TALLAHASSEE, FL — It's been more than 11 years since a Florida State law professor was gunned down outside of his Betton Hills home. Now the woman who police say was the mastermind behind it will face a jury.
Donna Adleson is accused of orchestrating the death of Dan Markel, following her daughter's divorce from Markel, which was granted in 2013.
Four others have already been convicted in Markel's death: Sigfredo Garcia, Luis Rivera, Katherine Magbanua, and Charlie Adelson.
- In October of 2016, Luis Rivera pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Sigfredo Garcia, who police say was the shooter. Rivera was sentenced to 19 years in state prison.
- In September of 2019, Garcia was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
- In July 2022, Katherine Magbanua was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder after a retrial. She was sentenced to life plus an additional 60 years.
- In November 2023, Charlie Adelson was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life.
Just a week after Charlie was convicted, Donna Adelson was taken into custody at the Miami International Airport. She faces three charges: first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation of first-degree murder. Today, August 19th, jury selection will begin in Donna's trial, and opening statements could happen as soon as Friday, August 22nd.
WHO WAS DAN MARKEL?
Dan Markel was 41 years old at the time of his death and a prominent law professor at Florida State University. He was born on October 9, 1972, and raised in Toronto, Canada. He later graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2001. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned a master's in political theory at Cambridge before returning to Harvard for his law degree.
Before he taught at Florida State, Markel served as law clerk to Judge Michael Daly Hawkins of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He joined FSU's College of Law in 2005 and held the post of the D'Alemberte professor of law.
Not long after he began working at FSU, Markel got married to Wendi Adelson on February 26, 2006, their wedding announced in The New York Times. Adelson was a third-year law student at the University of Miami at the time and later became a clinical law professor at FSU. Markel and Adelson had two sons together.
Throughout his time at FSU, Markel was well-known as "a great and generous scholar." The professor authored a book, "Privilege or Punish: Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Family Ties," and also wrote several academic articles and opinion pieces that were published in The New York Times and The Atlantic.
On July 18th, 2014, his life was cut short after being shot at his home in Betton Hills. He died the following day.
THE MOTIVE
Police believe Markel was killed due to the fallout of his divorce from Wendi. She filed for divorce in September 2012.
Court documents say Markel had reportedly come home from a business trip and found his family and most of his possessions were gone, with divorce papers left on his bed.
Investigators say Wendi moved their two boys into her parents' home in Coral Springs, but eventually brought the children back to Leon County to let legal arguments play out after Markel protested her decision.
Court documents show things got heated as Dan argued the boys shouldn't be allowed to leave Tallahassee. He also told the court Wendi wouldn't tell him where she and the boys were after she left their home.
Wendi contested, saying moving to Coral Springs, where her family was, would provide more stability and consistency for the children.
In July 2013, the couple was granted a divorce without a trial, and the judge denied Wendi's request to relocate.
The two agreed to split custody of the children 50/50 and came to an agreement on child support. Despite that, the two continued court filings over money, when Wendi would allow Skype calls between Dan and the kids, the children's education plans, and freedom of access to the children.
In February 2014, Markel filed a motion to enforce the marriage settlement agreement, claiming Wendi and her lawyer were not forthcoming about her financial assets. The following month, Dan filed a motion seeking to prevent Wendi's mom, Donna, from having unsupervised time with his sons in order to protect them from "disparaging comments about their father."
A court hearing was scheduled to hear Markel's motions against Wendi, with documents saying, "due to substitutions of counsel, the hearing was continued." Markel was murdered at his home before a new hearing was scheduled.
THE TIMELINE OF MARKEL'S DEATH
On Friday, July 18, 2014, documents say Markel left his home to drive his boys to their daycare, dropping them off just before 9:00 a.m. He then drove to Premier Health and Fitness Center on Maclay Boulevard and arrived around 9:12 a.m., a Toyota Prius arriving with him.
