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[00:00:00] Meghan Sacks: This podcast contains sensitive topics and discussions. Listener discretion is advised.
[00:00:10] A mother’s worst nightmare, and her grief leads to her ongoing quest for justice. This is the Ruth Markel story, part two.
[00:00:37] Last week we learned about the murder of Dan Markel. His mother, Ruth Markel joined us to tell us about Dan’s life, the crime and her experiences. Which are captured in her memoir, the Unveiling. Ruth is an incredibly strong woman, and you’ll hear that in today’s episode from how she handled the trial to the aftermath.
[00:00:57] But before we get to that, I think it’s important to give you some [00:01:00] information about Ruth’s background so that you understand how she gained this strength. Ruth’s childhood was marked by both tragedy and happiness. Ruth’s father, unfortunately, died at a young age when she was just nine years old of a sudden heart attack.
[00:01:15] Ruth Markel: My whole life is a story of tragedy and gifts, and the gift in this case was, First of all, my mother, who was a stay-at-home mother at the time, looked like Nancy Reagan and was really not yet ever involved in business, but she became very successful in a world of manufacturing in 1954. I call myself second generation women executive, which is true, and one of the things I got from my mother, which most women even today don’t even have, it wasn’t milk and cookies after school, but.
[00:01:48] It was a full discussion and an open discussion all the time about making a payroll, about dealing with the union, about getting credit
[00:01:58] Meghan Sacks: in the bank. While it was [00:02:00] uncommon in the fifties for women to obtain success in business. Ruth’s mother did just that. She became a self-made successful business woman who supported her family by manufacturing women’s clothing.
[00:02:12] Ruth basically learned from her mother. She followed her into the business field when she became an adult, and she’s done incredibly well finding success in her industry for over 40 years. Ruth is currently the president of r and m Enterprises, which is a leading management agency that specializes in training other business leaders in strategy and development.
[00:02:32] And she’s appeared on radio and television. So how did she do it?
[00:02:37] Ruth Markel: I worked in Montreal. My career started off in clinical social work. Very much should the time. This is the sixties. I was interested in psychology and so forth. But I think because of my entrepreneurial background, I shot up the ladder in Montreal and I became responsible for over 5,000 staff at one point.
[00:02:58] And then after I did that [00:03:00] for a few years, we were moving from Montreal to Toronto and I said, I need to get an M B A I did the first year at the University of Toronto in the M B A program full-time, which was also unusual cuz I had two children. So there was no women. You talking about women? No, women were in the full-time in with children.
[00:03:18] Meghan Sacks: That’s kinda a big deal if you really think about it. Her mother went into business at a time when women didn’t do this, and Ruth kind of did too. And not only that, but she’s getting her b a while she has two small children. Good for her. Yeah. And let me just tell you what I didn’t know before. Is that Ruth has actually published a number of books.
[00:03:37] This book, the Unveiling about her son’s murder is her 10th book. What has she been writing about? I’ll let her tell you. My
[00:03:45] Ruth Markel: first book supposedly was Negotiating Skills for Women because a lot of women managers and when I had a lot of responsibility and a lot of women managers and they would say, Like I was, there’s a joke in EN normally in negotiating skills [00:04:00] called the Closer, but I was really not looking at it that way.
[00:04:04] I wanted them to have the skillset set. So I started, so, so I started to think about it and I was running some workshops, and then at that time, the first one that came to me was McMillan, who was a publisher. And I said, Ruth, you have to. To write a book. And then I said, okay. So then I wrote the management game, how women should play it.
[00:04:22] Then I had, I had lifestyle management, I had the career game, and then negotiating skills and all kinds of other topics. So you
[00:04:29] Meghan Sacks: can see that Ruth is very focused on. Being a woman in business and empowering other women to do the same and kind of teaching them the skills to do so. This will become important to remember later in today’s episode.
[00:04:43] Now last episode, the police were focusing on Wendy’s boyfriend, attorney Jeff Lacoss. Jeff had an alibi, but he said there was something he wanted to tell the police, but he was afraid to talk because Jeff said that Wendy’s family hated Dan with such an intense [00:05:00] obsession. It became a hobby and suggested to the cops that they take a very hard look at Wendy’s brother Charlie Adelson.
[00:05:08] Mm-hmm. So was this a good lead or just hard feelings? I. Meanwhile, Wendy left for Miami with the boys just days after Dan’s murder moving in with her parents. About a year later in 2015, she found her own apartment in Miami Beach and found a very good job as a clerk for a federal judge. She also took a creative writing class where ironically she produced a podcast, her own podcast, her podcast.
[00:05:34] Do you remember this? No, I never heard of that. Her podcast was one in which she discussed her relationship with Dan. And at times made jokes calling him her latex husband because that’s what late ex-husband sounds like. She described the murder and other events that followed, I think it was insensitive, but she did this and she was proceeding to move on with her life.
[00:05:57] But in moving on with her life, she also caused [00:06:00] an even bigger rift with the Markel family. Let’s hear Ruth describe this growing rift and what it meant for her in the her grandsons. So we had a
[00:06:08] Ruth Markel: memorial service at the synagogue on Sunday, July 20th. At the memorial service, there were a lot of people who attended and there was, uh, places reserved for us in the front, obviously, where the mourners of the event, and, and Wendy and her family didn’t come to the front.
[00:06:27] They stayed in the back of the room and later that day it was planned that we would go over to see. Wendy and the boys now, she was in a rented home in which we had never been to because they were divorced. But we went there and, and we spent some time there. And then the next day we were planning to go back and we had to go with the police in the morning, and then we had to start to make funeral arrangements.
[00:06:55] His body wasn’t gonna be released at all because there was a [00:07:00] crime. So we knew we were. Delayed. Like we have a Jewish practice to try to get it done in at least 4 24 hours, but even 48 hours with some leniency. But this was not gonna happen because there was no way the autopsy and everything else. So we had a lot of things to do there in terms of trying to get an international body to be brought home.
