The Donna Adelson Trial is Underway

What this episode is about

The Donna Adelson murder trial has officially commenced, with jury selection recently completed and opening statements underway. Key points include the prosecution's focus on perceptions of murderers and the defense's argument regarding familial guilt, alongside the complicating factors of unindicted co-conspirators in the case, specifically involving Wendy Adelson and her father, Harvey A. Adelson.

Key takeaways

• In a family of alleged murderers, who's the real victim? Spoiler: It might just be the grandma.
• Being an unindicted co-conspirator means living under a perpetual cloud of 'what if?' - tough on the psyche.
• Imagine being Robert, returning to a family saga more twisted than a daytime soap opera. Plot twist: real life!
• A jailed snitch and wiretaps: the modern-day equivalent of a gossiping neighbor. Who needs reality TV?
• Donna Adlesen’s defense strategy might just hinge on one question: Can a mother’s love really cloud her judgment?

Who speaks in this episode?

• Wendy Adelson (Guest)
• Donna Adelson (Guest)
• Harvey Adelson
• Robert Adelson

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Donna Adlesen, Gabby Wendy, Harvey A Adlesen, Robert Adlesen
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Kinnerton – Charlie, Dan Markel, Katherine Magbana
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Harvey A Adlesen
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Donna Adlesen
5. 20:00 – 21:56: Dan Markel, Kinnerton – Charlie, Katherine Magbana

Notable quotes from "The Donna Adelson Trial is Underway"

• Technically, right now, Wendy and her dad, Harvey A Adlesen, are classified as unindicted co-conspirators.

  about Gabby Wendy · at 2:15

• Taps and information from a jailhouse snitch, allegedly Donna was going to set up somebody to go and intimidate or hurt her aranged son, Robert Adlesen, in order to keep him from testifying. How wild is that? Imagine Robert Adlesen.

  about Donna Adlesen · at 4:19

• And she turns to him and says, Can I tell you something confidentially? And he's Yeah, sure. And she tells him that Charlie was looking into how much it would cost to take care…

  about Kinnerton – Charlie · at 8:17

• They're going to look into us. They're going to find something and our whole family is going to go down. The fact that they thought, Yeah, we can pull this off. is just…

  about Dan Markel · at 20:14

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Donna Adlesen — Person · Primary referenced defendant · 4 mentions · first at 0:09
  Central figure discussed: her murder trial is underway and the episode reviews pre-trial events, witness issues, and alleged conduct (including intimidation attempts).
• Gabby Wendy — Person · Key referenced witness / alleged co-conspirator · 1 mention · first at 1:50
  Discussed as a potential witness subpoenaed by both sides and described as an unindicted co-conspirator; her prior statements and expected testimony are framed as pivotal.
• Kinnerton – Charlie — Person · Referenced convicted family member / expected witness · 4 mentions · first at 7:23
  Discussed as added to the witness list and as the person Wendy allegedly referenced when describing a plan/cost to ‘take care’ of Dan; also noted as previously tried and convicted.
• Dan Markel — Person · Referenced murder victim / case focal point · 2 mentions · first at 8:27
  The episode frames the entire legal saga as part of the long-running prosecution related to the murder of Dan Markell.
• Harvey A Adlesen — Person · Referenced alleged co-conspirator (unindicted) · 2 mentions · first at 2:17
  Mentioned as Wendy’s father and, along with Wendy, described as an unindicted co-conspirator; also appears in the bond-hearing narrative as someone Donna called from jail.
  Technically, right now, Wendy and her dad, Harvey A Adlesen, are classified as unindicted co-conspirators.
• Robert Adlesen — Person · Referenced estranged family member / potential witness · 1 mention · first at 4:33
  Presented as Donna’s estranged son and a potential witness; the episode highlights an allegation that Donna sought to intimidate or harm him to prevent testimony.
  Taps and information from a jailhouse snitch, allegedly Donna was going to set up somebody to go and intimidate or hurt her aranged son, Robert Adlesen, in order to keep him from testifying. How wild is that? Imagine Robert Adlesen.
• Katherine Magbana — Person · Referenced convicted co-defendant / intermediary · 2 mentions · first at 7:19
  Named as a previously tried defendant in the broader Dan Markell murder prosecutions; used to summarize the procedural history (hung jury then conviction).
  We've all grown old watching this case play out. It was the two hitmen. They were both had trials, were convicted, and then Kimberly or no, sorry, Katherine Magbana took two trials to get her. one hung jury and then on the.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:04 Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Hope you're doing well. So, big day everybody. Officially, the Donna Adlesen murder trial is underway. Nobody beats the Adles. Yeah, I don't know, Donna. Feel like you all are getting beat pretty bad. The last two days was jury selection. Opening statements are going down right now as I record this. And just like that, we're off. The jury selection over the past couple days can be summed up as the prosecution asking the possible jurors things like, "So, when you think of a murderer, what do you guys think of?" Okay. Yep, that makes sense. Okay, over here. All right, that makes sense, too. But could a murderer also be say a grandma?

