Summer Series 2024: Dan Markel Part 4 trial day 1

Welcome to Primetime Crime twenty twenty four 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. Hey, guys, welcome back to Primetime Crime. It's kylie. Let's go ahead and jump into right now in true crime. Of course, it wouldn't be right now in true crime without me talking about the current most right now and true crime thing there is, which is the Chad Dable trial. So this week started the defense's case and them calling the witnesses that they wanted to call, and of course, first up was none other than Emma Murray, Emma Davelle Murray, who is Chad and Tammy's daughter. And let me tell you, if there was ever a witness that angered me, it would be Emma Murray. I don't know what it was about her. I didn't like the way that like her tone was, she showed zero zero emotion. And I don't want to judge someone for the way that they grieve, because everybody grieves differently. I understand that, and it's really intimidating. I imagine to be on the witness stand, especially in a trial where your father is accused of murdering your mother. I imagine that's an emotional situation and you probably want to do your best. But when John Pryor was questioning her, it was of course it's his witness, so it was fine. And then Lindsey Blake absolutely ate Emma alive on cross examination, and a lot of what Emma said was I don't recall that. I don't remember that very much, just saying I don't remember I don't recall that my dad and I had these conversations. There are a crap ton of jailhouse calls between Emma and Chas following his arrest up to present day, so they have the evidence that Chad said, don't trust law enforcement, don't cooperate with law enforcement. I want you to say this like it's all recorded, it's all out there. And Emma also said that she's the one that googled the wind direction on the day that the kids ended up being buried, not Chad. It wasn't Chad that did it, it was her because she was getting ready to have an event and she wanted to make sure that the wind direction was going to be appropriate for the event that she was having. In my opinion, that is a lie, but it's her testimony, her saying that she is going to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, So that whole thing was really interesting. Garth Daybell also testified he is the son of Chad and Tammy. He is the one that was at the house the night that Tammy passed away and helped Chad with her body when she allegedly fell off the bed. His testimony, in comparison to Emma's was pretty lackluster, because I do feel like he did a good job and told the truth as far as what he thought was the truth. Now, I will say that, as far as I know, the day Bell children all support their father. And we are talking probably decades of these kids being brainwashed by their father. So it's honestly not surprising to me that they are supporting him because that's literally all that they know. They have lived their entire life with Chad Daybel, and if you listen to some of Chad's readings and his teachings, and you look at the things he's written with his books, you can tell that Chad is a very manipulative person. There has been a lot of debate about was Chad the primary force behind them? This was it Laurie. Everyone thought it was Laurie for the longest time that she was the one that was kind of going forward with all this. But Laurie had her own radical beliefs, and I think she was getting more and more radical at the time that she met Chad. But if you look back at Chad's history, Chad's been cuckoo for cocoa puffs for a hot, hot minute. So all of this happening and him meeting Laurie, I honestly think it was the perfect storm, and I will one hundred percent stand by that. I don't think it was any one party that really influenced the other. I think two really impressionable and brainwashed humans came together and they ended up being each other's own worst enemies. So I am recording this on Wednesday night. We are thinking that the defense is going to rest tomorrow, which is Thursday, which if you're listening Thursday evening, hopefully the defense has rested, but then we have rebuttals, and then we have a holiday weekend coming up, which I completely forgot about because I work in healthcare. So we're looking maybe at another one to two weeks because it's going to take a while a trial like this, it takes so much time to get everything in place, and then of course the jury has to deliberate, and we think that this is a slam dunk, like of course he's going to be found guilty. But you also have to remember that the jury is hearing all of this information for the very first time. This is all fresh information. We have had since twenty nineteen to absorb all of this and everything that's been going on. We got to sit through Lori's trial. We are now sitting through Chad's trial. The jury is just learning about all of this, like literally in the last two months. So when it comes time for them to deliberate, they need to be very thorough and take their time and go through all the evidence because that's what helps secure a verdict and not have it come back on appeals. