69 South
Podcast 69 South is about mystery, true crime, attempting to find the truth in a world full of chaos. We dig deep in to current and past true crime incidents. Reporting what we find to our listeners. We want to become your reliable source for all things relevant, while we live in a society that is truly lost.
69 South
In the Crosshairs: A Murder Mystery Part 1
What if a family dispute turned into a real-life murder mystery? In this gripping episode of 69 South, we unravel the chilling case of Florida State Law Professor Dan Markell's murder. We navigate the turbulent waters of Markell's contentious divorce from Wendy Adelson, which spiraled into a battle over their children and inflamed tensions with her family. Wendy's sudden relocation to her parents' home, coupled with her mother Donna's disparaging remarks, paints a stark picture of a fractured family dynamic, setting the stage for the tragic events that followed.
The investigation takes center stage as we explore the meticulous work of law enforcement in tracing the steps of that fateful day. Suspense heightens with the discovery of surveillance footage capturing a mysterious silver Toyota Prius tracking Markell. Our discussion delves into Wendy's revealing interview, her brother Charlie's ill-timed hitman jokes, and the peculiar timing of a television repair—all elements that weave a complex tapestry of suspicion and intrigue. The narrative thickens with the eerie activities of two men near Markell's residence, leaving us questioning their roles in this baffling case.
We leave listeners with the promise of astonishing revelations yet to come. As law enforcement connects the dots between figures like Katie, Charlie, and Catherine McBanawa and their ties to suspects Sigfrido Garcia and Luis Rivera, the methodical unraveling of phone records and witness testimony sets a taut backdrop for the next chapter. Hold your breath as you prepare for a continuation that promises unexpected connections and shocking truths, ensuring you won't want to miss what unfolds next in our captivating series.
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Disclaimer: All defendants are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY in a court of law. All facts are alleged until a conviction!
Welcome everyone to Podcast 69 South, where we test and discuss true crime, cold cases, current events and hot topics, along with our state of society today. This is your trigger warning. Our podcast content is produced for adult listeners, 18 years of age and older. We discuss situations that may be offensive and triggering to some listeners. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Okay, what's going on with him?
Speaker 2:I don't know. The driver's side window is all bashed in and he's got blood all over his head. A 911 call, punctuated the morning call, A vivid description of Florida State Law Professor Dan Markell in his car dying. He's inside. I don't know if somebody tried to shoot him or if he shot himself or what. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody and welcome back to 69 South. We hope you had a good time since the last time. I'm Chop, your host, and with me, as always, my beautiful co-host, julie. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm good. How are you guys?
Speaker 1:Today we have a really good one for you. It's about a Florida state law professor called Daniel Markle. Now, on Friday, july 18th, a shooting was reported at 2116 Trescott Drive in the home of Daniel Markle in Tallahassee, florida. Upon arrival, tallahassee police officers found Markle slumped over in the driver's seat of his vehicle from apparent gunshot wound to the head. Markle was transported from the scene to a local hospital where he later died from the injuries sustained during the shooting.
Speaker 1:The investigation of the crime scene found no indication that this incident was part of any other criminal intent. Like nobody was trying to rob him, they didn't see. His wallet was still in his pocket. It wasn't, you know, a burglary. A neighbor heard a loud bang and looked out his window where he saw a small silver or light colored vehicle, kind of resembling a Prius, backing out of the driveway. After he heard the noise, he walked over to check on his neighbor Marco and discovered him in distress and called 911. Well, immediately after that the investigators located the victim's wife, wendy Adelson, and that's his ex-wife, at a local restaurant. They transported her to Tallahassee Police Department for an interview.
Speaker 2:Now Wendy is also a professor at the Florida State University Law School. Wendy filed for divorce on Monday, september 10, 2012. For divorce on Monday, september 10, 2012. Markle had reportedly returned home from a business trip to find his family gone. A majority of the contents in his house was missing and paperwork for dissolution of marriage was laid on the bed.
