The Dan Markel Case: More Evidence In Newly Released Documents
Recently released documents and recordings contain some interesting new information.
Wendi Adelson
The investigation into the 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel continues to pick up steam. With confessed hitman Luis Rivera cooperating with police and alleged facilitator Katherine Magbanua arrested and charged with murder, the chances that whoever ordered Markel’s murder will be brought to justice have dramatically increased.
New evidence continues to emerge as well. Late last week, the Sun Sentinel published an interesting article offering a survey of what we currently know. Much of the article will be familiar to those who have been following the case, but it does contain a few novel pieces of information based on recently released documents and recordings, which I will highlight briefly here.
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Remember Jeffrey Lacasse, the FSU professor and ex-boyfriend of Wendi Adelson, Dan Markel’s ex-wife, who urged the authorities to investigate the Adelson family? Here’s a comment from him that I don’t believe I’ve seen in prior coverage:
Lacasse said [Wendi’s brother] Charlie Adelson hung out with unsavory people.
“He’s a dentist and he’s very wealthy, but he kind of hangs out with people from both sides of the tracks,” he said during the interview. “You know, he goes boating in South Beach with his rich buddies and he also goes to his gym with some other kinds of characters.”
Lacasse also told investigators Wendi Adelson told him her brother had looked into hiring a hit man and was told it would cost $15,000.
“Wendi had reported to me that Charlie had considered all the options possible to take care of this problem,” he said. “She said it in a dead serious, chilling, uncomfortable way.”
When investigators asked Lacasse how he thought Adelson would have committed the murder, he said: “He’d get his buddy in the special forces to do this, or he’d get some seedy guys down in the Cuban neighborhood or something like that.”
Many observers have expressed surprise about allegations that a well-to-do dentist like Charlie Adelson would have access to the type of people who can carry out murders for hire. But these comments by Lacasse, if true, might make this possibility less surprising.
Wendi Adelson has claimed on various occasions that she was happy with many aspects of her life in Tallahassee, which she moved to after marrying Dan Markel, who got a faculty position at FSU. But this information suggests otherwise:
Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
With Markel gone, Adelson could finally leave Tallahassee and raise her sons in South Florida.
When she filed for divorce in September 2012, Adelson sought primary custody of their two sons and asked a judge to allow her and the children to move to Coral Springs to be near her family. The court denied her petition in 2013.
“That was probably the nastiest divorce I’ve ever seen,” Tamara Demko, a friend of Markel’s, told investigators. “I know she felt trapped here.”
See also these comments from Lacasse:
“She never wanted to be here ever. She came with Markel. They were supposed to be here a year and then move on,” Lacasse, Adelson’s former boyfriend, told police. “She never wanted to live here, never thought she would live here.”
Lacasse later told investigators that Wendi Adelson said she switched her phone a few days after the shooting because she thought police had bugged it.
And she was probably right about that; the authorities did conduct extensive surveillance of several members of the Adelson family, as we’ve learned.
And here’s more about the Adelsons from Tamara Demko:
Sponsored
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
Tamara Demko, Markel’s long-time friend, told investigators she drove to Adelson’s house as soon as she heard the news and felt a strange tension when she saw Adelson’s parents, whom she knew.
“There’s just things that don’t feel right to me,” she told an investigator during a recorded interview the day after Markel was shot. “[Wendi Adelson] opened the door and she looked really calm. …[Her mother] seemed appropriately upset, then her dad, who I’ve met a couple dozen times in Coral Springs and up here, he gave me this look. … It was awkward and it never had been before. That really bothered me.”
In fairness to the Adelsons, who have steadfastly maintained that they had nothing to do with Dan Markel’s murder, one could argue that we shouldn’t make too much of Demko’s comments. In terms of Wendi looking “really calm,” recall that Wendi has spoken openly about how she sometimes has “bizarre reaction[s]” to traumatic events. As for the supposed “look” that Harvey Adelson gave Demko, her remarks on this are vague and arguably speculative.
But these comments don’t exactly help the Adelsons either. All eyes on Katherine Magbanua, who will surely be able to shed light on any alleged involvement of the Adelsons — if she so chooses.
The story behind FSU professor’s slaying detailed in new evidence [Sun Sentinel]
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
