Rule-Breaker. Ex-boyfriend. Murderer.
Until February of 1999, Adnan Syed was only referred to using the first two terms above, until he was incarcerated for the murder of Hae Min Lee. He certainly had the motive, and all the evidence stacked up against him, but everything was rethought after Sarah Koenig’s “Serial” became a huge hit. There was a retrial and people began wondering about whether the accused was actually innocent.
But what’s the truth?
It’s easy to look at evidence and say, “he is guilty because the phone records and witnesses tell me he is”, but it is extremely difficult to take a look at a very seemingly guilty person and see the best, and try to prove they are innocent. Sarah Koenig took on the role as the all seeing narrator, trying to find anything at all to prove Syed’s innocence, though she had some moments in between where she even wondered whether it was worth it to keep pushing. However, her attempts to prove Syed’s innocence succeeded when he was granted a retrial in 2016 (Tkacik 2018).
Before talking about guilt or innocence, let’s recap what allegedly happened on that very dark January 13 of 1999.
Adnan Syed was a 17-year old student at Woodlawn high school, the same school his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee attended. Syed had a friend named Jay, who happened to a have a girlfriend whose birthday was the same day. According to Jay, Syed and himself went to the mall to buy a gift and Syed left the car with Jay and asked him to pick him up after school. However, this is when things get sticky: Jay says that Syed called him from a Best Buy to meet him there, and he had the body of Hae in her car. He then proceeded to help bury the body and keep it a secret until he “revealed” it to the cops (Koenig 2014).
Weird, right? When I first heard this, I thought “no way does this seem believable, or even a possibility that Jay would give himself up like that”.
Other than the fact that it seems totally strange, there also happens to be another piece of the puzzle. An old classmate of Syed’s, Asia McClain, states that she remembers seeing him in the library at the time that Syed is said to have murdered Hae. This would have been great for his trial, including the letter that Asia sent in stating that, except she went off the radar following that letter, and no measures were taken to track her down.
Naturally.
So, Syed was kissed goodbye and sent to jail for life (Tkacik 2018). After listening to the first episode of “Serial”, I made the realization that I myself had come up with an opinion on whether Syed was guilty or innocent, if I wanted to keep up with that series and the story itself.
So, here it is: in my very humble opinion, I truly believe that Adnan Syed did not murder Hae Min Lee. I can tell you again and again that he was a good guy according to everyone he knew and he clearly cared about Hae, but you don’t care about that; you want the evidence as to why he is innocent.
So let me give it to you.
Starting from the top, there is obviously the affidavit signed by Asia McClain. Though some lawyers say that her statement doesn’t match up with what Syed remembers about that day, that’s just a tactic for them to use because no one would go out of their way to send a letter like that.
Secondly, there’s also the fact that despite Jay pinned the blame on Syed, he refused to speak in court (most probably to protect himself), and there are holes in his story. Sarah came to the conclusion that Jay and Syed didn’t seem to be that close (Koenig 2014), so it’s strange that Syed would ask Jay to help him with the burying of the body.
Still don’t believe me? The last reason, by far the strongest and the one that got the retrial, has to do with Syed’s cell phone records. The opposition used the fact that his cell phone pinged a tower next to Leakin Park and therefore placed him in that area at that time, but there’s a catch. AT&T states that “any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information for location” (Swaine 2016), thus tearing down the whole opposition’s case. If the call he got is not reliable, there is no way to prove that Syed was even at the park at the time.
So there you have it. You can believe that Adnan Syed is innocent because he’s just a good person, but I gave you three reasons as proof of why he is. You can either believe it or not, but the evidence only strengthens my opinion that he did not kill Hae Min Lee.
Works Cited
Srinidhi's Blog 