This is Steven Epstein's eighth and penultimate guest post on Extreme Punishment: The Chilling True Story of Acclaimed Law Professor Dan Markel’s Murder.
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 9, Pearl Harbor: Monday, September 10, 2012:
A dozen or so criminal law professors were seated at a sizable conference room table at NYU Law School in Greenwich Village. Most in attendance that afternoon lived in New York, though a few, like Dan, had flown in for the occasion. When Dan and a colleague at Brooklyn Law started the NYC Criminal Law Theory Colloquium in January 2011—a Prawfsfest!-like workshop intended solely for criminal theorists—the email list of invitees numbered barely 20.
That list, which Dan curated singlehandedly, had grown to more than 200, and included law professors from as far away as Israel, England, Canada, and California. Those able to attend assembled in New York at least every other month, working collectively to transform each other’s unfinished drafts into polished articles on criminal law theory. Their workshopping sessions—Dan’s “cocaine”—would last for hours, focusing intensely on just two papers each afternoon. His own piece was slated for discussion the following day.
As the professors were going around the room offering insights and critiques on one of his colleague’s drafts, Dan noticed his iPhone vibrating. Glancing down, he saw Wendi’s name appear on the screen. During the three days he’d been in New York, she hadn’t answered his calls or responded to his voicemails or texts. Something was definitely amiss, but Dan had no idea why she was so upset. He excused himself and stepped out into the hallway to take the call.
“Hello,” he said tentatively.
“I’m leaving and taking the boys with me,” Wendi said, her voice firm and resolute.
“What?” Dan exclaimed.
“I’m filing for divorce,” his wife of six-and-a-half years declared, her words landing like a boxer’s thunderous blow to the head.
“Please don’t do that,” Dan pleaded, steadying himself as he tried to absorb the shock. “Let me come home first and we’ll talk. I’ll be on the first flight back. Please don’t do anything rash until I get there.” The next thing he heard was the clicking sound terminating their connection.
He was blindsided—frozen in the hallway panic-stricken—struggling to process Wendi’s words. When he finally reentered the conference room, Dan’s colleagues couldn’t help but notice the blood had completely drained from his face. It was obvious he was shaken. He gathered his laptop and papers, politely excusing himself, explaining that a “personal matter” had arisen back home. He wouldn’t be there on Tuesday to workshop his paper after all.
. . .
When Dan pulled into his garage, the gravity of the situation became immediately apparent. The shelving sections ringing its walls had disappeared—everything resting upon them gone as well. His bicycle, designer luggage, tennis racquet, and kids’ toys were missing too.
Dan entered the house through the garage-side door and flipped on the lights. He took two steps in and stopped dead in his tracks. What he observed hardly resembled the home he’d left behind before heading to New York. Precisely half of the living room furniture was gone, glaring empty spaces where chairs and couches once sat. Though the dining room table was still there, half the chairs were missing. Dishes and silverware had vanished from the kitchen cabinets, as had most of the food from the pantry and refrigerator.
Dan walked upstairs to assess the damage there. What he found on the second floor was even more distressing. The guest bedroom had been ransacked—nothing left at all. The boys’ room was laid bare as well—all except a crib mattress haphazardly tossed onto the floor. Ben’s bed and Lincoln’s crib were gone, as was the changing table, toys, stuffed animals, and most of the clothing in their closet. But what was most disturbing were the walls, which, prior to Dan’s trip, had been covered with colorful letters to help his boys learn the alphabet. All 26 letters were now gone—ugly splotches of torn, white plaster defacing the bright blue walls where they’d been affixed.
With a golf-ball-sized lump filling his throat, Dan descended the staircase and marched toward the master bedroom, fully expecting it to be pillaged as well. To his surprise though, the bed he’d shared with Wendi until he left for New York was still in place, as was much of the furniture. He was comforted knowing he’d at least have a place to sleep. But as he approached the bed, and gazed downward, that relief vanished instantly.
Centered perfectly atop the neatly arranged comforter was a legal document—a ten-page divorce petition—bearing a court stamp indicating it had been filed at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, just after Wendi had called him in New York. Dan reached for it, his heart now thumping furiously in his chest.
What happened to Dan Markel on 9/10/12, in retrospect, presaged how his life would come to a brutal and tragic end less than two years later. On both occasions, weeks of planning and coordination had occurred in South Florida about which he’d remained blissfully ignorant. Each time, he was blindsided by the extreme measures the Adelsons were willing to take to obtain their desired outcome. Sadly, he didn’t see either ambush coming until it was too late.
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