A South Florida grandmother was sentenced to life in prison without parole this week for planning and participating in the murder of her ex son-in-law, Florida State University Law Professor, Daniel Markel.
State Attorney Jack Campbell said during her sentencing, “This was not a crime of passion. This was a cold, calculated killing carried out to solve a family problem. Donna Adelson was the mastermind behind it.”
Prosecutors said Adelson, at age 75, arranged the 2014 murder-for-hire plot after a heated custody battle between her daughter, Wendi Adelson, and Markel. The ex-couple had two young children. When Markel refused to follow Wendi and relocate with the children in South Florida, investigators say that Adelson resorted to deadly measures.
“She tried to take her daughter’s problem and erase it with blood,” said Campbell.
Markel was shot in the head while sitting in his car in his Tallahassee driveway. The case stayed unsolved for nearly two years, until investigators traced connections between hired hitmen and the Adelson family through phone records and wiretaps.
Adelson was arrested in November of 2023 at the Miami International Airport, allegedly trying to escape to Vietnam (a country without a U.S. extradition treaty) with a one way ticket. During her trial, prosecutors showed evidence of phone calls, suspicious financial transactions, and secretly recorded conversations implying her in the planning of the payment of the killing.
“I am an innocent woman,” Adelson said at her sentencing hearing, denying any involvement in the murder. “I did not do what they said I did.”
Her defense argued that others in the family, including convicted co-conspirators Sigfredo Garcia and Katherine Magbanua, acted independently. However, the jury was unconvinced. They conversed for less than four hours before stating her guilty of first degree murder, conspiracy of murder, and solicitation of murder.
The case has captured national attention due to its familial drama, and it may not be over, for Wendi Adelson remains under scrutiny.
