FL - FSU Law Professor Dan Markel Murdered by Hitmen *4 Guilty* #23

[cottonweaver]

The great George Constanza once said “if you believe it, it’s not a lie”. Perjury works the same way, the lie has to be a conscience lie and said purposely.

@GoingRogue , yes I understand that point

1/ But am gonna have to disagree re that because taking liberties is an intentional act rather than mistaken belief
You posted that Jeff ..

he took some liberties when testifying.

2/ Do you still think Jeff gave false information re that specific topic of date of departure? ( Set aside any issue of what he believes or his intent)
Do you still think that...

it's a major inconsistency

Anyway, I tried to separate each item into separate WS posts so that they're easier for anybody to tackle or dispute.
As the saying goes ' ...keep me honest'

Overall going through all the Jeff videos?
Boring.
but obviously important. Taking 'liberties' on oath is important

While I have always thought that Jeff does some speculating and wondering during his police interviews when nobody knows the truth and the whole point is an investigation to explore the facts - but NB he's not under oath - like most of us would in his position, I don't see that the police interviews damaging his credibility as a trial witness.

Sorry, haven't yet had time to read anybody else's posts spring boarding off the back of my initial queries to GoingRogue, so apologies for that.

-------
second upside

Was good to review the tapes though - I've not watched them in years.

Reviewing the tapes was also a useful reminder re stuff I'd forgotten
eg JL tells Isom that when WA used to bemoan Tally and her being forced to be in Tally, she used to say she could only leave Tally if something happened to Danny. I'll leave that for a separate post for others to explore.

 

[cottonweaver]

Found it - Trial 1 testimony. ( It took a while because he wears almost the same suit & shirt colour in Trial 1 & Trial 2)

JL states again that
- Wendi knew that his original plan was to leave TA around 11am
- he'd told her that on June 10th ( even though he later didn't update her that he'd changed his departure plans )
- reiterated under cross by Sam Z

6 mins onwards
( Cross gets quite funny because Sam Z asks about Charlie's coke use)

edited to add
22m timestamp has the testimony where he says Wendi had talked about him moving into hers, not to buy his own house and which next car he should buy, he shouldn't buy a Jeep cause it couldn't take two car seats) Basically he says that this is one of the reasons he confronted her June 28 re commitment & infidelity.

Had forgotten about the advice not to buy a house. I can't help link that to CA & DA's texts re Wendi (claiming) she was about to buy a house in Tally. OFC these two things may be entirely unconnected

 

[I am not Sherlock H.]

In reviewing some of the latest on this case as it relates to WA, I was struck by something. Is it just me or is there a strong resemblance in appearance between JL and WA slain ex husband DM? MOO

 

[Knitpicker]

Found it - Trial 1 testimony. ( It took a while because he wears almost the same suit & shirt colour in Trial 1 & Trial 2)

JL states again that
- Wendi knew that his original plan was to leave TA around 11am
- he'd told her that on June 10th ( even though he later didn't update her that he'd changed his departure plans )
- reiterated under cross by Sam Z

6 mins onwards
( Cross gets quite funny because Sam Z asks about Charlie's coke use)

edited to add
22m timestamp has the testimony where he says Wendi had talked about him moving into hers, not to buy his own house and which next car he should buy, he shouldn't buy a Jeep cause it couldn't take two car seats) Basically he says that this is one of the reasons he confronted her June 28 re commitment & infidelity.

Had forgotten about the advice not to buy a house. I can't help link that to CA & DA's texts re Wendi (claiming) she was about to buy a house in Tally. OFC these two things may be entirely unconnected

Great work!

 

[Knitpicker]

When June was on the 20/20 show she said that if she said Charlie was with her, she would be putting him (Charlie) away…does anyone remember that?

