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It was a case that many thought would baffle investigators for years. Possibly forever.
On a sunny summer morning two years ago today, prominent Florida State legal scholar Dan Markel was killed in broad daylight in his garage with two gunshots to the head.
Tallahassee Police fanned out down Trescott Drive in Betton Hills. The hope was someone saw something. Anything.
The killer left without a trace. All investigators had to go off was a metallic green Toyota Prius
a neighbor, who found Markel barely alive and called 911, saw pulling out of the driveway.
Dan Markel’s car, still parked in his Trescott Drive home’s garage, where he was found July 18, 2014 with two gunshot wounds to the head. (Photo: State Attorney’s Office)
Over the next 22 months, police released information to the public hoping to jog memories into recalling even the smallest detail that could lead investigators to Markel’s killer.
Then the break. In late May, the case erupted in a flood of details with the arrest of two men and police for the first time calling Markel’s killing a murder for hire.
On May 26, 34-year-old Sigfredo Garcia was picked up near his home in Miami Beach in a swarm of federal, state and local police.
But investigators remained
mum
about his possible connections
to Markel’s killing almost two years earlier.
Buy PhotoTallahassee Police Department Public Information Officer David Northway reveals an image of Sigfredo Garcia, 34, during a press conference Thursday at the TPD station. Garcia was arrested in Broward County Wednesday, in connection with the July 2014 shooting death of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel. (Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)
TPD legal officials had argued successfully to have Garcia’s arrest affidavit sealed from the public. They were concerned other wealthy co-defendants would flee
if details of the case were released.
But once he was transported to Leon County, documents were released containing details that connected the family of Markel’s ex-wife to his murder and also revealed a rift between State Attorney’s Office investigators and police.
The documents named a second suspect, 33-year-old Luis Rivera , a Miami leader in the national gang syndicate the Latin Kings serving a 12-year sentence for a racketeering conviction.
He and Garcia were indicted on first-degree murder charges in mid-June. The state is seeking the death penalty for both men.
Read more: Garcia’s attorney maintains his innocence
The motive for Markel’s murder, court documents say, “stemmed from the desperate desire” of the family of his ex-wife Wendi Adelson to allow the couple’s two young sons to move to South Florida.
Documents implicate Adelson’s mother Donna Adelson and brother Charlie Adelson as co-defendants in the plot. Police say more arrests are expected.
Wendi Adelson and Markel had an acrimonious divorce and the two sparred until he was slain.
Wendi Adelson’s attorney is questioning the credibility of a statement prosecutors say could implicate her in the murder-for-hire plot of her ex-husband Dan Markel. (Photo: File photo)
They fought in court filings over furniture, financial disclosures, family heirlooms and visitation times.
Markel sought to limit the children’s unsupervised time with Adelson’s mother.
Both Charles Adelson and Donna Adelson work at the family’s South Florida dental office. Charlie Adelson’s attorney maintains he was in no way involved in the murder plot.
The link between Markel, the Adelson family and the two alleged hitmen, prosecutors say, is Katherine Magbanua, a woman who worked in the Adelson’s dental office and is a former girlfriend of Charlie Adelson.
She is also the mother of two of Garcia’s children and in late June was named as a suspect.
She was one of Charles Adelson’s top cell phone contacts around the time Markel was killed and was the first person Garcia called after the murder.
Police say email evidence indicated Adelson’s parents, particularly her mother Donna Adelson, wanted her daughter to “coerce” Markel into allowing the boys to move to South Florida.
Rivera and Garcia were “enlisted” to kill Markel, court records say. Investigators say the two men drove from Miami in the rented Prius two days before the killing and stayed in a series of hotel rooms.
The day Markel was shot, they followed him around Tallahassee as he dropped his kids off at daycare and went to the gym before following him home and shooting him, prosecutors say.
In an interview with police, Rivera denied ever being in Tallahassee but changed his story when presented a photo of he and Garcia in the Prius suspected of being at the scene.
He said they were in town to check out FSU’s campus.
Luis Rivera, driving, and Sigfredo Garcia are captured on ATM security footage in Miami the day Dan Markel was killed. (Photo: State Attorney’s Office)
Garcia pleaded not guilty to the murder
and is being represented by Saam Zengeneh, a Miami attorney who represented convicted murderer Derek Medina, dubbed the Facebook killer after he posted photos of his wife’s slain body online.
Monticello attorneys David and Chuck Collins have been appointed to represent Rivera, who was transported to Tallahassee at the end of June.
Chuck Collins called prosecutors’ case circumstantial.
“We have a homicide, obviously,” he said. “But other than cell phone records and evidence of Mr. Rivera and Garcia being in the area what other evidence do we have linking them to the homicide?
“If this is all they got, I think the state has a real problem.”
Garcia will appear in court today for a case management conference. Rivera’s next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 1.
Original Article: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/07/18/break-case/87156124/
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