Sarah Koenig today updated fans of the wildly popular, game-changing podcast series Serial with an update on the new shows, yet another award they won and the recent news about the case against Adnan Syed. Syed was the subject of the podcast and is currently serving a life sentence, 15 years in, for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 17 year-old Hae Min Lee.
While there have been plenty of websites salivating over the recent update on Syed’s case, including Huffington Post, The Frisky, and a few others, there is still a glaring flaw in the story that began with Serial and continues with the media covering the story.
What was never covered? That this was a domestic violence case. Violence against women is and has always been off the charts, particularly in relationships. Usually there is prior abuse but in this case there wasn’t any. Or was there? Serial left out almost every single piece of evidence that pointed to Syed as someone who was possessive, controlling and unable to let go of Hae Min Lee. Koenig left it out probably because she didn’t want to incite a mob but it’s something the media has never covered. They treat this case like your standard wrongful conviction case, like The Thin Blue Line or the Memphis Three. In fact, the case against Syed is strong. The evidence overwhelming. Why isn’t anyone in the media talking about this?
When the website The Intercept covered the story from a different angle, two of its reporters Natasha VC and Ken Silverstein found that the state indeed had a strong case. They interviewed the prosecutor, Kevin Urick, and the state’s witness, the one upon whom everyone freely lays blame, Jay Wilds. Once it was known that Glenn Greenwald’s site was defending the state and not the victim, Adnan Syed, the two were put through turmoil and resigned. That’s how badly the media wants this to be — NEEDS THIS TO BE — a wrongful conviction case. The thing is, okay, if that’s so, show me. So far, no one – not the lawyers on Undisclosed (the self-appointed defense team’s biased podcast that is working to sway public opinion and rip apart the case), not Koenig’s Serial. After all of this time, Asia McClain is what they’re going with. That and Adnan Syed never being given the chance to appeal his case.
You have to do some digging on your own because you won’t find it listening to Serial (unless you listen multiple times and carefully). You have to read the trial transcripts and pore over the interviews. You have to look logically at what happened that day, where the cell phone pinged (butt dial my ass) and who lied about what. Further complicating matters is that there are many missing pages from the transcripts that many have been trying to obtain to fill the gaps. These have yet to be released and there is some speculation that they are being deliberately withheld to mitigate potential damage until the courts work through this latest appeal. Maybe there is nothing on the missing pages. Maybe there is something. With this case, the more you read the more damning the case against Adnan Syed becomes. Most people don’t know this. The journalists writing their updates stories on or about the case certainly don’t know this.
What is unforgivable both in Serial’s coverage of the story and in the recent coverage by the media is to overlook what likely caused Lee’s death and many women and girls just like her.
Here is what Serial just put up on their website about the Syed update:
Adnan appealed the circuit court’s decision to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, and was due to have a hearing next month. But last week, the Court of Special Appeals essentially paused the case, saying that Adnan can ask the circuit court to re-open his post-conviction proceeding so he can present a new statement from Asia. In January of this year, after Serial finished airing, Asia reiterated in an affidavit that she’d seen Adnan at the public library on the day Hae Min Lee went missing in 1999. And she also stated that Kevin Urick, a prosecutor, had discouraged her from testifying at Adnan’s post-conviction hearing. “Urick convinced me into believing that I should not participate in any ongoing proceedings,” Asia says in the affidavit.
Once again, Serial talks about Asia McClain without bringing up the contradictory evidence that she says, on Serial, “I would not have remembered if not for the snow.” She then adds “It was the first snow of the year.” Well, it didn’t snow on January 13th. There was an ice storm in the early morning hours of the 14th but no one would have noticed it on the 13th, certainly not waiting in the library. The first snow of the year and also a day school was closed was the week before, January 8th.
Serial did not check the weather before recording episode 1 and only updated their website to report on the weather. Even they conclude it probably wasn’t the 13th, yet no mention of that here on Koenig’s update which seems to suggest that Serial is responsible for the swaying of public opinion and/or pressure on the courts to allow McClain’s testimony to be examined.
Even more problematic for McClain as a witness, though, and the prosecutors have made this abundantly clear in their response to the recent inclusion of McClain, her testimony was conditional. She made it clear numerous times that she would only testify in Adnan’s favor if she knew for a fact he was not guilty. She offered her “help.” Yeah, no. The truth doesn’t work that way. You were there, you weren’t. You saw him, you didn’t.” She was such an unreliable witness, Syed’s defense attorney would have been a rookie to put her on the stand. The prosecution would have eviscerated her.
And finally, McClain might have even seen Syed in the library – that doesn’t exonerate him from having murdered Hae Min Lee. They don’t want to find something to exonerate him. They don’t need to. They merely have to show that he did not get a fair trail and hopefully get him out of jail.
Whether he gets out of jail or not is not my concern, personally. I do care about the truth and I do care about the murder of a promising, intelligent young 17 year-old. And I do think Serial and every piece of mainstream media coverage that has come after it has ignored what very likely happened to Hae Min Lee and continues to happen to women all over the world every minute of the day.
Here are the pieces of the story Serial left out, inexplicably, and what everyone else is leaving out – completely ignoring the dynamics that might have led up to the murder.
In order to find proper coverage of the relationship I had to dig down deep in the main Serial Reddit sub to find a post that lays out things pretty clearly – a statement by “Debbie”–
Adnan was very over protective of Hae. He never made her sustain from seeing her friends but he did suggest she spent more time with him. He wanted to know where she was going, when she was going, who was she with, almost like he was her father.
From Hae’s Diary:
The second thing is the possessiveness. Independence (indiscernible). I’m a very independent person. I rarely rely on my parents. Although I love him, it’s not like I need him. I know I’ll be just fine without him, and I need some time for myself and (indiscernible) other than him. How dare he get mad at me for planning to hang with Aisha?
Serial leaves out “possessiveness” when covering this. Koenig writes it off by saying Hae then says “he brought carrot cake!” In every instance where she could have told Hae’s story a little better she deflects any possible suggestion that he was a controlling, possessive kid who could not handle his girlfriend dumping him for an older man.
Serial also leaves out that Hae once hid from Adnan and had a teacher lie for her when he showed up looking for her. She was due to work with the teacher but opted out, trying to avoid Adnan. The teacher, by the way, is never mentioned on Serial at all, nor is any of her testimony.
Even with all of that deflection, though, Serial cannot exonerate Adnan Syed. Everything they checked checks out. They flail around at the end with Nisha call, finding some tiny print that YES, maybe it could be a butt dial for over two minutes. That is just one improbability. To find Syed not guilty you have to accept the least probable situation all the way down the line. No one has yet calculated the percentages on that but I’m guessing they would be up there with getting struck by lightning.
