The Case Against Adnan Syed: Part 1 | Forensic Files

All right. Hey y'all. By the way By the way, the new trailer for Cobra Kai on YouTube. They're doing a season 2,
huh? They're doing a season 2. The trailer came out the other day. Uh I don't know. Did you But you liked the
first season? Season 1 was great, but it Here's my problem with it. is Cobra Kai at some point was
Never die. Right. It was taking a turn to be something different than it was in the
'80s. Right. And now it seems like oh, okay. Well, we're going to put them back into their roles
and Cobra Kai is going to be bad. And Miyagi Dojo or Miyagi No Karate Dojo is going to start up.
All the lessons are free because he doesn't need the money. And there's a clip of Daniel son saying,
"I beat Cobra Kai before. I know how to beat him." or something like that. Right.
Like, you beat them once. And then let's not count the third episode cuz that was just awful.
So The third episode of season 1 of Cobra Kai. No, no, no, no. The third movie. The third movie. Yeah, let's just
That one was just ridiculous. It's very cheesy the third movie. There was a fourth one, too, right? With
Wasn't Hillary Swank the new Karate Kid? I vaguely remember that one, but what's
weird is as cheesy as the third one was, I remember that one quite a bit better than the second one where they went to
Japan. Right, but if you look at the fourth one Hillary Swank goes out to fight.
And when she comes back to her corner, she falls and hits her head and goes into a coma.
And then you have um What's his face? The old guy. I don't know. What Which old guy? For the Cobra Kai?
No. I thought you meant maybe the Cobra Kai Clint Eastwood. Sensei. Clint Eastwood then has to pull
the plug on her. In in Million Dollar Baby. Right, but that's the same ending as as number four. And then he then then
when he pulls the plug, he says to her Cobra Kai never die. That's I think that's what happened in
the fourth one. But I haven't seen it in a while, so Who knows? Million Dollar Baby,
fantastic movie. Oh, great. That's a great movie. But like Clint Eastwood decided
Okay, Hollywood has a bunch of movies that end well. Let me just make movies that have a sad ending.
There's no I mean that's what he did. Right? He's done it like 10 movies in a row now. Yeah. Oh,
Million Dollar Baby. She's going to do great job and then she's going to die in a coma.
And then if you look at like uh What's that other movie where he uh is protecting the neighborhood and ends
up getting shot to death at the end. Mhm. You just go Come on. Does all your movies have to end so
negatively? The Mule was very good. I haven't seen that yet. I saw The Mule in the theater. Very
good. Um Yeah, well, Million Dollar Baby alone if you haven't seen it is worth the
watch just for the bickering between uh Morgan Freeman and uh Clint Eastwood. Yeah. That I mean that that's my
favorite part of of the movie. They they tease each other back and forth and it's
it's quite Well, and the bully scene, too. Where where the the guy that's a little slow
is finally gets in the ring and he's getting beat up by the local bully. Mhm. The guy that has
no heart but a ton of talent. Mhm. Then Morgan Freeman gets in there with one glove
and knocks him out. Yeah. So, yeah, that's that's probably the best. Yeah. they call him? Danger?
I You know, it's been so long. I Believe in it What? Million Dollar Baby? This probably what? 13, 14, 15 years ago? It
seems like yesterday. Right. But I except for I forget half the movie. Well, and and speaking of
time going by, I mean we talked about talking about the new HBO docu-series. It's going to be a
four-part series. Uh the case I believe it's called The Case Against Adnan Syed.
Yeah. And um to think, you know, I graduated in '99 and to think that's we're coming up
you know, 20 years. Yeah. And so it's it's pretty crazy to kind of look back and and when I was
watching part one of the docu-series last night what's interesting about this case is
since it's set in 1999 and both the victim, Hae Min Lee, and let's just say the suspect, right? Right.
Or well, actually the convicted killer, we can say that. Right. Is they're they're both seniors in '99.
So, they're the same age as me, but what's interesting about this case is there's not a lot other than
a couple references to like passing notes in school or which I'm sure they still do even
though you can text people. I'm I'm sure they still pass notes. And like the beeper.
Like there's a couple people that have beepers. And other than that there's there's really nothing that kind
of dates this case. Right. If that makes any sense. On that same note and I don't know that
it so much dates the case because you this is still obviously available today but it was interesting
I forgot about their little call system between uh Hae Min Lee and Adnan where you know they're not supposed to be
dating. But they had some kind they had a system of she would call something else from her home phone from
the landline and and he would know what time she was going to make that call and
he would call her so she could just pick up on the the other line on the call waiting. No, so what she would do is
she'd page him. Right. And then right after she paged him she would call the weather.
Yeah, the weather. Remember can you still do that? Does that still exist? Like remember you could call we called
it time and temp here, right? And that what was it was time and temp and it would be like
you they'd pick it would have some tones at first and then it would tell you what
time it was and it would tell you the temperature outside. Right. And what that day's forecast would be.
Yeah, it's But yeah, so she'd call time and temp and then because of call waiting what
would happen is if you had call waiting which really wasn't like not not every household had. Right. But if you had
call waiting then when you're on the phone and somebody called you it would ring instead of get a busy signal.
And then but when you're talking on the phone, you'd hear a little beep. You know, kind of like you hear now with
your cell phone, if you actually talk on your cell phone. So, like I've mentioned multiple times,
if you talk on your cell phone, it seems like now you're like a psychopath. Yeah, well, the call waiting thing is so
that her parents don't pick up. Right. On you know, and and hear this boy on the line.