0:56 By a show of hands, is there anybody that can't picture a grandma being a murderer? All right. Okay, that sounds good. And then the defense asking the possible jurors questions like, "Say a mom's son is a murderer and the son's exgirlfriend is a murderer and the ex-girlfriend's baby daddy and friend are all murderers. That doesn't necessarily mean the mom is a murderer, too." Right? is by show of hands, does everybody agree just because someone's son committed a murder, it doesn't necessarily mean their sweet mom committed the murder, too. Right. Okay.

1:43 And just like that, we got a jury. Some interesting pre-trial decisions. Wendy was subpoenaed by both sides to testify on the list of possible witnesses to call. her Wendy's lawyers could uh were successfully able to quash is the word they're using the subpoena from the defense arguing that the defense doesn't have any power or authority to grant her immunity for her testimony and so she might incriminate herself. Technically, right now, Wendy and her dad, Harvey A Adlesen, are classified as unindicted co-conspirators.

2:27 That's got to be a rough place to be. I'm really glad that I'm not an unindicted co-conspirator for a murder. It would be hard to get on with life being a UC. They should do a documentary actually, Life as a UC, starring Wendy and Harvey. And it's just Wendy going thinking in her head, am I going to be arrested? They arrested my mom right after my brother was convicted. Are they going to arrest me right after my mom is convicted? Is it not going to happen? Is it going to happen? It's hard to make goals and strive to achieve those goals when you're an unindicted co-conspirator because you never know when your life is going to be turned upside down. And then one of her son is like, "Mom, what are you staring off into space thinking about? Why aren't you present?

3:18 We're all hanging out." And she's like, "Oh yeah, sorry. No, we're having fun. Nobody beats the Adles right?" I I feel like it would freeze your life in place if you were an unindicted co-conspirator and you had no idea when the hammer was going to drop. I would, knowing myself, I would want it to just get it over with. Just tell me what's going to happen. And also, her sons, I think now are 13 and 14. any year now the whole thing is gonna click and they're just going to go mom. It's got to be a rough day she has coming up with all of that. And another unbelievable pre-trial story that came out is a couple months ago they did a whole new round of wire taps.

4:16 And apparently through some new wire taps and information from a jailhouse snitch, allegedly Donna was going to set up somebody to go and intimidate or hurt her aranged son, Robert Adlesen, in order to keep him from testifying. How wild is that? Imagine Robert Adlesen. You got the hell away from your family cuz they're all psychos. You live far away. You don't have any contact with them. And then you happen to see the news. Wire taps and a jailhouse snitch. It's come out that Donna Adlesen and possibly her husband were going to set up somebody to go hurt their aranged son, Robert, in order to keep him from testifying. It's like, what the hell, man? And these people are nuts. And I was looking into Robert Aden and apparently he was really connecting and was attracted and it was going really well with this Indian woman. Donna apparently convinced him, don't marry an Indian. You got to marry a nice Jewish

