[lens whirring]
[beeping]
[tense music]
♪ ♪
AUTOMATED VOICE:
You have one unheard message.
[siren wailing]
First unheard message.
CRAIG:
What'd you hear?
- Um...
CRAIG: Yeah, there was
a sh**ting at your home,
or your ex-husband's home.
Your ex-husband,
he's not going to survive.
- [sobs]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
REPORTER: The death
of a Florida State University
law professor--
REPORTER:
Mystifying m*rder--
REPORTER:
Daniel Markel was found--
REPORTER: A mystery that
has baffled police--
REPORTER:
- shot in the head.
MYA: They just seemed like
the perfect couple.
But appearances are not
what they always seem.
PAT:
It was a bitter divorce.
And her family were
very well-to-do,
wealthy people
out of South Florida.
MYA:
They hated Danny.
They hated him.
REPORTER: Shot the father
of two trapped in his car,
bleeding.
REPORTER:
Who would do this?
PAT: There were so many
players in this investigation.
CRAIG: Wendi had
a current love interest.
MICHAEL: Charlie was c*ck
and braggadocious.
He was always
protective of Wendi.
REPORTER:
Were you involved in a plot
to k*ll your brother-in-law,
Dan Markel?
TARA:
What Katie wanted
was to provide a good life
for her kids.
PROSECUTOR:
Did you have anything to do
with the m*rder of Dan Markel?
- No, ma'am.
PAT:
I worked this case,
you know,
close to half my career.
And when you hear the story,
people would say,
ah, you're crazy,
that's not real.
CAROLYN: Well,
there's nothing normal about
any of the relationships
in this family.
ROB:
She called me and said,
I just want to let you know,
if the police come around,
don't talk to them.
- I know I'm late,
but I'm obsessed.
- This entire thing
is a disaster.
- Lock the whole family up!
♪ ♪
MYA:
People ask us all the time,
was Wendi involved?
♪ ♪
STEWART:
My name is Stewart Schlazer.
My job is a music teacher
at a high school.
I teach band and marching band
and jazz band.
And in 2014,
I was working at
the School of Arts and
Sciences in Tallahassee
when this incident happened.
[light music]
Tallahassee is kind of
a self-contained city.
It's the capital of Florida.
It's in the Bible Belt,
we call it,
but it also has
a lot of diversity,
a lot of variety of people.
There's three universities
there.
They have
a huge football program.
But also it's
a good family city.
REPORTER:
Saturday over at Child,
as the annual father-son
baseball camp--
STEWART: And so the events
the morning of July 18th
didn't seem like
the Tallahassee that I knew.
A friend of mine asked me if
I could talk to his friend,
Dan Markel, about the school
that I was teaching at,
and if it would be
a good fit for him
and his kids and his family.
And I said, sure, of course.
So I texted him.
♪ ♪
At 10:36, I received a message
saying he would
reach out soon.
And at 10:48, Dan called me.
It sounded like
he was driving in his car.
We started having our
conversation about his family
and what was going on
in his life.
It sounded like he needed
to share this information,
maybe for him
more than for me.
And then I realized he must
have stopped at his house.
And, um, he said...
Can you hold on a second?
There's an unfamiliar person
in my driveway.
[suspenseful music]
And then I heard a really
loud sound, like a loud boom.
[boom]
[line ringing]
STEWART: The operator said
an ambulance is on the way,
and I said great.
And then I went about my day.
And that was my interaction
with Dan Markel.
REPORTER: Police respond
to the sound of g*nf*re
in a quiet Tallahassee
neighborhood.
REPORTER: Markel had
a g*nsh*t wound to the head.
REPORTER: Unable to talk
as his neighbor dialed 911.
- Outside of the home
that police had taped off
early this morning.
MAN: There was an ambulance
at the residence,
and did see someone
being brought out.
♪ ♪
CRAIG: I was eating lunch
with my wife
when I got the call that
there had been a sh**ting.
When I got to the scene,
I realized that
everything about this was just
totally out of the norm.
