In my previous posts on Serial, I’ve avoided writing about whether Adnan was responsible for Hae’s murder, and have focused instead on whether the state’s evidence showed that Adnan was responsible for Hae’s murder. (Spoiler: It doesn’t.) From a legal perspective, that’s the more interesting question. Moreover, for the most part, I don’t believe we can figure out what “really happened” — the state’s evidence was just too incomplete. The number of unknowns is so high that the existing record can easily support a dozen possible theories of how Hae was murdered, with no reliable way to distinguish which among them is most accurate.
At least for this post, however, I’m going to stray a bit from the legal theme, and make a proposal for what I believe “really happened.” I think that the best interpretation of the currently available evidence is that Hae was murdered at approximately 3:30 p.m., and that the Nisha Call was a pocket dial that occurred during the killer’s assault.
While there is (obviously) insufficient evidence to show this conclusively, I am reasonably comfortable in assuming that this is what happened, unless and until further evidence is made available to contradict it. Note, however, that this is only an explanation for how Hae was killed. I am not making any sort of claim as to who was responsible for Hae’s death, and there is no way to prove that with the evidence available. All I am arguing is that Hae was murdered at approximately 3:30 p.m., and whoever killed her was in possession of Adnan’s cell phone.
1. Isn’t it stupidly unlikely that a pocket dial would occur during a murder?
The “butt dial theory” has been the subject of scorn because many people (including, initially, myself) think that such an event is just too hugely unlikely, too bizarrely coincidental, to be a legitimate explanation for the Nisha Call. However, misdials during violent assaults can and do occur with surprising frequency. They aren’t likely to occur, but they aren’t unicorns, either. While I was unable to find any peer-reviewed data on butt dials during violent crimes, I did find one report, at least, that suggests unintentional cell phone calls are more likely to occur during a violent crime:
Though it only accounts for about five percent of what could be perceived as misdialed emergency calls, Hoell said there are instances when police respond to potential accidental call that turns out to be of legitimate concern. Of the 15 pocket dial calls received on August 22, there was one that alerted police to a domestic violence incident, which Hoell said is the most common silver lining in the technological advancement of cellphone emergency calls to the department.
If this statistic has any validity, then 5% of pocket dials to 911 occur during events that actually warrant police intervention. That’s not a negligible amount, and supports the possibility that pocket dials are more likely to occur during an assault than at other times. Obviously, a pocket dial during any specific assault is unlikely — but this shows, at least, that it is far from being a ludicrous possibility. The following is a (very incomplete) list of actual murders and assaults that have involved a pocket dial being made as the crime was occurring:
- “Jurors listened in horror Tuesday to the last words of a Queens woman whose screams were captured in a voice message left as she accidentally pocket-dialed her cellphone while being choked to death.”
- “While Ronald Earl Williams was stabbing his wife to death, he unknowingly created a key piece of evidence that could only exist in a wireless age. . . . Williams somehow activated his cell phone, which then called his wife’s cell phone while he was killing her, Assistant State Attorney Walter Manning told a jury on Tuesday.”
- “When police initially questioned John C. Gaumer about a woman who had disappeared, the UMBC student told investigators that he had dropped her off at her Hampden home after their first date and had driven back to his campus apartment. . . . [I]t was cell phone records that initially led investigators to the senior biochemistry major . . . ‘Cell phones are an amazing thing,’ prosecutor Susan H. Hazlett told jurors yesterday during her opening statement. She later added, ‘We get to the defendant by Josie’s cell phone records.’ Prosecutors also played for jurors a chilling phone message accidentally recorded during the attack when Gaumer’s cell phone inadvertently dialed Brown’s.”
- “Holding her head in her hands, Angelie Ortiz sobbed Monday as she listened to her screams recorded on her brother’s voice mail after her ex-boyfriend kidnapped her and their 2-year-old son, then threatened to kill her when she refused to reconcile with him.”
- “D’Lisa Kelley’s grandmother called saying she’d made an accidental phone call to her sister. ‘She could hear her screaming for her life, telling someone in the background, ‘Get off of me! Get off of me! Stop! Stop!'” said her sister, LaShaun Steward, in March. ‘It was a male voice in the background saying, ‘Shut up! Be quiet! Stop screaming!'”
- “The recording was made by Merced Police Department dispatchers after Tellez apparently ‘pocket dialed’ 911 the night of the shooting and didn’t know his phone was connected to police dispatch, according to reports from deputies.The recording, which has never been transcribed due to the difficultly deciphering exactly what was said, was described Tuesday as the main piece of evidence against Tellez.”
- “The complaint says while the attack was happening, Rashid’s cell phone pocket-dialed his girlfriend’s father, who heard his daughter screaming and heard Rashid ask her if she wanted to die. “
- “A month after a 33-year-old California Marine allegedly fractured his girlfriend’s skull, a chilling recording emerged, the result of the soldier supposedly pocket-dialing the woman during the incident.”
- “Take the case of Scott Simon, a 25-year-old Oakland Park, Fla. man whom police say unwittingly spilled the beans about his plan to murder another man just before the victim was shot and killed.”
- “The jury listened to a recording of a voice-mail message left on the phone of another sister, Crystal Harris, in an accidental call from Dulin’s phone moments before the shooting and crash.”
- “The scuffle was so intense that both Shelia and Rachel had accidentally pocket-dialed someone” while stabbing their friend to death.
- “The state said it was a pocket dial from Godfrey’s phone that put him at the crime scene at the time of the killing.”
- “She had a phone, and a pocket dial went off, and [police] believe that was during the murder when she fell to the ground . . . The friend answered the phone didn’t hear anything so hung up and didn’t think anything about it just thought it was a pocket dial.”
- “Once inside, two men entered the garage and attacked the man, punching him repeatedly and tying him up with twine, said Kennewick police. . . . But the suspects didn’t realize one of they had accidentally called 911 on his cellphone until Kennewick police officers showed up.”
- “Pierre Aragon, a member of the Loners motorcycle gang, is on trial in a Peterborough courtroom for aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, uttering threats and possession of a dangerous weapon in the beating of former member Fernando Fernandes. Two men could be heard on the accidental call that came from Aragon’s phone.”
2. Could the “one-touch dialing” system on Adnan’s cell phone have caused a pocket dial to Nisha?
Adnan’s cell phone was reportedly a Nokia 6160. According to Adnan,
Nisha’s number was entered into his phone on speed dial. You can see he calls her a lot on his cell. In fact, hers is the very first number he dials when the phone is activated on the 12th. (Episode 6.)
The Nokia 6160’s version of speed dialing was called “one-touch dialing,” and it allowed you to place a call to a saved number simply by holding down the assigned numerical key for “a few seconds.” The phone’s user manual provides that,
This feature allows you to make phone calls quickly and easily with the touch of a button.
You must store names and numbers in your phone book (see page 50) before you can use this feature. Then you can assign a name from the phone book to a one-touch dial location using your phone’s keys 2 through 8. . . .
Press and hold the key (2 through 8) for a few seconds to call the number in the corresponding one-touch dial location.
Over on Reddit, /u/BaltimoreFootStomper bought an old Nokia 6160 and tested out its propensity for pocket dialing. He found the following:
When I press a key that has a 1-touch number assigned, the phone starts calling that number in approximately 1.7 seconds.
When I press multiple keys at once, the phone just starts dialing the 1-touch number programmed for whichever key it thought I pressed first.
It appears, then, that if someone had mashed all the keys on Adnan’s cell phone and held them in for 1.7 seconds, the phone would have made a call to whichever number was associated with the key that had been pressed first. Pocket dialing Nisha would therefore have been rather trivial, and could have been caused by anything that pressed the phone’s keys in for 1.7 seconds.
At trial, Nisha testified that she did not have voicemail for the number that Adnan’s phone had dialed. A pocket dial made to Nisha’s phone, if unanswered, would therefore have simply kept ringing until the call was terminated from Adnan’s phone. Because cell phone companies in 1999 billed from “send to end,” the call would have shown up on Adnan’s call records for the entire duration of the call, even though no one ever picked up on Nisha’s end.
3. What evidence is there that the Nisha Call was a pocket dial?
The fact that pocket dials are sometimes made during assaults, and the fact that Adnan’s phone was capable of making a pocket dial, shows us only that it was *possible* for the Nisha Call to have been a pocket dial, and not that it was likely to have been one. However, a pocket dial does become a much more probable explanation where, as here, there is no reliable evidence to support the conclusion that a call had been made intentionally. (For more on this, see my post here, at #7, on why Jay’s and Nisha’s trial testimonies do not support the conclusion that Nisha Call involved a conversation between two or more people.) Moreover, all of the available evidence in this case has been consistent with (and better explained by) the Nisha Call being a pocket dial, as there is not a single witness who has testified that Adnan could have had the possession of the phone at 3:32 p.m. that day.
Of course, even if we were to assume that the Nisha Call was a pocket dial, there is no direct evidence that it occurred during Hae’s murder, and at this point, there is no way that could ever be conclusively proven. The hypothesis is worth considering, however, because it offers an explanation for all of the evidence that we have concerning the 2:30 p.m. to 3:59 p.m. time period, including an explanation for the known inaccuracies in Jay’s statements about that time period.
To show why, it is worth taking a quick look again at the map of the Woodlawn and Best Buy area, as well as the call records for the time period covering Hae’s probable death:
The following calls occurred during the relevant time period:
| 2:36 p.m. | Incoming | 5 seconds | Woodlawn tower B, Southeast |
| 3:15 p.m. | Incoming | 20 seconds | Woodlawn tower C, Northwest |
| 3:21 p.m. | Jenn Home | 42 seconds | Woodlawn tower C, Northwest |
| 3:32 p.m. | Nisha | 2 minutes, 22 seconds | Woodlawn tower C, Northwest |
| 3:48 p.m. | Phil | 1 minute, 25 seconds | Woodlawn tower A, Northeast |
| 3:59 p.m. | Patrick | 25 seconds | Woodlawn tower A, Northeast |
The Woodlawn Best Buy is located almost on top of the theoretical boundary of the territory covered by the Woodlawn tower’s northeast and northwest antennas, and well within the range of each. This means that we would expect the majority of all calls made or received from Adnan’s cell phone while the phone is at the Best Buy to be routed through either the A or C antennas of the Woodlawn tower (although a minority of the calls will likely be routed through other towers, based on tower traffic or technical considerations). On the other hand, the Southeast antenna, B, points directly opposite of Best Buy, making it less likely for any call made or received from Best Buy to be routed through that antenna.
The cell records are therefore consistent with what we would expect to see if the cell phone had been southwest of Woodlawn at 2:36 p.m., and then went to the Best Buy sometime before 3:15 p.m., where it remained until at least 3:59 p.m. This is far from the only scenario that could have occurred — and we cannot assume, based on cell data alone, that it is what in fact did occur — but such a scenario is wholly supported by the cell records.
We can say with confidence, however, that it is exceedingly unlikely that the cell phone made a trip to Forrest Park and returned at any point between 2:36 p.m. and 3:59 p.m. As the Nisha Call was made in the middle of a 45 minute period in which the cell phone remained stationary within a region that could include the Best Buy or Security Square Mall,1 it does not appear to be possible that Jay was telling the truth when he claimed the Nisha Call was made as he and Adnan drove through Forrest Park.
What does Jay say was going on during this 2:36 p.m. to 3:59 p.m. time period? Well, Jay has consistently maintained, throughout every statement that has been made publicly available, that he was at Jenn’s house until 3:40 p.m., and that Adnan’s “come-and-get-me” call was made between 3:40 p.m. and 3:50 p.m. This is the single most consistent claim Jay has made about any of the events that occurred on the afternoon of January 13, 1999; in fact, the “come-and-get-me” call is the only event which occurs at the same time under every single one of Jay’s stories.2
That does not mean that the claim is true, but it does mean that there is some reason Jay is so insistent about repeating it. Either (A) the 3:40 p.m. claim is a memory that Jay strongly remembers and feels certain about, or (B) it is a lie told for a specific purpose. Given that there were no incoming calls made to Adnan’s phone at 3:40 (meaning that the statement is either based on a false memory or else is an intentional lie); that the cell records show the phone was near Woodlawn and not Jenn’s house from 3:15 to 3:59 p.m. (meaning that Jay’s claim of being at Jenn’s during this time is very likely a lie); and that Jay changed every other statement in his stories when confronted with evidence that the statement was not true (meaning that Jay has shown a complete willingness to “correct” his memory to fit the evidentiary record in other instances, where doing so is to his advantage), the answer would appear to be B. Jay believed that his interests were best served by standing by his 3:40 p.m. story, despite the conflicting evidence, and despite the accompanying damage to his credibility that would be caused by a story that appears to be demonstrably false.3
The only apparent benefit that Jay has to gain from the 3:40 p.m. story is that it provides him with an alibi for Hae’s murder. This suggests that Jay knows for a fact that Hae was murdered shortly before 3:40 p.m., and hence needed an alibi that lasted until that time. If Hae was murdered before 3:40 p.m., the that leaves us with two time periods during which she must have been killed: between 3:15 and 3:21 p.m., and between 3:21 and 3:40 p.m. Why?
First, while our evidence about Hae’s movements that afternoon is limited, we do know that at least two witnesses (Debbie and Summer) have reported seeing Hae at Woodlawn at around 3:00 p.m. that afternoon (Episode 9) (Brief of Appellant at 14) (“The last time Debbie saw Hae on January 13 was in gym class, and Hae was happy and rushing to go somewhere at 3:00 p.m. Debbie could not remember where Hae was going, but she told police on January 28, 1999 that Hae said she was going to the mall with Don.”). Their testimony seems reasonably reliable, at least by the standards of this case, and there is no testimony or evidence contradicting their statements about the time Hae was last seen at Woodlawn.
Second, three calls occur between 3:00 p.m. and 3:40 p.m. — the 3:15 incoming call, the 3:21 call to Jenn’s home, and the 3:32 call to Nisha.
Third, someone who is committing murder by manual strangulation someone does not answer or make any phone calls while carrying out the murder.
And fourth, manual strangulation takes around three to eight minutes to accomplish.4
Assuming then that it takes fives minutes for Hae to drive from Woodlawn to Best Buy (or to a similar location near Woodlawn), then she must have either been killed between 3:05 and 3:15 p.m., 3:15 and 3:21 p.m., or 3:21 and 3:32 p.m. — or, if the Nisha Call was a pocket dial, then between 3:22 p.m. and 3:48 p.m.
We can rule out the 3:05 to 3:15 p.m. time period, because if Hae had been murdered before 3:15 p.m., Jay would not have needed his 3:40 p.m. story for an alibi. Adnan’s cell phone has an incoming call at 3:15 p.m. — and since during the second interview he was shown the cell records, and was asked to identify the time Adnan called, Jay could have chosen to say that Adnan called him at 3:15 p.m. That answer would have both fit the evidence and provided him with an alibi for the time of Hae’s death, if that is when she had actually been murdered.
We can probably rule out the 3:15 p.m. to 3:21 p.m. time period, because the window is just too small. Although it at least theoretically possible that Hae was strangled between those two calls, it would have required precision timing. Moreover, since we believe Hae was strangled while she was in the driver seat of her car, in the minutes after her murder, the killer’s primary concern was more likely to have been getting her body hidden from view, rather than calling Jenn’s home. Since that would probably take at least a minute or two, the good money is against this being the time period of Hae’s death.
That leaves us with 3:21 to 3:40 p.m. If the Nisha Call was an actual conversation, that would mean the call was either made either minutes before Hae was killed (between 3:21 and 3:32 p.m.) or was made minutes after Hae was killed (between 3:32 and 3:40 p.m.). For the reasons discussed supra, however, this isn’t likely to have occurred; not only does no one have a memory of the call occurring that is consistent with what we know from the cell records, but it is pretty implausible to assume that Hae’s killer would have been concerned with calling Nisha for 2 minutes and 22 seconds, when the killer was either already with Hae in her car and getting ready to kill her, or else after the murder, when he was in a car with her body in the middle of the afternoon, and needed to quickly get her out of sight.
The alternative explanation — and the one that I believe is a much stronger fit for the evidence — is that Hae’s murder took place between 3:21 p.m. and 3:40 p.m., and that the Nisha Call was an accidental pocket dial made during the assault. This gives the murderer a full 19 minutes in which to carry out the crime, during which no calls were received or intentionally made, which is more than sufficient time to finish the crime and take the initial necessary steps to avoid being observed (i.e., moving the body to the trunk of Hae’s car).5
This hypothesis would also provide us with explanations for the following problems raised by the existing evidence:
(1) Why neither Nisha nor Jay can remember a phone call to Nisha made from Adnan’s phone that is consistent with the cell records;
(2) Why the cell phone remained in the sectors covered by the Woodlawn tower for at least 15 minutes before and after the Nisha Call occurred;
(3) Why the Nisha Call was routed through the tower and antenna covering the Best Buy parking lot;
(4) Why the Nisha Call, if it was a butt dial, would have lasted for 2 minutes and 22 seconds without whoever had the phone noticing; and
(5) Why Jay is so adamant that he was at Jenn’s house until 3:40 p.m., when all the evidence conflicts with his claim.
On the other hand, assuming the Nisha Call was an actual conversation leaves us without coherent explanations for why no one remembers it, and why it occurred at a time and place that — according to Jay’s statement — it could not have possibly occurred.
So while we can’t know for sure that the Nisha Call was a pocket dial that occurred during Hae’s murder, it does have the benefit of being consistent with all of the known evidence (save for Jay’s testimony), and it appears to provide a better explanation of the data than do any of the alternatives.
-Susan
FN1. By “stationary,” I mean that the phone remained within the L651A and L561C sectors. The phone could still have been moving within those sectors, but based on the consistency and frequency of the calls made during that 45 minute period, there is little possibility that the phone was travelling outside of those sectors.
FN2. For reference, the following are Jay’s statements about the “come-and-get-me” call from his police interviews:
Detective: Does [Adnan] call you at some point in time?
Jay: Yeah.
Detective: What time does he call you?
Jay: Um, time I remember talking to him, actually having a conversation with him, was about three-forty something. (Int.1 at 6.)
Detective: Okay, um, at some point you left?
Jay: Um-hum.
Detective: Jenn’s house?
Jay: Yes.
Detective: Do you have any idea what time that was?
Jay: About 3:40.
Detective: 3:40?
Jay: Yeah.
Detective: Was Jenn still there?
Jay: Yes.
Detective: And where were you going?
Jay: I was going to pick up Adnan. (Int.2 at 10.)
At trial, Jay testified that he left Jenn’s house at 3:45 p.m., and that Adnan’s call from Best Buy was made at around 3:50 p.m.
Jay is not simply making a mistake here, and lose track of the time that he left. Jay said that Adnan had specifically instructed him to expect a call at 3:30 p.m. that afternoon. In fact, Jay was watching the clock, and noticed when Jay did not call at 3:30 p.m. as promised:
Um, he had told me he was, he inaudible, he was gonna need me to pick him up at a certain time, that was 3:30. I waited until 3:30, he didn’t call, I left he house, ah with his car and cell phone. (Int.2 at 11.)
Based on his own statements that he was paying close attention to the time, we can rule out any suggestion that Jay was just mistaken when he claimed to have left the house at 3:40 p.m.
Additionally, Jay’s story is corroborated by Jenn, who told the police that Jay received a call and left her house at 3:40 p.m. — which makes sense if Jay’s 3:40 p.m. story is an alibi, since Jay and Jenn conferred about when he was at her house that day before Jenn gave her police statement. But Jenn giving the exact same 3:40 p.m. story as Jay does not make sense if they were both mistaken about the time — because why would they make the exact same mistake? Here’s what Jenn said in her interview:
He just said he was waiting for a call and it was going to come around three-thirty, three forty-five, um Jay got a call and then I don’t know what was said to him in conversation um than Jay got another call, got off the phone and then another call came in and I don’t know if it was the same person or who it was and I don’t know whether it was on my phone or whether it was on the cell phone that Jay had. Um then Jay left my house, probably around three-thirty, four, four-fifteen, well after three forty-five, between three forty-five and four-fifteen. (Jenn Int. at 1-2.)
“Well after” 3:45 p.m. So specific, so close a match to Jay’s statements. She also would have gone to pick up her parents from work within a half hour of Jay leaving, so she would have had a way to orient her memory of when Jay left (i.e., “shortly before I left to get my parents”). Jenn also corroborated Jay’s claim that he was expecting to receive a phone call at 3:30 p.m. that day:
[Jay] sat the phone on the coffee table and he said “I’m waiting for a phone call” I was like, you know, “who’ s going to call you, what’s,” you know his cell phone … cell phone’s out whatever, like it’s just a cell phone … was like “I’m suppose to get a call around three-thirty” and I said “okay” and he said “that’s when I ‘m leaving, around three thirty when I get the phone call. (Jenn Int. at 9.)
Jenn also said, during that same interview, that:
I guess between three-thirty and four um the phone … a phone call came in and I don’t know if it was on my phone or the cell phone that Jay had but a phone call came in, they talked on the phone and than I want to say got off the phone and another phone call came in either um my phone or Jay’s phone and it was for Jay. Jay talked on the phone to who ever and than um and than Jay left. (Jenn Int. at 6-7).
Again, Jenn places the time of the “come-and-get-me” call at around 3:30 to 4:00 p.m., with Jay leaving shortly thereafter. But Jenn is either wrong or lying, because the cell records show that the phone was not at her house at that time (indeed, at 3:21 p.m. the phone was calling Jenn’s house).
Despite the clear testimony and police statements that unambiguously state, over and over again, that the “come-and-get-me” call did not occur before 3:40 p.m., at trial the prosecution went with the theory that Hae had died at around 2:35 p.m. because it conveniently fit their theory of the case, despite the fact that it did not actually fit the evidence. In addition to the lack of any testimonial evidence supporting the prosecution’s theory, we know, from Episode 4, that accomplishing the murder by 2:36 p.m. would have been all but impossible for the killer to actually do. Moreover, the fact the 2:36 p.m. call is 5 seconds long is also inconsistent with it being the “come-and-get-me” call, unless Adnan waited until the second Jay answered the phone, quickly said “that bitch is dead, come and get me, I’m at Best Buy,” and then immediately hung up. (Since Jay says he did not know where Adnan was going to be, Adnan would not have been likely to hang up before he could even confirm Jay had heard him correctly.) Which means the only thing suggesting that Hae died before 3 p.m. is the prosecution’s need for that to be true, in order for their case against Adnan to make any sense.
FN3. We know that Jay’s story about leaving Jenn’s house at 3:40 p.m. cannot be true. Why? The Nisha Call occurs at 3:32 p.m., and everyone agrees that Jay did not call Nisha while he was on his own. This means that, unless the Nisha Call was a butt dial made by Jay while he was at Jenn’s house, Jay’s claim about leaving Jenn’s house at 3:40 p.m. is false.
