Summer Series 2024: Dan Markel Part 10

Welcome to Primetime Crime twenty twenty fourth summer series. We are going to talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to unravel the mysterious death of attorney and law professor Dan Markel, the circumstances surrounding his death, and those responsible. Let's dive right in. Welcome to the Dead podcast. I'm your host, Desy, and on this podcast I discussed all things spooky and weird, from ghosts, demons, religion, to folklore, urban legends, true crime, and all things paranormal, with some horror movie reviews sprinkled in. So join me on this spooky ride. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to go ahead and talk right now in true crime. First thing is first. On Monday, they officially desclared a mistrial in the Karen Read case. The jury came back and said that they were not able to come up with the decision even though they had gone over all the evidence back and forth, back and forth. They had to be unanimous, and they were not unanimous either for innocent or guilty. So the judge officially declared a mistrial. So what happens now, so her charges are either fully dismissed if the prosecution decides not to go ahead and try to retry her, which they already said that they were going to try to retry her. But honestly, the reason that they had to eventually declare this a mistrial is because the case isn't black and white. There is a lot of gray area on both sides, and I think they're just going to run into the same issues again unless they come up with a better game plan. But it will give the defense time to come up with a better game plan the prosecution, and we will see what ends up playing out. Next order of business is that the judge in the Lori Valo trial that is going to be taking place in Arizona has decided to allow cameras in the courtroom. This is going to be the trial that is against her for the murder of her husband, Charles Valo and the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreau, who was formerly married to Lourie Valo's niece Melanie. So it's going to get really really interesting for sure. But I'm glad that they are going to be allowing cameras in the courtroom. It just makes it that much easier to keep up with and give you guys updates, So we'll continue to update you on that as more begins to happen and we get closer and closer to trial, although it does sound like it's going to be a twenty twenty five trial, so that does give us a little bit of time to kind of prepare wrapper heads around it and get ready to hop back on the crazy train for more. Luri Valo, speaking of crazy Train, the image that just popped up on my social media has me shook to my core. Do you guys remember, if you are at og list her last year, this took over my entire podcast and my entire life when this kid from Houston named Rudy, he popped up as being found after he had been missing for so long. Like I was familiar with his story, he was found on the steps of a church, and then all of a sudden, things started blowing up on social media and it turned out that he was not really missing. The whole time. He was being kept at his mom's house and his mom was like allegedly abusing him, and she kept up the charade of him being missing for a long, long, long time, and it just became like insane social media outrage. Houston Police Department was involved, it was a whole thing. So the shock that I felt when I opened up Facebook and saw that he is missing again. Yes, just about a year ago, dealing with all of this fiasco drama of him being found, and now we're dealing with him being missing once again. So after everything went down last year with him being found, in all of the social media craziness that his mom was putting out there pretending to be all these different family members as well as like faking that your child was missing for a long time, they never brought any charges up against her, which I completely, one hundred percent disagree with. I think that is crap. But anyways, he ended up going back and living with his mom. Now I do not know the dynamics. I don't understand what all necessarily is going on. I don't think any of us will ever really know what was going on. But regardless of this, he is a grown adult and he went back to live with his mother. Okay, so things have kind of been quiet, nobody's really been talking, and honestly, when I first saw that he was missing again, I kind of thought, is this a ploy? And then I got to thinking, it is exactly, like, pretty much exactly a year to the date that this all went down last year, in twenty twenty three, and you know the boy who cried Wolf. It happened once, it's happening again a year later. It just doesn't really sit right with me. So by the end of Wednesday night, Rudy had been found and no shock, he was found not far from his mother's house, and literally like it is the same song and dance once again with all of this. I don't know specifics for sure, but it just seems too coincidental that a year to the date of everything going gone down last year, it happened again, and kind of similar circumstances. He was missing again and then he was found shortly thereafter. It is just insane and wild that these people keep getting away with this. His mom is obviously mentally ill orchestrating all sorts of crazy shenanigans, and she never gets in trouble for it. She's just given a slap on the wrist, and then it happens again and again and again