Summer Series 2024: Dan Markel Part 9

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, 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. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We have a few little housekeeping things to talk about for right now in true crime, and then we're going to go ahead and get into the episode. First thing is the day Bell House is officially up for sale. Well, the place that Chad day Bell and Alex Cox killed Tammy day Bell, the place that the kids were buried on the property is up for sale. So once Chad was arrested, John Pryor took over the deed of the house, meaning he is the technical owner of the house because Chad didn't have money to pay for his services. Of course, as his lawyer, as his defense attorney, Emma day Bell moves her and her kids and her husband into this property, literally the same house where your mom was murdered. You move your family into the same property where the kids were buried. You have your kids outside playing in that area. It's insane. The house is officially up for sale. John Pryor, I guess, decided he is ready for his payday, so he put the house on the market. And I will say the house is extremely creepy, eerie. I don't get good vibes from it. I feel like there's definitely something off about it. I don't even understand why anyone would want to live there. And I'm not a person that is really affected by stuff like that. I've always said that I wouldn't not really mind. I wouldn't mind living in a house where someone has passed away. I don't know. It doesn't really bother me, but there's something about this Chad day Bill house and property that gives me the worst juju vibes. I do not think that it is a good place. I don't think that it is a place where anyone could ever live and live peacefully. It gives me the creeps, the ultimate creeps. But there are pictures online. You guys should definitely check it out. And of course there's a a note up for of course, you know, people that are interested in the property. There's a note up that says private info agents, this is a stigmatized property. All requests to show must be vetted through the listing agent to be certain that the buyer is genuine and is aware of the trauma involved with the home. No curiosity seekers will be allowed to access the home and or grounds, which I know is what they did as well with the Watts family home when they put that up. They even like put it up under a different address to avoid people from flocking to it and going to it. Of course, the internet's still found it and people were, you know, looking at it, posting pictures. It's a whole thing. But it's definitely interesting that someone would move to a property and like not google the address first. Like, all you have to do is google the address of the house, which I'll actually give to you, so if you do want to look it up you can. It's to nineteen hundred East Expert, Idaho. Eight three four four, oh, so definitely check it out. It is, like I said, uber creepy. It is for sale for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a bed, a one and a half baths, almost nineteen hundred square feet and on a three point seventy five acre lot. It was built in nineteen sixty and it is officially officially for sale. So check it out if you want to be creeped out. All right, Moving on to Idaho News, Brian Coburger. His trial is officially slated to start in June of twenty twenty five. They are expecting it to last about three months, which is a long time. I think there is going to be a lot of evidence that is going to be brought forth in this case, and both sides have decided that they will be able to hopefully get everything together by June of twenty twenty five. It gives both sides a year, the prosecution, the state, and the defense time to get everything. So Ann Taylor, who is Brian's lawyer, said that she is working towards a June twenty twenty five trial and says that it is reasonable they are going to decide whether or not to move the trial out of Layta County because there's a lot of media attention surrounding this trial, and that is going to be discussed at a hearing on August twenty seventh. And if they do decide to move the trial, that of course could affect the start date, so we might be looking at an alternate start date. But as of right now, we have an official trial date for June of twenty twenty five. And I've never been more ready in life for a trial. And Kayleie's dad, Steve, is quoted as to saying, we just want to know about the evidence. There's just a ton of unknowns. How long do you have to wait before you can find out about your own child's life and what happened? Who did this, and how do you hold them accountable? They are so desperate, These families are so desperate for justice and the fact that they had to experience, of course, this trauma of having your children brutally murdered in their own home by this psychopathic weirdo allegedly. And then there's delays, and there's more delays, and there's more delays, and there's more delays, and in all of these delays, they haven't been able to find out what happened. They don't know any more of the evidence than we know because a lot of that is kept secret until the trial. Things are going to be coming out in this trial that I think are going to blow everyone's mind, myself included, and the families just want to have justice, have some sense of closure so they can continue to re build their lives and process what has happened. And all these trial delays and everything else, it's just prolonging it and making it that much harder and that much more difficult for the family's day in and day out. So I am so hopeful that hopefully next year we will be in the midst of this trial and we're going to be finding out probably some of the most horrific things ever. And at the end of it, at the end of those three months, I hope we have Brian Coburger guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty on all counts, and he gets exactly what's coming to him, whatever that may be. Okay, last thing I want to talk about real quick is Kaylana Turner. I have talked about her at length on this podcast. I did the interview with her mom back last year after she had gone missing and was severely mistreated by the Harris County Police Department, and she was missing for four hundred and seven days before she ended up being found not far from where she initially disappeared from on that horrible day in March of twenty twenty three. So we knew that the family had been able to view the bodycam footage. Finally, after almost four hundred and seven days of not being able to view this bodycam footage, they were finally able to view it. And it is horrific, is horrible. All the things that you think are in that body cam footage are in that bodycam footage. That is why they wanted to keep it as close of a secret, keep it as close to themselves as they could, because it was horrible and it paints them in a horrible light. So KFDM, which is a new station out of Beaumont, Texas, which is by where kay Alana lived, they did a story where they did like a two part story on the news about K's story. They played some of the bodycam footage. They have uploaded every bit of bodycam footage to their YouTube, KFDM YouTube. Definitely check it out. There's eight parts and it is all different vantage points of that day, and I have honestly sat and watched through the majority of it just because I want to kind of see everything from start to finish. And when I tell you, like I knew what happened in the bodycam footage, I have talked with kaylan his mom Rosa extensively over the last year. We've discussed everything. We've talked about them smashing her window with a two by four, which sounded so out of control to me. And then once I found out that it was a piece of fence slat, because Kaylana ended up going through a fence, it was a piece of fence slat that had like another piece of wood on, so it almost was in like the shape of a sledgehammer. When I found out that that's what he used to break her window, I was even more astonished. And I knew it was coming, but when I watched the bodycam footage, I was absolutely shook and like speechless seeing it actually happen. I knew it was coming, but I wasn't expecting it. And the rest of what happens in the video, the way that they're talking, the way that they refer to her horrible, horrible, horrible. I cannot convey how angry and upset and devastating watching that bodycam footage is. Just watching the little clip of it knowing how it ends is horrible, but watching the whole thing it really paints a different picture. And I encourage anyone that doesn't really understand a lot about the case or know a lot about the case to go watch that bodycam footage and really understand what happened that day never should have happened. They should have been able and taught how to de escalate a situation where you're dealing with somebody that is in a mental health crisis, and instead they attacked her. She got terrified, she ran away, and then they basically just called her a bunch of names, stacked up a bunch of warrants, and thought that they had it all figured out, along with the homeowners and different people from the community who were also there with them, which very much confuses me because they are talking about how dangerous of a person she is, but yet they're letting the homeowners kind of go around with them to look for her, try to find her car. It was really freaking bizarre, and I don't know what else to say other than I am so ashamed that Harris County is the county that I live in. Harris County is massive, but I am a shamed that I live in Harris County one hundred percent. I am ashamed that there's officers like that that represent this county, that represent law enforcement. Something like that should never happen, and it needs to be used as a learning opportunity so it never happens again, because what happened to Kahlana can happen to anybody. If it can happen or hurt, it can happen to anybody. And we really need to have there be better training to recognize these mental health crises and learn how to de escalate. I mean, I have personally seen a lot of different situations where there is law enforcement called to a situation there's a mental health crisis, and they do de escalate it in a very professional way because they have the training, they're able to recognize the signs and symptoms, they're able to kind of navigate it and figure it out. And that's not what happened here, and it is a huge mistake cost kay Alana her life and it is going to be something that I'm not going to stop talking about until changes are made and responsibility is taken. So if you haven't watched the bodycam footage, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Go back and listen to my kay Alana Turner episode. I released it two separate times. You'll have to go back and search, but it is there. I did an interview with her mom, Rosa. It talks about everything that happened, and then she was missing for four hundred and seven days before they found her remains not far from where she disappeared from, less than a thousand feet away from where she disappeared from, because the whole time they were searching, they were searching in the wrong spot because law Enforcement Gate kept the bodycam footage for four hundred plus days. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, check that episode out. Check out the YouTube channel for the new station in Beaumont. You can watch all the bodycam footage, or just even the short snip bit that they did for the episode on that they did on Kilana. There's two parts, but that is all that I have to say right now. It has been a super emotional week because of all of that because this case is one that has stuck with me and I think it will stick with me for life because it's just horrible and it never should have happened. So now that all of that is done, we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. Okay, guys, welcome to Part nine of Summer Series twenty twenty four. Dan Markel. We are getting close to the end of the trial. Finally. I feel like it has gone on for quite a long time, even though the trial was quite short in consideration to last year Summer Series where the trial went on for weeks and weeks and weeks, but still there's a lot of information trying to pack it all into these episodes. Thank you so much for bearing with me. Today, we are on episode nine. We are going over the cross examination by Georgia Caplman in the state to Charlie Adelson. So this is officially day seven of the trial. And let me tell you, Georgia Kapelman definitely gave Charlie a run for his money. She pretty much challenged every single thing that he said and wanted more and more details, more and more answers about everything that Charlie said, and they kind of went around in circles a bit about the different layers of the story, and Georgia Kaperman very much told Charlie that it's absurd that he was putting forward that initially he believed, although he was being extorted, Katie was one protecting him and keeping him safe and didn't really think that she was part of the extortion, even though now he's saying that she was clearly part of the extortion. She also pushed back about how Charlie never hired a bodyguard or hired a private investigator after the extortion took place, because he said he was terrified. He put up all these security cameras, he slept with a gun by his bed. If that was the case, why wouldn't he have gone the extra step and higher security, hire a private investigator try to get to the bottom of this. He never did any of that. Georgia Kapelman then went on to ask Charlie if he thought that his mom had a favorite child, and Charlie said, my mom doesn't say she has a favorite, but I don't think she likes my older brother, referring to the older brother who is estranged from the family because he's the only smart one. Georgia Kapelman went on to ask about why Wendy testified that she was getting along pretty good with Dan Markell prior to his death, and asked if was that not true, and Charlie said, I wasn't leading her life. He basically went on to say that there wasn't any divorce on the face of the earth that was pleasant and theirs was no different. Then Georgia went on to ask him if it was part of his defense to minimize how nasty and pretentious the divorce was, and he disagreed that he was supposed to downplay how difficult the divorce was and how difficult everything was on Wendy and on his mother, Donald Adelson. Georgia Kaplman went on to tell Charlie that everyone should be able to agree that Wendy obviously knew that something was going on and knew about the crime, and then talked about how she went to the crime scene, and Charlie denied that, and even though there's evidence that she did kind of technically go to the crime scene, Charlie ended up denying that, and Georgia said she pulled up to the crime scene tape. It's like she couldn't help herself exposed you to you all to some degree by those actions, didn't She and Charlie disagreed with that, and he said, nobody knew that there was going to be a murder, And then Georgia Caplman said, and then what she proceeded to do was throw you under the bus. She knew her husband had just been shot, and she said your name within the first twenty five pages of a five hour interview, which is true, That's exactly what Wendy did. Charlie said back that he didn't feel anger towards Wendy for this, because she did mention a lot of other names as well in the interview, not just his. And then Georgia Kaplman asked, are you pissed that she told all of that stuff to Jeff Lacasse And that was basically referring to her telling Jeff about the celebration dinner and how Charlie had joked about hiring a hitman but buying a TV was cheaper, and Charlie also had bragged about having some connections to all of these criminals. And Charlie denied that anything that Wendy had said to Jeff was incriminating at all, and Georgia Caplman asked, so you think that Jeff is just making all of this up, and Charlie basically said yes. Then Georgia Caplman went on to talk about the financial aspect of things and how all of this would lead for Charlie Adelson to basically come up ahead because there was a lot of different plans that were set into place and payments that were set into place. She basically said that Wendy got two point seven million in benefits for her children plus forty eight hundred a month, and Charlie did not want to admit it, but he did and said that Wendy was the executor of ninety percent of the money. And they went on to go back and forth in regards to financials and the financial gain that Wendy had by d Markel no longer being alive, and Charlie basically said to Georgia Kaplman, will you know more about it than I do. She then went on to ask him about the text messages back and forth between him and Donna in regards to Harvey Adelson's seventieth birthday. So this took place between the first attempted murder in June and the actual murder in July. Georgia Kaepelman asked Charlie why Donna had asked him to erase the text that they had gone back and forth about, and why there was secrecy over a quote unquote birthday present, And then she asked Charlie a series of questions and he wasn't really able to answer any of these questions in a logical way. She asked, Charlie, do you think that everyone involved should be convicted, even the person who hired the hit? Do you regret that Dan Markel suffered for fourteen hours before he died? Did it surprise you that the cops were a identify the previous? Was the police work in this case thorough? Was the money damp? And