September 3, 2025 • 45 mins
Welcome to Like Mother Like Murder's Day 7 Trial updates providing daily coverage in the ongoing trial of Donna Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel.
Today, Rachel and Heather discuss the first day of the defense has an opportunity to present thier evidence. In addition to some character witnesses who also offered testimony to contradict previous inference that the Adelson trip to Vietnam was to flee, the defense also presented evidence attempting to further prove that the jail house informants were not only untruthful in their previous testimony but that Drina actually may have set Donna up with the alledged script.
Day 7 Trial
Guests:
@blackcoffeecrimecrochet
@primetimekrime
@coldanduntold
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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 first day of the defense has an opportunity to present thier evidence. In addition to some character witnesses who also offered testimony to contradict previous inference that the Adelson trip to Vietnam was to flee, the defense also presented evidence attempting to further prove that the jail house informants were not only untruthful in their previous testimony but that Drina actually may have set Donna up with the alledged script.
Day 7 Trial
Guests:
@blackcoffeecrimecrochet
@primetimekrime
@coldanduntold
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
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 (00:23):
This is Like Mother, Like Murder, and.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
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 boys, and Donna Adelson,
(00:55):
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 we'll be
joined by special guests throughout this special series. We will
be bringing you this every day that there is trial coverage.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So let's do this.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Today was day seven of the ongoing trial of Donna
Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel, and today we
are joined by two special guests, Kylie and Amanda and
whoop woop. Today was the first day of the of
the defense's trial and I gotta say nothing to write
(01:38):
home about it. Well, it was a little bit of
a like Okay, I just feel and again I think
I've said this every day. I am obviously not impartial.
I have a lot of strong opinions that go one way.
But I did not feel they did a great job.
(02:00):
Let's start at the very beginning the defense, and we
could have, you know, bet on this. They they start
by trying to make a motion for an acquittal. They're
trying to say that, you know, Donna didn't do anything
that would you know, say that we that she you know,
did anything that would prove that she had any any
(02:24):
anything to do with it prior to the murder of
Dan Marcal. And I'm actually kind of surprised that they
that Donna was okay with this defense, because in doing so,
it really did pin a lot of stuff on Charlie.
But I'm gonna go ahead and assume that they're gonna
use the same defense, obviously that Charlie used. So the
(02:46):
judge brings up though her alleged confession of what she
did after the murder, which was, you know, writing the
checks and everything that she did after the fact, and
the defense is arguing that, you know, pro to the murder,
there's no evidence of conspiracy, no evidence of solicitation. Uh,
(03:06):
you know, which are two of the things that she
is charge of. Solicitation, conspiracy and then obviously murder in
the first three. And so the judge is basically like, okay,
you know, what are you basing this on. Interestingly, they're
basing this off of the case Denise Williams, which Rachel
I have told you we need to cover. I think
I sent you this podcast because I listened to this
(03:28):
long form because this this case, this Denise Williams case. Okay,
we can't get off track too much because we do
this and it's bad. I was gonna say, the name
sounded very familiar. Yes, we I have told you about
this case. It's Baniana's. It's the one where a guy
goes out on a on a boat and everyone thought, oh,
you got eaten by alligators. Oh yeah, we have to
(03:49):
cover this case. It's covered. It's been it's been covered
like crazy. But it's such an interesting case. This was
another one where so the way I can't okay, I
won't get into it. It's but you tried to use
this as precedent for why Donna Adelson, you know, shouldn't
be charged and she should just be acquitted. And then
of course, you know, the state comes back and they
(04:12):
they bring up okay, sure, but here's all the circumstantial
evidence against her, and then they do bring up this
one really big piece of direct evidence after the bump.
The first person again, that Charlie that Donna Adelson calls
is Charlie, and she specifically says, after this undercover agent
(04:34):
comes up to her and says, you owe us money
for what we took care of you up north, took
care of for you up north, is that hey, it
involves the two of us. And she specifically says, hey,
this involves the two of us. So you know, this
is definitely something that's more direct, more very specific. And
then later on, you know, when they're talking about how
(04:56):
much money is this guy asking for, she says, the
TV probably costs about five And again we haven't heard
mention of the TV since the day Dan Markelle was killed.
And again this really points to prior knowledge. We're talking
about prior knowledge here. We're not talking about you know, oh,
(05:16):
we didn't know until after we got blackmailed after by
Katie Macbanawah No, no, no, no, that TV talk was
definitely prior. So they tried to call for an acquittal,
and they just obviously don't raise a very good argument,
and the state really you know, lays it down like no.
(05:38):
And of course the state talks about the constant communication
between Katie Charlie, Donna, Donna Charlie Katy and just continually
continuously puts that out and then Judge Everett of course
is like, nah, denied. Yeah, they're not making a good
enough argument. So the defense then calls their first witness,
(05:59):
which is and Cunningham, who is this longtime friend of
Donna and Harvey's. And she's a short hair one. I'm
trying to remember. Was there anyone before her? So she
was she was the first. Okay, yeah, thank you, Kyle.
She was an absolute mess and god she was injured
(06:22):
and she was and she was right. She was questioned
by the other defense attorney, who was arguably also the
messier of the two. Yes, yes, believe it or not? Right?
You know, I don't absolute mess. I thought that they
were going to at least do better when it was
(06:43):
their turn, right, Like I was like, maybe they're just
not really good at the cross you know, like they're
not good at the rebuttal phase. Like what is happening.
Maybe it will be better when it is the defensive turn,
and today was no proof of that. Well, it was
proof that it wasn't any batter. Yeah, what an absolute
(07:04):
horrible way to start off your trial. Like you are
not coming out on a strong foot here, like you
are not setting like a very high like you are
just really showing your cards early that you don't know
what you're doing, Like you're not making a good first
impression on the jury in my opinion. So basically, they
(07:25):
bring this lady up. They established she's known Donner for years,
and they're trying to say like, Okay, you know she
was acting when around the time that Dan Markel was
murdered and around the time that her son was on trial,
she was acting like a normal lady would when you
find out that your ex son in law has been shot,
and that you know, when your son is on trial
(07:45):
for conspiracy, solicitation and murder of your ex son in law.
It's all, you know, it's all. But the way that
the defense attorney was phrasing the questions was not making
it easy for this this uh, this witness to answer
the questions, and the prosecution just kept objecting with hearsay
(08:07):
because you are not allowed to say, well, Donna said,
she said, because that's hearsay. So they had the objects.
I mean, there was like a dozen objections during this,
and eventually they had to, you know, have a sidebar
and say you need to learn to phrase your questions differently,
and they like they kept having even Judge Everett had
(08:28):
to like tell the witness like, you cannot say she said, right,
And they had to do this so many times, and
it was just ridiculous. I think that's one of the
reasons that, like in the beginning, I was already ready
to turn everything off. They had more breaks today than
they actually were talking so many so it was like, Okay, what,
(08:50):
why do you expect me to sit through this? Like
this is ridiculous as a juror. You completely lost me
in the you know, this is not compelling. This is
not compelled testimony. You're not convincing me that Donna, you know,
is you know, Saint Martyr whatever trying to convince me
that she's done a good trying to convince me otherwise
(09:14):
of what the what the prosecution laid out last week
right right, And then on top of that, you know,
Kapulman just comes comes on her cross just comes up
and she just freaking hits them with them want too
and she she catches her and maybe not some maybe
not some wies, but maybe some like forgetfulnesses if if
(09:40):
you will say, because you know, she she tries to say, well,
you know, can I refresh your memory on some things?
And you know, the and she was getting irritated with her,
like yeah, the witness was getting super irritated every single
time she's like, well, can I come show you this?
And then she would show her and she'd be like,
so it's there, and she's like, I mean if you're
telling them no, I mean you just read it. It's there, right,
(10:02):
And she's like well yeah, and she's like okay, thank you,
you know, and it's like I just showed you. You
can't kind of beat around the bush anymore. The evidence
is there, right, right. So Georgia Kapelman does what any
good lawyer does on a cross and really establishes that
this maybe isn't the most reliable witness, right. You know,
(10:24):
you bring a witness like this up to establish you
know that your client is you know, a good person
or is truthful and wouldn't possibly have in the case
of this defense, couldn't possibly be, you know, guilty of
what you're you're what they're on trial for. And Georgia
Kapelman does an amazing job establishing like, look, this is
(10:47):
not a reliable witness here. You know, she's she's saying
these things, she's doing these things, she's saying that these things,
these are these are potentially not true, Okay, or she
this she this witness may be at the least, isn't
lying at the most is just a bold face life. Right.
