Adnan Syed - Serial / Undisclosed

It seems odd that Jenn would help her friend create an incriminating story against himself for no reason or that Jay would ask her to help him incriminate himself for a crime he didn't commit. We have to assume Jay has incredible foresight. He knows he was with Adnan and had Adnan's car the afternoon Hae disappeared, so if the police ask Jenn about Adnan and he finds out, he will start to get nervous about the police looking into him. This makes sense so far. But it makes less sense he is able to, within 24 hours, foresee that his best course of action is confess to being an accessory after the fact to murder (a felony that can carry a multi year prison sentence) and to piece together an elaborate narrative with confessing to Jenn about the night of a crime that never happened that he preps Jenn to recite back to the police that is predicated on him just happening to know where the victim's car nobody else has found is. It's incredulous to me.

And it still comes down to the car and I think this is simply where people who believe in Jay's innocence have a different perception than people who don't. For me Jay knowing the location of the car is just about on par, in terms of incriminating and probative value, with a hypothetical scenario where Jay is found in possession of a watch the victim was known to be wearing when last seen alive.
 
kwill said:
Jay was in the habit of borrowing cars, not just from Adnan but also from 3 or 4 others at WHS. He was the weed connection. That part isn't unlucky. The phone, however . . . phew. That really was unlucky. Adnan had just bought it the day before.
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The trouble is that the cell phone data is meaningless in that it does not really fit the crime or could be made to fit anything.
 
Desert Fox said:
The trouble is that the cell phone data is meaningless in that it does not really fit the crime or could be made to fit anything.
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I know, right? The radio frequency engineer who testified at trial said flat out that the tower information could not be used to locate the phone. Period, full stop.

Combine that with the fact that Jay Wilds was invited to adjust his "memory" so that it matched the times/towers list he was shown, and it's amazing that the list was taken to corroborate his story. (And even at that, the majority of them don't match!)

The Knox case included a bunch of ridiculous "it's compatible" points that were used against her and Raffaele. That's exactly how the tower evidence was discussed in court: Could the phone have been here? Yes, it's compatible.

Look, jury! The engineer said the phone was definitely there. Just like Jay said!

The Serial producers fell right into that tar pit, too. You can hear them in the last episode talking about where the phone was based on which tower originated a call . . . and extrapolating from that off-base surmise that both Wilds and Syed were lying.
 
bagels said:
It seems odd that Jenn would help her friend create an incriminating story against himself for no reason or that Jay would ask her to help him incriminate himself for a crime he didn't commit.
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Maybe.

All the possibilities here are equally improbable, imo. Did a well-liked high school senior up and strangle his ex as his first known act of aggression of any kind, then callously stuff her into a car for a few hours while smoking dope, then force his weed connection to help bury her, then fool everybody close to him for six weeks? Did that guy henceforth refuse to accuse the weed buddy of the crime himself? Could be.

Did a random black kid get roped into helping police "solve" a murder because they were going to charge him with it if he didn't help them? (That's what he said in court.) Did the police actually convince him that they had evidence his weed buddy was guilty but needed his testimony anyway? Could be.

Did a 19-yr-old girl try to help her friend by telling police she helped him get rid of evidence? Was it just coincidence that the lawyer she hired within hours of realizing her name was on the call logs lived right next to one of the detectives? Did she have some kind of secret deal with the prosecutors that kept her from being charged with destroying evidence? Did she screw up her statement when they turned on the recorder? Could be.

I don't know who did this. I don't think anybody does, except the person who did it and possibly Jay.
 
kwill said:
I don't know who did this. I don't think anybody does, except the person who did it and possibly Jay.
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It is even possible that Adnan did it but if he did, it was nothing like what the prosecution argued.
 
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Desert Fox said:
It is even possible that Adnan did it but if he did, it was nothing like what the prosecution argued.
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Sure. At some point, though, just out of sheer dumb luck you'd think the detectives and prosecutors would have come up with something resembling evidence if it were there to find.

