No one likes to think that an innocent-looking grandma could ever be a criminal.
One woman tried to use that to her advantage.
And a Florida grandma was arrested at the airport for one awful crime no one expected.
Florida grandma accused of having her former son-in-law murdered
Donna Adelson, a 75-year-old, was in court for a pretrial hearing in Tallahassee, Florida after being accused of being involved in a shocking crime.
She allegedly was the mastermind of a murder-for-hire scheme against her former son-in-law Dan Markel.
Markel was a professor at Florida State University when he was shot and killed in his driveway in 2014.
Charlie Adelson, her son, and his girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, along with two others, have been convicted for being involved in the plot.
Markel was in a vicious custody fight with his ex-wife Wendi, Adelson’s daughter.
She wanted to relocate with the couple’s two children from Tallahassee to South Florida.
Prosecutors argued that emails showed that Donna was desperate to keep her grandkids from being in the custody of her former son-in-law.
Charlie Adelson was convicted of hiring two members of the Latin Kings gang for the hit on Markel.
Woman behind murder-for-hire plot arrested trying to flee the country
Donna Adelson was arrested at the Miami International Airport in November 2023 while she and her husband, Harvey, were trying to flee the country.
She was arrested one week after her son was convicted for hiring two hitmen to kill Markel.
The couple was preparing to fly to Dubai and from there to Vietnam on one-way tickets.
Both countries do not have an extradition treaty to send criminals back to the United States.
Adelson realized that traveling to a non-extradition treaty country would look bad to law enforcement.
But she said that she wanted to go to “a place of peace” for a vacation.
The couple had spent time in Vietnam on vacation before.
Harvey Adelson was worried that if they went on a vacation to a foreign country with an extradition treaty the couple could be held in a foreign jail for months.
Police claimed that if the couple were not running, they would have just bought plane tickets back to the United States from Vietnam.
“He said ‘if we go to a non-extradition country, then if the law enforcement decided that they wanted to arrest you or me, we won’t be sitting in a foreign prison waiting months to go back,’” Adelson explained in court. “My understanding was we could go home and I could turn myself in if that’s what they wanted.”
“I thought it was a good idea because I just couldn’t think straight,” Adelson added.
Adelson claimed her son’s conviction left her in a state of extreme distress.
“I wanted to get away, he wanted to get away. That’s what we wanted to do,” Adelson stated.
She claimed that she talked to her lawyer and there were no warrants out for her arrest or pending charges.
“I thought if you asked your attorneys and they tell you that, I’m going,” Adelson said.
Donna Adelson was one flight away from being able to get off scot-free.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
