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Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Released Thursday, 8th February 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Episode 334 - Charlie Adelson: The Dentist & The Hitmen - Part 2

Thursday, 8th February 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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simmons. So

2:26

you mentioned Grand Hill in Detroit and you

2:28

mentioned Orlando Stent. I'm

2:38

Hannah and welcome to Red

2:40

Handed. We haven't yet recovered

2:43

from last week's episode but it's going

2:45

to be even worse. But I

2:47

did bring my fake boobs with me. Oh

2:49

good, thank God. I didn't so at least

2:51

one of us is prepared. I

2:53

did bring my owl. So

2:56

yeah, let's pick up exactly where we left

2:58

off last week. It's

3:00

2016, two years since Dan Markell

3:03

was killed and Latin Kings

3:05

gang member Luis Rivera was already

3:07

in prison on racketeering charges by the time

3:09

that police connected him with the murder.

3:12

Thanks to that cream price. Rivera

3:14

claimed the six-year-old Garcia, his childhood

3:17

friend, made him carry out

3:19

the hit for his ex-girlfriend, Katie McBanawa.

3:22

Who was getting the money from her other

3:24

ex-boyfriend, dentist Charlie Adelson. Everybody

3:28

following? Good. Rivera

3:30

also claimed that it was Garcia who did

3:32

the actual shooting. So he wasn't

3:34

about to go down for this. Rivera

3:37

was offered this plea deal. Dish

3:40

the dirt on the others and take an

3:42

additional seven years on top of your existing

3:44

12-year sentence for racketeering. Or

3:46

don't and risk a jury

3:48

trial that could land you on death row.

3:52

So of course Rivera cooperated and

3:54

the police arrested Sigfrido Garcia. But

3:57

as we told you last week, investigators have both been on the run.

4:00

of their probable cause affidavit sealed.

4:03

And just in case you need reminding,

4:05

a probable cause affidavit is a document that

4:07

outlines the evidence and justifications for an arrest.

4:10

And the police sealed these documents

4:12

because they were full of accusations

4:14

made by Rivera against the Adelson

4:16

family. Accusations that

4:19

investigators were not ready to

4:21

be made public just yet. Because

4:24

despite the fact that Rivera was pointing the

4:26

finger at Charlie and the fact

4:28

that the mystery payments from the Adelson Institute

4:30

to Katie had been signed off by Donna,

4:33

making them both look suspicious

4:35

as fuck. State attorney

4:37

Willie Meggs dismissed the probable cause

4:39

affidavits as speculation and refused

4:42

to issue a warrant for the arrests

4:44

of Donna, Katie or

4:46

Charlie Adelson. Now

4:48

many suspect that this was because Meggs

4:51

knew that the Adelson's were very wealthy

4:54

and the sort of lawyers that they would have

4:56

brought to the game could have caused quite a

4:58

bit of embarrassment for the state if they didn't

5:00

have enough evidence. Which like look

5:02

it's fair enough, tell the police to go

5:05

get more evidence. But the way

5:07

that Meggs publicly threw the Tallahassee

5:09

Police Department under the bus in terms

5:11

of how dismissive he was of their

5:14

case against the Adelson's was

5:16

pretty shocking. Regardless investigators

5:18

weren't about to let the Adelson's

5:20

just walk away. So

5:23

at this point the FBI got

5:25

involved and they put

5:27

a wiretap on basically every phone

5:29

the Adelson's and Katie McBannower

5:31

had. Honestly I've never seen anything

5:33

like it. In case we have covered

5:35

before you might be lucky enough to get a few

5:38

recordings here and there. This is

5:40

like some sort of audiobook of

5:42

every single word any of these

5:44

people ever uttered to one another.

5:46

It has, it leaves. How

5:49

can I be hearing all of these

5:51

conversations? They tab everything. But

5:54

before we get into what the FBI uncovered

5:57

let's have a little look at Charlie

5:59

and Donna. Adelson and

6:01

what sort of people they seemed to be.

6:04

Because it wasn't Rivera who actually

6:07

first pointed the authorities in

6:09

the direction of the Adelson's. Remember

6:11

Wendy's new boyfriend, the one

6:13

that she got after her and Dan divorced,

6:15

Jeff Lacal? We said last

6:17

week that we would come back to Jeff in his

6:20

police interview and I think that now is a good

6:22

time to do Jeff's act. If

6:24

you recall during her first initial

6:26

police interview Wendy said, what if

6:29

Jeff did this? So

6:31

of course the police episode. And

6:34

the clips we're about to play you come

6:36

from Jeff's first interview with investigators on

6:38

the 21st of July 2014. And we

6:42

are actually going to use both of

6:44

Jeff's police interviews a lot in this

6:46

episode because everyone else

6:48

has an agenda, everyone else lies

6:50

and everyone else is a very

6:53

unreliable narrator. So Jeff's

6:55

statements about the entire situation in

6:57

the lead up to the murder, everything in

6:59

the aftermath are very insightful. And

7:02

his evidence also played a pivotal role in court. Well

7:05

if I text up to somebody and somebody

7:07

else told me, you'd have to tell me

7:09

what it was and I would have to

7:11

say, okay is this something that can be

7:13

excluded from the report or is it something

7:15

that's... Inculpatory, is

7:17

it something that... Maybe I can just make it

7:19

simpler than that. Maybe I can just say, I

7:21

would be investigating trial Adelson. Okay.

7:24

Is that simple? What makes you say that?

7:27

Um, I was very angry about Danny.

7:30

And if you met, I mean he's down there, he can't

7:32

get him up right here.

7:34

You know, experience investigating, you know, in front of this guy. He's an

7:38

operator and he's not a law institution, he's

7:40

a law justice, he's a two-part psychiatry. He's

7:42

a... might have been in front of a

7:44

little bit. He's a weird guy. A

7:47

strange guy's a conduct disorder kid. And

7:50

he hates Danny. So

7:54

he have Jeff telling the police very

7:56

early on that they needed to have

7:58

a look at Charlie. Adelson. And

8:02

Jeff absolutely has Charlie's number. And

8:05

then he implicates Wendy. Wendy

8:08

had reported to me that

8:11

Charlie had considered all

8:14

the options possible to take care

8:16

of this problem. He's

8:22

a British-national dentist, but he weeks it in

8:24

that social day. Just

8:26

one quick point. In case people are thinking that

8:28

Jeff is one of those internet weirdos throwing out

8:31

terms like narcissist and sociopath willy-nilly. Jeff

8:33

actually has specialisations in forensic psychology, social

8:35

work, clinical social work and mental health

8:37

and psychiatric medication. So I think he

8:39

is fairly well placed to make those

8:41

kinds of assessments. What did she

8:45

say to you specifically? Something like a

8:48

child with a knowledge of a podcast

8:50

or something like that. Something like that.

8:52

Did she give you a dollar amount?

8:54

But that's the other thing. He's

8:58

a dentist, but always an independent businessman, he's a

9:00

bunch of practices and he's a Harari. He has

9:02

a lot of resources. One

9:05

Jeff recounts a police conversation he had with Charlie

9:07

one day when he was hanging out at his

9:09

fancy house in his hot tub with Wendy.

9:13

I'm not trying to play talk to everybody. You know one thing he'd be

9:15

looking for is a long sum of money moving around in some kind of

9:17

place. I think there's a lot

9:19

of tax-run kind of stuff. People's

9:26

names and moving money around and they're like, yeah, I don't

9:28

know exactly what but he's not doing anything

9:30

to help him up with his finances. There's a pretty

9:32

open about that. I thought about it. If you guys

9:34

do look into it, I don't know. What

9:37

happened to that conversation in the hot tub?

9:40

He was just talking about I put that in dad's name, I put

9:42

that in mom's name. It was just clear

9:44

that. Hot and resources. Yeah. So

9:46

if you have to do an investigation,

9:48

that's something you guys should know because

9:50

I think there's a lot of, I

9:53

don't know if it's illegal, but I know there's a lot of, uh,

9:55

to place the system.

10:03

Remember, Dan had accused

10:05

Wendy of hiding assets.

10:08

Now this could well actually have been

10:11

Charlie's money that he had maybe

10:13

put in Wendy's loan to

10:15

hide it and avoid parks. So

10:17

it would, it discovered, have

10:20

totally fucked Wendy, because

10:22

it would have wrecked her legal career if she

10:24

was caught lying like that. But

10:26

if it was Charlie's money, it could

10:28

have also totally fucked him. So I

10:31

think this gives Charlie yet another motive to

10:33

silence them. But it

10:36

didn't stop there. Jeff had

10:38

more to tell the police about some weird

10:40

stuff that went on that afternoon in

10:42

the hot tub. I

10:59

don't think

11:01

Charlie would have done it, by the way. What would

11:03

he do? He

11:27

gave his buddy and his special forces to do this, or he

11:29

get some CD

11:32

guys out in the Cuban neighboring area, something like that.

11:38

The next thing I talked about was that Wendy had told Wendy

11:40

he looked into how much it would cost last summer. Wendy

11:45

told you that? She did. That

11:47

Charlie had looked into how much it would

11:49

cost. So

11:52

she said that dead theory is a

11:55

chilling, uncomfortable kind of way. The

11:57

family is so unhealthily. I

12:00

mean, they're meshed. It's

12:02

completely enmeshed. And Wendy is

12:04

not really an adult. And

12:06

she drives the South Florida every single time those two

12:09

parents come up here to drive with her down. They

12:11

don't trust her to drive the entire way out of your land.

12:15

They're just, it's not a normal family.

12:17

No, she's a 35-year-old man. Yeah. I'm

12:19

not a CEO. If we don't mesh

12:21

with it, it's a matter of... No.

12:25

Maybe it's bad to life, she's considered fake.

12:28

She's 35 years old, and Charlie protects her.

