Homicide: Dan Markel

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts. Some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's kJ You're back for another episode of Unspeakable. What's going on with you? I am so excited because I'm counting down these days, y'all. At the end of the school year. Things are almost wrapped up, so I can focus full time on this podcast. And there's a student who reminded me about this, and she her name is Evannah, and she's in my class. And she said, you know, I would really love to have a shout out from you. And I said, well, you know what, I think I'm going to do that, so right here, just for you, my girl, this is my shout out to Havana, who works super hard. She listens to all the episodes, and she is from I believe that Venezuela is where she's from.

1:33 She I think works harder than the average student because it's English is not her first language, and she makes amazing grades and is just. A beautiful girl who always wears pink. So Evanna, this one's for you, my girl. I hope that I I. Held true to my words because I promised you that i'd give you a shout out for the end of the year, and there it is. Now, speaking of shout outs, I want to tell y'all something real quick. I've had a few people message me and say, hey, I subscribed on Facebook. I didn't get a shout out. Well, I want to expel to you real quick. If you're a subscriber on Facebook, that is not the same thing as being a subscriber on Patreon or being a subscriber to Apple. So if you joined on Facebook, that's great, but you have to join as a Patreon member in order to get those shout outs.

2:17 So keep that in mind. You can go to patreon dot com search unspeakable, and that's how you can make that happen. Now let's jump into this story, and this is this is one for the books. I hope you're ready, because wow, I'm just telling you there's a a lot of detail. To this one. So let's let's let's start with this. Whenever you are growing up, you're told from the get go that you can be anything that you want to be, and usually it's followed by the same thing. You can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer, or you could even be president of the United States. I don't know how many times I heard that growing up, but it's one that's still said today in the elementary schools and and even I guess in high schools. We're still saying, guys, if you put forth the effort, you can be anything that you want to be. And my point in telling you this is that there's a great deal of respect that's put on those positions. Your child growing up to be a doctor or a lawyer would make any parent so proud.

3:11 And this, as you can imagine, was the case for forty one year old Dan Markel. Now. Dan had grown up in Toronto, so originally from Canada, and his family was described as quote unquote very Jewish in their family life. And so I did some research on Jewish family life because I'm not Jewish. And what I found was. That there is a long history of customs and traditions and a strong value placed on loving your family and spending time together and really investing in one another. And so to say that you're very Jewish is a nod to how much your family means to you. As far as what how I took this to be. So, I guess it's no surprise just in knowing that about their family, that he grew up to be one hell of a young man. He was driven, smart, kind successful. Now look when I say smart, I want you to understand that.

4:04 Let me throw you this at you. He went to Harvard. Smart, not just oh he's smart, like we say about everybody. He literally went to Harvard, and not just Harvard, but Harvard Law School, and he excelled there. He would not only get his undergrad degree, but then he would go to Cambridge University where he would obtain his master's degree in political theory. And then he would return back to Harvard and that's where he would finish and get his law degree, which he graduated magnecum laud from these programs. And if that doesn't tell you how intelligent this guy is. I mean, what we can pick up from this is that he was a stellar learner and a force to be reckoned with in terms of academics and I guess prowess to tackle anything that came in front of him.

4:50 So after graduation he went to work on a fellowship, and a fellowship is kind of where newly graduated lawyers who lack hands on experience, so like they've got the bookwork and all of that, but they lack hands on experience. These fellowships provide them a structured path where they can go and they can work on and develop their lawyer skills. And usually they get a mentor who's going to take them on or take them in and really guide them to the way so to speak, of how lawyers behave and act and how to become. A great lawyer. Well, Dan's fellowship would find him doing graduate work at Hebrew University, which is world renowned and a just prestigious university in the academic world. So, needless to say, the man put in the work and all of the accolades that followed were not only earned but well deserved. He was a sought after speaker at legal seminars all over the country, and he was regarded as someone who just flat out knew his shit, and he had the ability to command an audience whenever he would speak.

5:54 Dan was a well put together guy. He was if you would see him, he was sporting long leave, buttoned down, tucked in shirts, tucked into slacks. He often had a tie coordinating belt and shoes. His hair well groomed and a short traditional mail cut with like a little gel to keep it in place. He wore these small rectangular glasses with metal frames, and they blended really nicely with his face, like they didn't stick out or anything, just blended in nicely. And he looked the part of the esteemed lawyer. He was fit, too, fit in an average way, though not fit like you know, the Hulk or anything, but he was fitting an average way, and he had this casual coolness about him that people just were drawn to. He was interesting, but casually cool, sunglasses and shorts on a boat by weekend, but professional and fierce in the courtroom or classroom by workday. So clearly, if you're slipping in what I'm dripping here, Dan was a catch all right, And this is exactly what another lawyer or law student she wasn't a lawyer yet, but that's exactly what another law student at the University of Miami thought as well, and her name was Wendy Adelson. Now, Wendy was originally from South Florida, and she too came from a family that believed in high expectations of their children.

7:12 So while she was studying at law school, her family was running a very successful dentistry clinic. Her father's name was Harvey, and he was a dentist. And wouldn't you know it that her brother, his name was Charlie, would also follow wright in his father's footsteps. And I think that's so cool that a father and son could work together and both become dentists. A matter of fact, my own dentist has that same setup. That the dad built a successful business and then his son became a dentist too. They worked together, expanded, it made more clinics. So shout out to her dentistry if y'all are listening, they're right here, local in town, and I think that they run an amazing clinic. So doctor Harvey was one proud papa with a doctor son and a soon to be lawyer daughter.

7:56 And he was also pretty smitten with his patient care cord in the front office. But that's to be expected because that was doctor Harvey's wife, Mama Donna, was holding it down in the front of the office while the men were in the back doing all the dirty work or the drilling work. I guess, however you want to look at that. But both of their now adult children were bound for success and good looking to boot. Wendy was thin and tan. Big smile, these bright green eyes, I mean they're really bright green eyes, long brown hair, with body to it. Her bangs always neatly tucked behind one of the side behind her ear, and she looked like a cheerleader or a runner. Is kind of the vibe that you would get from her. And she was a wild one. She was born to run with her quirkiness, which usually took center stage when people met her. She was smart, she was a go getter, and she was fun. And she too had graduated magna cum lauda from Brandis University and then she obtained her master's degree in international relations from Cambridge.

