August 27, 2025 • 27 mins
Welcome to Like Mother Like Murder's Day 4 Trial updates providing daily coverage in the ongoing trial of Donna Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel.
Today, Rachel and Heather discuss THE BUMP. The State calls on various witnesses including FBI Special Agent Sanford who walks through the calls between Donna and Charlie Adelson immediately following "the bump". And things get spicy...code words, blackmail, secret meetings. We've got it all.
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Other LMLM Markel-Adelson Episodes:
On Spotify
Dan Markel & Wendi Adelson
Charlie Adelson on Trial
Charlie Adelson Guilty
Donna Adelson Arrested
Markel & Adelson - Part 2 (recaps Leading up to Donna's Trial)
On Apple Podcasts
Dan Markel & Wendi Adelson
Charlie Adelson on Trial
Charlie Adelson Guilty
Donna Adelson Arrested
Markel & Adelson - Part 2 (recaps Leading up to Donna's Trial)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/like-mother-like-murder--6210055/support.
Today, Rachel and Heather discuss THE BUMP. The State calls on various witnesses including FBI Special Agent Sanford who walks through the calls between Donna and Charlie Adelson immediately following "the bump". And things get spicy...code words, blackmail, secret meetings. We've got it all.
Get ad free episodes, bonus content, and support our show!
Join our Patreon!
Become an Apple subscriber!
(all options are less than $5)
Other LMLM Markel-Adelson Episodes:
On Spotify
Dan Markel & Wendi Adelson
Charlie Adelson on Trial
Charlie Adelson Guilty
Donna Adelson Arrested
Markel & Adelson - Part 2 (recaps Leading up to Donna's Trial)
On Apple Podcasts
Dan Markel & Wendi Adelson
Charlie Adelson on Trial
Charlie Adelson Guilty
Donna Adelson Arrested
Markel & Adelson - Part 2 (recaps Leading up to Donna's Trial)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/like-mother-like-murder--6210055/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome to Like Mother Like Murder. I am Rachel and
I'm Heather. We bring you the good, the badass, and
the crime.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
This is Like Mother Like Murder.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And right now is Like Mother Like Murders Trial Updates,
where we will be providing daily coverage in the ongoing
trial of Donna Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel.
We've been covering this case for years now, and so
far four people have been found guilty in the plot
to murder this father of two young.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Boys, and Donna Adelson, dan Markel's former mother in law,
is the latest conspirator to stand trial for this crime.
Rachel and I will be continuing to provide coverage every
day and will be joined by special guests throughout this
special series. We will be bringing you this every day
that there is trial coverage. So let's do this. So
(01:23):
today is day four of the ongoing trial of Donna
Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel, and today I
have affectionately named it Bump Day because y'all, it is
bump Day, is Wednesday, it is hump Day. But it
is also bump Day because today is the long away today,
(01:47):
especially for me, where we finally get into the bump,
because this is where we really do see just how
deep Donna Adelson's involvement goes. A lot of the other
involvement we've seen of Donna so far has been pretty circumstantial.
But once this bump happens, oh, she in it and
(02:09):
she in it deep. So we start the day off
with Sergeant Corbett where we left off yesterday. A poor
man is still on the stand. But this man does
so well, he holds his own So if you guys
remember from yesterday, he's like a communication specialist with the
Tallahassee PD, and again he's just going over all of
(02:30):
the communications between the conspirators, alleged conspirators, and just all
the back and forth between the tapped phone lines and
just like everything going on. So one thing that I
want to make sure, you know, just to bring forth,
because what I'm really trying to do is a lot
of this testimony, a lot of this evidence we've seen before.
(02:52):
But what I really want to highlight, you know, is
obviously this is Donna Adelson's trial. So we're gonna I'm
just gonna go through a lot of this and summarize
where it applies to Donna Adelson. So one thing that
they're tracking is the first trip that Sick Freido Garcia
and Louis Rivera take to Tallahassee in June, where they
(03:13):
do not they're they're they're following Dan Markel, but they
do not actually commit the crime. So Katie and sack
Freido Garcia. They are in the process of renting a car,
and after she's done doing that, she immediately calls Charlie.
Charlie hangs up with her, and then less than a
minute later he calls the Adolson house, right, and then
(03:39):
they get into the there's there's many times like this
right where it's just like it's it's the it's this
pattern of communications right where it's just like Katie to
to sick Fredo and you know, and then Katie to
Charlie and then Charlie to Donna, and we've just established
this over. Yeah, it's we've just established this over and
over and over again. And then they do you bring
(04:00):
up those communications to where the prosecution is talking about
how the Adalsins have these quote unquote, Rachel loves it
when I call it this because they're they're the worst
code words in the whole world. But they start referring
Donna and Charlie are talking about Dad's seventieth birthday gift,
(04:23):
and the timing of all of it is just so suspect.
And they talked about this before at Charlie's child But
you know when Sigfredo and Garcia had gone to that
gone on that trip to Tallahassee in June, and they
did not complete the murder the next day they had
(04:45):
returned to to Miami the next day. The following text
were exchange between Charlie and Donna. So Charlie texts his
mom and says, quote, still working on Dad's b day
present end quote, and Donna replies, quote, I know it's
a tough beat day being seventy at all, and this
is where it gets me, but I know you'll come
(05:07):
through thumbs up emoji, kissy face with the heart emoji, mom.