(11:07):
So then this lady's partner comes up. So then we
get this man named Ron Gunderson who had who's who,
I guess knew Harvey in like high school or something.
And then they met again in Florida and they both
basically both of them got up there and testified to
(11:27):
the idea that neither basically they both got up there
and testified that the plan was not for Harvey and
Donna to be gone to Vietnam for a very long time.
That both of them got up there and testified that, uh,
they were going to Vietnam, but they were definitely coming
(11:50):
back for their grandson's bar Mitzvah yeah, yeah, okay, so
they said that that they they knew they were coming
back for the bar mitzvah, and he got during his
cross examination, he I'm just gonna start saying he got
caplimant because she freaking took it ran with it, and
because during his testimony he had said under normal circumstances
(12:15):
they were gonna come back. He had used those terms,
and I'm sure Capelman with gotcha, like in her head
she was like gotcha, and she said, so basically, you
you testified that under nor normal circumstances they were gonna
come back from Vietnam. And she goes, so, would would
you say that a warrant for your arrest for murder
(12:36):
would be an abnormal circumstance? And the guy asked to
be like, well, yeah, so it was. I mean, she
just did a really good job, which is what you're
supposed to do as on during your cross is just
to completely tear down the testimony from the from these
(13:00):
two folks who were basically up there just trying to
paint a picture of Donna as Yeah, they were trying
to represent like their character who they were, you know,
as as in their relationship as parents, they would never
do this that kind of thing, and they were basically
trying to also set up that they that the that
(13:21):
the the trip to Vietnam was a normal trip that
they would have taken regardless, and they were definitely coming
back from the bar MENSA. One thing I should mention
is that one thing that they tried to lay a
foundation for with Anne Cunningham was Donna's use of like
third party apps for communications. So they mentioned WhatsApp, they
(13:45):
mentioned viper viper vi whatever whatever that was, and they
tried to they established a foundation for this as well.
So that will come back later in the trial. Uh,
but so they they did that, and then the next
couple people that or the next person that they bring
(14:05):
up is a private digital forensic specialist. And I do
not want to pass judgment, however, you what I will
say about her, because this is the thing as a
young female, especially in my line of work, the work
(14:27):
that I do is a male dominated field. Like I
will say, the job I have now, I am the
only female on a team of six men. Okay, so
I know what it's like to be judged as a
woman and a young woman in a male dominated field.
So I'm not trying to pass judgment. But what I
will say is that her inability to confidently answer a question,
(14:54):
whether that was on her direct or even on her cross,
to me, came across as very unprepared and not knowing
her shit. Whereas when you look back at Corbett, he
freaking knew his shit. You asked to got the guy,
and granted that guy had been working on this case
for a very long time. For years. That guy had
(15:15):
been working on this case. He knew his shit in
and out. He'd been you know, he studied, he'd had
his day, I mean he and he was, he'd been
in the field a lot longer, you know, just by
her age, you know, not saying that has anything to
do with it, but like he knew his shit in
and out, you couldn't catch him on something that he
didn't know. And even if you did, his response of
(15:37):
I would not know just seemed a lot more confident
of you know, I wouldn't know that you would have
to let me, you know, you'd have to do the
way that she responded to questions she didn't know just
did not seem confident enough that her her uh ability
(15:58):
as a forensic specialists and just didn't come across as
very strong to me, and I think that that and
I say that even knowing that I'm trying not to
judge her based on how the fact that she's a
younger female and it might not be that. I mean,
(16:18):
some people are just you know, this is a high
this is like a tense situation that they're in. This
is also some people are better at public speaking. I
mean there's you and there's me exactly. So it's like
there are different kind of people out there. And maybe
this was not her strong suit there. Maybe she's great
at her job and great at what she does and
then she gets behind there and it's like I'm blacked out,
(16:41):
you know, so sure which it's I get it, I
get it. It's just you know, yeah, you want your
strongest up there to do what you need to unstane.
I get that. So she testified basically to a couple
of things. She basically said that Corbett's numbers were inflated.
So basically we heard a bit testify to the frequency
(17:02):
of calls between Charlie and Donna, basically saying those two
were exchanging a shit ton of calls and communications during
this time, and that the program that he used may
have inflated the calls because he and he talked about this.
I specifically remember him saying that, you know, you may
(17:23):
see three lines, which is actually only one like instance
of something, because somebody calls and then it goes to
voicemail and then they leave a voicemail or however he
explained it. You may see three lines of data, but
that's actually only one instance of a communication. And so
he did explain this, and so she says, you know,
at one point, she says that she went through and
(17:45):
she manually counted it or whatever, and she said that
maybe instead of like I think the number was okay,
instead of it being eighty, it was sixty nine, so okay.
So instead of them calling each other eighty times, it
was sixty nine times. And during cross basically they said okay.
(18:05):
So maybe. So Corbett did say that there were there
would be duplicates in the numbers. He did testify to that,
but the number itself wouldn't change significantly the percentage of
who was calling who the most. So at the end
of the day, would you disagree that Charlie and Donna
(18:27):
were still talking to each other the most, whether that
was eighty or sixty nine, and the girl was like, no,
I wouldn't disagree with that. Okay, cool, Cool, I mean
you only need one phone call to say something that's
gonna prove that you were a part of it. So
I mean I don't then, and I get that, like
and so like they were basically trying to, you know,
do the same thing. I mean, that's that's your job,
(18:49):
right is They're basically trying to bring in another expert
to say that Corbett doesn't know what he's talking about. Okay, fine,
I don't think she was very successful in that, but okay,
do what you gotta do. And then she also brings
up the fact and this is something that Corbett also
testified to and they spent a long time at this.
(19:12):
This is why Corbett was on the stand for freaking
like two and a half days. They said that the
night of the murder, that Donna Adelson's phone never actually
pined next to Charlie's house. They said, and this is
something that I specifically remember, because they tracked it with
a map. It pinked down by her house and then
it pinked up past Charlie's house, and they showed on
(19:34):
the map that it never actually pined next to Charlie's house,
but they had already established that, and that's why Corbett
went back. He took the drive, they mapped the times
he went back and did it, and then they backed
it up by finding on through via like the I
message dump, that she had texted Charlie, hey, we're outside,
(19:56):
and he texted her back, okay, give me ten minutes, right,
And then they have Katie mag Banawa's testimony that says, uh,
when she arrived to Charlie's house, he said, oh my
parents just left, okay. So basically she she this this
forensic espert is trying to say, well, yeah, it never
(20:17):
pinged at Charlie's house. Well we know that, we established that.
And then so Cross came back and said, would you
disagree that the that it pinged by her house and
then it pinged up past Charlie's house, would you disagree that?
An I message cloud said hey, we're right outside. Of course,
she can't disagree with any of that, so again, you know,
(20:40):
and then get this, they asked her to look in
her call logs and say, can you search your call
logs to see if Donna Adelson placed a call to
Anne Cunningham the day that Dan Markel was shot. Now,
Fence had a problem with this. They raised an objection
(21:04):
and they said, this has nothing to do with the
direct They had to go to sidebar. But eventually judge
let it happen and the lady can't find a call whatsoever.
Now here's a problem with it too. She also had
a problem with having to do it. She's like, you
want me to do this right now? Like yeah, with okay,
how long do I have? Types like she was kind
of it seemed like this because a it technically you know,
(21:28):
this was outside the scope of what she technically testified to.
But she she was asked to do this. The judge
said it was okay. She could never find a call,
so here's the problem, Anne Cunningham said. The day that
Dan Marquel was shot, Donna Adelson called her distraught. My
ex son in law has been shot. Yet this forensic
(21:50):
expert who has Donna's call law can't find a call.
