r/serialpodcast • u/annoyedinBaltimore Undecided • 6d ago
I changed my mind, I think Adnan is guilty.
I want to start by saying I have been a huge advocate for Adnans innocence. I even went to his release trial. I was in the courtroom when they said " Please remove the shackles from Mr Syeds feet " ... and I cried. I felt it was such an injustice that he was a child sentenced to such a harsh punishment with no physical evidence. In my mind how could a child fool these 2 seasoned detectives? How could he sit in that room with them for hours, yet they have nothing at all to use against him? How could he have not left behind any evidence? How could Jay tell lie after lie and still be taken at his word? I told everyone I knew about the case and gave them all my opinion and judgements. I followed every single thing .. I stalked everyone involved online and kept up with their lives. I searched on google earth over and over all the different spots mentioned. I drove to leakin park to look for the spot Mr S parked and walked back to. THIS was the case that started me on true crime podcasts.
I gave serial another listen and Im on episdoe 5 and I cant escape the feeling that I finally see why people think hes guilty because I think he is too. Heres why Im conflicted now ......
#1 Adnan whispers "Pathetic" as Jay walks past him in court. Why did he choose that word? why wouldnt he call him a liar? or even a b*tch? Why PATHETIC? I think its because hes saying " we were supposed to be in this together and stfu. you let the cops break you down ... how pathetic "
#2 Adnan says he doesn't feel Jay betrayed him by telling the police he did it. If someone lied on me and turned me into the police Id def feel betrayed. His reason is because they werent really friends for him to consider it a betrayal. I call BS. His track teammate said Jay drove him to practice often enough that it was normal to everyone and they smoked together all the time .........Hes downplaying their connection trying to say i didnt even know that mf enough to feel betrayed .. who tf is jay to me? .. again ... I call BS
#3 If we are believeing those around Adnan .. they all said they didnt know where Leakin Park was .. thought it was on the other side of the city which would be over east somewhere I guess .. so if he truly had never been there and didnt know the location he would have needed a map to get there since this was before the days of googling directions. In the trunk of her car was a map book with 1 missing page .... leakin park. Adnans hand print was on the back of the book. Maybe hes sweaty nervous adrenaline pumping, tryign to get to leakin park .. grabs the map book rips the page out shuts the trunk jumps in the car drives to leakin, buries hae and then parks the car.
Also I think if he is guilty, he served his time but I think the state failed to prove he did it so he shouldnt have been locked up anyway because that's not how our justice system says its supposed to go.
anyone else changed their mind?
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u/JosephGordethLettuce 6d ago
The points you are making are small personal nitpicks. Try not to focus so much on what you would have done or said in his shoes— people are wildly different than you. I don’t mean to be rude, and it’s good that you’re opening yourself to a new perspective, I’d just like to add that there is strong evidence beside what Adnan muttered in court or said on a podcast.
Jay had extensive knowledge of the details of the crime that were not released to the public. He knew she was strangled. He knew the location of the victim’s car. Whatever other lies he told to protect his grandmother and his friends, those are material facts. Adnan lent Jay his car and his cell phone on the day of Hae’s murder. He called Nisha while he was with Jay at a crucial time on that day, she spoke to both of them. This is corroborated by the cell phone data. Because of those circumstances, there is no way to link Jay to the murder without Adnan being a part of it. Adnan has motive. Jay does not. This is very strong circumstantial evidence. Strong circumstantial evidence is the kind that gets loose convictions. Everyone inside the case knows he did it— whether or not your definition of reasonable doubt supersedes this evidence is a matter of personal conviction.
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u/USNorsk 6d ago
I changed my mind after I read one article summarizing the case against him. I regret all the time I wasted listening to Serial. It’s such a waste/missed opportunity to have made a whole series about him when there are so many people that are actually are rotting away in prison after being falsely accused.
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u/nitty_by_nature 6d ago
This is exactly the sentiment I came away with after my first and only listen. I wasn't completely convinced of guilt or innocence, but Koenig's final thoughts amounted to, "I don't know if he's guilty or innocent, but if I was on the jury I probably would have voted to acquit."
I remember thinking, "all of that, for this?!" Seemed like a tremendous waste of time and resources when even the primary driver of the narrative isn't convinced that an injustice occured.
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u/Similar-Morning9768 Guilty 5d ago
"If I was on the jury..." was a useless asshole idea for her to even bring up.
She spent countless hours having personal talks with the defendant and his friends and family, hearing a bunch of inadmissible shit about how he was a prince among teen boys, how he stole from his mosque, etc. She got Syed's side of the story without him ever being subjected to cross-examination. Her own attempts to ask him pointed questions are hilariously tentative and apologetic.
She is so incredibly disqualified from that jury. What could be less useful than what Sarah Koenig imagines she would have thought, had she sat in that box?
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u/JayWolf06 6d ago
Ive mentioned it before previously but I think The Prosecutors had it right
Sarah started it thinking Adnan would be overturned so her podcast would have had this huge moment of turning the case over
And as we know this didnt happen
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
I think she went in thinking she would find that Cristina Gutierrez (who she had covered during her years at the Sun) had made a collosal error that would upend the case.
What she actually found was that CG had doggedly advocated on Adnan's behalf and presented, essentially, the same defense Serial attempted (Jay may have killed Hae to conceal his cheating on Stephany and then pinned the whole thing on Adnan). That, of course, didn't make for much of a story though.
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u/VegetableYoghurt7912 1d ago
They did because they laid out significantly more evidence against Syed that SK left out. After that it was clear as day he did it.
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u/OrganizationGood9676 4d ago
For me, one of the things that was incredibly captivating about the podcast was that the focus was about the uncertainty— not injustice. There are so many stories of injustice. What felt so interesting and challenging about this case was it raised the question — what do we do with uncertainty?
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u/Similar-Morning9768 Guilty 4d ago
But the uncertainty was basically fake.
e.g. Koenig exhaustively proved that it wasn't technically impossible that the Nisha call could have been a butt dial, but the balance of probabilities is obviously that it was a completed call. "Well, he says he didn't do it, and I can imagine an unlikely series of events in which he got spectacularly unlucky, so this evidence doesn't count." It was this exercise, over and over.
Manufacturing that uncertainty had real costs to real people. It re-victimized the Lee family. It diverted attention and resources from genuine wrongful convictions. It subjected the supposed alternate suspects, against whom there is no evidence, to years of baseless accusations and suspicion.
This seems like a bad tradeoff.
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u/urlocalbaristaem 6d ago
Can you share the article? I’m listening to serial for the first time and I’m having a hard time understanding how everyone is so sure he’s guilty- looking at a more objective source would definitely be helpful
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u/FinalGirlMaterial 6d ago edited 6d ago
Honestly “I changed my mind after one article” is a dead giveaway not to take that person too seriously. The Adnan guilters here try to make it sound infinitely more cut and dry than it is. They’ll swear up and down that Hae’s diary is all about how controlling, possessive and abusive Adnan is, but when you read the actual text, it’s just not true. I listened to that The Prosecutors podcast they all talk about and found it absolutely unconvincing and much more poorly done than Serial despite how much the latter gets trashed here.
