The Matriarch Mastermind Murder Trial — Victim to Verdict

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Excuse me, Ms. Adelson? How you doing? [00:00:03] Speaker 2: Donna Adelson is this maniacally obsessed mother-in-law. [00:00:12] Speaker 3: Your ex-husband, Daniel, has been taken to the hospital. He's not going to survive. [00:00:22] Speaker 4: Dan, he was a very involved father, a loving father, and he spent every minute, he was free with those boys. [00:00:29] Speaker 5: I swear to you on my life, I was not involved with Danny's murder. [00:00:35] Speaker 6: I don't imagine that Wendy Adelson could have had a worse person to be in her ear during that divorce than Donna Adelson. [00:00:50] Speaker 7: Dan was hurt by Wendy, but he saw Donna as dangerous. [00:00:59] Speaker 8: She's a meddler, not a murderer. [00:01:03] Speaker 9: Mrs. Adelson, control yourself. [00:01:07] Speaker 10: My only short question to Donna, was it worth it? [00:01:22] Speaker 1: The death of a college law professor in Tallahassee, Florida, started as a murder mystery which took years to unravel. The investigation would expose a plot that included hired killers, an old girlfriend, and a wealthy South Florida family with an unlikely mastermind. I'm Ted Rowlands, and this is Victim to Verdict. Just northeast of the campus of Florida State University is a residential neighborhood called Betton Hills. [00:02:05] Speaker 2: Betton Hills is this community within Tallahassee that's absolutely beautiful. I mean, it's rolling hills. You've got these Spanish moss and oak trees lying in the streets, kind of arching the road. You feel safe, and the reason you feel safe there is it's really a neighborly neighborhood. [00:02:24] Speaker 7: It's kind of quintessential old-school Tallahassee. It's considered to be an upscale neighborhood. It's not certainly the kind of place where you expect people to be getting executed in their garage. [00:02:49] Speaker 1: Just before noon, on July 18, 2014, two gunshots shattered the peaceful quiet on Trescot Drive. 41-year-old Dan Markell was found sitting in his 2008 Honda Accord in his garage. He had been shot at point-blank range. He was bleeding from his head and was unable to respond. Dan Markell was still alive, but wouldn't be for very long. [00:03:18] Speaker 11: A cold-blooded murder happening in Betton Hills just doesn't happen. This is a quiet area, and the residents are alarmed. [00:03:26] Speaker 1: Dan Markell was 41 years old. When he was killed, he was a divorced father of two and a rising star at Florida State's College of Law. [00:03:35] Speaker 4: Dan had everything going for him. He had it all. He had the pedigree. He was a brilliant teacher. He was respected by the community. He could have gone anywhere. [00:03:45] Speaker 2: Here's a guy who, at 17 years old, gets into Harvard University. He ends up at Hebrew University for a short time in Jerusalem, and then winds up graduating Harvard Law. [00:03:58] Speaker 12: Our second speaker is Dan Markell, speaking about retributive justice and the demands of democratic citizenship. [00:04:09] Speaker 2: Dan Markell was particularly interested in something called retributive justice. He basically felt that people deserved a second shot in life. [00:04:19] Speaker 13: Murder, for example, is a kind of law that I think everyone agrees on. It would count as, you know, a necessary feature of any criminal law to be just. You'd have to have a law like that. [00:04:30] Speaker 1: At the time of his murder, Dan Markell was a divorced father of two young sons. His life was focused on his love of the law and his boys that he shared with his ex-wife, Wendy Adelson. [00:04:44] Speaker 6: In law school at FSU, when you would go to the professor's doors, they would have law review articles on it. They would have things that they've done, right? Not Professor Dan Markell. From the top of his door to the bottom of his door were drawings that his two boys made. [00:05:04] Speaker 1: Dan Markell was extremely involved in his son's day-to-day lives. In fact, two hours before he was murdered, he called his ex-wife, Wendy, asking about taking the boys swimming. [00:05:16] Speaker 14: Hey, Wendy, Stan, good morning. I'm 12 on Friday. I wanted to take out for me because I'm taking the boys up. I'm going to do the best in the best in the best at the best half of the day for you. At around 430 to 5. [00:05:35] Speaker 1: Wendy Adelson and Dan Markell married in 2006. They divorced in 2013. Like Dan, she was an attorney and a professor at Florida State University. [00:05:46] Speaker 11: She and Dan Markell were active in the Jewish community there in Tallahassee, though Dan was much more devout when it comes to his faith. And that was part of the reason that they ended up splitting up. [00:06:00] Speaker 1: The day Dan Markell was shot in his garage, police tracked down Wendy Adelson, who was at a restaurant having lunch with some friends. They brought her back to the station and told her what