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

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[Applause] yeah and there there's some there's some interaction and and maybe I do need to
go back and Rel listen to to C 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 I'm trying to
sleuth this thing out I've already come to the conclusion based off every everything I reviewed to
that point that that it's one of three scenarios Adnan Jay or Adnan and J and that that little interaction to
me I thought was rather telling I thought it tipped the scales a little bit for me to to believe that it
was Adnan um and 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 and in some weird way ad on 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 Adon 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 and it carried so much weight with me that 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 hymon 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 adnot Now One do I have that right and two could you guys expand on that a little bit for
the listeners yeah I'm 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 ad 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 Adon 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 got to 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 canvasing
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 in to them on Fe 12th it's a few days
after Hay's 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 at trial he actually says he he he meant Indian which is interesting because I think
when you most people when they hear Asian they're thinking more sort of Japanese Chinese something along those
lines Indian is closer to Pakistani which is adon's racial background and it makes you wonder is this someone who
knows Adon 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 yaser's like yeah you know 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 the fact of the anonymous call the fact the
anonymous caller then calls back so he calls says that you know Adon and hay had had sex in linol park in the past
which I kind of doubt because leol Park I don't think is the kind of place to you but maybe it is I don't know I don't
want to I don't want to speak for what goes on in leak 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 yaser Ali and when they talk to yaser yoser is like kind of had
a conversation like that but not exactly so whoever it was kind of knew 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 them off an Adon so that happens you know they get this weird phone call that
I that's on the 12th on the 15th they're talking to this guy at the Pizza Hut right the next day they pull ADN on cell
phone records and it's when they pull his cell phone records and they start looking at the phone calls and they see
a call that comes up over and over again and it's Jen pusit ter 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 puser she doesn't have anything to say and then the next day
Jen 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 yeah I've never had a conversation with a friend about killing a
girlfriend uh I have had several conversations about killing a co-host no com the
bizar you know you're being recorded 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 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
that added detail that that makes it just ring true and of of of course you got to
investigate this guy as soon as you learn this detail I mean it would be incredible mistake not 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 Adon 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 AA 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 her body's found like I think that's right 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 to to 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 deductions 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 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 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 BOS 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 they victim was abducted there they don't
believe that their victim um was abducted elsewhere you know they believe 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 when they don't get that and
then there's also the complication of you're going to find evidence in side of that vehicle that will suggest that Adon
Sayed 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 there exactly that 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 proper L 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 and 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 the closer the per 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 uh the perpetrator there is some attempt to
cover the body because you know if this is a random attack some random passer by
let's say her car broke down and you know some Nero 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 going to 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 to 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 Psy
ology 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 in this 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 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 leakin Park is the the
potential evidence of of who it was isn't necess 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 when you read Jay's statement he talks about for instance
Adon throwing up that he's he's throwing up you know around sort of the barrel of
the body and we had some people asked well did they you know did they find that did they test that it's like it was
a month later you know there 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 Adon was in her car a lot I'll give you a couple
examples there is a mapbook the mapbook according to people who knew he stayed in her driver's side pocket that's not
where the police found it they found it in the back seat they found it open it had edon's 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 mapbook was a rose
wrapped in floral paper on that floral paper were adon'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
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 prose Cuts why would they release this killer quote unquote why
would they release this killer and give him back his freedom 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 vers Tri in a mistrial Adon wants to plead guilty again once again the prosecution is not interested
in giving him a deal he goes to trial he's convicted all of his sort of appeals are exhausted serel comes along
brings a ton of attention to this case I mean 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 they're 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 mlan who we haven't even talked about but Asia mlan wrote a
couple letters that said I saw Adon Sayed 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 killed her the prosecution's
theory must be wrong therefore he's innocent there's a slot problem with that even if 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 argument 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 postconviction 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 it gets appealed and eventually that ruling gets overturned no new trial goes away so at that point
Marilyn 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 president 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 Marilyn 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 that gets in a lot of trouble and it turns out they