5:27 woman. And so he broke it off, listened to Donna, broke it off with who he was really connecting with, ended up marrying someone I guess that Donna approved of more. That marriage went into the toilet and then he got back with the Indian woman and they got married and I think everything's going great. I was laughing at possibly when they get back together and he's going, I'm just so glad we're doing this again. and I missed you so much. This feels so right. And I doubt this is how it went. But I was laughing at the thought of maybe he got back to her and she's not a news junkie or hasn't been following the case and hadn't heard of what's going on. And she goes, "So what's been going on with your family?"

6:15 And Robert Aden's like, "What do you mean? You I mean, you you don't know? Are you kidding me? You haven't been watching the news? You haven't seen everything that's been happening?" She goes, "No, I don't know. not really a big news junkie. I haven't been following it. Why? What are you talking about? Robert's like, "Well, hold on. It's easier if you just watch this." He goes over to the TV. She's like, "Why are you putting on a dine episode?" Trust me, the easiest way to for me to explain this, just watch this. And then it cuts an hour later. She's watched the whole thing. Credits are rolling and her mouth's wide open.

6:56 She turns around and looks at Robert who's just been standing in the back of the room. He's just like, "Yeah, I told you." But imagine being Robert and watching this play out and hearing that possibly your family was going to send someone to keep you from testifying. The witness list right now is the same old characters that we've seen. the two hitmen, the hired hitmen, Katherine Wendy on the prosecution side. Charlie's been added to this one. As of right now, they're saying that Donna is going to testify in her own defense. She did a bond hearing, which I'm going to talk about in a second a month or so back. Could have even been a little bit more, but she did a bond hearing where she got up on the stand. And so I feel like that was some foreshadowing how she is up on the stand.

7:50 They're trying to keep Jeff W with uh Donna's ex-boyfriend. Wendy's ex-boyfriend. I meant Wendy's ex-boyfriend. Sorry,

8:00 from testifying the way I understand it and saying the big the big moment where he said he was hanging out with Wendy shortly before the murder took place. And she turns to him and it's late at night and she turns to him and says, "Can I tell you something confidentially?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." And she tells him that Charlie was looking into how much it would cost to take care of somebody, Dan. And Jeff says it's a re it was a really chilling moment. She She definitely wasn't joking. And so I think they're trying to the defense is trying to keep that. So that'll be interesting. I think he should definitely be able to testify.

8:46 So, there's that. By far the most interesting to me. What I'm looking forward to is Wendy's. Her testimony is always so weird. She does this thing where she's does all this movement like, yeah, just so truthful that I just move around like a nutso. She's always gotten her way with her charm and her good looks, but when you try to use that up on the stand, you end up just looking kind of insane. And so, it'll be interesting what she's got to say up there, what Charlie's got to say. Haven't heard from him since his trial, and then what Donna goes with when she's testifying.

9:26 So, at that bond hearing a while back, the reason she was asking for bond is Donna said that she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and all of a sudden she felt a hand go up the small of her back and she turned around and she goes, "What are you doing?" And a woman goes, "You like it?" And she goes, "No, I don't. Get out of here." And she screamed and the person left. Another time she was in the bathroom and a quote large woman came up and grabbed her arm, twisted her arm behind her back and said, "If you want your teeth to stay inside your head, you got to buy me commissary." So then Donna called Harvey and got an extra commissary package for the large woman. And then at some point the large woman was moved or Donna was moved and that problem went away. But she was buying commissary for a large woman there for a while.

10:27 Donna said that she wants Bond because the food is horrendous. It's all carbs. A typical meal would be spaghetti and cornbread. And what she say and and another carb. And she said she's gained a third of her body weight. She says she can't sleep because she gets her sleep aid medication really late and then it takes a little bit to kick in, but then they have to wake up at the crack of dawn. So, there isn't enough time after her sleep aid kicks in before wake up time. So, she's exhausted. Her brain is foggy. What?

