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Serial Research Paper

Alex Dapp
English 12 Honors
Glenelg High School

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Serial Research Paper

January 13th, 1999. It seemed like a quiet day around the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland.
Woodlawn High School just let out and students walked towards to their buses or cars to go back
home. Some stayed after school to hang out friends, to be in their respective clubs, or to practice
in sports. However, it turns out to not be a normal day. Adnan Syed, a respectable and athletic
senior, picked up a ride from Hae Ming Lee, a pretty and innocent girl, but also the ex-girlfriend
of Adnan. In about 20 minutes, Adnan Syed strangled her in her car supposedly at the Best Buy
parking lot. He quickly put her in the trunk of her car and called his acquaintance Jay, saying that
he is ready to be picked up. They both travel around in Haes car, looking for weed. Once they
were done smoking, Jay dropped Adnan off at track practice around 4-4:30 pm. After practice,
they both buried Haes body at Linkin Park in Baltimore. Days after, Jays girlfriend Jenn told
police that Jay told her Adnan killed Hae. After Jay gives an interview, Adnan was arrested on
February 28th. Adnan Syed was soon charged and soon convicted of first-degree murder, with the
sentence of life in prison. During and after the trial, he stated that he is innocent and had nothing
to do with the murder. However, Adnans pleas of innocence could be justified.
With opinions ranging from undoubtedly guilty to reasonably innocent, the popular
podcast channel, Serial, covered the topic of Adnans guiltlessness. Sarah Koenig, an
investigative reporter and producer of the show, spent years studying the case of Adnan. She
made connect to him through calling him through the prison phone service. There, they discuss
the day of the murder, the relationships Adnan had, the trial, and life in prison. Overall, she
thought he sounded like a nice guy that would never commit a murder that disturbing. Anyhow,
she also had many interviews with other people who had previous relationships and interactions

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with Adnan. This included the jurors of the trial, the mother and brother of Adnan, a law
professor that studies psychology, and multiple friends, including the key witness Jay.
During the investigation, there was noticeably a lack of physical evidence from the
scenes of crime. Even the little amounts of evidence the prosecution found were very far-fetched.
For example, the prosecution found a map with a fingerprint over the page that mentioned Linkin
Park, where he and Jay buried Haes body. However, there was a couple of slight misstep.
Koenig said, that page didnt have Adnans prints on it. His palm print was only on the back
cover of the book. Plus, thirteen other, unidentified prints turned up on and in the map book.
None of them matched Adnan, or Jay. So, the prints werent exactly conclusive (Koenig, 2014).
It is possible that the prosecution stretched the truth for certain amounts of evidence. The map
with the fingerprints, which was the only physical evidence linked to Adnan, could have been
used some other time. The map could have been used by Adnan because he would ask Hae for a
ride a couple times after school when he didnt have a ride back home, according to some of his
friends back at Woodlawn High School. Also, the States claim of a motive of the murder is a
little vague. The claim throughout the trial on why Adnan killed Hae is because he felt
betrayed by Hae after they broke up, and as a result, planned to murder her. However, Koenig
thinks this claim made by the court is underwhelming and erroneous. She interviewed many of
Adnans friends and teachers and most of them said that he hoped the best for her and had mutual
respects to each other. Adnan actually paged and called Hae in a few occasions after their break
up. Hae had a boyfriend and Adnan would date other people. Adnans brother said, She had
already started dating another guy, and I was like, Adnans dating multiple girls! I was like 'I
can tell you some of the girls that hes dating.' I was like 'he is not upset about him and Hae
breaking up.'"(Koenig, 2014). It seems like Adnan moved on from his breakup from his longtime

