Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

http://serialpodcast.org/

So, did Adnan do it? Or was it Jay?

Blog by Rabia, the relative of Adnan's who brought the story to the This American Life producer: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/splitthemoon/2014/10/life-plus-30-murder-lies-the-anatomy-of-a-wrongful-conviction/

I'm just letting the story go where it goes without anticipating the conclusion.

I wonder what other kinds of things Serial is going to explore once this series is over. It might not always be true crime.

I know it's way early to speculate, but I really wonder if there's more to the case against Adnan that we haven't heard yet. The teaser says next week will be about how the cops corroborated Jay's story. I wonder if there's something solid there. Today's episode really seemed to suggest that Jay should have been taken more seriously as a suspect. Will be really interesting if they get Jay to talk.

Looks like Reddit is all over this: http://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/

Makes me a little nervous, given the Reddit community sleuthing stuff that's gone sideways in the past. I wonder if people will start badgering the people in the story. Looks like Jay's current Facebook page has already been posted.

Within the first few threads I see "Should we respect the privacy of Hae?"

Ugh, fucking reddit.

I mean, DUH. Yes.

Yep. The thing about this format, especially if the podcast stays at #1, is that it's going to be irresistible to Reddit/bloggers/clickbaity websites/ even legit journalists to try to scoop the show itself, and potentially being pretty insensitive to the real people involved. I imagine there will be a round of think-pieces on the ethics of Serial in Slate etc. soon enough. If I was Jay, and I was innocent, I'd be pretty pissed off right now - especially if they're holding back on info that supports his story for dramatic effect.

yeah; it didn't occur to me during the first ep how much our response to the existence or omission of something tantalising has changed, recently, like from savoring to feeling insatiable, but i think there are so many points that would compel interest - like, say, the guy who found the body refusing an interview, which sarah koenig accepts - & people are for sure going to start true detectiving all over it.

think this is really interesting so far, for a bunch of reasons (it feels like a lil step forward even just in sound-accessorising podcasts, too, like the music's really well judged, & the quality of the recorded period sound is super evocative -- i actually thought they were purposefully distorting the voice of a cop, this week, but it's just cassette artefact, afaict). will be super interesting to reach the end & see what the kind of map of what we were given looks like, whether it was satisfying, whether it's a beginning or an ending.

They're really going through the timeline this week, and it's hard to listen to and do work at the same time, because I'm getting lost.

the reddit discussion of this seems p good actually or maybe I just had low expectations of what'd be there

the bit about the phone likely being in Leakin Park at a time when Adnan has no reason NOT to have been with his phone seems like pretty bad news for Adnan apologists

Really starting to fear that this story has no satisfying conclusion now that I'm so invested in it.

have they said how many shows they're planning to take to tell this story? is this like 20 shows or something?

I can't imagine it's 20. Was guessing it's probably 8-10.

Like this show a lot. Wish they hadn't used such a cheap plinky keyboard sound for the theme song though. I know, minor gripe.

Didn't Sarah says she has been working on this story for a year? I feel there has to be some kind of momentum in this story to stick with it for so long. Something worthy of starting a podcast, not just a series of stories that we follow until the trail goes cold/remains unsolved.

The altered voice for "Kathy" sounds a lot like regular-voiced Stevie Nicks.

Anyone else going super hardcore and listening to the Slate spoiler podcast? Last one was good.

I don't want spoilers!

it's actually not spoilery - unless you haven't heard the episode they're discussing. they vowed not to bring Reddit or other outside info into their conversation

Oh, listening to the latest one now and it's just a catch-up roundtable. Not pulling facts from the actual case in that haven't been disclosed yet.

New one didn't blow me away.

Listening to Maron first, will get to this next.

I'm unexpectedly excited to hear her talk about this shit with an actual attorney.

don't be too excited, this ep was p much a waste but I expect the innocence proj & those student's involvement might come back up @ the end of this, like their added research was particularly important

yeah - i felt like we'll be hearing more about that fibre analysis down the line, but most of this show was padding and an attempt to re-introduce a lot of pro-Adnan stuff from the lawyer to counter last week's doubts and keep us hooked

Based purely on how serialpodcast.org is designed, there's either going to be 9 or 12 episodes (or maybe 15?). I just realized this and probably no one cares.