12:32

This interview happened a few days after Dan is

12:34

shot, and Jeff is just like, Charlie

12:37

did it. You should look at Charlie. He

12:39

wouldn't have done it himself, he would have got some CD

12:41

guys from the Cuban network. It's literally like

12:43

Jeff knows exactly what happened. It's

12:45

unbelievable. And also,

12:48

everything that Jeff says here about the

12:50

intensely enmeshed nature of the Adelson family,

12:52

how desperate they were to get Wendy

12:54

back to Miami, and how unhealthy their

12:56

infantilizing of Wendy was. It's

12:58

just screens of motive. He's literally

13:01

telling them who, how, and why. Yeah. Now,

13:04

of course, the police need that evidence, like,

13:06

to back up what Jeff is saying, but he

13:08

really... Jeff is... Like, on the

13:10

internet, everyone just calls him Sherlock Jeff. Sherlock Jeff,

13:12

like that. Because he knows.

13:15

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at the time would actually

16:02

be years before they had Charlie

16:04

Adelson on their actual radar. So

16:07

yeah, Charlie, as Jeff

16:09

explained in this interview, was a

16:12

fucking weird guy. He

16:14

was a successful periodontist, which

16:17

to me just sounds like a dinosaur but it's a

16:19

dentist. It's like a super dentist. It's

16:22

like a super gum dentist. And

16:24

actually Charlie did so well that

16:27

he actually did by his dad's business, the

16:29

Adelson Institute of him. On

16:31

top of this, Charlie did a lot

16:33

of wheeling and dealing as well and had

16:35

amassed quite a fortune for himself. He

16:37

owned a limo which is very 90s of

16:40

him and was in a boat and a

16:42

palatial home with a giant pool and a

16:44

hot tub in Fort Lauderdale. He

16:46

also, and you're going to absolutely hate

16:48

this, drove a Ferrari with the license

16:50

plate Maestro. And

16:54

Maestro, just in case you're wondering, was a

16:56

nickname that according to his own

16:58

friends, Charlie had given himself because

17:01

he considered himself to be the

17:03

very best dentist in the Sunshine

17:05

State. Yep. That tells

17:08

you a lot about Charlie Adelson. Yeah.

17:11

That's like LL Cool J being like, yeah, ladies love Cool

17:13

James. No, they don't. You

17:16

made that up yourself. Charlie,

17:19

this is so fucking

17:22

classic. Anybody, in my opinion, with

17:24

a vanity plate is this person.

17:26

Ben. Charlie

17:29

had been a very small child. So

17:31

as an adult, he was obsessed with

17:33

bodybuilding. He worked out constantly and

17:37

he supplemented his exercise regime with

17:39

countless steroids. And

17:42

even though steroids shrink your penis, he managed

17:44

to be quite the womanizer and he had

17:46

a new girlfriend every month. He

17:49

had a son with a lady called Brianna

17:51

Taylor, although he doesn't seem to have been

17:53

in his kid's life that much because

17:56

he was too busy being the

17:58

Maestro and taking regular trips to

18:00

South America for a little bit of sex tourism.

18:03

Yeah. Vile. Yeah.

18:06

So Jeff actually is the one who

18:08

brings this to people's attention and haven't

18:10

included that clip because, again, Jeff is

18:12

interviewed by the police for a whopping

18:15

five hours, which I watched twice at

18:18

times fucking five speed and my brain felt like

18:20

it was going to melt. But Jeff tells the

18:22

police that Charlie openly, like the

18:24

first couple of times they've met as

18:27

his little sister's new boyfriend, Charlie

18:29

told Jeff, oh yeah, I go down to South

18:31

America all the time to have underage sex. He

18:33

doesn't put it like that, but

18:37

that's what he's going there for. So

18:39

yeah, he's a pretty vile human being.

18:43

Now one of these many girlfriends that Charlie

18:45

had in the US was Katie McBanawa. They

18:48

started dating in the autumn of 2013

18:51

and while it didn't work out, they did keep in

18:53

touch. And when Charlie decided that

18:55

he wanted Dan out of the picture for good, because

18:58

yes, spoilers, presumably

19:01

he knew just who to call. After

19:03

all, Katie had gang connections.

19:06

So now all the police are taking these

19:09

accusations made by Jeff a little bit more

19:11

seriously. Let's have another

19:13

clip from Jeff's second police interview. Hold

19:16

up, Mr. Hale did her and Charlie

19:18

went to dinner.

19:21

Three weeks after the crack. Charlie

19:23

called it a celebration dinner. She

19:26

puked on the table during the dinner after

19:28

Charlie said something. She wouldn't tell

19:30

me what he said. She said Charlie did her mark and

19:33

I just puked everywhere. Celebration dinner?

19:36

That's what Charlie called it. She

19:38

got access to texting. That's what she called

19:40

it. Kids

19:43

are having problems but not because of Danny's

19:45

murder. Not because

19:47

of being in bed and having natural kids stuff. Not

19:50

because of Danny's murder. That's

19:52

a really weird thing to say. Most people would say they're affecting

19:54

his father. It seems to

19:57

be important to her that it's not because of that.

20:00

She's very upset today that the dead is

20:02

my real source. I thought

20:04

I had to demonstrate her real bad story. I

20:07

was gonna wear a second man in front of him. I'm gonna

20:09

take her to the fucking fire. Don't

20:11

tell that in my hands. I come to the

20:14

conclusion that she said a minute ago that she

20:16

was. At

20:18

least the way this was going to happen. And

20:20

I think probably involved. Oh.

20:29

She made... well first

20:31

of all, what? Does

20:33

she still have the phone number? She

20:36

switched her phone three or four days after

20:38

the shitting because she thought you guys had

20:40

bugged it. Okay. Alright,

20:44

do you have the new number? I

20:46

don't. I think she has the same number. She

20:49

has a different phone. She just went with the

20:51

hands. She's silly because they want to... You don't

20:53

need to put the phone on that phone. I

20:55

mean, that's funny. Why would

20:57

she be concerned about people bugging her phone, or

20:59

police bugging her phone? I guess that's what she's

21:01

specifically concerned about. She's not concerned about that.

21:05

She's doing that. She asked why.

21:08

How I knew she was. I

21:10

immediately thought she did this, and so she told

21:12

me 50 times, Jeff, I had nothing to do

21:14

with this. I

21:17

know she just decided to find it. I

21:20

didn't want to go there. I didn't want to play my hand. I

21:22

never said anything to her. I just

21:24

wanted to listen. I was hoping she might give me something to do with this

21:26

game. You were going to try to get it. She's

21:29

erratic enough. I thought she might say something to her. She

21:33

must have said 50 times, I had nothing to do with this. He's

21:35

not standing in the press. She's worried that he didn't

21:37

give her a children. She

21:40

was just suggesting a serial killer could be

21:42

true to lawyers. I mean,

21:44

this is pretty true. Yeah,

21:47

you think... What's she concerned for? She's

21:50

concerned for her children's safety. Wendy

21:53

plays the victim so well.

21:56

To me it looked like

21:58

classic Wendy and everybody else. I'm so happy

22:00

I can't do it fully clean. She

22:03

did this. She was a victim

22:05

of something. She's

22:07

great. Those

22:12

names, I give you an easy kick. You can have

22:14

all the data I have. Wendy

22:18

with Charlie. I

22:22

don't know who was the trigger. What? There

22:26

was a strange noise you could get next

22:28

to. I

22:39

acknowledge this might not sound over easy to you Mr. I

22:41

don't know that. So

22:44

I'm very interested in this. Yeah. I

22:46

just want to make sure that I

22:49

understand it completely and thoroughly. Yeah.

22:53

I can see that it's been weighing on

22:55

you heavily. Well it has because it sounds

22:57

crazy to people. I

22:59

told a couple of people the whole story I could tell that you

23:01

start to finish and no one else is. Crazy.

23:05

You forgot to tell

23:08

you. I forgot to tell you.

23:11

I forgot to tell you. I

23:13

forgot to tell you. I forgot to tell

23:15

you. I

23:17

forgot to tell you. I forgot to tell

23:20

you. I'm very interested in this. I

23:22

just want to make sure that it sounds like

23:24

a good thing to do. But not really.

23:28

I have a good one. She

23:30

just got over divorce and drinking too much. She'll

23:32

settle down over time. It may be a little halfway over after. Second

23:36

option. She sounds

23:38

awful like a sociopath. That's

23:41

an objective person. I have a high

23:43

functioning, but she doesn't seem to

23:45

have a conscience. I was in

23:47

love with her. I

23:50

was kind of thinking about what I'm talking about.

23:52

Which is excellent. I'd

23:55

prefer you guys to give somebody else an

23:57

obviously. I

24:00

could find it for you. It would

24:02

have been in around August 20th. Oh,

24:07

hello. She caught off

24:11

all contact. Because

24:14

I didn't tell her I was dating. Just

24:16

bizarre. That

24:19

was the time when I met someone

24:22

from the district who said that nothing

24:24

is more than a crazy

24:26

person. You know what they were mostly upset

24:28

about? She told me

24:30

this. The fact that she had

24:32

to get up on her commitment speech because Dancy

24:35

was shocked. Um,

24:37

and there are already studies about it. You have

24:39

to get yourself in front of the media like

24:41

this. An additional show up. You can't do it.

24:44

She was devastated. No.

24:47

Um. So

24:52

yes, here I think there's even more information

24:54

that really makes Wendy look like she was involved

24:57

in Dan's murder. We

24:59

will come back to Wendy. I promise. I know I keep

25:01

saying it. We will. Because honestly,

25:03

she is by far the most complicated

25:05

character in this story. And one

25:08

of the most interesting. But for

25:10

now, let's go back to Jeff's 2015 interview.

25:12

So this is the second interview she does

25:14

with police. And listen to what

25:16

he had to say about the entire Adelson

25:18

family. There

25:45

you go. There's

25:47

something off about that guy. What

25:49

about this FBI thing? I heard through the

25:51

grapevine that the FBI had to talk to

25:54

Rob up in New York. That's

25:56

what Wendy told you? No, I think that's what

25:58

James Pearson told me. I

26:01

try not to wear anything I hear because his

26:03

information is everywhere. He's monitoring the person's

26:06

tarnish. Most likely got it from Wendy.

