So, did he do it?

[gwnn]

No, the assumption would be that the police got convinced that Adnan is guilty, and then fell into confirmation bias.

[Jay says something fitting our theory => great, we were right to be suspicious of Adnan. Jay says something contrary to the theory => well we know he lies now and then, let's ask him again.]

If you think this is far-fetched, you should really listen to TAL 507.

 

To add to that theory: the two detectives apparently had an unusually high closing rate. Also one of the detectives [Ritz] was named in a lawsuit against the Baltimore police by someone wrongfully convicted for murder; google Ezra Mable if you want to read more.

This doesn't mean that they were actively unethical; but maybe they were prone to cutting corners. There were certainly various opportunities they missed where they could have subjected their own theory "Adnan is guilty" to more scrutiny. [i mean, who in their right mind could believe that a phone call "She is dead, come get me at Best Buy" would take 5 seconds. A phone call to someone who did not expect that a murder would happen, and who had not agreed to help with it.]

So the assumption is that the police got convinced that he's guilty just because he has no alibi and choose to believe the drug dealer who knows where the car is? You're ignoring my simple point: Jay did change a lot of the details either prompted by the police or not, but he surely did give the police *something* of independent value, in whatever scattershot manner, or they would have gone after him. Do you disagree with this? I even see people suggesting that the police knew all along where the car was and told that to Jay as well. All this, just to close the case as fast as possible?

 

I don't see how 5 seconds is too short for a come and get me call. You can just say "Best buy, now." (it is not known whether or not Jay did not expect the murder to happen). Now, the 2:36 PM call is likely not the come get me call for other reasons, but I think you show you are biased in your incredulity here.

[gwnn]

The point about 4. is this: Say Jay helped someone to commit the murder, but his much too afraid to testify against someone. But he did commit accessory to murder, and the only chance to get away with it is to give the police a witness testimony that helps them convict someone else. Who would he testify against? As any mafia player knows, he would testify against whoever is already considered guilty by the police.

So if

• the police considered Adnan guilty because of his lack of alibi, and
  
• Jay learned that the police was suspicious of Adnan,
  

then "Jay picked EXACTLY THE SAME PERSON that has no alibi" is not a coincidence; indeed, in that scenario he would always testify against the person with no alibi.

It's not as simple as that. For one, Jay apparently already told Jenn on the 13th (Jenn said so). If you want to say that Jay made up the whole thing about Adnan, you will have to say that either he made it up on the 13th or thereabouts, or that he made it up around the 27th together with Jenn so the conspiracy thickens. It is also simply the case that a third party is very hard to reconcile with Hae Min Lee being attacked/abducted already between 2:15 and 3:15 which is a narrow window. The only person we know who tried to leave with her in her car is Adnan. There are people who said she left alone but that leaving alone is simply very unlikely because she was attacked between 2:15 and 3:15. I now read that there's an indication that she stopped at a gas station on the way (based on her credit card records) but that seems a bit of a stretch, that the conspirators would know which gas station she'd stop at and ambush her there.

 

I am plagiarizing an argument I saw in a subreddit, I will try to source it later.

[Winstonm]

No worries, it's only the most popular podcast of all time.

 

What's a podcast?

[cherdano]

Sorry I will cherry-pick small things to reply to, just to points I find interesting.

I don't see how 5 seconds is too short for a come and get me call. You can just say "Best buy, now." (it is not known whether or not Jay did not expect the murder to happen).

 

This requires Adnan and Jay to conspire to cooperate with this murder. I cannot believe that the police thought (a) that the two of them conspired to murder Hae and (b) only ever charged Jay with accessory after the fact.

[cherdano]

So the assumption is that the police got convinced that he's guilty just because he has no alibi and choose to believe the drug dealer who knows where the car is? You're ignoring my simple point: Jay did change a lot of the details either prompted by the police or not, but he surely did give the police *something* of independent value, in whatever scattershot manner, or they would have gone after him. Do you disagree with this? I even see people suggesting that the police knew all along where the car was and told that to Jay as well. All this, just to close the case as fast as possible?

 

I agree that Jay gave the police reasons to believe him. I think he mentioned details about how she was buried, and he ("eventually", according to one court document) lead them to the car. I also agree that it is unlikely that two experienced police detectives would fall into such extreme confirmation bias, and wrongly pursue the ex-boyfriend, rather than the drug dealer who admits to helping bury the body.

