Daniel Markel was born on October 9, 1972 to parents Ruth & Phil & was raised in Toronto, Canada. His mom compared him to Dennis the Menace because of his rambunctious & wild streak. He graduated magna cum laude with his undergraduate degree from Harvard after studying politics & philosophy. Dan was very intrigued with his Jewish heritage & during his Dorot Fellowship in Israel, he earned his graduate degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem & earned a master’s degree in political theory from Emmanuel College, Cambridge before going on to Harvard Law School in 2001. Dan went on to work as a law clerk at a practice in Washington D.C., practicing white collar criminal defense before moving on to teaching.
In 2005, Dan joined the Florida State University College of Law & was tenured in 2010. If he wasn’t busy enough with this career, he also co-authored a book that connected crime, punishment & family, Privilege or Punish: Criminal Justice & the Challenge of Family Ties as well as co-founded a blog for law professors in 2005, PrawfsBlawg. He also wrote law review articles that argued for abolition of the death penalty & had an interest in sports law that proposed that fans be given an opportunity to participate in the management of sports teams. His students regarded him as a tough but fair taskmaster & he was highly regarded by his colleagues who viewed him as a superstar that commanded attention at prestigious legal conferences. He demanded much of himself as well as others. A former student indicated that anytime they needed to talk, Dan was there & he always took interest in his students.
Dan met Wendi Adelson, a University of Miami law student, on the Jdate Jewish dating site; she was seven years younger than him & lived in Florida while he was in Washington DC. Wendi had been raised in Ft Lauderdale, Florida by a successful family who owned a dentistry business that was ultimately run by her dad, Harvey & her brother, Charlie while her mom Donna coordinated patient care. She also had a second older brother named Rob. Wendi had graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University & went on to receive a master’s degree in international relations from Cambridge where she was a Gates scholar. She was described as an incredibly bright & intelligent & despite being a law student, she was able to maintain her care-free quirky spirit. When she was 23-years-old she was a contestant on the Weakest Link. Dan was offered the FSU law professor position & then the university offered Wendi a teaching position on a contract basis in the College of Law as a clinical law professor specializing in human trafficking issues.
Soon the couple announced their plan to get married when Wendi was 26 & Dan was 33. The two were married in a synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida on February 26, 2006. Both families split the cost of the wedding, but it was Wendi’s family that covered the catering. Despite Dan’s wishes for the food to be Kosher, as he showed up to his own reception, he realized it was not & this devastated him. This set the tone for the relationship he would have with his in-laws.
After the wedding, they returned to their lives in Tallahassee. The two seemed incredibly happy as they welcomed their two sons into the world; Benjamin was born in 2009 & Lincoln was born in 2010. Friends would later say that it seemed like they had it all & they remember going to their house for dinner & feeling inadequate about their own relationship as they left. They said that Wendi & Dan danced & sang together & were outwardly affectionate toward one another; Wendi referred to Dan as Mr. Bear & Dan called Wendi Mrs. Bear.
The fairy tale came to a screeching halt on Monday, September 10, 2012 when Dan returned from a business trip to find that not only were most of his possessions removed from their home, but his family had also left. He found divorce papers perched on a mattress that was strewn on the floor. While Dan was gone, Wendi moved their two boys to her parent’s home in Coral Springs, 450 miles away, but eventually brought them back to Leon County to face legal battles with Dan. It was said that Dan was stunned & never imagined something like this would happen so quickly & immediately tried to reconcile their relationship.
The divorce was said to be very contentious & court documents showed that Dan argued that their children shouldn’t be allowed to leave Tallahassee since there was no need or benefit to “ripping up the fabric of their lives.” For weeks Wendi refused to tell Dan where she & the children or gone, this was something he referred to as “cruel & abrupt.” Wendi argued that the move to Coral Springs would bring the children closer to their grandparents which would provide them with improved stability & consistency. In July 2013, Wendi’s request to relocate the children was denied.
