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Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

Did Donna Adelson Confess in Jail? Breaking Down The ‘Jailhouse Daughter’ Claims

Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

True Crime Today

News Commentary, True Crime, News

3.3907 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In one of the most chilling post-verdict revelations yet, we’re hearing directly from the woman Donna Adelson once called her “jailhouse daughter.”

Her name is Dina Burnernhard, and according to her testimony and a new interview with Surviving the Survivor, she spent five months locked up alongside Donna in the Leon County Jail. What she witnessed behind those walls is nothing like the frail, weeping grandmother the world saw in court.

Dina says Donna began their friendship with a powdered donut — a simple gesture that soon turned into a full-blown manipulation campaign. From there, Donna promised her money, pills, commissary, even a grand piano — all in exchange for taking the stand and lying under oath to shift blame away from Donna and toward her former co-conspirator, Katherine Magbanua.

But Dina didn’t play along. Instead, she turned over the handwritten script Donna had given her — later introduced in court as State’s Exhibit 62 — showing exactly what Donna wanted her to say.

It didn’t stop there. Dina says Donna bragged about her wealth, trashed her own son Robert for testifying, and even confided that she “did it to keep her grandkids, but it wasn’t supposed to go that far.” Those words — if true — amount to a jailhouse confession.

Dina also claims Donna spoke about faking health issues to gain sympathy, manipulating psychiatrists, and inventing assaults that never happened — all part of a long con to regain control of her narrative.

In this episode, Tony Brueski breaks down the psychology of manipulation behind bars — how Donna Adelson allegedly groomed her fellow inmate, and how Dina Burnernhard, an addict society had written off, became the unlikely truth-teller who helped expose her.

From powdered donuts to perjury scripts, this story reveals the rot beneath the polished surface of a family that once believed they were untouchable — and how power and privilege can twist into pure darkness when the walls close in.

#DonnaAdelson #DanMarkel #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #JailhouseConfession #HiddenKillersLive #TonyBrueski #PrisonManipulation #WendiAdelson #TrueCrimeCommunity


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske.

0:03.4

Here now, Tony Bruske.

0:07.0

It's a kind of evil that doesn't show its face in the usual way.

0:10.9

No mask, no gun, no blood on the hands.

0:13.0

Just a powder donut, a smile, and a plan.

0:16.3

And inside Leon County Jail, that's how it started.

0:18.9

A woman who once played domestic coordinator on Wheel of Fortune,

0:23.3

handing another inmate a single donut wrapped in toilet paper.

0:26.1

Remember, Wheel of Fortune?

0:27.7

Remember, Donna Adelson, mischief maker, was the puzzle that she solved.

0:31.9

And when asked by Pat Sayjack, what are you, Donna?

0:34.7

I'm a domestic coordinator.

0:37.2

Even then.

0:38.7

Who?

0:39.8

Really trying to make things sound bigger and better than they actually are.

0:45.2

This is the pathology of Donna Adelson.

0:49.4

And in that tiny gesture, it said, I can give you what you need. That's how Donna Edelson introduced

0:57.1

herself to the woman she would soon call her jailhouse daughter. Dina Bernhardt is her name,

1:06.7

and Joel from over on Surviving the Survivor podcast recently had a really interesting

1:11.7

interview with her and that's what we're going to be talking about today is that conversation

1:15.8

and the revelations that were made in it and I do highly suggest going and checking out that

1:19.9

interview over on Joel's channel it is good surviving the survivor it's a very interesting

...

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