 

But you also have to admit that against the unlikelihood of the opposite happening: if Jay was basically telling the truth, how likely would it be that

- he would lie about so many things - both small things, and big things. His timeline initially made no sense at all; even his timeline to which he testified at trial is completely contradicted by cellphone records,

- that the prosecution would never be able to come up with a story that would even come close to matching the cellphone records (even after modifying Jay's timeline). See http://viewfromll2.com/2015/01/12/serial-the-failure-of-the-prosecutions-cellphone-theory-in-one-simple-chart/

 

I don't even know what the most likely timeline is, and whether it's plausible.

[cherdano]

As for Jenn's testimony:

• She clearly lied about some things. (According to her, both Jay and Jenn were at Jenn's house until 3.40pm - one of the few things that Jay1, Jay2, Jay3, ... and Jenn are all consistent about - and Jay had the cellphone until then. This seems very unlikely, given that the cellphone was used to call Jenn's landline before that, and not from a tower covering Jenn's house.)
  
• She was very close to Jay. ("Girlfriend?" "Not really. But very close.")
  
• She certainly had opportunity to coordinate her testimony with Jay.
  

[barmar]

What's a podcast?

Are you asking seriously, or just pretending to be a transplant from the 20th century?

[gwnn]

This requires Adnan and Jay to conspire to cooperate with this murder. I cannot believe that the police thought (a) that the two of them conspired to murder Hae and (b) only ever charged Jay with accessory after the fact.

That's a good point, and one I didn't think about until now. Probably what happened was that Jay knew that he did a lot more than accessory after the fact but was trying to make the policemen as confused as possible while still giving them enough info to look like he is on their side. The 2:36 call is inconsistent with both Hae talking to Summer and with the short duration. It's also inconsistent with the time Jay said (3:40??), etc.

 

I agree that Jay gave the police reasons to believe him. I think he mentioned details about how she was buried, and he ("eventually", according to one court document) lead them to the car. I also agree that it is unlikely that two experienced police detectives would fall into such extreme confirmation bias, and wrongly pursue the ex-boyfriend, rather than the drug dealer who admits to helping bury the body.

Great, it seems like we agree on most things then. Even:

But you also have to admit that against the unlikelihood of the opposite happening: if Jay was basically telling the truth, how likely would it be that

- he would lie about so many things - both small things, and big things. His timeline initially made no sense at all; even his timeline to which he testified at trial is completely contradicted by cellphone records,

I hope by completely contradicted you mean "the sequence in his timeline in the trial is completely sure to be less than 100% true" and not "it is completely sure to be 0% true". If the former, I am right there with you. If you mean the second one, I disagree since you still have Leaking Park and the Nisha call (not the location but Adnan being with him). I am not buying the butt dial thing.

- that the prosecution would never be able to come up with a story that would even come close to matching the cellphone records (even after modifying Jay's timeline). See http://viewfromll2.com/2015/01/12/serial-the-failure-of-the-prosecutions-cellphone-theory-in-one-simple-chart/

 

I don't even know what the most likely timeline is, and whether it's plausible.

Me neither... Quite a useful article though. Still, a part of Jay changing locations randomly can be explained through a confusing/stressful situation for him and just cloudy memory. If they're driving around for drugs, it's to be expected that he doesn't know which roads they're on at what time. Things like the Patapsco state park might be just him messing up the days/times. I know that this is a very charitable interpretation on my part, but it is probably just about plausible. It is still frustrating either way, as Jay is at best a guy who willingly aided a murderer, stayed silent for six weeks, then comes clean but with so many inconsistencies that he almost botches the whole case and lets the murderer free, and at the very worst he's someone who killed his friend's gf and framed him for it. Neither version is exactly from a Disney movie.

As for Jenn's testimony:

• She clearly lied about some things. (According to her, both Jay and Jenn were at Jenn's house until 3.40pm - one of the few things that Jay1, Jay2, Jay3, ... and Jenn are all consistent about - and Jay had the cellphone until then. This seems very unlikely, given that the cellphone was used to call Jenn's landline before that, and not from a tower covering Jenn's house.)
  
