Slain FSU professor Dan Markel's mother speaks about son's death and effort to honor his memory
MIAMI -- It's a murder-for-hire case that has captivated people around the world, and the prominent family allegedly at the center of the plot lives in South Florida.
Florida State University law professor Dan Markel was gunned down in his driveway in 2014 but Ruth Markel doesn't want people to focus on the suspects. She wants people to remember her son, Dan, for who he was when he was alive.
Mother of Dan Markel speaks out about son's murder
"My son, Dan Markel, was murdered in 2014," Ruth said, "and he became known as the slain professor in Florida, and I became known as the mother of the slain professor in Florida."
Ruth Markel wants to change the way we think about crime victims and their families
"One of the things that I started to notice is that the victims are really underexposed in the court system and in the public," she said. "You just see them and the court (suspects), so the point is that the victim suddenly becomes invisible."
Ruth Markel won't be invisible, and she won't be silent.
She wrote a book about reflection, grief and navigating the justice system.
Timeline of Dan Markel's life
"He really had a very energetic type of personality," Ruth said of Dan.
Born in Canada, Dan Markel dreamed of coming to the U.S for school. He got into Harvard for undergrad and law school. During law school, while in Washington D.C., Ruth says Dan met Wendi Adelson.
"She was seven years younger than him, and she had to finish law school," Ruth said, "and so they moved to Tallahassee and then became a professor at Florida State University."
They had two boys together.
"He was a great father," Ruth said. "That's the most important thing about Dan. He loved those two boys."
The marriage fell apart, and it was a messy divorce. Ruth said Wendi wanted to move back to Miami with the boys.
The day he was murdered, Dan called his mother like he did, every day.
"We talked, he talked to his uncle, he put him on the phone and wished him a happy birthday," Ruth said. "And then he said something unusual, which is, 'Ma I have to get off the phone, I have to make another call.'"
Ruth called it a blessing because if Dan did not get off the phone with her, she believes she would have heard him be killed after pulling into his driveway.
"He drove into his driveway, and then he said to the other person, he says somebody's coming in behind me, like he didn't say that he didn't know who they were," Ruth said. "and then the other person has heard two shots."
Suspects identified in killing of FSU professor Dan Markel
Since that day, there have been five arrests and four convictions in connection to her son's murder.
It took two years, but police arrested Sigfredo Garcia in Broward County and within days, the dots were connected to the Adelson family. Garcia's on-and-off-again girlfriend, and mother of his two kids, is Katherine Magbanua.
"In their up and down relationship, when it was down, Magbanua dated Charlie Adelson," Ruth said.
Charlie Adelson is Dan Markel's ex-brother-in-law. Adelson, a one-time periodontist in South Florida, is the most recent to be convicted.
His ex-mother in-law, Donna Adelson, is the most recent to be charged after being arrested at Miami International Airport before she could get on a plane allegedly with a one-way ticket to Vietnam. She too is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation and has pleaded not guilty.
CBS News Miami asked Ruth if she believes justice has been served at this point.
"Well, we're on the way," she said. "We're in a good situation now. So Charlie Adelson, that's Wendi's brother, he was just convicted Nov. 6, 2023, and that his mother, Donn Adelson was arrested, she was trying to leave the country and go to Vietnam. So she's in jail. This is really new, and and we don't know exactly when her trial will be. So we're certainly coming in the room, the right chapter."
As for Markel's ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, the state has named her a co-conspirator, but she denies the allegations and she's not been formally arrested or charged.
Ruth's life now is focused on making sure people don't forget her son, who he was, and that his kids remember the Dan she knew.
"I'm doing intentional advocacy, and all these other new things that I'm involved in with victims and so forth," Ruth said, "but I think that in (Dan's) core, this is a sad story, and he and he would feel the devastation."
For many years, Ruth said was cut off from seeing her grandkids. She had no legal rights as their grandmother in the state of Florida.
So she helped pass a state law that gives grandparents visitation rights when the spouse is involved, civilly or criminally, in the death of the other parent. It's called the Markel Act.