So what's the truth here? Okay? So then they're like,
well could it couldn't? They on redirect the defense asks
could have could it have happened on WhatsApp or FaceTime
or some other third party app that wouldn't show up
(22:12):
on a standard call log, to which she replies, yeah,
of course, and right, we all know if we do
it on WhatsApp, if we do it on FaceTime, like,
they're not gonna they're gonna see it as data. They're
not gonna see it on a regular call log. Okay.
So the problem is though, that during and Cunningham's direct
(22:32):
when the lesser of the two defense attorneys had asked
her about these third party apps, she asked her about
these in terms of like travel. She goes, when you
were traveling, did you used to use these third party apps?
And she's like, yeah, we used to use them because
you wouldn't get charged for for blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, cool,
(22:53):
So she didn't seem to say she used them for
regular use. Now she wasn't asked ex explicitly, did you
use these when you were back in the States all
the time for regular use? They didn't ask her that, okay,
They just asked her when they were traveling. So what
happens They pull off the forensic expert off the stand
(23:15):
and then they bring Ann Cunningham and Cunningham back. Now,
this lady was at the freakin' airport. Apparently she had testified,
she was the first witness on the stand, and after
her testimony and her partner's testimony, I'm assuming they had
head back to the airport. I assumed to head back
to wherever the heck they live. And then they got
(23:38):
called back to trial and the defense and so she
comes back to the courthouse and the defense ask, okay,
so you mentioned that you routinely talked to Donna Adelson
on these apps WhatsApp and viper or Viber or whatever
the heck it was fiber I don't know, and she goes, yeah,
we used to talk on those all the time. And
then see, and this is how good the prosecution is
(24:00):
because they came prepared what they do on cross They said,
so you came all the way back to the airport
to testify this morning that you used to talk to
Donna Adelson on these third party apps, and she's like sure, yeah,
And then they said, so the day Dan Markel was shot,
(24:22):
you supposedly talked on these apps because there's no call
on the call log, and she goes, well, yes, but
in the days before and immediately following the day that
Dan Markell was shot. You talked to Donna Adelson via
regular phone calls and she goes, I don't know. She
basically was like, I guess, I don't know if you
(24:43):
have it in your record. So they confirm that on
June twenty third, July twentieth, and July twenty first, so
right before and right after the murders. The murder. Excuse me,
they spoke on the phone, regular phone call that could
be tracked like on a regular call log, but just
(25:07):
so happens on the day that Dan Markel was shot,
they happened to call on this third party app and
this lady and Cunningham decides, oh, well, you know, they
called from the from the car, and a lot of
times when they call from the car they use an app.
(25:29):
Wouldn't it be the other way around because everything if
you're in the car, you don't have Wi Fi, Okay,
like when you're at your house, maybe you're more to me.
For me personally, I'm more likely to use like FaceTime
or something like that when I'm at my house and
I have Wi Fi. When I'm in a car traveling
around Wi Fi going in and out. And then so
(25:53):
because she says, we use WhatsApp and we use fiber
or fiber. Then Georgia Kapelman throws another freaking fastball adder.
She goes, would you be surprised to learn that WhatsApp
didn't even have voice calls until twenty fifteen mm? And
(26:13):
her response immediately is just like, oh, well, it must
have been the other app, you know what I mean,
Like as if she didn't know between the two of them,
She's like, oh well, if it wasn't WhatsApp, it was
definitely the other one. I was like, hmmm, so Donna
just surrounds herself with psycholastic lions. I was like, god, damn. Yeah,
(26:34):
I was just in shock. I was like, and to
me again, I know I'm partial, but as a juror,
I would be like, don't trust this lady. I do
not trust this lady. I do not trust her, absolutely not.
So there's that that was like a big like get it.
Georgia then share a lot of those moments for sure. Oh.
(26:58):
I know. Literally I was looking her up today because
I was like, God, she's just amazing. There's a Facebook
group that's just like Georgia Kapelman. It's like a Georgia
Kapelman like we love Georgia Kapelman group. I love that Facebook.
I'm like, yes, we need to be we need to
all go join the Georgia Kapelman last. I love it
(27:20):
so much. So. Then the next person to testify is
another friend of the Adelsons, who said that he was
with the Adelsons the night that they booked their flights
to Vietnam and that he was the one who suggested
(27:41):
that they actually book a one way flight to Vietnam
because he said that it was cheaper to just do
a one way flight, and since they didn't know exactly
when they would be coming back, they should just book
a one way flight. And he also said that since
it's he they didn't know when they were coming back,
that he also said, just do a ninety day visa
(28:02):
versus a thirty day visa since you don't know when
he when they're coming back. And so he said he
was the one that suggested this, and that that might
be part of the reason, basically making an inference here
that that might be part of the reason as to
why they had a one way flight and a ninety
day visa, you know, versus not having the other options.
(28:24):
And he also testified that part of the reason that
they wanted to leave was not to the fact that
Charlie had just been you know, convicted, and Donna Adelson
is literally got a text message to Wendy saying, I'm next,
and she knows that she's gonna get you know, popped
for this allegedly, but that the media was hounding them,
(28:47):
and so they they wanted to get out of town.
And then Kapelman again with the cap She capelmaned them
because this guy had testified to Donna being the typical
Jewish gradmother. He said, in fact, that she acted a
lot like his own wife did, and that she was
the typical Jewish mother, typical Jewish grandmother. So she asks them,
(29:11):
does the typical Jewish grandmother suggest dressing her grandchildren up
in Nazi uniforms?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
That was that was crazy. See I didn't see this
with this, so this is all news to me, and
that's the move. Oh my god, she got him, and
he was of course like and of course he's like,
I wouldn't think so, you know, and it was just
absolutely insane. And then so apparently I know. And so
(29:41):
this guy had been deposed before, he had actually been
deposed before, so Kapelman. She kind of questioned him back
and forth on when he had bit before about the
statements he made in his deposition and then statements that
kind of contradicted some of that in terms of what
he testified to h at the end of the day,
just doing her thing, kind of making him maybe not
(30:03):
the most reliable witness, uh, just some basic stuff, but
kind of getting him on the whole Nazi uniform thing.
The next two people they brought up was actually, so
the first one, I think they're just laying her for
foundation and I'm I'm like, okay, she didn't really say
(30:25):
much so she was a mitigation specialist unless I heard
it wrong, and she basically interviewed people from the Leon
County jail. So she was one of the people who
interviewed Patricia, who was one of the jailhouse informants who
had said, you know, you know Donna was gonna pay
(30:46):
me money and give me land and a trailer. If
I said this about that, Katie came and told me this,
that and the other. And then they also interviewed a
pi Eddie Varnes, who also interviewed Patricia, and basically both
of them testified that a Patricia never told them that
(31:09):
Donna offered her any kind of land or any other
kind of gifts in return for her testimony. Now, if
we remember, Patricia said that when she talked to people,
uh and told them this story that Donna came, came
and told me to say that Katie, that Katie told
(31:30):
me the whole thing was a setup for blackmail or
whatever whatever extortion. But it's not true, Patricia said. She
told them it's not true. Now, these these two witnesses,
this PI and this mitigation specialist basically come to testify
(31:54):
that Patricia never said any of that. And Patricia also never, no,
never told them that Donna offered her anything in return
for her statements or anything like that. And the PI
actually specified that Patricia actually told him that Katie did
tell her everything, and that they even had conversations like
(32:16):
Patricia was like, dang, that's crazy, and Katie was like, well,
my son needs to go to my kid need to
go to college too, and was basically telling, you know,
elaborating on the conversation she had with Katie, which would
have been you know, years prior, Okay, and so a
lot of he said, she said. But of course she
(32:38):
said is Patricia a at this point a jailhouse informant,
and that he said is a PI an investigator, right,
so we don't know now. When he got cross, you know,
the prosecution was like, well, was it recorded? He said no,
(32:59):
I was told by defense not to record anything convenient.