• She was very close to Jay. ("Girlfriend?" "Not really. But very close.")
  
• She certainly had opportunity to coordinate her testimony with Jay.
  

Of course, she was lying or twisting the truth to a certain extent too. But it's one thing for her to talk to Jay and make the details match and another thing to be OK with lying about Jay naming Adnan on the 13th. To me, that is directly implicating Adnan and sending a possibly innocent man to prison, it's not the same as changing a detail here or there. All that this proves (if it proves anything) is, of course, only that Jay told Jen on the 13th that Adnan killed Hae, which would mean that either Jay set out framing Adnan from the get-go or that he doesn't lie about the main point of his testimony.

 

Plus there's also Chris and the porn dude (still don't know his name) who both said that Jay specifically mentioned Adnan killing Hae the days after the murder. As far as I remember, neither of them testified to police, so maybe they are only inserting these things after the fact, but Chris's memories, even from 2014, seemed very detailed, although this time it's about a pool hall and not Jen's house! lol.

 

Sorry for a bunch of rambling! I will close by mentioning I got a bad feeling today when I listened to Adnan explaining that he used to be or still is frustrated with people accepting that he could be a murderer. He says (ep. 6, starting about 35:20) "It would be different if there was a videotape of me doing it, or there was like you know, Hae fought back and all this stuff of me, like DNA, and scratches, and stuff like that, you know what I'm saying, or if someone saw me leaving with Hae that day, like three people saw me..." The part "{if} Hae fought back" really made me uncomfortable, the way he was saying it, that sounded like he knows she did not fight back. I know that people tend to over-think these things, and think they can deduce everything from half a word or a "microexpression" so I will not say I am convinced or swayed by this but as kenberg said in another thread, people are not logical creatures fundamentally. I read a lot of this psycho babble online about Adnan and Jay and I discard most of it instantly, but this one was the first one that caught me. Maybe time for me to stop relistening to the podcast?

 

PS: the more I think about Adnan not remembering absolutely anything about that day seems incredibly weird. He not only lends out his car and phone, but goes to track practice, smokes weed with a bunch of people, talks to the police about one of his best friends going missing, all this before going to the mosque, then maybe meets with Jay again, or some combination of these things, and you don't remember anything from this? I don't know but that seems like a pretty eventful day to me.

[cherdano]

Try matching up one of Jay's timelines with the cellphone location data. It really does not work.

I mean, even if you believe the Nisha call places Jay and Adnan together, then that contradicts one of the few things both Jay and Jenn are very consistent about, namely that they were at Jenn's house until about 3.40pm.

[cherdano]

PS: the more I think about Adnan not remembering absolutely anything about that day seems incredibly weird. He not only lends out his car and phone, but goes to track practice, smokes weed with a bunch of people, talks to the police about one of his best friends going missing, all this before going to the mosque, then maybe meets with Jay again, or some combination of these things, and you don't remember anything from this? I don't know but that seems like a pretty eventful day to me.

Isn't there a third explanation for that, though? Maybe Adnan knows enough about Jay's plans for that day that he can puzzle things together. But like others who haven't been talking to the police or Sarah Koenig, he is still afraid of the actual murder.

The more I read about Jay and Jenn, the more I am reminded about something else Adnan said. (I am paraphrasing, as I can't look up transcripts right now.) Sarah asks why he isn't more upset about the whole situation, and he replies: "Well, it's my fault, if I had been a good Muslim, if I hadn't become friends with these people, then Hae would still be alive." Isn't that a weird thing to say? Unless it is the truth?

[cherdano]

Susan Simpson is really impressive:

Evidence that Jay’s Story was Coached to Fit the Cellphone Records

[gwnn]

Try matching up one of Jay's timelines with the cellphone location data. It really does not work.

I mean, even if you believe the Nisha call places Jay and Adnan together, then that contradicts one of the few things both Jay and Jenn are very consistent about, namely that they were at Jenn's house until about 3.40pm.

I already said that it does not fully match, but I don't think the cell records demonstrate that none of it matches. I ask you again: what did you mean by "completely contradicted?" Do you mean that it is known that all of the storyline items are false or do you mean that it is known that at least some items are false? I think none of Jay's timelines are completely true, but I could* chalk it up to the following factors:

-Jay just doesn't remember accurately, it has been 6 weeks and he was shocked what he'd been going through.