happened. [00:06:11] Speaker 3: Your husband, your ex-husband, excuse me, Daniel, has been taken to the hospital. He's not going to shabbat. Oh, my God. Okay? I'm sorry. [00:06:25] Speaker ?: I'm sorry. [00:06:29] Speaker 2: Wendy is called to Detective Isom's interview room at the Tallahassee Police Department. And therein ensues a very long interview, multiple hours, somewhere like between five and seven hours. [00:06:44] Speaker 15: I know a lot of people didn't love him, but not anyone who would, like, hate him. This can be a little, like, argumentative. [00:06:53] Speaker 16: Right. [00:06:54] Speaker 15: He didn't do anything except work and take care of his kids. I can't believe this is happening. [00:07:01] Speaker 2: If there were a top ten for craziest police interviews ever, Wendy Adelson's interview might be number one on the list. [00:07:08] Speaker 1: Coming up, the search for Dan Markell's killer leads police to two Miami hitmen. I mean, they're just bumbling fools. And these bumbling fools led to the conspirators who were hiding in the dark. And Wendy Adelson's police interview leads investigators straight to her brother, Charlie. [00:07:30] Speaker 15: He makes a lot of jokes in that case. He said, I, you know, I looked into hiring a hitman and it was cheaper to get you this TV. [00:07:45] Speaker 1: When Florida State law professor Dan Markell was shot in his garage in July of 2014, his neighbor, James Geiger, who had heard the gunshots, looked out of his front window and saw what turned out to be the getaway car. [00:08:02] Speaker 17: There was a car that was rapidly backing out of the driveway. It caught my attention because it seemed to be going so fast. It appeared to be a Prius, a light colored Prius, maybe silver or white. That street doesn't have cameras. [00:08:18] Speaker 4: So, Mr. Geiger, the neighbor, sees what he appears to be a car, maybe a Prius. That was the key piece of evidence that the FBI utilized to start the investigation. [00:08:30] Speaker 1: On the morning of the murder, Dan Markell dropped his kids off at a daycare just before 9 a.m. He then went to Premier Health and Fitness to work out. [00:08:40] Speaker 11: Investigators are able to pull surveillance video where they can see Dan Markell going to the gym that morning. They capture him walking inside and then a couple of minutes later, they see a light colored Prius circling. [00:08:55] Speaker 1: About an hour later, Dan Markell left the gym and headed back to his house on Trescot Drive. He's picked up on a video from a Tallahassee city bus and there on the video, just behind him, a silver Prius. [00:09:09] Speaker 2: One of the frustrations for the Tallahassee Police Department, they have the make of the car and they just could not figure out a tag number for this car, which essentially left it unidentified. [00:09:23] Speaker 1: At 10.51, the Prius made a left turn on Tibetan Road to go to Dan Markell's house. Four minutes later, the Prius was seen on a different bus camera heading north towards I-10 and two figures could be seen in the car. [00:09:39] Speaker 18: See something white moving around in a passenger seat? [00:09:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, the white shirt, the person in that side of the car, it seems extremely animated, excited. [00:09:51] Speaker 1: Using cell phone data, investigators were eventually able to identify those two men in that car. Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, they were both from Miami. [00:10:03] Speaker 11: Luis Rivera is someone who had ties to the Latin Kings gang and he was good friends with Sigfredo Garcia. And investigators were able to show and find video where the two of them were on camera at an ATM in Miami about eight hours after the murder. [00:10:18] Speaker 4: They were lower-level criminals offered some sum of money to come up to North Florida, this little hick town, commit this murder. Everything's going to go easy, right? It didn't work that way. [00:10:32] Speaker 1: Investigators had a pretty good idea as to who may have hired Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, in large part, to that police interview they did with Dan Markell's ex-wife, Wendy Adelson. [00:10:45] Speaker 3: And you, your divorce has been two years or the total separation, I'm assuming? [00:10:49] Speaker 15: Total separation's been two years. Uh, our divorce just finalized last summer, or all this time. [00:10:56] Speaker 11: Wendy Adelson is the ex-wife of someone who has just been murdered, so it's natural to expect that she's going to be the first person that these investigators want to talk to. [00:11:06] Speaker 15: Danny didn't treat me very well, and I was so scared that maybe someone did this. Not because they hate Danny, but because they thought this was good somehow. [00:11:20] Speaker 3: Oh, are you saying that you think maybe one of your friends would have done something like this? I don't know. That's why I'm, that's why you're here, and that's