Summer Series 2024: Dan Markel Part 6: The Trial of Charlie Adelson Day 3

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 to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. I am a little under the weather post crime con crud, I guess, so I'm going to do my best. So we have oh so much to talk about right now in true crime, because so much has happened since I recorded my last Right now in True Crime. So Chad day Bell officially found guilty as of last Thursday, and as of Saturday, last Saturday, sentenced to death, which honestly, I truly did think he was going to be found guilty. But there's always that lingering like worry that they were gonna find reasonable doubt and find him innocent or not guilty, I should say, And I am so thankful that they found him guilty. And then when it came to the penalty phase of things, I think they did a really really good job at looking at everything that had happened and everything that he caused, and they sentenced him to death. And I do think that if I were pro death penalty, Chad day Bell is probably one of the people that would be at the top of my list to get the death penalty. I honestly feel like this is the best of both worlds, because for Chad, I feel like death is very much an out. But he's going to have to live for many, many, many, many many years on death row in I hope, a miserable environment and a miserable situation, and then he'll either eventually die in prison or he'll get put to death. And I think for that reason, I'm glad that they did make that decision. And it was really interesting to be a crime con when this decision came down. It was, I feel like, such a full circle moment from my first crime con in twenty twenty one, when I first saw Nate Eaton in person, and you know, at that point he had been covering Lori Valu and Chad Dabell, and he was one of the constant people covering it over the last however long it's been. This has been a long journey and it's not quite over yet because we still have charges for Charles's murder and the attempted murder on Brandon coming for LORII in Arizona, and we could also have those charges for Chad as well. But we are definitely only one step closer to getting justice for all of the people that were taken and victimized by Alex, Chad and Lori Valo. In Gilgo Beach Serial Killer news, he is set to be charged on Thursday, and honestly, I'm recording this on Tuesday, and I'm probably not going to edit the recording, but he is going to be charged with yet another murder to add to his ever growing lust. I also have a case update. I did an episode semi recently on a girl named Amber Spradlin. She was murdered a last year in Kentucky and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable for her death. So I'm going to read this from the Lexington Herald Leader's online website. A lawsuit in Kentucky woman's homicide says local officials were negligent in nine to one one service Police found the body of Amberson Spradland, thirty nine, at a residence in Floyd County on June eighteenth, the son of an eastern Kentucky business owner, stabbed a woman to death after getting drunk, and took part in trying to throw out an investigation of the crime. A lawsuit filed Toesday charges the explosive allegations are the latest development in a homicide that has caused controversy and a great deal of emotion in Prestonburg and Floyd County. The victim in the case was Amber Nicole Spradland, thirty nine. Someone stabbed Spradlin at least eleven times on June eighteenth of twenty twenty three. The homicide took place at the residence of Michael McKinney Senior, a dentist who owned the Seasons in and restaurant in the county at the time. According to the lawsuit, Kentucky State Police have not charged anyone in Spradland's death, but the lawsuit alleges that McKinney's son, Michael McKinney Junior, killed Spradland. Spradland was at the Seasons with McKinney Junior and another local resident, Roy Kidd, where the two men were served alcohol. Despite being severely intoxicated. The three later went to McKinney senior's home. The defendants in the lawsuit are the father and son Kidd, former Prestonburg Mayor Les Stapleton and former police chief Randy Woods, Floyd County Judge Executive Robbie Williams, and Magistrates Mark Kriter and George Ousley, the City Police Department, the City and the county, and the seasons in a restaurant which allegedly served too much alcohol to McKinney junior and kid, people pushing for an arrest in the stabbing death of Amber Spradland and Floyd County, Kentucky paid for billboards in early twenty twenty four. The public agencies and officials are named as defendants because of an arrayment for nine one one dispatch services. The State Police poke in Pikeville handled that service for some time, but in December twenty twenty two, the County fieldschoo Court under Williams, voted to have the Prestonburg Police Department take over nine to one one dispatching. According to the lawsuit, The complaint charges that the city and county were negligent because they did not make sure that the department had adequate staff and policies. In place before taking over the nine one one dispatching the night Amber s Bradlin was killed. McKinney Junior made a call to nine one one from his father's house before her death, requesting help, but McKenny senior got on the line to make sure there was no emergency response. The lawsuit says dispatchers should have sent police to the house in response to the