MISTRIAL FL - Dan Markel, 41, FSU Law Professor, Tallahassee, 18 July 2014 - #10 *arrests*

"suggesting three plea offers on his own behalf...." lol!

Thanks, reallybusy!

 

Just watched the episode of Dan Markel's murder/ execution-- I tried to find more info about Katherine Magnbanua on google -only saw that there will be a re-trial- was there a mistrial the first time? Poor Dan Markel--- he surely picked the wrong woman to fall in love with. I believe she and her parents were behind the execution of Dan Markel, but the Adelson's continue to go along merrily on their way without charges---- Does anybody believe they have enough evidence at this point or do they need more to make a charge stick?--- This case is now 7 years old and I wonder if the Adelsons will ever be charged. So sad. That ***** took her kids to South Florida and dropped their father's
name -- she has erased him totally as their father. It is sickening.

 

Yep, you've pretty much summed it up! It is maddening that none of the Adelsons have been charged! I hope the boys grow up, figure out the truth, and completely disown their mother and grandparents.

 

@ilovewings - from notes from the first trial:


Trial started on 9/23/19. Jury: 10 women & 2 men & 1 alternate (woman); was 2 alternates one (man) got sick & excused on 10/3/19. Jury Deliberations on 10/10/19: 4.5 hours. 10/11: 6.5 hours for guilty verdict on Garcia. Mistrial declared for Magbanua. (10-2 for guilty). Total 11 hours. Will remain in jail as a charged co-conspirator, and the State will try her case again.

 

Thanks for the info: bummer there was a mistrial--- Looking forward to a 2nd trial and glad the biotch is still in jail (where she belongs)!!!!

 

The sad truth is that they are being totally brainwashed by the Adelson family and chances are they will never know the real truth unless the Adelsons are arrested, charged and convicted-- right now that possibility is not promising.

 

True, but they can't shelter the boys from the Internet forever. There's so much information out there for them to figure out the truth for themselves, as painful as that will be for them.

 

I hope they learn the truth- their father sounds like a loving father and wonderful person who was loved by many- except his ex wife and her parents

 

Hey fellow websleuthers, here's a challenge for you: Donna's shirt on the day of the bump: what brand is it?

 

I am still shocked that Magbanua was not convicted at her first trial. Overwhelming evidence - from the flurry of phone activity between the killers and Charlie Adelson planning and executing the murder, and her cell phone putting her in the vicinity of 1) the rental car company used to rent the car for the June 4 trip attempted murder and 2) at or near Luis Rivera's house the morning after the murder - to pay the killers. Rivera testified that the money he received was stacks of 10x $100 bills stapled together, which is kind of bizzare. Charlie Adelson's recent girlfriend testified that Adelson kept a safe with stacks of 10x$100 stapled together in the same manner.

The financial evidence of Magbaua's guilt is also substantial - both from cash deposits from Charlie Adelson as well as cheques from Donna Adelson for a no-show job that Magbanua basically admitted on the stand that she did no work for this job.

Then we have the wiretap evidence, when the FBI set up an extortion attempt on Donna Adelson. Charlie Adelson and Magbanua are caught on the wire and talking in code about the extortion attempt and try to figure out if its real or if its the cops. Aside from Donna Adelson, Magbanua is the only person that Charlie talks to to try to get to the bottom of the extortion. He tried to have her find out - from her connections to the actual killers - whether the extortion is real. Magbanua does not do that, likely out of fear - but she spends a lot of time talking in code with Adelson about the legitimacy of the extortion and how they should handle it.

In what world would an innocent person be caught on a wire talking in code for a murder they didn't commit. They wouldn't.

Her apparent defense for the money is that she somehow made an extra $50k working as a bottle service girl despite no corroborating evidence of this from anyone and in fact the only evidence of her income from working in clubs is from her best friend who said a) she stopped working in the clubs months before the murder and the subsequent cash deposits from her club job are therefore impossible and 2) she never made anywhere close to the money claimed by Magbanua.

Her defense for the phone call activity was she was carrying on affairs with Adelson and Garcia at the same time - and had kids with Garcia so they were in constant contact. This is nonsense.

She has no defense for the cell phone location which has her at the car rental company for the June 4 hit attempt and then the July 19 payoff at Rivera's house except that she wasn't there - she was somewhere else close by but cant remember what she was doing.

The prosecution needs to do a lot better job of putting together the patterns of phone calls between her and Charlie Adelson and her and Garcia around the June 4 and July 18 murder trips and then show what the "normal activity" would be between these three parties. They also need to walk her through each phone call in the days before and after the murder with Garcia and Adelson and ask what she was talking about for each call?

The prosecution needs to put Jessica Rodriguez (Luis Rivera's wife) on the stand to give evidence of Magbanua's presence the day that Rivera was handed bags full of cash from both Garcia and Magbanua.

On the finances, the prosecution needs to find the former managers and bar girls from the club she pretended to work at to indicate that she never worked there during the time of the murder or after.

Finally, the prosecution needs to walk Magbanua through each call from the bump and ask her why she would be involved and more importantly why would she talk in code about a murder that she never heard of or had anything to do with.