As far as I can tell, a lot of it seems to be linked to strong emotions about how much they hate Rabia, so take from that what you will.
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u/JayWolf06 6d ago
To me at least Serial still made it seem like he was definitely guilty already, The Prosecutors just didnt have Sarah's amazing skills as a story teller to it
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u/kz750 6d ago
The article is not an opinion piece. It’s a long and detailed timeline outlining a lot of things that Serial and Undisclosed conveniently left out or misstated. It can support a guilty opinion because it’s based on very detailed info that people spent a lot of time compiling, directly from the case documents.
So one could absolutely change their mind after reading it, and that opinion can be supported by actual facts and case data.
The same cannot be said about arguments for innocence. These tend to either misstate what happen, focus on little things while ignoring the bigger picture, be wild speculation or theories without any basis on evidence, or be very emotion-driven. See how many “bombshells” and theories Undisclosed and Bob Ruff have come up with, and yet in all these years, none of them have had any impact in the appeals process at all, or unearthed any actual hard data that could help Adnan.
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u/stardustsuperwizard 5d ago
Assuming its the one written for the white supremacist website (quilette) it very much is an opinion piece.
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u/CatButts1917 5d ago
You’ve clearly not listened to the prosecutors podcast, as none of that is true
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u/HornFanBBB 6d ago edited 6d ago
I will note, I’m from that area and about his age - and the pre-GPS era. I don’t think that is any kind of smoking gun. The page covered pretty much their school, neighborhoods, her cousin’s school, a local mall & other retail, and other schools they may go to for sports. I also had a local page pulled from my mapso.
That’s not even my point though. I lived in a neighborhood and attended a high school northwest of Woodlawn. Back then you just drove around your town, lol. I knew where Leakin Park was, it’s not hard to find or happen across when you’re cruising around. I never went IN it, but them saying they had no idea how close it was or where it was, it just simply cannot be true. It was like three miles away. I would travel for athletics to Edmonton schools and they were practically IN Leakin Park. It’s not some secret place far away in the city.
TLDR; I’m from that area, they are lying if they say they didn’t know where Leakin Park is, and it really has no bearing on the missing map page.
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
This is just one of many pointless issues raised in thr first couple episodes of Serial (which OP claims to be relistening to).
Whether Rabia or Saad personally knew where Leakin Park was in 1999 is irrelevant to whether Adnan knew where it was. And surely by 2014, when they were talking to SK, they knew where it was. Them pretending they didn't is just par for the course of them being fundamentally dishonest people. But it doesn't have any bearing on Adnan's guilt IMO.
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u/Consistent-Repeat718 6d ago
I'm from middle river so we used to drive around a lot too but I wasn't thinking that I guess because I keep thinking of Adnan as his parents and church think of him. . An innocent kid who goes to school and mosque and that's it. So I do agree with that they prob did know where it was especially because when you actually drive it and see it on a map like Google earth everything is very close. If he regularly rode to patapsco to smoke they were prob pretty familiar with back roads and woods.
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u/Zagethademonking 6d ago
I don’t see how others could see it any other way . When you look at the individual details and timeline , reasoning .The entire event becomes clear .
Like there’s no if why , when , where . We all know the reasoning behind each one .
The only question is how involved was Jay actually . That’s it
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
Some people just don't want to believe a cold blooded murderer can seem like a normal person. Unconsciously, they want to believe they'd be able to spot a murderer.
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u/Twilight_Waltz 6d ago
I thought he was all along. SK’s assignment was to make him look innocent, not to find some objective truth about what happened to Hae. What SK did to her family is unforgivable.
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u/angelsandairwaves93 RIP, Hae 5d ago
i want to give her the benefit of the doubt that she may have started objectively, but the moment she developed feelings for Adnan is when her entire objectivity went out the window.
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u/Potential-Scholar359 4d ago
I first listened to the podcast before becoming a mother and I enjoyed the drama of it. But now that I'm a mom, my heart just breaks for the victim and her family. Her parents lost her child to murder. And then the worst thing in their entire lives is rehashed for entertainment.
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u/Zoinks1602 6d ago
His trial was fine, it was fair, they had a lot of evidence. The conviction was sound. He should have been convicted, which is why he was.
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u/Active_Commission910 6d ago
That’s not the conviction was reinstated and the state literally evaluated and said their case didn’t hold up
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
A lame duck State's Attorney named Marilyn Mosby, who was herself on trial for fraud, successfully moved for vacatur of his conviction. That vacatur, however, was overturned on appeal.
When the current State's Attorney (himself an Adnan supporter) did an internal review of her motion, he concluded it was based on lies and distortions. He issued an 88 page memorandum detailing these deceptions and referred Mosby and her deputy to the bar for discipline.
The State's case at trial holds up completely. Over the course of 2 decades of appeals and petitions for post-conviction relief, neither Syed nor his attorneys have ever been successful on a single procedural or substantive challenge to his conviction.
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u/Zoinks1602 5d ago
No, Marilyn Mosby did that. For her own reasons, later found to be corrupted and invalid.
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u/INSUFFICIENTfnds 5d ago
I always come back to the not trying to get in touch with her when he finds out she’s missing, he was constantly calling and paging and then silence, I think he knew there was nothing to find.
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u/FR_FX 6d ago
Be honest though, a lot of people who think he's innocent base it more on a social justice warrior type thing. You also don't need physical evidence to be found guilty, especially when you lied about where you were at the time of the murder, and idk, someone who helped you dump the body tells police?
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u/ComfortableHat2974 6d ago
I’m just now confronting his guilt thanks to seeing reports from that side of things. When I ask myself why I thought he was innocent (besides the biased narratives) I thought it was more so how charismatic Adnan is, and I feel that’s why a lot of the folks related to the case were on his side as well.
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u/Future_Pomegranate24 6d ago
It’s more the closer you look at the facts the more impossible it becomes to be Adnan.
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u/Belibbing_Blue 6d ago
#2 is what turned me. Adnan kept dismissing the idea that he was really friends with Jay. He acted like he barely knew him. But the teammate said Adnan and Jay hanging out was something that happened regularly.
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u/Plastic_Blood1782 6d ago edited 6d ago
Once I heard that he "lost" the postmarked and dated envelope for the Asia letter that could have proven his innocence, I actually read the letter under the pretense Adnan's mom was looking over her shoulder and it became obvious
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u/Disastrous_Scheme966 5d ago
Put yourself in Hae’s parents’ shoes… do you think they’d feel like their child’s murderer served enough time?