-He's conflating things that he and Adnan planned and things that actually happened.

-The police are trying to make sense of the various pieces of information and make him say things that did not happen (in the process making his testimony less and less contradictory perhaps but also less and less true).

-He is protecting some people, chief among them himself. He says he also wanted to protect his grandma. Well, no, I do not buy that. But maybe defend people like Stephanie or Jen who might have more to do with it (maybe knew about what was going to happen before) than we know? For example, he told Chris that he'd been hanging out at a pool hall and not Jen's when he was called by Adnan (in person?!). Maybe he did not want to tell the police who he was hanging out with at the pool hall because he was there with some drug-related people and stuck to Jen instead.

 

*-of course, that is not how it's supposed to work in a court of law, giving various excuses for the witness to see if you can convict the defendant. But I assume we are more talking about various scenarios available to make sense of what's going on with Jay, and not what we'd vote for on jury duty. The latter is very likely not guilty for both of us.

Isn't there a third explanation for that, though? Maybe Adnan knows enough about Jay's plans for that day that he can puzzle things together. But like others who haven't been talking to the police or Sarah Koenig, he is still afraid of the actual murder.

And he refused to say anything about the actual murderer in his trial, to SK, refused to even hint at this? All he managed to do is say 'pathetic' to Jay? He also did not warn Hae, nothing?

The more I read about Jay and Jenn, the more I am reminded about something else Adnan said. (I am paraphrasing, as I can't look up transcripts right now.) Sarah asks why he isn't more upset about the whole situation, and he replies: "Well, it's my fault, if I had been a good Muslim, if I hadn't become friends with these people, then Hae would still be alive." Isn't that a weird thing to say? Unless it is the truth?

It is a weird thing to say no matter what. When I first heard it it seemed like he meant he lent out his car to the wrong people, but that still doesn't quite explain what went down. It would mean that Jay and the conspiracy decided from day 1 to go ahead and frame Adnan (hoping, I guess, that he would not have an alibi or anything helpful), wait for Stephanie's birthday, ask for the car, kill Hae, bury her, hang out with Adnan conspicuously, act strangely, tell a few of your friends immediately that Hae is dead but you are committing perjury instead (hoping they will not go to the cops just yet but only let you do it in 6 weeks when Adnan forgot where he was), ... Does this sound plausible?

 

Saying "It's my fault, if I had been a good Muslim, if I hadn't become friends with these poeple, Hae would be alive" could just mean that a good Muslim doesn't fall in love with Korean areligious magnet girls. Of course that does not explain the "friends with these people" part but I don't quite know what to make of that anyway.

 

A more harmonious way of explaining it could be one of the scenarios that I see online, like Hae finding out about Jay cheating on Stephanie and him killing her in a snap judgement, but that really sounds like a soap opera (is Hae the only person on the planet who knew he cheated on Stephanie? if not, will you kill all of them?). There was a suggestion that Adnan and Jay got in way over their heads in the drug market and something went wrong and the solution was to kill Hae, but I don't quite know why that would be the solution to anything. I would expect if a drug dealer is cross at Adnan, killing him would be a much more normal course of action than framing him for murder with a very flimsy case where you got lucky he got convicted. Furthermore, if Jay was friends with that sort of godfathers, would the police not known about him? They could have made him for much more information than just the location of a missing car. But of course, if Adnan is guilty, then he knows that saying "I'm innocent for murder, but I know that I could have avoided this tragedy by being a better Muslim" will get a lot of brownie points from basically all sides of the spectrum (from the religious people, from the listeners, maybe even from a possible future jury).

[cherdano]

I don't want to argue about your full post, but I do want to give some context that I guess you might be unaware of.

He says he also wanted to protect his grandma. Well, no, I do not buy that. But maybe defend people like Stephanie or Jen who might have more to do with it (maybe knew about what was going to happen before) than we know? For example, he told Chris that he'd been hanging out at a pool hall and not Jen's when he was called by Adnan (in person?!).

He did not say he wanted to protect his grandma. He said that he ran his operation out of his grandma's house, and he wanted to protect his family.

