In a wild turn, Adelson's mother was arrested at the airport as she was attempting to leave the country with her husband. Per the New York Post, Donna Adelson said, "Oh here we go again," to police as they surrounded her in November 2023. Donna and her husband had one-way tickets to Vietnam, a country that does not have a formal extradition agreement with the U.S. Bodycam footage of Donna shows her being handcuffed by police at Miami International Airport.

Donna "made her first appearance in a Leon County Court on Nov. 21, 2023, where she was formally charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation in connection to Markel’s death." Why would she allegedly be involved in Markel's murder? At the time he was killed, Markel and Donna Adelson's daughter were involved in a cantankerous custody battle over the couple's two children.

Prosecutors revealed they had in their possession emails that showed Donna "hated" her son-in-law and was "'desperate to find a way' to stop the law professor’s 'adamant' efforts to relocate her two grandsons from Tallahassee to South Florida." She allegedly told her son that she planned to leave the country, while speaking to him in a jailhouse call.

ABC News released recordings of their calls wherein Donna is heard saying, "We've been looking it up over and over, because things change," she said to Adelson after his conviction. "If there is extradition from Vietnam? Because we, we've looked at all the places, I mean, I could go to Korea and China, but there's no extradition, but looking for places where there's no extradition." Due to inclement weather, her hearing has been rescheduled to Jan. 30, 2024, via WCTV.