Case Info
Courthouse: Leon County, Tallahassee Florida.
Charges:
1st Degree Murder – Guilty
Conspiracy to commit 1st degree murder – Guilty
Solicitation to commit 1st degree murder – Guilty
Verdict Rendered: 4 September 2025
Judge: Stephen Everett
Prosecutor: ADA Sarah Kathryn Dugan, ADA Georgia Cappleman
Defence Attorneys: Jackie Fulford, Josh Zelman
Before we can dive into the case, we have to remember what both sides were theorising in their opening statements.
The prosecution presented their theory of the case through Sarah Dugan theorising that Donna was part of a conspiracy to hire a hitman to kill Dan Markel which occurred on 18th July 2018 where he was shot dead in broad daylight. She theorised two hit men from the gym followed him he frequented at and the neighbour saw a Pruis speed off and all paths from the investigators led to Donna Adelson.
This was to show that the killing had taken place and who had executed the killing.
She theorised that Donna was heavily involved in Dan Markel’s and her daughter Wendi Adelson’s divorce and the relocation of the kids to live closer to the Adelsons, often proposing Wendi to offer Dan bribes so that it would make this request easier but the judge had denied this request with prejudice meaning it can no longer be raised.
Sarah theorised that Donna was not happy with this and would do anything to have Wendi move closer to her and the kids.
This was to provide context why Donna would be motivated to consider carrying out a killing.
The state moved on to theorise that Charlie and Donna would speak regularly and Donna would air grievances about Dan calling him a crazy person, this was the same pattern with Wendi as the state highlighted earlier. Georgia also highlighted that Dan began filing custody violations and continually filed this up to the point of his death.
The state theorised that Wendi had disclosed that Charlie had made a joke that it would be a cheaper to hiring a hit man than buying a new TV and this TV became Donna’s alibi as she had setup a TV repair appointment on the day of the murder.
This was done to present the co conspirators that were heavily involved in the commission of the hit men and their actions.
The state theorised that the co-conspirators Katherine Magbanua and Charlie Adelson and the killers Sigfredo Garcia had not spoken for two years and were speaking in code and analogies when the Bump had begun where Donna and Charlie were being surveilled by law enforcement.
They also theorised that the Adelson’s had a lot of money at their disposal and Donna was leaving to Vietnam after her son Charlie Adelson was convicted in connection to the killing of Dan Markel and was arrested at Miami airport before she could board the flight. They also theorised that she was bribing people to give false testimony in this case.
This was to present that there was a guilty conscience by the parties involved and why they would take steps to hide their tracks.
The defence through former judge Jackie Fulford had theorised that the state has tried to show the jury what others has done in this case but are not going to show what Donna did. She theorised that Dan was an accomplished law professor that was killed by two men.
This was to remove to remove all culpability from Donna and focus on the people the people that had carried out the killing
The defence theorised that Dan did not want the divorce and already agreed to a 50/50 custody with Wendi and Donna was just a normal person. She went on to theorise that the state can prove that Charlie had commissioned the hit men to kill Dan but with Donna, its only a theory and there is no evidence no matter how the state had propped her up in the media.
This was done to humanise Donna and an effort to counter the narrative that just because she was domineering in her kids life, it was only actions of a concerned mother and not someone that would go out of her way to commit murder.
Of course, none of the opening statements are evidence and only serves as providing a guide to understanding the evidence presented at trial!
Presentation of evidence!
The case started off on Day 1 with key testimonies from Craig Isom, the detective who conducted the relevant interviews on the day of Dan Markel’s death, communications between Wendi and Donna where during the divorce which the detective characterised as contentious due to Wendi attempting to relocate the kids from Tallahassee to South Florida, closer to the Adelson’s residence. Craig Isom went into more details on the divorce files showing that Dan was seeking to restrict access to the kids and did not want Donna to have unsupervised contact with the kids.
This was to deliver on that promise in the opening statements and aids with the state’s theory of the case that Donna would do anything to have the kids closer to her.
