Hae Min Lee /// Part 2 /// 697 | Forensic Files

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talk some true crime [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] yeah and there's some there's some
interaction and maybe I do need to go back and re-listen to cereal because there's there's the weird interaction
when they're uh when they're in court together where Adnan says something to Jay he calls him pathetic yeah I thought
that was to me that was a little telling right when I'm sitting there in in my my
uh armchair sleuth action right in the armchair right and I'm trying to sleuth this thing out
I've already come to the conclusion based off every everything I've reviewed to that point that that it's one of
three scenarios Adnan J or Adnan and J and that that little interaction to me I thought was rather telling
I thought it it tipped the scales a little bit for me to to believe that it was Adnan
um and and you know look Jay is not he's certainly not trustworthy uh so you always have that in the back of your
mind but in in some weird way Adnan doing it is Jay's alibi but that that little that little exchange
right there one I thought was a little telling it tipped the scales toward Adnan for me
and then there was something which I can't recall at the moment to do with gloves that you know that they some
statement given about gloves that I I felt that it was a statement that Jay gave and that that
it had stuck and it carried so much weight with me that I do need to I believe that I need to go back and
review that for for me the timeline one spot that I thought was incredibly interesting was
this Anonymous phone call that comes in shortly after Heyman Lee's body is discovered in
Lincoln Park and so her body's discovered on February 9th and of course there's there's some
period of time that goes by before before the body is identified but on February 12th the Baltimore City Police
Homicide division received a an anonymous phone call suggesting that the investigators should
focus on Adnan now one do I have that right and two could you guys expand on that a little bit for
The Listener yeah um give me a moment I'm actually trying to pull up the actual timeline to make
sure that's right but so we talked about a little bit earlier that you know they focused on adding on from
the beginning and this was all about railroading him and this sort of idea about this case and that's what you hear
from some people and it seems like it's actually pretty clear that they didn't really focus on
addon until this phone call you're talking about and there was this and I and I got to tell you it is one of those
it is one of those you gotta be careful with rabbit holes in this case because if you let yourself get sucked
down into rabbit holes you'll be lost forever and this is one of those that I would love to know who called
right it's February 12th is when that call comes in the same day by the way that Baltimore has 15 police officers
who spend the entire day canvassing Baltimore looking for that car you know they're looking for that car trying to
find what they think is going to be a vehicle that's going to have a lot of evidence in it
so this phone call comes into them on February 12th it's a few days after Hayes body has been found and yeah it's
an anonymous caller the officer describes them as an Asian male in his notes when they testify about it trial
he actually says he he meant Indian which is interesting because I think when you most people want to hear Asian
they're thinking more sort of Japanese Chinese something along those lines Indian is closer to Pakistani which is
adnons racial background and it makes you wonder is this someone who knows Adnan is it someone from the mosque is
it someone that he might have been friends with a lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to figure out
exactly who that is one thing they absolutely knew was this Yasser Ali guy they say you need to talk to him because
he's going to be able to tell you and the police actually I think they meet him at a at a Pizza Hut or something to
talk through with it and yasser's like yeah you know it was we talked about that he said if he ever you know killed
a girlfriend he would drive her car into a lake or something like that which is such a strange the whole the whole
interaction is strange the fact of the anonymous call the fact the anonymous caller then calls back so he calls says
that you know Adnan and hay had had sex in Lincoln Park in the past which I kind
of doubt because but maybe it is I don't know I don't wanna I don't want to speak for what
goes on in Lincoln Park um and he says the thing about driving the car into the lake and then he calls
back and says you should talk to Yasser Ali and when they talk to Yasser yasha's
like kind of had a conversation like that but not exactly so whoever it was kind of new enough to be dangerous but
maybe didn't know a lot and like I said it's a rabbit hole you can go down but I
don't think you're going to find any answers to it but new enough to send police in the right direction of talking
to somebody that that does say yes we had some kind of bizarre conversation at one point in our
friendship and it sounds like it's it's probably well before the fact that that she's eventually killed but that he says
something to the effect if I ever killed someone or if I ever killed a girlfriend
I would dispose of her of the vehicle in this manner and what's interesting about
it is it really is that is what sets him off an ad on so that happens you know they get this weird phone call that it's
on the 12th on the 15th they're talking to this guy at the Pizza Hut right the next day they pull Adnan cell phone
records and it's when they pull itself on records and they start looking at the phone calls and they see a call that
comes up over and over again and it's Jin pusateri and then they go talk to Jen and Jen says I don't know anything I
don't know anything and they're like they leave and in their notes if you read the notes they're like spoke to Jen
pusateri she doesn't have anything to say and then the next day jyn shows up with her lawyer and her mother and tells
them the story that is going to become the story that we hear over and over and over again
yeah I've never had a conversation with a friend about killing a girlfriend I have had several conversations about
killing a co-host the really bizarre part of that too that like that makes you believe
that that conversation took place one yeah we have Yasser saying that yes that conversation
happened but let's set that aside for a second it's the added detail of not just
like oh we're having this bizarre conversation of killing somebody what if but oh by the way this is how I would
dispose of their vehicle you know it's an added detail that that makes it just ring true
and if if of course you've got to investigate this guy as soon as you learn this detail I mean it would be
foreign Ty and it's very possible that you know he was just talking a big game it's very