[00:07:21] A Jewish burial plus a criminal case. So it was not light, but we wanted to see the children most. So we made a plan to see them on the Monday, which was the next day, and we called up Wendy to arrange for that. And she says, sorry, you can’t see them. Can’t see them. And she says they’re busy. Shelly, who’s a mother of children, says, what?
[00:07:43] What if preschoolers July hour, July 21st. What in the world could they be doing that they’re too busy? Anyway, we didn’t see them that day and we said, okay. We were like shocked. And the next day we did talk to Wendy and she [00:08:00] let the boys after a little bit put, put them on the line, but they had left, they left Tallahassee.
[00:08:05] We never saw them again in Tallahassee, and they moved to South Beach, Florida. So that was our first kind of shocking experience. And I wanted to see the children as soon as I could. And it happened to be my 70th birthday in October, which we had planned to visit with Shelly’s family and Dan’s family at Orlando, at Disney.
[00:08:28] Anyway, that didn’t happen at Disney, but Shelley’s family and me drove down to to see Wendy, and of course she brought all kinds of people with her, like to buffer. Her parents were there, she had friends and so forth. But we did have the visit. And in the first two years I was able to see the boys after the arrests.
[00:08:50] Amy Shlosberg: All right. So Ruth mentioned something at the end of that clip, Megan, she said she was able to see her grandchildren until the arrest. So I know, because I know the story a little bit, but [00:09:00] tell the listeners
[00:09:00] Meghan Sacks: who the arrest was. There was a break in the case wh when Wendy had moved, the police had not yet found a suspect.
[00:09:07] However, when going over the surveillance footage of Dan leaving the gym, guess who was following him? The Prius that neighbor had reported seeing, and this is how the police get their first big break because they were able to see that it was a very specific looking Prius. It was like a silver green, and that was not common.
[00:09:26] And so they posted some footage of the Prius and asked anyone with information to come forward. It also had a SunPass in the windshield, just so you know, which Tallahassee did not have at the time. So it had a couple unique features. And the police began combing through all the cars that fit this description, and they were successful in finding a rental company in Miami that had just rented this Silver Green Prius to two men, Luis Rivera and Sigfrido Garcia.
[00:09:55] This was a huge break, but what was the connection between these two [00:10:00] men and Dan Markel? Luis was a member of the Latin Kings and Sigfrido had a street criminal history. While Dan was an esteemed law professor and a law abiding citizen. Hmm. But cell phone records placed the pair outside of Dan Markel’s gym, and in that car traveling back to Miami right after Dan Markel was killed.
[00:10:20] All right. Yeah. The police had enough evidence to move forward with arrests at this point, even if they didn’t quite understand. What the pieces were and you know what the motive was here. You
[00:10:30] Amy Shlosberg: mentioned like how would these, you know, these men have a checkered background, Dan Markel law professor, how would they be connected?
[00:10:39] If I recall initially people suspected maybe Dan was buying drugs from these individuals or is involved in some sort of illegal
[00:10:47] Meghan Sacks: activity. I think any explanation’s kind of up in the air or up for grabs at this point because they really didn’t know. I will say this. First of all, Sigfrido Garcia was arrested in 2016.
[00:10:59] Luis Rivera [00:11:00] wasn’t arrested because he was already incarcerated in 2015 in relation to a gang related arrest. However, while they may have considered a drug connection, police figured at this point that it was probably more of a murder for higher situation since the pair did not seem to, they couldn’t find a connection.
[00:11:18] Okay. Well, it
[00:11:19] Amy Shlosberg: seems like that would be easy to substantiate, right? Do these guys, who do these guys know that are
[00:11:25] Meghan Sacks: related to Dan Markel? Who, that’s a great question. Who do they know? So they do find a woman who may hold the key to explaining this mysterious murder. Her name was Catherine, or as she’s usually referred to, Katie Mabana.
[00:11:41] The police found that Katie knew both Sigfrido Garcia and guess who? Charlie Adelson. Wendy’s older brother. But who exactly is Katie Mag Bua. She worked in the Miami Club scene and in medical offices in Miami, and it turned out that Sigfrido was the father of her [00:12:00] two children. So he’s one of the two hit men.
[00:12:03] Mm-hmm. But she also knew the Adelson family, and there was evidence that she had been receiving checks or money from the Adelson family dental practice. So the police were very interested in this. Did she work
[00:12:15] Amy Shlosberg: there? Is that why she was receiving money or is there another reason?
[00:12:18] Meghan Sacks: That’s a great question, and that’s just what the police wanted to know.
[00:12:22] So they looked into it, and it turns out that Donna Adelson was signing checks made out to Katie, but it wasn’t clear what she was doing there. She didn’t appear to be working at the Adelson Institute, but all of these deposits came after Dan’s murder and they totaled. Approximately $56,000 in one year.
[00:12:41] Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:12:42] Amy Shlosberg: So she’s on, so she must be on the books. That sounds like a sal, like a yearly salary.
[00:12:47] Meghan Sacks: It sure does. And what could Donna have been paying her for? She was the office manager, but it did not it. So they looked into it, but they couldn’t find evidence that she was an office manager, that she was actually working.
[00:12:57] Mm-hmm. She was never attending the Adelson [00:13:00] Institute while they spoke to her. What’d she say? Before they spoke to her? They got wiretaps. They were able to listen to Katie’s conversations and it turned out that, Katie and Charlie Adelson had dated from 2013 to 2015. Investigators were kind of psyched.
[00:13:15] This provided a direct line from the killers to the Adelsons. However, it wasn’t clear yet, which if any, Adelsons were involved and you know how involved they might have been. To get to the bottom of it, the police carried out a sting operation, which they called the bump in this operation. On a sunny day in April, 2016, the police had an undercover officer approach Donna Adelson on the street outside of her condo.
[00:13:42] And hand her a piece of paper. The officer posed as Luis Rivera’s brother and told Donna that he needed to ask for a little more help. Donna said she didn’t know what he was talking about, but the agent handed her a piece of paper with a news story about Dan’s murder and a phone number on it. The police wanted to [00:14:00] see would Donna call?