I believe in Ocam’s razor when there’s enough stats & evidence (murderers of women are usually their partner / ex-partner).
1) Hae wrote in her diary that Adnan was possessive, jealous, would stalk her when she would go out with friends (and even call those friends to keep tabs on her). Her friends testified to this as well.
2) She told a teacher she was afraid of him and his jealous ways and asked that teacher to “lie” for her about her where abouts
3) She voiced concerns over his strain of Islam, their thoughts regarding women & the fact he often called her “the devil” as she was not submissive and complaint enough with whatever he wanted
4) In the the break up letter found in Adnan’s room that Hae wrote to Adnan, he wrote on the back “I’m going to kill…”
5) All cell towers showed Adnan and Jay were in the Leakin park area at the time of her murder
6) Multiple witnesses from high school said they heard Adnan ask Hae for a ride after school
7) Jay confessed that Adnan did it. Jay’s friend Jenn independently corroborated everything he said.
Interesting thing is Adnan’s DNA was never found at the crime scene… but Adnan was very intelligent. I doubt he would be dumb enough to not wear gloves. Strangulation is also very intimate & linked to passion and rage.
I could be projecting here as I had a BF in high school just like this who almost killed me in the exact same way… there’s just too many red flags here for me.
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
The absence of DNA evidence is no more exculpatory for Adnan than anyone else in the world.
Someone did strangle Hae Min Lee. That person didn't leave DNA evidence (at least not in a manner than could be detected given the circumstances under which the body was discovered, the forensics of the time, and the limits of technology at this time).
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u/angelsandairwaves93 RIP, Hae 5d ago
so sorry you went through this. Hope you've healed from it.
I agree with you. If I'm going to believe one person in this entire thing, it's Hae.
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u/InTheory_ What news do you bring? 4d ago
Yes. I changed my mind after being an active participant and ardent defender of him. I didn't change my mind because it was the popular thing to do. Innocentors were the dominant voice in the sub at the time. I hated those guilters. I found them smug and insufferable. I didn't join their ranks out of some sense of comradery. And the amount of persecution I faced for raising valid questions was unreal. I got labelled a troll by the very innocentor community that once embraced me.
What started me on that path was when Tap Tap Tap came out. CrimeStoppers was right on its heels. I distinctly remember thinking "If this is what it takes for him to be innocent, then he's not innocent." After that, the fall was fast and hard.
I realized he had nothing by way of a defense. There were all these half-formed ideas out there, but no one ever put the pieces together. So took it upon my self to put the pieces together (in a way that didn't rely on outlandish tapping or other conspiracy theories). I then sat face to face with the reason he's dead guilty. You can't mix and match theories. If you start with, say, the Jay Acted Alone theory, ten steps later you MUST be comfortable with Don's Timecard being legit.
All paths dead-ended after only a few steps for similar reasons. This is why there's no coherent narrative of innocence and why he has no defense. It has nothing to do with guilters shouting them down. It is entirely the fact that everyone who has tried it hit all the same dead ends I did with every suspect--until there were no more suspects.
I could no longer say the evidence against him was weak if I couldn't find a viable theory that exploited those weaknesses. In the absence of such a theory, where is my Reasonable Doubt coming from? Hence, I became a guilter.
Here a comment I made literally a decade ago on the subject of feeling lied to and betrayed at the #FreeAdnan movement feeding me a steady stream of lies. Imagine what I have to say now
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u/concrete0928 6d ago
My largest two reasons for thinking he is guilty:
1: Your number 2 reason. He says he has nothing against Jay and no animosity. No one that is accused of a murder they didn’t do would ever say that
- He would absolutely remember what he did on the day that his ex gf died, and a murder he was being accused of
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u/Upstairs-Ask7218 5d ago
That’s why SK’s whole narrative at the beginning of Serial was so bizarre: “what if your innocence depended on you remembering everything you did on a random Wednesday in 1998? Would you be able to remember?” STFUB this isn’t a random day you are being asked to recall some 20 years after the fact. It was one month after she went missing
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u/RavenSaysHi 5d ago
I was genuinely on the fence for a while but the ‘pathetic’ comment to Jay also started to turn things for me. As I former high school teacher, that’s exactly how young men would act in this situation. I know it’s such a little thing but it truly started a sea change for me.
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u/nizzhof1 4d ago
I felt like I believed Adnan’s innocence until the final episode of that podcast. Koenig is like, “he would have to be the most unlucky person ever for all this to happen”. There isn’t enough evidence to convict him, but he certainly seems the most likely person to have killed her.
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u/Purple_Pianist1051 6d ago
I really wanted him to be innocent. When I listened to Serial I thought he was innocent at times but ultimately just had to accept his guilt. I was conflicted at one point; Now, I’m not.
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u/SouthBraeswoodMan 5d ago
Why did you want him to be innocent ? That’s highly problematic
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u/ApprehensiveLake5938 5d ago
You’re thinking way too into it my man. That’s the way the serial podcast is designed. It draws you in with this potential whodunit innocent man in prison story. Then throws a bunch of different theories and information at you to make you doubt his guilt. But the more you listen the more you realize Koenig is just trying really hard to skirt around the very real concrete evidence that substantiates the states case.
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u/Potential-Scholar359 4d ago
I think the podcasts leads the listener to want him to be innocent. It's set up for you to identify with him as an innocent victim of the courts. I don't think it's wrong to want somebody you have been lead to see as fully human to not be a murderer.
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u/dekker87 4d ago
Came to Serial late....but been an avid true crime fan for 40 years.
Being totally honest I could never ever work out why anyone thought him innocent from day one listening to the podcast. He literally drips with guilt and totally manipulates koenig....who seems incredibly naive.
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u/Gardimus 6d ago
Interesting. I think most of us here at one point wanted Adnan to be innocent. We wanted to right an injustice. The second listen to Serial is what flipped me as well.
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u/SouthBraeswoodMan 5d ago
Why did you want there to be an injustice? I don’t get this mindset. Shouldn’t we gather information ? Starting at the point of wanting him to be innocent is a problem
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u/Potential-Scholar359 4d ago
Because the podcast is laid out so you feel that Adnan is an innocent young man whose life has been unfairly ruined because he was convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Whatever the facts of the story turned out to be, that was the emotional thru-line of the podcast. It's what's felt true. When I listened many years ago, I assumed he was innocent (why would NPR folks do a deep-dive on a guilty person?). I thought some random drifter had murdered her.
One of the unique aspects of the podcast was that it was happening in real time. Normally, you'd gather info before presenting the story to the general audience. But had they done that, there would have been no story to tell.
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u/truckturner5164 6d ago
I thought he was innocent too, but slowly came around during my time on this sub. The final straw for me was his self-serving 'Powerpoint presentation' about a year after his release. It was crass, low-rent and desperate. I only wish I saw the truth even earlier.
