Day 9 - September 4, 2025
Closing arguments consumed the morning and afternoon of the trial's final day; the jury deliberated approximately three hours before returning guilty verdicts on all three counts — first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation — against Donna Adelson.
Full day summary
11:34:59 1. Final Jury Instructions
Day 9 opens with final pre-closing housekeeping: the defense waives all lesser-included offenses on Count 1, leaving the jury only guilty or not guilty of first-degree murder; the court denies the rule-of-completeness request for additional calendar pages; the renewed motion for judgment of acquittal is denied; and Judge Everett reads the full set of final jury instructions, including the three counts, principal liability theories, and a specific credibility caution for cooperating witnesses.
Highlights
Jury Instruction Colloquy — Lesser-Included Waiver, Calendar Rule-of-Completeness Ruling, Renewed JOA procedural action Judge Everett places Donna Adelson under oath and takes a personal colloquy on the record, confirming she understands and agrees to the all-or-nothing strategy of waiving all lesser-included crimes. Jury Instruction Colloquy — Lesser-Included Waiver, Calendar Rule-of-Completeness Ruling, Renewed JOA “I do, Your Honor.” — Donna Adelson Donna Adelson, under oath, personally confirms on the record that she understands the defense strategy of waiving all lesser-included crimes — a high-stakes choice that removes second-degree murder and manslaughter and forces the jury to decide between first-degree murder and acquittal with no middle option. Jury Instruction Colloquy — Lesser-Included Waiver, Calendar Rule-of-Completeness Ruling, Renewed JOA “As to the renewed motion for judgment of acquittal, the court has the same ruling: taking the evidence introduced throughout the trial in the light most favorable to the state, the state has met its burden to present all three counts to the jury.” — Stephen Everett Final ruling on the JOA confirms the state met its burden on all three counts; the case proceeds to the jury and the issue is preserved for appellate review. Final Jury Instructions procedural action Judge delivers the act-based and payment-based principal liability instructions, explaining that a defendant who intended the crime and took steps to incite or pay for it is treated as if she personally committed it — the core legal theory enabling a murder conviction against someone not present at the scene. Final Jury Instructions procedural action Judge delivers the cooperating witness caution instruction, directing jurors to scrutinize testimony from witnesses who helped commit the crime or stand to gain favorable treatment — directly applicable to Magbanua and Rivera. Jury Instruction Colloquy — Lesser-Included Waiver, Calendar Rule-of-Completeness Ruling, Renewed JOA ruling Rule of completeness denied: court rules that the additional 2014 and 2023 Adelson calendar pages are separate writings not unified with the admitted exhibit and lack a sponsoring witness; defense may use them as demonstratives in closing only.
2. Closing Arguments
Closing arguments from both sides and the prosecution's rebuttal. Georgia Cappleman's prosecution closing reconstructs Donna Adelson's alleged role from the 2013 relocation denial through the 2014 murder, centers the wiretap recording as direct evidence, and dismantles the extortion defense as a post-hoc invention. Jackie Fulford's defense closing argues the prosecution's cooperating witnesses contradict each other, the motive evaporated before the murder, and years of investigation produced no pre-murder evidence of Donna Adelson's knowledge or intent. Cappleman's rebuttal targets factual misstatements in Fulford's closing and returns to the three acts the state characterizes as concrete proof of guilt.
Highlights
Closing Argument - Georgia Cappleman “She wasn't going to get what she wanted through the legal system, but that wasn't the only way to skin a cat, was it?” — Georgia Cappleman The prosecution's narrative pivot marking Donna Adelson's alleged transition from legal warfare to murder-for-hire — framing the relocation denial not as an ending but as the moment the conspiracy began in earnest. Closing Argument - Georgia Cappleman testimony highlight Cappleman reads Donna's wiretap response — 'probably both of us' — as direct evidence of guilt and challenges any juror inclined to acquit to explain how that statement is not a confession. Closing Argument - Georgia Cappleman “When Charlie asked Donna on State's 99, call A, does it involve me or other people? Well, probably both of us.” — Georgia Cappleman Cappleman presents Donna Adelson's wiretap response as the evidentiary centerpiece of the closing — labeled direct evidence — and in the immediately following utterance challenges any juror seeking acquittal to explain how the statement is not a confession. Closing Argument - Georgia Cappleman testimony highlight Cappleman demolishes the extortion defense: in 2016 texts Charlie and Donna workshopped a drug-dealer theory with no mention of extortion; Charlie used 'blackmail' at Dolce Vita; Donna Googled the distinction seven days before Charlie's trial; and the jailhouse script she wrote reprised Charlie's extortion narrative verbatim. Closing Argument - Georgia Cappleman testimony highlight Cappleman presents the 'train car' conspiracy model — each conspirator communicated only with adjacent members — explaining that Donna's operational distance from the hitmen was deliberate design for insulation, not evidence of innocence, with Charlie positioned as her loyal adjacent link. Closing Argument - Georgia Cappleman “Don't let the way she thought she was going to get away with this be the way she gets away with it.” — Georgia Cappleman Cappleman's closing appeal urging the jury not to allow the conspiracy's deliberate train-car insulation structure — designed to shield Donna from direct contact with the hitmen — to function as legal cover for acquittal. Closing Argument - Jackie L. Fulford evidence event Fulford presents Rivera's annotated deposition exhibit in which he circled Wendi Adelson and Charlie Adelson as the reasons for the murder and placed an X beside Donna and Harvey Adelson, arguing the prosecution's own cooperating hitman removed Donna from the conspiracy. Closing Argument - Jackie L. Fulford “Who else on this document do you recognize on this exhibit? Who else? Who else was involved