Jury Hears How Police Connected Hitmen To Adelsons

Before he retired from the Tallahassee Police Department, Craig Isom investigated the murder-for-hire of Dan Markel. Isom testified in the trial of Markel's former mother-in-law, Donna Adelson, on Friday (August 22, day 1).

Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman questioned Isom in direct-examination. In this clip, Isom testifies about connecting the hitmen who killed Markel to Katherine "Katie" Magbanua, the girlfriend of his former brother-in-law.

01:51 "At the time of the of the murder, I believe she worked at a another dental office somewhere," Isom says of Magbanua.

05:58 "Yes, actually, the homicide happened July 18, and the first check was dated September 18."

You can watch Isom's full direct-exam here:    • Ex-Tallahassee Cop Details Miami Custody D...  

And you can watch the defense cross-examination here:    • Victim's Ex-Mother-In-Law Harbored 'Bad Na...  

Case background:

Adelson, 75, is accused of orchestrating the murder-for-hire of her former son-in-law because she wanted her daughter and grandchildren to move to Miami.

Adelson is accused of conspiring with her son Charlie Adelson more than a decade ago to hire hitmen to kill Dan Markel, who was a Florida State University law professor and the father of her two young grandsons.

Her defense is that she had no knowledge of what hitmen Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia were going to do, and that prosecutors are only focusing on her hatred for Markel to show she had a motive to want him murdered, when there's no evidence she was actually involved.

Rivera, a former leader of the Latin Kings gang, is serving a 19-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against Garcia, who fired the fatal shots, as well as the woman who linked Garcia to the victim: Katherine "Katie" Magbanua, who was Garcia's on-again, off-again girlfriend and also was in a relationship with Adelson's son Charlie Adelson.

Garcia was convicted in 2019 and Magbanua in 2022. Rivera testified against both. He also testified in Charlie Adelson's trial in 2023, and Adelson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Donna Adelson and her husband, Harvey, bought one-way tickets to Vietnam. Police arrested her on the jetway at Miami International Airport on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and solicitation of first-degree murder.

Her trial is expected to go through Sept. 5 in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Florida.

Donna Adelson's lawyers are Josh Zelman and Jackie Fulford of Tallahassee. Assistant State Attorneys Georgia Cappleman and Sarah Kathryn Dugan are prosecuting.

The judge is Stephen Everett, who is the chief judge of Leon County Circuit Court.
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