As a fan of Serial I am so amazed and appreciative that Sarah Koenig kicked ass as she did. As a mother, a woman and a feminist I’m heartbroken that they could leave out something so important as Adnan’s behavior leading up to the murder. While it started out telling Adnan Syed’s story it never adequately told Hae Min Lee’s. They tried but never got there. They owed it to Lee’s family to bring up the issue of domestic violent homicide – to even use those two words together on the podcast. They never did.
These are important words to “leave in” considering the prosecution thought of this as a “domestic violence case” but how many listeners of Serial got that? How many reporters writing their update stories the case even bother including that? Adnan is treated as the victim again and again.
Because public opinion is shaped by the media, and the media wants this to be a wrongful conviction case, this story will keep rolling along until the public gets what it wants. Adnan Syed’s verdict will be overturned, he’ll go free. Sarah Koenig and Serial will take partial credit. Rabia Chaudry and her Undisclosed podcast will take the rest of it. Fan letters will pour in from all over the world. Syed will be on every network news programs – morning, noon and night. This is the direction the story wants to go in.
It doesn’t want to go in the direction of the even bigger tragedy. Probably the most thorough read on this has been covered by only one person, as far as I can tell, and that is Ann Brocklehurst who wrote “Serial podcast rehabilitated a schoolgirl’s murderer, so where’s the feminist outrage?” Read it.
Where is the feminist outrage? Completely missing in action.
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I don’t think you were paying attention to the prosecution; they said she was dead by 2:36pm. It’s contradicted by alibi witnesses and forensic evidence.
lol. No it didn’t. She said she saw him between 2:15 and 2:35 pm. Lol. Hae min left the school at 3. That is plenty of time for him and his despicable buddies to do what they do per his instruction. What a horrible person he is. This screwed him. His own defense didn’t want her testimony at the original trial because it is not a good alibi. GOod riddance I hope he enjoys his stay.
This article is quite out of date, particularly now that Asia testified and her testimony held up in court quite well. Her memory held up under cross examination. I’d recommend listening to the new updates in Serial, if not also listening to the Undisclosed podcast.
There is motive for why he would have done it. Adnan’s strong “friendship” with Stephanie. I don’t know if you read the entire article.
Saying that he was “put in front of the cops and buckled” would make sense if we’re talking about small inaccuracies in the story, but that’s not the case. These are vast differences in what was happening, and what the cell records show, then this differences are changed not 1 not 2 but 3 or 4 times before trial, then at the trial it’s as if he’s had a chance to view the cell records and change his story and times to fit the narrative. It’s blatantly obvious that he’s lying about a lot of times and locations. And the part that’s most telling is the location of the murder and the “trunk pop.” He says he lied about the first location because he was afraid there might be cameras at the real location? why would he care about cameras if it was Adnan caught on camera committing the murder? Then he says he tells the truth about the location when Jenny tells him there’s no camera’s there.
I’m not saying Adnan is innocent, but usually when you’re telling the truth it’s very simplistic. “I was here, I was there at this time.” Not “we were here, no it was just me, no it was both of us, yeah it was 2pm, no it was 12pm, no it was 4:45pm, oh it was this mall, no this is where I saw it, yeah he told me about it at this place, no it was this place, yeah we were driving around smoking weed for 8 hours while in the midst of burying a body.”
It’s just a ridiculous amount of inaccuracies, and if you committed a crime, and new someone who was an easy target, whom you don’t really consider a close friend, this is a textbook way of pointing the finger, just throwing a ton of stories against the wall until 1 can closely match a timeline created by police, then you practice that story over and over again, tell it at trial, and get your conviction. The problem with that is when people decide to go back and listen to your first 4 stories, then listen to it change again when it tells it in 2015.
I don’t know how anyone can read what this guy had to say and put any kind of truth to it. It seems like we’ll never know what really happened to that girl, and that’s a disservice to her family.
I think you really need to consider how (as others have said) teenagers act. Having a 17 year old daughter all of this is completely ‘normal’ behaviour.
The girls get from their friends “oh you’re going off with your boyfriend, why do you not spend time with your friends anymore?” and from their boyfriends it’s either “I want to see you, spend more time with me.” or they’re completely disinterested with very little in between. There’s nothing unusual here in that. Nor in Hae hiding from him. I did the same to my high school boyfriend!
Also, Adnaan has had shown no violent tendencies even in the pressure cooker of a super max prison. So while I understand the writer of this article’s perspective I actually think they’re on the wrong track.
I listened to Serial and was 80% sure Adnaan was innocent. Following Jay’s intercept interview I’m 99% sure Adnaan is innocent. As, regardless of all that everyone is saying essentially Adnaan was convicted on a story and hearsay. I work in electronic engineering – cell phone ‘pings’ cannot be used to pinpoint location, they are not gps. Ultimately it terrifies me someone can be put in prison for life based on this. Also Hae’s family deserve justice.
Agreed! I never could swallow that he couldn’t remember the day. It was a few weeks, maybe 2 months later? The day the love of your life goes missing becomes a 9/11 moment in your head you play over and over and over again. His basic story is “Yeah, I knew after a few days it was serious but I basically haven’t given it that much thought so 2 months later the day is just a blur”. I bothers me that Koenig plays that up and he’s going to use it again if he gets a retrial but using the defense 20 years later that how could I remember a day 20 years ago doesn’t work when you couldn’t remember it 2 months after it happened.
I get that but lets face it, he knew way more than he should have and their is not a wisp of a motive as to why he would have done it, alone at least. He was a wannabe gangster who got caught up in some real dirty work, not the pot dealing BS he was used to. Put him in-front of the cops and he buckled. I really think he had a moment of conscience and he was the one who called the cops. Unfortunately he thought he was slick and though he could get out of it without getting his hands dirty. The cops saw right through him and broke his bull down enough to get to the real story.
He knows too much, the only way I can believe he’s flat out framing him is someone, anyone can come up with some sort of motive.
I felt the same as you when I first heard it, seemed like they covered it and it was nothing but the teacher’s story about hiding her is troubling. If you want to look at him and who he hangs out with, he’s a player. He’s not going to go after the other guy playing the game.
This kid, like many others, especially in the 90’s loved living in the “thug life” wannabe mode, but lets face it, he wasn’t. He had all that rage but not the bravery, so if he did do it, this makes plenty of sense.
I also had the problem with Adnan calling him “pathetic” during the trial. If your innocent, you say “Why are you doing this to me, why, why why??????” Pathetic is something one bad guy says to another who rats on them, “You claimed to be hardcore but look how you punked out… pathetic”
Wonderful article, I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head. I don’t totally agree this is about domestic violence but it is a strong component people are ignoring because we all want to believe.
In retrospect, that would have been a better premise for Koenig to revolve the season around, bringing to light what happens in kids lives and how their choices, the secrets their parents make them keep can end. The subsequent repression leading to the inability to get council from those who know best and how all of this teenage angst can end tragically. Unfortunately that or any number of valid constructs were not used and we are poorer for it.
