blatantly lied on the stand in her two previous trials, but it was just another piece of the case that the prosecution had built against Charlie.

42:01 This really kind of blew my mind that she sat in jail for six years and just insisted that she was innocent. And then she finally agrees to testify for no benefit on her own part. So she didn't play it very well, I think, in hindsight. Charlie's trial began in October 2023 after 18 months of sitting in jail. I just love the picture of Charlie sitting in jail. He must have been a horrible, horrible inmate. I would imagine. He'd hired two high-priced Miami defense attorneys, Dan Rashbaum and Kate Myers. and together they built a defense so convoluted it left prosecutors baffled. The defense's theory was this. Garcia and Rivera, tipped off by Katie's loose talk, desired entirely on their own to murder Dan as a way of extorting money out of Charlie. They wanted the jury to believe that Charlie was a victim too. According to their theory, Katie came to Charlie's house the evening of the murder and told him her friend had just shot Dan and that the men responsible now expected a third of a million dollars from Charlie within 48 hours or he and his family would be next. Charlie gave them $ 138, 000 in cash that he had in his safe. What's this with all these people have money in their safes? And then he continued paying them $ 3, 000 in monthly installments after that.

43:24 Never told police, the theory went, because he was worried that doing so would get him and his family killed. The only other person he told about the scheme was his mom, because she had to write the checks. Prosecutor Kappelman and her co-counsel did their best to keep straight faces during the defensive's opening statements. Inside, they were thinking, 18 months of preparation and this was the best they could come up with? It is a ludicrous theory. I guess they were grasping at straws, But yeah, these guys just took it upon themselves to go kill Dan Markell, somebody that Charlie didn't really like and wasn't directly related to, and then come back to Charlie and say, you're next if you don't give us money. Yeah, it is bananas. Again, Wendy testified and claimed total ignorance of this alleged extortion scheme. She said the first time she learned of it was that day. Kappelman pressed her, and all the years that this has been pending, your brother has known who killed your children's father, and you didn't know? Wendy said she didn't. Kappelman followed up, asking, aren't you angry that Charlie and Donna knew who killed Dan but never told you? Wendy dodged the question, saying, I'm more angry that somebody killed my children's father. Katie took the stand and finally admitted her real role as the go-between connecting Charlie to the men who killed Dan.

44:45 She testified that within weeks of their first date, Charlie had started planting the idea that she should find someone willing to harm a person for him. At some point, he slipped a sealed manila envelope into her diaper bag, instructing her to deliver it to her friend, Sigfredo, telling her not to open it under any circumstances. Katie described going to Charlie's house the evening of Dan's death, July 18th, and finding him panicked holding a gun when he opened the door. He told her his parents had just been by. She assumed to deliver money. The next morning, July 19th, Charlie placed a grocery bag stuffed with cash in the trunk of her car for her to deliver to the men who carried out the murder. She said the payment was in the form of $ 100 bills stapled together in sets of 10. Another witness, a woman who had recently dated Charlie, testified that he had a habit of stapling $ 100 bills together. an important corroboration of Katie's testimony. I like my $ 100 bills.

45:48 I staple $ 1 bills. The defense only called two witnesses, Wendy's old divorce attorney, who testified that her client hadn't seemed particularly bothered by the loss of the relocation case, and Charlie himself, who spent a day and a half on the stand. He portrayed himself as a devoted son and brother, too busy with his dental practice to have any real awareness of what was happening in Wendy's life, let alone the desire to plot a murder. He had a ready explanation for everything. Reciting a decade's worth of phone calls, texts, and interactions with amazing precision, it was clear that his story was well rehearsed. In closing, Kappelman methodically took apart the extortion defense piece by piece, showing just how little of it actually held together. The jury needed just three hours to reach a verdict. Guilty. Charlie was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