8:59 Now going to cam Cambridge alone is you know, a big deal. But she was also a Rhodes scholar, and so just to give you a little bit of information about this to tell you just how incredibly intelligent Wendy was. The average GPA of Rhodes scholars is about three point nine three point nine at this level and at those. Types of universities. These types of students are the ones that excel in their chosen fields. They're considered widely read. They demonstrate intellectual flexibility beyond most of us me included. Okay, like like, they're smart, they're gonna outsmart me, They're gonna dance circles around my intelligence. So I just think that to look at the level that these two young professionals have reached or what they went through to get to where they were, there's a I'm nod in my hat to these two that they had it going on. These are some super, super super smart people. Well, Dan was living in Washington, d C. When he and Wendy met, and I read that where they met was on a place called jay Date, and I'm like, well, what is jay Date? So it made me think about JPay, which japay If you don't know, this is the system online where it's an email system where you can email inmates and you know, family members if you're they're in prison, or whatever, and I'm like, they didn't meant no dawn prison site, what the hell? So I googled it and jay Date is a popular Jewish dating website specifically designed

10:29 for Jewish singles that are searching for other Jewish singles. I'm like, okay, well that makes more sense than prison talk. So they matched on this jay Date and they hit it off almost immediately. They had too many things in common and too many commonalities and where they wanted to go in life, and so they dated for a short period of time before they both decided this was it. You're the one, and they wanted to make a lifelong go of it. So they announced their plans to marry, and they proudly posted their wedding announcement in the New York Times for everybody to see February of two thousand and six. So they were married in this beautiful ceremony. It was in Boca Ratone, Florida, at the Congregation Beni Israel. At that time, Wendy was twenty six, Dan was thirty three, and they were now husband and wife. So they settled in to their Florida life to make their home in Tallahassee, which was going to be great in that moment for both of their careers. Dan was going to secure a position at FSU Florida State University as a criminal law professor, while Wendy also got a job there as a clinical law professor. Her focus, by the way, was human trafficking, and I find that incredibly interesting. I read an awesome book about human trafficking. This is so random. I didn't plan on saying this, But if you have the chance to read a book called Renting Lacy, if you want something crazy to read that's really really good about human trafficking, check that one out.

11:49 It's a goodie. So if power couples ever had a face, these two theirs would be it. They had it all, great jobs, good friends, and soon they had two little boys of their own who they both adored, and they both put all of their central focus on and their lives and everything that they would grow up to be. They wanted them to be excellent people. So outside looking in, all I can say is what a life? What a life these two built together, the legitimate American dream unfolding right before your eyes, and the love in that home was one hundred percent undeniable. And so a couple of years would just fly by. The kids were now toddlers, and both of their parents were busy with their careers. They had to work hard to take care of the kids whenever business obligations called. For example, Dan traveled a lot for business. He attended seminars. Like I said, he was a well sought after speaker at speaking events, and so when he would go on these trips, he was always super eager to get back home to his wife and to the kids, and this was no different in twenty twelve when he drove into the driveway of the house after a short business trip. So he got out like normal, unlocked the door to the house, and then he swung the door open, grabbing his bags, picking him up to just bring him in.

13:06 And when he. Looked up as he walked in, he was shocked to find his house in a very different condition than he had left it just a few days prior. He looked inside and he was really unsure of exactly what was happening. So he stepped in and he looked around, trying to really process what he was seeing or what he wasn't seeing, because as he looked around, the only thing he saw in the house was a mattress with some paperwork on top of it. It was like a kid's mattress. So he walked up to it and he stared down at the mattress, and divorce was clearly labeled at the top of the paperwork on top of this child's mattress. On September tenth, twenty twelve, Wendy had filed for divorce, and he's like, oh my god. She cleaned out the entire house and left with the kids while he was gone.

14:04 If you want to talk about the rug being pulled from beneath you, I think that this is probably the most prime example of that I've ever heard of, that you leave your well loved home and come home to it being empty. So he didn't know in that moment exactly what to do, but he gathered himself and he tried to decide the best course of action. What do I do? And in his mind he had to work it out with his wife. He just didn't know how this even came to be. He didn't know what she was upset with, besides any normal marital spats that anybody would have. I don't care how in love you are, You're still gonna fight. You're sill gonna argue, And he had no clue that divorce was even on the radar, that was something that was even being considered. It hadn't even been brought up or mentioned. But Dan knew one thing and one thing for certain, and that's that he wanted his wife and he wanted his family. He did not want this divorce.

14:57 He wanted to fix whatever went wrong, and he would do anything he could to try to reconcile whatever had made Wendy feel that she wanted to just in their family just like that. So Dan attempted to try to reconcile with Wendy, but those attempts would go unanswered, and he would realize that soon he figured out that she had rented a home nearby just for herself. She was that done that she went and she rented a house right underneath him. So the courts would become involved in this because custody obviously had to be handled. So the courts would decide that they would share fifty to fifty custody, which is a great thing for both parents. I think that's wonderful when they both can get half custody. Yet he would receive another blow right after that custody decision.

15:45 When Wendy then filed paperwork with the courts and asked them to allow her to relocate with the children tours parent to her parents' house, which wouldn't have been a big deal for except the fact that they were four hundred miles away from where their lives had been and established. So while he had been focusing on repairing their family, Wendy had no same intentions whatsoever. So when the request to take his children further away from him became known to him, he realized that his goals of reconciliation were far from what would ever happen, and he just came to the conclusion that he indeed was going to have to prepare for this divorce. It was gonna happen, whether he wanted it to or not. So I guess when someone has divorce on their mind, the two parties involved are going to have hurt and they're gonna have anger between them. Hell, I mean, I expect that. I think for you to say that wouldn't app would be completely unreasonable.

16:40 But I'll add to that too, that Dan's no different. Dan's just like the rest of us. He went through the same emotions that anyone would go through shock, sadness and grief about his marriages abrupt what he called Pearl Harbor style attack when she moved out of the house and just blew up his world. That's what he called in court dot com cuments, he said it was a Pearl Harbor style attack. But there was now also anger brewing when it comes to his kids. It's one thing to leave me, it's one thing to not love me and not want to be with me. But now you're trying to take my kids from me too. Now I've got a problem. So he's kind of thinking, well, my family may be falling apart, but my love for my boys will never end. I want to be in their lives.