 

[amicuscurie]

Found it - Trial 1 testimony. ( It took a while because he wears almost the same suit & shirt colour in Trial 1 & Trial 2)

JL states again that
- Wendi knew that his original plan was to leave TA around 11am
- he'd told her that on June 10th ( even though he later didn't update her that he'd changed his departure plans )
- reiterated under cross by Sam Z

6 mins onwards
( Cross gets quite funny because Sam Z asks about Charlie's coke use)

edited to add
22m timestamp has the testimony where he says Wendi had talked about him moving into hers, not to buy his own house and which next car he should buy, he shouldn't buy a Jeep cause it couldn't take two car seats) Basically he says that this is one of the reasons he confronted her June 28 re commitment & infidelity.

Had forgotten about the advice not to buy a house. I can't help link that to CA & DA's texts re Wendi (claiming) she was about to buy a house in Tally. OFC these two things may be entirely unconnected

Ha “did you see him go to the bathroom?”

This guy, just in my opinion, is not the best questioner. “Would I be correct or incorrect in saying that it’s true that ….”

 

[cottonweaver]

Great work!

The whole playlist from 2019 is here if anybody needs to bookmark it for the future.

FSU Law Professor Murder Trial

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

www.youtube.com

 

[Missyrocks5]

I think that JL was a mark from day one just as KM was for CA from day one. It is no coincidence that brother and sister both started dating their respectives in approximately the same timeframe. JL is nothing like any guy that Wendi would ever give the time of day to. He had very little money, lived in a self-described really crappy basement apartment that was so abysmal that they didn’t even ever spend any time there, drove a 10 year-old Nissan, he looked just like her ex who she absolutely despised (& confessed to never having any passion for), was not Jewish, and his background did not have the pedigree of the kind of guy that Wendi generally was with. We are talking from her and her snobby family‘s perspective, not from anyone else’s perspective. That also makes perfect sense in fitting into the fact that her family gave him short shrift and were completely uninterested in him. Because they knew.

Moreover, I think other men were her real boyfriends during those months. He was always the #2 guy. I think her playing him was a win – win for her – she tells him that CA looked into hiring a hitman, hoping that he would jump on board. If Jeff did the murder because he was that crazy in love with her, that would alleviate her family from the whole plan in having to be involved. If he didn’t jump on board with whacking Dan, then she had her Plan B of setting him up as a suspect.

She was away for those weeks in South FL with her family, putting the finishing touches on planning this whole thing. She returns to Tally still stringing him along, & tells him she is locked out of her house. They have a date outside her house. No doubt she has the excuse to make sure he can’t come in the house because she is already packing. She pulls the rug out from under him just a few hours later after the yoga, which they met at. He did not pick her up so again he was kept away from the house. Then she dumps him all to have the impact she wanted plus give her the rest of the week away from him. He read her well. She also wanted it to be so that he would be jealous and upset enough after jerking him around from acting lovey dovey earlier to dumping him in a few hours so that she could point the finger at him as a suspect. She wound up the useful idiot, Jane, saying how jealous he is earlier in the week (with supposed laryngitis) & suggested calling Jane while at the police station. It’s Jane who suggests JL, just as WA intended. Again, JL was a win-win either way for her. Just like she waited for Dan to almost be in front of a crowd to speak when she called to tell him she was leaving him.

Yes, the original rental car was black in June (again another out of town trip Jeff was taking “coincidentally”) and all of that, but it is far too coincidental that they (KM & CA I believe) picked a car that, at a distance, looked like his. He would be leaving at a time similar to when the murder was to take place. In terms of explaining any inconsistencies, I think it is very simply that he might have expressed “vague “plans in his initial interview, where he had to defend himself to show he was not the suspect, but that did not mean that he did not express any more detail of plans directly to Wendi earlier that week. I believe he came directly from driving home into the police station so he had no chance to collect his thoughts. In other words, on the issue of the trip possibly being Fri or Sat, if he left on Friday, then he would leave around 11 so he had enough time to drive and get close to his destination. I don’t think one negates the other.