I hate what I’m about to say but I’m now leaning towards he did it and more scathingly, I think Koenig knows it. I caught up with the follow up episodes this week and what a difference in tone and cadence. Emphasizing how its still a conundrum yet seemly hopeful for Adnan. Koenig set this up perfectly from episode one, spending a great deal of time making sure you knew that everything in this case was a toss up and it would drive you insane.
Yet the new follow ups are painfully biased if you really look at it in the eye. Anything that was pro-Adnan was given such inflection, such hopeful tones and yet, anything the defense brings up to directly dismiss Asia’s claims or the letter timeline are met with “Well, ums” and “it kinda, sorta … but I don’t think”. Not to mention the relax, jovial tones between her and Dana, we are talking about life and death here.
Go listen to the day 3 trial episode on their website and scroll to 8:35 when they talk about the detectives notes about when the letters went out. After listening to these 3 latest episodes something in my brain “paused” and all the doubts I had listening to the first season hit me square in the face, their were their the entire time, I just wanted to believe.
We all want to believe, but the proof and the presenter need to be pure, to never “give us pause” as Koenig likes to say. That doesn’t mean they have to be perfect but there is too much pause now. I’m willing to take the good and the bad and evaluate it, I don’t want to demonize her. Many years ago I watched the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” and in the end it convinced me to start juicing, changed my life. But it nearly didn’t, it was obvious this man was filming a protracted ad for Breville juicers, especially with his dollar grabs revolving around it after the “documentary”. A man from Australia with a 1 in a Million skin disease “bumps” into someone else with the same affliction in the heart of rural America and cures him with his juicer…. Give me the facts and at least give me a wink so we both acknowledge the truth and the reality. It was a good message, its a shame it might not be heard because we can’t trust the voice it comes from. (In the end I bought a Breville)
I wanted Adnan to be innocent. I don’t want to believe a kid did this, and lets remember that this is the context of all of this.
I wanted to believe a dirtbag, despot, rapist, someone who fits the profile who was already lost to society being the bad guy.
I wanted this country to show the world we could say we were wrong and correct it, especially for someone from Middle Eastern decent.
I wanted Serial to be a massive victory for justice, I wanted to know it could happen.
I did not want to make this about Koenig , I think Serial was a triumph, but the way she is going about it gives me great pause. This reopening, internationally of the Lee’s pain needs to be for a pure reason. Taking the time to meticulously follow the route between the school and the route the call logs described yet not looking up the weather until now is inexcusable, just as it’s implied his defense had no excuse not to pursue Asia from the beginning, except that was a judgement call made by a seasoned attorney (while flawed). This was a decision that informed the outcome of someone’s life, all she had to do was a Google search.
I need transcripts, unedited phone calls. I need to believe the narrative was sound.
There are too many moments when the interviews seemed to be getting to Adnan and the call was interrupted or the flow of the program suddenly moved away from it. I felt it when I was listening to it but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
In the end, I feel I was fooled, not by Adnan or Koenig but by myself. I got caught up in the emotion of it all and made the Lee’s tragedy my entertainment. I’ve been skeptical of the other side too, wondering why the prosecutors were so adamant to stop this from going forward but in the end its apart of the same failing I’ve had the entire time, I did not look at it for what it was, what was rational.
The incredible string of events that would have had to have taken place to truly frame this boy are staggering.
Jay was clearly involved, his convoluted stories, his intimate knowledge only inform me the police and the prosecution know he was skirting the facts to give himself the best possible chance to make a deal and get clear from any real jail time.
Its more rational to believe Baltimore, an area with a horrific violent crime rate decided to dance a fine line and go with it, knowing it was the rational truth. It makes sense as to why the prosecution was so against looking at this again, the proverbial can of worms….
Asia is a poor witness, period. She does not present herself as someone looking to do the right thing. Nothing in her story or presentation tells me that.
Adnan was a jilted teenager, in love, living in secret. Suppressed by his family, surrounded by influences that ultimately pushed him to do this No alibi, no context to his actions that day, no outrage at his situation. I see him now as someone who has been free falling over a cliff for the last two decades with no hope, and all of a sudden a cloud appeared, thin, insubstantial but possibly something he could land on safely. So he stares at it in stunned silence, knowing if he makes any sudden movement it might dissipate and never return.
Unless we want to believe it was some other random act of violence that was the period on a long string of words telling the story of the unluckiest innocent boy and the luckiest killer in known history, it’s rational that he’s guilty. What’s not rational after looking back at it is how Serial was designed to make you think otherwise.
If Koenig is prepared to profit from this, she needs to do everything in her power to do it properly. I don’t think she went into this with anything other than an idea and curiosity, they came to her. But now that she’s taken the mantle, she owes it to us, the Lee’s and all other Journalists to do it right.
There is a fine line between wanting, needing and obsessing. As someone who claims not to know anything about the case but leans towards the side of the person not brutally murdered, I’m sure you know nothing about putting yourself between someone obsessed and someone wanting to move on with their lives.
Being a white male is a great thing….. except for the fact the world is out to get us at every turn but every once and a while we need to stop talking like we own the world and just observe it for what it is.
If it’s domestic violence for a partner to ask their significant other to “spend more time” with them, then just about every person in America is both a victim and perpetrator of domestic violence. I don’t know anything about this case, whether he’s guilty or innocent, but if the author of this piece is branding their relationship as one of domestic violence based on a “spending more time together” request and other comments she read on reddit, well that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
Don’t listen to all the haters in your comments section, I thought your article was excellent and agree with everything you said. The proAdnan crowd are holding everyone else up to intense scrutiny and allowing him get the benefit of the doubt time and time again. Your comment about accepting the least probable answer for every question being on par with the odds of getting struck by lightning is excellent also.
Adnan did it. He had a motive, he had ‘going to kill’ written on a break up not from Hae, he comes from a culture that promotes honor killing, an accomplice fingered him and knew details about the crime that no one else would, his ‘alibi’ if that is what you would call Asia, is unreliable and his memory is severely lacking unless it somehow benefits his innocence. Please pray that this misogynistic murderer stays exactly where he belongs.
>And if Adnan WAS so possessive, you would expect the violence to be directed against the new boyfriend, not Hae.
That’s not at all how domestic abuse works. An abusive man is usually too cowardly to confront another man (someone who is actually capable of standing up for himself and kicking the abuser’s ass). Which is why they take their kicks on emotionally and physically abusing someone who is less likely/unable to fight back.
So all the fixation and anger would indeed be on Hae – “How DARE you defy me, how DARE you leave me,” etc etc etc.
I think they did prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
I got the distinct impression from listening that Koenig firmly believed in his innocence in the beginning and had some serious doubts with the scales tipped at least slightly towards guilty by the end.