I thought they said we were at or past the halfway point on the slate spoiler episode last week, maybe I'm wrong. even that feels like a lot more episodes.

But the general thrust of the lawyer's advice - at least as Sarah K presented it seemed to be "forget about making Adnan's story add up - what matters is forensic evidence and an alternate suspect/theory."

A few mentions of "a serial killer" being the real culprit in similar cases, something that had not been floated here before.

There was also the suggestion that Don, Hae's new boyfriend, hadn't been looked at closely enough - but it was dropped as quickly as it was raised. It did occur to me that the show has been pretty hasty about ruling him out so far, especially given the time they spent on what seem like obvious red herrings like Neighbor Boy and the streaker who found the body.

I predict after the Jay detour next week, we'll come back to the Innocence Project findings re: fibre and more on Don.

The slate podcast I heard yesterday brings up a great point about how she chooses to disclose some people's full names and doesn't for others (including Jay). I can't imagine that's totally arbitrary.

in interviews she says they were vaguely shooting for a dozen episodes but that isn't set in stone

anyway SHUT UP this episode was really good & interesting & it was kinda moving how cathartic it sounded for SK, & the rearrangement of puzzle pieces - what about dna! - felt really valuable. i wish i knew when all of this had taken place; i don't know if six months ago they made efforts to dig up misplaced evidence in a warehouse or if two weeks ago they put in a RFI on stray beerbottles & a dude is craning his neck to look through a microscope right now

i think knowing a little more about what this series is - they're still researching it, it could go either way, it's in progress - helps, like it removes the weird extra-textual true detective thing of creating additional suspense on whether the show will be about the process or about the result. just vibing with a stressed detective is really fascinating & novel & engaging, i think.

hyped for jay detour.

ha now you're making me like it

did it feel genuine to you when she was airing her doubts about Adnan to the lawyer? It just felt a little manipulative, like she was putting herself exactly where she wanted the audience's heads to be at this point in the narrative. But maybe I'm being cynical and she's actually really right there with us. anyway, nitpicking, it's fucking great.

if "they're still researching it, it could go either way" is really true - that's a hell of a tight rope to walk though, I wonder how people will react if it has no satisfying ending

she is not gaming afaict

really worth reading a bunch of the interviews - slate, i think, & the NYer - w/SK to hear her talk about that kinda thing. she says she's a good enough reporter to deal with the conclusion, whether it's ambiguous or whatever. i feel like it's already strong enough to justify its focus, like it's so illuminating to be confronted with just the machinery of trials & convictions & burdens of proof & nebulous differences between accounts, &c.

did anybody watch the staircase? it came up in the NYer piece as a comparable project, it's really fascinating.

It's kind of the only really similar thing, right? A serialized week-by-week true crime thing? I loved the Staircase, but something about Serial has grabbed me even more... maybe it's just that I have to wait for it every week, while I binge-watched The Staircase

I wonder if Serial was at all inspired by TV like True Detective or the last season of Breaking Bad - both huge shows from the last year that reminded people how much fun it is to experience something together with everyone else over many weeks instead of bingeing

she is not gaming afaict

yeah. it's p telling that she sez her fav piece of tape is the girl @ the end of this ep who sounds so exasperated in sentence fragments that none of it makes sense

anyway, could be interesting what adnan sez when Koenig asks him abt jay's friends saying he went along cuz adnan threatened stephanie

part of me cant get over cathy's? I think description of adnan @ her party & her description of his behavior, asking how do you stop being high, right? and needing to go do something important. has Koenig asked abt this party? I cant recall

That call seems like a total red herring - even if A is totally innocent, it would make sense that kids were calling each other saying that Hae was missing and the cops are looking for her, and Adnan could be freaked out about being high and worried about talking to the cops.

yea def possible, and the host's recollection of adnans strange behavior being influenced by him later being convicted

But this episode sure does make it seem like Adnan did it.
I think the details of Jay's chronology will never add up - but the fundamentals (what Koenig has referred to as "the spine of his story") are unshaken. Jay admits to giving different versions of the day's events, and the prosecution may well have put forward a very flawed version of the day's events - but it doesn't seem that weird that a scared stoner high school who participated in the aftermath of a murder told a bunch of lies on his way to telling the truth.