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girlfriend and started to see other people. There seemed to be no obvious emotions and reactions
that Adnan was disturbed by his separation and wanted to harm Hae. This leads to the next piece
of evidence that goes with Adnans innocence claim.
On March 1, 1999, the day after Adnans arrest, this girl named Asia McClain wrote him
the first of many letters that had details that would change the outlook of Adnans innocence. She
said in the first letter that between 2:30 pm and 2:45 pm, she remembers talking to him at the
Woodlawn Public Library, right across from the high school. She added in the letter saying,
Throughout youre actions that day I have reason to believe in your innocence (McClain,
1999). When Asia described the afternoon of January 13th at the library in later letters and
interviews, she said that she saw Adnan on the computer and started talking to him for a good
amount of time. By then, her boyfriend Justin shows up and both her and Justin leave the library.
This is a huge piece of evidence because the States time window of when Hae was between 2:15
pm and 2:36 pm. Asia said that they both left the library around 2:40 p.m. Therefore, they had a
conversation throughout the timetable of the murder. Mysteriously through, Adnans lawyer,
Christina Gutierrez, never brought the Asia letters to the jury. For that, Adnan never got the key
witness he needed in order to be innocent.
Another reason why Adnan is innocent is because of the multiple inconsistencies that
plagued Jays testimony and police interviews. In his first interview, Jay said that he and Adan
were at the Westview Mall and Adnan said to him that he was going to kill Hae. In the second
interview, Jay said they were at the Security Square Mall. In the trial, he said while going to the
Square Mall, Adnan said his deed to Jay. Regardless of story, he dropped off Adnan at school and
borrowed Adnans car and phone (Adnan would say to Koenig that did happen). Then he gets a
call from Adnan to meet him at a strip. When Jay shows up and meets Adnan, Adnan shows

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Haes body. In the second interview and trial, he said that he got a call from Adnan saying
Come and get me, Im at Best Buy. There, he shows Jay the body. In the first and second
interview, Jay shares a descriptive story of when he and Adnan went to Patapsco State Park to
smoke a blunt for 30 minutes. In trial, this story at the park seemingly disappeared. Then there
are little discrepancies in his stories between the cops and the jury here and there. This is a sign
that Jay could be protecting himself from any trouble to since he buried the body with Adnan as
well, so he twisted the facts to make it look like Adnan was an sadistic person and is not a nice
person like everyone says. Obviously though, Jay's testimony ended up being the key part of the
trial, since the Asia letters weren't present at the trial. However, Jay's timeline of events didn't
even follow the cell phone records.
According to the Adnan's call log on the day of January 13th, there were 34 calls made on
his phone. So when these calls were mostly identified on who called and at what time, Sarah
Koenig and her producer Dana Chivvis decided to test out the State's official timeline of events
made that day. The result was that they started to become inconsistent later on during the
investigation and that some calls didn't ping the right cell towers. For example, Koenig mentions
that, "... prosecutors did not point out that the cell towers didn't match [with the story]" (Koenig,
2014). At moments during the trial, Jay would say that he made a specific call at one location at a
specific time, but the problem is that it didn't hit the cell tower that it was supposed to. For
example, between the times of 3:21 pm and 3:59 pm, there were our calls made to Adnan's
phone. The problem is that where the calls were made doesn't match the cell tower that it was
supposed to. Koenig said, "Its pinging a tower back near the Best Buy, west of where we are"
(Koenig, 2014). Unfortunately, Adnan's attorney didn't exactly analysis the piece of evidence as

