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Aug 18, 2017 · Payton Saari, 24, has entered a surprise guilty plea to two counts of second-degree murder for the killings of 81-year-old Elsie Steppa and her nephew, 50-year-old Clarence Thornton.
Jul 7, 2023 · July 7, 2023. Investigation Discovery’s ‘A Time to Kill: Frozen Stiffs’ chronicles how 81-year-old Elsie Steppa and her 50-year-old nephew, Clarence Thornton, were brutally murdered in Ethelbert, Canada, in late December 2012. The police discovered the bodies almost a month later, and the residents of the sparsely populated town came ...
- Overview
- An ugly custody dispute
- An undercover sting
- A ticket to Vietnam
In November, days after her son was convicted in a sprawling murder-for-hire plot over a custody dispute, authorities arrested Donna Adelson at Miami International Airport.
Adelson, 73, had participated in the plot, authorities alleged, and now she was at the airport with a one-way ticket to Vietnam — a country with no extradition treaty with the United States.
In an exclusive interview with NBC’s “Dateline,” Adelson’s lawyer rejected the possibility that she was trying to permanently flee the country and described her as “absolutely innocent” of first-degree murder and other crimes.
Dan Rashbaum described Adelson — a bookkeeper at her family’s dental practice — as a distraught parent who was furious with the justice system about her son’s murder conviction and life sentence. She hadn’t done anything wrong when she booked the ticket, he said.
“She was a free citizen like you and me,” he said.
To learn more about the murder-for-hire case, tune in to “Family Matters” on “Dateline” at 9 ET/8 CT tonight.
Authorities said Markel’s killing was linked to the dispute over the children he shared with ex Wendi Adelson. After she filed for divorce in 2012, Wendi asked a judge to let her move with their two boys from Tallahassee to South Florida, where her parents also lived, according to the affidavit in support of Donna’s arrest.
The judge rejected the request, but Charlie and Donna Adelson were “determined” to see Wendi relocate, the affidavit says. During Charlie’s trial, Magbanua testified that Charlie had called Markel a “terrible” man who had put his family through an ordeal and came up with the idea to kill his former brother-in-law.
Rashbaum, who represented Charlie Adelson in his criminal trial, blamed Magbanua for orchestrating the extortion and the murder, saying she was motivated by Charlie’s refusal to marry her.
According to the affidavit, Donna also repeatedly sought to have her daughter “coerce” Markel into allowing the move with an offer of $1 million, and she told her daughter to “threaten” to convert the boys to Catholicism — “knowing Markel was very observant in his Jewish faith and that the religious practices of the children were of the utmost importance to Markel.”
Rashbaum said that Wendi never actually presented Donna’s financial offer, which was intended to pay expenses related to a potential move to South Florida. Among other things, it would have paid for an apartment for Markel, Rashbaum said, and it would have allowed him to commute to Tallahassee. Wendi Adelson has denied involvement in Markel’s killing and has not been accused of any crimes.
Other 'Dateline' cases
Rashbaum rejected another piece of evidence that authorities pointed to during Charlie’s trial and in Donna’s affidavit.
More than a year after Markel’s killing — and before anyone had been arrested — law enforcement launched an undercover sting operation to try and determine who was involved, Georgia Cappleman, the prosecutor who later tried Charlie’s case, told “Dateline.”
In April 2016, an undercover federal agent posing as someone seeking to blackmail Donna over the murder approached her outside her Miami condo and handed her a news article about Markel’s murder. Written on the piece of paper was a dollar amount — $5,000 — and a phone number.
The agent told Donna that she was “taking care” of Magbanua and the father of her children, but not the friend who later pleaded guilty, Cappleman said.
“It’s designed to give Donna the impression that she’s being blackmailed for $5,000 on behalf” of the friend, Cappleman said.
In a conversation the FBI intercepted afterwards, Donna called her son about “some paperwork” that had been hand-delivered to her, according to the affidavit. When Charlie asked if it was about him, she whispered: “Well, probably the both of us.”
During a news conference after Charlie’s conviction, a reporter asked Cappleman if anyone else in the Adelson family would face charges.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Cappleman said. “Stay tuned.”
To Donna, Rashbaum said, the comment seemed directed at her.
“She’s just been told by the prosecutor immediately after her son’s conviction that she’s next,” Rashbaum said. “Her thought pattern is: They’re gonna arrest me. I’m 73 years old, and I’m gonna be in the same predicament of not having a fair trial in Tallahassee.”
“I think the thought pattern was: Let’s get away for some time, let’s see what the situation’s like,” Rashbaum said, adding: “They were gonna come back.”
Donna’s husband had also booked a ticket to Vietnam and was with her when she was arrested. He was not taken into custody and has not been charged with any crimes in connection with Markel’s murder.
Nov 6, 2019 · This was the end of a 60 year love story, NOT MURDER!!!”. Mavis and Dennis Eccleston's daughter has shared the final photo of her mum and dad together in hospital (Twitter/@JoyMunns) Mrs Eccleston had been hauled before a court charged with murdering her 81-year-old husband by giving him a drink containing prescription medication.
Jun 27, 2015 · When 14-year-old Elsie Frost was murdered in an unexplained, violent attack on a Wakefield towpath in 1965, her family were thrown into a period of intense shock and grief. For Elsie’s younger ...
Died. July 22, 1995. (1995-07-22) (aged 15) Arroyo Grande, California. Elyse Marie Pahler (April 24, 1980 – July 22, 1995) [1] was a 15-year-old Arroyo Grande High School freshman who was murdered on July 22, 1995 by three teenage boys, Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt, and Joseph Fiorella. Casey, Delashmutt, and Fiorella lured Elyse Pahler to a ...
Oct 2, 2015 · First published on Fri 2 Oct 2015 06.21 EDT. The brother and sister of a teenager murdered 50 years ago in Yorkshire have forced police to open a new investigation into the killing. Elsie Frost ...