The craziness of their crime narrative points, imo, toward innocence more than anything else.
 
kwill said:
Sure. At some point, though, just out of sheer dumb luck you'd think the detectives and prosecutors would have come up with something resembling evidence if it were there to find.

The craziness of their crime narrative points, imo, toward innocence more than anything else.
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That is pretty much how I look at it. . . .Whenever I look at a confession, and I am calling what Jay did a confession, usually it will be built on a bed of truth but just they try to get themselves less involved with a real confession. False confessions usually have little to do with the actual events.
 
Desert Fox said:
The trouble is that the cell phone data is meaningless in that it does not really fit the crime or could be made to fit anything.
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The police find a body in Leakin Park. The body is the ex-girlfriend of a person for whom they then obtain cell phone records. The cell phone records place him in Leakin Park on the day the dead person went missing and your claim is that the cell phone data is meaningless?
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
The police find a body in Leakin Park. The body is the ex-girlfriend of a person for whom they then obtain cell phone records. The cell phone records place him in Leakin Park on the day the dead person went missing and your claim is that the cell phone data is meaningless?
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For one thing. my understanding is that Jay's Grandmother's house is supported by that tower. The issue is that cell phone data (by AT&T own cover letter) is consider not useful for incoming call (which these were) and the data was not properly recorded and was not done until months afterwards.
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
The police find a body in Leakin Park. The body is the ex-girlfriend of a person for whom they then obtain cell phone records. The cell phone records place him in Leakin Park on the day the dead person went missing and your claim is that the cell phone data is meaningless?
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Anyone know how likely that particular tower would have been the one used if adnan had used his cell phone at one of his usual locations?

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk
 
pipelineaudio said:
Anyone know how likely that particular tower would have been the one used if adnan had used his cell phone at one of his usual locations?

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk
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When they measured cell phone calls, the police cherry picked their data. One would expect pages and pages of data but they only have a few discreet measurements which are hand written. Several people who work the telecommunication industry seem to be aghast at that idea.
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
The cell phone records place him in Leakin Park on the day the dead person went missing and your claim is that the cell phone data is meaningless?
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There were two calls that "pinged" that tower on the night Hae Lee disappeared. Both were incoming to Syed's phone. When AT&T supplied the tower data to the police, they specifically and emphatically (all caps and underlined) stated that location of phones for incoming calls was unreliable.

It's unreliable because:

If the incoming call is from another cell, the tower shown could be from one in the range of the caller, not the callee. That means that if whoever made those two calls was using a cell phone, it could be THEM in the range of the Leakin Park tower, not Syed's phone.

What's more, the body's condition when it was discovered showed that it had not been buried as it was found (on the right side) at 7 - 8 pm that night. The burial had to have been at least a few hours after that.

Finally, there's no reason to think that there was coverage at the burial site, as Jay Wilds testified. The expert from AT&T never left the car to find out. At best, it's known that there was coverage along the road outside the park, but there's no testimony suggesting that those calls came to a car on that road.
 
Desert Fox said:
When they measured cell phone calls, the police cherry picked their data. One would expect pages and pages of data but they only have a few discreet measurements which are hand written. Several people who work the telecommunication industry seem to be aghast at that idea.
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Right? I can't believe they got away with that.

Hi, we're the prosecutors! We're going to take you for a ride around the county. You're going to use your equipment to make a few hundred phone calls as we go, but we don't want you to record any of the data you collect. Instead, just call out the tower numbers from a few places we'll tag, and one of us will write down what you say.

Sounds legit.
 
Also, according to the testimony of Jenn, whomever answer those supposed calls was a male with a deep voice. Even now, Adnan does not have what one would call a deep voice.
 
I think I know exactly why Jay knew where the car was. . . . .He was looking for the reward so was specifically looking for Hae's car
Also explains why Jen got involved. Jay talked Jen into helping with his story so he could get the reward.

Jay seems to sold Adnan for money. . . . Possibly to get a motorcycle.
 