11:04 Nobody can beat the Adal sins and it's hard for her to per it was hard for her to prepare for her defense. Another reason that she needed to get out on bond is her arm hurt. Another reason is she was having sciatica pain and she put in a medical request to talk to the doctor and they she let the doctor know in the past my doctor has given me a steroid shot into my spine and that's really helped the sciatica pain and it keeps it at bay. And the doctor at the jail was like, "Yeah, we don't do that. We have Tylenol. We could give you some Tylenol." Which she said didn't help the sciatica pain. So, she is in pain constantly. She was able to get two mattresses for a little bit, which helped a little bit, and then one was taken away when she moved. So, that's awful. And then probably the funniest part of the bond hearing is they asked her about she they were asking her, "Well, aren't you a flight risk? You

12:10 already tried to go to Vietnam right before you were arrested. That's the definition of flight risk to try to fly to a non-extradition country." And she was made the hilarious argument though that the reason we picked a a country with a non-extradition treaty is because we didn't if they were going to arrest us, we didn't want to end up in a jail in a foreign country or a third world country being held while the extradition process played out. If we went to a non-extradition country, then they could let us know, hey, we are going to arrest you and we could come back on our at our own pace without all of the legal tape to get through from an extradition country. And so really, we were just trying to make it easier if they wanted to arrest me by going to a non-extraditional country.

13:11 It's like, yeah, bond is denied. And then a short like a month or something after all of that, the from the bond hearing, it came out that she was naked in her cell with just a mattress on the floor like wandering around. and she said that she was subject to a strip search in front of everybody and a cavity search, but it's unclear why she didn't put her clothes back on after the search. But anywh who, she was naked in her cell that made the news. And I think that's all of the leading up to relevant information I got. I always think of a Toltoy quote with this case. He he says, "Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And man, do the Adles have a way." And I think that not to the extent of hiring someone to murder the the son-in-law, but everybody has known a family like this with the attitude, nobody beats the Adles.

14:27 And my wife and I were talking about just families like this that we grew up with and what it's like because they're all being friends with a family like this or hanging out with them, being acquaintances. They're all kind of like the Adles where they're successful. At least on the surface, it seems like they have this perfect family where all the kids are goodlooking and smart and successful and they got they probably have a bigger and better house than you and newer and nicer cars than you and better clothes and better stuff. And hanging out with them, you realize they win on all of those categories and they're used to winning on all those categories. But this is a humbling universe. And whatever little small category you do beat them on, they like someone like Wendy or I mean someone maybe Wendy, but someone like Donna, I would assume, they can't talk about it. So whenever the little whatever the little topic one and

15:31 only little topic that you do beat them on when it comes up they freeze and then they change the subject or they start looking around and then it makes it tough as the years go on to be friends with them because you realize you can't they're not going to ever celebrate any of your wins and so you're just sort of the sidekick in this view of nobody beats the Adelins that they conduct themselves with and there was one family that really reminded me of the Ads that I grew up with and I wasn't present for this but a story that came out was like three families went to Mexico on vacation and all the kids were my age and all the parents are my parents age and while they're in Mexico two of the moms go shopping and they're in this store and one of the moms finds this necklace that she really likes, but it's pretty expensive. And she's going, "Should I get this?" And the the Donna type character in this

16:36 story saying, "Yeah, it's I like it. I I think it I I think it would look really good on you." And the the other mom that's I don't know, it's pretty expensive and I don't know, I I need a day to think about it. And so she goes, "Okay, you know, that makes sense." And so they go, they leave the store, they go back to the resort or whatever, they hang by the pool, and then the next day, the woman that the mom that liked the necklace goes, "You know what? I thought about it all night, and I think I'm going to just go and buy once, cry once, but then I'm I'm going to go and get the necklace." And um so she goes back to the the shop or the store that they were at, and the necklace is gone. And she's like, "Bummer. I can't believe it." Well, what are you going to do? Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't have bought it and I guess I get to save my money. Whatever.

