TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A Broward County periodontist’s ex-girlfriend testified during his trial on Monday for the 2014 murder of a 41-year-old Florida State University law professor in Leon County.
Prosecutors accused Charlie Adelson, of the former Adelson Institute in Tamarac, of being the mastermind in the murder of Daniel Markel on July 19, 2014, in Tallahassee.
Katherine Magbanua, who was Adelson’s girlfriend in 2013, admitted in court for the first time to have connected Adelson to the hitman.
“We were at a Halloween party on Lincoln Road and right before we were about to go, he got in the car with me, and he asked me a question: ‘Do you know anybody that can harm someone?’”
Magbanua said the convicted hitman, Sigfredo Garcia, of Miami Beach, is the father of her children, and their co-conspirator, Luis “Tato” Rivera, of North Miami, was their friend. She said both got paid for the murder.
Magbanua admitted to wanting to help Adelson, of Fort Lauderdale, who she said also paid her for making the connection.
“He painted this picture that this was a terrible man and making his family go through a lot, custodywise with his sister ... that his mom hasn’t been sleeping, his mom is not eating. I know his dad wasn’t in the best health either,” Magbanua said about Adelson and his parents Donna and Harvey Adelson.
Magbanua said the payments that she received from the Adelson Institute were not for having worked there but for the murder-for-hire plot.
“He had been planting this thing in my head that, ‘This needed to get done! This needed to get done!’ I guess, probably around June-July is when he was getting a little bit more adamant about this job getting done,” Magbanua said.
Magbanua also said she passed a manila envelope to Garcia from Adelson, but neither of them knew each other’s identities.
“I believe that the truth needed to come out now so that the family can get some type of closure,” Magbanua told a prosecutor on Monday.
Adelson’s sister, Wendi Adelson, and Markel, who was born in Canada, were in the middle of a bitter dispute over the custody of their two sons when the murder happened, according to prosecutors.
Wendi Adelson filed for divorce in 2012 and moved to South Florida with their two sons. A Leon County judge denied her motion for relocation in 2013 and Markel sought to enforce the ruling in 2014, records show.
Markel had asked the court to stop Adelson’s mother, Donna Adelson, from having unsupervised time with her grandchildren to prevent her from making “disparaging remarks.”
A hearing on the issue was pending when Markel dropped off his sons at school and was killed, according to Tallahassee police.
During Magbanua’s trial, Rivera testified that he had bought the .38 revolver that Garcia used to shoot Markel in the head in Tallahassee.
Rivera, who admitted to renting and driving the getaway car, took a plea deal for second-degree murder in 2016 and was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Garcia was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2019.
Last year, Magbanua was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder. She maintained her innocence during her trial.
“I lied in my trials, to save myself,” Magbanua told a defense attorney on Monday about why she hadn’t made the disclosure before.
Charlie Adelson, who was arrested last year, is on trial for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder.
Magbanua’s appeal is pending. The court was in recess until 8:45 a.m., on Tuesday.
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