[00:14:00] Would she take the bait? She took the paper. Yes. So did she call? Yes, she sure did. She called and said she didn’t know this, Luis Rivera, and she couldn’t help. So the agent put a little heat on her and said that, yeah, Donna, we know Katie and we want $5,000. So what does Donna say to this? You think she’s gonna say, screw you, you know I’m not involved.
[00:14:23] No way. You know what she says, I’ll call you back. Oh. I don’t remember this part. I know that’s why I say sometimes you think you know the whole story, but there’s so much more to this one. And then Donna calls Charlie and the two begin to have a seemingly coded conversation. So I want to read you a couple of lines from this conversation to hear what you make of it.
[00:14:44] Are you ready? Let’s do it. Oh, I’m starting with Donna. So it’s Donna, Charlie, Donna, Charlie. Donna says, I got some paperwork hand delivered to me. Charlie, does it involve me or other people? Donna, probably the two of us. You probably have a general idea what I’m [00:15:00] talking about. Charlie, what did they ask for Donna?
[00:15:04] This TV was probably about five. Charlie, they asked you for $5,000. Donna a mentioned an ex-girlfriend. This is a very odd conversation if they’re not involved. Oh boy. Remember Charlie referenced this TV that he thought, mm-hmm. Instead of a hitman and the TV appointment that Wendy had. Mm-hmm. So there’s something about the TV that seems to relate to Dan sometime after this call.
[00:15:28] Charlie met Katie Mag Bua at Doce Vita Restaurant, where unbeknownst to the pair of them, their conversations were also being recorded. So here are some clips from their conversation taken from aba journal.com. How do they
[00:15:42] Amy Shlosberg: wire tap? I know if one person knows, and I know how a wiretap happens with two people that don’t even know what’s going on.
[00:15:48] Are they like bugging the
[00:15:49] Meghan Sacks: restaurant that wasn’t wire tapping for this one in the restaurant? They were. They had an agent sitting next to them recording them. Gotcha. This is what Charlie said during this conversation. It’s very [00:16:00] smart because that means my mom hasn’t told my dad anything. My mom knows that my dad is gonna flip out when he finds out, but my mom hasn’t told him anything.
[00:16:08] They didn’t mention my name, which makes me think that these people only know part of the story or think they know part of the story. He further went on to say, Yeah, you work for the office now because the checks are from there, and that’s just because you come in and work on the weekends, which I trust you’re doing because I’m never there.
[00:16:25] When I see you, you can tell me you do it and the place looks clean. So you get your checks, you clean up whatever. Oh, this
[00:16:32] Amy Shlosberg: is incriminating. I’d say this is probably probable cause for an
[00:16:36] Meghan Sacks: arrest. Yeah, so these are suspicious, but there wasn’t, it’s not concrete. And I will say the problem was that some of the passages were difficult to discern.
[00:16:44] The audio was. Nevertheless, I have to say at this point it wasn’t looking good for Katie or Charlie. It’s also, this
[00:16:50] Amy Shlosberg: is a, a conversation that’s very good for Mr.
[00:16:53] Meghan Sacks: Adelson. Absolutely. Very good for Mr. Adelson. Yeah. Harvey, Donna’s husband. In the meantime though, [00:17:00] Ruth is trying to process her own grief and what it’s like to be a victim of homicide.
[00:17:03] She’s trying to find a path forward set that. Her grief was very pronounced at the time, leading up to and on the day of Dan’s unveiling. I had never heard this term before the unveiling. I’m, oh, I know I hadn’t, and maybe most other people had, but I’m gonna let Ruth explain what this means and what it’s like to be also.
[00:17:24] Involved in the criminal justice system at this point in the Jewish
[00:17:28] Ruth Markel: tradition, after there’s a grave site funeral or burial, it can be anywhere from one month to 11 months. There’s another ceremony called an unveiling, which is the time when a tombstone is put on the grave site, but the tombstone is written in our normal way of trying to describe who this person was.
[00:17:50] We just don’t put the date of their life and so forth. So we have either just some description, it could be father, mother, son that, but we had actually a more elaborate [00:18:00] inscription. And also in this period of preparing for the service of the unveiling, there’s a fabric which covers the inscription and the fabric is only taken off.
[00:18:12] When you have this sort of final ritual called the unveiling. So Wyatt, I called it the unveiling because my deep grief. So here’s the part about the grief in the book I’m dealing with, the murder only really started at the unveiling. It was a little bit like the ceremony is to show the finality of the death, but the real deep grief started with the unveiling.
[00:18:36] Now, the second reason that I called the book the unveiling, which is even more important, and that’s really to lift the veil. To lift the fabric and show the public. What it’s like to be a victim, what it’s like to go through a murder, and, and the unveiling talks about two parts, which is what I’m really talking about [00:19:00] today.
[00:19:00] One is the homicide survivor, which we are to survive. A survivor experience from homicide is very different than normal loss, the same trauma and the not the same grief, uh, reaction because of the sudden violent death. The homicide survivor might not even cry you, like people wait for you to cry with this hysterical thing, but you might be frozen.
[00:19:28] You have different time periods when. The reality of, of this violence that you sometimes see, which is even worse. And so the homicide survivor is very different than other people who have survived a death from illness and other types of causes. Now, what is also unique about the homicide survivor and why I’m lifting the veil is the victim experience.
[00:19:54] Now the victim experience is not psychological, the victim It is. It has interactions with [00:20:00] the trauma, but it’s within the
[00:20:01] Meghan Sacks: criminal system. Now, this unveiling of Dan’s tombstone was in 2015, and it took another year, but in 2016 in investigators got a huge break. Recall that Luis Rivera was already in jail for a gang related offense.
[00:20:18] So can I guess police? Yes. Are
[00:20:20] Amy Shlosberg: people gonna start
[00:20:21] Meghan Sacks: talking to get some deals going? So that’s a good guess, Amy. The police approached him, letting him know that he could cooperate with the investigation or face the death penalty since Florida’s a death penalty state. Mm-hmm. What I find interesting here, Amy, is that just as a side note, that Dan Markel was opposed to the death penalty and had previously published extensively on this topic, regardless, guess what Luis decides?
