The Killing of Professor Dan Markel: A Family Feud Turns Deadly (Part 1)

Sep 23

In this episode, we delve into the shocking murder of Harvard-educated law professor Dan Markel. His life was cut short in a targeted hit that investigators believe was a murder-for-hire plot.

This is more than just a true crime drama; it's a story of a devoted father and brilliant legal scholar caught in a bitter family feud that spiraled into something unthinkable. Dan's divorce from his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, became an all-out war over the custody of their two young sons and relocation to South Florida.

You'll hear about the powerful and controlling Adelson family, specifically Wendy's parents, Donna and Harvey, and her brother, Charlie, who had an "obsession" with their hatred of Dan. As the story unfolds, you’ll discover disturbing emails from Donna Adelson detailing a plan to manipulate Dan, including using his Jewish faith against him, and even joking about dressing the children in Hitler Youth uniforms.

The police investigation quickly turned to the Adelson family after Wendy made some unusual comments and her boyfriend, Jeff Lacasse, urged them to look into her family. The timing of the murder, which took place just after a hearing on family control was set, was not lost on investigators, who saw a clear motive for murder. After his death, Wendy quickly moved their children to Miami and cut off contact with Dan's parents.

Join us for Part 1 of this unbelievable case as we explore the chilling details that lead to the death of Dan Markel. The second part of this episode is available now on Patreon and will be available everywhere on Thursday.

Thank you to this week's sponsors!

Keep it classic and cozy this fall cool—with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to Quince.com/moms for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

See thicker, stronger, faster-growing hair with less shedding in just 3-6 months with Nutrafol. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code MOMS.

Get new episodes a day early and ad free, plus chat episodes, at Patreon.com/momsandmysteriespodcast.

To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://www.advertisecast.com/MomsandMysteriesATrueCrimePodcast.

Check-out Moms and Mysteries to find links to our tiktok, youtube, twitter, instagram and more.

Sources:

Dan Markel Murder

Mandy: [00:00:00] Today's story is about a brilliant man whose life was cut short in the most shocking way imaginable, A murder for hire plot so tangled. It sounds like the script of a true crime drama, except this time it was very real. And at the center of it all was a devoted father, a Harvard educated law professor, and a family feud that spiraled into something unthinkable.

Marker

Mandy: Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a true crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa.

Melissa: Hi Mandy. How are

you?

Mandy: I'm doing great. I am happy to be here today. I mean, I'm happy to be here every day, but I'm happy to be here today because of the story we're gonna get into in a little bit here.

yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'm upbeat and I'm ready to go.

Melissa: Okay, well,

let's, let's do it, I

guess.

Mandy: Yeah,

so today we're talking about a case that has been all over the news, and this is one that our, our very own, Melissa here has been following closely for quite some time, and I've heard her talk

Melissa: Too

Mandy: it [00:01:00] numerous times. Um, especially when we were just in Denver at Crime Con. She brought up this case many, many

Melissa: To be fair. A huge break happened while we were at Crime Con. So people would mention like a case they're interested in and say the name and then

Mandy would be like, go

talk to

Melissa. Just she's over

there.

Mandy: Yeah. So we are discussing the case of Dan Markel. This is a man who was admired by his students, cherished by his children, and deeply respected in the legal world. But his story is truly not just about who he was, it's also about this entire storm that really grew around him, and the links that some people would go to in order just to get their way.

And this is a story that is local to us. It's our, it's in our state. unfortunately, I hate that we have cases like this in our state. but Melissa, this is from, not just from our state, but this is from your. What do you call it?

Melissa: It's my hometown. I

Mandy: your hometown.

It's your hometown. [00:02:00] Yeah. So for that reason, we decided that, this week we would take it really, really old school.

And Melissa, we Googled this city.

Melissa: We Googled this city. If you hated Google this city, just fast forward three minutes because it's gonna be painful for you. So if you don't know a lot about Tallahassee, Tallahassee is of course the capital of Florida, but really it's a college town. Think F-S-U-F-A-M-U, and even Tallahassee State College. In fact, 33% of the population of Tallahassee is actually students. The other 67%, they're just tallah nasty. So starting with a

bang. So speaking of Florida State, FSU is home to the Florida State Football SOD cemetery. Would you like to take a guess at what a sod cemetery is?

Mandy?

Mandy: I have no idea. I mean, I feel like every time I've ever tried to put SOD anywhere in my yard, I kill it immediately so that my yard is like a sod cemetery. So I'm very curious to what the real thing is.

Melissa: Well this one has 100 bronze [00:03:00] plaques that are there to commemorate these big victories. the FSU football wandering away games since 1962. So under each plaque there's a piece of sod that they took from the field

of that

game,

wherever the location was, Imagine Mandy though, you're having a bad day. So like these football players, they're losing, they're having a bad day. But for us it would be like Dropping G groceries outside and you're like trying to get 'em all together and you are trying to walk inside and meanwhile your neighbor's yelling at you, runs over and takes a piece of grass from you or a piece of sod and goes back over to their house.

And that's a terrible analogy, but it has almost nothing to do with what I was saying. But it's been a long time since I've done this. So I'm a little bit rusty the way I was trying to format that one. And then I was finally like, I can't, tallahassee's also home to a waterfall, which I actually did not even realize. I mean, kind of back before Tallahassee was the capital, you remember Bandi, that Jacksonville and [00:04:00] Pensacola were like these hopping places and they were like Tallahassee in between 'em.

Surely this is not a dumb idea and should definitely be somewhere else. And they made Tallahassee the capitol. But part of that reason is there was this place called Cascade Fall. There was like one fall, like waterfall. Apparently it's gone now. I don't think it lasted that long, but they ended up opening a place called Cascades Park in 2014.

I haven't been there. Um, but it's a place with a, an

interactive waterfall, which

I don't know exactly what that is. Fountains, ponds, and like a million things, that you can just be on the

highest alert with small

children. To

me it sounds like a nightmare.

Mandy: Yeah.

Melissa: Like great for adults, terrifying for small children. Mandy, on the show, the office, which I'm bringing up Google the city, I have to bring up the office. character, Joe Bennett, played by Kathy Bates. You're a Kathy Bates head, I'm sure.

right.

Wait, she was in misery.

Mandy: Oh my gosh, that is wild because I have a text in [00:05:00] my phone from today where I was talking to my, uh, hairstylist, uh, and she was trying to remember the name of a movie. She was telling me about it, and she just texted me like an hour ago, and it's misery that she was talking about. And so when you said Kathy Bates, I was like, wow, that's weird.