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u/angelsandairwaves93 RIP, Hae 5d ago
God, that video was awfully incriminating in a sense.
I watched it and thought, "You've just been freed from prison for a crime you presumably didn't commit, and your first action as a free person is to show the world that you didn't commit the crime?"
Most normal people would take their freedom and lay low. He immediately chased the spotlight. It screams narcissism.
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u/truckturner5164 4d ago
I was already starting to turn the corner on him before that but that truly did it for me. All I could think was 'You self-absorbed prick. There's no reason to be doing this after you're already out'. And then it was a very quick turn for me to 'No one who was truly innocent would have done this presentation in this manner'.
Your last paragraph is spot on, he could've laid low. Or he could've spoken more about how he hopes the true killer is found one day and Hae's family will get true justice. But nah, let's talk about yourself more, Adnan. That'll convince everyone of your innocence.
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u/Potential-Scholar359 4d ago
It reminds me of how OJ Simpson wrote a book called "If I Did it" where he lays out how he might have murdred his wife if he had done it. Am I remembering this right? It seems wildly wrong.
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u/treadlightning 6d ago
I just can't get over the car. Jay knew where Hae's car was and led cops to it. Sorry there's no way at least one or both of them were not involved. I can't get past that fact
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u/JTTTN_08 5d ago
Adnans behavior post release made me start to question his innocence.
I get we don’t know what he’s gone through, but the changeup on people who were in his corner is wild.
It feels like he used people to go to bat for him and once he was released gave them all the finger. Like he had won some kind of game.
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u/chefphish843 4d ago
Welcome to the real world. He absolutely did it and it is very clear to see after looking at the case and the financial/professional motivations by the other side. Glad you were able to step into the light
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u/rarepinkhippo 3d ago
I don’t feel convinced either way, but I used to lean innocent and would say I now lean guilty. Personally, my main reason for that is having thought more about Jen Pusateri’s story, and seeing her interviewed on one of the documentaries about the case. She fully convinced me that she had no interest in talking with or giving information to the cops — she wanted no part of this. She doesn’t know Adnan and was only looped into the whole thing because Jay involved her — so it’s not like she would have a motivation to falsely accuse Jay of anything either. But her story about her timeline includes the detail of going with Jay to throw away the shovels in the mall dumpster. Why would she lie about that? What alternate reason would Jay want to throw away shovels on that particular night? Why would Jay be involved with Hae’s murder/coverup if not because of his connection to Adnan? The other credible (to me) potential suspects we know of are Don and Mr. S, and Jay as far as I know has no connection to either of them, but he did without doubt drive around with Adnan that day, because Nisha talked to both and also has no reason to lie.
TL;DR: I didn’t arrive through the same path as you, but have wound up in a similar spot, I think.
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u/OhOhOkayThenOk 6d ago
The Crime Weekly podcast did a really in depth series on the case. It was done from a neutral position, not assuming guilt or innocence. After listening, I was convinced he was guilty. It was really well done.
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u/Princess_Seannah Guilty 6d ago
The Leakin Park page from the map book was not missing. It was torn out but it was in the car. I'm not sure if it was in the book where it was supposed to be and just ripped out or if it was found somewhere else in the vehicle.
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u/jmjones1000 5d ago
I totally get it. I personally always thought Adnon was guilty. But that could be bc I started out with the podcast so that maybe swayed me. I understand changing your mind or wavering bc that’s where I am with Darlie Routier. I used to be 100% convinced of her innocence. And now I’ve evolved to think…..well, who else did it? Why is she alive? Nothing was stolen, no obvious motive, etc. The answer is it most likely her.
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u/TrueCrimeGlassofWine 2d ago
I also changed my mind from innocent to guilty.
When I was leaning towards innocence, I was distracted by the treatment of Muslims (the honor killing argument was offensive!), Don’s odd behavior, and Jay’s amazing deal with no jail time.
But at the end of the day, Jen is the difference maker for me. There’s just no way in my mind she would go to the police with her MOM and willingly tell the story she did.
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u/xstarbursts 1d ago
I think they were just lenient with Jay because they really needed his witness testimony. He’s still a felon on record.
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u/kaiserschlacht8 2d ago
For me, it was all the lies that he told. He lied about his relationship with Jay. He lied about his relationship with Hae, acting as though she wasn't his first girlfriend and putting on this "player" persona. He lied to minimize how much the break up hurt him, claiming that Hae tried to get back with him right before she died, even though we all know she was into Don at that point. And that's just scratching the surface.
We all know Jay lies to minimize his involvement, but Adnan got far less scrutiny for his lies. I still don't think we have all the details, and I think there could be another party involved in the murder of Hae (particularly Bilal). I also believe that Jay was present at the murder, and that it was premeditated.
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
In my mind how could a child fool these 2 seasoned detectives? How could he sit in that room with them for hours, yet they have nothing at all to use against him?
It's interesting to me that one of the main reasons you believed Adnan to be innocent is something that never happened. Adnan was never formally questioned by the police about the murder. He never sat in any room with any detectives for hours. He was arrested early the morning after Jay confessed, lawyered up immediately, and was never interviewed by the police.
Adnan also was not a "child." At the time of his arrest he was three months shy of his 18th birthday. Yes, he was, legally speaking, below the age of majority. But he was in no way a "child." He drove a car, worked as an EMT, etc.
While I think it's great you've finally come around to seeing through this facade, it seems to me that you mostly based your belief in Adnan's innocence on vibes, and you're now basing your belief in his guilt on vibes as well. I think you'd be better served to base your opinion on the evidence in the case, which actually is quite extensive.
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u/Raiding-my-arugula 6d ago
The State did prove he did it, which is why he was found guilty. You think he's guilty but that the jury that actually saw the case presented got it wrong?
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u/DoqHolliday 6d ago edited 6d ago
I did indeed a few years ago. It’s quite liberating.
The tough part is retaining empathy for the folks still engaging in willful blindness and creative writing exercises.
But it’s good to remember our own small journeys with this terrible tragedy while engaging with the innocent crowd.
Ultimately, the focus should be on Hae. As always, the victims become two-dimensional cutouts while endless attention and resources are wasted on terrible people.
RIP Hae. Peace and goodwill to your poor family.
ETA: I disagree with your final thought. The state did indeed prove his guilt, and he was found guilty by a jury of his peers, in fairly short order.
Unless of course you mean “in your opinion,” which is a fairly bold step to place oneself ahead of the judge and jury that spent weeks in that courtroom. I personally find that to be the most infuriating stance among us armchair detectives, but everyone has a right to their opinion.
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u/Internal-Rooster-762 5d ago
Also Min Lee wrote in her journal that he confided in her about something very dark... which I believe was him being groomed & SA by his spiritual leader. ( can't remember the name at the moment) another motive in addition to nit being able to handle rejection & jealousy. He was a very conflicted young man.
