Transcript of True Crime Vault: First Divorced, Then Dead New

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Welcome back to the 20/20 True Crime Vault.

He says, are you sitting down? And then I knew right away in his voice that this was not a good story.

And what a story. Call this one a love-hate triangle— husband, wife, and wife's family.

They hate Danny in a way I've never seen this kind of obsession.

This wasn't a normal Did any of you ever think that it could get violent?

Never.

A murder mystery we've been following for years.

Someone killed the father of my children. First we got divorced, and then he got murdered.

Now, finally, a courtroom verdict.

I don't want him to think I'm the one convicting him or something if I say, yes, I saw them, and then that puts him in prison for life.

The driver's side window is all bashed in. He's inside the car. The car is running, and he's got blood all over his head.

It looks like he's been shot at a very close range.

Who would do this?

I don't know.

Would you ever ask someone to do something like this?

I have something I want to tell you. I'm concerned about my safety with what I'm going to tell you. I do have some ideas.

So who did it appear had a motive to want Dan Markell dead? His own family.

They say the wheels of justice turn slowly.

All rise.

In this case, almost 10 years. Court is now in session. The Honorable Judge Steven Everett now presiding. In many murder trials, there's the deceased and the defendant.

The state calls Wendy Adelson.

But this one is unusual because this is a story about a family.

Please say and spell your name.

Wendy Adelson. W-E-N-D-I-E-L-S-O-N.

One that seemingly has everything— devotion, wealth, influence, and something else.

Back in 2014, the Adelson family had a big problem.

And that so-called problem leads this family here.

From the very outset, the state suspected the Adelsons, the family.

While the defendant's choices help solve a problem within his family, they came at a very high price.

That price, prosecutors say, was murder.

In the Bible, it says there's Exodus, the Jews left Egypt. And I always say the second Exodus of the Jews was from New York to South Florida.

Michael Weinstein is a criminal defense attorney who grew up in South Florida.

My parents came down back in the '70s, and it was 30 degrees in New York and 70 degrees here, and that was a pretty easy decision for them.

They settled in Coral Springs, a community about an hour north of Miami Beach.

Coral Springs is kind of like a suburb of nowhere. There wasn't really a big city that it was attached to.

Among the Weinstein family's many friends were the Adelsons. Here's the matriarch Donna Adelson appearing on Wheel of Fortune in 1989.

I'm a domestic coordinator. I'm responsible for the activities, classes, and lessons of my son Robert, who is 16, Charlie, who is 12, Wendy, who is 10, my husband Harvey, who's in the audience.

Harvey Adelson is someone I've known my entire life. He's a dentist, and he was married to Donna, and he had 3 kids, Robert, Charlie, and Wendy.

Harvey was an extremely successful dentist. He runs the Adelson Institute of Dentistry. Donna helped as the office manager.

Donna was always a bright smile. You know, you'd walk into the dental office, and she was always warm. You know, walking to her home, it was always clean, immaculate. And the kids were always well-behaved and appropriate and dressed well. And she was always a bright light to those children.

By all accounts, the Adelson children are exceptional. They're smart, athletic, and driven to succeed.

The 3 Adelson siblings— Rob was the oldest.

Rob goes to medical school and falls in love with a fellow student there.

Donna doesn't approve of him marrying her because she didn't have a Jewish background.

Rob marries his girlfriend, falls out of favor with his mother, and becomes estranged from the Adelsons. So focus shifts to the younger children, Charlie and Wendy, and they will be central to the story.

They were closer in age, so I think Charlie and Wendy were a unit to a certain extent.

Charlie and Wendy were at high school at the same time. Charlie was class of '95. Wendy was class of '97. So 2 years apart. Darryl Gold went to high school with the Adelson siblings.

Charlie was always kind of a goofy kid in high school.

He was a jokester, and he was a— I guess a social butterfly.

Charlie went to dental school, got his degree, came back, and then he was helping Harvey in his practice. So it was a father-and-son practice, and Harvey was successful, but then Charlie helped bring it to a new level.

Wendy was always an all-star. She was incredibly bright as a child. She did phenomenally well in high school, incredibly smart and gregarious and well-loved by everybody.

Friends say she isn't only smart, but also a lot of fun, characteristics that were on display when she, like her mother before her, No one before her appeared on a game show.

What have you always wanted to do?

Weakest Link.

When I was little, I wanted to be a giraffe.

Wendy Adelson does something a little different than everyone in her family. She goes into law.

Wendy has an internship in Washington, D.C., where another young lawyer is just starting out.

Danny studied in Harvard undergrad. He went to Cambridge, England. He went to Israel for a year. And after that, he finished law school and we went to live in Washington.

Danny was a very warm person to start with, with everybody. He never greeted people with a handshake. It was always a hug.

Dan was raised in a conservative Jewish household in Toronto, Canada.

There's a word in Yiddish.

He would be a mensch, a real guy with great character and great personality.

A young woman named Wendy Adelson searched him on JDate, the Jewish dating service, and she was sitting with her mother Donna searching for a candidate for her to meet. And so they're looking up Dan Markell.

He and Wendy share a passion for the law and seem like a great match.

There was a really strong connection, and she, you know, was really drawn to him.

And what did you think of this young woman?

She was a very warm, she's a very attractive person, and we were so pleased that, you know, Danny was happy. Wendy's beautiful, she's adorable, she's, uh, bright, and it was a beautiful thing to see Danny in love.

You must have been elated. Here is this beautiful, well-educated, bright, warm woman who comes from a great family who is in love with your son. They're gonna make great grandbabies. Everybody should be happy.

We were.

Wendy and Dan's relationship moves quickly, and in less than a year, they're engaged. They decide to have their wedding in South Florida.

Donna Adelson was very involved in the planning of this extravaganza for her only daughter.

Daniel Markell was devout. in his Jewish faith.

It was important for him to have a traditional Jewish marriage. Specifically, he wanted the wedding to be entirely kosher.

He was very invested in it being a kosher wedding so that the rabbis would be comfortable being there.

When Dan's family and friends traveled down from Canada for the big day, they're in for a surprise.

Daniel Markell shows up at his own wedding. And discovers that the catering is not kosher.

I think he sort of had the rug pulled out from under him because the rabbis were going to have to leave, and I think that was a very devastating moment for him.

Donna approached me and she said, why is Danny so kosher? You're not even that kosher. And she already had started to move towards that as Do you think that this is malicious? No, I think that it was a bit of sabotage, a little bit of lack of respect. There was a third person in this relationship, and that's what we have here.

So Donna was the third person in the relationship between Wendy and Danny?

Absolutely.

Lots of questions. whose in-laws are paying for the wedding end up with not the wedding of their dreams. It's only in retrospect that it looks like a harbinger of things to come.