It's 11:00 a.m. on a Friday
in a good neighborhood.
The victim was Daniel Markel,
an FSU professor
in his early 40s.
He was divorced
with two young boys.
We checked the house, but there
was no indications of a robbery
and his wallet
was still present.
♪ ♪
SHERRIE: This wasn't like
every other m*rder.
This was a prominent
law professor.
So everyone from all divisions
of criminal investigations
was out canvassing,
knocking on neighbors' doors,
trying to get witnesses.
We had witnesses
that called in,
heard the sh**ting,
what they saw, call it.
But the only lead we got came
from one of his neighbors.
He called because
he heard the g*nshots.
CRAIG:
So we had a witness,
but we didn't really have
a good starting point
as far as motive.
Nothing.
Professor Markel
is from Canada.
There was no close
next of kin in town.
- When conducting
homicide investigations,
the first person you go to
is the spouse or the person
most directly connected
to that person.
CRAIG: And that was his
ex-wife, Wendi Adelson.
♪ ♪
SHERRIE: Wendi was at lunch
with some friends,
and she was brought
into the police department
for an interview.
WENDI:
[sobbing] Oh, God.
[sniffling]
SHERRIE: During that
initial investigation,
you don't know what happened.
You don't know where
this is going to lead.
CRAIG: We're going to
help you with that.
SHERRIE: But usually,
the spouse has either
got some leads
or they were involved.
[distant sirens chirp]
CRAIG:
Daniel's been shot, okay?
And we have to find out why
and who did this.
Can you help with that?
CRAIG:
Okay.
CRAIG: Well, before we
get into everything,
I have to establish
where you were
and who you were with,
and so forth.
CRAIG:
Okay?
And then once we've
established all that,
I can give you more details.
CRAIG: Who was at your house
this morning?
Yeah, I figured--
[sniffling]
CRAIG: A guy from Best Buy
was at your house
to work on your TV?
CRAIG:
Can you tell me what time
you left your house
this morning?
CRAIG:
Okay.
CRAIG: I'm a little confused
what's your purpose
of driving down Trescott.
CRAIG: And you just drive by
your old house?
[applause]
MAN: Our second speaker
is Dan Markel.
ORLY: The tragic irony
is that before he was shot,
Dan was becoming
one of the most prominent
criminal legal scholars
in the country
and, I would say,
around the world.
- Uh, greetings, everybody.
Uh, it's an honor to be here
and share some thoughts--
ORLY:
He was a very bright thinker,
a very strong,
powerful public speaker
with a lot of ambition.
And then he becomes the subject
of a heinous crime.
I didn't quite believe it
because it sounds
so improbable.
Like,
why would a law professor,
a beloved teacher
be shot in his head?
[somber music]
PHIL: Danny was a very,
very determined individual.
His goal was to go to Harvard.
He worked hard
to get what he wanted,
so he made it into Harvard
and he graduated.
RUTH: And that was
a turning point for him.
Then he became interested
in justice, retribution,
and punishment, and so forth.
ORLY:
We met at Harvard.
Dan cared so much about being
a great teacher and a mentor.
And quite naturally, he wanted
to become a law professor.
But also,
Dan was a risk taker.
When he founded PrawfsBlawg,
it wasn't at a time where
everybody was blogging
and everybody had
social media presence.
He could rub people the wrong
way, but at the same time,
he had a very playful,
fun side.
He knew everybody,
and everybody knew him.
And I still remember when Dan
called me to tell me
that he met somebody.
[light music]
MICHAEL: I've known
the Adelson family since
I was about five and a half,
six years old.
I grew up on the same street
as Robert, Charlie,
and Wendi Adelson.
Wendi was wonderful.
She was smiling and happy.
And I would hear stories
from my mom
and from other neighborhood
kids in how she was excelling
and how talented
and smart she was,
and always the apple
of her parents' eye.
♪ ♪
For us, growing up in the
city of Coral Springs,
we were all
extraordinarily fortunate.
Wendi was a typical
young Jewish princess.
