Original subtitles

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

[dynamic music]

PAT SAJAK: We now meet Donna Adelson

from Coral Springs, Florida.

- You remember what this is?

This is when Donna was on Wheel of Fortune.

- Wheel of Fortune. Oh, sure.

- I remember seeing it when it first happened.

SAJAK: About you, Donna, let's go.

- Well, I'm a domestic coordinator.

- A domestic coordinator.

- A domestic coordinator. - Coordinator.

- It's a housewife. MICHAEL: That's what it is.

- She organizes her family.

- I think she really means domestic controller.

- [laughs]

SAJAK: Donna. - F.

SAJAK: Yes. - Mischief-maker.

SAJAK: Yeah, that's it, Donna.

- Mischief-maker. - Mischief-maker.

[dramatic music]

- How ironic.

[dark music]

PAT: It was a bitter divorce.

And her family were very wealthy people

out of South Florida.

MYA: They hated Danny.

♪ ♪

PAT: There were so many players in this investigation.

Sigfredo and Luis Rivera did the hit.

But they had no reason in the world to kill Dan Markel.

TARA: Katie and Sigfredo, they had broken up.

CRAIG: She then had a relationship

with Charlie Adelson.

- Charlie would do anything that his mother

asked him to do.

REPORTER: Were you involved in a plot

to kill your brother-in-law?

♪ ♪

- It is rare that you see this level of scumbaggery.

ROB: She called me and said, you know, I just want

to let you know, if the police come around,

don't talk to them.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

PAT: It's about a year and a half now,

you know, coming up on two years,

since the murder of Dan Markel.

We know that it was Sigfredo and Luis Rivera

in the green Prius that came up here and did

the hit on Professor Markel.

And there's a connection between the hit men

through Katie Magbanua to Charlie Adelson,

who had a romantic relationship with her.

We had to find more evidence to prove how the conspiracy

actually worked.

Was Charlie doing it on his own?

Or did Donna have Charlie doing her bidding?

She's the type of person who's been in control

of everything her whole life.

♪ ♪

- I do remember about the time when Wendi met Dan.

Gene and I were at the wedding.

["Hava Nagila"]

Wendi and Dan seemed like a very happy couple.

They seemed very much in love.

They were all smiles. People were dancing.

♪ ♪

- Wendi was glowing, very happy.

Harvey and Donna were very proud.

- Then you had several rabbis

that were invited to the wedding.

- That said blessings during the ceremony.

It was a happy time.

♪ ♪

[dark music]

ORLY: I think the wedding experience was

the kind of early seeds of some friction

between Dan and Wendi's family.

♪ ♪

- You see, Dan came from a very religious family.

He was quite-- he was an Orthodox Jew.

And people told us that he requested kosher food.

And Donna promised him that there would be kosher food.

And I can remember the first thing that was visible when you

walked into the room was a big bowl of shrimp,

which is not kosher.

The rabbis had to leave after the ceremony.

They would not stay to eat.

- It was embarrassing for Danny, his rabbi

that meant so much to him couldn't eat at their wedding.

GENE: I suppose what Donna was trying to do was to point out

to Dan and his family that things were going to be

done her way, not their way.

- Donna ruled and controlled everything.

♪ ♪

- I don't know that he understood it to be

a first red flag, but it made sense to me that Donna was

an out-of-the-ordinary person.

♪ ♪

- My name is Jason Newlin.

I'm the chief investigator for the state attorney's office

in Tallahassee, Florida.

We knew very early on

that there was a contentious divorce.

That was public.

A lot of the people we interviewed told us,

you know, look at them, look at the family.

But how did we go from a contentious divorce

to a murder?

CAROLYN: One time, Dan had the children.

And one of the sons said to him,

Grandma says you're stupid.

Grandma says she hates you.

She says you're trying to take her sunshines away from her.

She's influencing the kids to look

at Dan in a negative light.

So he brings this to the courts and says,

Donna needs to be supervised

when she's around our children.

So this document is known as the grandma motion.

JASON: Donna's world was crumbling as she knew it.

The kids were going to be in Tallahassee forever.

Now she's the subject of a motion hearing.

CAROLYN: Donna was angry, feeling like she was losing

this war that she was in.