After their wedding, Wendy Adelson and Dan Markell settle into a life together. They move to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida.

Both Dan and Wendy get jobs at Florida State University Law School.

So if you're not from Florida, there's a saying, the further north you go, the more south you get. Northern Florida is really southern Georgia.

When you think about Florida, maybe you think about Disney World, or you think about Miami with the beaches and the nightlife.

And Tallahassee is not seen as that sophisticated. It's a much slower pace here.

Dan and Wendy start their life together in this neighborhood called Baton Hills.

It is a kind of upscale neighborhood. This is a quiet place. This is where kids run around, you know, ride their bikes up and down the street.

And they have, from the outside, what seems like a pretty idyllic life.

They were very lovey, happy. We went to dinner once at their house, and we left kind of going like, oh my God, like inadequate as a married couple because they were dancing and singing singing, and they called each other the Bears. The Bears. Mr. Bear was Danny and Mrs. Bear was Wendy.

In the leafy enclave filled with families, Wendy and Dan start one of their own, and they have 2 boys within 2 years.

Danny was a great father. With all his accomplishments, to me, I'm the proudest of him as a father.

His boys were the entire world to him.

He was a professor at a demanding job. He traveled, but he managed to arrange his schedule as much as he could to spend a lot of quality time. They would go to the local pool.

They would go to the park. He was really invested in their early growing-up years. Dan's career really takes off He was like a star on the rise.

Well, Dan Markell was a passionate guy who cared deeply about learning and teaching.

Markell speaking about retributive justice.

He's a criminal law specialist.

Murder, for example, is the kind of law that I think everyone— He could talk for hours about principles of justice and jurisprudence.

In terms of sentencing—

Issues of the death penalty, of criminal justice. Dan starts a blog for law professors, and his friends say it might have made him some enemies.

We're in a profession where most of the people are Type A personalities. Most people are a little aggressive. Dan liked to argue, and he liked to make sure people understood his arguments.

Friends of Dan's will tell you that he liked to needle people. He liked to push and poke and prod.

While Dan is relishing life in Tallahassee, Wendy is not as content. She's longing for South Florida, where her parents and brother live.

Under the old adage, a happy wife, happy life, he tried to get a job in Miami, which would have been closer to Wendy's parents, and then was unsuccessful. That was very dispiriting for both, I think, him and Wendy.

She was talking to him about being unhappy, and he was insisting they had no problems.

They had come into their marriage as equals, well-educated lawyers with ambition and promise. But over time, her friends say Wendy begins to feel a sense of imbalance in their relationship, something that she talks about openly on a podcast she does for a writing class.

Our marriage dissolved after the children arrived, as the loneliness of being married to someone that didn't view me as an equal crept in.

Danny was brilliant. He was top-notch in his field, and I think she struggled with being in his shadow, and I think it was hard for her to navigate her role in the marriage.

He was fairly controlling and pretty unkind to my friend, and I was, you know, around on a number of occasions when he put her down, and it was really hard to Roughly 6 years into their marriage, Wendy writes a novel.

It's called This Is Our Story. It's a work of fiction, but those close to Wendy notice the parallels to her own life. In fact, Wendy laments Dan's unwillingness to read her book in her podcast.

I do believe he loved me the best way he knew how. I mean, he was a good man. He didn't like fiction, so why read my novel? It was logic, not a lack of love.

In the book, one of her characters was a woman who fell out of love, and perhaps that's why she wanted Dan to read it.

My childhood friend Lisa told me this weekend that she never even knew I was unhappy in my marriage. I had no idea I hid it so well.

At this point, Dan is traveling frequently for work, while Wendy stays behind, literally and figuratively, working and caring for their 2 young sons.

I see Dan in New York, and he's telling me that he thinks his marriage is unwinding. So I try to encourage him to just stick it out, stay home more, don't go to as many conferences, just try to work your way through it.

It's during one of these trips to a conference in New York City that Wendy calls Dan to deliver some devastating news.

She says, I'm leaving.

It's over.

Dan says, please don't do this. We can still work this out.

She calls him in New York. He changes all his plans. He cancels the lecture, and he gets on a flight to come back to Tallahassee. He walks into the bedroom, and there was divorce papers on the bed.

Half the furniture is missing. Even half the dining room chairs were gone.

He came home to a house that was literally half emptied, even though she was just filing for divorce, but she preemptively took everything, including the kids.

Danny called this Pearl Harbor.

It was kind of shocking, you know, all of a sudden, he was sneak attacked on a Sunday morning, essentially.

Even in his wildest imagination, when he's describing what he's taking to be his wife's disengagement, he doesn't think that this is gonna happen.

Danny was devastated from the divorce.

This wasn't a normal divorce case. It was incredibly litigious. You know, I guess you might expect that with 2 law professors.

The accusations are flying at this point. Wendy accuses Dan of hiding assets, while Dan accuses Wendy of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He said that she stole assets, wouldn't give back a diamond ring from one of his aunts in the Holocaust. It was really acrimonious.

Wendy accuses Dan of emotional abuse and claims he tells their colleagues at FSU that she has, quote, mental health issues. They each vehemently deny the claims of the other.

It was almost like a tennis match, you know, going back and forth with these filings that Only the two of them really were involved in the match at that point, and everybody else was just kind of standing on the outside watching.

There was lack of communication. There was rancor. Did any of you ever think that it could get violent?

Never.

But there was a third party involved in this divorce.

Let's show this fucker what will make him absolutely miserable.

Wendy's mother, Donna.

Gibbons hasn't beaten the Adelson family yet.

Less than 7 years after exchanging wedding vows, Wendy Adelson and Dan Markell are exchanging accusations in divorce court.

The divorce got really nasty, and I think the boiling point was when Wendy couldn't leave Tallahassee, couldn't relocate to Wendy made it extremely clear to almost anyone who would listen that she did not like Tallahassee.

She did not want to live here, and she wanted to move to South Florida.

And the only way she could do that is if he agreed or he died.

She's allowed to leave him, right? She's allowed to divorce, but she's not allowed to just take his kids and move them 7 hours to South Florida.

She filed a motion to relocate the children, and that was flatly denied.

The judge ruled, over the protests of Wendy and Wendy's family, that she could not move to Miami.

Donna and Harvey, Wendy's parents, had always been actively involved in Wendy's life and in the grandkids' life.

It's like 700 miles. It's a day drive. It was quite inconvenient for them.

To have to keep going up to see her.

Yeah. And Donna would be back and forth quite often.

When the divorce happens, they maintain a closeness to the situation. They are extremely involved.

And the news that Wendy and the kids will not be able to move to South Florida apparently does not sit well with her mother, Donna.

