Show Notes
Florida State University law professor Dan Markel was 41 years old when he was shot in the garage of his Tallahassee home in July 2014. It quickly became clear that this wasn't a random act of violence. Someone had followed Dan through his morning routine, waited until he returned home, and then disappeared.
But who would want a Canadian-born law professor and devoted father of two dead?
The answer would lead investigators hundreds of miles south to Miami and into the bitter aftermath of Dan's divorce from Wendi Adelson.
In Part One of this two-part deep dive, we look at Dan's life before the headlines, his contentious divorce and custody battle, Wendi's unsuccessful attempt to relocate their two young sons to South Florida, and the increasingly hostile involvement of her family.
Then we follow investigators as they begin piecing together the murder itself: a rented Toyota Prius, surveillance footage, cellphone records, two mysterious trips from South Florida to Tallahassee, and two men who seemingly had absolutely no connection to Dan.
Eventually, investigators uncover a link between suspected gunman Sigfredo Garcia, his former partner Katherine Magbanua, and Wendi's brother, Charlie Adelson.
But having a theory and proving a murder-for-hire conspiracy are two very different things.
Nearly two years after Dan's murder, investigators still hadn't made a single arrest. So the FBI decided to shake things up An undercover agent approached Wendi's mother, Donna Adelson, with a photograph of Dan, a phone number and a demand for money.
The operation became known as the bump. And suddenly...the phones started ringing.
Part Two continues with the first arrest, the insider who finally starts talking, multiple murder trials, Charlie Adelson's extraordinary extortion defence, Donna's attempted flight to Vietnam, and the question that has followed this case for more than a decade: how far did this conspiracy really go?
Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dan_markel_murder
https://www.courttv.com/tag/dan-markel/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/florida-matriarch-convicted-daniel-markel-1.7625845
https://www.wctv.tv/2022/04/21/extended-timeline-key-dates-dan-markel-murder-case/
https://abcnews.com/US/police-tracked-caught-suspected-hit-men-murder-fsu/story?id=42064896
https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/first-district-court-of-appeal/2026/1d2024-0004.html
https://people.com/wendi-adelson-today-what-to-know-12021519
https://abcnews.com/US/south-florida-grandmother-center-murder-hire-saga-spanning/story?id=128005003
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnc/date/2025-09-04/segment/02
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