SPOILERS
(should we ask mods to put a spoiler warning in the title of the thread?)

Also interesting in this week's show was Jay's friend Chris who gave a whole new version of events (the pool hall story) and the the whole new motive for Jay to help Adnan (Adnan's threats to Jay's girlfriend Stephanie). Odd that it seems like Jay never told cops the threats story, as far as we know anyway.

is one of these gonna drop thanksgiving morning?

Totally wasn't expecting them to actually ambush Jay like that. Seems out of character with how passive the investigation has been up to this point.

Yeah totally.

I kind of had a few seconds of "why am I even bothering to listen to this then" when she said he ultimately declined the interview. There's so much only he can answer.

latest episode is still banging around in my head. the "all facts are friendly" vs. "bad evidence" bit was really fascinating and maybe the core of what this show is ultimately going to be about.

i was already feeling pretty sure that adnan did it (separate tho from the question of whether he should've been convicted) but this last ep made me feel like 99% sure.

im interested in the jay/Stephanie/adnan dynamic

yeah, sure does seem like Adnan did it.

biggest lingering questions to me are around why he brought Jay into it at all, and if Jay had a bigger role than he's admitted.

this episode convinced me of it too, but i still think he should have been found not guilty. was totally annoyed by attorney's cross-examination style. i think he brought jay in for the reason jay said, that he was perceived to be "the criminal element" at school. i don't think jay's different stories mean much. i think he was just scared.

First episode is really good and enraging in it's own small way. Much less is at stake than in the Adnan trial, but because of that it's also much better at just examining how deeply systemic the unfairness of the justice system is. That was always what was the best part of season 1, the way it showed Adnan to have been railroaded and the prosecution to have been flawed, separately from the question of guilt - though it's understandable that drove most of the hype.

this has been enjoyable enough

today's one was pretty harrowing

Wow, fuck judge Gaul

i know. try paying a PI to even find out the judge's address, you won't

Season 3 ended today. Very good overall, but why only 9 episodes after a 30 month break between seasons? I'm always a little confounded by this show.

Because each episode cost approx 6 brazillion dollars

New HBO series The Case Against Adnan Syed:

https://decider.com/2019/03/05/the-case-against-adnan-syed-serial-director-interview/

Rabia was saying [during the panel] how every wrongful conviction is an unsolved case. Do you feel like, at the end of this, we’re closer to solving Hae Min Lee’s murder than we were before?

I think we’re closer to the truth but I think that, when police detectives investigate a case with tunnel vision on one suspect only, it leaves so many questions. So, I don’t think that there’s a way to actually know what happened, but I think we’re much closer to the truth.

hard pass

oh yes, please find us a suspect about whose guilt there will not be "so many questions."

this case could definitely benefit from another deep-dive in the media whose conclusions can be summed up as *shrug emoji*, thx hbo

This case has about as many unexplored angles as the JFK assassination

oh god the director sounds like such a run-of-the-mill idiot

‘Serial’ subject Adnan Syed’s murder case will not be heard by Supreme Court
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-cr-adnan-syed-supreme-court-20191125-5ykt2ec3qzarjlnivxusegd2um-story.html

Maybe there's a better thread for this, but has anyone been listening to Serial Productions' Nice White Parents podcast? Very mixed feelings about it so far.

i haven’t yet. what’s your feeling about it?