26:09

That's true. He's like an outside.

26:12

He's not really a part of the

26:14

core family. They don't have a relationship.

26:16

The impression is he's a guy who

26:18

wants nothing to do with his family.

26:21

Something happened in that house and he wants nothing to

26:23

do with it. I just

26:25

think there's a bit of a theory

26:27

which sounds super crazy. But people

26:30

needed it out to help me. Is that

26:32

to be anyone considering the whole

26:34

family? Is there others? Yes, there's

26:36

a lot of people that do that as well. Going

26:38

to that house is real

26:41

strange in there. It's a big secret. It's a real

26:43

weird. Have you

26:45

met her parents? I have. Is

26:48

there anything that you can tell me about them? No.

26:52

Everyone in that family suffers from this appeal.

26:54

I have empathy for other people. She

26:58

wanted that. How

27:00

was it for the community? You can on his website. I mean,

27:02

a few years ago I went on it. He

27:04

was polite to me. But that's polite.

27:09

Mom's kind of rude actually. I

27:15

know the father is that speculated about.

27:18

They hate daddy in a way. I

27:22

have a life. I've been doing divorce. I can't life. I've

27:25

never seen this kind of

27:27

obsession. The robbery

27:29

is anything, Danny. It's

27:32

going to look really strange. I mean, I

27:34

thought it is because when you get convinced, you

27:37

should give it to her. But

27:39

they were

27:41

going to promise you. You should give

27:43

it to some females, but I don't know if there's a

27:45

one point. When he was going to

27:47

get a restraining order against Danny. I wish in retrospect,

27:49

it's bizarre because he was a good dad.

28:01

Jeff is like a savant.

28:04

He's like Mystic Jeff. He

28:06

knows exactly what's happened. And

28:09

in this incident that

28:11

Jeff mentions, the one

28:13

that drove the eldest Adelson son Rob

28:16

away, let's have a little look at it

28:18

because it is actually very enlightening when it comes

28:20

to Donna Adelson's character. So

28:24

Rob, the Adelson's eldest

28:26

child, is a doctor. He

28:29

now lives with his wife and kids in Albany, New

28:31

York. And for years Rob has

28:33

had nothing to do with his family, living

28:36

almost completely estranged from them. Well

28:38

thanks to his mum Donna. Because

28:41

when Rob was in medical school, he

28:43

met and fell in love with another student, Harita

28:46

Tripali. But Donna was

28:48

not happy. Harita is

28:51

an Indian American. And Donna told

28:53

Rob, if you continue this

28:55

relationship, we will disown you.

28:59

So Rob and Harita break up.

29:01

They get back together and then they break up, over

29:04

and over again. And then

29:06

finally Rob caves to family pressure and

29:09

marries a quote unquote nice Jewish girl.

29:12

But almost immediately Rob regrets

29:14

his decision. And you can listen

29:16

to him talk in detail about this on season three of the

29:18

podcast Over My Dead Body. He feels

29:20

awful but he knows that this isn't

29:22

right for him. So the pair of

29:25

them get their marriage and I'll just a few weeks after the

29:27

wedding and Rob begs Harita to

29:29

take him back. And after

29:31

this he pretty much cuts all contact off

29:33

with his family and like we said, he

29:36

and Harita are now happily married, living far away

29:38

from the Adelson's all the way up in New

29:40

York. And I think

29:42

that gives us a pretty clear insight into

29:44

just how controlling Donna was.

29:48

So while I do think that

29:50

Charlie was probably the one who

29:52

ordered the hit, I

29:55

think Donna was absolutely instrumental in

29:57

the whole situation. For

29:59

example There was always a

30:01

consistent pattern of calls. The

30:04

chain of phone conversations always went.

30:07

Donna caused Charlie, caused

30:09

Katie, caused Garcia, who

30:12

caused Rivera. And then back again.

30:15

I really feel like this points to Donna

30:17

as the real mastermind. And

30:19

Charlie was maybe more of the enforcer.

30:22

Now many have speculated that Charlie was acting the

30:24

big man. Very much. Watch

30:26

me take care of my baby sister and get her

30:29

and the kids back to my parents, which is what

30:31

everyone wants. I'll fix this for us

30:33

and then everyone will know that I'm the alpha

30:35

in the family. Like I do feel like that's

30:37

very much Charlie Adelson's vibe. So

30:40

the police really thought that they could shake

30:42

something loose from the Adelson's. But

30:44

then in June 2016, the

30:46

state was forced to unseal the probable cause

30:49

affidavits for both Luis Rivera and

30:51

Siegfriedo Garcia. These documents named

30:54

Charlie and Donna Adelson. And

30:58

immediately the Adelson's began to

31:00

close ranks. Yeah, because they

31:02

desperately tried to keep these PCAs under

31:04

wraps. So that the Adelson's think,

31:07

oh yeah, they got the two guys that did it, but

31:10

they're not onto Garcia. I don't even know why you

31:12

would be that stupid. Because obviously the minute they do

31:14

that, they're going to turn on you. And

31:16

I think Charlie Adelson thinks, because I've gone

31:18

through Katie McManawa, they don't actually know who

31:20

I am. They can't point the finger back

31:22

at me and they haven't arrested Katie. So

31:24

maybe I'm fine. A

31:27

newspaper basically forces

31:30

the state to unseal

31:32

the PCAs, which then tells

31:34

the Adelson that they are very much on

31:37

the police's radar. Straight

31:39

away, Wendy Adelson had her son's

31:42

last names changed from Markell to

31:44

Adelson. And then she completely

31:46

cut off the Markell family's visitation. And

31:49

there was nothing that Dan's parents, who up until then

31:52

had been seeing the boys four or five times a

31:54

year, could do about it. And

31:56

they wouldn't see their grandsons for

31:58

the next six years. But

32:01

despite the fact that the cover was now blown,

32:03

the police kept going. And on

32:05

the 19th of April 2017, the police

32:07

decide it's time for a little undercover

32:10

work. This is one of

32:12

my favourite things that ever happens in any

32:14

true crime case ever. And

32:16

I would love to play you the audio

32:18

recording of this but it is terrible because

32:20

it's recorded outside, there's so much car noise,

32:23

it's really horrible you can't really understand what they're saying.

32:25

But I will tell you what it said. A

32:28

cop pretending to be Louise

32:30

Rivera's brother walks up

32:32

to Donna Adelson in the middle of the

32:34

street and hands her an

32:37

envelope. Now this is

32:39

what is exactly said in this

32:41

recording. Excuse me Mrs Adelson,

32:44

I wanted to give you this. I

32:46

just wanted to let you know that we

32:48

know that your family have been

32:50

taking care of Katie and

32:52

Tuto, remember Tuto is Garcia. Louise

32:55

Rivera is King Potato. We

32:59

know that you've been taking care of Katie and Tuto

33:01

for some time. My brother is

33:03

incarcerated and I know my brother helped you

33:05

with a problem you guys had up north

33:08

and we wanted to make sure that he's taken care

33:10

of like you've been taking care of Katie and Tuto.

33:14

Donna then went home and called Charlie. And

33:17

mother and son talk to each other in a very weird

33:19

and coded way. Like Donna

33:22

doesn't actually say what's happened. It's

33:24

very odd. She's just like something

33:27

happened today. Somebody gave

33:29

me a document. And it's

33:31

like a charade. Like

33:34

Charlie's on the other end of the phone going like what

33:36

document are you being subpoenaed? Have you been

33:38

served? It's

33:40

like a guessing game but Donna never like confirms

33:42

because Charlie never guesses what it is because

33:44

it's so bizarre. And then in the

33:47

end she's just kind of like I'm sure everything will be fine

33:49

okay bye. I'm like what? It's really weird.

33:51

But you know one thing from that call that

33:53

they know there is a very real possibility they are

33:56

being listened to. And

33:58

then they're just trying to get it. to ignore the

34:00

situation with Rivera's brother, which

34:03

obviously isn't a situation at all. But

34:06

the cops escalate. They keep texting

34:08

Donna and they even drop off another letter

34:10

at her house so Donna calls the police.

34:13

Just kidding, obviously she did not do that. She

34:16

called the undercover cop and she

34:18

just says over and over that she doesn't know

34:20

what he's talking about. She doesn't

34:22

know his relative and she implores him to just

34:24

leave her alone. But he

34:27

is persistent. And then a few

34:29

days later on the 28th of April 2016,

34:32

Charlie Adelson calls the undercover

34:34

cop instead. And

34:38

this calls. These people have medical

34:40

degrees. Like this is insane to me.

34:43

Donna Adelson used to be a teacher. No

34:45

one in this is actually

34:47

stupid. But let's have a listen

34:50

to that call. Hello,

35:06

big guy. Hello, big

35:08

guy. Who is this? Who

35:12

is this? Someone

35:15

has been calling my family and trying to figure out who this

35:18

is. In

35:22

reference to what, man?

35:27

Someone by the name of Sandy called. Yeah,

35:31

that's me, man. All

35:33

right. What's going on? Well,

35:37

what's going on? My brother is not there.

35:40

Okay. My brother is not there. I have not been taken care

35:43

of. His family has not

35:45

been taken care of. I talked to

35:47

a dentist. Why are you calling me? Who

35:49

are you? I

35:52

didn't remember to a lady. I

35:57

don't know. on

36:00

top of Katie and Tuto, they've

36:03

been taking care of since the family problem had

36:05

been taken care of up north. I

36:09

don't know who you are. You

36:12

don't? Well, this time I'm going away, my friend,

36:14

because let me tell you something. I

36:16

was a brat with Dato and he told me the

36:18

whole story. He told me nobody

36:21

was taking care of him, nobody was

36:23

taking care of his family. The

36:26

family was taking care of Katie and

36:28

Tuto and nothing's been taken care of

36:30

without them. So

36:33

we know, we know what's going on.

