Prosecutors’ Pursuit: A timeline of the Dan Markel murder trials and convictions
Prosecutors and police have worked for more than 11 years to solve the mystery surrounding the shooting death of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, a criminal law professor who founded PrawfsBlog. It took nearly two years before a first arrest was made and more than two years before an early suspect pleaded guilty.
Who’s who?
• Dan Markel: The slain criminal law professor from the Florida State University College of Law.
• Wendi Adelson: A lawyer who was Dan Markel’s ex-wife. She has not been charged in his murder.
• Charlie Adelson: Wendi Adelson’s brother, who was convicted of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder in November 2023.
• Donna Adelson: Wendi and Charlie Adelson’s mother. She is currently on trial in Markel’s murder.
• Katherine Magbanua: Allegedly enlisted by Charlie Adelson, her onetime boyfriend, to hire two hit men to kill Dan Markel. She was convicted of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder in May 2022.
• Sigfredo Garcia: The accused triggerman and the father of Magbanua’s children. He was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in October 2019.
• Luis Rivera: Garcia’s accused accomplice. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in October 2016.
The timeline
July 2014: Florida State University law professor Dan Markel is shot in the head in the driveway of his Tallahassee home on July 18. He dies the next day, and police launch a homicide investigation. News reporting indicates Markel is divorced from Wendi Adelson, another Florida State law professor, and the couple had two sons, ages 3 and 5.
Friends tell the Tallahassee Democrat that Markel had sought more time with his sons in litigation that continued after his divorce from Wendi Adelson, who wanted to move with the children to South Florida.
July 2015: Police release new details about a silver Prius that may have been used by Markel’s killer. Images were captured by surveillance photos.
Charlie Adelson is cross-examined by Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman during his trial Nov. 3, 2023, in Tallahassee, Florida, for the murder of Dan Markel, a Florida State University College of Law professor. (Photo by Alicia Devine/The Tallahassee Democrat via the Associated Press)
May 2016: Police arrest Sigfredo Garcia and charge him with first-degree murder in Markel’s shooting death. Sources tell the Tallahassee Democrat the case is being investigated as a murder for hire.
June 2016: A newly released probable cause affidavit cites investigators’ conclusion that the motive for Markel’s murder “stemmed from the desperate desire of the Adelson family to relocate Wendi and the children to South Florida.”
Also in June, grand jurors indict Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera on charges of first-degree murder. Arrest documents said they were enlisted to kill Markel in connection with his divorce. The men had rented a silver Prius before the murder.
September 2016: A prosecutor says there was not enough evidence to charge Wendi Adelson’s brother, periodontist Charlie Adelson, or the woman suspected as serving as a conduit between him and the alleged hit men. The suspected conduit was Charlie Adelson’s girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, who had two children fathered by Garcia.
A probable cause affidavit said Rivera and Garcia bought several cars and motorcycles after the murder, and Magbanua began getting paychecks from the Adelson family’s dentistry practice. The checks were signed by Wendi Adelson’s mother, Donna Adelson.
October 2016: Luis Rivera pleads guilty to second-degree murder in the Dan Markel case. Prosecutors said Rivera drove the Prius from Miami to Tallahassee to carry out the murder, provided the gun used in the crime, and was aware of the plan to kill Dan Markel.
November 2016: Alleged go-between Katherine Magbanua is indicted in the murder.
October 2019: In trial testimony, Katherine Magbanua denies any involvement in Dan Markel’s murder. The case ends in a mistrial after jurors are unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
She was tried at the same time as alleged triggerman Sigfredo Garcia, who was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in October 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
April 2022: Police arrest Charlie Adelson, Wendi Adelson’s brother, in Dan Markel’s murder.
Donna Adelson, who is charged in the 2014 murder-for-hire of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, listens to potential jurors answer questions during the first day of jury selection Aug. 19, 2025, in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Alicia Devine/The Tallahassee Democrat via the Associated Press)
May 2022: In a retrial, Magbanua is convicted of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.
Jurors appeared to focus on an enhanced recording of a 2016 conversation between Magbanua and Charlie Adelson at a restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida. It occurred after an incident known as “the bump” in which an undercover FBI agent approached Donna Adelson and gave her a newspaper article about Markel that had $5,000 written on it along with a phone number. Charlie Adelson told Magbanua he suspected the article was from a police officer or a blackmailer. He suggested that Magbanua call the number and make a one-time “charity” payment.
November 2023: Jurors convict Charlie Adelson of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder for paying hit men to kill Dan Markel. Jurors apparently rejected Adelson’s claim that he was extorted by gang members.
November 2023: Donna Adelson, Dan Markel’s former mother-in-law, is arrested in Markel’s murder at Miami International Airport after purchasing a one-way ticket to Vietnam.
August 2025: Donna Adelson’s murder trial begins. Among those called to testify is her estranged son, New York physician Robert Adelson. He testifies that his mother avoided any talk about the arrest of the two alleged hit men in a phone call two days later, even when he brought up the topic.
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