possible what I think is really important here is that they didn't know the police didn't know adnan's cell
phone number or to pull his cell phone records before this interaction and so we're talking about what mid-February at
this point it's you know this Cuts against the narrative that the police you know knew she was missing and
immediately zeroed in on Adnan as the main suspect by all accounts they weren't looking at him really with any
seriousness up until this point otherwise they would have probably found some way to subpoena his records much
earlier on well and there's a lot of indicators too to suggest that there was not a whole lot of an investigating
going on until our bodies found it is a concern they're aware that she is air quotes missing she may have gone
to California or whatever but there does not appear from where I'm sitting to just a lot of evidence that suggests
that there was any kind of Hardcore investigation going on to find her and then as you guys said earlier it's
the it's it's the the discovery of her body of her remains that now 180 degrees flips this investigation
and now the importance of finding her vehicle and I think Baltimore treated this like they treat a lot of stuff you
know they've got way too many murders to investigate and way too many probably actual abductions to
investigate to worry about some 18 year old girl who decided to go off you know to California or something I think they
they really and I don't want to be you know we talk about this so much when police do this
when the the initial call comes in and they don't take it seriously and then two weeks later three weeks later four
weeks later you have a murder on your hands and it's really easy to be very critical of the police and say what in
the world were you guys doing why didn't you look into this from the very beginning but it seems like that's the
way the Baltimore Police kind of approached it and I think you're right until she until they found her body
that's when it really starts to ramp up and you see that and you see that with all the searches for the cars sending
out the police the Bolos requesting a helicopter you know all these efforts to find that car because I think they
realized if we find the car we might be able to figure this out the car is going
to be the key and when eventually they would find it when Jay LED them to it well and they're they're hoping to find
clear evidence of who put that car there they they don't believe that their victim was abducted there they don't
believe that their victim um was abducted elsewhere you know that they believed that that car is is
disposed of after the body disposal and they're hoping that what they can find in that vehicle will lead them to
the killer to the same person that put the body in the park and when they don't get that and then
there's also the complication of you're going to find evidence inside of that vehicle that will suggest that ad on
Syed was in that vehicle but of course we would have expected to find we should expect to find evidence that he's been
in that vehicle at some point um because it's because he was um and on days when she wasn't killed
um so yeah they're exactly but but what I see too one thing that I that I always
thought um and one thing I try to point out and I don't know that it's always taken the way that it's supposed to or
even digested properly is that there is a there is a strong psychology in trying to conceal a body and this is an
investigation that really highlights that that psychology of of typically the more
effort that is taken to conceal a body usually means the closer the per the closer connection between Victor victim
and perpetrator and here in in the reason why is because until there is a body found in most
cases there is not that level of investigation and here this clearly points all of that out that someone took
the efforts to to partially bury or or conceal this body to the best of their ability on that day at that night
and it took four weeks to find her and then what happens immediately once she's found the now we have an actual
investigation now we have a hardcore investigation so the the closer the perp is to the
victim the more vested invested they are in the idea of if they never find this person I
probably don't have anything to worry about yeah that's exactly right we see that unfortunately if the victim has a
relationship with the perpetrator there is some attempt to cover the body because you know if this is a random
attack some random passerby let's say her car broke down and you know some near do well happens upon her and they
decide to kill her why not why stick around and risk getting caught with a dead body it's gonna take time to drag
her body into the woods even though it's not very far into the woods to you know
stay there dig a hole to put her body in there probably leaving evidence of you behind
um if if you didn't know this person because a random attacker is really difficult to find but if you're going to
take the risk of covering someone up it's likely that you know there could be ties to you especially if you're an
ex-boyfriend or have any sort of relationship with her there are going to be people who are populated on the
suspect list by mere by mere relation to her right usually family members or anyone close to the per the two close to
the victim will be on an initial suspect list who has to be cleared by the police
and so it makes sense psychology wise to cover up that body and also there's this
strange psychology even if you are the person who is the perpetrator that it's difficult to look at someone you know
that you've had a relationship with Miss in this instance a very close relationship a love relationship in fact
um of seeing that person even if you have very you know hatred feelings toward them to leave them exposed and
open to the elements when they are dead and so that's a that's a great point to raise here that if it were a random
attacker it is it's it it would not fit the typical stereotype of the attacker taking their chances and just running as
opposed to sticking around and maybe getting caught with the body or caught with more evidence what was some of the
evidence that was found at the body recovery site you know we basically skipped over it because there's so
little there's either so little or so much depending on how you look at it so they found you know they found things
like like bullet casings they found which you know sometimes the number of times I've been talking to an officer
about a shooting and they're like yeah the first thing we have to do is sort out the bullet casings from this
shooting from the bullet casings that were left over from the last shooting and figure out which ones go with this
one and which ones go with some other shooting that we didn't investigate so there are things like that there were
things like discarded whiskey bottles I mean one advantage to taking someone to a place like Lincoln Park is the the
potential evidence of of who it was isn't necessarily going to stand out from the evidence that's just there