 

Sorry for the excessive posts but this case has my blood boiling. There's been a lot of debate about whether Wendi Adelson was involved, directly or indirectly. To those people who believe she wasn't involved:

1. The killers knew that Dan Markel had to be murdered before noon on July 18th because he was going out of town. How?
2 . Luis Rivera was convinced that he saw her and her sons the day before the murder walking next to Markells house to make sure that they were there to do the job. A couple hours after the murder, Garcia phones Magbanua to tell her its done and she already knew about it. How did Magbanau know? Was it because Wendi Adelson already told Charlie?
3. Her cell phone records have her in the vicinity of the crime scene about an hour after the murder. Why is she there? She tells police that she often drove by her old house on Trescott "as a way to deal with the divorce" like she was somehow emotionally not over Dan Markel, when we know that she spent months avoiding him in person and even on the phone and in fact, hated Dan Markel.
4. Donna Adelson booked her an appointment to fix her "TV" for the day of the murders, a week before the murders. The same "TV" Charlie Adelon joked was cheaper to buy than to hire a hitman. Also, Donna Adelson on the wire talks about the extortion attempt for $5,000 and tells Charlie Adelson that "this TV is going to cost $5,000".
5. She is physically ill on June 4 on coffee date with then boyfriend Jeff Lacasse and wont tell him whats bothering her. June 4th was the killers first trip to Talahassee.
6. She tells police that maybe Jeff Lacasse killed Markel and she could see why he would be a good suspect. She knew that Lacasse was scheduled to leave town the afternoon of the murder but unbenownst to her, he changed his plans and luckily had an alibi.
7. Who benefitted the most from Dan Markell's murder? She got what the courts wouldn't give her - full custody of her sons and moved to south Florida within 48 hours of the funeral. A move that was prevented by court order.
8. She stopped communicating with the cops after her initial police interview and lawyered up. Its probably smart on her part because in the police interview, one of the most interesting things I found was what Wendi Adelson didn't say. For someone who was apparently shocked to find out about her ex-husbands murder and with no details about when or where it happened - she never once asks about the safety of her sons. Her sons were with Markel the day of the murder. She doesn't know if it was a home invasion in the middle of the night. Or a car wreck. Or anything. And she doesn't ask about her sons for 19 minutes and 57 seconds into her interview. The very first and maybe the only question she should have been asking about the death of an ex-husband she obviously hated was WHERE ARE MY SONS? WERE THEY THERE WHEN THIS HAPPENED? I NEED TO SEE THEM NOW. Instead, we get a bunch of nonsense like asking the police to call Markel "Danny" cause its more personal and trying to come up with who might do this other than the people who obviously did it.
9. Divorce records show that she was to be deposed by Markel and his lawyers before the murder and the subject of the deposition was her apparent fraud in the divorce proceedings (not declaring certain bank accounts in her financial statement) AND whether Donna Adelson should be allowed unsupervised visits with her kids. Markel was threatening to go after her law license on the fraud. Donna Adelson was her only child care for Wendi - her parents would drive up for her weeks with the kids and do everything for her. She was potentially losing that.
10. Even if she wasn't involved in the murder, she has surely come to understand all the evidence against her brother and her mother and their direct involvement. Instead of separating herself from the people who actually murdered her children's father, she has doubled down and protected them by lying on their behalf and continues to have the same close relationship she had before the murders. At the same time, she has completely abolished Dan Markel's family from visitation with their grandkids and changed the kids names to erase his memory. At the very least, she is a vile, self-absorbed psychopath. That is the least we can say about Wendi Adelson. Anyone who doubts this, needs only to listen to her police interview or her podcast - where she is the true victim from how Markel - who was assassinated in his driveway "made her suffer."

 

She literally drove by the murder scene then went straight to the liquor store to buy a celebratory bottle of Bulliet bourbon.

 

No clue, but I've seen a lot of stuff like that on Amazon.

 

The first thing she recalled was that the cashier at the liquor store complimented her on her eyes. She apparently doesn't know if her kids were harmed yet in the shooting and seems unconcerned with this in the interview. But she remembers the compliments. Like any self-respecting psychopath would.

 

I am very impressed with your knowledge of the case. Though I don't know the case nearly as well as you, my best guess is that Wendy Adelson is up to her eyeballs in the murder of her X husband

 

My knowledge of the case is really just an indication of how much it haunts me. There will be no justice in the State of Florida until 1) Charlie and Donna Adelson are both on trial for murder facing the death penalty, and 2) Dan Markel's parents and sister are reunited with their grandsons/nephews and crushes the Adelson family - including Wendi - financially in a civil case.

The only solace we can take at this time is the knowledge that paranoid Charlie Adelson - who has lost most of his friends and social circle since the news of his involvement became clear - is sleeping with one eye open and waiting for the SWAT team to bust down his door to arrest him. And Donna Adelson, who seems to have lost her mind authoring several insane 8-10,000 word essays obsessing about how her daughter should cheat the divorce system in court because Dan Markel "hasn't beaten the Adelson family yet" is now likely spending every waking moment reading these posts and angrily screaming at her laptop screen. Dan Markel didn't just beat them he demolished the Adelson family in court. And his death, at their hand, has ultimately destroyed the Adelson family name forever. Thats Donna's legacy.

In fact, the only Adelson that will be able hold their head high and live a normal life is her oldest son Rob who severed himself and his kids from the rest of the Adelsons after Donna tried her best to control and destroy his relationship with his current wife. Donna ultimately cost herself a relationship with one set of grandkids and, if there is any justice at all, it will be that her interference in the only grandkids she had left - through her planning/financing the assassination of their father Dan Markel will cost her her freedom and a relationship with them.

 

I

I think it was awful that Wendi took the Markel name away from the children they had together: She wanted him totally erased from their lives and I fear she is brainwashing them to hate their deceased father.

 

Who really wanted this Donna or Wendi. Based on my knowledge of the case, Donna was pulling the strings. MOO

 

But here is the thing: regardless of whose idea it was to erase the Markel name from the children, at the end of the day it is Wendi who had the authority to actually do it- Personally I think they are all in this together anyway. The entire family is disgusting and are responsible for Dan Markel's death.

 

Agreed. How horrible to think of murdering someone to rid yourself of the “trouble” of an ex, let alone the father of your own children.