She was adored by her parents,
by her family and her friends.
And when
I was introduced to Dan
and saw the two
of them together,
they seemed to
truly be in love
and enjoy
each other's company.
- Dan met Wendi on Jdate,
a dating platform
mainly for people
in the Jewish faith.
She had been valedictorian
and she was becoming
an attorney.
- They were very happy times.
He was a prize.
He really was a prize.
ORLY: He was just really giddy
and proud of meeting
his future life partner, so
he announced it on PrawfsBlawg.
They had an announcement in
The New York Times about it.
LINDA: Gene and I
were at the wedding.
Seemed to be a very
happy time for everybody.
They were in love.
You know, that's what
weddings are about.
ORLY: When Dan got the
position at Florida State
in Tallahassee,
he felt a little alone
because he was Canadian.
He wasn't from Florida.
His family was far away
in Canada.
But Dan and Wendi
talked about how this was
a really lovely town
that was safe,
somewhere they could
know their neighbors
and have good schools
for their kids.
RUTH: As proud as I am of
his academic achievements,
his world achievements,
I was the proudest of him
as a father.
PHIL:
He was exceptional.
He'd be on the floor
playing with them.
He'd be swimming with them.
He was always very,
very interactive with the kids
in everything that they did.
- They coined their family
the Bears.
And so Wendi was Mama Bear,
he was Daddy Bear,
and then the cubs
were their two kids.
I remember when they
invited us to dinner.
ALEX: We were going probably
through what most marriages do
with young kids,
and you're working through
all these little things
and frustrations.
And we get there, and they're,
like, on top of the world.
- We left very insecure.
Literally, we got in the car
and looked at each other
and was like,
what is wrong with us?
But appearances are not
what they always seem.
ORLY:
I think there may have been
a sense that there
was something of a gap
in their academic path.
Wendi had been a law student
at University of Miami.
There was a perception that
Wendi was the trailing spouse,
that she had received
her clinical position
thanks to the recruitment
of Dan.
♪ ♪
MYA: They had their kids
very close together.
I mean, less than
a year and a half apart.
And I think Wendi struggled
after that,
with two small children
at home.
ORLY: There was maybe
some bickering
about Dan traveling too much
to New York,
uh, because he had taken a gig
to do some teaching there.
MYA: She did want
to move to Miami
to be closer with her parents.
He was happy.
He loved Wendi.
He loved the boys.
But I don't think he knew
how unhappy she really was.
♪ ♪
ALEX: I was at synagogue
one Saturday,
talking with Danny
after services,
and he told me
what had happened.
What did he call it,
his Pearl Harbor?
Yeah.
He was out of town
at a conference,
and she called him
and said,
I don't want to be
married anymore.
He immediately got on a plane
and came back home,
and Wendi had left.
- Wendi had taken his kids,
herself, most of the things,
and he did not know
where they were.
MYA: They had bought a
dining room table and chairs,
and she took half the chairs.
But also, she left
the divorce papers on the bed.
♪ ♪
I think he was just very hurt.
ALEX: I don't think
he was prepared for that.
- He said to me that
he was in a state of shock
and also in a state
of a lot of fear because
he did not know
where his kids were.
♪ ♪
And then Dan learned that
it was really her family
that were helping her
disappear.
And so I think that was
the moment that he understood
that it's, like,
her and her family
in the battle against him,
and that it's not going to be
a fair game.
- I think that was when
he realized
it was time for him
to get a lawyer.
Wendi applied for
a relocation order
to move the boys
to South Florida
to be closer with her parents,
and Danny blocked it.
So basically, that made Wendi
stuck in Tallahassee.
- And her family didn't like
him for--for that reason,
but I think
he was fine with that.
♪ ♪
MYA: When we heard
Danny had been shot,
I thought somehow
that Wendi's family
had to be involved with this.
I--I just could not
wrap my brain around
anybody else that would
want to k*ll Danny.
[tense music]
REPORTER:
Friends and family gathered
at Congregation Shomrei Torah
today
to remember
FSU law professor Dan Markel.