because it's the kind of place that all kinds of people hang out and do various things and I think you see that when you
go through sort of the evidence list not a lot of it ended up being all that significant you also have to remember
that she was she was there for about a month so when you look when you read Jay's statement he talks about for
instance Adnan throwing up that he's he's throwing up you know around sort of the barrel of the body
and we had some people ask well did they you know did they find that did they test that it's like it was a month later
you know there's it's not going to be left so the thing about the case that I think trips a lot of people up
there's not a lot of physical evidence as you pointed out the fingerprints they're interesting there's some
interesting fingerprints in this case but it's easy to say Adnan was in her car a lot I'll give you a couple
examples there is a map book the map book according to people who knew hey stayed
in her driver's side pocket that's not where the police found it they found in the back seat they found it open it had
end on fingerprints on it and there was a page torn out of it which was a page included the map of Lincoln Park
sitting on that MacBook was a rose wrapped in floral paper on that floral paper were adnan's fingerprints
so those are some fingerprints that are interesting but and and they were they were striking to me and it really stood
out to me and it painted a picture for me of what I think happened on that day but it's also not unusual that his
fingerprints would be in the car since he had been in the car many times before well I'm trying to behave myself as as
much as I can here in the garage today uh Nick should give me an actual cookie for that but
okay so there's all this evidence that you say points to adnan's guilt then why would the prosecution the prosecution
the state not the defense team the prosecutors why would they release this killer quote-unquote why would they
release this killer and give him back his freedom yeah well it's a it's a tangled web
it it's okay so if you go all the way back to the original trial according to Adnan he wanted to plead guilty in the
first trial and his attorney according to him went to the prosecution and the prosecution wasn't interested in giving
him a deal First drawings in a mistrial Adnan wants to plead guilty again once again the prosecution's not interested
in giving him a deal he goes to trial he's convicted all of his sort of appeals are exhausted Ciro comes along
brings a ton of attention to this case and he makes it maybe the most famous True Crime case in the world you start
getting a lot of new money comes in a lot of new lawyers are looking at new things a couple things that come up
whether or not Christiana Gutierrez who was his attorney was ineffective for not
following up on Asia McLean who we haven't even talked about but Asia McLean wrote a couple letters that said
I saw adnan's I had at the library around the time that the prosecution had said hey had already been murdered and
so the argument was if he's at the library he couldn't kill her the prosecution's theory must be wrong
therefore he's innocent there's a slight problem with that even the prosecution's
theory is wrong Asia left the library shortly thereafter so he still could have done it it just
means not when the prosecution initially said so but anyways you know good argument and there was also an arguing
about the cell phone data so as we've talked about there are outgoing calls and incoming
calls everybody agrees the outgoing calls are are good for location there's a huge debate over incoming calls
Gutierrez never brought that up at trial and so there was an argument that she was ineffective for that she should have
brought that up and those two issues there's there's much later something called post-conviction review
which can happen if there's new evidence that comes to light things that you didn't know about before initially the
the judge who heard the case says yeah you know I think she was ineffective she should have talked to Asia she should
have questioned this cell phone data more new trial he gets appealed and eventually that ruling gets overturned
no new trial goes away so at that point Maryland passes a couple laws one of them says that if someone is under 18 at
the time they commit a murder and they get a life sentence that sentence can be re reconsidered this is a this follows
along with a lot of Supreme Court precedent that's really questioning whether or not people under the age of
18 should get life without parole or the death penalty it's the same sort of thing so Maryland passes a law and they
create like a unit to look at that at the same time the Baltimore Police and like their drug testing unit gets in a
bunch of trouble I think it's them forgive me if I'm wrong it gets in a lot of trouble and it turns out they were
doing a really poor job of their drug testing so Maryland passes a law that says hey
if it's patently clear that somebody you know was innocent or or there was a major corruption in their case you can
vacate their conviction so they start looking at adnan's case is an example of this under 18 thing like
are we gonna are we gonna give him sort of an opportunity to be led out of prison because he was under 18. at the
time a woman named Marilyn Mosby is the state attorney for Baltimore she is also at the time under indictment
for some accused obviously innocent until proven guilty accused of some sort of fraud involving covid relief funds I
don't even really understand it all she loses her reelection and she is getting ready to go to trial and around that
same time the person who's looking at the case for whether or not he should be released because he was under 18. starts
advocating for vacating the conviction altogether at some point they decide to do that
they put together a motion to vacate it and and the whole thing goes Haywire they do they they file the thing they
call Hayes family and basically tell them hey look we know for 20 years we've been
telling you it was Adnan Syed but now we're going to change our mind and say he's not guilty his case will be vacated
on Monday essentially they ask for a week they say hey can you give us a week so we can get out there
and appear in person and speak to the court about this and about her sister and her daughter right they say no go
ahead well I was just going to say I mean don't they have to say here's the evidence against him but this is why we
they have to explain away that evidence they have to explain to the to the victims and explain to the public why
we're releasing this quote unquote killer and the victim has a right to speak the victim has a right to appear in
court and speak on behalf of their their relative it's a victims rights act and a
lot of states have them and they're very important but they basically say no we're not
going to let you do that her brother lives in California and instead they send him a zoom link 30 minutes before
the thing starts he reads A prepared statement which if you haven't heard it is just heartbreaking his prepared
