Dan Markel left the gym expecting a routine day. Instead, the person who would kill him was already waiting.

As the prominent Florida State University law professor pulled into his driveway, he was speaking by phone with music teacher Stewart Schlazer about educational options for his children. Then the call took a frightening turn.

“Can you please hold on a second? There’s an unfamiliar person in my driveway,” Markel said.

Moments later, Schlazer heard what he described as “a loud boom.”

“There are really eerie parts of those final hours,” producer Lily Fletcher told News Media. “When you watch the CCTV footage, it looks like a completely ordinary day. Dan takes the kids to school, goes to the gym—and then there’s a Prius circling the gym parking lot. It never stops. It’s clearly waiting for him.”

“It has always reminded me of a shark circling,” Fletcher said. “There was something deeply sinister about watching that happen during such a mundane part of his day—simply going to the gym. That image stayed with me. It’s chilling.”

Markel was shot in the head while seated in his car inside the garage of his Tallahassee, Florida, home on July 18, 2014. He was 41 years old when he died the following day.

The killing is examined in a new ABC News Studios true-crime docuseries, “Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel,” which is now streaming on Hulu.

The series includes exclusive interviews with FBI agent Pat Sanford and a recorded conversation with Rob Adelson, the eldest Adelson son, who testified against his mother, Donna Adelson, at her trial. It primarily tracks the prosecution’s investigation and courtroom evidence, incorporating testimony and recordings presented during the proceedings.

Markel married Wendi Adelson in 2006 after the two met online. The docuseries presents prosecutors’ theory that Wendi’s mother, Donna, was a controlling and forceful presence who held strong views about her daughter’s decisions.

Wendi later said the marriage deteriorated after the couple had two sons, Benjamin and Lincoln. Their bitter 2013 divorce revolved around where the children would live. Wendi wanted to relocate them to South Florida, closer to her family, while Markel argued they should remain in Tallahassee, where the parents shared custody.

The docuseries says Donna was enraged when the request to move the children was rejected.

Prosecutors said the custody battle ultimately fueled a murder-for-hire plot that took years to unravel. At trial, they argued that Donna helped arrange Markel’s killing because he blocked her daughter and two young grandsons from moving to South Florida.

They also revealed that her son Charlie Adelson arranged for Markel’s killing through his then-girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, who connected him to Sigfredo Garcia, the father of her children, and Garcia’s friend Luis Rivera.

Prosecutors said Garcia shot Markel while Rivera drove the getaway car. Over the next decade, investigators used cellphone records, surveillance video, financial records and secretly recorded conversations to build the case.

“Investigators suspected members of the family were involved, but weren’t able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt for a really long time,” Fletcher said.

“And I think what really surprised me about the investigation was how incredibly thorough and how many needles in how many haystacks they went through to find the evidence, whether it was tracking silver-colored Priuses across Florida, or going through thousands of phone data to find any links to the family and near the crime scene.”

At trial, prosecutors painted Donna as the calculated matriarch of an affluent South Florida family with the means and motive to orchestrate the killing of the ex-son-in-law she “hated.” Defense attorneys, however, insisted the state didn’t have sufficient evidence to link her to the murder plot.

In 2023, Charlie, a dentist, was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder in his former brother-in-law’s killing. Prosecutors told jurors that Charlie paid to have Markel killed and used Magbanua to hire Garcia. They said Garcia enlisted the help of Rivera, his childhood friend.

Charlie testified that he had nothing to do with the killing and was stunned when Magbanua came to his home and said her friends were the killers. According to reports, he also said he needed to pay more than $300,000 in 48 hours or he would be killed. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Magbanua and Garcia were convicted of first-degree murder, and Rivera was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and cooperating with prosecutors.

In 2025, Donna was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and an additional 30 years for the conspiracy and solicitation convictions.

While Fletcher said the surveillance video is one of the documentary’s most haunting moments, she believes the hundreds of FBI wiretap recordings provide the clearest window into the Adelson family.

“There are hundreds of wiretapped phone calls of the Adelson family,” Fletcher said. “As a team, we listened to all of them. I think just the brazen way with which the family was continuing their lives during the investigation, really believing that they’d got away from it, was very disturbing. They really thought that they were above the law.”

“Fletcher said listening to the wiretaps left her with the impression that some family members believed they would avoid accountability.

“They weren’t used to not getting their way,” Fletcher continued. “And I think that is really alarming to me, that there are people like that who believe that they can operate outside of the constraints of the law.”

