Wrapping Up Donna Adelson's Trial - Hearing From The Prosecution, Jurors, and Victim Impact Statements - Pretty Lies And Alibis

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What you know, Alibyers. Welcome to another episode of Pretty
Lies and Alibis. I'm Jigi. Good to have you here.
As Sunday, September fourteenth, been a hot minute since I've
done an episode. It was right before I left for
Crime Con and I've been home almost a week, so
I figured it was time to get back in the groove. Now,
we all know that Donna was found guilty and had

(00:21):
her little outburst right after that verdict was read. The
jury had to be removed all that drama. But what
I plan to do today is bring in some of
the juror interviews that have taken place over the past
week and get a little bit of their take on
what they experienced throughout the trial and in the deliberation room.
And then we're going to go over the victim impacts

(00:42):
statements by Dan's parents after everything was wrapped up regarding
the verdict. I have filed a record's request with Leon
County to try and get phone calls from Donna after
her arrest. Those have not been public since she was arrested,
but I'm hoping we have some luck and depending on
how much the cost, we'll see what we can get.
I really want to do a crime con a recap episode,

(01:05):
because y'all, I had a blast. It was amazing to
have fruit Loop and brand there. Fruit Loop, my old
co host who I started this podcast with over five
years ago, had their own booths for the hiding place,
their domestic violence safe haven. My parents and my oldest
daughter were able to be there, and it was so
awesome meeting all of the alibiers, seeing old friends, and

(01:28):
hopefully gaining some new listeners. So if you're new to
the podcast, I want to give you a big welcome.
Normally I post more frequently. It's just been a week, y'all.
One thing that a lot of people have noticed about
these trials is this very common progression, which is in
Katie's trial, the prosecutor talked a lot about Charlie dn

(01:48):
he was arrested. Then you have Donna being a lot
of the focus in Charlie's trial, and then later as
we know, Donna was arrested. In Donna's trial, there was
a lot of talk with Wendy, and the big question
is will Wendy be arrested. We'll just have to wait
and see. The trial lasted just over two weeks and
she was the fifth person to be found guilty in

(02:09):
the murder, although we know Rivera pleaded guilty and gave
a profer which told what happened. We're gonna start out
with Ruth Markel's victim impact statement, and I will tell you, guys,
Donna shaked her head so much that her brain had
to have been bumping all around in that noggin. I'm
not reading these victim impact statements in full. I will
link everything that I talk about in the description, including

(02:32):
the link to the full juror interviews. You can go
watch those for yourself. We're just gonna wrap some things up.
Missus Markel said that Dan was a hero to his boys,
and they've been forced to grow up without a father.
His murder has shattered our family and caused deep, permanent pain.
And his murder was revenge orchestrated by his former mother

(02:52):
in law and co conspirators, a murder of selfishly prioritizing
one's own desires over what is just or right, and
at is core, it was a murder of convenience. So
a grandmother could live closer to her grandchildren, she killed
their father and ripped the children from the other grandparents' lives.
Her crimes against Dan began long before the murder. She

(03:15):
belittled him in front of his children. She spread lies
and contributed to a brutal separation between Dan and Wendy.
Her eagerness for Wendy to divorce Dan and relocate to
South Florida led her to increasingly desperate schemes. The judge
ruled Wendy couldn't relocate, and failing to achieve her goal
through the legal system, Donna resorted to orchestrating Dan's murder

(03:38):
plot that led to further devastation, with her son Charlie
being convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his
role in the murder. Rob Adelson, Donna's oldest son, is
an honest and decent man, estranged from the family, and
her youngest child, Wendy, has decided once again to relocate
to another state. These actions have all caused other children

(04:01):
to lose their parents, and she mentions Katie and Sigfredo's children, Rivera's,
as well as Charlie, have all lost access to their children.
Donna blames an external force as a curse on her family.
She is the curse that angrily lashes out, but Danny's
death was not enough. Danny had to be fully erased
from his beloved sons and the boy's last name was changed,

(04:25):
an extraordinary decision to excize the Markel name from Phil's
only grandsons who shared his last name. After the arrests,
Donna did not allow the Markell family to access the
boys for over six years. A Tallahassee advocacy group passed
the Markel Act that was followed by our first invitation

(04:45):
to see the boys after the arrests. The door only
remain cracked open despite these efforts, and we remain excluded
from the boys' lives. We weren't at there bar Mitzvah's
or graduations. We only have highly core dreeograph visits and communications.
We wait for the day Benjamin and Lincoln will visit
their father and his grave and their father's history in Toronto.

