Summer Series 2024: Dan Markel Part 8

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 Markowe, the circumstances surrounding his death, and those responsible. Let's dive right in. 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'm a true Crime 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, Casey 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. Hey, guys, welcome back to Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to dive in to right now in true crime. First thing I want to talk about is they have officially released the toxicology report in the death of Riley Strain. He was a University of Missouri student who was on a trip in Nashville with his friends. He was twenty two years old, and he was later found deceased. So the toxicology report came back and it showed that his blood alcohol level was point two two eight and that he also had traces of delta nine in his system. And delta nine is a legal form of THHC. It is readily available in Tennessee and other places, of course, and the article says the Riley Strain autopsy report released today by the Medical Examiner, which found that the twenty two year old diet as the result of an accidental drowning and ethyl alcohol intoxication, corroborates the findings of the investigation conducted by the MNPD Missing Persons Detectives. The police department is now officially classifying Strain's death as accidental. The NP's investigation found that Strain consumed multiple alcoholic drinks at different establishments after arriving in Nashville with friends on March eighth. The investigation found that he had become separated from his friends and was noticeably impaired as he walked onto Gay Street, adjacent to the Cumberland River on the night of March eighth. Detectives have concluded that Strain, who was unfamiliar with Gay Street and the steep embankment leading to the river. Did not realize the terrain conditions in the darkness as he stepped toward the overgrown area and fell down the embankment into the water. Due to recent rain, the river was very high that night with a swift current. His body was found in the river in West Nashville on the morning of March twenty second, several miles from Gay Street. The MNPD continues to extend its heartfel condolences to Raley Strain's friends and family. And there's a lot going on like with this case. Like the family has been very vocal about them thinking that there's more to the story, because initially there didn't. When they did the autopsy report, there wasn't any water in Riley's lungs, which it's possible to drown and not have water in your lungs, but it is pretty rare for that to happen, at least according to the different things I've read. So it's all just very interesting. And the fact that Riley had shared with his mom that one of his drinks tasted like barbecue. I don't know. I am always one of the people that likes to question everything and when I'm given a result, I like to question that and ask more questions. And I'm just that, just that person, that's just who I am. So I don't know what all of this means. I know that Riley's family is also of the mindset of there's more to this story, and I think that they are going to continue to push for answers until they get those answers. Because it is an entirely huge possibility that Riley drank too much, took a little THHC and accidentally drowned. That is entirely possible. But we also have a missing wallet, his boots, and his clothes were not found, so that's also an interesting side note. I just feel like there's more to this story. I don't feel like this is the end of hearing about it, no matter what Nashville PD says. Just my opinion. But I will continue to keep you guys updated. Okay, in further news, I'm recording part of this episode on Tuesday because a lot happened today. So Buster murda son of ELC. Murdau, has sued a number of production companies who had produced many of the documentaries that were produced on his family over the years, and the lawsuit is in connection with some defamation that allegedly had occurred in these documentaries of him having this relationship with Steven Smith who was killed, and how his name is brought up in the case file multiple times along with his dad's name. So it's going to be interesting to see this all come out. I do think that there are some super suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Steven Smith. I do think that the investigation wasn't handled properly, and I do think that the Murdaws were kind of sprinkled in here and there because they had a lot of power, They were in positions of power in the town, and they just seemed to be kind of around for just about everything. So there were sprinklings of Buster's name and Paul's name and Eleck's name all throughout that report, and a lot of people speculated that Stephen was in some type of relationship with Buster, and people are very much trying to connect the dots and make it all make sense. I definitely think that Stephen Smith's death was not handled properly. The investigation wasn't handled properly. But then you have the other side of the coin where there's these like massive allegations against Buster. Now, I don't know what it's like to be accused of murdering somebody, But when you literally have your mom and your brother are brutally murdered, your dad is on trial for the murder of your mom and your brother, you're the last literal remaining standing person in your family, and you're young like Buster's young. He's a young twenty something year old guy, and people are now accusing him of murder. Like I don't feel like that would be like the greatest feeling in the world, especially if I was an innocent person. So I understand, I get it. I think that if Buster was responsible for anything, that they would be taking the necessary steps to charge