And it's just I mean, could is this circumstantial? Yes,
one hundred percent, But the timing of it happening right
after the first trip where they didn't do it, mixed
(05:29):
with everything else, it's just so so so suspect. So
some other evidence that we also hear Golas, this is
just me clearly being a hater and wanting to chime
in a little bit. But it's one of those things too,
where like typically the guy's not the one planning this, right, Like,
(05:49):
you know, it's yes, it happens. Yes, you can't say
this is you know, just okay, that happens every once
in a while, but this it's not as normal, you know,
And so for for this conversation to be happening is bizarre.
Totally agree, total, totally agree. So some other evidence that
(06:11):
we hear from Sergeant Corbett that also, you know, just
really implicates Windy, But I wanna, I do want to
bring it up because of where she was when she
sent the messages. So Wendy is texting Dan about scheduling
with the kids, some really basic co parenting scheduling stuff
that you would, you know, anyone who co parents would
(06:32):
would have these text messages on their phone. But she's
sending them when she is down in South Florida with
her parents, and it's specific to hey, can I I
you know, I would like to have the kids this day.
You're supposed to have them from this day to this day,
And it is in the timeframe of when he is
(06:56):
going to be murdered, and so the fact that she
sends those when she is down with her parents just
not only allegedly in my opinion, whatever whatever, implicates her
knowledge of something going on, but also you know where
she is when she sends it. She's getting these this
time frame, this information from somebody. Yeah, there's conversations happening,
(07:19):
exactly and allegedly. And so then again we see similar
pattern the night the cars vented in July, before the
murder of Dan Markel. Lots of back and forth, lots
of back and forth between the already convicted conspirators Katie
bag Banawa, Si Frado Garcia, Charlie Adelson, and then again
(07:42):
right after all of that, we see Charlie calling his
mom and then so let's get into the communications the
morning Dan Markell was murdered, because there's a lot of
back and forth among the family, right, there's a lot
of stuff going on between Wendy and Charlie and Donna
and Wendy and Wendy and you know Charlie again and
(08:05):
then Da da Da da, because that was the day
of you know, someone coming to Wendy's house to fix
the TV, a TV that Charlie had bought her. But
that somehow, you know, Donna had set up the the
geek squad to come fix you know, the whole thing,
(08:26):
blah blah blahlah. And one thing that stood out for
me in this trial was, you know, because that morning
there was also communication between Dan and Wendy. Dan had
called Wendy at like nine o'clock that morning and the
call didn't go through, but it went to voicemail. He
left a voicemail on her phone. They play his voicemail
(08:47):
and it kind of broke my heart because, you they
zero in on his dad when they're playing the voicemail
for the court, and it was just like really heartbreaking.
You know, his dad's watching it up on the screen
because they're playing the voicemail and that they're also showing
like the you know, the transcription of it, and it
was just like kind of sad watching him hear his
(09:08):
son's voice and you know, while they play the voicemail.
But anyway, you know, they just kind of track all
of the talk between Wendy and Donna and Charlie and
all the back and forth. And then so at the
what we see is that basically there's a bunch of
(09:31):
stuff going on, and then we know that or we
can see through the evidence that when sick Freido Garcia
and Luis Rivera, right around the time that Dan Markelle
has shot, their phones are no longer pinging off stuff.
Seemingly they shut their phones off, which we know from
(09:52):
the stuff we've covered generally means killers turn their phones
off when they're about to commit times thinking okay, you know,
maybe we can't get tracked. We all know like that
that you know, we're able to figure things out besides that,
But eventually, you know, they're able to put to the
timeline together. And when Louis Rivera and sick Fredo Garcia,
(10:13):
when they they commit the crime, they murder Dan Markel
and they start driving back to South Florida. Katie meets
up with them, and of course Katie and Charlie communicate.
And then that day, right after Dan Markel has been shot,
(10:33):
they pick up Wendy Adelson from her her lunch with
her friends and then she places a call to her mother.
Right we see this, we know that this happens where
she goes, I'm gonna call my mom and tell her,
you know, my ex husband's been shot. She calls her
mother and tells her mom and this is where we heard,
you know the other day, where she's like, well, you know,
(10:56):
she seems surprised. That's a relief, right wow, that she
said that. And then you know a few minutes after that,
Donna texts Charlie and just says, you know, call us
a sap. And within the hour of that, Donna and
Harvey are headed north. They're leaving their home which is
(11:17):
like south South Florida and starting to travel to Charlie's house.
And I've said this before. You know, the defense has
not done a great job on cross today. I feel
like they tried to do a better job when they
cross examined Corbett. But this man, he ran this shit.
(11:39):
He knows his stuff. I mean, at various points he
was correcting the lawyers saying like, no, that's not right,
Like you're looking at the wrong slide, You're pulling up
the wrong exhibit. Did you mean to say this? Did
you mean to say that? And I love that. And
now I'm really sad that I missed out on some
of that. I told Heather before we logged on you
(12:00):
guys that I today was the first day I didn't
really sit down and watch all of it. I did
read a little bit of stuff that Heather is filling
me in as much as she is filling all of
you guys in right now. Yeah, I would have loved
you know, he's going to say all of that stuff.
