Wendi Adelson found herself at the center of one of Florida’s most closely watched trials this week, taking the stand in the case against her mother, Donna Adelson. Donna, 75, is accused of orchestrating the 2014 murder of Wendi’s ex-husband, Florida State law professor Dan Markel — a crime that has unraveled the public image of a prominent Miami family and pulled nearly every branch of it into a years-long legal saga.
On the stand Monday, Wendi spoke candidly about her volatile marriage to Markel, describing moments of deep frustration and even admitting to cruelly referring to him as an “STD” in a text message years earlier. At other points, she had called him an “emotional terrorist” and a “dark lord.” But Wendi, now 46, maintained that her bitterness never went beyond words. “I was not involved in any plot to kill Danny,” she testified.
The murder took place on July 18, 2014, outside Markel’s Tallahassee home. The Harvard-educated scholar had just dropped off his two young sons at preschool and returned from the gym when he was shot twice in the head at close range in his garage. He was rushed to the hospital and died 14 hours later. Prosecutors say the hit was motivated by a bitter custody dispute — Markel had successfully blocked Wendi from relocating their children to Miami, where her family lived and where she wanted to start fresh.
According to the state, that denial pushed Donna Adelson to take matters into her own hands. She allegedly funneled more than $100,000 through her son Charlie Adelson, a periodontist, to arrange the killing. The case has already led to a string of convictions. Charlie was found guilty last year of murder and conspiracy. His former girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, along with two hired hitmen — Latin Kings gang leader Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, the father of Magbanua’s children — are all serving lengthy prison sentences. Donna, who maintains her innocence, is now the fifth person charged.
Her arrest in November 2023 drew national attention. Authorities apprehended her at Miami International Airport as she and her husband, Harvey, were about to board a one-way flight to Vietnam, a country without an extradition treaty with the United States. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation. Her defense argues that Charlie acted independently and that prosecutors are stretching to pin the crime on her.
Wendi’s testimony underscored the deep dysfunction that marked her marriage and divorce from Markel. She admitted that she often complained about him, though she claimed she did not recall sharing the harshest insults with her mother. When pressed on whether her mother harbored anger toward Markel, she responded carefully. “Before he died?” she asked. “Yes.” And did she herself hate him? “At certain points I was very frustrated with him,” she conceded.
That frustration was no secret. In one iMessage from 2013, which prosecutors read aloud in court, she compared marrying Markel to catching a sexually transmitted disease. “One wrong mistake marrying him and this will never go away,” she wrote. On the stand, she confirmed the message but insisted it was an exaggeration born of exasperation, not evidence of malice.
The trial now turns on whether prosecutors can convince jurors that Donna was the architect of the plan to kill her son-in-law.