And she goes, well, when she tells you this, she
tells you, well, guess what Katie told me that she
set the whole thing up. Did you not talk to
the defense immediately and say, guess what case closed? Your
(33:19):
your clients are gonna be free after what I just
got told from this person at the jailhouse. Did you
tell them? And he goes, yes, of course I called
them right away. And she goes, and they didn't tell
you to go right back in there with the recorder
and get the confession from the jail house informat And
he's like, no, again convenient, right, Like wouldn't as a
(33:40):
defense attorney, wouldn't you be like she said, what, get
your ass back in there and get it on tape,
or get your ass back in there and get a
signed like, get a signed confession or assigned whatever, like
wouldn't that be your first instinct as a defense attorney
that's immediately get a scene, right, they do a lot
(34:01):
of things that don't make sense to me, I mean exactly.
So so we have that and then we we've next
here from a realtor. And there was a little bit
of drama before the realtor came on because this realtor
was actually sitting in the back of the courtroom, which
is a no no because he's a witness and he's
(34:23):
not supposed to hear any of the other witness testimony.
Now I'm yeah, So luckily they their testimony has nothing
to do with each other, so it didn't really matter.
But he is, you know, witnesses are supposed to stay
out of the courtroom. They're not supposed to hear anything
the other witnesses testify to. But he had been sitting
in the back of the courtroom during the mitigation specialists
(34:47):
her testimony. He wasn't supposed to be hearing anything. Uh.
But ultimately the judge was like, whatever, but you guys
know you're not that's not supposed to happen. And defense
is like, oh, we know, we're you know we he
didn't know where he was, and well, defense, figure out,
pay attention to where your witnesses are I don't know why.
I'm assuming this is foundational for something else. But he
(35:10):
literally just got up there and said, yeah, I showed
Dan Markel some houses. I don't it was really random.
I'm assuming it will come up later. But I just
have to throw that out there because I assume it's
going to come back later. Yeah, and then we get
to the most interesting slash sort of boring, but it's
(35:31):
probably more important. Exactly so the videos from the job house.
So interestingly, this is a detective who actually used to
work or maybe it still works, but I'm not sure
for the state for the prosecution, like he used to
work for the State of Florida. And he's but he's
(35:53):
testifying on behalf of the defense, and he actually had
met with Grina Bernhardt, the other house informant, and basically
him and the defense are reviewing a video from the jail.
And in this video, it's just like a wide shot
of the pod and what you're seeing is basically Drina
(36:17):
and uh, Drina and Donna at a table. They've both
got you know, they're both at a table, and basically
what we see is this Drina brings you know, sits
at the table, Donna comes over, they both sit down.
The defense tries to establish didn't Drina invite Donna over
to the table, as if that's gonna explain that this
wasn't all Donna's idea, okay. And then you see Drina
(36:40):
open an open a notebook and pull a piece of
paper out, as if that paper couldn't have possibly been
given to her previously by Donna, okay. And then what
you see is her riding on it for a while,
and then you see Donna start riding and Drina's writing
and Donna and you just see it's literally like I
(37:03):
don't even remember how long the video is, but it's
like a long. It was definitely, like I want to say,
it was probably like an hour and forty five minutes
or something like that. And when he first went up there,
he said, he was like, or they I forget who
was standing up there, but said I'm not gonna play
this whole video. And then I felt like they played
the whole video, I know, I was like, I don't, yeah,
(37:24):
And so they're trying to like fast forward through parts
of it, and basically they're, you know, they're just showing
like these two women sitting there and they're asking the
same question over and over. Is Drena writing yes? Is
Drena still writing yes? Who's writing right now dreaming yeah?
Is Drena is still writing yes? That's how twenty minutes went.
(37:44):
And so what they're trying to do, what the defense
is trying to do, is establish what they tried to
set up in their cross is that maybe Drena made
this whole thing up and is trying to set up Donna.
But I will say what I said then, even if
it wasn't Donna's idea, the fact that she's sitting there
(38:06):
right now with Drina, and she's sitting there for over
an hour, and even if all of this was written
down by Drina, and she's the one who made up
this whole story about Katie, and she's the one who
knew all of the details from Charlie's case, and she's
the one who knew to write down the word extortion
versus blackmail, even though Donna was the one to google
(38:29):
it right before Charlie's case. Even if all that came
from Drina, why did Donna still decide to sit there
for an hour and a half and why did the
handwriting that's Donna's. So even if this all came from Drina,
Donna is still culpable in this situation for something. Okay, Yeah,
(38:50):
I'm getting okay. And they even cross examined, So prosecution
cross examines this guy and confirms the same thing, like,
how well the timeline doesn't match up? You're saying that,
you know, if this was all Drina's idea, weren't we
even not going to meet with her until a month later?
But she happened to come in to us and say, look,
she wants this back tomorrow. How am I supposed to
(39:12):
do this? And did a handwriting expert confirm that this
was Donna's handwriting? And did this happen the day after
she met with us and said she wanted this back
for tomorrow? And they throw the whole defence's timeline into question,
and again, you know, the defense's argument here is just shit.
(39:33):
It's not good, plain and simple. That's how you say it,
plain and simple, plain and simple. So they they basically
tried a whole bunch of boring shit that didn't amount
to anything today. And Kapelman again just kind of got
to like stretch her guns and really just show them
(39:55):
what a real cross looks like and you know, least
show them. You know, this is why you know, Donna
Adelson should be allegedly until a jury finds her and
everyone's in a sent until proven guilty by a jury
of their peers. But why solicitation, conspiracy and murder in
(40:17):
the first degree is still one hundred percent on the
table and defense better pull something out of their pocket
because right now for it, because they're not doing I mean,
so far, I have not been improven. I guess I
was kind of hoping they would have something that would
make me go, yeah, let me let me think about that,
(40:39):
you know, and there's been not a single thing whatsoever
that has made me even have a second thought whatsoever. Exactly.
I agree. I agree with that statement one hundred percent.
That's how I feel. That's how I felt. What about you, Kylie?
Anything anything to add? Nothing from today because I've like
been it out of watching. But thank you for the
(41:00):
really appreciate it. But tomorrow, like who are they gonna call?
I'm waiting for Charlie. Yeah, I need to know it
better be Charlie. For everyone listening, the three of us
are actually going to be traveling very soon to crime
con and I am like banking it better be Charlie
(41:22):
tomorrow because I do not want Charlie on Thursday. Do
not meet him on Friday, so bring him in. Let's
get down to the nitty gritty. It is go time
Charlie tomorrow because we cannot be on a plane to
Crime Con on Thursday not being able to watch this Kylie.
The kickoff party is gonna be a recording session. We
(41:45):
need to be able to focus. Seriously, I said it.
I said, I think it's gonna be the first time
if if he is called on Thursday, it's gonna be
the first time that I ever buy Wi Fi on
a plane because I've never done it before, but I'm
gonna have to. I always do it. I'm like, the
worst are impromptu live. Maybe we'll just go Instagram live
(42:12):
or something randomly at crime Con. If you watch the
if you watch it on Thursday, and you'll have to
lead our recap, I am going to buy the Wi
Fi for the plane. So whatever is all going on,
this is what I do like every time I go
to Crime Con, something major is happening. Yaestly it was
(42:33):
valid last year. Yeah, and I was watching it on
the plane on the way to go. We will have
to see, we will have to see what's going on. Uh.
We will be doing the best we can you guys,
to continue to bring you updates. You know, tomorrow regularly
scheduled Thursday. We are gonna play by ear when and
(42:56):
how we can try to get updates out to you
as as quickly as we can because we again we're
waiting on Charlie. We know he's in town. We know
the defense is planning on bringing him up so that
he can try to mount this defense for his mother.
We'll see how it goes. But until tomorrow, you guys
(43:19):
continue to check in every day for these adolesent Donna
Adelson on trial for the murder of Dan markl updates
and we will continue to bring you I'm sorry we
didn't get that. We for a little bit we had Jasmine.
