Murders & Minivans

One-Way Ticket to Vietnam

This is the first episode in our new pod studio! Tali's mic was not co-operating until about 8:20 which is right about when the case starts ◡̈ A Harvard law professor. A bitter divorce. A dentist with a Ferrari and a god complex. Two Miami gang members. And a mother-in-law who, the day after her son was convicted of murder, booked a one-way flight to a country with no extradition treaty. This is the murder of Daniel Markel. Dan Markel was 41 years old, a tenured law professor at Florida State, a devoted father to two little boys, and one of the most respected criminal law scholars in the country. He spent his career writing about punishment, retribution, and what justice actually looks like. On July 18, 2014, he was shot twice in the head in his own garage by two Miami gang members who had driven up in a rented Toyota Prius and followed him home from the gym. It took eleven years, five convictions, and four separate trials to get there. His boys were toddlers when he died. They're teenagers now. Their mother changed their last names. This episode covers the full story: the Adelson family, the custody war, the chain of connections that linked a periodontist with a Ferrari to a Latin Kings hitman, and the woman in the middle who held it all together. It also covers what happened to the boys, what Ruth and Phil Markel have been fighting for ever since, and why the prosecutor told reporters to "stay tuned." In this episode: * Who Dan Markel was and why his career in criminal law philosophy makes this story hit differently * The Adelson family: Donna, Harvey, Charlie, and what "enmeshed" actually looks like in practice * The divorce, the custody battle, and the relocation request a judge denied * The motion Dan filed in 2014 to restrict Donna's unsupervised access to his sons * July 18, 2014: what happened, and the 911 dispatch error that has stuck with everyone who covered this case * How investigators built the chain: SunPass records, cell data, a phone call made immediately after the shooting * Katherine Magbanua: the woman who connected the Adelsons to the trigger man * Luis Rivera's confession and the words he remembered: "the lady wants her two kids back" * Four trials, two mistrials, one plea deal, five convictions * Charlie Adelson on the stand in his own defense and why the jury didn't buy it * Donna at Miami International Airport with one-way tickets to Hanoi * Wendi: what we know, what she's said under immunity, and why she hasn't been charged * The Markel Act: Florida legislation passed because of this case * Ruth and Phil Markel, eleven years of trials, and two grandsons who are only now starting to ask about their father People mentioned: Dan Markel — victim, law professor, FSU College of Law Wendi Adelson — Dan's ex-wife, named unindicted co-conspirator, not charged Charlie Adelson — Wendi's brother, convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation, sentenced to life plus 30 years Donna Adelson — Wendi's mother, convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation, sentenced to life in prison Harvey Adelson — Wendi's father, named unindicted co-conspirator, not charged Katherine Magbanua — convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation, sentenced to life plus two consecutive 30-year terms Sigfredo Garcia — convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to life without parole Luis Rivera — pled guilty to second-degree murder, sentenced to 19 years Ruth and Phil Markel — Dan's parents, advocates for grandparent visitation rights Georgia Cappleman — lead prosecutor

Because God Said So

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints operated in plain sight for decades — a polygamist cult running across the American Southwest, into rural Texas, and up into the mountains of southeastern British Columbia. What they built wasn't a church. It was a supply chain for the sexual exploitation of children, protected by theology, enforced by economics, and ignored by governments for half a century. This episode covers the full history: the 1953 Short Creek raid that backfired and gave the FLDS fifty years of immunity, Rulon Jeffs and the doctrine of absolute obedience, Warren Jeffs' rise to power and the marriages he arranged for girls as young as twelve and thirteen, the 2008 Texas raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch, and the Canadian arm of the operation in Bountiful, B.C. — where girls were driven across the US border and handed to Warren Jeffs while investigators spent twenty years trying to figure out if they were even allowed to charge anyone. It also covers the people who got out. And what they did after. In this episode: * What the FLDS actually is and why it has nothing to do with modern Mormonism * The 1953 Short Creek raid and why it gave the FLDS fifty years of political cover * Rulon Jeffs, the "One Man" doctrine, and how the UEP trust trapped members financially * Warren Jeffs: how he consolidated power, performed marriages from a fugitive SUV, and ran his church from a Texas prison cell * The "Lost Boys," the "seed bearer" doctrine, and the Law of Placing * Elissa Wall's testimony and why she chose to be named * The 2008 YFZ Ranch raid... 439 children removed, triggered by a fake call * Bountiful, B.C.: Winston Blackmore, James Oler, and the human trafficking operation four hours south of Calgary * The constitutional fight over Canada's anti-polygamy law — and what happened when it finally moved to trial * Samuel Bateman: a ten-year-old bride and three children found locked in a trailer * The women who got out — and what they built after Sources & further reading: * Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall * Escape by Carolyn Jessop * The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser * Breaking Free by Rachel Jeffs * Lost Boy by Brent Jeffs * Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer * FBI affidavits re: Samuel Bateman (filed December 2022) * BC Supreme Court Reference re: Section 293, Criminal Code (2011) * Southern Poverty Law Center: FLDS designation Follow Murders & Minivans: Instagram: @murdersandminivans Wherever you listen, leave a rating please! it genuinely helps more than you know