FN4. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Serino, 436 Mass. 408 (Mass. 2002) (“The medical examiner testified that it usually takes five to eight minutes for manual strangulation to result in death.”); State v. Bingham, 719 P. 2d 109 (Wash. 1986) (“To show premeditation, the State relied on the pathologist’s testimony that manual strangulation takes 3 to 5 minutes.”). It remains possible that Hae was manually strangled between the 3:15 p.m. and 3:21 p.m. phone calls, but it seems unlikely enough that I am willing to discard it as a possibility.
FN5. If Hae was murdered shortly before 3:40 p.m., it would also align almost perfectly with Jay’s story from his second police statement, regarding the events that occurred following Hae’s death. Jay claims that after Hae is murdered, there are two phone calls that are made to or from Adnan’s phone, prior to their trip out to buy weed. The first call occurred around 3:40 p.m., and it was Adnan calling after killing Hae. The second call occurred about twenty minutes later, and was a call made to Jay’s friend Patrick.
If Hae was killed between 3:21 and 3:40 p.m., the that portion of Jay’s story could very well be true. Because we would indeed have two calls made after Hae’s murder: a call made a little after 3:40 p.m. to Phil, and a call made at 3:59 p.m. to Patrick.
The View From LL2 
Wow. This might be the best explanation I’ve seen yet. Great work. I’ve been sort of on the same page as you about Jay and Jenn coming up with the 3:40ish lie about Adnan’s Best Buy call to create an alibi for Jay. But I’ve come across one sticking point. According to the Brief of Appellant:
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-PUUcby-AZWfEhcuW/2002_WL_32510997_djvu.txt
Jenn testified at trial that “Jay said he was waiting for a call,” and then, “[a]t 3:00-3:30 p.m., [Jay] left her house.” Assuming this is correct, what do we make of that? Assuming that this was an orchestrated lie by Jay and Jenn, why does she suddenly change from what she said in her police statement — the call was 3:45 or later — to claiming that the call was between 3:00 and 3:30. Is this just a mistake by Jenn? A mistake in the brief? Is there some deeper meaning?
She seems to have changed her testimony at trial. Not surprising, given the 3:21 p.m. call to her house — it was either be more flexible in her story, or have her story be shown to be obviously at odd with the facts.
It seems like Jenn and Jay were giving huge flexibility in changing their stories without raising suspicion of the police. Probably with the excuse that it was 6 weeks ago, really hard to remember all the details, giving them the chance to get the story right after so many iterations. Adnan on the other hand, has far fewer details and memories since he isn’t making up a story. Looks bad for him, and they could have viewed him as not cooperating.
Whoa, pretty bold statement about Adnan not making up a story….
Yea..I think a more accurate description is…it does not APPEAR that Adnan is making up his story.
The butt dial during the assault is a smart theory though. Regardless the constant change of testimony just makes me feel a lot of it was words inadvertently put into his mouth by the Police.
I think he has something to hide, possibly Jen too (or she was just doing/saying what he asked her too). Not enough evidence to say he did it, but I think enough to say he has a bigger role in this indeed.
I like your theory, as usual it is argued excellently, however it is just one of many possible scenarios, and maybe not the most probable.
My issue with it is twofold:
1. We know Haes normal “going about her business” timeline was interrupted sometime probably before 3:15. Considering the lack of evidence of constraint, which fair enough does not have to be physical, and the feeling that this murder seems like a relatively sudden outbreak of violence, then the time between when Hae is forced/convinced to deviate from her own plan until the murder is very long indeed. You fail to explain this time convincingly. It could be upward of 50-60 minutes. Ok maybe Hae wasn’t as punctual as is claimed, but still, what is your theory?
2. During this time, Jay one must presume, calls Jenn and then almost immediately after that call starts to strangle Hae. What is your theory about why that phone call was made?
My pet theory, equally unsubstantiated, is that these are panic calls after the murder, and Jay had thick fingers while calling people, still not sure whom to call, or if he even should call someone. Beginning to dial someone then changing his mind while adrenaline and panic runs through his veins, and so on.
“Considering the lack of evidence of constraint, which fair enough does not have to be physical, and the feeling that this murder seems like a relatively sudden outbreak of violence, then the time between when Hae is forced/convinced to deviate from her own plan until the murder is very long indeed. You fail to explain this time convincingly.”
One doesn’t need to explain this to raise reasonable doubt. There are countless reasons Hae herself could have deviated from her business with the expectation should could still pick up her cousin around 3:15, without her having been constrained. She, like Adnan, was living a double life, keeping her dating and pot smoking secret from her family.* Even the most consistent, punctual person in the world will be late or inconsistent at times, and sometimes things just come up. We know she had a gas station debit card expenditure that is unexplained and likely from that afternoon. What if she stopped at the station to buy a soda and call to let people know she’d be a few minutes late picking up her cousin, and was interrupted before the call? What if this was the one day she was juggling too many things, and lost track of time? Is that really unimaginable for a teenage girl in a new, secret, passionate relationship?
(isn’t interesting how this “secret life” aspect of Adnan’s life leads people to see him as a sociopath, but Hae was apparently also dishonest with her family about the same issues and remains judged. Not that I’m suggesting she was a bad person — she clearly wasn’t. Just a double standard.
The long period of time between deviating from course and the potential murder time has a decent explanation – Jay and Hae had a reason to be speaking in private. Hae wanted to confront him about cheating on his girlfriend. It isn’t hard to imagine “Hae, I want to talk to you about the Stephanie thing, can we talk in private?” He needs to get a present for her, so Best Buy is a halfway decent place to go and talk, since it shows Hae that he cares since he is buying a present. Things go bad during their little heart-to-heart and Hae says she is going to have to tell her best friend and she doesn’t believe Jay. Jay strangles her in the heat of the moment, afraid Steph is going to find out about him cheating and everything else fits.
Obviously this is a huge hypothetical, but there is at least a plausible reason for them a. to be together in private, and b. have been together for such a long time between her being last spotted and being murdered.
It isn’t hard to imagine a deep conversation lasting 50 minutes – especially if they were smoking a bowl while having their little talk (remember, in that group, the side BB parking lot was a good spot to spark up).
jack – I thought that Jay and Hae barely knew each other? That is what he had previously said. Stephanie was best friends with Adnan. I don’t see a teen girl blowing off cousin, new love and a wrestling meet to have a conversation with someone she barely knows about cheating on a secondary friend.
I think the most plausible explanation is this: if you look at the map, the back way out of the high school (the way you would take to avoid having to turn left into after school bus traffic) to also get on the freeway going in the direction Hae would be would take her on a loop right by the Best Buy parking lot. This is also assuming that Adnan had asked her for a ride earlier and lied saying that his car was in the shop (this is also assuming that Adnans reason for lying was that he knew Jay was going to use the car to cheat on Stephanie, and since Hae at least knew who Jay was and knew Stephanie, didn’t want to have to explain why he loaned his car to Stephanie’s boyfriend in the middle of the day). So, Hae is driving by the parking lot and sees Adnans car parked in the same spot that they used to park and bone in, so she gets curious and goes in for a closer look. She decides to bust Jay (maybe after they are finished and he sends his Jump off on her way) and Jay gets in her car to try and explain himself and hopefully talk Hae out of telling Stephanie. When it’s clear that Hae is not backing down (this seems to jive with her personality) Jay freaks out and kills her. He then calls his drug dealer friends in a panic to help him out.
So the real question is: who was Jay cheating on Stephanie with?
I think Nick T. nailed it, no pun intended (ok it was, so sue me). I suspect that Hae not only threatened to expose Jay to Stephanie, but also to call the cops about him dealing weed out of his grandmother’s house. Now everything in his life is on the line – his girlfriend, his freedom, and his grandma (who I’m guessing was like a mother to him). Hae had to be silenced. That’s the only way I see him having enough motive to strangle her. This fits the pattern of Jay’s story being concocted from half truths. We already suspect many of the actions (and thoughts) he attributes to Adnan during the murder and cover up were his own, but in this case the person threatening to expose him wasn’t Adnan (which Jay stated was his reason for committing the crime of covering up) but Hae.
cheating with Jen
cheating with Jen?….I think Jen is the one that helped Jay get rid of the body. Why I say jen, cos their stories are the same as if they discussed it.
I think Jen was with Jay, hence their stories of events are the same
Really because I feel like Nick T’s answer is the most stupid thing I’ve ever read.
I’m wondering how Adnan was supposed to call Jay to get him if he accidentally left his phone in the car and didn’t give it to Jay?
Wouldn’t they have arranged a way for Adnan to contact Jay other than his own cell if he was planning to it take with him?
If Adnan GAVE Jay his phone then that would be their way of communication but otherwise there’s something missing? I would want a way to contact the person with my car but I might not want to give my phone up for the day either.
So maybe Adnan was supposed to call Jay at Jenns as she said when Adnan called Jay she couldn’t remember if he called her place or a cell phone Jay had, so it seems that it could be likely Adnan had Jenns number if she thought he may have called?
Sorry this is my first ever comment on this case so it may not make sense
I think that Jay asked to use the car, I don’t believe Adnan offered it or insisted a barely friend take it. I’m guessing with Jays connections he was actually using it to organise drugs or said he would repay Adnan the favour with some weed or something? That to me would be his motive to lend Jay his car. Thats what people do, especially if they don’t have the connections Jay has and they’re chasing.
Often when people are organizing larger or smaller quantities of weed they may have to call someone to call someone and drive around a bit and call back etc etc? It seems like Jay was checking in with Jenn maybe about something to do with that? Or maybe trying to get a hold of someone through Jenn?
People often wonder why Jay would be looking for small amounts of weed if he was selling larger quantities from his house, that doesn’t make sense to me either. The only thing that makes sense is that he was looking to buy a larger amount to restock his supply and sell. Hence the secrecy and all the calls to Jenn or Jenns friends, thats why she washed her hands with it because she didn’t want to have to dob in her source who would be a bigger fish than Jay. I believe she was somewhat of a middle man to Jays drug dealing.
I can’t remember if Adnan said he gave Jay the phone or if he left it behind? The only reason I can see to give Jay his phone and his car would be so Jay could organize something for Adnan NOT because he wanted to kill his ex girlfriend and then be picked up. Jenns phone records would be interesting.
Is it possible Jay was calling Jenn to see if Adnan had called yet to be picked up? Because he had a body in the trunk of Adnans car to get rid of and was freaking out?
Jays testimony is so whack and Adnan didn’t testify so I just can’t recall definitively if Adnan said he’d given Jay his phone so he could call him to be picked up. I will obviously go back and check it out properly which would be much easier if Jay didn’t change his story every time 🙂
Also, in relation to the 2 Grandmas, Adnan said that he had gone to JAYS house which someone commented was not stated as his Grandma’s or somewhere he didn’t actually live or anything like that, but if Adnan didn’t know Jay that well and Jay said for instance “I need to get something from my house”, when they arrive at a house how is Adnan supposed to know how often Jay stays there? or if it’s his actual house not his other Grandmas? or even where Jay lives?
i couldnt reply on my own so i randomly chose this one…to start i think adnan is innocent.of haes murder. 100% innoncent in knowing more than he claims or.some involvment not.sure but.of murder yes. now i.do believe we are all capable.of losing grips with situations and doing.something regrettable. also im.30 Female..but when i was 17 i had a bf that wasnt always nice.to me. BUT if u asked ppl like SK did on what kind of guy they thought my bf was they wiuld for sure say “the man, awesome dude, funny, pothead, cool with everyone ” even tho i knew a very diff side..so yes.totally possible adnan ws just like that and hae saw that side. ALSO at 17 i would absolutly lend my car to a kinda sorta friend, why? cuz i didnt know consequence. adnan had no reason not too loan hia car to jay, & im sure he never would of lent his car to anyone again if he didnt go.to jail for this. and i find it strange he asked hae for a ride that day…seems so last minute. if he planned this with jay and the car it would all have to fall on that hae would give him a ride. why not ask the day before or even that morning right away even..he waited till later on right before she was leaving school. so he wiuld have to call jay and change up.plans i.would think? also its not so far stretched that her friends got.time wrong..10min convos could have been 13mins..5 min convos could be 8mins..minutes are crucial and the 2 or 3 lost minutes could make all the difference. MY personal experience when i was 17 def can see the possibilty of adnan doing it, BUT idk i think jay prob said what cops wanted to hear, in return they look the other way for his drugs and he becomes a street informant.
Who is Phil, and why would you buy weed directly after killing someone?
Very good questions. It’s too bad the prosecution never thought to ask.
If the comment from JO’C is accurate:
“Or maybe it was to get a ride rather than weed….if there’s only one killer, that person has a two car problem. You can ditch one, but then you need to get back to the other.”
Jay called Phil to get rid of Hae’s body. Couldn’t Phil be that man with dreadlocks a witness (in the Undiscolosed podcast) saw hanging around Leakin Park in a car similar to Adnan’s?
I think Phil was one of Jays friends/contacts. Same with Patrick. I don’t think you’d try to buy weed after killing someone, but might need to contact them about the various activities required to clean up and cover up a crime. Buying weed is a convenient excuse to weave into an elaborate made up story.
Or maybe it was to get a ride rather than weed….if there’s only one killer, that person has a two car problem. You can ditch one, but then you need to get back to the other.
Agree. Jay needed a ride because of the 2 car problem. Shady drug dealer friends wouldn’t ask questions.
That’s actually a great explanation, fits with the six frantic calls to Jen also.
Your mind has a capability for logic that most people don’t! Thanks for this piece. What do you think of Jen’s statement that she heard a deeper voice on the phone? Which phone call would that be and how does that relate to when Hae was killed?
“[t]he voice on the cell phone was an older male, deep, not like a kid, and it was not [Jay]”.
Phil or Patrick perhaps?
If Hae was murdered between 3.21 p.m. and 3.40 p.m., the Nisha call being a butt-dial possibly in the middle of a struggle, the problem one would have to explain is: what delayed her between whenever she left campus and when the killer got round to killing her? Hae was not going to be waiting around in the Woodlawn area of her own will until 3.21 p.m. or after. She would have set off in time to make it to the nursery for 3.15 p.m., so 3.05 p.m. at the very latest, but likely earlier. So, in the scenario you suggest, this would mean someone gained access to her car while she was still in Woodlawn, managed to detain her without struggle for 15-20 minutes, received 1 call, made another, and finally strangled her.
As you imply that the assailant would have to be Jay here, I find this difficult to reconcile with what we know about Hae and Jay. If Hae was reluctant to give Adnan a ride much earlier, she would be even less inclined to stop and pass the time with Jay until 3.21 p.m. Asking for a ride would be even more implausible as he would presumably be in Adnan’s own car himself.
I find it difficult to believe that Hae was murdered any time after 3.05 – 3.10 p.m. I know that Jay lied, and his timeline was way off in comparison to cell phone data and logical thinking (for example, he claimed track finished at 6.00 p.m. in one interview or trial, I forget which), However, Jay’s version of events does make a little more sense if one subtracts an hour or so from what he claimed.
*Adds an hour, not subtracts! Math not my strong point.
That’s my question, too. I kept thinking Hae must’ve been murdered around 3:30 because Jay and Jenn were so adamant that he was at her house then. But Hae had to be at her cousin’s school soon after it let out at 3:15. I’ll even give her 3:20 (I don’t see her waiting around in the carpool lane to be first in line.). But she’d still have to leave Woodlawn by 3:10 to make it there reasonably on time.
It would’ve had to have been something major for her to be super late picking up her cousin. I thought she was in a rush because she was trying to squeeze in a trip to see Don before she got her cousin. So why is she stopping anywhere besides the mall where they both work? Has anyone heard if Don said he was expecting Hae?
Some people said maybe she was going to smoke, but did they find any drugs in her system? Some people said she was stopping at BB to get a present for Stephanie, do we know if that would’ve been expected/normal? Once she got in her car to leave school, she had to have stopped somewhere (where she was murdered). But where? And why?
I wish we knew more about her injuries. If someone were holding her captive for a few minutes, she would’ve been fighting hard and screaming bloody murder. Someone would’ve noticed something, right? If her only injury is her manual strangulation, then it must’ve been done FAST. No physical arguing or fighting beforehand, but a surprise attack.
Speaking of the strangulation, why hasn’t anyone talked about where the killer was positioned when he strangled her? I figured they could tell by the bruising (as in it shows he was behind, beside, or facing her). That her turn signal knob was damaged indicated to me that a struggle happened in her car. Were there shoe scuffs on her dash? Scratch marks from her clawing to escape on the seat/door?
And with the rigor mortis, Susan said she was buried laid out (not pretzeled up), so she wasn’t in the trunk long enough for full rigor to set in. But what about her jaw, hands, and other parts that start to set first? Were they limp when buried? Or already set in whatever position they were in the trunk?
Last thing, did nobody have anything to say about Jay or Adnan’s physical appearance in the days following? Did Stephanie notice bruises or scratches on Jay?
I lied, one more thing: Maryland’s court records are publicly available online and searchable by name of party. Jay got into a lot of trouble in the years following Hae’s murder. Most telling are the domestic violence charges and restraining order someone had against him. And I thought it was kind of weird that Jay’s birthday was 1 week after Hae’s murder. What did they do for Jay’s birthday? How was he acting?
And…discuss.
Since there was a charge on Hae’s card for gas, I’ve always thought what if she ran into Jay at the gas station? Who knows what happened from there.
Ugh the gas station charge! I always forget about it! Do we know what time of day it was? So aggravating that they didn’t check the surveillance tape back then to see when she was there and who with. Random thought–was that gas station on a route that makes sense for Hae if she’s going to see Don? She’d just gotten a drink and snack after school though, so I don’t know why she’d stop for another drink or snack (just a guess based on price) immediately after. Unless it was for her cousin??? Maybe she always brought a certain soda for her little cousin. The time of that purchase would be tremendously helpful.
Is the gas station close to that pool hall Chris says Jay told him he (Jay) was at when Adnan came to ask for help with the body?
This is garbled and confused but in Jay;s first interview with the cops he says that Adnan told Adnan’s friend Tayib about the murder. Later on Rabia’s blog there is a statement (not clear from whom) where it is Jay that tells Tayib that Adnan is involved and
“Jay further went on to tell Tayib that he met Adnan on the day of the incident at a gas station where Adnan showed Jay the body”
It really is a shame that gas station receipt wasn’t investigated.
I think she ran in the gas station and bought a blunt.
Remember the charge on Hae’s card? She already had juice and fries. Did she stop at the gas station and buy a blunt?
She could have been being followed. I would go in a public place and buy another snack if I was scared.
If Jay ran into Hae at the gas station (and $1.77 or whatever is the perfect price for Hae to buy a nice dutchie) there is a perfect reason for them to be talking in private AND for it to be at Best Buy. Jay needed a gift, Hae and Jay wanted to talk about Jay cheating on Steph, and the side BB parking lot is known to their circle as a good spot to smoke a blunt.
Try this on for size: Jay and Hae run into each other at the Gas station – No murder was planned. They instead decided to talk out Jays infideltiy to Hae’s best friend Stephanie. They decide to go to Best Buy in the parking lot since Jay needed a gift and friends in their group already admitted they had smoked weed there in the past – perfect spot to go.
The talk goes bad and Hae says she just HAS to tell Steph. Jay freaks out and strangles her – butt dialing the phone. The calls immediately after are him panicking and trying to figure out what to do next.
Also why Best Buy if Jay didn’t need a gift and planned to kill her? There are PLENTY of better spots to kill someone than a random parking lot since they smoke ALL over the place and know of lots of good, secluded spots that are far better shielded.
I read somewhere that the posting date for the charge was on the day Hae disappeared, but that the transaction date was two days prior.
Repeating post from below: I read that the transaction posted the day Hae disappeared, but was made two days prior.
This doesn’t matter at all, but wasn’t Jay’s birthday on 1/12, the day before Steph’s, the day before the murder, not one week later? I thought that’s what he said in some of his statements to detectives. Also, I find it ironically funny that he was almost bragging about having a rap sheet to the detectives at the time and they called him out and said he didn’t really have one. Well now he certainly does, he must be proud.
I’m with you though, if other people are going to scrutinize all of Adnan’s actions and his character, the way he behaved after Hae was known to be missing, the way he offers no solid alibi years later but his story still doesn’t change (because he is innocent and doesn’t have a “story” to make up), the way he doesn’t display public outrage toward Jay, and the way he reacted to being asked about the thefts at the mosque (which wasn’t as heated as some people are making it out to be), then those same people should also scrutinize Jay’s character and known criminal record. Who fits the profile better? I’m not saying Jay’s other criminal offenses committed post-1999 mean he is a murderer, but I mean, let’s give the guy as much scrutiny as Adnan at least. We know for certain he was involved to a certain degree by his own statements, Jenn’s and the fact that they used his shovels, he wiped them down, disposed of them, etc, etc, etc. He is the kind of guy who tried to stab his friend with a knife because he hadn’t been stabbed before and “needed to go through the experience.” Um, WHAT? Hello, Psycho if we’re going to use that word to describe anyone in this story. Totally not normal behavior. Obviously if I was him I would prefer to fade off into anonymity, but I think he’s going to need to answer some more questions sooner or later.
It’s pretty hard to compare the actions and claims of someone who is free and someone who is in a high security jail for murder and say ‘well, someone looks more guilty.’ I agree that looking into Adnan’s character, e.g. theft etc, pre-murder is pointless. though.
But if he had violent tendencies they would manifest under the stressful and sometimes abusive conditions of prison. He has been nothing but a model prisoner. This does suggest something about his emotional control.
Apparently the drive from Woodlawn to the nursery was around a 15 minute one, and Hae had never been late before. As you mention, she was thinking ahead to her date with Don, which would be limited in length by the wrestling match afterwards (she’d pick up her cousin before, drop her off, then go to the Lenscrafters mall). So, Hae had every reason to get to the nursery in good time and avoid unnecessary dalliances, such as striking up a silly argument with her ex boyfriend’s drug dealer, in order to maximize the time she could spend with Don.
I’d also suggest (very speculatively) that given the loved up frame of mind she was in, she wouldn’t be in the mood for stirring re: someone else’s personal life, anyway. If I am in a good mood, I generally don’t want to put a downer on anyone else’s. The main thing, however, is: Hae had no reason to dally after 3.00 p.m. Whoever got in her car did so before, and didn’t restrain her.
What was Hae and Jay’s relationship? Could it be plausible that Hae denied driving Adnan earlier and didn’t want to be involved with him because she wanted to see Don. Adnan knows that to get Hae alone he’s going to need help. That’s where Jay comes in. Hae is friends with Stefanie. Adnan lends Jay the car and the plan is for Jay to ask Hae to help him pick out a present at the Best Buy for Stefanie. The one thing in my mind that would cause a girl like Hae to veer off course from getting her cousin would be too get a present for one of her good friends or to at least help her boyfriend get her a present. This puts Hae with Jay and makes sense to me… or at the very least, puts Hae in a location where Adnan could get to her. A lot of holes here I know.
As a former teenage girl, my own responsibilities and priority over helping a veritable stranger but a gift for my friend. Remember that Jay said that he did not really know Hae. if I were to help him, it would have been after my own obligations and desires were met. Remember that Hae was a high achieving and busy girl with no history of blowing tasks off casually
FYI, I read that the corononer mentioned she was probably knocked out when she got strangled. She had a blunt force trauma to the head.