I was just talking about Kathy Bates today. Uh, wow. Okay.

Melissa: I knew you were a fan. Um, but she, in the show, she was from Tallahassee and she was quoted in the show saying Tallahassee has some of the worst Chinese food you'd ever tasted. And I'm not sure that it did. I don't really particularly remember it. My only like fast foodish dinner experience I really remember is driving up to rallies and the people inside noticing my vehicle and knowing who I was and saying number one

with cheese, large,

with a

diet Coke, and me saying I'm never coming back here and I never did.

Kindness isn't always the best idea. Sometimes it makes people feel bad about themselves. Hey Mandy, I know you're just waiting for me to make some kind of comment about [00:06:00] Tallahassee's own T-Pain,

but that would be, you know, that would be easy, but I can't sink that. Low. Low, get low, get low. So shoddy, grab your apple, bottom jeans and boots with the fur, and let's get into this

week's episode.

Mandy: Oh my gosh. Okay, let's do it. So let's start at the beginning. Daniel, Eric Markel, or as we will call him like everyone else did. Dan uh, was born October 9th, 1972 in Canada to Ruth and Phil Markel. His Jewish faith was really a huge part of his identity and was something that would stay with him throughout his life.

From the time he was little, it was very clear to Dan's family that he was gifted. His mom, Ruth remembered that in the third grade, he scored the highest aptitude result the school had ever seen. And as a result of having these super high scores, the principal would like question like why he only had an an A instead of, you know, an a plus.

Or if he had like an A [00:07:00] minus, like it, like they always were wondering why his grades weren't higher. And I feel like that's a lot of pressure on a young child for sure. you know, most of us would be celebrating if we had a a minus, if I have any kind of a, I'm happy. Um, so Ruth explained that Dan was already a very voracious reader with tons of energy at an early age, and he sometimes would wander off mentally, but by the time he was about nine to 11 years old, he really started to settle down.

He kept up with sports like skiing and baseball. And his path toward high achievement became very obvious and achieve. He did. Dan was one of those rare people who could walk into a room and impress everyone with both his brains and his charm. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and spent time at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he earned a master's in political theory from Cambridge before heading back to Harvard to get his law degree.

It's really like this man collected prestigious degrees the way some people just collect Starbucks mugs, but he [00:08:00] wasn't just about the credentials. He really became a respected legal scholar and eventually a professor at Florida State University's law school. He published extensively on crime and punishment and his work appeared in law journals Slate the New York Times, and even his own blog where he sometimes would write personal posts about his sons.

Dan also co-authored a book called Privilege or Punish Criminal Justice in the Challenge of Family Ties. Colleagues described him as a great and generous scholar. He wasn't just one of those people who was up in his ivory tower. He was someone who was actually building community, encouraging others, and making connections everywhere he went.

Melissa: And that sense of community carried into his personal life too. In 2006, Dan married Wendy Adelson, who was a law student at the University of Miami. At the time. Together, the couple had two little boys. One was four, almost five, and the other was three. At the time of this story, friends [00:09:00] said that Dan's whole world revolved around these boys.

His living room basically doubled as a playroom. He had strung up lines across the ceiling to proudly display their artwork. Despite the shock of Wendy leaving him in 2012, Dan threw himself into fatherhood and his work. His colleagues remembered him as being ambitious, tireless, witty, and self-effacing. But at home, he was this laid back devoted dad who adored his sons. He was admired as the best dad, and when he died, tributes poured in from across the country, not just about his brilliance as a scholar, but about his warmth, humor, and his deep love for his family. So we have this picture of this brilliant professor who's a very devoted father and a man whose life.

Seems full of promise, both professionally and personally, but everything was about to unravel in a big way. Now, to understand this case, we've gotta talk about the Adelson family, because when Dan married Wendy, he wasn't just marrying her, he was marrying [00:10:00] into this very tight-knit, very wealthy, and let's just say intense family,

Mandy: Intense.

Melissa: intense.

this story, if you, if this is somehow, if you're new to this story, there's so much, Florida's really good about like their, FOIA records and stuff. So there's like so much you can see as far as interrogations, all kinds of stuff. There's plenty of stuff. So when we say that this is an intense family, it's not just like reading an

article.

There is so

much out

there

where you can see this so much. So Wendy's parents are Harvey and Donna Adelson, and Harvey was a retired dentist who ran a lucrative practice in South Florida, and Donna sometimes worked in his office.

Their son, Charlie Adelson, also joined the practice. He was a successful periodontist who traveled for work, and he eventually helped rebrand it as the Adelson Institute for Implants and Aesthetic Surgery. Wendy herself became an attorney, so this is not a family that's hurting for money [00:11:00] between them, they had over $8 million spread across checkings, savings and investment accounts.

Mandy: But while money wasn't a problem, control was a different story for this family. And if you want an example of how controlling the matriarch Donna Adelson could be, all you have to do is look at what happened with her other son, Rob. So Rob was estranged from the family. He's an ENT doctor living in New York, and he's married to a woman named Hertha And this is kind of where we start to show the darker side of the Adelson family and the darker side really of Donna Adelson's grip on her kids' lives. So more than a decade before Dan Markel's murder, Rob's relationship with his parents had started to unravel. He met Hertha during medical training in Texas, and she was not Jewish, which did not sit well with Donna and Harvey.

And they basically told Rob, you know, it's her. It's either her or us. And for years, he was [00:12:00] caught in this awful cycle of breakups and reconciliations, just trying to please his parents while also following his heart, you know, for the woman he loves. And it got so bad that Rob actually broke things off with hha and he even married a Jewish woman from Dallas just to appease his parents and make them happy.

But within days, he realized that was a huge mistake and he nulled the marriage and then went back to Hertha. Rob later said that leaving her and getting married to someone else was the worst decision of his life, and he blamed it entirely on his parents' pressure. Eventually, Donna and Harvey accepted hertha enough to attend their wedding, but the relationship was never the same as you can imagine.

No, that would be very strained, impossibly strained. It would be impossible.

Melissa: And imagine being hertha like your family did

everything to

break us up.

And now why would I even want

you to be a part of my

family? Like

this is we, we have to be

totally separate.

Mandy: For sure.

So Rob admitted that the scar tissue from [00:13:00] all of this never went away, and he stayed in touch with his sister, Wendy, and even with Wendy's ex-husband, Dan. But his bond with his own parents was permanently damaged. And when Dan was murdered, Rob admitted that his stomach actually sank because he suspected immediately that the worst case scenario might actually be true, which was that his own family could have been involved.

