The Jewish religious divorce “Get” and Professor Dan Markel’s murder in 2014 in Tallahassee, Florida, United States
by
Sally Ramage

Introduction

Florida State University (FSU) Professor Daniel Eric Markel was murdered at his home in Tallahassee, Florida, on July 18, 2014. He was known to friends and colleagues as ‘Dan Markel’ and to family and friends as ‘Danny’. Dan Markel was a law professor at FSU, a Canadian-born legal scholar and a juris doctor from Harvard University. He had 31 law papers published at the Social Sciences Research Network hub which were distributed to various universities around the world. He had also co-authored a law book published in 1999 by Oxford University Press. In 2006, whilst an associate professor at FSU, he met and married Wendi Jill Adelson of Coral Springs, South Florida and the couple settled in Tallahassee, the capital city of the state ofFlorida, United States (US). His wife had studied international relations at her local university and before long they managed to secure her employment at FSU as well as having two children , one in 2008 and one in 2010 and to the outside world they appeared to be the perfect middle class couple with two children, two cars, both teaching at FSU and living in a well-heeled part of Tallahassee, very close to FSU. But in the year 2012, after just 6 years of marriage, Dan Markel’s wife decided to divorce him. When he returned from business trip in July 2012, she left the marital home, taking with her most of the furniture from their house (which she put into storage); withdrew six hundred thousand dollars from the his bank account; and the two the two children to temporarily stay with her parents in Coral Springs, South Florida, with no note or explanatory letter but she left copy divorce papers thus served on Dan Markel by placing them on their older son’s mattress which she left behind in a bedroom.iliation with his wife but she was determined to press on with severing their marriage by way of a civil legal divorce and decree nisi. Papers at the divorce court informed the judge that they had made consensual financial arrangements and so the decree absolute was granted in July 2013, although custody issues for their two sons continued to be litigated.
Divorce litigation case and Dan Markel shot dead in 2014
Dan Markel’s ex-wife applied to the court for leave to move away from Tallahassee to live near her parents, 400 miles away in south Florida, but he successfully made a case for the children to remain in Tallahassee in order that he could fulfil his responsibilities and obligations to care for his sons. There is a Court Order to that effect. His ex-wife by then had bought a house similar to the former marital property in Tallahassee and it was also near to FSU where she continued to work, and for a time they shared access rights to the children until 18 July 2014, when Dan Markel, having taken his sons to nursery school at 9.00 am, had returned to his house where he was shot in the head through his car window as he drove into his garage where one hitman was waiting for him, the other waiting ready to drive up Dan Markel’s driveway to allow the shooter swift exit from Tallahassee.
Two men indicted for Dan Markel’s murder in 2016

The police did not arrest anyone for over almost two years and then on 26 May 2016, Talahassee Police Department (TPD), assisted by the US Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI) successfully won the right to arrest two men, having submitted extensive probable cause affidavits to the Court. Sigfreda Garcia and Luis Rivera were the subjects of these probable cause affidavits, the latter man already in prison, having been convicted and imprisoned for 10 years on separate drug dealing charges. That particulat interview with Wendi J. Adelson taken to the TPD offices to assist police with their inquiries , included her consenting to be tested for gunshot residue, her mobile phone swiped by police detectives, her photo taken after being interviewed, and her car taken away for full forensic examination. Wendi J. Adelson spent 8 hours in TPD buildings before being allowed to return to her home. She was not charged.
Probable Cause Affidavits before the AG
The Probable Cause Affidavits included the fact that Wendi Jill Adelson had told police investigators during an interview soon after Dan Markel’s shooting, that her brother Charles had joked about hiring a hit man to kill Dan Markel, but she quickly stated thereafter that her brother made a lot of jokes in bad taste and that she did not think her brother would actually commit such a crime.

The Probable Cause Affidavit in support of indictment of Garcia and Rivera states that after Dan Markel’s ex-wife called her mother to tell her of Dan Markel’s death, telephone records show that her mother, Donna Adelson, then telephoned her son Charlie Adelson, who then telephoned Katherine Diane Magbanua, an alleged employee of Charles Adelson’s dental surgery (whom he was also dating at the time).

Katherine D. Magbanua was the former common –law partner of the now indicted Sigfreda Garcia and she is the mother of Sigfredo Garcia’s two young children. This last telephone call, the Probable Cause Affidavit stated, was significant because police investigators believe that Katherine D. Magbanua is the person who facilitated Dan Markel’s murder by her ex-partner Sigfredo Garcia and his friend Luis Rivera, in that Magbanua is the causal link between Charlie Adelson (Dan Markel’s ex-brother-in-law) and the men who travelled to Tallahassee from south Florida just to shoot and kill Dan Markel. The Probable Cause Affidavit notes
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