I was gonna say, we can mancha. Yeah, we had
Jasmine with Black Coffee Crime in Crochet. She was here
(43:42):
for a little bit and she was saying, because we
have a chat box, you know, during the the recording,
and she was saying how I had mentioned how uneventful
it was, but the way the Heather was explaining it,
it didn't seem uneventful at all, and then hear the
whole hot night. Yes, there there were definitely moments, and
(44:04):
some of them apparently I missed them. But then Amanda
with cold and I'm told was here as well. And
you guys, have you've heard from them? They've been, they've
recorded with us and Kylie. I'm like, you've heard from
Kylie with things that we've done as well. So it's
it's it's amazing. I love that you guys hopped on today. Yes,
(44:24):
thank you for being here and more to come. Everybody,
keep following along for our daily updates and we will
check you tomorrows. Everybody ready, yepkay, love love awesome
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 (00:23):
This is Like Mother, Like Murder, and.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
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 boys, and Donna Adelson,
(00:55):
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 we'll be
joined by special guests throughout this special series. We will
be bringing you this every day that there is trial coverage.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So let's do this.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Today was day seven of the ongoing trial of Donna
Adelson for the murder of Dan Markel, and today we
are joined by two special guests, Kylie and Amanda and
whoop woop. Today was the first day of the of
the defense's trial and I gotta say nothing to write
(01:38):
home about it. Well, it was a little bit of
a like Okay, I just feel and again I think
I've said this every day. I am obviously not impartial.
I have a lot of strong opinions that go one way.
But I did not feel they did a great job.
(02:00):
Let's start at the very beginning the defense, and we
could have, you know, bet on this. They they start
by trying to make a motion for an acquittal. They're
trying to say that, you know, Donna didn't do anything
that would you know, say that we that she you know,
did anything that would prove that she had any any
(02:24):
anything to do with it prior to the murder of
Dan Marcal. And I'm actually kind of surprised that they
that Donna was okay with this defense, because in doing so,
it really did pin a lot of stuff on Charlie.
But I'm gonna go ahead and assume that they're gonna
use the same defense, obviously that Charlie used. So the
(02:46):
judge brings up though her alleged confession of what she
did after the murder, which was, you know, writing the
checks and everything that she did after the fact, and
the defense is arguing that, you know, pro to the murder,
there's no evidence of conspiracy, no evidence of solicitation. Uh,
(03:06):
you know, which are two of the things that she
is charge of. Solicitation, conspiracy and then obviously murder in
the first three. And so the judge is basically like, okay,
you know, what are you basing this on. Interestingly, they're
basing this off of the case Denise Williams, which Rachel
I have told you we need to cover. I think
I sent you this podcast because I listened to this
(03:28):
long form because this this case, this Denise Williams case. Okay,
we can't get off track too much because we do
this and it's bad. I was gonna say, the name
sounded very familiar. Yes, we I have told you about
this case. It's Baniana's. It's the one where a guy
goes out on a on a boat and everyone thought, oh,
you got eaten by alligators. Oh yeah, we have to
(03:49):
cover this case. It's covered. It's been it's been covered
like crazy. But it's such an interesting case. This was
another one where so the way I can't okay, I
won't get into it. It's but you tried to use
this as precedent for why Donna Adelson, you know, shouldn't
be charged and she should just be acquitted. And then
of course, you know, the state comes back and they
(04:12):
they bring up okay, sure, but here's all the circumstantial
evidence against her, and then they do bring up this
one really big piece of direct evidence after the bump.
The first person again, that Charlie that Donna Adelson calls
is Charlie, and she specifically says, after this undercover agent
(04:34):
comes up to her and says, you owe us money
for what we took care of you up north, took
care of for you up north, is that hey, it
involves the two of us. And she specifically says, hey,
this involves the two of us. So you know, this
is definitely something that's more direct, more very specific. And
then later on, you know, when they're talking about how
(04:56):
much money is this guy asking for, she says, the
TV probably costs about five And again we haven't heard
mention of the TV since the day Dan Markelle was killed.
And again this really points to prior knowledge. We're talking
about prior knowledge here. We're not talking about you know, oh,
(05:16):
we didn't know until after we got blackmailed after by
Katie Macbanawah No, no, no, no, that TV talk was
definitely prior. So they tried to call for an acquittal,
and they just obviously don't raise a very good argument,
and the state really you know, lays it down like no.
(05:38):
And of course the state talks about the constant communication
between Katie Charlie, Donna, Donna Charlie Katy and just continually
continuously puts that out and then Judge Everett of course
is like, nah, denied. Yeah, they're not making a good
enough argument. So the defense then calls their first witness,
(05:59):
which is and Cunningham, who is this longtime friend of
Donna and Harvey's. And she's a short hair one. I'm
trying to remember. Was there anyone before her? So she
was she was the first. Okay, yeah, thank you, Kyle.
She was an absolute mess and god she was injured
(06:22):
and she was and she was right. She was questioned
by the other defense attorney, who was arguably also the
messier of the two. Yes, yes, believe it or not? Right?
You know, I don't absolute mess. I thought that they
were going to at least do better when it was
(06:43):
their turn, right, Like I was like, maybe they're just
not really good at the cross you know, like they're
not good at the rebuttal phase. Like what is happening.
Maybe it will be better when it is the defensive turn,
and today was no proof of that. Well, it was
proof that it wasn't any batter. Yeah, what an absolute
(07:04):
horrible way to start off your trial. Like you are
not coming out on a strong foot here, like you
are not setting like a very high like you are
just really showing your cards early that you don't know
what you're doing, Like you're not making a good first
impression on the jury in my opinion. So basically, they
(07:25):
bring this lady up. They established she's known Donner for years,
and they're trying to say like, Okay, you know she
was acting when around the time that Dan Markel was
murdered and around the time that her son was on trial,
she was acting like a normal lady would when you
find out that your ex son in law has been shot,
and that you know, when your son is on trial
(07:45):
for conspiracy, solicitation and murder of your ex son in law.
It's all, you know, it's all. But the way that
the defense attorney was phrasing the questions was not making
it easy for this this uh, this witness to answer
the questions, and the prosecution just kept objecting with hearsay
(08:07):
because you are not allowed to say, well, Donna said,
she said, because that's hearsay. So they had the objects.
I mean, there was like a dozen objections during this,
and eventually they had to, you know, have a sidebar
and say you need to learn to phrase your questions differently,
and they like they kept having even Judge Everett had
(08:28):
to like tell the witness like, you cannot say she said, right,
And they had to do this so many times, and
it was just ridiculous. I think that's one of the
reasons that, like in the beginning, I was already ready
to turn everything off. They had more breaks today than
they actually were talking so many so it was like, Okay, what,
(08:50):
why do you expect me to sit through this? Like
this is ridiculous as a juror. You completely lost me
in the you know, this is not compelling. This is
not compelled testimony. You're not convincing me that Donna, you know,
is you know, Saint Martyr whatever trying to convince me
that she's done a good trying to convince me otherwise
(09:14):
of what the what the prosecution laid out last week
right right, And then on top of that, you know,
Kapulman just comes comes on her cross just comes up
and she just freaking hits them with them want too
and she she catches her and maybe not some maybe
not some wies, but maybe some like forgetfulnesses if if
(09:40):
you will say, because you know, she she tries to say, well,
you know, can I refresh your memory on some things?
And you know, the and she was getting irritated with her,
like yeah, the witness was getting super irritated every single
time she's like, well, can I come show you this?
And then she would show her and she'd be like,
so it's there, and she's like, I mean if you're
telling them no, I mean you just read it. It's there, right,
(10:02):
And she's like well yeah, and she's like okay, thank you,
you know, and it's like I just showed you. You
can't kind of beat around the bush anymore. The evidence
is there, right, right. So Georgia Kapelman does what any
good lawyer does on a cross and really establishes that
this maybe isn't the most reliable witness, right. You know,
(10:24):
you bring a witness like this up to establish you
know that your client is you know, a good person
or is truthful and wouldn't possibly have in the case
of this defense, couldn't possibly be, you know, guilty of
what you're you're what they're on trial for. And Georgia
Kapelman does an amazing job establishing like, look, this is
(10:47):
not a reliable witness here. You know, she's she's saying
these things, she's doing these things, she's saying that these things,
these are these are potentially not true, Okay, or she
this she this witness may be at the least, isn't
lying at the most is just a bold face life. Right.