He's amazing. He's just a true professional and just really
(12:20):
is on top of this stuff. And so he basically,
you know, the defense is trying to cross examine him
after he's done, you know, after the prosecution is done
with their direct and basically, you know, the defense is
trying to say, hey, you're trying to say that you know,
(12:41):
at the time of in June when the the two
when Louis River and sik Fredo Garcia had gone up there,
and then in July at the time of the murder,
you're trying to say that that the atol Sin's we're
talking a lot, that Charlie and that Donna, we're having
a lot of phone calls. But you're are you considering
(13:05):
this a spike in their in their in their the
a frequency, a spike in frequency of their of them talking.
And the guy was like, no, I'm just pointing out
that they spoke, and that I'm not saying it's an
abnormal amount in terms of the time of of like
the amount of calls. What I'm pointing out is that
(13:28):
the number of calls is not abnormal, but the times
that they called each other allowed for a potential exchange
of information about what was occurring. And you know, the
timing of it and when things occurred is fucking suspect
(13:49):
as hell. So like the cross, they thought they were
getting at something, right, they thought they were saying, is
four times a lot of times for Charlie to have
talked to his mother in like a twenty four hour
period or whatever. And Sergeant Corbut's like, no, I didn't
say that, And they tried to put like words in
his mouth and He's like, no, I'm not saying that.
I was establishing that between those four calls there there
(14:16):
could have been an exchange of information. And so, I mean,
they thought they had him, but that man, he did
the damn thing. And after two freaking days on the stand,
they finally let him off the stand, and even the
judge had like a like a you are finally free
to go, you know. Yeah, But then we get into it, Rachel,
(14:42):
we get into the bump, and this is what I
have been waiting for. I'm telling you. You'll have to
go back and watch some of it. Really, what you
need to watch is the special agent Sanford. So he
was the lead agent and he testified when they first
start talking about the bump. They do they they they
(15:05):
have the undercover agent who first approached Donna Adelson. And
it is interesting because what they did, you know, due
to the nature of his previous job. They don't show
this guy's face. They you know, they show just like
the bottom half of his body, you know, because he
was an undercover agent. They they talked to him and
just like what he you know, what he did when
(15:26):
he approached Donna. They talked to a couple agents who
surveilled the adol sins. They talked to the guy who's
cover got blown. I don't know if you remember this,
but I can't remember if it was Harvey or Charlie.
I want to say it was actually Harvey, who goes
it looks like there's like a listening device or like
a camera in that bag. And they immediately got up
(15:46):
and left. Yeah, And then they talked to some technical
specialists who were like tasked with like cleaning up some
of the recordings because they were all like in loud
restaurants and stuff like that. But then they get into
Special Agent Sanford, who they'll probably spen the majority of
the day tomorrow also talking to because he has a
lot of information. Yeah, so they talk to this guy
(16:09):
and basically the big thing and this is where we
really get to see Donna's involvement because what he testifies
to is that the first person that she calls after
she's approached by the undercover guy saying, look, you took
care of Katie, you took care of Tuto, and you
(16:29):
need to now take care of Tato. And the first
person she calls Charlie. Right, the first person she calls
is Charlie, And of course they talk about it, and
they're a weird rounder about way. But the main thing
in there and and throughout this the trial, you you like,
they go, oh, they play the entire conversations. And that
(16:51):
day after she's approached, there's like three phone calls that
happen between Charlie and his mom. Donna calls Charlie and
tells him about what happened, and then Charlie calls her back,
and then they talk some more, and then Charlie calls
her again, like fifteen minutes later, like they talk like
three or four times that day, and so in their
weird roundabout way, you know, they talk about it. But
(17:15):
the damning thing, right is that, you know, she immediately
calls Charlie. She doesn't call anyone else, she doesn't call
the police, she doesn't call Harvey. And you know, he's
asking her and yeah, of course she's not like saying, outright,
a man just approached me and he told me this.
You know, She's just saying, hey, I need to talk
to you, blah blah blah blah. And Charlie's as he's
(17:36):
trying to figure out, what do you what do you mean?
What are what is this about? Right? And he's like,
are you being sued? And she's like, no, is it
the r IR s? No? Does dad know? No, doesn't
involve Wendy. And she's and she really quickly goes no, no, no, no, no, no,
no no, And you know, and then and this is
(17:56):
where it's like boom, smoking gun for me. Charlie asks,
all right, doesn't involve me or other people? And Donna replies, well,
probably both of us. And Charlie asks what was that
and Donn replies, probably the two of us. So you
probably have a general idea what I'm talking about. Yeah,
(18:21):
And then about twenty minutes and they're playing the actual
phone call. Yes, they're playing the full phone call. Okay,
so you gotta go back and watch this part. Yeah,
they're playing the focal. Twenty minutes later, Charlie calls his
mom back and he's still like, Charlie's still not getting it.
He's still like, he thinks it's like they're getting souoned.
He's talking about like a Yelp review or something like that.