And um so, I guess the first question I have for you is did you watch it? I did watch
it. Um I do have to throw in a a little caveat here. I didn't watch the whole So, what it was about an hour long? Hour
and yeah, about an hour and five minutes, maybe an hour and 10 minutes. And so, I look, I love HBO. It's been
one of my favorite channels for as long as I can remember. And but I had a lot of things going on
yesterday and it came out at 9:00 last night. I think it was about It was a little after 10:00 by the time I was
able to sit down and watch it. Mhm. Um and oh man, I just got my butt kicked yesterday. So, it was I I probably dozed
off about 45 minutes into it. Mhm. And it's not so much it wasn't that it was bad or boring or anything like that. It
was just it was just my day, you know, I I had a long day and I was tired. It I found it to be very interesting and it
and it's one thing that and this is kind of generic to say, I guess, but sometimes when you watch these
docu-series or documentaries on TV and it's something that you read a book about or in this case listened to a
podcast about, Mhm. it one thing that's so refreshing and enlightening to me is seeing the
visuals to go with the the story that you already know. Well, it changes, I think, your viewpoint a lot, a lot more
than you'd think it would. I mean, just seeing the house in which he grew up in and and
the house that um that she grew up in. It really reminds me of the neighborhood of our high
school band. Mhm. Like, all the styles of houses were kind of of that that nature.
Yeah. Um but to see that and then it's also hear stuff like, well, I think it's Heywood, the the school
they went to, that being a whole different community compared to the one in which they grew
up in. Yeah. Yeah. And so I thought that was interesting. I also thought the the visual
I mean, agree or disagree, but I think this was, at least part one, told a lot of Hayman's story.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. And I think that's something that Serial didn't get to. I
don't know if they're I don't know why they didn't get to that. Maybe it was you know, cuz the case was more
interesting, but I think it sets her up a little bit more, tells her story a little bit better.
And then I liked the drawings and the artwork. I did, too. And I thought that was very
artsy, but it's it's funny because like that was like one of the number one things cuz I I after the show came out,
I just said, "Hey, what what did everybody think of this?" Mhm. And probably And of course, a lot
of people were just liking the post, so it's not like everybody that watched the
the episode uh is commenting on this, but one of the major comments was they didn't care for that part of the
presentation. That they just kind of thought it was fluff. But if you if you didn't do it that way,
what would be the the alternative? Like, a reenactment? Like, Yeah. Which I don't think those turn out
very Did they do any re-enactments? No, which I I I think those always turn out really cheesy.
I think it's very rough to get the re-enactments to not be cheesy. Um you know, the the Amy Mihaljevic
documentary I thought they pulled them off fairly well, the re-enactments, but there was a
few times where it was very Velveeta, like he you know, like you know, that they're probably telling
the actor, "Okay, now we need you. Could you put on a face that that you're suspicious of something
you just heard?" And it's always like it's always weird. Uh But I I like personally I like the
drawling situation better than the re-enactment. Yeah, I liked it, too. And I And So, it
was kind of funny cuz even on Twitter today, there was a lot of people saying, "Yeah, I didn't really care for that
part." And part of it is cuz I think maybe you're either more of a artsy individual or not, I
think. So, I appreciated that, and I And but I also think with these documentaries, it's really
strange because I was watching uh Ken Burns Unforgivable Blackness about um Jack
Johnson, the boxer. Uh-huh. And when you watch something like that, it's very dry.
And it's there you know, it's Ken is doing his best job to be informative and then entertaining. And I think with
these documentaries becoming so big and so powerful in the spectrum of the landscape of our
society, that these documentaries, they it's not that you just watch it and you get information, and that's it. These
documentaries are are are changing lives. And they're persuading the public opinion.
So, on one sense, I think people were like, "Hey, I I didn't need to know this nonsense." And I think part of that is
cuz they knew some of it. And if And if you listen to Serial, and that's all you listen to on this
case, you're just you're talking about you got 5% of the case. You don't know much about this case. You
have to dive into other podcasts like when Bob Ruff was doing um Serial Dynasty, which then turned into
uh Truth and Justice or Undisclosed podcast, which it basically took Serial and then magnifying that. And then after
that, did it again. And so, this is you know, Serial was just the tip of this case. Mhm. But so,
it's it's a it's a interesting dynamic to me because they all Now, you have to put out this information and
and then hopefully you're trying to put out new information that maybe you're not even able to put out through the
court system, but you're putting out for the public to view and to see what happens there.
But you also have to make it entertaining. Mhm. Because if it's not, then people tune out.
And and so, that's kind of a very interesting time, I think, because I I've watched
documentaries where it's a guy at his desk for 2 hours going over stuff, and the only thing
that ever changes is pictures pop up on the screen. Mhm. And I'm fine with that.
But I think as far as like to try to get something to persuade the community, it has to be entertaining. And so, I I
did like that aspect of it was the the artistic aspect of the drawings instead of doing a reenactment. Was it
Soaked in Bleach that did a lot of the drawing? Uh Soaked in Bleach did a a bunch of reenactments. Okay. They're
But they did it in a very interesting way because they hired actors to play each
individual part. Mhm. And then when they're reenacting, they're actually saying lines that were
recorded. So, I think that's one of the things in Soaked in Bleach that people missed
was if she's in the hotel room talking to some of her friends, it's not speculation on what she said.
They're There's a Yeah, recording of it. Right, there's a recordings based off the private investigator that she hired.