Donna began this campaign. She wrote these lengthy emails to Wendy. Donna refers to Dan Markell as Gibbers, which is clearly a derogatory term.

It's time to take control of your life and not let Gibbers think he's won anything by having you remain in Tallahassee.

A month before their next court appearance, Donna sends Wendy a long email suggesting ways to needle her soon-to-be ex-husband. Remember, this is the woman who helped her daughter find Dan on JDate 8 years earlier. Now Donna says she wants that same man to suffer.

Let's show this fucker what will make him absolutely miserable. You know his weak points: money, religion, control.

Donna advocates using religion to pressure Dan.

Let Gibbers know that your children will be baptized in the Catholic Church.

Donna even suggests paying Dan off.

We plan to make a financial offer to him to allow this relocation.

She suggested to Wendy that they should go 3 ways to pay Danny $1 million— her and Harvey, Charlie, and Wendy.

And Donna reminds Wendy she's not alone in this fight.

Gibbons hasn't beaten the Adelson family yet. You You have a very strong family behind you. Just remember that.

I don't think at this point money, threats of Catholic school, you name it, were gonna convince Dan to be separated from his kids.

Although their divorce is technically finalized in July 2013, things aren't over just yet. The following spring, old wounds reopen after the boys visit their grandma Donna was telling the boys how stupid their father was. How did Danny even find out that Donna was maligning him to his own children?

The boys told him. He says, Daddy, Grandma Donna was saying that you're stupid.

And Danny was now getting agitated about the fact that there was this badmouthing going on.

That obviously infuriates him. Your ex-mother-in-law is trying to poison your kids against you.

He felt like her family was alienating the children from him.

So Dan files a motion that will take Wendy back to court.

And he was making the argument to the court that the grandmother should not be able to have the kids unsupervised.

They had a lot of issues post-divorce, which made it even difficult to have smooth communications between them.

There was lack of communication. Did any of you ever think that it could get violent?

Never.

Despite the heated language in divorce court, in their personal lives, Dan and Wendy appear to be moving on. Soon, there's a new man in her life.

Wendy was introduced to a social work professor at FSU, Jeff Lacasse. One of the first things that people point out about Jeff is that he looked a little like Dan. Dan is dating as well, and they became relatively serious too.

It was beautiful. He, he fell in love again, and that was a nice experience for us, really, to see him in a much better moment after all of the other things that were going on.

It took a while, but I thought he was really regaining his footing.

But that would all change on a hot July morning It's June in 2014. Dan Markell is on summer break from FSU Law School.

He drives the children to the preschool. He drives to Premier Gym.

Dan Markell was coming back to his home from the gym. He's on the phone.

I remember very specifically, he says to me, Ma, I have to make one more call.

Dan makes that call and is Pulling into his driveway when he notices something unsettling.

He says, there's someone in my driveway that I don't know.

And as the man is on the phone, he hears some exchange, then hears a muffle, a sound, a grunt. He never hears Dan Markell again.

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At around 11 AM, shots ring out. A neighbor finds Dan Markell slumped over in the front seat of his Honda, calls 911.

911, what's the address of your emergency? Uh, it's right next door to my house. Okay, what, what's he— what's going on with him? I don't know, the, the driver's side window is all bashed in. He's inside, the car is running, and he's got blood all over his head. He's not responding to me.

When this phone call came in from the police that Danny was shot, Dale was in shock. Your mind goes blank. It's not possible. They're making a mistake.

All you could think about is your body's totally traumatized.

It was horrific. It was just something that— out of this world.

In the beginning, no one really knew what happened.

Police asked Dan's ex-wife Wendy what she knows.

Why would he do this?

I don't know.

Would you ever ask someone to do something like this?

Not in a million years.

Wendy does not hold back in this interview.

Do you think someone would do this for your benefit without asking you?

No.

Even my family, who felt like I had been mistreated, would never do something like this.

Never.

It is perhaps the biggest mystery in this case, exactly what was going through Wendy's brain in that interview room.

911, what's the address of your emergency? Uh, it's right next door to my house.

This was a horrifying scene for that neighbor who first walked over and looked and wasn't sure what had happened.

OK, what's he— what's going on with him? He's not responding to me.

The neighbor sees Dan Markell with a gunshot to the forehead to the face, and his glasses are shattered. It looks like he's been shot at a very close range, and Dan Markell is still breathing. Once the paramedics arrive, he's quickly rushed to the hospital.

Police track down his ex-wife Wendy, who is out to lunch with friends, and bring her to the police station.

There was a shooting. At your ex-husband's home. Daniel, all right, has been taken to the hospital. Um, he's not going to survive. Oh my God. Okay.

What happened?

Well, before we get into everything, I have to establish where you were and who you were with and so forth.

I just don't understand. How could this really happen?

She sits down for hours. And then during that time, the police look at her phone. They look at her ID. They swab her for fingerprints. Everything that you would do with a potential suspect. They never call her a suspect. And it's an interview, not an interrogation. But she does provide all of this willingly.

I understand why you think I'm the primary suspect.

No, you're not the primary suspect.

My ex-husband caused me a lot of grief, but I would— I would never do something like this.

I know.

I understand why I wouldn't be the person you would think would do something like this.

Well, we have to work just as hard to eliminate people.

It's fine.

I want to figure out who this is.

Wendy does not hold back in this interview. She talks about how bad the divorce was. She talks about how Dan was emotionally abusive to her. She talks about how she wants to get down to Miami.

He never hurt me physically, but he was— he was emotionally abusive.

Okay.

And I didn't tell most people that, so all most people know is we— it just didn't work out.

While Dan Markell clings to life, his parents are located and told the devastating news. Phil, it was you who got the original call.

I was visiting friends, and this phone call came in from the police saying that Dennehy was shot and that somebody from the hospital doctor is going to Phil called me.

I got the call, and he says, are you sitting down? And then I knew right away in his voice that this was not a good story. And then he told me that Danny was shot, which was horrific.

Dan Markell died in the hospital less than 24 hours after he'd been shot.

I had wished that I could at least hold his hand before he passed away. I regret that very much.

Dan's death was felt by so many. There were headlines all across Florida that covered his death, his murder, and the memorial for him because he touched so many lives. So many people came out to support his family, to remember him.

I was unbelievably moved. Just the outpouring of love for him. I literally sat in my seat and cried because I found out things about Danny, my own son, that I didn't even know myself.

Tallahassee police now scrambling to unravel the riddle of who killed Florida State University Professor Dan Markell.

This was the crime that sent shockwaves.

I just could not believe it because I know Danny. I know how he is. Who would shoot him, really, is what was going through my mind.

The overall response was shock and horror and a lot of questions like, why would anyone want to kill Dan Markell?