Other communications were shown of Donna calling Dan names, how he was huge f word etc and how Donna continued to push for relocation after the judge had denied the request and that there were benefits that could be received in the event of Dan’s death such as life insurance.
He gave testimony to the evidence that was collected pertaining to killers and how they had surveiled Dan from the gym to his home and the eventual shooting which was hypothesised to be at 10:51 am. Key evidence such as how the killers had rented a Pruis from 16th July and was due back on the 17th July 2014 but the company didn’t get the car back till 21st July 2024 showed mistakes by the killers as they likely were aiming to do it within the rental period.
He showed the involvement of Katherine Magbanua and how she was receiving money from the Adelson institute and was supposedly working for the company in an administrative role. This will become important later on.
On cross examination, the defence sought to remove the language of bribes from the jury’s mind by highlighting that it was not out of the realm in divorces to offer financial incentives in a divorce and he says that it wasn’t his realm. We will revisit into this when we examine the defence’s presentation of evidence.
Jackie Fulford also highlighted hat Donna was not going to benefit from the life insurance, he agreed. She also highlighted that the emails to Wendi were sent in a shared email and sometimes it would be signed sometimes by dad.
This was to present doubt and show the ambiguity as to the author of the emails and how it could not be tied to Donna. However the state caught onto this and highlighted that there were emails where it was signed by both mom and dad, signifying that this is where the ambiguity lies
We also heard from one of the hitmen, Luis Rivera who was the driver of the Prius that day. He had pleaded no contest to the 1st degree murder after turning himself in to the police in 2016 and had testified that he didn’t know the Adelson’s and only worked through Katherine Magbanua and had received a picture of Dan and his address from Katherine and says that Garcia was the one to have shot him.
He says that there were two attempts at Dan’s life but they couldn’t go through the first attempt in June 2014 as Dan was with kids and they needed to get this done on the 18th as Dan Markel was about to leave town the day after.
He said that Wendi had told Katherine this but he didn’t know Wendi.
He says that he had received 35k in 1k staples from Katherine Magbanua
This was helpful for the prosecution as it shows there was only one source that connected to the Adelson’s and that was Katherine aiding their theory about this being a murder conspiracy plot.
On cross examination, Jackie Fulford highlighted that it was Wendi that wanted him dead for the kids
This was a good point to highlight as it showed that Donna was not involved with the final commissioning of the murder. And confidently or bizarrely however you want to look at it, there was no redirect from Georgia Cappleman.
As the trial went on we heard more important testimonies in Day 2 starting with Jason Newlin who presented more communications between Donna and Wendi during the divorce after his examinations. He showed how Wendi would forward emails to Donna whenever Dan would make a filing. This shows Donna having a vested interest in the divorce and wanting Wendi to relocate the kids. She would even suggests edits to Wendi regarding her motions.
He expanded on Dan not wanting the kids to move to South Florida and complained that Wendi was using them as pawns. After the order was denied on the 21st June 2013, Donna had full knowledge of this, and had emailed Wendi to not give up.
This would seem helpful for the defence to say that she is offering moral support to Wendi as any normal mother would but remember the date, 4 days had passed and she had messaged her friend on the 24th June expressing her anger regarding the order. This aids with the theory by the state that she not only was invested but emotionally invested and expecting things to go her way.
5 months before the murder, an email from Donna to Wendi instructing her to aggrevate Dan and give him grief for all he had done and says things like, something is to be done to this ass hole. [1:15:00-1:17:50]
She gave a plan of action to Wendi saying she should make the children christians and dress them up in nazi uniforms.
Wendi Adelson took the stand and testified under transactional immunity meaning that her testimony cant be used against her however, could still be charged. She went through her history with Dan notably saying that Dan would use his religiosity to control her and only began being more kosher later in the relationship as he used to eat bacon. Based on the emails presented by Jason Newlin, we know that Dan Markel is Jewish and this testimony could suggest that when the couple started having kids, he would want to naturally raise them up in his faith and could explain why he became more religious if her testimony is to be believed. However, she is framing Dan to be controlling had imposed his beliefs on the kids.
