Guilty verdict in ’14 slaying of FSU professor
Man faces death penalty; mistrial for girlfriend
TALLAHASSEE — The murder-for-hire trial of a slain Florida State University professor came to an end Friday afternoon with a guilty verdict for the triggerman and a hung jury on a suspected co-conspirator.
Sigfredo Garcia, of Miami, now faces the death penalty for shooting Dan Markel twice in the head on the morning of July 18, 2014.
Garcia, 37, and the jurors will return to court in Leon County on Monday afternoon to move into that phase of the trial.
“Danny was brutally murdered in cold blood,” attorneys representing Markel’s parents, Ruth and Phil, said in an emailed statement. “After waiting five long years, we are relieved that at least one of the people responsible for Danny’s murder was convicted … yet justice was only partially served.”
Garcia’s co-defendant and the mother of his two children, Katherine Magbanua, 34, wept upon hearing that he had been found guilty of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit murder.
Garcia was acquitted of one count — solicitation to commit murder — in what prosecutors had presented as a murder-for-hire scheme orchestrated by Markel’s in-laws.
After more than 12
hours, the 12-person jury could not reach a verdict on Magbanua’s charges.
Portrayed by prosecutors as the intermediary between the hired assassins and the people who took out the hit, Magbanua faced the exact same charges as Garcia.
Leon Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson sent the hung jury back into deliberations to try harder, but they soon announced that they could not reach a unanimous decision.
Hankinson declared a mistrial and scheduled Magbanua’s next court date for Oct. 22.
Markel’s parents said they were confident Magbanua would be retried and convicted.
News about Friday’s trial outcome was posted on a Justice for Dan Facebook page. It said, “the arc is still bending way too slowly, but in the right direction.” That was followed by #justice fordan.
The crux of closing arguments presented by both defense teams on Thursday was that the wrong man and woman were on trial.
No one in Markel’s exwife’s prominent South Florida family has ever been arrested or charged, but the Adelsons were the ones who financed the $100,000 plot to kill the 41-year-old professor and legal academic,
“I hope the Markel family feels some sense of justice and relief that Garcia was convicted.”
David O. Markus, Adelson family lawyer
the defense lawyers said.
“People are chomping to get the Adelsons, and let me tell you, rightfully so,” Garcia’s defense lawyer, Saam Zangeneh, told jurors on Thursday. “There is substantially more evidence against the Adelsons than there is against Sigfredo Garcia.”
Markel’s parents said they hold out hope “that everyone responsible for Danny’s murder is held accountable.”
“Until that day comes, we will continue to fight for complete justice and to be reunited with our grandchildren, Danny’s two young boys, whom we love and miss dearly.”
Magbanua for a time dated Charlie Adelson, big brother to Markel’s ex-wife Wendi Adelson.
Wendi Adelson also is a lawyer. Her family runs the Adelson Institute for Esthetics and Implant Dentistry in Tamarac, where her father, Dr. Harvey Adelson, is a cosmetic dentist and her brother, Dr. Charlie Adelson, is a periodontist. Her mother, Donna, is the patient care coordinator.
Prosecutors maintain that Magbanua recruited two assassins at Charlie Adelson’s behest — Garcia and Luis Rivera. They say that after Markel was dead, she split $100,000 with the killers,
Wendi Adelson and Markel were in the midst of a nasty divorce when when he was shot to death in his Tallahassee garage. The couple were locked in a bitter battle over custody of their two sons.
Wendi Adelson’s family in Coral Springs wanted her and the boys closer to them.
The Adelson’s lawyer, David O. Markus, has repeatedly asserted Charlie Adelson’s innocence.
“I hope the Markel family feels some sense of justice and relief that Garcia was convicted,” Markus said. “This trial must have been so hard and taxing on them.”
“The prosecution couldn’t prove its theory on Katie after three years of really thorough investigation and preparation,” he said. “This is why they have not charged Charlie and his family — the case simply isn’t there.”
Markus predicted a bleak forecast for prosecutors.
“After the hung jury, their prospects have gone down, not up.”