46:44 I think when Charlie took the stand, he was very confident he could talk his way out of it because he had been talking his way out of things his whole life. And I think he just felt like, I'm going to get up there and just wow the jury. And it was not to be. I would like to see some of his testimony. We'll be back after a break. Luis Rivera, Sigfredo Garcia, Katie Magbanwa, and Charlie Adelson had all been convicted. Next up, Donna Adelson. The evidence against Donna had been accumulating for years, an email trail showing her relentlessly pushing Wendy toward relocation, floating a million-dollar bribe, and threatening to have the boys baptized Catholic, the $ 138, 000 that she and Harvey allegedly brought to Charlie's house after the murder, later collected by Katie to pay off Garcia and Rivera, the 44 personally handwritten payroll checks that she had signed to Katie from the Adelson Institute, totaling over $ 17, 000, for work that Katie never actually performed, and her own words on the recorded bump call in 2016, whispering, probably the two of us, when Charlie asked whether the mysterious blackmailer's threat involved them. But what finally triggered her arrest wasn't any of that. It was what happened in the days after her son was convicted. In the week after Charlie was convicted, while he sat in the Leon County

48:15 Detention Center, he and Donna spent roughly 35 hours on recorded jail phone calls. Most of their conversation was belaboring how unfair it all was and how the jury obviously didn't look at the evidence in convicting Charlie. Detectives, of course, were monitoring the calls, and both Donna and Charlie were careful with their words. But on one recording, the call seemed to end, but Donna apparently forgot to hang up the phone. Investigators heard her say, We've been looking it up over and over. I mean, I could go to Korea and China looking for places with no extradition. There's no extradition from Vietnam. They quickly realized that Donna was serious about fleeing when she and Harvey purchased two one-way tickets to Vietnam connecting through Dubai. There was a Hulu documentary that recently came out about this case and the detective talking about listening in on these phone calls. It was kind of funny because he's like, what is going on?

49:11 Like they thought the call was over and all of a sudden they hear Donna talking like she just forgot to hang up the phone. Wow. The team moved quickly and had officers waiting at the Miami International Airport, intercepting Donna and Harvey as they were about to board. As the agents approached her, Donna threw up her hands and said, no, not this again. Like this was just another in a long line of annoyances that she had had to deal with. When the agent seized her phone, 73-year-old Donna screamed, You can't do this! This is insane! She did not receive bail, which upset Donna very much because jail was really hard. At one hearing, she told the judge, The attempt at fleeing the country would give prosecutors another advantage at trial because for a jury, few things point to consciousness of guilt more than a defendant trying to run. Donna's trial began on August 22, 2025 in Leon County, more than a decade after her son-in-law's murder, with prosecutors casting her as the domineering, calculating matriarch who had organized and bankrolled the plot from behind the scenes. Georgia Kappelman's case leaned heavily on the paper trail.

50:25 Jurors saw dozens of emails capturing Donna's fixation on Wendy's divorce and custody fight, coaching her daughter to deliver the performance of your life in court. referring to Dan derisively as the Dark Lord, and floating hostile strategies like a million-dollar bribe or threats to convert the boys to Catholicism. A forensic accountant, Mary Hull, walked the jury through the 44 checks that Donna had personally signed to Katie from the Adelson Institute between 2014 and 2016, nearly $ 17, 700 in total, and testified that subpoenaed records turned up no job application, no W-2, and no timesheets. Nothing but a QuickBooks entry.

51:09 There was no job. It was a ghost payroll, prosecutors argued, built to funnel money to the person who was the go-between in the murder-for-hire plot. I should have asked this a long time ago, but she wrote 44 checks because she was trying to do it under the table rather than give her a lump sum, which... would have garnered more attention, right? Yeah, I think so. They were trying to make it look like she was just another employee. Prosecutors also leaned on the bump recordings, including Donna's panicked call to Charlie moments after the undercover agent approached her, whispering that it probably involved the two of us. In later calls, they pointed out, Donna and Charlie started referring to the blackmail demand using the code word TV. That was interesting because it lined up with what Wendy had told police years earlier about about Charlie's joke that buying her a TV was cheaper than hiring a hitman. Donna's defense team tried to portray her as a kind old lady by having her wear grandma sweaters. People who knew Donna had to laugh.

52:10 These were clothes that she wouldn't be caught dead in in real life. Their argument was that, yes, Donna may have been an overbearing, meddling mother and grandmother, but that didn't make her a murderer. She had no idea what the payments to Katie were for. She just wrote the checks for the business. And Luis Rivera, who testified again at Donna's trial, admitted that he and Garcia had never had direct contact with Donna, and the flight to Vietnam, that was just a vacation, never mind that they bought one-way tickets. Katie testified for the prosecution. She said that when she picked up the money the night of Dan's murder, it was damp. She mentioned that to Charlie, who told her that his mom had put the money in her washing machine to ensure that there were no fingerprints on it.