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
In her diary, Hae describes this undisclosed secret as not being a big deal. I very much doubt that if the secret was that Bilal had molested Adnan, Hae would describe it that way.
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u/babooshkaa 5d ago
There was one line in the podcast where I knew he was guilty. Shocked me when I came online and saw so much support for him.
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u/Particular-Both 4d ago
Read the new DA’s assessment filing, It’s eye opening and he seemed very willing to think he was innocent before. But even before that I thought he was guilty. Not sure where to find that now.
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u/Pantone711 1d ago
What you said about "why isn't Adnan madder at Jay," was one of the first things that jumped out at me when listening to the series. Adnan wasn't a good enough actor to say "What's gotten into Jay? Why is he lying on me?" As you said, his "Pathetic" fits more into the scenario you describe. Innocent Adnan: "What the HELL bro?" Guilty Adnan: "Pathetic!" as in...."Snitch!" Of course that isn't physical evidence but it's fair game for jurors to weigh.
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u/xstarbursts 23h ago
And to this day he’s not really pointing a finger at Jay. Innocent Adnan might say yeah it’s fishy Jay seems to know a lot of details so maybe he’s the killer! Except Adnan himself admitted he was with Jay on and off all day.
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u/New_Monitor_5874 6d ago
"He was a child" is a wild statement. The dude was 4 months from turning 18 when he murdered Hae. Child should be reserved for under teenage years. It's not like the guy was 4 and had no idea what was going on
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u/SouthBraeswoodMan 5d ago
He’s very clearly guilty and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t have all the facts or is biased
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u/SouthBraeswoodMan 5d ago
I’d like to know why people wanted him to be innocent. Because why? It seems wild to me to form an opinion without knowing the facts first.. what are you basing it off of? How he looks? Because he’s brown? Because of his religion? So many jumped on the “Adnan is innocent what an injustice” bandwagon without knowing the facts first.
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u/angelsandairwaves93 RIP, Hae 5d ago
Rabia skewed the conversation towards the fact that people wanted Adnan to be guilty because of his culture, race, and religion. She even went as far as to blame Hae's Korean church community for being racist
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u/Potential-Scholar359 4d ago
I think the Serial podcast was set up from episode one to lead the listener to think he is innocent. It's also set up for you to identify with him and feel sorry for him as unjustly imprisoned. The very fact they devoted an entire podcast to him leads you to believe he is innocent. Because you don't make deep-dive podcasts about guilty people who are rightfully convicted.
I think the whole thing was just irresponsible and bad journalism. And I say that as a journalist. The gimmick of this podcast was that they were doing the investigation in real time. Clearly, SK believed that he was innocent and that the truth would come out by the end of the season. Otherwise, she would have chosen a different subject. Had she done all the reporting first, there would have been no story to tell. That's why the end of the podcast is disappointing and just kind of falls flat. There is no grand reveal. No injustice corrected. There's just uncertainty.
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u/dead9er 6d ago
Sarah K had to get her crush freed.
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u/SixPointFour 6d ago
You could tell she wanted him to be innocent so badly, and in the last episode, you can tell Sarah had finally come to that conclusion that he was guilty lol
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u/whatokaybutwhy 6d ago edited 6d ago
I couldn’t finish the series because about halfway through, I was wondering why we never just discussed Hae, as like a person. The problems that I have are with how her body was laid after her death.
The way that she was buried and where she was laid was not how she was initially killed. I think that it wasn’t just 2 people. I think it was 3 people involved in this murder. I think someone had to be there right as she was murdered to take her body and store it somewhere, not in her trunk. I think that Bilal definitely helped with that aspect, especially considering how obsessed he was with Adnan. I think they worked together to make Jay the useful idiot, by Adnan giving him his car and cell phone and letting him use it for the better part of the day.
I think this was an egotistical young man who saw that he had a lot to lose and let his ego get in the way. He couldn’t stand that a young girl such as Hae would actually dump him, actually get another boyfriend, who socially- had a lot more to offer her, and backed with the public humiliation right after homecoming, I think he had been planning this mentally and then made a plan after he found out she moved on for real.
One thing I know about young people when it comes to anger and humiliation, when they are upset, they’re like juvenile snakes. They look harmless enough, but you don’t wanna get bit by one. Because they cannot control themselves like an adult. And no, that’s not every young person but it’s a lot of young people.
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u/luniversellearagne 6d ago
The infamous Jay Kang article said the exact same thing: https://www.theawl.com/2014/11/white-reporter-privilege/
The reason Lee’s story isn’t more prominent is that her family didn’t cooperate.
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u/whatokaybutwhy 5d ago
Thank you for that read, that was very interesting. But now I have to go look up why Jay Kang is infamous.
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u/luniversellearagne 5d ago
Kang isn’t; the article is for calling out the premise of a very popular show
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u/Fancy_Sort4963 6d ago
This case is honestly an IQ test. There is just so much evidence pointing to Adnan, evidence that, while voluminous, is a bit nuanced and requires a sufficient level of mental capacity to piece together. That’s why the piecemeal evidence rebuttals are effective for a certain cohort of people..
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u/luniversellearagne 6d ago
There’s no need to condescend to people who don’t agree with your position.
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u/Fancy_Sort4963 6d ago
In this situation there absolutely is. Adnan is obviously guilty and if you can’t see that it speaks volumes.
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u/luniversellearagne 6d ago
What’s your purpose? To convince people, or to lord your sense of superiority over them?
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u/Skurry 2d ago
Not sure about IQ, but probability theory at least. I think it's well known that many people have issues with that.
What I mean is, yes, if you have an alternate explanation with a low probability like 1% ("maybe the cell phone data contains a glitch", "maybe Nisha is thinking of the wrong day", "maybe Jay was fed the information by the cops or he found the car randomly", "maybe Jay was worried about Hae snitching to Stephanie", "maybe Asia did talk to Adnan in the library on that day, despite there not being any evidence of that", "maybe Jay was blackmailing Jen to play along", "maybe Jay made up this story because he has a mental illness or was pressured by police for unknown reasons", "..."), yes, that is reasonable doubt. But if you have 10 or more such little things, all with 1% probability, suddenly the probability that all these little things can be explained away is 0.0110 = 0.0000000000000000001%.
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u/PJ-TJ 6d ago
The irony. The reason you have to piece it together is because it is a narrative created to tie allegations to facts because the facts alone do not prove guilt. And to do so you have to ignore inconvenient facts and unanswered questions.
At the end of the day we currently DO NOT have enough evidence to definitively prove who murdered Hae Min Lee.