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I wanted to rewrite my previous response. It is not that I wrong anything wrong but wanted to be clear.

I think the logic on the latest version of Undisclosed is pretty solid. Jay was very likely the anonymous tip source and he really knew nothing about the crime. That is something that strikes me why Adnan is innocent. It really appears as if Jay actually knew nothing of the crime.

It is really pathetic that Jay would sell Adnan to the cops for a few thousand dollars. Doesn't matter if it was for the motorcycle or not. I would not sell somebody I hate in such a manner.

This also explains how Jay got Jen involved. He likely told her that he needed the money and nobody would actually get hurt. He might have also offered to split the money with her. Still, I think in part it explains how Jen might have become involved.

With many people, one of the arguments with regards to Jay also is the location of the car. Let us assume that he did call in the anonymous tip. He initially did not know where the car was but hoped that with the location of the car, he would be able to use it to show that he knew something of the crime. He actively looked for the car and found it sometime between the anonymous call and when he was first officially interviewed. Tend to consider it most likely towards the end of that time but does not matter much.
 
Crimestoppers

What an interesting twist from the newest Undisclosed.

The podcaster lawyers know for sure that:

  • There was a tip to Crimestoppers on Feb 1.
  • It resulted in a payout on Nov 1.
  • The payout was for $3,075.
  • The police knew both the content of the tip and the name of the tipster.

They speculate that:

  • The tipster was Jay.
  • There was no Feb 12 anonymous call to the police; that was invented as cover for the Feb 1 tip.
It would make sense of a lot of things that have seemed fishy -- too many to name here, but one thing that sticks out to me is the strange moment during the taping of Jay's statement when the cops are giving him a hard time about why on earth he didn't call somebody to tell them that this crazy Muslim kid had just strangled his girlfriend. Why did he just climb into Adnan's car and follow him around when he could have gone into any store, used a payphone, and told the cops right then and there?

Jay says: I don't understand this line of questioning. And asks them to turn off the tape for a minute. If he was really the tipster, that would indeed have been a confusing moment, eh? Hey, you guys know that I did call! Just not right then! Why are you making it sound like I'm the bad guy?
 
This is a concise explanation rebutting false assertions about the cell tower evidence at trial. The in-depth discussions about cell tower technology are interesting but can prove a distraction away from the truth of what actually occurred there.

False: The cell tower evidence was used as geolocation data at trial i.e. that Adnan was at certain places at certain times, for example Leakin Park, and the sole evidence was the cell phone data.

THE CELL PHONE EVIDENCE WAS NEVER USED OR ASSERTED TO BE A DEFINITE SOLE INDICATION OF ADNAN'S (or anyone else's) LOCATION.

True: AW testified that:
• the data could not be used to determine geolocation by itself.
• cell towers covered a large area
• any incoming or outgoing call could ping as many as 3 towers.

True: AW's test drive was used to:
• confirm Jay's testimony - i.e. that if a call was originated at a certain location, that call would be consistent with the ping locations as captured on Adnan's cell phone billing records. So that Jay/Adnan could have been at that location - not were at that location. It was never used as a free standing location narrative.

•It was used to corroborate Jay's evidence plus that of the other witnesses and evidence.
 
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AT & T sent a fax to the State

that had a cover sheet stating explicitly that incoming calls were NOT reliable for location of the phone that was receiving them.

The state relied on them anyway. The defense was asleep at the switch.

The calls that supposedly place the phone in Leakin Park were both incoming, which means there is no reliable cell phone evidence to be corroborated by Jay Wilds or any other person.

Speaking of Jay Wilds, he told the world last January that he lied to the court about the burial happening during the 7 o'clock hour -- his latest version is that the whole thing happened "closer to midnight."

So we have the doubly ridiculous situation of unreliable-for-location cell phone pings currently not being corroborated by the only person in the world who has ever claimed that Hae Min Lee was buried between 7 and 8 pm.

This is no way to run a railroad, and yet it's exactly how the prosecution ran this particular railroad.
 
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