Two years after Markel’s murder, Donna and Charlie spent hours discussing Wendi’s boyfriend at the time and whether she should stay in the relationship. Fletcher said the conversations showed her how deeply Donna and Charlie involved themselves in Wendi’s personal life.

“It’s hours and hours of conversations,” Fletcher said. “It’s Donna encouraging Charlie, and Charlie is suggesting to his mother as well that he will go and speak to Wendi. Just the meddling and the way they’re speaking about Wendi and making decisions for her life, I felt that to be obviously really damning for them about their involvement in the case in terms of what the dynamics are like in their family.”

Wendi has repeatedly denied any involvement in her ex-husband’s killing and has not been charged.

“I don’t know why people online have such strong levels of certainty,” Fletcher said. “In listening to the wiretap conversations of Wendi’s mother and brother, and the way they are so accustomed to meddling in her life and deciding what is best for her, I could imagine a scenario in which she wasn’t involved in it at all. I think that the vitriol around Wendi, especially online, is sad in a way. I imagine a scenario in which Wendi’s family did this without her knowledge.”

News Media reached out to Wendi’s attorney for comment.

“This is the story of a breakdown of a marriage, a custody dispute, and problems that escalated and seemed so irreconcilable,” Fletcher said. “But this was an instance where things got so out of hand, and no one comes out with what they want.”

Gen Z is widely seen as the generation most concerned about climate change, yet new research suggests many young adults are less mindful of their water use in the shower.

More than half of people aged 18 to 29 spend at least 10 minutes showering each day, according to the research.

Depending on the shower, a wash of that length can use as much as 150 litres of water—enough to fill approximately 750 standard drinking glasses.

The results highlight an uncomfortable contradiction for a generation raised amid warnings about drought, water shortages and the climate crisis.

Although a 10-minute shower may seem like an insignificant daily indulgence, scientists say it is considerably longer than needed to wash.

Dr Pablo Pereira-Doel, an environmental scientist at the University of Surrey, recently told the Daily Mail that three minutes is a reasonable target for a shower focused solely on washing the body.

People who wash their hair can add another two minutes, taking the total shower time to about five minutes.

That estimate includes time spent enjoying the warm spray, leaving little scientific justification for remaining under the water for 10 minutes or longer.

The poll, conducted by scientists at Let’s Save Water, found that younger adults were among those most likely to take long showers, despite also expressing strong concern about environmental issues.

While 52 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds said their showers lasted at least 10 minutes, the figure fell to 39 per cent among Millennials aged 30 to 45.

Only 28 per cent of Gen X respondents, aged 46 to 61, reported showering for the same length of time.

The organisation surveyed 2,000 people across Britain and found that women were more likely than men to take extended showers. Some 27 per cent of women said they showered for more than 10 minutes each day, compared with 19 per cent of men.

A spokesman for Let’s Save Water said: ‘With drought conditions this summer renewing attention on the issue, Let’s Save Water is reinforcing a simple message—water is precious.

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‘Protecting it means that we all need to use less.

‘On average, adults believe they use about 30 litres of water a day, when the true figure is closer to 140 litres.

‘Our research shows a difference between the generations, with Gen Z’ers the most likely to take showers lasting more than 10 minutes.’

Showers in UK households last about 7.5 minutes on average, according to Dr Pereira-Doel.

However, studies indicate that showers often run for much longer, with some people spending nearly 40 minutes under the flow of water.

‘As for why people linger… the answer is that for a large share of showers, getting clean isn’t the point,’ he explained.

‘Over four in 10 showers in our sample were taken for reasons unrelated to hygiene: relaxation, self–care, warming up on a cold morning. When a shower is doing that job, its length isn’t a decision anyone is consciously making.’

People in soft water areas tend to shower around a fifth longer than those in hard water areas, he said.

‘The likely explanation is that shampoo lathers more richly and rinses more easily in soft water, so the shower feels better and people linger,’ he added.

Morning showers also tend to be shorter, because most people have somewhere they need to be. Meanwhile, with evening or weekend showers, there is less of a time constraint.

Low water pressure can also extend showers, ‘because people may compensate for a weak spray by staying in longer to feel properly rinsed’.

For Clove Lakes Park, the city appears to have created a tale of two parks.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella says city officials focus on parks visited by tourists while allowing a cherished neighborhood destination in the borough to be contaminated by raw sewage.