him and indict him, and that hasn't happened yet. So I know that they have reopened the investigation into Steven Smith murder, and if there is some thing there that's going to connect Buster to it, then it's gonna come out. So I am really interested to see what happens as far as this goes. I think this lawsuit definitely opens Buster up for a lot more questioning and a lot more in depth look to what his actual relationship was with Steven Smith, So I think that part of everything is going to be interesting. I learned a long long time ago to not really trust what the media tells me and to figure it out for myself, do my own investigation, and that's what I like to do. I like to research things myself and then therefore for my own opinions, because the media is always going to be biased. They're always going to tell us the most sensationalized thing to get clicks and get views and get people talking. That is literally what the media is and I don't like to fall into that trap. So I always like to do my own research. And in Buster situation, I do not know every little single thing under the sun. I do feel like there is a lot of suspicion surrounding Steven Smith's death, but if Buster Murda is involved, it's all going to come out during this investigation, and I think we're hopefully going to get some answers one way or another. But also on the other side of the coin, like being accused of murder is a big dang deal, and Buster has the right to say, you're defaming my name. That's not right. I didn't do this, Okay, switching gears to a semi local case to me, a twelve year old girl was murdered. Her name was Jocelyn Noongary. She was found murdered under a bridge outside of Houston, and they had said, you know, she had snuck out of her house. She went to a convenience store that was not far from her house. She was on the phone with her boyfriend at the time, who was thirteen, and he had overheard her talking to these two other men who are also in the store. And because we are in present day twenty twenty four, there is surveillance videos everywhere, they were able to get kind of an idea of who these people were, not really saying that they were necessarily suspects, just that they were persons of interest and they wanted to talk with them. The Houston Police Department has been, of course, working around the clock to try to identify these people. Again, at the moment, they were just persons of interest. But today they officially announced they were arrested and they were charged with capital murder. And these suspects are Franklin Jose Pino Ramos twenty six and johann I Guess, Jose Rangel Martitez, twenty one. If you are twenty six and twenty one years old, why are you praying upon a twelve year old girl. They were arrested Thursday morning at the apartment complex that they live in, and they lived together, and they also recently moved in there. They moved in within the last couple of weeks, so they are new to the area. Again, we don't know what these people have previously done or what they would have done if they hadn't been caught. So, like I said, they use the surveillance cameras to track the movements of them before and after Joscelyn was strangled and dumped under the bridge. They said that the suspects aided a restaurant on Northborough late Sunday, and then they left that restaurant on foot. They ended up meeting Joscelyn near Kirkandall and the three walked to a nearby convenience store. They left the store and walked to the bridge on West Rankin Road, where Joscelyn ended up being killed. So here's my question. Did Joscelyn know them? How did she know them? Did they lure her to meet them at this area and then go to the convenience store. Was it a crime of opportunity? Was it something that was set up that way? I kind of feel like they lured her there. I don't know how they would have known her. Twenty one and twenty six year olds don't hang out with twelve year olds. It's just not something you do. But if there was some type of online communication, I'm sure all of that will come out, because initially I thought that they met at the convenience store, but now it seems like they walk to the convenience store together. So it's going to be interesting to hear how all of this unfolds. They do have evidence that are tying these two individuals to her murder, so I will continue to keep you guys updated on that as more unfolds. The last thing I want to talk about for right now in True Crime, and then we're going to go ahead and get started. In today's episode, there is a development in a cold case, a case from nineteen ninety six, actually a case that I had on my list to cover. So it is the murder of two women, Julie Williams and Llly Winions. They were found and killed near Skyland Resort in Shenandoah, National Park and their case has been pretty cold. In twenty twenty one, they assembled a new task force and they started looking into things and they did have some DNA evidence. They were able to tie it back to a guy named Walter Leo Jackson, who is a serial rapist and all around bad human. He had been a suspect for a hot minute, and they did have this DNA evidence, but it wasn't until this year that they were able to get for sure confirmation through the advanced DNA technology that it was in for sure Walter Leo Jackson. So he died in prison in twenty eighteen. He was in jail for raping women, assaulting women, kidnappings, just like I said, an all around bad human. But this goes to show you it is never too late to get justice for these families. And I hear it a lot where people say, well, what does it matter. The person that likely did this is no longer living, Why does it matter? But until you're in a position where you have had one of your family members senselessly murdered and you don't have resolution, You don't know what happened, you don't