17:26 These are my children, and I'm not going to let them go without a fight. Absolutely not. So she doesn't have to stay married to me, but my kids have to stay close enough that we can co parent because I'm not gonna parent on the weekends, absolutely not. And so he filed that paperwork to say I don't want this, and the courts sided with him in June of twenty thirteen and denied Wendy's motion to relocate those kids closer to her parents. It was also just eleven days after the court granted that or denied that. Excuse me that they granted the divorce. They'd only been married now for seven years, and now it was over. So while I've somewhat tied up what kind of went down as far as the dissolving of the marriage in this pretty little bow, as if it happened really fast, the truth is that there was a lot of angst between the two and Wendy's parents were heavily involved in trying to help her during the divorce. They would fly in to be with the kids. They were really invested in Wendy getting everything that she wanted in the divorce. And again I would expect this of any loving parent when a divorce is happening concerning their child. Everyone is going to take sides and they're going to want the best for their loved one.

18:42 Whenever a divorce is going down. The thing is, sometimes what you want or what you think is best for your loved one happens at the expense of someone else, and in this instance, it's. Involving the children. This really became an issue because Wendy's mom, Donna, seemed to miss the memo on appropriate behavior in front of small children, because it turns out, whenever she seemed to be in the care of the children or when she was taking care of them, she would say things so often about their daddy that they would go back and repeat it to their dad. Because they were little, they were three and four years old, they didn't know any better, and so they would repeat it back to him, things like your dad is stupid and we all hate your father.

19:33 She also told the. Boys that their dad was trying to quote take her sunshines away from her, things that were intended to make them believe or imply that their daddy was a bad man. And as a child that divorced myself, this makes me really, really angry. Kids should never know anything more than Mama and Daddy have decided to live separately, but we both love you and we are all still family. Were just not going to be married anymore, period. And shame on anybody that would try to pit a child against their other parent, because when adults start trying to influence children to hate another parent, I can't accept that the kids did not ask to be in the middle of this and making them decide.

20:18 Which parent they basically love more. Isn't fair. It's not fair to kids to treat them that way. You can love both of your parents, that's fine, So shame on Grandma Donna for acting this way. And Dan was just beyond frustrated that this is what was happening whenever they were outside of his care. So he got so mad about her behavior and the fact that the kids were able to repeat the constant degrading statements about him that she was saying, he went and took legal action. He even went so far as to file emotion with the courts, asking that Donna not be allowed unsupervised visits with the children because of her behavior when she was with them. It's just not right that you're doing this.

20:59 So on May fifteenth, twenty fourteen, a hearing was held, but they did not make a ruling in this It was gonna be continued, so basically no decision was made for the moment, and for the time being, they had not yet set a future hearing date to settle the matter. But even without an immediate outcome, Dan was clearly making his point that he wasn't going to take this level of disrespect or manipulation of his children. Even you know, if he used to be married to their mother, and that used to be his mother in law. He's not gonna have it. His soon to be ex mother in law or monster in law is probably more fitting. But as soon as he gave that pushback and said you're not going to do this, and if the courts have to get involved, they will, the mother in law, Donna decided, well, she was going to try to.

21:48 Push Dan's buttons about it. She would do things in a very mean spirited way. And I wanted to give you examples of this, not just say she was being mean, okay, because I don't want to seem like I'm just being mean about a mother in law. For example. There was a lot of differences that Wendy listed as to why she was wanting to get divorced from Dan, and one of her complaints that she made vocal about was that Dan really wanted the children to be raised in a more strict Jewish upbringing than Wendy did. So he was very vocal about this, I want them to follow our customs. I wanted to have our same Jewish values, blah blah blah blah, and Wendy seemed to be more of wanting to like water it down and not be so strict. And I'm not saying one way is better than the other. That was just the disagreement. Well, what was mother in law Donna's idea?

22:37 Whenever? That was one of the complaints that Wendy had. Well, she told her daughter in an email that she Wendy should convert her children to Christianity and go have them baptized in the Catholic church, make sure to take lots of pictures of it, and post the pictures of those kids in front of the Catholic church, just to piss off Dan. Willing to forego her own religion, just to piss off Dan. Tell me that's not mean spirited. I don't know what else you would call that. So, while all of this was going on, both Wendy and Dan seemed though to be moving on, respectively, with their lives moving forward. So Wendy began dating this fellow FSU professor.

23:21 His name was Jeffrey Lacasse. And look, Wendy is a type, y'all. Hear me out, because the two men, jeff and Dan, look very similar to me. If you look at their photos. I'm not gonna say they're absolute twins or anything. But their essence, their clean cutness, the look about them very similar. He's her tight, he's hur tight. Okay, she got it tight. Now. Jeff had met Dan on a handful of occasions, but they weren't friends or anything. And I'm talking about met him before he ever even started dating dating Wendy. He had met Dan at some events, I think around the campus something like that. But every interaction they ever had, the two men were cordial. They were polite. It was very professional, and when they spoke, there was no ill will or foul words.

24:06 Between the two of them. It just kind of was what it was. And Wendy and. Jeffrey had casually dated right after the divorce, but around February fourteen, twenty fourteen, they became legitimate couples or a legitimate couple, and it was official. People knew that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, and he knew that she was divorced. He also knew, because of them talking about it, that this divorce was extremely contentious. She was very emotional about any filings that were done by Dan with the courts, but the one against her mother was specifically frustrating to her. So Jeff would listen as any good boyfriend would do.

24:46 But he didn't go like jump in and interfere or anything like that. I mean, hell, they'd only even dating officially for about four months at this point, so he was supportive of her emotions, but he was not confrontational of Dave or any It wasn't his place. And it seemed to me like he recognized that that, you know, I'm not these kids' father, you're their father. Y'all are going through the divorce. I'm just a new boyfriend, and I'll listen, but I'm not gonna go, you know, get involved in a huge way. But the thing was, Jeff just kind of had this inkling in the back of his mind and he couldn't help but feel like maybe their relationship wasn't as deep or as official on Wendy's end as he thought it was on his end, Like maybe maybe she was just kind of stringing him along and he was she was just passing time with him.