After Dan Markell is killed, it's a complete mystery as to who did this. No evidence seems to have been left behind. It's as if the murderer vanished into thin air.

With him being so prominent in the legal world, there was a lot for investigators to chew on.

One theory is that Dan made enemies over his provocative legal blog that he'd founded and wrote for, and he'd recently received online threats.

So my first thought was, and I shared it with the police at that moment, that maybe it was a disgruntled, perhaps, student or other person, professional, on the blog.

They also looked, of course, you know, college town, you're going to say, was it an unhappy student?

They just thought, my God, this happened to one of us, and another one of us might be next.

Detectives also began to look at people in Wendy and Dan's lives, starting with someone that Wendy herself brought up during her long police interview.

Basically, the hours after the murder, Wendy pretty much immediately started pointing fingers at a few different people.

She talked about a guy she knew she was dating, Jeffrey Lacasse.

I see why he's a good-looking guy. Like, what if it's Jeff? He didn't like Danny because Danny hurt me.

Police tracked down her former boyfriend and bring him in for an interview.

I'm surprised you guys didn't call me earlier, though, because I probably said 100 times in public that I like to kick his ass.

While all of these theories about who murdered Dan Markell were circulating, police started to think this was more personal. Maybe it had something to do with Wendy. Maybe someone who loved her.

She talked about a guy she knew she was dating, Jeffrey Lacasse.

Jeffrey Lacasse comes in to talk to police willingly 3 times. He keeps coming back because it seems that he has a story.

Your name did come up because you were associated at some point with Wendy. Of course.

Spent a lot of time with Wendy. I mean, she really has this charisma, this sexuality. And so, you know, you throw yourself in front of a bus for this girl. This is a new kind of thing for me. I was in love with this girl, man.

Jeff's interview, maybe more so than Wendy's, is extraordinary because he's a boyfriend who is in the process of breaking up with Wendy, and it's a contentious breakup by both of their admission.

I'm surprised you guys didn't call me earlier though, because I probably said 100 times in public that I like to kick his ass because he kept like really making Wendy suffer and things like that. But no, I would never have a professor— I'm not gonna do anything like that.

He's right up front about saying that he didn't like this guy. He also has an ironclad alibi. He was out of town.

I stayed at a really crappy 3 days in, maybe 20 miles south of Atlanta.

He's got the receipts. He was not here, so that immediately puts him in the clear.

You know, right away something clicks in his head, and he seems to say, I think I know what happened.

I'm concerned about my safety with what I'm gonna tell you, to be honest. So Danny Markell just got fucking killed, and I don't wanna be next. I'm sorry if that sounds paranoid, but, uh, Do you have some ideas?

And Lacasse points to Wendy's family, her parents and her brother, who run that very successful South Florida dental clinic.

The family desperately wants her back in South Florida. They hate Danny in a way I've never seen this kind of obsession. Like, their hobby is hating Danny.

Maya and Alex Greenberg tell about this ire from the Adelsons towards Dan Markell.

They hated Danny, really.

They hated Danny.

I think they were mean. I think they— I mean, to do some of the stuff that they did during this divorce with Danny is just not reasonable.

Hi, Mom. How's it going? I need you to sit down.

So during this police interview, Wendy asks if she can call her mother, and she tells Donna that Dan has been shot. He's not expected to live.

Danny has been shot.

There was a point where she was just kind of saying she was relieved to find that her mom was surprised at the news.

Well, my parents sounded really surprised, so it's at least a relief. I was trying to think of who would be angry enough to do something to him. My parents would be angry, but they're not capable of this.

And Wendy makes this startling comment about something her brother Charlie once said to her.

My brother, um, the one— his name is Charlie— the one I'm really close to, he makes a lot of jokes in bad taste. And it was a joke he made. Oh, I looked into hiring a hitman and it was cheaper to get you this TV, so instead I got you this TV. It was my divorce present.

Okay.

Would you think that this guy Charlie would even be capable of doing something like this?

No.

Let's just talk.

He's the Joker.

Okay.

Charlie was always someone who was smiling, always someone who would have a good time.

Wendy's older brother Charlie had a reputation as a fast-living, fun-loving playboy.

He's so smart. He's intelligent. And he's fun.

He throws his money around. He's a bit of a player.

Charlie always has a girl. I can't keep up.

It seemed like Charlie had 2 different types of friends.

You know, people we kind of grew up with, like normal, nice people. He also seemed to have maybe friends that were from the wrong side of the tracks.

Somebody tried to kill my ex-husband. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Regardless of who it is?

I mean, it would be different if I thought it were my brother, but I don't think it was my family. Anyone outside my immediate family, that's a tough one. But I don't think my immediate family did this. So if it's anybody else, yeah.

And it turns out that Wendy's family was nowhere near Tallahassee the day Dan was shot. Wendy later releases a statement through her attorney saying, my family had nothing to do with this. and quickly moves to South Florida with her 2 sons. Meanwhile, as police continue their investigation, they have just a single solid lead from the crime scene.

The neighbor did see a car backing away, something that looked similar to a Prius, and that's all that police had to go on.

You said there was another vehicle that you saw driving away? Yes, and it— It left the scene rapidly. It looked sort of like a Prius.

Police are able to identify a green Toyota Prius at the fitness center where Dan Markell worked out the morning he was shot.

He exercises, comes back out, goes to his car, and the same vehicle, which hasn't left the parking lot, is then seen pulling out of the parking lot, following behind the victim.

The Prius was really the thing that They focused on initially. They had surveillance video of it from city buses that it had driven by. Intersection cameras were able to capture it.

We also find that car on video on a bus camera pulling into the victim's neighborhood or thereabouts shortly before the murder.

And they noticed there's a SunPass. It's the toll road pass.

Now, in Tallahassee at this time, we don't have any toll roads. So people don't go around with SunPass screeners. They then began this absolutely extensive search all over the state for this type of color, this type of Prius with the SunPass on it.

When police pulled those toll records, it led them here to this hole-in-the-wall rental agency here in Miami that rents mostly hybrids. Now inside, a contract was signed Leading police to the men who rented that green Prius.

And when they went and looked at who signed for the car to be rented, their names were right there.

Who are these 2 men?

I want to know what made them come to Tallahassee and kill our friend.

It's very strange. I mean, people, they don't know him. I never heard of him.

The mystery surrounding those 2 men would lead to an undercover encounter in South Florida.

Excuse me, Mrs. Adelson? How you doing? Just want to give you this.

Oh, listen. And a cryptic call between mother and son.

I got some— I got some paperwork hand-delivered to me. Does it involve me or other people? Well, probably both of them. You probably have a general idea what I'm talking about.

10 months ago, someone killed the father of my children. First we got divorced, and then he got murdered.