36:37

And Dato needs to be taken care of, do the right thing.

36:41

The lady already has the paperwork, she knows what I'm

36:43

talking about. We

36:46

know Katie, we know Tuto, we know they've been taken

36:48

care of. All

36:53

right, I'm in now, I'm gonna look at the thing. No

36:55

more f***ing around, man, no more f***ing around. This ain't going

36:57

away. You guys need

36:59

to do the right thing for Dato. That's

37:04

my brother, man. That's my

37:07

brother and he needs to be taken care of, his family

37:09

needs to be taken care of, just like Katie and Tuto

37:11

have been taken care of. I've

37:15

never met this people, but let me call

37:17

you back, okay? That's

37:19

bullsh**t, man, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

37:21

You know this lady, I don't know your relationship

37:23

with lady, but we know what the f*** is

37:26

going on. Take

37:30

care of that, don't you like to take care of Katie

37:32

and Tuto, man? Let

37:35

me call you back. Oh

37:37

my God, this call to me is proof

37:39

if you need proof that Charlie Adelson is

37:41

playing the big man. Right, maybe. Mum,

37:44

I'll handle this. Give me that price number.

37:46

And he's like, someone's been calling

37:48

my family and I'm trying to figure out who it is.

37:51

Shut the f*** up, Charlie. He's such a

37:54

twat, I cannot stand him. And also what

37:56

he's saying in the school makes no sense.

37:58

Let me look into this. Let

38:00

me call you back. What

38:03

innocent person would say that to someone who is

38:05

exhorting them? Why would

38:07

you say that? If you

38:09

were innocent, you would call the police and let

38:11

them handle this man who is clearly threatening you

38:13

if you really have no idea what they're talking

38:16

about. But none of

38:18

the Adelson's, during the entire

38:20

time that this undercover cop, Louisa

38:23

Rose's fake brother, is threatening them, ever,

38:25

ever, ever call the police. Instead,

38:28

there is a surge of phone

38:30

activity between Donna, Charlie and Katie.

38:33

And we are not going to play all of those calls

38:35

for you here. But it is pretty

38:37

clear that Charlie, who thinks he

38:39

is so smart, is speaking

38:41

in code the entire time. He

38:45

talks about pot-bellied pigs and bonsai

38:47

trees, things that make absolutely

38:49

no sense given the context. And

38:52

at one point, Katie even

38:54

yells, on a phone call that

38:56

is being recorded, I don't care

38:58

about all of this code shit. Well,

39:03

you should, Katie. Shut

39:05

the fuck up. You

39:08

can just, Charlie is the kind of guy who's just like,

39:10

Katie, we cooked about this.

39:13

My name is Black Wok Down. My

39:17

stroke. My stroke. No,

39:19

there'll be onto me. So

39:22

eventually, Charlie tells Katie that enough

39:25

of these phone conversations, they need to meet

39:27

and discuss this very serious issue of the

39:29

fact that they are being threatened. So

39:31

the two of them arranged to have a chat at

39:33

a Mexican restaurant called Dolce Vita in

39:36

a strip mall near Katie's work. But

39:38

little do they know that the FBI

39:40

were following. And again, the audio

39:43

from this recording is really bad quality.

39:47

So we'll just talk you through the conversation that the two

39:49

of them had. Charlie tells

39:51

Katie about the note. He

39:53

tells her to pay the guy off saying, call him,

39:55

tell him, I got a call from some friends saying

39:58

that you mentioned my name. I

40:00

don't know what this is about, but I'll pay

40:02

you. As charity.

40:05

What? The fuck? Charlie

40:10

Adelson explains that if

40:12

it is the police trying to set

40:14

anyone up, then they won't actually meet

40:16

you. Let alone take the money.

40:18

It's like, you have to tell me if you're a

40:21

policeman. He thinks he knows

40:23

everything. He thinks he is so

40:25

smart and he can outwit the whole system. He's

40:27

like, listen, Katie. You call him and

40:29

tell him this. He's like, you know, the cops, they won't even

40:31

meet you. He thinks he's in a fucking 80s

40:34

detective show. He thinks he's in Miami Vice.

40:36

Yes. Which he kind of is. Have

40:39

you seen Bitters of Him? He really does look

40:42

like he's in Miami Vice. He

40:44

goes on to say stuff like, if it's not the police and

40:46

it is real, then at least they will know. And

40:49

they better kill Rivera's fake brother because

40:51

he's going to be a big problem. And then

40:53

Charlie finishes off with, if you can't do

40:55

it, i.e. kill this person, I'll

40:58

have someone else do it. He's so cash.

41:00

Or just kill all of our problems.

41:03

Or we'll kill our way out of this situation. And

41:07

he also told Katie that he wasn't worried about being

41:09

arrested. But if he

41:11

thought police had any evidence on him

41:13

or his family, quote, we would

41:15

have already gone to the airport. And

41:18

go the fuck away, my friend. You ain't going anywhere.

41:21

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after this meeting with Katie,

44:05

Charlie calls his mum Donna, who is

44:07

presumably sat at home having absolute kittens,

44:10

and he tells her, again, more code,

44:12

I gave her some relationship advice, relationships

44:15

aren't easy, but don't worry,

44:17

everything is fine now. Everything

44:20

was, however, very far from fine, because

44:23

on the 1st of October 2016, the

44:25

police arrested Katie McBanawa. Now,

44:28

initially, Katie was actually offered a

44:30

plea deal, and she could have

44:33

walked away from this completely

44:36

scot-free if she

44:38

had turned on Charlie Adelson, but

44:40

she refused to take the plea, claiming that

44:42

she'd done nothing wrong. So,

44:45

Garcia and Katie, the star-crossed lovers,

44:48

were tried together in 2019, and

44:51

Louise Rivera, bugging King

44:53

Potato Head, testified against them

44:55

both. Garcia was convicted of

44:58

first-degree murder and sentenced to leave, but

45:00

the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict

45:02

for Katie McBanawa, and the judge declared

45:05

a mistrial. Katie

45:07

had her retrial in May 2022,

45:10

and this time, the secret FBI recordings

45:12

from the Mexican restaurant and the

45:14

fact that Katie couldn't give a clear explanation for

45:16

the things like the money she was receiving from

45:18

the Adeltons sealed the deal for

45:21

her. Katie McBanawa was

45:23

found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy

45:25

to commit murder, and solicitation

45:27

of murder, and she was sentenced

45:29

to life. In

45:31

a show of mild romance, Garcia refused to

45:34

testify against Katie, but no one would be

45:36

coy about anything when it came to the

45:38

next trial. Because, yes,

45:41

at long last, on the 21st of

45:43

April 2022, Charlie

45:45

Adelson was finally arrested and

45:48

charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy

45:51

to commit murder, and solicitation

45:53

of murder. And you

45:55

can bet your ass. Garcia, Rivera,

45:57

and Katie all lined up.

46:00

to testify against him. And

46:02

they had to because Charlie's entire defence

46:04

was based on pointing the finger squarely

46:07

back at the three of them. Charlie

46:10

Adelson's trial kicked off with his sister's

46:12

own words from her first police interview,

46:15

where she openly and bafflingly acknowledged

46:18

her family's motives to kill Dan,

46:21

including the now infamous joke that Charlie

46:23

had made about buying her a TV

46:25

as a divorce present because it was cheaper

46:28

than hiring a hitman. The

46:31

prosecutors accused Charlie of organising

46:33

the hit on Dan to get Wendy back

46:35

home to Miami like his family wanted, and

46:39

of using his ex-girlfriend Katie as

46:41

a way to distance himself from

46:43

the killer. And the

46:45

pattern of course that circulated between Charlie,

46:47

Donna, Katie and Garcia seemed to match

46:50

this. There was also

46:52

evidence that Katie had actually gone over

46:54

to Charlie's house on the night of

46:56

the killing. And then miraculously,

46:58

the next day she had the cash to

47:00

pay Garcia and Rivera. There

47:04

was also ample evidence of Katie having been

47:06

paid by the Adelson's, yet there was

47:08

no evidence that she had ever worked for them. In

47:10

which case, why was she being paid? On

47:13

one of their many phone calls after

47:15

Rivera and Garcia were arrested, Charlie even

47:17

offers Katie his boat.

47:20

He's literally like, I've got a big boat. Do you want

47:22

the boat? I can just give you the boat. I can

47:25

hand it over to you tomorrow. And she's like, I can

47:27

have your boat. It's so

47:29

ridiculous. So it's reasonably obvious

47:31

that he is trying to keep her quiet

47:33

because he thought that the net was

47:35

closing in. Now,

47:38

Charlie's defence for all

47:40

of this had a very different story

47:42

to tell. They claimed that

47:44

Charlie was a victim

47:47

of extortion. They

47:49

get better. And of

47:51

course, Charlie, the maestro Adelson, took

47:53

the stand. And

47:56

prepare yourself because this is something Charlie

47:58

claimed at trial. that in the spring of 2014,

48:02

Katie Mcbanua had heard him making

48:04

the fucking hitman joke. He

48:07

said it was stupid, the stupidest joke he

48:09

ever made, but he made it again

48:11

and again and again for

48:13

years. And

48:16

he claimed that he had quote

48:18

spoken too freely about his family's

48:20

issues to Katie, including

48:23

telling her that the Adelson's had

48:25

offered Dan $1 million to

48:27

let Wendy move back to

48:29

Miami. And this was actually true,

48:31

the family had offered Dan this and Dan had told him

48:33

where to get off because he quite

48:35

literally would rather be a good dad to his kids

48:37

than have a million dollars. And

48:40

when Katie found out about this according to

48:42

Charlie, she had been shocked by

48:44

how much money he had. Then

48:47

according to Charlie, after Dan

48:49

was killed, Katie came to his house crying and

48:51

saying this is all my fault. I

48:54

spoke in too much detail about your family

48:56

problem, like

48:58

your sister's ex-husband and the million dollars you offered

49:00

him to some friends of mine. And

49:02

it was one of my friends who killed Dan

49:04

Markell, but now he wants a third of the

49:06

million dollars. Why a third of the million dollars?

