Adnan Syed - Serial / Undisclosed

[boooeee]

I'll donate $100 to a charity of someone's choosing if anyone else is arrested for this crime in the next 12 months. Feel free to make a suggestion.

This isn't an episode of Perry Mason.

 

[lionking]

I'll donate $100 to a charity of someone's choosing if anyone else is arrested for this crime in the next 12 months. Feel free to make a suggestion.

This isn't an episode of Perry Mason.

So what? The important thing is Adnan is free.

 

[angrysoba]

So what? The important thing is Adnan is free.

That is great if he is innocent, but at the same time, not great, because it requires that another murderer is out there.

What seems weird is that some people seem to only care that Adnan is free and seem to be completely indifferent to who the actual murderer is. They instead say, things like maybe it was Mr S as he found the body and has some shady history, or Dan as he seems to squeaky clean so probably hiding something, maybe, or Bilal because he is a very dodgy character or Jay because maybe he has motive and either he knew where the car was because he did it or when convenient I'll just say the cops told him, or maybe it was some Puerto Rican guy.

Why is it important that Adnan is free and unimportant about who killed Hae-Min Lee?

 

[angrysoba]

Jay's story, as developed through 3 or 4 police interviews, changed many details, some of which were impossible if you buy into the prosecution's timeline and/or put any credence into the cell phone records. Serial laid it all out pretty well here: https://serialpodcast.org/posts/2014/11/timelines-january-13-1999.

Then, when he was interviewed for The Intercept in 2014 and then for "The Case Against Adnan Syed" documentary in 2019, he changed his story even more significantly,
From "The Case Against Adnan Syed,"


The Intercept story and the documentary story are pretty consistent, the main difference being that in the documentary Jay says Adnan asked him to get 10 pounds (?!) of marijuana and in the Intercept story, he doesn't mention this detail but does admit to being a bit more than a petty drug dealer -



But as far as I can see, he has never backed down from the basic story that Adnan showed him Hae's body in her trunk -what has changed is the whole timeline and locations of everything. I just don't think any conclusions or certainty can be drawn from his story because fundamentally, he was scared of getting busted for drugs and scared of involving his grandmother in the drug operation he was running. I can see him feeding the cops what they want to hear as long as they didn't pursue any drug charges.

And yeah, the car . . . The only thing I haven't seen fully explained with proven facts is how he knew where Hae's car was. There are several possibilities:

1)Adnan killed Hae and Jay helped dispose of the body, as he maintains.
2)The police had already found the car and fed that information to Jay.
3)Jay killed Hae himself (she knew about his drug operations and threatened to tell?).
4)Someone else killed Hae; Jay knows/was involved and is protecting that person out of fear. There's speculation that Bilal was also involved in the drug operation and that this was motive for him to kill Hae -it makes sense if Adnan and Hae had information about both the drug operation and Bilal's grooming/assaults . . . but again, total speculation based on threads of information.
5)Jay happened to see Hae's car parked while driving in the neighborhood; it was very close to the school. Then again, the car was found in a grassy parking lot surrounded by row houses . . . doesn't seem very likely. Then again, it's a good place to do drug deals.

There's lots of speculation on this fact but no solid info that explains it other than what Jay himself says . . .if you believe him.

I think the point about the car was really what convinced me that the cops arrested the right guy.

Do we have evidence the cops found the car and then fed Jay the story? Seems to be speculation only. But also I don't get why they would do it. If they were trying to frame a perpetrator it probably would have made more sense to frame Jay. Why chase after someone else for whom there may be a solid alibi? Yet it turns out that Adnan does not really have a solid alibi. Only people who say they may have seen him that day, but not sure. In fact even he seems not to know.

I started listening to episode one again. Sarah Koenig is explaining how people don't always remember things on days which are not typical and demonstrates by asking acquaintances of hers where they were a month ago. Most of them don't know or they get their stories wrong. Does this help Adnan? Not really. First because it wasn't really a typical day was it? He phoned his ex-girlfriend at the beginning of the day for some reason, and by the end of the day her family are worried about her disappearance. I wonder at what point Adnan took an interest in Hae's disappearance?