(18:42):
He's thinking maybe someone's coming up and saying Maybe he's
thinking someone comes up and saying, hey, you messed up
my teeth or something. I don't know, right, but she's,
you know, he he's saying things like that, and she's like, well,
I think you just better come over and you better
take me out to dinner and bring cat. And then
Charlie starts getting it and he's like wait, and he
(19:04):
just straight out asks are you being blackmailed? Is someone
blackmailing you? And she's trying to use code of course,
and he's just like, who's blackmailing? Is getting it? Yeah,
Oh my god, I'm not getting it. And and Donna
instead of answering yes, she goes that's always a good possibility,
(19:25):
like she won't answer, but he's of course asking these
really just like straightforward questions. And then Charlie says, hey,
if it's a threat, go to the police, and Donnas like, well,
I don't think that's a good idea. They hang up,
and then he calls back again and then he starts
asking these questions, well, who was it who came up
to you, you know, was he If he was threatening you,
(19:46):
you need to go to the police. And she's like, well,
I just want to talk to you first, and then
he asks her straight up, okay, well what did he
ask you for? And this is again another just like
smoking gun, where it's like don you obviously and you
obviously were involved in this because she says, this is
what she said exactly. The TV was probably about five
(20:11):
out of nowhere. So far during this whole entire day,
the undercover agent, the two previous phone calls, all this shit.
No one's talked about a TV since the day that
Dan Markue was murdered. The TV was probably about five.
And then Charlie and all his smartness replies, they ask
(20:34):
you for five thousand dollars. It's like so much for code.
Charlie like so much for code. And then so then Donna,
she's the one then that tells him that, well, you know,
they came up to me, they mentioned my son, and
then you know, blah blah blah. And then Donna actually
(20:55):
tells Charlie they mentioned an ex girlfriend and that's all
she says. She doesn't give a name, she doesn't say it.
She says, they mentioned the next girlfriend. Yeah, okay, yep,
they hang up the phone. Guess who the next The
next song is Katie?
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Yeah, hundred right, just yeah, exactly, And so the undercover
agent mentioned Katie, right, the undercover agent mentioned Katie, but
Donna never said Katie's name.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
We know, we know from test we got around, Charlie,
that's fucking right, and Charlie got around. It made me
think of the Peenie Pablo like freakently song where it's
like shah Nuke was you.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Know, like all the different names.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's him a number five too, we know that, right.
And so so Charlie calls Katie and see he says, like, look,
someone walked up to my mom started asking for money,
mentioned her son, mentioned her son's girlfriend, and Katie's response
is like the fuck. And then she even says, like
you had a thousand ex girlfriends? What does this have
(22:06):
to do with me? Right? And then and he even
and they go on and on, and she's like, do
you think someone's stalking your mom? Like what the hell
is going on? Like you you need to figure this out,
like and she's basically like, I don't know what the
hell you think this has to do with me. And
then Charlie's like, I thought that they mentioned your name,
when in fact they never had mentioned her name, and
(22:28):
he was raising yeah, And the truth of the matter
is they had never even actually mentioned Charlie. Yeah, just son.
But Donna's first call was obviously to Charlie. They never
mentioned Charlie to Donna. They mentioned Katie, Toto and Tuto,
they never mentioned Charlie. But of course Charlie was her
(22:49):
first call.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
Ye, So.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And then when she says ex girlfriends, of course Charlie's
gonna call Katie because Donna and Charlie both know what
they're fucking talking about. Right. The other thing that I
find interesting in this is when they're talking about this,
they're really also trying to make plans to speak and
not tell Harvey. Donna's trying really hard not to let
(23:14):
Harvey know about what's happening, Like they're trying to keep
it from Dad, and they're also trying to, you know,
they want to not involve Wendy in it. You know,
they're they're saying, like, okay, because at she because at
this point in time, like wa, this is happening, Donna
has the boys, Like you can hear the boys in
(23:35):
the background of one of the phone calls, and she
was saying like, well, I can't come see you today
because I don't want Wendy knowing that I drove up
to see you, because then if the boys tell her, oh,
we went to go see Uncle Charlie, She's gonna have
questions about why we went up there. So they're trying
not to let Harvey know. They're trying to want not
to let Wendy know. And so that's where we ended
(23:59):
for today day. But but this bump, and like I said,
this bump, everything up to this point you can probably
make an argument super circumstantial. But once you you do
this bump, this is where Donna it's a really hard
to explain away any you know, Donna's involvement rightly, Yeah, Yeah, tomorrow,
(24:27):
they'll they'll bring back this FBI agent. He'll get back
on the stand and this this this Sanford because he
was the lead. I think he was actually the one
who arrested Charlie and I want to say he was
the one who arrested Donna. So uh, he'll he'll be
(24:47):
back on the stand, and he'll be he'll be the
one to to Probably I wouldn't be surprised if he's
on the stand all day tomorrow. He's gonna be like Corbett,
He's gonna have a lot to do with this and
and that's where we'll be. But yeah, this is the bump.
This is where we're really gonna see things start to
move and shake. Yeah, with that real strong evidence again
(25:09):
for Donna's involvement. Well, I'm eager to watch tomorrow. I'm
bummed that I missed that. It was one of those
things where when I stopped watching this morning, I was like,
it's okay for now, you know, and I never got
back to it. So I appreciate your update. I definitely
want to go listen to those phone calls. Oh tomorrow,
(25:30):
I'm back to being all in so yeah, eager. You
have to listen because you're just like, oh my gosh,
Like I was just sitting there and I've heard snippets
of it before throughout Charlie's trial, but you're just like,
oh my gosh, these are igniving people and you're just
like you're sitting there, Donna's trying to use code and
Charlie's just like they ask for five thousand dollars and
(25:51):
you're like, oh my god, Charlie, like you're just not
the business.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Which is fine.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So you love a dumb criminal because you know, give
yourself up caught, Get that right, I know for sure?