I have no idea. Damn it. why don’t I have a cop to tell me what I’ve been up to so I don’t have to rely on vague, fallible, human memory? haha
Honestly I kinda think Adnan did do it. That being said you article does nothing to prove that to me. I dont know if you know much about teenagers especially teenagers who come form strict households, but they tend to want to know everything about their BF/ GFs. Young love is engulfing. From an outsiders point of view it would look possessive. Most teenagers are possessive. Even more so when coming from stricter families because seeing each other evolves knowing each others movements. Spending time together somehow becomes more precious because its forbidding. Hae hiding from him can also be a case of I just dont want to deal with him today. Her dairy shows they had these kind of ups and downs. Which is something teenagers do. This kinda of behavior seems insanely normal.
I came to this article because I wanted to know if there was anything the podcast left out. I was disappointed as you offered nothing new. I felt the Podcast did a great job of presenting both sides of the case. It was base of the podcast alone that I felt maybe he did do it. If Serial is as bias as you say I would have never gotten a chance to come to that conclusion.
If you really wanted to point to reason why he could have done it you should focus more on how its possible the murder didn’t happen at Best Buy. That if the murder happened at the library Asia testimony would be pointless. Or about how Adnan never seem to hold much stock in Asia letters. Maybe that was because he didn’t want to divert attention to the Library at the time, something that now would not matter because any evidence that could have been found there is long gone.
See what I did there. That’s looking at the case objectively and not trying to turn it into a platform for domestic violence.
this article was just so painful to read. the author mentions Serial, the audience, and the mainstream media being biased towards the case while displaying a painfully ironic amount of bias herself. while being a possessive significant other is definitely unhealthy it does not necessarily lead to murder. that would be like saying someone that dislikes their neighbor who happens to be a different ethnicity is a horrible racist and probably thinks Hitler had the right idea.
I’m not saying Adnan is innocent; I’m not saying he’s guilty. what I will say is that I’m not a goddamn detective so I won’t pretend to know what I’m talking about.
we get it. you’re woman. we hear you roar. but even if this IS a case of domestic violence that doesn’t make it ANY more tragic that this innocent 17 year old girl died. if it was a 17 year old boy that died would you give a shit? would you write an article? would you take exception to the way the media has covered it? I think it’s just as disrespectful to this poor girl’s memory to use her death to further a feminist agenda as it is to use her death to boost ratings.
the bottom line is that an innocent girl was murdered and you used the sensationalism surrounding her death to push your own agenda. that’s disgusting.
Where were you that day?
Serial definitely included references to Adnand “hanging around too much”. They even referenced Adnand showing up for Hae’s slumber party. The reason they did not dwell on this is that Adnand never did anything violent. It is not relevant or interesting to go on and on about something that the mutual friends dismissed. There were no threats against the new boyfriend recorded. And if Adnand WAS so possessive, you would expect the violence to be directed against the new boyfriend, not Hae.
Timeline in murder cases is everything. Especially Murder 1 convictions. Jay’s timeline is all over the place, who knows where he was or what he was doing after taking Adnan’s phone and car from 12-6 – then from 7-10. Adnan’s story is relatively simple, he was either at: school, library, track practice – during a certain time frame (12-6) Or 2 other places : Cathy’s , the mosque – during the 2nd time frames (6-10.) What this says is that someone is covering up where they were during these time frames, someone is lying, and usually the liar is the one with more to say.
I just don’t understand how any functioning human being could listen to Jay’s multiple descriptions of where he was, who he was with, what they were doing, during all these time frames, then look at the cell phone records and think any of it is tangible evidence against Adnan. It seems pretty clear cut to me, that Jay had more to do with this murder than anyone else. Why the police centered in on Adnan, and made the investigation about trying to corroborate Jay’s testimony with these phone records to implicate Adnan, instead of finding the truth, is just beyond me, and it shows the blatant focus on winning convictions in this Justice System than finding the truth the families involved deserve.
http://viewfromll2.com/2014/11/23/serial-a-comparison-of-adnans-cell-phone-records-and-the-witness-statements-provided-by-adnan-jay-jenn-and-cathy/
Listen to the truth and justice podcast episode 127 where he actually has the entire copy of Hae’s diary. She never paints Adnan as a crazy possessive boyfriend or ever mentions any type of domestic violence.
The quotes from Hae’s diary seem like 90% of every high school relationship. State argues that she was dead by 2:36 but the author says, “And finally, McClain might have even seen Syed in the library .” That is called reasonable doubt. Jay’s story has changed many times because he is lying and it is hard to keep your story straight when it’s not true. Kevin Urick said in the intercept interview,
“Jay’s testimony by itself, would that have been proof beyond a reasonable doubt?” Urick asked rhetorically. “Probably not. Cellphone evidence by itself? Probably not.” But, he said, when you put together cellphone records and Jay’s testimony, “they corroborate and feed off each other–it’s a very strong evidentiary case.”
The state’s own cell expert is now saying that he shouldn’t have confirmed incoming calls as a way to verify location because of a AT&T cover sheet that was left off the records. If the cell records are thrown out and Asia is allowed to testify in a new trial. The state is going to have to change it’s whole timeline of events, and Jay will have to come up with yet another version of the story.
By the way, the statistic you quoted does not support your conclusions.
It is incredible how people mis-use data. This article is horrible.
This article is such b.s. It is incredible how people mis-use data. That in itself is a crime.
Exactly Cara. This article is just dumb.
This article has so many problems with it, I cannot understand. How do you write an article with wrong information? Just plain stupid.
why would she let a stranger in the car? That doesn’t sync with her personality.
Where did you get the impression that it is known that the victim let somebody into her car?
there are NO statistics that point to possessive behavior in teenagers leading to domestic violence or is there any connection between the two. Young women, according to ‘Buunke, Bram (1982). “Anticipated Sexual Jealousy: Its Relationship to Self-Esteem, Dependency, and Reciprocity.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 8: 310-316’ are more possessive then men, does that lead to more female violence against men? Nope, it does not so this article is completely rubbish to suggest a couple of questions about WHO she is going out with does not make Adnon possessive. A bit jealous perhaps, not possessive and certainly NOT violent. That being said, he probably killed her. The most obvious evidence is the fact that she LET someone she was FAMILIAR with INTO her car. A stranger would not be able to get into her car and commandeer it without a weapon and then NOT use the weapon to kill her. Makes no sense. Still just wanted to defend the accusations of what constitutes possessiveness.
You’re getting a lot of mileage with that Dunning-Kruger stuff, aren’t you?
Angry, misanthropic rantings. Like that guy on the bus everyone ignores.
