New evidence in the slaying of FSU professor Dan Markel

Sun-Sentinel

Florida State University professor Daniel Markel had just been gunned down outside his home. And his ex-wife said she had a notion why.

On that day, in July 2014, Wendi Adelson told police someone might have done it for her benefit.

"I can't help but feel that this is all my fault. This can't be a random act of violence; this has to be on purpose. Someone did this for a reason," she said during a recorded police interview. "I'm so scared that someone did this, not because they hate Danny but because they thought this was good somehow."

The interview is among dozens of newly released documents and recordings that show how investigators began to piece together what they call a murder-for-hire plot.

The evidence reveals:

• Adelson, 37, of Miami, told police that her brother Charlie, a South Florida periodontist, had joked about hiring a hit man.

• Cellphone records show calls between Charlie Adelson's phone and Katherine Magbanua, a woman connected with two men accused of carrying out the killing.

• Shortly after Markel's death, Magbanua started receiving paychecks from the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics and Implant Dentistry in Tamarac.

• The two men charged in the crime made significant purchases in the months after the killing. Sigfredo Garcia bought two cars and a motorcycle, and Luis Rivera bought a motorcycle.

No one in the Adelson family has been arrested or charged in the case and, through their attorneys, they have denied any involvement in Markel's murder.

"We understand why the government has put the Adelson family through this type of severe scrutiny. But nothing has turned up that supports this fanciful fiction that the Adelsons were involved," according to a statement released in August on behalf of the family. "There is a reason that the police have not arrested any of the Adelsons — they weren't involved in Dan's death."

Investigators have been candid about what they think happened. They say Garcia and Rivera acted as hired assassins in an arrangement handled through Magbanua. Magbanua was dating Charlie Adelson and has two small children with Garcia. [...]

Adelson then told investigators her brother Charlie joked about hiring a hit man.

"My brother — the one I'm really close to — he makes a lot of jokes in bad taste and it was a joke he made. ... He said, 'You know, I looked into hiring a hit man and it was cheaper to get you this TV. So, instead, I got you this TV,'" Adelson told the investigator.

She then said: "He's my big brother and he's been taking care of me since I was little, but he would never."

Wendi Adelson's boyfriend at the time also told investigators the brother should be considered as a suspect.

"I would be investigating Charlie Adelson," Jeffrey Lacasse, a professor in the College of Social Work at FSU, told an investigator during a recorded interview in July 2014. "If you got in front of this guy, he'd set off your radar. He set off my radar."

Lacasse said Charlie Adelson hung out with unsavory people.

"He's a dentist and he's very wealthy, but he kind of hangs out with people from both sides of the tracks," he said during the interview. "You know, he goes boating in South Beach with his rich buddies and he also goes to his gym with some other kinds of characters."

Lacasse also told investigators Wendi Adelson told him her brother had looked into hiring a hit man and was told it would cost $15,000.

"Wendi had reported to me that Charlie had considered all the options possible to take care of this problem," he said. "She said it in a dead serious, chilling, uncomfortable way."

When investigators asked Lacasse how he thought Adelson would have committed the murder, he said: "He'd get his buddy in the special forces to do this, or he'd get some seedy guys down in the Cuban neighborhood or something like that."　　[...]

Shortly after Markel's death, Magbanua started getting paychecks, signed by Donna Adelson, from the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics and Implant Dentistry. She received more than $56,000, according to the arrest warrant from Sept. 30.[...]

"Through analysis of Magbanua's bank accounts and other investigative techniques, it appears that the majority of her income does not come from legitimate employment," the report said. "Investigators believe that Magbanua is supported financially by Charlie Adelson and has received numerous benefits from the Adelsons since Markel's murder."

Garcia and Rivera also bought several vehicles in the months after the murder.[...]