So, but anyways, I I like I said, I think that's an entertaining part of it and I think it
told her story really well, better than probably Serial did. Mhm. Well, and but I think part of that, too,
is you know, we try to do this from time to time. We don't we we don't we don't like to sit down each week and
start a case right at the beginning and finish right where it finished. Most of the time that's the formula, but
sometimes we try to change it up a little bit because even though these are real, true, tragic
stories, there is still a storytelling aspect to it. And I think to be It has to be entertaining. If it
doesn't grip you at all, you you lose interest. Yeah, and I think the um for Serial in comparison to the HBO
show, with them showing more of Hae Min Lee and telling her story so much more in
this first episode, I think with Serial, at least the way that it's presented, I don't know what their game plan was
going into it, obviously, but at least the way that it's presented to me, I like the way that they did that. They
I'm sure they got the Hayman Lee story at some point. It's been years since I've listened to it, but I remember the
start of it, at least the first episode or two was very little about the victim.
Like you said, and so much more about the case against Adnan. And what I what I liked about that was you have Sarah
Koenig and and her her partner, you know, whoever she works with, they kind of like review the story
that's been brought to them. And then they did spend a little bit of time going, "Okay, well,
is it even conceivable that he might have been innocent? Is it even possible that this timeline isn't correct, or it
is correct and he didn't have enough time to do what they have accused and convicted him of?" Right. And I and I
think that was kind of neat because there, when you're listening, it's almost like they're taking the listener
by the hand and you're going on the journey with them in a in a very logical way of of saying, "Okay, well, this
story was presented to me by somebody that might have a good good motive or good reason for wanting this conviction
overturned or bringing light to this, what they're calling a wrongful conviction. But let's go ahead and do
our own little armchair detecting and sleuthing and try to deduce what we think actually happened. And if it looks
blatantly obvious that this dude is guilty, then we don't need to drag you through the muck of this whole story
um because it is what it is. It is what what it what it the result was. And therefore, when they find chinks in the
armor, then they can go, "All right, well, now there's a story worth investigating
here. There's a story worth telling. Uh there's there's more investigation to be
had here." Mhm. And I think HBO's doing it more of a um so far what from what I've seen, it
appears to be a little more straight down the middle where I don't think Serial set out to be on the side of
Adnan. But, the story came to them from someone who was on the side of Adnan. So, it
Yeah, it came from Rabia. Yeah, so it goes into it in that way. But, I believe this was
I I believe the story from HBO is probably connected through Rabia as well, which Rabia is his cousin, I
believe. Mhm. And and I've got a chance to meet her and talk with her and she has an interesting story, too. I
mean, you're you're talking about I I think she's mother of three now, but you know, to be going through law school
and raising a family and and then on top of that to go, "Okay, well, I don't believe this guy is guilty. And
yes, he's a family member, but what can I do?" And she was very smart in the idea that media could do something that
they couldn't. Mhm. And nobody knew. Again, you picked media, but you picked a podcast.
Nobody knew the magnitude that it was going to be. You're talking about over 100 and some
million downloads. That's insane. We're talking about a eight-part series or 10-part series,
and you have that many downloads. That's That's a lot of listeners. million downloads or something? I don't
know have the numbers in front of me. I'm just going off of what I think they said last night.
No, over 100 million. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So, I think they showed a little clip of where they
were celebrating over 20 million, maybe. To to kind of amp it up to to for those
who didn't know or have heard standing around the water cooler to listen to Serial and maybe never got
around to doing it. Uh I think it's important for HBO to bring up how you know, what what this was for
a different a different angle of media, you know, a different and and it was it was so huge and it a lot of it was word
of mouth. A lot of it was friends telling friends, "Hey, you should listen to this and check it out."
Right. I mean, that's one of the ways our show has grown to be so big. It's just people
saying, "Hey, I listen to this show and it's entertaining." So, with the drawings, I think what I was thinking of
regarding Kurt Cobain was there was I think it's Montage of Heck. Right, which is yeah, a different documentary.
Which is which is not so much about the suicide. It's much more about his life. I think that was the one where they did
a lot of the it was all kind of reenacted through artwork, which I thought was for that movie in particular and maybe
that's what's opened my mind up to this idea for other documentaries to do it, but I thought they did so well with it
in that in that movie that it's it's incredible. Yeah, so it's really hard to cover the Adnan case because
there's a lot of people that are for his innocence or for his guilt and they're very
um passionate about it. Almost to the point where it's it crosses a line. And so, we've tried to cover it before.
We've discussed covering it, yeah. And we've um looked into the case obviously a bunch but what we
really want to focus on is not the fact whether or not he's innocent or guilty. Like, we don't want to just
as far as our viewpoints go. Um, we we want to discuss the documentary and points of evidence that they're
pointing out in the documentary that we find odd. So, is is there anything that jumped out to you
at first like by watching this and like cuz some of the information you've heard
before, obviously. Mhm. But, was there anything that jumped out to you where you went, "Mhm, that's strange."
Mhm, no, not necessarily because I and I'm not trying to downplay the documentary. I What I've seen so far,
it's good. But, it a lot of it was to me, at least the first episode, was a lot of telling me the story
that I've already heard. You know what I mean? Like I agree with that on some level, but
when they talk about the the day that she goes missing, if you if you don't know anything about
this case, these episodes aren't going to be interesting to you. So, uh you might
want to watch the documentary. If you haven't watched documentary, probably watch that. But, uh
so, there was a call the day that Hae Min is notified as missing. And one of the things that I
think is not pointed out enough in this case, is this is a missing person case Mhm. for about 3 weeks. Mhm.
The fact that law enforcement did any work is amazing. And there's so many people that throw
law enforcement under the bus, and I think there's multiple times, rightfully so, so, in this case. And we can get
into that later, but the fact that they're calling friends and family and getting information
pretty quickly about a missing person. That night, weren't they calling that night?
yes. And so, you get a call that night to Adnan, her ex-boyfriend. And what I thought was
interesting and was I've heard that he got a call. I heard he was nervous. I heard all this other
stuff. You can take it however you want, but the way it was presented last night
was that he got this call and he asked the police officer, would there be a report filed?