52:56 Smart. Another important witness was Drina Bernhard, who was a cellmate of Donna's. Coincidentally, Drina had also shared a cell with Katie earlier. Donna made an effort to get close to Drina, referring to her as her jail daughter, and saying that Drina reminded her of Wendy. When she found out that Drina had shared a cell with Katie, she tried to recruit her. Donna wanted Drina to testify that Katie had admitted to organizing the plot and extorting money from the Adelsons. Donna promised Drina $ 10, 000 and a grand piano, along with prescription pills. To Drina, it was a slap in the face. She was a recovering addict and it felt like Donna believed that she could manipulate her. Drina instead testified for the prosecution. Wendy testified again, but perhaps the most dramatic moment came when Donna's oldest son Rob took the stand for the prosecution. He testified that Donna was the controlling ringleader of the family. He said that his mom showed a complete lack of curiosity in the aftermath of the murder, going so far as to say, I don't know, I don't care, it doesn't concern me. Rob also recalled her warning him directly not to speak to the FBI. He later talked about how hard the whole ordeal had been for him. It took a lot of courage to go up against his family, and it's also hard for him knowing that his family name will be forever associated with this crime. On September 4th, 2025, after a two-week trial,

54:29 the jury found Donna guilty on all three counts, first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. As the verdict was read, Donna gasped Oh, and broke down, shaking so violently that Judge Stephen Everett had to briefly halt the proceedings. He told her to control herself, warning that any further outbursts would not be tolerated. Before sentencing, Dan's parents once again delivered victim impact statements capturing 11 years of grief. I read Ruth Markell's book, and it just sounds so hard. They had to go through trial after trial after trial, and each one they prepared statements, and it was just like reliving... and rehashing everything all over again. Dan's father, Phil, spoke about the damage that had rippled across both families, pointing out that the plot hadn't just destroyed Dan's family, it had permanently harmed Donna's own grandchildren, the people she claimed to love the most.

55:29 He closed with a question aimed directly at her, unscripted and unanswered. Was it worth it? Donna used her opportunity to speak not to express remorse, but to re-argue her case. She openly criticized the jury, suggesting they had been asleep during hours of testimony. She swore on her own life that she had had no knowledge of the plot, insisting she would have stopped it if she had. Judge Everett noted for the record that the court could, and would, factor in what he called her utter lack of remorse. Harvey spoke on his wife's behalf, angry and defiant, accusing the state's witnesses of outright lies and calling the outcome not justice but vengeance. Friends of the family submitted letters describing Donna as a warm, devoted grandmother, someone they insisted was simply incapable of the crime that she had been convicted of. None of it moved the court. Judge Everett sentenced 75-year-old Donna Adelson to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charge, plus 30 years each on the two other charges. The court also ordered Donna to pay more than $ 720, 000 in restitution. No word on whether she actually paid that. I'm sure she had spent a lot of the family's money on legal fees.

56:47 Well, Charlie too, right? Right. It's now been more than 12 years since Dan Markell was murdered in his own driveway. Charlie Adelson, Donna Adelson, Katie Magbanwa, and Sigfredo Garcia are all serving life sentences, and Luis Rivera is serving 19 years, concurrent with other charges. Charlie and Donna have both filed appeals. Harvey and Wendy Adelson have both been named as unindicted co-conspirators, but so far, neither one has been charged. In the recent Hulu documentary, one investigator said, There is no active investigation into Wendy, but if new information comes forward, they'll continue to investigate it.

57:28 Whether Florida prosecutors will ever move to indict either or both of them remains an open question, one that continues to divide people who have followed the case closely. I've read conflicting reports about what Wendy is doing now. One recent report in People magazine said that she's still living in South Florida, while Toronto Life magazine recently reported that she has moved with her sons to Austin, Texas to get away from the intense media spotlight. During Donna's trial, she revealed that she hasn't spoken to her mother since Charlie was convicted. For years after Dan's death, Ruth and Phil Markell had no legal way to see their own grandsons. Wendy had cut off contact between the boys and their paternal grandparents back in 2016. Under Florida law at the time, there was nothing Ruth and Phil could do about it.

