Investigators Allege Involvement Of His Ex-Wife’s Family In The Murder Of Dan Markel

Last week, a 34-year-old man by the name of Sigfredo Garcia was arrested and charged with the 2014 killing of law professor Dan Markel. Sources told the Tallahassee Democrat that Garcia was part of a larger murder-for-hire plot and that more arrests would be made.

We didn’t learn much more than that last week because the probable cause affidavit for Garcia’s arrest was sealed. It got unsealed this morning, when Garcia made his first appearance before Judge Jonathan Sjostrom of Leon County. Here is the investigators’ theory of the case, as reported by the Democrat:

Investigators believe the killing of Dan Markel stemmed from the “desperate desire” by his ex-wife Wendi Adelson’s family to relocate her, taking the couple’s children to South Florida.

Investigators also believe that Wendi Adelson’s brother, Charles Adelson, was “personally involved” with the girlfriend of Sigfredo Garcia around the time of the murder….

[Wendi] Adelson, who now lives in the Miami area, also was on the FSU law school faculty. She officially resigned her post in January 2015.

The two divorced in 2013 and were fighting in court over the terms of their child custody agreement for their two young sons when Markel was killed. Family court documents show Markel argued with his ex-wife, who sought to relocate to South Florida with the children.

Law enforcement authorities claim that Garcia did not work alone in carrying out the actual murder:

Garcia and a man named Luis Rivera were hired to kill Markel at his Betton Hills home on July 18, 2014, according to arrest papers for Garcia.

Rivera has been named as a co-defendent in court documents but few details about him have been provided.

Garcia and Rivera traveled from Miami July 16 to commit the killing in broad daylight then traveled back to Miami immediately after the hit, court records say.

Investigators believe that Rivera and Garcia followed Markel throughout the day he was killed as he dropped his kids off at day care and ran errands.

Chilling. Per the Democrat, investigators claim that video surveillance and cell phone tracking also support their conclusions about the whereabouts of Garcia and Rivera on the day of Markel’s murder.

Authorities also allege that one Katherine Magbanua served as a contact for Garcia before and after the killing. Magbanua is the connection between Sigfredo Garcia and Markel’s former brother-in-law, Charlie Adelson, according to the probable cause affidavit:

As for an alleged motive, the affidavit discusses Dan Markel and Wendi Adelson’s acrimonious divorce:

Note that the affidavit does not allege that Wendi Adelson had any knowledge or role in the murder of her husband. It is possible that someone close to her arranged for the hit without telling her. The affidavit alleges that “someone” was her brother — who presumably cares a great deal about his sister, understood how upset she was over the divorce litigation, and knew how badly she wanted to relocate from Tallahassee to Miami with her two sons.

That might explain a few things. First, it would explain why Wendi Adelson reacted positively after Garcia was arrested, telling the Tallahassee Democrat, “Although my children will always live with the tremendous loss of their father, my hope is that these new developments will finally bring some closure.” Second, it would explain why Adelson was interrogated for hours after Markel’s murder but never charged; she could have truthfully and convincingly told the police that although she and Markel were locked in an ugly divorce battle at the time of his death, she had no knowledge of or involvement in his murder.

At the time Dan Markel (disclosure: a friend of mine dating back to our college days) was murdered, I flagged the possibility that “[h]is killing had some connection to his acrimonious divorce and ongoing litigation with his ex-wife, Wendi Jill Adelson.” My merely raising this theory generated lots of angry reader mail, including messages from friends of Wendi Adelson who couldn’t imagine her being involved in such a deed. But if these latest allegations are true, then we were both right: Markel’s killing did have a connection to his divorce, but Wendi Adelson didn’t know about it.

In the days since Sigfredo Garcia’s arrest, we’ve received interesting tips from readers. For example:

I did not know Dan, but I live in his neighborhood and as you can imagine we have been horrified and saddened by this tragedy…. I thought I would share some insights by friends who work on the faculty at FSU.

Apparently Dan was a tenured professor in the law school and, for whatever reason, the school doesn’t award tenure to partners [e.g., spouses of professors who get hired as accommodations to professors the school is trying to lure or keep]. So [Wendi] had no path toward that goal. In addition, her specialty was human trafficking, a field the law school doesn’t value highly.

This source proceeded to raise the possibility, now the theory advanced in police allegations, that a relative or relatives of Wendi arranged for the contract killing of Dan Markel, thus ending the heart-wrenching custody battle over their two kids. That allowed her to move with their sons back to where her family lives in South Florida (which she in fact did; Wendi Adelson is back in Miami and either currently clerking or done clerking for Judge Adalberto Jordan on the Eleventh Circuit).

UPDATE (4:55 p.m.): One source of ours contacted us to object to the term “custody battle,” noting, “They split the kids more or less 50-50, joint custody, no dispute about it. The Tallahassee paper had it right — they were fighting over the terms of (or enforcement of) the settlement agreement. But it was fairly minor stuff in the scheme of things.” Another way of putting it, per this source, would be to say “there were disputes over collateral issues related to custody (e.g., Skyping [with the kids], Wendi’s mom [allegedly saying negative things to the kids about Dan]), or just issues related to the kids (not really custody per se).”

Here’s another reader tip, for folks not familiar with Florida geography:

On the Markel murder for hire, one of the more interesting things to note is the geography of the suspect in relation to the crime and in relation to the ex-wife and her family.

The suspect was a long-time resident of Broward County. The ex-wife’s [family members] are also long-time residents of Broward County. Since the murder, the ex-wife has also moved to Broward County. Broward County is 6.5 hours away from Tallahassee.

How does a Broward County hit man find his way to Tallahassee? It isn’t very hard to connect the dots.

And that is what investigators claim to have done. Specifically, they allege that Katherine Magbanua — mother of Sigfredo Garcia’s two children, but now “involved in a personal relationship” with Charles Adelson — served as the conduit.

But again, remember that these are merely allegations. As one mutual friend I shared with Dan Markel recently commented to me, Dan — an expert in criminal law with a deep commitment to due process — would have been the first to remind everyone about the presumption of innocence.

We will continue to cover this important story. Please email us or text us (646-820-8477) with any information you might be willing and able to share. Thank you.

UPDATE (4:55 p.m.): The public release of the affidavit took some in city government and the Tallahassee Police Department by surprise. See this new piece from the Tallahassee Democrat, Unsealed Markel documents cause confusion at City Hall.

Earlier: More Details About The Arrest In The Killing Of Dan Markel
Man Charged In Connection With The Killing Of Dan Markel
Professor Dan Markel: Some Personal Recollections
A Prominent Law Professor Is Shot At Home And Killed

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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 [email protected].