and again. Because I think allegedly that she is mentally ill and there's something wrong with her It is wild as can be that this all happened again, and it's kind of played out in a similar way as last time, except this time we were all the wiser to it because of everything that happened last time. So that is the craziest update I think I've ever done on this podcast. I actually went back to last year and listened. I did like a whole twenty minute segment during one of my summer series episodes where I kind of recapped everything that was going on, and the date of that episode was July second, So we are right on track, just about a year to the date of all of this stuff going on, and here we are going through it all over again. Such a wild time, such a wild ride. I'm glad that this didn't play out the way that it played out last time because Rudy was missing for I think thirteen years allegedly when he was not missing, and he was at home the entire time. It's all really really bizarre. But anyways, that is a little right now in True Crime Local update for you guys, and we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. All right, guys, we have officially made it to what I think is the end of Summer series twenty twenty four about the murder for hire of Dan Marquel. We have reached the verdict in the Charlie Adelson trial. Finally we are going to talk about that, and then we're going to talk about what has gone on since Charlie was found guilty spoiler alert and sentenced and what's going on with the Adelson's today. That's what we're going to talk about in this episode. So it ended up taking the jury less than four hours of deliberation to come up with the guilty verdict. I am going to play them announcing the guilty verdict, and then we're going to talk about the actual reaction of Charlie, what happened, and kind of unpack that a little bit. So I'm going to start playing audio in three two one unbe seated as the jury reached a unanimous verdict. Yes, er, if you please could hand the verdict form to the bailiff. The verdict form is in its proper order, Madame Clerk, please publish the verdict in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit and in form Land County, Florida, the State of Florida versus Charles Amston case Number twenty sixteen. The three zero three space be verdict. Count one we the jury by the aspalas as to count one of the indictment, first degree murder, the defendant is guilty of first agree murder. Count two we the jury fine as false as to count two of the indictment, conspiracy to commit first agree murder, the defendant is guilty of conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Count three be the jury fine as follows is to count three of the indictment solicitation to commit first agree murder, The defendant is guilty of solicitation to commit first degree murder. So they say, we all have this sixth day of No. Number twenty twenty three. Does the defense wish for the court to pull the jurors. Yes, you're right, Jure More was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole, just announced. Yes, Jeri Brass was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announ Jr. Gardner was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Juror Strong was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just anounced your Craft was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Juror Melm was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Jr. Holly was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Jure Thorn was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Jurr Brim was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Juror Williams was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Juror Douglas was your verdict and the verdict of the jury as a whole. Just announced. Juror Platt was your ict and the verdict of the jury as the whole. Just announced. Yes, Ja, members of the jury. I'm wanting to give you one last brief instruction and from here you will be discharged from your service. Okay, so we have to talk about Charlie's reaction now. I watch the video on lawng Crime YouTube. If you haven't seen the video, you really need to go watch it. I never have watched the video before until I was doing research for this whole summer series in this case, and when I tell you that, the the way that Charlie was acting prior to the reading of it, you could tell he was shitting his pants, like he knew his time was up. This could be it. He's either going to prison or he's going home, one way or the other. There's no in between. He is aggressively blinking, and like, I feel like, when you're nervous, you're obviously gonna either not blink or you're gonna blink a lot more than normal. And he is blinking in such an aggressive manner. He is white as a ghost like his you can definitely tell he is feeling some type of way. And the literal second that they read the first charge and guilty, he is obviously shocked because he thinks he's getting away with everything. He puts his head in his hands and he just like completely like melts, and then he eventually he holds his head in his hands for the next one, and then he eventually like looks back up, but he just looks like he has literally seen a ghost. And it really makes you wonder what is going through his head, because in his mind and in his soul, he has to know that he did this. He can deny it all he wants, but he has to know deep down inside that this is