From trial:
“1. Given the severity of the blunt force injuries, it is likely that Lee was at least stunned, and the injuries are certainly consistent with Lee being knocked unconscious.
2. It is highly unlikely that Lee spoke or even came close to speech if she were being fatally strangled.
3. It’s possible that the blunt force injuries could have been caused by punches, but it is likelier that they were caused by a weapon or Lee’s head striking some fixed object.
4. If Lee were in the driver’s seat of the Sentra while being strangled, it is highly unlikely that she could have kicked at her assailant.
5. It is highly unlikely that the blunt force injuries to Lee’s head could have been caused by an attack on her while she was in the driver’s seat of her Sentra.”
Didn’t Summer say that Hae was at school at 3:30, telling her she wouldn’t be on the bus to the wrestling match, she’d drive herself? And the hot fries girl said Hae told her to make sure the bus waited for her, just after school let out. So if both are to be believed, something during that time changed her mind about cathing the bus. Also wasn’t there a charge on Hae’s credit card in that time, a bit of a ways from the school? Siiigh, more questions raised than answered.
Inez Butler Hendricks (the hot fries girl) witnessing Hae leaving school is confusing. She states she saw Hae between 2.15pm and 2.30pm leaving school in a hurry (this fits if she wants to squeeze in a visit to Don before picking up her cousin) but is impossible timewise for the other witnesses who also saw Hae. She also says that Hae asked her to make sure the wrestling bus waiting for her but Summer is clear Hae was going to make her own way to wrestling. People who think Adnan is guilty are inclined to disregard Inez’ testimony because of these inconsistencies and I can see why – if Inez saw Hae leave alone then it really cuts down on the plausibility of Adnan intercepting Hae (he might be hiding in her trunk though or flag her down although he does have a witness for 3.30pm which if true pretty much blows that idea away too).
However, if you are going to say Inez is misremembering the day then you have to explain how Inez is very sure this is the last time she sees Hae, they are well acquainted as both are involved on the wrestling team. You would have to explain why on any other random day Inez is seeing Hae in a hurry in a way which fits with the other witnesses (in more of a hurry as each witness sees her) You would have to explain why Inez places Hae in a logically consistent way compared to the other witnesses (after class, gym, gym on her way somewhere, leaving school). Apart from the time, Aisha and Becky, then Summer, then Debbie, then Inez’ witness accounts flow really well together. You would also have to explain why Inez would misremember the day when that evening she had to sub for Hae when Hae never showed for wrestling. Hae is described as someone who takes her responsibilities seriously so it’s unlikely she blows off wrestling very often, if at all.
I think it’s more plausible that Inez misremembers the time – sometimes memory just works like that. Why does she change her mind about catching the bus? Summer was really upset about the idea that Hae might not make it to wrestling because she was an inexperienced scorer – maybe Hae felt bad about that and so changed her mind and decided she would catch the bus after all, this fits with what we know about Hae – she takes her responsibilities seriously and she seems like a nice person from what everyone else says about her).
For me though, the fact that Inez, who knows Hae, remembers it as the last time she ever sees her and the fact she has to sub for Hae that evening at wrestling makes it extremely unlikely that Inez is remembering the wrong day. I think it is very likely that Inez was the last person to see Hae alive apart from her killer.
I think you’re confusing statements made by Inez and Summer. Inez said she saw Hae earlier (2:30) buying a snack ( same time and same snack she bought almost every day, which makes it possible to have mistaken the day); and in another statement Inez said she did NOT see Hae at that time on the 13th.
Summer was the girl who was managing the wrestling team with Hae and said she spoke with Hae around 3:00.
Could you point me to the direction of where Inez says she did not see Hae at that time? I’m going by the post conviction relief note, the appeal doc of sept 2000 and the podcast on what Inez did say, all give a time for Inez seeing Hae between 2.15pm and 2.30pm – which is of course not possible unless every other witness is wrong.
Summer clearly says in the podcast that she saw Hae starting somewhere between 2.30pm and 2.45pm – the conversation was unhurried and lasted at least 10 minutes. Of course the cops were unaware of Summer’s involvement.
No one saw Hae (as far as I know) as late as 3.30pm but I’d be interested in any new evidence.
Oh, I say all – not the podcast. They don’t give a time, they just says that Inez was the last person to see Hae.
Also Inez does not say Hae rushed in to buy her usual snack and rushed out again. I agree it would be easy to confuse that. However she says a lot more details – She sees Hae’s car drive up, Hae runs out leaving the car running, they talk about the wrestling that night, Inez sees Hae leave. That’s quite a lot of detail which would have to happen every time to make it plausible that Inez is confusing the dates.
Inez is also clear on the podcast – this is the last time she ever sees Hae.
This is pretty persuasive to me but I’m open to changing my mind if there is further evidence that Inez says she never saw Hae at that time – I’ve just never seen it.
Re the credit card. It could have been something really significant or nothing much at all – unfortunately it was never investigated and so we’ll never know. We know Hae bought something small from the gas station either that day (or some people think possibly even from the day before).
If the cops had gone in and asked to see the till records then that would have been cleared up – they didn’t and so it’s hard to make any inferences from the receipt without further evidence.
Gas was ~$0.87/Gallon at that time, that could have been a purchase of 2 gallons of gas on that card.
Could have been anything small tbh
We don’t know that it was Hae using her own card do we? Was her purse recovered with the card in inside? Shoddy police work
Summer says Hae was at the school at 2:30 – 3:00 which means she could not have been killed at 2:36 P.M.
Is it possible that Hae spoke to Don during the day and planned to see him or meet with him briefly at his work after school sometime?
He was apparently called in to work on his day off so if he spoke to Hae during the day she would know he would be at work.
So maybe she wrote the note to Don after school, as it included the interview and wrestling stuff (which seemed like they had spoken of it, possibly that day, guys don’t remember things you told them the day before 🙂 ), and intended to leave it at his car (or something) because she was running late or early?
Maybe Don was meant to meet with her and she never showed? That could be the thing I find fishy about Don, maye his cop family decided he should not mention they were supposed to meet or he might have ended up like Adnan? Jay or someone else may have crossed her path somewhere on her way to Don’s work?
I find Don’s actions super wierd, not knowing who Jay is for 15 years, sorting out his movements straight away, never calling Hae again etc? I thought his alibi of working at a business owned by his mother was seriously flimsy, time cards or no time cards (they’re not fingerprints) but maybe he really was at work? and had had contact with Hae, planned to meet and kept it quiet to stay out of the investigation? I feel this could be where my suspicions of him could lay?
Unless the reason Hae couldn’t give Adnan a ride was because she had a plan already to meet Jay? I admit I don’t know if this theory fits the known “facts”, it just came to me, but I’ve been bothered since my second listen to Serial about where Hae was going in a hurry. The cell phone map shows Owings Mill mall (where she and Don worked) as a possible destination, but we found out later that he wouldn’t be there and she should have known he wasn’t working there. She wouldn’t have had time to get to Hunt Valley, right? Although young women in love…she might have been trying.
Where is Hae’s pager? Is that part of her stuff that was put in a dumpster? Could someone have lured her pretending to be Don, via pager, to a location (on her way to pick up her cousin) and killed her. She waited as long as she could, started writing a note to Don “sorry I can’t wait any longer…” then someone else drives up.
They butt dialed in the process of killing her. (Remember, the whole reason for term “butt dial” is because it happened so often to everyone at that time!) What’s interesting is that the two phone calls after are to Phil and Patrick. Jay would be doing that calling.
The 3:21 to Jenn’s house could be from Jay saying “I see Hae. I’ll call you after.” Maybe Jenn was in cahoots and that is why she was so paranoid and obtained a lawyer quickly.
EAs a former teenage girl, my own responsibilities and priority over helping a veritable stranger but a gift for my friend. Remember that Jay said that he did not really know Hae. if I were to help him, it would have been after my own obligations and desires were met. Remember that Hae was a high achieving and busy girl with no history of blowing tasks off casually
On the topic of theories, I notice that that people have sort of a hard time with Jay’s motive, assuming he did it — which I do. To kill in order to stop her from revealing stuff sounds far fetched, at least more far fetched than a broken heart.
However, what I think happened is that he was trying to threaten her and he went to far. That simple. (Or because she was never strangled before so she had to be strangled.)
There are really only two ways this makes sense to me:
1) Adnan did it.
2) A third party was involved, either as the actual murderer or the kids were in too deep with some drug business.
Jay was obviously involved on some level, and I sort of think Adnan was, as well (though like the proprietor, I am astonished that he could be convicted with that garbled evidence). But why would Jay randomly kill Hae in the middle of the day? I just don’t buy that this cheating thing was a big enough deal. They’re high school kids, someone is cheating on someone every other week.
There’s more to this story, just too many things make no sense with the information we have. I can believe that Jay was rolling with a dangerous crowd and Hae ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The co-worker who talked about how scared he was – hard to believe he would be that scared of Adnan – was pretty convincing.
That is why I say it wasn’t premeditated. Jay could have been trying to threaten her. He strangled her as a threat, perhaps intending for her to pass out, and it went too far.
As for what is normal for high school kids, I have no idea either way. That whole life style is completely foreign to me.
Here’s my wack job theory:
Adnan is upset at Hae.
Hae is friends with Stefanie.
Jay is in love with Stefanie and that’s his “one good thing”.
Maybe there is a cheating and Hae knows something about Jay.
Adnan and Jay now BOTH have a motive to off her but it original begins with Adnan with Adnan possibly manipulating Jay with lies or Stefanie.
Adnan can’t get Hae alone. Adnan uses Jay to get Hae alone. This is buying the gift for Stefanie.
They are both involved in a setup and murder. Both have gotten their friends to go lone and lie for both of them.
I don’t understand why the prosecutors didnt pick the 3:15 call. What problem did they see with that time? Too close to jenn’s call? Too close to Nisha call? What is it?
I think that it’s mainly because there are witness statements placing Hae still at school at about 3pm – it’s too tight a timeline based on the scenario that the State were putting forward (murder at Best Buy).
Well then how could the state credibly claim she was killed around 2:30 if there were witnesses seeing her after that time at school? I mean, I know the state did claim that, but how could they without Adnan’s defense team or others refuting?
I have the same questions. Susan may have provided an answer in one of her previous blog posts – maybe the Defense was under the impression the timeline was later for the murder – hence no investigation of the Asia alibi as it was irrelevant to a later murder time.
The trial transcripts would make this clearer.
Go to the Serial website, there’s an entire entry on this. http://serialpodcast.org/posts/2014/10/why-it-cant-be-the-315-call
Definitely seems like someone dropped the ball. I can’t think of any other explanation.
The Serial folks actually did a blog post on this: http://serialpodcast.org/posts/2014/10/why-it-cant-be-the-315-call
I think this makes sense, but Hae was supposed to pick up her cousin at 3:15, which was something she took really seriously apparently and wouldn’t have been late. This would work in this timeline if she was accosted on/near her arrival at her cousin’s school. Which seems entirely possible.
I think this is where the 2:36 came from, as the prosecution felt it needed to happen before 3:15.
I think this explanation of the call works, the Nisha call never made any sense to me, and Jay clearly doesn’t know anything about it. I don’t think an inadvertent/butt dial is any kind of stretch. There’s a reason that ‘butt dial’ is in people’s vocabulary.
Of the doubts I have about Adnan, this call has never been one of them(although my primary doubt involves his inability to even speculate on his whereabouts after school outside of “checking his email”). Not only because of the timing, but because it doesn’t really fit into the pattern of the way Adnan was using the phone that day when he did have it. And the fact that Jay felt the need to tell a story about a different phone call, when all he had to say was “He called a girl he was seeing.”
The Nisha call is one of the few things that we know happened and it is a strange detail.
Sorry to spam your blog with another comment, but… Is it just a coincidence that there was an incoming call to Adnan’s phone at 3:15? Hmmm.
Also, your presentation of the actually pertinent information surrounding this has been great. Really cuts to the chase and makes it easier to think about it logically. 🙂
As far as we know, yes. Can’t say I’d be shocked if we found out otherwise, though.
If Jay was directly involved with the murder, then he must have been in the same place as Hae at the time the murder took place. It is not at all clear how Jay could have possibly known where Hae was. (This is not an issue with Adnan who could have gotten a ride in Hae’s car.) By far the most plausible scenario is for Hae to have called Adnan’s phone saying where she was, and in that scenario the phone call would have to be the 3:15 one. (The 2:36 call is too early and too short.) So, if Jay did it, then it’s not a coincidence that there was a 3:15 incoming call as that call is how Jay found out where Hae was.
The 3:15 call could definitely have been that. Hae did seem to have some special errand she was going to run that day, and was in a hurry to get to. Maybe it was that. We just don’t know, because any evidence that would help us figure that out was never recovered or has gone missing (i.e., the phone records).
I agree we can’t know for sure. But I think for your (very interesting!) theory from this post to work, then somehow the phone has to get from Jay in Adnan’s car at 3:21 to the murderer in Hae’s car at 3:32, and for that Jay needs to know where Hae’s car is. I think the only plausible scenario for that is that the 3:15 incoming call included the information of where Hae’s car was.
This is only an issue if you assume it was preplanned. If he just met her and things went wrong there is no issue.
Is it possible Adnan knows where Hae is and going and gives Jay the phone to contact and let him know?
Hi Susan, as a newb to your blog I wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed reading it and studying it. Lots of theories going on here, so let me offer up a slight twist to this one. If Jay was the sole perpetrator, there had to be a motive strong enough to kill her – I doubt if a vague threat to tell Steph about him screwing around would do it. But maybe he arranged to meet Hae at the best buy to sell her some weed after he found out he would have Adnan’s car to get around. He could have called her from his house or Jen’s, but wouldn’t have used the cell since Adnan could see it later in the call log. His trip to Edmondson Ave from 12-1 could have been to pick up more supply.
Since it’s already set up, Hae calls briefly to say “I’m at best buy, come meet me,” but at 2:36. It can’t be the 3:15 call since that’s too late to pick up her cousin, and the cell records suggest the phone is already at BB by then. He goes to meet her, and they pull around the side lot but something goes sideways. Maybe she is threatening to tell Steph if he doesn’t cut her a good deal, maybe he suggests she pay him in “favors” instead of cash and she freaks out. She is screaming and he’s trying frantically to get her to shut up. Then she does.
At least two contemporaneous articles (one when she was missing I think, and one after the body was found) in the Baltimore Sun say that Hae was last seen on her way to pick up her cousin and then go to her job at Lenscrafters. I find that interesting. Was there any testimony to that effect? Here’s one:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-02-12/news/9902120061_1_hae-min-lee-block-of-rockridge-road-lee-s-father
Also somewhat interesting that she had a ticket to France the day she was found?
When you make a call from a cell phone, the counter doesn’t start counting until the call Is picked up. Nisha does not have an answering machine. If this were a butt dial, did Nisha hold the phone for 2 minutes saying hello? Doubt it.
Also, we know that the number dialed was Nisha…but was Nisha’s stored in Adnan’s phone? What I mean is: he just got the phone the day before, what if her number wasn’t saved in the phone? Meaning someone had to dial the number by heart. If that was the case then it would have to be adnan them because Jay doesn’t know her. I’m not sure if it was ever discussed if it was stored in his phone. But the answer to that question puts a whole new spin on it.
Cell phones had a recent calls list if a stored shortcut wasnt accidentally dialed from
In episode 6 SK quotes Adnan as saying that Nisha’s number was on speed dial.
My understanding is that Nisha’s number was already on speed dial. Also that in 1999 most operators billed from dialling the number (including the time it rang out) rather than when the call connected.
Yes, it was stated that Nisha was #1 on his speed dial. Also, there have been several posts on Reddit about the fact that in the early days of cell phones, network carriers started charging you once you hit “send,” regardless of whether the recipient (or an answering machine) picked up the call. I know this firsthand because I got my first cell phone in 1998 while in college and would always get in trouble by my dad for my higher-than expected cell phone bill because of this problem. Plus, there was an article from that time someone posted on Reddit corroborating the billing practices at the time and someone else who used to work for one of the carriers who corroborated it as well. So, it is perfectly believable that a butt or pocket dial could have gone on for 2:22 mins without the caller noticing.
OK, or #2 as people noted below. 🙂
I know he’d called Nisha the night before on his cell. He’d likely have called from his landline, too, before getting the phone (I say this as Nisha would remember the calls as being the first he’d ever made otherwise). I’d say, given that she was the first person he contacted on the 12th, she was important to him and she was probably #1 on speed dial. Just my speculative thoughts!
I believe that back in 1999 many US cell networks had a “send to end” charging basis rather than the “hello to goodbye” policy they have now. Presuming that nobody was home at Nisha’s and they didn’t have an answerphone, then 2 minute of ringing is perfectly plausible.
It was also mentioned on the show that Nisha’s number was the #1 speed dial, so that makes an accidental dial quite likely.
They have completely proven that during that time an unanswered call would show up for however long it rang until the caller ends the call.
This has been my pet theory for several weeks now, for all of the same reasons, and I have so much respect for the rigor with which you’ve combed through documents and transcripts that it’s strangely affirming to see this laid out here. Many people might think I’m slightly unhinged; I suspect far fewer think you are. Thank you for your cumulative writing on this subject.
As usual, excellent work. I admire anyone who can sift through the noise and focus on the data. I worked at Motorola during 1999 and remember well that storing/recalling cell #’s was a bit of a chore in those days. Depending on phone model you often had to go down a few menus to dial a saved #. I’d bet Adnan had a Nokia phone as those were popular and priced competitively. I guess my ‘butt dial’ question was did the police record the phone model and review thenstored phone #’s? Or even check his phone for incoming/outgoing calls, to true up against the imperfect tower data?
So back to the butt dial. That works best with a outward facing keypad, not a flip phone (like the old StarTac’s. Just wondering if we know the phone type and what #’s were stored. By 1999 phones were logging the last few calls, and where I am going is I’d like to know if Nisha was a stored # or in the recent call log? Since Jay was using the phone that day it seems unlikely the ‘redial’ type of butt dial would have found Nisha. So was the butt dial more of a panicked Jay fumbling through the menus and pulling up Nisha, then ‘butt dialing’ her during the struggle?
And one last tale from 1999. I’m surprised this didn’t come out at trial but the disconnect algorithms were not perfect back then. While uncommon, had Jay called Nisha, and Nisha never answered, it was not unheard of for the outgoing call (and charge to your billing statement) to remain connected, even to a caller who didn’t answer. Did Jay notice the call (dialed accidently or intentionally) and End’d the call when thing cooled down? That might better explain his cobbled together story how he had a Adnan inspired conversation with Nisha, but didn’t say much. Food for thought.
It wasn’t a flip phone, I can’t recall what it was offhand, but the Nokia phone your mentioned sounds about right. Also, Nisha was only asked if her phone had an answering machine in court. Voice mail wasn’t mentioned. By 1999, most everyone would have had one or the other, it was something like 5 dollars a month for the service.
I read (on Reddit) that Adnan’s phone was a Nokia 6160, and that numbers stored in speed dial could be called by simply pressing that number. Adnan said Nisha’s phone was saved as #2 in speed dial. All it would take is for the ‘2’ button to have been held for 1 second and the call to Nisha would have been placed.
It’s a 3 second press hold for that particular phone, just to be factual. #1 is voicemail and cannot be changed. #2 is Customer Care but can be overridden by the user.
It turns out that I had the exact same phone as Adnan.
I would just like to point out, for the record, that I had a ridiculously high Snake score on that thing.
Did you make the snake thing fill the whole screen just to see what would happen?(or was that just me?)
No, I wasn’t *that* good!
We had the same Nokia model in that year (two adults with two children living in the UK). We wanted an Eircsson but couldn’t afford it. Nokia was the cheaper option.
that’s quite the coincidence… did you kill Hae??
I believe someone had to have answered the phone at Nisha’s house. As far as I understand, a call does not get registered unless there is a connection either answered or answering machine etc… If that call happened during a struggle then someone heard that murder for 2:22 seconds under this scenario.
I stand corrected on this, I should have done more searching before posting. t does appear they billed form send to end.
It was in the same podcast where Inez describes talking to Hae on the 13th about catching the bus to the wrestling match – Sarah mentions that Inez also made a statement that she did not see Hae that day.
I’ve looked for some kind of reference to Inez using the search terms Inez and Butler separately in every episode up to episode 9, trying to find some kind of corroboration that Inez was somehow bullied or coerced into her testimony (rumour on reddit). I can’t find anything. I’ve just looked again at episode 2 (I looke at the transcripts and do a search) and I’m still coming up blank. Inez is mentioned 5 times on episode 2 and all of them confirm she saw Hae and are regarding that sighting. None of them are of Inez retracting her statement.
Maybe you could find the reference for me? or tell me what to search under? Because I’m not finding it all.
Actually, it was not the same podcast episode, I will have to search for where I heard that, but I do remember Sarah saying it.
I really appreciate that – one of the pita things about this case is that there are so many things mentioned in passing in different places and no one really pulls them together – I remember things and then have to spend an age tracking the actual source down, so I really appreciate someone else taking the trouble.
Episode 9: “Hae told Summer she would make her own way to Randallstown High for the match. No one but me probably remembers this now but Ines Butler-Hendrix who worked at the school said Hae had told her she was planning to catch the Randallstown bus. However, Ines initially told the cops the opposite, so I trust Summer’s memory more and Summer is clear. Hae told her she was going to drive herself there.”
Ok, I misremembered slightly. The difference in Ines’ two statements is that once she said Hae was not planning to catch the bus to the match and the second time she said Hae was planning to catch the bus. My point is, if Hae made the same stop to the snack stand multiple times to buy the same items, and some of those times she caught the bus afterward, it’s hard to know if Ines was remembering the specific day. She remembered it two different ways. Summer’s memory is clearer because it is tied to the wrestling match that afternoon where she keeps looking for Hae to appear.
Ok, thanks. I address that in my initial post. Is it more likely that Inez is confusing the day bearing in mind the details she remembers, she remembers it is the last time she sees Hae and later has to sub for Hae when she doesn’t turn up for the wrestling match
Or is it more likely that Inez has the time wrong and Hae has changed her mind about catching the bus because Summer was really upset when she said she wasn’t.
You may draw a different conclusion to me but I think she is more likely to misremember the time than misremember the last time she sees someone she knows who turns up dead and misremembers a day she has to sub for that same someone.
I have to say that I’d be really interested to see Inez’ original statement to the police though. I see what you are saying about SK saying Inez’ remembers it two ways – SK says it in a really interesting way, I doubt anyone remembers but me…..that’s true, because you’ve never mentioned this before!
I still think it’s more plausible that Inez statement is basically true rather than a confused rememberance.
If you are misremembering and Inez is misremembering then it’s absolutely plausible to believe that Nisha is also misremembering the call, the crucial call, made that day.
No doubt the Nisha call was a butt dial. As evidenced above.