25:37 He just didn't feel like it was she was as invested as he was. And this isn't too far fetched either that he thought this way, because Wendy had even said something about her former husband that mimicked almost that same thought pattern. So maybe the truth was that Wendy hadn't been completely truthful in her love for her husband either. Now why do I say that? Well, Wendy had recorded herself on a podcast that she did, and in that podcast, she basically admitted that she felt like she had somewhat settled when she married Dan. But it wasn't because she was saying, oh, Dan wasn't a catch. It was just that she claimed that she was just not passionately in love with Dan. He was a good man, he was smart, he would be a great provider, but passion she didn't really think it was there. Well after their kids were born, this wedge or divide that she felt came between them really just began to widen, and so she felt like maybe Dan acted like he was superior to her, or that his accomplishments were more valuable than hers, and that he just kind of maybe was looking down on her.

26:49 And another example she gave was that he just didn't seem excited for any of her passions that she followed. For example, she had written a novel at one point and wanted him to read it, but he didn't want to read the novel because it was fiction, and he didn't like fiction, so he didn't want to read it. And so basically her concept here was that, Okay, I settled because I'm not. I wasn't passionately in love with him, but he's a good guy. He made a good husband. But I may have thought that I could make it work, but the small things are now becoming the big things, and I'm just not wanting to do this anymore. And the thing is, Dan did have a reputation for being tough as nails, but also as being fair, and that's important to me. You can be tough as nails as long as you're fair. That tells me that you know you can look at things objectively and that you can stand on business, but you're still going to be fair about all the information that you take in. And this sentiment was not only shared by his students, but also his friends and his colleagues. They all pretty much echoed the same things. His approach to life or his approach to things. I guess his friends would describe as being pretty abrasive and that he could push people past the point of come, But he also loved with that same level of aggression and intensity.

28:05 He loved intensely. He was the kind of guy that would have that thousand watts smile when he saw his friends and wrap them up in these over the top hugs. My friend Elijah does that. When you see him. You can't help but know that he recognizes that you're there because he basically bear hugs me. When he hugs me, he lifts my feet off the ground. Okay, it's like this very and I love those. Hey, Elijah, what's up? I love those hugs. But that kind of seems to be the essence of how Dan was. So his habit of somewhat imposing himself on people wasn't in a negative way, but it was more of like a daring one that was fueled by intellectual sophistication. Like he kind of liked to push buttons, but just for the thrill of it, to see where it would go. He spoke his mind freely, good, bad, or indifferent. He spoke his mind freely, and he was not someone who would ever back down in his views just to suit his audience. That just wasn't him. So obviously this ruffled some people's feathers time to time, but it was also something that brought him many admirers. People that were just so impressed by his authenticity as a human being, he did not waiver. So basically my point is that Danny wasn't a mean person. He was just very matter of fact and to the point in his daily life. But Wendy wanted more than that. She wanted something more passionate, so she moved on with Jeff. And then Dan had moved on too. He was seeing another female professor at the school. And while the post divorce feelings and filings and motions in court and all of that were pretty fiery, they still were both moving on

29:37 from one another and trying to go past it, so things were normal. It was eleven am on July eighteenth, twenty fourteen, when Dan's neighbor, his name was mister James Geiger, heard a loud noise as he and his wife were sitting on the couch looking at their iPads. Now, mister Geiger, he's an older gentleman. He's got gray hair, balding on tops, crosses, a smart guy, kind of gruff, but smart fella, and a tentive, you know. And so he gets up and he looks out of his front window to kind of see what that noise might have been, and he noticed that a car backed out of Dan's driveway pretty quickly. He said, it was a silver or a white Prius, and it backed out really fast and then it took off down the street. Well, it was like a really quick back out, almost like squealing tires back out, And so mister Geiger walked outside and kind of wanted to see what was going on.

30:31 So his thought process was this, there had. Been burglaries in the neighborhood recently, and so he was like, I hope somebody wasn't breaking into Dan's house. So when he walked over there and he got to the house, he saw that the garage door was open and Dan was in his car. It was still running. So he figured, oh, oh, I'm wrong, He's getting in his car to leave. So he just turned around and he walked and he went back home. But as he looked out of the window of his front little bay window area, he never saw Danny leave, and so that struck him as odd. About five or ten minutes would go by and Danny never backed out, and so something in his gut told him to walk back over, just go back over there, maybe double check and make sure Dan's okay. So he went back out of the house, and as mister Geiger approached the car, he realized that he needed to call nine one one immediately.

31:22 Give it a listen, I one. I want to see yes of your emergency. Okay. So I can't tell you exactly what happened. We heard it looked in the garage. Door was up, and I thought the gentleman was backing out, and I went back to my house, but he never backed out. And I came back over and his wind his driver's side, the window is shattered and he spattered. You can't answer. He's inside. I don't know if somebody tried to shoot him, or if he shot himself or what. I don't know. He didn't sent an ambulance in a hurry, neam king alive. He's moving, Okay, What's what's going on with him? I don't know. The driver's side window is all bashed in and he's got blood all over his head. He's not responding to me, thinking me to hurry. Yeah, I'm gonna get him on the way to you. I just want to ask you a few questions. Okay, go ahead, but send him as you're asking. Yes, they're they're already on the way okay him now, I'm standing right outside the garage door. Can you tell me how old he is?

32:33 I don't know. He looks like maybe thirty five or forty. Hang on one second for me, okay, Okay, all right, sir, I apologize about that. What was the How old is the patient again? I'm sorry. I can't tell. He looks maybe thirty five or forty, I don't know, Okay. And it's he awake. He's just moving his head around, but he's not responding. I call his name, asked what's going on? And I call his name, asking what's happen. I think he's not responding to that, but his head's kind of rolling around. Okay. Is he conscious? Well, I can't tell. Okay. Is he breathing? I can't tell that. I'm assuming he's breathing at these movement his head around. Did you ever hear him talk or anything?