Mhm. And I thought that was very suspicious. A report filed of her missing or a report filed regarding their phone call?
Uh this not clear. Okay. Uh so I'm assuming that it's is there going to be a report on the
missing person case or the phone call. Either or. I thought it was just a question that is
not you want to ask. That's not something you'd ask. Cop calls you, missing person, you know them, you
answer the questions, you hang up the phone. Mhm. You don't sit there and go, is this
going to be reported? And he states that well, he asked that because he knew she would get in trouble. Okay.
Let's just think about this logically for a second. Your family calls because you're missing.
You think they give a [ __ ] about they're going to be there's going to be a police
report? Mhm. You know what I mean? Like it's one of those comments that Cuz they're the ones that reported her
missing. Right, but it's one of those comments when you go, hey, she came from a strict
family. She wasn't allowed to date certain people. She wasn't allowed to have boyfriend. She wasn't You know what
I mean? She didn't like for people to come over to her house because her home life was strange.
Okay, I get that. But she was supposed to pick up her nephew or niece or whatever it was.
Mhm. And she didn't do it. So then they called and they started calling friends and family and they were worried about
her. So this idea, it just goes by like it's nothing to say, hey, is this going to be filed?
And they just And again, his explanation makes sense for a second until you actually think
about it a little bit more. And then you go, that doesn't make any sense at all. So, it's almost like
coming up with an answer for something you better you would be better off just not even talking about.
Right. It's almost a bad answer to to explain away something that might point towards
your guilt. Yeah. And the other thing that I thought was odd too was when they were talking about
um one of her friends was stating that well, the French teacher, the French teacher talked about how she created a
list of questions and she gave them to somebody to write in their their daily planner.
Uh like their daily agenda. I can't remember what those things are called. Uh but I know
my school had them. Mhm. And Adnan didn't have his daily planner, so he couldn't You have to have your daily
planner to have them sign you out to go to the bathroom. Mhm. So, somehow he doesn't have his daily planner. He
gets this girl's daily planner that just happens to have these questions that the cops basically asked
the French teacher to come up with some questions to ask her friends and family.
Mhm. Because she was a younger teacher and she was closer to them. So, he somehow gets that because he didn't have
his so he can use the restroom. And then he's questioned the French teacher like,
why are you coming up with these questions? Now, I understand that you're 18 at the
time, but it's a missing person case. Um and I can't remember if it's just a missing person case at the time she's
coming up with these questions. I'm assuming it is. But, you know, the fact that he confronts her and says, "Hey,
look, don't do that." And then the explanation is well, I don't want my parents to find
out. You know. That's strange to me. I agree that's strange because I mean, what what
How are they going to find out that they're asking questions around school? And if this girl that that is somebody
that you dated and you've getting you've gotten in trouble before, they know about her, right? On some level.
They might not want you to be dating her, but they know about her on some level. And they the cops have been to
your house. The cops have questioned you. You know, with your father around. Mhm.
They know. You had to say that you were in a relationship with her in front of your parents. They know
about what's going on. This, you know, It's Yeah, it seems to me even if your parents like are super
rough on you or even if you're even if he was afraid of them it seems to me like the cat was already out of the bag
at that point, right? That it's kind of like what shouldn't your wouldn't you be
more concerned about this person being missing? And and if you do have to answer questions to mom and dad, it it's
it's look, the police are going to investigate this. This is a She's missing and yes, we we were friends or
we dated or however he wants to explain it to them. Right. Even if he needs to downplay it
that's when you have to tell mom and dad, whatever relationship we had before is not going on now. She's a friend of
mine. They have to investigate this. Don't don't get on to me. You know, because
and we talk about this, too, you know, regarding missing persons or or murder victims.
There's other victims that don't always make the headlines in these stories and that is the the victim's family and
friends. And you know, when when somebody goes missing or when somebody is murdered, it
hurts a lot of people. And if Adnan was completely innocent in this, I'm sure it hurt him in some way. Well,
And he and you might have to tell in jail for 20 years. not just No, but I mean emotionally at
the time before he was, you know, arrested and and later tried for this. Right, right. You know, and sometimes
sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and even maybe if you're afraid of mom and dad, you have to say, "Look,
I I'm I'm I hope they find her, one, and two, this is a sensitive issue for me. I'm
hurting right now." And uh but but you know, it's it's it's weird and kind of back to what you
were saying earlier regarding the asking if there will be a report, a police report filed regarding uh her her
disappearance. You also have to wonder, is that on some level does that show a certain
level of innocence on his part? Like you kind of want a better explanation from him, what he means, what his full
concern. Give us your full concern about why would there be a report? Could Could he have just been an
18-year-old naive boy Mhm. who thought that a a police report filed with her name on it, with her being missing,
let's say that that he thought somewhere along the line that she took off for whatever reason. Right, or she was
with her new boyfriend. Right. Did in his in his naivete did he at some point think this could hurt her
uh college career or could hurt her on some other level? You know what I mean? Was Was it truly being a friend and
being worried about not that that just missing, but if she did walk away, or if she did go off with somebody, or is just
not where she's supposed to be for a while. Right. Is he Is he worried about what
what consequence this will have for her once she surfaces? Right, but that's that's one
time. Right. And if it just happens one time, naivete, right? But when you're then
going to after the French teacher to say, "Hey, why are you asking questions about this?" Mhm.