The professor left Premier around 10:38 a.m., driving toward Thomasville Road as the same Prius followed him. Investigators believe that the Prius followed Markel throughout the morning and eventually followed him back to his home.
At 11:02 a.m., the Tallahassee Police Department was called to Markel's Betton Hills home on Trescott Drive. When they arrived, they found Markel "slumped over in the driver's seat of his vehicle from an apparent gunshot to the head," the garage door still wide open.
Markel died the next day at a local hospital.
Before the shooting, documents say Markel was talking to someone on the phone when he was reportedly interrupted by an unfamiliar person standing in his driveway.
An autopsy report revealed that Markel was shot twice at intermediate range, once in the forehead and once in the left cheek. A neighbor heard the gunshot and called the police, but not before spotting a Toyota Prius backing out of Markel's driveway.
THE INVESTIGATION:
The investigation into Markel's death took some time to piece together. Over the next two years, investigators connected the Toyota Prius to two men: Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera.
Documents say an unnamed witness told investigators about a meeting with Garcia and Rivera at a Tallahassee motel sometime in June, about a month before Markel was murdered. The witness recalled seeing Rivera with a revolver handgun, the same kind of gun that investigators say was used in Markel's murder.
Police later found that a rental company's contracts linked Rivera to a rented green 2008 Toyota Prius, similar to the one that was seen following Markel's car. The Prius was rented out from July 15, 2014, to the 21st. That's when investigators say Garcia and Rivera began their drive from Miami to Tallahassee for the hit.
On July 17th, Rivera and Garcia arrived in Tallahassee and checked into their West Tennessee Street Motel. Documents say both men's phones were detected near Premier while Markel was inside, corroborating what investigators saw on surveillance video.
Garcia was arrested on May 25, 2016. On June 2, 2016, Rivera, who was already in federal custody serving time for his involvement in the Latin Kings gang, was named a co-defendant in Markel's murder.
MURDER FOR HIRE
In probable cause documents, investigators wrote that Markel didn't know Garcia and Rivera and never had any contact with them prior to his death. Because of this, investigators concluded that Garcia and Rivera were likely "enlisted" to commit the murder.
It led investigators to piece together a motive: The Adelson's "desperate desire" to relocate Wendi and the children to South Florida.
Documents show e-mail evidence of Wendi's parents, especially her mother, Donna, wanting Wendi to coerce Markel into allowing her and the kids to move. Documents also showed Wendi's brother, Charlie, reportedly didn't like Markel, nor got along with him.
As a court hearing that could have restricted their access to the children grew closer, prosecutors contend the Adelsons, Wendi's parents, Harvey and Donn,a as well as her brother Charlie, turned to an illegal remedy after exhausting all options.
Investigators believe the coordinator of that illegal remedy was likely Katherine Magbanua.
Magbanua had a romantic relationship with Garcia, as he is the father of her two children. Police also said she was romantically involved with Charlie.
During their investigation, police found that Magbanua received numerous phone calls from both the suspects and the Adelsons.
At the time, investigators said that about an hour and a half after Markel's murder, the first person Garcia called was Magbanua. Cellphone records also showed that Garcia and Rivera met with Magbanua the night before going to Tallahassee. Documents say, the day of Markel's murder, multiple phone calls went back and forth between Magbanua and Garcia, and Magbanua and Charlie Adelson.
After an undercover agent gave investigators a peek into Magbanua's conversations with the Adelson family, police found solid evidence that led the State Attorney's Office to charge Magbanua with the crime.
In 2019, when Magbanua was first put on trial, the jury declared a mistrial, but she was retried in 2022 where she was found guilty for murder.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Now with four people serving time for Markel's murder, all eyes turn to Donna. Her original trial was set for last year but was delayed when Adelson's attorney, Daniel Rashbaum, withdrew from the case due to a conflict of interest related to his representation of Charlie. Then it was set for June of this year until the judge granted a delay and moved the trial to August. Now, Adelson waits in the Leon County Jail as the process of who will decide her fate begins on Tuesday morning.
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