Speaker 1:That's a nasty big John right there. I wonder, like he was on a business trip, like coming home from work. I wonder if they were texting back and forth like hey, babe, love you, I'm about to be home, you know what I'm saying. And she was all cool and shit, while her and the moving crew was robbing all the shit out of the house.
Speaker 2:I bet you he was shocked. I can't even imagine that happening to me that would be insane.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a shocker.
Speaker 2:He eventually learned that Wendy and their two children have moved to her parents' home in Coral Springs, florida. Now. Reportedly, markle protested and Wendy returned to Leon County with the children until legal arguments could be heard. So she left and took the kids and took half the house. But she had to come back because it was like an eight-hour drive from one residence to the other.
Speaker 1:They lived in Tallahassee as a married couple and she took off to South Florida and folks, I know that's the same state but Florida is a long north and south state. It'd take you eight to 10 hours to get from the top to the bottom and you're saying it's about an eight hour drive. So we're not talking about moving from. You know the 30 minutes down the state it's. It's quite a commute. It's not local. No, and he was shitty because he didn't want his kids eight hours from him and he he was a very involved dad.
Speaker 2:So he wants to be a part of everything and he just can't have his children that far from him. It's not feasible. So he filed with the court to have them enforce their marital settlement agreement and this was real contentious too because there was accusations of hiding funds and withholding the kids and just a bitter husband and wife going back and forth. So he filed a motion to where she filed a motion to relocate and he filed something else I guess I can't tell you what it's called. But in response to that and a Leon County judge denied with prejudice Wendy's motion for relocation with the children.
Speaker 1:Explain to us what with prejudice and without prejudice means for those who don't know.
Speaker 2:So whenever they deny you with prejudice, that means that you cannot bring the motion back to the court Once it's heard in that court. It's done. You have no more options to be heard on that matter.
Speaker 1:Now, on February 14th 2014, markle had filed a counterclaim to enforce the MSA provisions and motion for sanctions. Enforced the MSA provisions and motion for sanctions. Markle claimed Wendy and her attorney had not been forthcoming in the MSA regarding her financial assets and the MSA is the marital settle agreement. On March 26, 2014, markle filed a counterclaim for enforcement, again enforcing the MSA, parenting issues and motion for contempt and sanctions. Again, one of the points of contention in this motion was Wendy's mother, donna Adelson, and she's going to be a very important player in this story too. We're just going to call her Donna and her reported negativity interaction with the children. Markle claimed that Donna made disparaging remarks about him to his son, so basically, that's his mother-in-law. That's Wendy's mother, donna.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she was talking shit about him around the kids oh your dad's a piece of shit.
Speaker 1:Blah, blah blah. That's probably what was going on.
Speaker 2:Markle sought relief in this motion by asking the court to prohibit Donna from having unsupervised time with her grandchildren and to impose limitations to prevent the children from being subjected to disparaging comments about their father.
Speaker 1:These motions were scheduled for a court hearing on May 15, 2014. However, due to substitutions of counsel, the hearing was continued. A new court hearing date had not yet been scheduled prior to Markle's death, but they're both law professors, so something was kind of weird.
Speaker 2:And how are you not, do you not, have your counsel ready? So it said substitution of counsel. So maybe she fired one lawyer and started to hire another lawyer just to buy her time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Maybe she was just buying time is kind of what it looks like. I mean, this shit has stretched out for two years already. So basically at this point they had kind of a discouraged ex-wife and that's the only thing they had to go on, except for the suspect vehicle.
Speaker 2:The investigation had revealed that Markle left his home the morning of July 18th. He drove his two young boys to their daycare facility on the west side of Tallahassee. He dropped them off about 8 50 am and then he drove to Premier Health and Fitness Center At approximately 9 15,. Markle arrived at Premier where surveillance video shows a silver or light green Toyota Prius entering the parking lot after Markle parked his car. After Markle went into the health club, the video captured the Prius in the parking lot where it had moved. It kept moving around. While he was inside working out, the car kept moving spots.