(11:07):
So then this lady's partner comes up. So then we
get this man named Ron Gunderson who had who's who,
I guess knew Harvey in like high school or something.
And then they met again in Florida and they both
basically both of them got up there and testified to
(11:27):
the idea that neither basically they both got up there
and testified that the plan was not for Harvey and
Donna to be gone to Vietnam for a very long time.
That both of them got up there and testified that, uh,
they were going to Vietnam, but they were definitely coming
(11:50):
back for their grandson's bar Mitzvah yeah, yeah, okay, so
they said that that they they knew they were coming
back for the bar mitzvah, and he got during his
cross examination, he I'm just gonna start saying he got
caplimant because she freaking took it ran with it, and
because during his testimony he had said under normal circumstances
(12:15):
they were gonna come back. He had used those terms,
and I'm sure Capelman with gotcha, like in her head
she was like gotcha, and she said, so basically, you
you testified that under nor normal circumstances they were gonna
come back from Vietnam. And she goes, so, would would
you say that a warrant for your arrest for murder
(12:36):
would be an abnormal circumstance? And the guy asked to
be like, well, yeah, so it was. I mean, she
just did a really good job, which is what you're
supposed to do as on during your cross is just
to completely tear down the testimony from the from these
(13:00):
two folks who were basically up there just trying to
paint a picture of Donna as Yeah, they were trying
to represent like their character who they were, you know,
as as in their relationship as parents, they would never
do this that kind of thing, and they were basically
trying to also set up that they that the that
(13:21):
the the trip to Vietnam was a normal trip that
they would have taken regardless, and they were definitely coming
back from the bar MENSA. One thing I should mention
is that one thing that they tried to lay a
foundation for with Anne Cunningham was Donna's use of like
third party apps for communications. So they mentioned WhatsApp, they
(13:45):
mentioned viper viper vi whatever whatever that was, and they
tried to they established a foundation for this as well.
So that will come back later in the trial. Uh,
but so they they did that, and then the next
couple people that or the next person that they bring
(14:05):
up is a private digital forensic specialist. And I do
not want to pass judgment, however, you what I will
say about her, because this is the thing as a
young female, especially in my line of work, the work
(14:27):
that I do is a male dominated field. Like I
will say, the job I have now, I am the
only female on a team of six men. Okay, so
I know what it's like to be judged as a
woman and a young woman in a male dominated field.
So I'm not trying to pass judgment. But what I
will say is that her inability to confidently answer a question,
(14:54):
whether that was on her direct or even on her cross,
to me, came across as very unprepared and not knowing
her shit. Whereas when you look back at Corbett, he
freaking knew his shit. You asked to got the guy,
and granted that guy had been working on this case
for a very long time. For years. That guy had
(15:15):
been working on this case. He knew his shit in
and out. He'd been you know, he studied, he'd had
his day, I mean he and he was, he'd been
in the field a lot longer, you know, just by
her age, you know, not saying that has anything to
do with it, but like he knew his shit in
and out, you couldn't catch him on something that he
didn't know. And even if you did, his response of
(15:37):
I would not know just seemed a lot more confident
of you know, I wouldn't know that you would have
to let me, you know, you'd have to do the
way that she responded to questions she didn't know just
did not seem confident enough that her her uh ability
(15:58):
as a forensic specialists and just didn't come across as
very strong to me, and I think that that and
I say that even knowing that I'm trying not to
judge her based on how the fact that she's a
younger female and it might not be that. I mean,
(16:18):
some people are just you know, this is a high
this is like a tense situation that they're in. This
is also some people are better at public speaking. I
mean there's you and there's me exactly. So it's like
there are different kind of people out there. And maybe
this was not her strong suit there. Maybe she's great
at her job and great at what she does and
then she gets behind there and it's like I'm blacked out,
(16:41):
you know, so sure which it's I get it, I
get it. It's just you know, yeah, you want your
strongest up there to do what you need to unstane.
I get that. So she testified basically to a couple
of things. She basically said that Corbett's numbers were inflated.
So basically we heard a bit testify to the frequency
(17:02):
of calls between Charlie and Donna, basically saying those two
were exchanging a shit ton of calls and communications during
this time, and that the program that he used may
have inflated the calls because he and he talked about this.
I specifically remember him saying that, you know, you may
(17:23):
see three lines, which is actually only one like instance
of something, because somebody calls and then it goes to
voicemail and then they leave a voicemail or however he
explained it. You may see three lines of data, but
that's actually only one instance of a communication. And so
he did explain this, and so she says, you know,
at one point, she says that she went through and
(17:45):
she manually counted it or whatever, and she said that
maybe instead of like I think the number was okay,
instead of it being eighty, it was sixty nine, so okay.
So instead of them calling each other eighty times, it
was sixty nine times. And during cross basically they said okay.
(18:05):
So maybe. So Corbett did say that there were there
would be duplicates in the numbers. He did testify to that,
but the number itself wouldn't change significantly the percentage of
who was calling who the most. So at the end
of the day, would you disagree that Charlie and Donna
(18:27):
were still talking to each other the most, whether that
was eighty or sixty nine, and the girl was like, no,
I wouldn't disagree with that. Okay, cool, Cool, I mean
you only need one phone call to say something that's
gonna prove that you were a part of it. So
I mean I don't then, and I get that, like
and so like they were basically trying to, you know,
do the same thing. I mean, that's that's your job,
(18:49):
right is They're basically trying to bring in another expert
to say that Corbett doesn't know what he's talking about. Okay, fine,
I don't think she was very successful in that, but okay,
do what you gotta do. And then she also brings
up the fact and this is something that Corbett also
testified to and they spent a long time at this.
(19:12):
This is why Corbett was on the stand for freaking
like two and a half days. They said that the
night of the murder, that Donna Adelson's phone never actually
pined next to Charlie's house. They said, and this is
something that I specifically remember, because they tracked it with
a map. It pinked down by her house and then
it pinked up past Charlie's house, and they showed on
(19:34):
the map that it never actually pined next to Charlie's house,
but they had already established that, and that's why Corbett
went back. He took the drive, they mapped the times
he went back and did it, and then they backed
it up by finding on through via like the I
message dump, that she had texted Charlie, hey, we're outside,
(19:56):
and he texted her back, okay, give me ten minutes, right,
And then they have Katie mag Banawa's testimony that says, uh,
when she arrived to Charlie's house, he said, oh my
parents just left, okay. So basically she she this this
forensic espert is trying to say, well, yeah, it never
(20:17):
pinged at Charlie's house. Well we know that, we established that.
And then so Cross came back and said, would you
disagree that the that it pinged by her house and
then it pinged up past Charlie's house, would you disagree that?
An I message cloud said hey, we're right outside. Of course,
she can't disagree with any of that, so again, you know,
(20:40):
and then get this, they asked her to look in
her call logs and say, can you search your call
logs to see if Donna Adelson placed a call to
Anne Cunningham the day that Dan Markel was shot. Now,
Fence had a problem with this. They raised an objection
(21:04):
and they said, this has nothing to do with the
direct They had to go to sidebar. But eventually judge
let it happen and the lady can't find a call whatsoever.
Now here's a problem with it too. She also had
a problem with having to do it. She's like, you
want me to do this right now? Like yeah, with okay,
how long do I have? Types like she was kind
of it seemed like this because a it technically you know,
(21:28):
this was outside the scope of what she technically testified to.
But she she was asked to do this. The judge
said it was okay. She could never find a call,
so here's the problem, Anne Cunningham said. The day that
Dan Marquel was shot, Donna Adelson called her distraught. My
ex son in law has been shot. Yet this forensic
(21:50):
expert who has Donna's call law can't find a call.
So what's the truth here? Okay? So then they're like,
well could it couldn't? They on redirect the defense asks
could have could it have happened on WhatsApp or FaceTime
or some other third party app that wouldn't show up
(22:12):
on a standard call log, to which she replies, yeah,
of course, and right, we all know if we do
it on WhatsApp, if we do it on FaceTime, like,
they're not gonna they're gonna see it as data. They're
not gonna see it on a regular call log. Okay.
