5 People Have Been Convicted For Her Ex-Husband’s Murder. Will She Be Next?

Wendi Adelson, however, has remained free — which her mother noted in text messages between them shortly after Charlie Adelson’s conviction and before her arrest.

“Your brother protected you for years,” Donna Adelson wrote to Wendi in the texts, which were presented in her trial. “Now you are not guilty. Your lawyer took very good care of you.”

In a subsequent text, which Donna Adelson read aloud to her son in a recording of a jail call obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat, she expresses her anger that her daughter hadn’t called and again refers to the “protection” the Adelsons provided her.

“Everyone looks to protect you,” Donna Adelson texted her daughter. “I bet you’ve got a lot to think about.”

Jeff Lacasse’s testimony, however, has done nothing to “protect” his ex-girlfriend Wendi. In addition to the “chilling” conversation he said they had about a hit man, he also testified that he believed the Adelsons might have been trying to frame him for Markel’s murder. Wendi Adelson quizzed him about his travel plans in a conversation that he found “creepy,” he claimed, and Cappleman noted that a route he intended to take that day would have been the same used by the killers.

In fact, the FBI was notified about Lacasse — from Wendi Adelson’s estranged brother, Robert Adelson, an ear, nose and throat physician who testified for the first time at Donna Adelson’s trial. Before explaining that he had cut ties with his family because of his mother’s callousness and disturbing comments surrounding Markel’s murder, he described an “unusual” text exchange he had with his sister at the end of June 2014, in which she told him she was dating Lacasse and shared pictures of him with her and her sons.

It was “unique,” he said, because she had never previously shared details with him about her romantic relationships. It was even more unusual, he testified, because she asked him not to tell her parents about it.

After Markel’s murder, he reached out to the FBI to tell them about Lacasse. Police later confirmed Lacasse was in Tennessee when Markel was killed.

Wendi Adelson’s limited immunity complicates matters. But if the state can prove she lied during her testimony, immunity is likely “out the window,” Pearson, the former prosecutor, suggested.

Even with the immunity agreement intact, however, “that doesn’t mean [prosecutors] didn’t hear what she said,” Pearson noted. “They could still use the knowledge that they gleaned from it to pursue different angles of investigation, to pursue new lines of inquiry.”

And there might already be enough evidence to charge Wendi Adelson with murder, Pearson said, under Florida’s principal statute.

Prosecutors could argue that Adelson “is not necessarily the mastermind of this, but she cooperated and aided in some way for this homicide to happen, and she stood to benefit from the homicide occurring,” she said.

Not only that, but Pearson said that prosecutors could have more evidence against Adelson that wasn’t shared during the previous trials.

“I highly doubt we’ve seen it all,” she said. “There may be pieces of evidence that were really strong in terms of establishing Wendi’s guilt, but maybe didn’t speak as clearly to the guilt of Charlie or Donna or anybody else” who was on trial.

If prosecutors could persuade someone to “flip” — like Rivera, who got a lighter sentence by testifying against his co-conspirators — they could “bolster and strengthen” the state’s case against Wendi Adelson, Pearson said.

In cases of first-degree murder, prosecutors are required under Florida law to bring the case to a grand jury to obtain an indictment, Pearson noted. And she doesn’t expect that to take long.

“This is going to probably come to trial in, like, a year,” Pearson predicted, emphasizing the case’s high profile and previous litigation.

After the guilty verdict against Donna Adelson was announced, Cappleman was asked by reporters whether anyone else will be charged in the case. She said she didn’t know but confirmed that the investigation was ongoing.

“Stay tuned,” she added with a coy smile.