The Case Against Adnan Syed

[Anonymous]

My gut tells me that he is innocent. I think it was Don

[Anonymous]

What about the middle eastern man from the mosque who told the cops to look at Adnan? Wasn't it bc Adnan had confessed to him earlier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I"m 90% on the side he is innocent. There are some hinky things with Adnan and his phone and loaning out his car and Jay stuff that give me slight pause. I don't think Undisclosed covered those things satisfactorily, so I'm eager to see how this less biased documentary covers Jay and Jen and all. I do think the Baltimore police are corrupt and I don't believe their take (though the detective who appeared was more believable than I expected him to be - knowing more about his background, he's part of the problem in this case but he came across as sympathetic and a good cop).

You think Jay lied about seeing Hae's dead body?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I"m 90% on the side he is innocent. There are some hinky things with Adnan and his phone and loaning out his car and Jay stuff that give me slight pause. I don't think Undisclosed covered those things satisfactorily, so I'm eager to see how this less biased documentary covers Jay and Jen and all. I do think the Baltimore police are corrupt and I don't believe their take (though the detective who appeared was more believable than I expected him to be - knowing more about his background, he's part of the problem in this case but he came across as sympathetic and a good cop).

You think Jay lied about seeing Hae's dead body?

He couldn't even remember when or where he saw it. He has different versions of the events each time.

[Anonymous]

I started watching last night and I appreciate the focus on Hae and her life -I felt that the viral popularity of the podcast took attention away from the victim.

I also listened to the Atlanta Monster podcast...I can't help but draw parallels between Adnan and Wayne Williams. There's something similar with how they talk and win people over that is eerie to me. Ultimately I'm not sure if either of them are guilty, but it gives me pause.

[Anonymous]

With all of the revelations about corruption in the Baltimore police force over the past year, I think it entirely possible that Jay's testimony might have been entirely manufactured by the cops. I still think Adnan is the most likely to have committed the crime, but Don is not the only other possibility. Baltimore's crime rate was high (like now) in the 90's and it is possible that Hae was the victim of random violence. What I can't believe is that Adnan got life without parole. That's pretty unheard of in Maryland for a 19 year old. He's been in prison for 18 years and by all accounts, has been a model prisoner. Given the high level of reasonable doubt, I think he has served enough time.

[Anonymous]

One thing that I think was interesting about the HBO series is how it made some things a lot clearer than the podcast did.

For example, Detective Massey notes that someone made an anonymous tip about Adnan. In the podcast, that person is described as "an Asian male" and it is vague whether the person is assumed to be South Asian (e.g., Pakistani, someone in Adnan's community) or East Asian (e.g., Korean, someone in Hae's community). In the HBO series, Detective Massey makes it clear that the anonymous tipster was a young Korean male.

Obviously more will be revealed in coming episodes, but in my listening to the podcast and the episodes of Undisclosed that I listened to (not all of them), I find the following things suspicious:

1) Ex-boyfriend as primary suspect, current boyfriend barely investigated
2) Jay's story changing multiple times in multiple ways
3) Fairly blatant racial focus by prosecution (e.g., denial of bail)
4) Obvious failure of defense counsel to investigate alibi witness for Adnan

I also think that most of the state's case hung on technological evidence that was nowhere near ready for prime time. There was no physical evidence linking Adnan to the crime or the disposal of the body other than his cell phone being generally tracked to the general area where the body was found. The entirety of the state's case falls on the shoulders of Jay's testimony, and Jay's testimony was different every time he gave it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With all of the revelations about corruption in the Baltimore police force over the past year, I think it entirely possible that Jay's testimony might have been entirely manufactured by the cops. I still think Adnan is the most likely to have committed the crime, but Don is not the only other possibility. Baltimore's crime rate was high (like now) in the 90's and it is possible that Hae was the victim of random violence. What I can't believe is that Adnan got life without parole. That's pretty unheard of in Maryland for a 19 year old. He's been in prison for 18 years and by all accounts, has been a model prisoner. Given the high level of reasonable doubt, I think he has served enough time.

17. He was 17 when he was arrested.

[Anonymous]

One thing that hopefully will also be explored in the HBO show is that apparently the cell phone company very explicitly said that location information (the towers) were not reliable for incoming calls. This came out in Undisclosed.

That seems pretty huge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been in the rabbit hole on this since Serial - listening to Undisclosed, reading the blogs, following the case, watching/listening to the hearings.....that said, I'm not an encyclopedia so there are details I'm not 100% firm on.

The issue with Don isn't that it was his mother - it was that his mother was in a same sex relationship, and the manager who approved his timecards was his mother's life partner. But, no one knew this at the time - they just saw he sometimes worked at his mother's store, sometimes at this other store managed by another person, and the day Hae disappeared he was at the other store, signed off by this other manager. The relationship was only discovered publicly AFTER Serial. (I've simplified it a bit, but that's the gist).

There have been other discoveries, too, and the HBO special will cover them, as well as some new things. (like the whole Debbie/Don thing - it never quite made sense in Serial - a 7 hour conversation, what? but is clearer now that he was hitting on Debbie). I think the revelations that Hae was sexually abused are also new.