33:17 No? Okay, he said he's sitting in the car right correct, the driver's suit. Okay. Wherever exactly is he in the driver's seat, Yeah, in the driver's seat. Is he in the garage or in the garage? Okay? Can you direct the emergency crewise to him? Sir? Sure? Now, that's just part of the nine on one call. It was actually a very long one. But mister Goger would go on to explain that he couldn't tell if this was a suicide attempt or what, but he was very adamant. He needs an EMT. He needs somebody quickly. This is not going to be this is not going well. And he said, I mean, his head was just thrashing back and forth, but he wasn't responding, He wasn't making any sense, and he surely wasn't answering any questions as he yelled at him.

33:59 You know, Dan, Dan. So the police got there pretty quickly and they're waiting to try to get Dan out of there. Matter of fact, they would actually take a lot of flack about this because I believe it took the ambulance nineteen minutes to get there, which is unheard of. That's kind of a side point here. But they were doing whatever they could for Dan until they were able to card him off and try to save his life. But the neighbor, mister Geiger, never left the area, and so this would be really important because he would tell police what had happened and that he had seen that that prius pull out, and he thought that that really might have had something to do with what happened to Dan. So Dan was loaded up eventually transported to a local hospital where he was listed as extremely critical by doctors. Now his wounds were horrific.

34:48 He had multiple penetrating injuries to his head. One of the injuries was straight to the middle of his forehead. I'm talking a bullet hole straight through the middle of his forehead, and another bullet hole was over his cheek and almost into his eye area. So both of his eyes were super super swollen. It was very evident that he had sustained extreme trauma. His face was bloodied and there was also this massive bruising around his eyes. When the doctor was looking him over, he was bleeding out of his eyes, his nose, his ears.

35:30 I mean, this was just this was horrific. And he had to be intubated during the resuscitation attempts because he was not doing well and not breathing well on his own. So everything was done that could possibly be done by doctors, and all they really could do was hope for the best once they got him stabilized. So Dan's body would hold on for about twelve hours, but he would eventually pass away. He just couldn't fight the extreme trauma that had happened to his head into his brain. So his body was transported to the Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy, which was done by a doctor Anthony Howard, And so doctor Howard had to clean his face up really well to even be able to tell what was going on. Once he got in cleaned up, though, it was very obvious that there were two bullet holes to his face. There was a great deal of swelling still whenever he made it to the doctor, and a great deal of distortion to the left side of his face in particular. And the doctor even said in his report he put what he referred to as raccoon eyes, because Dan's face now had these black bruises, massive black bruises around his eyes.

36:40 It looked just like a raccoon's face would look. One of the. Bullets, like I told you, had entered into his cheek. Well, that bullet entered into his cheek, his left cheek, right right kind of by his eye, and it stopped just below his ear, so it was kind of like a downward angle how it had entered into his head. He also noted that he had scratches and bruising on his nose, but based on what had happened at the scene, the doctor believed that scratching was from the glass from the window, that when the bullet shattered and went through it, that glass blew back at such a fast rate that it caused the scratches on his face. And then the second bullet, as I mentioned mentioned that he was struck with, entered right.

37:22 I mean, it was like almost between his eyes where his eyeglasses would have sat, and the wound to his face right there was really irregular looking, but it was because whenever the bullet hit, it hit his glasses first, and so strangely enough, the glass itself, like the lens, protected his eyeballs from getting glass and shattering all of that, because they didn't shatter, but the frame hit his face and then it went straight through the frame. The frame shattered, and then the bullet entered straight into his face and it rested into the back of his skull. So lots of swelling due to those skull fractures, and because of that, there was a lot of fluid that ended up rusting in his eye area. And I'm not I'm not saying all this to be graphic. I'm saying all this to tell you just how traumatic this was to and what he was still alive and dealing with before he passed, and.

38:14 As far as the rest of his body. He even had a bruise on his arm, which was noted at the hospital, but it was kind of strange that he would have this, this random bruise on his arm. So the medical examiner looks it over and he believed what happened was the first shot was actually the one to the cheek. So whoever this was, was a shot through the window. It hit him in the cheek, and that wasn't necessarily a fatal or instantly I guess incapacitating wound because as it hit him, Dan he believed, threw up his left arm to like naturally shield himself from whatever was coming. And that second shot would have then been closer because the bad guy or the gunman could have reached in through the window. There's no more glass in the way now, and so he was closer in when he took that shot. So there was also some soot or stippling on the forearm, and he believed that's because the gun was closer he threw the arm up.

39:13 The soot from the gun transferred as Dan's glasses also exploded, and the frame must have flew and. Hit the arm and caused the bruise. Now, I know some people might question, because I actually did too, what do you mean the soot transferred from the firearm, because I automatically always think like a nine millimeter. I don't know whyever that or maybe a twenty two or something. That's what I always go to in these types of instances. But the report added that he thought it was soot because he believed a revolver was used, and in a revolver, just real quick, there's a gap between the cylinder and the frame of the weapon and so gases are expelled through that gap after firing. And based on the shape of the bruise pattern, it seemed like that was what happened, is that that soot came out and that's what was on Dan's arm and it must have been a revolver. So at the crime scene, there really wasn't much to go on, like, nothing really to go on other than they knew Dan had been shot, but robbery was ruled out because Dan's wallet was still in the car, and that sucker was fat. I have pictures, by the way, I put all this on Patreon for you, but that sucker was fat, Like physically, I was like, dang, his spine must have hurt sitting on top of that day in and day out. And it had money in it, so it wasn't robbery. They would have taken the wallet.

40:27 There was shattered glass on the garage floor and the one half of his eyeglasses were in the middle of the garage floor. Of that in the middle of that glass in the on the garage floor, there weren't lenses in it though, But this would match up with what the police, what the medical examiner would say, because they located the lenses of the glasses inside the car on the floorboard, still intact. So it seemed obvious to the police also that the glasses must have snapped due to the bullet, and that Dan's must have just taken these shots and didn't have much to say or much that he could do before he was just completely incapacitated by the action. But knowing how brutal Dan's last moments were only led to more questions. Really so Dan had the kids that day, he had custody that day. So the first question is where are the kids? You know, were they kidnapped? Was this a kidnapping situation? But police would find out that Dan had brought them to daycare that morning.