 

[theprestige]

Why is it important that Adnan is free and unimportant about who killed Hae-Min Lee?

Both are important.

I suspect at this point, given the proper authorities' apparent failures to properly investigate and prosecute this case, finding Lee's real killer (assuming it's not actually Adnan) is very unlikely to ever happen. But that can be considered separately from...

... Setting Adnan free because his imprisonment was a failure of due process.

I strongly believe that it is important in and of itself to free even a guilty person if they were imprisoned unjustly. I do not want to live in a society where we turn a blind eye to state-sponsored vigilantism, just because we think their target has it coming. Or even because we know the target has it coming.

But it's not clear what exactly you're trying to get at, with your question. Can I persuade you to rephrase it as a few simple statements of principles you believe in, and how you apply them to this situation?

Because as it stands, the way you've organized your questions, it kinda seems like you're trying to imply that we shouldn't advocate for the release of unjustly-imprisoned Adnan, without simultaneously expressing equal or greater concern about finding the real killer.

 

[angrysoba]

Both are important.

I suspect at this point, given the proper authorities' apparent failures to properly investigate and prosecute this case, finding Lee's real killer (assuming it's not actually Adnan) is very unlikely to ever happen. But that can be considered separately from...

... Setting Adnan free because his imprisonment was a failure of due process.

I strongly believe that it is important in and of itself to free even a guilty person if they were imprisoned unjustly. I do not want to live in a society where we turn a blind eye to state-sponsored vigilantism, just because we think their target has it coming. Or even because we know the target has it coming.

But it's not clear what exactly you're trying to get at, with your question. Can I persuade you to rephrase it as a few simple statements of principles you believe in, and how you apply them to this situation?

Because as it stands, the way you've organized your questions, it kinda seems like you're trying to imply that we shouldn't advocate for the release of unjustly-imprisoned Adnan, without simultaneously expressing equal or greater concern about finding the real killer.

I don't think that the due process question is the only issue.

I don't think even guilty people should be fitted up for a crime. I hope that eases your concerns.

But I don't think the correct response to wondering who did it is...

"So what? The important thing is Adnan is free."

The important thing suggests only one, hence the singular. You say, "Both are important" (plural). I agree with you.

I think there are two important things here and neither should be dismissed.

 

[theprestige]

I don't think that the due process question is the only issue.

I don't think even guilty people should be fitted up for a crime. I hope that eases your concerns.

But I don't think the correct response to wondering who did it is...

"So what? The important thing is Adnan is free."

The important thing suggests only one, hence the singular. You say, "Both are important" (plural). I agree with you.

I think there are two important things here and neither should be dismissed.

Thank you! And I apologize for low-key calling you out. Reviewing the context, I see your point very clearly. Again, I'm sorry for missing that the first time around.

 

[xjx388]

I don't think that the due process question is the only issue.

I don't think even guilty people should be fitted up for a crime. I hope that eases your concerns.

But I don't think the correct response to wondering who did it is...

"So what? The important thing is Adnan is free."

The important thing suggests only one, hence the singular. You say, "Both are important" (plural). I agree with you.

I think there are two important things here and neither should be dismissed.

I don’t think many people dismiss the fact that Hae’s family deserves justice. I’d love for the prosecutors to be able to put on a case that proves the murderer beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s what prompted me to delve back into the case after the surprise (to me anyway) release of Adnan: who else could it have been OR is there still a way to pin Adnan to the crime?

I’m just not holding out much hope for either at this point given the botched original case and the startling lack of physical evidence. For me, the only hope that remains is that the DNA that was found matches one or both of the remaining suspects or even a suspect hitherto unknown. That would be rock solid evidence to at least build a case around.

It’s a crappy situation and the most likely outcome is that her killer got away with it. But Adnan’s conviction was unsound IMHO and I think it’s a good thing he was released.