So the problem is though, that during and Cunningham's direct
(22:32):
when the lesser of the two defense attorneys had asked
her about these third party apps, she asked her about
these in terms of like travel. She goes, when you
were traveling, did you used to use these third party apps?
And she's like, yeah, we used to use them because
you wouldn't get charged for for blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, cool,
(22:53):
So she didn't seem to say she used them for
regular use. Now she wasn't asked ex explicitly, did you
use these when you were back in the States all
the time for regular use? They didn't ask her that, okay,
They just asked her when they were traveling. So what
happens They pull off the forensic expert off the stand
(23:15):
and then they bring Ann Cunningham and Cunningham back. Now,
this lady was at the freakin' airport. Apparently she had testified,
she was the first witness on the stand, and after
her testimony and her partner's testimony, I'm assuming they had
head back to the airport. I assumed to head back
to wherever the heck they live. And then they got
(23:38):
called back to trial and the defense and so she
comes back to the courthouse and the defense ask, okay,
so you mentioned that you routinely talked to Donna Adelson
on these apps WhatsApp and viper or Viber or whatever
the heck it was fiber I don't know, and she goes, yeah,
we used to talk on those all the time. And
then see, and this is how good the prosecution is
(24:00):
because they came prepared what they do on cross They said,
so you came all the way back to the airport
to testify this morning that you used to talk to
Donna Adelson on these third party apps, and she's like sure, yeah,
And then they said, so the day Dan Markel was shot,
(24:22):
you supposedly talked on these apps because there's no call
on the call log, and she goes, well, yes, but
in the days before and immediately following the day that
Dan Markell was shot. You talked to Donna Adelson via
regular phone calls and she goes, I don't know. She
basically was like, I guess, I don't know if you
(24:43):
have it in your record. So they confirm that on
June twenty third, July twentieth, and July twenty first, so
right before and right after the murders. The murder. Excuse me,
they spoke on the phone, regular phone call that could
be tracked like on a regular call log, but just
(25:07):
so happens on the day that Dan Markel was shot,
they happened to call on this third party app and
this lady and Cunningham decides, oh, well, you know, they
called from the from the car, and a lot of
times when they call from the car they use an app.
(25:29):
Wouldn't it be the other way around because everything if
you're in the car, you don't have Wi Fi, Okay,
like when you're at your house, maybe you're more to me.
For me personally, I'm more likely to use like FaceTime
or something like that when I'm at my house and
I have Wi Fi. When I'm in a car traveling
around Wi Fi going in and out. And then so
(25:53):
because she says, we use WhatsApp and we use fiber
or fiber. Then Georgia Kapelman throws another freaking fastball adder.
She goes, would you be surprised to learn that WhatsApp
didn't even have voice calls until twenty fifteen mm? And
(26:13):
her response immediately is just like, oh, well, it must
have been the other app, you know what I mean,
Like as if she didn't know between the two of them,
She's like, oh well, if it wasn't WhatsApp, it was
definitely the other one. I was like, hmmm, so Donna
just surrounds herself with psycholastic lions. I was like, god, damn. Yeah,
(26:34):
I was just in shock. I was like, and to
me again, I know I'm partial, but as a juror,
I would be like, don't trust this lady. I do
not trust this lady. I do not trust her, absolutely not.
So there's that that was like a big like get it.
Georgia then share a lot of those moments for sure. Oh.
(26:58):
I know. Literally I was looking her up today because
I was like, God, she's just amazing. There's a Facebook
group that's just like Georgia Kapelman. It's like a Georgia
Kapelman like we love Georgia Kapelman group. I love that Facebook.
I'm like, yes, we need to be we need to
all go join the Georgia Kapelman last. I love it
(27:20):
so much. So. Then the next person to testify is
another friend of the Adelsons, who said that he was
with the Adelsons the night that they booked their flights
to Vietnam and that he was the one who suggested
(27:41):
that they actually book a one way flight to Vietnam
because he said that it was cheaper to just do
a one way flight, and since they didn't know exactly
when they would be coming back, they should just book
a one way flight. And he also said that since
it's he they didn't know when they were coming back,
that he also said, just do a ninety day visa
(28:02):
versus a thirty day visa since you don't know when
he when they're coming back. And so he said he
was the one that suggested this, and that that might
be part of the reason, basically making an inference here
that that might be part of the reason as to
why they had a one way flight and a ninety
day visa, you know, versus not having the other options.
(28:24):
And he also testified that part of the reason that
they wanted to leave was not to the fact that
Charlie had just been you know, convicted, and Donna Adelson
is literally got a text message to Wendy saying, I'm next,
and she knows that she's gonna get you know, popped
for this allegedly, but that the media was hounding them,
(28:47):
and so they they wanted to get out of town.
And then Kapelman again with the cap She capelmaned them
because this guy had testified to Donna being the typical
Jewish gradmother. He said, in fact, that she acted a
lot like his own wife did, and that she was
the typical Jewish mother, typical Jewish grandmother. So she asks them,
(29:11):
does the typical Jewish grandmother suggest dressing her grandchildren up
in Nazi uniforms?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
That was that was crazy. See I didn't see this
with this, so this is all news to me, and
that's the move. Oh my god, she got him, and
he was of course like and of course he's like,
I wouldn't think so, you know, and it was just
absolutely insane. And then so apparently I know. And so
(29:41):
this guy had been deposed before, he had actually been
deposed before, so Kapelman. She kind of questioned him back
and forth on when he had bit before about the
statements he made in his deposition and then statements that
kind of contradicted some of that in terms of what
he testified to h at the end of the day,
just doing her thing, kind of making him maybe not
(30:03):
the most reliable witness, uh, just some basic stuff, but
kind of getting him on the whole Nazi uniform thing.
The next two people they brought up was actually, so
the first one, I think they're just laying her for
foundation and I'm I'm like, okay, she didn't really say
(30:25):
much so she was a mitigation specialist unless I heard
it wrong, and she basically interviewed people from the Leon
County jail. So she was one of the people who
interviewed Patricia, who was one of the jailhouse informants who
had said, you know, you know Donna was gonna pay
(30:46):
me money and give me land and a trailer. If
I said this about that, Katie came and told me this,
that and the other. And then they also interviewed a
pi Eddie Varnes, who also interviewed Patricia, and basically both
of them testified that a Patricia never told them that
(31:09):
Donna offered her any kind of land or any other
kind of gifts in return for her testimony. Now, if
we remember, Patricia said that when she talked to people,
uh and told them this story that Donna came, came
and told me to say that Katie, that Katie told
(31:30):
me the whole thing was a setup for blackmail or
whatever whatever extortion. But it's not true, Patricia said. She
told them it's not true. Now, these these two witnesses,
this PI and this mitigation specialist basically come to testify
(31:54):
that Patricia never said any of that. And Patricia also never, no,
never told them that Donna offered her anything in return
for her statements or anything like that. And the PI
actually specified that Patricia actually told him that Katie did
tell her everything, and that they even had conversations like
(32:16):
Patricia was like, dang, that's crazy, and Katie was like, well,
my son needs to go to my kid need to
go to college too, and was basically telling, you know,
elaborating on the conversation she had with Katie, which would
have been you know, years prior, Okay, and so a
lot of he said, she said. But of course she
(32:38):
said is Patricia a at this point a jailhouse informant,
and that he said is a PI an investigator, right,
so we don't know now. When he got cross, you know,
the prosecution was like, well, was it recorded? He said no,
(32:59):
I was told by defense not to record anything convenient.
And she goes, well, when she tells you this, she
tells you, well, guess what Katie told me that she
set the whole thing up. Did you not talk to
the defense immediately and say, guess what case closed? Your
(33:19):
your clients are gonna be free after what I just
got told from this person at the jailhouse. Did you
tell them? And he goes, yes, of course I called
them right away. And she goes, and they didn't tell
you to go right back in there with the recorder
and get the confession from the jail house informat And
he's like, no, again convenient, right, Like wouldn't as a
(33:40):
defense attorney, wouldn't you be like she said, what, get
your ass back in there and get it on tape,
or get your ass back in there and get a
signed like, get a signed confession or assigned whatever, like
wouldn't that be your first instinct as a defense attorney
that's immediately get a scene, right, they do a lot
(34:01):
of things that don't make sense to me, I mean exactly.