@Ursula, I think, although I may have misinterpreted, that KC wants to say that Inez is not relevant as a witness as she must be remembering the time correctly and thus is misremembering the day. This would mean that no one sees Hae leave school on her own and gives Adnan opportunity to get a ride from Hae after all despite Becky hearing at 2.20pm that Hae says she can’t give him a ride.
Sue, you read more into my comments than I meant. Something about Inez’ statements are unreliable. She told police Hae was driving herself to the match, but she testified that Hae was coming back to catch the bus. She said Hae was leaving school in her car by 2:30, but other witnesses said they talked to Hae on campus between 2:30 and 3. Personally I don’t think Adnan was around or in Hae’s car that afternoon so that certainly wasn’t my point. Susan’s scenario posted above seems most likely to me.
You mentioned, “She also would have gone to pick up her parents from work within a half hour of Jay leaving, so she would have had a way to orient her memory of when Jay left.” But I think earlier in that same interview she admitted that she didn’t even remember what day of the week was the 13th, and whether it was a weekend or not. She only picked up her parents on weekdays. So she couldn’t have been orienting her memory based on picking up her parents. This, and the fact that she brings up the 3:45 time two different places in the interview and sounds like she’s trying to be intentionally vague, but yet keeps getting back to the 3:45 time, made me think this was a planted alibi.
She says that Jay left her house “well after 3:45,” or as late as 4:15, and that she went to get her parents at about 4:15, so presumably she would have remembered leaving less than an hour after Jay left.
But yes, the confusion and vagueness about everything other than the 3:45 pm thing sure does seem significant.
Sue, but it was Summer who had to sub for Hae at the wrestling match, not Ines! My point exactly 🙂
No, Summer was worried that she would have to score on her own, that’s why she was upset by Hae saying she was going to make her own way to the wrestling – she’d only just started and didn’t feel confident doing it on her own. In the appeal notes it says that Inez subbed for Hae.
From the podcast episode 9
“That wasn’t welcome news to Summer, she needed Hae by her side at the match because Hae was more experienced at scoring which can be tricky in wrestling if you’re new at it.”
From the court of special appeals document sept 2000
“When Hae did not return by 5:00 p.m., Hendricks took Hae’s place as scorer.”
Ok, so both Inez and Summer missed Hae at the wrestling match, and both say they spoke to Hae before she left school to do something (at least pick up her cousin as expected) before returning to school to catch the bus or going directly to the match at 5.
Inez said she spoke to Hae 2:15-2:30, Summer said she spoke to Hae 3:00 and later. Neither said they saw Adnan or that Hae mentioned Adnan.
That is correct – although Summer wasn’t asked by SK if she saw Adnan. Inez was asked specifically by SK if Adnan was near Hae or her car. Inez says he was not near her car.
I’m interested to know where you get Summer spoke to Hae at 3pm – she says in the podcast that it was after the buses had cleared from the school and was therefore somewhere between 2.30pm and 2.45pm. The conversation lasted at least 10 minutes so until 2.40pm to 2.55pm at the earliest.
Are you thinking of Debbie? In the appellate brief it mentions Debbie saw Hae at 3pm (although it is very clumsily worded). The post conviction appeal brief (is it a brief or a note) says Deborah (I assume the same one) saw Hae between 2.45pm and 3.15pm
In regards to the length of the call, please consider this. When I was twelve (about 1998) my friend and I spent hours talking on our (landline) phones. We found that the person who received the call could hang up the phone without the call ending — the recipient could pick up the phone again and the caller would still be there. We experimented a bit, and found that the call would remain open for about two minutes before it would hang up on the caller. Being twelve, we thought it was sooo cool. (However, if the caller hangs up, the call ends immediately.)
Even today, if I call my landline with my cell phone this is what happens. I can hang up the landline, but the call will remain open on my cell phone for another 25 seconds. Within those 25 seconds, I can pick up the landline again and resume the call. After 25 seconds, my cell phone will drop the call.
So imagine this… Pocket dial to Nisha’s house. Someone answers, says hello a few times, listens for a bit. Hangs up, but the call remains open for another two minutes or so before ending on its own.
I don’t know if the two minute thing would apply to the Baltimore area in 1999, but I think it’s still an interesting consideration.
For anyone interested, my twelve-year-old self told my grandmother about my really amazing discovery. She laughed and said that anyone who was around before cordless phones knew about this. When people had phones attached to walls, they would pick up the nearest phone. But if they wanted to move from say, the bedroom to the kitchen, they could hang up one phone and get to the other without ending the call. Random trivia for you.
Huh. I was around way before cordless phones and in fact we still have phones attached to walls but in our house in nj if you hung up a phone the call ended. Still does.
Yes! I remember many times in the 90s, my grandma would call our house, talk to my mom or whoever, and then my mom would hang up. Minutes later, my brothers or I would want to call our friends, only to pick up the phone and realize my grandma never properly hung up her phone, leaving us still connected. We could hear the TV at her house, or even her talking to my grandpa. It was so frustrating!
Certainly Hae was dead by the time the Nisha call was being made. Wether she was being strangled at that very moment or being transferred from the driving seat to the boot of the car.
Both scenarios are equally, yes, equally, applicable. Given the timelines on the phone evidence, which is after all, the only ‘physical’ evidence we have. And if you think that’s strange, then why did the prosecution, use the 2.36 call as the come get me call (which we know is not possible, by any stretch of the imagination). And why, was Adnan, not convicted on physical evidence backed up with supportive witness testaments. It’s clear he wasn’t.
With all due respect to Hae Min Lee in my comments. She was the one who was murdered that day. I don’t believe her killer has been successfully prosecuted. x
The only person that we know who was in possession of the mobile phone at that time, by dent of his own testimony and admission, was Jay.
Because, If Adnan had the phone at the time of the Nisha butt dial, then Jay’s and Jenn’s testimony regarding the timeline makes no sense. He phones Phil eight minutes after this. Jay admits to phoning Phil. The timeline doesn’t work. This is a physical impossibility. This is physical evidence of where a person is regards to making a phone call.
This will likely sound crazy, but isn’t it possible that the 3:21 Jenn call, too, could have been a pocket dial? According to the manual you linked to, you could redial the last outgoing call by holding down the “Talk” key (assuming the phone is at home screen); the last outgoing call had been to Jenn at 12:41.
That’s not to suggest that it’s probable, and a Jenn pocket dial doesn’t explain away the problems with the Nisha call (such as no one recalling it taking place as it did). While probably a stretch, I can at least imagine a pocket call to Jenn during the assault and a subsequent one to Nisha while the perpetrator is trying to reposition the body.
Definitely could have been. The only evidence we have about why that call was made is Jay’s bogus story at trial about calling to see if “P” was home.
The only problem is that according to all the testimony we have, Jenn and Mark were home at 3:21 pm, so someone should have been around to answer the phone. But since all that testimony about their movements at that time is fabricated, we have no way of knowing.
I’ve really enjoyed your detailed analysis, thanks for posting this. I can’t help but notice that you’ve made an assumption that you hadn’t justified and I’m wondering if you can explain your reasoning. In narrowing down on the window of time in which Hae could’ve been murdered, you make the assumption that the murderer himself is in possession of the cell phone at the time. What did I miss?
The assumption is that Jay would have no need to lie about an alibi or the “come-and-get-me” call if he wasn’t at the crime scene, or hadn’t already handed the phone off to Adnan. The cell phone pings in Woodlawn from 2:36 p.m. onwards, and there is no way the phone could have been at Jenn’s until 3:40 p.m. as he claims. The call logs also show there were no incoming calls anywhere around 3:40 p.m., and therefore no pick up calls. In order for Jay to have handed off the phone back to Adnan without a “come-and-get-me” call, Jay must have already been at there.
An alternate possibility would be that Jay had the cell phone and made a pocket dial by chance while he was off doing whatever he was doing in Woodlawn, and he lied about it just for fun.
Ah, I see now. Thanks!
May be Jay is mistaken about the time of death as he couldn’t have his eyes on the clock. So he’s going by a wrong approximation, off by 40 minutes. Unless the school of her nephew was used to her being late by 30 minutes or she was held captive. The 3:32 at BestBuy messes with her regular schedule.
But doesn’t Jen say that Jay was waiting for a call that should come about whatever time (I think she said 3.30) and then the call came and he left? Sorry if I’ve misremembered, but this would suggest to me he was kind of watching the clock – if any of it were true that is.
Yep. In both of Jay’s statements and in Jenn’s statement, they say Jay was waiting on a phone call from Adnan. Jay says in the second interview it was supposed to be at 3:30, but that when no call came in, he left Jenn’s place, and Adnan called a few minutes later.
If someone is watching the clock to see if a call comes in at 3:30 as expected, so that they can assist with a murder, they are not going to be off by 40 minutes about what time that went down.
Susan, I can’t find a response from you to the posts that ask, assuming Hae was murdered at 3:30ish, what you think she was doing after school for all that time before the murder. Especially since she needed to leave Woodlawn area around 3:05 to pick up her cousin on time. Even if she was running 10 minutes late and needs to leave at 3:15, that still leaves 15 minutes until 3:30 that she’s not being murdered, not leaving to go get her cousin, and not talking to someone or buying something (per CC records, she didn’t buy anything at BB or at the mall). And she apparently wasn’t beaten unconscious or tied up, according to what they found in her autopsy, right? Those 15 minutes don’t make sense to me based on what we know. The other posts really flush this out, but I am curious about your take on this because you’re totally on point with what I think and how I approach this on every aspect of this case that you’ve written about (I’m also a lawyer and couldn’t help but to spend many hours reading and relistening to everything I could to try to figure it out!). Thanks for the work you’ve put into it!
Sorry, I addressed this question elsewhere, and forgot to post here. I really hope we learn more about Hae’s general after-school routine, though, because right now all we have to go on is the Podcast’s statement that Hae was going to pick her cousin up art 3:15. But we don’t know if that meant that Hae usually picked up her cousin at 3:15, or if she was required to do so — 3:15 may have been the usual time only because that’s how long it usually took her to get there after school, but if would not have been a problem for her to rock up at 3:30, or later.
But if she was leaving school at around 3:00 p.m., per the witness statements, this kind of suggests the latter. I think it is significant that all our evidence (Jay’s statements about what Adnan told him, the broken windshield wiper stick) indicates that Hae was in the driver’s seat when she died. This almost certainly means she went voluntarily to where she died, whether it was at Best Buy or some other location, and presumably let her killer into her car. If she was required to be at the day car exactly at 3:15, she would not have had time to agree to any detours — but she apparently did.
On the other hand, if the 2:36 p.m. call is not the “come-and-get-me” call (and it’s not), Jay’s and the prosecution’s entire stories fall apart. If Adnan made the Nisha Call, that means the phone had to have gotten back to him before 3:30 p.m. — but there is no way to reconcile Jay’s stories with how that could possibly have occurred.
Also, this was just posted on Rabia’s blog, showing a statement from Debbie, about how “sometimes [Hae] run[s] real late” in picking up her cousin, although she usually picked her up between 3 and 3:30.
Some additional context:
Det. M.: “What time did [Hae] have to pick up her cousin?”
D: “Between 3:00, 3:30.”
Det. M.: “Do you have any idea what specific time?”
D: “No, um, she generally leave at the same time everyday, but, um, sometimes she run real late because she’d be there early and.”
What does it mean that “she run real late because she’d be there early”? Early and late to what? I don’t think it’s at all clear from the partial transcript.
My theory above is that Jay didn’t preempt this murder. He was trying to threaten her and it went too far. This puts motive into perspective. Also, if he would have wanted to kill he might have done so earlier on. Instead he kept her, which is why she was late, but still alive. He stopped her from going on by getting into her car and arguing.
Since he seems to have often told a reflected version of the truth, perhaps he got into her car by telling her that he needs a ride, that his car broke down.
This version of motive is way better than a sudden eruption of anger a few weeks after the fact. The prosecution, being aware of how weak of a motive they had, invented a new concept of honor and ego — which is completely unrelated to the infamous honor killing concept. Nor is it reflected in Jay’s quote.
I remember Jay say something about Adnan claiming to have car trouble as a way into Hae’s car, maybe this is what Jay said to her. “Hey, Amnan’s car broke down/ran out of gas etc, can you give me a ride to blankety blank gas station so that I can get it looked at?” She says “sure”. He says, ” Can we stop by Best Buy first so I can get Stephanie a present?” She says, “no, I gotta pick up my cousin.” He says, “Just drop me off there on the way” she says, “sure”, and then he kills her.
Do I have something confused here or, if Jay is going along with the prosecution’s claim that 2:36 is the “come and get me” call, while at same time Jay is saying he didn’t leave Jenn’s to pick up Adnan until 3:40… are we to believe Adnan is sitting in Hae’s car or meandering around Best Buy for over an hour with her body in the trunk?? That long relaxed wait doesn’t jive at all with what would have to have been a very rushed, frantic “come and get me” call since it only lasted 5 seconds.
But that’s where it gets really weird. The state was arguing one timeline, and yet Jay kind of held to his own timeline with his alibi, that the state didn’t care about.The state kind of admits that Jay’s testimony doesn’t make any sense when put up next to the cell phone records, so they said that he must have forgotten what *really* happened, which is *their* timeline. I can agree with Adnan on this: any time Jay said something that could be matched with the state’s theory, he was the golden child and had to be believed, but anytime he said something against it, Jay was “just confused.” How do you even argue against this?
amen brother. It’s really ridiculous at this point, and almost shockingly obvious that Jay was likely the real killer. I laugh at the people who are still able to believe his BS and think he sounds honest in his interviews. Unbelievable.
I must be missing something here. If there are witnesses who testified at trial that they saw Hae at school at 3pm or 2.45pm, how on earth did the State manage to argue that time of death was between 2.15 and 2.36?
And how did the state argue that Jay and Jenn are both off by over an hour of when the “come and get me” call happened, while Jay is literally on the stand saying the call was at 3:40ish, not 2:36???
You’re not missing anything, this really happened. *sigh*
Through the legal technique known as “making shit up.”
Does this case not make you question the whole idea of the adversial court system and tracking stats like conviction rate?
The adversarial system assumes both sides are trying to win. A defense lawyer trying to win makes a note of glaring inconsistencies like this and hammers on them at closing because a juror can’t be expected to keep all this shit straight day after day.
Just to nitpick one comment “FN1. By “stationary,” I mean that the phone remained within the L651A and L561C sectors. The phone could still have been moving within those sectors, but based on the consistency and frequency of the calls made during that 45 minute period, there is little possibility that the phone was travelling outside of those sectors.”
We can only know that the cell phone was in (or near) those sectors at the times of the calls in the log. Outside of those times the cell could have been outside of those areas, provided it could travel back into the area by the time of the next call.
It theoretically could have occurred between the Nisha Call and the call to Phil (3:32 – 3:48), as there was at least a large enough block of time for someone to drive away and then turn around and drive back. But as a practical matter, that makes so little sense that, like I said, I think there is not much possibility that actually occurred.
Susan — If Jay were reading this, Would he be saying to himself “Damn, she almost got it” or would he be thinking ” Nah, she is way off” ?
I hope Jay is reading this and making honest corrections where it applies.
I have a modification to your timeline that I believe accounts for a few additional possibilities (perhaps it misses a few others?). Let me try this:
1. Adnan killed Hae Min at the Best Buy parking lot by around 2.45 – 3.15 pm (more likely between 3 and 3.15 pm). However, her body was in the front (driver/passenger) seat and he could not take the risk of moving it to the trunk without being seen. He needed physical help to do this and also physical cover from any people or cars passing by. He calls Jay at 3.15 to come to Best Buy to help him move the body. This is the 3.15 call.
2. Jay is at Jenn’s place when he receives the 3.15 call on Adnan’s cell. He leaves for Best Buy.
3. He calls Jenn when he is on his way to Best Buy to tell her or remind her that they will be meeting later that evening and also perhaps to tell her where to meet him or pick him up. This is the 3.21 call.
4. Jay gets to Best Buy parking lost, positions the car he is driving (Adnan’s car) to block other people view and they start moving Hae’s body from the front to the trunk of her car. In the physical struggle to do this, Adnan/Jay accidentally butt- dial Nisha at 3.32 pm and that call lasts 2 mins 22 secs. No one picks up.
5. Next, they leave Hae’s car at the I-70 Lot. Mission accomplished, they want to come down from the anxiety of the crime (a first for both) by smoking some weed. They start calling friends (Phil, Patrick) to see if they can score some weed. They are unable to connect with Patrick. They start driving towards Patrick anyway pick up some weed at Forest park and start driving back to Woodlawn school where Adnan gets dropped off around 4.15-4.30 pm. Somewhere along the way (possibly after Adnan is dropped back), Jay makes the 4.21 call to Jenn to check on whether Patrick is at home and so on.
6. After dropping Adnan off at school, Jay continues driving towards Patapsco (receives the two incoming calls in the meantime at 4.28 and 4.57 which ping L654C – west of the L654 tower, which is roughly in the direction of Patapsco). Somkes some more an dstarts driving back towards Woodlawn to pick up Adnan.
7. Picks up Adnan at 5.14. Adnan calls his voice mail at 5.14 to check if he got any messages. From that point on they have a story that is consistent with each other (going to Cathy’s apartment) and that is consistent with the cell records.
What does this account for?
1. First, it is consistent with both Jay and Jenn’s initial statements that Hae’s body was first shown to Jay at Best Buy Parking lot.
2. Second, it allows some additional time for Adnan to have taken Hae to the Best Buy lot and to have killed her.
3. It accounts for why Jay was afraid of security cameras at Best Buy, which he indicated in his second interview. If cameras were present, they would have indicated a greater involvement on his part than simply to have helped bury the body (or not helped at all as his initially claimed). Not knowing whether there were cameras or not, he may have wanted to shift the “trunk pop” sighting location elsewhere as he tried to do.
4. It is consistent with Jenn’s statement that Jay left her place between 3 and 3.30.
5. It accounts for the Nisha call (as brilliantly argued by Ms. Susan Simpson on her website) being a but call in the middle of some physically demanding action (moving the body – not the killing)
6. It does not however require the killing of Hae to have taken place at 3.32 pm Buy. 3.32 pm as the time of the killing seems problematic as Hae was keen to get her cousin by 3.15 and she would not have appreciated to be waiting so long, even if Adnan told her that Jay would pick her up at Best Buy.
Being that we know that she was alive and at school at 3:00, Adnan would have had to be waiting for her at Best Buy to have been able to meet her, since he did not leave with her, regardless of if he asked her for a ride.
There are only two reasons to involve Adnan in this, because Jay said so or because he was an ex-boyfriend. Neither are good reasons.
Jay had every reason to lie, and he actually did lie, and would not gain anything by admitting he was alone once we knew he was involved at least in some way.
As for Adnan’s special status, I hope we don’t always lock up any victim’s previous friends. And we do see that the prosecution didn’t either buy it since they had to invent a concept of liking for broken ego and try to relate that to honor killing and to Adnan’s religion. They had to invent a lot of facts, in fact. They completely fabricated the inner turmoil of his relationship without consulting those who would know i.e. with an inside view.
To make up a story how he could have done it without any evidence puts anyone at risk. We don’t know that it wasn’t you, either. Make sure you have a good alibi.
First, it is not consistent with Jay’s initial statement, in which he says Adnan calls him to meet up at a strip off Edmondson Ave. He and Jenn and the detectives have to work out the Best Buy scenario together.
Actually, We don’t know what she was at the school at 3. This is the recollection of one of the people involved. It could easily have been 2.45 pm.
We should forget/disregard Jay’s initial statement — Jay has already clarified that he wanted to move the site away from best Buy in his narrative — as he was afraid that Best Buy had cameras. Why would he be afraid of Best Buy’s Cameras? Good question. If it implicated him even further than he was initially willing to admit (recall that he denied helping Adnan even bury the body earlier).
Just stopped at your first call: “First, it is consistent with both Jay and Jenn’s initial statements that Hae’s body was first shown to Jay at Best Buy Parking lot.”
Jenn was not there at the time or place the body was supposedly displayed. She was told this much later by Jay. Her statement regarding this is second hand information.
Despite this, she never contacted the police, was unconcerned she knew about the killing and burying of Hae Min Lee and only came forward with this information when the body was discovered a several weeks, yes – she held onto this information for that long -several weeks later.
Now, something is not right with this. From the oft.
Your theory isn’t possible because the 3:21 call came from (by testimony and cell tower records) the park and ride. Not possible for Jay to drive from Jenns to best-buy and then to the park and ride in 6 minutes from 3:15 to 3:21. It can’t be that call.
Unfortunately this does not fit with Jay’s latest version of the “truth” in the latest interview. He had bundles of pot at his (Grandma’s) house, so why buy it from someone else? Also he see’s the body at Grandma’s house for the first time and not at Best Buy or Petasco or any other BS. I’m sure he is analyzing all this data frantically trying to re-assemble a new “true” version that matches all the new details that keep coming out. His head must be spinning like mad
We don’t know what she was at the school at 3. This is the recollection of one of the people involved. It could easily have been 2.45 pm.
Second, we should forget his initial statement — Jay has already clarified that he wanted to move the site away from best Buy in his narrative — as he was afraid that Best Buy had cameras. Why would he be afraid of Best Buy’s Cameras? Good question. If it implicated him even further than he was initially willing to admit (recall that he denied helping Adnan even bury the body earlier).
I disagree that Jay’s first statement should be the most likely one to throw out. Subsequent statements were adjusted to have less obvious disconnects with the call records which he did not have when he made the first statement. This statement that you prefer has Jay already in possession of the knowledge that he is going to Best Buy to help Adnan with Hae’s dead body and that he’d known about the murder plan beforehand. There’s nothing additionally incriminating that the cameras could show.
OTOH, if Jay murdered Hae at Best Buy, he could have been concerned that cameras would show that. By the time he made the second statement he could have gone back to Best Buy and looked and seen no cameras.
Agreed that by the second statement, he is already incriminated. However, when he gave the first statement, he was concerned that he may be implicated further than he was willing to go at that time — and that cameras at Best Buy would do that. By the time he gives his second statement, he know full well that he is implicated in disposing off the body and he does not need to worry about confirming either Adnan’s or his presence at Best Buy any more.
I am wondering why Jay ever went to the police in the first place. Was he ever a suspect prior to giving his confession?
Yes. Through Adnan’s cellphone records they found Jenn , who led them to Jay.
Another great read!
I do have a different opinion on Hae’s time of death though.
Every day after school Hae is meant to pick up her cousin from the early learning school. It lets out at 3:15. She’d been consistent picking up her cousin, never missed picking her up once. It was because her cousin didn’t get picked up that the authorities were notified, the original red flag. I doesn’t seem consistent with Hae’s character that she’s just hanging about with anyone after the time she’s meant to be at her cousins school (A 10 minute drive from Woodlawn High).