what he planned, what they wanted to happen. But they thought that they were going to get away with it. So is it shock and dismay that you didn't get away with it? Or is it shock in dismay that you actually like carried through a plan to murder someone and take somebody's life. I just don't know. It is so wild to really think about it, like that was his brother in law, the father of his nephews, his sister's husband. It is so crazy that this whole thing kind of played out in the way it did, and that they really easily could have gotten away with this, And that is really scary that that was something that potentially possibly could have happened. So, as you heard in that audio clip, Charlie was found guilty on all three counts. The first count was for first degree murder, the second count was for conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and the third count was solicitation to commit first degree murder. The judge then went on to sentence Charlie Adelson to life in prison following his conviction and the sentences are as follows, with the count so count one life in prison without the possibility of release or parole for first degree murder, count two thirty years consecutive for conspiracy to commit murder, and count three thirty years consecutive for first degree murder. So, of course, at this point in time, when Charlie is sentenced, he has already served five hundred and ninety seven days and that will be applied. However, Charlie Adelson is living in prison for the rest of his years and the rest of his days, and that is honestly the best place for him, because he is a dangerous, dangerous human. Dan Markel's dad did give a victim impact statement during the sentencing phase, and he said that he wakes up many nights thinking about his son's murder and how horrible and traumatized it was. He says that he misses In with all of his heart and that they all continue to pray for justice. So, Charlie was in prison in Florida and for one reason or another, I don't really know the exact reason, but in February they moved him to South Dakota. I don't know why. Maybe it was a big like fu, because the whole premise for the murder allegedly was because Dan Markel wanted to live in one spot in Florida and Charlie Adelson wanted his nephews and his sister to live in another part of Florida. So maybe it was just a big fu by the state of Florida to move Charlie to South Dakota. I don't really know the reason, but Charlie is definitely living his not so best prison life in South Dakota from here on out, and we love that for him. Of course. In January of this year, Charlie Adelson filed for an appeal, and that is a whole dang process. It's normal when you are found guilty, even though you're obviously guilty, it's normal to file an appeal, So that will be a definite process. He does maintain his innocence. He says he had nothing to do with this and it was all one giant misunderstanding and he was obviously set up. So obviously we'll keep you guys updated on that as more happens to come out with that. But now we are closing the chapter on Charlie. We're done with him for now. We are going to move on to another member of the Adelson family, and that is none other than the Donna Adelson. Now, I did find this really interesting little fun fact about miss Donna is that she actually went to the same high school as Harvey Weinstein. So I don't know what is in the water where they grew up and went to school, but something is off in their high school allegedly. In my opinion, I thought that that was a pretty interesting little tidbit of information, so I just wanted to share fun fact. So I am going to go back to Charlie for a hot minute, because, like I said, with the Adolsons, they never stop talking. They're always talking back and forth, jailhouse calls, back and forth. Jailhouse calls are recorded. If you ever go to prison and you are talking to someone, you are being recorded. I don't think the Adelsons have realized this at this point in time. But after Charlie was sentenced, Tim and Donna had a phone call. And this happened one week before Donna decided that she was going to make a break for it, and they sat in this phone call. They were talking a lot about Vietnam, and Donna was talking about if there's extradition from Vietnam, because we've looked at all the places I could go to Korea or China because they're no extradition. So of course, you know, at this point, Charlie has just been convicted and sentenced. They're gonna listen to the calls because they want to know what Donna is going to say, because this whole time they've kind of been building this case potentially possibly against Donna as well for her involvement, because the whole thing just reeks of Donna being involved. So of course everybody was listening to these calls, and once they heard that, they knew immediately that Donna had a plan to try to leave the United States, purchased herself a one way ticket to Vietnam, and was not planning on coming back. Her and Harvey were literally jumping the shark and they were piecing out of the USA to go to Vietnam to avoid whatever charges they potentially could be could have been brought against them. Now, also keep in mind, Donna is a seventy three year old woman. Her and her husband are in Florida at the airport Miami National Airport to board a one way flight to Vietnam and the police show up there and they rest her and let me tell you, it is the best video I've