A law school professor is shot down in cold blood. Now the murder trial Teaming with hired hitmen, hidden recordings, and family secrets.

When Wendy Adelson walked into the courtroom to take the stand, how does she feel about the fact that the state is saying her family is involved in this murder?

Charlie is basically your prime suspect, at least within that family.

I mean, he's a suspect. Dr. Adelson had a problem, and her problem was named Dan Markell.

Dr. Adelson, were you involved in a plot to kill your brother-in-law Dan Markell? Before the shooting, did you ever discuss hiring a hitman? Somebody hired him, but who? What will the jury decide?

If they think the police are coming to you to talk to you, they will kill you. Look at what they did to your husband.

Tallahassee police now scrambling to unravel the riddle of who killed Florida State University Professor Dan Markell. Tomorrow marks 1 year since his death. So far there are no good leads, so they're asking for your help. Does the story kind of just drop off?

It did.

There was not a whole lot of information that came out, really almost 2 years with no answers.

The community thinking, what happened? Do cops just not have any information?

No leads.

I was thinking that, my God, it's never going to go anywhere. It's 2 years and nothing, nothing.

What is so sad for the Markells, besides this horrible, violent death of their son, they don't have connection to his children.

After Dan was murdered, the children went back to South Florida with Wendy.

And then a series of things happened afterward that compounded that grief for the Markells. One of those things was learning that Wendy had changed the boys' last name from Markell to Adelson.

Her excuse was that she was concerned for the safety of the kids. I was shocked. I was angry. They just want to wipe the Markell family off the— off the earth. We don't exist.

So the Adelsons are still running their dentistry practice in South Florida.

They're all living their lives down there. The children are growing up.

Adamantly denied any connection to the homicide or any involvement.

It appears that the Adelsons get what they wanted. Wendy finds a law job in Miami. She enrolls her sons in school. She even makes time to take a podcasting class where she lays bare her feelings about her ex-husband, Dan Markell.

10 months ago, someone killed the father of my children. First, we got divorced, and then he got murdered.

She makes this joke in the podcast that she doesn't know how to refer to Dan.

I don't know whether to call him my ex-late spouse or my late ex-spouse, except that late ex-spouse sounds like latex spouse.

For Dan Markell's survivors, of course, it didn't play well.

It feels so wrong to say that. sacrilegious these days even to suggest something less than heroic about my latex husband because he was murdered. I don't think she set out to disparage Danny so much as she, you know, was reflecting honestly on what the experience was like for her.

Behind the scenes, Tallahassee police are homing in on who was driving that green Prius away from the crime scene. Through meticulous police work, they traced the car to a rental lot in Miami.

And when they went and looked at who signed for the car to be rented, Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia— Sigfredo signed it that he was the brother of Luis Rivera. Sigfredo Garcia was a low-level criminal, had some drug arrests down in Miami. Luis Rivera, however, uh, more of a hardened criminal. More hardened criminal, involved in a lot of gang activity.

Lewis was an acknowledged member of the Latin Kings. He was a crown. He was a big deal in the Latin Kings. They rented it in their names, with their phone numbers, with a SunPass. They had their phones on while they were driving up there. Essentially, they just wrote a map for the cops.

Investigators were able to later use cell phone tower pings to show when phone calls were made from Sigfredo Garcia.

They placed Garcia near Dan Markell's neighborhood at about the time of the homicide using the cell phone data.

We also have the ATM video where on the day of the homicide, the 2 killers are seen driving through an ATM in that pine mica Prius.

The police, they had a substantial amount of information to begin collecting a warrant to, to arrest these guys.

Police think they've figured out who committed the murder and how they did it, but they're left with the question of why.

Why would someone commit this crime?

Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera didn't even know Dan They discover that there is a link and there's a mysterious woman who will be connected to this case.

In what way are the alleged killers linked to the Adelsons?

Through Catherine Magbanua.

And who is she?

She is Garcia's child's mother.

Uh-huh.

And she is also the former girlfriend of Charlie.

Adelson.

How long were she and Charlie together?

I think they were together for quite some time before the homicide.

Katie becomes this conduit, this, this connection point between the Adelsons and Dan Markell's murder. Absent her, you have nothing that links any of these people directly.

Investigators start to form a picture of a A complicated web involving 2 accused hitmen, a female companion, and the brother of Dan Markell's estranged ex-wife. As police try to piece this puzzle together, they start by building a timeline of the suspects' actions, and that means looking at their phone records.

And once you get that phone you think is involved, then you get a pen register. Who'd they call? Katie McBanua, the intermediary. And then they get her phone. Who's she calling the day of the crime? Charlie Adelson.

So investigators set out to follow the money.

So the strategy would be to work yourself to the money man, to the, the heart of the conspiracy. Katie was the alleged facilitator.

Investigators discover that in the months after the murder, Katie McBanua makes some large cash deposits and also receives checks from the Adelson Institute.

She was collecting checks from the dentistry, uh, you know, it was not necessarily clear what she was doing for the payment there.

And Katie buys a luxury car from the Adelsons for below sticker price.

When you dig a little bit deeper into the various ways that Katie may have been compensated, one way it is through breast Although there's no direct paper trail, investigators suggest Charlie Adelson may have helped pay for her procedure. The allegation is that Katie may have enhanced her physique on the Adelsons' dime. So cars, surgery, cash, and then a job that wasn't really a job.

Who launched the conspiracy? Whose idea was it in the first place? The cops felt it was Charlie Adelson's, but they still can't get to him. You've got the circumstantial evidence of Charlie and Katie being involved in this, but what they're going to need is somebody who's going to tell them exactly what happened. Probably a jailhouse snitch.

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My brother, um, the one— his name is Charlie— the one I'm really close to, he makes a lot of jokes in bad taste. And it was a joke he made. He said, I, I, you know, I looked into hiring a hitman and it was cheaper to get you this TV, so instead I got you this TV.

But Wendy's former boyfriend Jeff Lacasse told police that When she related the account to him, there was nothing funny about it.

She told me that Charlie had looked into having Danny killed in summer of 2013. She meant it dead serious. I can just say I would be investigating Charlie Adelson. Now, I don't know if he did this. If you're looking at somebody, don't miss him.

With the Adelsons firmly on their radar, investigators in South Florida now put the family under surveillance.

Police need more information on the Adelsons. They want to see if they can prove this conspiracy.

But because there is no hard evidence directly linking the Adelsons to Dan's murder, investigators come up with an audacious plan to confront Donna Adelson outside her luxury condo building in Miami Beach.

She's got sunglasses on.

She's got a black crossbody bag, and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail.

They decided to do something called a bump, which is what it sounds like. Let's see what we can shake loose.