Today is a big day for Adnan and everyone who has been fighting for him! A DNA motion has been filed seeking testing of the victim Hae Min Lee's clothing and shoes and the rape kit. Items that HAVE NEVER BEEN TESTED BEFORE. This could literally lead to the killer. ALSO...
1/ pic.twitter.com/mNMICFUHTB

— rabia O'chaudry (@rabiasquared) March 10, 2022

He killed her

It's been so long now that I don't even care that much if he gets out, except that it would be nice if he at least admitted it

FWIW, even if his DNA shows up, I guarantee Rabia and co have a pre-planned explanation for why that doesn't mean anything.

otm

In a motion filed on Wednesday, prosecutors are asking for Mr Syed to receive a fresh trial, while not stating that they believe him to be innocent, according to The Wall Street Fournal.

"However, for all the reasons set forth below, the State no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction," stated the office of Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby in the court filing.

The Wall Street Onenal
The Wall Street Twonal
The Wall Street Threenal
The Wall Street Fournal

Ha - that's an artefact of iOS Safari not letting me select the paragraphs I wanted leading me to screenshot it and use the OCR in Photos to grab the text. But the Independent font has funny italicized Js that look like Fs.

Jesus, the details of what the state is disclosing sound awfully damning:

The new motion said prosecutors on the case decades ago knew there was another suspect who threatened to kill Lee, Syed’s ex-girlfriend, and neglected to disclose the information to defense attorneys — committing what’s known as a Brady violation.

...

A year-long investigation conducted by prosecutors and Syed’s attorney uncovered new evidence, including that “alternative suspects” either engaged in serial rape and sexual assault or attacked a woman in a vehicle, the documents show. Prosecutors’ motion also says that Lee’s vehicle was located near a home associated with of the alternative suspects.

...

Prosecutors wrote one of the alternative suspects was violent toward a woman and “forcibly confined her” before Syed’s trial. After Syed’s trial, one of the suspects attacked a woman in her vehicle and was convicted of that crime. One of the alternative suspects was convicted in connection to multiple rapes and sexual assaults, conducted in a “systemic, deliberate and premeditated way.”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-prosecutors-move-to-vacate-adnan-syed-sentence-20220914-uinmd6pa45cqbfj4fwyvac2tb4-story.html

a little hard to believe tbh -- with all of the attention and investigation devoted to the case, no one previously noticed that there was a serial rapist who threatened Hae's life? Or are they talking about two different "alternative suspects," one who threatened her life and another who was a serial rapist? And how did the prosecutors even find out that this death threat had happened unless someone else besides Hae was aware of it?

BTW, what happened with the DNA testing back in March -- does that typically take this long to come out?

Baltimore Sun reporter is livetweeting from court

With Phinn denying Kelly's motion, it makes it more likely she will rule on Syed today. However, to be absolutely clear, she does NOT have to rule from the bench. She can take time if she wants.

— Lee Sanderlin (@LeeOSanderlin) September 19, 2022

Is the actual motion to vacate available to read somewhere?

Freed

Judge also orders Syed released under home detention. Removing his shackles now. Orders new trial.

— Lee Sanderlin (@LeeOSanderlin) September 19, 2022

BTW, what happened with the DNA testing back in March -- does that typically take this long to come out?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, September 15, 2022 9:47 PM (four days ago)

Mentioned in the Sun's write-up:

"While examining the case, prosecutors agreed to request new DNA testing for items collected as evidence of Lee’s killing.

Phinn ordered the tests in March, but the results have so far been inconclusive, court documents show. Tests for a few of the items are pending."

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-adnan-syed-hearing-to-vacate-conviction-20220919-ynxvlcuqpbch5h6h2xl5xleh7q-story.html

I wonder if they might negotiate an Alford plea? Although it sounds like the current prosecutors actually want to make sure they convict the right person, not just win.

Just relistened to the first two episodes, and already I am much less happy about the standard of journalism in this than I was in 2014. Some of this may be to do with being able to hear the birth of the generally-repugnant True Crime Podcast industry, but I think the way it tells the story is messier and more simplistic than I remembered too.