So so we have that and then we we've next
here from a realtor. And there was a little bit
of drama before the realtor came on because this realtor
was actually sitting in the back of the courtroom, which
is a no no because he's a witness and he's
(34:23):
not supposed to hear any of the other witness testimony.
Now I'm yeah, So luckily they their testimony has nothing
to do with each other, so it didn't really matter.
But he is, you know, witnesses are supposed to stay
out of the courtroom. They're not supposed to hear anything
the other witnesses testify to. But he had been sitting
in the back of the courtroom during the mitigation specialists
(34:47):
her testimony. He wasn't supposed to be hearing anything. Uh.
But ultimately the judge was like, whatever, but you guys
know you're not that's not supposed to happen. And defense
is like, oh, we know, we're you know we he
didn't know where he was, and well, defense, figure out,
pay attention to where your witnesses are I don't know why.
I'm assuming this is foundational for something else. But he
(35:10):
literally just got up there and said, yeah, I showed
Dan Markel some houses. I don't it was really random.
I'm assuming it will come up later. But I just
have to throw that out there because I assume it's
going to come back later. Yeah, and then we get
to the most interesting slash sort of boring, but it's
(35:31):
probably more important. Exactly so the videos from the job house.
So interestingly, this is a detective who actually used to
work or maybe it still works, but I'm not sure
for the state for the prosecution, like he used to
work for the State of Florida. And he's but he's
(35:53):
testifying on behalf of the defense, and he actually had
met with Grina Bernhardt, the other house informant, and basically
him and the defense are reviewing a video from the jail.
And in this video, it's just like a wide shot
of the pod and what you're seeing is basically Drina
(36:17):
and uh, Drina and Donna at a table. They've both
got you know, they're both at a table, and basically
what we see is this Drina brings you know, sits
at the table, Donna comes over, they both sit down.
The defense tries to establish didn't Drina invite Donna over
to the table, as if that's gonna explain that this
wasn't all Donna's idea, okay. And then you see Drina
(36:40):
open an open a notebook and pull a piece of
paper out, as if that paper couldn't have possibly been
given to her previously by Donna, okay. And then what
you see is her riding on it for a while,
and then you see Donna start riding and Drina's writing
and Donna and you just see it's literally like I
(37:03):
don't even remember how long the video is, but it's
like a long. It was definitely, like I want to say,
it was probably like an hour and forty five minutes
or something like that. And when he first went up there,
he said, he was like, or they I forget who
was standing up there, but said I'm not gonna play
this whole video. And then I felt like they played
the whole video, I know, I was like, I don't, yeah,
(37:24):
And so they're trying to like fast forward through parts
of it, and basically they're, you know, they're just showing
like these two women sitting there and they're asking the
same question over and over. Is Drena writing yes? Is
Drena still writing yes? Who's writing right now dreaming yeah?
Is Drena is still writing yes? That's how twenty minutes went.
(37:44):
And so what they're trying to do, what the defense
is trying to do, is establish what they tried to
set up in their cross is that maybe Drena made
this whole thing up and is trying to set up Donna.
But I will say what I said then, even if
it wasn't Donna's idea, the fact that she's sitting there
(38:06):
right now with Drina, and she's sitting there for over
an hour, and even if all of this was written
down by Drina, and she's the one who made up
this whole story about Katie, and she's the one who
knew all of the details from Charlie's case, and she's
the one who knew to write down the word extortion
versus blackmail, even though Donna was the one to google
(38:29):
it right before Charlie's case. Even if all that came
from Drina, why did Donna still decide to sit there
for an hour and a half and why did the
handwriting that's Donna's. So even if this all came from Drina,
Donna is still culpable in this situation for something. Okay, Yeah,
(38:50):
I'm getting okay. And they even cross examined, So prosecution
cross examines this guy and confirms the same thing, like,
how well the timeline doesn't match up? You're saying that,
you know, if this was all Drina's idea, weren't we
even not going to meet with her until a month later?
But she happened to come in to us and say, look,
she wants this back tomorrow. How am I supposed to
(39:12):
do this? And did a handwriting expert confirm that this
was Donna's handwriting? And did this happen the day after
she met with us and said she wanted this back
for tomorrow? And they throw the whole defence's timeline into question,
and again, you know, the defense's argument here is just shit.
(39:33):
It's not good, plain and simple. That's how you say it,
plain and simple, plain and simple. So they they basically
tried a whole bunch of boring shit that didn't amount
to anything today. And Kapelman again just kind of got
to like stretch her guns and really just show them
(39:55):
what a real cross looks like and you know, least
show them. You know, this is why you know, Donna
Adelson should be allegedly until a jury finds her and
everyone's in a sent until proven guilty by a jury
of their peers. But why solicitation, conspiracy and murder in
(40:17):
the first degree is still one hundred percent on the
table and defense better pull something out of their pocket
because right now for it, because they're not doing I mean,
so far, I have not been improven. I guess I
was kind of hoping they would have something that would
make me go, yeah, let me let me think about that,
(40:39):
you know, and there's been not a single thing whatsoever
that has made me even have a second thought whatsoever. Exactly.
I agree. I agree with that statement one hundred percent.
That's how I feel. That's how I felt. What about you, Kylie?
Anything anything to add? Nothing from today because I've like
been it out of watching. But thank you for the
(41:00):
really appreciate it. But tomorrow, like who are they gonna call?
I'm waiting for Charlie. Yeah, I need to know it
better be Charlie. For everyone listening, the three of us
are actually going to be traveling very soon to crime
con and I am like banking it better be Charlie
(41:22):
tomorrow because I do not want Charlie on Thursday. Do
not meet him on Friday, so bring him in. Let's
get down to the nitty gritty. It is go time
Charlie tomorrow because we cannot be on a plane to
Crime Con on Thursday not being able to watch this Kylie.
The kickoff party is gonna be a recording session. We
(41:45):
need to be able to focus. Seriously, I said it.
I said, I think it's gonna be the first time
if if he is called on Thursday, it's gonna be
the first time that I ever buy Wi Fi on
a plane because I've never done it before, but I'm
gonna have to. I always do it. I'm like, the
worst are impromptu live. Maybe we'll just go Instagram live
(42:12):
or something randomly at crime Con. If you watch the
if you watch it on Thursday, and you'll have to
lead our recap, I am going to buy the Wi
Fi for the plane. So whatever is all going on,
this is what I do like every time I go
to Crime Con, something major is happening. Yaestly it was
(42:33):
valid last year. Yeah, and I was watching it on
the plane on the way to go. We will have
to see, we will have to see what's going on. Uh.
We will be doing the best we can you guys,
to continue to bring you updates. You know, tomorrow regularly
scheduled Thursday. We are gonna play by ear when and
(42:56):
how we can try to get updates out to you
as as quickly as we can because we again we're
waiting on Charlie. We know he's in town. We know
the defense is planning on bringing him up so that
he can try to mount this defense for his mother.
We'll see how it goes. But until tomorrow, you guys
(43:19):
continue to check in every day for these adolesent Donna
Adelson on trial for the murder of Dan markl updates
and we will continue to bring you I'm sorry we
didn't get that. We for a little bit we had Jasmine.
I was gonna say, we can mancha. Yeah, we had
Jasmine with Black Coffee Crime in Crochet. She was here
(43:42):
for a little bit and she was saying, because we
have a chat box, you know, during the the recording,
and she was saying how I had mentioned how uneventful
it was, but the way the Heather was explaining it,
it didn't seem uneventful at all, and then hear the
whole hot night. Yes, there there were definitely moments, and
(44:04):
some of them apparently I missed them. But then Amanda
with cold and I'm told was here as well. And
you guys, have you've heard from them? They've been, they've
recorded with us and Kylie. I'm like, you've heard from
Kylie with things that we've done as well. So it's
it's it's amazing. I love that you guys hopped on today. Yes,
(44:24):
thank you for being here and more to come. Everybody,
keep following along for our daily updates and we will
check you tomorrows. Everybody ready, yepkay, love love awesome
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