All right, we will be back tomorrow with day five.
We'll be talking more about the bump. We hope you
guys are enjoying this daily coverage. We're gonna keep bringing
it because we're just like invested at this point and
(26:17):
we hope you guys are too. We're you know, giving
you eight hours all the way down to you know,
about thirty minutes, and we hope that this is helpful. Yeah,
definitely join us again tomorrow and until then, we'll talk
to you guys tomorrow. Ooh sorry, We're so good at this.
(26:37):
It's like take me out of my studio, studio, and
I don't know how to work. It's hard because it's
not our normal. I do it again. That's all right.
Talk to you guys tomorrow, okay, Love you.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Bye, love you bye. The last
Welcome to Like Mother Like Murder. I am Rachel and
I'm Heather. We bring you the good, the badass, and
the crime.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
This is Like Mother Like Murder.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And right now is Like Mother Like Murders Trial Updates,
where we will be providing daily coverage in the ongoing
trial of Donna Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel.
We've been covering this case for years now, and so
far four people have been found guilty in the plot
to murder this father of two young.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Boys, and Donna Adelson, dan Markel's former mother in law,
is the latest conspirator to stand trial for this crime.
Rachel and I will be continuing to provide coverage every
day and will be joined by special guests throughout this
special series. We will be bringing you this every day
that there is trial coverage. So let's do this. So
(01:23):
today is day four of the ongoing trial of Donna
Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel, and today I
have affectionately named it Bump Day because y'all, it is
bump Day, is Wednesday, it is hump Day. But it
is also bump Day because today is the long away today,
(01:47):
especially for me, where we finally get into the bump,
because this is where we really do see just how
deep Donna Adelson's involvement goes. A lot of the other
involvement we've seen of Donna so far has been pretty circumstantial.
But once this bump happens, oh, she in it and
(02:09):
she in it deep. So we start the day off
with Sergeant Corbett where we left off yesterday. A poor
man is still on the stand. But this man does
so well, he holds his own So if you guys
remember from yesterday, he's like a communication specialist with the
Tallahassee PD, and again he's just going over all of
(02:30):
the communications between the conspirators, alleged conspirators, and just all
the back and forth between the tapped phone lines and
just like everything going on. So one thing that I
want to make sure, you know, just to bring forth,
because what I'm really trying to do is a lot
of this testimony, a lot of this evidence we've seen before.
(02:52):
But what I really want to highlight, you know, is
obviously this is Donna Adelson's trial. So we're gonna I'm
just gonna go through a lot of this and summarize
where it applies to Donna Adelson. So one thing that
they're tracking is the first trip that Sick Freido Garcia
and Louis Rivera take to Tallahassee in June, where they
(03:13):
do not they're they're they're following Dan Markel, but they
do not actually commit the crime. So Katie and sack
Freido Garcia. They are in the process of renting a car,
and after she's done doing that, she immediately calls Charlie.
Charlie hangs up with her, and then less than a
minute later he calls the Adolson house, right, and then
(03:39):
they get into the there's there's many times like this
right where it's just like it's it's the it's this
pattern of communications right where it's just like Katie to
to sick Fredo and you know, and then Katie to
Charlie and then Charlie to Donna, and we've just established
this over. Yeah, it's we've just established this over and
over and over again. And then they do you bring
(04:00):
up those communications to where the prosecution is talking about
how the Adalsins have these quote unquote, Rachel loves it
when I call it this because they're they're the worst
code words in the whole world. But they start referring
Donna and Charlie are talking about Dad's seventieth birthday gift,
(04:23):
and the timing of all of it is just so suspect.
And they talked about this before at Charlie's child But
you know when Sigfredo and Garcia had gone to that
gone on that trip to Tallahassee in June, and they
did not complete the murder the next day they had
(04:45):
returned to to Miami the next day. The following text
were exchange between Charlie and Donna. So Charlie texts his
mom and says, quote, still working on Dad's b day
present end quote, and Donna replies, quote, I know it's
a tough beat day being seventy at all, and this
is where it gets me, but I know you'll come
(05:07):
through thumbs up emoji, kissy face with the heart emoji, mom.
And it's just I mean, could is this circumstantial? Yes,
one hundred percent, But the timing of it happening right
after the first trip where they didn't do it, mixed
(05:29):
with everything else, it's just so so so suspect. So
some other evidence that we also hear Golas, this is
just me clearly being a hater and wanting to chime
in a little bit. But it's one of those things too,
where like typically the guy's not the one planning this, right, Like,
(05:49):
you know, it's yes, it happens. Yes, you can't say
this is you know, just okay, that happens every once
in a while, but this it's not as normal, you know,
And so for for this conversation to be happening is bizarre.
Totally agree, total, totally agree. So some other evidence that
(06:11):
we hear from Sergeant Corbett that also, you know, just
really implicates Windy, But I wanna, I do want to
bring it up because of where she was when she
sent the messages. So Wendy is texting Dan about scheduling
with the kids, some really basic co parenting scheduling stuff
that you would, you know, anyone who co parents would
(06:32):
would have these text messages on their phone. But she's
sending them when she is down in South Florida with
her parents, and it's specific to hey, can I I
you know, I would like to have the kids this day.