Wendi & Dan agreed to split custody of the children 50/50 & Dan agreed to pay Wendi $841/month in child support on top of the lump sum payment of $120,000. Despite these agreements, squabbles over money continued. In February of 2014, Dan filed a motion to enforce the marriage settlement agreement, claiming that Wendi & her lawyer weren’t forthcoming about her financial assets. The next month, Dan filed a motion to prevent Wendi’s mother Donna from having unsupervised time with his sons after his kids told him, “Grandma hates you and thinks you’re stupid.”
A court hearing was scheduled in regards to this motion, but was delayed & Dan was murdered before a new hearing could be scheduled.
Wendi later went on as a guest of a podcast & confessed that she lacked passionate love toward Dan & indicated that their marriage dissolved after the kids were born. She said that she felt a sense of loneliness & believed that Dan didn’t view her as an equal in their relationship despite her own impressive career. Wendi indicated that Dan continuously belittled her achievements & even refused to read the novel she wrote, This is our Story. She said he didn’t like fiction so he didn’t want to read it. According to Amazon, the book has 3.7 stars with 101 ratings & is a story about two women from different countries who become victims of human trafficking.
During this tumultuous time between Dan & Wendi, Wendi began a relationship with a fellow FSU professor named Jeffery Lacasse & Dan also started dating a woman who was a prominent New York law professor. Friends advised him to just put his marriage with Wendi behind him & focus on the positive in his life & move forward.
On Friday, July 18, 2014, 41-year-old Dan left his home in Tallahassee, Florida in his black Honda Accord & dropped his boys off at their preschool at 8:50 am. From there he made the fifteen minute drive to Premier Health & Fitness Center, arriving at 9:12 am & left the gym about 10:38 am. Little did he know that a car had been following him throughout the morning. Dan made his way home & as he pulled into his driveway his cellphone rang & he told the person on the other end that there was someone on his driveway that he didn’t recognize. The person on the phone heard a loud grunt & muffled conversation in the background, but was unable to make out the words. He then heard labored breathing but couldn’t get Dan to respond.
At this time, Dan’s neighbors heard what they believed to be gunshots & went toward his garage to investigate & then ran back to call 911 at 11:02 am. The neighbor told the dispatcher that he found Dan’s driver’s side window shattered & that Dan was inside the running car with blood all over his head & he was not responsive. Paramedics arrived & found the garage door open & Dan, slumped over in the driver’s seat of the car with an apparent gunshot wound to the head. There was no sign of break-in at his house. At this point, he was still alive, the keys remained in the ignition of his car. Dan was transported to a local hospital & was found to have two gunshot wounds to his head. Dan’s parents, Ruth & Phil were in Montreal when they received the devastating news that their son likely wouldn’t survive & if he did, he would be a vegetable the rest of his life. Dan’s sister, Shelly Markel said that she could have never imagined this scenario & keeps waiting to wake up from the nightmare.
Meanwhile residents of Dan’s neighborhood were stunned & terrified; this was not an area where something this brutal typically happened, especially not right in the middle of the day. The neighbor who called 911 indicated that he had seen a light colored car that looked to be a Toyota Prius, back out of the driveway & head down the road, leaving rapidly. Police went door-to-door, trying to look at neighbor’s potential security footage & five days later, police released a grainy photo of a silver Prius though in this area, a Prius is a very common car.
Police found Wendi at a local restaurant where she was having lunch with friends & brought her in for an interview that same day at 2:48 pm to tell her what happened. When the detective entered the interview room she said that a friend just informed her that there was a shooting on Dan’s block. The detective told her that was the reason she was there & that Dan was shot at his home & had been taken to the hospital & was not going to survive his injuries. She began to weep & ask what happened. As she calmed down, she voiced her fears for her children’s safety. Officers took her photo & swabbed her hands for gunshot residue & she allowed the detective to take her cell phone & search her minivan. She admitted that Dan had caused her a lot of grief but she would have never done something like this. She said she understood that she was being looked at as a suspect & wanted to cooperate.
