Well, look. What no one disputes is that Wilds had Syed's car and phone for much of the day and was using both, Wilds and Syed were together for at least part of the day, and Syed's phone connected with a tower near where the body was found, on the evening the girl went missing.
So what do you think happened?
Did Wilds kill this girl himself or with a different accomplice, and Syed just happened to wander in and out of the frame without any involvement? If so why did Wilds kill her?
Or do you think someone else killed her and Wilds just made up a story from the whole cloth, and he happened to have spotted the car by coincidence?
I think that we don't have enough information to know what happened, but I'm sure that the story as told to the jury could not have been true. There was no premeditation and plan made in an 18-second phone call the night before the murder. There was no burial at 7 pm. (Because of livor mortis evidence) There was no wiping down of the shovels used to dig the grave at 8 pm. (Because the burial could not have happened by 8 pm) There was no tossing of Wilds' clothes and boots the next day. (Because on the 14th of January the whole city of Baltimore was shut down due to an ice storm that began at 4 am that day)
The stories the State's witnesses (Wilds and Pusateri) told to the police were self-contradictory and contradicted one another. They also contradicted the facts. We don't know anything about the murder or about the burial, except that both happened.
One possibility about what might have happened in the
investigation is that when the police first got the phone records for the cell phone they saw Jay Wilds' phone number on them. They certainly knew that number because it was used by others in his family, many of whom had done time for meth and/or gun-related activities.
The police were trying to use the cell towers like a GPS. They believed early not just that Syed (as a former boyfriend) was a suspect but that he was very likely guilty . . . because his phone pinged a tower close to the burial site twice on the night the victim went missing.
So (hypothetically) they go to Wilds and tell him they know Syed killed Lee and that they think he was involved, too. If Wilds is both innocent and ignorant, what should he do?
He can bet on option 1, which is that they really have nothing and can't pin it on him. In that case, he asks for a lawyer or refuses to talk.
Or he can bet on option 2, which is that they're right that his geeky pot buddy really did kill his girlfriend, and the cops really will let Jay go if he tells them enough to make a case.
In my rational world, the obvious choice is option 1. Innocent people are never railroaded by cops, right? If I haven't done anything wrong, I can't be charged, much less convicted, right? Wrong, and Wilds -- as a black kid from Baltimore -- certainly knew that the cops could in fact mess with you pretty much at will.
So, he goes for option 2. And then he and the cops, over a series of many untaped conversations, land on a story that will sell to a jury. You can read his taped conversations and hear for yourself that he really never seems to be operating from his own memory. He just manufactures details on the spot without any concern for how much they contradict the evidence.
Wilds told the cops he helped to bury a body, destroyed evidence, and failed to report a homicide he knew was being planned . . . and they sent him home to sleep in his own bed.
So what about the car? Wilds knew the victim. He sat next to her in biology the year before. He knew her car, because she was friends with his girlfriend at the time, and because he'd seen her and Syed together in it.
He testified in court that he'd seen her car in the course of his normal routine between the time of the murder and the day he told the cops where it was. So, yes. It's possible that he knew where it was without being involved in anything.