She Was Just Trying to Race: The Murder of Moriah Wilson

kaitlin armstrong googled "can pineapples burn your fingerprints" after killing someone. she sold her jeep for cash two days later. flew to new york. used her sister's passport to get to costa rica. got a nose job, changed her name, dyed her hair, and started teaching yoga on the beach. she responded to a fake job listing posted by u.s. marshals and got arrested in a hostel lobby 43 days after the murder. the jury took two hours. but before any of that, there was Mo. Anna Moriah Wilson. 25 years old, dartmouth engineering grad, professional gravel cyclist, one of the most exciting names coming up in the sport. she was in austin for a race she was favored to win. she was staying at a friend's apartment. she was alone when armstrong showed up. this episode covers the full case. the relationship web, the night of may 11th, the investigation, the fugitive chase, the trial, the sentencing, the civil lawsuit, and the fraudulent asset transfer that brought colin strickland back into the story in the worst possible way. we also get into the moriah wilson foundation and what the wilson family has built in her name since her death.

Waco: The Prophet and the Fire

On February 28, 1993, seventy-six ATF agents pulled up to a property outside Waco, Texas, in cattle trailers. Fifty-one days later, the building was gone and seventy-six people were dead inside it. Twenty of them were children. This is the story of Vernon Wayne Howell, the ninth-grade dropout from Houston who memorized the Bible, renamed himself David Koresh, and convinced over a hundred people to follow him into an armed standoff with the federal government. It's also the story of what the ATF and FBI did, what they chose not to do, and why the question of who actually lit that fire has never fully been answered. We're covering all of it: the abuse, the arsenal, the fifty-one days of negotiations that might have worked, the decisions that guaranteed they didn't, and the ripple effect that reached Oklahoma City exactly two years later. This one doesn't have a clean villain. It has a lot of people making catastrophic choices and a lot of people, most of them kids, who never got a say in any of it.

25 Minutes on King Road

Moscow, Idaho hadn't seen a murder in seven years. It was the kind of town where parents felt okay dropping their kid off at college and driving away. Small. Quiet. Safe. Then, sometime between 4:00 and 4:25 in the morning on November 13th, 2022, someone entered a house on King Road and stabbed four people to death in 25 minutes. Kaylee Goncalves. Madison Mogen. Xana Kernodle. Ethan Chapin. Two of them were weeks away from graduating. One of them was only there because it was the weekend and he was staying with his girlfriend. The internet caught fire. Tips flooded in. Innocent people were accused. The town was terrified. And the Moscow Police Department — a small agency that hadn't worked a homicide in years — was staring at a crime scene with almost nothing to go on. Almost. A knife sheath on a dead girl's bed. A white Hyundai Elantra on surveillance footage. A phone that went dark at 2:47 AM and came back online forty miles away two hours later. And a DNA profile that didn't match anyone in the national database — until it did. Bryan Kohberger was a 28-year-old PhD criminology student at Washington State University, eight miles from that house. He had studied how killers choose their targets. He had asked convicted criminals, in a formal research survey, why they picked one victim over another. He had driven past 1122 King Road more than a dozen times in the months before the murders. He applied for a police internship with the same department that would spend six weeks hunting him. This episode covers everything: the victims, the night, the investigation, the evidence trail, the arrest, and the legal saga that ended on July 23rd, 2025 with four consecutive life sentences and two words from Kohberger himself. Two words in nearly three years. "I respectfully decline."