Don’t really know how you can read Jay’s multiple interviews, then listen to his testimony, and the prosecutors version of the story, while also fact checking them with the phone records, and come to the conclusion that Jay is doing anything but lying, covering up where he was, what he was doing, who was calling and when. I mean, if Adnan murdered this girl, and enlisted his help with a couple phone calls, I don’t think it’d be that hard to articulate time frames in interviews. Jay’s time frames and locations don’t match, his stories don’t match with anything tangible. I don’t know if Adnan is innocent or not, but using this witness as evidence in Adnan’s guilt is farcical.
http://viewfromll2.com/2014/11/23/serial-a-comparison-of-adnans-cell-phone-records-and-the-witness-statements-provided-by-adnan-jay-jenn-and-cathy/
Thank you for that postscript. You obviously are not a wing-nut, like most comment posters on these blogs. But you insult people when you don’t agree with what they say, and you take this stuff far too seriously. It’s an online comment area, not a PhD defense! And look at some of the bile you have spat out about your fellow citizens and your society. It’s pretty unpalatable and very misanthropic.
I never claimed that possessive behavior could not be circumstantial evidence. It could be, if it was unusual or excessive. But in this case, based on Koenig’s research, it did not appear that there was evidence to support this. That’s all I pointed out. The writer wants to turn this in to a domestic violence/abuse case when it is not.
Oh……and PS. you may want to drop the condescension if you want a respectful reply to your arguments.
Uhhh
One thing I’d like to add is a little background about my position… A little over 20 years ago the OJ Simpson trial happened. I was in my mid-20s at the time and people were saying stuff like: “Just because he beat his wife doesn’t mean he killed her. Most guys who beat their wives don’t wind up killing them.” Which statistically is correct, I’m sure. And at the time, I thought OJ was innocent and I bought into that line of thinking, as ludicrous as it seems to me today. But I, like most people, was never taught how to think properly. I had to figure that out on my own in my 30s. If I had heard about the Syed case and Serial in my 20s, I’m sure I would have been thoroughly outraged along with the rest of the members of the Cult of Syed. When all you have to work with is a rudimentary understanding of deductive logic, with no exposure whatsoever to other types of informal logic, you use it as best you can, though, as you can see in my case with OJ Simpson, you can wind up with a completely irrational opinion that seems completely correct to you because you lack the ability to scrutinize effectively.
Thanks! I’m glad you’re so open-minded as to reverse your opinion on the subject after reading my comment!
Well I was hoping you’d be honest enough in this discussion to not have to quote your text point by point and respond to each point directly but I guess we’re going to have to go there afterall…
“You’re putting words in my mouth. I have never made any of these claims. I merely pointed out that possessive and jealous feelings are common in 17 year old boys.”
Ok so in the first sentence you say that you never made any of the claims I attributed to you, and then in the next sentence you reiterate one of those very claims.
“However, we didn’t go around beating people up when we saw them chatting to our girlfriends. Hell, all my friends were jealous and possessive. So was I. It’s a function of teenage insecurity. It certainly isn’t proof of criminal intent, AS THIS WRITER CLEARLY IMPLIES.”
The author of this article never claimed (or ‘clearly implied’) that Syed beat someone up after he saw his girlfriend chatting with that person. You’ve completely gone off the rails in regards to that honesty problem you have. If there ever had been a semblance of useful discourse coming from you, that time has passed. This will be the last post of yours I respond to.
I’m not sure what you hoped to achieve with your ‘example’ about smoking pot. If anything pot smoking could be used by Syed as an excuse for why his memory is so fuzzy about that particular day, and if he ever decides to admit guilt he could use thc intoxication as a defense. In any case, smoking pot is generally thought to not induce violent behavior, although it can induce paranoia in certain people whose personalities may be susceptible to it. Syed could use that as an excuse for his possessiveness, as well, if he hasn’t already. So pot smoking really helps Syed in many ways in this case, regardless of whatever you think a die-hard conservative who watched Reefer Madness a few too many times thinks about it.
Anyway, since you fail to understand (or pretend not to) why Syed’s possessiveness is important circumstantial evidence, I’ll explain it to you, but as I said, this will conclude my correspondence with you.
The reason it’s important circumstantial evidence is because someone was murdered. If you take individual behaviors out of context and isolate them from the events that followed, then you can effectively portray them as inconsequential. But when someone is murdered, it is prudent when looking for suspects to examine the disposition of the suspect to help establish motive. The reason you and your friends’ highschool possessiveness in romance is inconsequential is because, presumably, neither you nor your friends were ever accused of murder. Syed was accused of murder, so that means every aspect of his personality and behavior is to be scrutinized in order to ascribe motive. That’s because a murder investigation’s prime concern is to achieve clarity, unlike for example, Serial or Undisclosed, whose motive is to confuse.
BTW, it’s nice that you like your own posts. Self-esteem is great.
Thank you. I read this drivel and when I came across “domestic violence” I immediately thought……….evidence??
You’re putting words in my mouth. I have never made any of these claims. I merely pointed out that possessive and jealous feelings are common in 17 year old boys. Hell, all my friends were jealous and possessive. So was I. It’s a function of teenage insecurity. However, we didn’t go around beating people up when we saw them chatting to our girlfriends. It certainly isn’t proof of criminal intent, AS THIS WRITER CLEARLY IMPLIES.
Just for fun…let’s take another example. A very conservative person may consider Adnan to be a “drug addict” because he smoked weed every day. This person might say “well, he was engaged in criminal activity (drug use) so this could have easily have led to more criminal activity (violence)”. But the fact is 90 percent of teen boys in Baltimore probably smoke weed. So does this really prove anything? Is it shocking drug use or harmless behavior shared by a majority of teen boys. Does pot smoking lead to murder? Of course not.
The only straw here is between your ears.
And by the way, if social statistics are so important to you, where are your statistics that show deranged possessive behavior equates to normal teenage growing pains?
No I’m not, but you’re knocking down a strawman. Since you have no interest in achieving clarity in your arguments, I’ll do it for you. You have suggested here that teenagers are far more likely to be jealous and possessive than adults. In fact, you claim that’s normal behavior. Yet you also claim that these teenagers who are much MUCH more likely to be possessively jealous (according to you) are, at the same time, much LESS likely to act on that possessive jealousy in a violent manner, than adults. So when it’s advantageous for your (ultimately fallacious) argument, you claim teenagers have less impulse control than adults when it comes to possessive behavior in relationships, right up until violence occurs, which is when you do a 180 degree turn and decide that teenagers are much LESS likely to become violent under such circumstances, than adults. You’re just moving the goal posts around according to whatever you think helps your argument. And that results in your argument being a colossal contradiction. And the only way you think you can dig your way out of the hole of that conundrum is by shifting focus to someone else’s supposed argument (mine) which you end up strawmanning….
Show me the statistics that teens commit more domestic violence than adults. You’re jumping to unfounded conclusions.
Wow, you don’t even seem to realize that if a teenager goes into a jealous rage more readily than an adult, that means the teenager is MORE likely to engage in jealousy motivated violence, not LESS likely, as you seem to suggest…
What rubs you the wrong way? My point was only that a teenager might get enraged when he sees his girlfriend chatting to another boy. This is merely evidence of teen insecurity, not evidence of nefarious intent. If a 47 year old man became enraged when he sees his girlfriend talking to another man—this could be a different situation. I think most observers of this trial would argue that possessiveness and a break-up do not constitute an argument for anything–other than Adnan was just like any other 17 year old boy.
