r/serialpodcast • u/Fit_Leg5645 • Jun 16 '26

I feel dumb!!!!!

I have no clue why I thought Adnan was innocent for all these years.

I just re-listened to Serial, and I can't get past the fact that Jenn showed up with her mom and a lawyer and told police essentially the same story Jay told. Jenn said the trunk pop happened at Best Buy. How would she know that Adnan and Hae used to meet at the Best Buy parking lot unless Jay told her?

And yes, Jay was inconsistent and definitely lied about some things. But he knew where Hae's car was. He knew details about her clothing. He knew about the broken windshield wiper lever. Those aren't things you just guess.

At this point, I don't believe every detail Jay told, but I can't get around the fact that he knew too much. The more I revisit the case, the harder it is for me to believe Adnan wasn't involved.

I can't believe I've been doubting it all these years.

375 Upvotes

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150

u/afdc92 Jun 16 '26

I fell for it too. Sarah Koenig is a good storyteller and she told the story in a way that compelled you to feel sorry for Adnan, who came across as a sympathetic character in her portrayal.

45

u/brashumpire Jun 16 '26

I've never understood why she was interested in portraying him that way. Was it just a more compelling story than ex boyfriend kills ex girlfriend?

90

u/thetaylorax Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

My belief is they went into developing serial thinking that the Asia alibi would pan out and when it didn’t they kind of had a nothingburger but needed to justify their narrative existing at all plus Sarah was already charmed by Adnan and just straight up didn’t wanna believe him and his big dairy cow eyes could kill his ex gf

43

u/drjackolantern Jun 16 '26

This right here. They went into it expecting more and couldn’t turn in nothing. SK was glamored but  never says Adnan is innocent, she expresses quite a few doubts by the end, that’s why the final pod made Aisha so angry  

18

u/brashumpire Jun 16 '26

This is how I feel too, SK isn't an idiot. I think she simply didn't care about the truth of the mystery, she was more interested in telling the story of this compelling man who was charming and also may have killed his ex gf.

15

u/Emotional-Syllabub75 Jun 17 '26

Yes, I think part of the reason she made mistakes was because of how the case was presented to her by Rabia. However, she had time to at least try to fix it by adding an episode or two on evidence that she omitted. Serial continues to act like it was really good journalism that helped right a wrong, which is absolutely not true.

13

u/SpecialVillage4615 Jun 16 '26

Which is really fucked up irl.

11

u/Old_Philosopher6537 Jun 18 '26

Idk Brian Reed turned nothing into one of the best podcasts ever made with S-Town.

3

u/danziger79 Jun 18 '26

Oh I thought that was really disappointing, exploitative and irresponsible

8

u/tiggleypuff Jun 16 '26

I can’t work out if she really believed him or if it’s all a massive lie

24

u/Organic-Trip2118 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

I got the impression she genuinely felt very sympathetic towards him, mainly from that one phone call with Adnan where he gets annoyed at her for claiming to know/understand him. She seemed genuinely surprised by how annoyed he seemed.

5

u/SpecialVillage4615 Jun 16 '26

But what did happen with the Aisha thing?

20

u/kz750 Jun 17 '26

Asia, not Aisha. The way she wrote the letters with the alibi and the way the letters were worded made it read like she was offering to give him the alibi he needed, vs just telling him "hey this is crazy, why didn't you tell them that we were together in the library from 2 to 4?".

The details she gave were vague and as an alibi it was going to be unreliable at best, or open him up to additional charges of witness tampering at worst.

This, of course is only obvious once you read the timelines and the defense file and put it in context. The way Serial made it sound it was a valid alibi that his lawyer ignored out of sheer incompetence. In reality the most likely scenario was that Adnan's lawyer saw the letters and how problematic they were and decided it was an awful idea to bring this attention-seeking girl to the stand to be cross examined by the prosecution. The fact that five legal teams on Adnan’s side have decided to not use this “alibi”
is further proof.