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. I will continue to keep you guys updated, and of course, if anything crazy happens like it did last week, I will keep you guys updated on that and that is all the brain capacity I have for right now and True Crime this week. I will be sure to give you guys a little bit more right now in True Crime for Sunday Night Monday's episode. But your girl just doesn't have it right now, So we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. All right, guys, welcome to Part four of Summer Series twenty twenty four Dan Markel. Today we are going to be diving into all of the trial happenings. I'm going to kind of start with what happened with openings. I know we talked about the States openings. Now we're going to talk about the Defensi's openings a little bit, and then we're going to go right into trial coverage, which is where we get all of the fun testimony and information and where it all kind of ties back to the Adelsons. So Dan Roschbaum is the defense attorney that is representing Charlie Adelson, and he begins his opening by calling the murder of Dan Markel a tragedy and saying that the world lost a brilliant and legal mind, and his family lost a son, a brother, the community lost a sense of security and lost a good citizen and his sons lost a loving father. He goes on to say his senseless murder continues to be felt throughout this community and others. It was inexcusable, despicable evil. But then he went on to say, but what I am going to tell you today is that what actually happened. You will see that Charlie Adelson had nothing to do with the murder of Professor Markel. You will see that the state cannot come close to meeting it's burden. Why because Charlie Adelson is innocent. He went on to say that I don't have to prove his innocence. But what I am telling you, and this is something I rarely will say in a courtroom as a defense lawyer, Charlie Adelson is innocent. So the way that Daniel Rashbaum is going to try to spin this whole thing is that Charlie was just a ploy in Catherine Megbanowa, Louis Rivera, Sigfredo Garcia's plan, and they were basically trying to extort money out of Charlie. So he is just innocently caught up in all of this. Daniel Rashbaum went on to say that Katie wanted a deeper relationship with Charlie, but that wasn't what Charlie's intentions were. And Katie was very devoted to Charlie, and that really upset Sigfredo Garcia. So basically, Sigfredo Garcia hated Charlie Adelson so much that he decided he was going to kill Dan Markel and he was going to frame Charlie Adelson for murder so that way he could get Katie Magbanawal all to himself. But then he also goes on to say that it's entirely possible that Katie masterminded this whole thing herself, and the whole reason that she did this was to extort money from the Adelson family because they were extremely wealthy. So this is just a hot, hot mess. So Daniel Rashbauand goes on and says that the extensive wire tapping and the recording that happened of Charlie at Dulce Vita, which we are going to talk about that more in detail in a little while, will exonerate his client and will prove his innocence. And that is very much the direction that the defense is going is Charlie is just caught up in this horrible web of lies and extortion and money, and he was framed and he had to do with it. So that is kind of where the openings stopped. And we are going to now get into the first witness, which was a veteran FBI agent who is named Patrick Sandford, and he is ultimately the one that ended up arresting Charlie Adelson in April of twenty twenty two. For the state, he went in and was detailing some of the evidence and data that was collected as far as the rented cars, different travel routes that went into Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, and the state was very much trying to prove motive. Why would Charlie Adelson want to harm his former brother in law? What is his motive? So Detective Sandford kind of mapped out these following things. So the first one was Wendy Adelson was so held on getting her kids away from where the Markel's were living and she wanted to move to South Florida, and of course Dan was objecting Wendy, Wendy's mother, Donald Adelson, and father Harvey Adelson considered multiple different options of how to convince Dan to do this, including a one million dollar payoff, and this payoff would have been split three ways between Wendy Adelson, Charlie Adelson, and then Harvey and Donald Adelson, who are the parents. He also went on to say that Wendy Adelson was set to inherit a sizeable amount of money if Dan Markell died, so there is of course that realm of motive. And then he went on to say that just before Dan was murdered, there was a motion filed by Dan to restrict access of the kids to Donald Adelson because she was talking mad trash about their father to them and being really inappropriate and he didn't want them to have to be around that. And that is a reasonable thing that a father doesn't want their grandmother trash talking their dad. Like understandable, a one hundred percent understandable. So now we are on for cross examination and Daniel Rashbaum is up and he is basically going for this extortion ploy and plot, so that's what he is kind of inquiring about. So he was asking Detective Stanford about the checks that were written from