Sigfredo Garcia: Trial, Verdict, Appeal, and the Adelson Case

Sigfredo Garcia is the Miami man convicted of shooting Florida State University law professor Dan Markel in a 2014 murder-for-hire plot that prosecutors traced back to Markel’s former in-laws, the Adelson family. A Leon County jury found Garcia guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder on October 11, 2019, and he is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole plus an additional 30 years for the conspiracy count.¹

Who Sigfredo Garcia Is

Garcia was 34 when he was arrested in 2016. He lived in Miami Beach and had a long South Florida record: at least 22 arrests going back to 1997, when he was 15, on charges including burglary, aggravated assault with a weapon, trafficking in amphetamines, and drug possession. Many of those charges were misdemeanors or were dropped, and he had never served time in a Florida state prison before the Markel case.²

His link to the Adelson family ran through Katherine Magbanua, the mother of his two children. Magbanua had dated Garcia on and off since her teenage years. By 2013, she was working at the Adelson family’s dental practice and had started a romantic relationship with Charlie Adelson, Markel’s former brother-in-law. Prosecutors argued Magbanua was the crucial link between Charlie Adelson and the men who did the shooting.³

The Murder He Carried Out

On the morning of July 18, 2014, Dan Markel was shot twice at intermediate range while sitting in his car inside the garage of his Tallahassee home. He was 41 and died at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare the next day.⁴⁵

According to Luis Rivera, Garcia’s co-conspirator and later the state’s key witness, the two men rented a green 2008 Toyota Prius in North Miami around July 15, 2014, and drove to Tallahassee. Their first trip failed. They tried again, checking into a motel on West Tennessee Street on July 17. The next morning the Prius followed Markel from a fitness center to his house. Rivera testified that he watched from the driver’s seat as Garcia walked up and shot Markel twice.⁶ A neighbor saw the Prius back out of the driveway. Cell records placed both men near the house that morning and captured a call from Garcia to Magbanua about 90 minutes after the shooting.⁷

Why Prosecutors Said Markel Was Killed

The state’s motive theory came out of a bitter custody fight. After Markel’s 2012 divorce from Wendi Adelson, a Florida court denied Wendi’s request to move the couple’s two young sons to South Florida, where her family lived.⁸ Prosecutors said that ruling enraged Wendi’s mother, Donna Adelson, and her brother Charlie, who wanted the boys near them and considered Markel the obstacle.

Post-divorce filings grew hostile, with Markel accusing Wendi of hiding money and of parental alienation; a family attorney later testified the filings became “increasingly personal and hostile” in the months before the killing.⁹ Emails between Wendi and Donna discussed a possible $1 million payment to Markel to allow the move. When that idea went nowhere, prosecutors say, the family turned to murder.

Arrest and the Case Against Him

Garcia was arrested in Hallandale Beach, Florida, on May 25, 2016, and charged with first-degree murder. In a police interview the day before, he had denied ever traveling to Tallahassee or knowing anything about the killing.⁷ A Leon County grand jury indicted him and Rivera on June 17, 2016. The probable cause affidavit named the Adelsons’ “desperate desire” to move Wendi and the children to South Florida as the motive.¹⁰

Rivera flipped. Already serving a 12-year federal sentence on unrelated charges, he pleaded guilty on October 4, 2016, to second-degree murder and accepted a 19-year state sentence to run concurrently with his federal time. The deal spared him a first-degree murder charge and any exposure to the death penalty. In return, he agreed to testify against every co-defendant.¹¹ He identified Garcia as the shooter and Magbanua as the coordinator, and testified that Garcia told him during the drive north that they were going to kill a man “for some kids.”⁶

The 2019 Trial and Verdict

Garcia and Magbanua were tried together in Leon County in October 2019. Over eleven days, prosecutors Georgia Cappleman and State Attorney Jack Campbell built their case on Rivera’s testimony, cell records, surveillance footage, and financial records showing cash moving into the defendants’ accounts after the murder. Cappleman described the chain to jurors: “She goes straight to Charlie Adelson who goes straight to Katherine Magbanua, who goes straight to Sigfredo Garcia.”¹²

Garcia’s attorney, Saam Zangeneh, attacked Rivera as an unreliable witness, called him a “gang kingpin,” and suggested Rivera could have been the actual shooter. The defense pointed to inconsistencies in Rivera’s account, including shifts in when he claimed he first understood the trip was about murder rather than a robbery.

