Guilty as Sin

The breakout podcast Serial is about to be re-hashed on HBO’s The Case Against Adnan Syed. Here’s an analysis of the evidence I did a few years back for a blog piece, updated to reflect the twists and turns since the original show aired.

I’m a former federal prosecutor. I tried to be fair and comprehensive but not neutral because the evidence is so clear. The Maryland prosecutors can’t use social media to argue their case, but I’m long retired from the practice of law and can say what I please. This is the truth as I see it.

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High school seniors Adnan Syed and Hae Lee were involved in an intense, sexual relationship. Thanks to an interview Adnan gave to Serial, we know that their encounters sometimes occurred in a Best Buy parking lot about which more will be said.

Adnan was seventeen years old, and this was his first serious romantic relationship. Hae broke things off sometime in the latter part of December 1999 and immediately became involved with a twenty-year-old man whom she described the night before she died as her “soulmate”. Adnan was aware of the new man in Hae’s life.

Interviewed extensively for the podcast, Adnan claims not to have been overly upset at the breakup with Hae; however, after she tried to break up in November, she wrote the following note to Adnan: “I’m really annoyed that the situation is going the way it is. You know, people break up all the time, your life is not going to end. You’ll move on and I’ll move on, but apparently you don’t respect me enough to accept my decision.” Adnan showed this note to a friend during class and took it home where it was later discovered by the police. At some point after it had been passed back and forth between Adnan and his friend, Adnan wrote “I’m going to kill” on the note.

Adnan kept calling Hae after the breakup, making three short calls around midnight on the night of January 12-13, 1999.

Hae went missing on the afternoon of January 13. Her whereabouts were unknown for almost a month. Hae’s family and friends were frantic with worry, but Adnan claims that he was not particularly concerned, thinking that she had taken off for parts unknown or gone off someplace with her new boyfriend. When Hae went missing, Adnan stopped calling.

Late that afternoon, Hae’s family contacted the police. Between 6:00 and 6:30 that night Adnan took several calls on his cell phone, including one from Hae’s brother and one from the police, both of whom were inquiring about Hae’s whereabouts. A young woman who was present recalls Adnan asking in an agitated voice just before these calls, “What am I going to do? What am I going to say? They’re going to talk to me. What am I supposed to say?”

So Adnan knew on January 13 that Hae had gone missing, and at least one person recalls him being extremely agitated at the prospect of being questioned about her disappearance. Nevertheless, he cannot account in any detail for his whereabouts late that afternoon or evening but rather speculates about what he probably did and where he probably was. He told Serial that it is unreasonable to expect that he would recall his whereabouts on January 13 when questioned in detail by the police six weeks later because there was “absolutely nothing abnormal about that day.” But that is untrue; January 13 was not just another day for Adnan.

Hae’s body was discovered by a passerby in the woods in Leakin Park on February 8. Cell phone and cell tower records show two incoming calls to Adnan’s cell phone, located in or near Leakin Park, shortly after 7:00 PM on January 13.

Adnan’s cell phone records and statements to the police eventually led to Jay Wild. Adnan describes Jay as a casual friend, someone who supplied him with marijuana. He admits hanging out with Jay before and after the murder on January 13. He states that he lent Jay his car that day so Jay could buy a birthday gift for his (Jay’s) girlfriend. He says that he loaned Jay his cell phone that morning so he could could call Jay and arrange to be picked up in the borrowed car after track practice.

Why would Adnan give Jay his brand new cell phone? If Adnan loaned Jay his car so Jay could buy a gift for his girlfriend, why not simply arrange for Jay to pick him up after track practice?

Eventually, Jay told the following to the police:

1) On the morning of January 13, Adnan left school and drove to Jay’s house. They went shopping together and, during this time, Adnan told Jay that he was going to kill Hae. Adnan told Jay that he would tell Hae that his car broke down and ask for a ride in her vehicle where he would kill her.

