Eight years ago, two hit-men were paid a total of $U.S. 100,000 to kill Professor Dan Markel, a law professor, age 41, at Florida State University Law School.

The FBI and Tallahassee Police conducted years of meticulous and painstaking research and searched through thousands of oral and transcribed records and many more CCTV searches to get to the truth of who murdered Professor Dan Markel in July 2014 as he returned to his home in Tallahassee and opened his garage door electronically in order to park his car. One man was waiting in a car nearby and another was standing by Dan Markel's garage door.

Dan Markel had been speaking with someone on his mobile phone and he mentioned to the person he was conversing with that there was a man he did not recognize standing by his garage door. The next thing the caller heard was a noise and then nothing. This man, a criminal named Sigfredo Garcia  and a companion had travelled to Tallahassee to shoot Dan Markel dead. They were paid hitmen. Garcia stood in front of Dan Markel's car as he drove into his garage and shot him in the head. Fourteen hours later, Professor Dan Markel was pronounced dead t the local hospital where the ambulance and police , called by Professor Markel's neighbour -who had heard the gunfire  and noticed the light-green coloured Prius car, and had walked over to Dan's place and found him uncommunicative, shot through his car window by the gunman who had already taken flight with his driver accomplice in the green Prius car.  It was disclosed over days in court at the trial of these two men and Charles Adelson's girlfriend at the time, that she had organized the hit, had collected the $100, 000 from her boyfriend the following day and distributed it as previously arranged. Charles Adelson was Dan Markel's brother-in-law, the older brother of Wendy Adelson whom Dan Markel has been married to until the decree nisi shortly before he was murdered. 

There was acrimony, and monetary dispute mixed up in this broken relationship and Wendy Adelson had already been dating another man, a sociology lecturer at FSU. Soon after the funeral of Dan Markel Wendy Adelson took her two very young sons and travelled to be with her family, hundreds of miles away.

This case was extremely difficult to bring to trial, mainly because police were not here dealing with drunken street hoodlums who had shot and killed one of their own in a drunken brawl. These people were dentists and professionals and with the best attorneys money can obtain. Even those charged had good quality attorneys, believed to have been paid for by the Adelsons, but not confirmed.

One man quickly made a plea-deal with prosecutors and confessed all. He was in jail for another offence when he was brought in for questioning. All three were separately charged. Thus there were three trials. Garcia was found guilty and remains in prison. He was refused leave to appeal. Katherine Magbanua is the mother of Garcia's two children and they experienced an on-again-off-again relationship -interspersed with his several jail sentences for various serious criminal offences. The jury were undecided with regard to the Magbanua trial and due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, her retrial did not start until such time as it was safe or a court hearing to take place. This happened during April and May of this year, 2022, and the decision was  that she was guilty as charged. One month ago, Charles Adelson, Professor Dan Markel's ex-brother-in -law, was arrested on suspicion of first degree murder and the same other two charges aced by his now ex-girlfriend Katherine Magbanua. He remains in custody because there is no bail for suspicion of first0degree murder in this state. After eight years, the justice machinery -which can slowly grind, has meted out a portion of the justice the public need to see. 

References

Heaton, R. (2000), "The prospects for intelligence-led policing: historical and quantitative  considerations," Policing and Society, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp 67-85.

Stephen Lines, "Information Technology Multi-Media Simulator Training: Outcomes of Critical Decision-Making Exercises", The Police Journal, Volume LXXII, Number 2, April-June 1999, pp 96-108.

Williamson, T. (ed.) (2007) Handbook  of Criminal Investigation, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing.

MAY 2022.