Many that knew Markel say
he will live on through
the people and community
members that he's touched.
CRAIG: Dan Markel passed away
early Saturday morning
from his traumatic head
injuries from the sh**ting.
And conforming with
the Jewish religion,
his memorial service
was the next day.
I attended somewhat
for protection,
in case there was a threat
to Wendi or the children,
But also to observe other
members of the family,
hers and Dan's.
MYA: There was a lot
of people there.
There was also
television crews present.
So when Wendi walked in
with her parents,
I was shocked that they came,
to be honest.
They lived in South Florida,
and they hated Danny.
Not just dislike,
but they hated him
because of how contentious
their divorce was.
ALEX:
At the memorial, though,
that's when I had
that kind of thought that,
wow, maybe, you know?
- Like, someone connected
to Wendi.
- But then you go, surely not.
That's insane.
CRAIG:
At the end of the service,
Wendi's mother, Donna Adelson,
introduced herself.
She wanted to talk about
any developments in the case.
She tried to get her husband
to come over, Harvey.
It appeared like he was not
real anxious to come meet me.
And I said, well,
I'd like to go ahead
and interview you all.
And she goes, okay,
I got your card.
I'll let you know.
But I didn't hear
from them at all.
♪ ♪
[line ringing]
The next day,
I called Wendi's phone.
It sounded like
she was driving.
I asked her something, and
she goes, you're breaking up.
I can't--I can't--I can't
understand what you're saying.
I felt like it was a ruse
because I could hear her
just fine.
I said, Ms. Adelson,
can you hear me okay?
And she goes, no,
and she hung up.
[line clicks and beeps]
Within just a couple minutes,
I get a phone call
from her attorney.
And he goes, well, if you want
to try to contact Wendi,
you need to go through me.
They're on the way
to South Florida
with her parents right now.
And I thought to myself, well,
she didn't waste any time.
This was a victim
that was well-respected.
He was known nationally.
And his ex-wife
and the children were gone.
So that's when we got
the FBI involved.
[dramatic music]
PAT: I was in the FBI
for almost 27 years.
And during my career,
I've worked
a wide variety of cases,
everything from gangs
to drug smuggling,
cyber criminals
to human trafficking.
But this case presented
a bigger challenge.
I worked this case, you know,
close to half of my career.
This is the first time
I've talked about it.
When I first got involved,
we had to fan out
and cover a lot of ground.
INTERVIEWER:
I'm Investigator Cherry.
Thanks for being here.
- Yeah.
INTERVIEWER:
This is Investigator Isom.
He's the lead investigator.
- Hi.
- Alex Greenberg.
INTERVIEWER: Alex.
CRAIG:
The interviews provided
a lot of background
information,
and it became very apparent
that there was a lot
of different possibilities
for motive.
- I have heard from
other people that
he is kind of
a hard-a*s professor.
- He was kind of one of the
pioneers on social media,
and was kind of
out there blogging.
- That case that he had
going on in New York,
he was excited about
working on that.
REPORTER: This was someone
who was specifically targeted.
And that's a really
important clue.
REPORTER: And that's why
they start to focus on
everyone who might
have known the professor.
ORLY: There were a lot of
rumors floating around
that were each scary
in its own way.
STEWART: The internet
has all these theories.
I think people like a puzzle.
People want answers.
REPORTER: Could it have
been someone associated with
or commenting on his blog?
- On this blog,
we found some threats
made to Professor Markel.
ORLY: I remember being
quite worried that maybe
somebody is just targeting
law professors on the blog.
Maybe this is a disgruntled
former student
who got a bad grade.
JENNIFER: There could
be other people who had
an ax to grind with him.
He did some work for some
Jewish rabbis in New York.
REPORTER: Three local rabbis
accused of plotting to kidnap
and t*rture a man because
he wouldn't allow his wife
to get a divorce.
PAT: The rabbi case, they
called it the Prod Father,
because I guess
he used a cattle prod
to coerce his subjects
to get them to give
the divorce, basically.