You're supposed to have them from this day to this day,
And it is in the timeframe of when he is
(06:56):
going to be murdered, and so the fact that she
sends those when she is down with her parents just
not only allegedly in my opinion, whatever whatever, implicates her
knowledge of something going on, but also you know where
she is when she sends it. She's getting these this
time frame, this information from somebody. Yeah, there's conversations happening,
(07:19):
exactly and allegedly. And so then again we see similar
pattern the night the cars vented in July, before the
murder of Dan Markel. Lots of back and forth, lots
of back and forth between the already convicted conspirators Katie
bag Banawa, Si Frado Garcia, Charlie Adelson, and then again
(07:42):
right after all of that, we see Charlie calling his
mom and then so let's get into the communications the
morning Dan Markell was murdered, because there's a lot of
back and forth among the family, right, there's a lot
of stuff going on between Wendy and Charlie and Donna
and Wendy and Wendy and you know Charlie again and
(08:05):
then Da da Da da, because that was the day
of you know, someone coming to Wendy's house to fix
the TV, a TV that Charlie had bought her. But
that somehow, you know, Donna had set up the the
geek squad to come fix you know, the whole thing,
(08:26):
blah blah blahlah. And one thing that stood out for
me in this trial was, you know, because that morning
there was also communication between Dan and Wendy. Dan had
called Wendy at like nine o'clock that morning and the
call didn't go through, but it went to voicemail. He
left a voicemail on her phone. They play his voicemail
(08:47):
and it kind of broke my heart because, you they
zero in on his dad when they're playing the voicemail
for the court, and it was just like really heartbreaking.
You know, his dad's watching it up on the screen
because they're playing the voicemail and that they're also showing
like the you know, the transcription of it, and it
was just like kind of sad watching him hear his
(09:08):
son's voice and you know, while they play the voicemail.
But anyway, you know, they just kind of track all
of the talk between Wendy and Donna and Charlie and
all the back and forth. And then so at the
what we see is that basically there's a bunch of
(09:31):
stuff going on, and then we know that or we
can see through the evidence that when sick Freido Garcia
and Luis Rivera, right around the time that Dan Markelle
has shot, their phones are no longer pinging off stuff.
Seemingly they shut their phones off, which we know from
(09:52):
the stuff we've covered generally means killers turn their phones
off when they're about to commit times thinking okay, you know,
maybe we can't get tracked. We all know like that
that you know, we're able to figure things out besides that,
But eventually, you know, they're able to put to the
timeline together. And when Louis Rivera and sick Fredo Garcia,
(10:13):
when they they commit the crime, they murder Dan Markel
and they start driving back to South Florida. Katie meets
up with them, and of course Katie and Charlie communicate.
And then that day, right after Dan Markel has been shot,
(10:33):
they pick up Wendy Adelson from her her lunch with
her friends and then she places a call to her mother.
Right we see this, we know that this happens where
she goes, I'm gonna call my mom and tell her,
you know, my ex husband's been shot. She calls her
mother and tells her mom and this is where we heard,
you know the other day, where she's like, well, you know,
(10:56):
she seems surprised. That's a relief, right wow, that she
said that. And then you know a few minutes after that,
Donna texts Charlie and just says, you know, call us
a sap. And within the hour of that, Donna and
Harvey are headed north. They're leaving their home which is
(11:17):
like south South Florida and starting to travel to Charlie's house.
And I've said this before. You know, the defense has
not done a great job on cross today. I feel
like they tried to do a better job when they
cross examined Corbett. But this man, he ran this shit.
(11:39):
He knows his stuff. I mean, at various points he
was correcting the lawyers saying like, no, that's not right,
Like you're looking at the wrong slide, You're pulling up
the wrong exhibit. Did you mean to say this? Did
you mean to say that? And I love that. And
now I'm really sad that I missed out on some
of that. I told Heather before we logged on you
(12:00):
guys that I today was the first day I didn't
really sit down and watch all of it. I did
read a little bit of stuff that Heather is filling
me in as much as she is filling all of
you guys in right now. Yeah, I would have loved
you know, he's going to say all of that stuff.
He's amazing. He's just a true professional and just really
(12:20):
is on top of this stuff. And so he basically,
you know, the defense is trying to cross examine him
after he's done, you know, after the prosecution is done
with their direct and basically, you know, the defense is
trying to say, hey, you're trying to say that you know,
(12:41):
at the time of in June when the the two
when Louis River and sik Fredo Garcia had gone up there,
and then in July at the time of the murder,
you're trying to say that that the atol Sin's we're
talking a lot, that Charlie and that Donna, we're having
a lot of phone calls. But you're are you considering
(13:05):
this a spike in their in their in their the
a frequency, a spike in frequency of their of them talking.
And the guy was like, no, I'm just pointing out
that they spoke, and that I'm not saying it's an
abnormal amount in terms of the time of of like
the amount of calls. What I'm pointing out is that
(13:28):
the number of calls is not abnormal, but the times
that they called each other allowed for a potential exchange
of information about what was occurring. And you know, the
timing of it and when things occurred is fucking suspect
(13:49):
as hell. So like the cross, they thought they were
getting at something, right, they thought they were saying, is
four times a lot of times for Charlie to have
talked to his mother in like a twenty four hour
period or whatever. And Sergeant Corbut's like, no, I didn't
say that, And they tried to put like words in
his mouth and He's like, no, I'm not saying that.