49:09

Why a third? They thought that he

49:11

was going to give Dan a million, why would you kill him? And they'd

49:13

be like, I just have a third. I

49:15

just have 333,033. Why? It

49:21

doesn't make any sense and this makes even less sense. Apparently

49:23

Katie refused to tell Charlie, who this

49:25

friend actually was. So he says that's

49:28

the reason I was giving the money to her because she

49:30

refused. So I gave the money to her and she

49:32

was paying her friend. What?

49:35

Now Charlie claimed out trial that he refused

49:37

to pay the money at first, saying, I

49:40

won't be a part of this. It really sounds

49:42

like you're trying to extort me Katie. But

49:45

Katie explained, I'm not trying to

49:47

extort you, but if you don't pay in 48

49:50

hours, he's going to

49:52

kill you. According to Charlie,

49:54

he told Katie, we should just go to

49:56

the police. But again, Katie told

49:58

him, if you go to the police. police, they

50:00

will kill you. You just have to

50:03

pay them. However, Charlie

50:05

now told Katie that he didn't have a third

50:08

of a million dollars after all. He

50:10

only had 138,000 in cash.

50:12

And a boat. And a boat. And a boob

50:15

job. But

50:17

so desperate to protect his family

50:19

and himself, Charlie said he

50:21

gave this money to Katie and

50:24

the two of them came up with a

50:26

payment plan for the rest. Yeah,

50:29

big size. Because if

50:32

anybody is famous for

50:34

their payment plan processes, it

50:36

is the cartels of Miami, Florida. They're like,

50:39

we will accept a payment plan. Yeah, we won't break

50:41

your legs. Then

50:44

for some reason, Charlie said that he told

50:47

his mum, Donna, everything, which why would you

50:49

do that immediately incriminating your own mother? Charlie

50:52

said that he did that in case he

50:55

was killed. So then at least

50:57

someone would know what happened to him. But

51:01

this line is obviously to explain away why

51:04

Donna is constantly involved in the communications around

51:06

the murder for hire. Now,

51:08

the prosecution tear a bunch of

51:11

holes in this story from Charlie, like

51:13

why his messages with Katie in the

51:15

two years after she started extorting him,

51:18

but before any arrests were made, was

51:20

so casual and chatty. Because remember

51:22

Charlie saying that Katie's had up at his house the day

51:24

after Dan was killed and started like saying you need to

51:26

pay these people. Garcia

51:28

and Rivera aren't arrested for like a

51:30

year or two after the murder. But

51:33

during that time, Charlie's texts to Katie

51:36

are along the lines of like, it's

51:38

such a beautiful day. I'll go to the gym

51:40

now. What? Why?

51:43

She's extorting you. I

51:46

don't know. None of it makes any sense in all of

51:48

their conversations. Charlie very much seems to not have a care

51:50

in the world. He thinks he's got away with it, remember?

51:53

But now he's claiming that during that time,

51:55

he'd actually been being threatened by

51:57

gang members who were out

51:59

to murder him and his entire family. To

52:02

this Charlie said that he was just trying

52:04

to act normal. But then why did he

52:06

offer to buy Katie and her mum a cruise, give

52:08

her his boat and buy her some boobs, it seems

52:11

much more like he was trying to keep

52:13

his co-conspirators happy and on his side.

52:16

Because as far as he's concerned Katie's the only one who knows

52:18

who he is. And

52:20

on tapped calls where Katie and Charlie discuss

52:22

the police having found the green Prius, Charlie

52:24

tells her, the car won't

52:27

lead anywhere, they won't find any

52:29

evidence. Like I know

52:31

it's a seven hour drive away but he does he's hired

52:33

in state. Anyway,

52:36

why would you that aside be arguing

52:39

that the car wouldn't lead anywhere if you were

52:41

the one being extorted? It's like he's trying to

52:43

put Katie's mind at ease when the car is

52:45

found when they finally tracked down the green Prius

52:48

after a year of looking

52:50

for it. He's like it's not going to

52:52

lead anywhere. Why would you say that? Surely

52:55

if you were being blackmailed, it

52:58

would be good for you if the police were

53:01

led to Rivera and Garcia via a car

53:03

hire that they had made. If you

53:05

were being blackmailed, yes. So

53:08

yes, Katie Rivera and Garcia all

53:10

testified against Charlie at his trial

53:13

with both of the men stating that Katie

53:16

had never been shooting her mouth off about

53:18

Charlie's money or about his sister's problems with

53:20

her ex-husband and that neither of them had

53:22

ever had any contact with the Adelson family.

53:25

They didn't even know who any

53:27

of them were. So it flies

53:30

directly in the face of this idea

53:32

that Garcia and Rivera had shot Dan

53:34

Markell knowing full well all of the

53:36

problems, knowing full well his connection to

53:38

Charlie Adelson, the man they thought had a

53:41

million dollars or a third of

53:43

a million dollars. So yeah,

53:45

the extortion defence was all bogus

53:47

as far as these

53:49

three were saying. And

53:52

the state question Charlie on why if

53:54

he was truly being extorted, why

53:56

he didn't come forward to the police after

53:58

Garcia and Rivera were arrested. Once

54:01

the police had them, surely he was safe

54:03

to report what had happened. But

54:05

he never did that. Also,

54:08

why would these two bother

54:10

to kill someone and risk

54:12

getting caught to extort someone

54:14

like Charlie Adelson? If they

54:16

found out from Katie that he had all of this money,

54:19

why didn't they just threaten his life and take his money?

54:22

Charlie claimed that this way, they could extort him for

54:24

life because he was paying them $3,000 a month. But

54:28

again, that doesn't really make any sense

54:31

because they could just get rid of you. Why

54:33

do you need to do a 14-hour round trip

54:35

from Miami to Tallahassee to shoot a man you

54:37

don't know to then extort

54:40

Charlie Adelson with no proof that

54:42

he had made you do it?

54:45

If you were just after his money, you just go

54:47

to his fucking house after you found out from Katie

54:49

McBannawhe that he's got a million dollars or a third

54:51

of a million dollars in cash in his house. I'd

54:54

burgle him. It makes no sense.

54:58

And in the end, the jury agreed. And

55:00

on the 6th of November, 2023, so,

55:02

so recently, this is how long this bloody case

55:05

has been going on literally a few

55:07

months ago, nine years after

55:09

the murder of Dan Markell, following

55:12

just three hours of deliberation by the jury.

55:15

Charlie Adelson was found guilty on all charges. And

55:18

on the 12th of December, 2023, he was

55:21

sentenced to life. Charlie

55:24

Adelson is an arrogant

55:26

twat who thought that he

55:28

was smarter than everyone else. He

55:30

figured that he would play the big man and that

55:33

he was going to save his little sister and make

55:35

his mum so very proud of him. And

55:38

he was convinced that if it came down to it, the

55:40

police would take his word over that of

55:43

a street-level gangster. He was, of course, the best

55:45

dentist in Florida, the maestro. And

55:47

I also do absolutely think the

55:49

financial irregularities that Jeff LeCateau brings

55:52

up are super, super important. I

55:54

think for Charlie Adelson, the murder of

55:56

Dan Markell was many birds one stone.

56:00

was getting Wendy back home, making Donna

56:02

proud of him, being the big man.

56:05

Also, I think he's got a bit of that

56:07

viciousness in him that he just wanted to kill somebody.

56:09

I think he probably also did hate Dan Markell.

56:12

But I also think that

56:14

accusation that Dan had made during

56:16

their divorce proceedings, pointing the finger

56:18

at Wendy saying she's hiding financial

56:20

assets, I think that was a

56:22

big fear for Charlie that

56:24

that would get revealed. Because

56:27

if it did, I think that money was actually

56:29

Charlie's. Where did Wendy have that kind of money?

56:31

It doesn't make sense. Where did she get that

56:33

money? Charlie was rich.

56:36

And I think he was hiding money

56:38

to avoid paying taxes under the name

56:40

of different family members, who

56:42

he knew he could control. And I

56:45

think that was also a part of his motivation. But

56:49

our story doesn't end with Charlie,

56:51

because he called his mum, Donna,

56:54

every day he was incarcerated

56:57

and a whopping 86 times in

57:00

the days following his conviction. All

57:03

of those calls, just like pretty much every other

57:05

conversation that Charlie Adelson had had in the years

57:07

leading up to it, was of course recorded. But

57:10

for some reason, Donna and

57:13

Charlie aren't at all terrible.

57:16

In a call after Charlie was found guilty, Donna

57:19

tells her son that she's getting

57:21

things in order, creating trusts

57:23

for the grandkids. She

57:25

discusses plans for suicide and

57:28

also plans to flee to

57:30

a non-extradition country. So

57:33

it wasn't the biggest surprise in the world

57:35

when a week later the police discovered that

57:37

Donna Adelson had purchased her and her

57:40

husband Harvey one-way tickets

57:42

to Vietnam via Dubai the day

57:44

after Charlie was found guilty. I

57:47

do have a question about that. I thought you couldn't

57:49

buy one-way tickets to places because they were like, please

57:51

show us that you're leaving this country. Yeah. And

57:54

how she does it. Now

57:56

the police only found out about these flights.