(05:10):
They were only toddlers when Danny was murdered, and now
they're forced to confront and try to understand the unthinkable
crimes of murder and the Adelson's involvement. She asks the
court to impose the maximum sentence. Move it on to
Phil mark Hell's victim impact statement. He says this is
addressed to you, the judge, and the Adolsons, Harvey, Charlie, Wendy,

(05:32):
and particularly Donna. I want them to understand and reflect
on the deep and irrepairable damage they've caused. They've also
caused lifelong harm to us and their own family. Donna's
cruelty and disrespect for human life, along with their co conspirators,
have left families forever broken. For Donna, someone who claims

(05:52):
to care so much about Ben and Lincoln, her sun shines,
her actions are beyond comprehension. She has forever harmed the
peace she claims to have loved. In the Jewish custom,
we have an expression to always wish others to live
to one hundred and twenty years of age. For Donna,
I wish for her to live to one hundred and
twenty alone in her jail. Cell. I wish that every

(06:16):
day of her remaining days she thinks about the harm
she has caused to so many, especially those two boys
she claimed to have loved so much. He asked the
court to senence Donna to the maximum sentence, and then
he says, my only short question to Donna, was it
worth it? That? Was it? Again? Those are linked in
the description I highly encourage you to go watch for yourself,

(06:38):
because it will hitch you straight in the heart. So
she was found guilty on all counts in just over
three hours. She had that outburst. She was reprimanded very
quickly by Judge Everett, and in fact, he had to
send the jury out for Donna to compose herself. After
the guilty verdict, Prosecutor Kapelman gave a presser. When she
came outside, there was a lot of cheering. She felt

(07:00):
honored to be able to deliver this case and win
for the Marquels. When asked about being a prosecutor in
cases like these that go on and on, she reminds
everybody she has other cases and she cares about all
of them, but obviously this case has become part of
her DNA after investing so much blood, sweat and tears
to get justice and it's been an epic battle. As

(07:23):
far as whether this trial was harder for her opposed
to Charlie's, she laughed and says she's older now. But
as more time passes, there's more emails, more phone calls,
more records. It's a lot to organize and a lot
of pieces to try and put together, and also to
put it together for a jury so that they can
follow along and wrap their head around everything. She was

(07:45):
asked if whether defense attorney Jackie Fulford calling Dan Danny
in her openings bothered her. Prosecutor Kapelman said not as
much as it bothered others. She understood what she was
trying to do, but it wasn't the classy move, and
maybe she realized that and then tried to correct it
over the course of the trial, But not the classiest move.

(08:07):
The deliberations for Donna before a verdict was reached took
a few more minutes than Charlie. Prosecutor Kapelman grins and
says that she lost. She thought it would be slightly shorter,
but she also says it wouldn't have surprised her if
it was more difficult for them, because it was a
large puzzle that had to be put together. But in
the end, these jurors got what they needed and knew

(08:28):
what they had to do. They talk about Donna throwing
Charlie and Wendy under the bus, but Donna also kind
of adopted Charlie's defense of extortion. The prosecutor didn't want
Donna to be able to distance herself from Charlie's defense
and then create a new and better defense, which she
said seemed to be what Donna was doing, so they

(08:50):
wanted to shove that on Donna, meaning the extortion defense
that Charlie put up. She said it was a bit
of a minefield to explain all that to the jury,
but they wanted to show Donna's already committed to this defense,
which was a losing defense, and now she's trying to
switch it up and go in another direction, and you
have to pick a line. It can't be both. The

(09:11):
new investigation had phone calls they wanted to introduce, but
they were not allowed to Those are sealed for now,
and she really just did not want to comment on those.
When Donna had to decide about testifying, Prosecutor Kapelman said
she put a lot of prep into that and was
kind of sad when she had to put away her
bonder that had one hundred and ten tabs. She said

(09:34):
she was a little surprised because Donna seems like somebody
who would want to tell her story, but she also
acknowledges there's a lot out there, and it would have
put Donna in a position where she had to navigate
a lot of tricky stuff. The prosecutor thinks it was
a smart decision for her not to take the stand,
but she did expect her to. She thinks that Donna

(09:55):
trying to flee to Vietnam helped with their case because
Donna denied it, where she could have said, yeah, I
was going so I wouldn't get arrested, and Donna over
selling that was very helpful to the prosecution. In finding
Donna's planners, she said that was really just dumb luck.
The planners were very dense and there were a bunch
of them. But as they were going through these planners,