I was establishing that between those four calls there there
(14:16):
could have been an exchange of information. And so, I mean,
they thought they had him, but that man, he did
the damn thing. And after two freaking days on the stand,
they finally let him off the stand, and even the
judge had like a like a you are finally free
to go, you know. Yeah, But then we get into it, Rachel,
(14:42):
we get into the bump, and this is what I
have been waiting for. I'm telling you. You'll have to
go back and watch some of it. Really, what you
need to watch is the special agent Sanford. So he
was the lead agent and he testified when they first
start talking about the bump. They do they they they
(15:05):
have the undercover agent who first approached Donna Adelson. And
it is interesting because what they did, you know, due
to the nature of his previous job. They don't show
this guy's face. They you know, they show just like
the bottom half of his body, you know, because he
was an undercover agent. They they talked to him and
just like what he you know, what he did when
(15:26):
he approached Donna. They talked to a couple agents who
surveilled the adol sins. They talked to the guy who's
cover got blown. I don't know if you remember this,
but I can't remember if it was Harvey or Charlie.
I want to say it was actually Harvey, who goes
it looks like there's like a listening device or like
a camera in that bag. And they immediately got up
(15:46):
and left. Yeah, And then they talked to some technical
specialists who were like tasked with like cleaning up some
of the recordings because they were all like in loud
restaurants and stuff like that. But then they get into
Special Agent Sanford, who they'll probably spen the majority of
the day tomorrow also talking to because he has a
lot of information. Yeah, so they talk to this guy
(16:09):
and basically the big thing and this is where we
really get to see Donna's involvement because what he testifies
to is that the first person that she calls after
she's approached by the undercover guy saying, look, you took
care of Katie, you took care of Tuto, and you
(16:29):
need to now take care of Tato. And the first
person she calls Charlie. Right, the first person she calls
is Charlie, And of course they talk about it, and
they're a weird rounder about way. But the main thing
in there and and throughout this the trial, you you like,
they go, oh, they play the entire conversations. And that
(16:51):
day after she's approached, there's like three phone calls that
happen between Charlie and his mom. Donna calls Charlie and
tells him about what happened, and then Charlie calls her back,
and then they talk some more, and then Charlie calls
her again, like fifteen minutes later, like they talk like
three or four times that day, and so in their
weird roundabout way, you know, they talk about it. But
(17:15):
the damning thing, right is that, you know, she immediately
calls Charlie. She doesn't call anyone else, she doesn't call
the police, she doesn't call Harvey. And you know, he's
asking her and yeah, of course she's not like saying, outright,
a man just approached me and he told me this.
You know, She's just saying, hey, I need to talk
to you, blah blah blah blah. And Charlie's as he's
(17:36):
trying to figure out, what do you what do you mean?
What are what is this about? Right? And he's like,
are you being sued? And she's like, no, is it
the r IR s? No? Does dad know? No, doesn't
involve Wendy. And she's and she really quickly goes no, no, no, no, no, no,
no no, And you know, and then and this is
(17:56):
where it's like boom, smoking gun for me. Charlie asks,
all right, doesn't involve me or other people? And Donna replies, well,
probably both of us. And Charlie asks what was that
and Donn replies, probably the two of us. So you
probably have a general idea what I'm talking about. Yeah,
(18:21):
And then about twenty minutes and they're playing the actual
phone call. Yes, they're playing the full phone call. Okay,
so you gotta go back and watch this part. Yeah,
they're playing the focal. Twenty minutes later, Charlie calls his
mom back and he's still like, Charlie's still not getting it.
He's still like, he thinks it's like they're getting souoned.
He's talking about like a Yelp review or something like that.
(18:42):
He's thinking maybe someone's coming up and saying Maybe he's
thinking someone comes up and saying, hey, you messed up
my teeth or something. I don't know, right, but she's,
you know, he he's saying things like that, and she's like, well,
I think you just better come over and you better
take me out to dinner and bring cat. And then
Charlie starts getting it and he's like wait, and he
(19:04):
just straight out asks are you being blackmailed? Is someone
blackmailing you? And she's trying to use code of course,
and he's just like, who's blackmailing? Is getting it? Yeah,
Oh my god, I'm not getting it. And and Donna
instead of answering yes, she goes that's always a good possibility,
(19:25):
like she won't answer, but he's of course asking these
really just like straightforward questions. And then Charlie says, hey,
if it's a threat, go to the police, and Donnas like, well,
I don't think that's a good idea. They hang up,
and then he calls back again and then he starts
asking these questions, well, who was it who came up
to you, you know, was he If he was threatening you,
(19:46):
you need to go to the police. And she's like, well,
I just want to talk to you first, and then
he asks her straight up, okay, well what did he
ask you for? And this is again another just like
smoking gun, where it's like don you obviously and you
obviously were involved in this because she says, this is
what she said exactly. The TV was probably about five
(20:11):
out of nowhere. So far during this whole entire day,
the undercover agent, the two previous phone calls, all this shit.