call, but didn't. The lawsuit says Debbie Hall, who is Amber's cousin, said that she was allowed to hear a recording of the nine one one call, and she said that a man who was identified as McKinney or sat on the call that there was a man at the house who was left up and bleeding profusely. McKinney senior then got on the line and said there was nothing life threatening going on and that he had it under control and would call if he needed help. Debbie Hall went on to say that she and family members and friends of Amber believed that if police had responded after that call, that it is very likely that Amber would still be alive today. Debbie said was killed after that initial call, before the second nine one one call happened, where Michael McKinney senior called nine one one and said, I think there's a girl who's dead at my house. He made a phone call to former police chief Randy Woods. So small towns talk, unfortunately, and it's not going to go away because Amber's family is hell bent on getting justice for Amber, as they should be. There should be nobody that gets away with murder because they are affiliated or know somebody that has power or has money. So I will continue to keep you guys updated on this. If you do want to follow along, there is a Facebook group called Justice for Amber. It is very active. People post multiple times a day. Her family does a really good job at keeping everything updated and keeping us up to date on everything going on, so be sure to check that out. In other news, Michelle her Conus was sentenced to twenty years in prison. She was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder of her boyfriend's wife. And we're talking about Jennifer Doulos who disappeared and her husband, Fotus, is the one who caused her to disappear in conjunction with Michelle. So she is going to prison for twenty years. And she did tell the judge at sentencing that she deeply regrets ever being in a relationship with Fotus, as you should regret it. But there is no man on planet Earth that is worth going to jail for, and there's no man on planet Earth that is worth helping kill someone else for. Last thing I want to talk about is there was a trial going on for this guy named Christopher Gregor. His son was killed after he was made to run on this treadmill for a long amount of time after he literally couldn't stand up anymore. He kept falling off, the dad kept putting him back on the treadmill, making him run, and he died from this blunt force trauma. So it's been called like the treadmill abuse murder trial, and they did find him guilty on manslaughter, but not on the murder charge. He faces up to forty years and his sentencing is going to be on August second, so I will continue to keep you guys updated on that one. It is a really horrible video to watch because it's obviously like some type of Jim scenario where there's security cameras and stuff, and you can see this poor child being literally abused by this guy, and this was in a public place, so think about the abuse that was happening behind closed doors. If people are willing to be abusive assholes in public, think about what they're going to do behind closed doors. But as always, I will continue to keep you guys updated on all of the true crime right now in true crime things, and we are going to go ahead and get started with two days Dan Markel episode. We are officially on part six and I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Okay, guys, we are on part six of Summer series twenty twenty four Dan Markel, the Trial of Charlie Adelson. We are going over day three testimony today and when we left off, we left off with the cross examination of Luis Rivera and Daniel Rashbaum's whole line of questioning for Luis Rivera was very much centered around the premise that Katie Megvanawa and Siegfredo Garcia wanted to do this on their own. They had come up with this plan between the two of them to kill Dan Markel and then extort money from the Adelson family and basically said that Sigreda Garcia had lied to Luis Rivera about why they were going to Tallahassee and very much questioned whether or not Sigfredo Garcia actually saw Wendy that day, because he referred to her as the lady when they were there scoping out the Markel home. Luis Rivera said that Sigfredo Garcia told him that's her, that's the guy's wife, that's the one who wants the kids back. So Daniel or Ashmaum was very much trying to elude that Rivera had it wrong and that Siegfredo was lying to him to kind of set the plan into motion, that it was the Adelsons that kind of initiated this whole thing. Next witness up is none other than Katie Magvaniwa, and she currently incarcerated. She had previously testified at the two other trials and they asked her what she was incarcerated and why she was incarcerated. They asked if she testified on her own behalf at her two previous trials, and she said yes. And they asked if she was truthful with the jury and she said no. And in her two previous trials she admitted that she didn't have anything to do with it, and she decided that she wants to tell the truth so that the family can get closure. Georgia Kapelman asked her if she thought that she was going to be successful in getting off for this crime, and she said that she felt like she was going to be acquitted, but she made the decision to lie on her own. She was never forced to lie by anyone else. She then went on to talk about what happened. She said she didn't personally