The court ruled on Yao's conditional shooter-height opinion, investigators described surveillance and records, and Wendi Adelson testified under use immunity.
Full day summary
The court addressed a discovery violation involving Investigator Robert Shawn Yao's updated opinion, denied exclusion after finding no procedural prejudice, and denied Garcia's untimely request for a Daubert hearing. Yao then testified that, under stated assumptions, the available evidence was more consistent with a taller rather than shorter shooter. On cross-examination, he agreed the physical evidence alone did not permit a trajectory analysis and that missing points and changed assumptions limited the certainty of his opinion.
Lead investigator Craig Isom described surveillance, toll, rental, phone, and financial records in the investigation. He testified that a toll-record search led to a rental agreement listing Luis Rivera as renter of a Toyota Prius. Cross-examination addressed gaps in the surveillance footage, limits on vehicle identification, an unrecorded September 30 cooperation interview with Rivera, and investigative omissions. Isom said the recovered Prius's tag and vehicle identification number matched the SunPass records. Ronald Witt authenticated T-Mobile tower-dump records, which the court admitted without objection.
Outside the jury's presence, the court compelled Wendi Adelson to testify under use immunity and required that her testimony be completed that day. Adelson testified about her divorce and custody dispute with Dan Markel, her limited acquaintance with Katherine Magbanua, a repeated hitman-and-television joke by Charles Adelson, and her movements on the day Markel was killed. She denied involvement in or knowledge of a plot to kill Markel and said she did not visit the crime scene. Juror questions addressed the scope of her immunity, documents used to refresh her memory, and her decision to limit Markel's parents' contact with the children.
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