why we're talking. [00:11:30] Speaker 2: She goes in and speaks to the lead detective, Craig Isom, and within moments is telling him how much her own family hates the guy who was just shot and will later die. Of course, that is her ex-husband, Dan Markell. [00:11:44] Speaker 1: She also, unprovoked, tells the detective that her brother, Charlie, had joked about hiring a hitman as a divorce gift. [00:11:54] Speaker 15: He makes a lot of jokes in that taste, and it was a joke he made. He knew Danny treated me badly, and it was always this joke. He said, I, I, you know, I looked into hiring a hitman, and it was cheaper to get you this TV. [00:12:07] Speaker 7: Once she throws that out in her police interview, like, you're basically just named your brother as a suspect. [00:12:11] Speaker 4: In this case, she found out that her husband, ex-husband, was executed, never asked about her kids. She didn't show the normal reactions a common, a normal person would have in that situation. Was she just trying to pass this information on, or was she just that gullible, naive, and not that smart? [00:12:33] Speaker 1: Coming up, the connection between the hitmen and the Adelsons. [00:12:37] Speaker 18: Were you the middleman between the shooter and Charlie Adelson? Yes, ma'am. [00:12:43] Speaker 1: Plus, the FBI bump. Mrs. Adelson? How you doing? Just wanted to give you this. As Dan Markell's ex-mother-in-law becomes the focus of the investigation. More than a year after the murder of Florida State law professor Dan Markell, investigators believed that his killers were two hired hitmen from South Florida. [00:13:11] Speaker 4: They knew this was an execution-style murder. Clearly a professional hit. Two shots and gone. [00:13:18] Speaker 1: Detectives believe the murder was related to Dan Markell's divorce from Wendy Adelson and their custody battle over their two young sons. Stephen Webster represented Dan Markell in his divorce. He says he suspected the Adelsons immediately after getting a phone call from the Tallahassee Police Department. [00:13:40] Speaker 7: He said something really bad has happened. And I'll never forget those words. And it hit me. I was like, they killed him. [00:13:51] Speaker 3: I knew it. I knew it right then and there. I need to ask you, was your divorce, you said before, had nothing to do with infidelity, no extramarital affairs or anything like that? [00:14:02] Speaker 1: That's one of us. Wendy Adelson and Dan Markell met in 2003 while she was in law school and he was working in Washington, D.C. [00:14:12] Speaker 7: Dan was happy. His life picture was marriage and the boys and the successful career as a professor. He had no idea that the divorce was coming. He referred to it as a Pearl Harbor-style divorce. [00:14:31] Speaker 18: When did you separate from Professor Markell? In the fall of 2012. [00:14:37] Speaker 15: Whose decision was it to separate? It was my decision. It just wasn't a really healthy marriage and I thought it would be better for the boys if they didn't grow up thinking that's the way you treat women. [00:14:51] Speaker 1: After the divorce, things got extremely ugly between Dan and Wendy over the children. Disagreements not only about how the boys would be raised, but where. [00:15:03] Speaker 11: Donna Adelson is Wendy Adelson's mother. And after the divorce from Dan Markell, Donna really wanted her daughter and her grandkids to move down to South Florida to be close to her. And it didn't take long for investigators to piece together how involved Donna was in this divorce. They had evidence of emails and text messages back and forth where she is talking about how much she wants this divorce to happen and for the kids to move. [00:15:30] Speaker 1: Dan was hurt by Wendy, but he saw Donna as dangerous. After a judge denied Wendy's petition to relocate to South Florida, Donna was actively plotting with Wendy on outrageous ways to try to get under Dan's skin, including enrolling the kids in a Christian school and even dressing them up in Nazi youth uniforms. [00:15:56] Speaker 4: They knew how much his religion meant to him to pass it on to his kids. So they were going to do the exact opposite. [00:16:03] Speaker 2: Donna wanted to control every single situation. And here, the ultimate control in her own demented mind was to either get them baptized or have them dress up as Nazis. And that would show Dan Markell that we're in charge, not you. [00:16:20] Speaker 1: As detectives worked on the motive for Dan Markell's murder, investigators found a connection between the hitmen and the Adelsons. It was Charlie's ex-girlfriend, Catherine McBanawha. [00:16:33] Speaker 11: Charlie Adelson dated a woman named Catherine McBanawha. She was in her 20s, and they started dating around 2013. Catherine met Charlie while she was working at a dental office in Miami. And she also had two children with Sigfredo Garcia, one of the two accused hitmen. [00:16:53] Speaker 2: Katie McBanawha is really the glue that holds together