58:00

8am on the 13th of November 2023. The

58:04

plane was set to take off 12 hours

58:06

later at 8pm that night. And

58:09

somehow in that time, the police managed

58:12

to get an arrest warrant for Donna

58:14

Adelson. And they actually arrested

58:16

her on the plane. Oh

58:19

my god. As it was sat

58:21

on the tarmac waiting to taxi. You

58:23

know Donna Adelson thought I'm in

58:26

the f- Oh yeah, she thought she was long gone. She

58:28

thinks the kids are with Wendy, weaves are

58:30

up to us, everything will be fine. Charlie's

58:32

been convicted, yeah that sucks. But I'm

58:34

getting on this plane, me and my husband are out here.

58:37

She's like putting her little seatbelt on, getting

58:39

ready. Bang! The police

58:41

are here. And it

58:43

was an extremely close call because if that

58:45

plane had taken off, game over. Getting

58:48

Donna back from either Dubai or Vietnam would

58:50

have been next to impossible. But

58:53

it wasn't to be. At

58:55

her arraignment hearing Donna Adelson, who is now

58:57

73 years of age,

58:59

pleaded not guilty in a murder for hire

59:02

plot. And then went

59:04

on to act all sorts of crazy in court.

59:06

Shouting and shrieking when the charges against her were

59:08

read out. And we will have

59:10

to wait and see what happens in the trial of Donna

59:12

Adelson. But it's pretty likely

59:14

that she'll be convicted. There's so

59:16

much evidence of her involvement, including emails that

59:18

she sent to Wendy like this one. The

59:22

rest of your life, Dad's, mine and even

59:24

Charlie's life will be affected by how you

59:26

can perform slash act on July 31st. Which

59:29

is the day that Wendy gave evidence at Charlie's trial.

59:32

You can be a good actress when you want to. I've

59:34

seen you in action. Well you

59:36

need to put on the performance of your life. Gibbers

59:39

hasn't beaten the Adelson's yet. He's

59:43

dead. Fuck. She

59:46

fucking sends us an email. What is happening? What

59:50

is happening? I have no idea. And

59:53

like look, I just think you

59:55

would be hard pushed to argue to

59:58

me that Donna Adelson is not a... narcissist.

1:00:00

As much of a narcissist as her son Charlie

1:00:02

is. I mean you get it from somewhere. Oh

1:00:04

yeah yeah yeah. I think the

1:00:06

idea that she thought that Donna thought she

1:00:08

had some sort of right to

1:00:11

have her adult daughter who was 35 years

1:00:13

old and her grandkids live near her

1:00:15

because that's what she wanted and the

1:00:18

idea that she thought that was more

1:00:20

important than those boys having a relationship

1:00:22

with their father is mind-boggling.

1:00:25

The arrogance of it. So

1:00:27

yeah I think that Donna was

1:00:30

probably likely the one in charge

1:00:33

and I do also think there's just like

1:00:35

everyone has a motive here. Wendy

1:00:37

wants to get out of Tallahassee. Charlie wants

1:00:39

to cover up these financial irregularities and be

1:00:41

the big man and I think for Donna,

1:00:44

Dan attempts to reduce her access to

1:00:46

the grandkids by only allowing her supervised

1:00:48

visitation would have been a real kick

1:00:51

in the teeth. I think that was a real

1:00:53

like nail in the coffin for her that expedited

1:00:55

this move because remember the hearing as we said

1:00:57

last week was set for a week after Dan was shot and

1:01:00

I think she just wasn't going to let him get away with it and

1:01:04

our story is still not

1:01:06

over because we have to finish

1:01:09

by talking about Wendy Adelson.

1:01:12

Astonishingly some

1:01:14

people still think that she

1:01:16

didn't know anything about this plot to

1:01:18

kill her ex-husband and

1:01:21

it does sort of seem like Wendy

1:01:23

plays the damsel in distress very convincingly

1:01:25

and that's why people think that but

1:01:28

not everyone is fault. Some

1:01:31

actually think that Wendy might

1:01:33

have been the ringleader herself. Now

1:01:36

I don't really know what I think. Wendy

1:01:39

does come across as

1:01:41

incredibly naive but I

1:01:43

could also believe that she maybe asked

1:01:45

her family to solve this problem for

1:01:47

her and Wendy through

1:01:49

all of the people you speak to who know

1:01:52

about her she was absolutely like

1:01:54

the spoiled baby of the family

1:01:57

and I do wonder if maybe her sort of

1:01:59

naive request of something like

1:02:01

just killing Dan, which

1:02:03

is something that they were going to

1:02:05

make happen and deep down Wendy knew that, but

1:02:08

she also knew that was her only way out of Tallahassee.

1:02:11

But whether Wendy was in charge or

1:02:14

the first one to put forward the idea of

1:02:16

killing Dan or not, there is

1:02:18

no doubt in my mind that Wendy

1:02:20

knew exactly what was

1:02:22

going to happen to Dan and when. Wendy

1:02:26

had a lot to lose, not just

1:02:28

staying in Tallahassee for 16 more years at

1:02:30

least, but possibly also losing

1:02:32

her legal career over the accusations that

1:02:34

Dan was making against her. Because remember

1:02:36

he was accusing her of hiding assets. And

1:02:40

in January 2022, Wendy was

1:02:42

publicly for the first time named

1:02:44

as an unindicted co-conspirator.

1:02:47

Up until that point, Wendy's name hadn't really

1:02:49

been brought up by the police at all.

1:02:52

In the years after Dan's murder, they had

1:02:54

sort of openly said that they weren't looking

1:02:56

at Wendy Adelson. They didn't think that she

1:02:58

knew what was going on. And

1:03:01

then it was only through papers that were

1:03:03

released in the lead-up to the retrial of

1:03:05

Katie McBannower that we saw in

1:03:07

one line, just very casually,

1:03:10

Wendy Adelson is also considered to be

1:03:12

an unindicted co-conspirator. I'm

1:03:14

sure Wendy got a nasty shock when she saw

1:03:16

that all over the internet. So

1:03:19

yeah, she has been named

1:03:21

as such, but otherwise she's still, as

1:03:23

of the 12th of January 2024 when

1:03:25

we're recording this, Wendy Adelson has still

1:03:27

not been arrested. Right

1:03:30

now, Wendy has limited

1:03:32

use immunity, which means

1:03:34

that her testimony can't be used against her. But

1:03:36

crucially, because I see a lot of people on the

1:03:39

internet being like, Wendy Adelson has immunity, Wendy Adelson has

1:03:41

immunity. She does not have

1:03:43

what's known as transactional immunity, which is

1:03:45

a sort of blanket immunity that would

1:03:47

protect her from any type of prosecution

1:03:49

for this crime at all. She does not have that.

1:03:52

So basically the police just need evidence

1:03:55

against Wendy that she hasn't

1:03:57

testified to. And to be

1:03:59

honest, if you look at this case, the way in

1:04:01

which the police have worked, very

1:04:03

slowly but they

1:04:06

got Rivera, they got Garcia, they

1:04:08

got Katie, they got Charlie, now

1:04:10

they're working on Donna, they

1:04:12

just seem to be going one by one. We

1:04:15

think for now that the state is

1:04:17

focusing on getting a conviction for Donna

1:04:19

and then they will most likely, we

1:04:21

hope, turn their attention to Wendy because

1:04:24

there is a lot of evidence that

1:04:26

Wendy knew. There were things

1:04:28

on her phone that were deleted before Wendy handed her phone

1:04:30

over to the police the day that Dan was killed. She

1:04:33

had a calendar entry in for fixed TV on

1:04:35

the day that Dan was shot which

1:04:37

was deleted prior to the police getting the handset

1:04:39

the same day. Why

1:04:42

would you do that? It's all more code,

1:04:44

it's all more code, it's so weird. And

1:04:47

there was also a text from Donna to Wendy

1:04:49

saying, Best Buy just called me, they are on

1:04:51

their way to help you with the TV in

1:04:53

your living room. Wendy

1:04:55

replied, this is so sweet but you knew it was

1:04:57

happening because it was in your calendar. And

1:05:00

then of course these texts were deleted. She

1:05:02

deleted the text before she hands

1:05:05

her phone to the police. And

1:05:07

she knows as a professor of

1:05:09

the law that they can

1:05:11

find them. It is

1:05:13

mind-boggling. I think she

1:05:16

genuinely Hannah, she gets up in the morning,

1:05:18

she's waiting for the TV repairman to come

1:05:20

which is also code for Dan's going to

1:05:22

get shot. She has it

1:05:24

in her calendar, she goes for her weird little

1:05:26

drive, she pretends she doesn't see the police, she

1:05:28

goes for lunch with her friends and

1:05:30

then when the police come and get her, I think she

1:05:32

sat in the back of that cop car for 20 minutes

1:05:35

not asking any questions, deleting all of these texts and

1:05:37

then handing her phone over to them when she gets there.

1:05:40

It is so stupid and

1:05:43

so obvious. Well

1:05:47

I think there is also enough

1:05:49

evidence to strongly speculate that

1:05:52

Wendy wanted to get Jeffler Cass,

1:05:54

her ex-boyfriend, done for the murder. Even

1:05:58

though the police cleared him for the murder, very early

1:06:00

on because remember he had a stone cold

1:06:02

alibi. Because as it turned out during

1:06:04

the year after Dan's death, Wendy

1:06:07

moved back to Miami of course and

1:06:10

spent much of her time telling anyone who

1:06:12

would listen that Jeff was Dan's killer despite

1:06:14

the police having ruled him out. Now

1:06:17

Jeff wasn't just going to let Wendy run

1:06:19

around talking shit about him and

1:06:21

on reflection it became very clear

1:06:23

to Jeff that he had been

1:06:26

being used by Wendy as

1:06:28

a potential patsy for the murder. So

1:06:32

in March 2015, Jeff requested to speak with

1:06:35

investigators again a whole

1:06:37

year after his initial talk with them.

1:06:40

And although it's now been nine

1:06:42

years since this interview, it's still

1:06:45

fascinating in terms of

1:06:47

what we learn about Wendy's character and

1:06:50

her behaviour around the time of

1:06:52

the murder of Dan Marko. So

1:06:55

I started dating Wendy in

1:06:57

fall of 2013. We had

1:07:00

mutual friends, a lot of our friends were in the Jewish community

1:07:02

at the School of Social Works. We both talked on.