58:18 The state had some of the most restrictive grandparent visitation laws in the country, providing almost no legal recourse if a parent chooses to cut off contact. Ruth became the face of the effort to change that. She partnered with advocates and lobbyists and worked with Florida Senator Jeff Brandes to introduce legislation addressing the issue in 2020. Two years later, House Bill 1119, quickly nicknamed the Markell Act, passed both chambers of the Florida legislature with near-unanimous, bipartisan support. Governor Ron DeSantis signed it into law in June 2022. The law allows grandparents to petition a court for visitation in the specific circumstance where one parent has been found criminally or civilly responsible for killing the other. While Wendy hasn't been found criminally or civilly liable, for killing Dan, the attention brought by the law pressured her into reaching out to Ruth and Phil herself. In April 2022, for the first time in six years, the Markells sat down with their grandsons in South Florida. Since then, they've maintained contact, video calls, holiday visits, occasional special events, a relationship that exists because of the law that now carries their son's name.

59:35 Benjamin is now 17 and Lincoln 16. Dan Markell was 41 when he died. He had always been intense. That never changed. From the kid who had memorized 2,400 trivial pursuit cards to the law clerk who argued with judges, to the law professor who challenged his students. He liked debate and disagreement, but he wasn't always great at noticing when the person across from him didn't. Some of his students found him condescending. People who loved him admit that he could be blunt and difficult, but he was someone who cared and who showed up. He connected people in the legal academic community. He kept ProfsFest going because he loved a good argument with smart people until 2 a.m., During the worst days of his divorce, he showed up at his son's preschool every day just to get 20 minutes with them. Despite his many career achievements, his friends knew that Ben and Lincoln were the best thing that ever happened to him. He got down on the floor to play with them, he sang to them, and he talked about them constantly, whether anyone asked or not. He fought as hard as he did to stay close to them because he genuinely couldn't picture a life without bath time and bedtime stories with his boys. but he never got to see them grow up. Hopefully, they know how much he loved them and how much he wanted to be a part of their lives. Rest in peace, Stan.

1:00:57 All right, before we have some discussion, I wanted to just have a note about the sources for this case. When I was trying to decide what case to work on next, I was looking for something a bit more in-depth that would make a good multi-part episode because I hadn't done one of those in a while. I found the book Extreme Punishment by Stephen Epstein and started reading it, with no idea how well-known this case already was and how many people and how many trials were involved. The book was very well done, well-researched and thorough, almost to a fault. The author is actually a lawyer and a former law professor, so he went pretty deep on some of the legal elements and the trials. Also, it was written before Charlie and Donna's cases were adjudicated, though it did cover them briefly in the epilogue. But if you're interested in this case, it is definitely worth a read.

1:01:47 Did he know Dan? I don't believe he knew Dan personally. I think he was familiar with him through the legal academic world. Dan's mother, Ruth Markell, also wrote a book which was published in 2022. It was called The Unveiling, A Mother's Reflection on Murder, Grief, and Trial Life. Very well written. Tells the story from her perspective and shares insights into the grieving process of a parent suffering a loss that no parent should ever have to suffer. In the middle of working on the story, Hulu released a four-part documentary series about the case called Welcome to the Family, The Murder of Dan Markell. So, of course, I watched that as well. And it was very well done, although it didn't add a lot to what was already covered in the book. And there were, of course, countless online articles about this case and transcripts and videos of trial testimony. All of the sources will be listed in the show notes for part one.

1:02:40 So years ago, I listened to a podcast called Over My Dead Body, season one about this case. You didn't listen to that. I didn't. And it's excellent. Also, our good friend Kylie from Primetime Crime, she does a great thing every summer. She calls it the Summer Series. And last summer, she covered this case in depth. So if you are looking for more information about this case, I would definitely check out those two podcasts. If you're interested in this case, there is no shortage of, you could spend the rest of your life finding information about it. That's the really hard thing for us is because a lot of people, Redditors and other people in true crime world, well, like the forums online, get so in-depth on a case.

1:03:23 And you did a fabulous job, and you went super in-depth, but sometimes it's hard for us in our limited time because we're really curious, too. We want to do our best job covering every case. We want to get every little nugget, but a lot of times we just can't because of time. Yeah, it's just impossible. So the big question in this case is, of course, did Wendy know? Was she involved? So I want to spend just a minute listing out the things that I found that point to her possible involvement, and then we can discuss it a little bit. Okay. First, she benefited from Dan's death, solving her problem of not being able to relocate to South Florida, so she had a strong motive. Dan was also coming after her in ways that could have damaged her both financially and professionally, which was another motive. Jeff LaCasse, her ex-boyfriend, testified under oath that Wendy told her that Charlie had looked into hiring a hitman to kill Dan, not a dumb joke about a TV, like actual hiring of someone. LaCasse also testified that Wendy told him the only way she could ever leave Tallahassee was, quote, if something happened to Danny.

