This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. Here now, Tony Brewski.

I want to talk about a perspective in the Adelson case that doesn't often get a lot of attention.

Dan Markels, the victim in all of this. What was life like for him leading up to his demise what was he going through what was his

truth what was it like being the former son-in-law of Donna Adelson.

That's it we're going to examine here.

And I'd love to get your feedback and your thoughts in the comments section on YouTube.

Imagine waking up every morning knowing that the people trying to destroy you are the same ones who claim to love your children.

Think about that for a second.

That is a reality a lot of parents face,

especially after divorce.

Especially when you're dealing with narcissists.

That was Dan Markell's reality.

This wasn't just a divorce.

This was a war fought in smiles, emails, banana bread, and whispered phone calls.

The kind where the battle lines aren't drawn in courtrooms, but in living rooms and car rides,

in bedtime stories where one parent quietly poisons the image of the other.

Dan Markell was a man who believed in rules in the idea that justice, logic, and morality could actually

mean something in real life. But when it came to the Aedelson family, none of that mattered.

Or applied. Donna Aedelson, the matriarch, didn't play by rules. She wrote them or ignored them when it suited her.

Her vision for her family wasn't based on truth. It was based on control, image, status, appearances.

Those were her gods. And when her daughter, Wendy's marriage began to fracture, Donna saw Dan, not as a human

being, not as the father of her grandchildren, but as an obstacle. Dan was, by all accounts,

...