(10:18):
someone stumbled upon something that she didn't specify in the presser.
I would imagine it would be where they found Dan's
car information as well as his license plate number. She
thinks Rob Athelson was so genuine on the stand and
said he was in a terrible situation, but he rose
above all that and doing the right thing. Was impressive.
As far as why they had never put him on

(10:40):
the stand prior to Donna's trial, she said she really
just didn't want to do that to Rob unless it
was absolutely necessary, and she felt they really didn't need
him for Donna's trial. Later on, when we get into
some of the jurors interviews, they expressed they found him
to be a very credible witness. So obviously a great
decision by Prosecutor Capelman. When asked if Wendy had a

(11:03):
reason to be worried the night of the verdict or
if we need to stay tuned, she said, I mean
you can stay tuned, And it was kind of in
a joking way. They didn't call Charlie to the stand
because they really just didn't want to tangle with him
unless they had to. They felt they were able to
get out the story he told it his trial and
then marry that to Donna's trial without actually having to

(11:25):
call him. They were able to get some what app
messages from Donna's device directly, and just a side note here,
in other trials we have seen with the encryption WhatsApp has,
it can be hard or even impossible to get messages
from there, but luckily they were in this case. As
far as Donna's trial being delayed a while back, she

(11:46):
points out they would not have had these jail house
informants and the letter from Drina Bernhardt and Prosecutor Capelman
said when she was showed that it was like Christmas Day.
She's asked about Wendy's name being mentioned more at this trial,
and the prosecutor says it's because of who the defendant
was and also to establish the motive through communications between

(12:09):
Donna and Wendy. She says there's no justice for Dan's boys.
She said she did them no favors today in convicting Donna,
and she said she would lose sleep over that she
wishes them nothing but the best, but points out the
family has been destroyed and sometimes it feels like she
has been a part of that. She hopes that someday

(12:29):
they can reconnect with Dan's family. Prosecutors Dugan and Kapelman
just an amazing performance at this trial, like every other where,
they really broke this very convoluted story down that takes
some of us years to completely understand and again get
a guilty verdict. So hats off to them. And I

(12:50):
don't think we have seen the last prosecution in this case,
but time will tell. Moving on to juror number six.
He did an interview with Scripts News and talent Hassi.
He's twenty four years old and he said, actually this
trial put him on a new career path. He changed
his major from engineering to pre law, and I think
that's amazing, he said. He took about four pages of

(13:12):
notes during the trial, but about halfway through the first
week he realized it really wasn't helping him retain too much,
so he got to where he would only jot down
points that he would have for deliberations. As far as
what motivated his guilty verdict, he said going in, I
was leaning towards guilty after seeing all of the evidence
laid out. He did try to stay on the fence

(13:34):
until they actually got into the deliberation room, because he
said Donna deserved to have that UnBias. When they first
got in the room, he expected there would be an
eruption of talking, but he said it was actually really
quiet and everybody was like, where do we start. Once
they looked at the jury instructions, that got the ball rolling,
so they went count by count for a first degree murder.

(13:56):
He felt pretty confident she was guilty, so they went
around to see where everybody was, but a few jurors
were not so sure, especially after going through the jury instructions.
Because of this specific way you have to come to
your verdict. Like finding intent before the murder was committed.
That was one thing a few of the jurors were
hung up on. He said, it was mainly what came

(14:19):
in the years after, where most of the evidence was
collected against Donna. Regarding some of the key pieces for
him personally that influenced his verdict. First off was the bump.
He said, innocent people don't speak in code, and when
the bump happened, she was just handed that sheet of paper.
She took the paper and put it straight into her

(14:39):
bag without even looking at it. He said, I'm not
taking anything from anyone and putting it in my bag
before looking at it. Another big influence for him was
Rob Adelson's testimony. He said that Rob had so much
more insight into Donna that they personally didn't get to see.
As far as the murder charge, he said, we spent

(14:59):
probably the first hour and forty five minutes or two
hours of the little over three that they deliberated on
that charge just talking about the first count and laying
out all of the evidence, and then digging through everything
they wanted to go back and look at again. Once
they all got to guilty for count one. The other
counts were easier to go back and find her guilty

(15:21):
on those charges. They did pull out some of the
phone calls to go through again. He said. They briefly
spoke about Wendy in the deliberation room, but points out
she was not on trial, so they mainly focused on
the jury instructions in only discussing Donna. He said Charlie
being convicted had nothing to do with whether he thought

