Wendi Adelson’s ex-boyfriend testifies in Magbanua retrial

JEFFREY LACASSE TESTIMONY (begins around 47-minute mark)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - Wendi Adelson’s ex-boyfriend described her behavior in the days leading up to Dan Markel’s murder as “weird” and described a conversation just days earlier as “chilling.”

Jeffrey Lacasse said the couple’s relationship was strained in the weeks before Markel’s murder and he felt he was “being strung along.”

Lacasse testified that after going to dinner and a movie on July 13, 2014, just five days before Markel’s murder, Wendi confided in him that the previous summer, her brother had looked into hiring a hitman.

Lacasse said he had repeatedly heard Wendi joke about TVs being cheaper than hitmen, but this conversation was different.

“This was chilling. It wasn’t funny. It made my stomach flip,” he said.

Lacasse described Wendi as “superficially charming” and a “deeply deceitful person.”

Lacasse testified that Wendi had previously canceled a trip to visit his parents that was scheduled for the week of July 11 through July 18, 2014. He also found it “weird” in retrospect that she was asking questions about his business trip on July 18 when they hadn’t been talking regularly for weeks.

Lacasse testified he later discovered that Wendi had mentioned his name as a possible suspect in her police interview after the murder.

He testified she didn’t realize he wound up leaving for the trip a day early. He testified he had to show phone records, credit card records and more to police to prove he had an alibi at the time of the murder.

Lacasse also described traveling to Miami with Wendi Adelson and meeting Katherine Magbanua and Charlie Adelson for dinner in March 2014. He said he doesn’t recall a lot about the conversation, but he says there was some talk about Magbanua’s boyfriend fighting and having a criminal record.

Copyright 2022 WCTV. All rights reserved.