statement is heartbreaking he reads it they thank him they release Adnan yeah it's absolutely heartbreaking and it's
very confusing because they also don't explain anything to the victims or to the public correct there's no
evidentiary hearing there's no opportunity to present testimony there's no opportunity for the people who are
accused of misconduct including the prosecutor in the case and one of the detectives to address that they use some
notes the prosecutor wrote which they interpret to mean one thing which he has since said they don't mean that there
are so many irregularities in this that you just don't see happen even in cases that end in exoneration think back to
the Michael Peterson case so the Michael Peterson case he gets convicted Dwayne Devers turns out is just completely
incompetent well they didn't just release Michael Peterson they had an evidentiary hearing
where they had testimony they you know presented their arguments and then the judge said based on the arguments in the
testimony I'm vacating the conviction and I'm releasing Mr Peterson and then later on they entered into a plea you
know in this case none of that happened you're 100 right and they just in really I mean in a
whirlwind they vacate the conviction Marilyn Mosby goes out and declares that Adnan said is
innocent a couple weeks later they get back the DNA results from Hayes shoes that are inconclusive I mean it's the
best thing you can describe them there's an unknown touch DNA honors use it on add-ons and for some
reason that means it wasn't him so they dropped the charges well at that point the brother Young Lee challenges this
goes up to the Maryland court of appeals Maryland court of appeals reverses all of that and says the whole thing was was
improper he didn't give he has an absolute right to appear he didn't give him that right to appear we're reversing
the dismissal of the indictment we're reversing the vacation of the conviction but we're staying that for 60 days if
you want to appeal to the Supreme Court they ask the court of appeals to reconsider they deny it they've appealed
it to the Maryland Supreme Court where the case currently stands as the Maryland Supreme Court has continued
that stay of the action of the of the court of appeals while it gets the briefing and here's the arguments and at
some point the Maryland court of appeals will decide whether or not to agree with
what or excuse me the Maryland Supreme Court will decide whether or not to agree with what the court of appeals
said or to reverse them if they reverse them Adnan will go free and will be free
if they uphold what they did then we'll be back and we'll be back where he's a convicted murderer and they'll have to
decide what to do going forward from that and I'll just say to people out there if you're interested in this case
read the Maryland court of appeals opinion and in particular read the footnotes because the footnotes just
destroy the motion of AK the actual opinion is all about victims rights and how that was violated but then in the
footnotes that's where the action is so read the footnotes and you'll see the all the problems some of which you've
you've laid out with why this was was improper [Music] [Applause] this show is sponsored by betterhelp do
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well it's also I think really irresponsible because if I'm Heyman Lee's brother and I believe that adnan's I had killed
my sister strangled her and they did not give me the evidence to to understand why they're letting a
murderer out you better get security for that guy because I'm coming after him I just think it's very irresponsible not
just believe that this guy killed your sister but being told by the state for 20 years that this
guy killed your sister and then offered no no other explanation as to oh well we've we've changed our minds now
Alice maybe you can help me out with this here what is a Brady violation and was there one in this case sure so Brady
violation comes from the Supreme Court um stating in the case Maryland versus Brady that if the prosecution the
prosecution has to turn over has very stringent Discovery obligations as it should because it's the investigative
body and the the evidence is in its hands it has to turn over all evidence but not just evidence
um that the person they've arrested is um guilty of the crime they also have to turn over any evidence that could
potentially be used by the defense to argue their side of the story so in other words the prosecution doesn't get
to pick and choose what type of evidence gets turned over to the defense they have to turn over everything including
evidence that could be helpful to the defense um and it you know that is a very very
serious obligation in fact most most prosecutors will go above and beyond their Discovery obligations just
so that they don't even come close to any sort of a Brady violation they you know it's not quite open files but they
will go above and beyond their Discovery obligations because what you want to happen in the court of laws you want
Justice to be done you want the proper cross-examination to be done because you want ultimately the truth to come out in
the day you know a lot of people can say that the prosecution all they want to do
is to get another W on the board just win whoever they've arrested they want to make sure that they get them
convicted I mean having having practiced in this field that is the worst I would say most
prosecutors worst nightmare is to be on the side of having um uh be in violation of any sort of
Discovery obligation but even worse putting someone who is innocent of the crime in prison that is truly I mean
wakes me up at night and makes makes me make sure that I go above and beyond all
of my obligations to make sure that I am not a player in that sort of a situation
and so with respect to whether a Brady violation has happened in this case no no a Brady violation has not happened in
this case because remember just because evidence is turned over to the other side there are ultimately strategy calls
for any sort of attorney defense or prosecution as to what your story is going to be out there we've already
talked about the problems with Witnesses who may have credibility issues or even
stories that may not be backed up by the evidence and so when evidence is turned
over to the defense the defense doesn't just wholesale throw everything at the board they have to take into account
what story is going to be believable in general believable to a jury and also what can feed into their their Narrative
of what's going to happen and so if a defense attorney gets information about a case and they ultimately choose as
part of their strategy not to present it as part of the defense that in itself is
not necessarily ineffective assistance of counsel that in and of itself is not necessarily the defense attorney falling
down on the job and shifting to information that could or could not be Brady violation just because a piece of
evidence could look good for the defense doesn't necessarily mean it rises to the
