An interesting synchronicity that several true crime personalities are flat out ignoring: just last week, in Tallahassee, FL, one Charles Adelson was finally put on trial in the murder of his former brother in law, Dan Markel, a professor at FSU and celebrated legal mind. The state rested its case on Wednesday November 1, throughout the time I’ve spent posting on this. Markel was only 41 when he was shot in his car as he was trying to leave his own damn home in the summer of 2014. Probably to go pick up his children he was desperately fighting for in a wacky custody battle with his ex wife, Wendi Adelson, and her parents, but mostly her mother, Donna.

It’s taken nine years of legal maneuvering to secure an indictment against Charles. He was arrested last year and denied bond which is not nothing for a periodontist earning seven figures a year in South Florida, where he and his other immediate family members are based. Three other conspirators have been tried and convicted since the crime occurred. The state’s theory is that Charles enlisted the help of his ex girlfriend Katherine Magbanua who hired the father of her children and on and off “common law husband”, Sigfredo Garcia, who then brought along his brother-in-arms Luis Rivera to do the job. They rented a car in Miami, headed north, surveilled Markel twice, and took his life for the total price of $100,000. Magbanua, however, was able to secure years of payments beyond that. The state has made up some movie plot fantasy of Garcia and Rivera being part of the “Latin Kings” gang, but it may be strategic. The Adelsons seem to be so delusional as to pretend they’re “making” people, as if mafiosos rake in a whopping $2m in revenue yearly, but really it’s just some guys trying to survive who had a little more dignity before they were caught up in this mess.

Through the state’s evidence, Donna and Charles, and then Charles and Magbanua, appear to have spoken in code as the heat got hotter on them, and Charles was very skilled at creating distance between himself, his sister, and mother and the hired hitmen if the allegations are true. I think they are; I’m convinced based on circumstantial evidence that’s come to light in the years I’ve followed it, but it is not beyond a reasonable doubt. Magbanua, currently serving life without parole for Markel’s murder after being offered immunity for flipping on Charles, was ostensibly a terrible witness for the state. Defense attorney Daniel Rashbaum handily impeached her through additional witness testimony on cross. That said, she’s subject to recall by the state (ed. Nov 1: the state rested today; I don’t know the rules for rebuttal cases in Florida) and Rashbaum’s tactics could backfire, forcing Charles to the stand based on possibly incriminating audio and video evidence introduced on Tuesday (ed. Nov 1: he’s going to testify, dear god. Narcissists can’t resist). It took years to develop as clarifying technology has progressed, so the story goes, and the principals were careful to meet in busy public places to discuss business. Sitting next to a waterfall structure during a meeting in public was a clever one, I gotta give em that. The overall audio quality still sucks all these years later, and good lord I hope Rashbaum introduces some at least competent experts to counter this witchcraft for their case in chief (ed. Nov 1: doesn’t appear so. He called Wendi’s former divorce attorney as their first witness. Shady as hell and claims to have requested dismissal out of her ethical standards. I don’t think so. Charles is slated to take the stand on Thursday, November 2.) The state of Florida is very aware of the limitations of the direct evidence and had the audacity to speak to the jury like they are adults who have the ability to make independent decisions. Which is always surprising to me since that at every other fucking turn they and their private busineSS partners take in ruling us down to what we put into our bodies, they insist we are incapable. Nonetheless, the prosecutors executed their opening with Shakespearian flair.

Donna, the mother, came through as an absolute horror show on audio. And there are all kinds of stereotypes to apply: the overbearing mother, the Jewish American Princess Wendi who has been trained as the extension of Donna, Chas the prince who could do no wrong, and really, what’s so wrong with making a lot of money and fucking a rotation of broads one can keep as friends? Not least, Harvey the absentee patriarch who is happy to put on a hat sometimes and do a dance. But none of this specific to Jews. It’s narcissism and entitlement on steroids and it’s very american, very settler and colonist even through family relationships with each other. The difference is now it’s acceptable to absolve white supremacism through what is known as jewishness to a genocidal degree. This is how it works ideologically: after years of coverage making note of the Adelsons and the Markels both being jewish families, the personas that have proliferated from central casting aren’t going to touch this one, because they are ignorant of antisemitism in all its iterations and “understand the assignment”. It might be a “bad look” right now.