17:31 I'm not going to let it ruin the trip. And then the trip ends. All the families go to the airport. They're sitting there with all their carry-on bags and everything. Man, what a great trip. I can't believe it's over. And the Donna Adlesen character opened her carry-on to get something else and the woman saw the necklace. She went behind her back after going, "Yeah, it looks real good on you. You should wait a day or two and go back and get it or and and then she slinkedked back when no one was looking and bought it for herself." How nuts is that? But all sorts of stories like that from the town I grew up in where same family, their kid was a really good athlete and someone had moved to the town that a kid that was also a really good athlete that played the same position and word got out that the Donna Adlesen type mom went into the coach and said like this is my kid's year. It's not going to be ruined by the new kid

18:35 that's good too. You better not play. And I was like what? maybe just let it play out and see who's better. But I I would guess most people grew up with a family that operates with this mindset, the nobody beats the Adles. And it's it's something to just behold. And as I've moved away and then moved away again, looking back at the town I grew up in, it almost makes it seem more absurd. It's like, who do you guys think you are? such a big universe out there. You really think you're the family and that you can pull all this stuff off and you're not going to get caught and you're not going to end up in the concrete fart box wearing the old faded orange jumpsuit just like everybody else. It blows my mind how successful the Adles were with the money and the Aden Institute and all the kids are doctors and dentists and lawyers and not one person was smart enough to say, "No, this is a very stupid plan. We're

19:43 going to involve three people that we barely know in a murder. What if they get caught? They're just going to tell on us." The fact that Wendy said to Jeff that night, "Can I tell you something confidentially?" And then told him, "My brother's looking into it." That right there should have been the end of the whole thing. She should have said, "I screwed up. Everybody, we can't pull off the hit. I said this to Jeff." That right there. We're screwed. And he's gonna he's going to tell them that. They're going to look into us. They're going to find something and our whole family is going to go down. The fact that they thought, "Yeah, we can pull this off." is just mindblowing. This is the sixth trial in relation to the murder of Dan Markell over the past 10 years.

20:34 We've all grown old watching this case play out. It was the two hitmen. They were both had trials, were convicted, and then Kimberly or no, sorry, Katherine Magbana took two trials to get her. one hung jury and then on the second one they got her and then Charlie went down and here we are. Donna is on the chopping block and then we have the unindicted co-conspirators of Wendy and Harvey left. They have to arrest Wendy. It's just got to happen. Seeing Donna arrested at the airport was so surreal. It just felt like it was never going to happen. And the fact that that one happened gives me confidence that they are going to get windy. She can't just go on with her life in the Miami sunshine and not have to at least go through a trial. And if they can't if they can't secure a conviction, then they can't. But at least you got to arrest her and you got to try. And I don't know even know quite enough about

21:40 it to know Harvey's involvement, but probably him too. Anyway, first day opening statements are going down right now. We'll follow it. I love you all. See you next time. Y sting.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Donna Adelson Trial is Underway"?

Wendy Adelson (Guest), Donna Adelson (Guest), Harvey Adelson, Robert Adelson.

What is "The Donna Adelson Trial is Underway" about?

The Donna Adelson murder trial has officially commenced, with jury selection recently completed and opening statements underway. Key points include the prosecution's focus on perceptions of murderers and the defense's argument regarding familial guilt, alongside the complicating factors of unindicted co-conspirators in the case, specifically involving Wendy Adelson and her father, Harvey A.…

What is mentioned in this TRUE CRIME Loser episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donna Adlesen, Gabby Wendy, Kinnerton – Charlie, Dan Markel, Harvey A Adlesen, Robert Adlesen. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Donna Adelson Trial is Underway"?

The episode runs 22 min; the transcript is about 3,422 words in 25 timestamped sections.

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