Serial is supposedly dropping a new episode tomorrow

It would be interesting to know whether either of these two new suspects is the guy Serial and team Adnan were trying to pin the murder on

I heard koenig on The Daily. From her reporting, I can accept why the prosecutor made the decision she did, if you take the story at face value. I still think Adnan is guilty, but if the state comes forward with some convincing evidence that someone else did this, I'm prepared to be open minded about it. Unfortunately, if I had to bet, I'd bet there will be no new trial for Adnan and no trial for anyone else either.

Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday dropped all charges against Adnan Syed, the man who spent over two decades behind bars for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee and whose murder case was featured in the landmark podcast “Serial.”

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said Tuesday she instructed her office to dismiss the charges after results of advanced DNA testing of Lee’s shoes, skirt, pantyhose and jacket ruled out Syed.

“The items that we tested had never before been tested,” Mosby said. “We used advanced DNA to determine that it was not Adnan Syed.”

So was it the fuckin... six-fingered man?? What?

So, apparently there was no recoverable/testable DNA on the skirt, pantyhose and jacket at all. There was DNA on the shoes of "multiple" individuals who did not match Syed.

I am having a really hard time understanding how that would eliminate Syed as the murderer - the shoes weren't even on her when she was buried, they were in the car. I feel increasingly out on a limb arguing with a prosecutor's decision to overturn a conviction and at the same time I am completely baffled by this and do not understand.

The ONLY way it would wind up making sense is if that DNA specifically matches one of the "alternative suspects," and that suspect wouldn't otherwise have had contact with Hae such that the DNA accidentally got on her shoes (this is trace DNA so it's like tiny amounts of skin cells). And even then, you'd need a lot more than just DNA on shoes to convict. I guess we will see if that's the case?

Meanwhile, Rabia Chaudhry is now insisting that Scott Peterson is innocent too.

I'm not following that closely, but he was released on house arrest because they realized the defense was not told about other suspects... and whatever else was wrong about that trial. Meantime, they ordered new DNA work. Now that's back and in the absence of any more evidence against him, he's not going to be tried. Right?

There's no real question of eliminating him as a suspect.

I’ve read a few articles and I’m equally kinda baffled.

Mosby is kind of a sullied prosecutor and politician here in Baltimore, she’s currently under federal indictment. Would not at all be surprised if this was a cheap ploy to drum up good will.

“We used advanced DNA to determine that it was not Adnan Syed.”

I mean, this is a Trump-level statement.

I’ve read a few articles and I’m equally kinda baffled.

Mosby is kind of a sullied prosecutor and politician here in Baltimore, she’s currently under federal indictment. Would not at all be surprised if this was a cheap ploy to drum up good will.

― circa1916, Tuesday, October 11, 2022 8:53 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

At first I dismissed this as conspiracy theory, but there are literally stories in the news RIGHT NOW about how her attorneys are being accused of trying to influence the jury pool.

Becky Feldman, the attorney who wrote the motion, may have been a true believer, but it reads like she watched the HBO Doc and took it as gospel. She gets significant facts blatantly wrong.

xp OK I missed them coming right out and saying that. Wow.

This feels like a Mad Lib: Serial subject Adnan Syed spent his first Thanksgiving out of prison with Young Sheldon pic.twitter.com/TlPAHIJ6HO

— Jillian Sederholm (@JillianSed) November 30, 2022

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/adnan-syed-motion-for-reduced-sentence-hearing-february/

Looks like they're no longer trying to overturn the conviction

This is a pretty incredible development:
https://www.stattorney.org/media-center/press-releases/3042-state-s-attorney-announces-withdrawal-of-motion-to-vacate-judgement-in-adnan-syed-case

The new states' attorney literally accused the prior states' attorney and her team of defrauding the court. The 82-page accompanying brief completely eviscerates the case that was made for vacating his conviction.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/raw-ivan-bates-speaks-adnan-211414579.html

Weird, this is Bates in 2018: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/serial-baltimore-states-attorney-race-could-mean-freedom-for-adnan-syed-630462/

He said that before he was states' attorney and before he had reviewed the full record. The brief withdrawing the motion to vacate is pretty exhaustive and makes pretty clear that there is nothing here warranting exoneration.