then she went on to ask why did whoever did it have to kill someone to extort you? Why couldn't they just come and kill you? And Charlie responded, well, thank god they didn't. And Georgia Caplman was kind of surprised by this, and she said, thank god they didn't, and he said, I would have gotten killed. Charlie is not a very smart witness. He's just not a very smart witness. Then Georgia Kapelman went on to say, I still don't know how killing Dan Markel advanced their goal of extorting you, and then asked Charlie if he knew, and Charlie had really no explanation. So that is pretty much your Georgia Capelman's cross examination of Charlie Adelson. And then they end up going on break and they come back, so the defense Daniel Rashbaum is now doing a redirect examination of Charlie Adelson. He yet again reiterated that in twenty fourteen, at that point he didn't believe that Katie was actually extorting him. It wasn't until she officially went to trial and they talked about all of the finances and everything that he knew that Katie was the one who was behind it all. And he also had thought that Luis Servera was the one who was the shooter, not sick Fredo Garcia. Daniel Rashbaum then went on to say that the state's theory is that the four members of the Adelson family, Donna, Harvey, Wendy and Charlie participated in the murder for hire, and he said their theory is wrong about your sister and Charlie said one hundred percent, and Daniel Rashbaum said, just like they're wrong about you, and he said one hundred percent. And with that, the defense officially rests and the state has rested, and closing arguments are going to be taking place on the next day. But because we're only eight and a half minutes into this episode, they are going to be taking place right now. We're going to get into it. We are getting so so close to the end of this trial. So Georgia Kaplman is giving the closing for the state. She basically kind of relays everything that she's been talking about this whole trial. That Charlie viewed Dan Markel as a threat to his family and their ability to live nearby where Wendy is, and he was keeping her away and keeping the kids away, so they saw this as a threat, and Charlie kind of self appointed himself as the savior of the family and wanted to come in and save the day and rescue everyone. She also very much thinks that if Charlie truly did think that he was being extorted and that Katie or he were in danger, that he wouldn't have just sat there and taken it. He would have taken more extreme measures. He would have gone to the police, and he wouldn't have just gone along with it. He also said that it was really odd that he and Katie ended up getting closer when she was in the process of extorting him, even though at the time he didn't realize he was quote unquote being extorted. It was really weird that they would have grown closer during that. And then she also said that people don't talk in code if they haven't done anything wrong, and she said the players that are in this case are very smart. They've given a lot of thought to their preparations before this and to their explanations. She then went on to say that even though Charlie Adelson isn't the one who necessarily pulled the trigger, that you don't have to actually be the one to pull the trigger to be guilty. And she said without every player in this conspiracy, the murder doesn't get done. And then she he went on to say without the information from inside the family, they wouldn't have known where to go in order to commit the crime. And then she basically says, with everything that you've heard throughout this trial, how many different explanations can you strink together before it's no longer reasonable. And there's so many coincidences and all of this thing, and all of them start and end with Charlie Adelson or an Adelson in general, and she ends it by saying he's smart, successful, he's a wealthy, successful murderer. And the state finishes his closing arguments at eleven eighteen am. Then the defense goes on to their closings. And initially, when Daniel Rashbaum started this thing with opening statements, he talked about everything being a puzzle piece, and he started off by saying, what you see in this trial is a mountain of reasonable doubts. Sometimes the simple answer is the wrong answer. Sometimes thing aren't so simple, and that's what we have in this case. Charlie Adelson didn't have a motive to upend his life. He said, of course Wendy was upset, of course Donna was upset, but all of this doesn't point to and lead to murder. And he says that Wendy and her boys moving to South Florida wouldn't have impacted Charlie's life significantly at all, And then he also goes on to say that at both alleged murder attempts, well, the first murder attempt and then the actual murder that Dan Markel actually had custody of the kids, and he said, does that make any sense. There's no chance if these people were behind the murder that they would take any risk that those boys would be in the crosshairs. And then he said that just a couple of weeks before the murder, Sigfredo Garcia tried to run Charlie off the road, and Daniel Rashbaum said, this doesn't make any sense. Why would he do this murder for if he hated him and try to run him off the road, So that doesn't connect either. He's definitely trying to grasp its straws here, trying to create that reasonable doubt. He then went on to say that it doesn't make any sense that Charlie would continually joke about hiring a hitman if he actually was planning on doing it, and he said, criminals do not advertise what they are about to do. That makes no sense. And he also questions why there wasn't a payment made up front. If it was the plan for them to take this hit out and kill Dan Markell, why wasn't money put up front instead of paid in installments. And that part doesn't make any sense either, is what he is