1:04:29 Wendy seemed fixated on LaCasse's travel schedule for the day that Dan was killed, almost like she was trying to set him up as, you know, an alternate suspect. Wendy also knew Dan's travel schedule as well, and I'm not sure whether we mentioned this already, but 12 days before the murder, cell records showed that Wendy texted Dan saying, while she was in South Florida near her parents' home, to confirm whether he would be in town on Friday, July 18th, the day that he was eventually murdered. Also, the morning that he was shot, he left her a voicemail where Dan told her his exact schedule for that morning, driving the kids to preschool, then going to the gym. Very soon after receiving that voicemail, Wendy called Charlie, who spoke with both Donna and Katie after that. Wendy had a built-in alibi because of the Best Buy repair appointment that morning. She also went out of her way to buy bourbon that day, taking a quote-unquote shortcut down Trescott Drive, where Dan lived. In her police interview, Wendy mentioned being considered a suspect nine separate times, and she spontaneously brought up Charlie's hitman joke. Finally, roughly three weeks after the murder, during a dinner in South Florida that Charlie had referred to in texts as a celebration dinner, Wendy threw up at the table. People pointed to that as her being nervous about this whole thing and, you know, not being able to handle what they had done. I'm going to make this a multiple choice question for you. Do you

1:05:59 think that Wendy was A, an active participant in the plot to kill Dan, B, aware of it but not directly involved with the planning, C, maybe she suspected that there was a plot, but didn't really have direct knowledge of it and maybe avoided asking any questions because she didn't want to know. Or D, was she not at all aware or involved? So there is no direct evidence linking Wendy to the crime. There's a lot of that, you know, circumstantial stuff. You just read out 200 points. I think that she probably was aware of it to some extent, but not actively involved. I don't know, but you're the one who wrote this case and has researched it. What do you think, more importantly?

1:06:43 It's a very tough call. I think I agree with you. I think that she was probably aware of it. I do think there's a possibility that maybe she suspected it but didn't want to know. Like she was just like, you know, could tell that there was something going on, but maybe just tried to avoid it. It's a really tricky one. I do think she had some knowledge of it, though. I just can't imagine that she didn't at least know that something was being planned. Whether Wendy was or wasn't actually involved, the bigger question is probably, will there ever be enough evidence to charge and convict Wendy and or her father, Harvey? Sounds like there's more against Harvey than Wendy, right? Because he was present at some of the meetings.

1:07:27 Yeah, I get the sense that they probably would have enough to go after Harvey. But Harvey is 82 years old now, so it may be that they've just decided it's not worth it at this point. I don't know. Did he retire? Yeah, I think he has retired since all this happened. But yeah, it seems like he was very clearly involved. And I'm a little surprised they haven't arrested him, actually. There are five people in jail right now for this crime, and three of them have no allegiance to Wendy whatsoever. So if she was involved, you would think that they would have turned on her. I don't think they had anything connecting to Wendy, though. That's what my point is, though. Like, maybe she's not involved then. I think she was just very careful. I mean, they didn't really have anything. The way that this whole plot worked, in some ways, was very helpful to the Adelson family because Katie was the person in between everything, right?

1:08:17 So. when Katie finally flipped and testified against Charlie and Donna, that really helped them get Charlie and Donna. But I don't think anybody could really say anything about Wendy except unless Charlie and Donna were to switch, but they're not going to. So yeah, I think it's going to be really hard to ever get a conviction against Wendy. Now, who is the big fish here? That's the question. That is the question. Yeah. I mean, I get the sense that Donna was the big fish. She was the controlling kind of matriarch she pulled the strings in the family overall so I do believe that she was probably the one who really was the driver behind. The whole thing and do you think they didn't want to implicate Wendy because of the boys It's.

