On Tuesday this week, we started telling the story of Dan Markell's murder and how when the courts blocked the Aedelson family's plans to move Dan and his ex-wife Wendy's kids to Miami, the Adelson family decided that if they couldn't bend the law, they just break it.

This week, the plot thickens as Charlie Aidelson takes the stand and the walls close in on the matriarch herself, Donna

Adelson. Hey guys and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a true crime podcast featuring

myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hi, Mandy. How are you? I am doing fantastic.

I'm more excited than ever to jump back into this wild story.

You know, we don't typically love to do cases in two parts, but in some cases, like, it just has to be done that way.

Right. So hopefully having to wait just a couple of days will kind of ease that pain of having it in two parts because we are here and we are ready to discuss part two.

Just as much as I'm sure people are ready to hear everything.

Absolutely. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. So in part one, we met Dan Markell. He was a brilliant

Harvard-trained law professor, a devoted father of two young boys, and a respected scholar at

Florida State University. His life seemed full of promise until his marriage to

Wendy Adelson fell apart. Their divorce in 2012 unleashed years of bitter battles over money

and custody of their two kids. Wendy's mom, Donna, was extremely vocal and very pushy when it came to

wanting Wendy and the boys to relocate from

Tallahassee down to South Florida, but the court said no.

Donna would not let this go, and she sent emails to her daughter Wendy, coaching her on how to

paint Dan as abusive and to manipulate him with religion and the children.

She even offered up to a million dollars to buy him off,

a.k.a. buy her grandkids. The hostility ran very deep. The Adelson family was absolutely

ruthless and antagonizing Dan. Donna and her son Charlie even joked about dressing Dan and Wendy's

kids as Hitler youth just to provoke Dan.

By 2014, the fighting had escalated and Dan begged the court to limit Donna's access to the kids.

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