know Dan Markel or have any issues with him. The whole reason that she got involved in this was to get some money out of it and to help Charlie. From what she knew, it was Charlie's idea to kill Dan, and he had first asked Katie for help with a murder in October of twenty thirteen. They had gone to a Halloween party that night in Miammy, and right before they got there, Charlie had asked Katie if she knew of anyone who could harm someone, and Katie responded yes, thinking of her baby daddy, Sigfredo Garcia. She then started to learn a little bit about what was going on and learned that Charlie's parents and his sister Wendy were having problems with the custody of the two kids that Wendy and Dan share together, and Katie was told that Dan was a terrible man, making his family go through a lot, and she was also told that Donald Adelson wasn't eating or sleeping because of everything that was going on with Dan, and this was like causing them harm as a family. She never really referred to Dan Markel by name, just called him Wendy's husband, and never really spoke with Sigfredo and Charlie about each other. They would just refer to each other as we're doing this for my friend, and my friend is going to help you with this. So even though they were all in on this together, they didn't really know who the other person was, if that makes sense. However, Katie does believe that Sigfredo Garcia had an inkling that it was this dentist that Katie was dating at the time who was named Charlie. He thought that that's who he was potentially doing this favor for. So by the end of summer twenty fourteen, Charlie was getting more and more agitated and adamant that the job needs to be done, and she testified that Charlie gave her a kill sheet which was in a sealed envelope, and Katie testified that Charlie told her to not open it, don't touch it, just pass it along to the other person. And he said that he had gloves to avoid fingerprints, and that he hadn't printed this information at his office, and that he didn't lick the envelope to avoid any physical evidence being left behind, and Katie said that she put the envelope in her diaper bag and she never did open it. Katie then testified that the night of the murder that Charlie was extremely agitated and pacing and couldn't settle down, and the two of them took a xanax and ended up falling asleep, and Georgia Kapelman went on to ask if Katie had threatened Charlie, did you extort money from him? And she of course answered no, ma'am, which, of course robuts the defenses claims that that was the whole reason that this whole thing happened, was to extort money from the Atolsns. The morning after the murder, Katie testified that Katie paid Sigfredo Garcia and Leuis Rivera with cash Charlie had given her. The money was in a brown paper bag and it was stapled together, and it was also moldy. And Katie testifies that she believes that Charlie's parents literally took the money and washed it. And the reason that the parents had the money was because Charlie didn't keep a lot of money at home. He kept it all at his parents' house, and his parents had stopped by Charlie's home right before Katie got there. And then Georgia Kapelman asked if Katie and Luis Rivera and Sigfredo could have come up with the plan to kill Dan Markel on their own, and she said, no, that would be impossible. How would we have gotten all of this information about who he was? And Katie went on to say that she didn't even know Dan Markell's name when the actual murder happened, and the two him men wouldn't have any way of knowing where he was going to be if it wasn't for the information that he got from the Adelson family. So we have Daniel Rashbaum up now on cross examination, and he started off by saying, you were arrested and charged with the murder of Professor Markel on October first, twenty sixteen. Almost immediately, you were offered a get out of jail free card and she agreed to that. And he went on to say people have wondered whether Charlie paid for your attorneys, and Katie said no, Charlie did not. He very much pushed back on her prior testimony and said that she couldn't have cooperated because Charlie was innocent. That's the reason why she felt like she had to lie. And she said that she didn't cooperate because in order to give up Charlie, she would have to give up Sigfredo Garcia, who is the father of my children. She went on to say that it was really hard for her to confess everything because she has just suppressed it for the last seven years. They kind of talked about the a TV is cheaper than hiring a hitman joke, and she said very much of Charlie Adelson, that he acted like he was untouchable and he knew that he was hiring a hitman. Daniel Rashbaum then went on to accusing Katie, saying that you're the one that told Charlie Adelson that a friend of yours had done this and a terrible thing had happened, and that if he went to the police, one of his family members would be next. And she said no. And Daniel Rashmom wanted to say, isn't it true that you were the mastermind behind the murder of Dan Markel And she said no, that was Charlie. And Daniel Rashbaum said, I'm sure it was, although it was said in a very sarcastic tone, and then he repeatedly accused Katie of having an agenda and was just pushing so so hard against Katie, trying to prove that she was the mastermind behind the murder of someone whose names she didn't even know. He then went on to say, what are the two ways that you can