level of a Brady uh of being Brady material you know the the courts have said often times it has to be materially
um uh uh has to materially affect the case because there is always going to be this incredible amount of information
that you can argue should have been in or not but a lot of that information as we've talked about in adnan's case is
going to be ancillary to the actual charges brought here you know an investigative file is you have to draw a
boundaries somewhere otherwise you know the the amount of information that could
come up that could come in is not helpful is duplicative and could also just merely be confusing
um if they have nothing to do with the case here yeah and I think when you think about this not every Discovery
violation is a Brady violation and I think that's what confuses people I think there's this notion that the
prosecution has to give the defense everything well that's not true you don't actually have to give the defense
everything but even if you didn't give them something you should have that doesn't mean it's a Brady violation
you also have to prove that had you given it to them it would have had an effect and usually a pretty big one on
the case and a lot of times if the evidence is overwhelming anyway it won't even matter and I think people miss all
those little nuances and and to me it was wild that the prosecution or the state in this case included possible
Brady violations is is a reason to vacate this conviction and the the Attorney General of Maryland even came
out and said none of this is a Brady violation and it wasn't and honestly and this goes back we
talked about this on we have another podcast called Legal Breeze where we talked about this
this should have been argued in a court of law there should have been argument about this with two
sides debating it and putting on evidence and and putting people on the stand and making them answer for the
things they'd done and that should have been done not only for hay and not only for Adnan but because the justice system
is about the public too and it's about ensuring that the public has faith that whatever you're doing is the right thing
and they did this essentially in the dead of the night behind closed doors without any presentation of evidence and
it bothered us then and when we looked into the case and we realized how strong the case was it bothered us even more
but this is not this is not a case where he might be guilty but his constitutional rights are violated so
egregiously he should be out that did not happen in this case well one thing that I learned is that there's the the
two trials the first trial and the second trial on that at both trials that Adon wanted to plead guilty to me that
seems like somebody wanting to either just make a deal to save themselves or possibly wanting to confess uh because
some people do feel guilty and if he did love her and he did kill her he he might
feel bad about that and want to show remorse for it do you think do you have a thought process on
on if he is guilty on why he never has confessed to the crimes well at this point I I
don't think he can I mean like I said I don't live in adnan's head but at this point
yeah I mean just imagine imagine you were in his circumstances where the entire world is divided over whether
or not you're innocent or guilty you have people who've invested everything improving your innocence
and I and I don't think this is the only case you see this in you know we talk about we talked about the Jeffrey
McDonald case way back when I don't know how you guys I don't remember what you guys said about that
case but I feel like you're on the same page as we are you know Jeffrey McDonald yeah
definitely is guilty Denver McDonald you know he killed his family he's so obviously guilty and yet to this day he
won't admit it and you have people who will make that argument if he just admitted it he could get parole but he
won't admit it that must mean he's innocent and and and like I said I'm not in his mind and I'm not a psychologist
but I think that ignores some pretty strong psychology when you think that's true I think it was much easier for
Adnan when he's you know 18 and being charged with murder and the trial is about to happen to plead guilty at that
point get a you know whatever sentence he would get and move on with his life now
his entire being is wrapped up in being wrongfully convicted well and that's what he wanted that's what he would have
wanted 20 years ago right for a room divided which he didn't get and I mean that's what a defense attorney wants to
get to a room divided because then then they're not convicting your guy and now he has a room divided
and I'm the one that brought up psychology so I kind of circle back around to that too I think there's some
weird psychology about the whole serial presentation as well and I don't think it's intentional on
their behalf I think it's just human nature so you know they're they're journalists they're telling a story but
right out the gate just like they would in a sit-down meeting with with their editor with their boss right out the
gate in cereal they're saying you know why are we doing this story why are we covering this story well we're covering
it because there's someone who tells us that their loved one has been wrongfully
convicted or didn't get a fair trial and he's been in prison all these years for
a murder that he didn't commit that's why we are doing the story and so I think it's human nature when
you're tuning in right out the gate that seed has been planted in your brain and you as you continue to listen and as
you continue to invest your time in listening to this story that seed has already been planted that
well they're doing the story because he's innocent wrongfully convicted and um I'm I'm now continuing to listen and
giving that more weight and credibility on some weird psychology human nature level because that PL that
seed has been planted a long time ago look I think group dynamics happen all the time they happen in courtrooms two
they happen with juries you have 12 people you get into a Jury Room I've never served on a jury I wish I could
but you can imagine if you take that first vote and 11 people say guilty and you're the only one saying innocent you
know maybe you spend the whole time trying to prove everybody else wrong or maybe you start to reconsider you know
why these people that you've spent some time with and gotten to know and all seem like normal rational people think
the person's guilty and there's nothing wrong with that that's actually one of the ways it's supposed to work supposed
to make you question your own sort of preconceived notions but I think when it comes to podcasts
and I think it's important to remember this we try to remember it it's hard to do
there is there is always going to be a strong group dynamic if we all want to be in this together you know we all want
to be cheering for the right side and I think you saw that with cereal it very effectively made you want to cheer