Wendi said that she was home that morning, waiting on a TV repairman & then went out to buy a bottle of liquor for a party she planned to attend & then she’d gone out to lunch with friends. Police continued to dig into all aspects of Dan’s life & thought it could have been a disgruntled student or someone who just disagreed with his ideas & staff at FSU worried that this could have been tied to the campus. 15 hours after Dan was shot, he was pronounced dead & those that knew him, grieved the loss. Wendi was questioned if she knew if there was anyone that would have had any reason to have murdered Dan. She did mention her boyfriend, fellow FSU professor, Jefferey Lacasse, who by this time she’d broken up with & mentioned that he didn’t like Dan because Dan had hurt her.
On July 21, 2014 Jeff was asked to come in for an interview with investigators & indicated he wasn’t surprised since he had dated Wendi. He admitted that he had been in love with Wendi & was very much smitten with her to the point that he mentioned that she was the type of girl you would throw yourself in front of a bus to protect. He said he had no physical contact with Dan but admits that he had made verbal threats, indicating that he could “kick his ass” because he continued to make Wendi suffer but would never have killed him. He said that on the day that Dan was shot, he was hundreds of miles away, staying in a crummy Days Inn 20 miles south of Atlanta & this story did check out.
Jeff explained that he was concerned for his safety & said that Dan was killed & he didn’t want to be next. Over the course of three interviews that continued on through March of 2015, he talked about the profound dysfunction within the Adelson family. He said that the whole family was extremely weird & rather than focusing on Wendi in the investigation, they should be speaking with her parents & her brother, Charlie as these three desperately wanted Wendi back with them in South Florida & viewed Dan as an obstacle. He felt they had become obsessed with hating Dan to the point it seemed to be their hobby & specified that Charlie Adelson should be their main suspect.
Jeff was not the only person talking about the Adelson’s disdain for Dan but also his friends, Maya & Alex who described them as mean & unreasonable during the divorce. Wendi herself even acknowledged her parents’ hate for Dan & during a police interview she made several comments, “My parents have more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else because he hurt their daughter.” “They’re very angry with him.” But she said despite this, they would never have hurt him. Wendi’s family hadn’t been near Tallahassee on the day of Dan’s murder & police continued to focus on trying to find the Prius that was seen leaving the scene of the crime.
Only days after Dan’s funeral, Wendi & her children relocated to South Florida & she changed her children’s last names from Markel to Adelson. Wendi had entered a creative writing class where she recorded a podcast & spoke of their divorce & Dan’s murder & how her children were happy & thriving. After her family became implicated in his murder, Wendi cut Dan’s parents off from all contact with their grandchildren. Dan’s grieving family had never spoken publicly but asked their attorney to speak with 20/20 on their behalf & he indicated that they could not move on until those that were responsible were held accountable. Police had combed through all area surveillance & decided to check on footage from city buses. They found a video of their suspected light green Prius. The driver nor the license plate could be visualized but a toll transponder was seen in the window which indicated that the driver was likely not from Tallahassee because there are very few toll roads surrounding the city.
When police pulled toll records, it led them to a Miami rental car company & they were able to track down the rental agreement for the Prius.
The rental agreement was completed by Luis Rivera & his identity was confirmed & he was very well known to authorities as being the leader of the Latin Kings gang for the north Miami Beach chapter. He’d rented the car from July 15, 2014 to the 21st. Another contact was affiliated with the rental contract which was Rivera’s life-long friend, Sigfredo Garcia. Garcia is not a member of the gang but someone very familiar with the law. Police were able to use their cell phone pings to track their movement & showed that in July of 2014, they took a road trip from Miami to Tallahassee in the Prius, making the seven hour drive. They checked into a Budget Inn in Tallahassee after arriving after midnight in the early morning hours July 18th, the day of the murder.
Friday morning, July 18, 2014, they were placed in the vicinity of Dan’s fitness center; security footage from the gym showed Dan’s black Accord entering the parking lot, the Prius following shortly behind. Dan could be seen entering the gym as the Prius trolled around the parking lot. Dan is later seen leaving the gym & driving away as the Prius followed him out. At 10:44 am, a city bus caught footage of Dan as he drove home & only seconds later, the Prius was seen following. About sixteen minutes later, Dan was shot as he pulled into his garage. After, another bus camera caught the Pruis driving away in the opposite direction from the house. Later that same night, they could be seen back in Miami, withdrawing money from an ATM.
