Why did the Adelsons kill Dan Markel? It's often described as a custody dispute, but there was no such dispute between Wendi and Dan. The relocation motion had been decided a year earlier. Custody was always 50-50. 1/6
Yesterday's testimony from Donna's jailhouse friend Patricia Byrd helps with the answer. Byrd testified that Donna said she committed the crime to "keep her grandkids." 2/6
Hitman Luis Rivera has consistently testified that he was told the murder was because "the lady wanted her kids back." He has assumed the lady was Wendi, but he's likely wrong about that. It makes no sense that Wendi wanted her kids "back"; she always had them. 3/6
But at the time of Dan's murder, there was a pending public hearing on Dan's motion that Donna not be allowed to have unsupervised visits with the boys -- that is, Wendi or Dan would have to be there. This was no doubt a deep narcissistic wound for Donna -- essentially, a hearing on whether or not she was a bad grandmother. She had to eliminate the threat. 4/6
Does this mean Wendi is innocent? Of course not. She was almost certainly involved and should be prosecuted. And she likely had her own reasons for thinking (stupidly and mistakenly ofc) that her life would be better without Dan. 5/6
Yes, Charlie had explored the hitman idea as much as a year earlier, but it was the rage about these recent motions in the divorce case that likely led the family to commit to going forward. And Donna -- with her own motives about her "sunshines" and her self-image as the perfect grandmother -- was driving the train. 6/6bit.ly/4mylORo
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