Dan Markel In-Laws Escape Murder Charge in Killing of Florida Law Professor
Image by getty images
By Andrew Silow-Carroll September 9, 2016
— Florida’s state attorney has dismissed as “speculation” affidavits from Tallahassee police implicating the in-laws of slain law professor Dan Markel in his murder.
On Thursday, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper obtained the affidavits, in which the Tallahassee Police Department lays out its case for why Markel’s ex-wife’s brother, Charlie Adelson, and her mother, Donna Adelson, should be considered prime suspects in his slaying.
Police say Charlie Adelson looked into hiring a hit man the summer before Markel was killed, in the midst of Markel’s bitter divorce from Wendi Adelson.
Two South Florida men with extensive criminal backgrounds have been charged with the murder of the popular legal scholar in the driveway of his home in July 2014, in what police say was a murder for hire.
State Attorney Willie Meggs said, however, that the speculative nature of the police evidence would make it difficult to secure a conviction or even proceed with a trial for Charlie Adelson and Katherine Magabanua, his former girlfriend. She is the mother of the children of one of the men charged in Markel’s murder.
“My opinion after reading those documents is there is no probable cause here to make an arrest,” Meggs told the Tallahassee Democrat. “We kind of believe they were involved according to the police. But what we believe and what we think doesn’t count. What evidence do we have?”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