I think she had pure hatred for Dan after that.

♪ ♪

JASON: The relationship between she and Charlie

is something I don't know that I'll ever understand.

But the two of them, in my opinion,

came up with the idea of,

we've got to get rid of this guy.

- The minute Donna thought that she would have to have

somebody supervise her, I think that that

was probably the final nail in the coffin for Dan Markel.

♪ ♪

PAT: We're building a great case against the hit men,

but we're not gaining any evidence on the Adelson family.

So what do we do?

- Luis Rivera is already in custody

in the federal detention center.

He was arrested shortly after the murder

on unrelated charges.

He's not going anywhere.

The other one's Garcia.

He's out. He's not in custody yet.

PAT: We were concerned if we arrested Sigfredo,

the Adelson family would start fleeing

before, you know, we were able to get warrants on them.

And to us, the risk of Sigfredo still free

didn't outweigh the need to continue the investigation

at this exact moment.

So my theory is, it went all the way back to Donna Adelson.

And I want to test that theory.

How can we do this? How?

PAT: We decide we had to do something crazy.

This is it. We get one shot.

[dark music]

SHERRIE: During the wiretap,

Charlie spoke to his mom, Donna, often.

- The hope was to capture them communicating about the murder,

having some kind of conversation

about their involvement.

PAT: But they're not talking about

the murder of Dan Markel,

especially almost two years later.

♪ ♪

So I came up with an idea of what law enforcement calls

tickling the wire, an idea to make them start

talking about the homicide.

♪ ♪

JASON: Luis Rivera was doing a 12-year stint

in federal prison for trafficking guns.

PAT: We thought he was paid to do this homicide

by the Adelson family.

So it would be believable that Luis wants

more money to keep this quiet.

So the idea was, we send a undercover officer

pretending to be a gang member associated with Luis Rivera,

have him bump into Donna and deliver a single message.

CRAIG: I found an article.

It basically had a nice picture of Dan Markel.

We printed that out.

PAT: At the bottom of it, I just had the undercover write,

"Call me, $5,000, call me,"

and had his phone number on there.

If she had nothing to do with it, then she would say,

I don't know what they're talking about.

Maybe I should call the police.

But if she did, she's going to call Charlie right away.

That will start a chain of phone calls

where the coconspirators reveal their involvement.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- There was ground surveillance and aerial surveillance.

JASON: And the undercover agent,

he had body camera and audio recording.

♪ ♪

PAT: She didn't even bother to look

at the paper he's given her.

She shoves it in, acts like nothing's going on,

and walks across the street.

OFFICER: Westbound on the sidewalk.

PAT: She goes, picks up the kids,

walks them right back across to the condominium.

We're monitoring the phones.

[phone line trilling]

First phone call she makes is to who?

Charlie Adelson, her son.

[phone line trills]

[tense music]

- She says it involves her and Charlie.

A note was given to her saying Dan Markel was killed.

You need to call me, $5,000.

And she says it involves the two of us.

That right there was a confession to me.

JASON: We knew we were on the right track,

but the burden of proof at a trial

is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

So it still wasn't enough.

[pigeons cooing]

PAT: The next day, Charlie comes down

to meet Donna in person.

They end up walking out the back of the condo,

walking down the sidewalk, along the water.

Myself and another agent dressed down,

looking like tourists or whatever,

tried to get close to them, but we couldn't really

get very close.

They go back in the building,

and then Charlie leaves, gets on the phone immediately,

calls Katherine Magbanua.

[phone line trills]

PAT: They walked into a restaurant called Dolce Vita.

I had one person go in first.

And the other person got ready, went in,

and sat at a different table, a different angle,

and tried to record him from two different angles.

I was pretty excited, actually.

I thought we might have the case made.

If those recordings could be made out, we have them.

[dark music]

CRAIG: When Charlie went into the restaurant,

I think I got more excited than anybody.

♪ ♪

But the first time I heard the audio captured in there...

CRAIG: Oh, it was terrible.

It was painful.

I think I still have hearing loss from that.

[dishes clattering]

- It sounded like a lot of dishes bumping around.

It's a loud restaurant.

It's really hard to hear.