In their divorce pleadings, Markel claimed that Wendi stole his family’s “Holocaust diamond”, the only piece of wealth his ancestors were able to retain as some fled to Canada from Poland. She is an unindicted co-conspirator for now and I have no idea if a superseding indictment would mean anything. She is the really sweet and helpless one, maybe. The most infantilized and cunning, probably. It’s clear she also communicated in code with Donna and Charles regarding her television gifted by Charles for her “divorce gift” standing in as the hit on Markel, and this is one of the things the state explicitly asked the jury to “read”. It needed repair, the name on the warranty was disputed, she had appointments. Etc, it’s really so terrible. But if the hours of recordings the authorities captured between Charles and Magbanua prove anything, it’s how they enjoyed hearing themselves talk and being clever. It was just the worst plan for getting away with murder, ever. Though they did come close, and made a lot of good tactical decisions, but the long game was probably the view of the state all along. Eh, you know, maybe it will work out – I really can’t believe they rested today, apparently representing thousands of hours of work and millions in expenses in about a business week. There is still cross, unless someone’s feet get cold about their decision overnight, and I would guess that Charles thinks he can seduce Georgia Cappleman, the state’s attorney. She has been working the case from the start and I imagine he’s dying to impress her, or like with Wendi who casts a somewhat similar visage, tell her why she is mostly wrong and he knows exactly what’s best for her.

There is some absolute hilarity to the thing – Donna is never, never, ever responsible. For anything. She just wants what’s best for everyone, is that really too much to ask? She sounds like she is constantly talking through eating spoonfuls of peanut butter in wire taps, and she and Charles would absolutely shred Wendi to pieces in their discussions of what she’s done wrong (the poor thing, she’s still not a has-been divorcee at 37 with two children, whose father we conspired to kill. Charles wouldn’t want to tap something like that, he’s just saying). I’ve never had someone talk to me about anyone else so negatively, with such open intent of betrayal. In other words, some of this stuff is very textbook manipulation and you have to stop that shit the minute you smell it. That kind of back channelling can obviously go to dark places. Lots of stuff festers, just within oneself, and people learn to hear what they want to hear from such manipulators and abusers.

This does make Wendi seem delusional and perhaps unstable even if she was acting as a knowing conspirator. Discussions on “TV repair” occurred the same day Markel was killed, and she went out of her way to drive by his home on an errand. She saw crime scene banner taping off the street, but thought it was due to electrical storms or whatever, not much thought given! Yeah, ‘k. She wore this ridiculous owl “secret society” t-shirt to her initial police interview, seemed like such a troll, but then publicly vomited at what was deemed the “celebration dinner” with the fam, after weeks if not months of not leaving her house. I guess actually going through with the murder of your children’s father can have that effect.

The “celebration dinner” has been a consistent accusation lodged by her ex-boyfriend just post divorce, Jeffrey Lacasse, another professor. If you happen to look up this story for yourself, it could be surmised that Wendi has a “type”. Or maybe not – the way the evidence unfolded it seems she was intent on using him as a backup patsy, seemingly attempting to make the murder coincide with an out of state business trip Lacasse had planned weeks in advance. Luckily for him, his spidey senses were tingling from her hot and cold nature, and he took off a night early. He might not have been so easily cleared had he not. Though he could be read as kind of “squirrelly”, his story has remained the same. And I know I would be properly freaked out having been so close to such depravity and danger, especially as the cases have grinded on for years.

And speaking of years, their children have now had their entire childhood eaten up by confusion and varying levels of violence from the immediate indoctrination into pathological narcissism to their father being shot blocks away after dropping them off at daycare. How utterly impossible to make sense of from an early age – to probably have known of the presence the Holocaust on their father’s side in their lives very early on, expressed by him in some way, only to have that figure stolen from you as well, by someone most of our shiny happy inclusive society insists is one of “his own”. It’s very cold and tragic, and the Adelsons are seeing this play out now for the world to see in greater detail, how humiliating. I don’t know for how much longer Wendi can keep up with the denials. Donna “joked” at one point that she could really stick it to Markel by threatening to baptize the children, perhaps dressing them as nazis if that’s what it took. Extremely toxic, radioactive in fact, and low, low, low.

If I took all the zio clingers phantom fears seriously, like there is some spiritual homeland they have no other attachment to other than what they feel but have in no way endured in their entire lifetimes and it’s “under attack”, then I would suggest seriously questioning what is going on “spiritually” here. Personally, I don’t think that fucking matters a whole lot the way it’s usually intended by every microflavor of failed christian/hungover nuathiest “subversive” whose current, “vital” efforts would best be spent writing to the UN. The type of social dysfunction that both caused and emerged from the sadistic attack on Dan Markel is not specific to any one practice or ethnic origin, and it sure as hell isn’t conducive to further survival for anyone.