 

The context is the following: using the Maryland Judiciary Case Search, you can find many people with the same last name as Jay, who have a much longer criminal record than him. They all list the same address, and when a bond is posted, it is often in the grandmother's name. Most of the charges are drug-related (and no, typically not Marijuana, and frequently not just possession), but also include assault of the second degree. Certainly sounds like people more likely to be scared off than vague Pakistani uncles. In one of the cases (with a lot of drug dealing charges) Jenn is a co-defendant, in another she bails out one of the defendants.

Some of the cellphone location data matches the location of that address, including at a time when Adnan was most likely at track practice.

 

I don't see why you need to make such an elaborate theory of how Hae was killed. Maybe she saw Adnan's car, walked up to the car - while Jay and XYZ were involved in a drug deal, and XYZ didn't like being approached like that. Who knows?

 

I have no idea why the police didn't pursue these connections (some of the charges predate the muder of Hae). But the 3rd party theory isn't as crazy as it sounds. It's a murder in Baltimore, in which some close to the case are still afraid of speaking out 15 years later, and in which the person who we know to be partially involved has a lot of drug connections. "Something involving drugs" is one of the likeliest a priori explanations, not a crazy one.

Meanwhile, "Lending your drug dealer your car so he can buy a birthday present, after you have made trips around town together earlier that day" is a not-so-credible statement...

 

I also think your trust in the police is misplaced. THEY DIDNT EVEN INTERVIEW EVERYONE CALLED FROM ADNAN'S CELLPHONE ON THE DAY OF THE MURDER!

[cherdano]

Btw, there is another reason why the police would want to believe Jay: his testimony gave them serious charges against someone with drug connections...

[billw55]

I have not listened to this program, but it sounds interesting. I am curious. Is this presented as containing information that was not given at trial? Essentially, is it new investigation, or just a rehash of what the jury got?

[gwnn]

"Something involving drugs" is one of the likeliest a priori explanations, not a crazy one.

Meanwhile, "Lending your drug dealer your car so he can buy a birthday present, after you have made trips around town together earlier that day" is a not-so-credible statement...

I'm not sure about this (drug-related killing of an innocent bystander vs jealous rage of a 17 year old). Hae did write in her journal that Adnan is possessive, called her the devil (in jest), she told him that he should respect her break up decision because he's not doing so at the moment, and he wrote "I WILL KILL" on this letter. Plus many of the people from the mosque contacted SK saying they thought there's something wrong with Adnan. Yes as against that, Jay once tried to stab his buddy to show him how it feels like. Suffice it to say I would rather not be the best friend of either person, but at least you have to admit that the prosecution motive makes sense (sure, motive is not that important).

 

About not lending out your car to a drug dealer: Well, but that is one of the few things Adnan actually does remember from the day. I agree it's an unlikely thing to occur, but apparently that's what Adnan would have us believe. Maybe he's just trying to distance himself from Jay but in any case it's almost certainly clear to me that Adnan is lying about what really happened. Again it's either to protect his loved ones or to protect himself or both, but the accused clearly lying cannot be a source for exculpating him, not in court and not in this informal discussion.

[gwnn]

I have not listened to this program, but it sounds interesting. I am curious. Is this presented as containing information that was not given at trial? Essentially, is it new investigation, or just a rehash of what the jury got?

90% a rehash. They also ask some people that talked to the police but weren't invited to the trial and add some information that is interesting (for example on the guy who found her body). The Innocence Project is involved now and they are pushing for a DNA test for some items that were found next to Hae's body because a serial killer who has a similar modus operandi was on the loose at that time. One of the things the show is good at though is Sarah Koenig's presentation of the information, which is much more concise and understandable than Cristina Gutierrez (the defense lawyer). She often comments on how confusing and incoherent CG's arguments were, so the jury probably did not understand the biggest flaws in the case. Some people call SK blatantly biased or driven by an agenda but I disagree. She is clearly very invested in the case and is most of the time on Adnan's side, but she is constantly giving counterarguments to him or to herself. She also seems to treat Jay fairly when she comes to talking about him, so the impression that she's on Adnan's side is probably simply because she spends most of the time speaking about him, and she just has a positive way of presenting people.