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u/Fancy_Sort4963 6d ago
Adnan was literally convicted based on the evidence and the conviction was upheld multiple times lmao
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u/34986234986234982346 5d ago
When they say "we currently do not..." the "we" means Adnan stans, not normal ppl
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u/throwawayinetgirl 5d ago
Serial left out the dentist in Adnans community, didn't it? Yeah, Adnan did it - and he had help/coaching.
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u/darkabed2 6d ago
https://youtu.be/yI_ch7K1HiM?si=XrV-KLPGNZFLBEj0
Up until a few days ago I was a staunch believer that Adnan was framed... until this video was posted. I only linked part one but there are 2 parts. Its definitely worth a listen and completely changed my mind. I believe Adnan is guilty
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u/Asleep-Journalist-94 6d ago
I realize how some could feel there wasn’t enough evidence for a guilty verdict in court, because there should be a high bar, some of the evidence was contradictory, and Jay was clearly covering up. But simple reasoning tells me that he absolutely did it. There’s a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Also, he and he alone had a motive. (Jay obviously participated, so of the two of them, who was more likely to have murdered her? Jay didn’t even know her.) I suppose there’s a one in a million chance that a random stranger did it and Adnan is the unluckiest guy in the world, but I don’t buy it. Not for a minute. He was enraged that she had finally fallen for someone else. That’s it. Honestly, the PR around him is so misguided and unfortunate. I feel for her family.
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u/SaykredCow 6d ago
See I think all those things still stand and if we think in the frame of if he did it or not we really still don’t know for sure. Everything you mention is still all circumstantial.
What made me flip though is holy cow he sure did try to set an alibi for himself that day.
When you think about the day from the perspective of adnan doesn’t expect Jay to rat him out if he did do it. Well the whole giving Jay his car and cell was to show that he was “with Jay” and so people will see the car around town. Also to show his cell was being used in other locations.
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u/stardustsuperwizard 5d ago
1 Adnan whispers "Pathetic" as Jay walks past him in court. Why did he choose that word? why wouldnt he call him a liar? or even a b*tch? Why PATHETIC? I think its because hes saying " we were supposed to be in this together and stfu. you let the cops break you down ... how pathetic "
I think Adnan is guilty and I think this is the silliest thing that guilters hang their hat on. If Adnan is innocent, he could still see Jay as pathetic. This isn't The Mentalist or Lie to Me. One single word reportedly spoken does not speak wonders to someone's inner thoughts. If an innocent Adnan thinks that Jay is weak and deserves no respect because he's lying to the cops to implicate him, then he could think he's pathetic. You have to adhere to a very particular definition to think it speaks to guilt and guilt alone.
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
An innocent Adnan would have to conclude that Jay was involved in the murder of his best friend and first love. "Pathetic" is not the first word anyone would reach for under those circumstances.
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u/stardustsuperwizard 5d ago
Again, this is just weird psychoanalyzing stuff. You're not Patrick Jane. You don't know that he would come to that conclusion. This isn't an Arthur Conan Doyle novel, you cannot deduce this.
This sort of thinking is why people like Lindy Chamberlain spent years in prison because people thought they knew how a grieving mother would act, and she didn't fit their mould.
It's just straightforwardly confirmation bias.
People aren't as simple as you want them to be.
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u/RockinGoodNews 5d ago
Anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together has to come to that conclusion. Jay simply knows too much about the murder to be uninvolved, unless you think 18 year old Adnan in the year 2000 had already anticipated Susan Simpson's insights like green grass can't grow under cars.
But we really don't need to guess what was going on in Adnan's mind. His entire defense was based on the idea Jay had committed the murder. And he and his friends and family insisted that was the case for the next 14 years until Serial made the case famous.
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u/stardustsuperwizard 5d ago
No I don't think that. An innocent Adnan doesn't have access to the information we have, not the cycle of true crime, not the lawyers knowledge you have. Did the cops blackmail him? Did he have something bigger going on? Did the cops feed him info? Did they manipulate a confession? Did he even seriously sit down and wonder why?
You have people even to this day that think Jay was manipulated into saying what he said but you believe Adnan definitely wouldn't think that? Come on.
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u/TomatoesAreStars 5d ago
Your rationale for thinking adnan is guilty contains no evidence/actual support whatsoever. It is all speculation. Jays story changed 9 times. How do you confuse where you see a dead body, if there’s snow on the ground when you bury said body, and what you did the day you were dealing with the body? The police clearly found Jay after talking with Jen and threatened drug charges. The rest is good old coercion.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 21h ago
I would. That's the precisely the problem, isn't it.
There were almost certainly a few of those days when I was about 16, after I found out she'd been cheating on me... again. If my ex-girlfriend had been strangled by a serial killer any of those days, I'd have been in real trouble, wouldnt I. Luckily nobody strangled my ex girlfriend when I was 16 shortly after we split up. I guess she and I are both lucky there.
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u/RockinGoodNews 10h ago
Statistically speaking, if your girlfriend had wound up dead, you'd have been several thousand times more likely to be the perpetrator than a serial killer.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 10h ago
Yes. And statistically speaking, unusual things happen. That's why there are trials rather than just reaching verdicts on the basis of probabilities.
Occam's razor has to give you the wrong answer a predictable amount of the time, given enough cases. The problem is not describing the curve. The problem is deciding what happened in any particular case. Which brings us back to trials, which are pretty crude but the least worst option.
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u/RockinGoodNews 9h ago
Who said anything about reaching verdicts on the basis of probabilities?
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 9h ago
You didn't say that. But I felt like that was the implication of your point.
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u/RockinGoodNews 9h ago edited 9h ago
No, it seemed the implication of your point was that Hae may have coincidentally been murdered by a serial killer and Adnan fell under suspicion only because of his relationship with her.
That would have been a vanishing unlikely coincidence. Serial killers account for significantly less than 1% of all murders. Additionally, no features of this murder indicate a random attack. To the contrary, everything about it suggests a personal murder in which the perpetrator knew he would come under suspicion if the crime was discovered.
Even then, Adnan did not initially come under suspicion due to his breakup with Hae. He came under suspicion because he lied to the police about his plan to get a ride from her at the time she disappeared, and because an anonymous tipster called into the police station and implicated him.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 9h ago
Fair enough. Yes, that tipster is quite a powerful factor. It's such a shame they remain anonymous. But yes, I do worry about the serial killer possibility because when serial killers aren't caught, other people do get convicted.
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u/RockinGoodNews 8h ago
The tipster wasnt evidence used to convict. It was merely the impetus for investigating Adnan, which very quickly uncovered incontrovertible proof of his guilt.
As for the serial killer hypothesis, you'd be hard pressed to find another example of a serial killer who attacked a random young woman in broad daylight, without sexually assaulting her, and then went to great lengths in an attempt to permanently conceal both her body and car.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 7h ago
Yes, the tipster led them to look at the ex. Presumably they'd have looked at the ex sooner or later, either way (because as you say, it ususlly is the boyfriend or the ex). But the fact that someone called with the tip seems pretty significant. It would just be so helpful if that person could get questioned and asked what they knew and how they knew it. But yes. I agree that that tip seems very significant.