Dan Markel apparently
represented
one of the individuals
in this case,
and maybe those people
didn't want
Professor Markel
to be involved.
CRAIG: You've got to
chase everything down.
And you work just as hard
whether you're going
to eliminate someone
or find probable cause
to get them arrested.
♪ ♪
During the interview
with Wendi,
another name that came up
was Jeff Lacasse,
Wendi's current love interest.
It had gotten pretty serious,
but she had asked for time off
from the relationship
recently.
INTERVIEWER:
Yeah, it's on the record.
INTERVIEWER:
No, it's possible.
INTERVIEWER:
Sure.
INTERVIEWER:
Wait, what was that?
[ominous music]
CREW: Carolyn interview,
take 1 common marker.
- Welcome back to
Moms for Justice.
I am Carolyn, and thank you
for joining me today.
This case fascinated
the whole world.
It really has.
It's captivated people.
- This case is one
of the craziest cases
I think we've ever covered.
- My head is spinning around.
- I hope you're
paying attention
to this scintillating case.
- My obsession
with this case began
when I heard Wendi Adelson's
interview with the police.
CRAIG:
Right.
CAROLYN: There's been
a lot of theories.
My viewers on my podcast,
we've got tons of theories.
INTERVIEWER:
All right, Mr. Lacasse,
I appreciate you coming in
and talking with me here.
We're still in the preliminary
stages of this investigation.
- Yes.
INTERVIEWER:
Your name did come up--
- Of course.
INTERVIEWER:--because
you were associated
at some point with Wendi--
- Of course.
INTERVIEWER:
- which is his ex-wife.
CAROLYN: Oh, gosh, I could go
on forever about Jeff Lacasse.
Usually, the ex-boyfriend
is the first person
that you look at,
so I don't blame them
for maybe being a little
suspicious at first.
INTERVIEWER:
Right.
CRAIG:
It is kind of odd that
he did somewhat
remind me of a photograph
that I'd seen of Dan Markel.
INTERVIEWER: You know that her
ex-husband has been m*rder*d?
INTERVIEWER:
And you've never had
any kind of physical
contact with Danny?
INTERVIEWER: Who do you think
is involved in this?
You know some of the
background, I'm sure, by now.
CRAIG: I think Jeff
was very nervous.
He was definitely uneasy
the whole time.
So we didn't rule out
anybody to begin with.
INTERVIEWER:
Here's the thing, Jeff.
I mean,
we're outsiders looking in.
- Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: So any kind
of insider perspective
that you would have,
I--I--I welcome to hear.
- Yeah, um...
PAT: Wendi had already
relocated to South Florida
that first week
after the homicide,
and she was a person
of interest, of course.
I had mixed feelings
about her interview.
Some of it she seemed
to be somewhat genuine,
and some of it she seemed
to be overacting.
CRAIG:
I know it's cold in here.
- Okay,
I know it's part of it--
SHERRIE:
During that interview,
we had what we call
a monitor room,
so we were able to kind of
sit and watch her reactions
and see kind of
what's going on.
CRAIG: No, they haven't
been notified yet.
SHERRIE:
She appeared very upset,
I think maybe in shock
some too.
It felt like it was
overdramatic sometimes.
- [sobbing]
CRAIG: To me, Wendi's tears,
her expressions,
her demeanor,
everything seemed genuine.
CRAIG: Now, just don't jump
to conclusions on that.
CAROLYN: I think that she
is doing her very best
to put on
the grieving ex-wife,
acting as if
she is genuinely upset.
- Would you ever ask someone
to do something like this?
[dramatic music]
CRAIG: She may have put on
an Academy Award performance,
but I didn't consider her
a suspect.
She didn't know who.
She didn't know why
this incident happened.
But she did make comments
that obviously have stuck
with a lot of people.
[tense music]
PAT:
To understand what happened
on that Friday
of the sh**ting,
we knew we had to go back
and try to build a timeline
of before and after
the homicide had occurred.