PAT: Distortion, other noise.

Every time the bag moves, it changes things.

Very, very, very disappointing.

We just weren't close enough.

CRAIG: But we still had some hope there would be

more that could come out.

SHERRIE: And there was still the phone number

on the document that was handed to Donna from the undercover.

[phone line trilling]

PAT: Donna must have been pretty worried

and pretty paranoid.

So she reaches out to Charlie.

PAT: Charlie won't call the number himself.

So sure enough, he then calls Katie.

- The next morning, we intercepted a call

between Katie and Sigfredo.

And they're arguing.

- It was comical at times.

Nobody wanted to make the phone call.

Nobody wanted to make that phone call.

- Which is untrue.

Nobody ever calls the undercover.

- The only one that ultimately did call the number

was Charlie Adelson.

[phone line trilling]

[dark music]

[phone line trills]

PAT: Charlie was under the impression this is all BS.

This is just the cops playing games,

trying to get us to do something.

♪ ♪

They're not going to continue talking to the undercover.

It's kind of a dead end at this point.

- So they were highly suspicious.

Charlie especially was constantly on edge.

- Charlie scheduled a meeting to go to dinner with his dad.

At this point, I already knew that our other recordings

weren't very good.

So I actually asked my undercover agents

to get close as you can

and try to record these conversations.

- You can see Charlie looking over, looks at the bag.

He was pretty paranoid.

But they're still talking.

PAT: That was kind of the end of it.

The cat's out of the bag.

Charlie began using WhatsApp,

telling people to get on WhatsApp,

which we were unable to intercept.

The investigation, unfortunately,

is kind of at a dead end.

Before we can move forward any further,

we need somebody to cooperate,

for somebody to turn around and rat him out.

It's time to go and arrest bad guys.

[dark music]

SHERRIE: So at the end of the wire,

when we realized that it's no longer

going to be fruitful for us,

conversations were had with prosecutors

to discuss where are we going to go moving forward.

PAT: My opinion was, we've just got

to start making some arrests.

So we went to the state attorney's office.

- The case was presented to us for probable cause on Sigfredo,

Katie, and Charlie.

They were heated conversations.

It was ugly for a while.

PAT: We were just told that we didn't have enough evidence.

In my opinion, we had a lot of evidence

that just, you know, could have been used

if it was used in the right way.

JASON: At the time, I was like this middleman here going,

oh, my gosh, I really think they got it.

I really think this is the right case.

And my bosses are going, you're wrong.

PAT: After about a week of very contentious discussions,

they finally came out and said, since he did the hit,

we're going to let you go arrest Sigfredo Garcia,

but we're not giving you a warrant for Katie

or anyone else.

We were extremely frustrated, but we had no choice.

♪ ♪

REPORTER: For nearly two years, the murder

of Florida State University law Professor Dan Markel

was a mystery,

all questions and no answers,

until Thursday.

The Tallahassee Police Department announced

34-year-old Sigfredo Garcia was arrested in connection

with the murder of Markel.

CAROLYN: Sigfredo Garcia, his mugshot--first of all,

a lot of the ladies like Sigfredo Garcia.

[laughs] And all of a sudden,

he gets arrested for this crime

of a law professor in Tallahassee.

Like, what was he doing--

what is it, seven hours-- seven hours away?

PAT: After Sigfredo's arrest,

we wanted to keep the details of the Adelsons

being involved a secret,

because once they realize

the cops are onto them for this murder,

who knows what can happen?

But the warrant became public.

And it explained how the Adelsons were involved.

Our worst nightmare is a media frenzy.

And that's exactly what happened.

- New revelations in the 2014 murder

of a prominent law professor.

REPORTER: Detectives now linking his murder

to his bitter divorce and custody battle

with ex-wife Wendi Adelson, her family,

and Sigfredo Garcia.

PAT: We weren't able to arrest the Adelsons.

And our case was now out there.

REPORTER 1: Court records say Charlie Adelson,

the ex-wife's brother,

was involved in a personal relationship

with a woman who's the mother of two of Garcia's children.

REPORTER 2: Wendi Adelson's mother, Donna,

was upset a divorce judge's ruling

kept the kids in Tallahassee, hundreds of miles

away from South Florida.