saying. He then goes on to talk about Katie meg Baniwa and her testimony and basically how she ended up conning Charlie Adelson. He said, on the night of the eighteenth, he was scared. He didn't think she was part of it. He thought she was protecting him. And then Daniel Rashbaum goes on to ask why the state didn't ask Katie questions about the wires or call her back on the stand in rebuttals after Charlie's testimony happened, and he says, the reason that this didn't happen is because even the state can't trust Katie. And he said the truth is even they have doubt. That's why it took them six years after her arrest to even charge Charlie Adelson. Ask yourself, why are they so afraid to ask her any of those questions. Definitely trying to create reasonable doubt amongst this jury. For sure, Katie was the mastermind. Katie did all of his stuff. She obviously lied under oath in these other trials. She's just now saying this. We cannot trust her. We can't believe her. Charlie's innocent, that is what he is portraying for sure. He then goes on to say that none of the Adelsons did anything after the fact that made them look suspicious. None of them got any burner foae or did anything sketchy. They didn't run, they didn't hide. Then he brings up why Charlie didn't go to the cops when he knew that the extortion was happening, and Daniel rashbaand basically says he had just seen what happened to Professor Markel and he knew that the people that were involved were very dangerous. He goes on to say, you wonder why he is talking the way he's talking in dulce Vita. He's freaking out. He thinks that his mom, if they don't end up paying, is going to get killed. And then he goes on talking about this dulce Vita recording. He says there's no code words in the recording at all, but they are talking in a very careful manner, and he says that is Charlie is speaking with Katie carefully because he needs her help and doesn't want to scare her. And when Charlie is having these conversations as well with his mom, he's also speaking carefully because he doesn't want anyone to find out about the extortion that has been happening. He's trying to cover up this extortion. And he goes on to say that the wire taps show his innocence, and they certainly don't show proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty. Daniel Rashbaum says, the resumption of innocence means that we presume the best about people. We presume them to be blameless. That means when you're listening to these wires, if there are two possible at explanations, you go with the one that is favorable to Charlie. When you have two explanations, both of them reasonable, you go with the one that presumes his innocence. That's how our system works. If you waver it all that is living, breathing proof of reasonable doubt, and when you find yourself doing that, you must find Charlie Adelson not guilty because that is reasonable doubt and that shows the state did not meet its burden. He lastly says, there is only one verdict in this case, count one not guilty, Count two not guilty, Count three not guilty, and this nightmare send him home, Thank your honor. The defense officially finishes its closing arguments at one twenty five PM, and Georgia Kplman from there begins the state's rebuttal immediately after, and basically the state's rebuttal is very, very simple. Georgia Kaplman is questioning why Charlie would be gifting different things to Katie if she was in the process of extorting him. Then she goes on to talk about the testimony of Jeff Lacasse and how they really are trying and grasping it strass to try to discredit his testimony and his statements, but he really has no dog in the fight. He has no reason to lie about any of this. So she ends up finishing rebuttal by saying the defendant is smart and that they had over a year to plan this murder with the goal of not getting caught, and he's had seven years to think about his defense. Drop the freaking Mike, Georgia Kapleman, what a way to end it, A freaking way to end it. So at one forty four PM, the jurors are given instructions about how deliberations should be conducted, and at one forty eight pm, the jury begins their deliberation in the murder for Higher plot for Dan Markel in the trial of Charlie Adelson, and that is where we are going to pick up. Next episode will officially be the last episode of the summer series twenty twenty four. We are going to talk about obviously the verdict, We're going to talk about the sentencing, and then we're going to talk about all of the new things that have happened in this case since Charlie's trial, because we have Donna Adelson who is now in prison facing the same charges as Charlie just about and we're going to talk about all of that and all the details of her arrest and all of the things, because we have obviously more to cover. So stay tuned for that episode next week and I will see you guys. Then. I thank you so much for joining me on this Summer twenty twenty four series. I know it has been a wild ride, but at the end of the day, it's all about getting justice for Dan Markel. It has been a long road to justice and we are slowly but surely getting there. So thank you, guys. I appreciate each and every one of you for supporting the podcast and listening week in and week out conversing with me on social media. It was one of my favorite things to chat with you guys about what you think about the different cases. But anyways, I will see you guys on Monday, and I hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead. 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, had 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 Kasey Robinson to ask some big questions from our little hushtawn 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 Hutchtown is coming twenty twenty four wherever you get your podcasts. The entire first season will drop in August. We'll see you then,