the Adalston Institute, which is the dental practice that the Adelson family owned these checks were written to Katie despite there not being any evidence that Katie was actually doing any work for the practice, and he's basically doing this to try to argue that there is a pattern here of her being paid that supports the defense's theory of Charlie being extorted. So that is like the whole realm of the direction that he is going, which honestly, I think it's smart to go this direction because I feel like if Charlie Adelson and Donna Adelson would have shut their mouths for five seconds, they could have probably gotten away with this, but because they can't stop talking, they really screwed themselves. So I do feel like in a more perfect world where evidence doesn't exist, where Charlie and Donna Adelson are super guilty of this whole murder for hire, I do feel like this could have been a pretty good potential theory had it worked out that way. But it didn't, which we're going to get into all of that, But it did not work out the way that it very well could have. So then Daniel Rashbaum goes on to talk to Detective Sandford about Wendy and her moving to Tallahassee and the reasons that why she would want to move versus staying in the part of Florida where her and Dan had raised. The boys basically try to say that if they were planning on killing Dan Markel, why would they be Why would Wendy actively be trying to move her family away from Tallahassee to another part of Florida if they were going to be taking care of the problem anyway with a hired hit. So again, in a perfect world, this does make complete and total sense. Lastly, Daniel Rashbaum had asked Detective Sandford if he ever had experience with a contract killer being paid in monthly installments versus a lump sum, because this is definitely more suggestive of more of an extortion type of thing versus a hired hit, So that is what he was getting at. They had one more cross examination question for him, and that was basically wondering if the motion that Dan filed to restrict visitation from Donna, if that had ever been taken to court and heard, and Detective Sanford said no, and the reason why is because he was murdered. So that is it for that witness. And next witness, we have the one and the only Wendy Adelson. So this is her third time to take the stand in this thing, because she had the other two trials that she testified for. This is the first time that she is testifying at a trial for her brother. Her brother is on trial for murder now, so she is here to tell all of the truth that she knows about what happened. Wendy started off by saying that yes, her parents were wealthy, but she did deny discussing the ins and outs of her divorce with her mom, Donna, even though there is evidence that she did discuss the ins and outs of her divorce with her mother. She described her relationship with her mother, Donna as a really good one and said that they were still close at the time of trial, and the state asked if her parents, Harvey and Donna, were angry at all with Dan at the time of his murder, and Wendy went on to say, no, they were in a pretty good place. However, if you go back to episode one, when I played the interview that they did with Wendy initially right after Dan had been killed or had been shot, I should say she had said, you know, her parents have more reason to dislike Danny than anyone else and they were very angry with him. So when they brought this up to Wendy, she just said she was under a lot of stress that day. It had been a long interview, and she just said that because that's the way that she was feeling at the moment, and she was just overwhelmed. She then went on to deny that the family had Dan Markel killed to help Wendy. She vehemently denied that, saying that's not true. Then they moved on to another motive, which of course was the money aspect of things. Dan is worth more dead than he was alive to Wendy. So there had been a motion that Dan Markel had filed alleging multiple acts of financial wrongdoing by Wendy, and that was in the midst of the divorce and the state. Georgia Kapelman asked Wendy how she felt about living in Tallahassee, and she played it like she loved it. She had a really nice life, the kids were happy. She didn't see herself as necessarily being stuck there despite all of the other evidence that proves different. And there is a filing actually that Wendy says the word stuck in so that was disproven right then and there. And they also asked her about Charlie Adelson carrying a lot of cash and if they ever saw cash that had been staple together, because that was a big part of it as well, is that the hitmen quote unquote were paid with cash that was staple together. And Wendy denied that she knew anything about Charlie carrying a lot of cash and Charlie carrying cash that had been staple together. And they asked about Charlie ever looking into hiring a hitman to kill Dan Markel, and Wendy denied it. And then again they asked her about, well, during your interview, you talked about how your brother had joked about hiring a hitman, but it was cheaper to buy a TV, so they went with the TV, and she said that that was just a joke. They then asked her how Charlie had planned this whole thing, and