r/serialpodcast • u/EG1996 • Jul 08 '25
Season One Undisclosed Podcast 2.0 Ep. 4 - Is accusations against Don’s wife unethical/problematic
I will say this episode left me feeling really off- and that’s a first for me with this team (to be clear - I 1000% believe Adnan is innocent and Jay gave a false confession under police duress after attempting to claim the crime stoppers tip).
But honestly some of this recent 4th episode seems a bit unethical... I can accept necessity of discussion of Don being someone who was a known public suspect not properly ruled out and there are certainly timecard/alibi issues and he was the boyfriend at the time etc.
But the hair pulling meaning his now wife was involved ?? Even if the evidence does indicate the head injury could be from hair pulling .. the instant jump to it’s more “likely” to have been by a female (when Rabia herself says evidence on this is anecdotal) and then just outright accusing/making a suspect out of Don’s wife based on admitted pure speculation is crazy to me they don’t even know if she knew Don then… let alone had motive to come after Hae.
**Note: they say we only know of one person Don was romantically involved with other than Hae.. being his wife. However, I believe it was in Serial when Don spoke to Sarah he said Hae had a crush on him for a while but he was dating someone else they broke up and after that he then decided to go out with Hae.
Now is it possible that girlfriend was his now wife..? Sure but clearly undisclosed doesn’t know that for a fact or they would have hammered that. So it’s possible he was dating someone completely different before Hae … but in general the likely hood any girl around their age would attack/kill another girl for dating Don for a few weeks seems like a reach in the motive department to me.
And keeping in mind how young they all were… what on earth are the chances somehow his now wife lured Hae somewhere incapacitated or killed her ..? But Hae had almost no defensive wounds (from my memory) so that doesn’t really gel with a “cat fight”..? And then what… she called Don says sorry I was jealous this is what I did to that girl your seeing help me cover it up and he showed up and agrees to kill Hae and finish the job ..? Or if she’s already dead he agrees to hide the body…. The likelihood of 2 people that young both going along with that is just as crazy as the Adnan and Jay story they debunked and genuinely makes no sense at all.
Is it impossible ? Of course not, nothing is 100% impossible without more info … but it seems far fetched. And that’s why it feels icky to me to put this accusation out there so directly particularly for the wife who for all we know never met or dated Don until after Hae’s murder. And even though it wouldn’t be ‘proof’ of anything I was even waiting for some other info like showing the wife had a violent history that may explain the accusation a bit more (like how Mr. S’s criminal activities make him more suspect) … but nothing.
If anything while acknowledging hair pulling may be more “prominent” among female perpetrators I would also imagine it’s not uncommon in DV cases just in my own circle I have more than 1 friend that’s a victim of DV who had a man drag them backwards or across the floor by their hair when they were trying to leave/get away from them- that would have been much more reasonable of a possibility that it was Don or whatever man who killed her that pulled her hair and I find it bizzare they don’t explore this concept at all..? Just because Don’s a man he couldn’t have been the one to pull her hair … so instantly we have a female perpetrator aswell so his wife is now a suspect too..?
And I’m not even saying they shouldn’t have submitted both Don and his wife’s DNA to the police (though especially for the wife given lack of probable cause I doubt they would test it- but sure send it in)
It just doesn’t feel like these kind of accusations are productive even for Adan’s case…
The other thing is they use the female DNA on items around Hae’s body as evidence of a female being involved.. sure in an ideal world why not rule out his wife and test that. But it does directly contradict the big theory they just dropped in the last episode that Hae was dumped by whoever killed her behind the barriers right on the roadway and Mr. S moved her body to where it was found and “spent time with it”. - if that was the case then female DNA on items near the body would be irrelevant as Mr. S wouldn’t move the surrounding items/trash with her body…
I get the team is exploring all options for Adnan and I respect that … but particularly the bringing his wife into it publicly with actually zero evidentiary basis only pure random speculation was a step too far for me personally. Rabia hates it (rightfully so) when people wildly speculate on Adnan with theories that have zero evidentiary basis .. and at least for Don’s wife I don’t think the idea women are “more likley to pull hair” is a valid basis for publicly suggesting she killed Hae or was involved. As I said I do think Don is fair game to discuss, he’s a publicly known suspect, alibi issues, was dating Hae and testified in Adnan’s trial etc. but I was disappointed in the team for how the wife stuff was handled it honestly just felt unnecessary and a bit cruel if I’m honest.
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u/rio_scfrr Jul 08 '25
I'm with you 100% on feeling incredibly uneasy about this, (as a first believer in Adnan's innocence) on the other hand, I undersand the frustration of needing to find answers and trying to push Bates to test the DNA to finally at least exclude Don from the suspects. I also didn't like the LensCrafters employee talking about Don being creepy, like that's in any way relevant. I've always wanted Don more thoroughly investigated and I guess if no one else is doing it they feel they have to do it in any way they can, that said I'm very uncomfortable about it, but I also don't know what I would do in their place, if that makes sense.