ever seen in life. I'm going to play some of the audio from the body cam footage now and we are going to then chat about it to you to take back years old. You can't okay, thanks there we do. Please, you can't anything? Do you have any single value you? Yeah? Take it off the ring, take it you give it to your husband. He goes once you ride with Conny Yale and they're gonna make it when you pull that. Can I compliance Army? Where am I going? The company? Ye want? I'm sorry? Dreams? Why? So okay? So the best part about it is they literally walk up to her in Harvey and they're like right out like where there's like kind of an elevator area, and they basically say you're under arrest for the murder of Denmarkel, just to her, and immediately they try to take her phone and she like tries to keep it and the phone ends up falling on the floor, and then they take her bag off her shoulder, they hand it straight to Harvey and then they start instructing Harvey to take off all of Donna's jewelry, her neck, her earrings, her wedding ring, like all of that they give to Harvey. They tell him, you need to take it. Harvey is begging them not to do it. Donna is flipping out, saying Harvey's older, He's not going to be able to navigate, like going home by himself. It was a disaster, like kind of sad. Part of me feels bad for Harvey, but there's also that part of me that doesn't really know how much of this Harvey knew about and co signed on. They haven't brought any charges up against Harvey. They were just there to arrest Donna. So either they don't have enough evidence that Harvey was involved or knew about it, or they're still kind of gathering the evidence that they need. Donna is a dead giveaway though we knew that she was involved, and it's just been such a wild ride to kind of watch this all transpire. So I'm gonna fast forward the body cam footage a little bit, and then we're gonna watch and listen, not watch, but we're gonna listen to another part of the body cam footage after she was already in the place car. You know you know how how long we're gonna send her, how long we're going to sit here and one night that he comes back, he's going to take him. Okay, whatever information to them. I guess that's what you would missing too, and you're gonna enter that of the bot. Okay. So the next place is what the warrant? What did you say? What did you say? The next place was the was what happened is the warrant that they have from me from out of Leon County? So when did they issue with lawrance? So what happened is we have to create we have to take you so all I want you from that information to get into it. And then after I get into it, people, we can take you to to get a little b war Okay, Because I didn't know there was a warrant? How would I know that? While we wouldn't have been able to thank you and then wanted something to play? So aren't they supposed to up? Aren't they supposed to perform it? There was a want for me. I don't want to beat that. Well. I don't know that they had a want you gentlemen, that you had a black girl. Yes, but if they were, they weren't supposed to reform whatever and then because its an a wine, that's how we became a call. Yeah, okay. So in that clip, Donna is in the back of back of the cop car and they're talking about this warrant that was served to her through Leon County, and she is like, well, how am I supposed to know there was a warrant out for me? No one told me there was a warrant. Girl, you were in coughs in the back of a cop car. It's obvious there was a warrant for you. So she is a disaster at this point. She is handcuffed in the back of a cop car. They gave her like a sip of water and she's cuffed, so they have to like help her with that. I can't imagine going through my whole life not being a person that breaks the law. Like, we don't really know anything about Donna's previous history. We know that she did not have a criminal record from everything I have seen. And to be seventy three years old and decide that that is the time that you're going to act up and conspire to murder somebody and think you're gonna get away with it, that is the part that just so bothers me, And even during her first coord appearance, Donna is so theatric and over the top, and just like, how dare you accuse me of such horrible things when the horrible things are literally in text messages and different interactions she had with Charlie and with Wendy. And it's just so astonishing to me that she thinks now she can act like a seventy three year old grandmother and she's just going to get off without any issues. It's just insane and wild. So Donna's trial is going to start officially on September seventeenth of this year. The original trial was set for September thirtieth, but they requested that it be moved up because there is two Jewish holidays that Donna wants to celebrate in early October, which I think is comical because Donna did nothing but harp and rag on Dan Markel for loving and embracing his Jewish faith, and now she wants her trial moved up because there's two Jewish holidays. I know we have to be nice and respect religion and all of that, but I would have told Donna that she can just f write off with that and deal with it. That's your karma for being not nice to Dan Markel. This is why I'm not in charge of things like this, because I would be very unpc about all of it, and I didn't. I don't think I mentioned this, but Donna was arrested in November of twenty