ever get out of jail? One would be in a coffin and the other one would be turning on Charlie And she said that that wasn't true. The reason that she is being honest now is because she wanted to do the right thing. He then ends the cross examination. Georgia Kaplman comes up on redirect and just wanted to clear up one specific thing because Daniel Rashbaum had kind of alluded to that maybe instead of killing Dan Marcale, that they were just out to kind of rough him up and scare him. But Katie said that they knew that going through this whole thing was going to result in actual death and not just them harming someone. And Katie responded that yes, she was aware of that, and Charlie Agelson knew that it was a murder, and she said that he did. Our next witness is a forensic accounting expert named Mary Hole, and she was testifying to the variety of financial details that go on behind the motives of a case, as well as how the conspiracy ended up being paid for. She reviewed the financial records for all of the different arrested parties as well as the financial records for the Aidelson Institute as well as some of the other family members of the Adelson family. She shared that Luis Rivera and Sifredo Garcia had made some big purchases right after the murders. Motorcycles and cars were bought, so they obviously had come into a large sum of money. She also testified to changes in Luis Rivera's banking habits right before the murder. So before the murder, Luis Rivera would deposit paychecks and then withdraw cash and overdraft it. Shortly after, and this was month after month that he did that. And then after Dan Markel was killed, he stopped pulling large amounts of cash out of the bank account. There was no overdraft that what was happening, which basically meant that he had an alternative source of income. And this went on for about four months until he reverted back to his old habits. And then she went into Katie make Banawa's finances and she said that there was extensive text messages between Katie and Charlie, and it was Katie being the recipient of various gifts such as car insurance, car repairs, drugs, vacations, a breast augmentation, and a lot of other things. And she also said that Katie's bank records suggest that after the murder she earned a majority of her money from the Adelson's and other sources as well as cash. And before the murder, she said that cash accounted for or twenty three percent of Katie's deposits. It jumped to sixty four percent the year of the murder, and Katie had a lot of checks from the Adelson Institute, which Katie testified to never truly working for the Adelson Institute. So why was she getting checks from them? And forty four of the checks were written to Katie and they were all signed by none other than Donald Adelson. There were two other Adelson Institute employees that testified about the way that they were paid, and the way that Katie was paid was in direct contradiction with how they said that they were paid. She then went on to discuss the Adelson family finances, and Charlie was making about three million dollars a year between his dental work that he did and his work in real estate, and between Charlie, Donna, Harvey, and Wendy Adelson, the family themselves had about five million dollars in investment accounts. They had about eight point one million in the bank, but that was not including cash, but there was a lot of cash as well. And then Mary Hull testified to some text messages between Charlie and other dentists regarding discounts for cash balances, and she also showed text messages between the Adelson family members about volumes large amounts of cash that they had on hand. And in the one text message, Harvey Adelson had texted Charlie to say that he'd take twenty six thousand dollars that was owed in cash, but then changed his mind and said I have too much cash and then wanted another payment option instead. And there's another message where Donna tells Charlie that she will be taking twenty five thousand dollars from the office checkbook and replacing it with twenty five thousand dollars from the family safe. Daniel Rashbaum is now up on crossingation and he basically just wanted to use all this information that Mary Hull had brought forward and basically say that Katie was extorting money from Charlie and that is why there was a influx in income for Louis Rivera and Sincredo Garcia and Katie Maganawa. Next up is a Tallahassee Police Department sergeant named Chris Hale, and he testified that Wendy's ex boyfriend, Jeff le Cass was initially seen as a suspect but ruled out since he was not in the same state at the time of the murder. And Daniel Rashbaum's whole ploy here was trying to poke holes in the Jeff lecast story and the credibility and why he waited so long to go to law enforcement with I think that this guy might be planning a hired hit, and even the whole thing with the Wendy and Charlie going out for a celebration dinner. Daniel Rashbaum is basically trying to allude to the court that Jeff wasn't honest with this stuff and went to law enforcement with this information too late, which they said was not true. So he was definitely trying to poll poles in all of the things that he could to try to make Jeff not a credible witness. And then he went on to just say that Jeff Leicass was a jilted lover and he was upset, so he was going to say anything he could to try to put the attention back on the atl sins and away from him. Now we are up to the