41:26 They were fine, They were dropped off a daycare, and then after daycare, Dan went to the gym. I told you he was a fit guy. He liked to work out, so he got his workout in at the gym, and then he went home to shower and get ready for his day. But police believe this was an ambush and he got shot before he could even get out of his seat in the garage. But thankfully, like I told you, mister Geiger was able to give that information on that car that was speeding away, and that would be something that the police would try to jump on immediately. But also who would have had. The motive to do this was the question that they had, as well as who could possibly benefit from the death of Dan.

42:07 All of those things are are the obvious questions. So police went straight to the presumptive number one suspect in any attack like this, and it's the same person you're thinking right now is say this say it with me, Wendy, right the ex wife. Who else would be more pissed off that than the ex wife? So when she was told about Dan's shooting, she completely fell apart at the shock of it. She was like, you know what happened? Why? You know? Who? Give me some more information, none of which the police had answers to in that moment. Remember, as I'm telling you it right now, Dan wasn't dead yet and he's still at the hospital fighting for his life.

42:49 So police then would take. The normal steps of explaining that we have to exclude you, Wendy. We just you're the number one, You're right here, you're the closest, and you're the only one who would probably be thought of as angry enough to do this. So she's like, whatever, no problem. She complied with all of their requests, and she says, you know, we had a bitter divorce, but I never would have wanted him dead. Okay, I never would I have ever wanted him to die. Whatever you need, I'll do it. So she let them take photos of her. They swabbed her hands for gunshot residue, They did the whole nine yards everything you would expect. They even took her cell phone to review it. They photographed her van. They questioned her about her whereabouts that day, and she was very open. She shared with them, I had a TV repairman that came earlier in the morning because my TV wasn't working properly. She said that she I think maybe the kids or something had thrown something at the TV, and so she was getting it repaired.

43:49 After that, she ran to a grocery store or a liquor store because she was attending a stock the bar type party later on and so she needed to go get the liquor for that. And then after that she went and she met her friends for lunch, which this would easily be proven too. First of all, she didn't drive a Prius. Her van was a Maroon Odyssey, and the receipt for the alcohol and the bottle of alcohol were still in her car as well, so her alibi was pretty frick and solid. Also, she did go eat lunch with her friends because the police that's where they had found her to get her to come bring her to tell her to break the news to her about her her ex husband's passing, So pretty solid alibi. Through and through well.

44:29 A few days later, on July twenty first, the Tallahassee police department decided that they wanted to create a tip line that was dedicated just for the investigation of Dan's murder, and they were very clear when they set up this tip line. They did not believe that this was a random act of violence, and they added to that, not only do we think it's not random, but we don't believe that it was burglary and there was no entry to the home after he was shot. Well, come on, y'all, the age old motives for murder, sex, money, revenge, That's what it all boils down to. I don't care what murdered her, is it always boils down to one or more of those. Well, money wasn't the motive, and so that leaves them down to sex or revenge.

45:12 So let's talk sex real quick. There was no jealous X. Angry yes, frustrated yes, but there was no jealous X either way. Wendy wasn't going after whoever Dan was Dayton, and Dan wasn't going after Jeff that Wendy was Dayton, So both of them had moved forward, and the police wondered who might. Have had motive if sex was involved. Well, Wendy did pipe up at that point, and she said, well, I mean I was dating this guy, Jeff, and recently I said that I wanted to break from him because they had gotten into an argument, is what happened. And she said I wanted to break from him. He wasn't thrilled about it, but I was done. I didn't want to remain dating him anymore. And so maybe I drove him to do it, because I don't know why, but maybe if he wanted to go remove the one person who was causing me so much grief, then I could just focus on Jeff.

46:16 I mean, I hate to think that, but maybe he did it. And it certainly was something that police were willing to look into, and so they called Jeff and they said, hey, why don't you come in. We'd like to have a little chat with you. So Jeff comes in, no problem, and Jeff admits it is true he loves Wendy and he did want at one point to kick Dan's ass, but it was because of the stress that Dan was causing Wendy. But murder, no freaking way, absolutely not. So police asked him, okay, well where were you on the day of the murder, and Jeff explained he stayed at a really crappy days in motel which was near Atlanta, about one hundred miles away, and he wasn't anywhere near Dan's home whenever he was presumed to have been murdered.

47:01 And this when police went investigated, was actually proven to be true. Everything he said about where he was was proven to be true and they ruled him out. So back to that prius, Okay police decided to canvass the area and specifically the roadway that that prius would have driven down in the neighborhood. They wanted to see does anybody have security cameras that maybe we could get a glimpse of this car. Well, it took them about a week to track something down, but sure enough they were able to find and spot a Prius that matched that vehicle description that the neighbor had given. Well. By July twenty third, police decided that they were going to release that image of the Prius to the public, and once they did that, the tip line generated over fifty tips almost immediately from residences and businesses that also had video around around the area. So while this was all looking up in terms of the investigation, things were still moving rather slowly as as far as knocking this out and solving it, and a year would pass and the case still wasn't solved well.

48:09 Wendy eventually had moved with the. Kids back to South Florida and had tried to start anew but back at her former home. Tallahassee police it was still on the front of their minds, the forefront of their minds. They had not given up. They had to solve this case, and they thought that that prius had to be a key factor in this. So an investigator decided to step back and look at the case and try a different approach to iding the prius that was seen leaving Dan's house. He decided, Okay, rather. Than looking at cameras that might be stationed on the roadway, I want to go pull the public bus systems cameras. Now, I don't know that I would have thought to do that, to be honest, I don't think that would have struck me as something to do because it sounds tedious as hell. Okay, but a year had passed and this investigator decided to try it. Basically, public buses, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them have cameras that are equipped on the side of them, and they film the streets while they're in operation, and this includes the lanes that run alongside of the buses. You know, if they're in the middle lane, it films the lane to the left and right, and no matter where they are, it's always able to pick up the side lanes that are traveling and also in front of them. Well, when reviewing hours and hours and hours of tape, sure enough, if that investigator didn't find a Prius passing a bus right near the area of the time of Dan's murder, it was grainy as hell, and the driver couldn't be made out. Okay,

49:39 it wasn't very good quality, but there was something in the window of that Prius that caught the investigator's attention, and it was a toll pass. You know, those like sun pass tolls that you see when you're heading to Florida for vacation. And when the closer you get to Florida, everybody starts having those sun passes so that people don't have to drive through and stop at the toll. They can just go through and it charges based on their pass. You know those things, Well, they'll get you, okay. Well, the reason that it caught the investigator's attention is because Tallahassee doesn't really have a lot of toll passes. So his thought process was. Well, maybe this car was from somewhere else and it drove to Tallahassee for the murder rather than originating in Tallahassee.