twenty three, only a week after Dan Markel was sentenced, So all of this happened very very quickly. Now we are at the end of Summer Series twenty twenty four, and I was really thinking that we were going to see another arrest in this case by the time I finished the Summer series, and we're still kind of where we were when I started. Nobody else has been arrested in connection with the murder for hire for Dan Markel. We have Katie who is behind bars, Sigfredo Garcia, Luis Rivera, Charlie Adelson, Donna Adelson, and that is all we have at this moment. We have four of five who have been convicted and they are now all in prison. And I will be sure to keep you guys updated on what's going on with Donna because it is going to be probably a little bit of a wild ride her theatrics and drama in just her initial hearing her facial expressions, like the way that she was like outbursting and being like scoffing at things. Whoever is in charge of her trial demeanor is going to have their work freaking cut out for them. So it's going to be interesting to see it all play out. I will be sure to keep you guys updated on all of that, and also keep you guys updated if anything more should happen in regards to any more arrest with this case. I do think that we are slowly but surely getting justice for Dan Markel. His murder was senseless. It never should have happened. Two children lost their father and now they are surrounded by a sea of horribleness because the people that killed their father are also their family, and that has to be so hard to come to terms with. They're young still, and they're gonna grow up forever tarnished by what happened, and I hope one day they are able to really understand what exactly happened to their dad, realize that their dad was a really good guy, a good father, was just doing his very best to be there for them, and his life was taken away because the Adelsons couldn't get over it. And that's the sad and unfortunate part about this whole thing is Dan didn't have to die. He did not have to die. And I hope that with all of the Charlie Adelson and the rest of the trials behind them and Donna's coming up, that they can hopefully soon find justice and peace and start to kind of rebuild their lives a little bit. But it's a sad story all around. It is one that I'm so glad they did not get away with because I do think that these people could have harmed a lot of other people, people that got in their way. This is what happens when people have power and they have money, and they think because they have power and money that they can get away with things. And I'm so happy that the Florida cops that investigated this never gave up. They kept going and they finally figured out what happened and they were able to piece it all together in such a nice, beautiful package. And the people that are responsible are going away for a long time, and for that we're grateful. So thank you guys so much for joining me for this summer series twenty twenty four. It was a bit of a wild ride, but I enjoy every second of every bit of research that I did on this one. It definitely shed some new light even on the case. For me, I was familiar with it, but I got very familiar with it over these last however many weeks. It's been ten weeks or so, so I thank you guys. We are going to be back to regular two a week episodes starting week after next. Because your girl has taken some time off. I'm giving myself one week of no podcast recordings and I'm putting it out there into the pod verse because I really need to just take a week off and let my mind kind of rest from true crime, because I've been getting a little overwhelmed and I need to just give myself a week. So I'm giving myself a week and then I will be back with unsolved double doses every week and I will see you guys. Then. I hope you have a fantastic week ahead, weekend, and week ahead, and I will see you in one week for two more unsolved cases. Have a good one, guys. Bye. It is solvable. It was solvable two weeks after it happened March twenty fifth, two thousand and four Cross Plains, Tennessee their last day question Mark. Jennifer Just twenty one, stands in the kitchen of her boyfriend Joey Benton's family home, where she and her two year old daughter, Adriana Wicks have been living. She has the only phone in the home in her hand and is on a call with her father. Jennifer expresses how the night before, she and her boyfriend's parents, Joe and Cindy Benton, have been involved in a very heated argument. In fact, it was so heated that Jennifer was still rattled from the night before. She moves the receiver down to talk to a muffled female voice coming from behind her. She then says goodbye to her father and hangs up the phone. And what happens next, Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it. Jennifer and Adriana Wicks have not been seen or heard from since March twenty fifth, two thousand and four. I am a true I'm investigated podcaster living in the same town where the Wicks girls went missing. Hi, I'm Jules, and I've teamed up with Jennifer's sister Kasey Robinson to ask some big questions from our little hushtown that we've been too afraid to ask each other over the last twenty years. Where are Jennifer and Adriana Wicks? Small towns talk and guess what we're listening? Missing in Hushtown is coming twenty twenty four wherever you get your podcasts. The entire first season will drop in August. We'll see you then,