After roughly nine hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Garcia of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.¹³¹⁴¹ The same jury deadlocked on Magbanua, and the judge declared a mistrial as to her.

Garcia’s Appeal

Garcia took his conviction to Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal, raising two main issues. He argued the trial court mishandled a discovery dispute over a state ballistics expert who offered new findings suggesting the shooter stood over six feet tall; the trial court had characterized the late disclosure as a “technical” violation and let the testimony in. He also challenged the court’s response to a jury question about the legal definition of “principal,” although the state argued he waived that issue by agreeing to the response at trial.¹⁵

After the direct appeal, Garcia sought further review from the Florida Supreme Court. On March 7, 2025, the court denied his petition for belated discretionary review, closing his appellate options.¹⁶

Garcia’s Place in the Larger Adelson Case

Garcia’s conviction turned out to be the first in a longer sequence. Katherine Magbanua was retried in May 2022, convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation, and sentenced to life on July 29, 2022.⁷ At Charlie Adelson’s later trial she testified for the state and admitted she was the middleman who passed money from Charlie to the hitmen.¹⁷ A three-judge appellate panel affirmed her convictions in July 2025.¹⁸

Charlie Adelson was arrested in April 2022 after an FBI undercover sting, convicted on November 6, 2023, of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation, and sentenced on December 12, 2023, to life plus 60 years.¹⁹ His appeal is pending, with oral arguments held before the 1st District Court of Appeal on February 3, 2026.²⁰

Donna Adelson, whom prosecutors called the “architect” of the plot, was arrested at Miami International Airport on November 13, 2023, as she and her husband Harvey allegedly tried to board a one-way flight to Vietnam.⁸ At her 2025 trial, prosecutors showed that she had signed checks to Magbanua from the family dental practice for more than a year after the murder even though Magbanua never worked there.²¹ She was convicted on all counts and sentenced on October 13, 2025, to life plus 30 years.²² Her appeal has been filed.

Neither Wendi Adelson nor her father Harvey has been charged. Wendi has denied any involvement. She holds use immunity for her prior testimony but not transactional immunity, which leaves the theoretical possibility of charges open, though none has come.²¹

1
WCTV. Sigfredo Garcia Sentenced
2
Tallahassee Democrat. Suspect in Dan Markel Case Has Long Rap Sheet
3
Tallahassee Democrat. Dan Markel Murder Trial: Magbanua and Garcia
4
Tallahassee Democrat. Timeline of Events in the Dan Markel Case
5
WTXL. Dan Markel Murder Trial: How We Got Here
6
WFSU. Day Four: Luis Rivera Says He Wouldn’t Shoot Dan Markel in Front of Kids
7
WCTV. Extended Timeline: Key Dates in the Dan Markel Murder Case
8
NBC News. Daniel Markel Murder: Hit Men, Family
9
Court TV. Attorney Testifies Dan Markel’s Post-Divorce Filings Were Hostile
10
ABA Journal. Timeline of Developments Stemming From the Murder of Law Prof Dan Markel
11
Tallahassee Democrat. Plea Deal Could Be Possible for Markel Suspect
12
WCTV. Markel Murder Trial Day 11: Jury Deliberations Continue
13
WFSU. Sigfredo Garcia Coverage
14
Court TV. Prosecutors Make Case in Law Professor Murder-for-Hire Trial
15
Florida 1st DCA. State v. Garcia, Case No. 1D19-4005, Appellee’s Answer Brief
16
Florida Courts. Garcia v. State, Case No. SC2024-1629
17
Court TV. Katherine Magbanua Admits Role as Middleman in Dan Markel Murder Plot
18
Tallahassee Democrat. Appeals Court Affirms Conviction of Katie Magbanua in Dan Markel Murder
19
ABC News. South Florida Grandmother at Center of Murder-for-Hire Saga
20
Tallahassee Democrat. Oral Arguments Set in Charlie Adelson Appeal in Dan Markel Murder
21
CNN. Donna Adelson Murder Trial
22
WCTV. Donna Adelson Sentenced to Life in Prison for Dan Markel’s Murder