Two years after Dan was murdered, Garcia was arrested on May 25, 2016. On June 2, 2016, Rivera, who was already in custody for his involvement in the Latin Kings gang, was also charged with Dan’s murder & both pleaded not guilty. Investigators needed to find the connection between these two men & Dan. Police found no ties & could only imagine it was money driven & were likely hired as hitmen. Eventually police were able to link the killers to Wendi Adelson’s family who run the dental clinic. A woman named Katherine “Katie” Magbanua is the mother of Garcia’s two children who dated Charlie Adelson between 2013-2015 & had also worked at the dental practice. After the murder, Katie collected regular paychecks from Adelson Institute which were signed by Donna Adelson despite no records of any work schedule or job title for Katie according to paperwork subpoenaed from the business.
Detectives believe that Wendi’s family, desperate to have their daughter & grandsons close to them, came up with the plan to have Dan murdered. It was also well known that Wendi’s brother Charlie didn’t like Dan or get along with him. Police began to look for any proof of money exchanges that would link the Adelsons to the murder & noted a significant deposit into Katherine’s account after Dan’s murder that amounted to about $44,000. She then began receiving paychecks from the Adelson Institute that had been signed by Wendi’s mom, Donna, totaling $13,000. Right after Dan’s murder, police also noted & uptick in spending on Garcia & Rivera’s end, purchasing cars & motorcycles. Katherine had also undergone breast enhancement surgery after the murder & Charlie Adelson paid for part of the $6,000-$7,000 bill.
When Wendi was first interviewed after being told the news of Dan’s shooting, she told detectives that she was afraid it happened because he hadn’t treated her well & maybe the killer thought they were doing something to protect her. The detective asked if there was anyone she knew that would do this for her benefit. She did say that her brother Charlie had made a comment after buying her a TV when saying, “I looked into hiring a hit man & it was cheaper to get you this TV” which ended up being her divorce present from him. She felt he wasn’t capable of something like this & was only joking.
On March 6, 2015, Jeff, Wendi’s ex told investigators that according to Wendi, Charlie had looked into having Dan killed in the summer of 2013. According to Jeff, she was dead serious when she said it & told him that it would cost $15,000. Police set up a sting operation in April of 2016 & cameras rolled as a man approached Donna Adelson as she walked down the street. The man was an undercover officer wearing a body camera & posed as Rivera’s brother & told Donna that his brother was going through rough times & needed the payment for the thing he took care of up north. Donna said she didn’t know what he was talking about & he handed her a press release about Dan’s murder with a phone number & a demand for $5,000. During their brief interaction, Donna continued to claim that she didn’t know what he was talking about but walked away with the paper.
This ruse caused a flurry of communication between Donna, Charlie, Katherine & SIgfredo Garcia which was secretly recorded by law enforcement & discussion was made about paying the money but never did. Charlie indicated he wanted to get the mysterious messenger out of the picture & wrote, “If you can’t do it I’ll have someone else do it.” At this point, there was not enough information to make an arrest. As FBI agents continued to investigate the Adelson family, it was clear that they were using the code word “TV” in reference to Dan’s hit. After Donna had been given the flyer about Dan’s murder, she called Charlie to tell him about it & he asked her what they asked for. Donna responded, “This TV was probably about five.” Charlie responded, “They asked you for five thousand dollars?” Charlie was also heard telling Katie to find out who is playing these games & to nip it in the bud. Oddly enough, on the morning that Dan was murdered, Wendi was having the TV her brother had given her as a divorce present repaired. She told detectives that she had made the repair appointment but her mom actually had & some wonder if this was to establish an alibi or even serve as a code when Donna would have told her that her “TV repair was scheduled for Friday morning.”
