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Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

Full FBI Behavioral Breakdown of Donna Adelson — Robin Dreeke Interview

Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

True Crime Today

True Crime, News, News Commentary

3.3907 Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Full FBI Behavioral Breakdown of Donna Adelson — Robin Dreeke Interview

This is the full story of Donna Adelson’s unraveling—told through behavior, psychology, and decades of emotional control. In this complete interview with retired FBI Special Agent Robin Dreeke, we examine every layer of the Adelson family: the cold reaction to the undercover bump, the manipulation of her children, the narcissistic courtroom performance, and the chilling codependence with Charlie Adelson.

This isn’t just a recap—it’s a behavioral autopsy.

Robin breaks down what law enforcement saw in Donna that the public is only beginning to understand: a woman whose reactions betray her, whose family is programmed to obey, and whose carefully crafted identity is crumbling under the weight of exposure.

We explore the signs of narcissism, the psychological tools she used to control her kids, and why the jury might be seeing through all of it.

You’ll hear the whole arc—from the moment Donna didn’t panic, to the moment her children started to turn.

This is the Hidden Killers exclusive everyone’s talking about. Full interview. Full breakdown. No fluff.

Subscribe now for more expert-led deep dives into today’s most complex true crime cases.

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#DonnaAdelson #DanMarkel #FBIExpert #RobinDreeke #TrueCrimeToday #HiddenKillers #FamilyManipulation #BehavioralAnalysis #Narcissism #CharlieAdelson

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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

0:06.4

Donna Aitleson, there's a lot to break down. And today we got Robin Drake retired FBI special agent,

0:12.6

former chief of the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program with us to do just that.

0:17.9

And there's been so many things in this trial. This has been a trial that's totally

0:22.7

been about behavior. So let's start with the moment that crack the case wide open. April 19th,

0:30.1

2016, the undercover bump operation, where a agent dropped a flyer into Donna Edelson's lap implying someone knew about

0:40.8

the hit on Dan Markell. Now, if you know nothing about what's going on, you would be,

0:46.4

what is this weird piece of paper? Is this like a hit? Is this like a club event tonight? Is

0:51.8

the fitty set going to be into club? I'm an old woman. This is not

0:56.3

for me. No, this is very specific about that hit, and she seems to know something about it.

1:02.5

So much so that just 22 minutes later, she's on the phone with her son, Charlie. Not a shred

1:07.6

of panic in her voice, no confusion, no instinct to call her husband or an attorney, just straight to Charlie.

1:14.6

That behavior isn't a little bit suspicious.

1:16.5

It seems a little calculated.

1:17.8

And when you line it up here with Robin's world of behavioral pattern analysis, what Donna didn't say might be louder than anything she actually did say.

1:27.2

So we're going to dig into this right now.

1:30.0

Robin, let's start with all this.

1:31.8

What behavioral red flags go up for you when someone receives a threatening message

1:37.5

and immediately makes a controlled almost business-like call not to law enforcement

1:43.1

but to the very family member that is

1:46.0

implied to be part in this mini cabal of taking out the ex-son-in-law.

1:55.4

Yeah, so when we're looking at human behavior, what we're always doing is we're looking at, and as I've said

...

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