the hitmen on one side and the Adelson family, specifically Charlie Adelson, on the other side, connecting the two and making the picture clear for police. [00:17:08] Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you, if you found out that this is someone that you personally know, would that change your mind about what should happen to that person? [00:17:16] Speaker 15: If somebody tried to kill my ex-husband, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. [00:17:21] Speaker 16: Regardless of who it is. [00:17:23] Speaker 15: I mean, it would be different if I thought it were my brother, but I don't think it was my family. [00:17:27] Speaker 1: But the investigation eventually led directly to Wendy's family, and specifically her brother Charlie, a periodontist who worked at his parents' dental practice in Miami. [00:17:39] Speaker 6: What we know is that Charlie Adelson had the money, that he secured the hitmen. Charlie is, in his head, Charlie is the boss of all bosses. Charlie's in South Florida, thinking that he's the guy that gets things done. [00:17:54] Speaker 1: In 2016, a judge granted investigators permission to listen in on both Charlie Adelson and Catherine McBanawha's phone conversations. They decided that in an attempt to get them to start talking about the murder, they would do what is called a bump, and they targeted Charlie's mother, Donna. [00:18:15] Speaker 19: The FBI and the Tallahassee Police Department, they're working together, [00:18:27] Speaker 11: and they sent in an undercover agent to approach Donna on the street. And the agent hands her a piece of paper. It's got an article about Dan Markell's death on it. It also has a phone number written on it, and the amount of $5,000. [00:18:41] Speaker 4: What they do is they call Tickle the Bump. And that is, you go to co-conspirative suspects you believe were involved, and you make contact with one of them, demanding money, trying to see who they're going to call, who they're going to contact, because you want to find out who all the co-conspirators are. [00:18:58] Speaker 19: I want to let you know that my brother, he's incarcerated. He helped your family with this problem. He got attacked up north, and we want to make sure that he's going through some rough times, and we want to make sure that you take care of what he's going through, the way you're taking care of Katie and Tewda. Well, this will explain it. [00:19:21] Speaker 4: In this case, Donna, it was perfect for Donna to get the ball. She got it on the way to pick up her grandkids. She took the note, acted very calmly, put it in her pocket, and what did she do? She called Charlie. [00:19:33] Speaker 14: She might have to work for some other tournaments there in your future. I need to be with you. Did you tell them what's the letter you ever saw there? [00:19:43] Speaker 5: I'm just telling them what's the paperwork hand-delivered to me. [00:19:50] Speaker 14: Does it involve me or other people? Well, all the people. What's that? [00:19:57] Speaker 1: The bump also prompted Charlie to meet Katie McBanawha at a restaurant where agents were listening in. [00:20:13] Speaker 14: Once the undercover FBI agent hands that sheet of paper over to Donna Adelson demanding $5,000, [00:20:29] Speaker 2: gets Donna and Charlie nervous, and now law enforcement moves in. They go after the hitmen, the lower-level players first, the middle woman, and then ultimately on to the Adelsons. [00:20:42] Speaker 1: Coming up, the legal dominoes start to fall for the Adelson family. Charlie, let's start with the most important question. [00:20:51] Speaker 20: Did you cause the death of Professor Dan Markell? This is Adelson. [00:20:55] Speaker 1: In the spring of 2016, almost two years after the murder of Florida State law professor Dan Markell, police made their first arrests in the case. Luis Rivera, a Latin King gang member, and his friend, Sigfredo Garcia. They were the two men seen in the silver Prius leaving Tallahassee after Markell was shot. [00:21:27] Speaker 2: So Luis Rivera is an interesting figure here. He's a Latin King's gang member. He's all of probably five feet tall tops. Well, he's also got the street smarts because he is the only one in this conspiracy who was offered a deal and actually takes that deal. [00:21:44] Speaker 1: Six months later, Catherine McBanawha, the link between the hitmen and the Adelson family, was also arrested. She and Sigfredo Garcia were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for Dan Markell's murder. Prosecutors then turned their attention to Charlie. During Charlie's trial in the fall of 2023, Catherine McBanawha finally came clean and testified about how Charlie recruited her to set up the hit on his former brother-in-law, Dan Markell. [00:22:14] Speaker 18: Who came up with the idea to kill Dan Markell? [00:22:18] Speaker 21: Charlie. He got in the car with me and he asked me a question. What was the question? Do you know anybody that can harm someone? And did