1:09:00 A good question. Maybe. It just seemed like Wendy was kind of always sort of coddled and protected by the family. She was the baby of the family. Her brothers looked out for her. Her parents looked out for her. I think they just wanted to keep her insulated from the whole thing. And do you think that Well, because Donna and Charlie are definitely, you know, the biggest planners here, there would be no reason for them to testify against Wendy ever. That's what I was wondering if maybe, you know, they wouldn't want to get Wendy badly enough to reduce either of their sentences. Yeah, I wouldn't think so. And at this point, you know, I don't think they'd be able to reduce their sentences anyway. And yeah, I just don't sense that they would ever turn on a member of their own family.

1:09:45 So is Wendy still an attorney? As far as I know, I wasn't able to find out a lot of details about what she's doing now, where she's working or anything like that. Like I said, I did read that she moved to Austin, Texas. But yeah, I wasn't able to find out much else. Does Wendy see Rob? As far as I know, no. Rob is estranged from everybody in the family. He hasn't spoken to anybody since he decided to testify against Donna. So does anyone see Donna in prison? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think so. What I read was that Wendy hadn't talked to Donna since Charlie had been convicted. So even before she was arrested, Wendy had kind of broken off contact with her. So probably not. Well, Harvey, I would guess Harvey probably visits her in prison. But Rob really, to me, that's one of the more interesting parts of the story is how brave and how difficult that must have been for him being the only one in the family who To really kind of stand up for what was right and to go against your whole family in that public of a way must have been very hard for him.

1:10:50 Yeah, definitely. So Wendy, to take Ben and Lincoln all the way to Texas, almost like geographically as far as she could from his biological grandparents, the only family that they can see, really bothers me. Yeah, the whole thing about her separating the kids and not letting them see the grandparents, and now she is, but it doesn't sound like it's because she wants to. It's because she feels like she's forced to. It really bothers me, and it makes me wonder what the kids are being told. I think there's enough public information about this case that, and they're 17 and 16 now, that they can certainly learn about it on their own, and I hope that they are learning about their dad, and it sounds like they're still in touch with their grandparents, so...

1:11:35 I'm hopeful that they are dealing with this and hopefully coming through it okay. One last thing I wanted to talk about for just a minute is Katie. I think it's really interesting to me that she chose to sit in jail for, I think, six years, claiming that she was innocent, and then she finally agreed to testify against Charlie without any benefit to herself. And it just strikes me as very odd, I guess. I don't know, maybe she was just convinced that she was going to be found not guilty. But it just seems like if she had made a deal up front, she could have gotten out of jail, you know, within a few years or however long in exchange for her testimony. And she chose not to do it.

1:12:17 And some people just look at snitching as the worst possible crime. Yeah. She doesn't strike me as someone, you know, she wasn't involved in gang life or anything like that. So it just seems, I guess it was just a bad decision on her part. Like she probably just thought she was going to get found not guilty. Yeah. I don't want to sound like a mean person, but I'm really happy when rich people have to go to jail and they have to pay for their crimes rather than buying their way out of it. Are they in like maximum or what kind of prisons are they in? Do you know? I don't know. I would expect they're in fairly, you know, maximum security prisons. But yeah, that makes me happy. Not necessarily all rich people, but Donna in particular and also Charlie and It just seems so arrogant. Donna seems so entitled.

1:13:04 And it was just the whole thing, like the video of her getting arrested, it made me smile kind of because she just was so in disbelief that this could be happening to her. Well, that is the story of Wendy Adelson, Dan Markell, and the rest of the Adelson family. Thanks for listening and let us know what you think. Halloween is almost upon us. I think this is the last episode that will drop before Halloween. So I have a fun little Halloween quiz for you. Okay. Don't worry. No pressure. There's no... I'll give you. You know how much I love a quiz. I know. I'll give you the rest of the expired pop-ums regardless.

1:13:45 Well, I was going to tell you, I have a headache now and I'm pretty sure it's because I've eaten expired food. I'm sorry. I might sue you. All right. Well, here's some fun Halloween questions for you. From top to bottom... What are the three colors in candy corn? White. I hate candy corn, by the way. I can't imagine why. It's just three? Yep. White. You got the first one. Oh. Yellow, orange? White, orange, yellow. On average, how many seeds are there in a pumpkin? A lot. That's right. I got that one right. Nailed it. Thank you. 500 on average. I would have guessed more. Yeah? Yeah. How many bones, I think you're going to know this one, how many bones are in the average human skeleton? Because I know you took anatomy.