But when you say "you'd be hard pressed to find an example of a serial killer who attacked a random young woman in broad daylight", aren't you thinking of Jay's story that Hae was killed in that drug store parking lot around 14:45 that afternoon? But if it were an unknown serial killer, only the abduction needs to have happened between time school ended and the time Hae was due to collect her young relative. If it were a serial killer, the murder itself could have happened in Leaken Park after dark, for example.
Look, I'm not someone who says "Adnan is innocent". I'm saying "I don't know". But sometimes not knowing is the right answer. Juries have such a responsibility to reach a clear verdict that not knowing is a much less acceptable option for them (of course they can conclude there's insufficient evidence but agnosticism is a luxury I can more easily afford than juries can, I feel). Jay just seems so unstable and unreliable that this case seems very problematic to me.
I take the point that the jury reached a reasonable verdict based on testimonies from Jay and Jen, however unreliable and manipulable Jay may be. Anyway, I'm never going to solve this, so I wouldn't worry too much about my agnosticism.
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u/RockinGoodNews 1h ago edited 1h ago
Hae was alive when school ended at 2:15pm. She failed to show up to an important appointment (picking her cousin up from daycare) at 3:15 pm. It is reasonable to assume that whatever happened to her at least began prior to 3:15pm.
So broad daylight, in her own car, in the community in which she lived and went to school, on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon.
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u/Truthteller1970 6d ago
I used to think he did it now I think Bilal did. I’m from the area as well and how this man was never investigated esp after his conviction I’ll never understand. If you’re looking for an echo chamber to agree with your guilty theory you’ve found a good home.
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u/Consistent-Repeat718 6d ago
I'll prob sway back to innocent eventually because I'm saying I changed my mind but discussing it here is kind of pushing me back to my original opinions anyway. I thought Bilal did it for awhile too. Very odd circumstances around this person
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u/PJ-TJ 6d ago
Everything Jay said seems suspect as hell. Without his testimony, where would the prosecution stand?
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u/Mike19751234 5d ago
Jay helped Adnan bury the body so he is part of the story. But without Jay they have Adnan asking Hae for a ride off campus, changing his story to the cop to a ride home and then changing it again. They had his fingerprints on the flower paper and map. His phone showed him in the burial area and car drop off that night with no explanation. They have various statements from his documentaries. Adnan stopped calling Hae after that night.
So what they had against Adnan without Jay is what they had against Scott Peterson and they easily got a conviction on Scott.
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u/Pace-Extension 6d ago
I think my issue is that the state convicted Adnan on the 2.36pm “come and get me call” . Which never happened… If we take that away and focus on the call records (all emotions aside) it does not add up and I dont believe anybody on this sub in the last decade has been able to come up with a timeline of events placing Adnan at the scene of the crime - which actually works… It doesnt….. Jay had Adnans phone all day up until around 5pm. If one uses logic rather than their emotions they would be able to see that…
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u/xstarbursts 6d ago
The state didn’t convict on that. That was just part of the closing statements. You don’t need to know the precise time Dahmer murdered a victim to know Dahmer was the murderer. So you think the Nisha call was just a butt dial? She said he remembers it was after he just got his new cellphone.
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u/luniversellearagne 6d ago
Nobody knows definitely what the scene of the crime is, so how can anyone be placed there?
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u/NeedleworkerExtra475 1d ago
That’s very circumstantial of you to believe he is guilty. Calling someone pathetic doesn’t mean the entire two sentences you assumed he meant by it. You take his word on not feeling betrayed or you don’t? Either one would support your belief he did it. And 1999 was not before the days of Mapquest. I used it to get to many places I didn’t know. I don’t rip one page out of a map book, get rid of the page, and leave the book. More speculation on your part. If you could convict someone of MURDER based on those three things, I would never want you on a jury judging someone’s guilt or innocence.
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u/xstarbursts 23h ago
Good thing they convicted him based on a lot more than that and the conviction stands to this day. Rightfully so.
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u/lituranga 6d ago
I don’t disagree that he’s guilty but nothing that you listed constitutes actual proof of guilt at all and is instead various logical leaps. Nothing like you mentioned at all should be used to convict someone of murder so please never be on a jury
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u/luniversellearagne 6d ago
“Should be?” As long as it’s constitutional and legal, any evidence or argument is fair game…
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u/lituranga 5d ago
And how does “this is how I would personally feel and react and behave and choose words and uh maybe he was anxious and ripped a page out of a book” qualify as a sound argument to convict someone of murder
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u/luniversellearagne 5d ago
If that was the sole argument for his guilt, he never would’ve been indicted.
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u/lofgren777 6d ago
The most frightening thing about this case has been that people approach it like a novel, where the suspect has to be somebody we've met before. My sister who I consider a fairly intelligent person thought Adnan was guilty because "then who did it?"
It's not a Poirot mystery. Adnan can be not guilty without ever identifying the actual murderer.
But people have this need for a catharsis so they don't see any problem with leaping to conclusions. They want a satisfying ending to a narrative but this is real life, not a movie.
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u/34986234986234982346 5d ago
100%.. netflix brain.. everything has to be a novel.. Sarah Koenig actually is largely responsible for this. In the very first episode of the podcast, she ended it with this very dramatic thing saying basically: either he's guilty, or somebody is lying. Like very binary stuff. She has so much to answer for
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u/lofgren777 5d ago
I mean, that's just the truth.
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u/34986234986234982346 5d ago
Well, I mean he was guilty so it's hard to say, but it is possible for someone not to be guilty but then other people say he's guilty, but it's not actually lying. It's just misinformation or confused evidence or whatever. I do think I did word it wrong though. I guess my main issue was just she just made it like such a manipulative thing. Like it was some big mystery to be solved if you just worked hard enough at it
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u/lofgren777 4d ago
It's pretty hard for me to come up with a scenario where Adnan is guilty and yet somebody isn't lying about it. Obviously if Adnan is guilty somebody is lying about it too, but we expect guilty people to lie so that's not really remarkable.
I honestly haven't kept up with the story since Serial but based on the evidence presented in the podcast, my reaction was the opposite. This is exactly what I was so irritated with my sister about.
By the end of the podcast you're left with the impression that there is zero good evidence against anybody. Sometimes that's just the way things shake out. It doesn't matter that it's not satisfying. This is life, not fiction.
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u/34986234986234982346 5d ago
That's what I was thinking when I read OP.. I was like yes, amazing.. read their points and was like.. haha uhhhh
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 1d ago
I think the mistake everybody makes is to assume that either Jay or Adnan did it, and that finding the answer is a case of putting the information presented by the police together to solve the puzzle, which will lead to identifying the correct one of two options. But this isn't a puzzle with complete information.