She said that she had a nice quality of life in Tallahassee but would be better to live with her brothers in South Florida.
She also testified that she does not remember if she said that she would not have left Dan if not for her, communications were shown of this and she acquiesced to saying that she wouldn’t have done it alone without the support of Charlie and her mom.
She also gave testimony to telling Jeff Lacasse about Charlie joking about hiring a hit man but says that she never told him that Charlie went through and actually hired a hitman and never used the TV as code when discussing the murder.
She testifies that Dan had given her details of what Dan was doing that morning where he told her that he was going to the gym and gave her the times and that she spoke to Charlie about the TV whether they should get a new TV or have it repaired at around 8am.
She testified also to changing her and her children’s name after Dan had died for school and her and the children did not attend the funeral.
She also says that she had suggested to law enforcement that her parents were mad at Dan and they could have been suspects.
All of this was done to lay the groundwork to Donna’s involvement via the credibility of her daughters testimony as most of her testimony appeared to be inconsistent. Not only this, remember Wendi was mentioned to Luis Rivera by Katherine Magbanua as she wanted the kids. So her testimony about the parents being suspects becomes material as well as receiving details about Dan’s whereabouts that morning.
Now, Rob Adelson, son of Donna Adelson, an ear and throat doctor testified that the mother would sign checks and handle the payroll at the Adelson institute which lays the ground work for expanding the state’s theory further on how Donna was responsible for the checks that were paid to Katherine Magbanua as compensation for her role in the killing.
He also testified to the family dynamics of Donna and Harvey Adelson describing Donna as the dominant one in the relationship and how Charlie is laid back, eb and flow person. He also said that Charlie was dependant on Donna as she would support his business at the Adelson institute.
This presents Donna as a domineering figure if it was established enough from Wendi’s testimony where Donna had created a dating profile for Wendi and tried setting her up on dates aiding with their theory as Donna would do this to regain the control she had lost by not being able to relocate the children.
He testified to what happened when he had learnt that Dan Markel had died and said that on the Sunday afternoon 20th July 2014, that Donna had told her that someone went to the front door asking are you Dan Markel and then shot him and said she told him that’s what the investigators were telling them.
He also went on to say that Donna had told him not to speak with the FBI.
This really aids the prosecution theory of the case as it shows there was foreknowledge of the killers and what they had supposedly done, tying her to the killing. The defence did not really try to clean up these damning facts as they knew he was a very sympathetic witness.
Officer Brannon completed the day with his testimony by identifying Wendi’s car on the day of the murder around 12 noon as they had blocked off he run and said that the driver didn’t enquire or ask questions but just drove when they had discovered the blockade
Jeff Lacasse Wendi’s ex from late 2013 to July 2014 gave testimony on Day 3 saying that Wendi had hated Tallahassee and wanted to relocate contradicting Wendi’s testimony and saying that Donna was very much involved in the divorce. He gave an interesting testimony about the screen being shattered by an object when he was around the Adelsons during the period of 11th to 18th July 2014 but most interestingly of all, he testified that Wendy was not happy with the relocation being denied and says she told him only way to relocate was if something had happened to Danny. Get this, he went on to testify that Wendi had told him in confidence that Charlie had looked into hiring a hitman. He then says he knows about the joke Charlie made a couple of times about the TV and the hitman but this was no joke.
Now this testimony not only tarnished Wendi’s credibility but it also narrowed the people that could have hired the hitman to Wendi and Charlie with Charlie spear heading the charge, going a long way to proving the states theory of the case that all road leads back to Donna when compounded by testimony by Rob Adelson about how Charlie depends on Donna.
Now enter Mary Hull, who is an auditor and financial investigator for the state’s general office. She reviewed the accounts of Sigfredo Garcia, Charlie Adelson and Katherine Magbanua for the period of 2013-2017 and Katherine was receiving deposits from the Adelson institute, where Charlie and Harvey Adelson controlled and according to Rob, Donna was in charge of the finances and signing the cheques.