for Adnan and maybe by the end you weren't cheering for him anymore and you'd sort of go on your own way but
very much there weren't that many people who listen to cereal and were like I have no
idea there weren't that many people it was either you've strongly felt like he was guilty or you strongly felt like he
was innocent and Cyril very effectively did that and it's really hard to get out of of that kind of group
mentality and and that psychology I think is absolutely there well and for me I I know a lot of people were
really infatuated with this case and and really have stuck with it and followed it since the first time they listened to
serial I did not I I very much enjoyed the podcast but I kind of moved on this there's other cases that piqued my
interest and oh by the way we're kind of doing a show about a new case every week
too so I had other things to to focus in on but your your guys's podcast for me brought
to light some things and brought up some new things for me that I was unaware of
that that are Central to this case and one was the Anonymous phone call that was something I don't recall ever having
any knowledge of uh the other thing and I can't I can't let you go until we talk
about this a little bit and and bring everybody up to speed as as much as you know right because it sounds like this
is a bit of a shadowy figure here but who is below Ahmed I think I'm trying to say that as
best I can I'll let Alice take this one that's a that's a good question you know I didn't know this is where you
were going Nick of all the things in this case that you could have uh asked about I'm not gonna say I knew what you
were going to ask here so Bilal is this interesting like you said shadowy figure
that kind of is part of this case but not much is really discussed about him and not really that much is known about
him basically we know that we know more about him now than we did at the time um that all of this was happening with
um Heyman Lee's investigation but Bilal is someone that was like an older figure
within the mosque who knew Adnan um and interestingly enough we know that adnan's parents uh didn't have a cell
phone for him whether he was not allowed to or what have you he didn't have a cell phone that was paid for by his
parents but we know that Bilal basically opened up a cell phone account under his
own name for Adnan and that's the cell phone we've been talking about here the one that he left with Jay all the cell
phone things we're talking about that cell phone bill is actually open under bilal's name and apparently he had
opened this phone account up for Adnan the day before Brett I think the day before
the day before that um hay goes missing and so of course he's going to be an interesting figure here because the cell
phone is you know activated essentially right before hay is uh he disappears and
is murdered and also like who is he why is he getting a cell phone for Adnan who
is a teenager at this time uh balal is an older man and then you know fast forward many years Bilal has since been
um in trouble with the law himself with um kind of sexual improprieties with um with uh
with minors as well yeah it was minor boys and he was uh I mean he was a dentist
so he was taking advantage of of boys basically who he would give them nitrous oxide and then sexually abuse them so
he's obviously uh you know he hasn't kept his nose clean and those are some very serious allegations that have been
brought against him um but you don't see him discuss that much we talk about him a bit but he's an
interesting figure just because of um his relationship with Adnan in that he provided the cell phone that is
Central to a lot of the evidence that we've been doing the problem with him is he's like a black hole if you if you get
near him he will you get it's not a rabbit hole it's a black hole and you get sucked into it and you can never get
out because he's obviously he is such a shady individual he is a criminal he is a sexual predator of
young boys yet he's also friends with Adnan he's opening up this cell phone for him there
are a lot of people who go a lot of different ways with him but the problem is you can you can speculate
well maybe he did it maybe you know and we mentioned this one of our episodes you know maybe he abused Adnan and Haye
found out about it and so he had to kill her to silence her okay I mean that's a
great screenplay but there's literally no evidence of that whatsoever you know we have Hayes diary and she wasn't shy
about riding in it doesn't say anything like that you know you've got maybe the law did it for other reasons
maybe he was doing it for for Adnan and so you know but once again other than the law sort of being a bad guy
there's just no real evidence of it and we we talked about him but we tried to just talk about him in
general because we didn't want to get sucked into that to that to that black hole man this case is one of those cases
and you guys see him too and y'all do an amazing job I don't know how you do it I
don't know how y'all keep your Series so short because you know we talked about this one for 14 episodes and get a ton
more but if you were doing an entire show on the Adnan side case you probably could talk a lot about the law we tried
to avoid that which I think was smart because like you said it's it's a black hole it's not I don't even
think it's I brought him up because I wanted to point out once again that that you are bringing something new to the
table for for some of the people with their understanding of this case and so I I
really only brought him up for that reason but like you said he's a black hole because then then the problem if
you if you want to go and make the giant leap that the Adnan didn't do this or that Jay didn't do it or the two didn't
do it together for it to be anybody else then you have to also believe that Jay for whatever
weird inconceivable reason would lie to police saying he helped bury a body when he didn't
and and face severe criminal charges off of that statement it when you talk about Rhyme or Reason we
don't have either with with that idea that somebody else could have done it and then oh by the way this guy also
admitted to burying a body that he had nothing to do and I think that's such an important point and it goes back to what
she said about their three real possibilities here you can never forget the giant conspiracy theory that you
have to buy into hanging over here where the Baltimore Police are somehow a bunch of bumbling
idiots frankly you know because we all know the Baltimore Police do a lot of really stupid things but also have
managed to build this amazing conspiracy that involved Jay and Jen for no reason Jay and Jen they're not
covering for themselves they're just framing Adnan because they were forced to do so and that's why whenever you you
know below you might be like man I don't know below seems good or Alonso sellers
that guy you know he's he he could have done something like this or you know Don's the current boyfriend maybe it was
him but that that hangs there just over you the whole time and for me it's the reason that