So that's the Adelson family. They're wealthy, they're very tightly wound, and they have a history of controlling the lives of their children. And as you'll see, that desire for control, especially over Wendy's life and the lives of her children that she shared with Dan, was really at the heart of this entire case.

Melissa: So July 18th, 2014. Started out like any other Friday for Wendy's. Ex-husband Dan Markel. Early that morning, he left his Tallahassee home to drive his two little boys to daycare, where he dropped them off just before nine. What he didn't know was that he was being followed by someone in a rented Toyota Prius. Surveillance footage [00:14:00] later showed that car pulling into the Premier Health and Fitness Center on McClay Boulevard at the exact same time Dan did, which was 9:12 AM. Dan was a regular there and he spent about an hour and a half working out before heading towards Thomasville Road. When he left the gym at 10 38, the Prius was right there behind him. Investigators would later learn that it trailed him the whole way back to his Betten Hills neighborhood. at 11:02 AM a nine one one call came in. A neighbor had heard a loud bang and spotted a light colored car speeding out of Dan's driveway. At first, he thought maybe it was a burglary. He walked over, he saw Dan's car still in the garage with the engine running, and assumed that Dan was just about to leave. But when nothing happened, the neighbor checked again, and this time he found shattered glass and saw Dan slumped inside the car. He was bleeding, but moving ever so slightly. So as the neighbor really took in and realized the gravity of what he was seeing, he sprinted [00:15:00] back home to grab his phone and called nine one one. The call itself is really hard to listen to because he's so desperate to try and get help there as quickly as possible, and, you know, giving as much information as he can. But it's, oh, such a stressful

situation.

Mandy: You cannot even imagine, like the shock of seeing something like that and just like having it all register. I've never thankfully seen something like this, but I, one thing that did stand out in my mind was the time that I saw a car accident. Like I knew that like it happened, but it act, I wasn't even. It took me several beats to like catch up to like what was going on and that like somebody needed to call for help, you know, and like, that person's me, right?

So I need to like get with it and do something. But like, it's wild, you know? It's weird to

Melissa: It really is like your brain protecting you from the reality, but also like your

brain having to be

like,

actually, you might

need to choose

something now. And so I felt so terrible for him, but I'm so thankful that his, [00:16:00] uh, neighbor was so attentive because it ended up being such a big deal in this story. So police arrived to find Dan in the driver's seat with two gunshot wounds to the head. The garage door was still open, Suggested that the attack had happened just as he pulled in. There was no sign of burglary or robbery. This was just a clearly targeted hit before the shooting.

Dan had actually been on the phone with a colleague, and that person remembered that Dan paused mid-conversation to say someone unfamiliar was in his driveway. A muffled conversation followed then the sound of a grunt, and then labored breathing before the line went dead. Dan was rushed to the hospital where a friend sat with him late into the night, and sadly, he passed away the next day, July 19th. His parents, Ruth and Phil, were still in Toronto and couldn't make it in time, but a rabbi was with him

when he died.

Mandy: The autopsy later showed that Dan had been shot twice at intermediate range. He was shot once in the forehead and [00:17:00] once in the left cheek. As the news spread, all eyes quickly turned towards his ex-wife, Wendy. Detectives picked her up while she was having lunch with friends and brought her to the Tallahassee Police Department, and that interview lasted more than five hours.

Wendy was told that Dan had been shot and that he was taken to a hospital, but he wasn't expected to survive. She started sobbing and she asked over and over, you know, how this could have happened. But she also did make some kind of unusual comments. For example, at one point she said, they're gonna think I did it.

And she had she, and then also went on to say, I understand why I would be a suspect. And those are weird things to say immediately after your husband has been found shot.

Melissa: Yeah.

Mandy: So she said that she was concerned that whoever killed Dan might also come for her or the kids. Wendy laid out the morning that she had that day.

She said she had a Best Buy Geek Squad appointment from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM to fix a broken tv, and then she d [00:18:00] drove down Trescott Drive, which is conveniently where Dan lived, and she was supposedly on her way to an a b, C liquor store. When she saw that the road was blocked off, she assumed that some power lines were down or something, and so she turned around.

Investigators thought it was kind of strange that, you know, all of that, that she drove down the street, she took this detour. It was really out of her way, and there were plenty of other liquor stores closer to where she was having lunch that day. But she just brushed this off and said, you know, driving past her old house was something she sometimes did, and it was a way for her to cope and come to terms with the divorce.

Melissa: that I

thought was the

big,

I was like, if you're lying, That's the biggest

lie, because

you wanted

this, you know,

she wanted the divorce, so it's not like she's pining for this person. She can't have

anymore. She doesn't like

this guy.

Mandy: Right.

She did eventually make it to a b, C Liquors that day, and she bought bourbon at 12:30 PM Throughout her interview, Wendy made a point of mentioning her family and even suggested that her [00:19:00] parents actually had more of a reason to dislike Dan than almost anyone else. She brought up a joke that her brother had made about looking into hiring a hitman, but deciding a TV was cheaper.

So he bought Wendy a TV instead.

Melissa: That

is a crazy thing

to say.

Just sitting there talking like, oh yeah, my brother did say he was gonna hire a hitman, but then

said,

ha ha, you

know, a hitman would be too much a TV's cheaper, especially

when we know this family

has money.

Like it's not,

Mandy: right. Yeah. It's sick. Uh, but the TV in question, the TV that he bought, Wendy was literally the one being repaired that morning at her Geek Squad appointment the morning of the shooting. And Wendy even had a calendar event in her phone that said, fix tv. So to investigators, that all seemed really, really convenient.

And at this point it seems kind of like there might be some kind of a code going on here between this, these family members. And then there was Jeff LACAs.

And that's Wendy's boyfriend and fellow FSU professor. She said that [00:20:00] he disliked Dan because of the way Dan had treated her. And Wendy even suggested that Jeff was a good suspect and he was a jealous guy. Like she's throwing him under the bus here.

So the police questioned him on July 21st and he confirmed that he was actually out of town at the time of the murder. But he did urge the investigators not to focus too much on Wendy, who they really needed to be looking at was her family in South Florida, specifically her brother Charlie. He told police that Wendy's family absolutely hated Dan in a way that he had never seen people hate other, another person before.

He said they were absolutely obsessed with their hatred of Dan, and it was like a family hobby for them. Just hating on Dan was like just something the family did.