next witness, who is Chris Corbett, and he is an expert in the different tracking communications, so he does all of the cell phone tracking uses the science of cell towers. So his testimony provided phone location records that on July six of twenty fourteen, Wendy was in South Florida at her parents' home in Miami, and while she was there, she was texting Dan Markel asking if he would be in Tallahassee between July fourteenth and eighteenth, which is the dates that the hip man traveled to Tallahassee, and Dann replied that he was going to be and at the same time on July sixth, Charlie was located near Katie's residence, so they were obviously in cahoots and talking. He also testified to the call pattern that was seen between the different conspirators Charlie, Wendy, Katie, Sigfrido, Harvey, and Donna and during the first attempt to kill Dan Markel in June. The morning of the homicide in July, there was dozens of calls that occurred between the different parties that day, and there was an eighteen minute phone call between Wendy and Charlie where she says that they had been discussing whether to repair or place the broken TV and she had just heard from the Geek Squad repair team that it was not repairable. He also said that Wendy had a calendar item added in her phone that was labeled fixed TV, but that ended up being deleted before law enforcement got ahold of her phone and analyzed it. And Wendy had also received a text from Donna Adelson that morning at eight oh nine saying Best Buy just called and that they were on their way to help Wendy fix the TV in her living room, and there was a lot of other phone calls that went back and forth between Wendy, Donna, Charlie, and Katie. He then went on to talk about the roots that Dan Markel took that day between going from his house to the preschool to drop off the kids to the gym, and the route that Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia took and they pretty much followed him through that whole route. And then he also went through the route that Wendy took just after the shooting, saying that she chose to drive miles out of her way while she was already on her way to a lunch date and she was running late, and she pretty much came right up on the crime scene stating that she was going to buy whiskey to bring to this lunch date with her. And of course all of his testimony is related to cell phone data, so showing where Wendy is going. And they talked about the liquor store, like why would she have necessarily gone to that liquor store. There were multiple other liquor stores within a block or two of where she was going for lunch that day, so she could have easily just stopped at one of them. He then went on to testify about some text messages between Charlie and Donna, and this was all stuff before the murders happened. Now, Katie had previously shared that Charlie first talked about the conspiracy to kill Dan markl on October thirty first, twenty thirteen, and Corbett testified that on that very day, Charlie had texted Donna telling her that Wendy was going to quote pull the plug on buying a house in Talahassee, and Donna responded back to him and said that he is a miracle worker and wanted to know how he was able to accomplish Wendy actually going through with buying a house in Talahassee. The text messages then were followed by a lot of text messages of Donna venting to Charlie about Dan Markel and all of the stuff that was going on with the divorce. And then a few months later in March, Donna and Charlie went through and exchanged messages regarding a birthday gift for Harvey, but Harvey's birthday wasn't until July, so they kind of tried to allude that this birthday gift was the murder of Dan Markel. There was other text messages after the June attempt on Dan Markel between Donna and Charlie where they were just saying that Harvey's birthday present is still in the works, We're still working on dad's birthday present, and Donna replying, I know you'll come through. And if that doesn't tell you all we need to know about the Aidelson family how gross they are as humans. Now, Charlie has been convicted and is serving time for the conspiracy to commit murder, as is Katie, Sigfredo and Luis Rivera. Donald Adelson will get to it, but she is also in prison facing a trial. Wendy and Harvey Adelson have not been arrested, but I think their time is probably coming. And there's just no way that not everyone knew about this. There's absolutely no way the way that this text message stuff went down, all of the references that they made, there's no way that they didn't know about this. So I do feel like within maybe the next year, maybe even before I finish the Summer series, that Harvey and Wendy will be implicated on some form of something. It's going to get really, really interesting. And we have Donna Adelson's trial coming up as well, so I feel like more is going to come out with that as well. So that is it for episode six. We are going to pick back up episode seven with day four of the trial. We are slowly but surely getting there, but I think you guys can kind of see how the prosecution, the state is forming this case and proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the Adelsons knew about this and are the ones that orchestrate it and planned it. So I will see you guys on Monday for a brand new episode and next Friday for a brand new Summer series episode. And I hope you guys have a fantastic weekend and I will see you Monday. Bye.