you know we talk about the difference between Reasonable Doubt and any doubt that's something that's important in the
court system and when I look at this case it it is just I feel it so much because there are times where I'm
sitting around and I'm like well you know I mean I guess something could have happened maybe something happened so
that Adnan didn't do this it's hard for me to figure out what it is but maybe maybe you know and then I'm like but no
that that actually is completely unreasonable because of all the things that would have to be true for that to
to to be a fact and I think you're 100 right you just keep coming back to that it can't it just it can't be the case
that Jay is not involved in this at all it just can't be the case and for it to be any of those other people that's what
you'd have to believe well I think people put so much weight on whether Jay Wilds is lying or not and we know he's a
liar but does that mean he's lying about everything but the wrench in this becomes gen
because she doesn't seem like she's a liar and somehow she knows this story before Jay even tells us to the cops
before there's a deal made she does and people forget about her and they forget about her a lot or they ignore her and I
think there's a reason for that if you go back and you read her statement that she gave
before before Jay gets picked up it is to me one of the most believable statements
that you can read it just reads like it's true and people point out well yeah but it's all hearsay she didn't see
anything she just heard it from Jay that's true but that means Jay told her the story first before the police got to
him before the police could have fed him in for any information she's walking into a police station with her lawyer
and her mother sitting down and telling the basic story in fact telling them some details that Jay doesn't even offer
in his first statement like it the fact that it happened at the Best Buy Jay told Jen that Jay in his first story
doesn't tell the police that which I've always thought was interesting you know if the police were feeding this story to
them why isn't that consistent that's a pretty important detail but it's not and
yeah you just Jin Jin is just a glaring red flag if you want to try and get around Jay this case is a pretty
emotional for me I was in school at the same time as these characters in this you know it's almost
like a tragic Opera but I feel like we always forget about Heyman Lee and how special of an individual she was and and
how she's the real victim in this and she's always going to be the real victim in this
tragic play and maybe the prosecution will come out and tell us why they let him free and how that makes
sense and all of this and what evidence they found and what suspects and maybe they can actually make an arrest
and bring some justice to Haman Lee but what do you guys think is next in this Saga so I think
as we often talk about on the show the farther you get from the trial court the last of facts of the case matter
when you're moving up the appeals court the more and more the court is concerned
about the precedent that it's setting and I think and this is my opinion I think the
vacation of adnan's conviction was a fraud on the court I think it is an absolute Injustice
I think it was done improperly whether he's innocent or not and I think it was a violation of everything we hold dear
in the justice system and it should be overturned even if they go back to court and they do it right this time
and they do it in the open and they have the evidence presented and they reach the exact same conclusion I think that's
what should happen the court of appeals what's weird about this case is because the state did what it did
there the person to attack the conviction is kind of missing or the the vacation is kind of missing ordinarily
would be the state they'd file an appeal everything would be very normal in an ordinary course but in this case you had
the victim the victim's brother who has to stand in for hay and has to speak for
her and if there is one hero in the story it's Young Lee who to this day has not stopped fighting for his sister
despite immense pressure to do so he steps in and challenges this on the basis of
victims rights and unfortunately in this country and and you know it's this way for a lot
of really good important reasons people who are accused of crimes have all kinds of Rights
people who are victims of crimes often don't and the states have tried to remedy that by passing laws but a lot of
times they don't have teeth and youngly using one of those laws has challenged this the court of appeals I
think they looked at this case and like I said if you read those footnotes you see it they saw a massive Injustice
and they undid everything that had been done up to this point the Supreme Court of Maryland when I
think about this though they have to consider all the other cases you know they have to consider
things like standing which nobody wants us to get into because it's so boring they have to consider how broad the
victim's rights statute should be and I kind of wonder if they wash their hands of the case is not
quite right but basically say the standing Doctrine and the victims right Doctrine is not broad enough to do this
to overturn this vacation this this just not the way you can do it and I kind of feel like that's the way
they're going to go because I think they're going to be thinking about the law sort of writ large and not the
individual case so at the end of the day I think it's likely that his conviction
which has been reinstated but that reinstatement has been put on hold that the court of appeals opinion ends
up not going into effect and he'll be a free man yeah it's uh again it's all sad
because we tend to forget about him and Lee and and if Adnan is truly innocent then
you're you are out now and you have power to bring pressure onto the prosecution to find the real killer if
you are not the Killer and we see this in other cases where people say once I get out free I'm going
to work to get Justice for the victims and they seem to never do that it's it's very depressing all
all of this I'm just so depressed about what Brett said I don't know if I can add more to that
um I think what's important that Brett said right there is we this should have gone about the proper
way and it absolutely was not done the proper way even if they went back to the district court and move for vacation
through in evidentiary hearing and it came out the exact same way I would be okay with that because the proper
procedures were followed and we care about procedures because they're this is not the only criminal case right this is
if this is a wrongful conviction this hopefully you know there are not many wrongful convictions but we want to make
avenues for the overturning of wrongful convictions and procedure matters because that is the route in which we
can seek Justice in the core systems no matter your facts and no matter who you are and what has happened in adnan's