1:14:29 I've had a lot of anatomy. I'm really old and I don't remember. 236? Close. 206. Oh, man. I'm sad I got that wrong. I could probably still identify most of them. Yeah, I bet you could. Which of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills stars played the role of Lindsay Wallace in the 1978 movie Halloween? If we could only have Bravo quizzes, I'd be really shy. This is so easy to me. It is Kyle Richards. Right. And her sister, Kim Richards, she was in a lot of Disney movies. I think Escape to Witch Mountain was one she was in. I did not know that. I wouldn't have known that.

1:15:10 But she was a little girl when she was in Halloween. Yeah. She was in Little House on the Prairie too. Was she? Are pumpkins a fruit or a vegetable? They're a fruit. Very good. Prior to pumpkins, which root vegetable did the Irish and Scottish carve on Halloween? Root vegetable? Mm-hmm. There's only so many root vegetables. Potato? No, turnips. They would carve turnips. Led me down the path there. I think you're going to know this. Which U.S. state produces the most pumpkins? a state you're very familiar with. I don't know. I guess I'm going to go with Michigan. Illinois. Oops. Okay. You're from Illinois. I thought you would get that one.

1:15:51 I know, but you made it sound like it was, you're leading me. Your hints are, nevermind. The hints are great. I'm just being. Do you know what Illinois town is known as the pumpkin capital of the world? Oh, Sycamore? Morton. Morton, Illinois. Oh, I had no idea. Yeah, never heard of that. What is the names? We're on this Illinois kick. What is the name of Michael Myers' hometown in the movie Halloween? I do not know. Haddonfield, Illinois. Never gotten that. What popular candy bar is named after Frank and Ethel Marr's beloved horse? O'Henry? Snickers. Oh. I think O'Henry is named after Henry Aaron, perhaps. When selling a house, is the homeowner obligated to disclose that it is haunted?

1:16:33 It depends where you live. Hmm. Isn't that true? I think it's just no, because. I thought... I guess... I thought you were implying like whether someone was murdered there. Oh, no, no. Just whether it's haunted. Well, is any house really haunted? I think that's why the answer is no. All right. Last question. According to the National Retail Federation, what was the most popular costume for kids in 2025? 2025? Oh, God. It's not any kind of current events thing, if you're going down that way of thinking. I really don't know. Spider-Man. Oh, okay. Okay. For adults, it is a witch, which surprised me. I've never heard of adults really gravitating toward witch costumes.

1:17:17 Well, it's just kind of an easy thing. Whatever job you do, you can put on a witch hat. I guess so. And for pets, do you want to know what the most popular costume is for pets? Sure, I would love to know. Pumpkins. Okay. I feel like I didn't do well, and I... that I don't know to too many questions. Well, you still win the expired Pop'ems, so congratulations. Okay, thank you. You can eat the rest of them now. So have you noticed me walking around the house smugly this week? No more than usual, yeah. I have beat the Wordle four times, the Wordlebot four times, In the last, I don't know if it's week, but like 10 days, I beat it four times.

1:17:58 I'm not familiar with the wordle bot really. You're not? No. Is that just sort of like your par for the wordle? Like how many you should do? So after you solve the wordle, there's a bot and you try to beat the bot every time. And then it will show you what their guesses were against your guesses. And there's this, I don't know how they really come up with these calculations, but there's one score that's luck. And even if I tie the bot, there's this luck score. And their luck score is always much lower than mine. Like if I beat them, they're like, oh, it's just because you're lucky. So I can't believe you've never done the bot. That's impressive. I don't do the wordle very often. I did it the other day.

1:18:39 I made you do it last night because I thought that was a hard word. That was a hard word. I'm blown away. You got it in three. Why are you so blown away? Last night when I said, oh, I got it in three, you were like, what? Because it's a really. hard word. I'm not dumb. Because I don't know where the most pumpkins in the world are produced. I just think the word was usury, U-S-U-R-Y, and I just think that's a very hard word for anybody to get. For anybody. Not about you. How dare you. You are a wordle savant. No, I'm really not. I'm really not. I get it, you know, usually three or four. I should do the wordle. Yeah, you should. We love you all so much. Thank you for listening. Until next time.

1:19:20 Don't kill your wife. And don't kill your husband.