The 2014 murder of Dan Markell didn't just shot Tallahassee.

It left a hole in the heart of the city.

His name disappeared from the FSU law schedule.

His voice no longer filled the classroom,

and his boys vanished from daycare drop-off lines and soccer fields,

their jerseys no longer carrying the Markell name.

All that remained in Tallahassee was his memory and an open murder case.

But even that wouldn't stay confined for long.

As investigators traced Dan's hitman, uncovered their ties, and began making arrests. The trail stretched

south to Miami, straight into the Adelson family. To the state, it was a conspiracy, cold,

calculated, and driven by Donna herself. But that's not the story Donna would tell. She said she wasn't a mastermind at all.

She was a grandmother, a wife of more than 50 years, a woman who worked every day at the family's

dental practice, and a mother who meddled, yes, but out of love, not out of malice.

And the money, the calls, the behavior the state painted as sinister?

Donna and her defense team had explanations for all of it.

Explanations that would prove her actions had been twisted by the state and repackaged as evidence of malice.

Donna was simply a devoted mother, dragged into a nightmare she didn't create, and now blamed for choices she never made.

Two stories, two very different versions of Donna Adelson. The prosecution

says she conspired a murder. The defense says she was just an overbearing mother,

but it's the jurors who have the final say. I'm your host, Randy Churchwell, and this is 13th Your Podcast.

Today's episode is Florida versus Donna Adelson.

Part 2, The Defense.

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