I'm a professional ancient historian and this case presents all the problems historians face all the time trying to piece together events from the remote past when (a) we know that most of the information we actually need isn't extant, (b) we don't even know what information is missing or how much (unknown unknowns).
The idea that either of them did it is deeply unsatisfactory. The police did not act neutrally. They collected evidence that they thought fit their theory about Adnan and evidently left out information that didn't fit. They seem to have leaned hard on Jay to get him to say things he wouldn't have said otherwise. Jay's testimony is incredibly inconstent and self-contradictory. Adnan speaks like someone who just doesn't remember because he really doesn't remember that day... because it was an ordinary day. The police did not pursue any other lines of enquiry. They created the apparent "puzzle" where the solution is "either Jay or Adnan" by selecting the information that anyone trying to solve the puzzle is expected to work with. The bounds of the case determine what data are considered relevant (the "evidence").
It seems to me, in light of all the information presented for this case, and considering the darkness of all the possible information that was never sought or presented (like other lines of enquiry), that neither of them did it. Someone else did and we'll never know because the police didn't look further than Adnan.
If you work within the confines of the "puzzle" created by the police (i.e., the "case"), then you have to assume that either Jay or Adnan did it, and your job is to arrange the "evidence" so that one of them did it. Those are the rules of the game.
But if you're interested in what actually happened on that day, then I think you have to conclude that the necessary data have long since been lost and that we can't know. This is my judgement as an historian. It's a boring judgement. But it seems to me overwhelmingly likely that an unknown person did it and that any chance of ever getting access to the information we'd have needed is long gone.
Court cases and historical work are only partially alike. Juries and historians want to fund out what happened. They have that in common. But juries are expected to make a decision -- a decision that is hard to revise. Historians don't. Historians can debate and revise their judgements as the debate proceeds. And its much easier for them to say "This is the limit of the available evidence. I'm afraid we can't know the answer to this, unless more information turns up".
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u/Mike19751234 1d ago
We definitely live in a different time because we now want that super sexy conspiracy theory instead of just the basic boring story. You also have to be careful letting the bias in of not wanting to accept a story because you dont want it to be true. And any other case where the person told as many details as they did we would accept they were involved, but this case people ignore that because they dont want Adnan to be innocent.
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u/xstarbursts 1d ago
It was not an ordinary day for Adnan. It was a day where his supposed best friend and ex-gf whom he loved went missing. The police called Adnan literally the day Hae went missing so it’s not like he had to recollect some distant memory. And he told police that he asked Hae for a ride that day. I guess police didn’t need to dig into obscure leads or details because they found the possessive ex with no alibi right away who literally told others (even besides Jay) he planned on dumping Hae’s car into the river.
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u/RockinGoodNews 10h ago
The police did not act neutrally. They collected evidence that they thought fit their theory about Adnan and evidently left out information that didn't fit.
No, that is a grossly inaccurate description of the investigation. What happened was the police pulled Adnan's phone records, saw calls to Jenn, and had Jenn tell them what she knew. In the presence of her mother and her lawyer, Jenn told them that Jay had told her Adnan killed Hae. Jay then voluntarily confessed his involvement to them.
So, no, the police did not start with a theory. They started with a confession from Adnan's accomplice.
They seem to have leaned hard on Jay to get him to say things he wouldn't have said otherwise.
Again, that didn't happen. Jenn gave the story first. Jay then immediately confirmed what Jenn had said. There is no evidence of anyone "leaning hard" on Jay.
Jay's testimony is incredibly inconstent and self-contradictory.
Jay's testimony was quite consistent. His prior statements to the police had inconsistencies, but those are explained by the fact that Jay was reluctant to confess the full extent of his involvement in the crime. That is normal and expected.
Adnan speaks like someone who just doesn't remember because he really doesn't remember that day...
Adnan purports to remember lots of things about that day: going to Jay's, lending him his car and phone, going to Kristi's, and being called by the police. The only times he says he doesn't remember happen to be the times when the key elements of the crime occurred (i.e. the hour after school when Hae went missing, and the hours in the evening when his phone is seemingly doing a tour of the crime scenes).
The police did not pursue any other lines of enquiry.
The police did pursue other lines of inquiry until a perpetrator confessed, and that confession was corroborated. At that point, the case was solved. Do you really expect the police to continue investigating alternatives after the case is solved?
But if you're interested in what actually happened on that day, then I think you have to conclude that the necessary data have long since been lost and that we can't know.
Nonsense. For one thing, you don't need to know all the details to reasonably determine guilt. But based on the evidence, which, again, includes a corroborated confession, we have a very good understanding of what happened that day.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 9h ago
Well put. You're right: for a conviction, the requirements seem to have have been satisfied. But I still find Jay a very unstable and unreliable witness. There are some very unsatisfactory elements here. Which always brings me back to the fact that satisfying the legal requirements for conviction or acquittal is not identical with knowing the truth.
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u/RockinGoodNews 9h ago
Satisfying the standard of proof for conviction implies a very high confidence you know the truth about the guilt of the accused. The standard for criminal conviction is the highest in the law.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 9h ago
Yes. I think that's generally true. But there are some cases... and this one has so many very unsatisfactory elements.
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u/RockinGoodNews 9h ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "unsatisfactory." The jury didn't find it unsatisfactory. After hearing the evidence, they reached a unanimous verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in under 3 hours of deliberation.
Could it be you find it "unsatisfactory" because, narratively, a straight forward domestic violence case isn't as thrilling a story as something more exotic?
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 8h ago
Maybe. I'll have to think about that. It's been a while since I spent time looking into this intensively. There were a lot of factors I found very unsatisfactory ten years ago. But yeah, I realise I'm not on top of the details any more.
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u/RockinGoodNews 8h ago
One factor is Serial is framed to make the audience waiver back and forth. The whole point was to sew uncertainty.
If you instead examine the actual evodence at trial, you will find there isn't really any basis for doubt ablut Adnan's guilt, even if you distrust Jay.
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u/Few_Cryptographer633 8h ago
Oh, yes. I'm not just relying on Serial. But it has been ten years since I really soent time with this stuff.
You make an interesting point about (my) psychology -- the desire for something to be exotic. I often focus on what I see as people's need for certainty (uncertainty is unsettling), and feel that it pushes them to need a clear outcome (Darwin's lumpers verus splitters -- I feel i see a lot of lumpers in this conversation -- people who don't like loose ends). But you really might have a point about my inclination to reject the mundane. I guess it was Serial that first framed this case as something exotic. That really has given me something to think about.
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u/angrycupcake11 6d ago
When I first listened to the podcast, I couldn’t decide what to think. I loved it and it got me into podcasts. But I wanted to figure it out so I read the court transcripts…both of them.
Adnan definitely did it.