We have eye witnesses claiming they saw Hae sometime between 2:45-3:00. I imagine they did, no need for her to rush off to see Don because she has to wait to pick her cousin up first. Now although she could have just forgotten about her cousin (as I read above) it seems more odd to me that she’d forget to do something completely that she does every day after school. I think she was killed some time between the 2:36 and 3:15 calls, shortly after she’s seen in the gym. The immediate call after that being to Jenn. If the murdered has the phone, it was Jay who killed her. If not, then it was Adnan making the 3:15 ‘Come get me’ call to Jay. That can’t be determined in my theory, but both suspects are in the area at that time.
Can you tell me when you think Jay gave the phone and car over to Adnan. In a timeline that makes sense and with regard to the phone call evidence?
Also, let’s look at Hae’s day. Her day, this 17 year old’s every day when she was a freshman at college (I believe this is the equivalent of a sixth former in the UK). At 3.15, she had to pick up her 6 year old cousin and leave her off at her Grandparents (whether it’s Hae’s Grandparents or the cousin’s, I’ve no idea). Every single day, from Monday to Friday. Without fail and without being late. Think about that. Hae is 17 years old, thinking of her life ahead, an A student wanting to get to university, sexually active, with a new boyfriend who is the business by all accounts. Picking up a six year old daily is a huge imposition on a young person with all their life ahead of them. Would you do it?
And when Hae was late the one time, the police were called immediately. Questions have to be asked. What is going on here?
This discussion about Hae’s movements on the day of her murder has made me very curious as to how much we know about her usual schedule and how we know it. I believe it was on the Podcast that I heard that she religiously picked her cousin up in a timely fashion after school & took this responsibility seriously. But was 3:15 a set time, or just her usual time/a convenient time? Did she have the flexibility to show up at 3:45 if something came up? Had she ever shown up later than 3:15 before? How do we know? Are there records from the school? Interviews with the grandparents she dropped the cousin off with? Exactly how late was it when the school contacted her parents? Although calls were made around to her friends by the police, she was not known to be dead. How alarmed were people, really, and how do we know?
Is there police documentation in any form that substantiates that Hae had never, ever taken an extra 20 minutes to get her cousin, and that this would not have been OK? How are we so sure about her timeline being set in stone, & her *never* being late?
We’re not; this is a perfect example of people taking ambiguous information and exaggerating it and turning it into gospel without even realizing. We have no idea when the parents were called by the kindergarten or when the police were called by the parents. All we know is that by 6pm the family and Aisha and the police were calling around to her friends. And I don’t think we know the window of time in which children were supposed to be picked up. For all we know the kindergarten didn’t fully clear out until 3:30 or 3:45 and only then would the parents of children still waiting be called. And not that it really matters to the case, but as far as I know we don’t even know whether this was a daily responsibility Hae had, or if it was only certain days a week that it was her responsibility to pick up her cousin.
Exactly.
I don’t know those answers, but I can say that I was picking up small children at schools and daycares 15 years ago, and most places had ZERO tolerance for late pickups. Within 15 minutes someone would have been calling the 4-5 contacts listed for the child. I’m guessing that Hae’s family would have started paging her AND calling any of her friends that they had numbers for once they knew she hadn’t made it to the school. It does seem early for the police to be involved 2-3 hours later, but the family could have been persistent.
But do we know that they had a firm pickup time of 3:15, or was that just the time Hae usually picked her cousin up? My children *have* to be picked up by 5:30, but we pick them up at 4 pm. No one would notice if we didn’t get them until 5:30 rolled around. How do we know what this “daycare” had a 3:15 pick-up policy, vs that being a habit or expectation of the family? And if the child was really 6 years old, I would say we have no idea what the nature of the facility was- public, private, afterschool, primary school, etc.
I’m with you Anonymous. It’s been a bug bear with me for a while and I’ve posted before about it. She could well have had some kind of flexibility, give or take several minutes here and there, either side of the expected pick up. Just seems so incongruous given what had happened that day. And of course, records of her previous pick ups and the general relationship between parents (if there were any who were official carers), grandparents, and not forgetting, as my 19 year old daughter pointed out, Hae may actually have liked her cousin and may have enjoyed this pick up time with her – last point not something I’d previously considered. (Though Adnan did say that he thought Hae would be in serious trouble for not picking her up).
Just worth looking into.
While this isn’t definitive, in a Reddit post from Hae’s younger brother, he says he thinks that their younger cousin’s school got out at 3 pm.
“I believe Campfield let out at 3pm. So she didn’t have alot of time to mess around. Since our grandparents were expecting our cousin few mins after school. It was Hae’s first time failing to pick her cousin up from school…”
I say all this because if we don’t have to work with the idea that Hae always, always was at her cousin’s school at 3:15, but instead had the flexibility to plan to be elsewhere for a while beforehand if something or someone came up, the potential timeline becomes very different. I don’t know how accurate this information was, or how thoroughly the police investigated/documented what Hae’s schedule was like. If no one was alarmed until the school called at (when did the school call? 4:15? I am not even sure we know that, or how we know that) , that would suggest she was being irresponsible and her family was trying to track her down, rather than that people were sick with worry.
If there is any credence to the idea that her friends actually thought she would take off for California to look for her dad, or had run off with Don, that might suggest she wasn’t considered above suspicion as far as doing something irresponsible.
Susan, or someone, what do we really, objectively, in print with evidence to back it up, know about Hae’s “usual” movements, etc?
It wasn’t quite a usual day anyhow. Given lack of motive it is most likely that this was an argument gone awry. She might have been very responsible but somebody very clearly intervened. She wasn’t given the option to just drive off.
For all you know it was this responsibility that cost her her life. Had she stuck around they would have just argued it out. Instead, possibly, she kept trying to get away which prompted the murderer to act on impulse.
True, although it seems authorities (& the public) are trying to guess who she would most likely have been with based on an understanding of her “usual” schedule. Would she have had time to agree to meet with Adnan? To take Jay to Best Buy to get Stephanie a present? Or would those things have bee out of the question, and we should think along the lines of she *must* have been detained against her will in order for her to have not shown up at 3:!5?
I don’t have the answer at all, but I agree with the poster above that this is a bit of lore that has become gospel, when I haven’t seen anything that really substantiates what was likely or even possibly on a “usual” day for Hae.
I say all this because if we don’t have to work with the idea that Hae always, always was at her cousin’s school at 3:15, but instead had the flexibility to plan to be elsewhere for a while beforehand if something or someone came up, the potential timeline becomes very different. I don’t know how accurate this information was, or how thoroughly the police investigated/documented what Hae’s schedule was like. If no one was alarmed until the school called at (when did the school call? 4:15? I am not even sure we know that, or how we know that) , that would suggest she was being irresponsible and her family was trying to track her down, rather than that people were sick with worry.
If there is any credence to the idea that her friends actually thought she would take off for California to look for her dad, or had run off with Don, that might suggest she wasn’t considered above suspicion as far as doing something irresponsible.
Susan, or someone, what do we really, objectively, in print with evidence to back it up, know about Hae’s “usual” movements, etc?
The only thing we know right now is that the podcast said she picked up her cousin at 3:15. Nothing more detailed.
P.S. Anonymous directly above was me as well- just hadn’t logged in before commenting.
From the Campfield Early Learning Center’s website, they currently have 3 sessions or groups; the latest ends at 2:45. If this was also the case 15 years ago (?) It’s not a daycare, it’s a Kindergarten/PreK program offered through the public school system.
That’s part of the issue- we don’t know what it was, what it’s schedule was, or if that information was collected/documented 15 years ago. My kids’ preK has changed pick up & drop off times, offered before & after care (then dropped those options because they weren’t making money), etc several times over the past 6 years. Unless it’s documented, how do we know what was going on 15 years ago?
And I’m not trying to advocate digging up records from 15 years ago in some attempt to recreate Hae’s movements and thus try to identify whom her killer most likely was. Barring a dramatic confession from someone, I don’t think Internet sleuths are going to change the outcome of this investigation. I am just pointing out another area that I find curious that the police didn’t examine more thoroughly (unless they did, and I’m not aware of it). Which is why I am inquiring as to if anyone who has researched the records, such as the writer of this blog, happens to know the answer,
Susan, your posts ring like a bell chime cutting through the cacophony of reddit.
However, I’d suggest it’s more plausible the murder occurred before the 3:15 call.
– Hae would be scrambling to pick up her cousin by 3:15, as others have pointed out. It would be another challenge to explain why she got side-tracked.
– Debbie and Summer’s memory of seeing Hae around 3:00 should not be assumed to be absolutely precise.
I always thought the Nisha call was a misdial associated with moving the body or switching cars.
I agree that the killing probably took place before 3.15. Perhaps, as a previous poster has suggested, the Nisha call took place during their effort to move Hae’s body to the trunk of the car.
We have no idea if the 3:15 pickup was a hard requirement, or just the time Hae usually picked up her cousin. Summer and Debbie’s memories may not absolutely precise, but they are uncontradicted witnesses, so they get some credit — until I see some actual evidence concerning the day care schedule, I’m not inclined to dismiss then out of hand.
Jay’s continual insistence on the 3:40 story is significant for some reason, though. Combined with the two calls that he says occurred after Hae’s death (the come-get-me call and the Patrick call), and the lack of other convenient opportunity, there is reason to think she may have died shortly before 3:40.
Here is why Adnan is guilty. Rather simple really. If Adnan was totally innocent, Jay took a major risk when he spoke to the cops: If Adnan has a solid alibi, speaking to cops and admit that he was present when Hae was buried would totally implicate Jay and exclusively Jay. If Adnan was not with Jay during the crucial hours, how could Jay know whether Adnan had a solid alibi or not? Especially if Adnan was at school. There might be dozens of people who saw Adnan and could vouch for that fact. Why would Jay take that chance?
I understand your point, but when Jay spoke to the cops, they already believed Adnan was the murderer and wanted corroboration. They weren’t questioning Jay as a suspect; they were only talking to him because of the calls to Jenn’s phone (from Jay) on Adnan’s phone. If it turned out Adnan had witnesses who could clear him at trial, maybe Jay wouldn’t have cared, as long as he wasn’t the one on trial.
I agree. Jay also told the police that he had never been in Hae’s car and that he had not touched her body or any of her stuff. Why say that if not true and forensic traces of him could very well be found?
Jay would have done what he did for every single other lie he got caught in, save for the 3:40 p.m. lie: change his story to account for it. Just like his lie about not helping to bury Hae, or his lie about where he saw the body, or his lie about Patapsco.
Also the forensic testing for Jay was minimal.
In the appellate brief page 7, they say Jay testified at trial that he got into the passenger seat of Hae’s car. Has anyone talked about that or seen that testimony?
I just assumed that was a typo and it meant to say Adnan’s car.
If it’s not… well, that’d be interesting indeed.
Of course he did, but that wasn’t a risk he had any choice about. Jay wasn’t some criminal mastermind who planned to frame Adnan from the beginning. He’s already told Jenn the story about Adnan (out of a need to recruit her help for the cover up of the crime), so after she told that story to the cops, he was stuck with it, for good or ill.
But by making the timeline so flexible, the detectives/Jay were able to ensure that any alibi Adnan might have would be relatively useless, as they could simply find another 21 minute window that afternoon in which to say that he had killed her.
Exactly! Thank you for making it so clear.
If it’s SO clear that Jay is the guilty one here, then why wouldn’t the cops just charge Jay? I really can’t think of why they would go through so much trouble to help Jay frame Adnan?
All they have to do is point out the many inconsistencies in Jay’s story, give people the impression Jenn helped him cover it up, and then put a bunch of kids on the track team on the stand and ask them if they remember Adnan NOT being at practice that day. They don’t even have to, in the words of Geraldo, resort to some DASTARDLY DEEDS and shape witness testimony or withhold any call records. Adnan’s story is tight: “I was at the Library. I was at Track. I don’t really remember anything else because why would I?”
They can’t convict Jay on inconsistencies. In the other hand, if they get him to testify on someone else then they even have witness. Since it is not truth that they are after, only convictions, as we heard from the retired detective, this is the ‘logical’ approach.
They can convict on lies. Just shore up Adnan’s alibi about being at track that day (Sure you remember being at track. Timmy hurt his ankle that day, remember?) and Jay is dead to rights.
Jay has no motive.
What if someone said he didn’t have the guts to kill someone and he wanted to prove that he did? Then he showed that person the body to prove it.
Apparently Hae was going to confront Jay about his “stepping out” on his girlfriend, Stephanie. Combine that w/ Chris interview in Serial ep 8 where he says “if Jay had any weakness it was Stephanie. He would move heaven & earth for Stephanie”. Heaven & earth huh? Hmmm… interesting choice of words.
They don’t have the evidence to convict Jay. The only evidence against him his improperly mirandized statements. But those are still good against Adnan.
You seem to have the evidence to convict Jay.
Not even remotely. There is no evidence that he killed Hae, just lots of evidence that he’s not telling the truth about what happened.
How do you figure? Assuming Jay and Jenn are collaborating — odd, given the conflicting accounts, but the only way to explain Jenn implicating Adnan — and choose to withhold more or less everything, the police have basically nothing. Why entangle in a murder a person (Adnan) that witnesses and cell records suggest you (Jay) spent the better part of a day with? Which is a more plausible defense: “I don’t recall being in Leakin Park / we probably drove through it”; or “my associate committed a murder, I was an accessory, now let me attempt to artfully extricate myself from culpability”?
My guess is he knew that as the investigation unfolded, it was only a matter of time before they turned up some evidence of Jay’s involvement. Some DNA, something that would tie him to the crime, so his fear was that at any moment the cops would show up on his doorstep w/ an arrest warrant, and he figured his only way out was framing someone else pre-emptively, before they had enough evidence against Jay himself.
He didn’t have to figure that all out. He was given to understand that without giving someone else’s name he is first in line.
You’re missing a major point: the cops wouldn’t have been talking to Jay if Adnan had a solid alibi. They only call Jay in for an interview because Jenn told the cops Jay was the one calling her from Adnan’s phone that day. And the cops only called Jenn in for an interview because she was on the call log from Adnan’s phone. They had Adnan’s call log and were talking to people on it because Adnan was still a suspect. He was still a suspect because, unlike Don, Adnan did not have a solid alibi for that afternoon.
Jay wasn’t taking a chance. By virtue of how he came to be interviewed by the police, he knew Adnan was the major suspect and then just had to match his story to theirs.
Jay was taking an immense chance in that Adnan, for all he knew, had an unimpeachable alibi. Better to feign complete ignorance and force law enforcement to convict him on cell records alone (weak case) than implicate himself in the crime and guarantee that, should Adnan produce an alibi, he will be held responsible for the murder.
In the cross examinations you can see that Jay was given to understand that he is the closest to the crime and that he is the most suspect, unless he can point to someone else.
He didn’t come with a ready made story that just happened to match up. He just said that Adnan did it. The details were worked out later, together with the kind detectives.
Perhaps that was Jay’s interpretation, but objectively, it just wasn’t the case: given Adnan’s relationship with the deceased, him asking her for a ride for no apparent reason, and the anonymous tips, Adnan was the prime suspect. Prior to the detectives speaking with Jen, the police had absolutely nothing on Jay. So if Jen was intent on framing Adnan in order to protect Jay, the smart thing would’ve been to leave Jay out entirely. Say that you were talking to Adnan and he was acting strangely. If that’s a bridge too far, admit to talking to Jay but say nothing else. Then, when Jay is questioned, he can say that he was with Adnan but nothing happened and Adnan dropped him off at 7 pm. Or earlier — he can say the calls to Jen’s pager are Adnan attempting to reach him (Jay). Jen can confirm it. Now, in the unlikely event that Adnan is charged and convicted, Jay gets off Scot free.
Instead, Jen ensures that Jay will be charged as an accessory at the very least, or, assuming someone can definitively place Adnan at the library or the mosque, premeditated murder. So Jen either has it in for Jay, is not very bright, or is telling the truth.
With respect to Jay’s story matching the facts, the truly miraculous thing is that at the very time that he and Adnan are purportedly burying Hae, Adnan’s cellphone is in Leakin Park. Something the detectives didn’t know at the time (it was the prosecutor that developed the localization). Also, Adnan contends that he has his phone and is attending a crowded religious function, but no one (save his father) can confirm his alibi. Another miracle for Jay. Lastly, the time and location of the Yaser call makes it more or less impossible that Jay dropped Adnan off at the mosque prior to heading to Leakin Park. So perhaps we should simply accept that God looks after children and idiots (Jay), and Adnan is exactly where providence has dictated.
Why do you assume she is such a conniving liar? Susan pointed out that she was actually telling the truth as she knew it. All she was told by Jay was to say that Adnan did it and Jay helped. He knew they had their sights on him at that point. This also absolved her of being a part of the crime, since her role as put on him and his role onto Adnan.
The call to Yasser was in the area of the mosque and is the last Adnan contact until after the burial time. There is nothing shocking about Jenn’s calls to Leakin Park matching up, since they are true.
Nor is there anything suspicious about asking for a ride when he didn’t have his car, if he did.
Being that there is no evidence against him and that it is clear that he shouldn’t have been sentenced on the basis of available evidence, we are back to plain old guessing.
What is stronger than guessing, albeit not strong enough for convicting, are the slip ups we get from Jay here and there.
@ whatchemecallit:
If Adnan isn’t involved, that’s impossible. She claims (at least in her initial account) that Jay was at her house well past 3:15 pm, that Adnan picked up when she called Jay at 7:09 and/or 7:16 pm, and that Adnan dropped Jay off at Westview Mall between 8:00 and 8:30 pm (when Adnan was supposed to be at the mosque, which he doesn’t remember). I simply will not accept that Adnan picked Jay up (somewhere) and dropped Jay off at the mall during the mosque service after the detective’s call and doesn’t remember it. So either Jen’s lying or Adnan is.
No, it’s not. The 6:59 pm call is from somewhere around Woodlawn H.S. (N of Highway 70), from which Adnan’s phone cannot reach the mosque and then Leakin Park by 7:09 pm (contrary to Adnan’s account).
Sure there is. Putting aside that Becky thought he used his car in the shop as his excuse, there’s no reason that Jay can’t pick Adnan up after school. So if Jen isn’t lying, Becky is mistaken, Jay has unnecessarily made himself an accessory to murder, Jen is mistaken about having spoken with Adnan at 7 pm, and Adnan has forgotten he asked Hae for a ride, forgotten he told Detective Adcock he asked Hae for a ride, and after the detective informed him his ex-girlfriend was missing, forgot that Jay dropped him off somewhere other than the mosque, forgot he walked to the mosque, and forgot that Jay stopped by in the middle of the service, Adnan left the service, met Jay outside, gave Jay a ride to Westview Mall, saw Jenn there, and then returned home before the service was finished. It’s just not reasonable to believe things transpired like so.
I’m trying to reply to RP_McMurphy. Very heavily threaded so apologies if it doesn’t come out right.
The detective wrote his notes up months later, about Adnan asking for a ride. The teens who said they heard him weren’t clear whether they heard it or heard someone else say they heard it and a s a result, nobody testified to that in trial. I’m inclined to believe it did not happen.
And Jay’s description of the police phone call also did not have him mentioning asking for a ride.
Either way, according to all accounts he didn’t end up going with her. His car was out until after track practice and if he wanted a quick ride somewhere, big deal.
Yes I agree completely
Have you been able to account for the bruise found on Hae’s head. Was that from a weak or a strong blow? The reason I ask is because it does seem odd to me that if in fact she died sitting on the driver’s seat of her car, that she was held back so long from picking up her cousin. I remember reading somewhere that she had told her friend to make sure the bus going to the wrestling meet didn’t leave without her. So she knew she was pressed for time. Why would she entertain anyone for so long in her car? Particularly if it goes against her will. So the blow to her head…was it strong enough to have knocked her out? What if the blow came first?
I haven’t seen any autopsy reports/ME testimony on it, so there is no way to know. It seems likely that the bruising could have occurred during the struggle (banging against the car window, etc.), or it could have been post-mortem. No way to know right now.
Just curious as I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else, but why do “we believe Hae was strangled while she was in the driver seat of her car”? Just curious as it’s the first mention of it I’ve heard so far, and wondering where this info was obtained. Thanks.
Just an annoying observation: you refer to the same case twice in your butt-dials while committing crimes list. Ronald Earl Williams and Ronald Williams are the same. Not a huge detail of course, but thought you should know.
Thanks!
Pingback: Serial Season 1 Finale: Everything We Know and Don’t Know – Flavorwire
What I keep coming back to is this. The testimony of Jay, Jenn, and Adnan is questionable is best. If we just put ALL of it aside for a moment, and look at what we know with 95% or more certainty, we know the call log, the fact that Hae left school between 2:30 or 3, and the fact that Hae never arrived to pick up her cousin at 3:15. (BTW, I would love to know which route Hae normally took to get to the daycare, but I haven’t been able to find this out.) We don’t know when Hae was killed, which day she she was buried, or where her car was in the 27 days after her disappearance. We can be confident that, given that Hae was reportedly conscientious about picking up her cousin, she was at the very least kidnapped before 3:15. What does the call log show? That a bunch of calls were made on Adnan’s phone at various places around Baltimore. You may think that sounds dismissive, but I sincerely don’t mean it that way. I mean that by themselves they don’t show what happened to Hae.
So, take this statement: “Assuming then that it takes fives minutes for Hae to drive from Woodlawn to Best Buy (or to a similar location near Woodlawn), then she must have either been killed between 3:05 and 3:15 p.m., 3:15 and 3:21 p.m., or 3:21 and 3:32 p.m. — or, if the Nisha Call was a pocket dial, then between 3:22 p.m. and 3:48 p.m.” We don’t know that she drove to Best Buy. There is no hard evidence that she drive this way or that, did this or that.
And: “We can rule out the 3:05 to 3:15 p.m. time period, because if Hae had been murdered before 3:15 p.m., Jay would not have needed his 3:40 p.m. story for an alibi.” That’s a huge inference. Nothing that we KNOW rules out 3:05 to 3:15 pm. The inference seems to be based on Jay acting like a rational adult rather than a deceptive, emotionally driven teenager. Jay strikes me as someone who just says whatever he feels (not necessary thinks, but feels) at the time will look best for him. Sometimes I can’t see any logic between one of his statements and the next.
If we go back to what we know, the question is how Hae went from being in her car leaving to the school at 2:30-3 to her absence from daycare. Somehow someone got into her car, or she got in someone else’s car. Who would she let in her car? That’s the question. And most people answer: Adnan, not Jay.
She’s even more likely to let in a friend or her mother. Does that mean they should be suspects too? The fact of the matter is that there isn’t enough evidence to arrive at satisfactory conclusions. People can go on endlessly speculating about this. I think someone should seriously investigate Jay. He’s the only one that knows for sure what happened.
The killer didn’t have to get into her car. She could’ve had the window rolled down to smoke, or to talk to someone, or to throw something away, who knows. But the killer could’ve strangled her by reaching through the open window into her car. Maybe she had her car driver’s side door open to get out, or maybe she was getting back in, and the killer got between her and the door so that she was sitting in her driver’s seat when he strangled her. We can’t assume she “let” the killer in her car.
And you’re comfortable with the prosecution relying on this kind of evidence to sentence someone to life + 30?