you know anybody that can harm someone? Yes, ma'am, I did. Who was that? Sigfredo. [00:22:34] Speaker 1: Charlie Adelson took the stand and tried to convince the jury that he was the victim of an extortion plot cooked up by Catherine McBanawha. [00:22:44] Speaker 20: Charlie, let's start with the most important question. Did you cause the death of Professor Dan Markell? Absolutely no. [00:22:53] Speaker 11: I was there in the courtroom when Charlie Adelson took the stand. So he told the jury that on the night of Dan Markell's murder that Catherine McBanawha showed up at his house. [00:23:02] Speaker 22: She said, listen, this is all my fault. But I had no idea anything was going to happen. This is totally my fault. I spoke in too much detail about your family's personal problems, about your sister, Dan Markell, and the million dollar offer. What did you say? I'm like, what are you talking about? And she's like, she's like my friend killed Dan and he wants to be paid a third of a million dollars. [00:23:28] Speaker 6: Charlie had to take the stand. He had no choice. He had to take the stand. I think the theory was a bad theory. This extortion theory, the moment I heard it, I thought it was bad. But again, when you did the crime, I don't think they had a lot to work with. [00:23:45] Speaker 23: We, the jury, find it as follows as to count one of the indictment, first-degree murder. The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. [00:23:53] Speaker 1: Charlie Adelson was stunned and he was alone when he was convicted. His parents, Donna and Harvey, decided not to attend his trial. [00:24:02] Speaker 2: Even though they weren't in the courtroom for the trial, you know that they were watching the trial and they were glued to it because as soon as Charlie is convicted on November 6, 2023, for the next week, every single day, Charlie and Donna are on the phone for something like five and a half hours a day. I'm saying we're trying to do everything we can to help you. Don't give up, Charlie. [00:24:28] Speaker 16: No, I can't even know. I just, this is how I think it's capable. [00:24:33] Speaker 11: There's one particular call that has been labeled an open call and it's because Donna was on the phone with Charlie and it was being recorded by the jail and she thought that he hung up or got disconnected. So she put the phone down, but she doesn't hang up. The line is still open and everything that she's saying to her husband and other people, it's being recorded. [00:24:54] Speaker 24: We've been looking it up over and over. Things change if there is extradition from Vietnam because we've looked at all the places. I mean, I could go to Korea and China, but there's no extradition, but looking for places [00:25:07] Speaker 7: where there's no extradition. She thought she had disconnected the phone call with Charlie, but it was still being captured by the recording system at the jail. [00:25:27] Speaker 1: Less than a week after that call, Donna and Harvey Adelson were at the gate at Miami International Airport getting ready to board a one-way flight to Vietnam. [00:25:48] Speaker 25: She gets stopped and she's appalled. [00:26:13] Speaker 4: She's aghast. She's aghast. Oh my God. Oh, arrested for murder. Not this again. [00:26:18] Speaker 26: Ma'am, you were arrested on a warrant from Leon County, Florida. It's an attempted solicitation, conspiracy to commit a capital felony, homicide. [00:26:30] Speaker 1: Within days, Donna Adelson was transferred from Miami to Tallahassee. [00:26:35] Speaker 4: Talk about a fall from grace. [00:26:42] Speaker 2: This is a woman who once had everything now confined essentially to a little cage inside a jail. [00:26:52] Speaker 8: How long have you been incarcerated at the Leon County Detention Facility? Do you recall? 15 and a half months, 470 days. [00:27:02] Speaker 1: Coming up, the state's case against Donna Adelson according to her children. [00:27:07] Speaker 18: What did she suggest you could do to get Dan Markell to relent and let you take his kids to South Florida? She suggested that I pretend that the boys had become Christian. She called me and said, you know, I just want to let you know, you know, if the police [00:27:17] Speaker 27: come around, don't talk to them. And I said, I already did. [00:27:19] Speaker 28: I've gained more than a third of my body weight here. [00:27:36] Speaker 29: The diet is all carbs, no protein. [00:27:39] Speaker 1: More than a year after Donna Adelson was arrested for the murder of her former son-in-law, Dan Markell, she tried convincing Judge Steven Everett that she should be granted bond. [00:27:51] Speaker 30: And I can't go to sleep. They've got people screaming and yelling. They bang on the doors. They shake the doors. It sounds like a drum in there. It's horrible. [00:28:01] Speaker 11: The difference between Donna Adelson when we see her after she's arrested in 2023 compared to the trial in 2025, you can tell that during the time that she's been incarcerated, she's