[00:20:43] He decides that he’s going to cooperate. Mm-hmm. In October, 2016, Rivera confessed to his role in the crime and told the police everything he knew. He said that he and Sigfrido Garcia were hired to kill Dan Markel. Specifically. He was shown a picture of Markel [00:21:00] by Sigfrido. He said that Katie Banawa had someone who was hiring them to kill Dan Markel because his ex-wife wanted full custody of the kids.
[00:21:10] Mm-hmm. Luis explained the whole plan, including the car rental, how they followed Dan to drop his kids off at school, to the gym, and then to Dan’s house where Sigfrido shot Dan twice. And they got in their car and drove back to Miami after Dan was killed. Luis Garcia called Katie Mabana, and Katie and Sigfrido received a hundred thousand dollars for Dan’s murder to split between them.
[00:21:35] And once police verified this information, Katie Mag Bonoa was arrested in 2016 for the first degree murder and planning of the murder of Dan Markel. However, it wasn’t until three years later in 2019 that Sig Freo Garcia and K would go on trial for this murder. Ruth discusses here, and I think this is really important, the trial experience.[00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Ruth Markel: Unpleasant experience. First of all, you don’t know what to anticipate. The court is freezing, by the way. That’s, I dunno if all the courts are like that, but the one certainly in Tallahassee is like that. And then you know you’re going to meet and see the offenders in front of you. And of course the jury is there.
[00:22:17] The media right in front of us, the way they organized the whole court system. So it is really a very anxious as the word experience. And then I’m gonna say besides, we’re learning about the agony of waiting and uncertainty. And this is the part where I think there’s a very good expression, which in a Canadian expression, but the victim is the orphan of the criminal system.
[00:22:42] And I cannot support that description more than anything else. And I’ll explain to you why in our case, like when you’re going into the court and everything else, first of all, we had to learn. And it’s not a clear way of learning about state evidence, federal [00:23:00] evidence, and conspiracy evidence. All of this is new to us, right?
[00:23:04] Then you have to look at all of the information, which this part of it wasn’t until badly, the law enforcement from the security cameras of where everybody went tra traveling through the highways, watching them on the gym. And the cell phone towers, that part is certainly complex. But then the worst part is, which I don’t stay in for, is the trial starts with witnesses of the autopsy and the medical examiner.
[00:23:33] Now, I cannot stay in and watch me personally, any of those aspects of it, so, so the whole crime experience now I’m talking about in court experience. Is is is very, very
[00:23:47] Meghan Sacks: difficult. So I think you can imagine here that of course it’s very difficult to sit there and I wasn’t surprised to hear Ruth say that she could not sit and watch the pictures from the autopsy.
[00:23:58] I don’t know how a [00:24:00] parent is able to do that, and I don’t think a parent should ever have to do that. I also discussed with Ruth though, because this is a lot and I wanted to know. Was she prepared at all? Cuz you can’t really be prepared. But I wanted to know what victim services were like because she was saying that the victims are often the orphan of the system.
[00:24:19] So I asked her, did victim services, did they prepare you? What was your experience like? We had very
[00:24:26] Ruth Markel: good experiences with the victim. We, first of all, we started out with the Tallahassee Police Department with Sarah Laur. No, they are very good. They have specific tasks that they have to do at that time.
[00:24:39] She had to certainly get a lot of information and then explain to us some of the victim aspects of the funeral costs and so forth, or how you organized, and it was excellent. And then we had to, after the murder, we transitioned over to the state attorney’s office, and we also have. An excellent victim support person who [00:25:00] prepares us for sentencing and who prepares us for what the courtroom arrangements are gonna be.
[00:25:06] She makes an excellent arrangements for the family to have privacy. Now with Garcia, this is from the Attorney General, but they, theirs is just information. It’s not a personal contact like the others. Having said all that there. Significance is so specific, but there’s, they can’t be helpful to you in the off periods.
[00:25:31] Amy Shlosberg: Sounds like she was very well supported by Victim Services, and I wish that were the case for
[00:25:35] Meghan Sacks: all victims. I would agree with that sentiment, Amy. Meanwhile, the trial began and the state presented the case against Katie and Sigfrido who were tried together. Interesting. The state suggested that the problem originated with the Adelson family, which was a bold assertion at this trial.
[00:25:52] Katie had been in jail for three years, and I don’t know if you recall this, but she turned down a deal that would have essentially [00:26:00] freed her. It was an immunity deal and she refused it. So
[00:26:03] Amy Shlosberg: she’s claiming that she has nothing to do with anything. Absolutely
[00:26:07] Meghan Sacks: correct.
[00:26:08] Amy Shlosberg: And interesting. And what’s her co-defendant
[00:26:09] Meghan Sacks: claiming?
[00:26:10] They’re both claiming that they didn’t have anything to do with it. Okay. And then Wendy Adelson was called to the stand, which was really surprising. By who? The prosecution or the defense She was called by the prosecution. Now she was given a limited immunity deal, which means that she, she kind of had to testify, but you can’t be made to testify against yourself in case she would ever have been implicated in this crime.
[00:26:31] Mm-hmm. So what this essentially means is that all of her, none of her testimony at this trial could ever be used against her in any future proceedings. Mm-hmm. I don’t know if you agree, Megan,
[00:26:40] Amy Shlosberg: but doesn’t this also show that she’s somewhat of a suspect? The fact that they gave her a mute?
[00:26:45] Meghan Sacks: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:26:47] I don’t think the prosecution was trying to hide. They basically said the adelsons are the root of this problem. Mm-hmm. They just didn’t say which ones specifically who. Okay. Yes, you could imagine Wendy was a very reluctant witness, [00:27:00] but she had to testify and it seemed that the prosecution was focused very heavily.