If you think there is nothing reliable or intelligible that can be gleaned from his statements/testimony, then Adnan should never have been convicted, full stop. That was the start and the end of the state’s case against him.
Although I cannot keep all the details in my head as well as Susan does, is it possible that between 3:05 – 3:15 Jay went to Best Buy to buy a present for Stephanie; at the same period Hae also went to Best Buy on her way to daycare to pick up a quick gift for her friend Stephanie; Jay saw Hae in the parking lot (or vice versa, she drove up next to him and opened her window to talkc); she confronts him about his other girlfriends and threatens to tell Stephanie; Jay snaps and gets out of his car, attacks Hae through the window of her car. Jay calls Jenn at 3:15 but she won’t come to help him. He drives Hae’s car and stashes it, realizes he needs a ride to get back to Adnan’s car; Jay tries to call fellow dealers Patrick and Phil for a ride (Susan discussed this possibility); Phil comes through (the deep voice Jenn hears on the phone), maybe they even bury the body and move the car before Jay picks up Adnan from track practice. Jenn agrees to cook up an alibi; Jay can’t keep it straight 6 weeks later, has to blurt out details on the spot, but is lucky enough that the police hearing only what they want to hear and indeed are helping him make a case for their preconceived timeline.
Was Jenn’s brother Mark ever interviewed by the police to confirm Jay’s presence at Jenn’s house? He must be ~30 years old by now, surprised SK hasn’t found him to corroborate, although he would probably just confirm what Jenn testified.
Seems like Sarah thinks it’s a butt dial as well
The whole case hinges on one question: Did Jay know where the car was because he helped put it there? If he didn’t, or he came across that information another way, the cell phone records and everything else doesn’t matter.
There is no evidence that Jay or Adnan had anything to do with it outside of Jay knowing where a car was. Remember it was parked in plain sight, in a residential neighborhood where people would be unlikely to call the police. My assumption is that plenty of people knew about the car in the 6 weeks it was missing.
I do have a question about an earlier post where the two car problem was explained. In the interviews Jay kept saying he parked the car ‘around the corner’. Around the corner from what? I’ve seen the videos of people driving around the burial site and didn’t see any corners to park around. Am I missing something?
Jay knew a lot more than just where the car was and told several friends about it.
But why did Adnan aks Hae for a ride? At the time he still had his car and even later, when Jay had his car, he could have called him any time, that’s why he gave him the phone in the first place.
Here’s how I coordinate SK’s conclusions with yours.
Annan picks up Jay and they head to Patapsco to smoke some weed thus dinging the Ellicott City tower. They then head over to Edmondson Ave to buy more weed for later dinging that tower. While they’re driving around Adnan talks about how he realizes that Hae isn’t just dating this guy, but owing to her late night with him: they’re sleeping together. He also tells Jay that while talking about Stephanie’s birthday she told Adnan that she knows Jay is seeing other girls. Now Jay and Adnan are angry at Hae, and they decide to confront her after school. Adnan says he’ll get a ride from her, and Jay will be around the corner waiting for them. Jay drops Adnan off, and hangs out with Jenn for awhile, and then heads toward Woodlawn, pinging that tower. The 2:36 call is Adnan, from they library saying he couldn’t get a ride. Jay is in the car with the phone so he heads to the school and follows her. In his oh crap what have I done moment he calls Jenn and she tells him she can’t help him move the body he needs more muscle. He drives the car somewhere out of sight and moves the body to the trunk while butt dialing Nisha. He calls Phil and asks where he is, probably the aforementioned pool hall and drives there for the trunk pop. They stash the car, he picks up Adnan, heads to Cathy’s, where he is very out of character, and the night proceeds how you have described. Jay’s description of how Hae said she was sorry while she was being strangled, her shoes, how she was blue and pretzeled up (who but the killer would know those things?) etc fitting the crime. As far as Jay being scared of someone I think that person was whoever helped him bury the body. A very small detail from Rabbia shows that Hae’s body was covered with rocks to prevent animals from taking off body parts. Something only an experienced criminal (or hunter?) might know. All good liars know that you need to keep as much true as possible, thus a lot of Jay’s details did happen: Patapsco, Edmondson ave, the trunk pop, the asking for a ride, the shovels with the dirt in Adnan’s car, and most importantly Adnan’s anger at Hae over moving on.
This is a great theory but it is assuming that the cell phone was with the murderer at the time of the murder.
Do we have any explanation for the 2 INCOMING calls at 2:36 (0:05) and 3:15 (0:20)? Could they have been Hae?
The first one only five secs because “Oh, this is Jay, Adnan let me borrow the phone.”
The second one is 20 secs “Actually Jay can I talk to you at Best Buy for a minute? It’s about Steph…”
I don’t know if Hae had the capability to call from anywhere (maybe called from the gas station)
Is there a reasonable explanation to the INCOMING calls? Who all had Adnan’s number? He only had it for a short period of time after all. We do know that Hae had the cell number, and this would be a more logical way for Jay and Hae to actually find each other rather than coincidence.
Thoughts?
I think most of those incoming calls had to have been Jay’s friends calling him back. Adnan hadn’t had time to let that many people know his phone number. He’d hit the biggies: his current girlfriend first, his ex-girlfriend just to show off that he had a cell phone, his family, and some of his friends from school.
More importantly, there was some talk in Episode 12 that maybe Adnan was calling Jenn’s land-line number without Jay there. I don’t think I can believe that Adnan knew Jenn well enough to know her number by heart, or to put it into his phone. He’d be putting in friends from his school and mosque, or his family. It would be interesting to know which numbers he thought were important.
Yes, Jay could have written Jenn’s number down for Adnan, but why? It goes against everything both Adnan and Jay said happened that day, in every telling.
I think the detectives should have done a better job of tracking down those incoming phone calls. Almost all of them were to Jay. We’d have a lot better idea of what happened if we knew who was contacting him, and when.
My theory: Adnan had his phone and didn’t give it to Jay until track practice (after 3:32 Nisha call).
So the sequence would go something like this:
32 Jay 10:45 a.m. 0:28 L651A – Adnan calls Jay, they go to Patapsco to smoke weed. Adnan high (can’t remember anything on a very memorable day).
31 Jenn home 12:07 p.m. 0:21 L688A – Jay calls Jenn and leaves msg – “hey, I have Adnan’s car so you don’t need to pick me up. I’ll call when I get close.” Jay and Adnan need more weed and go get it.
30 Jenn home 12:41 p.m. 1:29 L652A – after buying weed, Jay (and Adnan) call Jenn – “yo, you home yet? call when you get in.”
29 incoming 12:43 p.m. 0:24 L652A – Jenn calls Jay (and Adnan) – “I’m home.” Jay: “Ok, I’m gonna drop Adnan off and come over.”
Jay drops Adnan back off at school and Adnan keeps his phone, tries to get his head together and heads to psych class – 1:27. Jay heads to Jenn’s without the phone. Jay tells Jenn “Adnan’s gonna kill Hae” or “I convinced Adnan to kill Hae” etc.
28 incoming 2:36 p.m. 0:05 L651B – Jay calls Adnan from Jenn’s house – “What’s your plan? A: I’m talking to Asia waiting for Hae to give me a ride.”
27 incoming 3:15 p.m. 0:20 L651C – Jay calls Adnan again “You done? A: hang on, I’m busy” or “I’ll call you when I get to I70 Park and Ride.”
26 Jenn home 3:21 p.m. 0:42 L651C – ADNAN CALLS JAY at JENN’S HOME (LANDLINE). “Come get me [at Best Buy, or meet me at I-70 Park and Ride]”
Jay picks up Adnan either before or after Adnan dumps the car and takes him to track practice.
25 Nisha 3:32 p.m. 2:22 L651C – Adnan calls Nisha. He needs to remind himself there is another
girl out there. Maybe the call goes through, maybe it doesn’t.
Adnan leaves his phone with Jay and goes to practice. [Can’t remember all the time sequencing
from here. At some point Adnan calls Jay and they reunite, get weed, etc.]
Pingback: Serial Podcast; Cellphone Data Shows How Jay Acted Alone
Is there a reason why the 3:15 call cannot be the “come get me call”? There doesn’t seem to be an explanation of this 20 second call. In court Jen testified to Jay leaving her house between 3 and 3:30. If Jay and Jen were wrong about where he received the call it wouldn’t be surprising. If we don’t believe most of what Jay said why should we believe this? Maybe he was already driving toward Woodlawn when he received the call which would explain the cell phone tower records.
It is true that Jay’s testimony is all over the place. Does that mean he is guilty? He had the same disadvantage that Adnan had, trying to remember a day many weeks in the past. We give the benefit of the doubt to Adnan because he mostly kept his mouth shut (smart) but since Jay talked (a lot) we all speculate that he is guilty of the actual murder. It seems logical to assume the more you speak about a day weeks in the past the more convulted your story is going to get.
Perhaps, although if you knew for certain that one thing happened one way and only one way, wouldn’t your story stay the same/consistent over time? If you were telling nothing but the truth?
The core theme of his story has remained the same, the details are all over the place. When you have to provide hours and hours of details it is quite difficult to recall everything accurately. Things get even more difficult when you are trying to recall a stressful situation. Jay is having to recall what time people called him, what time he was at a certain location, etc. for a day that happened weeks prior when his mind was racing in a thousand different directions. However, I would expect him to get some of the basic details right – like where he first saw Hae’s body.
He messed up his complete schedule of that day, not just who he called. Nor did he claim not to be sure.
And once again, Adnan didn’t even recall anything about the day. He wasn’t sure if he went to track, he wasn’t sure if he went to the library, etc. etc. It was just an ordinary day. The police weren’t going to accept a story of Adnan did it. They wanted details and that required Jay talking a lot and providing those details. It is pretty hard to provide those details when you don’t remember them. If Adnan wouldn’t have been accused, lawyered up and spoken to the police as much as Jay this may not even have been interesting enough to have a podcast.
Adnan actually did spell out his schedule that day. He just prefaced that with saying that he knows this only because this was his schedule, not through specific memories of that day.
Had he indeed had in mind to be seen, as Jay said he did, he would have adamantly stated that he was at track practice.
The emerging picture is that to Adnan it was an insignificant day while to Jay it was significant enough for him to claim to remember every part of it. Let alone his telltale panic before he was supposedly involved in any way.
The picture that is emerging for you is based on nothing more than what Adnan is telling us, which may or may not be true. It certainly is convenient for him. My main point is that the police demanded that Jay provided details, so he provided them. He could not possibly have remembered call times, etc. but the police wanted them. Should we be so critical of Jay for his inconsistencies? If Jay would have immediately asked for a lawyer we wouldn’t be having this argument today as we wouldn’t have hours and hours of police interviews to criticize.
But it is not just call times that he messed up. He changed the order and existence of significant details.
Jay is being asked to do impossible things in his interviews. You can tell from his responses that he is fumbling. “Tell us you were at this place at # o’clock.” “Okay I was at this place.” “Tell us exactly what you said while you were there.” “Uh um… I said… did I mention he was wearing red gloves?”
But it’s not about “being critical of Jay.” It’s about being critical of an absurd investigation that relied on telling a liar what to testify in order to convict someone of murder.
Yes like his latest BS version that he saw the body at his Grandma’s house
this whole “the core of the story remained the same” argument is really weak, and I think those of us w/ a higher standard for what the truth is (or what a reliable witness is) just see Jay’s nonsense and immediately realize you can’t believe anything this guy says. There may be some truthiness dashed in here or there, but there is no way to know what – he is simply unreliable. Maybe you haven’t read as much of the transcripts as I or others have, but there are SO many things that change throughout his various tellings of the event – even now with this newest interview, things are changing. Some of the things only change once and then he goes back to what he had been saying, but there are just so many things that have been inconsistent, there really is no “core” story that he (or anyone that believes him) can cling to. Did you know he stated during one of the trials that Adnan didn’t give him his cell phone, and instead that he left it in the car? Jay also stated (only once) that it was HIS idea to borrow the car that day because he needed to get Stephanie a bday present. Then, just to pick apart his “core” story some more – he has been all over the place w/ when Adnan started telling him he was thinking of killing / decided to kill Hae. Some stories have it that day, some the day before, some a WEEK before. Well which was it?
You’re right – the “consistencies” in his detailed story don’t make any sense if you believe his core story – which is that Adnan told him he was going to do it, he called Jay after he did it to pick him up, and later Jay helped him bury the body. They do make sense, however, if you believe that Jay was the killer and was trying to pin in on Adnan while still not completely contradicting things he knew to be true. His timeline and details are all out of whack, but it looks like he’s trying to place Adnan’s car in areas he actually went in case someone remembered seeing it there, and then tailors his “timeline” to fit the cell phone records presented to him.
Why do you think they went to Cathy’s after he picked Adnan up when she wasn’t expecting them and rarely hung out with Jay? Because he needed to get Adnan high to cloud his memory of the day, and needed to be seen together by someone who could seem objective to the police. He may even have intended to ask Cathy if Adnan could “sleep it off” at her place so that he could use the car that night to go about his “business”, but changed his mind when Adnan said he had to go meet his dad at the mosque.
It can’t be the come-and-get-me call because (1) the phone is already in the Best Buy area at the time the call is made, and (2) Jay testified that the 3:21 p.m. call occurred at a time and place that make the 3:15 p.m. call impossible as the come-and-get-me call.
These are not minor details we’re talking about. Jay said, over and over again, that he was at Jenn’s house waiting for a call at 3:30ish, and that at 3:40, he received a call from Adnan. By his own story, he was watching the clock, and should know that the come-and-get-me call did not occur before the time Adnan said he would call.
I don’t understand why the police wouldn’t question the fact that a supposedly big time drug dealer would be trying to score a dime bag with his customer from people. He certainly wouldn’t bring his barely known customer to meet his source. If he did, that could explain why Adnan was able to threaten him with turning him in – it wouldn’t just be Jay Adnan was talking about implicating.
Susan you are amazing. I came to the Serial game late through my wife’s obsession and am just catching up now. Here’s my problem. Why did Adnan get a cell phone right when he did? I can’t quite figure this out. I’m sixty one years old and can remember a lot of new technology gadget breakthroughs since the early eighties (microwave ovens, vcr’s, video games, home computers, internet, beepers, cell phones, iPads, smart phones, etc) that at first only early adopters had. Why did only early adopters have them? Usually because they were very expensive or else otherwise everybody would have had them in one sweep (but they didn’t and it often took some years for the technology to penetrate). My wife and I remember that when her father passed away in 1999 that she had a beeper and that’s how she found out. None of Adnan’s friends had cell phones so why did he? The next question is how could someone get a new gadget like Adnan did and then the very next day give it to a friend to use? That just wouldn’t happen in any world that I’ve lived in. No way. Can you remember getting your first GameBoy? Would you be giving it to someone else the very next day? No way. Okay so that makes me very, very suspicious of Adnan’s motives. If I speculate off of this it leads me to this… Adnan decides that he will kill Hae and after researching or otherwise knowing how cell technology works (cell towers, etc.) realizes that this can work to his complete advantage by giving the phone to a dupe that then can and will be completely implicated in his crime. This is the start of his plan. Please comment!
I wondered about the timing of Adnan buying a cell phone the day before Hae gets murdered. Maybe too much of a coincidence for me. Made it easy to make arrangements to be picked up some where.
Few people had cell phones in 1999. It bothers me that literally hours after getting a new tech gadget that he made sure that Jay had both his car and the brand new phone (as in setting up an alibi and a fall guy). The next big red flag for me is Asia in the library. I’ll say it this way. If it were me and I know I didn’t do it then I would be jumping up and down to take her help and would be letting everyone know it. If I knew I was guilty though and especially if I knew that I couldn’t have been in the library that day (perhaps Asia has confused the day and her memory was for the day before or after, an honest mistake) then I would be scared out of my mind that the library might really have security cameras and would want no part of anyone actually pursuing this possibility.
31% of people in the United States had cell phones in 1999 (World Bank stats). That’s not “few”, and they weren’t “early adopters”.
Can’t find demographics for USA, but in the Northern Ireland in 1999 total ownership of cell phones was 26% and the number was *also* 26% for males between 16-19.
*I* had a cell phone in 1999, and I can’t remember where I got it. You know how I called my friends who didn’t have cell phones? On their landlines.
And Adnan has didn’t lend Jay the phone. He lent Jay his car, which had his phone in it.
If this was some tv drama-style plan (which is rarely how things work in reality) why spring it into action on the first day he got the phone? You are making connections out of nothing.
Exactly! People are reading this as they would a novel, thinking that everything is put in as a clue.
The Nisha call is a great example. When I had my first cell phone hardly a day went by without pocket calls. People think of it as far fetched or a poor excuse, only because they expect every detail to be a clue. On Dec 21, 2014 8:46 PM, “The View From LL2” wrote:
> Gregory Gee (@gickgickgick) commented: “31% of people in the United > States had cell phones in 1999 (World Bank stats). That’s not “few”, and > they weren’t “early adopters”. Can’t find demographics for USA, but in the > Northern Ireland in 1999 total ownership of cell phones was 26% and the > numb”
I got my first cell phone in 1998. I was a freshman in college (so one year older than Adnan when he got his) and my dad wanted me to have one so that my parents could reach me when they needed to and I could call for help if my car broke down, etc. Not many of my friends had cell phones at the time, but a couple did. Also, I believe we know that Adnan’s friend Yaser had a cell phone at the time as well. There may be a few others that we just don’t know about so you can’t say that none of his friends had cell phones. We don’t know that.
Everyone is obsessed with the tools of the whodunnit: motive, planning, clues. Most detectives don’t care about motives for a reason – read David Simon’s “Homicide” – motives don’t help solve cases and most homicides aren’t planned. They’re spur of the moment things that happen for ridiculous reasons.
Anyone who thinks in the terms of an Agatha Christie novel needs to – at very least – watch The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris.
go read the trial transcripts, Tom. Jay says it was JAYS idea to ask for the car so he could go get Stephanie a present. He also says that Adnan didn’t GIVE him the phone, he left it in the car.
Him buying the cell phone is a complete and uninteresting coincidence.
There was never a murder plan involving the cell phone. Jay testified that he asked to borrow the car because he wanted to go get a present for Stephanie, and Adnan left the cell phone in the glove compartment when Jay borrowed the car.
My default position is to discard all evidence that involves projecting yourself into someone else’s position and guessing what you would have done in similar circumstances — I just don’t believe it has any reliability or use. Adnan was 17, and let people who borrowed his car borrow his cell phone too, so that he could get in touch with them. He also couldn’t have his cell phone in class. So I don’t see anything remotely odd about letting Jay borrow it.
You really think that cell phone was THAT imperative to him carrying out this murder, that it is really that relevant to this case? So like – he was thoughtful & pre-meditated enough to go through the trouble of getting a phone that he really wouldn’t need to pull off this crime (although I will admit it would be of use) – yet, he didn’t use that same premeditation to think about the details AFTER the murder? Remember that Jay’s account has them spending most of the day driving around town, getting high and talking about where they were going to bury her… not to mention that in Jay’s story, Adnan uses a PAY PHONE @ Best Buy to call Jay at Jenn’s house on a LANDLINE… Yeah, good thing he got that cell phone the day before. Oy vey… come on people.
I’m curious. Rabia has released both the Jay and Jenn police interviews. Why hasn’t she released the Adnan police interviews? Is there something that she doesn’t want us to see about the interviews?
From what I’ve read elsewhere, there were no tapes of Adnan’s interviews.
She did release the written police notes, and I’ve posted them on my blog.
She’s not scared of anything in them, they are boring and exactly what you would expect to see. The cops didn’t film the interviews because it would have created “bad evidence.”
Ok thanks Susan, sorry must have missed.
Pingback: Serial Podcast: Producer Dana Chivas Is No Dr. Spock
(Sorry if I’ve double posted)
What if Jay went to Woodlawn after school to surprise Stephanie with her birthday gift. Say, he was walking across a parking lot to go find her and Hae drove up. Hae says that if he doesn’t tell Stephanie about his cheating then she will. Jay gets into her car to explain and things go from there. What if the gift he had for Stephanie was a pair of really nice red gloves?
I like it! Haha, the detail of the red gloves stands out to me, too. Did the police ever ask if either Adnan or Jay had a history of wearing those distinctive gloves? I have to assume that Jay knew those gloves were destroyed when his clothing and shovels were ditched. Was there any history of them before that?
You might consider evaluating the timeline as if Adnan had the phone at least through 3:32. This whole “cell phone in the glove compartment” notion makes me wonder how easy it would be to assume. It makes a lot more sense if Adnan has the phone and calls Jen’s where Jay had to “wait for a call.”
Plus, the memory that Jay had the phone could easily have applied to the track practice time frame.
But don’t Jay, Jenn, and Adnan all say Jay had the phone during this time? Don’t even the police think Jay had the phone at least up until around the Nisha call?
Is it plausible that Jay committed the murder for Adnan, or at the very least Jay was involved from the start with regard to the murder and the attempted cover up? Maybe this was planned by the both of them. Adnan’s heart was broken while Jay wanted his “stepping out” kept quiet. Alone they seem rather insignificant, but perhaps together it could amount to a motive. This might explain the lending of the car and cell phone to Jay, as well as Adnan’s involvement with the burial. The fact that Adnan would lend his car to someone who’s not even a good friend, as he claimed, seems too far fetched. How many of us have done that, or would do that? Why would Adnan lie about a friendship to Jay? I would understand if it was to avoid having your parents know that you’ve got a drug dealer as a friend, I get that. However, if the police are asking, and you’re being investigated for murder, why lie about it? One reason I can see, is that Adnan knows about Jay’s involvement and wants to distance himself from him. It’s obvious that Jay knows too much, too much to just be involved after the fact. It might also explain why Adnan doesn’t seem too angry with Jay. I’m trying to imagine how angry I would be if someone had accused me of something I had nothing to do with, let alone a murder………come on! It’s definitely not the kind of reaction Adnan had or has. Time heals all wounds, but that wound, I believe, would never heal. Yet Adnan doesn’t even seem angry with Jay, other than just calling him a liar, which we know to be true. Perhaps the real truth, that only Jay and Adnan know, would be just as damning. As for Jay’s ever changing stories, it just seems to me to be the plight of a man trying to scratch and claw his way to freedom, or at the very least less culpability, but I believe there is some truth behind all of those lies.
It’s been established that Adnan lent his car out to other people. He kept his phone in the car, so it would go with the car (and also provided a way for Adnan to call and get his car back at a time when many people didn’t have cell phones). So it is not only not far fetched that Adnan lent Jay his car, but it’s actually what no one disputes that he did. As for the depth of friendship between Adnan and Jay, I haven’t seen evidence that they were more than drug buddies. Has Jay ever claimed that they were close friends? If so, I haven’t seen that, either. Jay was his dealer, and was dating Adnan’s best female friend. They were connected, but not close.
As for Adnan’s lack of anger at Jay, his friends and acquaintances uniformly described him as a guy who never got angry and never was violent. Remember the story of an acquaintance at the mosque trying to provoke a fight, and Adnan defused the situation by kissing him on the cheek? As Susan has said here many times, it is a mistake to project yourself into a situation, and find it suspicious that someone didn’t behave the way you think you personally would have.