I"m 90% on the side he is innocent. There are some hinky things with Adnan and his phone and loaning out his car and Jay stuff that give me slight pause. I don't think Undisclosed covered those things satisfactorily, so I'm eager to see how this less biased documentary covers Jay and Jen and all. I do think the Baltimore police are corrupt and I don't believe their take (though the detective who appeared was more believable than I expected him to be - knowing more about his background, he's part of the problem in this case but he came across as sympathetic and a good cop).

Who do you think did it?

I really don't know. I am pretty sure Adnan didn't, but not 100% convinced. Rabia has been quoted recently in talking about seeing the reaction to Serial that it showed her that absent driving Adnan absolutely did not do it, or that someone else absolutely did do it, there would always be suspicion on Adnan given the guilty verdict (even though it was all based on flimsy evidence). I honestly think that a lot of the focus on Don is of the possibility he could have done it, rather than he actually did it, if that makes sense. IE, they are showing there was another plausible suspect. Rabia has also been on record she didn't wan tot do to another person what was done to Adnan - flimsy evidence = guilt. But in the absence of someone who is proven to be guilty, I think Adnan stays in jail (especially given the denied appeal). I think Don seems like a likelier suspect than Adnan, but I can't say for sure he did it. This case is squirrelly all over - hell, the dud who found her body is cagey as hell. The detectives are definitely not clean.

Definitely curious to hear more. FYI, Undisclosed is doing special episodes on Mondays - I have the first one in my queue ready to go for my commute home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been in the rabbit hole on this since Serial - listening to Undisclosed, reading the blogs, following the case, watching/listening to the hearings.....that said, I'm not an encyclopedia so there are details I'm not 100% firm on.

The issue with Don isn't that it was his mother - it was that his mother was in a same sex relationship, and the manager who approved his timecards was his mother's life partner. But, no one knew this at the time - they just saw he sometimes worked at his mother's store, sometimes at this other store managed by another person, and the day Hae disappeared he was at the other store, signed off by this other manager. The relationship was only discovered publicly AFTER Serial. (I've simplified it a bit, but that's the gist).

There have been other discoveries, too, and the HBO special will cover them, as well as some new things. (like the whole Debbie/Don thing - it never quite made sense in Serial - a 7 hour conversation, what? but is clearer now that he was hitting on Debbie). I think the revelations that Hae was sexually abused are also new.

I"m 90% on the side he is innocent. There are some hinky things with Adnan and his phone and loaning out his car and Jay stuff that give me slight pause. I don't think Undisclosed covered those things satisfactorily, so I'm eager to see how this less biased documentary covers Jay and Jen and all. I do think the Baltimore police are corrupt and I don't believe their take (though the detective who appeared was more believable than I expected him to be - knowing more about his background, he's part of the problem in this case but he came across as sympathetic and a good cop).

Who do you think did it?

I really don't know. I am pretty sure Adnan didn't, but not 100% convinced. Rabia has been quoted recently in talking about seeing the reaction to Serial that it showed her that absent driving Adnan absolutely did not do it, or that someone else absolutely did do it, there would always be suspicion on Adnan given the guilty verdict (even though it was all based on flimsy evidence). I honestly think that a lot of the focus on Don is of the possibility he could have done it, rather than he actually did it, if that makes sense. IE, they are showing there was another plausible suspect. Rabia has also been on record she didn't wan tot do to another person what was done to Adnan - flimsy evidence = guilt. But in the absence of someone who is proven to be guilty, I think Adnan stays in jail (especially given the denied appeal). I think Don seems like a likelier suspect than Adnan, but I can't say for sure he did it. This case is squirrelly all over - hell, the dud who found her body is cagey as hell. The detectives are definitely not clean.

Definitely curious to hear more. FYI, Undisclosed is doing special episodes on Mondays - I have the first one in my queue ready to go for my commute home.

Np, and I really agree with you. At first, I couldn't get past the "if not Adnan, than who?" but then I started listening to other crime podcasts... and sometimes, it is truly just a super random killing. We all love to hear the statistics that it's the boyfriend/husband or girlfriend/wife, but truly, SO MANY cases go unsolved entirely. So we don't truly know how many crimes are just random acts, we just know that for the solvable ones, it's often a partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My gut tells me that he is innocent. I think it was Don

We thought the same thing when we watched! No proof (thus far) but we had the same gut feeling!

[Anonymous]

Now that Rabia Chaudhry has been outed as an attention grabbing truth spinner, and she probably pulled the wool over Sarah koenig, I lean toward guilty. Seems like the courts agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that Rabia Chaudhry has been outed as an attention grabbing truth spinner, and she probably pulled the wool over Sarah koenig, I lean toward guilty. Seems like the courts agree.

Link?

[Anonymous]

This is a good summary of some of the key things that were in the follow up podcast. I hope they touch on these in the show.

https://ew.com/article/2015/08/24/5-key-finding-undisclosed-serial-adnan-syed/