- Once the story came out, it didn't make any sense to me.

But at the same time, I wasn't surprised by it.

- It was pretty clear that Charlie and Donna

had to be involved in it.

- It just confirmed what we had already thought.

- We just pray that those involved have to pay the price

for what they've done.

REPORTER 2: Meanwhile, the Adelson family

pointing out they have not been charged with any crimes,

denying any connection to the murder.

REPORTER 3: Dr. Adelson, were you involved

in a plot to kill your brother-in-law, Dan Markel?

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[phone line trills]

PAT: During this time, I continued

talking to Rob Adelson.

Felt it important that I obtain Rob's cooperation.

- He began understanding more and more

that his family was involved.

Rob told me a story about his own issues with his mom

back in the day with his wife.

MICHAEL: Robert met a woman,

and they had fallen in love.

And he had told his mother that he wanted to marry her.

And Donna was not going to have any of that.

She was not Jewish and thus did not live up

to the expectations that Donna had had.

Donna found a way to break them up.

And much like she did with Wendi,

Donna was searching for a partner for Robert

and found one.

He got married.

And shortly thereafter, he realized

that this was not the person he had wanted to be with.

He wound up getting divorced and went back to his now wife

and literally begged her to take him back.

It tells you everything about Donna's need to control.

PAT: He's a good person,

and he wanted to do the right thing

and come forward and help.

♪ ♪

PAT: Myself and the whole investigative team

were pretty frustrated.

The Adelsons are still out there living their life.

And all we have is, you know, two people in custody,

Luis and Sigfredo.

We're not going to be able to find that smoking gun,

in my opinion.

Smoking guns, at this point, are going

to be people cooperating.

[phone line trilling]

- Lo and behold, a short time later,

my phone rings, and I answer it.

And it's the state attorney's office.

PAT: This is a big moment.

Somebody's going to cooperate and flip.

PAT: The next day, myself and Craig

drove down to the jail...

- You get to eat again last night?

PAT: And sat down with Luis Rivera.

CRAIG: Do you solemnly swear or affirm

that the evidence you are about to give me

is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

CRAIG: What was the circumstances

that caused you to come to Tallahassee?

CRAIG: The agreement between his attorneys

and the state attorney's office was,

he would serve only 19 years concurrently

with his federal sentence.

JASON: We're trying to corroborate Luis' story.

And he got in a car-- in a van with Pat and Craig.

And he directed them where to go

to get to the crime scene.

CRAIG: Dash 19848,

September 30, 2016,

in a transport van with Luis Rivera.

CRAIG: Stop.

CRAIG: Which house?

CRAIG: That one there?

CRAIG: Shot him twice?

CRAIG: And then got back in the car?

- And Luis Rivera was able to tell us why he was solicited

to do this and put Katherine Magbanua's

involvement in perspective.

CRAIG: He's saying Katie is the person between--

PAT: We got her.

- A new twist in the alleged murder-for-hire plot.

Police in Florida arresting a single mom,

accusing her of arranging the killing

of a prominent Florida State law professor.

REPORTER: Police say that Magbanua connected Garcia

and Luis Rivera with the family of Markel's

ex-wife Wendi Adelson.

JUNE: I remember Katie being arrested.

I was still dating Charlie at the time.

He would ask me and say, do you think

I'll get arrested or something?

Like, he was worried.

And I would say no, because I really

didn't think so at the time.

- The case, to me, against her was shaky at best.

She was very worried, very frustrated.

But she was carrying it with grace.

JUNE: Charlie was stressed all the time and depressed,

sitting in his bed, staring at the ceiling,

like, just with his eyes, like, wide open.

TARA: Katie had a big decision to make,

and Charlie Adelson knew what was coming.

REPORTER: Testimony opens in the Dan Markel murder case,

the trial coming five years after the FSU professor

was shot and killed.

- The trial of Sigfredo Garcia and Katie Magbanua,

at that point, the case was getting popular.

Welcome back to my channel, everybody.

I'm so glad that you are here.

I am glad to be here.

With YouTube, with the true crime

content creators, one by one,

people started covering this case.