He said on the phone that it is ridiculous to think he wouldn’t be angry at the guy who put him behind bars, but he wasn’t ranting on these interviews.
right. Not only that, it’s been SO long now, he has moved on and accepted his current place in life, as there is very little he can actually do about it. People that cast doubt on Adnan because he’s not publicly irate @ Jay – have you ever tried being completely irate at someone for 15 years, when there’s very little you can actually do about it? Holding onto anger like that is exhaustive, and by all accounts Adnan is a positive guy who would be able to adapt to his situation and probably even forgive Jay, IMHO. Not that he wouldn’t want to be freed & exonerated, but it sounds like he has made a decent life for himself in prison – he basically says exactly this in the podcast. What can he do w/ all his anger towards Jay? Drive himself mad in prison? Yeah, that’s totally what he should be doing – bouncing off the walls in perpetual anger & frustration. If he’s not doing that, well then he must be guilty! Come on people… you can only “shout from the rooftops” as SK says for so long before you get tired of shouting. Clearly Adnan got tired of proclaiming his innocence a long time ago, and is content to let the evidence speak for itself at this point. Either you believe him or you don’t. Either you believe JAY or you don’t.
I would be interested in learning to whom Adnan had lent his car to in the past and under what pretense. Did he lend the car to anyone who would ask to borrow it, or would he only lend it to close friends? It may show some more insight into the depth of the relationship.
Although Adnans’ friends describing him as a guy who never got angry and was never violent, I think those descriptions are for much smaller issues than being falsely accused of murder. I believe Gandhi would have had more anger towards Jay than what Adnan had, or at least what we’ve been shown. The only thing that got Adnan convicted was essentially Jay’s testimony. Adnan’s reply, Jay lied. That’s it? This is true, Jay did lie, numerous times. However, I still believe there to be truth at the core of his testimony. Adnan didn’t believe that the murder could have happened that way that the prosecution said. Perhaps this is true, but I still I don’t understand how more of Adnan’s energy wasn’t spent on Jay. Obviously, there’s editing done, and perhaps that could explain why we didn’t hear more about it. As for it being a mistake to project oneself into a situation, isn’t that what we do? We look to our experiences in life, and we look to how normal, average people respond to situations and account for a wide variance. I still see no possibility of anyone not being angry with a person whose solely responsible for you being wrongfully convicted of a murder.
And why do you say he is not angry at him, because he didn’t rant and rave on phone with beep after beep? He actually addressed this issue in the last episode.
Yes, because he didn’t rant and rave. You’re in jail, for a murder you didn’t commit. You’ve been framed. You had nothing to do with a murder and you’re going to be in jail for the rest of your life because of Jay. Yet you would spend your time trying to explain how a timeline doesn’t fit with the prosecutions theory as to how and where the murder occurred.
So when on the phone being interviewed, instead of focusing on logic he should spend that time calling Jay names?
As he said in the last episode, obviously he’s angry at him, but he was trying to leave emotion out of it and focus on content.
Besides, even if Adnan did it and Jay broke his part of the deal, would he not be mad at him then?
Another thing to keep in mind is that you can’t stay mad for 15 straight years. I’ve heard interviews (on NPR) with others who sat for many years on the basis of the witness from a 12 year old who later testified that he only did so because he felt pressured by the police to do so. He also didn’t express anger at the guy for not coming forward until that many years later.
I’m not implying that he should be calling Jay names, although I don’t think it would be a reach to think that most of Adnan’s anger should be directed towards Jay, if he’s innocent. Does Adnan spend anytime discussing Jay at all? Does he, with or without emotion, try to directly delve into Jay’s statements and discuss them? As far as I know, he doesn’t. I find that strange. The only reason you are in jail is because of Jay’s statement, and all you have to say about it is that he’s lying.
If Adnan did do it, and is upset that Jay broke his part of the deal, then he would be mad at him. Yet he can’t really show that anger to the public can he? I suppose that’s my point. I think the reaction that Adnan has is more in keeping with this scenario, than the one where Adnan is framed for murder and doesn’t seem to have an issue with the person that framed him.
As for being mad for 15 years, life carries on. So I don’t think Adnan could be angry every single day.However, after 15 years and you finally have a platform from which to speak, and you don’t show anything towards your only accuser. Weird. What if if he actually did have something to do with Hae’s murder. This could also explain why he’s not angry. You can’t really be angry if you’ve got no right to be angry.
I think Susan has commented on how counterproductive it can be to take the tack of “this person isn’t expressing guilt/anger/confusion/remorse the way I would, and therefore he must be . . .” I was talking with someone today who thinks Adnan should never have been convicted, but who also can’t get past the fact that Adnan lent his car to his dealer. “Who does that? It’s so fishy.” When I said it was certainly odd behavior compared to how I treat my car, but there’s evidence that Adnan was liberal in lending his car to friends, she still couldn’t get her head around it.
I can imagine Adnan blaming himself for befriending Jay, for letting Jay use his car and phone, for trusting Jay to the extent he did, and for ignoring the wishes of his family and teachers. I believe he made a comment on the podcast to the effect of “I did this to myself” which I took to me he created or at least went along with a situation that ended up destroying his life, and his family’s life. He seemed to have a lot of guilt over that. He also has a personality that all his friends describe as never lashing out or getting angry. I can’t relate to that, but I know it doesn’t make him guilty of murder.
That’s in contrast to Jay, who seems to project all blame outwards. He’s the victim, life is unfair, etc. It makes him pathetic and unsympathetic in my eyes, but that doesn’t make him guilty of murder, either.
You don’t actually know if he didn’t rant & rave. Maybe he did – but he wasn’t controlling the narrative. Maybe SK edited all of that out, or maybe Adnan’s lawyer vetted all the podcasts before they were released so he could be certain he wasn’t saying anything that could negatively impact his future appeals. Your attitude on this is so damn frustrating – you’re like the jurors who held it against Adnan that he didn’t testify, even though they’re instructed by the judge not to. F’ing BS. Who are you to tell him how he should be reacting? You are free to react however you want when you’re falsely accused of something, but I guarantee after 15 years you’ll lose some of your steam, that is if you haven’t decided to end your own misery by then. Ugh. Some people…
Well Chuck, I stated previously that perhaps things were edited out, so thanks for that. Also, I’m rather amused by your comment of “you’re like the jurors who held it against Adnan that he didn’t testify” ……Oh really. Do tell. How are you aware of this? The jurors had all of the evidence. All of it. Not the morsels we have. Yet you and your infinite wisdom know that the jurors failed in their duty to follow the Judges instructions. psshh. Talk about frustrating. Some people. Sound familiar? Then you proceed to guarantee that after 15 years I’d lose some of my steam. You don’t know me. You shouldn’t assume to know how I’d react. Pot meet kettle.
Koneg quoted a juror that thought the fact that he didn’t testify wad suspect.
This is another case of the jury speculating and using that to decide somebody’s fate.
Oh, stop the presses! I’m sure this is the very first trial where a juror has done that! Just like when something is stricken from the record the jurors are supposed to pretend they never heard it. Sure. Also, that same juror of whom you speak, heard all of the evidence that was presented, right? So who knows if Adnan testifying would have been able to sway this juror. Guess what……we’ll never know. I do know that Adnan was convicted by a jury of his peers, not just one juror. Also, it was Adnan’s option as to whether or not to testify.
By now we know exactly what evidence they did or didn’t have. We also know what logic was used in deciding to believe Jay. We also know that they didn’t weigh much. They were done by 2 hours, which apparently is unusual.
And I do think the racial issue played a big role and that the prosecutors made good use of that.
I just want to point out the fact of domestic violence because there are men everywhere who are nonviolent with most others but can be quite violent in secret with the woman they are involved with. Which isn’t to say I want Adnan to be guilty of this murder or that I agree with his conviction, or that I think Jay is credible. But the nonviolent thing his friends all talked about never ruled out Adnan’s capability of violence toward Hae for me.
Wow. You should be a lawyer. Wait you are one. Seriously, that was a spectacular information and pretty convincing. Since listening to the podcast I have been firmly in the “50/50 on Adnan’s guilt but the conviction was not warranted” camp…
After reading this I’m pretty confident that either Hae was not killed by 4pm or Jay was there during the killing of Hae. The most damning thing is his and Jenn’s testimony.
Just to clarify we don’t have conclusive evidence that Adnan and Jay were not together at 3:30? So while you have poked even more holes into Jay’s testimony such that it cannot be accurate it still isn’t really evidence that (a) Adnan did not commit the murder with Jay or (b) Adnan did not bury the body with Jay. Is that correct?
Please please do a final post on the last episode nd the reveal about the nite to Don!
Thank you for having such insightful and interesting discussions about the Serial podcast. I’ve devoured every post regarding Serial and look forward to a possible final episode post. Thanks, again.
I have been listening to Serial and reading your posts on this blog and I have been incredibly impressed by your detailed, thorough, forensic unpicking apart of the prosecutions’ evidence. Thinking about why this might be the case, I think unlike the presenter Sarah Koenig, you don’t presume that the court system is primarily a method for revealing the truth. Often that seems to occur with a different kind of analysis. But I do have a general question, do you think the modern continental European style inquisitorial court system is superior to the largely Anglo-Saxon adversarial one ? I only say this because there is a good chance that the flimsy evidence against Adnan would not have gained as much traction as it apparently had in an inquisitorial style system where fewer presumptions are made and it’s supposedly more fact based. You are a very good barrister Susan. Thanks for the posts.
Here’s a theory. What if Adnan asked Jay to do it. Jay had never killed anyone before, it would be new and exciting. Adnan was upset about Hae moving on so fast. He and Jay hung out. He told Jay that he was upset and wanted to see her pay. That is why Adnan gave Jay his cellphone and car. That is why both of their alibi’s are cloudy. Jay cannot admit that Adnan told him to do it because then he would be admitting to murder. Adnan can’t say he did it because he would continue to be guilty and even more disrespected by his community for wanting her to be punished. They both moved the cars after it had happened. They both dug the grave. Having them both involved made it harder to pin it to one person.
One detail – pinging the same tower is not equivalent to remaining stationary. Likewise, pinging different towers is not equivalent to having moved.
Thank you, Susan. I finally understand how a good lawyer thinks. Your reasoning is like a swift clean breeze.
After reading a few of your posts, I went back to an original thought I had early in the listening of SERAL. What if Hae left school on time and was driving to pick up her cousin when she spotted Adnan’s car cruising along? (Another commenter on one of your earlier posts posited this.)
When I was in high school, we had a sixth sense for spotting our friends’ cars. We lived for that, and would pull over and chat– especially since we didn’t have cellphones. Cruising was our communication, even if we were just driving on an errand. We LOOKED out for our friends’ cars.
So Hae follows Adnan’s car, sees Jay driving. She follows Jay to wherever he is going. THIS derails her. SHE gets swept up just enough to forget her cousin and alter her course.
From that point there are many possibilities. She follows Jay and witnesses a drug deal. She follows Jay and sees him have sex with Jenn. She follows Jay and confronts him about Stephanie. She follows Jay AND Jenn and gets in a fight with Jenn, so that Jay intervenes. Really, it doesn’t matter. It’s the simple ordinary fact that Jay was driving Adnan’s car, and since Hae was driving too– couldn’t she have inadvertently, innocently come across Jay?
I know you’re a lawyer, and that these scenarios don’t interest you particularly. But your logic freed my mind to see that here is a plausible everyday random occurrence which might have led to murder. If a writer wanted to make up a story about Jay’s involvement, THIS would work. No other story I’ve heard so far involving Jay does but this.
This speculation answers several questions which have niggled me since I started listening. Why in the hell is Jenn involved and why does she sound so fishy? Why does she need to get her story straight with Jay before she talks to police? What exactly is this “bond” between Jenn and Jay? Why did Jenn say she didn’t like Hae? Why is Jay so frightened he sounds like someone living in Witness Protection?
Jay’s fear is a telling thing. Jay’s fear drives this bus.
Thank you for this! Coherent and based on verifiable data! Perfect. I wonder if perhaps the 2:36pm call or the 3:15pm call could have come from Hae herself.
Consider: if Adnan had asked for a ride from her and she agreed, they shared last period, he needs to run to his locker and they agree to meet in front of the gym. She goes to the gym, grabs a snack, speaks to a friend for some time. She’s now ready to leave campus and Adnan is nowhere to be found. She has a timeline she must keep so maybe she borrows a cell phone from someone and calls him. Only Adnan doesn’t have his phone, Jay does. Perhaps this provides the link between Hae and Jay that leads to her murder. The calls are short, not long enough for a heated conversation necessarily, but maybe enough for an exchange that either leads to an intentional meet up (to buy weed?) or for an unintentional meet up.
This seems to possibly explain the issue of why Adnan might have told police initially he asked for a ride and Hae left without him. It also stands to reason that only a few people would have had Adnan’s new cell phone number, Hae being one of them. Those incoming phone calls could have only been made by a few people who knew the number by Jan. 13.
Thoughts?
This Reddit thread bears consideration to this subject. Apparently in some Jodi Arias trial the cell phone records were actually off by a certain amount of time. This reddit gentlemen posits that if there was a phone company error of 1 hr then it could clarify a lot of the call log timeline.
Interesting idea, but I don’t think it works. I believe (although am not sure where to find it offhand) that there was confirmation that Adnan was in English class that day, which would have been during the “10:45 a.m.” call, if that call had actually been an hour earlier. Also the calls from Hae’s family, Aisha, and Officer Adcock seem to confirm the 6-6:30 p.m. time period pretty well.
The Adcock discrepancy is a hole, but it seems as though his testimony as to what time he made his call is based on what the log says. It would be interesting to note exactly what his notes state. His time for calling Adnan seems to be a window, not a specific time. Also, to your point about the 10:45 call, this hypothesis would mean that the call was made at 11:45, not 9:45.
Durr, right. But the Cathy thing still seems impossible to work around. She seems pretty consistent and reliable with her times (home from work a bit after 5, Judge Judy at 6) and that matches with her memory of the call from Hae’s family and/or Aisha.
The AT&T bill is pretty interesting, though. Especially where it seems to be showing a roaming charge for the 8:05 p.m. call to Jenn’s pager? Perhaps the 8:04 p.m. call cut off due to bad service, and the call back at 8:05 p.m. routed through another carrier… except if so, why does it show L653C? Why the charge for that call and no others that day? Hmm.
If that is a roaming charge due to bade AT&T service, I wonder if it could suggest the phone was somewhere out of the way and behind heavy cover/hills… like Leakin Park…
I did some more digging, and it looks like the fact Judge Judy was on at 6 p.m. doesn’t completely clarify things — because it was on at 7 p.m. too:
That could not possibly be a more inconvenient tv schedule to have, for this purpose. So watching Judge Judy during the Officer Adcock call is completely consistent with the call being at 6:24 or 7:24. Jenn’s testimony matches the the call logs being accurate for everything after 5pm that day, but that’s not worth much.
Good thing the cops pulled the call records of the people Adnan’s phone called, so that the times could be verified! Oh wait.
Edit: Goddammit I hate this case. From Cathy’s trial testimony,
But it was on at 7 too. And if that’s the one reason she knew the time of the calls, then Cathy can no longer verify the correctness of the timeline. So right now, I don’t see anything completely obvious that could disprove the timeshift theory.
We might want to look at calls the day before and the day after, as posted in Rabia’s latest document dump. The thing I think of right away is the calls to Hae the night before, which fit with her midnight curfew and with Adnan’s recollection of the times of the calls I believe. If this theory is correct, Adnan called Hae and didn’t get an answer at 12:26 am and 1:00 am, and talked with her at 1:35 am. I know I saw somewhere that Hae once got in an argument with her mother about getting home after midnight, but it doesn’t sound like something she did often.
I’m still ticked off about Serial giving us misleading data about the 5:14 call. If they’d released the cell bill, it would have been immediately obvious that whatever the 5:14 call was, it wasn’t someone calling voicemail. It’s almost certainly someone leaving a voicemail.
So with that kind of error being made at trial, the timeshift error absolutely could have happened. I don’t see any solid evidence to support it yet, but there’s no evidence to disprove it yet, either. But right now, Jenn is the only witness who testifies as to an accurate time for any of the calls that day.
Dang, you are a super sleuth.
To add to the confusion, from Serial’s website:
So *theoretically* Yaser’s cell phone could be used to verify the correctness of the time stamps. But what if Yaser also got his phone through Bilal? Presumably the same error would show up there too… (I haven’t read the trial transcripts yet, so there may be something in there about it?)
But if Yaser’s cell phone came from Bilal, then the only cell records we have to verify the timestamps come from a phone that would have the exact same time error.
Yes! Agreed, keep digging!
Krista responded to the reddit thread that she can verify the 5:38 call as the correct time as she remembers it being timestamped by caller ID. I am assuming that the mod’s verified her as the real Krista. If that is the case and her memory is correct, that would kill the time shift theory.
For what its worth, in her testimony she says she doesn’t remember the 5:38 call, but I guess now she does. Go figure…
After reading Krista’s testimony, and her conflicting statements now, I don’t think she is sufficient to verify the accuracy of the times used for the phone records. Until I see something more, I’m going to consider this a viable theory.
That’s a relief.
But it also means there is no evidence Adnan had the phone at 5:30. Is this a second buttdial?
Could Adnad been in business together selling dope? They definitely had a closer relationship other than what Jay is saying.
who made the call to police that named adnad as the possible killer?
Assuming that Jay killed Hae, perhaps Jay viewed the outgoing calls in Adnan’s cell phone and picked Nisha’s number because Adnan had called her twice the night before. He would be hedging that the police wouldn’t think he would call Nisha because he didn’t know who she was and that only Adnan would be calling her, which would place him with Jay at that time.
Especially when he referred to her as ‘the girl from Silver Springs’. That is quite weird. He didn’t get that description from Adnan. Adnan wouldn’t be telling him, hey I’m calling a girl in Silver Springs, he would either tell him it’s a friend or her name.
In the other hand all the police knew at the of the interview was where she lived. Suspicious? Very.
“Given that there were no incoming calls made to Adnan’s phone at 3:40 (meaning that the statement is either based on a false memory or else is an intentional lie).” This could also mean that Jay received a 3:40 call on some other phone — either a landline phone, or the cell phone of some third party. Maybe Jay wasn’t in possession of Adnan’s phone at all during this time period, but Someone Else was. This would at least explain why Jay’s memory of the calls made on Adnan’s phone was so poor (even after extensive coaching), and why he’s so adamant about a call that _wasn’t_ made on that phone. Jay is terrible at keeping his lies straight, but maybe the 3:40 call was not only necessary as an alibi, but also an actual thing that happened.
(Apologies if this has been addressed already — I haven’t yet read all the comments.)
There is NO medical way to say the murder occurred at 3:30pm when the body was out in the cold for weeks. No medical way to determine that.
This is true. I’m not sure who has made such a claim.
We can say that the autopsy findings appear consistent with a 3:30 murder and burial about 4 hours later. And I think we can conclude that the autopsy findings are inconsistent with the murder happening around 2:30-3:30 pm, the body being kept in the trunk of her car about 9 hours, and then buried around midnight.
This makes no sense. First off, to anonymous, no one said there was a “medical way” to say the murder occurred at 3:30pm. And to Kevin, no, you can’t say “the autopsy findings appear consistent with a 3:30 murder and burial about 4 hours later. And I think we can conclude that the autopsy findings are inconsistent with the murder happening around 2:30-3:30 pm, the body being kept in the trunk of her car about 9 hours, and then buried around midnight.”
This couldn’t be further from the truth. The medical examiner said in trial that he couldn’t even determine the actual DAY of death, let alone the HOUR.
BK, you misread my post. I was referring to the likely duration that the body could have been kept in the trunk, and then buried in the position the body was buried, and get the autopsy results that were found. I am not speaking to the time of death, or number of days between death and discovery of the body.
Ahhh, got it. Sorry, my mistake.
Bk – on the next page there are discussions about what might be evident from the rigor mortis info (set in times, duration and body contortions) and body/ground match patterns caused by lividity (skin color discoloration/darkening after death caused by blood settling on the ground side of the body).
My story…I listened to the podcast New Year’s Eve since than I have listened to it five times and I need more information to get a better understanding of some people. I feel like I can create Adnans day for him pretty easily if I knew more. Maybe it would help him remember some things. I am pretty positive he didn’t do this in anyway he was convicted. Why do I think this? Probably many of the reasons you think he didn’t. One reason that stands out to me tho is track ends around 5pmcorrect? So the 4:58 incoming call checks out 19 seconds “hey we’re about done come get me” sounds right. Then the 5:14 #adnan call that’s him calling his voicemail. Takes Jay 15 to get there then he calls his voicemail. The voicemail is more then likely Nissan calling him back or maybe Hae saying I’m about to leave meet me here?. If you leave your phone at home or your desk and you come back to it and you have a voicemail, you call it right? I do. It Could be important. So if he was with Jay why would he wait to listen to it? He wouldn’t, we wouldn’t. I think Hae died around 315 and I think Jay did it or met up with whoever did it between 321 and 332 I think the nisha call is Hae being transferred into her trunk because you’re lifting a body into a car that to me is a very possible reason that call was made and button was held down. “Bestbuy” maybe. Now it’s the what the hell are we going to do? The plan I think was to take her car to the park and ride until later. That’s why the “L651c” was pegged twice on the drive to the highway 70 To go east to the park and ride I think he was calling these two guys for a ride back. From the park and ride. “I know I’m reaching on that one but it seems correct if this third party was freaking out because they just killed someone. I wouldn’t want them coming to the site with me.” I know the park and ride drop off is probably true because Jay calls jenn at 4:12 and it’s from the L689A cell site I’m pretty sure that has to be from the park and ride.
I believe this was a two party killing that was an accident. That’s the only thing that makes any sense what so ever. Hae was not supposed to die this day and was not planned.
So what do we need?
* I need to know what the A,B,& C means after the cell sites if it helps us know where the phone was during these calls it would help a ton on this map. Like East,west,South,North of the site.
* information on Jenn?
* I need you to ask Adana many things if you still talk to him.
* I need to know if Hae smoked weed? If she knew Adnan smoked? Did she care if Adnan smoked?
1- I need to know where did they go to get most of their weed? Or everywhere they went to get their weed? I also need to know what route they took. Did they go up north to forest park or did they go south down to Edmondson ave. that’s big in my opinion.
2- ask him if he ever had Yaser hold his weed, did they ever meet up and smoke or did he ever call him for advice? He calls Yaser after he leaves cathys house or after he drops Jay off and after he leave his dad at the Mosque. Maybe he was scared and wanted advice.
