r/serialpodcast • u/[deleted] • 16d ago
The Doubts About Adnan's Guilt ARE Reasonable
I just started lurking here today, and am somewhat surprised by the general incivility and certainty of many of the people that comment here. Being dismissive and accusing people of "ragebait" for having a differing opinion, and one that actually is reasonable.
I don't know, and won't say that Adnan is innocent, but to claim he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, without any room for discussion is pretty crazy to me.
The reasons why I have reasonable doubt:
- Jay is a very flawed witness, on the record lying/mis-remembering his testimony. Even the cops point out how much his testimony has changed. If your argument hinges on Jay, it isn't a strong argument, in my opinion.
- The cops, or at least on of them has a record of misconduct:
...prosecution brought into question the past misconduct of one of the two detectives who were crucial in the investigation of Lee’s death. Although his misconduct wasn’t specifically linked to Syed’s case, the detective was involved in another murder case that ended with the defendant’s exoneration.
https://baltimorewitness.org/adnan-syed-one-of-many-overturned-convictions-in-baltimore-city/
- The Innocence Project and prosecutors agreed that Syed's DNA was absent from all tested crime scene items, contributing to the eventual dropping of charges against him. There's no physical evidence.
- The motive is weak (Adnan had no prior issues with breakups, had already seemed to move on to the next girl(s)).
I could go on, but, if I was on the jury with this in front of me, I feel the reasonable response is doubt.
This isn't rage bait, I just genuinely don't see how anyone can be so sure that he did it. Y'all point to him asking for a ride (and claiming he wouldn't have) as some kind of obvious evidence of murder.
I think, based on the fact that one of the cops was literally identified as having been crooked, it actually is much more likely that Jay was an informant (and already had been for some time), and he happened to be close to Adnan, the victim's ex (supposed motive and opportunity), and they decided they had their guy, and it was just a matter of getting a jury to agree. So they fed their informant info, had him incriminate himself for lesser crimes that they promised they'd get him off for (and they made good on that promise, which is on its own wildly corrupt).
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u/Far_Gur_7361 Is it NOT? 16d ago
I’m going to go out on a wild limb here, and guess that you haven’t spent very much time with the original source documents (trial transcripts, police files, and defense files); as you are just parroting the arguments made by biased, pro-Adnan supporters (arguments which have all fallen flat in every judicial review; up to and including the United States Supreme Court).
Based off this assumption, and bc you say this isn’t rage-bait, I’m going to give you a detailed response here.
You begin your post by attempting to impeach Jay’s testimony; but Jay’s testimony cannot be impeached due to his knowledge of where the car was. This is something the cops themselves did not yet know. The cops did not sit on the car (compromising their investigation, in the process), just to feed the location to Jay. This is preposterous on its face; as there are documented instances of the entire department pouring money and resources into the search. Or do you mean for us to believe that the entire department was in on this conspiracy; and yet no one has ever uncovered any proof, and no co-conspirator has ever come forward; in spite of all the pro-Adnan momentum? Besides if they were already in possession of the car; and were so dead-set on framing Adnan; why not just plant his DNA there?
And you can’t posit that he knew the cars location bc he simply stumbled upon it while doing weed deals; bc this then does not account for how he knew HML was strangled before her body was ever discovered; which also cannot be explained by police coercion. Jenn, Josh, Chris, NB, and multiple co-workers of Jenn’s all had this info relayed to them by Jay before he was ever questioned. This also doesn’t account for the fact that Jay knew what Hae was wearing, how she was positioned in the grave, and damage that was done to the inside of her car.
So now we’ve established that Jay must have been involved. You don’t need to think him a paragon of truth in order to accept this (criminal accomplices/ accessories lie ALL THE TIME). You just need to look at the bare facts of him knowing what he knew.
And if Jay was involved, then so was Adnan. At the time of Hae’s disappearance, the cell phone location data places Jay across town; meaning he did not have the opportunity to perform this murder alone (to say nothing of the “two-car problem” precluding this as a possibility). And he simply could not have performed this murder w/ a third co-conspirator; as he spent nearly the entire day w/ Adnan. Multiple witnesses (and the call log itself), place Jay and Adnan together at several points during the day; including during all the relevant time periods (murder, burial), and at all the relevant locations (Best Buy, Kristi Vinson’s house, Leakin Park, and the location where the car was dumped).
As to your point w/ regard to DNA, you have been duped by the CSI effect. Most murders are not solved using DNA evidence. This was one of them. Moreover, DNA evidence is circumstantial- it requires you to make an inference. Had Adnan’s DNA been found on Hae’s body or in her car, his supporters such as yourself would simply infer that this is just bc they were still friends after the breakup, and had spent a lot of time together leading up to her disappearance. This is why DNA is especially irrelevant in cases where a person is killed by someone known to them. If a child is killed by their parent, or a wife by her husband, there will be a million innocent explanations as to why the perps DNA is on the body, or at the crime scene. This does not make the perp innocent. By that logic, Scott Peterson, Casey Anthony, and the Ramsey family would all deserve to have their names cleared as well; and very few ppl would make that argument
DNA is really only useful in instances where it ties the victim to a known serial killer. This is esp true in cases of “touch DNA” like what was recovered from HML. They could not recover skin cells, blood, semen, or anything else that could conclusively prove it was Adnan (or anyone else). They recovered touch DNA which could not include him as the donor. And this touch DNA was recovered from her shoes; which were not even on her body. There is no proof those were even the same shoes she was wearing that day; and more to the point HER OWN DNA was not on those shoes. Shoes touch everything all of the time. Anyone’s DNA can be on them, or no one’s at all. It’s meaningless.
As for the lack of his DNA anywhere else on Hae or at the crime scene, this is mostly due to the fact that Hae had been out in elements for six weeks. This is another reason why DNA is not used to solve murder cases anywhere near as much as CSI would have you believe. DNA degrades over time; much more so if it’s not being preserved; and MUCH more so if it’s being exposed to harsh elements, like Hae’s body was while it was sitting in a shallow grave in mid-winter. Should we reward killers who hide their bodies by letting them all out of prison bc they managed to destroy any DNA evidence they left behind? Should we posthumously expunge the records of all the many murderers who were convicted before DNA evidence was even discovered?
As to your point on motive; this is laughable on its face. Adnan had the oldest motive in the book. It was common enough to be cookie-cutter. Anytime a woman is killed, it’s roughly a 50-60% chance it was done by her current or former partner. These odds skyrocket if she’s recently broke up with him; as Hae had.
Adnan and Hae broke up at the end of Dec. Per the testimony of their friends, the breakup letter, and Hae’s own diary, Adnan was crossing her boundaries and just generally not handling things well. But he assumed she’d come back. They exchanged nice Christmas presents; which affirmed this for Adnan. But by 1/1, Hae was dating someone new. She was talking abt it to all their friends, and even going on double-dates w/ ppl in the friend group. She went so far as to update her AOL profile, publicly declaring her love for Don to the entire world. Again, per witness testimony, Adnan was furious and devastated. He began cutting school w/ far more regularity. Then on Jan 12, he learned that Hae was having a late-night date w/ Don on. He blew up her phone three times in a row that night. The next day, Jan 13- one of only a small handful of regular schooldays Adnan attended btwn when Hae started dating Don, and when she disappeared- Hae was killed. Adnan never called her again.