[Mbodell]

I have not listened to this program, but it sounds interesting. I am curious. Is this presented as containing information that was not given at trial? Essentially, is it new investigation, or just a rehash of what the jury got?

 

I'd say it is closer to 50/50. They reinvestigate things that weren't presented at trial and try to hunt down witnesses, facts about the case, technology and much more. They also bring in several outside experts to comment on the case. They are also very even handed in the presentation, making it much more about the facts and circumstances and much less about a single persuasive POV. It is well worth listening to.

[cherdano]

[Long post. Even if you aren't interested in Serial itself, the link to viewfromll2 about serious misconduct by two Baltimore police detectives is worth reading - if you are prepared to learn about another case of truly outrageous police behaviour.]

 

FWIW, I am now much closer in the "Adnan is almost certainly innocent camp". As a public service, let me list some things I have learned in the last few months that made me more convinced Adnan is innocent (in random order):

 

- The medical evidence (most of this can be found in many many posts on the evidenceprof blog): Hae must have been lying on her back for many hours before the burial, making a 7pm burial all but impossible, and also making it unlikely that she was lying on her side in her car's trunk for more than a short while. It also seems very unlikely that she was killed in her car.

 

- Evidence of police wrong-doing: the detectives involved in the crime have been accused of extremely serious, intentional and malicious wrong-doing in other cases (outright lies, Brady violations, witness coercion, intentionally ignoring evidence that runs counter to the theory that would allow them to close the case as fast as possible); Ritz was involved in no less than three convictions that were later overturned, see http://viewfromll2.com/2015/04/03/serial-the-above-average-investigations-of-detectives-ritz-and-macgillivary/ . This means everything coming from the police files (which was essentially the base for the complete "Serial" storytelling) has to be taken with a much bigger grain of salt that we have assumed previously. Say a witness was interviewed, but there are no notes in the police files about the interview: it would have been reasonably to assume that the witness had nothing useful to say; given Ritz' track record, it is equally plausible to think that the witness' testimony would be exonerating for Adnan.

 

- Cell phone evidence: well, there just isn't much there. Aside from the fact that a burial at 7pm is very unlikely, the infamous L689B tower in all likelihood never provided reception at the burial spot; it also would be likely tower to connect to from many streets in the neighbourhood South of Leakin' Park.

 

- Alibi: aside from Aisha's testimony seeing Adnan in the Library after 2.30pm, it also seems very likely that Adnan attended track practice that day, from 3.30pm on. That would make it very difficult for him to commit the murder before practice; given Hae didn't show up to pick up her cousin, that pretty much rules him out.

 

- The Nisha call: Susan Simpson also spotted a call in Adnan's cellphone records (from much later) that matches Nisha's description of the call (where she talked to Adnan and Jay, who said they were at the video store Jay worked at) very well.

[PassedOut]

From the Post: ‘Serial’ creators talk season two and why online forums can be ‘sort of horrible’

 

Suddenly the water cooler talk and its digital equivalents revolved around Syed’s guilt or innocence. Sides were taken, speculation abounded. And just like that, “Serial” cracked the code of podcast success, spurring the kind of conversation that surrounds “Game of Thrones” or “The Walking Dead.”

:)

[Phil]

Season 2 in full swing.

 

Anyone listening?

[PassedOut]

Victim’s Family ‘Disappointed’ by Adnan Syed’s Retrial

 

Mr. Syed, whose case was chronicled in the first season of the hit podcast “Serial,” was granted a retrial on Thursday by Judge Martin P. Welch of the Baltimore City Circuit Court. It was a major victory for an inmate who has maintained his innocence for almost two decades. He has served 16 years of a life sentence after being convicted in 2000 of first-degree murder and kidnapping.

 

On Friday, Mr. Syed’s lawyer, C. Justin Brown, said on Twitter that his client had been “informed of the decision.” At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Brown said of the possibility that Mr. Syed might eventually be freed: “I’m feeling pretty confident right now. This was the biggest hurdle. It’s really hard to get a new trial.”

[Winstonm]

I really don't care about guilt or innocence - the question to me is "Did he deserve a retrial?" If he did, then his legal guilt or legal non-guilt will be found there.

[cherdano]

Wow, blast from the past. By now, I am completely in the "he is innocent" camp, for many reasons.