Donna Adelson is approached on the street by a man she's never seen before. This person turns out to be an undercover FBI agent.

Excuse me, Mrs. Adelson? How you doing? Just want to give you this. Um, listen— Who are you? You're scary. No, don't be scared.

And he says that he was the brother of one of the assailants and that he needed something a little extra to take care of.

He helped your family with this problem you guys had up north. He's going through some rough times.

The undercover detective says that, I want $5,000 for you to help my family.

So we want to make sure that you take care of what he's going through the way you're taking care of Katie and Tootha. I don't know that. Well, this will explain it. Thank you.

He hands her a piece of paper that has a press release of Dan's murder on it, and it has a phone number for her to call to make that transaction with the money.

And Donna eventually calls the guy.

Hello? I, I have to tell you, I mean, this is important. I have been so stressed out because I don't know your friend who is in jail. I've never met him. Let's stop fucking around, okay? You know who Katie is, and you know that Katie has somebody that knows Tato, and they took care of a problem for you people. You talk to the right people, you talk to people, you make this $5K come to me. That's all I need. Just do it and get it to me. I'll call you back.

When Donna called her son Charlie, it led to a cryptic conversation.

I got some— I got some paperwork hand-delivered to me. Does it involve me or other people? Well, probably both of us. You probably have a general idea what I'm talking about.

All right.

So let's— let's just find some time to talk to each other.

She doesn't use the words murder or Dan Markell. She just refers to it as, you know about it, we'll talk later, it may have to do with the two of us.

The string of calls went Donna to Charlie, then Charlie to, to Katie.

It's either somebody's pulling your bones, somebody is just harassing you, or somebody's trying to get something out of you.

When they do catch the person, they're going to be asking him lots of questions about who Katie is. All I'm saying is find out who the fuck it is and tell them to stop playing their games. I don't know who you have to talk to, but it's— it needs to be nipped in the bud.

You don't think that that scares the shit out of me? Like somebody saying my name out loud or whatever?

Whatever. Okay, someone's messing with you, they're messing with me. So what I'm saying is find out who the fuck it is.

No way that's gonna fucking work. While there's no confession on Police prepare arrest warrants for the alleged hitmen, Katie McBanua and Charlie Adelson. But at this point, prosecutors are only ready to pull the trigger on charging 2 of them. One of the men accused of killing FSU law professor Dan Markell is now behind bars. On May 25th, 2016, the news breaks in Tallahassee of Sigfredo Garcia's arrest for the murder of Dan Markell. Soon after, Luis Vazquez Rivera is also charged for the murder.

We can provide additional information regarding this investigation.

Just 8 days later, the police released the probable cause affidavit for Sigfredo Garcia. In it, investigators allege his involvement in this murder stemmed from the desperate desire of the Adelson family to relocate Wendy and the children to South Florida.

They are mentioned in this probable cause affidavit. They are the only connection between Sigfredo Garcia and Dan Markell.

Later, the Adelson family released a statement saying there's been a lot of unsupported speculation that the Adelsons had something to do with the murder. That speculation is categorically false. To be clear, none of the Adelsons— Wendy, her brother Charlie, or their parents Donna and Harvey— had anything to do with Dan's murder.

It was all over the news, so there's some feeling of, oh, wow.

We just pray that those involved have to pay the price for what they've done.

Charlie Adelson was approached by one of our 20/20 producers and asked about his alleged involvement in the murder plot.

Dr. Adelson?

Yeah.

Were you involved in a plot to kill your brother-in-law, Dan Markell? Before the shooting, did you ever discuss hiring a hitman? To the frustration of Dan's friends, months go by with no further arrests.

There was definitely a growing sense of frustration, wondering how the people who had been hired to commit this act were all in jail, but the people who had allegedly hired them were Then in October 2016, there is a dramatic breakthrough.

Prosecutors announce a plea deal with Luis Rivera. They say he's ready to reveal how he says Dan Markell was killed.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence you are about to give me is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Yes, sir.

In October 2016, Luis Rivera really broke open the case. He confesses.

He showed you a picture of Markell and said y'all were gonna go kill him? Rivera says they've already been given $5,000 in traveling expenses from a mysterious person that Garcia would only refer to as the lady. They asked him, why are you gonna kill this guy? 'Cause the lady wants her 2 kids back. The Rivera plea deal was important because although he was a gang member and part of this murder, everything he said was corroborated by the other evidence.

Went to Marquell's house.

First, the guy jumps out, goes around the car where he's driving, shot him twice, got in the car, we left.

He calls Katie.

We had dumped the gun. I think he called her and he said, everything is done. Make sure you have my money. I'm on my way.

Once Luis Rivera starts talking and gives all of this information to police. They now have enough to bring down their next suspect, Catherine McVanough.

Police in Florida arresting a single mom, accusing her of arranging the killing of a prominent Florida State law professor.

She was arrested and was offered full immunity, get out of jail free card, and she turned it down.

After Katie was arrested, Charlie's anxiety just spiked 100%.

June Umchinda was dating Charlie at the time of Katie's arrest.

Once Katie got arrested, he would tell me, like, how horrible it would be in prison. Like, they're getting food from a tray, and it's like isolation. And this is a murder case, so it would be for life.

While June says Charlie is sweating it out, in September of 2019, his previous girlfriend, Katie McVanua goes on trial.

It's a high-profile case that's garnering attention across the world.

Everybody be seated, please.

It was a big deal that this was going to trial 5 years after Dan Markell's murder. Sigfredo Garcia and Katherine McVanua are tried together.

We'll start with the state of Florida.

Wendy Adelson had a problem, and her problem was named Dan Markell. And the solution to that problem was McVanua, Rivera, and Garcia to execute Mr. Markell in cold blood.

Though prosecutors are bringing this trial against Sigfredo Garcia and Catherine McVanua, they spent a lot of time during their case pointing the finger at Charlie Adelson.

As the prosecution calls its witnesses, one of them causes jaws to drop in the courtroom. It's Wendy Adelson testifying under a limited immunity agreement about the bad blood between her family and Dan Markell.

She fought tooth and nail against testifying.

I'm going to show you State's Exhibit 36. Is that a photograph of you and Catherine McDaniel at the beach with her friend?

Yes.

And did you say how you know?

I—

she was dating my brother.

Is it fair to say that your brother is very protective of you?

I think that's fair to say.

Did he ever joke about hiring a hitman?

He did make that joke.

But the prosecution's star witness is convicted killer Luis Rivera, testifying as part of his plea deal for a reduced sentence.

All right, so Garcia hired you to do a murder, didn't he?

Yes, ma'am.

And who hired him?

The, um, Addison family.

Who gave you the money?

Garcia.

