Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Alleged Killer Of Jewish Law Professor Told Cellmate He Was Damned

Sigfredo Garcia, accused of killing law professor Dan Markel in a murder-for-hire, told a cellmate earlier this year that he did “not believe he himself could be saved,” the Tallahassee Democrat reported last week.

Garcia is set to face trial in January for the 2014 shooting of Markel, which stumped investigators for years. Garcia’s alleged accomplice, Luis Rivera, pled guilty last year. The mother of Garcia’s children, Katherine Magbuana, has also been charged with murder in connection to Markel’s killing.

According to the Democrat, Garcia and a cellmate discussed the murder charges during a prison workout. The two discussed religion and the possibility of salvation, and Garcia said he could not be saved.

This latest prison confidant is the last in a series of fellow prisoners who have said that Garcia discussed the murder with them, according to the Democrat. Two others have said that Garcia told them details of the crime.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

The Forward is free to read but not free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make your Passover gift today!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.