Speaker 1:So all they had was what they had about the divorce, kind of. So they was tracking his movements from that morning, and they caught this Prius that the neighbor had said following his ass around. Could you imagine how cold-blooded these people are, though, man. I mean they're watching this dude drop off his two boys, which I think were four and five at the time, or three and four at the time and watching them give their daddy their last hug. You know from-.
Speaker 2:They were hunting him.
Speaker 1:They were hunting him down, they were watching him wait for his ass to go back home and it seemed like they had a little bit of information of what he was going to be doing that day where he lived, and I believe I believe he was leaving on a business trip the next day.
Speaker 2:They had that information.
Speaker 1:I think it said in court he was going to see his new girlfriend in New York. That is what he was doing. Additional video was discovered for that day of the homicide on the Star Metro City bus camera system. Video was captured from two different buses, one southbound on Thomasville Road and another northbound on Thomasville Road. The bus camera system captured images of what appears to be the same Prius before and after the homicide was committed. Unfortunately, these images could not prove provide the license plate characters of the Prius. After analyzing all the surveillance videos, investigators believe that the suspect vehicle, to be a 2006 to 2009 Toyota Prius, was silver pine mica paint. That must be the stock color of the Prius's that year, that color, which appears to be a light green silver color. The Prius appears to have tinted windows, a sun pass transponder on the top center of the windshield, a missing tow hook cover on the front bumper and a black passenger side mirror casing.
Speaker 2:Now investigators analyzed the timestamps from the bus camera videos when the Toyota was observed, which confirmed that the Prius had the opportunity to be present at the crime scene when the murder was committed. Additional surveillance video was obtained from a bank, a county government facility and a store along the route the morning of July 18th, which also shows a similar vehicle trailing Markle's car. So they basically went back and watched them hunt him down, follow him home. Now investigators believe the suspect in the Prius followed the victim throughout the morning and back to his residence Ultimately, where he was shot in the head as he sat in his car.
Speaker 1:So, people, if you're going to commit a murder and some crime, shit like that, just know and trust and believe, especially if you're in these big cities, that there's cameras everywhere watching you.
Speaker 2:Cameras license plate readers.
Speaker 1:We're in a small community right here and there's two license plate readers that one of our customers is. A state cop told me where they were at. So they're everywhere nowadays, people. So in most investigations. The southeast corner of the complex parking lot, around mid-morning on one of the weekdays, immediately before the July 18th homicide, the men got out of the vehicle and walked down a park path behind the apartment complex that parallels a large storm drainage ditch. The ditch is a fenced property line of Markle's home, so it's the back of this apartment complex. We looked it up and the parking lot is a pretty big parking lot in the southeast corner of it. These two dudes parked and walked like through a little wooded area. It looks like to a drainage wooded area. It looks like to a drainage ditch that was hooked to Markle's property yeah, the back of his head. It looked like there might be a little wood line back there and then the drainage ditch, little wooded area again and the parking lot of the apartment complex.
Speaker 2:They were casing out the place.
Speaker 1:When the two men returned back to the car about 10 minutes later, the passenger was carrying an unknown black object in one hand. He was completely wet, as if he'd fell into the drainage ditch. The driver's pants were wet up to his knees.
Speaker 2:Well, apparently it wasn't a gun he was carrying, I thought maybe binoculars, so they could see whatever they're trying to see.
Speaker 1:Right, or if it was that far back in the property, I wondered maybe if it couldn't have been like a rifle case, or maybe it was like, maybe a. You know, I'm just saying it could have been any black object, they must have been pretty far away. But binoculars, maybe they was spying on him. You know, you could have a big binocular case of black you know, something carrying.