All right. And tell us about the money. How was it packaged?

Money, uh, hundreds.

They were stapled.

Stapled?

$1,000 stapled, each, each one of them. When Charlie's girlfriend June takes the stand, she describes the curious way he stashes his cash.

In fact, you said that the money was stapled into Stacks of $100 bills, didn't you?

Um, they were hundreds, yes. And I don't know if they were stacks, but there was a staple on it. I thought it was so odd. Why do you have a staple in your money?

Your Honor, at this time, the defense calls Katherine McDonald to the stand.

Katie took the stand in her own defense.

Did you have anything to do with the murder of Donnie?

No, ma'am.

Did you get the father of your children, Mr. Garcia, to commit a murder on behalf of Mr.

Charlie Adelson?

No, ma'am.

Based on everything you've seen, do you think Charlie was involved in this?

Yes.

At the end of this trial, the jury believed Luis Rivera and his testimony for the prosecution that Sigfredo Garcia was involved in Dan Markell's murder.

We, the jury, find as follows.

As to count 1, the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. But as for Katie McBanua, it was a hung jury.

As to Ms. McBanua, I will declare this case mistried.

I'm certainly happy with the outcome for Mr. Garcia and hope we can have a similar one for Ms. McBanua.

For Katie, that future came 2 and a half years later when she is retried on largely the same evidence. She again testifies that she had nothing to do with the murder and once again points to Charlie as the culprit.

Do you believe that he should be prosecuted for his involvement in the murder of Dan Markell?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

She said that she believes he's guilty and that she believes that he should be prosecuted. had nothing to do with it. This time, though, it did not seem to sway the jury in the way that it did the first time.

In the state of Florida versus Catherine Magbanua, on count 1, which is first-degree murder, you have been found guilty by a jury. You will be adjudicated guilty, and you will be sentenced to life in prison. Now prosecutors have 3 convictions for Dan Markell's murder. And it turns out, in the time between Katie's 2 trials, there was another huge development, this one involving Charlie Adelson. According to authorities, newly enhanced audio from the FBI exposed details from a secret meeting between Katie and Charlie back in 2016. Listen, if they want to charge me with something, charge me.

If not, I don't talk to cops.

Sorry.

Here's a guy who had all the swagger in the world.

He was sort of daring police to come after him. And Charlie's words might just come back to haunt him. In April of 2016, investigators secretly record a meeting between Charlie Adelson and Katie McVanua at a South Florida strip mall. It was so noisy inside, It was hard to make heads or tails of what was being said. But then, 6 years later, the FBI is able to enhance that audio. And for prosecutors, it's a game changer. If you're gonna charge me, charge me.

They didn't have any evidence.

They would have already got him on airport.

The thing that sealed the deal for Charlie Adelson was the Dolce Vita recordings. He's saying, if I thought they had enough evidence, I'd be at the airport, suggesting that he would skip town if he thought there was more evidence out there against him.

A grand jury has now indicted Charlie Adelson in Markelle's death.

It was unbelievable to hear. It was relief because it's taken so long. You want the people that are involved to pay the price.

Adelson is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder. He pleads not guilty to all charges. On October 23rd, Charlie goes on trial.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The attorneys are going to present their opening statements.

Prosecution tells the jury that Donna Adelson turned to her son, Charlie, to help her get Wendy and the kids back to South Florida.

This defendant carried out his plan to hire a hitman to kill Ann Markell. He conspired and he solicited Catherine McManua to get this murder done.

State's case against Charlie Adelson is a case of assumptions. It's a case of guesses.

During his opening statement, defense attorney Daniel Rashbaum stuns the courtroom by saying Charlie Adelson wasn't the mastermind of the murder plot. He was the victim. Rashbaum tells the jury that his client was being extorted by the killers for about $330,000 after Markell's murder.

You will learn that Charlie Adelson was told if he didn't pay within the next 48 hours, he or one of his family members would be next.

It was a jaw-drop moment. I'm describing thinking, is that going to work? Is that going to fly in this courtroom?

The prosecution starts out by calling many of the same witnesses who testified during Katie's trial, including June Umchinda, Charlie's former girlfriend, and Charlie's sister, Wendy Adelson. Wendy testifies she had no idea her family was allegedly being blackmailed by the killers.

When did you learn that Catherine McVanual was blackmailing your brother? When did you learn that your brother was here for the murder of your ex-husband?

Today. Huh.

So he never told you?

No.

Your brother has known who killed your child's father, and you didn't know?

I did not know.

The courtroom is buzzing as the prosecution calls a bombshell witness, Katie McBanua. She not only testifies she was in on the murder plot, she also testifies that it was orchestrated by Charlie.

She was the one connecting all of this. She reveals that it had been 9 months before he was killed that she was approached by Charlie Adelson.

He asked me a question. Do you know anybody that can harm someone?

And did you know anybody Did you know anybody that could harm someone?

Yes, ma'am, I did.

Sigfredo.

So you knew that the person that was going to be initially harmed was Wendy's husband?

Yes, ma'am.

Katie also testifies about how she says Charlie directed her to transfer the money to the hitmen.

And where did you get the money from to do that?

From Charlie Adelson.

How was the money Packaged when you got it? I think you said you got it the next morning.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

How was it packaged?

The money was in a plastic bag, like a Ziploc bag, and then like a grocery bag over it. He said he wore a glove so that there's no fingerprints on it.

Katie then goes on to strongly deny being part of any blackmail plot against Charlie Adelson.

Did you ever blackmail Charlie Adelson?

No, ma'am, I did not.

Did you ever threaten him in any way?

No, ma'am, I did not.

But then on cross-examination, Rajbaum goes on the attack.

They have to poke holes in her story and show that she is lying this time by raising the issue of the immunity, the get-out-of-jail-free card that she was offered.

You were offered to cooperate against Charlie Adelson and the other Adelson brothers And you would get to go home to your kids, right?

Yes, sir.

You still didn't cooperate. Still, the deal was still open, right?

Well, the deal was to give up Charlie.

And you couldn't do that?

Because in order to give up Charlie, I had to give up the creator, the father of my children, so I couldn't do that.

Again, you lied when you testified that you didn't know anything about the murder of Professor Markell, right?

Yes, sir. I told you I lied in my first and second trial to save myself.

Oh.

Is it true that you were the mastermind behind Professor Markell's murder?

No, sir. That was Charlie.

With Katie sticking to her guns, there's only one other person who can confirm the details of the alleged extortion plot for the defense, and that's their own client, Charlie Adelson.

That jury was on the edge of their seats. That's high stakes, and that's where the rubber meets the road.

How do you feel right now?

I'm really nervous.

Why are you nervous?

My whole life depends on it.

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Please raise your right hand.