CRAIG: We went back
through the interviews
to retrace Dan's movements
on Friday, the 18th of July.
♪ ♪
CRAIG: We know that
he dropped off the children
to the preschool at 8:50.
Then he checked in
at the Premier Gym
at 9:13.
Here's Dan pulling into
the parking lot.
Then we see him on video
inside the gym.
PAT: Right after the sh**ting,
a neighbor of Dan Markel's
described what
he believed to be
a green
or silver-looking Prius
backing out of the driveway
very rapidly.
[ominous music]
CRAIG:
Lo and behold,
here's this
light green to silver Prius
in the parking lot.
PAT: The vehicle was there
in the parking lot
for an hour and a half,
and drove around
the parking lot
a few different places.
What was really odd was that
nobody ever exited the vehicle.
CRAIG: At one point,
it almost got backed into
by a car leaving.
And then when Dan leaves
in his car,
the Prius follows.
PAT:
To then think about
these were his last moments
that morning.
He had no idea
what was coming.
Tracking down that vehicle,
in my mind,
is going to lead us
to the k*ller.
♪ ♪
But the surveillance video
at the gym was so distorted,
there's no way possible
to pull out the tag.
- That's when
a brilliant investigator
came up with the idea,
check the city bus
camera system.
PAT: Everywhere we knew
Professor Markel was
and this green Prius was,
we pulled out footage
from the buses
that were scheduled
to be on those routes
at those particular times.
And from the bus video,
we can see Mr. Markel
makes it past the interstate,
but the Prius gets stopped
at a red light.
And then the bus pulls
right up behind it.
And we thought that
was going to be it.
- There's the car, the tag.
We got it.
Unfortunately, the camera
system that the buses use
does not give good clarity.
PAT: We sent it off,
had FBI experts
analyze it, enhance it.
- But everything
that was tried, failed.
PAT: The only thing
we could really say for sure
is that it appeared
to be a Florida tag.
CRAIG:
It was very frustrating.
We have all this video and
can't do a thing with it.
PAT: But then
right after the m*rder,
the Prius is leaving
the crime scene.
It pulls up next to a city bus.
And we could see these
two people in the vehicle.
And then on
the front windshield,
there was a white square
at the top.
It appeared to be
a Florida SunPass.
- A device that allows you
to go through toll stations.
They're very common
in South Florida,
very rare in North Florida.
So the first question
in my mind is,
why would these two
drive 500 miles up here
from South Florida
to execute a law professor?
PAT:
It was obvious to us that
this wasn't just
a crime of passion.
This was something
that was planned.
The weapon used in this crime
was a revolver,
which is pretty smart because
they're not leaving behind
a shell casing.
And the fact that
it happened in his driveway,
where they didn't even
have to go inside the house
and leave DNA evidence
or leave fingerprints,
showed that they had
thought this through
and planned it out.
CRAIG:
They didn't see Dan turn
to get into his neighborhood
because they got caught
at the light.
So they knew where
they were going
because they knew
where he lived.
♪ ♪
PAT: In the neighborhood
that Mr. Markel lived in,
most people wouldn't
think twice about a Prius.
I thought it was pretty
brilliant, actually.
It blended in
the neighborhood too well.
So putting
the evidence together,
it appears to us
that this could
be a potential
professional hit,
professional assassination.
And if this was a hit,
we need to find out
who was on the other side
of things.
Who ordered a hit
on Professor Markel?
♪ ♪
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- You know,
shortly after the m*rder--
I don't remember
exactly how much time--
the Adelsons sold their house
and left the neighborhood
without mentioning it
to anybody.
- We never even saw
a moving truck.
[chuckles]
They were just gone.
♪ ♪
I think that
Harvey and Donna did that
because they just didn't want
to talk about what happened.
Having to relive that
over and over again,
it's just too hard for them.
GENE: They sold their house
at least
25%, 30% below market value
in a hurry.
I suppose
I thought that perhaps
there was something else going
on that nobody knew about.