50:23 So this led the investigator to pull toll road passes during the time before and after their murder took place. And sure enough, and I hate to make it this simple, because it was tedious as hell, again, he was able to id the very vehicle where it came from, and it. Was North Miami. So this would set off an even further investigation on what's going on in Miami. And it turns out where the vehicle was rented from was not this big industry known name. It was like a little small mom and poplic in business that had a very tiny fleet that you could rent. So when investigators contacted the business for a name of who had rented the vehicle, that's when they got the contract.

51:08 They got the name Luis Rivera. Y'all on trippin' I didn't. I don't know why I said it like that. Okay, here Louise Rivera, bingo, Okay, they have a name that they could at least work with. And so this was this was huge. And it turns out that that name was one that was way more well known to that area than you would expect. But the local police knew him because he was a member of the Almighty Latin Kings. A little word about the Latin Kings. They are not a group to be laughed off. The Latin Kings, y'all, are a legit organization. They are authoritarian and very violent, but they're also organized, and that's to me a scary combo. Whenever you're extremely violent and you're organized, that's that's that's something to be said there. They have their own content institution, by the way, and they have bylaws. Their members know it, they memorize it. Their current membership is estimated to be upwards of thirty five thousand members across the US.

52:12 It's big. They have chapters and they operate in one hundred and fifty eight cities across thirty four states. Okay, so the members of these of this gang tend to be Mexican American or Puerto Rican. There are a lot of males involved and they make their money usually doing street level distribution of dope. We're talking cocaine, heroin, marijuana, okay, whatever. Well, the members also like to be violent, like I told you, so, they'll commit burglary, homicides, aren't out of their pay grade. They'll do money laundering. Just a really really nasty group of gangsters that mean business. So in terms of size and violence and how much do they actually penetrate into the communities around or outside their localized area where they stay, they score an eight out of ten on a threat severity level by law enforcement.

53:06 You can look that up to. I'm not exaggerating or sensationalizing this. This is not a joke. This group is not a joke. They are dangerous people. And if you watch movies and stuff about gangsters, if you like gangster movies, they kind of allude to this sometimes if it's a Hispanic gangster and if they have a five point crown like a like a king would wear. If there's a five point crown tattoo, that's their most notable visual that you'll see, or sometimes you'll see a a m l K Almighty Latin Kings something like that. So, so dangerous are these guys? Just so you know that when gang intel units or gang unit officers go in to affect arrests or do busts or whatever. They usually hide their faces when they do this, they wear the masks.

53:50 You know you're dealing with some bad dudes when you won't even show your face. But they don't want to become targets for revenge. They also don't want to give up if they're you know, whoever they're infiltrating. So pretty serious situation here. So as you can imagine from what I've all told what I have just told you, it was really hard to believe that Dan, of all people, would have ties to a Hispanic gang of this magnitude. It just wasn't something number one that his character would have entertained. Plus he was white, you know, this isn't really a white gang. So who is this Louise Rivera and was he the shooter of Dan? Became the main question. All of this, by the way, happening around the one year anniversary of Dan's murder and a year I just want to point out, that's a really, really long time for a family to wait for justice, whatever justice means to you.

54:39 I used to think. Justice meant, you know, like dunt dunk justice, you know, it served. But the more the older I've gotten and the more I've experienced crime and criminality and victimhood and victimology and all of that. Justice, justice I. Don't think is something that the victim ever a chiefs. I think justice is our worldly way of saying that they were held accountable in the eyes of the law. But justice for a victim, I don't think that happens. And I don't want to sound I don't want to sound jaded when I say that. I mean that from the heart of someone who just hurts so bad for these people. A year is a very, very long time, and you're not knowing who did this to your son, why it was done. That has to be the most painful and exhausting year of their lives. And I would be angry too that no one had been held accountable for a whole year, wouldn't you. I mean, But regardless, it wasn't because the police weren't working.

55:38 They had kept working. It's just it was so tedious to go through all of those records and all of those reports and the manpower it takes to do that. So they found that Louise was a leader in this gang too, y'all, not just a little like not just a little road soldier that went and did whatever. He was a leader. Matter of fact, he was the shot caller. As if you look at the terminal, you remember that song wanna be a ball A shot call? You know you do if you're forty all right. Well, he was a shot caller, specifically for the Northern Miami Beach chapter. And so this meant that he ran that PSALM bitch. He was in charge, He gave the orders. Not only that he controlled the crime activities in that area.

56:21 This was a high level dog here. So whenever they were looking at the contract for that rental car and they saw his name on there, they noted at the very top, just scribbled at the top was a word that said brother, just scribbled. There was no name or anything handwritten, and it said brother. And there was a phone number underneath brother. So the question kind of going through officers' minds as they're trying to kind of wrap their brains about around what's going on here, was was it possible that Dan may have taught a Latin king or possibly a Latin king member family member and somehow pissed them off, And so they got angry with him because after all, but y'all. He was a law professor. I'm sure he said a lot of things that criminals probably wouldn't like or maybe not agree with.

57:07 So the name of who that brother was became kind of important too, And so that phone number was ran and it came back to a guy named Sigfredo Garcia, who was also from Miami. Now both men were Hispanic, but they weren't actually related. They grew up together in the projects and they had remained lifelong friends as well as very accomplished criminals. How sweet is that. But they weren't actually brothers for real. So Luis looks like a very average guy. He's got a cris pairline, a manicured kind of shorter beard. Nothing about him to me, like really stood out as crazy. He didn't have face tats, he didn't look like this raging gangster to me or anything like that. Sigfredo is a very very very light skinned Hispanic man. But he has got these crystal stole blue or greenish eyes like they glow. It is bizarre how much they glow. And you can't help but notice those first when you see him. I don't care if he puts a ski mask on, you will notice those eyeballs and again I put pictures of him on Patreon for you. So iding these men was great. But what was even better was that they had the cell phone numbers, because this meant that they.