1:07:28

But in the fall it

1:07:31

was interesting I just let me start.

1:07:33

Danny had been hard at describing Wendy

1:07:35

as a pathological liar and

1:07:37

a mentally ill narcissistic sociopath in

1:07:39

a semi-chunky manner but to you?

1:07:41

It sounded to people once you got

1:07:44

something right by him. People said be careful with Wendy.

1:07:46

She's a little unbalanced. So she seems to have said

1:07:48

about her divorce, but I don't know if she's on

1:07:50

the balance. I didn't take it seriously. That

1:07:53

sounds extreme. I had these two people have a nasty

1:07:55

divorce. She's calling names. I thought it was Tom, I

1:07:57

don't know. It's one of these things I... I'm

1:08:00

so excited for him because he's seen

1:08:02

a group of kids, he was sick of

1:08:04

her and went after her locally and really

1:08:06

aggressively and had no background. I

1:08:10

thought it was inappropriate and I thought it was a ticket

1:08:12

thing to purchase. I just are your ex-wife, you

1:08:14

know. One of the person

1:08:16

I'm left with is, I don't think I said

1:08:18

this before, like in December of January I thought

1:08:20

that was totally out of line. By May, I

1:08:23

don't know if those are technically the correct words,

1:08:25

but by May, I knew exactly

1:08:27

what he was talking about. This is

1:08:29

a very troubled person, a

1:08:32

deeply troubled person. And

1:08:35

of course, he's a court judge, she's smart,

1:08:37

she's funny, I haven't felt her in the

1:08:46

first time I've been in a prison. But just

1:08:48

an overall impression of her. And yet he said this

1:08:50

in court doctrine is actually a very

1:08:52

manipulative person, pathological liar. And I think she

1:08:54

was an alcoholic who I was with and

1:08:56

she drank at dinner most nights. Extremely

1:08:59

fragile, extremely depressed, many

1:09:02

many nights sitting in hated Tallahassee so

1:09:04

much that I thought we were a

1:09:07

bunch of country bumpkins. And we liked

1:09:09

Tallahassee because she's from Miami, didn't hide

1:09:11

that fact, thought it was bizarre, I

1:09:13

didn't even care for Phoenix. And

1:09:16

the two conversations that we had every single

1:09:19

day for nine months were, Danny

1:09:21

is an evil monster. Tallahassee

1:09:23

is the worst person in the world to live and

1:09:25

I can't think against it here because of Danny Markel.

1:09:28

She's obsessed with those two

1:09:30

concepts. It's a very difficult journey, I've never

1:09:32

heard of it. Every

1:09:34

day, every nine months. Umm,

1:09:37

on the man. When

1:09:43

he's very manipulative

1:09:45

in that she plays the victim very very easily.

1:09:47

Remember we were going to do a confrontation. For

1:09:50

me, I'm very sensitive to that. I

1:09:52

work with DB victims, women that have been raped and so forth

1:09:54

and all that kind of stuff. So I'm just

1:09:56

a little bit of a shit to do. Mr. Rogers kind

1:09:59

of guy, so that's alright. believe me more and

1:10:01

more to kill for that matter. But

1:10:03

she just wasn't stable even in the

1:10:05

food. And able to

1:10:07

cover it up here or there. It leads to

1:10:09

people in the first 100 hours you spend on three things, she's

1:10:12

amazing. I don't know, when I went on, you're like, sure, I'm

1:10:14

gonna give myself intake. This person's kind of crazy. Yikes.

1:10:17

I mean, look, nobody wants their

1:10:19

ex-boyfriend to go and give a

1:10:22

character a count of them. But

1:10:25

unstable, manipulative, obsessive in her hatred

1:10:27

for Dan and Tala Hasey, loves

1:10:29

playing the victim. Tick, tick, tick,

1:10:31

tick, tick. And even the fact that Jeff

1:10:33

is like, the more time I spent with

1:10:36

her, the more I understood what Dan was saying about

1:10:38

how fucking mental she was. Like, it is

1:10:40

as bad as it gets. And

1:10:42

then Jeff gets into

1:10:45

the details of how he believed that

1:10:47

Wendy was very much trying to

1:10:49

set him up. Things

1:10:52

started to get really, really strange. And this

1:10:54

is why I think I had a hard

1:10:57

time getting across to investigate her hair.

1:10:59

So I had

1:11:01

that fight. She goes to Portland for a weekend.

1:11:03

She comes back. It's not sure. And

1:11:07

Jeff's walking around saying to my friends, I

1:11:09

don't know what is

1:11:11

going on. Something is going

1:11:13

on. We had

1:11:16

the perfect talk about that and decided to

1:11:18

stay together. And she said, he's

1:11:20

one guy. He's gone. He went

1:11:22

away with that area. And I was walking

1:11:24

around saying to my friends, I don't know

1:11:26

what's going on. It's just, I can't even

1:11:28

think of what's going on. So,

1:11:33

you have those extra pieces that are

1:11:35

moving towards some things that are really,

1:11:37

really strange. I don't know what's going on.

1:11:41

And one of the strange

1:11:43

things that happened was that we had a trip to

1:11:45

California. I was going to see my parents. The

1:11:47

week that the U.S. kept in

1:11:49

the early June. She was getting

1:11:52

that trip. She

1:11:56

says, well, we'll get stuck in our

1:11:58

park and we won't be back on the road. I'm

1:12:00

going to have to pick up the cash from the phone. But

1:12:03

we're coming back Thursday night. It's early

1:12:05

turn. At the lantern the wind drive I

1:12:07

understand. There's no way. We're

1:12:11

going to get something. We went to

1:12:13

car with the baby's head

1:12:15

straight. It's

1:12:17

a fine cancel the trip. Um,

1:12:20

and that was going to be in early June? The

1:12:23

trip? Was going to be the week the

1:12:25

daddy was killed. Oh, okay. And

1:12:28

I even said if you just don't want to go because

1:12:30

you don't feel comfortable right now, just tell

1:12:32

me that's cause cause no, I

1:12:34

have to pick up the kids from

1:12:37

school that day after and after. I

1:12:39

don't want to do anything about that.

1:12:41

And she said I'll have missed

1:12:43

the kids at that point. And I said okay. She

1:12:46

said I want to spend that Monday tip early. I said

1:12:48

great. You want to go

1:12:50

to St. Augustine? She loves the beach. She hates to

1:12:52

have things. She's a guest.

1:12:54

She's very strange and suspicious to do. My

1:12:57

dad doesn't tell me what I want to do is a

1:12:59

staycation. I want to stay home

1:13:01

in Tallahassee. I said,

1:13:03

I want to stay in Tallahassee the hottest week I've

1:13:05

seen here. I said, we're going to

1:13:07

Tom Brown Park. We'll do this. I said, you hate it

1:13:10

here. I'm afraid to take you away. She's

1:13:12

just really strange with the sort of... I'm

1:13:15

not saying that she wants to do the laugh. I said,

1:13:17

when she says she wants to stay in Tallahassee, like she

1:13:19

needs to help. She'll never reach

1:13:21

out if she can't shoot. Why would she

1:13:23

want us to do that? She said, I

1:13:25

don't know. I have no idea. I

1:13:28

probably managed to convince her to do

1:13:30

a trip to St. Augustine. But

1:13:34

we had to schedule it so that we were back.

1:13:40

Basically by the time of the shooting. So

1:13:44

that was just strange. It was peculiar. That's

1:13:47

a lie. When

1:13:49

we scheduled that trip to St. Augustine, I was sitting there.

1:13:52

I said, I'm going to get your calendar open. You

1:13:54

can't just schedule everything like that.

1:13:56

She was. There's just about the time

1:13:58

I've been trying to stay in her office. She's trying to

1:14:00

schedule this into such weirdness about the

1:14:02

weekend. She's still having things, no problem,

1:14:05

for that weekend. She just wants

1:14:07

an intent on... I'm not saying

1:14:09

that's something to me before dancing with

1:14:11

Sean. I think there's something weird about that week. I don't

1:14:13

know what it is. There's

1:14:15

something weird about that week. It

1:14:19

really seems like she's trying to keep Jeff there in

1:14:21

Tallahassee around the time of the murder, so

1:14:24

that he can be a viable suspect. Why else would she do that?

1:14:28

And then after the murder, Wendy comes

1:14:30

right out, spreading stories

1:14:32

that she was convinced that Jeff

1:14:34

was the killer. Even

1:14:37

after the police had cleared him

1:14:39

because he had a rock-solid

1:14:41

alibi. He wasn't in town. She

1:14:45

didn't contact me for ten days. She

1:14:48

didn't use the police instructor, and I was a suspect,

1:14:51

and she was not given a card that's not his, that

1:14:53

I sent her. You

1:14:56

may not do that. I think she may

1:14:58

need to remove defense attorney, so

1:15:00

is it an ointment of those bizarre pictures and

1:15:02

the ones you talk to, so I could pay

1:15:04

you some more. I have access to this stuff.

1:15:07

Can I come for a minute? I don't think you can, but

1:15:09

I don't think you can from anyone who's very strange.

1:15:14

Well, no, you can't get in there

1:15:16

properly. No. No, you can't.

1:15:18

At least you want to. So... Sorry,

1:15:23

I wasn't in the room with her, and I thought she acted at whatever place.