And then when they find Hae Min's body, which I'm guessing that the clips that we saw of them
finding her body in the shallow grave, which has always been something where it's like you visualize, but you have no
clue. This is a grave. Mhm. This is not you know, that they laid her down and put you know, put a couple leaves over
her. So, but the other interesting thing is when they find her and they tell Adnan about
this, and they kind of say how they like there was a pin drop, and then he starts like
panicking and saying, you know, "I got to call the cops, and it's the wrong person."
Again, on some level, I think that's evidence on some level of somebody putting themselves
into the investigation. And I don't think that favors him. You know, I don't think that puts
Adnan in a favorable light. Mhm. And now I I have I'm I am hearing the crowd scream, you know, "He's innocent."
He's Well, he might be, but I mean, we're we're going to go through some different
uh Right. What I'm pointing out is those are the three things that I thought were fishy.
Like as far as like it just kind of stuck out stuck out as a sore thumb. Where it was like, wait, what the what?
He asked? Well, the other thing There's going to be a report on this. But again, I I do like your viewpoint on
the idea that it could just be as simple as well, she's supposed to go with Don.
Right. And this whole thing where the guys that think he's guilty the the men and women that think he's
guilty, the fact that he can't remember certain things. Um people throw that up as like a sign of
guilt. And I just argue again, she was missing for 3 weeks. Mhm. And when he's really questioned about some of this
stuff hardcore, he has to remember 3 weeks ago? Mhm. And as far as like my school routine, like if you
would have asked me on a Thursday, what did I do on a Thursday in 1999 on May or not May, let's say uh
uh March the 3rd uh Thursday of March 1999 I could guess that I was Now, I mean, obviously this is 20 years
later, but even three if it was 3 weeks ago, I could guess that I was at orchestra rehearsal because that's what
we had on Thursdays. Mhm. I It's just a guess. And so I think the fact that people bring that
up as a sign of his guilt is just nonsense cuz I don't think it's a I don't think it's a evidence of anything.
Uh other than he just doesn't remember probably cuz a lot of the days were the same.
So, the the strange thing though becomes that he's not that close to this Jay character, but he lets him borrow a car.
Uh I I kind of I have issue with that, but I don't want to go into like a million points of the case. I mean, kind
of want to focus on what was in the documentary. Mhm. But, I mean, they clearly point out that
there was possibly a eyewitness. I have a couple issues with this eyewitness, though.
Okay. Because it's not it's not clear at all. And if somebody says it's clear, go back and watch the
documentary. I went back and watched this part multiple times. towards the end Y- of the documentary?
Yeah, cuz I feel like I don't I don't I don't know this part. they're going to go into it more. So, I
But, I end up just looking up um I think her name is Aisha or something. Um and she has
or Asia. Is it Asia? Um Anyways, there was a girl that kind of knew Adnan that saw him in the library. That would
give him an alibi. So, and this is kind of what they were trying to get a new trial for. She wrote
multiple notes. She contacted multiple people to say, "Hey, I saw this guy. I know for a fact I saw him the day that
Hae Min went missing. And I know that I saw him around 2:15, 2:30 because my boyfriend was late. Mhm.
So, here's where the story doesn't make any sense. They think that she died in between,
let's say, like 2:30 and 3:30. Mhm. H- Hae Min Lee died between 2:30 and 3:30. Mhm. She thinks that she saw
Adnan in the public library from school. So, School library, but I get confused. I think maybe the public
library was right next to the school. I think that's the situation. of people called it I think the school
library. Mhm. It was like right across the street. Yeah. So, she's there. Here's where it doesn't make any sense,
though. She claims that she talked to him like He didn't know her that well. She didn't
know him, but he's I was one of these kids in high school. I talked to everybody. So, if I saw
somebody sitting by themselves at the library, I might sit down and just be like, "Hey, what's up? How you doing?"
Mhm. And we're also talking at a guy to a girl relationship. So, he sees, you know, a pretty girl sitting down in
the library by herself, and he sits down and talks to her for a minute. Mhm. That's
very likely. She claims it's around because school got out at a certain time. So, it would have been between like
cuz school got out around 2:00 something that they would have talked between like 2:15
and 2:30. Mhm. And she knows this because her boyfriend was supposed to pick her up. But, she
keeps on talking about that her boyfriend was like 2 hours late. So, it's like that's the confusing thing
to me. It's like, what time did she get out of school because some seniors don't have to go to school
all day. Mhm. So, did she get out at 12:00 and she had to wait a couple hours for her boyfriend to pick her up? That
part's very confusing cuz she keeps on saying, "I know it was this time because I was sitting there for 2 hours."
Right. Well, if you got out of school at 2:15, you wouldn't have been sitting there for
2 hours. You see what I'm saying? Well, yeah, depending on on what the situation
is. Right. So, that that whole thing is confusing, but again, just that evidence alone, the guy
deserves a trial because if that's not brought up in the first trial because that's his alibi. Mhm. If that's not
brought up in the first trial, well, the guy deserves a new trial because his his
lawyer didn't, you know, do anything. Um So, yeah, so those were the some of the
things that were kind of jumped out to me. The other thing, too, was they they had
a detective on the case, and he was saying like, "Look, our job is not to get it 100% right."
And and I agree with him. Mhm. The detective's job is not to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
What he claims, and I think that's probably pretty accurate, their job is to get 51% of the way there.
And then and then it's the the court and the trial that needs to get it 100% correct. Well,
so so here's the way that it typically goes down is that the detectives are going to they're supposed to follow the
evidence to lead them to what they think happened. And once they get there, they're to collect as much of that
evidence and then present it to the prosecutor and say, "Look, this is what we think happened and here's the
evidence to suggest that that that is correct and this is your perpetrator. Now we need to we need an arrest warrant
because you need to back us up and say yes, I think these guys and girls have enough
evidence and information on this person that they are the likely perpetrator." Right.
