The Miami New Times
It was a strange case from the beginning: a prominent Florida State University law professor shot to death in broad daylight at his home in an upscale Tallahassee neighborhood. And over time, the 2014 murder of Dan Markel turned stranger still.
Police quickly determined the killing wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. But two years would pass before they finally arrested two South Florida men, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera. Cops alleged the pair drove up to Tallahassee to commit the crime. Another twist came soon after, when unsealed court documents revealed investigators believed Markel’s shooting was a murder-for-hire orchestrated by the wealthy Coral Springs family of his ex-wife Wendi Adelson.
Matthew Shaer, an Atlanta-based writer at large for New York Times Magazine, followed the case’s developments in astonishment. He added it to a list of stories he hoped to pursue eventually.
“People use the phrase ‘out of a movie’ way too much,” he says. “But I guess I’ll put a finer point on it: Do you know Carl Hiaasen, the novelist? Have you read his stuff? It is weirdly like a Carl Hiaasen novel. He does the Florida thing so well, the weird Florida thing, and bringing together the different worlds that exist within Florida. And I think that’s part of what this case is.”