gained weight. She looks considerably older. Her hair is completely gray. [00:28:17] Speaker 1: Donna's bid for bond was rejected, meaning she would stay in jail until her trial, a difficult place to be for a woman who spent most of her life giving orders rather than taking them. [00:28:28] Speaker 2: So Donna Adelson can be described as sort of this brash New Yorker. She's originally from Queens. She ends up in South Florida. She becomes the mother to three beautiful children. [00:28:39] Speaker 1: In the late 1980s, Donna Adelson appeared on the game show, Wheel of Fortune. We now meet Donna Adelson from Coral Springs, Florida. I want to hear all about you, Donna. Let's go. [00:28:53] Speaker 31: Well, I'm a domestic coordinator. A domestic coordinator. Yes. I'm responsible for the activities, classes and lessons of my son, Robert, who was 16, Charlie, who was 12, Wendy, who was 10, my husband, Harvey, who's in the audience, and my dog, Sam. [00:29:09] Speaker 2: She calls herself on that show a domestic coordinator, just to show you her mindset back then. And then she solves a puzzle. And the puzzle that she solves in hindsight is both chilling and ironic. [00:29:25] Speaker 14: So I'm riding on this, again, personally, as a category. It's a chip maker. Yeah, that's it, Donna. That's it. That's it. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's it. [00:29:36] Speaker ?: That's it. [00:29:37] Speaker 1: That's it. In late August, 2025, Donna Adelson walked into the same Leon County courtroom where her son, Charlie, had been convicted almost two years earlier. This time, it was her trial. Donna's husband, Harvey, was in the gallery, along with Dan Markell's parents. [00:29:55] Speaker 11: It's day one of trial. And inside the courtroom, it is packed. There's a lot of media interest. It's the same courtroom where Charlie Adelson was tried. Same judge, Steven Everett. And everyone has this heightened sense of anticipation because she's the one that so many people thought set this all up. She's the matriarch mastermind, according to the prosecution. [00:30:17] Speaker 18: The reason that we're here today is because this defendant, Donna Adelson, was part of a conspiracy to hire a hitman to kill her former son-in-law, Dan Markell. [00:30:29] Speaker 1: Is the defense prepared to give its opening statement at this time? Yes, Judge. Donna Adelson was represented by Jackie Fulford, who raised some eyebrows during her opening statement when she referred to Dan Markell by his nickname Danny. [00:30:46] Speaker 8: You're going to hear that Wendy Adelson, the daughter of my client, was married to Danny. And I'm not trying to be informal when I say that. I respect Mr. Markell, Dr. Markell. But because so many people in the trial are going to refer to him as Danny, I'm going to do that if that's okay. [00:31:04] Speaker 11: The reaction to Jackie Fulford saying she was going to call him Danny during this trial really went over like a lead balloon. People were pretty surprised that someone who's representing, someone who's accused of killing Professor Dan Markell was acting like there was this familiarity between them. [00:31:21] Speaker 2: Please call your next witness. [00:31:22] Speaker 18: My name is Wendy Adelson. [00:31:24] Speaker 2: I think without a doubt the most highly anticipated moment in Donna's trial was Wendy coming to testify. Good morning. [00:31:31] Speaker 9: If you can just take your seat for right now. I swear you're in the jury. [00:31:38] Speaker 2: Donna will not stop making eye contact with Wendy, but Wendy literally lifts her chair and turns it away from her mother. She does not want to make eye contact. [00:31:49] Speaker 27: My mom was really upset. I think my mom thought my life in Tallahassee wasn't, you know, wasn't good. [00:31:57] Speaker 18: Is it true that you never would have left Dan Markell without your mom's suggestions? [00:32:03] Speaker 27: I would have left Danny regardless of anyone else's input. [00:32:08] Speaker 11: I was very unhappy. The prosecution wants from Wendy Adelson on the stand the motive. She's the one who can talk about the divorce, how contentious it was, and why her mother Donna wanted the boys to move so bad. [00:32:20] Speaker 6: I don't imagine that you, Wendy Adelson, could have had a worse person to be in her corner, to be in her ear during that divorce than Donna Adelson. [00:32:33] Speaker 18: What did she suggest you could do to get Dan Markell to relent and let you take his kids to South Florida? She suggested that I pretend that the boys had become Christian. What about a financial offer? Was that part of it as well? Yes. What was the financial offer to be? I think it was a million dollars. Who was going to pay the million dollars? My mom, my dad, and my brother. And they were going to give Dan Markell a million dollars for what? So that I could relocate. Were you in any way involved in the plot to kill your ex-husband? No. [00:33:12] Speaker 27: I did not know it