Hiring a hitman: Inside one Florida man’s alleged plot to murder his sister’s ex, a prominent attorney

Wendi Adelson took the stand in a Florida courtroom earlier this month to testify at one of the trials associated to the 2014 murder of her ex-husband, regulation professor Dan Markel. 

“I don’t want to know what happened,” she informed the protection. 

With her lengthy, soiled blonde hair masking the collar of a black blazer she wore over a grey costume, her demeanor different between the seemingly good-natured, “Who, me?”-type witness and the type who at-times grew combative, irked on the questions being thrown her manner.

Adelson, a lawyer herself, testified beneath oath simply ft from the girl accused of performing as a go-between for the girl’s ex-boyfriend, Adelson’s brother, and the boys who allegedly carried out the murder. That girl, Katherine Magbanau, was convicted late Friday of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder.

Some have speculated as to Adelson’s true involvement within the case – how a lot she knew earlier than, throughout or after her ex‘s murder about the circumstances surrounding his execution-style death.

Just weeks before her May 19 testimony in a Leon County courtroom, Adelson’s brother, Charlie, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and solicitation to commit first-degree murder for allegedly hiring two males to kill his sister, Wendi’s, ex-husband. 

 “There’s actually tension between you and this office, right?” requested Magbanau’s protection attorney, concerning the Leon County State’s Attorney’s workplace. 

FLORIDA DENTIST BUSTED 8 YEARS AFTER ALLEGEDLY HIRING HITMEN TO KILL SISTER’S LAW PROFESSOR EX-HUSBAND

She admitted, when requested, that testifying was “very uncomfortable” in mild of the current occasions surrounding her brother. 

“Lots of media insinuates that I did something I didn’t do, too,” she responds. 

Regardless of whether or not she did or didn’t know of the alleged plans for Markel’s murder – and whether or not she likes it or not – Wendi Adelson stays on the coronary heart of the case.

This photograph supplied by Broward County Sheriff’s Office reveals Charles Adelson. Adelson, a Florida dentist has been arrested on prices that he employed hit males eight years in the past to kill his sister’s ex-husband, a prominent regulation professor. Adelson is dealing with murder and different prices within the 2014 demise of Florida State University regulation professor Daniel Markel. 
((Broward County Sheriff’s Office through AP))

“For anybody to suggest that she would put her sons through such pain and horrific agony is just absurd and mean-spirited. This tragedy has had a terrible effect on Wendy and her sons,” John Lauro, Wendi’s attorney, informed Fox News Digital on Sunday.

He added: “[For] almost eight years now, the police have done an intensely thorough investigation of Wendi. They have found not a single email, text, recorded conversation, phone record – anything – that implicates Wendy at all. Zero … The bottom line is that if there was something that tied Wendi to this horrific crime – and there’s not – we would have seen it in real evidence.”

Daniel “Danny” Markel, a prominent Florida State University regulation professor, was on the heels of a contentious divorce with Wendi when he was gunned down in his automobile on July 18, 2014. The pair disagreed and sparred in courtroom paperwork over sure points, specifically, Wendi’s relocation from Tallahassee to be nearer to her household in south Florida.

Tallahassee Police Department investigators have stated Markel dropped his youngsters off at daycare round 8:50 a.m. roughly 5 miles from his residence after which made his manner to Premier Health and Fitness Center, the place he arrived round 9:12 p.m., in accordance to a possible trigger affidavit shared on-line in 2016.

Daniel Markel
(Florida State University)

Police discovered that a Toyota Prius had adopted Markel not solely into the parking zone of the health facility, however was additionally “trailing Markel’s car” earlier than and after his time within the gymnasium.

 “Investigators believe the suspects in the Prius followed the victim throughout the morning and back to this residence, where the victim was shot in the head as he sat in his car,” the affidavit states. “Markel’s neighbor heard what he believed to be a gunshot and looked out the window, where he saw a small silver or light-colored vehicle, resembling a Prius, backing out of the victim’s driveway.”

Markel was rushed to a native hospital, however finally couldn’t be saved. 

On the day of the murder, Wendi Adelson sat for an interview with police that lasted at the least six hours and with out an attorney, she has stated. Lauro stated she did so willingly.

“Immediately after the police went to her, Wendi sat for seven hours. Answered all the questions. Turned over her cell phone, her computer, her car, her home,” Lauro, her attorney, stated. “When she was told that her ex-husband had been shot and was literally dying at a hospital, she went into a stream of consciousness thought-pattern … she literally tried every way to search her memory, her thought process to assist the police in coming up with any information that that might be helpful.”

Katherine Magbanua
(Broward County Sheriff’s Office)

Sigfredo Garcia, who had allegedly lived with Magbanau, and his alleged confederate, Luis Rivera, have been charged in June 2016. Magbanau was arrested months later in October 2016. Garcia was convicted in 2019 of first-degree murder, and has appealed his conviction. Rivera finally pleaded responsible to second-degree murder. 