 

[lionking]

[HI

That is great if he is innocent, but at the same time, not great, because it requires that another murderer is out there.

What seems weird is that some people seem to only care that Adnan is free and seem to be completely indifferent to who the actual murderer is. They instead say, things like maybe it was Mr S as he found the body and has some shady history, or Dan as he seems to squeaky clean so probably hiding something, maybe, or Bilal because he is a very dodgy character or Jay because maybe he has motive and either he knew where the car was because he did it or when convenient I'll just say the cops told him, or maybe it was some Puerto Rican guy.

Why is it important that Adnan is free and unimportant about who killed Hae-Min Lee?

I didn’t think I had to point out to you the difference in law between innocent and not guilty. I do not believe that Adnan should ever have been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And that is what been now found, so that is a good thing.

And where have I ever said that the murder of Hae-Min is unimportant? You seem to be saying “it’s important that someone is in jail for the killing and if nobody else can be found Adnan is it”. This is not how criminal justice works.

 

[theprestige]

[HI

I didn’t think I had to point out to you the difference in law between innocent and not guilty. I do not believe that Adnan should ever have been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And that is what been now found, so that is a good thing.

And where have I ever said that the murder of Hae-Min is unimportant? You seem to be saying “it’s important that someone is in jail for the killing and if nobody else can be found Adnan is it”. This is not how criminal justice works.

Someone advocated finding the real killer. This was not even directed at you, but you promptly answered, "so what?" And, "the important thing is Adnan is free." That's an exclusive framing of the issue. You dismiss the question in favor of the important thing. I think it's totally reasonable to interpret this as you considering the question unimportant. If that's not what you meant, it's a miscommunication on your part, not a misunderstanding on ours.

 

[lionking]

Someone advocated finding the real killer. This was not even directed at you, but you promptly answered, "so what?" And, "the important thing is Adnan is free." That's an exclusive framing of the issue. You dismiss the question in favor of the important thing. I think it's totally reasonable to interpret this as you considering the question unimportant. If that's not what you meant, it's a miscommunication on your part, not a misunderstanding on ours.

If you don’t like my post, big deal. I stand by it. Saying something is important is not saying other things are unimportant.

 

[angrysoba]

[HI

I didn’t think I had to point out to you the difference in law between innocent and not guilty. I do not believe that Adnan should ever have been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And that is what been now found, so that is a good thing.

And where have I ever said that the murder of Hae-Min is unimportant? You seem to be saying “it’s important that someone is in jail for the killing and if nobody else can be found Adnan is it”. This is not how criminal justice works.

Do you think it IS important that someone be found guilty for the murder of Hae-min Lee?

 

[angrysoba]

Thank you! And I apologize for low-key calling you out. Reviewing the context, I see your point very clearly. Again, I'm sorry for missing that the first time around.

Thanks.

 

[lionking]

Do you think it IS important that someone be found guilty for the murder of Hae-min Lee?

Yes. But as this thread is centred on Adnan, I said it was important that the charges were withdrawn. I was also responding to Booee, who was talking about putting a wager on nobody else being arrested. Therefore my “big deal”. What does a wager on the Internet have to do with anything?

The case is still under investigation and I hope someone’s is charged. But I’m happy that Adnan is being released.

 

[angrysoba]

Yes. But as this thread is centred on Adnan, I said it was important that the charges were withdrawn. I was also responding to Booee, who was talking about putting a wager on nobody else being arrested. Therefore my “big deal”. What does a wager on the Internet have to do with anything?

The case is still under investigation and I hope someone’s is charged. But I’m happy that Adnan is being released.

I think restricting the thread to Adnan alone, and the legal technicalities as discussed in Serial and Undisclosed and whether that amounts to whether a judge or jury should pronounce guilty or not-guilty irrespective of whether or not Adnan did it, seems like an extremely narrow reading of the thread title.

It is perfectly reasonable to also want to know whether or not Adnan was responsible for Hae-min Lee's murder, and, if not, who was?