1:15:26

It was impossible that I did this. I

1:15:28

don't know. She told me she tried to protect

1:15:30

you from the police. I wanted to know where

1:15:32

your house was. I wanted to know this. I

1:15:34

said, I don't need protecting. So then, your friends

1:15:36

called me or texted me. Well, I told

1:15:38

me later that she seemed

1:15:41

to be concerned that I actually did this. Why

1:15:44

would you do it? I don't know. Why

1:15:47

would I do it? Well, what did she say? Crime

1:15:50

of passion. We're

1:15:52

breaking up in Jeff's success. And

1:15:55

of course, Jeff is pissed. Wendy

1:15:58

is still saying that it's him. We

1:16:01

love Jeff, Team Jeff over here. And he

1:16:03

does come to this interview incredibly well prepared. And

1:16:06

he just keeps it coming with more and

1:16:08

more information that strongly points to Wendy having

1:16:10

known about the Murder for Hire plot. Relocation

1:16:14

of me, how terrible it

1:16:17

was to be stork in town, I see. Crying

1:16:19

like I got stuck here, I didn't choose

1:16:21

this, I can't stand it. And

1:16:24

she talked about the fact that the

1:16:26

only way she could ever relook it is if something

1:16:28

happened today. So does she actually

1:16:31

say that? Yeah, she did. Yeah,

1:16:34

I mean she was flexible in her shoes here

1:16:36

just because she came with daddy. She didn't like

1:16:38

the job. She didn't like the area. She didn't

1:16:40

like the custody. I love how

1:16:42

the people knew how upset she was. Eric

1:16:46

Suits comes out of the booth and he said, was this

1:16:48

was something? I can't remember exactly what I said, but I

1:16:50

was like, you know, is it going to ever be fixed

1:16:52

in the way you want it to be? We

1:16:55

just had to realize that there's

1:16:58

no fix for this. You have to fix. You

1:17:02

know when you're not Charlie Diddle, I kept having him

1:17:04

blow off forever. He never cost about $15,000.

1:17:09

$15,000, that's right. He's

1:17:12

cheap to me, but you would know better than I. Wendy

1:17:16

telling Jeff that her brother

1:17:18

Charlie had looked into having Dan killed

1:17:21

the summer before. Bingo.

1:17:24

Because that matches with what Rivera

1:17:26

had told the police. Ah, yeah.

1:17:29

Because remember he told them we went up

1:17:31

to Tallahassee in 2013, a year before Dan

1:17:33

was shot on that failed hit attempt. But

1:17:36

it wasn't public knowledge. How could Jeff have known

1:17:38

that? The

1:17:40

heavy implication in Jeff's statements during

1:17:42

this interview is that Charlie

1:17:44

was most likely the one to have organized

1:17:46

the hit. He had

1:17:48

the motive, the means and the opportunity. Charlie

1:17:50

hated Dan Markell. He

1:17:53

knew the right people and he could very easily pay

1:17:55

for it. But Jeff

1:17:58

is also telling the police clearly that when he was shot, Wendy

1:18:00

either at least knew about

1:18:02

the plan and did nothing

1:18:04

or was completely involved in the

1:18:06

execution of her ex-husband. And

1:18:09

I think a big question that makes

1:18:11

some people wary of

1:18:13

Wendy's guilt is

1:18:15

why would she tell Jeff that Charlie

1:18:17

was going to have gone killed if

1:18:20

she believed that it was really going

1:18:22

to happen, if she was in on it? And

1:18:25

likewise, why did she tell the TV

1:18:27

repairman the bloody cost-benefit analysis

1:18:29

joke made by Charlie comparing hitmen with

1:18:31

new TVs? Why would

1:18:34

she also tell the police about this

1:18:36

joke in her first interview? I

1:18:38

don't know. Wendy seems very

1:18:40

unstable and she comes across

1:18:43

a bit like someone who is unable

1:18:45

to maybe stop herself from constantly talking

1:18:47

and inappropriately revealing information. Some

1:18:51

of it is because she thinks she's so convincing that

1:18:53

she can talk her well out of

1:18:56

anything. this

1:18:58

joke. Doesn't it make me look innocent? I

1:19:00

also think some of it is maybe Wendy's strange desire to be

1:19:02

liked. And

1:19:10

I also think some of it is just

1:19:12

out of plain stupidity. This isn't filling

1:19:15

me with confidence in the law

1:19:17

professors of FSU. I think Wendy

1:19:19

is a strange, immature person and

1:19:22

just because her behaviour doesn't make sense from

1:19:24

a rational point of view and

1:19:26

we can't explain why she says things that

1:19:28

hurt her family if she was in on

1:19:30

it, that doesn't make her innocent. Jeff

1:19:34

also later says in this interview that sometimes Wendy

1:19:36

just didn't know when to stop talking. Jeff

1:19:39

even tells the police that the night before

1:19:42

Dan was shot, Wendy changed

1:19:44

her profile picture from

1:19:46

a very normal picture of her with her kids

1:19:48

to a super photoshopped one of her

1:19:50

looking like a Victoria's Secret model. Before

1:19:53

that, she changed her profile

1:19:55

picture just twice in two years. Was

1:19:58

it because she was gay? ready for

1:20:01

all of that media attention. Again

1:20:03

I know it's super like just

1:20:07

random tidbits of information right

1:20:09

but it really does match up

1:20:12

with a lot of Wendy's

1:20:14

very also like her mother

1:20:16

and Charlie narcissistic tendencies. I

1:20:19

don't know. Who knows why

1:20:21

she did any of these things? Was Wendy

1:20:23

involved? I suspect yes. I

1:20:25

think so. I suspect

1:20:27

that she probably

1:20:31

said the only way I

1:20:33

can come back to Miami is Dan dies

1:20:35

and her family were like bingo.

1:20:38

I also think Charlie would have been absolutely

1:20:40

incapable of keeping it to himself. Absolutely. And

1:20:42

I think that I think

1:20:44

that Wendy was told. Wendy knew about

1:20:47

it because why else would she cancel

1:20:49

that trip so adamantly with Jess? And

1:20:52

I think she was fully involved in the

1:20:54

whole situation and she's lied and lied and

1:20:56

lied and I think Donna won't

1:20:59

turn on Wendy but I think Charlie

1:21:01

might turn on Wendy. Oh

1:21:03

I think so. Sibling rival are you

1:21:05

joking? Yeah because his whole life is

1:21:07

done. He's in prison forever. That's it. He's got

1:21:09

nothing else to lose. He's lost all of his

1:21:11

money, he's lost his cars, he's lost everything he

1:21:13

ever had that was of value to him. No

1:21:16

more womanising, nothing. And I don't know

1:21:18

if he cared too much but his kid was five when he went

1:21:20

to prison. So he's never gonna have a

1:21:22

relationship with that boy. So

1:21:25

how far will Charlie stretch to

1:21:27

protect Wendy? I

1:21:30

don't know. There have been a lot of

1:21:32

jailhouse calls in which Charlie has been lamenting

1:21:34

to Donna before she was arrested that

1:21:37

Wendy hasn't even come to visit him. So

1:21:40

I don't know how long that dad's gonna hold.

1:21:43

So I think once the prosecution start

1:21:45

looking at Wendy I think Charlie's probably

1:21:47

gonna start singing but the problem is, the

1:21:49

problem why Charlie might not say anything is

1:21:52

because he's still maintaining his innocence. So

1:21:54

he can't turn on Wendy until he

1:21:56

admits what he did. So that's the

1:21:58

only reason he hasn't already. So

1:22:02

that's it, as far as what's going to happen

1:22:04

next in this bizarre and mammoth case, who

1:22:06

knows, we're just going to have to wait and see. And

1:22:09

I'm sure between us recording this and when you

1:22:11

hear it, all sorts of crazy stuff will have

1:22:13

gone down with Donna. And

1:22:15

don't worry, we will revisit this case once we

1:22:17

have more. But whatever

1:22:19

happens next, I just feel so

1:22:22

so so sorry for Dan and Wendy's

1:22:24

boys. They've lost so much.

1:22:27

And their lives, undoubtedly, will

1:22:30

forever be impacted by the senseless murder

1:22:32

of their father who loved them so

1:22:34

much and wanted nothing more than to

1:22:36

be there for his son than to be a good dude.

1:22:39

Unequivocally, every single person who speaks about Dan, whether

1:22:41

they liked him or not, said that he was

1:22:43

a good father. And

1:22:45

also what's going to blight these boys' lives forever

1:22:48

is that whether their mother Wendy is indicted

1:22:50

or not, whether anything happens to her legally

1:22:52

or not, that suspicion that

1:22:55

she was involved in the murder

1:22:57

of their father will always be

1:22:59

there. And that is

1:23:01

just so sad. And

1:23:04

absolutely reconfirms the Adelson's incredible

1:23:06

selfishness in all of this. Not only

1:23:08

that they robbed Dan Markell of his life,

1:23:11

but that they robbed those two boys of having

1:23:13

a father. So yeah,

1:23:15

that's it guys. That is the conclusion

1:23:18

of our two-part series on the Adelson. Like

1:23:20

I said, once more information comes out,

1:23:22

when Donna is indicted, we'll come back

1:23:24

and do an update as for what's

1:23:26

going to happen to Wendy. Let's wait and see. See

1:23:29

ya. And we'll see you next time. Good.

1:23:32

Coming out. We will. Goodbye. Prime

1:23:55

members, you can listen to Red Handed

1:23:57

early and ad free on Amazon Music.

1:23:59

Download... the Amazon Music app today or

1:24:01

you can listen ad-free on Wondery

1:24:03

Plus in Apple Podcast. Hey

1:24:06

you, before you go, tell us a

1:24:08

little bit about yourself by completing a

1:24:10

short survey at wondery.com/survey. Many

1:24:13

put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His

1:24:16

company was worth half a billion dollars.

1:24:18

His research promised groundbreaking

1:24:20

treatments for HIV and

1:24:22

cancer. Scientists, doctors, renowned

1:24:25

experts were saying genius, genius,

1:24:27

genius. People that knew him were convinced that

1:24:29

he saved their life. But

1:24:31

the brilliant doctor was hiding a

1:24:34

secret. Do not cross

1:24:36

this line that was being messaged

1:24:38

to us. Do not cross this

1:24:40

line. A secret the doctor was

1:24:43

desperate to keep.

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