She highlighted that the hit men had financial troubles making them susceptible to taking this job offered to them by Katherine Magbanua if we cast our minds back to Luis Rivera’s testimony. It also showed that the Adelson’s had the means to carry out this killing aiding with their theory of the case of the Adelsons having a lot of money at their disposal.
Mary Hull highlighted the purchases made by both Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera showing the money exchange was completed. She also testified to the cheques that were made to Katherine Magbanua were from 10th August 2014 to 31st March 2016 after Donna had received the bump and Donna was the one signing the checks.
This connects Donna in huge way to the murder under the principle rule jury instruction that was given as she was continually paying the person that commissioned the crime, so in principle, it is as if Donna had paid for the crime even though payment was made by Katherine Magbanua to both Sigfredo and Luis Rivera.
She also showed Charlie and Katherine monetary exchanges during 2015 on top of the money she was receiving from the institute including money for a breast augmentation surgery but to be fair. We heard testimony from Katherine that her and Charlie were dating during this period.
I highlight this mainly because Donna’s supposed defence in this trial was that they were being extorted. But we will get back to this.
Katherine Magbanua did take the stand and testified that on Halloween, Charlie had approached her and told her that he is looking for someone that can take care of people and that Dan was a problem. She said that she never discussed murdering Dan with Wendi and only with Charlie. Fast forward to after the hit job was done, Katherine had testified that Charlie would consult although she said she wasn’t privy to what was said but was aware of communications. She also said that she was receiving a chunk of cash and would speak in codewords when speaking with Charlie regarding the payments.
For completeness, there was cross examination about her knowledge of the money exchange that I felt drew a bit of blood by highlighting her as an unreliable witness by focusing on her saying that she didn’t know Sigfredo and Luis were the ones to carry out the murders and not knowing how much she would earn by carrying out the hit. I believe this was to lay the foundation for the defence extortion theory as if this was the case, there is an incentive for Katherine to not be truthful as it would hinder her efforts to be released from prison for her testimony. However, the state anticipated this and redirected by highlighting how Donna was involved in the planning stage of the hire.
Christopher Corbitt who was the data analyst at the sheriffs office testified to all the communications extracted from Charlie, Wendi, Katherine and Donna’s devices. He showed Cell records, calls and communications regarding the first murder attempt as well as communications on the day of the murder. Both attempts involve rentals notably the June rental being a Nissan Altima resembling that of Jeff Lacasse suggesting the conspirators had planned to frame him for the killing likely a passionate kill to have Wendi to himself. But the most notable information was how Wendi was near Dan’s house and bought items from ABC fine wine two hours after the murder.
More interestingly were communications between Katherine and Charlie about spending the night at his house and Donna messaging Charlie call them at 7:12pm after receiving a call from Wendi about Charlies death and im jumping ahead a lot here as we heard this testimony on Day 8 by the last witness for the day Sarah Newhouse who was with Wendi when she made the call from 7:08-7:11pm.
According to Corbitt’s investigation, Donna had message Charlie saying “outside your house” showing she was at his residences. Charlie messages “10 minutes” at 9:19pm and was at the house around 9:40pm based on cellsite data. Corbitt approximates using the Ezri app, the cell tower data and their communications of travelling to North Miami at 11:56pm to approximate Donna was at the residence for 1 hour and 6 minutes. However no cellsite data was shown regarding Katherine Magbanua on the day of the murders, only the next day when had left around 9:44am.
An explanation for this wasn’t given during trial but I hypothesize that it could be to Katherine putting her phone on airplane. This is where I think a lot of doubt comes in with people who think Donna is not guilty and believe Katherine was not credible because there is nothing tying Katherine and Donna to this moment, and the reliance only being from her testimony that she was at the residence to receive the money which could have very well been after, because no one knows when Katherine was at Charlie’s residence.