case I think threatens that because it makes it it makes the Judiciary System uh a laughable uh completely laughable
to others who are looking at the Judiciary especially if they aren't not on the inside and don't know how the
Judiciary System works I am afraid that Brett's premonition of what's going to happen at the Maryland Supreme Court
will come to fruition but I hope it is not true so you know we will we will keep our eyes open for what
happens next but we absolutely do know that what happened in the first instance in terms of his
vacation at The District Court did not follow the proper procedures I want to applaud you guys for having an
intelligent conversation about this case we might not agree on every little detail but it's important that we hear
all sides and it's important for Heyman Lee again the the true victim and all this and so what one of the things I
I really loved about your guys's coverage is you said hey don't take our word for all this there's other sources
that you should check out can you just tell the audience uh some of those sources that you believe they they
should go check out if they're interested in diving more into the case of Heyman Lee well I I just want to say
you know I listen to cereal again and Nick you're 100 right when you listen to it it takes you back to a place in time
when you hear that that music the serial theme song you know you're just you're right back in 2013 2014 whenever exactly
that was that it came out I think it's worth it to listen to cereal look a lot has changed in cereal
a lot has come out since cereal but cereal it was it was good I mean it was really good and it was really
entertaining and in some ways a lot of you out there who who Listen to True Crime a lot now if you listen to serial
you'll also see a lot of the flaws and you'll see the little tricks and you'll see the places where things are sort of
obfuscated to keep the mystery going but I do think you should listen to serial and then two of the big programs that I
think have done the most for laying out the case for adnan's innocence the one that's indispensable is undisclosed
undisclosed which is three lawyers including Rabia chaudry that that is sort of the I think the gold standard
for if you want to hear the arguments for how Adnan said is innocent should listen to that the other one Bob Ruff
who always puts on a good show truth and Justice his very first season was called
the cereal Dynasty and it was happening basically parallel with undisclosed so you hear a lot of sort of a lot of he's
talking about undisclosed a lot he's talking to some of the people in undisclosed so it's interesting to hear
sort of both their perspectives on the episodes as they come out those are great to listen to but I think if you
are really fascinated about this and you spent a lot of time with this case the case File is big but it's not as big
as some and it's out there and you can read it we've put a lot of it on our website there are a lot of websites that
have the information on there read the trial transcript read the interview transcripts with gin
and and with Jay you know read through it for yourself you guys you're all you know you're all qualified to be jurors
you're all smart enough to decide whether or not somebody's guilty or innocent based on the evidence the
evidence is there go look at it for yourself don't let anybody tell you what to think
[Music] [Applause] want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage Colonel do we have
any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners now Captain I know that we have recommended this one before
but it's a great read and the story shares some unfortunate similarities with the Heyman Lee case so
this week we are recommending little crazy children by a long time friend of the show James Renner in this True Crime
Story a young High School couple the girl in this case is Lisa Pruitt she's just 16 when she is stabbed to death in
the affluent neighborhood of Shaker Heights Lisa had snuck out to go over to her
boyfriend's house she is found outside by police after calls alerting the police to screams heard in the
neighborhood now did her boyfriend kill her or did someone intercept her late that night you'll want to check out
little crazy children a true crime Tragedy by James Renner you can find that great title and many more
recommendations on our recommended page True Crime garage.com and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
thank you [Music]

Hae Min Lee /// Part 2 /// 697

Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

In early 1998 Woodlawn High School senior Hae Min Lee started dated fellow classmate Adnan Syed. The two had a pretty serious relationship but by Christmas of that year the relationship was through. Hae broke things off with Adnan and then she started dating another guy. On January 13, 1999 - Hae Min Lee was reported missing by her family. Less than a month later her partially buried body was discovered in Leakin Park. In 2000 Hae’s former boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted of her murder. Join Nic & The Captain in the garage as they invite their friends Bret & Alice from the Prosecutors podcast in for a discussion about this very complicated case.

Beer of the Week - Day Glow Vibes

Garage Grade - 3 and half bottle caps out of 5

Check out the Prosecutors Podcast and listen to their new and updated coverage of the Hae Min Lee murder case.

Follow True Crime Garage on X @TrueCrimeGarage / Follow Nic on X @TCGNIC / Follow The Captain on X @TCGCaptain

Listen to True Crime Garage Off The Record where TCG breaks all of the rules and get NASTY, NASTY and sometimes even more NASTY!!! Now available on Apple Podcast Subscriptions and to everyone everywhere on Patreon. Promo Code: Patreon25 for 25% discount in the website store. Good till 9.9.2023

Brief Summary

The episode discusses Adnan Syed's case, evidence, witness statements, and the impact of "Serial" on public perception.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Join Nick and Harry as they dive into true crime stories, starting with a beer review.
The Anonymous Phone Call. A mysterious call suggests investigators focus on Adnan after the discovery of Hae's body.
The Psychology of Concealment. Exploring the psychological aspects of body concealment and its implications in investigations.
Maryland Law Changes for Juveniles. New laws in Maryland allow reconsideration of life sentences for those under 18 at the time of their crime.
Adnan's Conviction Vacated. Adnan Syed's conviction is vacated after new motions and evidence come to light, sparking controversy.
The Role of Brady Violations. Discussion on Brady violations and their implications in Adnan's case, highlighting legal obligations of the prosecution.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

If I ever killed a girlfriend, I would dispose of her in this manner.

Discussion about a bizarre conversation regarding body disposal.

8:40WatchSep 6, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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