No one's talked about a TV since the day that
Dan Markue was murdered. The TV was probably about five.
And then Charlie and all his smartness replies, they ask
(20:34):
you for five thousand dollars. It's like so much for code.
Charlie like so much for code. And then so then Donna,
she's the one then that tells him that, well, you know,
they came up to me, they mentioned my son, and
then you know, blah blah blah. And then Donna actually
(20:55):
tells Charlie they mentioned an ex girlfriend and that's all
she says. She doesn't give a name, she doesn't say it.
She says, they mentioned the next girlfriend. Yeah, okay, yep,
they hang up the phone. Guess who the next The
next song is Katie?
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Yeah, hundred right, just yeah, exactly, And so the undercover
agent mentioned Katie, right, the undercover agent mentioned Katie, but
Donna never said Katie's name.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
We know, we know from test we got around, Charlie,
that's fucking right, and Charlie got around. It made me
think of the Peenie Pablo like freakently song where it's
like shah Nuke was you.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Know, like all the different names.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's him a number five too, we know that, right.
And so so Charlie calls Katie and see he says, like, look,
someone walked up to my mom started asking for money,
mentioned her son, mentioned her son's girlfriend, and Katie's response
is like the fuck. And then she even says, like
you had a thousand ex girlfriends? What does this have
(22:06):
to do with me? Right? And then and he even
and they go on and on, and she's like, do
you think someone's stalking your mom? Like what the hell
is going on? Like you you need to figure this out,
like and she's basically like, I don't know what the
hell you think this has to do with me. And
then Charlie's like, I thought that they mentioned your name,
when in fact they never had mentioned her name, and
(22:28):
he was raising yeah, And the truth of the matter
is they had never even actually mentioned Charlie. Yeah, just son.
But Donna's first call was obviously to Charlie. They never
mentioned Charlie to Donna. They mentioned Katie, Toto and Tuto,
they never mentioned Charlie. But of course Charlie was her
(22:49):
first call.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
Ye, So.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And then when she says ex girlfriends, of course Charlie's
gonna call Katie because Donna and Charlie both know what
they're fucking talking about. Right. The other thing that I
find interesting in this is when they're talking about this,
they're really also trying to make plans to speak and
not tell Harvey. Donna's trying really hard not to let
(23:14):
Harvey know about what's happening, Like they're trying to keep
it from Dad, and they're also trying to, you know,
they want to not involve Wendy in it. You know,
they're they're saying, like, okay, because at she because at
this point in time, like wa, this is happening, Donna
has the boys, Like you can hear the boys in
(23:35):
the background of one of the phone calls, and she
was saying like, well, I can't come see you today
because I don't want Wendy knowing that I drove up
to see you, because then if the boys tell her, oh,
we went to go see Uncle Charlie, She's gonna have
questions about why we went up there. So they're trying
not to let Harvey know. They're trying to want not
to let Wendy know. And so that's where we ended
(23:59):
for today day. But but this bump, and like I said,
this bump, everything up to this point you can probably
make an argument super circumstantial. But once you you do
this bump, this is where Donna it's a really hard
to explain away any you know, Donna's involvement rightly, Yeah, Yeah, tomorrow,
(24:27):
they'll they'll bring back this FBI agent. He'll get back
on the stand and this this this Sanford because he
was the lead. I think he was actually the one
who arrested Charlie and I want to say he was
the one who arrested Donna. So uh, he'll he'll be
(24:47):
back on the stand, and he'll be he'll be the
one to to Probably I wouldn't be surprised if he's
on the stand all day tomorrow. He's gonna be like Corbett,
He's gonna have a lot to do with this and
and that's where we'll be. But yeah, this is the bump.
This is where we're really gonna see things start to
move and shake. Yeah, with that real strong evidence again
(25:09):
for Donna's involvement. Well, I'm eager to watch tomorrow. I'm
bummed that I missed that. It was one of those
things where when I stopped watching this morning, I was like,
it's okay for now, you know, and I never got
back to it. So I appreciate your update. I definitely
want to go listen to those phone calls. Oh tomorrow,
(25:30):
I'm back to being all in so yeah, eager. You
have to listen because you're just like, oh my gosh,
Like I was just sitting there and I've heard snippets
of it before throughout Charlie's trial, but you're just like,
oh my gosh, these are igniving people and you're just
like you're sitting there, Donna's trying to use code and
Charlie's just like they ask for five thousand dollars and
(25:51):
you're like, oh my god, Charlie, like you're just not
the business.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Which is fine.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So you love a dumb criminal because you know, give
yourself up caught, Get that right, I know for sure?
All right, we will be back tomorrow with day five.
We'll be talking more about the bump. We hope you
guys are enjoying this daily coverage. We're gonna keep bringing
it because we're just like invested at this point and
(26:17):
we hope you guys are too. We're you know, giving
you eight hours all the way down to you know,
about thirty minutes, and we hope that this is helpful. Yeah,
definitely join us again tomorrow and until then, we'll talk
to you guys tomorrow. Ooh sorry, We're so good at this.
(26:37):
It's like take me out of my studio, studio, and
I don't know how to work. It's hard because it's
not our normal. I do it again. That's all right.
Talk to you guys tomorrow, okay, Love you.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Bye, love you bye. The last
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