♪ ♪
PAT: When you're dealing
with a m*rder for hire,
one way to prove the case
is to follow the money.
Find out who had
the financial means
to do something like this,
to pay somebody
to come do something like this.
So we looked initially at the
Adelson family pretty hard.
They have a lot of accounts.
They have a lot of properties.
They have a lot of money flow.
And they had a lot of issues
with Dan Markel.
CAROLYN: This looks like
the American dream.
Smiling, all happy.
They look like
they all get along
and they're just
a great family.
That's what--
it just looks picture perfect.
This is what
success looks like.
But something's
not right there.
[dramatic music]
- Wendi's parents are
Harvey and Donna Adelson.
MICHAEL: Harvey was
the patriarch of the family.
He was very successful.
He was a dentist locally.
And he owned
the dental practice
that Donna and Charlie
worked for.
CAROLYN:
So this is Donna Adelson
when she was working
at the Adelson Institute.
At the time, she was acting
as a manager in the office
and pretty much knew
all the employees
and everybody who came
and went, the patients.
- The middle son, Charlie,
was a traveling periodontist
and was associated with
his dad's dental practice
in South Florida.
MICHAEL: Wendi and Charlie
were always very close.
They went to middle school
and high school together,
and Charlie was always
protective of Wendi.
It's very obvious
who the favorite kids
in the Adelson household were.
It was always
Charlie or Wendi.
Robert,
despite being the eldest,
was never the favorite child
in that house.
And it was evident to anybody
who came into the house.
PAT: What we'd heard
was Rob Adelson,
the third sibling
out of the family,
was somewhat estranged
from the family.
He had his own personal issues
with his mom
that had gone through things,
and they were not close.
I sent agents
in Albany, New York,
to go and interview him
and find out his background,
find out where he had been all
around the time of the murders.
He was very cooperative and
told the agents what he knew.
He didn't have that close
of a relationship
with the family at the time,
but he didn't think
there was any way
that they would have
done something like this.
A couple weeks later, he told
us he had spoke to his mom.
His mom had basically
told him, hey,
if the police come and talk
to you, don't talk to them.
He's like,
I already talked to the FBI.
They already came out here
and talked.
And she said,
well, don't worry about it,
you don't know anything
anyway.
And he thought that was
really kind of strange.
PAT: You know,
I told you back then,
I was like,
I hope you can help me
prove that they didn't do it,
that somebody else did this.
That would be great,
if, you know,
I was able to, you know,
take that off of your plate.
♪ ♪
PAT: Rob provided us
with valuable information
about his family,
a lot of inside information
on how the family operated
and updates on what
family members were doing.
So right after the m*rder,
Donna and Harvey moved
to South Beach in Miami.
We knew they lived
in this high-rise,
multi-million-dollar
condominium
right on the water.
A lot of people with money
live in this condominium,
so it's got high security
on it.
They definitely had the means
to pay for a hit,
and they definitely
had the motive.
Wendi was trying to
move to South Florida
at the time of the divorce.
And that's exactly
what happened after the m*rder.
Wendi was living in
the same condominium complex
as her parents.
So we ended up getting some
financial records to find out,
hey, was there any
large sums of money
that were taken out
to pay for a hit.
But there was nothing
that stood out.
There's nothing that
we could latch on to
to show
they were involved in this
up until the point
we started really heavily
looking at cell phones
that were in the area
of Professor Markel
the same day of the homicide.
There was one phone in
particular that had popped up.
It was a burner phone, but
it had a South Florida number.
It was the same place
where the Prius is from.
And there was one
short, short phone call
to the Adelsons.
[dramatic music]
That was the big break in the
case that we were looking for.
But I had no idea
that it would take 11 years
just to get to the people
who caused this.
- If you told me this story,
I would not believe it.
CALLER: She's wearing
a red top, blond hair.
- I thought,
this can't be right.
MICHAEL: How could you get
to this point?
It just doesn't make any sense.
CAROLYN: You don't even
see this stuff in movies.
♪ ♪
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