Fossella this week condemned what he called a toxic double standard as Clove Lakes Park deteriorates. He is demanding an emergency meeting involving city and state agencies after The Post reported that a collapsed sewer line connected to a lakeside restaurant has been releasing human waste into the lake for decades.

“If this were Central Park, people would be flipping out,” Fossella told The Post during a tour of the park’s wooded paths overlooking the heavily polluted lake.

The city Parks Department waited a week after The Post’s report before suspending boating and fishing at the park. Fossella said agencies have yet to provide him with a complete account of the contamination and its potential impact.

“What the public deserves is a safe, fun, healthy, public recreation area, and they don’t have it right now,” said the Republican borough president and former congressman.

Fossella, who played baseball at the picturesque park as a child, called for a comprehensive investigation into the pollution.

“What’s very unsettling and troubling is that it appears that this has been sort of going on for quite some time. We need to know who knew what and when,” the borough president said.

Officials may still be unaware of the full scope of the damage.

On Wednesday, Parks Department workers conducted a dye test to check whether additional sewer lines were failing throughout the grounds. One employee said crews were testing every building in the park.

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Asked whether the testing had uncovered more collapsed sewer lines, another Parks worker sighed and replied, “I plead the Fifth.”

The park’s public restrooms were closed while the tests were being carried out.

The Parks Department told The Post it was unaware of any other sewer lines leaking into Clove Lake and said it was coordinating with the Department of Environmental Protection on what happens next.

A longtime park visitor said plumbing problems at the location occupied by The Stone House restaurant have reportedly existed for as long as five decades.

“The basement always had sewage. I had a friend who worked there, he’d have to take his shoes off when he got home,” said Tad, a 71-year-old trucker who frequently visits the park.

Fossella accused city regulators of failing to intervene sooner and criticized them for not having or releasing key information about fecal coliform levels in the lake.

The revelations angered park visitors.

“There should be repercussions up and down the line,” said Sydney Russel, a 25-year-old radiologist.

“I’m upset about it, really. Because it was beautiful. I took my kids here, and they were little,” said Donna DeWaters, a 71-year-old retired Staten Island nurse.

A disturbing investigation into possible serial killings could become even more sinister if authorities determine that gruesome images found inside the home of a deceased pornographer were shared with a broader underground audience, a prominent police and forensic psychologist said.

Raymond “RC” Horsch, 82, produced pornography and books centered on violent themes before his death last year. The case took a troubling turn in June, when his 44-year-old son, Eugene Horsch, was arrested on allegations involving illegal firearms and forgery. A subsequent search of the family property on West Chew Avenue in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood uncovered a series of disturbing items.

Investigators may also find that so-called snuff films were distributed through underground networks of people interested in that kind of material.

Among the evidence reportedly recovered were videos described as possible “snuff” footage, including images believed to show several missing women, as well as a barrel of chemicals connected to the home’s water system.

“The father’s involvement in pornography raises the possibility that, beyond the sadistic motives often associated with serial murders, there could also have been a financial motive tied to distributing alleged snuff films,” said Dr. Kris Mohandie, a board-certified forensic psychologist.

Police have connected the Olney property to investigations involving seven missing women. Authorities believe at least five of them may be dead, though no homicide charges had been filed as of Friday.

RC Horsch, who had a conviction for producing methamphetamine, also wrote sexually explicit books featuring violence. His 2014 title, “Empathy,” includes a chapter describing how a murdered woman’s body could be dissolved using boiling chemicals.

Amazon and Goodreads removed the book from their listings Friday.

Philadelphia police say they recovered more than 1 million digital files, including photographs and videos, from the residence. Investigators had examined fewer than one-third of them by Friday, but officials reportedly recognized four of the missing women in the material.

Two of the women have been publicly named as Gabrielle Amarando and Maribel Fresses.

Mohandie said the nature of the video evidence was especially troubling.

“In addition to the horrific crimes allegedly connected to this case — including abduction, rape and torture, acts often associated with sadistic offenders — investigators may also be examining whether alleged snuff films were supplied to underground networks,” Mohandie said. “That is frightening, and I hope investigators can answer those questions.”

Authorities have also alleged that, when Eugene Horsch was arrested in the spring, a woman who was with him possessed identification belonging to one of the missing women.

Search crews have been examining the area around and beneath the property, including nearby sewer lines, as the investigation continues.

The younger Horsch has not been charged in connection with the missing women.

The investigation remains ongoing.