The long-awaited trial of Donna Adelson, the 75-year-old matriarch of a prominent South Florida family, begins Tuesday in Tallahassee — nearly a decade after the killing of her former son-in-law, Florida State University law professor Dan Markel.
Adelson faces charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation in what is being described by prosecutors as a years-long scheme to kill Markel. Charlie Adelson, her son, was convicted on the same charges and sentenced to life in prison in November 2023.
The case has gripped Florida for years, in part because of the mix of family conflict, wealth, and a custody battle that prosecutors say set the plot in motion. On the morning of July 18, 2014, Markel was gunned down in his garage after returning home from the gym. He had just dropped off his children at preschool. Shot twice at close range, he died later that evening in the hospital.
Prosecutors argue that the murder-for-hire was rooted in the Adelson family’s desire for Wendi Adelson — Markel’s ex-wife and Donna Adelson’s daughter — to relocate to Miami with the couple’s two young children. A Leon County judge had denied Wendi’s request to move, citing Markel’s objections, and prosecutors say Donna Adelson in particular grew furious at the decision.
“Email evidence indicates Wendi’s parents, especially her mother, wanted Wendi to coerce Markel into allowing the relocation,” an affidavit from 2013 stated. Donna Adelson allegedly “hated” Markel, especially after he sought to restrict her from unsupervised visits with her grandchildren.
By 2014, prosecutors say, that frustration escalated into a deadly conspiracy. Katherine Magbanua, Charlie Adelson’s then-girlfriend, acted as a middlewoman between the Adelsons and two hired hitmen: Luis Rivera, a Latin Kings leader, and Sigfredo Garcia, the father of Magbanua’s children. Rivera testified during Charlie Adelson’s trial that he and Garcia were paid $100,000 to carry out the murder, money that was later split with Magbanua.
Wendi Adelson has never been charged in connection with her ex-husband’s killing.
Donna Adelson was arrested in November 2023, just a week after her son’s conviction. Authorities apprehended her at Miami International Airport as she and her husband attempted to board a one-way flight to Vietnam, a country without an extradition treaty with the United States.
Now, with jury selection underway, her trial is expected to revisit years of evidence and testimony — from the initial custody disputes to the elaborate murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors say shattered a family and left two young children without their father.
For now, Donna Adelson waits to see whether she, like her son, is going to spend the rest of her life in prison.