Melissa: Yeah.

Mandy: Eventually Jeff was cleared as a suspect, and we're gonna talk about literally so, so much more after a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsors.

Marker

Melissa: Hey Mandy, do you hear that? It's a sound of fall in the air. The leaves crunching, cooler nights. [00:21:00] Pumpkin spice everywhere. And for me, it really means one thing, it's sweater weather, and I could not wait to pull out my quince

sweater again this

year.

Mandy: Oh, right, you got that one last fall, didn't you? And I swear every time you wear it, you tell me exactly how much you love it.

Melissa: Of course I do because I love it. But here's the thing. So many sweaters I've bought in the past rarely make it from one season to the next before they pill or they lose their shape. But my quince sweater looks just as good now as the day I bought it. The quality is amazing. It's soft, it's warm, and I know I'll be wearing it year after year. Honestly, it almost makes me a little excited

for the cooler weather.

Mandy: And that's what makes Quince different. They use premium fabrics like 100% Mongolian cashmere, but without the crazy markups you'd expect. You get timeless high quality pieces that actually last, and the price point is shockingly good for the quality. If you're ready to upgrade your fall wardrobe, quince is where you'll find sweaters. You'll be living in all season long.

Melissa: Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long lasting staples from quince. [00:22:00] Go to quince.com/moms for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's QUI ce.com/moms to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com/moms.

You know how there's a million products out there promising to fix hair issues? I was super skeptical because how do you even know which ones actually do anything?

And that's why I decided to try Neutrophil. And honestly, it's a game changer in my routine. Nut Nutriful is the number one dermatologist, recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a

half million people.

Mandy: I take the women's formula and after a few months I've noticed way less shedding and my hair just feels stronger overall, it's clinically tested, physician formulated and recommended by dermatologists, which gave me a peace of mind before I even started.

Melissa: And the best part is it's easy. You take four pills a day with a meal and with a subscription, it just shows up at your door. Free shipping, automated deliveries, Plus access to [00:23:00] naturopathic doctor consults, and even a Headspace membership. If you're tired of guessing what actually works, neutrophil might surprise you the way it did me. You can feel great about what you're putting into your body. since neutrophil hair growth supplements are backed by peer reviewed studies and NSF Content certified, which is the gold standard and third party certification for

supplements.

Mandy: See thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months. With Neutrophil for a Limited Time Neutrophil is offering our listeners $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to neu nutriful.com. And enter the promo code moms. Find out why Nut Neutrophil is the bestselling hair growth supplement brand@neutrophil.com.

Spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O edit.com. Promo code moms. That's nutriful.com promo code Moms.

Melissa: And now back to the episode.

Marker

Melissa: So before the break, we introduce you to Professor Dan Markel, who was a devoted father and beloved member of the local community. Dan was married to Wendy Adelson, whose family was very wealthy, tight-knit, and controlling. [00:24:00] But Wendy's mom, Donna seemed to have a particular hatred for Danny. So let's back up a little bit and explain how Dan or Danny became the topic of an entire family's obsession. The seeds of this case were planted way back in September of 2012 when Danny came home from a business trip and found his life turned upside down. Wendy had packed up their two kids, taken most of the belongings and left divorce papers on the bed papers she'd already prepared.

Before he left on the trip, she didn't even provide an address for where she and the boys had gone. And with help from her parents, she essentially vanished with the two boys. So from there, as you can imagine, this divorce turned into an all-out war. Dan objected to Wendy taking their kids out of Tallahassee, but she argued that moving closer to her family in Coral Springs would give them quote, stability and consistency. Court records show he was furious. She wouldn't tell him where the boys were

living, which do you

blame him?

It's literally parental [00:25:00] kidnapping at this point. He fought hard to keep them in Tallahassee. And in June of 2013, judge Hobbs sided with him and formally denied Wendy's relocation.

Request with prejudice, which meant that matter was supposed to be closed. Like she cannot bring up this whole idea of moving back down to Coral Springs. They're not going to allow it. But Wendy's mom, Donna, wasn't about to let it go. In fact, some of the most damning evidence in this entire case comes from Donna's own emails in May and June of 2013.

She lays out basically a playbook for Wendy. She said Wendy should portray Dan as abusive and manipulate him with religion and the kids, even by staging Catholic activities to rile him up.

Because Dan was devoutly

Jewish.

Mandy: What on earth?

Melissa: One of the things that she said to do, she was like, I could get them baptized into the Catholic church within a week.

We can post it on social media, you know. All this stuff, like literally doing anything to antagonize him, [00:26:00] to make him just finally say, because his religion was so important to him to make him

you know,

give him the

allowance to move the kids horrible. So Donna literally told Wendy to quote, put on the performance of her life and said that in court she needed to make sure that they knew that relocation was non-negotiable.

Which guess what? It was, it was

very much done. It was a

dead deal. They weren't gonna do it. So she also coached her to call Dan a bully and to really hit him where it really hurt with money, religion, and control. And if all else failed, Donna offered up to a million dollars to buy him off. Her idea was basically, I don't remember how this went exactly, but I think it was her, Charlie and Harvey all would give like a third and they would give this money to Dan in order for them to be able to bring the kids down to South Florida.

Just wild. But the hostility was really dripping from those emails. Donna even called him Gibbs, which was a [00:27:00] cruel nickname that stuck, Wendy tried to say that this nickname was like, a friend told me that I should give him a name, a nickname, so he wasn't as scary anymore. So they picked Gibbs, which in court they said that that could mean

Jew in Boots,

which

was meant to be a derogatory statement

towards him.

Mandy: Oh my gosh. Which that's probably exactly what it was, knowing

Melissa: A hundred percent.

Mandy: they hated him.

Melissa: A hundred percent. And she and Charlie once even joked about dressing the kids up in Hitler, youth uniforms just to provoke Dan.

Mandy: that is so disturbing and like also like this is not a game. Like these are your grand babies. Like, what are you doing lady? What are you doing?

Melissa: I know. And to be like, no, they're best off with us,

but here's the things

we're gonna

do, including this horrific thing. And she was even saying something about like, you have to think of it when, when people go to war, in war, there's no rules. Basically trying to justify the whole

Nazi thing that

she's trying to

Mandy: Crazy.

Melissa: unbelievable.

Mandy: and things [00:28:00] really just continue to just get uglier and uglier from there. The divorce was finalized in July, 2013, and custody was split 50 50. But even with the settlement in place, the fights of course did not stop. Court filings revealed that they bickered over everything, including money heirlooms, even snacks for the kids.