(15:41):
Donna was involved or not. State Attorney Jack Campbell said
they will continue to work to hold everyone accountable for
Dan's murder, but as of now, he cannot predict anything
for the future now. The jury four person has also
spoken out she's very young. She has a TikTok which
I will link in the description so you can go
watch her videos that she's done on the case. She's

(16:04):
also been interviewed on a couple of podcasts. I've sent
her a message asking her to come on here. Fingers crossed,
we can get her to come on and tell her
story from her TikTok. She said as the four person,
she really wanted to watch the other jurors body language
and facial expressions once deliberations began, just to be sure
they were all on the same page. There were two

(16:25):
people who thought Donna was guilty, but they got confused
on certain points on the count. She said, okay, we're
not unanimous, and so they went over things piece by piece.
They used a whiteboard to go over each point and
list out things that applied to those other little points
within the count. She said, the ones who seemed unsure

(16:46):
at first really seemed to be helped by that visual.
They went over a thing several times to be sure,
and she said they were mindful that this was the
rest of Donna's life. They voted several times in different
ways by each count and the points within the count,
and then they all agreed on guilty. After that, she
passed papers around for people to write their verdict on again,

(17:08):
and all were guilty. And then before filling out the
final verdict form, she had them one by one say
they're verdict again. They were all guilty, and so they
knocked for the bailiffs to let them know they had
reached a verdict. After Donna's outburst, they were sent back
and when they came back in the room, they had
to one by one say that was their verdict. She

(17:31):
does think Wendy is involved and thinks that Wendy and
Harvey could be next. She said it could be that
there's different charges because of how Wendy insulated herself from
the family and played dumb. One big thing that makes
her think Wendy could be next is how would the
killers know Dan's routine. She also talked about the number
of I don't remembers from Wendy's testimony, which to her

(17:54):
had guilt written all over it. It didn't discuss it
in deliberations, but they did talk about Wendy's testimony because
it was relevant to coming to that verdict, and it
stayed on point as far as their discussions regarding Wendy.
After being released from their service, they were escorted to
their cars and they were allowed to talk, and everybody
thinks Wendy will be next. She also thought that the

(18:17):
route Wendy took to the liquor store, which as we know,
was very much out of the way, was suspicious, and
then after seeing the roadblock, not checking in on Dan
or the boys was a big red flag for her.
She said the officer's testimony where he said you would
be able to see Dan's house from the roadblock, and
then Wendy denying that she saw it was in front

(18:38):
of Dan's house, and also the fact that she whipped
her car out of there where others would do a
Lukie lou. She said, it just doesn't add up. She
thought it was weird Wendy told Jeff Lucas about Charlie
looking into hiring a hitman and the fact that Jeff
didn't report it. Another thing that stood out to the
jury four person is the last meeting Wendy and Jeff

(18:59):
had at yoga, where he knew the relationship was over,
but she still asked about his upcoming travel, as well
as Rivera and Garcia driving a very similar car to
Jeff's that first trip up to Tallahassee. She does think
Wendy was trying to set Jeff up for Dan's murder.
As for the kids calling them Adelson before Dan was shot,

(19:20):
changing the oldest child's middle name and not taking the
kids to the funeral was just very suspicious to her.
She said. Judge Everett really cares about his jurors, and
she notes they were not allowed to stay for victim
impact statements. They were escorted out. On Surviving the Survivor podcast,
jur number five spoke out He was an active duty

(19:40):
in the Marines when the murder happened, so he knew
nothing about this case. He would watch Donna's body language
when Wendy and Rob Aidelson were on the stand to
see how she reacted to their testimony. He said the
prosecution's opening statements and laying out that timeline made it
very easy for him to pick up and understand where
we are at this point with this trial, and as

(20:02):
the trial progressed, it really came full circle for him.
He kept an open mind until deliberations, but he thought
the defense was really behind the eight ball once he
heard their openings and he felt they didn't have a
strong case to present. He was asked if he has
looked up anything about the case. He said, he's not
a big social media guy, but he's talked to others
and also he has watched some videos which gave him

(20:25):
a good understanding of the other players or the other
co conspirators. As far as witnesses, he thought Sergeant Corbett
was on point in an outstanding witness, as well as
Rob Adelson. As for Rob, he thought it was heartbreak
into watch him on the stand and just struggled through
his testimony. He said he could tell the pain Rob
was in and the heartbreak on his face and his