I think it is reasonable to speculate that nobody will ultimately be held responsible and that is likely because they caught the person who did it but ****** up the procedure.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

If anyone here wants to see the police https://app.box.com/s/i0rpo0c0dsq3svlpjprf5dk34lgbt00a file, here is a link.

There is no doubt Syed is the killer. He lied about asking for a ride, he lied about his whereabouts multiple times. He was placed with Jay by witnesses and Jay knew the position of the body, the burial location, the method of killing, and where Hae’s car was hidden. His cell phone pinged the burial site at the time of burial. This whole charade is a travesty of justice. I have the transcripts from both trials too, if anyone is that interested. I also attended one of the appeals. This entire fiasco is Mosby’s way of deflecting attention from her own crimes and trial.

 

[Brainster]

If anyone here wants to see the police https://app.box.com/s/i0rpo0c0dsq3svlpjprf5dk34lgbt00a file, here is a link.

There is no doubt Syed is the killer. He lied about asking for a ride, he lied about his whereabouts multiple times. He was placed with Jay by witnesses and Jay knew the position of the body, the burial location, the method of killing, and where Hae’s car was hidden. His cell phone pinged the burial site at the time of burial. This whole charade is a travesty of justice. I have the transcripts from both trials too, if anyone is that interested. I also attended one of the appeals. This entire fiasco is Mosby’s way of deflecting attention from her own crimes and trial.

Yep. Let me add too that I found the Serial broadcast singularly ridiculous; my favorite bit was when the narrator finally met the adult Adnan (she had been going from teenage pictures of him) and it was obvious that she had formed a crush on him and was quite disappointed in seeing the actual person as a middle-aged man.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

better late than not at all?

"“He is excluded,” a Maryland State Police DNA analyst testified Feb. 2, 2000, saying Syed was not the source of blood that stained a striped shirt found in Lee’s car...Blood samples from a striped shirt located in Lee’s car tested positive for her DNA...Court records show all of the items sent for testing in 2022 were not tested in 2018: swabs from Lee’s body cavities, several articles of Lee’s clothing and shoes, and her fingernail clippings...The swabs from the fingernail clippings and Lee’s shirt underwent Y-STR testing, but yielded “no useful typing results,” Feldman wrote." Baltimore Sun

I don't understand why the fingernail clippings were not tested a long time ago.

 

[angrysoba]

If anyone here wants to see the police https://app.box.com/s/i0rpo0c0dsq3svlpjprf5dk34lgbt00a file, here is a link.

There is no doubt Syed is the killer. He lied about asking for a ride, he lied about his whereabouts multiple times. He was placed with Jay by witnesses and Jay knew the position of the body, the burial location, the method of killing, and where Hae’s car was hidden. His cell phone pinged the burial site at the time of burial. This whole charade is a travesty of justice. I have the transcripts from both trials too, if anyone is that interested. I also attended one of the appeals. This entire fiasco is Mosby’s way of deflecting attention from her own crimes and trial.

Thanks. I would be interested in the documents and trial transcripts. I don't have an account with Box though.

I have to say I basically agree with you, though. I think I looked through the documents when I was trying to figure out the story behind Jay knowing where the car was. It looked from the documents exactly how the prosecutors said it happened:

They were looking for the car, they interviewed Jay, and Jay told them where it was while also admitting to being an accomplice and implicating Adnan.

That bit, in blue, right there, is almost certainly going to be damning testimony in a murder trial. I think the only way it isn't is if you can prove that Jay was lying about those facts or the police fed the information to him.

But I honestly don't see how that makes sense in any alternative coherent story. If the cops were trying to frame Adnan, for some reason, they were playing the long game by fabricating papers saying they were looking for the car a month before they interviewed Jay, right?

But advocates for Adnan, since right at the beginning of this thread, using the podcast Undisclosed, argue that...

There are three possibilities (that I can think of) which do not support Adnan's guilt.
1. Her car had unrepaired damage - he could have spotted the car.
2. Jay did it himself.
3. The police found the car previously and they fed him the information.