I also don’t make much of the fact that he had more clarity only a few days later. He had a chance to come home, speak to all of his close friends with whom he had discussed all of this, and started putting things together. We all have done that. In hindsight, all of a sudden the picture becomes much clearer than you realized earlier. I think that is exactly what happened when he went back and spoke to LE again the second time realizing all of these things and starting to put them into place. He is very intelligent & intuitive. He put all of that together quite quickly just as Tamara D did. I also think, with time, he realized that relationship was never real. That she had him pegged as a patsy from the start. She used him & I don’t think it would be unusual to not realize that immediately. After conversations with friends and family discussing what you said to them, putting it all together and thinking about it. He is telling the truth.

 

[cottonweaver]

Ha “did you see him go to the bathroom?”

This guy, just in my opinion, is not the best questioner. “Would I be correct or incorrect in saying that it’s true that ….”

Plus, did you get through any of La Coste's cross?

IMO Lacasse just won't allow anybody put word's into his mouth & won't testify to anything he's no evidence for

It's no wonder that Rashabum fought hard to keep Lacasse out of Charlie's trial , is it? A very impressive witness that any lawyer would like to have on their side whatever the case

 

[cottonweaver]

In reviewing some of the latest on this case as it relates to WA, I was struck by something. Is it just me or is there a strong resemblance in appearance between JL and WA slain ex husband DM? MOO

Sam Z mentions that to Lacasse in that list clip I posted.

It is strange. Was it subconscious on Wendy's part?

also, in her writing class*, she'd said she wasn't physically attracted to Dan

* please correct me if I have that wrong

Edited to add -
Lacasse's reply re any resemblance to DM, is at 33minutes

 

[I am not Sherlock H.]

Sam Z mentions that to Lacasse in that list clip I posted.

It is strange. Was it subconscious on Wendy's part?

also, in her writing class*, she'd said she wasn't physically attracted to Dan

* please correct me if I have that wrong

Thanks cottonweaver!…… and interestingly I see that @Missyrocks5 has just made note of the resemblance too in the post # 648 above (first paragraph). I don’t know the case well enough on when or if WA had indicated she wasn’t attracted to DM or not? Amazing thing to say since having two children with him IIUC? SMH.

Not sure whether her selecting men with such similar appearance was sheer coincidence or something more. From what has been observed with the A family so far it is probably something more. Much more. And maybe not a good thing? MOO

 

[Missyrocks5]

Thanks cottonweaver!…… and interestingly I see that @Missyrocks5 has just made note of the resemblance too in the post # 648 above (first paragraph). I don’t know the case well enough on when or if WA had indicated she wasn’t attracted to DM or not? Amazing thing to say since having two children with him IIUC? SMH.

Not sure whether her selecting men with such similar appearance was sheer coincidence or something more. From what has been observed with the A family so far it is probably something more. Much more. And maybe not a good thing? MOO

Lol. Yes. In the podcast or whatever it was that she spoke discussing her repulsive dark humor, to be charitable, about her “latex“ husband, she said she thought she could game the system by marrying a man for whom she had no passionate love because doesn’t passion just die anyway. So yes, if she wasn’t all that attracted to Dan, that is another reason to show why the choice of Jeff, a doppelgänger, further proves it was a set up. Let’s not forget that it was Donna who was over WA’s shoulder on the computer while she looked through JDate & chose Dan. The Markells apparently are a very well to do family, Dan was a Harvard graduate, and had all the pedigree that they would want for their baby girl. Also, she was apparently such a great actress that all their close friends describe how lovey-dovey they always were together making their own marriages feel inadequate comparatively. Dan’s feelings were real. In other words, that woman knows how to put on a show.

 

[cottonweaver]

Am just looking at photos of another ex - one who got away - who'd also been teaching FSU recently. ( leaves FSU prior to murder, new job at Amherst)
He doesn't look like Dan Markell and couldn't be confused with Jeff Lacasse either

D. Sack.
am just being nosey, am not proposing any speculative theories.

 

[cottonweaver]

just posting this for the sake of it & for the use of language - another one from the archives

Author Steven Epstein explains what happened when he reached out to Sack & MacPherson for interviews for his forthcoming book
Ends up getting a mail from WA ' I am not a character'......