- Today we are going to start with Katie Magbanua.

- And Sigfredo Garcia.

- A jury is set.

Oh, my gosh, I am so excited.

PAT: First day of trial is the culmination

of years and years of hard work and determination.

Pretty nervous, for sure, because you never know

how a jury is going to perceive the evidence.

JASON: We were really hoping for cooperation

on Katie's part because Katie is the centerpiece

of this whole thing.

Katie knows the whole story,

all the way back to Donna and Charlie.

We were willing to give her complete immunity

for her to cooperate with us.

But, you know, that was-- that was always up to Katie.

TARA: Let's ask the most important question.

Did you have anything to do with the murder of Dan Markel?

- No, ma'am.

TARA: Did you get the father of your children, Mr. Garcia,

to commit a murder on behalf of Mr. Charlie Adelson?

- No, ma'am.

- I know a lot of people just get this idea

of what they think immunity is, like, oh, my God,

why didn't she just take that at the time?

The problem was Sigfredo Garcia.

They were seeking the death penalty against him.

That was the love of her life.

How long have you known Mr. Garcia?

- A little over 15 years.

- If she only had to testify against Charlie Adelson,

it wouldn't have been a problem.

How many children do you have?

- Two.

TARA: OK, how old are they now?

- They're 12 and 7.

TARA: But she was not going to testify

against the father of her kids.

- Katie, she was not cooperating with us.

We were kind of frustrated by it.

But with Luis Rivera's testimony,

I felt fairly confident in our case.

- Let's have the jury, please.

PROSECUTOR: What was Mr. Markel doing

when you pulled up behind him?

PROSECUTOR: And what happened once you

pulled into his driveway?

PROSECUTOR: He shot Mr. Markel?

PROSECUTOR: How many times?

JASON: We're trying Katie and Sigfredo,

but I don't want to make it look like Donna and Charlie

didn't have anything to do with it

because our entire theory is they did.

PROSECUTOR: Did Katie have a role

in hiring Sigfredo Garcia?

PROSECUTOR: How do you know that?

PROSECUTOR: Who hired him?

PROSECUTOR: I'm sorry?

PROSECUTOR: Wendi's family hired him?

- That is why the publicity around it by then

had taken off.

The world is literally looking at you.

- Jesus, someone forgot to tell the Adelsons,

don't get involved in a family murder plot.

- We saw everything. We saw footage.

We saw camera work.

- Ooh, this is scumbaggery

at the highest order.

CAROLYN: Everyone's interest was always centered

around the Adelson family.

- You don't want to show your cards.

And what we did next,

it wasn't a decision that came lightly.

PROSECUTOR: All right, please introduce yourself

and spell your name.

- My name is Wendi Adelson.

W-E-N-D-I A-D-E-L-S-O-N.

PROSECUTOR: Would you describe your parents

as being overinvolved in your personal business?

[dramatic music]

- As compared to other people's parents?

PROSECUTOR: Yeah.

- I don't know.

CAROLYN: The first time Wendi took the stand, I was like,

oh, you know, seems like a nice, good-standing citizen,

pretty girl, you know, a professional.

PROSECUTOR: Did Charlie Adelson like Dan Markel?

And again, I'm referring to the time frame before his death.

- I mean, I think he was also--

he would listen to me when I would tell him

about things I was upset about at the time

with the divorce.

So whether he liked him or didn't like him,

he certainly was supportive of me.

PROSECUTOR: But he never expressed any dislike?

- No.

PROSECUTOR: Did he mention hiring a hit man

to kill your husband?

TARA: Objection, hearsay.

JUDGE: Overruled.

- No.

PROSECUTOR: Did he ever joke about he looked

into hiring a hit man but buying you a TV

as a divorce present would be cheaper?

- He did make that joke.

He tended to repeat himself.

And sometimes he would make jokes

that weren't very funny about all kinds of things.

CAROLYN: But it didn't take long

before I was, like, a little--

some of the answers she gave were just--

I was like, she's a strange one.

She's a little strange.

PROSECUTOR: Do you remember this motion

that was filed by your deceased ex-husband

involving an allegation that your mother

was disparaging him to the children?

WENDI: I am familiar with that pleading.