In early 2014, Dan accused Wendy of hiding more than $240,000 in assets and raid a safe deposit box that held his family's heirloom diamond ring. He said that she and her parents had taken over $600,000 in cash and equities from him. Wendy's lawyer called his claims false and scandalous and insisted that Dan still owed her money under the settlement.

By March of 2014, Dan filed yet another motion this time accusing Wendy and Donna of parental alienation, which I would say you have every reason to do that. Yeah.

He said that Donna often watched the kids without giving him the first right of refusal. And after [00:29:00] the kids would have these visits with Donna, they would come home saying things like, grandma says you're stupid, and she says, you're trying to take her sunshines away.

Just horrible things. So he begged the court to restrict Donna from unsupervised visits, and a hearing on these motions was set May of 2014, but it ended up being delayed and it was never rescheduled before Dan was murdered. The timing of all of that was not lost on the investigators, of course.

And they concluded that the Adelson's obsession with relocating Wendy and these two little boys to South Florida combined with the risk of Donna's access being restricted, which she doesn't want, she wants full control over everyone in the family.

And so they thought, this certainly looks like a motive for murder killing. Dan would remove the legal obstacles and it would really free Wendy and her family to move the boys down to South Florida permanently and not have to worry about him. In fact, on the week of the murder, [00:30:00] according to the temporary parenting schedule, the boys were actually in Dan's care. After his death. Wendy and the kids did not attend Dan's funeral in Toronto, and within two days she had moved the boys down to Miami.

Later she even changed their last name from Markel to Adelson, and eventually she cut off contact between them and Dan's parents.

Melissa: One thing. I'll take it a step further with that changing of names. There was a birthday party later that will come up for Harvey for his 70th birthday, and she had the kids' names as Adelson then. So that's before he

died. Before he

was killed.

She had already changed their names on

this invitation. The

mom did.

So, I mean, this was just going on for so long, so right after the shooting, detectives really didn't have that much to go on, except this neighbor who heard a bang and saw a light colored Prius flying out of Dan's driveway. On July 23rd, police released a grainy [00:31:00] image of a Toyota Prius and called it a vehicle of interest. It turned out that Prius had shadowed Dan that morning. It pulled into Premier Health and Fitness at 9:12 AM it. As he did, and then tailed him when he left at 10 38 and followed him back to his house at Betton Hills. A local tipster later reported a Prius like vehicle at an apartment complex near a trail that connects close to Dan's home. Two men left the car and walked off towards the path. investigators, then pulled city bus footage and found a green Prius with a toll transponder in it, which is odd for Tallahassee because it actually doesn't have tolls.

My parents finally got a transponder just driving down here, but you don't need it in Tallahassee, so cars up there just don't have it. But that obviously hints that this car and the killers are not local. So one year after the murder, police pushed an updated image of the Prius and followed the toll records. That led them to a rental contract for the Prius in the name of Louis [00:32:00] Rivera, and a phone number that confirmed his identity. another number on the rental labeled Brother Trace. Two. Sigfrido Garcia Police learned that Rivera was a leader in the Latin Kings gang in Miami. Garcia was his longtime friend with a felony record who went by Tuto while Rivera went by Tato. We're gonna call them Rivera and

Garcia because

it's so confusing.

Mandy: are just not it for

Melissa: Too close, too close. cell site and GPS data ultimately placed the Prius and Garcia and Rivera near Dan's home.

At the exact time of the shooting, the paper trail clicked into place. The Prius was rented July 15th through 21st, 2014, which covered the Miami to Tallahassee murder window. The car, the phones, the tolls, the pings, each clue pointed in the same direction towards two Miami men with no personal link to Dan, which meant only one thing that someone had

hired them.

Mandy: Detectives also uncovered that the murder [00:33:00] wasn't just a one and done thing. There had actually been a first attempt in early June of 2014, specifically June four through six, when Garcia and Rivera came to Tallahassee, but they lost track of Dan and they left empty handed.

They returned to Tallahassee on July 17th, then checked into a west Tennessee Street Motel. And the next morning their phones pinged near Dan's gym, which matched the surveillance of the Prius being there that morning as well, it was determined that neither Garcia nor Rivera knew Dan. So investigators concluded that they were contracted to kill him.

A motive really started to come into focus. At this point, the Adelson family's obsession with relocating Wendy and her kids to South Florida and the legal battles. And Donna, you know, could not risk losing access to those little kids. These all seemed like likely reasons that this family would want Dan to be killed.

They believed that the link, the missing link between the Adelsons and these hit [00:34:00] men was a woman named Catherine or Katie. Mag Bawa and she had two connections that really mattered to the police. Number one, she was Garcia's ex and also the mother of his two children. And at the same time she was Charlie Adelson's girlfriend, so that's a big one. So the phone records showed Katie was in frequent contact with both Garcia and Rivera, and also frequently in contact with Charlie, of course, her boyfriend.

About 90 minutes after the shooting, Garcia's very first call was to Katie the night before they drove up data shows that Katie was with Garcia and Rivera, and on the day of the murder, there were a lot of calls back and forth between Katie and Garcia and Charlie and everybody kind of like playing hopscotch with the phone and calling each other.

It just was the kind of pattern that doesn't, you know, you don't need a flow chart to explain what's going on. We all kind of can see where this is going, and when you top it off with the custody and the relocation struggle, things really look even worse. [00:35:00] But then when you follow the money, the picture gets even more clear.

Beginning two months after the murder, Katie started receiving handwritten paychecks from the Adelson Institute. That's the family's dental practice. And these are checks that are signed by Donna Adelson, but there's no formal employment record or job title for Katie at all. So why are, why are you writing her paychecks?

Katie later testified that she actually never did work there. But yet the checks still kept coming until April of 2016, and they stopped when the FBI finally made its move.

Donna's defense later claimed that she wrote those checks because her son, Charlie had told her to. And the state countered that at this point, it wasn't even up to him because he already sold this practice back to his father Harvey. So they didn't, it didn't, still didn't make sense why Donna would be paying Katie from a business that Charlie wasn't, didn't own anymore.

And Investigators also noted that Katie had gotten a breast augmentation in October of 2016, that she paid for mostly in cash. [00:36:00] They used subpoenas to pull the employment records from the, you know, dental office and they pulled tax returns and a lot of other documents just to try and like verify if Katie was getting this money legitimately or what was going on here.

