4.Verdict

RUTH MARKEL: Thank you, Judge Everett. To the Honorable Judge Everett, my name is Ruth Markel. I am the mother of the late Dan Markel. JI stand before you today to express the profound sadness and grief that Dan's family and I have endured since this tragic murder. we have lost a treasure.

My son, Dan's, life was cut tragically short at 41 years old. For 11 years, we have been forced to be -- to a life filled with unimaginable pain and heartbreak. Dan's father, Phil, and his sister, Shelly, share in this unending sorrow.

Dan was a devoted father, brother, and son. Dan's life was marked by his devotion to family, education, and community. He was a loving, caring, and inspiring person.

His academic journey included studies politic and philosophy at Harvard University, earning a master's degree later in political theory from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Emanuel College in Cambridge and later going back to Harvard to get a law degree.

Dan was a prolific scholar and did start, cofounded the influential PrawfsBlawg. His energy, drive, and sociability greatly enriched the FSU College of Law. Dan's life was filled with passion, music, dance, sports, travel and people.

But of all my son's accomplishments, however, I am most proud of the devoted father Danny was to his two sons, B. and L. Dan was present, loving, and supportive, always putting his children's well-being first. He regularly attended the boys' daycares, reading with them. His office was filled with their drawings and his home, his living room filled with their toys. Dan was the boys' hero, and they have been forced to grow up without a father.

Dan's murder has shattered our family and caused deep, permanent pain. This was a particularly senseless crime, and the murder was particularly insensible. It was not revenge. Dan was a law-abiding and respectful citizen, an active father, and a loving son. His life was devoted to teaching and helping others.

The pain and suffering of Dan's murder goes well beyond other families, too. That is why I wrote the book: The UnvetTling, A Mother's Reflection on murder, Grief, and Trial Life.

In my unrelenting grief, I turned to advocacy, to feel purpose and to help others with these tragic losses. I have found meaning and comfort to connect with others who want to serve justice.

To all the community of journalists, TV programs, podcasters, Tallahassee communities, and the allies who put their hearts in keeping Danny's story alive, we are full of thanks.

To law enforcement and prosecutors, our gratitude is beyond -- beyond for their dedicated, careful perseverance in seeking justice for Danny and our family. If Tallahassee is known for football, Tallahassee should be known for the prosecution and for law enforcement. They have done an outstanding job.

These extraordinary efforts underscore the brutal truth of our family's story, Danny's murder was orchestrated by his former mother-in-law Donna Adelson and other coconspirators and is a crime of cruelty. It is a murder of grief, a murder of selfishly prioritizing one's own desires over what is just and right. And at its core, this was a murder of convenience. So that one grandmother could live closer to her grandchildren, she killed their father and ripped the children from the other grandparents’ lives.

Donna Adelson's crimes against Dan began long before his murder. She belittled Dan in front of his children. She spread lies about him and contributed to a brutal separation between Dan and wendi. She rented the house, and Dan came home and he found that wendi and the boys were gone with most of their belongings. He called this devastation Pearl Harbor.

Donna's eagerness for Wendi to divorce Dan and to relocate to South Florida led her to increasingly devise desperate schemes. Despite these efforts, the Court ruled that wendi could not move the boys away from their loving father. Failing to achieve her goal through legal means, Donna finally resorted to orchestrating Dan's murder. She plotted, planned, and paid for his murder.

Donna's crimes left further devastation. Her middle son, Charlie, was convicted and sentenced to a life in prison for his role in facilitating Danny's murder-for-hire. Can you imagine a mother involving a son to complete a murder?

Donna's eldest son, Rob, an honest and decent man is estranged from the family. And her younger child, wendi, has decided, once again, to relocate to another state.

RUTH MARKEL: Her actions and those of her coconspirators have caused children to lose their parents. Katherine Magbanua, Sigfredo Garcia, and Charlie Adelson, also convicted -- are all convicted for life and have lost access to their children.