The courtroom is abuzz with the anticipation of what is he going to say.

9 years after that brazen daylight killing of Dan Markell, his former brother-in-law speaks for the first time.

How do you feel right now?

I'm really nervous.

Why are you nervous?

My whole life depends on it.

Dan Markell's whole family was there— his sister and both of his parents.

On the other side of the gallery, no support for Charlie Adelson. His father, Harvey, his mother, Donna— they haven't been there at all.

With his client facing a potential life sentence, Defense attorney Daniel Rashbaum takes a calculated risk putting Charlie Adelson on the stand.

Now, do you recall making a joke that buying her a TV was cheaper than hiring a hitman?

It was the stupidest thing I ever said in my life, and I said it as a complete joke, and it was stupid, but I do that a lot.

Did you ever say that joke to Catherine McVanua?

Yes, I did.

Just to be clear, Did you ever look into hiring a hitman?

No, never.

We're leaning in to hear how he is going to pin all of this on Katie.

Right out of the gate, Adelson puts it all on his former girlfriend, testifying that the night of Markell's murder, she makes a shocking admission.

She said, listen, this is all my fault, but I had no idea anything was going to happen. I spoke in too much detail about your family's personal problems.

Charlie Adelson is claiming that Katie told her ex, Sigfredo Garcia, a secret— that the Adelson family had planned to offer Dan $1 million to agree to allow his ex-wife to relocate to South Florida after their divorce.

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

Incredibly, Charlie Adelson claims that he was told just hours after the murder who killed Dan Markell.

That was a big shocker.

He testifies that the hitmen wanted in on that million dollars, so they murdered Dan Markell essentially on spec. The idea being kill now, blackmail Charlie, collect the money later.

And I'm like, Katie, I'm not going to be part of I'm not paying for a murder. This is insane. And she, and she's like, look, if you don't pay in 48 hours, they will kill you.

That's why Charlie testifies he paid her. That same night, he gives Katie $138,000 from his safe. Over the months that followed, he admits he paid Katie thousands more and asked his mother Donna to put Katie on the payroll at the family dental She said, what, is Katie going to be coming into the office?

Is she going to start working for us? And I said, no, she's, she's not.

And Charlie claims the police got it all wrong when they heard him on that Dolce Vita tape, that he isn't the ringleader but rather a victim of this scheme.

What do they think?

They think it was a murder for hire.

What was it?

It was During Charlie's second day on the stand, during cross-examination, prosecutor Georgia Kappelman goes right after his claim of extortion.

Doesn't blackmail or extortion usually involve the extortionist having some kind of dirt on the victim?

I know how this was done to me. I know what— I'm just telling you what happened to me. I don't— I'm not an expert in it.

And she wants to know, When Charlie's life is being threatened, why didn't he go to the police?

So you knew you'd be believed if you went to the police, right?

I didn't—

I didn't know I'd be believed, but I feared for my life.

And what about Katie, Charlie's one-time girlfriend who he claimed to really care about?

You didn't offer to testify in her trial. You let her get convicted and get life in prison, didn't you?

I, I thought the truth was going to come out.

Ultimately, the prosecution hammers Charlie on the stand for 2 hours, but he sticks to his narrative that he was a victim extorted by the hitmen and Katie.

It was the truth.

Closing arguments is— that's the last chance you get to speak to that jury. He's got no more chances to try to sell this story.

If this was a murder for hire, why was payment not made before? See, because he had no idea it was going to happen. That's the only thing that makes sense. He didn't do it. He didn't conspire to do it. He didn't solicit it.

In her closing arguments, prosecutor Georgia Kappelman takes the jury back to the motive So who did it appear had a motive to want Dan Markell dead?

His own family.

The prosecutor says this was all about helping Wendy.

Wendy appears to be the weakling of the pack. She needs to be saved by Donna and the defendant. Donna is the overbearing matriarch who nags everyone to death, and this defendant fancied himself the savior. He's the savior of this family, equal parts black sheep and mama's boy.

And she attacks the suggestion that Charlie Adelson is an innocent victim in this murder scheme.

Latin King extortion payment plans, hitmen that hire themselves, and most unreasonable of all is probably that Charlie Adelson, an arrogant man of extraordinary resources, A prizefighter of verbosity would just lay down and take this in silence. This might be a good time to remind you that the jury room is not a place to check your common sense. We want you to bring it in there and render a verdict that speaks the truth.

9 years after Dan Markell was brutally murdered in the garage of his Tallahassee home, it's judgment day for his former brother-in-law, Charlie Adelson. After deliberating for just 3 hours, the jury's verdict is delivered to a packed courtroom.

We, the jury, find as follows as to count 1 of the indictment, first count, First-degree murder. The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. Charlie Adelson is also found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder. He looked devastated, deflated. You just saw Phil Markell let out this big exhale and lean all the way over with his head in his hands.

Could you just describe the moment for us?

Unbelievable. Joy, happiness.

Um, joy and happiness is a funny thing to say, but it's sort of tinged with this feeling of relief. The relief.

It's relief.

It's a long time.

It's been so long.

Charlie Adelson is a convicted murderer. Now the state's going to focus on others who were involved.

Is the investigation still going on?

Yes. Yes.

But as this nearly decade-old case continues, what sometimes gets overlooked is that at the heart of this story are 2 young boys.

These are our memories.

After the Adelsons' alleged link to the murder plot was disclosed in 2016, the Markells were cut off from Dan's sons.

These boys are missing out on a set of grandparents that have all this warmth and desire to spoil them and be grandparents to them.

Ruth told me she despaired of ever seeing her grandkids again, but with the help of Dan's friend Karen Cyphers, she successfully fought for the passage of a bill known as the Markell Act. It allows grandparents to ask a court to order visitation if a parent is found responsible for the other parent's death.

I know that this bill does not, at this moment, apply to the Markells. Wendy has not been found responsible by a criminal or a civil court. That said, within an hour of the Senate passing the bill, Wendy reached out to Ruth and offered her a visit with the kids.

You got to see the kids again. What was that like?

I hadn't seen these boys in 6 years. I had no idea what they looked like, and we were shocked. The kids were smiling, they were warm.

And I said, can we give you a hug? And they really responded.

It lit a spark of hope that something was going to happen, that we might have more communications with Their Markell said that the very next day, those hopes they had were dashed when Charlie Adelson was arrested.

Since then, they say the relationship with the kids has again become strained.

And we just hope and pray that, uh, one day things will change.

There is still hope?

There's always hope.

Living with that hope. And we should mention that Charlie Adelson is scheduled to be sentenced this coming December.

His defense team, David, telling us that they are likely going to appeal his conviction.

You've been listening to the 20/20 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9:00 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 20/20. Thanks for listening.

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