So a forensic accounting review found that there was a surge of cash into Katie's accounts after Dan's murder without any legitimate employment to match.

Melissa: Meanwhile, the shooters started spending money as well. Rivera bought a motorcycle and a Toyota Camry, and Garcia bought a motorcycle, a 1994 Monte Carlo, which was just eight days after the murder. And a Nissan Maxima. Then there came more smoke from the Wendy's side. Jeff Laca told police. Wendy had once said that Charlie looked into having Dan killed for $15,000. He said he was actually so stunned that he changed the subject. And days before the murder, after a yoga class, Wendy was actually acting very strange and cold towards Jeff.

And when Jeff said he loved [00:37:00] her, she replied, quote, I know, of course you do, I'm a goddess. And quote, which normally I'd be like, nobody

would say that, but yes,

a hundred

percent I believe this woman would.

have. Yes. And so she kept pressuring him and asking him whether he was leaving town that Friday. And you know, with the way he was going, what route would you take After learning this, an hour later, she emails a breakup. She asked him for a week of no contact and said she'd reach out on July 21st. And of course, those details don't prove, prove guilt, but they fit the timing perfectly and

do not

look good

at all. Like, what is this? So in April of 2016, an FBI agent posts as a gang member to carry out an undercover operation on Donna Adelson.

We'll have to link to the video of this 'cause it's pretty crazy to watch it go down. The agent approached her on the street and handed her a newspaper article about Dan's murder and told her that her family had been supporting Katie [00:38:00] and Tuto. he was implying that his brother was toto. I don't remember which one that

is, guys, but

it's,

it's One '

or the other. And that Toto had helped him with the problem up north, which would be referring to Dan's murder. He then pressured her to give him $5,000 for Tato, So Donna appears to be shocked and taken aback, and she denies knowing what he was talking about. And the undercover agent said she knew exactly what he was talking about and he leaves her with this newspaper article. Obviously he didn't expect for her to say, yeah, you know what, we do owe more murder, more money for Dan's murder. But they wanted to spark this new discussion. Everything's been quiet because you know nothing's really going on and they want to make them talk. and it worked. So despite the agent never mentioning Donna's son, Charlie Adelson by name, that's who she calls immediately. Afterward, she tells him she had been hand delivered some paperwork, [00:39:00] and that the two of them needed to meet in person to talk about it. One thing to know about Charlie is he talks all the time.

He talks in circles and he will talk himself. He's talked himself into half of this, but so Charlie's asking her, instead of being like, okay, I'll meet with you. He's like, does it involve me or others? And Donna replied, quote, probably the two of us. So you probably have a general idea what I'm talking about and quote, that doesn't sound suspicious.

So they made plans to meet the next day. Later that day, Charlie called his mother back and she told him to bring cash to their upcoming meeting. Charlie asked if someone was blackmailing her, and she said that it was, quote, always a good possibility. Charlie then advised her to go to the police, but she didn't think it was a good idea, but she did agree to not discuss anything in the apartment or in public yet they keep chatting on the dang phone. Charlie pressed her about exactly what was being asked for, and Donna used coded language. The worst time they could have used this coded language, I [00:40:00] think was in this moment where she says out of nowhere, this TV was probably about five, like $5,000, and she added that the request also referenced a girlfriend.

Why are we talking about TVs? If someone's trying to, I don't know,

blackmail you, that

doesn't even make

sense, but it's so random like, but that just tells you that TV thing was in their heads. So instantly though, Charlie knows that she means Katie as far as the ex-girlfriend. So he calls her a short time later to tell her about the whole thing and to arrange a meeting with her the following day. Katie then called Siegfried Garcia, the gunman and the murder, and her ex-boyfriend, and she told him that things were getting too detailed and, and boy were they. And we have more to get into after one last break to hear word from this week's sponsors.

Marker

Melissa: And now back to

the episode.

Mandy: Before the break, we discussed how Dan Markel and Wendy Adelson's divorce spiraled into a lot of fights [00:41:00] about money, the custody of their two children and the relocation of those children to be down in South Florida. It was really Donna Adelson, Wendy's mom, who was pushing hard to move her grandkids to Miami, and she even suggested that the Adelson family could offer Dan a million dollars to buy him off.

So in 2016, about two years after Dan's murder, an FBI Sting caught Donna and her son Charlie, speaking in code, which investigators saw, of course, as clear signs that the family knew a lot more than they were leading on. Soon after Charlie and Katie met at Dolce Vita, which is a restaurant in Miami. And on Hidden Audio, Charlie floated the idea of a one-time charity payment to keep this, this, I guess, assumed Blackmailer quiet.

And he also suggested they could kill the person that was trying to blackmail Donna Adelson and wondered if the guy, but they also wondered if the guy was actually law enforcement. So like they go from like, if this is really a [00:42:00] blackmailer, we could kill him, but maybe it's a cop. I don't know. Like,

you know.

Melissa: be anything.

Mandy: Yeah. But they were pondering and talking about, you know, if this was a police officer, they, he was saying like that this tactic of getting them to talk, you know, it was like tossing a smoke grenade to expose cockroaches and you know, just basically saying we don't need to be going around the police and going to the police would put a spotlight, on everything.

And

he was basically.

Melissa: keep talking about

Mandy: But we should definitely keep talking about it. Yeah. But going to the police, you know, he's like, you're gonna have like a, a serious, you know, authority knocking on your door and wanting to speak with you and your attorney. So like, let's just keep this all hush hush. He also said, which they heard on these, um, record hidden, you know, recordings. He said, quote, if they had any evidence, we would've already gone to the airport. So there you go.

Melissa: Not

suspicious.

Mandy: Charlie tried to warn his mom, Donna, that this mysterious blackmailer might actually be law enforcement, or even just, maybe if it's not a police officer, maybe it's a private investigator that the Markel [00:43:00] family hired to dig into his murder.

At that point, of course, they were thinking like, it has been two years, this is about the right time, that his family might be wanting to get more answers. So they were thinking like, for sure, thinking that it wasn't, that there could be something, uh, something going on there. So one night at 2:00 AM the undercover agent sent Donna a message and was complaining that the Adelson family wasn't taking him seriously 'cause they hadn't given him any money.

Of course. And this prompted Donna to then call the agent herself and tell him that she didn't know anything and that he has, you know, essentially he's got the wrong person. By the end of it, the Adelson's had convinced themselves that the police were just fishing for information with this whole thing, um, which was true.