Prior to her arrest, Donna's recorded phone calls with Charlie reveal their lack of a moral compass or capacity for self-reflection. She blames external forces for her family's curse. They are outside of her, but she is the curse and lashes out angrily at witnesses to look -- and took the brave step to testify. Her modus operandi has always been to run, to run from Tallahassee and then to try to flee to Vietnam.

For our family, there is no such prospect for escape. Danny's absence leaves a hole at the center of our lives no matter where we go. Yet Dan's murder was not enough for Donna, his death was not enough, Danny had to be fully erased from his beloved sons. The boys’ last name was even changed, an extraordinary decision to excise the Markel name from Phil's only grandsons who shared his last name.

And after the first arrests were made, Donna didn't allow the Markel family to have access for over six years. It was only when there was a phenomenal Tallahassee advocacy group that passed the Markel Act. The passage of this bill was immediately followed by our first invitation to have the boys -- to see the boys after the arrest.

The door only cracked open. Despite these efforts, we remain excluded from the boys’ lives. We were not at their bar mitzvahs or graduations. we have extremely highly choreographed visits and communications. we only wait for the day that B. and L. will visit their father and his grave and -- their father's history and his grave in Toronto. We want nothing more.

The facts of Dan's murder -- Danny's murder are difficult to swallow. The experiences Phil, Shelly, and I have been forced to suffer are profound as homicide survivors and victims of the criminal system.

The lives of Danny's two sons, our grandchildren, were forever turned upside down by this crime. B. and L. were only preschoolers when their father was murdered. And now they are forced to confront and try to understand the unthinkable crimes of murder and the Adelsons' involvement.

Our lives will never return to normal. For those who loved Danny and for those who Danny loved, there is no escape from the wicked effects of Donna -- what Donna Adelson set in motion, carried out, and paid for, and, for many years, enjoyed the aftermath of. Donna Adelson has caused immense devastation and an untimely, undeserved murder through her actions. while no trial or verdict can ever heal the profound wounds caused by Dan's murder, justice must be served.

I respectfully ask the Court to impose the maximum sentence on Donna Adelson. Her lack of cooperation and remorse throughout the case demands justice, the justice that Dan's life and memory fully deserve.

we are immensely grateful to the Court for its careful and compassionate deliberation. Respectively, Ruth Markel.

PHIL MARKEL: Good evening. My name is Phil Markel. I'm Danny's father.

Judge Everett, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the impact of Donna Adelson's actions on my family and the families of so many others. while this victim impact statement is addressed to you, Your Honor, it is also intended for the Adelson family -- Harvey, Charlie, wendi, and, particularly, Donna.

I would like them to understand and reflect on the deep and irreparable damage they have caused. The pain that they have caused my family is obvious and permanent. But they have also caused lifelong harm to their own immediate family and so many other families and children around.

Donna's selfishness, cruelty, and complete disrespect for human life, along with that of her coconspirators have left families forever broken.

Luis Rivera, his children have no father. Katherine Magbanua and Sigfredo Garcia, their children have no parents. Charlie Adelson, his son, R.A., has no father. Rob Adelson and his wife and their two children have lost their uncle and grandparents. Shelly and Ian, my daughter, their three children, my grandchildren, are left without an uncle and are separated from their cousins.

Of course, their heinous and callous actions have left me, Ruth, and Shelly without our Danny and B. and L. without their father. For anyone to commit such a cold-blooded, unprovoked act of murder is horrific.

For Donna, someone who claims to care so much about B. and L., her sunshines, her actions are beyond comprehension. She has harmed forever the people she claims to have loved.

In the Jewish custom, we have an expression to always wish others to live to 120 years of age. For Donna, I wish her to live to 120, alone, in her jail cell. I wish that every day of her remaining days, she thinks about the harm she has caused to so many, especially those two boys she claims to have loved so much.

For these reasons, Your Honor, I ask the Court sentence Donna Adelson to the maximum possible sentence.

And my only short question to Donna: was it worth it?

Respectfully, thank you.