Speaker 1:So all that was kind of in the initial investigation the witness they found. But they did interview Wendy Adelson and during the interview of Wendy Adelson she made statements suggesting the murder of Markle could have been arranged by someone on her behalf without her knowledge, by someone on her behalf without her knowledge. Wendy indicated that her parents were very, very angry at Markle and further suggested that someone could have arranged the murder, you know, thinking they would, you know, be helping her out. She specifically mentioned her brother, Charles Adelson, aka Charlie, so that's Charlie in this. He joked about hiring a hitman to kill Markle in the past.
Speaker 1:She said her brother makes a lot of jokes and bad taste and had previously committed, commented that he looked into hiring a hit man but it was cheaper to buy her a television shit Television set as a divorce gift. Wendy indicated that she did not think her brother would actually commit this crime. It should be noted that Wendy's mother, Donna Adelson, set a television repair appointment on July 11, 2014 for Wendy's television to be repaired on the morning of the homicide, July 18, 2014. Records obtained by Best Buy showed a service was completed on her television the morning of the murder. Wendy stated that after the divorce, she wanted to relocate to South Florida with her children. She felt her former in-laws would suspect her of murdering their son, since she was denied the ability to move by the court.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's crazy. So she straight out said it looked like she was saying well, my brother Charlie joked about it. You know, to the police I mean, people do joke about shit like that every day and don't really go hire hit men.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this woman is Wendy. She's very intelligent woman, is Wendy, she's very intelligent. She graduated at the top of her class from Florida State or, I'm sorry, she was a professor at Florida State University, but she graduated magna cum laude and that's like 3.7, I believe, to 3.9 GPA, so top 5% of her class. And then she did all kinds of internships and clerking work. So she's a very intelligent woman. So she wasn't stupid, not by any means. No.
Speaker 1:It seemed like this was a very close family. From all the information we've gathered, it doesn't really seem to me this is part of it. We want you guys to help us think about and figure out If she would have thought her brother had anything to do with it. You don't think she would have just come right out and said oh you know, my brother did joke about having him killed. Maybe it was him. You know, I don't think that's. That's a weird aspect to me, but they that's a weird aspect to me, but they're very intelligent people, like you said. So who?
Speaker 1:knows what was really on her mind.
Speaker 2:After the court's denial of the motion for Wendy to relocate, her parents repeatedly tried to convince Wendy to coerce Markle into allowing the relocation to South Florida. Her mom, donna, suggested the family offer Markle $1 million to allow the relocation. So they wanted to bribe him and Donna was going to pay a third, wendy was going to pay a third and Charlie was going to pay a third. And she, donna I think Donna's an old grandma bitch because she was like, oh tell him, if he don't take that, have Wendy threatened to convert his children to Catholicism, knowing that Markle was a very observant in his Jewish faith and that the religious practices of the children were the utmost importance to Markle?
Speaker 1:I wonder it says they suggested. I wonder if they really ever went to him and was like look, dude, we'll give you a million dollars, sell your house, move eight hours south in Florida, same state. It'd be awful hard for me to turn that shit down.
Speaker 2:I bet they were already millionaires, though they were law professors.
Speaker 1:Million dollars is still a lot of money to a millionaire, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was learned that around the time of the murder this lady her name is Catherine Magbanwa was involved in a personal relationship with Charlie, so Charlie's girlfriend is named Katie. Now call records.
Speaker 1:Say her last name again.
Speaker 2:Magbanwa.
Speaker 1:Magbanwa, magbanwa. I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 2:So call. Records show that Katie is one of Charlie's top contacts and text communication confirmed that the relationship was more than a friendship.
Speaker 1:So basically what that means is, you know they were in constant a lot of contact with each other and Catherine McBanawa also had a lot of cell phone interaction with Sigfrido Garcia. Telephone records show contact between Mr Garcia's handset and a cellular telephone registered to Harvey Adelson, which is Wendy and Charlie's father.
