Accused Hitman Points Finger At Dan Markel In-Law In Jailhouse Confession

Tallahasse Democrat

Interviews with inmates who spent time with Sigfredo Garcia in the Leon County Jail may corroborate what one of his co-defendants and investigators have said all along about the death of Dan Markel — that Garcia was allegedly recruited by the law professor’s in-laws in a murder for hire plot.

The interviews, with two inmates at the Leon County Jail, reveal that while housed in L Pod, 34-year-old Garcia opened up about the Markel investigation and how he ended up driving to Tallahassee from Miami to allegedly shoot the Florida State legal scholar.

Garcia, his girlfriend Katherine Magbanua and Luis Rivera were all charged with Markel’s July 2014 shooting. In October, Rivera pleaded to second-degree murder. His statement, which he provided in exchange for a 19-year prison sentence that runs concurrently with a 12-year federal term he already was serving, led to Magbanua’s arrest.

Garcia is still awaiting trial.

Police have asserted that Markel’s former in-laws, chiefly his ex-wife Wendi Adelson’s brother and mother, Charlie and Donna Adelson, were involved in planning and paying to have the legal scholar killed.

Markel’s murder in broad daylight, police contend, stemmed from the couple’s acrimonious divorce and the desire of the Adelson family to move their two young boys to South Florida.

The Adelsons remain suspects in the murder-for-hire plot, said Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman. They have denied any involvement and have not been charged.

One inmate, in a recorded interview with Tallahassee Police investigators, said Garcia started to tell his fellow inmates about his involvement in the crime around the time of Magbanua’s Oct. 1 arrest.

Garcia said he was propositioned by his girlfriend and mother of his two children, who had been asked by a woman named “Don Adelson” to kill someone for money, the inmate told investigators. [...]