2) Adnan and Jay agreed that Adnan would lend Jay his car and cell phone so Adnan could arrange to have Jay pick him up after Hae was dead.

3) Later in the afternoon, Adnan called Jay, told him “The bitch is dead” and directed Jay to pick him up at the aforementioned Best Buy parking lot. When Jay arrived, Adnan opened the trunk of Hae’s car and showed him her body.

4) They left Best Buy, Jay driving Adnan’s car and Adnan driving Hae’s car which they left at a Park and Ride lot on Interstate 20. Adnan then had Jay drop him off at track practice so he could be seen at school. Jay later picked him up after practice.

5) Jay and Adnan drove to “Kathy’s” (not her real name) house where they smoked some weed and left following a call to Adnan from the police inquiring about Hae’s whereabouts. They then drove to Jay’s home to pick up shovels, then to the Park and Ride to pick up Hae’s car which still contained her body. They proceeded in the two cars to Leakin Park where they dug a shallow hole. They placed Hae’s body in the grave and covered it with leaves, then disposed of Hae’s car on a grassy hill behind some row houses near Edmondson Avenue. They then drove to the West View Mall where they disposed of the shovels in a dumpster.

Jay’s story is corroborated in many critical respects:

1) Jay’s description of Adnan’s plan to secure a ride in Hae’s car is confirmed by Adnan’s friend Christa, who was walking with him between classes on the morning of January 13 and heard him ask Hae if she could give him a ride after school. Adnan also told the police officer who called him later that day that he was supposed to get a ride home from Hae but had been detained at school and that Hae left without him. When Adnan was questioned by police on February 1, he denied this account.

2) Adnan acknowledges that he lent his cell phone to Jay sometime in the morning or around lunch time on January 13 and states that he did not get it back until sometime after track practice ended around 5 PM when Jay picked him up. Between noon and 5 PM on that date there were seven outgoing calls from Adnan’s phone, six of which were to Jay’s friends and one of which was to a girl named Neisha. Neisha was a friend of Adnan’s but not known to Jay. The two-and-a-half-minute call to Neisha was placed at 3:32 PM when, according to Jay, he and Adnan were driving around looking for weed after Adnan showed him the body. Jay recalls Adnan calling Neisha at that time, but Adnan insists that he was at school and could not have made the call. Neisha’s number was on speed-dial and Adnan speculates that it may have been a “butt call” picked up by Neisha’s answering machine, but Neisha testified that the phone in question did not have an answering machine. The call between Neisha and Adnan at 3:32 PM on Adnan’s phone contradicts Adnan’s testimony that he did not have possession of the phone and didn’t leave school until track practice was over.

3) Adnan, Jay and “Kathy” all agree that Adnan and Jay visited Kathy’s apartment around 6 PM. There are three calls to Adnan’s phone during this period that pinged a cell phone tower near Kathy’s home at 6:07 PM, 6:09 PM and 6:24 PM. One call was from Hae’s brother who was calling to see if Adnan knew where Hae was, and one was from the police officer who asked the same question. Kathy recalls Adnan saying in a panicky way “What am I going to do? What am I going to say? They’re going to talk to me. What am I supposed to say?”

4) Sarah Koenig, the host of Serial, and her producer exhaustively studied the cell records and tried to match the phone call log, cell tower pings and Jay’s testimony. There are many discrepancies between Jay’s testimony and the cellular data for the period before the police contacted Adnan at 6:24 PM. But she concludes the following as to what the records show for the period after the police contact re Jay’s testimony that he and Adnan left Kathy’s house to bury Hae at Leakin Park, ditched her car near Edmondson Avenue and then headed back to West View where they threw evidence into a dumpster: “If you map the cell towers that ping between 6:24 and 8:05 PM, if you imagine each tower lighting up, they do illuminate this trail. They support the locations in Jay’s story.”

