A law professor was stalked and killed by hit men. His former mother-in-law is now on trial for the 2014 contract killing

Donna Adelson, who is charged in the 2014 murder-for-hire of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, listens to potential jurors answer questions during the first day of jury selection Tuesday in Tallahassee, Florida. (Alicia Devine/Pool/Tallahassee Democrat/AP via CNN Newsource)

More than a decade after two hit men stalked and killed a law professor in Florida, the alleged mastermind of the murder-for-hire plot is now on trial – the victim’s former mother-in-law.

Donna Adelson, 75, once accustomed to a life of luxury in Miami, faces a first-degree murder charge as well as conspiracy and solicitation to commit first-degree murder for the 2014 death of Dan Markel, who was fatally shot twice in the head while in his car in his Tallahassee garage.

Markel, 41, a Harvard law grad, was a prominent Florida State University professor who shared custody of his two toddlers with his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, in an ongoing custody dispute after their messy 2013 divorce, according to court documents.

Donna Adelson’s trial comes after four other co-conspirators, including her son, were convicted in the scheme that prosecutors allege the “overbearing matriarch” put in motion.

Adelson has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her, and her attorney indicated in a recent pretrial hearing that she’ll take the stand. She faces life in prison if convicted on all counts.

The subject of a true-crime podcast and television specials, the complicated case has unfolded over the years in the form of four trials and a plea deal. Adelson’s trial is among this summer’s criminal cases of intrigue, highlighted by the Karen Read and Diddy verdicts, Bryan Kohberger’s guilty plea and the ongoing Luigi Mangione saga.

Prosecutors in Adelson’s case will seek to prove she tasked her son Charles Adelson with handling the logistics and she helped fund the plot, which cost over US$100,000. Adelson counted on Charles to solve problems, including her daughter’s ugly custody battle, prosecutors allege.

Adelson, who lived with her husband in a luxury Miami condo, had the means to fund a murder plot with their son, who worked with them at the family’s thriving dentistry practice, according to court documents.

The two hit men who carried out the killing were arrested in 2016, but it took years and an FBI undercover sting operation encircling the Adelson family before Charles Adelson was arrested in 2022.

Donna Adelson was arrested in November 2023 on a jetway at the Miami International Airport just days after her son’s conviction.

Adelson and her husband obtained rushed visas after the conviction and booked one-way tickets to Vietnam – a country without an extradition agreement with the US, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in her case.

Shortly before her arrest, she was caught on a recorded jail phone line discussing with Charles her research into countries without extradition agreements, the affidavit says.

Wendi and her father have not been charged in connection with Markel’s murder.

The son’s ex-girlfriend and the hit men

In 2013, after the divorce was finalized, Wendi Adelson, an attorney herself, hoped to relocate her sons to South Florida to be near her brother and parents. But a judge barred her from moving the kids away from Markel, who was based in Tallahassee, according to the affidavit.

Florida prosecutors say Donna Adelson was the architect of a plan to remove Markel from the equation, determined to have her daughter and grandsons near her.

In emails around the time of the divorce, Donna Adelson suggested that Wendi Adelson offer her ex-husband $1 million to let the kids relocate. Donna said she’d split the cost with Wendi and her brother Charles, who was also willing to chip in, according to records put in evidence at Charles’ trial.

Wendi testified at the trial that she never offered Markel the money, nor did her family, as far as she knew.

About four months before Markel’s death, Markel filed a motion in civil court to bar Donna Adelson from having unsupervised visits with her grandsons. Markel claimed that his former mother-in-law “disparaged” Markel to his kids, writing in the motion that the kids said, “Grandma says you’re stupid … she says you’re trying to take her sunshines away from her,” and, “Grandma says she hates you.”

Markel was murdered before the motion could be resolved, and Wendi moved with her kids to South Florida days after his death, according to court records.

Wendi told investigators during her initial interview the day Markel was shot that her parents were angry with her ex-husband, court records show. And before Markel’s death her brother Charles had joked about hiring a hit man to kill him, she confirmed on the stand during the trial.

Prosecutor Georgia Cappleman told the jury at Charles Adelson’s trial that he was “the person that Donna Adelson relied on to solve her problems, and this was a big, big problem for Donna Adelson, and she made it (Charles’) problem to solve.”

Charles Adelson had an ex-girlfriend he knew had ties to the Latin Kings gang: Katherine Magbanua, who he was dating in 2014, ultimately was convicted in 2022 for her role in facilitating the murder plot. Her children’s father, Sigfredo Garcia, was convicted of killing Markel. He had help from his longtime friend Luis Rivera, a known Latin Kings gang member, who took a plea deal in 2016 for charges tied to the murder plot and ultimately helped law enforcement tie Garcia, Magbanua and Charles Adelson to the crime, according to the probable cause affidavit.

The evidence against the matriarch

The night of the murder in July 2014, text message records show Donna Adelson had texted her son, “outside your house,” the affidavit says.

A short time later, Magbanua went to Charles Adelson’s home to pick up the money she’d split with Garcia and Rivera. Charles told Magbanua that night that his parents had just dropped off the money before she arrived, according to court records.

Magbanua testified at Charles’ trial that he told her at the time his mother had “washed” the money that was still damp and moldy as if it was physically washed.

According to financial records, Magbanua received paychecks from the Adelson’s family dentistry practice for more than a year after the murder, which were handwritten and signed by Donna Adelson.

Magbanua also testified that she never actually worked for the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics & Implant Dentistry, but consistently received those checks until April 2016, around the time the FBI conducted an undercover operation to gather evidence against the Adelson family.

The probable cause affidavit against Donna Adelson describes the FBI sting operation when an undercover agent approached her in person and followed up in a mailed letter and by phone, purporting to threaten Adelson with information about the murder-for-hire plot on behalf of Rivera, who was already in prison for another crime.

The FBI also tapped phone calls and surveilled meetings of Charles and his mother – who was extremely upset by the confrontation – as well as between Charles and Magbanua, capturing conversations between Charles and the two women in which they’d reference the situation in code and considered whether to pay the person $5,000 for his silence, according to court records.

The operation led to Magbanua’s arrest in October 2016. Charles wasn’t arrested until 2022 when investigators used new technology to clarify surveillance audio of one of his meetings with Magbanua revealing incriminating statements linking him to the murder plot, prosecutors have said.

All four convicted co-conspirators – Charles Adelson, Magbanua and the two hired hit men – are expected to testify in the prosecution’s case at Donna Adelson’s televised trial.

Wendi Adelson and her other brother are also expected to testify for the state, according to the witness list, though the judge ruled this week that Wendi won’t have to be called by her mother’s defence team to testify again in her mother’s defence.

By Lauren del Valle, Jean Casarez, CNN