58:22 Could research They me and the police could research the. Cell phone data, and by doing that, it would kind of tell a story as to what all was going on, at least with those cell phones. So even if that story would become just dots on a map showing cell tower usage, those dots would travel as time passed, and basically it would provide a digital roadmap on the day of the murder if they had those phones with them, so it would really be easy also to rule them out as suspects if if that's the case, what if those phones were, you know, being used somewhere else. So the reports were requested via a warrant and there was sults came back in so on July sixteenth of twenty fourteen, their phones showed that both men were in fact traveling from northern Miami to Tallahassee, and it took them roughly seven hours to make that trip. So that drive brought them into Tallahassee. It was just after midnight when they got there, so their drive not only took them into Tallahassee, but the actual towers that the cell phones were bouncing off of were really close to the vicinity of Dan's home. Now, I don't believe in coincidences, just so you know, I say that a lot, but you're hopefully starting to see a trend in my storytelling episode after episode, and that's why I am the way that I am. The men then went and they checked into a hotel on North Monroe Street. The next morning, their cell phone records showed them right near the gym that Dan had worked out

59:53 at the morning of his death. So video surveillance that was previously pulled from the gym would show something pretty interesting. Dan, who drove a black Honda, literally passes that prius in the parking lot going opposite directions. So Dan parked his vehicle, he went inside. He's wearing a red T shirt and black shorts, carrying only his keys in his hand. He worked out. He was there the entire time working out, and while he was doing that that entire time, the Prius was outside in that parking lot slowly driving around. But if you watch the car, no one ever gets out of the Prius, and no one ever comes from outside of the gym to get in it, and no one from the car goes into the gym. The car also never left the parking lot. But later, when Dan exited from his workout and he got into his car, he left the parking lot, and wouldn't you know that Prius conveniently followed him just a few paces behind. So, as you already know, the public buses were out and working, but specifically on a time stamp at ten forty four am, that a bus caught Dan driving past it. It's the front view, like he passed in front of it, and wouldn't you know it, right after he passes straight through the front of the bus a Prius. That same Prius also just seconds later goes right past the camera as well.

1:01:19 And it's chilling to watch, Honestly, it's chilling because a man is being unsuspectingly hunted like prey, and you know that he has no clue that this is happening to He had dropped his babies off at daycare that morning, and he never realized, he never realized that that was the last time that he was ever gonna hold those babies or hold their hands He didn't know that he was in somebody's sights. He never knew that that was his last kiss goodbye to his babies, nor in his wildest dreams could even ever imagine that a Latin King gang member or two would be following him through his. Stops that day. And just fifteen minutes so that bus caught those images of both vehicles passing through. Dan was shot, so a timeline was starting to take place, and the Prius was then seen rushing away from the scene by the neighbor.

1:02:12 And wouldn't you know, another city bus captured that prius driving in the opposite direction away from Dan's home just a minute or two after the shots rang out. All of this now happening by eleven am. And then to icing on the cake seven hours later after that bus was seen or the prius was seen passing that second bus. Guess what that prius was seen on camera back in Miami at a Chase Bank getting money from an ATM. That ain't a coincidence. Sorry. What's cool about it, though, is that that ATM had a camera that filmed the entire withdrawal and you can clearly see the driver a Hispanic mail with a long sleeved black shirt on and the passenger wearing a long sleeved white shirt. You can't really see the passenger's face though, but that first face you see that is Louise, guaranteed.

1:03:10 But then at one point the passenger happens to lean forward just briefly and you can see his face. And what are the chances that both of those men looked just like Louise and SIGFRIEDO? Well, good police work would tell you, really good. So with all of this evidence, the police knew that they had their killers, and they went and arrested them both, charging them with first degree murder nearly two years after Dan was murdered. But the answer as to why still had not been answered. There's too much in the process here that's not making sense. It just none of the theories fit. And that's when police really thought about the questioning they had already done of some of the people years ago, including Wendy's ex boyfriend Jeff. He had come in from multiple interviews, y'all, But something during one of those interviews interviews seemed odd.

1:04:06 He mentioned in one of those interviews that he was worried about his safety. So police were kind of curious about this, and they're like, okay, we'll do tell. Why would you be worried about your safety if you're not involved in any of anything. Doesn't make sense. But he wasn't pointing the finger at Wendy. Interestingly, he was just flat out weirded out by her family. He just would say, they're kind of off, there's something very strange about the way that they do business. And he eventually would kind of open up to the police about just how unusually caught up Wendy's family was in her divorce and how much they were just insisting that she moved back.

1:04:48 Home with them. They hated Dan with a frickin passion, and it was more than just frustration too. He was very clear to them, He's like, this is not normal. This is pure hatred. Hatred, and so this seemed like maybe a bit much, but it was nothing that they wanted to overlook. The police thought maybe they needed to rule out the family. But even Dan's friends though that came in and were questioned about it, they said the same thing. They brought up, how Wendy's parents were just flat out unreasonable and that they were misbehaving in their behavior during this divorce. So Jeff didn't want to just flat out accuse these people, and he even said that, look, I'm not going to go out there and accuse them, but I just feel like maybe you should check out the idea. And so they're like, okay, well, why do you worry about your safety?

1:05:34 Though I still don't understand, and that's when Jeff said, okay. Basically, his position was that if Dan had possibly been murdered for a failed relationship with Wendy, then why not him too. That was kind of his thing. So maybe where there's smoke, there is fire, as they say. But when they were all looked at, they went and they checked out the whole family, including Wendy's brother, who you know, not just the parents. They looked at the brother. They were all in Tallahassee the day of the murder. They were nowhere near Dan, and this was validated and verified. So I guess they did hate him. But Dan's murder was at this point more of a convenient tragedy for them, you know, from where they stood. But Jeff just wasn't so convinced, is what it seemed to be. And this is where this story takes a major left turn. While we've been talking this whole time about divorce and murder and gang members.

1:06:26 There was something else that police should have been focusing on, y'all, boobies. That's right, boobies. Now I know what you're wondering right now, Like, what the hell do boobs have to do with this case? Kelly? Well, hang on to your brasstraps, ladies, because they certainly do. And let's just say that this case perked up after police received a well supported lead. Someone needed to get off their chest.