(20:47):
words was really impactful for this jur One thing Rob
talked about that really stood out to this jur was
that last phone call Rob had with Donna where she
was avoiding questions and got off the phone where quickly
just reminder this was after the arrest of Sigfredo. He
really didn't think there was any witness put up by
the defense that swayed any of the jurors, and in fact,

(21:10):
the witness Linda Bailey who came on talking about the
divorce saying it was amicable, and she mentioned eighty thousand
dollars isn't a lot of money. He said they knew
from the emails and the text messages that the divorce
was not amicable, and the script that Donna wrote for
the Jaelhouse informant was one piece of evidence that if
anyone had any doubts, it was obvious it was Donna's

(21:33):
handwriting and her doings. He was also stunned at the
fact that Donna literally washed the money. As far as
Donna taking the stand, he didn't think she would have
done herself any favors in doing so he felt Donna's
defense team was just unprepared. Also with the bump, just
putting the paper in her purse was a big thing
for him. And as far as one single thing that

(21:55):
might have sealed the deal for him, he would have
to say, Donna and Charlie talk fucking in code. Also,
Donna talking about dressing the boys in Hitler costumes was
a good glimpse into her character for him. He did
find Jeff Lacass to be a very credible witness. Didn't
give much thought of Wendy going to the liquor store
far away from where she could have and he says

(22:17):
he will personally drive past six convenience stores to go
to his favorite. But by day four or five, he
said he was leaning guilty. He said if he were Wendy,
he would be nervous. He thinks she was one hundred
percent involved. He specifically mentioned Donna having Dan's license plate
in her planner. There's no way Donna would drive up

(22:38):
to Tallahassee to get it, so that had to have
come from Wendy. As far as a sentencing date for Donna,
we don't have one. As far as I know now.
She does have a case management hearing that is scheduled
for October fourteenth to discuss further proceedings, and that final
sentencing will be determined at that time or even later.

(22:59):
Of course, I will run that hearing live on October fourteenth,
and we will see what happens next. I mean, who knows.
We may get an alert any day on our phone
that Wendy has been arrested, or we could be waiting
on an alert for quite a while. There is no
statute of limitations in Florida, and I have no doubt
Prosecutor Kapuelman is going to have her case ready to

(23:21):
go before she ever goes that route. If she does so,
that's it. And if more people speak out about their
experience on the jury, I will definitely do a follow
up episode. Again, I apologize that this is late. When
I got back from Crime Con, I was notified that
a student that I taught her senior year in a
special ed class, who I've kept in very close contact

(23:43):
with over the years, passed away suddenly. So it's been
a bit of a tough week for me just trying
to come to grips with that, and took some time
to be mom and granddaughter and everything else, but I'm
glad to be back in the swing of things. This week.
I may see if there are new Corey Richan's documents,
or we may dive into the very more few charging documents.

(24:05):
And even though that is not new, I was covering
Lori Davell out in Phoenix when all that came down,
so I do plan on following that case, and y'all
know I like to do my backstories where I read
these charging documents and the probable cause Affi David. So
that is sort of my plan for this week, unless
something crazy happens and we go in another direction. Also

(24:26):
at crime Con, just meeting these families who are still
waiting to hear any news of their missing loved ones,
whether it be recent or decades old, has really just
touched my heart. I want to start doing a missing
person's series where we cover a couple of missing person cases,
maybe once a week. And also the first case that
I want to deep dive is the Megan Trustle case.

(24:49):
I was fortunate enough to meet her beautiful parents at
crime Con and although her death was ruled self harm,
there's a lot of indications there it is not the
right call. Currently looking into the documents, but there are
just a lot of things there that do not add up.
And we've seen this with the Ellen Greenberg case, where
clearly there is a wrong determination of a cause of death.

(25:13):
So I do want to research this thoroughly, so look
for that in the next week or so. Friday, my
grandmother has a procedure on her heart. Saturday, I'm speaking
at Taekwana's funeral, and also my daughter's moving back from
New Orleans. So the first few days of the week
we'll definitely have some episodes, but later in the week
it might be a little bit quiet, and then the

(25:34):
week after that we're gonna go full swing again. So
that is it for now. Hope you guys have a
good rest of your evening and we will see you
soon

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Wrapping Up Donna Adelson's Trial - Hearing From The Prosecution, Jurors, and Victim Impact Statements

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Wrapping Up Donna Adelson's Trial - Hearing From The Prosecution, Jurors, and Victim Impact Statements