[00:27:04] On Charlie Adelson. Mm-hmm. The state showed a picture of Wendy and Katie to Wendy on the beach, smiling and kind of establishing that Katie and Wendy knew each other when I think Wendy had said, I didn’t really know her that well. And then they said, isn’t this you hanging out with her on the beach? Her brother dated this person for Charlie for two years, but as Wendy said, Charlie had a lot of girlfriends.
[00:27:24] We didn’t know all them. I didn’t hang out with them Uhhuh, so he was kind of a ladies man. Wendy also testified that her family was very angry with Dan, that her mother did not like him, that her brother Charlie, joked about getting her a TV for her divorce because it was cheaper than a hitman. But asked if she thought her brother was involved in Dan’s murder.
[00:27:44] She said that she did not believe so that
[00:27:47] Amy Shlosberg: doesn’t, like if someone asked me like, do you think Megan could have killed anyone? I would say, no. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t say, I
[00:27:54] Meghan Sacks: don’t believe so. I thought this was also an interesting response. When asked if she knew who murdered [00:28:00] Dan, she said, absolutely not.
[00:28:01] Jeff Lacoss was also called to testify, and he talked about how Dan caused a lot of problems with Wendy and her family and how much the Adelsons hated Dan, Luis Rivera testified, of course, avoiding the death penalty and taking a concurrent sentence of 19 years in prison to be grouped with his other criminal case.
[00:28:20] And he relayed the details stating that he and Sigfrido were the two who killed Dan Markel, having been hired by Katie Mabana to do so. So he
[00:28:29] Amy Shlosberg: testifies obviously against Katie and her co-defendant. Did he have anything to say about the Adelsons?
[00:28:36] Meghan Sacks: Not really, but he did Indirectly. He testified that Sigfrido had paid him $5,000 and that this $5,000 was stacked and stapled in $100 bills.
[00:28:45] Why this is even relevant because an ex-girlfriend of Charlie Adelson’s testified that he had this habit of stacking and stapling his money when he would, you know, transfer large amounts because it was an odd thing. Mm-hmm. [00:29:00] Like stacked and stapled and someone said, oh, Charlie used to do that. So Interesting.
[00:29:04] You know, again, nothing concrete, but there’s something. There’s some damning here. Uh, was Charlie arrested at this point yet? Charlie was not arrested at this point. Was he called to testify at all? Charlie was not called to testify. Okay. I didn’t think he would be, but this was damning of course. But Luis had made a deal.
[00:29:20] So would Sigfrido or Katie testify as the question? Yes and no. Sigfrido did not take the stand for good reason, I think. But Katie did testifying that she had no involvement in this crime whatsoever, and the money she received from the Adelson’s. Came from her work when she worked as a bottle girl and that she did odd jobs for him, and she said she worked off the book doing things for Charlie, and it was just a favor because she was his girlfriend.
[00:29:44] When asked who was involved in the murder, Katie said that she thought Charlie was involved, but she personally did not have anything to do with it. Why? So she threw Charlie under the bus at this time. Why did she
[00:29:54] Amy Shlosberg: get anything out of that? What is her incentive to throw Charlie under the bus other than
[00:29:58] Meghan Sacks: maybe just anger [00:30:00] she’s trying to remove herself saying, Charlie might have hired these guys, but I wasn’t.
[00:30:03] I didn’t have anything to do with it. So I think that was the reason why. But what would the jury think? That’s the most important thing. Well, they found sigfrido guilty of first degree murder. Yeah. Which I don’t think was a surprise. Saw that coming. But Katie was a different story. They hung on her charges with two jurors unwilling to convict.
[00:30:21] And so it was declared a mistrial. Interesting. They’re
[00:30:24] Amy Shlosberg: gonna retry
[00:30:25] Meghan Sacks: her though, I would imagine. Oh yeah. Katie’s second trial commenced in May, 2022, but this time Katie wouldn’t be so lucky as a different jury can have a very different outcome, and that was certainly the case here. This jury found Katie guilty of first degree murder, and she was sentenced to life in prison.
[00:30:42] What? Yes. She got life in prison. It’s a first degree murder trial.
[00:30:47] Amy Shlosberg: I, maybe I misunderstood, but I thought they were saying her role was like middleman. So she got a longer
[00:30:52] Meghan Sacks: sentence than the trigger man. She’s a party to the conspiracy here, and she didn’t make a deal. She’s a party to the [00:31:00] conspiracy of first degree murder.
[00:31:01] But would this be the end of her involvement in the case? No, it would not. She’d take
[00:31:07] Amy Shlosberg: a plea to testify against.
[00:31:09] Meghan Sacks: Charlie can’t take a plea at this point. Remember, it’s not a plea because she’s already been found guilty. But between November, 2022 and February, 2023, it’s known that Katie met with prosecutors on Charlie Adelson’s case.
[00:31:22] And I’ll get to him in a minute. And she made two proffers. When I say proffer, this is a written statement provided by a criminal defendant to the prosecution, usually in exchange for some type of limited immunity against crimes. Mm-hmm. But in this case,
[00:31:36] Amy Shlosberg: she probably wants a reduction in
[00:31:38] Meghan Sacks: sentence, is that right?
[00:31:39] So yes, in this case it’s probably going to be for a sentence reduction. What she said in these proffers remains unknown though, because the judge in Charlie Adelson’s case, Ordered these statements sealed until such time where they will be introduced as evidence at trial. So that begs the question of what’s going on with Charlie Adelson [00:32:00] because I hadn’t mentioned his
[00:32:00] Amy Shlosberg: status.
[00:32:01] Yeah, I was gonna say, so there’s clearly a case against him that he’d been arrested
[00:32:05] Meghan Sacks: or they’re just That is correct. Charlie was arrested in April, 2022 after a grand jury indicted him. Meaning that a panel of Grand jurors convene. They heard the evidence presented by the prosecutor and they felt it was sufficient to go to trial.
[00:32:19] The key piece of evidence was the audio from his conversation with Katie Mag Bono at that restaurant previously unable to decipher all of those conversations. A forensic audio expert was brought in and was able to enhance the audio, allowing it to be heard by police and grand jurors more clearly.
