Donna Adelson Courtroom Shock: Wendy Confirms She Cut Ties With Mom In 2023
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.3 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a stunning moment of courtroom testimony, Wendy Adelson revealed that she has not spoken to her mother, Donna Adelson, since November 2023 — and the reason why has everything to do with the pressure and control that has defined the Adelson family dynamic.
Wendy testified that during their last conversation, Donna urged her to be supportive of her brother Charlie Adelson on the stand. But after Wendy’s appearance in court, Donna was “devastated,” feeling her daughter hadn’t been loyal enough. Since then, Wendy says there has been no contact between mother and daughter — a shocking admission in a family that once presented itself as tightly bound together.
This revelation adds a new dimension to the prosecution’s case, which has long argued that the Adelson family acted as a unit in the years leading up to the 2014 murder of law professor Dan Markel. Donna was portrayed in testimony as the driving force behind Wendy’s relocation battle, the person who described Tallahassee as a “prison,” and the one who viewed relocation as a “life and death proposition.”
For jurors, Wendy’s testimony suggests not only the deep rift inside the Adelson household but also raises questions about loyalty, control, and motive. Why would a daughter cut off contact with her mother at such a critical moment in the family’s legal battles? Was it guilt, defiance, or self-preservation?
Wendy Adelson’s words paint a picture of a once-controlling matriarch now estranged from her own child — and a family fractured under the weight of secrets, lies, and a murder that has haunted them for more than a decade.
This moment is about more than testimony — it’s about the unraveling of the Adelson family itself.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brewski. |
| 0:03.0 | Here now, Tony Brucey. |
| 0:06.6 | It was a dramatic day, to say the least, at the trial of Donna Adelson. |
| 0:12.0 | We're going to break down Wendy's testimony. |
| 0:14.7 | There was other testimony today that was also, wow. |
| 0:18.3 | But we're going to keep ourselves over here in the Wendy box for today and try and go through |
| 0:25.7 | what unfolded. |
| 0:27.0 | It was nothing short of explosive. |
| 0:29.2 | We are going to hear Wendy on the stand, admitting that Charlie joked about a hitman, |
| 0:36.6 | that she was on the phone with him for 18 minutes right in the window when Dan was murdered, and that the very TV tied to that hitman joke became her alibi on the morning of the killings. We'll walk through her reaction at the crime scene, the roadblock, her decision to change her children's names to Aedelson while skipping their father's funeral. |
| 0:57.5 | And her stunning admission that she hasn't spoken to her mother, Donna, since late 2023, a mother who pressured her to back Charlie and who once called relocation a manner of life and death. |
| 1:10.8 | Perhaps most dam, most damning of all, Wendy herself once pointed suspicion at her own family |
| 1:17.1 | during her police interview. |
| 1:19.3 | This is a testimony that lays bare. |
| 1:21.2 | The Adelson family dynamic where what is left of it and how far Donna's influence has |
| 1:25.8 | reached. |
| 1:26.5 | And there is a lot to unpack in all of this. |
| 1:31.9 | There are new pieces that are coming out today and that we are learning about the Aedelson family |
| 1:38.7 | and their dynamics. But let's start with a little view from the courtroom itself. |
| 1:46.2 | Let's start with taking a look specifically at Wendy's issues with Dan. |
| 1:54.9 | Keep in mind, Wendy, Wendy was saying, you know, I just, you know, I want this to be a good relationship, parenting-wise, and obviously it didn't turn out all that well. |
| 2:05.8 | This is Wendy being confronted with her own words of what she had referred to Dan about. |
... |
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