know why it happened, you don't know for sure who did it? You want that closure. It's never gonna bring them back, it's never gonna make what happen go away, but you do, in a sense, get like a little sense of closure, knowing who was responsible and that that person is no longer alive to harm anyone else. Or on the other hand, if that person is still out there, how many more people are they gonna harm if they aren't caught. That's why these cold cases are so so in important. Every single case I cover, there is a horrendous human tied to that case. At one point or another, somebody really bad entered that person's life and decided to take it away or kidnap them, or whatever the case may be. And that is why I cover these cases every day week because exposure, getting the word out is so so important. This happened in nineteen ninety six. That is a long time ago, and it is about time for justice for those two girls. And today we got it. Even though their killer is long gone, we know that he is not going to harm anybody else, and their families finally have that closure and resolution. Okay, I've rambled on entirely too long, but we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. All right, guys, welcome to Part eight of Summer Series twenty twenty four, the trial of Charlie Adelson for the murder for higher plot of law professor Dan Markel. We are getting into day six of the trial against Charlie Adelson, and none other than Charlie himself is on the stand today. Okay, So Daniel Rashbaum is of course leading off the questioning for Charlie. He says, did you cause the death of Professor Dan Markel? Charlie answered absolutely no. Daniel Rashbaum asked, did you hire anyone to kill him? Charlie says no. And then Daniel asked Charlie how he felt, and then Charlie said he was nervous, and he said his whole life depends on it. Then Daniel Rashbaumb kind of leads Charlie back into letting Charlie tell the jury kind of his background and his life story. He said that growing up he wasn't very close with his older brother Robert. Now I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but Robert, who is one of the Adelson children, is a strange from the family. He literally pieced out like before all of this stuff happened. So I think Robert is probably the only Adelson that's playing with the full deck at this point because he got away from his family. So he said that he and Wendy got closer when they were in high school. And then they went on to talk about his dental education and him going to dental school, and he said that he had to work really hard in order to get good grades. Now, there are some reports that suggest that Charlie kind of cheated his way through things. If he wasn't doing well in school, he used his family connections to get kind of out of these situations. So Charlie is very much the kind of person that has always been kind of given everything that he's ever wanted because of who he is and his family's powerful connections. They talk about Charlie getting out of dental school and how he started to do some traveling dentistry. He would travel and go between various different practices and he would make more money that way, and he said that he definitely liked to keep his money in cash, and when he would get to eight thousand dollars in cash, he would staple the stack together in order to save it and not spend it, and then they brought up Wendy and they asked Charlie to talk about his feelings about Wendy's relationship with Dan. So Daniel Rashbaum asked, what did you think about him? And Charlie said that things were fine between him and Dan. Charlie went on to say that Dan was a lot like the other people that Wendy had dated, and him and Charlie didn't really have a whole lot in common. But of course they went ahead and went through with getting married. And there was at one point in time when Charlie had taken Wendy out to dinner and she had confided in him that her and Dan were having issues and Wendy was extremely unhappy. And Charlie said that all of these issues centered on Dan becoming a lot more religious, and also that Dan didn't respect Wendy and her career. And Charlie said she wasn't angry, She just seemed more that she was kind of sad and frustrated about how things had become. Charlie then went on to say that during some of the divorce proceedings, of course, Wendy would confide in Donna, her mother, that things were happening. She was frustrated, and then Donna in turn would confide in Charlie. So everybody was stressed out about these divorce proceedings and everybody was kind of venting to Charlie about it. They brought up the relocation and the reason that Wendy wanted to leave Tallahassee, and Charlie's said that Wendy wanted to be closer to family and wanted to have a better job. And Charlie said he would have been really happy if she had moved back home, but for Donna and Harvey Adelson, it was really really important that Wendy leave Tallahassee and come back home. So they talk about the petition to relocate that was put into the courts that ended up being denied. Charlie said that his parents were extremely upset, but Wendy wasn't really upset about it, and Charlie said for him, it really didn't change anything in his life. Daniel Rashbaum brought up the emails that they have seen in regards to Donna Adelson emailing some pretty outrageous things, but Charlie said, those were my mom's emails, they weren't mine, and none of those ideas that she brought up in the emails were my ideas. And in these emails, the things that Daniel Rashbomb is referring to is basically Donna coming and saying this is what's going on, and Charlie responding back saying that you should dress the boys, meaning Dan Markel's children, in Hitler costumes or having the boys converted out of the Jewish faith into the Catholic faith. Donna