Speaker 2:Now why would Sigfrido Garcia's phone be calling? Wendy's father's phone is weird because he doesn't know the Adelsons. The only person that knows the Adelsons is Katie. So in our investigation we discovered that Katie, her ex, is Sigfrido Garcia and they have two children together. Katie is also listed as the vice president of Garcia Solutions Incorporated and Garcia is listed as the president of the company on the State of Florida Records for Corporations.
Speaker 1:And why that is significant is because Garcia yeah had been traced back to the Prius as renting the Prius from a car rental company in Florida. And the way they traced that back, folks, is they got the transponder information, which is the SunPass deal that led them on the interstate without paying the money. They traced that back to the Prius, traced back to the car rental company, traced back to.
Speaker 2:Louis Riviera. Who rented the Prius?
Speaker 1:Exactly and on that application he listed his brother as Garcia. So, based on the video images of the suspect's car and the SunPass transponder mounted on the windshield the cell site data for the location of the phones used by Garcia and Rivera a subpoena was sent to Florida Department of Transportation for SunPass toll records on Alligator Alley, i-75, west of Fort Lauderdale. On June 16th and June 18th July I'm sorry, july Only one account listing a Prius and a customer vehicle had a SunPass transponder activity and both of these dates are really relevant, folks. On July 16th at 2.18 pm, the transponder registered at a tow plaza in Broward County, westbound on I-75. On July 18th 2014, day of homicide, at 5.23 pm, the transponder registered at the eastbound tow facility of I-75 in Collier County near Naples.
Speaker 1:Florida. Fdot shows the subscriber for the SunPass transponder is the rental car company we was talking about in North Miami, florida. This rental car company was contacted by law enforcement and provided several rental contracts around the time of the homicide. These included one for a green 2008 Toyota Prius rented from July 15th to the 21st by the Louis Riviera with a contact phone number of blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:And a second number was also written on the rental contract as the brother, and that's the Garcia cellular phone, which is another blah number.
Speaker 2:A witness whose identity is known only to law enforcement, previously met Garcia and Riviera in Tallahassee a month or more before the homicide. The witness's cellular phone was contacted by Riviera's cellular phone on the afternoon of July 17, 2014. The witness was asked and agreed to rent a motel room on North Monroe Street in the witness's name for Garcia and Riviera on the night of July 17. This is consistent with the cellular location data and a receipt obtained from the local motel showing a room registered in the witness's name. The witness was able to positively identify both Garcia and Rivera individually in two separate photographic lineups.
Speaker 1:The witness also recalled Rivera having in his possession a silver-finished short-barrel revolver, handgun the first time he met Garcia and Rivera, possibly in June of 2014, at the hotel on West Tennessee Street. Recovered evidence from the crime scene indicates the caliber of the firearm used in this murder is consistent with the revolver ammunition and a no-spin casing was found at the scene. This investigation did not reveal any other legitimate purpose for either suspect to be in Tallahassee at the time of the murder. So, basically, this witness, these dudes, contacted him and, instead of having him rent the car and everything, they just had him rent the hotel room and he was able to identify him and say, hey, these dude had a pistol in that hotel room and they matched it, not the gun per se, but the caliber. The gun was never recovered.
Speaker 2:What do you think they gave this dude to rent this hotel room? You think he was probably a crack addict off the street. They rented him a room too, I guarantee. I mean who else is going to rent somebody a hotel room? They don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, Maybe it's like hey, bro, we ain't got no ID dog, We'll give you $30 or $40 to rent this hotel room. They won't rent it to us without no ID. I bet it was some bullshit like that.
Speaker 2:I bet you it was, Because it's not been proven that they knew anybody personally up there and it sounds like they were up there a month before to do this. But something happened and it didn't go well and they had to go back and finish the job.