[00:32:36] There’s also the phone call from Donna right after she was approached by that undercover officer. And then get this, there’s another audio clip of Charlie discussing this situation with his father, Harvey Adelson, after Charlie and Katie were recorded in the restaurant. I know what you’re gonna ask, so I’m just gonna tell you on this tape, it is unclear if Harvey knew about this plot to murder [00:33:00] Dan before it happened.
[00:33:01] But it does seem to imply that he found out afterwards. And what about
[00:33:06] Amy Shlosberg: Donna? She’s still, because she’s clearly it, it seems like she’s an accessory here as
[00:33:10] Meghan Sacks: well. At current time, Donna has not been charged with any crime, and I’ll explain my theory on that when we come to the end, which is approaching, I promise Charlie Adelson was denied bail and remains in solitary confinement in Leon County Jail until his trial commences.
[00:33:24] Because it’s such a high profile case that he’s a clear target, they feel. I
[00:33:28] Amy Shlosberg: don’t like, you know, a lot of times people will be in solitary confinement for their own protection, and I kind of think that’s bullshit to be quite honest, because. Uh, you’re not pro. Yes, you might be protecting him from outside forces, but you’re not protecting him from himself in solitary confinement.
[00:33:45] Very good point. If someone’s innocent until proven guilty and sitting in solitary confinement until trial, I don’t
[00:33:51] Meghan Sacks: like that. Yeah, but we don’t know if he prefers it. He was saying you don’t like it, but yeah, he may prefer it. He might be afraid. Okay. Strong point. I [00:34:00] don’t know. We can’t know that right now.
[00:34:01] Charlie Adelson’s trial was supposed to happen like right now in spring 2023, but his team was able to get it postponed till fall 2023. So his trial is now on the docket for October, 2023. All right. Put it
[00:34:16] Amy Shlosberg: on the calendar for an
[00:34:17] Meghan Sacks: update episode. Absolutely. Now with Charlie Adelson’s trial. Next, that brings us to where we are today.
[00:34:24] Now, if you remember, one of the struggles Ruth experienced after Dan’s death was not being able to visit her grandchildren. She hadn’t seen them for six years. So for Ruth Markel, her journey has included another big development and huge win. After
[00:34:40] Ruth Markel: Garcia’s trial, I. Seemed to must have been psychologically a little freed.
[00:34:47] And while in Tallahassee, I was going to a hairdresser and I met this young woman who came over to me and she says, can I give you a hug? This is like if you’re high into spirit stuff and chances in life and all these [00:35:00] things, it is one of those stories. And I said, sure. And afterwards we went for coffee and she says to me, what can I do for you?
[00:35:07] I said, she’s Danny’s age. And she knew him. She said, I say, and it just blurted out, I’m sitting for three years on it, grandparent alienation. And she says, done. Little did I know that she had all this experience in working with the Tallahassee legislature. Had a lot of contacts and she created, I am there too, but believe me, her name is Karen Halper Ciphers.
[00:35:34] She orchestrated with all of the lobbyists, with the staffers, and in the first year, now I meet her in October of 2019. In fact, it was my birthday, October 12th, 2019. January, 2020. She already had Jeff Brandeis present a bill to the Senate. We didn’t get it that year. We didn’t get it year two, but we got it year three.
[00:35:57] So 2022 just now, [00:36:00] 2022 has been a big year for us. We had the bill passed in the Senate. The bill passed in the house and Governor DeSantis signed it on the June 24th. It’s called the Markel Act informally. And it allows families who are in these terrible situations but have to have a crime in the story.
[00:36:20] So it’s any family that where there’s a deceased, the and the other spouse is charged with either civil or criminal findings where the legislation kicks in and you can go to court. And you have a hearing and the judge will favor the grandparent situation because of those criteria. They’re very specific criteria and, but they are very accessible.
[00:36:50] And subsequent to getting this act passed, I’ve had so many requests, so like people have just reached out, so that’s called the Markel Act. And [00:37:00] probably that’s been, you know, the thing that’s, that I have most meaning from. In this whole grief story.
[00:37:07] Meghan Sacks: That’s amazing. Grandparent alienation is not something we really think about, but think about how terribly heartbreaking that is.
[00:37:14] Uh, you know, losing the connection to their child. Yeah. That’s incredible
[00:37:18] Amy Shlosberg: that she was able to get that accomplished. I think so too. I’m sure she’s aware of this, but just how many other people she’s going to help in
[00:37:24] Meghan Sacks: the future is incredible. It is always some relief to see something positive come out of such a tragedy.
[00:37:30] And even more importantly, not more importantly, but also importantly, Ruth said that she was pleased to see her own two grandchildren for the first time in several years. So she describes this reunion, but something interesting. There is something else that happens along this time out of
[00:37:49] the
[00:37:49] Ruth Markel: blue and haven’t had seen the children for six years.
[00:37:53] In about February, March of 2022, get an email from Wendy that she’s making a Bar Mitzvah for her older [00:38:00] son, Benjamin, and we’re all invited, including Shelly’s family. So what happened was we said, yes, we’re delighted, but can we meet the kids for the day before, just for ice cream? So then she says, do you want, you wanna have an in-person visit?
[00:38:15] Come earlier, like in April. And we went and Phil and I went down, we took a plane, we went down, we saw the children. It was an amazing opportunity. This is April 20th and the, we get to the airport and law enforcement calls. Did you have the visit? We say yes. The next morning, 6:00 AM they actually arrested.
[00:38:35] Charlie Adelson. So it was an amazing 24 hour experience. Two major breakthroughs in the case happened at the same
[00:38:44] Meghan Sacks: minute. I thought that was so incredible, like I could not believe that happened within 24 hours. That’s unbelievable. While Ruth has finally been able to reconnect with her grandchildren and she said she’s working on their relationship, it’s coming up on 10 years since Dan was murdered, and I asked her something that [00:39:00] you have heard me ask every survivor of a horrific crime we’ve interviewed.