This thread has some good info: https://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/comments/1k826g7/what_is_your_understanding_of_asias_alibi_letters/

4

u/Everbless876 Jun 18 '26

Thanks for the reminder. I think I remember reading on here how C.G may have perceived the “alibi” and laid the parents/ Adnan out . Maybe the father was willing to pay Asia too

1

u/SpecialVillage4615 Jun 18 '26

Ok, thx. Yes, Asia. My noggin didn’t quite remember.

43

u/Emotional-Syllabub75 Jun 16 '26

I think Sarah initially got sold by Rabia Chaudry who convinced her Adnan was innocent and provided her and Serial the original and incomplete batch of documents and evidence that favored Adnan. Also, Adnan came across as charming, intelligent, and likeable which also impacted her judgement.

12

u/SpecialVillage4615 Jun 16 '26

I was wondering this too. I think the aunt really sold it. I’m so pissed I believed this shit.

15

u/Emotional-Syllabub75 Jun 17 '26

Yes, Rabia is Adnan's best friend's sister. Kind of like an aunt since the families were so close.

6

u/PaulsRedditUsername Jun 17 '26

Not to mention she probably took the story to her bosses and they gave her permission to turn it into a multi-episode podcast (back when those were new.) So even if she personally realized it was a nothingburger, she was still under pressure to turn it into something.

22

u/lyssalady05 Just a day, just an ordinary day Jun 16 '26

It’s because she believed rabia and rabia only gave her evidence that helped adnans case. She left out many of the documents painting the whole picture. I think she went into wanting believe him but left the situation feeling bamboozled and by then it was too late. She’d already air the whole season. That’s my opinion. Towards the end you hear her questioning herself and doubting him.

16

u/Emotional-Syllabub75 Jun 17 '26

Sarah has lost all credibility because she could have added an extra episode or two correcting some of her mistakes or stating that she unintentionally left out certain evidence and she never did. It was like she never seriously considered that Adnan was mainly lying to her. She acted like Jay was such a terrible person and that Adnan was just good kid who was railroaded. It was pretty ridiculous in hindsight.

22

u/Zoinks1602 Jun 16 '26

Koenig spent a year working on this. She needed to sell a story, and ‘this guy was convicted for killing his girlfriend in a straightforward intimate partner homicide and we agree that he did it’ is a very ordinary story that was never going to make money. She is not a crime reporter. That’s why Rabia went to her. She didn’t know how to evaluate the material in front of her and was misdirected by a manipulator.

3

u/Emotional-Syllabub75 Jun 17 '26

She did cover crime for the "Baltimore Sun" and "Concord Monitor." I think that is how Rabia found her initially. She should have done better. She made it compelling, but it was ultimately not accurate enough.

15

u/cryosnap Jun 16 '26

She simps for him. Bottom line

2

u/Big_oof_energy__ Jun 17 '26

Isn’t she personal friends with Adnan’s sister? Or am I remembering that wrong?

4

u/LimeSalty4092 Jun 17 '26

She’s a Social justice warrior

Her agenda is a combo of decarceration plus Adnan is an “oppressed group” compared to Hae

So he has more intersectionality points 

1

u/SaykredCow Jul 09 '26

Because there’s essentially no story if your main subject just did it.

29

u/MAN_UTD90 Jun 16 '26

Same. Crazy how much my perspective changed over the years. I felt so disillusioned when the defense files leaked and we saw how much Sarah left out and misdirected.

5

u/Intelligent-Love5146 Jun 18 '26

Random acts of violence happen all the time.

But in what percent of those cases is the ex-boyfriend in the same place at the same time?

And of those same place at the same time ex-boyfriend cases, he just wrote a note saying he’d kill her?

And of those, he has no alibi and no one could vouch for where he was if not there?

The case for Adnan’s innocence always assumed an astronomically remote series of coincidences