Um, but because they're like, oh, well we cracked the code. We don't have to do it. The police, you know, they're just, it's just the, they just stopped worrying about it. They're like, whatever, who cares? Which is tough. Probably not

the

attitude you should take, right? That's not the attitude you should have if you know the police are like

looking into you.

So the recording from the [00:44:00] restaurant was a central piece of evidence in the case. At first it was really hard to even decipher, but with software enhancement, they were able to clarify the conversation and that gave them enough evidence to eventually arrest and charge Charlie and Katie. So the police finally moved in and made their first two arrests two years after the killing.

On May 26th, 2016, SEG Frito Garcia was arrested and charged with first degree murder, and that same day Luis Rivera was also charged. He was already in federal custody. On another case, though, at the time, on October 1st, 2016, Katie was arrested and charged in the conspiracy. An arrest affidavit said that she deposited more than $50,000 in cash during the 16 months after Dan Markel's murder.

She also started getting these handwritten paychecks from the Adelson Institute that were signed by Donna herself. Despite having no official job there, prosecutors offered Katie a deal before her trial, and the deal [00:45:00] was full immunity if she cooperated against her. Dear Sweet Charlie Adelson, did she take the deal, Melissa?

Melissa: The dumbest thing

ever. She did not.

take the

deal. I'm talking idiot.

That man was never gonna

protect

you. He did not care. Nothing. But she also said that she couldn't, she couldn't say anything about it because it would mean she was. Saying her child's father, her children's father was guilty, and so she was not gonna,

you know, do that.

Mandy: Okay.

Melissa: did not go well at

all.

Mandy: Hmm.

So a judge ruled that Garcia, as well as Katie would be tried together to, in order to conserve resources and their joint trial began on September, 2019 before Judge James c Hankinson. And the state's theory was very clear. This was a murder for hire tied to the divorce and the custody fight between Wendy and Dan and Garcia was the gunman.

Katie was the go-between and the Adelson family had the money [00:46:00] and the motive. The defense said that the state just couldn't prove this link, which based on the evidence we've already discussed in this

episode, I think they had the proof they

Melissa: I know, I know, So key witnesses took the stand, including the neighbor, James Geiger, who heard the bang, saw a light car speed from the driveway and found Dan slumped in his car. Stewart Schlager also testified he was the one that was actually on the phone with Dan when he was killed. He heard Dan say a stranger was in the driveway. That's when he heard a noise. In labored breathing, Sergeant Chris Corbett walked jurors through the call records that linked Garcia, Katie and the Adelson's on the day of the murder. And there were others that testified as well. A long time Adelson Institute Dental assistant said she knew Katie, but that was as a patient and not somebody that was on staff June, Uma Charlie's ex-girlfriend who dated him after this, so from 2015 to 2017, said he slept with a gun and [00:47:00] kept stacks of cash stapled together in a safe. While they did discuss Dan's murder, Charlie never made any confessions or admissions, but once the case really started, Charlie did become stressed and irrational, and she said he wasn't acting like himself. Jeff Laas told jurors that Wendy Adelson once pointed to him as a possible suspect, and again, he warned police early on to look at Charlie. Louis Rivera testified for two days in the trial and said that he drove While Garcia shot Dan, he pleaded guilty in exchange for a 19 year sentence and became the state's witness.

And as Mandy was saying, he was already serving a sentence. so this would just run concurrently. He's, he's the driver in this

thing and he gets

19 years

and it's just part of his other one.

But he's the one that talked, so he pointed the finger at Katie for setting up this whole plot and said, at first he thought the job was just to go rob Dan and not to kill him. And he said he didn't find out until [00:48:00] halfway to Tallahassee that they were going to quote, kill the man for some kids. End quote, Rivera said he refused to shoot Markel himself, but he watched from the car as Garcia jumped out and went over to the driver's side of Dan's car and shot him twice as he sat in his own garage, he said the money for the hit came and stapled bundles.

Hmm.

Who

Staples their

bundles. A forensic financial analyst named Mary Hull was able to connect spikes of cash to Katie, as well as bursts of spending by Garcia

and Rivera.

Mandy: On October 11th, 2019, the jury reached a split verdict while Garcia was found guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy. They were deadlocked when it came to Katie and the judge declared a

mistrial for her. Dan's family said this was a step toward justice, but the job still was not done. Prosecutors promised that they would retry Katie.

Meanwhile, Garcia was facing the death penalty. Four days [00:49:00] later, Garcia was sentenced to life in prison. Friends and family of Dan were relieved, but they still expressed the need for even more accountability. One of Charlie Adelson's lawyers said The mistrial just proved the state had no real case against his family, and he told reporters they should simply ignore any podcasts or rumor mills about it.

But investigators were far from done looking into how the Adelson family played a role in such a devastating crime. They were definitely still looking into it.

Melissa: Oh

yeah.

Mandy: Katie's retrial began in May of 2022. Wendy took the stand for two hours and talked mostly about her brother Charlie, who had recently been arrested in connection with this whole murder plot.

She described Charlie as being a bachelor, driving fancy cars and dating many women. Wendy said that she had met Katie twice and that she just knew Katie was dating Charlie at the time of the murder, but things didn't seem all that serious between them. According to Wendy, Charlie appeared to be a little scared of Katie's [00:50:00] ex-boyfriend, Sieg Frito Garcia.

On cross-examination, Wendy admitted that her brother had made numerous jokes about hiring a hitman as a divorce gift, including shortly before Dan was actually shot.

Melissa: Okay. One joke

bad in poor taste to do numerous jokes,

you've gotta start taking it

seriously.

Mandy: For sure.

Wendy was questioned aggressively about why she hadn't tried to find Dan's killer or confronted her brother, but she insisted that she did nothing wrong and that she had been as helpful as she possibly could. Wendy talked about her divorce from Dan and how she asked the court to relocate her children to Miami for stability, which was, in her opinion, stable, was to be near her parents and her brother instead of being near their dad.

I don't, I don't know. So she also admitted that her mom, Donna, didn't like Dan and would often call him a bully, said that he was a religious extremist, and she constantly talked about how disappointed she was with the way that Dan treated Wendy. [00:51:00] Donna was the one who had suggested that they bribed Dan with up to a million dollars to get him to agree to letting the kids move, which honestly, this part just is so sickening to me.

Right. Like that Donna, like you're, you're literally acting like you can just buy these children for a

Melissa: Absolutely.

Mandy: is absolutely insane.