[00:39:03] Is there such a thing as closure and should we ever, should we even use that word? Closure’s a word in
[00:39:09] Ruth Markel: the dictionary? I’ve said that before. I call this experience a life sentence. And unless you understand that if we had a simple, maybe if we, in our case, if we had one simple arrest and one trial, I wouldn’t say there would be closure right away.
[00:39:31] But there would be more of an opportunity to. Have, let’s call it a better result in your mental health. I’m, I am a person who believes though, and the Markel Act is one of them in finding meaning, and I believe in positive post-traumatic stress. Well, I believe in post-traumatic growth, but I don’t believe in closure in the circumstances that we’re in.
[00:39:55] But that doesn’t mean that you cannot regain any of your, [00:40:00] you know, sort of composure or have a recovery plan. Or whatever, but it’s not going to be over and I don’t fool myself.
[00:40:10] Amy Shlosberg: So Megan, the, remember we talked about the idea of post-traumatic growth in previous
[00:40:14] Meghan Sacks: episodes? Yes. And I was glad to hear her discuss that and explain that and mm-hmm.
[00:40:19] I was glad to hear her say what I think. And that’s closure’s just a word in a dictionary. What does it really mean? And I, I’m just gonna be more careful not to use that myself. I also wanted to know from Ruth, after all this time and after Dan’s murder and the trials, what would justice look like for her?
[00:40:36] What would justice for Dan look like? What would it look like for his family and friends and his children?
[00:40:42] Ruth Markel: Justice would be good if all the people who have been responsible for the murder are held accountable. So holding people accountable. It’s very important. Justice would be good if we were able to reconnect the children to his other cousin.
[00:40:58] Shelly has three big [00:41:00] children. Let’s just get a connection. Let them know what they look like. It would be nice. Somebody asked me the other day, I didn’t even think yet, that it’s gonna be 10 years next year about Danny’s murder and what would I like to see? I actually would like it. Sometimes the children, now, they’re 13 and 12, have never ever seen their father’s grave.
[00:41:23] They’ve never had a chance to kind of really walk through the reality and the finality of what happened to their father. So, And so that I think would be a very important part of getting some balance. I would like the justice system to be much more sensitive to victims. Now I’m out a little bit speaking.
[00:41:48] I think that some of the professionals, some in law, some in other disciplines, can have more sensitivity to compassion. And I’m out making that pitch. Let’s call it. Of really [00:42:00] understanding the depth of what it means to be a victim and particularly a homicide survivor. And I went and I talk about it just as some grief are not usually put into the same sentence, but they are in reality.
[00:42:12] And so that’s something that I am talking more and more to parents and people.
[00:42:19] Meghan Sacks: So as you just heard, Ruth say, justice takes on many forms, right? Punishing people who are involved in Dan’s murder, but also connecting her grandchildren together and seeing the justice system be more sensitive to victims, which is something we’ve discussed.
[00:42:33] And just so you know, Amy Ruth Markel shows no signs of slowing down. She’s got a full agenda going forward. Here’s what she’s working on now.
[00:42:43] Ruth Markel: I actually spoke in December. I’m doing quite a few presentations. I’m available to any of, uh, The health organizations who might be your listeners to really be a speaker on all of this.
[00:42:55] Cause that’s really my own rehabilitation. And so that’s one way [00:43:00] of me keeping busy, finding meaning, rebounding, uh, any of those opportunities. And I feel I have what to share. I also had, I was given a lot of support. I wanna say I’m very grateful there’s been communities of different groups of people and individuals.
[00:43:16] I even talk about it in my book. I had a murder coach, so this is somebody who has families who’ve gone through this experience, and so it’s something we all can kind of. Coordinate and give to each other and contribute so that whatever lessening, I don’t think there’s a lot of sort of difficulty and, um, and trauma.
[00:43:39] We can all kind of create a, an opportunity for people to support each other and stay connected.
[00:43:45] Meghan Sacks: Well, Amy, I know that was a lot of information today, but great information to have and while theory might not be the most challenging part of today’s case, I’d like to give you just a couple of my final thoughts and opinions here.
[00:43:57] It seems that the men who carried out the murder [00:44:00] were motivated by money, and I’d say possibly because of blocked opportunities they had through their lifestyles. They were both career criminals, and so I’m not sure how much of a leap murder was for them or not, but they both did have extensive criminal histories.
[00:44:15] Katie Mag Bonoa was also motivated by money, but I think that she also wanted to please Charlie Adelson. Who will also stand trial for Dan Markel’s murder. Charlie’s not exactly difficult to explain, though difficult to comprehend. He and Hiss family clearly saw Dan as the obstacle to Wendy’s ability to be with them and their happiness, and I think this family is unique in a way that they seem to have what I would call a collective sense of entitlement.
[00:44:43] And I think I just made that up, just so you know, but I think this comprises their shared value system. So in most families, if a family member, you know, had the sense of entitlement or was going to, let’s say, commit a crime, the others might put them in check. You don’t wanna disappoint your family members.
[00:44:58] There might be some type [00:45:00] of, you can’t do this a reckoning, but in this family it seems that they would go to great lengths to protect their value system pretty much at all costs. It seems to me also, and I don’t know much about him, but I think that Wendy’s brother Rob might have gone his own own way in terms of career and geographical distance because he wanted to distance his himself from this toxic family dynamic, which is what I think they possess.
[00:45:22] Eliminating Dan makes Wendy happy. But what about the fact that they took away a devoted wonderful father to Lincoln and Benjamin? I really wonder if anyone thought about the fact that Dan was really a wonderful father, or if they just completely devalued him as a person because it didn’t fit with their needs.
[00:45:39] So what I’m saying, theoretically, I see techniques of neutralization here in that Dan was always the bad guy. It wasn’t their fault that Dan was the bad guy and they had to get rid of him. They had to do what they had to do to make Wendy happy and to protect her. So we see denial of the victim here. Do you see that as well?
[00:45:55] Yes, definitely. And just briefly a little bit about Charlie Adelson that also might [00:46:00] give him some context at a bail hearing. His lawyer argued that Charlie had never been in trouble with the law before, but that is not quite true. Charlie had been arrested but not charged with drug possession in 2016, and I’ve heard more discussion or read more reports about.