was going to happen and I did not know any details. I was not involved in any plot to kill Danny. [00:33:20] Speaker 1: Wendy Adelson hugged her father, Harvey, as she left the courtroom. The next witness called was her older brother, Robert. [00:33:28] Speaker 18: How do you know the defendant in this case, Donna Adelson? [00:33:32] Speaker 28: She's my mother. [00:33:33] Speaker 18: Who is the leader in the family? Who tends to run the show? [00:33:37] Speaker 28: I think my mom. [00:33:38] Speaker 18: Would you describe Donna Adelson's personality as being more controlling or more laid back? [00:33:44] Speaker 28: I think more on the controlling side. [00:33:47] Speaker 18: What about, is she kind of a more assertive person or a more passive person? [00:33:53] Speaker 1: I'm more assertive. Robert Adelson was Donna and Harvey's oldest son who was estranged from the family. [00:34:01] Speaker 2: The state star witness here is Rob Adelson. Takes a stand. He looks similar to Donna Adelson with an Adrian Brody vibe, people say. And he gets up there and he's incredibly credible. He's a doctor. He lives in Albany, New York. And he's able to tell jurors what happened inside the family dynamic. And it played very well with these jurors. [00:34:25] Speaker 18: How did you first hear about Dan Markell's murder? [00:34:28] Speaker 28: I got a text message that said like tragedy here. Please call. [00:34:32] Speaker 18: And are these from Donna Adelson? [00:34:34] Speaker 28: Yes. She said, you know, we just want to let you know that Danny's been shot. And they took him to the hospital, but he didn't make it. [00:34:43] Speaker 18: Did you end up talking to law enforcement? [00:34:46] Speaker 28: They came to my office with two agents and we had an interview. [00:34:50] Speaker 18: After that conversation with the FBI, did Donna Adelson ever say anything to you about having talked to law enforcement or the FBI? [00:34:59] Speaker 28: She called me and said, you know, just want to let you know, you know, if the police come around, you know, don't talk to them. Of course. And I said, I already did. [00:35:07] Speaker 18: What'd she say to that? [00:35:08] Speaker 28: She said, oh, well, you don't know anything anyway. [00:35:11] Speaker 1: Coming up, will Donna Adelson take the stand? [00:35:15] Speaker 9: Have you made a decision concerning this matter? I haven't. [00:35:19] Speaker 29: I'm not prepared to make that decision. This decision affects the rest of my life. [00:35:31] Speaker 1: During her nine day murder trial, 75 year old Donna Adelson was warned repeatedly by the judge to avoid showing any emotion or reactions in the courtroom. [00:35:43] Speaker 9: I understand this may be a distressing thing for your child to be offering testimony and your trial. However, you are to control your expressions and your emotions. Do you understand those? [00:35:55] Speaker 11: It's important inside of a courtroom that you don't show emotion, especially the parties. The judge usually makes sure that everyone knows that. But Donna seemed to have a bit of a struggle with that. [00:36:05] Speaker 9: I do not wish to do this in front of the jurors at all, but it's very important that you are able to control your emotions. Do you understand what I'm saying? [00:36:13] Speaker 1: Yes. During their case, prosecutors presented much of the same evidence that was used to convict Donna's son, Charlie, Catherine McManawa and Sigfredo Garcia. But they also had some new evidence linking Donna specifically to Dan Markell's murder. [00:36:31] Speaker 2: In Donna Adelson's trial, there's new evidence that we have simply never heard of. And one of them is Donna Adelson's 2014 day planner. She keeps these very OCD like planners. And in the back of that planner, prosecutors discover a license tag number for Dan Markell's 2008 Honda Accord. [00:36:54] Speaker 18: In the very back of that planner, there's a place for names and addresses and notes. Is that where you located the information regarding Dan Markell's tag number? That's correct. [00:37:08] Speaker 22: It's after all the calendar months. There's no section in the back. [00:37:13] Speaker 11: Why would someone have this information inside of their planner? The prosecution wants the jury to believe that the only reason that she would have his car information is so that she can pass it off to Charlie, who could then pass it off to the hitman in this case. [00:37:28] Speaker 26: What do you think the best evidence against Donna is? [00:37:33] Speaker 7: I think the money being washed, like literally washed. [00:37:38] Speaker 21: It was in a bag, in a plastic bag, grocery bag, and I believe there was like a paper bag and then a Ziploc bag inside it. [00:37:48] Speaker 18: When you open the Ziploc bag, did you notice that the money was stapled together? Yes, ma'am, it was. It was. Okay. [00:37:56] Speaker 21: When you contacted her and said the money's wet, did he have a response? Yes, ma'am. He told me that his mom washed