And then they go out and arrest the the individual and then now we we turn it over to the prosecutor. It's the
prosecutor's job to then build a case against this individual and and review the evidence, review the
information, and determine if they want to in fact take it to trial. Now, the interesting thing here is
I was looking into some cases in the past few weeks and one thing and and this was
big time in regards to the JonBenét Ramsey case was the the detectives were running up against some problems.
They had a lot of people and a lot of groups that didn't want to talk to the detectives including the
Ramseys themselves. And what what the detectives kept saying was, "Look, we we followed the evidence
to where we think it it should bring us. Now, we keep trying to hand this over to
the prosecutor because the prosecutor can then say, 'All right, the detectives have run into some issues where people
are are closed-lipped. They're not talking.' The prosecutor can um organize a grand jury.
And the grand jury can then they have powers that the detectives don't have. And what that is is a grand And there's
not always a grand jury for every every case out there. But a prosecutor can put
one together, and then what happens is if you if we think you know something or want to interview you regarding this
particular case, we call you in front of the grand jury. And if you won't talk to
them, now we can take action against you for not talking. Where you can choose to
not talk to detectives. Right. And so, he the detective that states that's 100% correct. Their job is to just
is to follow the evidence. And they think they got their their guy or their perpetrator or offender, whatever you
want to call them, and they give it to the prosecutor. And if the prosecutor can roll with it from there, they can.
Right, but the problem in this case is they didn't do certain things that they should have.
I mean, they basically go, "All right, let's question this guy." Of course, that's that's one of the things you need
to do. Because but in this case, it's interesting because we have two people that she could have been with.
Some of her friends say that that Adnan was going to ask her for a ride. So, that would put Hae Min Lee with Adnan.
If that ride took place. The other person that she told all of her friends she was going to be with is
her new boyfriend, Don. Right. So, those are your two people that you as far as closeness to her. Now, That's
where you start, yeah. we know with the autopsy that it's strangulation, so let's just assume
uh for this argument's sake that and we know as far as strangulation goes, it normally comes from somebody
that is close to her. So, we got two individuals, one that used to date her and one that is dating
her that she's supposed to be with. And if the cops are saying that she died basically within an hour of being out of
school, that's not giving much time. Um so, did Adnan get a ride with her? Again, they didn't check.
I'm sure there was even surveillance footage that they probably could have found that they didn't check.
But, Adnan says, "Well, I don't know where I was at." So, I think what happened with
detectives is they go, "Well, he he doesn't know where he's at. It's our not our job to figure out his alibi." Mhm.
Which I which I'd argue it is your job because this is a 18-year-old kid that doesn't really know where he's supposed
to be at. Okay, let's figure out did he get a ride with her? If he didn't get a ride with her, then where was he? Well,
he was at the library then at some point he was at track practice. So, then you go interview the the the
track teacher. Now, when they were doing that, you know, basically the teacher says, "Look, I
don't keep attendance record of people at the track practice. But, we it would be very unusual for him not to
be there. And he would have remembered that and he doesn't remember him not being there.
Mhm. So, is it a solid 100% alibi? No. But, that's a lot different of a story than we don't know
I don't know exactly where I was at. And I mean, this case is such a perfect storm because one, you have
teenagers involved, but then you have this ice storm that hits when she goes missing.
So, then you got kids not in school, kids without power at a time that people aren't as
in connection with each other. And then you And then the fact that she's missing for 3 weeks before they
find her body. And then when you start questioning backwards, you're going to get a lot of I don't know. I don't
remember. So, I think they So, then they have to interview Don. Well, Don is strange.
And his wording is strange. And the way he talks in general is strange. And he's 22 years old and he's dating a
17-year-old. It's a little strange. You know what I mean? Um her friends all have met Adnan because they went to
school with him. They all like Adnan. Most of her friends never met this guy. Well, he was supposed to be at work.
Well, she was supposed to meet him. So, where's the Where's the [ __ ] logical sense in that?
She's supposed to meet this guy. She tells everybody she's supposed to meet this guy.
I'm supposed to meet my boyfriend after school. I'm going to go hang out with my
boyfriend. I'm so excited. Uh we didn't hang out. We don't know. We're We're assuming they didn't ha-
hang out. But, we have no call log of him to her uh of of him saying he can't hang out,
but then he's at work. Well, the problem with the work alibi is his mother's a manager.
So, therefore, then there's all this specu- Now, they didn't go into this in the documentary, but he was working at a
location that he normally wouldn't work at, never worked at before. And normally when you put your time
sheet in, your time sheet would go through a computer. But for some reason, the only time in
however many years he worked there was a time code handwritten and then signed. Now,
I think the location he was at was actually like his mom's girlfriend or something was the manager. Either way,
your mom is a manager of the store you work in, and that's your alibi. Well, that's not an alibi,
because that's a family member giving you an alibi, to me. But it's a better one than Adnan can provide.
Uh I I would say no. And the reason why is cuz we at least have a coach that has no relationship,
no he's not a father, he's not a stepfather, he's nothing. Yeah, but which says I can't 100% say that he was there,
but it would have been odd if he wasn't there. No, I'm not comparing I'm not comparing
the track coach's statement to to this Don's time card. What I'm saying is if I'm remembering the timeline
correctly, wouldn't they believe she had she was dead by the time he would have gone to
track practice? Right. So, the So, to get to have committed the murder, it he could have he could have gone to
both. He could have killed her and then went to track practice. And what I mean is
being able to one, tell police, "Hey, this is where I was at during this time on this day and here's something to back
that up. Be it whether you want to believe that that piece of evidence or not. Right. You know, that's for them to
decide if they believe it or not or think it was fixed or altered in any way to to change what actually took place.
