Juror Reveals Why She Convicted Matriarch in Ex-Son-in-Law's Murder — Leading to Killer's Viral Courtroom Outburst By KC Baker

Jurors only needed three hours to convict Donna Adelson — the matriarch of a wealthy Florida family — of murder in the death of her former son-in-law, who was gunned down by hired hitmen in 2014, the jury foreperson has revealed.

“Within the first hour, hour and a half, everyone was agreeing that she was guilty,” a woman who identified herself as the jury foreperson said on her TikTok page @laceywithaj. “It was unanimous within the first hour, hour and a half.”

On Thursday, Sept. 4, when Florida Second Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen Everett announced that the jury had found Donna, 75, guilty of first-degree murder in the for-hire killing of Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel, she yelled out, “Oh my God!” and began sobbing and shaking in her seat, according to video from the Tallahassee Democrat.

“Mrs. Adelson, control yourself,” Judge Everett admonished her.

When he announced that she had also been found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation, she continued sobbing, prompting him to ask the bailiff to escort the jurors out of the courtroom.

Donna is the fifth person convicted of conspiring to murder Markel, 41, who was embroiled in a bitter custody dispute over his two sons with Donna’s daughter, Wendi Adelson. Following their 2013 divorce, Markel refused to allow Wendi to move with their two sons from Tallahassee, where he taught, to South Florida, where Donna and other family members lived, prosecutors said.

Now that the trial is over, @laceywithaj took to TikTok to share how she and the other jurors reached the verdict they did.

Commenters asked her lots of questions about the case, including what evidence convinced her of Donna’s guilt.

“Honestly there was sooo much,” she replied in the comments, the Tallahassee Democrat reports.

“She is a smart woman, which is why she [avoided] being convicted for 11 [years],” she wrote. I’ll answer vaguely, but I may need to do a separate video talking about this if enough people are interested.”

Noting that Donna’s son Rob Adelson’s testimony was “pretty telling,” she added that “all of her emails, texts, calls indicate how power hungry she was — she meant it when she said that Daniel Markel wasn’t going to beat the Adelson family.”

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The foreperson pointed out that the jury was very careful in how it reached its conclusions.

An hour or an hour and a half into deliberations, she said she polled everyone to find out where they stood. While all 12 jurors said they thought Donna was guilty of murder, two people were “kind of confused” about one point in count two, she said.

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Considering that the jury was “not unanimous” at that point, she said they proceeded to go over everything “point by point,” using a whiteboard to organize their thoughts.

“We went over everything several times because this is a big decision and this is serious and we all took our duty very seriously, like this isn’t just fun and games,” she said in the video. “Although it is a very cool experience to talk about now and it’s exciting, it is someone’s life, and it is the law and we all took it very serious.”

She had the jury vote several times, several different ways, to confirm that they were unanimous, including having everyone raise their hands if they thought Donna was guilty, which they all did, she said.

To fully ensure the jury’s decision, she passed out 12 pieces of paper asking everyone to anonymously write down the verdict.

“Then I emptied one of the little containers we had for our snacks and had everyone put it in there,” she said, adding that she wanted people to write down what they honestly felt “based on the evidence and the law provided and without feeling pressured to go along with what everyone else is saying.”

“All 12 pieces of paper said guilty,” she said.

After that, she said everyone gave her verbal confirmation that they found Donna guilty on all three counts.

When the verdict was ready to be read, she said they were led into the courtroom only to be escorted out because “there was that outburst that we all saw,” she said.

Calling the trial “a very intense two weeks,” she said being a juror for the first time was a “cool experience.” 

PEOPLE has reached out to @laceywithaj for comment but has not yet heard back.