were doing a really poor job their drug testing so maryn passes a law that says hey if it's patently clear that somebody
you know was innocent or or or there was Major corruption in their case you can vacate their conviction so they start
looking at adon's case as an example of this under 18 thing like are we gonna are we going to 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 re-election 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 a motion to
vacate it and and the whole thing goes Haywire they do they they file the thing they call Hay's family and basically
tell them hey look we know for 20 years we've been telling you it was Adon Sayad
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 our sister and our daughter right they say
no uhhuh 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 victim's 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 ADOT 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 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 ders 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 and the testimony I'm vacating the conviction and I'm releasing Mr Peterson and then later on they entered
into a plea you 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 Adon sad is innocent couple weeks later they get
back the DNA results from ha shoes that are inconclusive I mean it's the best thing you can describe them there's an
unknown touch DNA on her shoes that aren't Adon 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 conv ition 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 and where the case currently stands is the Maryland Supreme
Court has continued that stay of the action of the of the court of appeals while it gets the briefing and hears 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 Adon will go free and will be free if they uphold what
they did then we'll be back 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 to vacate the actual
opinion is is all about victim's 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 all the problems some of which you've you've
laid out with why this was was [Music] [Applause] improper this show is sponsored by
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visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that but it's also I think really
irresponsible because if I'm Haymon Lee's brother and I believe that Adon 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
cuz 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 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 a Brady violation comes from the Supreme
Court um stating in the case Marilyn versus Brady that if the prosecution the the prosecution has to turn over has has
very stringent Discovery um obligations as it should because it's the investigative body and it 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 um by the defense to
argue their side of the story so in other words the prosecution doesn't get to pick and what type of evidence gets
turned over to the defense they have to turn over everything including um evidence that could be helpful to the
defense um and it you know that is a very very serious obligation um in fact most um 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 uh
you know it's not quite open files but they will go above and beyond their Discovery obligation
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
um a player uh 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 um 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 INE effective assistance of
councel that in in 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 an 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 it 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 adon's case is going to be ancillary to the actual
charges brought here you know an investigative file is you have to draw 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 not every Discovery violation is a Brady violation and I think that's what confuses people I think there is 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 was wild that the prosecution or the
state in this case included possible Brady violations as as a reason to vacate this conviction and the the
Attorney General of Maryland even came out and said none 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 briefs 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 putting on evidence and and putting people on the
stand and making them answer for the things they' done and that should have been done not only for hay and not only
for Adon 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 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 is not a case where he might be guilty but his
constitutional rights were violated so egregiously he should be out that did not happen in this case well one thing
that I learn is that there's the the two trials the first trial and the second trial and 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 you can I mean like you said I
don't live in adon's head but at this point 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 and proving 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 and
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 Jeffrey is guilty Jeffrey 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 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 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 you 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 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 serial they're say 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 as you continue to listen and as you continue
to invest your time in listening to this story that seed is 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 group dynamics happen all the time they happen
in courtrooms too 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 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 it's hard to do there
is there is always going to be a strong group dynamic of 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 serial 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 G your own way but very much there
weren't that many people who listen to Cal and were like I have no idea there weren't that many people it was either
you strongly felt like he was guilty or you strongly felt like he was innocent and serial 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 it's 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 peque 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 you're 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 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 balah Amed or Bal balah 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 was is where you were going Nick of all the
things in this case that you could have uh asked about I'm not going to say I knew what you were going to ask here so
Bal 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 uh 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 balal is someone that
was like an older figure with in 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 bolal uh basically opened up a cell phone account
under his own name for Adon and that's the cell phone we've been talking about here the one that he left with Jay um
all the cell phone P were talking about that cell phone bill is actually opened under bal's name and and apparently he
had opened this phone account up for Adon the day before Brett I think the day before the day before that um hey