Then we had the wiretaps that were presented by the lead investigator and FBI special agent Patrick Sanford who had wiretaps on Charlie and Katherine and a video of the bump that was performed on the 19th April 2016 at 1:47pm on Donna was made. Now I am not going to go throw all of the bump, you can watch my live catchups as we went through it in detail, but to the point, Charlie, Harvey and Katherine had learnt that it was the police that were watchning and Charlie and Katherine had been in encrypted communications on whatsapp to evade capture. Donna eventually makes the call to the blackmailer saying they should go for the reward.
The reason I highlighted that Donna had not learnt it was law enforcement on the wiretaps and only Charlie Harvey and Katherine is because Charlie had told her that she should go and pay the blackmailer on 30th April 2016 and this could be code talk but the evidence that ties Donna and aides the prosecution’s theory is where she had said the code word that has become the elephant in the room at this point. That’s right, you heard correctly, she said the TV cost 5k further aiding the prosecution case that she definitely has knowledge about the hitmen and if that wasn’t enough.
Patrick Stanford went through all the firetaps and showed how Garcia called the institute and Donna being aware but I feel the two audios you heard is enough.
He testified that they had to go and get a warrant to arrest Donna at the airport when they learnt she was travelling to Vietnam, a non extradition country on the 13th November 2023.
We learnt from Christopher Corbitt the data analyst when he was recalled that Donna had messaged Wendi that she was next now that Charlie was convicted and Donna had also made google searches for countries without extradition on the 7th November 2023, a day after Charlie’s verdict and had applied for a 90 day visa with the Vietnam officials on whatsapp.
We learnt from the defence witness Maricela Descalzo, Donna’s attorney that Donna was not fleeing the jurisdiction and that travelling to Vietnam doesn’t stop you from being extradited. Of course all her friends testified that Donna was not fleeing the country and was stressed but this was the best witness they could have presented considering that she said she had clients dealing with extradition issues, so it will be her area of expertise despite her representing Donna.Â
The thoughts of extortion defence was fully challenged by the state as they showed the handwriting note she wrote for Charlie by Donna for his trial including a google search made by Donna on the 16th October 2023, a week before Charlie’s trial searching for he difference between extortion and blackmail.
All of this was to show Donna’s attempts to cover up for the crime she participated in. Messages were shown of Donna during the trial saying truth was coming out, they were being extorted.
We also heard from jailhouse snitches, Drina Bernhardt and Patricia Byrd who both testified to being offered gifts in exchange for favourable testimony for Donna. Patricia Byrd testified to Donna telling her it wasn’t meant to go this far, all she wanted was the kids and Drina who was nicknamed sunshine by Donna had said that Donna had written a note for her telling her what to say when she gives testimony.
No matter my feelings about jail house snitches as I believe you have more luck turning water into wine than a jailhouse snitch to tell the truth. Nonetheless, their testimonies, did help cement the state’s theory that Donna was doing her best to cover her tracks indicating guilty conscience.
Based on all that has been presented, I believe that the state had met their burden of reasonable doubt and adequately shown that Donna was responsible for this hence why the jury decided the way they did. If you are wondering why I didn’t present much of the defence witnesses and talked about them, believe me, they genuinely had nothing of note to add or was there anything they did that truly moved the needle. I know there are some that will still believe Donna wasn’t culpable and I don’t blame them, it’s a controversial issue in Florida as it has a lot of dissents as many feel that punishments for it, especially the death penalty is unconstitutional due to absence of intent to kill according to the 1983 Duquesne law review, and with first degree murder you can be found guilty just for being a secondary participant as seen here in this case.
But that’s just punishments, many feel that principle rule as a whole just removes intent from the equation which I feel is what caused many to feel that because Donna had no part to play during the crime, (the primary role) she shouldn’t be held liable despite playing a secondary role.
All in all, it just highlights the many tug and pull that exist in criminal law.
Like I said in the beginning, it feels like justice is finally brought to the Markels after a decade worth of trials. Four individuals in jail after the gruesome killing of Dan Markel