The Dan Markel Case: An Interview With Steven Epstein

Listen now | A litigator turned bestselling true-crime author, Epstein has written the definitive work about Markel's remarkable life and tragic death.

davidlat.substack.com

 

[amicuscurie]

Plus, did you get through any of La Coste's cross?

IMO Lacasse just won't allow anybody put word's into his mouth & won't testify to anything he's no evidence for

It's no wonder that Rashabum fought hard to keep Lacasse out of Charlie's trial , is it? A very impressive witness that any lawyer would like to have on their side whatever the case

LaCasse IS very good on cross, in my opinion.

 

[Missyrocks5]

As further proof of JL being a set up from the beginning, I forgot to mention how he said that Wendi basically drank her dinner. I think it was because she had to act romantic with him.

 

[amicuscurie]

I think that JL was a mark from day one just as KM was for CA from day one. It is no coincidence that brother and sister both started dating their respectives in approximately the same timeframe. JL is nothing like any guy that Wendi would ever give the time of day to. He had very little money, lived in a self-described really crappy basement apartment that was so abysmal that they didn’t even ever spend any time there, drove a 10 year-old Nissan, he looked just like her ex who she absolutely despised (& confessed to never having any passion for), was not Jewish, and his background did not have the pedigree of the kind of guy that Wendi generally was with. We are talking from her and her snobby family‘s perspective, not from anyone else’s perspective. That also makes perfect sense in fitting into the fact that her family gave him short shrift and were completely uninterested in him. Because they knew.

Moreover, I think other men were her real boyfriends during those months. He was always the #2 guy. I think her playing him was a win – win for her – she tells him that CA looked into hiring a hitman, hoping that he would jump on board. If Jeff did the murder because he was that crazy in love with her, that would alleviate her family from the whole plan in having to be involved. If he didn’t jump on board with whacking Dan, then she had her Plan B of setting him up as a suspect.

She was away for those weeks in South FL with her family, putting the finishing touches on planning this whole thing. She returns to Tally still stringing him along, & tells him she is locked out of her house. They have a date outside her house. No doubt she has the excuse to make sure he can’t come in the house because she is already packing. She pulls the rug out from under him just a few hours later after the yoga, which they met at. He did not pick her up so again he was kept away from the house. Then she dumps him all to have the impact she wanted plus give her the rest of the week away from him. He read her well. She also wanted it to be so that he would be jealous and upset enough after jerking him around from acting lovey dovey earlier to dumping him in a few hours so that she could point the finger at him as a suspect. She wound up the useful idiot, Jane, saying how jealous he is earlier in the week (with supposed laryngitis) & suggested calling Jane while at the police station. It’s Jane who suggests JL, just as WA intended. Again, JL was a win-win either way for her. Just like she waited for Dan to almost be in front of a crowd to speak when she called to tell him she was leaving him.

Yes, the original rental car was black in June (again another out of town trip Jeff was taking “coincidentally”) and all of that, but it is far too coincidental that they (KM & CA I believe) picked a car that, at a distance, looked like his. He would be leaving at a time similar to when the murder was to take place. In terms of explaining any inconsistencies, I think it is very simply that he might have expressed “vague “plans in his initial interview, where he had to defend himself to show he was not the suspect, but that did not mean that he did not express any more detail of plans directly to Wendi earlier that week. I believe he came directly from driving home into the police station so he had no chance to collect his thoughts. In other words, on the issue of the trip possibly being Fri or Sat, if he left on Friday, then he would leave around 11 so he had enough time to drive and get close to his destination. I don’t think one negates the other.

I also don’t make much of the fact that he had more clarity only a few days later. He had a chance to come home, speak to all of his close friends with whom he had discussed all of this, and started putting things together. We all have done that. In hindsight, all of a sudden the picture becomes much clearer than you realized earlier. I think that is exactly what happened when he went back and spoke to LE again the second time realizing all of these things and starting to put them into place. He is very intelligent & intuitive. He put all of that together quite quickly just as Tamara D did. I also think, with time, he realized that relationship was never real. That she had him pegged as a patsy from the start. She used him & I don’t think it would be unusual to not realize that immediately. After conversations with friends and family discussing what you said to them, putting it all together and thinking about it. He is telling the truth.