You are so right Nick, it’s so obvious the jury was under the control of MK Ultra operatives, most likely conditioned as children to ‘awaken’ when certain code words were spoken during the trial they were assigned to be jurors at decades later when they were to become adults. As soon as they hear their code words a switch goes off in their brains and their MK Ultra programming kicks in. And the program must have looked a lot like this:
10 Guilty!
20 GOTO 10.
“Any evidence that isn’t absolutely rock solid SHOULD lead to a “not guilty” verdict.”
‘rock solid’ is not a legal burden of proof for circumstantial evidence. The very nature of circumstantial evidence is that it is not ‘rock solid’, like for example, video or dna evidence might be. But circumstantial evidence is and always has been enough to render a guilty verdict, if the judge or jury deciding the verdict find the evidence to be compelling enough. Apparently you don’t find the circumstantial evidence compelling enough to convict, but you also didn’t spend hours upon hours over many days intensely scrutinizing the evidence like the jury did…
I read this a lot from the Syed apologists and it always rubs me the wrong way. So what if they’re teenagers? The only difference between teenagers and adults is that teenagers have a little less impulse control, so maybe a possessive teenager might act on his possessiveness more than possessive adult might. MAYBE. The point is toxic relationships are no more excusable for teenagers than they are for adults. Possessive stalking teenagers aren’t the norm.
Interesting she claims it didn’t snow but Jay says there was snow on the ground when they were burying Hae. And of couse Hae was alive january 8th.
There was, from what we all know from podcasts and media, because none of us were At the trial, NO Proof. The prosecution is held responsible for the burden of proof, not the defense. There was no physical evidence to Prove that Adnan killed her. All the prosecutor seemed to “try” to prove was that Jay’s and Jen’s stories were accurate. But how did they Prove they were accurate if they were Never The Same? And if the only parts of their stories that stayed the same didn’t match the prosecutor’s timeline?
The moral of the story is, Do a better job at investigating a crime if you truly believe the accused is guilty. Otherwise it may come back to bite you in the ass.
But please don’t take this to mean I feel one way or the other about the parties involved. I just think it’s hypocritical.
(and by “everyone” I mean public at large.” Because I know that the prosecution needs accurate details to prove one guilty, and the defense doesn’t, because the burden of proof is not theirs…)
While that may be true, I’m pretty sure she knows how to pronounce her own last name.
I’ve always been curious as to why everyone thinks it’s perfectly normal for Adnan to not remember one thing about the day, but everyone thinks it’s suspicious for the other parties to not have exact corroborating time stamps on every statement.
I’ve flagged this message but it hasn’t been removed. Just more meaningless, vulgar graffiti
I was looking for another pov for this story and came across this article. Honestly I am always speculative on these crime stories and tend to think the state usually gets it right and the media is just looking for story. But this article is ridiculous I completely agree with Michael on this, do you even know how the justice system is supposed to work? It is the states job to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that Adnan is guilty and I have heard enough to have reasonable doubt despite having read over court documents, and tried to find articles on the states side (although hard to do because people dont like to read about how nothing went wrong) to convince me otherwise. It seems like more and more people are being judged guilty as soon as they are accused by the state instead of “presumed innocent” until proven in a court of law otherwise.
Just what I was about to type.
You can’t use typical teen behavior as evidence of criminal intent.
Where were you when they were talking about possesive Adnan was ? Maybe you should listen a little closer. It’s definitely addressed.
And what is wrong with you trolls . Muslim does not equal criminal traditional Muslims are very peaceful people. In that same regard. White,stupid, uneducated, undisciplined, racist also = criminal . Please do your homework bc most certainly Christian = murderer and criminal. People are so ignorant smh.
“Strangely enough it’s easier for you fools to believe Syed is innocent than it is to face the truth that you were duped by Koenig. ”
That’s how Dunning-Krueger Effect works, the incompetent don’t have the faculties to know they are incompetent; the incompetent actually think they are more competent than those who are actually competent do, so the voices of the incompetent will always be louder and more numerous than the voices of the competent. In other words, competent people often second-guess themselves, but incompetent people never do.
Lets just call them muslims to clearly know our enemy!
He was just going back to his Islamic roots! HE IS A FUCKING MUSLIM= CRIMINAL, RAPIST ETC. READ KORAN AND SEE ITS HATRED AGAINST THE WORLD AND WHAT IT IS THOUGHT! MOST CRIMES IN THE WORLD ARE DONE BY MUSLIMS !!!
That is your argument for murder? He was possessive?
All based on one or two diary entries and a statement from “Debbie”. If anything the statement from Debbie helps to shed light on his behavior. He never stopped her from doing what she wanted, he just wanted to know the details.
Most teenage boys are possessive. Many teenage girls (and some boys too) will hide from someone that they just don’t want to talk too. I saw that sort of situation all the time when I was in high school.
Being possessive and jealous doesn’t make him a murderer. Did he ever hit her? Wouldn’t she put that in her diary?
At least the argument for his defense has something a little more substantial than what you are giving us.
There was zero evidence of Adnan being possessive or abusive. You ask why it domestic violence wasn’t brought up even though it’s what the prosecution repeatedly pushed as their motive, which shows you did/have not paid attention. Many of their friends have repeatedly stated that Adnan was not possessive or enraged with the break-up. His was grief-struck, but still her friend. The only report of his “potential” behavior was supplied in a bigoted report that very inaccurately described the behavior Muslim Pakistanis that was drafted at the request of prosecuting side. You are accusing a person of domestic abuse when there is absolutely no evidence of it, per all the people who knew both Adnan and Hae. This is a pretty hard smack in the face of women and men who have suffered at the hands of a partner. But, even worst, it is absolutely disrespectful to Hae Min Lee for you to label her an abuse victim solely based on your belief that it must’ve have happened. Feminists stand up for women and women’s rights, we don’t rewrite the history of women who have passed just to pat ourselves on the back. The outright fact that everyone who knew them stands by their statements that theirs was not a mean, possessive, or domineering relationship proves the opposite of your malformed position. You claim abuse absolutely occurred because it was used as a motive by the prosecution, but since the reality is there was no abuse, you have inadvertently disproven the point you attempted to make. Since you clearly haven’t put effort into evaluating the reality of their relationship as portrayed by just about everyone they knew, stop saying you’re making a feminist point. It makes feminists look as stupid as stereotypes portray. Just say you’re making uninformed guesses.