5) Adnan’s cell phone records also led police to Jennifer Pousateri, a friend of Jay’s but not of Adnan. According to Jennifer, she hung around with Jay in the early afternoon of January 13 and agreed to meet up with him later that day. Cell phone records placing Adnan’s phone in Leakin Park show two incoming calls at 7:09 and 7:16 PM which is when and where Jay says they were burying the body. Jennifer testified that she made one of those calls looking for Jay and that Adnan answered the call. According to Jennifer, Adnan hurriedly told her that Jay would call later and arrange to be picked up. Adnan denies being in Leakin Park but concedes that he is pretty sure he had his phone with him after track practice, something confirmed by the fact that the police reached him at that number at 6:24 PM. Koenig summarizes: “So according to Adnan he was with the phone, and twice that night the phone pinged the tower near Leakin Park.”

6) Jennifer states that she drove to pick up Jay around 8 PM at the Westview Mall parking lot where she saw Jay and Adnan together in Adnan’s car. Once in Jennifer’s car, Jay, who appeared upset, related substantially the same set of events he would later describe to the police albeit subject to some significant inconsistencies (e.g., Jay told Jennifer he did not help Adnan dispose of the body). Jennifer and Jay drove around a while and then returned to Westview Mall where Jay recovered the shovels used to bury Hae and wiped down the handles to remove fingerprints.

7) Jay was able to lead police to Hae’s abandoned car whose location was unknown to the police until then.

Although Adnan generally denies Jay’s version of the events, he acknowledges that he lent his car and cell phone to Jay on the day of the murder and that he was together with Jay at school (i.e., before the murder) and late in the afternoon and early evening of January 13 (i.e., after the murder).

There are several additional points that need to be addressed: the State’s timeline, the alibi witness who was never interviewed by the defense, the cell tower records and the truthfulness of Jay’s account.

1) The prosecution timeline has Adnan leaving school with Hae at 2:15 and calling Jay at 2:36 PM from a phone booth at Best Buy to tell him that Hae was dead and arranging for Jay to pick him up. School ended at 2:15 and Adnan’s cell phone records reflect an incoming call at 2:36 PM. In his first interview with Sarah Koenig, Adnan told her that he 100% guaranteed that the timeline could not possibly be met. Koenig and her producer set out to test the time line and “more or less did it in the time allowed” although it was a very tight fit. They concluded that it was possible to fit the events into the timeline.

2) The alibi witness, Asia McClain, contacted Adnan soon after he was arrested and eventually stated that she met him in a nearby public library on the afternoon Hae disappeared and that they chatted together between about 2:15 and 2:40 PM. Adnan provided the information to his attorneys, but Asia was never interviewed or called as a witness. Defense counsel’s notes reflect only that Asia’s information was considered by the defense. Adnan never claimed to have visited the public library when he was interviewed by the police nor, according to defense notes produced during subsequent proceedings, did he ever tell his own defense attorneys that he visited the library on that date. The Court of Appeals of Maryland ultimately found that failure to interview or call this witness did not prejudice the defendant because of the other evidence in the case which contradicted the alibi. Although I do think the ineffective assistance of counsel question is a close one, the strength of the other evidence in the case completely undermines the alibi. If you’re interested in digging through the weeds on this issue, check out the 10-page discussion in the concurring opinion in the Maryland Court of Appeals decision laying out the reasons to believe that the alibi was fabricated.