Speaker 1:So we got some more connection from cellular data. On the morning of July 18th, both Garcia and Riviera's cell phones were in the area of the Premier Health Place. That was the gym that he was working out at during the time. The victim was inside and surveillance videos showed the Toyota Prius in the parking lot. Garcia's telephone ceased activity just before 10 am while in the area of the gym, with the last text message occurring at 9.58 am. The next event on Garcia's telephone was text messages and or notification being received at 12.29, consistent with the handset being powered up immediately afterward at 12.30. Garcia placed a call to McBanwa, which was the first contact initiated by Garcia after the homicide. This call occurred when Garcia's phone was in the area of Lake City, florida, on or near I-75, approximately one and a half hours after the shooting was reported. So this dude powered his phone down for a little bit and what they're saying is bam. When he turned it back on, he was immediately getting notifications.
Speaker 2:And then his first phone call was to Katie to say, oh, we got the job done.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly what was reported in the court case. He said it's done. That was the text. Is that what he said? Yeah, it's done.
Speaker 2:I was just.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what he said.
Speaker 2:So analysis of Rivera's checking account revealed an ATM transaction took place on the evening of July 18th when they got back into North Miami. The security video from the drive-thru ATM shows Rivera driving a Toyota Prius up to the ATM around 6.45 pm. The Prius has tinted windows, a sun pass transponder on the top center of the windshield, the missing tow hook, the black passenger side mirror casing so all of the matching characteristics I can't talk today that this car has. It matches everything that they are seeing in this bank video. So Rivera is seen completing the transaction and when he leans forward, garcia can be seen sitting in the front passenger seat next to him sitting in the front passenger seat next to him. So they exit the ATM and then a Florida license plate can be seen on the rear of the car. The tag characters appear to match those of the rental car contract. Cellular site data is consistent with this stop at the ATM location prior to Garcia and Rivera arriving back in North Miami.
Speaker 1:These dudes had to be high ass because, come on now, hey, listen, bro, we got to have this crackhead and sorry, dude, if you're not a crackhead, but we got to have this crackhead rent this hotel room. We can't be, you know, renting hotel rooms and putting our ID in a hotel room, but let's rent a fucking car and pull up into the dude's driveway and drive through.
Speaker 2:No, it's not funny at all. It's not funny, it's just their stupidity is funny. Yeah, ignorant.
Speaker 1:They probably paid $300 or $400 to rent this car. You could have bought a piece of shit moped just trailed the dumb motherfucker over there.
Speaker 2:I was going to say why didn't they pay $200 or $300 for one of them? Crackhead rentals. You know what I'm saying? Right, right right.
Speaker 1:No ties, no sun pass. I guarantee you that. So I'm changing the fucking thing. But anyway, there is no previous contact found between Markle and the two defendants. Therefore, it's the Afiants' belief that Garcia and Riviera were enlisted to commit this rigorous act by someone they did not know and had never interacted with them before. So basically, he's saying they didn't know their Mark. You know what I mean. They didn't know Markle. The Mark. Markle, get it, no punle.
Speaker 2:The Mark Markle Get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no pun intended.
Speaker 2:So, now that they have Sigfrido Garcia and Luis Rivera for the murder, it took them two years to even figure out who Luis and Sigfrido were Two years, though I give them props, man, they really went through the shit. Their investigation was probably one of the best investigations I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it sounds simple when we say it, folks. I mean the dude got shot in the head. Let's go see where he was at. Oh, there's a car, there's a freaking toll road pass and it was rented to this dude, but there's a lot of shit that you're looking at. I mean the investigators just don't go. Bam bam, bam, bam bam. This literally took two years and I give them props for it because they figured the shit out. You know what I mean. If these dudes were stupid, they really could have got away with it.
Speaker 2:But that's not the end of the story.
Speaker 1:No, not at all folks, so guess what? It's time to go for today.
Speaker 2:And you can tune in next week Please tune in. Our part two of this crazy story.
Speaker 1:This will lead back to people that you will just blow your mind. It's going to blow your mind. It's some pretty cool shit. I think the last part of the story is the best part of the story, but until then, have a good morning, good evening, good night, whatever.