I kept reading your article waiting for the compelling evidence that Adnan was abusive to Hae it never came. You are slamming Sarah Koenig/MSM for believing select testimony in this case and then present select testimony as the smoking gun that Adnan was an abuser. I get your point and couldn’t agree more that the common thread of domestic violence in most murders of women in this country goes largely ignored by the media, but you present what is essentially your interpretation of the case as if it were substantiated fact. It’s not. Could you be biased by the fact that Adnan was a member of a traditionally patriarchal religion/culture? Also, if Aisha was so unreliable why did Detective McGillvary bother to lie under oath that she recanted her testimony when she hadn’t? Why not say she would only testify if he was innocent, which made her an unreliable witness?
MICHELLEG – well said.
“To find Syed not guilty you have to accept the least probable situation all the way down the line.”
Thanks for putting into words how I feel about this after listening to both serial and undisclosed. Undisclosed in particular takes very weak points of ‘evidence’ and makes statements like ‘based on this I’m going to say that you cannot say x didn’t happen’ when it’s completely feasible to conclude the exact opposite. I cannot believe that these people are lawyers sometimes. They want adnan to be innocent, so they are ignoring possibilities that suggest he isn’t.
I don’t think your very few facts about Adnan’s possessiveness proves anything. Many high schoolers go a little crazy over a girl in the way Hae’s diary speaks of Adnan. And wanting to avoid seeing Adnan on a day doesn’t put it over the top on convincing me it’s a domestic violence case. None of Hae’s friends said he was violent or got angry in a way that shocked them. That’s not to say there wasn’t domestic violence going on between them behind the scenes, but I don’t see evidence pointing one way or the other.
That being said, I think a couple of things get mixed up when discussing this case. It’s pretty obvious he should have been convicted *based* on what happened at his trial. Had his lawyer laid out evidence in the way Serial showed, maybe he would have gotten off, maybe he still would have been convicted. Serial basically presented what would have been the ideal case for the defense. It alone created reasonable doubt. So based on that, people think he should have been found innocent whether or not he actually did it.
The problem is we haven’t heard the ideal case for the prosecution in response to Serial’s evidence. And if we did hear it, it’d probably focus on the fact that it’s absolutely absurd to think all of these bits tying Adnan to the murder were coincidence. And Jay knew where Hae’s car was. That would rule out any theory put forth by the defense that that random serial killer or any other random party not tied to Adnan that day was responsible here. The defense would have had to put the blame on Jay and would have had to have put forth a scenario under which Adnan was not part of the murder. At this point we’re getting too hypothetical to predict what would have happened, but during Serial it was mentioned that the jury was very sympathetic toward Jay. Jay had no motive. Jay’s story changed a bunch of times, but the substance of it each time was similar enough in a way that other police officers have said was common in even truthful statements.
Closing arguments for the prosecution would have been yeah Jay may have been more involved than he’s letting on, but jury do you really think there’s any way Adnan was not involved in the murder? He, not Jay, had a relationship with Hae. His phone, not Jay’s, was pinged near the park after Adnan said he had gotten his phone back. Adnan, not Jay, tried to get into a car with Hae after school (by asking her for a ride) and then told the police that, and then later retracted it.
I think he still would have been convicted but it’s debatable. I think people who actually think he didn’t do it though are living in fantasy land.
Sasha, I agree with you, 1000%. You are totally, completely right. Thank you so much for taking the time to write and share this. More people should hear what you are saying here. I listened to Serial and am closely following all the media coverage as well as the Undisclosed podcast. And I always feel exactly as you do.
Yes, it’s important to look at how police departments can coax and coach testimony, how prosecutors can unfairly twist things and even lie (does anyone not know this?), how so many trials really are botched, and how terrible wrongful conviction cases are – and yes, the media is jumping all over this case to bring attention to these issues. But I agree that they’re missing what truly could be – and is most likely to be – at the heart of *this* case. As you wrote, domestic violence homicides happen all the time – and the media is missing a tremendous opportunity to actually talk about *this.* And I share your heartbreak. This very sad and important topic should not stay as widely ignored in our society as it always seems to be.
Fuck him – he did it.
Dana, yes that’s true about Debbie. But Krista heard Adnan talking about needing a ride in first period. It seems like he kept pressing the issue – for whatever reason Hae said no but put that together with the two different stories Adnan told two teachers when Hae’s body was found, like they had a big fight about the prom, like Hae was trying to get back together with him and you have potentially a scenario where Adnan wanted to talk with Hae and she wanted to avoid him. Maybe she said yes but then changed her mind knowing that there was no point to another conversation. So far we have no idea what went on the night before, close to midnight when he called her three times. All we know is that the very next call Adnan makes from his cell phone is to Jay the next day. Debbie’s accounting of Hae having something else to do conflicts with Adnan’s own testimony that “she got tired of waiting and left.”
Actually, in Becky’s statement to police, on April 9, 1999, she said that she heard at lunch time that Syed had asked Hae for a ride, and Hae said it would be no problem. Becky then saw Hae talking to Syed after their last class at the end of the day (approx 2:20pm) and heard Hae tell Syed that she could no longer give him a ride, because she had something else to do. She did not say what that something else was. Becky also said were others there, Aisha and possibly Krista. She tells detectives the she heard Syed say, “OK, I’ll just ask someone else” and said goodbye. Becky did not see Hae after that. So as far as getting all my info from Serial, that’s just not the case. I have been reading transcripts as well. There are just many inconsistencies to this entire story. If he did it – then he is where he deserves to be, BUT if he did not – I hope he is exonerated. This would not be the first time that an innocent person has gone to jail.
The thing about circumstantial evidence is that while any one piece of it could be argued or seen as inconclusive, having a LOT of such evidence can’t help but add up and weigh on a jury’s mind. Perhaps the most telling part of Serial was saved for the final episode when Dana (I think? One of the non-Sarah producers) made the common-sense logical observation that if Syed was innocent, then he must be “the single most unlucky guy in the world” to have all of this stuff go against him.
That was what ultimately swung my opinion towards Syed being IN SOME WAY involved with the crime. Now, this isn’t saying he was the killer himself necessarily, and this isn’t saying that (from a legal perspective) he should’ve been found guilty given how little-to-no hard evidence the prosecution actually had. What I find impossible to believe, however, is that Syed was as completely innocent as he claims — it’s safe to assume that he and Jay were in some way involved in Hae’s death, even if the specifics may forever remain unknown.
“Someone, somewhere is going to tell the real story to people so that they can see just how much evidence there is against Adnan Syed. For instance, there was physical evidence — his fingerprints were found on items in the car for instance – it’s just that they have to be discounted because he was always in her car.”
Well wait a second, that’s not really ‘evidence,’ then. It was well known that Syed had often been a passenger in her car, so I don’t see how finding his fingerprints on various objects was a clue towards his guilt.
Dana, I can see where you’re coming from but you are really getting your information from Serial. Someone, somewhere is going to tell the real story to people so that they can see just how much evidence there is against Adnan Syed. For instance, there was physical evidence — his fingerprints were found on items in the car for instance – it’s just that they have to be discounted because he was always in her car. Adnan Syed asked for a ride with Hae while his own car was still in the parking lot during first period. He then lied to the police about it even though there are witnesses. The case against him is very strong. It’s a mistake to think otherwise. Serial needed to tell a good story and they did. But it wasn’t the truth.