Adelson is a monster of a human, That is all I'm gonna say. We're gonna get to Donna in a little bit, but she is a monster of a human to even be thinking it, especially because the Adelsins are Jewish and they're literally shitting on Dan Markel for being Jewish and being of the Jewish faith and passing that along to his children. I am so confused by this. It completely boggles my mind. Daniel Rashbaum then went on to ask Charlie Adelson about the TV that he bought for Wendy after the divorce and asked him about why he said multiple times that this TV was cheaper than hiring a hitman, and he said that it was the stupidest thing I ever said in my life, and he went on to say that he never actually looked into hiring a hit man, and then he said that he had mentioned this joke to multiple people. He said he mentioned it to Katie and he just said that he liked to joke around and he talked a lot, and that's just kind of how he was basically chalking it up to just humor and completely joking, and then it got blown out of proportion. Daniel Rashbaum went on to ask Charlie about his relationship with Katie. He said that he met her at a dental office that Charlie visited every three weeks. He said that he pursued Katie and said that she was really cute and smart and witty, and said that he considered Katie his girl friend and there was a period of time that they were in an exclusive relationship. He said that he only met Katie's two children once or twice, and Katie had met Wendy a couple of times as well, and also that Katie had met his parents as well multiple times. And Charlie went on to say that Katie never did work for the Adalston Institute. He said there was definitely a time that Katie wanted to be in more of a serious relationship with him, but Charlie didn't want to. And Charlie denied knowing anything really about Siegfreido Garcia, but from what Katie had told him, he thought that Sigfreido Garcia was a crazy ex husband slash boyfriend of Katie and wanted Katie back. Then, Daniel Rashbaum goes on to ask Charlie about the dinner that he had with Katie, Wendy, and the ex boyfriend of Wendy, Jeffrey Lacosse, and how they had talked about their ex husbands and that Charlie had shared the bad joke about buying the TV was cheaper than hire a hitman, and then he said that Jeff and Wendy had returned to his house after dinner and they just had a conversation and he never spoke with Jeff again after that night. Daniel Rashbaum went on to ask Charlie about the text in regards to Harvey's seventieth birthday and how he had texted back and forth with Donna about how Dad's present isn't ready yet but it will be soon, and Donna was saying, I know you'll come through. Charlie said that the messages had nothing to do with the murder whatsoever. He then talked about the morning of the murder. Charlie said that he spoke with Wendy about the TV repair and he had also communicated with her that morning about some relationship advice for him and Katie. He then went on to say that when he found out from Donald Adelson that Dan Markel had been shot, that he was shocked and didn't really know what to think about it, and he wanted to make sure that Wendy and her two children were okay, and from there he just decided to go back to work. He said he was pretty upset about it. He ended up calling Katie on his drive home and had let her know what happened. He said he had also called his parents and they said that they were on their way to Tallahassee, and according to Katie, Donna and Harvey, on their way to Tallahassee had made a pit stop at Charlie's house at one point and they had delivered a brown bag with damp, moldy stapled money. Charlie said that Katie came to Charlie's house that night. Katie was super upset, told Charlie that he needed to sit down and that they needed to talk, and basically, Katie said, this is all of my fault. I spoke in too much detail about your family's personal problems, your sister Dan Markel and the million dollar offer, and my friend ended up killing Dan and now he wants to be paid a third of a million dollars. So Charlie then said he was really upset, obviously surprised, stood up and asked Katie, who is your friend who did this? And she never would say. Then Katie went on to say that it was her fault, and Charlie said that I'm not going to be paying for part of a murder. But then Katie ended up threatening if Charlie didn't pay in forty eight hours, they will kill you. So Charlie ends up pushing back and says, I feel like I'm getting extorted. Katie then gets mad. Charlie then says that Katie then claimed she was dragged into it in the way that he was and that she was simply trying to help him out and said, if you go to the police, they'll kill you and they'll come after your family. So this is setting up the whole extortion that Charlie Adelson and the defense is claiming happened. So from there, Katie's basically like, you owe me this much money for helping. You need to pay this. He ended up giving her about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, which she took and put it in her purse, and she asked him when he could get the rest of the money, and Charlie said he wouldn't because if he brought this information to his parents, they would go to the police in a heartbeat. So Katie then insisted that Charlie could pay her three thousand dollars monthly to make up for the rest. And at this point Charlie didn't realize that this was part of the extortion. You're gonna pay me this three thousand dollars a month in order to pay the debts because because of what you told me and I told my friend quote unquote, we had this murder happen, and now you owe us this money. So it's this big extortion, is what Charlie is saying. So Daniel Rashbaum asked if Charlie ever thought about going to the cops, and he said he was too worried about