When you have another guy that just straight up says, "I don't know where I was. I could have been here. I could
have been there." Um Well That's that Right. You got one guy that's providing no
alibi and another guy that is providing something. Okay. Now whether you But that's when they They're detectives.
That's when they have to deduce what's presented to them and decide which direction do we start to go with
this? Right. Right. Right. But we got we got another thing in play. So, I agree with
you. So, on that one Don wins one. And now we got to start looking at Adnan. But like I said
there's rumors of her supposedly going to give Adnan a ride. Right? And it's not like he was getting
a ride home. It's like a ride around the corner, basically. So there's two people that she could have
been or supposed to hang out with. She's either going to see Adnan or she's going to see Don. Mhm. So like you said,
okay, alibi. Give you that one. Don wins one. But we have multiple friends of hers
that say she could not give Adnan a ride because she had something to do. She had
somebody to meet. Mhm. And so this is after I mean, these are her friends. So if she if they knew, I mean, cuz there's
people on record saying no, she basically told Adnan that she couldn't give him a
ride. So, if that's true and he didn't get into her car, she didn't give him a ride,
then where's she going to go? Who's she going to go meet? She's going to go meet Don.
So, win for Adnan. And like I said, I don't know how I don't know exactly how that played out,
but what I'm saying is as a detective and you go, "Okay, Hae Min Lee, who's where was she going after school?"
Well, when all of her friends go, she was supposed to meet her boyfriend. Well, that's the first
rabbit hole you go down. And I really think what happened is they they met. But wasn't wasn't Don's
hit the shift that he worked that day, according to what we've been told on Serial, wasn't that an unscheduled
shift? Yeah. Right. So, so not necessarily. It doesn't have to be one or the other. There's a chance that
it could have been Adnan could have been somewhere else, didn't get a ride with her. Right. She's supposed to meet Don,
but now he's working and and working at a different location. Right, but you're supposed to meet up with your boyfriend
and he never calls, you never makes any contact with you to let you know he has to work that
You know what I mean? Doesn't mean that it didn't happen. No, I agree. and and I'm I I'm kind of representing
her. She's She's missing. He doesn't call her. No, I know, but that's a whole different
avenue. We're talking about just one thing right now. Where Where was she supposed to be? Mhm. And what I'm
getting at is that it doesn't it being 1999, no she doesn't have a cell phone. What's his means of letting her know
that that hey, I got to work this shift. You know, it's Well, she has a pager. So,
we know that much. So, but Yeah, so okay, maybe there's no communication, but that also doesn't
eliminate the possibility, like you said, it doesn't have to be one or the other.
I'm glad you brought that up cuz I was I was kind of missing that. Is Okay, Don goes and and works
LensCrafters. Well, I mean cuz when Serial ends, they present the idea that maybe there's a serial killer that
killed Hae Min Lee. And right, or just yeah. You know, there there could be a chance I mean if we
really want to dive into all the possibilities at some point, there could be a chance that she
maybe Don never communicated with her and she was going to where she thought she was going to go and waited around
for him and the and a very bad person crossed paths with her at some point. Right.
Yeah, it's You know what's what's a real [ __ ] nugget in this whole case? Mhm. Is you you
hit the nail on the head here when you said it was it's kind of the perfect storm. If you were going to put a wrong
the wrong guy in prison, this is the type of case where it could very likely happen. And I think here
if if she let's say she was killed sometime that day, right? Mhm. If if her if she would have been found
that night or sometime the next day, I think they would have had a whole different investigation to do because
they would have they would have had more to go off of of possible time of death.
And what I mean by that is there's a lot of moving parts and pieces when you factor in everybody's stories
about what people were doing that day and where everybody was going. All the players involved, Don, Adnan, Jay, Hae
Min Lee, everybody, you know, and what I'm getting at here is Well, and also the just But if if she
would have been found the next day and they could have said and they would have said, "Oh, we actually believe that the
that the death occurred between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. last night." Right. Well, then him being at track practice,
I don't know what time the track practice was. I'm just using I'm just using an example. Don't don't
reference this as an exact timeline. But, there's a chance that that track practice could have been more of an
alibi because as we pointed out, there's a chance he could have killed her and then also went to track. Well, if they
had a better time of death, which they don't have and they won't they will never have, there's a chance that that
time of death may have occurred or believed to have occurred while he was at track practice.
Well, they believe within an hour, but I also think that a lot of the cops' beliefs and detectives' beliefs in this
case is just not true and they don't have evidence to back that up. Well, no, they have no way of no I mean,
when you find someone 3 weeks later, they're going to have no way of really determining her time of death. They
could probably narrow it down to within a couple days, but But, what's interesting
here is if they're coming up with a time of death because they're and we've talked about this in cases we've
covered. When you find somebody so much later, the only way you can come up with
the time of death is you go, "Okay, well, when is the first time that we know that the victim was not where they
were supposed to be?" Right. And as and when you hear about her track record, when you hear that Was it Was it
her cousin or the or niece niece or something that she would pick up? Cousin maybe, yeah. Okay, so she would
pick somebody up from from daycare or from some school or some kind of situation. I don't remember what it was.
her brother states, which this is where you have to understand how important it was. It wasn't like
something like, you know, sometimes my sister calls me and I pick up my niece or nephew from school.
I don't do that on a regular. That's not my job, right? What her brother states is we knew
something was up when she didn't pick up her niece or Right. And that's what I mean.