Melissa: She can get anything with money. And it's so gross because it makes you think, oh, would you have done this? Would you have accepted a million dollars from Harvey? Had you and

him gotten,

you know, arrested to give your kids up it, it's sick. So Wendy's testimony was done under immunity, which meant her words on the stand could not be used against her, but it didn't protect her from perjury or block future charges based on other evidence.

There's like a very famous clip of her with the attorneys saying, you know, you're here and you're, this is part of immunity, and something like, but the state could bring charges up against you later. And she said They're not gonna do that. And it makes my blood boil and I'm [00:52:00] waiting for the day. Back to the story. in court records. She was listed as a co-conspirator Indicated that she planned to use the Fifth Amendment if she was called by the defense, which prevented her from being subpoenaed by Katie's attorney. So she was testifying for the state. Wendy testified that after Dan was killed, she continued to allow his parents to have access to the kids, but when she learned that they had looked into foster care, she stopped letting them see the kids out of fear that they were trying to take them away. She's an educated lawyer. She

does not believe that

Mandy: No.

Melissa: in court.

It's clarified that the Markel's inquiry was really about what would happen in the event that the Adelson family was arrested. They were trying to figure out

an emergency backup

plan.

Again, they're in Canada. Yes.

Mandy: we need to know what, where the kids stand in all this.

Melissa: They're the only ones right now that are thinking of the kids. It's so gross. So Wendy said that she wanted the responsible parties to be held accountable, even if it [00:53:00] involved her own family. So Louis Rivera testified at Katie's retrial as well. This time he shared that he received $37,000 while Garcia got 40,000 and Katie kept the rest. He also testified that Katie actually had a photo of Dan and his address on there, written on a piece of paper. Katie took the stand in her own defense and testified for over four hours and she denied everything. She said. She had no role in the murder. There was no big cash handoff from Charlie and that she had nothing to do with giving Rivera and Garcia any money. She said that Garcia would often bring her large stacks of cash, but she never asked any questions because she knew it was probably something illegal, but she needed that money for her kids she said that Charlie had put her on the payroll at the Adelson Institute so that her children could have insurance, and in return she did what she called loose assistant work for him. She denied that any of the money that she received was payment for a hit [00:54:00] on Dan, but the jury wasn't buying it. On May 27th, 2022, she was found guilty of first degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation. On July 29th, she was sentenced to life without parole plus 60 years for

the other charges.

Mandy: In that moment, you have to be like, why didn't I take that deal?

Melissa: both of her kids or her kids now

lost both parents.

For what?

For this. Guy for my, I mean, none of it makes sense. And with that though, the state had three of the responsible individuals in custody, but there was still a lot more to uncover when it came to the Adelson family, including new arrest and new trials.

And we are gonna get into all of that in part two. and don't worry. Part two, we are gonna have on Thursday, so just two days and you'll get the second part of this. But Mandy, so far, what are you

thinking are, is it just

blowing your

Mandy: it's blowing my mind. It's so overwhelming. Before we started recording, I [00:55:00] was just trying to watch, um, like as many reels, tiktoks, but then I was getting sucked in because this is just one of those cases where every single thing that you see, and every time you see a new clip, you're just like clutching your pearls and you're just like, what?

Like, oh my gosh. Like, think like it's wild. This story is crazy. I cannot wait to get into everything that's happened, uh, since the all of this. So yeah, part two, we're coming for you.

Melissa: absolutely.

Mandy: All right guys. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you guys back on Thursday for part two of this story, and hopefully everyone has a great week.

Melissa: Bye. Bye.

Marker

Melissa: You know how at 5:00 PM you're just staring into the fridge, like, please something in here. Just cook for yourself. That's basically what happens with tola. It's a smart countertop oven and meal subscription that makes cooking

actually effortless.

Mandy: I absolutely love it. The other night I made chicken parmesan with cheesy stuffed shells in my Tola, and it was delicious. It was like I'd been slaving away all [00:56:00] afternoon, but I didn't even have to dirty a single pan.

Melissa: And Mandy, we've already talked about this before, but I know your

favorite part is the app.

Mandy: Absolutely. My kids actually fight over scanning the QR codes, but I love that I can look up meals, I can track everything and actually feel organized for once. Plus, this little oven has totally replaced half the appliances in my kitchen. No joke. Goodbye toaster. Goodbye air fryer. Goodbye. Random gadget. I swore I needed, but actually never used.

Tola steams, bakes and broils. Basically everything that you possibly could need.

Melissa: For a limited time because you are a moms and mysteries listener, you can save up to $300 on the Tola Smart Oven when you order six plus meals by heading to tola.com/moms and use R Code Moms. That's $300 off when you head to tola.com/moms and use promo code moms one last time.

That's T-O-V-A-L a.com. and make sure you use our promo code Moms for $300 off the Tola Smart Oven [00:57:00] Remember with Tola dinner is taken care of.

Marker

Melissa: What's softer than cashmere and warmer than wool.

It sounds like a riddle, but it's actually my new alpaca hoodie from Packa. I've tried all the natural fibers, cashmeres, merino, you name it. But this

one honestly blew Me

away,

Mandy: Me too.

Packa makes performance apparel from alpaca fiber, which is one of the world's most sustainable natural fibers. Their bestselling hoodie doesn't stretch out, doesn't pill or feel heavy. It's lightweight, it's cozy, and somehow keeps me warm when it's cold and cool. When it's hot. It basically just adapts to life.

Melissa: and every single one is handcrafted in Peru by artisans Who actually stitched their names right into the tag, which makes it feel so special and so original. I love knowing that it's sustainable, ethical, and actually supports the people making it. Plus, I am wearing mine everywhere, and I can't tell you how many

compliments I've gotten.

Mandy: Over a hundred thousand people have already picked up the Packa hoodie, and right now when you order, one Packa will throw in a free pair of their alpaca crew socks. Maybe they [00:58:00] only think softer than the hoodie itself.

Melissa: had me at hoodie, but if you had the socks, I am their best gal. They're cozy, they're odor resistant, And if you ever manage to wear these socks out, PAA will actually replace them. So if you've been waiting to level up your hoodie game, this is your sign to grab your Packa hoodie and free pair of alpaca crew socks.

head to go dot paa apparel.com/moms and use our code moms. That's go dot pka apparel.com/moms and enter the code

Moms.

Dan MarkelTrue CrimeMurder for HireAdelsonPodcast

Moms And Murder Podcast

The Killing of Professor Dan Markel: A Family Feud Turns Deadly (Part 1)

The Art of the STEAL: When Passion Drives Crime