in this? Well, all the players that the state claims are involved are pictured on this document, and he says, Wendi Adelson, she's the lady who wanted to get her kids back. This is why we were committing the crime. Wendi Adelson and "the dentist," he called him — which is Charlie Adelson, who he identified was the one with Katie. He's this one, and this one are the reasons that they're coming to Tallahassee to kill Dan Markel. And I said, what about Donna Adelson or Harvey Adelson? No, they weren't involved. I said, would you put an X next to them if they weren't involved? And he did. Donna Adelson's name never came up, but Luis Rivera is telling the truth, according to the state.” — Jackie L. Fulford Defense's central strategic argument: the prosecution's own cooperating hitman, whose credibility the state vouches for, annotated a deposition exhibit placing Donna and Harvey Adelson outside the conspiracy — an internal contradiction Fulford treats as dispositive. Closing Argument - Jackie L. Fulford testimony highlight Fulford dismantles the relocation motive, arguing it ended over a year before the murder, Wendi had privately decided to remain in Tallahassee without telling Donna, and Donna's last relocation email was July 2013 — rendering the motive stale at the time of the killing. Closing Argument - Jackie L. Fulford “There's not a lick of evidence in here that they submitted of what she did prior to July the 18th, 2014, where she said — not a single word — that she wanted him killed, she was planning to have him killed, she was going to find somebody to kill him, she was going to pay somebody to kill him, she was going to kill him, but she was glad he was dead. That's not in here, and this is it. This is it.” — Jackie L. Fulford Core evidentiary gap argument: after nine days of testimony and the full exhibit record, the defense points to a complete absence of any direct pre-murder statement by Donna Adelson expressing intent to kill Markel. Closing Argument - Jackie L. Fulford “She's a meddler, not a murderer. They haven't proven that to you.” — Jackie L. Fulford Condensed case theory and the closing's most memorable formulation: Fulford reframes the prosecution's evidence of controlling behavior as ordinary maternal involvement rather than proof of criminal intent. Closing Argument - Jackie L. Fulford evidence event Defense plays the full FBI undercover recorded call in which Donna Adelson repeatedly denies any involvement, states she does not know who the hitmen are, and directs the agent multiple times to go to police and collect the reward — the defense's primary exhibit on consciousness of innocence. Rebuttal Closing - Georgia Cappleman “I'm sorry that there's not a smoking gun, but she was too smart for that. She thought about it. She planned it. She made sure we could never get her, right? She took precautions, but she did make mistakes — and that's what all those exhibits are: mistakes.” — Georgia Cappleman Cappleman directly confronts the absence of a smoking gun by recasting it as evidence of deliberate planning — all the circumstantial exhibits represent the mistakes of someone who tried to be untraceable. Central rebuttal to the defense's sufficiency argument. Rebuttal Closing - Georgia Cappleman confrontation Cappleman exposes the internal contradiction in the defense theory: the defense cannot simultaneously argue the family was being extorted by the killers and that Charlie and Wendi look independently guilty — 'there's no lane that's been picked' — undermining both alternative explanations at once. Rebuttal Closing - Georgia Cappleman emotional moment Cappleman reads Donna's Exhibit 64II email — dismissing grandson Ben's school grief over his murdered father as 'just another phase' — then argues this reveals a woman incapable of acknowledging the catastrophic harm she caused, before reminding the jury those boys lost their father because Donna decided they did not need him. Rebuttal Closing - Georgia Cappleman “"I still do not believe that Ben is sad about his father" — quote, quotations on the "sad" — 64II” — Georgia Cappleman Cappleman reads Donna's own words from Exhibit 64II — written two years after the murder while her grandson was crying at school over his dead father — as the prosecution's most damning character evidence and proof of an inability to accept the consequences of her actions. Rebuttal Closing - Georgia Cappleman “She was neck deep in this thing. She wrote the checks. She said it involved the two of us. She wrote that script.” — Georgia Cappleman Cappleman's tripartite closing formulation — three concrete acts (signed checks, wiretap admission, perjury script) — crystallizing the prosecution's theory of guilt into the jury's final takeaway before deliberation.
4. Verdict
After approximately three hours of deliberation, the jury returns guilty verdicts on all three counts against Donna Adelson: first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. Judge Everett warns the gallery — and Adelson by name — against outbursts before the verdicts are read; when she reacts visibly, he interrupts twice and threatens removal. The jury is polled at defense request, a sentencing date is set, and Ruth Markel begins a victim impact statement.
Highlights
Verdict emotional moment Donna Adelson reacts visibly to the guilty verdicts; Judge Everett interrupts to order her to control herself immediately after Count 1 and again after the jury is sent out, threatening removal from the remainder of the proceeding. Verdict emotional moment Ruth Markel, mother of Dan Markel, identifies herself on the record and begins a victim impact statement describing eleven years of grief since her son's murder at age 41. Verdict “For 11 years, we have been forced to a life filled with unimaginable pain and heartbreak.” — Ruth Markel Ruth Markel gives voice to the Markel family's loss in the first spoken victim impact statement of the proceeding, marking the human cost at the center of the case. Verdict ruling Jury verdict published: Donna Adelson found guilty on all three counts — first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder — signed and dated by the foreperson. Verdict “We the jury find as follows: as to count one of the indictment, first-degree murder, the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.” — Stephen Everett Publication of the most serious guilty verdict, establishing Donna Adelson's criminal liability for the murder of Dan Markel.