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specific as she could of, so the evidence was taken for granted. Was this piece of evidence of Jay
was him getting his facts wrong, or was this part of a fabrication?
This next piece of evidence that support Adnan's claim is that the routes of the
"supposed" murder that were described by Jay were illegitimate and didn't make any sense. Jay
told the police of the roads they took after the murder of Hae, including the times and visuals of
the day. Koenig, along with her producer, tried out these routes by exactly replicating the story
the State gives and with other interviews with Jay by police. When they tried the first part, which
was going from Woodlawn High School to the "phone booth" of Best Buy in twenty-two minutes
and two seconds (from the final bell to the phone booth call by Adnan). To their surprise, they
were able to achieve this feat. However, after discussing about the situation, they said that this is
far-fetched because then this leaves no room for error or breaks, on top of that the minimalist
time for strangling Hae and carrying her body into the trunk of her car. Not to mention that
carrying the body of a dead woman to the trunk could be a risky move since the scene is at a
parking lot mid-afternoon. After their discussion, they continued on with their trip. When they
went to the 1-70 Park and Ride, it only took at least eleven minutes to drive there and the
movements of Adnan took a little more time. Jay told police that at that time, he called a friend,
Patrick, for some marijuana. While his call is on the log, it is way later than anticipated, at 3:59
p.m. Then the next leg of the reenactment was to go to Patapsco State Park so they can go smoke
weed. However, the drive to the park is a twenty-minute drive, which is way too long of a drive,
considering Adnan needs to be at track practice at four. Koenig describes, "...say its
between 3:45 and 3:50 now in their world. If I'm Adnan and I need to be seen for track, I'm
freaking out right now, that I need to get back for track to have an alibi. So whats this 'oh, let's
just drive halfway across the county to go to a state park to smoke a blunt?' Just smoke in your

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car!" (Koenig, 2014). If Adnan even did the murder, he would probably want to have a witness
claiming he is at track, so he won't be considered suspiciously missing. When they get to the
park, they make note that Jay's story was very descriptive, saying the sun was on top of the hill
tops. However, it is noted that this story of going to Patapsco Park was missing during the trial,
presumably to make Jay's story fit the timeline. Then what was the point of the story if it didn't
matter to the murder or trial. After Koenig and Chivvis were done with their routes, they figured
how indefinite the routes are when matched with the cell towers and log. Then, there are
situations that go against Adnan.
They say that a distinct call during the "trip" raised a red flag over Adnan's innocence. A
friend named Nisha was either called or called by Adnan in the middle of the afternoon of
January 13th. The reason why this is possible evidence against him is because supposedly Adnan
gave Jay the phone during the call, proving Adnan was with Jay during the time scheme of the
murder. As a result, Nisha went up onto the podium during trial. She described the call being at
an adult video store where Jay worked and Adnan gave the phone to Jay to say hi. However, the
problem with this is that she mostly likely thinking about another call because Jay didn't work at
that store until the end of January, which means this story can be discredited. If Nisha, Adnan, or
Jay doesn't have a clear understanding of why the two minute and twenty-two second call went
on, then this story should not be reliable evidence.
The amount of evidence that is not against Adnan Syed is staggering, which makes
Adnan not culpable. His nice and generous attitude is a completely unreasonable contrast to a
murderous and vengeful man that can plan the perfect murder. Before the "murder", he never
committed any offense, so why would he commit this heinous crime out of the blue? There is a
lack of DNA or physical evidence and Jay's story is a tangled and misguided mess that involves

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miscalculations and inconsistencies. The proof that goes along this is the call log from Adnan's
cell phone and the recreation of the routes. Unfortunately, his story of the murder convinced the
jury enough to indict him for first-degree murder and send him to life in jail. This innocent,
seventeen year old from Baltimore, Maryland went from a seemingly normal day to life in a
confined space. Adnan Syed, a "heartless murderer", is sadly locked up for a crime he didn't
commit.

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Bibliography

Koenig, S. (Producer). (2014, October 3). The alibi [Show #1]. Serial. Podcast retrieved from
https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
Koenig, S. (Producer). (2014, October 3). The breakup [Show #2]. Serial. Podcast retrieved from
https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
Koenig, S. (Producer). (2014, October 16). Inconsistences [Show #4]. Serial. Podcast retrieved
from
https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
Koenig, S. (Producer). (2014, October 23). Route talk [Show #5]. Serial. Podcast retrieved from
https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
Koenig, S. (Producer). (2014, October 30). The Case Against Adnan Syed [Show #6]. Serial.
Podcast
retrieved from https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
McClain, A. (1999, March 1). [Letter to Adnan Syed]. Asia Letters.