The next half episode is apparently going to argue that Jay did not know where the car was.

These possibilities are mutually exclusive, and it seems advocates for Adnan are not really interested in picking one. They are only interested in muddying the waters and creating reasonable doubt. No doubt this is often an effective legal strategy, and, from the point of view of the accused and the legal team, it is all that is required.

I don't argue for any undue burden of proof for the defence, but those of us in our armchairs pontificating on the trial should make some honest attempt to make a coherent alternative, or at the very least not just rely on reasonable doubt but to show how an argument for Adnan's guilt does not stand up.

It is reasonable to ask, if not Adnan, then who?

And it is here again, that the alternatives are only half-heartedly put forward. It seems nobody really wants to come to any firm conclusions. Maybe Mr S, maybe Bilal, maybe Jay, maybe Don. Better yet, maybe some mashed together composite culprit. Why do advocates for Adnan's innocence not have a firm suspect? Because they don't really believe it. If they had to deal with the idea that Adnan is innocent, based on "reasonable doubt", they would have massive cognitive dissonance trying to come up with a different suspect.

Let's take Jay. Let's assume the reason he knew where the car was was because he murdered Hae-min Lee and disposed of the body. None of the problems with the car are solved. Why is it that the car had grass under it? Oh, maybe Jay was driving it around after the murder. That makes sense! Why did the cops want to arrest Adnan more than Jay? Oh, because Jay was trying to get out of a drug dealing charge... hey, wait? So, the cops decided to fit up Adnan instead of a black drug dealer who they actually suspected of doing the crime? And in order to make it fit, they ran the risk of coaching him and telling him to implicate an innocent man?

Similarly, why bother trying to protect Mr S, apparently not a particualrly savoury figure to begin with, or Bilal (when if the motive was Islamaphobia, they hardly needed to go to Adnan). Apparently Adnan was a upright citizen. A pillar of the community. The other suspects were not. So why frame Adnan?

Oh wait, there is one more, I suppose, and that is Don. As mentioned, maybe he is too squeaky clean and as Hae-min Lee's boyfriend, maybe he was a bit more of a suspect.

Well, that leaves another problem, according to Wikipedia...

Lee disappeared on January 13, 1999. Her family reported her missing after she failed to pick up her younger cousin from daycare around 3:15 p.m. Lee had attended Woodlawn High School that day and had been seen by several people leaving the campus at the end of the school day.

Baltimore police immediately began investigating her disappearance.[20] On that day, officers called various friends of Lee to try to find her.[20] They reached Adnan Syed, who was a former boyfriend, early around 6:30 p.m. that evening; he said the last time he saw her was around the time classes ended at school. At 1:30 a.m., they reached her boyfriend, who said he had not seen her that day.

Wait, Adnan claimed to have seen her at school that day? Did anyone else? Was he "mistaken"? Or lying? From what I understand, the police believe she was killed that day. The day when Adnan for some reason, cannot remember what he was doing half of it (an ordinary day, according to Koenig, except it clearly wasn't).

Yeah, come on, he seems pretty obviously guilty to me.

No doubt, the police ultimately made serious procedural errors, which is terrible, but if we step outside legal technicalities, is there any reason why we should doubt that Adnan did it?

 

[angrysoba]

"“He is excluded,” a Maryland State Police DNA analyst testified Feb. 2, 2000, saying Syed was not the source of blood that stained a striped shirt found in Lee’s car...Blood samples from a striped shirt located in Lee’s car tested positive for her DNA...Court records show all of the items sent for testing in 2022 were not tested in 2018: swabs from Lee’s body cavities, several articles of Lee’s clothing and shoes, and her fingernail clippings...The swabs from the fingernail clippings and Lee’s shirt underwent Y-STR testing, but yielded “no useful typing results,” Feldman wrote." Baltimore Sun

I don't understand why the fingernail clippings were not tested a long time ago.

Huh??!?

Can I get this straight? The blood samples exclude him because they tested positive for her DNA?