getting killed or harmed or his family getting harmed, and just wasn't really sure what was going on, but he definitely felt like he needed to pay off this debt in order to keep heat and his family safe. So at this point, that's when Charlie decided that he was going to have home security cameras installed in his home and his office and he started sleeping with a gun at his bedside because he was so petrified that these people were going to come out after him. Daniel Rashbob then asked Charlie if he told anyone what was going on, and he said no, Katie warned me not to talk to anybody. And then they asked about the quote unquote celebration dinner that Charlie allegedly took Wendy out for, and he said that that was not true. He said that he only saw Katie once. In August. He gave her three thousand dollars in cash, and then she had asked him for a favor because she needed health insurance for her kids, so she asked for instead of getting three thousand dollars in cash, that she received two thousand dollars in cash plus one thousand dollars from the Adelson Institute each month, and then went on to say, we didn't do a murder, I just got extored in. Then Charlie goes on to say that with all of this like extortion, he agreed to do it. So he ended up calling Donna and saying that he wanted Ca to be on the payroll at the dental practice for one thousand dollars a month, and Donna had asked if Katie is going to do any work for them, and he said that Katie would be helping with some stuff on the side, and Charlie said that he told Donna to write four or five checks at a time so that he could give them to Katie without having to see her super frequently. Donna, in turn pushed Charlie for why are we paying Katie one thousand dollars a month. He then went on to tell Donna what happened, but didn't want Donna to say anything to Harvey or Wendy because he thought that they would go to the cops. And Charlie said that Donna freaked out, and then Charlie went on to say, like, look, it's not a big deal. I've given her all of these other gifts during our relationship. It's not going to bring any attention to us. It's fine. I'm just going to pay the money and be done with it. And pretty much whole time they're still like in this weird relationship, and Charlie is saying that he believes that Katie is basically protecting him from these people that killed his brother in law, and because he's paying this money, that he is safe and his family is protected. They went on to ask Charlie if he loved his nephews and he said, of course he does. And Daniel Rashmam asked him if he, meaning Charlie, would ever take the father their father away from them, and he said never in a million years. And that is it for the defense's examination on Charlie Adelson. So that was it for day six. We are going to go ahead and pick up next week day seven the cross examination by Georgia Kaplman from the prosecution state of Charlie Adelson. This is where, of course, it gets real, real juicy, because they are hitting back at every single thing that Charlie tries to bring forward. Honestly, I think if the Adelsins had kept their mouths shut. They probably could have gotten away with this. They probably could have spun that Charlie was being extorted and that Donna was just a pawn in all of this because she was staying loyal to her son. If they hadn't ha talked so much and set themselves up to look so bad. I really do think that they could have gotten away with this if they didn't have all the evidence that they had, and Wendy hadn't had said that day, my brother looked into getting a hit man, but buying me a TV was cheaper. She's the one that brought that up. She's the one that brought up I don't think my parents could ever be upset enough that they would want to kill my hut my ex husband, would they. She's the one that brought that up, literally within the first hour of the investigation. These people do not know how to stop talking, and that's really what screwed them over in the end, because they never stopped talking. From the very beginning to now, they never stopped talking. I also think that if law enforcement hadn't been so keen on what they thought was going on and really set into motion kind of trailing these people, that they easily could have gotten away with this, and that is insane to think that Dan Markel could have been murdered and all of these people who had a hand in it could be out and about living their lives, destroying other lives, and they're not being any justice for Dan. The road to justice for Dan is still being paved, Charlie. We're going to talk about it soon. But he was found guilty, obviously, and we have Donald Aedelson's trial coming up. We don't really know much about what's going on with Wendy currently, but I do feel like there's gonna be more coming down the pipeline in regards to her and potentially Harvey's involvement. We're gonna talk all about that incoming episodes. We have at least two more parts to the summer series, maybe three. I'm gonna see how much I can squeeze into episodes. I'm trying not to make them too super long, because I do want to spread it out and have it actually be a summer series and not just a one month type of series. But we are slowly but surely getting there. I appreciate you guys for being along on the journey with me, and I will see you next week for a brand new Unsolved Case. I promise and that I will see you next Friday for part nine of Summer Series twenty twenty four Dan Markel. We're gonna get into the cross examination of Charlie Adelson by the state and it's gonna get good. So I will see you guys then. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and safe. I will see you Monday. Bye. Welcome to the Dead Podcast. I'm your host, Desi, and on this podcast, I discuss 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.