While Luis Rivera was in prison for the gang related charge, he was offered a plea deal; if he described his role in the murder, he could plead guilty to second-degree murder & avoid the possibility of the death penalty. In October 2016, he decided to cooperate & gave a statement to prosecutors that his long time friend, Sigfredo Garcia asked him to carry out a hit & showed him a picture of Dan. He told him he would pay him to come with him because he didn’t want to go by himself. Rivera asked who was hiring them & Garcia said it was Katie. He told him he would be given $35,000 from $100,000 split between himself, Garcia & Katie. When RIvera asked why they were hired to kill Dan, Garcia told him, “Because the lady wants her two kids back. She wants full custody of them kids.” He said that they followed Dan home & Garcia jumped out of their car, shot Dan twice, got in the car & they left. He said the first person Garcia spoke with after the murder was Katie & he could clearly hear her voice on the other end. Cell phone records also suggest the two had met with Katie the night before they left for Tallahassee. Katie was then charged with first-degree murder. When she took the stand to testify, she said she had nothing to do with it & had no knowledge that Dan had been killed.
Rivera indicated that they’d driven to Tallahassee a month before Dan’s murder but weren’t able to carry out the hit on that trip. He said they were paid in part in stapled hundred dollar bills. Charlie’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, June Umchinda, said that Charlie had the habit of stapling his cash.
On October 15, 2019, Sigfredo Garcia was sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder & given an additional 30 years for conspiracy. The jurors made their deliberations in just 35 minutes & rejected the state’s call for the death penalty. Luis Rivera was given a 19-year sentence as part of his plea deal. Katie Magbanua was sentenced to life in prison plus two additional 30-year sentences to run consecutively.
On Thursday, April 21, 2022, 45-year-old Charlie Adelson was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder & solicitation of murder due to findings from the FBI sting operation & audio that had been recorded between Charlie & Katie from 2016. Evidence submitted to the courts suggest a history of conflict & anti-social behavior. One witness interviewed after the murder put Charlie at the center of blackmail attempts & questionable business practice. Another alleges he cheated in dental school & has turned to his powerful connections to avoid consequences. Now public wire-taps reveal his conversations involving steroid peddling, tax evasion & traveling overseas to interact with very young women.He was in court on Friday, August 25 for a pre-trial hearing & jury selection is set for October 23, 2023 & testimony will begin on or before October 30 & is expected to wrap up by November 9, 2023, but could last three or more weeks because of potential lengthy witness testimony.
Wendi & Donna Adelson have also been named as co-conspirators in this case. Dan’s parents, Ruth & Phil Markel only hope that justice will eventually be served & when Ruth was asked if she would like to send a message to the Adelson family following Charlie’s arrest, Ruth said, “I wouldn’t send them a message, but I believe this is a time for reflection. I would ask them, “Was it worth it? Was it worth it to kill my son?’ A 2021 article indicated that the Markels were still holding out hope that they’ll be reunited with their grandsons & said they hadn’t seen them since 2016. Ruth said, “We miss our grandchildren terribly & grieve their loss of our support & visitation & affection.” Ruth has been pleading with lawmakers to pass a bill that allows for visitation rights for grandparents if the grandchild’s parent has been murdered & if the other parent is a person of interest in the crime.” The bill died in 2020. An article from September of 2022 indicated that Ruth & her former husband Phil were able to see the grandchildren for the first time in six years; she said despite the passage of time, there was no awkwardness & they gave them hugs & kisses.
References:
- Wikipedia: Dan Markel
- WCTV: Convicted trigger man gets life sentence in Dan Markel murder
- WCTV: Magbanua to be sentenced Friday in murder-for-hire plot
- Tallahassee Democrat: Trial date set for Charlie Adelson in Dan Markel murder case
- Florida Politics: Motives, codewords, wiretaps & persistence: Backstory of Charlie Adelson’s arrest
- WFSU: As anniversary of Dan Markel’s murder passes, his parents still hope to reunite with their grandchildren
- TaxProf Blog: Ruth Markel publishes book on her son Dan’s murder, sees her grandchildren for the first time in six years
- Abc news: Accused hit men, an FBI sting & a custody battle: Unraveling 5-year mystery of murdered FSU professor
- Abc news: How police tracked down & caught 2 suspected hit men in FSU professor murder case
- ABC 27: Dan Markel Case: What you need to know
- WCTV: Charlie Adelson’s trial could last three weeks or more