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 hey is uh Hey 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 balal has since been um in trouble with the law
himself with um kind of sexual improprieties with um with uh with minors as well was minor boys he
was a 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 discussing 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 Adon 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 in one of our episodes
you know maybe he abused Adon and hey 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 writing in it doesn't say anything like that you know you've got maybe Bala
did it for other reasons maybe he was doing it for for Adon and so you know but once again other than Bala 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 I mean 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 could have done more but if you were
doing an entire show on the Adon side case you probably could talk a lot about balal we tried to avoid that which I
think was smart because like you said it's it's a black hole it's it's not I don't even think it's I brought him up
because I wanted to point out that 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 Adon
didn't do this or that Jay didn't do it or the two didn't do it together for 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 and face severe criminal charges off of that statement it it when you talk
about Rhyme or Reason we don't have either with with that idea that 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 you 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 Adon because they were forced to
do so and that's why whenever you you know Bal you might be like man I don't know balal seems good or Alonzo cers
that guy you know he's he he could have done something like this or you know DA'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 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 happen so that Adon 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 when 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 Jen because she doesn't seem
like she's a liar and somehow she knows this story before Jay even tells this 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 here say 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 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 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 JY JY is just a glaring red flag if you want to try and get around Jay this case is uh 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 hymon 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 in all of this
and what evidence they found and what suspects and maybe they can actually make an
arrest and bring some justice to hymon Lee but what do you guys think is next in this Saga so I
think as we often talk about on the show the further you get from the trial court the less the 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 adon'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 it'd be the state they'd file an appeal everything would be very
normal in in 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 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 victim's rights and
unfortunately in this country and 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 Young Lee 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 been done up to this point the
Supreme Court of Maryland when they 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 cases
not quite right but basically say the standing Doctrine and the victim's right Doctrine is not Brad enough to do this
to overturn this vacation this this 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 r 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 Adon 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've 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 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 the
they went back to the district court and um moved for vacation through an 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 there this is not the only criminal case right this is if this is a uh 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 court 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 are not on the inside and don't know how the Judiciary System works I am afraid that
Brett 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 s 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 hmon Lee again the the true victim
and all this and so what one of the things I I really loved about your guys' 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 hymon Lee well I just want to say you know I listen to Cal 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 since cereal a lot has come out since cereal but seral 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 OBS cated 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 adon's innocence the one that's indispensable is undisclosed undisclosed which is three lawyers including Robbie
a chalry that that is sort of the I think the gold standard for if you want to hear the arguments for how Adon side
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 serial 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 and so
it's interesting to hear sort of both their perspectives on the episodes as they come out those are great toist
listen to but I think if you are really fascinated about this and you spend a lot of time with this
case the case File is big but it's not as bigest 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 JY 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
guilty or innocent based on the evidence the evidence is there go go look at it for yourself don't let anybody tell you
what to [Music] [Applause] think 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 hmon Lee case so this week we
are recommending little crazy children by longtime friend of the show James rener in this True Crime Story a young
High School couple the girl in this case is Lisa pruit 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 rener you can find that great title and many more recommendations on our
recommended page true Crim garage.com and until next week be good be kind and don't
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Hae Min Lee /// Part 2 /// 697

Part 2 of 2

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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.

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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.

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Brief Summary

Adnan Syed's case is analyzed, focusing on evidence, the investigation, and legal implications of his conviction's vacating.

Key points

Quality Sleep with Ashley. Discover top mattress brands at winning prices with financing options.
Learn Languages with Rosetta Stone. Unlock unlimited access to 25 languages with a 50% holiday deal.
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Join hosts Nick and Harry as they dive into true crime stories.
Support the Beer Fund. Cheers to our friends who helped with this week's beer run!
Courtroom Revelations. A telling interaction in court raises questions about trust and guilt.
Marilyn Mosby's Controversy. Marilyn Mosby, the state attorney, faces indictment while advocating for Adon's release.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I thought that was a little telling.

Discussing a revealing courtroom interaction.

4:10WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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