the money. But she physically washed the money? Yes, ma'am. [00:38:07] Speaker 1: Other evidence linking Donna to the conspiracy included 44 checks from the Adelson Institute written out to Kathryn McBanawha and signed by Donna Adelson. [00:38:20] Speaker 18: She began receiving checks from Adelson Institute about a little less than three months after the murder. That's correct. The last check was dated in May of 2016? [00:38:33] Speaker 6: That's correct. Donald Adelson managed the books for the dental clinic, which would mean that any payment that was processed through the dental clinic would have had to at some point come through her. [00:38:43] Speaker 4: She paid Katie all these checks that, I mean, it's clear Donna was involved in the hiring of the hitman. [00:38:51] Speaker 1: As the defense case wound down, the big question on everyone's mind was will Donna Adelson testify? [00:38:58] Speaker 11: We had this feeling from the pretrial motions that she was going to testify. There was huge expectation that she was going to take the stand. So we were all wondering, will she or won't she? [00:39:10] Speaker 9: Have you made a decision concerning this matter? [00:39:14] Speaker 30: It happens. I'm not prepared to make that decision. This decision affects the rest of my life. [00:39:20] Speaker 2: Judge Steven Everett says, now is your time to decide. Are you or aren't you going to testify? And she equivocates with her own defense team. And finally the judge says, if you don't give me an answer, I'm going to hold you in contempt. [00:39:35] Speaker 9: This is Adelson, the question remains. As it relates to your right to remain silent and your right to testify, what is your decision concerning these two rights? [00:39:49] Speaker 30: This time, I don't want to accept. [00:39:54] Speaker 1: During closing arguments, the state focused on Donna Adelson's motivation for wanting to kill Dan Markel. The defense focused on the holes in the prosecution's evidence. Today is Donna Adelson's turn. [00:40:07] Speaker 18: Today is Donna Adelson's turn. She had invested so much of her own time in this fight against Dan Markel to try to get a win for the family. And after all that investment in those kids and all the money spent on the attorneys and all that time spent at the kitchen table working on those divorce filings, Donna Adelson was losing. [00:40:28] Speaker 8: There's not a single piece of evidence that connects my client to that murder. Medals in their lives. Gets involved in their divorce. She's a parent. She's just being a parent, not a killer. She's a meddler, not a murderer. [00:40:50] Speaker 1: Once they got the case, it only took jurors a little over three hours to come back with a verdict. [00:40:57] Speaker 11: You had the Markel's on one side of the room, the Adelson's on the other. You almost heard this mini explosion coming from Donna Adelson. [00:41:06] Speaker 9: We the jury find as follows as the count one of the indictment first degree murder. The defendant is guilty of first degree murder. Mrs. Adelson, control yourself. Count two, we the jury. [00:41:25] Speaker 2: And as long as I remain on this earth, I am never going to forget the wail that came from Donna Adelson's mouth. It was this shriek, this cry. And truthfully, it gave me goosebumps. [00:41:40] Speaker 11: After everything died down there inside of the courtroom, everyone came back. And that's when the parents of Dan Markel, they were able to have the last word. [00:41:49] Speaker 25: She plotted, planned and paid for his murder. Her middle son Charlie was convicted and sentenced to a life in prison for his role in facilitating Danny's murder for hire. [00:42:01] Speaker 10: In the Jewish custom, we have an expression to always wish others to live to 120 years of age. For Donna, I wish her to live to 120, alone in her jail cell. My only short question to Donna, was it worth it? [00:42:23] Speaker 1: Following the verdict, Donna Adelson was back in court for sentencing and had this to say. [00:42:31] Speaker 5: What happened to Danny is unforgivable, but I am an innocent woman convicted of this terrible crime without evidence. There are two crimes here. The first was Danny being viciously murdered. The second one is taking my life, the life of an innocent woman. I've always respected the law. I've never gotten a parking ticket, but I'm going to prison for a murder I did not commit. I love these boys more than life itself. This is a lifetime of loss for these children. They didn't deserve this. This family didn't deserve this. Danny didn't deserve this. And so, as I appear before you today, Your Honor, I promise you with my whole heart, I swear to you on my life, I was not involved in any way with Danny's murder. I was not. [00:43:40] Speaker 1: Donna Adelson was 75 years old when she was convicted of orchestrating the murder of her former son-in-law, Dan Markell, and will spend the rest of her life in prison. I'm Ted Rollins. Thanks for watching. Victim to verdict.