Because it was her job. Her track record was also that she always did it. It wasn't like something
that was a constant all you let us down again. You failed to pick this person up. No, she always did it and so that's
all the police have to go off of when they're going okay, that's when we believe that she was already dead or the
murder occurred you know, they're going to say we believe she was already dead or the
murder occurred around that time because this is where we can what we believe definitively say she was
not where she was supposed to be. Now, what I'm getting at is if she would have been found the next day
there's also there's also a chance that you go if if they knew the hours of death or if they knew the window.
There's there's a chance that that she could have been detained for some reason. Well, and
And and unable to pick that person up and was actually alive for an hour or two or three or four or five after that
time when she was supposed to pick that individual up. Well, let me look up her name cuz I want
to make sure I get this right. And uh Uh ta ta ta ta ta ta ta with this ta ta So,
um but this I I this alibi witness that they kind of failed to bring up in the first
trial. The problem with the problem with people that think he's innocent they come up with a Well, there was a
there was eyewitness that they never brought up, which would have gave him an alibi for
the time right after school. Which I do think is important because we do know that she did not get to where
she was supposed to be going. But who was she with? And if you rule the fact out that
that she was not with Adnan because he was in the library right after school, then that really gives him like a very
tiny window. Right. And he would have had to like strangle her her in the parking lot of the
school, and she would have had to sit there, and nobody would have saw him do it.
You know what I mean? Mhm. So, I do think the alibi is important, but at the same time it's like we also
don't know when the death occurred. So, we don't know if that even means anything, you know, because it could
have been Well, we saw him after school, but we didn't see him at track practice, or in between track
practice and when he went to um the mosque that that nobody knows where he's at.
So, it's very difficult, but also I think the interesting thing with with Don's alibi,
it's also you question by the police multiple times again, you're not calling your girlfriend, you're not paging her,
you're not doing anything to see where she's at. You just waiting around for the cops to
ask you questions. It's very strange. And I I almost think by him knowing Don knowing what they're asking him,
gives him Like I said, it's 3 weeks later, they find the body, and when they go back to question him,
now he has an alibi, and he it's this is handwritten note. Mhm. And even if you come up with the
alibi early, you just know that you have to get to the note by then. So, this documentary is really good. I'm
looking forward to the next three parts, and I'm guessing it's coming out each Sunday.
Um but, you know, it was released on Friday that he will not be getting a new trial
anytime soon, anyways, and the conviction stands. So, for a while he was not convicted of this crime.
Now, it goes back to it stands, and the what I was reading about this is uh I mean, we might not have any movement
on this case unless something really blows something wide open, like a confession or something. Mhm.
Uh any movement in this case for a possible 3 to 4 years. And I I think that's a
pretty sad when there's a lot of holes in this uh trial and this case. Mhm. Now, and you know what? Who knows? I
mean, it's For For those that believe that Adnan was wrongfully convicted. Um I mean, there's always hope with the
with these things. The um We When we talked You know we what we haven't done in a long time is
you know, must-watch true crime shows or documentaries. We We did that once or twice.
Um the one that we referenced on there that was on our list, The Thin Blue Line.
I mean, this was from back in It's a case from '76, 1976, and the the the documentary, The Thin Blue Line,
came out in 1988. And I believe this is the first one or one of the first ones where this documentary
ended up changing you know, who was sitting behind bars. Yeah. Um so And we've seen that I mean as far as
like Or at least get some movement. Yeah. Right. With the Steven Avery case, I mean because of the first documentary
you get Zellner involved. And then she becomes a part of the second documentary and now
um it looks like he'll get a new trial. Mhm. You know, and so we've seen that before.
But in this case, like I said it was it timing by the state knowing that the HBO
docu-series is starting on Sunday that they released that information. I believe it was on the
Friday. Mhm. Um did they decide to come out with a verdict because you know that a public
opinion is going to be swayed? And like I said, I don't know what Rabia's involvement with HBO um
but saying that, I don't think I after watching it cuz I I was Here's what I wondered. Like with
with Making a Murderer, they can claim all they want that they didn't go in with the agenda.
But after they learned what they learned, when they made the film and they edited the film, there was a
agenda. Mhm. So but this one, I can't tell what the agenda is. Well, they they might not
have one and hopefully they don't. They might just be, you know, documenting Cuz like I said, a couple of the things
that stuck out to me as odd or doesn't put Adnan in a favorable light like came from the you know, straight
from the documentary. And it's stuff that I never heard before uh or put that way. So, I do think on
some level I mean, I really think like I said, Serial is just the tip of the iceberg. But I I really think
we're going to learn a lot more from this four-part series.

The Case Against Adnan Syed: Part 1. Off The Record: Episode 46 Nic and the Captain discuss the HBO documentary The Case Against Adnan Syed: Part 1 www.truecrimegarage.com

Brief Summary

Hosts discuss HBO's "The Case Against Adnan Syed" and its storytelling, alongside reflections on Cobra Kai and true crime documentaries.

Key points

Cobra Kai Season 2 Trailer. The trailer for Cobra Kai's second season has dropped, promising more nostalgia and drama.
Million Dollar Baby's Impact. A discussion on the emotional weight of Million Dollar Baby and its storytelling.
The Case Against Adnan Syed. A new HBO docu-series revisits the infamous case, focusing on the victim's story.
Documentary Storytelling. The importance of engaging narratives in documentaries is emphasized.
The Complexity of the Adnan Case. The discussion reveals the passionate divide over Adnan's guilt or innocence, highlighting the challenges of covering the case.
Suspicious Questions. Adnan's inquiry about a police report raises eyebrows and suggests deeper concerns.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Million Dollar Baby, fantastic movie.

A strong endorsement of a classic film.

2:54WatchNov 9, 2024

Tension

50/ 100Some tension

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The Case Against Adnan Syed: Part 1 | Forensic Files