The matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family was scolded in court after she was found guilty of plotting the murder of her former son-in-law.
The jury returned a guilty verdict for Donna Adelson, 75, on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in the death of Daniel Markel – a prominent law professor who was locked in a bitter custody battle with her daughter.
Markel, a law professor at Florida State University, was gunned down in 2014. The murder case had riveted the local public’s attention for more than a decade amid sordid details of a messy divorce, tensions with wealthy in-laws and custody fights.
When the judge announced that the jury had convicted Adelson of first-degree murder, the defendant exclaimed, ‘Oh! My God’ and started shaking and crying.
The jury was then taken out of the courtroom and Florida Second Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen Everett gave Adelson a two-minute break to collect herself.
‘Mrs. Adelson, control yourself,’ he told her warning her that he would remove her from if she did not, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
‘While this was not the outcome I’m sure that you desire, there will not be any further outbursts in front of the jury.’
Following the verdict, Ruth Markel, Daniel Markel’s mother, spoke about her profound sadness and grief she felt following her son’s untimely death.
‘We have lost a treasure. My son Dan’s life was cut tragically short at 41 years old,’ she said. ‘For 11 years we have been forced to a life filled with unimaginable pain and heartbreak.’
She then said she wanted a judge to impose the maximum sentence of life in prison, which she the heartbroken mother said is the ‘justice Dan’s life fully deserved.’
Adelson was the fifth person put on trial for what prosecutors cast as a murder-for-hire plot to kill Markel. Among those already serving a life sentence for the killing is Donna Adelson´s son, Charles Adelson.
He is serving a life sentence, as is his ex-girlfriend Katherine Magbanua. Prosecutors said Magbanua served as the go-between for the two men hired to carry out the killing, Sigfredo Garcia, who was sentenced to life in prison, and Luis Rivera, who is serving a 19-year sentence after cooperating with the state.
Wendi Adelson, Markel’s ex-wife and Adelson’s daughter, has denied involvement in the killing and has not been charged.
Instead, prosecutors painted Donna as the ‘domineering’ and controlling matriarch of an affluent South Florida family with the means and motive to orchestrate the killing of the ex-son-in-law she ‘hated.’
They argued that she helped plan out the murder after he stood in the way of letting her daughter move her two young grandsons more than 370 miles from Tallahassee to South Florida to be closer to the rest of her family.
They played calls which revealed Adelson’s plans to flee to Vietnam just one week after her son, Charlie, was convicted of Markel’s murder in 2023.
In a phone call just one day after his conviction, Adelson was heard discussing ‘extradition from Vietnam’ and that they had ‘looked at all the places,’ WCTV reported.
Adelson was then arrested at Miami International Airport in 2023, just one week after her son’s conviction.
She and her husband, Harvey Adelson, were at the airport reportedly preparing to board a one-way flight to Vietnam – a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
A forensic investigator also took the stand during Adelson’s trial, describing evidence recovered from the crime scene – including Markel’s eyeglasses and cell phone – found near his vehicle in the garage.
As the specialist testified there were no signs of a struggle or burglary and the house was otherwise secured, Adelson sat in the background with her lip quivering and tears rolling down her cheeks.
Additionally, prosecutors said Adelson signed 44 checks that were given to Magbanua – the convicted conduit between Charlie and the killers.
Adelson even wrote in her daily planner the make, model and tag numbers for Markel’s vehicle, which Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman suggested was given to the hired guns to hunt down Markel.
Cappleman also claimed Adelson dropped off the money used to pay the gunmen at Charlie’s house in Fort Lauderdale on July 18, 2014 – the day Markel was killed.
‘She was paying for a murder,’ Cappleman said in her closing arguments. ‘She knew it was going to be murder; she’s the one who wanted it done.
The attorney went on to argue that all of the evidence against Adelman proved she was ‘all about psychological warfare’ and was ‘willing to do whatever it took to accomplish her non-negotiable – to get a win.’
She also noted that Adelman, as well as the other defendants in the case ‘have all attempted to point fingers at each other,’ according to the Independent.
‘Despite their efforts to insulate themselves and distance themselves from their co-conspirators, they made enough mistakes to get themselves caught and held accountable for their respective roles,’ Cappleman argued.
But Adelson’s defense attorneys said that the state didn´t have sufficient evidence to link the aging grandmother to the murder plot, instead emphasizing the roles played by others and casting suspicion on two of Adelson´s adult children.
‘She meddles in her children’s lives… gets involved in their divorce,’ attorney Jackie Fulford suggested. ‘She’s just being a parent, not a killer. She’s a meddler – not a murderer.’
‘You may be sitting in that jury room thinking, “Well Charlie did it, and it sure looks like Wendi did it,”‘ Fulford continued.
‘That doesn’t have an ounce to do with Donna Adelson doing a thing. Not a thing.’
The judge said sentencing would come ‘at a later date,’ but scheduled case management for October 14.