3) There are more weeds to whack on the issue of the cell tower pings for the two incoming calls that placed Adnan’s cell phone in Leakin Park at the time Jay told the police that he and Adnan were burying Hae’s body there. It turns out that a cover sheet accompanying the cell tower records, never disclosed by the prosecution during trial, states that the records could only be considered reliable for locating outgoing calls. The fact that Jay told police that they received two calls in Leakin Park around 7 PM (one from Jennifer picked up by Adnan) while they were burying the body validates the subsequently produced cell tower record showing two incoming calls in the vicinity of Leakin Park at 7:09 and 7:16 PM. To the same effect, Kathy described incoming calls at around 6 PM (Hae’s brother and the police reaching out to Adnan) while she, Adnan and Jay were at her apartment. A cell tower near the apartment pinged these calls as well. I’m satisfied as to the validity of the location data. If you want more on this, see the opinion of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

4) Finally, we get to the truthfulness of Jay’s account. There is no question that Jay was involved in disposing of Hae’s body, but there were inconsistencies in his shifting account to the police (e.g., when he first learned of Adnan’s intent to kill Hae and where he first saw Hae’s body) and the final version still does not entirely ring true.

Why would Jay agree to help dispose of Hae’s body? The way Jay tells it, Adnan asked Jay on the morning of the crime to help and he agreed. It seems at least as plausible that Adnan enlisted Jay sometime before January 13 and that when Adnan purchased the cell phone two days earlier, the plan was already underway. Why would Jay agree? The most plausible explanation is that Adnan paid or promised to pay him. But where would the money have come from? We now know that, according to a least one witness, Adnan stole significant sums of money from the mosque where he collected donations. Adnan acknowledges that he regularly collected thousands of dollars at the mosque and admits to stealing from the collection although he claims the amounts were small.

And why did Jay lie about where it was that he first saw the body, first telling the police that it was at a drug market near Edmondson Avenue, then telling police it was in the Best Buy parking lot? Maybe the murder happened near Edmondson Avenue where Hae’s car ultimately was recovered and maybe Jay was there when she was killed.

All of this is admittedly speculative. What is not speculative but amply corroborated by independent evidence is that Adnan gave Jay his car and cell phone on the day of the murder, that Jay participated in the disposal of Hae’s body and that Adnan answered his phone while he was with Jay in Leakin Park at the time Jay says they were there burying the body. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Jay did this on his own. The jury’s decision to credit Jay’s testimony should not be lightly disregarded. Whatever the full extent and details of Jay’s culpability, it is not reasonable to conclude that he fabricated Adnan’s involvement in the crime.

And what about the evidence independent of Jay’s testimony? Start with Adnan’s own words (“I’m going to kill”) on Hae’s breakup letter, the lie claiming he never told police that Hae was supposed to give him a ride after school on the day she went missing and the lie justifying his inability to account for his whereabouts (“there was absolutely nothing abnormal about that day”); then the conversation overheard by Christa the morning of January 13 when Adnan asks Hae for a lift that afternoon; the call to Adnan’s friend Neisha from Adnan’s phone when Adnan claims to be at track practice and says the phone is in Jay’s possession; Adnan’s panicky statements overheard by Kathy between 6:00 and 6:30 PM; Jennifer’s call to Jay shortly after 7 PM picked up by Adnan on his phone and traced to Leakin Park; and Jennifer seeing Adnan and Jay in Adnan’s car at around 8 PM at the Westfield Mall where she and Jay later returned to wipe off prints from the shovels used to bury Hae. None of this comes from Jay, and all of it points to Adnan.

Was it innocent coincidence that Adnan wrote the words “I’m going to kill” on Hae’s breakup letter? Was it coincidence that on the day Hae was murdered Adnan lent his car and cell phone to someone who participated in the disposal of her body? Was it coincidence that Adnan called Hae three times around midnight on the night before she was killed but never called her again after she was killed? And was it mere coincidence that put Adnan, Jay and those two shovels together in the Westfield Mall that night? These things all happened. Coincidence upon coincidence upon coincidence isn’t coincidence, it’s murder.

The case has gone through two trials and a whole series of post-conviction hearings and proceedings. In March 2019 the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest judicial authority in that State, finally denied Syed’s motion for post-conviction relief. They got it right.

Hae Min Lee was seventeen when she was strangled to death and left to rot in a hole in the ground. Had she lived she would have been thirty-eight years old today; everything else about the life she might have led can only be imagined.