Great post! A couple of things it brought to mind

I agree with you that the being locked out thing might possibly have been a ruse so Jeff wouldn’t have to go in the house. BUT in her police interview she is showing Isom various receipts from her errands, and she makes a point of showing him a receipt which she says is for a bunch of extra keys she has just had made so she won’t be locked out again. Can you think of any reason she might have been making extra keys that week? It’s strange to me, but she does show him this receipt and mention the keys. She also tells a story about how when she returned from Miami after visiting for Harvey’s birthday (one week before the murder), she was starting to feel sad about being away from the kids (if I recall correctly Dan was supposed to get them back from her because he had them the week of the murder), so she says she told her parents to take the kids to Dan. In my opinion this could possibly be because she did not want Dan to come to the house or in the house. I agree it’s possible she may have started packing already, and in my opinion it’s possible her parents may have assisted her and/or started taking some stuff with them when they drove back home.

Also- as I recall he DID say he went into her house only once after she came back from visiting her folks that last time- it was the time he says she mentioned Charlie having looked into hiring a hit man. If I recall correctly, he says this conversation took place inside her house after a date, either Sunday or Monday before the murder, but he did not spend the night. In my opinion it is odd, because I agree that it’s possible she may already have begun packing and not wanted him to come in the house. I think this conversation occurred too close in time for her to have intended for Jeff to pick up on it and offer to do the job, because this was the week of the murder and I am thinking that the plans were already in place.

 

[Going Rogue]

You posted


and in your previous post suggested that:


Let's go to the tape and where the discussion starts - at 1hr 46- before we get to 1hr 52
Jeff recounts what Wendi said after yoga, ' Hey Jeff, are you still going to Tennessee on Friday'

He's already explained to Isom that he lied to Wendi that he was up in the air.

Anyway, I'm just not feeling it. Not any sense that he's perjured himself. Nor red flags.

Me saying I have vague plans for a restaurant dinner occurring on 31 October when over visiting my brother can mean that the dinner plans are not confirmed even though me spending time with my brother on 31st is totally confirmed.
Do you see ? I'm trying to do short posts but I hope that distinction is clear so leaving it at that

Moving onto 1hr 52 as you suggested
When Isom interrupts Jeff I don't think Isom is ' confronting' Jeff . I think is miscommunication & misinterpretation.

Jeff's in the middle of explaining to Isom that because of the upset that week - the Tuesday no contact email from Wendi - he's showing her email to his friends. He's telling his friends the truth now but withholding them from Wendi.
He doesn't know if any of the ' mutual friends' that he spoke to on Tuesday & Wednesday re the ' break-up email' will have - almost simultaneously - tipped her off

So....
Wendi had always known he was leaving Friday - hence her raising it.
Jeff had - up until this week's upset - had always known he was leaving Friday but he started to obfuscate with Wendi when he saw her Tues.

And we all know - from Wendi's own interview with Isom - that she never said , in front of the awful Jane ' it can't be Jeff, he left Thursday so he wouldn't have been here'

Thanks for doing all the digging on Jeff’s testimony. Here are more thoughts after re-watching all the portions of Jeff’s testimony that you timestamped. In the first two trials he says Wendi knew he was leaving on Friday at 11:00am and she was the only person he had told this to in Tallahassee. In the first police interview (days after the murder), he clearly stated he had vague plans to leave either Friday or Saturday. Further, he made statements during his police interview that he wasn’t being fully transparent with Wendi about any of the details of his plans to go – paraphrasing, he said he didn’t want her to know if he was going (love games?). I’m not sure how we started with “I had vague plans to leave on Friday or Saturday” AND LAND ON, “Wendi knew I was leaving at 11:00am on Friday”? Based on Jeff’s statements in his police interviews, I can believe she wasn’t sure that he was still going, but I’m not convinced she knew (if he decided to go) what his exact ‘scheduled’ departure day / time was. IMO, that is just not supported by what he said in his police interviews.