PROSECUTOR: And in that motion, did he seek

to restrict your mother's contact with the kids

to supervised visits only?

- I don't remember, but if you'd like to show me

the motion, I can take a look.

♪ ♪

TARA: You are testifying today

under a state subpoena, correct?

- Correct.

TARA: And that state subpoena gives you immunity

for your testimony, right?

- Yes.

TARA: Can you explain to the jury,

since you're an attorney, what immunity is?

- Immunity is freedom from prosecution.

TARA: So that means that anything you say today

can't be used against you if the state decides

to arrest you later on.

- The state isn't going to decide to arrest me.

♪ ♪

REPORTER: After nine days of witness testimony,

jurors are finally combing through evidence

and reviewing testimony to decide if Sigfredo Garcia

and Katherine Magbanua are guilty in Dan Markel's murder.

- Let's have the jury in, please.

- The jury came back and said, we have a verdict on one,

but we're still deliberating on the other.

- State of Florida versus Sigfredo Garcia.

We, the jury, find as follows, as to count one,

the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

- So eventually they go back

and they deliberate on Katie's case.

They come back saying they're deadlocked.

- The jury is unable to come to a unanimous decision

on any of the three charges?

JUROR: That's correct, Your Honor.

JUDGE: All right, so as to Ms. Magbanua,

I will declare this case mis-tried.

- Extremely frustrating, just almost crushing.

It was just kind of soul-crushing

that we had a hung jury.

TARA: In my mind, as an attorney,

I was very happy with that verdict.

The jurors, maybe they didn't think she was innocent,

but they probably were like, I'm not sure.

If I'm not sure, it's a not guilty.

I said to her, we had to start gearing up

for trial number two.

PAT: Unfortunately COVID came along after that,

put a stop to all court hearings,

all meetings, all everything.

Everything was shut down.

[dark music]

♪ ♪

CRAIG: I had done everything that I could.

You know, the joke was, Pat didn't like me retiring.

He felt like I was abandoning him.

But I told him, I said, I can't stay, you know, forever.

♪ ♪

- Charlie ended up seeing

the nanny of Wendi's ex-boyfriend.

He ended up getting the nanny pregnant.

I kind of wanted him to get arrested at that point

because I was so hurt for what he did to me.

DRINA: When I first met Kay,

it was one of my first times I went to jail.

My first time, her first time.

There's all these sayings when you go into jail,

like, you go in by yourself,

you're going to leave by yourself.

Don't make friends.

But we became friends.

She was there forever, waiting for the retrial.

And yes, she was frustrated.

But I feel like she still may have had hope.

There was, like, a toughness, almost.

Kay never said anything about her case, ever, ever.

I'm sure people tried to get it out of her, but she did not--

that was not something that she talked about.

♪ ♪

PAT: I kept coming back to the Dolce Vita recording.

I know this is a partial smoking gun in the case.

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the homicide.

And with really good headphones...

♪ ♪

Listening to it over and over,

you know, back it up a section at a time,

listen to it...

♪ ♪

PAT: I could make out some of it.

And I could tell they were talking about the murder

of Dan Markel.

So I'm scrambling, you know, for months and months

and even during the whole COVID,

sending it off to experts, trying to figure out

how to get it enhanced.

I mean, we've done everything we can think of.

There's an individual who used to work for the CIA

and is doing some real groundbreaking research,

technology on audio enhancement.

And he works diligently for months

and creates some algorithms to where he's able to isolate

Katie and Charlie's voices to a certain degree

to where we can hear it better.

- Pat sent it to me, and I was like,

ho, boy, this is it.

Ran down the hallway, was like, you've got to listen to this.

Eight years since the murder,

finally, it's time to move forward on Charlie.

PAT: When I make an arrest, that's not the end for me.

- One by one, the players in this case

are brought to justice.

PROSECUTOR: So why tell the truth now?

JASON: There was a lot of people

that watched Charlie's testimony

that were like, the guy is--he's good.

ATTORNEY: Why are you nervous?

- My whole life depends on it.

DRINA: She said she wanted to shove a shoe down

Robert's throat and kill him.

- Family, power, money, betrayal.

- This whole thing will make you go crazy.