I think you’re missing the point here. The issue isn’t so much whether he’s guilty, as whether there was enough evidence to convict him.
I can assure you that I know that’s supposed to be the point. It’s a different conversation to me, though, than what the media is avoiding in its coverage of the case. After reading the state’s case for both trials, Adnan Syed’s own words when questioned about the case (not included in Serial) I think there was more than enough evidence to convict and barring a dream team like OJ had I would have voted to convict based on the evidence.
The only problem I have with the state’s conviction of Syed is that he was only 17 — he should have been shielded from the media being a minor and he should not have gotten such a harsh sentence being that he was under 18. The myth is that he was convicted based on little evidence. The defense could have ordered the DNA test. They didn’t.
Meanwhile, the Innocence Project is supposed to come up with something though we have not heard from them. All we heard was that they could not exonerate Adnan Syed from the crime. They have yet to find the breakthrough evidence to free him. Should that come up – should anything come up on the innocence side I hope that comes to light and he is exonerated. Right now, though, that is not this case.
After listening to Serial, I was still “up in the air” in regards to Syed’s guilt or innocence. There were times I thought, “yes, he is guilty as hell” and then times, I thought, “they’ve got the wrong guy.” The issue I have, is that the burden of proof lies with the prosecutor. The jurors are instructed, as in every case, that the defendant is only guilty if proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In my opinion, domestic violence aside, there was a lot of doubt. There was NO physical evidence found proving Syed committed the crime. Was he just THAT lucky?? The key witness for the prosecution was Jay – and his story is wildly inconsistent. He told two versions of his story that had some very telling differences, including where Jay first saw the body of Hae in the trunk (something you’d think a guy would remember). Plus, is it really possible that Syed would be dumb enough to kill his ex-girlfriend in the parking lot of a Best Buy? Did you hear his taped interviews? Why did he change his story on numerous occasions? Why didn’t the Baltimore police push Jay harder on the inconsistencies in his story? At trail, Jay admits that the police informed him that if he did not implicate Sayed in Hae’s murder, then he would be getting charged with the murder”. Good enough reason to me, to implicate someone else, no? As for Syed’s defense attorney – I feel she was quite incompetent as far as not exploiting Jay’s inconsistencies. As the prosecutions main witness, she should have torn him to shreds with his different stories. This would have been enough to cause jury doubt. So yes, I agree that his appeal should be heard based on the fact Syed was inadequately defended. So, yes, maybe he still did it BUT maybe he didn’t.
Amazing post. Thanks for sharing. God Bless.
I think you’re missing the point here. The issue isn’t so much whether he’s guilty, as whether there was enough evidence to convict him. The media and the consumers of media are always so quick to take sides and shout definitely “this did happen” or “this didn’t happen.” But remember 12 Angry Men? Innocent until PROVEN guilty? Adnan may very well be guilty – Serial say as much at the end. But I think they also make it pretty clear that the state did not adequately PROVE it. And THAT’s what would make it a wrongful conviction.
Personally, I would rather a possible murderer go free than an innocent man go to prison. And believe it or not, that’s how our constitution works too.
In my recollection, the podcast was not nearly as biased as you make them out to be. I am regular AD reader and a Serial listener, but I have not read extensively about the case or followed the media’s post-Serial scrutiny of the case. And yet, the things that you mention– Adnan’s possessiveness, the unreliability of memory 15 years after the fact, basically everything but that teacher lying on behalf of Hae– were not new to me. They were either implied or explicitly stated in the podcast.
The whole conclusion of the series was that there was evidence that pointed to his guilt and potential alibis that went untested. Koenig reasoned that she personally could not say Adnan was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, as there was too much left unexplained. If listeners came away from the podcast professing his innocence, that’s on them. In matters so unclear, some people will believe what they want to believe.
“As a fan of Serial I am so amazed and appreciative that Sarah Koenig kicked ass as she did. As a mother, a woman and a feminist I’m heartbroken that they could leave out something so important as Adnan’s behavior leading up to the murder.”
If Koenig left out what you feel is a critical piece of the story, then clearly she didn’t “kick ass,” but rather did a sloppy job of reporting. I’m torn about Serial — I found it to be a riveting listen at the time, and I devoured the entire series in a single 24-hour period before the final episode. That said, in the months since, it’s pretty clear that the Serial crew simply might’ve bitten off more than they were able to chew in analyzing this case since they opened the door to a LOT of speculation and, as Sasha noted, might’ve started the ball rolling on getting a murderer freed. Creating the episodes in real time may have been a big mistake, in my view; it allowed for the show’s own popularity to essentially play a role and bias the proceedings, such as how people who weren’t willing to talk in earlier episodes were now willing to go on the record, or how others sprung out of the woodwork to discuss their small angle on the case (i.e. Jay’s old co-worker).
Serial was also notable in that for all of the show’s interviews and research, the lack of on-record interviews with so many key figures (Hae’s family, Jay, the detectives, the prosecutor, Jay’s girlfriend, Jay’s female friend who was his alibi, etc.) leaves a lot of glaring holes in the narrative. Maybe Koenig was hoping that some would come on board as the show progressed, yet with so many of the anti-Syed voices not going on the record, it allowed for many more of the pro-Syed or at least the “Syed wasn’t guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” voices to be heard, which tipped the narrative in favour of his innocence. I would imagine the majority of Serial’s listeners, if polled, believe Syed is innocent of the crime, though obviously there is also a very large segment who quite passionately believe the opposite.
I’m not sure why the media is being blamed for framing Syed’s case as a “wrongful incarceration,” when Serial was doing this from day one. It seems pretty evident that Koenig was really hoping to have this be her Thin Blue Line and she’d found a case of a wrongfully accused killer, yet I get the feeling that she (and her show) had to back away from this early stance as they explored more details of the case. Even still, despite the fact that Koenig’s ultimate opinion was that “the evidence was so lacking that Syed shouldn’t have been convicted,” she is completely unsure if that means he’s actually innocent or not.
Was the case against Syed very sketchy and in all probability mishandled in some way by the Baltimore PD? It seems likely, yet the evidence is so stacked against Syed that, despite a lot of open questions about the specifics, it seems like an Occam’s Razor situation — the most logical scenario is that Syed indeed killed her, enlisted Jay in the burial and coverup, and he was justly punished even if his trial was a gong show.
I’m curious as to how another season of this show will work, since now that Serial has been established as a thing, that will undoubtedly influence the stories their interviewees are telling. It seems like S2 won’t be about a crime, which I feel will cause a drop in popularity due to the lack of zing, even if the actual podcast itself is a better quality now that Koenig and her team are more seasoned with the format.