3- we need to know everything about Stephanie. Did he like/love her? have they had sex ever? Or a kiss? Did she like/love him? Was she jealous of Hae like Hae was of her? Did Hae and steph have a friendship? Did they ever hang out together or do lunch together? What was she like during all this? Does she still write or talk to Adnan? If not when did she stop talking to him? How did she get ahold of Jay on a regular basis? Did Adnan tell her Jay had his phone and car this day? Would Jay ever come to the school to see her or go to lunch with her? Where was she this day? Did the cops interview her? Did she smoke weed? Was she ever at Adnan house or did she ever see the note from Hae that talked about Adnan not respecting her decision? What was Stephanie’s opinion about Hae breaking up with him and did Adnan ever tell steph more then other or cry to her about the breakup?
I think I have a pretty good theory on what might of happened this day and with this ^information if we can get it. I think we might be able to get close enough to possibly getting Jay or a 3rd party to talk or tell on each other. It’s Adnan only way out of this mess. it seems everyone is stuck on either Jay or Adnan doing this. After listening to this 5 time and looking threw all this information for hours I don’t understand at all why you would need two people to make this murder happen and I have no idea why Jay would tell so many people. If Jay did this he could of gotten away with it pretty easily if he did. I can’t find a reason why Jay would kill her and I don’t think anyone can that’s why they chose Adnan because they came up with a little reason why he might but to me that’s not a reason to do this. Then I thought it takes a nasty mother F er to straight pin this on someone. People don’t do that. That’s terrible. So I thought what would make me frame someone? The only plausible explanation I could do this…is for someone I loved or family when that clicked in my head I remember one of I think three times I heard anything about Stephanie threw out this whole thing it was someone saying Jay would do anything for Stephanie . I remember he got her a gift, didn’t dance with her at the dance, she cried with them and a couple others when they found Hae and the person talking about Jay doing anything for her. Well to me this whole thing falls on the anything list. It also gives more motive in my opinion. They might hate each other, Hae thought Adnan cheated on her with her so she said something especially after she sees that Adnan got her a gift for her birthday. One of them want to talk after school things get heated. She’s already mad she hurt her really good friend maybe calls her a slut cause she knows about don threw Adnan So athletic Stephanie puts her in a headlock doesn’t realize how fragile Hae is and Boom dead. NOW WE HAVE THIS FUCKED UP B.S LIE.
Long shot? Maybe. But from the feel I get from this. It’s dead on. She seems invisible in this whole thing when she’s the only reason Jay would of killed her but I’d kill Adnan not His ex.
Steph is the only other person with access to Hae. It’s the only explanation for jays bull shit and it to me adds up and she seems to be so guilty she wants nothing to do with any of this what so ever. If I was Adnans friend I would do whatever I could to help him.
I too wondered what happened with Stephanie that day. The love of Jays life, do anything for her? Wouldn’t Jay have called her more than anyone the day he happened to have a car and a cell phone that he wasn’t being charged for using?
“Then the 5:14 #adnan call that’s him calling his voicemail.”
No, that is one call at 5:14 that goes to voicemail. All other calls that day were answered.
Isn’t that telling? Other calls that day were answered (by Jay, when Jay had the phone), but when Adnan was back in possession of his phone he called voicemail because he didn’t know if any incoming calls had been received, answered or not? If Adnan had been with Jay in the afternoon before 5:14 he would have no reason to call voicemail.
Adnan did not call voicemail. The 5:14 call went to voicemail.
OK, I see. So there is one incoming call that goes to voicemail at 5:14 in between the incoming calls that were answered at 4:27, 4:58, 6:07 and 6:09. Also one call to Krista’s answering machine 2 seconds long (a hangup basically) at 5:38. I guess they couldn’t identify the 1.07 minute long voicemail message or who it was from at a later date?
Krista testified that she left a voicemail message on Adnan’s phone in the evening after Aisha had called her, telling her Hae is missing. As there is no other voicemail message that day, it must be that one.
I don’t know if I’m highlighting something irrelevant here but I understand that the prosecution case was that Adnon bought the ‘phone especially for the murder. It was a planned, pre-medicated murder. Well if I was to plan a murder and use an accomplice then I would make sure that I bought 3 phones. I would buy my ‘normal’ phone way in advance of the event so it couldn’t be tied in with the event and I would use it in the normal way. I would buy the other 2 phones just before I needed them as I would want one for me and one for my accomplice and I would want to reduce any opportunity for the phone to be accidentally handled by anyone by buying the phone just before the murder. I would buy the cheapest phones available that simply rang and received calls. I would make sure that there was no contract so my contact details could not be traced. I would definitely make sure that the phone was clean and had never been used before. I would not give the number of the phones out except to those involved. I and my accomplice would wear gloves whilst using them. I would definitely destroy them after the deed was completed. I would probably dispose of the phone pieces in different locations to make the job of finding the evidence harder. But Adnon, a very bright student, buys a phone which has a contract which can allow the log of calls to be traced. He starts telling friends the number of the single ‘phone he has bought. He decides to involve someone who is not a close confidant and who appears to be a pretty unreliable character. He has to arrange to call his phone using land lines and hope that he can quickly get to a pay phone when he needs to. He leaves the phone in the car. He keeps the phone after the murder. This makes no sense!
Jay goes to a huge amount of trouble to make sure any potential finger prints are wiped off the spade(s?) and to dispose of his clothing so why didn’t he check/suggest that Adnan got rid of his ‘phone – an obvious piece of evidence. One explanation would be that he used Adnan’s ‘phone without Adnan’s knowledge. Adnan doesn’t know that his ‘phone has been used to contact people after/during Hae’s murder so he continues to use his ‘phone in the normal way but Jay can’t tell him to dispose of the ‘phone because then he would have some explaining to do.
I have a theory that I haven’t seen before, but clearly may have missed it. It actually starts the day before. If you look at the cell records, why is Adnan driving all around Baltimore while he is calling Hae? The three calls to her all ping different cell towers, none of which are near his house. He was at home before. So assume for a moment that he is driving around Baltimore, first South then East then West. Is he alone? That looks like perhaps a joy ride with a friend and they are likely getting high. This is something that puzzles me. Maybe Jay and Adnan. Have isn’t home. Where is she? She must be with Don. This further infuriates Adnan. Adnan and Jay finalize their plan. Or perhaps this is the first that Jay hears about it. He does say it was the night before, until he realizes that may sound too much like premeditation.
Have finally answers the call at 12:35AM but she only writes the number in her diary. No name (I believe that is what was said, I haven’t seen the entry). Why no name? She obviously knows who it is if it is Adnan. Perhaps this was portrayed as Jay’s phone. What is the plan? In order for this to work, someone has to get into Hae’s car, so she has to meet with either Adnan or Jay. She doesn’t really want to see Adnan so that doesn’t work. She is planning on seeing her new boyfriend later and maybe she wants to bring a surprise with her like a bag of weed. Who would she call if she needed this? Perhaps she would call Jay and meet him after school. This might be important enough for her to be late to pick her cousin at the school. She wants to impress her new boyfriend. She has never been late picking up her cousin before, but she hasn’t had a boyfriend like Don before. He is the one.
So now there is a reason for Hae to meet Jay. But she is running late. She stops and sees her friends and is trying to leave. Perhaps she makes a call from a pay phone at school to tell Jay she is on the way (2:36 unexplained call). She finally makes it out of school and now she needs gas (Oops) . She stops at the gas station and gets a couple of dollars worth of gas and makes one more call from the pay phone at the station at 3;15 “Be there in a minute”. Jay then calls Jenn and tells her it is about to go down (I think Jen knows more than she is letting on). Hae shows up, maybe Best Buy but likely a more remote location, and there she is assaulted and killed. The butt dial to Nisha (3:32 PM) occurs during assault. Maybe Hae grabs the phone and dials a number but nobody picks up. Same result. Hae is dead.
Now Jay has to stash the body in the trunk and drive Hae’s car to the I-70 Park and Ride. Perfect time mid-afternoon none coming into the Park and Ride. This particular Park and Ride is at the end of I-70 and the very end isn’t exposed to the interstate and is secluded. That done, jay now needs a ride back to Adnan’s car. He calls Phil first (3:48PM) but gets no answer and then Patrick (3:59 PM). He gets a ride back to the car and then calls Jenn (4:12) and tells her he is on the way there.
This implies that Jay acted alone and Adnan didn’t participate in the actual murder. If this was a straight murder for hire, then that’s possible. It may also be possible that Jay picks up Adnan from school prior to this. He is clearly in the area most of the time. If Jay acts then Adnan’s story is pretty much the way he tells it except he knows what has happened.
Adnan then calls his cell phone from the pay phone at the school (I assume there is one there, there always used to be) at 4:27 and asks if it is cone. Jay says yes. Adnan tells jay to come pick him up later. Adnan calls jay back at 4:58 PM and asks Jay “where are you?” Jay says “almost there” and hangs up. He picks up Adnan.
Adnan gets his cell phone at 5:14 PM and does what everyone does when they get their cell phone back when you haven’t had it for awhile. You call your voice mail, which Adnan does. Then they need someplace to hang out until dark to retrieve the car. Right now all of the folks who have parked their car at the I-70 Park and Ride are returning from work. Can’t go there now and be seen. Lets go to Kristas. He calls at 5:38 PM, but no answer. Lets go to Cathy’s.
Incoming call from Hae’s brother at 6:07 PM wondering if Adnan has seen her. Then the 6:15 PM incoming call. Is it Aisha or possible Jenn? Why would Adnan ask Aisha what should he tell the police? That sounds strange. Jenn has gotten wind that the police are already calling around about Hae. So she calls Jay and Adnan and warns them. Now his responses make sense. “What should do if they call me?” He is agitated. This is much sooner than they expected and Adnan and Jay panic. Then at 6:24 PM he gets the call from the police. This is all while at Cathy’s or right outside her house in the car.
Adnan and Jay are spurred into action at this call and they realize that the police may be looking for the car. With the body in the trunk they know they have to move it now. They leave and retrieve the car and go to bury the body. Yaser calls Adnan at 6:59 PM and asks about the Mosque prayer service and if he is going. Adnan says yes, he will be there but maybe late (He was going to be there on time until the cops started calling around) and perhaps he can cover for him with Adnan’s father until he gets there.
Adnan pages Jenn at 7:00 PM and she calls him back when they just reach the Park at 7:09 PM. He tells her that he will page her later when they are done burying Hae and at that time she should go and pick up Jay. She already knows where to go. Don’t bother calling his phone back because Jay will not be there.
He gets another call from the Mosque at 7:16 PM, partly in Arabic. “Where are you?” Adnan replies “On the way”. They finish burying Hae and Jay leaves the park and takes her car to the predetermined spot. Adnan pages Jenn once at 8:04 PM and then again at 8:05 PM to make sure she gets the page. He is on his way to the mosque, so the cell tower changes as he is driving away from the park.
The remaining calls are simply to make sure all is well and things are normal. All from either the mosque or Adnan’s house.
All of the calls in the morning after Adnan gives his cell to Jay is simply Jay driving around waiting for the call from Hae and working off his nerves and passing the time and likely getting high. Location isn’t really that important he already knows what he has to do. He may have even driven to Patapsco park and gotten the call at 12:07 PM. Perhaps he was scoping out potential places to bury the body. Perhaps Adnan was with him.
Lastly motive. As described earlier, I believe the only way Jay gets involved is in a pay for murder scheme. Adnan is paying Jay and perhaps Jenn to help him get revenge on Hae for breaking his heart. If Adnan is not involved in the actual murder, his story about being at school and track all are true.
Later on,Jay and Jenn both get really freaked out when the cops find the body so soon, so three days later they make the anonymous call. The concocted story about Adnan doing the crime has some truths in it (Perhaps Jay showed Adnan the body, Jay mentions he got paid, Jay hears an Arabic phone call when they are burying Hae, the locations are about right, etc). They decide that if the police get too close they are going to turn on Adnan to save their skins. Once that occurs, they change their stories to fit the details the police give them.
It is of course all conjecture, but it does seem to hang together.
What about the fact that Jay was clearly terrified about someone else, the Killer? And what about the “Asian” caller to the police saying it was the ex-boyfriend? If you believe Adnan is innocent, and I do, someone else is involved. I really believe Jay is not the murderer, but he got caught up in it via some crazy Baltimore druggy friends. He tells the Intercept something to the effect that, if anything comes out about Adnan’s innocence, it doesn’t change the fact that I first saw the body when the trunk was popped. Acoms razor would indicate Jay did it, but given the complexity of the evidence, I think we can plausibly consider that someone else was involved.
I totally agree. I think Adnan is totally is innocent, considering that he and Hae were still on good terms after the break-up. I think Jay knows who the real murderer is, but pinned it on Adnan, because of the anonymous caller tip because the cops were coaching Jay and feeding him the information during his interviews to tie it back to Adnan. Actually I will even go one step further and say that I think “Mr. S and Jay both have ties to the real murderer, but they both are more afraid of him than anything else and that’s why their stories are so vague and inconsistent.
Susan Simpson has made compelling arguments for reasonable doubt, but this is not one. In order to support her claim, she assumes most of it. At some point during this argument, it is taken for granted that the phone is with Hae’s killer at the time of her death, without that ever being established. Her confidence in narrowing the timeline for Hae’s death, which is critical to her argument, relies in part on her reasoning that nobody would receive or make calls while committing murder….this is a reasonable statement, but it’s only relevant if we know that the phone is with the killer at the time of the murder….which…..we do not know. It’s possible I’ve missed a critical piece of her argument, but it sure seems like she walked herself in a circle here.
That is a wonderful argument!
Nisha’s number is programed into the phone. Anyone holding the phone can call her. It doesn’t even have to be an unintended dial; seeing her name could make someone curious. Jay has the phone–this is a consistent part of his story. It is a red herring to say that Adnan is the only person who might call Nisha.
If someone is attacking Hae, in her car, (the left turn signal was broken) and the phone is with that person, it could have been Hae who grabbed at the phone to bang her assaulter with it. Or her assaulter could have used the phone itself to apply pressure on her neck, so much pressure that it broke her hyoid bone. In both these cases the numbers would have been mashed down, no butt dial needed
I’ve been reading everything I can find about this case. I haven’t seen any mention of one lie I believe Jay told. I read that it was Ramadan and that Adnan was fasting. Jay says in one interview that when the cops called, he and Adnan were eating. Has this been discussed at all? IMO this s case has only 4 suspects Adnan, Jay, Jenn or Stephanie. It’s clear that Jay knows the whole story. It’s either the story he’s telling or it’s the one he’s covering up. I’ll continue to investigate on my own.
Where did everyone come to the conclusion Jay was cheating on his girlfriend and needed the car to do so?
Susan does this mean you no longer believe that Jay was not involved? Also, how does this square with Hae not picking up her cousin. when do you think she was intercepted.
Pingback: Serious About Serial | Craig James
Pingback: 6 Huge Unsolved Mysteries In The Hae Min Lee Case. | global barbarian
Pingback: Final Episode Serial Podcast – Kendra's Blog
Suppose if Asia McLain was actually with Adnan, in the library until 2:40 and if he was at track practice, and if Jay was with Jen at Jen’s place when the Nisha call occurs, then wouldn’t there be a completely new story altogether, because there have been multiple sources now saying that Adnan was at practice. In which case, it would make you wonder how the person got a hold of Adnan’s car and phone.
The Nisha call was to a land line. Assume for a minute the call was made by the killer to make it seem like Adnan was with the phone at the time of the murder – by calling one of HIS friends.
All you would need to do is call Nisha on a pay phone, and then on answer, call on the mobile.
The cell phone call WOULD connect BUT it would be connected to the engaged tone, not Nisha.
Leave it connected to the engages tone for a couple of minutes and Bob is your Uncle.
Idk how you l continue to believe the states case was weak. You a whiteness take you to the car of the murder victim, his statement is corroborated by cell phone tower placing him at Leakin Park on the night Hae went missing. It’s a lot about this case that we don’t know, but these are material facts that matter ina police investigation and legal prosecution. We are all looking at this story based on the states timeline. Prosecutors take facts and testimony to make the best educated guess on what events lead to a crime. I’m sure the time line isn’t accurate only Adnan and Jay knownthw full truth but the main plot points hold true. Serial was a great podcast but ultimately it plays on our distrust for law enforcement and our justice system. Ultimately all Serial did was point out all the immaterial evidence that doesn’t matter in a court of law anyway. This case is based on Jay showing where the car was, his statement that was matched by the cell tower.
Dear Ms Simpson,
if I understood you correctly, your assumption is basically that whoever had the cell phone at about 3:40 P.M. killed Hae. And if we take into consideration that (even according to his own statements if I remember correctly) Jay had the cell phone at that time and that he seems to have been desperately trying to construct an alibi for that time (having been at Jen’s), it is quite obvious that this person has to be Jay.
Now I agree that Jay is basically as suspicious as Adnan. The cell phone data used against Adnan could be used as well against Jay. Even more so, he knew where the car was, what could also point to him being the culprit. (It is possible that he was being coached, yet this is mere speculation; that he knew where the car was, however, is a fact.) And him down-playing his actual role might be the reason for all those varying statements.
Yet I can’t get over the fact that there is something missing when it comes to Jay – which is a motive. Adnan clearly had one, as being a just recently dumped ex-boyfriend is a motive by itself (which, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean he did it). But I really can’t see any reason why Jay would have killed Hae. If anything, he had a motive to kill Adnan – he might have been jealous over Adnan being so close to his girlfriend. (However, that might be a good motive to frame Adnan.) Of course, there isn’t always a motive – some people just kill because they want to kill. Yet this crime clearly seems to be a personal thing.
So, what I would like to ask you: You’re not clearly saying it has to be Jay, but if you follow the exclusion principle this is what your theory clearly comes down to, I’d say. But couldn’t the lack of a motive destroy the whole assumption?
Yours sincerely,
Ralph Petroff
PS: Oh, and please excuse my bad English!
Susan,thank you for your thoughtful contributions on this case and I know these were some time ago, but given the recent ruling on the DNA, I have gone back to all the sources and I’d love your insights on a particular statement that you made above if you are still out there.
You made the comment above that you believe Hae was killed in the passenger seat of her car.
Here the conundrum: the lividity evidence states that Hae’s body was kept flat and face down for 8-12 hours until she was buried (not kept in a trunk).
There is no physical evidence either in the car or the trunk that a violent murder occurred. Turn signal attachment was less broken and more manipulated.
Manual strangulation takes between 3-8 minutes before death occurs.
Do we really believe it’s plausible that she is being strangled in the front seat of her car for what could be for 8 minutes, in the parking lot of a busy retail store, in the middle of the afternoon, then her body taken out and placed in the trunk, without fear of being observed either by cameras or patrons? Just doesn’t seem like anyone would attempt something so risky, and especially not in a premeditated fashion.
Could it be just as plausible that someone meets her at Best Buy around 2:30-2:45, A.’s car and cell phone are left in the parking lot, murderer convinces her to give him or her a ride (A’s car broke down, can you drop me home?), and she thinks she can do that and still make it to pick up the cousin between 3:15 and 3:30, however, when she drops off the murderer, she is enticed into the residence, perhaps to buy drugs, things escalate, and she’s murdered there, with privacy, where her body can be concealed and moved the next day. Murderer or murderers drives back to the parking lot to switch cars by 3:15, wipe down hers for prints. She’s not murdered in her car, no body in the trunk, but maybe DNA will help here. Pure speculation, but seems more plausible than a daylight strangling at BB. Could be why they were all so eager to say it happened at BB, to throw investigators off the trail of another location.
Hearing the convoluted tails from the prosecution witnesses, my gut says look more at the women involved, something about the way J and A handle this whole thing, seems less about helping each other than it is about shielding someone they want to mutually protect. A seems stunned and trapped, not oblivious, and Jay is intentionally lying to throw off the cops from finding the truth, turns out he’s really effective at that. Clearly they are about self preservation, but Its just an odd bond these two have, they are not close, they are not motivated to protect each other out of friendship, they are inextricably linked and I feel covering for their own involvement in dealing drugs, and to protect someone else, this is why Adnan won’t say more, and it’s why Jay won’t shut up. And these women, from Jenn, who is Jay’s employee for all intents and purposes, tethered to a pager, doing his bidding, shuttling him around, helping him destroy evidence, to Stephanie who Jay seems highly motivated to protect and who also has a relationship with A. and who is weirdly absent from the narrative given how much she is involved with these people until she shows up at one of Jay’s hearings to support him but interestingly sits as far away from him as she can, to another who has 7 hour phone calls with her murdered friend’s boyfriend. This is an odd assembly of “friends” who tries to pass themselves off as harmless teens smoking a little pot.
Motive is a puzzle. I don’t see jilted teen boy with no history of violence or anti social behavior pre-meditating a violent murder, esp when both he and his ex have moved on to new relationships by that point. Also don’t see A. flying into a spontaneous rage and killing Hae., esp if they’re all a bunch of sedated, harmless pot heads. Jay on the other hand…. he has proven that he has a propensity for violence, against police officers, against women, he’s a drug dealer mixed up with some nefarious people. These are dealers and users and it’s Baltimore.
But why would Jay target Hae? Given how worried he was of his drug dealings being exposed and keeping himself out of prison (look at his last interview with the Intercept where he discusses this), I wonder if this had nothing to do with high school romance dramas and everything to do with protecting his drug dealings, his employees, his bosses, his clients, and keeping himself out of jail. His clients include under age kids, and he knows how bad that can get for him.
Adnan knew enough to be implicated, he seems to be dealing pot as well (asks Jay for 10 lbs of weed). He is the A student, running track and prom king and leading prayers and everyone likes him, but he’s also got this side to himself that he’s trying to hide from his family and his community, he’s very motivated to want to cover that up.
Hae was likely in the wrong place at the wrong time, may have seen something that put her in jeopardy, or threatened to expose them, and that triggered one of them to act out, threaten her, take it too far, and they were all connected in the cover up. Was more than one of them involved? There’s something about how this little social circle operated that makes me think there were multiple witnesses to what happened and again why Jay is motivated to throw off the scent. Not saying there is definitive proof A wasn’t the murderer, but there are so many questions, and so many possibilities here, and clearly no definitive proof tying any of them to this. These are people engaged in illegal drug operations and by their own admissions, using heavily themselves. They only cop to a little pot, but doubt it stopped there. Jen has since been involved in multiple narcotics trafficking charges, has she not? She had a good mentor.
Its interesting as Jay himself reflects on these events that he claims to be so remorseful and wracked with guilt, and how he even got suicidal…all over helping his casual acquaintance cover up a crime he had nothing to do with? Doesn’t track. Neither does Adnan not getting more emotional or angry about his friends framing him for murder. That doesn’t track. They both had something to cover up, and it goes beyond the murder. The whole drug operation has been downplayed. Look at the amount of activity just on the day, the pagers and calls and constant interactions among that group, aka moving product. It’s a robust drug ring, and as Jen says in the HBO doc, rules of the street, you don’t snitch, you don’t go to cops…unless you are trying to save your own neck. Adnan is paying for his association with these people who appeared to have enough on him to have manipulated how it went down, Hae of course paid with her life.
Thanks for giving a forum to express these ideas. It helps to get them out, and would love to hear any feedback on the plausibility of these theories.
Pingback: Synthesis: Adnan Syed’s Guilty Verdict! – Education
Pingback: Synthesis: Adnan Syed is Guilty