[00:46:16] His alleged drug use. Charlie was recorded also. Remember, he had wiretaps against him and he was recorded discussing activities such as illegal possession of drugs, forgery of dental records, insider trading, and lying to the police. He also had traffic incidents for which he was not punished. According to other reports, Charlie Adelson had cheated in dental school, but his family covered it up and a close family friend, just so you know, and Wendy’s godfather was the chief justice of Brower County.
[00:46:49] So the implication here was that he helped get rid of Charlie’s problems. Hmm, and one more thing. Charlie had a very weird and lengthy history, or has a lengthy [00:47:00] history of civil suits with many people, with colleagues, former tenants, former business partners. The mother of his now child. So my guess here is that Charlie just kept getting away with illegal behavior.
[00:47:11] Right. So reinforcing the idea that Charlie could do anything. Mm-hmm. Because nothing would ever be punished to me. I’m hearing differential reinforcement. Well, this
[00:47:19] Amy Shlosberg: is, I was just gonna say that’s the
[00:47:22] Meghan Sacks: textbook definition. I also do think that Charlie Adelson had wealth and power and wielded that in a feeling of being untouchable.
[00:47:30] So I see also this power. So power control, balance. He had too much power to wield. Which probably he gained from getting away with so much. This is, you know, really my speculation here. Now I’m not going to speculate as to the others because they have not been charged with crimes yet. No one else in the Adelson family has though.
[00:47:50] I will tell you, I do believe that if and when Charlie Adelson is convicted, Donna is next to be charged. Mm-hmm. I think the prosecution has [00:48:00] been slowly taking their time and building a case one by one. After each conviction. I think they go for another one. I would bet though
[00:48:07] Amy Shlosberg: we won’t see Charlie throwing Donna under the bus the way other people have been throwing each other under the bus.
[00:48:12] Meghan Sacks: Isn’t that the big question? Will anyone in the family turn on each other? I don’t think so.
[00:48:18] Amy Shlosberg: I, it doesn’t sound like they’re going to, but it’ll be interesting
[00:48:21] Meghan Sacks: to see what happens. Okay. Finally, the criminal justice system, is it working well? It’s working slowly, but I’d say it’s working. As I said, the prosecution seems to be taking down one player at a time and then using the win.
[00:48:33] To move on to the next co-conspirator. I think it’s very methodical. Ruth and her family feel like they’ve been treated well in the system, but as she says, it’s like being victimized over and over again. You also had an opinion that the punishment was not appropriate for Katie Mag Bua. It just doesn’t
[00:48:49] Amy Shlosberg: seem fair that the actual trigger man, the person who actually physically murdered Dan made a deal.
[00:48:58] So his sentence, if I recall, was [00:49:00] 19 years. So he’ll probably get out earlier than that. Yes. If he
[00:49:03] Meghan Sacks: has good behavior. You had, he wasn’t the trigger, just he wasn’t the trigger man. He was present. He wa
[00:49:08] Amy Shlosberg: okay, fine. Yes. So he was present. The trigger man got, tell me again what
[00:49:13] Meghan Sacks: his sentence was. He got life in prison.
[00:49:15] Okay. So
[00:49:15] Amy Shlosberg: he, I believe that’s the correct thing. I believe that life in prison for the man who pulled the trigger is the correct punishment. Now if you’re going to give the accomplice who was physically there, who physically was at the murder scene, He’s only going to get 19 and the person who potentially orchestrated this is going to get a life sentence.
[00:49:36] Meghan Sacks: I don’t think that’s fair. Yeah, I would disagree. I think she was arrogant. She should have taken the plea that would’ve given her no prison time. Yes. But this is the
[00:49:44] Amy Shlosberg: issue with our system is it’s based on our people willing to plea. Are they willing to game with the system? She’s, she got the trial penalty,
[00:49:52] Meghan Sacks: kind of the worst way I’ve seen.
[00:49:53] I don’t know that she got a trial penalty. I think it was the actual sentence for the crime. I think [00:50:00] if she was to be convicted, she wasn’t punished more harshly. She got what was the prescribed sentence. You’re right though I don’t think people should be coerced into plea. I just think she made a very foolish mistake here thinking that she somehow was gonna walk away from this.
[00:50:13] Yes. Because she’s clearly
[00:50:14] Amy Shlosberg: involved. So yes, that does show a, a degree of cockiness that she’s gonna be able to get somehow get off on this when she clearly had something to do with it. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think. She deserves nothing. Yeah, I just don’t know that a life sentence for her and 19 for the other guy
[00:50:30] Meghan Sacks: is fair.
[00:50:30] It’s not proportional. I don’t necessarily disagree, but the story isn’t over her for her, cuz remember if she proffers and testifies at Charlie Adelson’s trial, which she will. Which she will, yeah, we’re definitely gonna see a reduced sentence for her, so we’ll keep everyone on that. In the meantime, we’d like to thank Ruth for coming on our show.
[00:50:47] She is a very patient, a smart woman who loved her son dearly and continues to. Honor him and Trailblaze in her own way. We wish her and her family, all the justice they can possibly get from the criminal justice system and all the comfort they [00:51:00] can possibly take from that. So thank you again, Ruth. Thank you Amy for hanging with me on this special episode.
[00:51:06] And thank you to our wonderful listeners. We will see you all next time on Women in Crime. Thank you. Women in Crime is hosted by Megan Sachs and Amy Schlosberg. Our producer and editor is James Varga. Music composition is by Dessert Media. If you enjoy the show, please remember to subscribe and leave a review.
[00:51:28] You can also support the show through Patreon where you can get access to additional ad-free content, such as virtual happy hours, and an extra full length episode each month for more. Information, visit paton com slash women pride
[00:51:57] Sources for today’s episode. Include the [00:52:00] book, the Unveiling by Ruth Markel, an interview with Ruth Markel. 2020 episode over my dead body, Fox News, Florida politics wctv.com, and an article in original jurisdiction.