she knew nothing about it. She didn't know who the hit men were. And they asked, you know, how did they know that Dan Markel was going to be at home that day? And she denied knowing. They're very much alluding to here that Wendy Adelson was in on it and officially off the record. I don't feel like there's any way that she didn't know about this, even in the way of just knowing that her brother was up to no good and kind of maybe turning a blind eye to it. That's just my opinion. She has not been arrested yet. I don't know if she is going to be arrested, but I definitely don't get good vibes from the whole Adolson crew. I really don't. They then went on to ask about the TV and there was like the TV repair person, and they asked if they ever use the word TV as a code of for murder? Did your mom ever say that? And she said no, And then they asked her if she talked to her brother on the day of the murder of Dean Markel, and Wendy said that she did have a conversation with her brother. It was eighteen minutes long. It was regarding the broken television. They didn't know if she should get it repaired or if she should get it replaced, which is odd because the TV repair person just had told her that this TV was not going to be able to be repaired, and also like, I don't think TVs are that expensive nowadays, so like, just go buy a new TV. You have more money than God Adelsen's just go buy a new TV. It doesn't really make any sense to me this TV situation because that ended up being her alibi. The TV repair person ended up being Wendy's alibi. So I think this TV conversation is such an important one to have, and from the very start, right after Dan was shot, Wendy brings the TV up. They then go on to talk about her trying to drive by the scene of the crime after Dan had been shot, and why she would choose to go that way when that wasn't a normal route that she would take. She said she went to turn down Truscott Drive but saw that it was blocked off, so then just decided to go another way and didn't really have any explanation as to why. She did say she thought it was a down tree. But then there's other testimony previously that says that there was a roadblock that was set up next to Dan's home, So we don't really know what Wendy was doing that day. We have no idea. They asked about financial gain and she said she didn't feel like she had any financial gain from Dan's death, and then they asked about her changing her son's last names from Markel to Adelson, and she said the reason that she did that was to protect them from all the media that was centered around the Markel name. Unfortunately, that did not work out for her, considering there's a way more bad press about the Adelson family name than there is the Markelle family name. There is more talk about her being the ex wife and how she was of course the number one suspect. And they talked about the murder for hire again and she said her family had nothing to do with it and that was the end for the state. So now we have the cross exam by Daniel Rashbaum. Daniel Rashbaum started off by ass if Wendy was in a conspiracy with her brother to kill her ex husband, Dan Markel, and she of course said no. And they went on to discuss how Daniel and Charlie weren't necessarily buddies and friends, but they didn't have an issue with each other, and Wendy and Charlie's parents were on good terms with Dan at the time that he passed. They talked about how Donna and Harvey Adelson had bought a house in Tallahassee. They talked about Wendy and Charlie being close and how Wendy had a really good job that she liked in Tallahassee and that she was happy in Tallahassee, and she said that she never did any of the crazy ideas that her mom had floated around in regards to relocating. Wendy then talked a little bit about the divorce and how she tried to do everything by the book and said that she was a very non confrontational person, and she said that it was not her best quality, but she definitely tried to do everything in the best way and not cause any drama. And that is day one of court. So we're going to pick up day two with the finish of the cross examination on Wendy Aedelson. I am going to go ahead and say that it's good for episode four because I want to keep it one episode per trial day. So that was the first day of court, first day of testimony. Wendy is a big, big witness in this case. She's probably one of the most important witnesses in my opinion. But in the next few episodes, it's really going to be interesting because We're going to hear from a lot of different people that knew Wendy her boyfriend at the time, which is I think one of the most interesting witnesses. So we're going to get into all of that in the coming episodes. But I super appreciate you guys for sticking with me. Like I said, I really don't know how long this is going to go, but I do want to try to be detailed with my trial coverage because a lot came out in trial, and I think it is so interesting to see kind of how all the pieces of this come together to form this nice little package. So we are going to keep on chugging along. But I thank you guys for joining and I will see you guys on Monday for a brand new Unsolved case. I hope you guys have a great weekend and I will see you then. Bye.