Obviously Wendi knew it was a weekend trip so it’s a logical to deduce that Wendi knew ‘IF’ Jeff went he’d most likely be leaving on Friday or Saturday. We can speculate all day long whether or not Wendi actually knew Jeff was ‘planning’ on leaving at 11:00am on Friday as per his testimony. To be fair, we can only weigh that analysis on Jeff various statements and at best, in my opinion, his statements supporting this are very contradictory. That’s just my objective take on this.

I see you’re getting hung up me stating Jeff took some ‘liberties’ so I’ll expand on that thought and perhaps ‘soften’ it up because I’m not trying to paint Jeff as a bad guy and I don’t think what I’m pointing out is perjury. I am trying to be responsible in my commentary and perhaps that a strong word BUT it’s my personal opinion that Jeff’s gut told him that Wendi was involved and he is trying to be ‘helpful’ and he was ‘subconsciously’ providing details that help fit the ‘Lacasse setup narrative’. That narrative, if proven true, is a sure Wendi conviction. Given this more thought, its probably more fitting to accuse the ‘state’ of taking liberties by walking Jeff down this path during his testimony. They knew what he had said in his police interviews, and they got him to play that hand by their strategic line of questioning specifically regarding the ‘timing’ of murder with his ‘scheduled’ departure time and the picture that painted.

 

[nodamselindistress]

Thanks for doing all the digging on Jeff’s testimony. Here are more thoughts after re-watching all the portions of Jeff’s testimony that you timestamped. In the first two trials he says Wendi knew he was leaving on Friday at 11:00am and she was the only person he had told this to in Tallahassee. In the first police interview (days after the murder), he clearly stated he had vague plans to leave either Friday or Saturday. Further, he made statements during his police interview that he wasn’t being fully transparent with Wendi about any of the details of his plans to go – paraphrasing, he said he didn’t want her to know if he was going (love games?). I’m not sure how we started with “I had vague plans to leave on Friday or Saturday” AND LAND ON, “Wendi knew I was leaving at 11:00am on Friday”? Based on Jeff’s statements in his police interviews, I can believe she wasn’t sure that he was still going, but I’m not convinced she knew (if he decided to go) what his exact ‘scheduled’ departure day / time was. IMO, that is just not supported by what he said in his police interviews.

Obviously Wendi knew it was a weekend trip so it’s a logical to deduce that Wendi knew ‘IF’ Jeff went he’d most likely be leaving on Friday or Saturday. We can speculate all day long whether or not Wendi actually knew Jeff was ‘planning’ on leaving at 11:00am on Friday as per his testimony. To be fair, we can only weigh that analysis on Jeff various statements and at best, in my opinion, his statements supporting this are very contradictory. That’s just my objective take on this.

I see you’re getting hung up me stating Jeff took some ‘liberties’ so I’ll expand on that thought and perhaps ‘soften’ it up because I’m not trying to paint Jeff as a bad guy and I don’t think what I’m pointing out is perjury. I am trying to be responsible in my commentary and perhaps that a strong word BUT it’s my personal opinion that Jeff’s gut told him that Wendi was involved and he is trying to be ‘helpful’ and he was ‘subconsciously’ providing details that help fit the ‘Lacasse setup narrative’. That narrative, if proven true, is a sure Wendi conviction. Given this more thought, its probably more fitting to accuse the ‘state’ of taking liberties by walking Jeff down this path during his testimony. They knew what he had said in his police interviews, and they got him to play that hand by their strategic line of questioning specifically regarding the ‘timing’ of murder with his ‘scheduled’ departure time and the picture that painted.

Yes, agree with the above. This is what I meant in my earlier post about JL seemed to me to be too eager and trying to fit in - I did not mean trying to fit in w/regard to WA and the kids, but trying to fit in with the set up theory.

 

[cottonweaver]

I've given up @Going Rogue
I tried to split the posts as much as possible, clip by clip so each could be tackled in turn. For a reason.