Garcia’s attorney didn’t reply to Fox News Digital’s request in search of remark.

‘OVER MY DEAD BODY’ PODCAST: SLAIN FLORIDA LAW PROFESSOR’S FATHER, SISTER SAY THEY ‘PRAY AND HOPE’ FOR JUSTICE

The affidavit additional describes a collection of telephone calls between Magbanau, the daddy of her youngsters, Sigfredo Garcia, Charlie Adelson, and his father, Harvey Adelson.

Wendi Adelson’s dad and mom, Harvey and Donna, and her brother lived in South Florida, the place Harvey had based a dental follow, the place his son – and practically everybody within the household – had labored at one time or one other. 

Tallahassee Police Department Public information officer David Northway reveals a picture of Sigfredo Garcia, 34, throughout a press convention in Tallahassee, Fla., Thursday, May 26, 2016. Garcia is needed for the murder of Florida State University regulation professor Dan Markel. Markel was killed in his Tallahassee residence in July 2014. (Joe Rondone/Tallahassee Democrat through AP)

During Wendi Adelson’s testimony earlier this month, Chief Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman reference an electronic mail trade between Adelson and Donna Adelson in asking what her mom felt was “the most important part of your divorce.”

“That was relocation,” Adelson responds. 

She later says her proximity to her dad and mom was not the only purpose why she wished to transfer. She acknowledged that, “it was absolutely a reason.” 

“I wanted to create some stability for my kids and family, having family around, helps have a more stable environment,” she testified. 

But Markel was “adamantly opposed” to Adelson taking their youngsters to south Florida, Cappleman contented, to which Adelson agreed. Adelson stated her mom instructed altering the youngsters’s faith – which was stated to have been necessary to Markel – and even bribe him with up to a million {dollars}, “$330,000 each … my mom, my dad and Charlie.” 

In August 2016, attorneys for Wendi Adelson (pictured) and several other members of the family stated in a assertion that hypothesis that they had a function in Dan’s demise is “categorically false.”
(YouTube/Democracy Lives in Miami )

After Markel’s demise, Wendi Adelson stayed in Tallahassee “for a few days” earlier than transferring away from the realm, telling the prosecutor she didn’t really feel protected. She later went on to change her youngsters’s final names from Markel to Adelson, and alter one of their son’s center names, regardless of its symbolism and significance to the Markel household. 

Prosecutors pressed her throughout her testimony about feedback she allegedly made throughout her interview with police simply hours after Markel’s demise.

“One of the things you said was that your family very much disliked him and that you thought it was possible that someone had done this on your behalf,” Cappleman contended to Adelson.

Adelson responded: “I did say I thought someone might have done this o my behalf, yes.”

She additionally famous: “I think I speculated about lots of things during the six hours I spent with law enforcement without an attorney present.”

“Did your brother ever mention hiring a hitman to kill your ex-husband?” Cappleman requested earlier within the examination.

Luis Rivera (left) and Sigfredo Garcia.
(Federal Bureau of Prisons/Broward County Sheriff’s Office )

Adelson responded that he “never mentioned hiring a hitman.”

“He told one off-color joke where he said, he had bought me a TV when I got divorced and said it was a present and made a very bad joke, in bad taste, that it was cheaper than hiring a hitman,” Adelson stated. 

Asked whether or not Charlie made the joke as soon as or a number of instances, Wendi Adelson stated her brother “has a tendency to repeat himself, so everything he says he says multiple times.”

She stated he had made the joke “definitely twice at least.” 

Wendi stated she had solely met Magbanau a handful of instances. Magbanau had allegedly additionally labored for the Adelsons’ dental follow for a brief time. 

Dan Markel (proper) is the topic of a new Wondery podcast titled “Over My Dead Body.”
(Wondery)

Asked if she was “involved in the plot to kill your husband,” Adelson responded: “Absolutely not.”

“Did you have knowledge of the plot to kill your husband?”

“No,” she stated. 

Speaking to Fox News Digital on Sunday, Lauro stated “one of the first things” Wendi Adelson mentioned throughout her interview with police was the joke her brother had made. He stated that additional reveals that any argument that Wendi may have been “somehow part of a murder-for-hire plot is absolutely ludicrous.”

Charlie Adelson, age 45, was arrested in April 2022 after he was indicted by a grand jury. 

Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell stated in a assertion on the time that investigators have been in a position to enhance the standard of a secretly recorded assembly between Charlie Adelson and Magbanau, who was arrested solely months later. 

It was the primary time Charlie might be heard discussing the alleged plot.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

His attorneys didn’t reply to a number of requests in search of remark.

Speaking to Fox News Digital about Markel, Cappleman stated she was not conscious of any proof to point out Markel was involved about his security prior to his demise.

She stated Markel’s household was “utterly tormented by the whole situation.”

Markel’s father didn’t reply to Fox News Digital’s request in search of an interview.