Police: Dan Markel Was Killed In Murder-For-Hire Plot Orchestrated By Ex-Wife's Brother

National Law Journal, Florida Law Professor Killed in Murder-for-Hire, Police Say:

Florida investigators believe law professor Dan Markel was murdered in 2014 by two convicted felons hired by his ex-wife’s brother.

In a newly unsealed probable-cause affidavit, police said that “a desperate desire” by the family of Markel’s ex-wife to move the couple’s two children from Tallahassee to Miami was the motive of murder suspect Sigfredo Garcia, arrested last week for Markel’s murder. ...

The unsealed affidavit, first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat, says police used a combination of video surveillance, eyewitness accounts, cell phone records, emails and court records pertaining to Markel and his contentious divorce from Wendi Adelson to place Garcia and alleged accomplice Luis Rivera near the crime scene and establish the Adelson family’s motive to put out the hit. ...

Wendi Adelson, who was a clinical professor at Florida State University’s law school, filed for divorce in 2012 after six years of marriage. Investigators described the divorce as “bitter,” with Adelson taking their two sons to her parents’ Miami home without Markel’s consent before she returned. Their divorce was finalized in 2013, although the couple continued to fight in court over finances and access to the children by her mother, whom Markel claimed made “disparaging comments” about him to the children.

“E-mail evidence indicates Wendi’s parents, especially her mother, wanted Wendi to coerce Markel into allowing the relocation to South Florida,” the affidavit says. “Additionally, Wendi’s brother, Charles Adelson (Charlie), reportedly did not like Markel and did not get along with him.”

Police believe Charlie Adelson “was involved in a personal relationship” with Katherine Magbanua, the mother of Garcia’s two children.

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