Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Why would you admit to doing something that drastic if you hadn't done it? The mechanics, the documentation, the steps that they took, they look good. Why would you not get up there and defend yourself? You know, it's your face-to-face. He's right there. He's a person. And so, you know, it sounds believable. This is a Global Cell Link prepaid call from... I'm not saying...
An inmate act from Maryland Correctional Facility. From This American Life and WBEZ Chicago, it's Serial, one story told week by week. I'm Sarah Koenig. Before we get to today's episode, where I'm going to let Adnan talk for a while, I want to run by you some new information I've learned in the past week. Three things I've learned. First, remember Laura, the former Laura Estrada Sandoval, the one who asked, well, then who the fuck did it in the last episode? She was friends with Stephanie and with Jane, with Adnan.
I was talking to Laura on the phone the other day, and she mentioned something about Best Buy. And so I asked her if I could start taping. Tell me again what you just told me. There was never any phones at Best Buy. There were never any phones around the Best Buy. No payphone, no phone booth? No. No. There's like blanks. There's no phones there.
The payphone in question is important because Jay tells the detectives that Adnan called him on January 13, 1999, and told Jay he'd killed Hay. Quote, "Come and get me. I'm at Best Buy." When Jay gets there, he says he sees Adnan standing by the phone booth wearing red gloves. He draws a map for the cops, showing the location of the phone booth. And if you're facing the front doors of the store, his drawing shows the booth on the left, outside on the sidewalk.
We did a lot of research on this, where it was, whether it was, and we could not account for this phone booth. Laura said that's because it never was. She said the only conceivable place for a phone at the Best Buy would have been inside in the foyer part of the store. But there was no phone there either.
Laura says she knows this because she used to go to that Best Buy a lot, from the time it opened through 98 into 99, with her family and without her family. And I used to, you know, I don't know, steal CDs from there all the time. So I was pretty aware of, like, what was around. You're saying you would shoplift CDs? Yeah. Sorry, but... I don't have the CDs. Yeah.
So you're saying you would have noticed a thing like that because you were kind of aware. Yeah, because you're kind of like paying attention. Like you go in and like you kind of are more aware of your surroundings than just walking into the store. You know, at the time I remember looking up in the ceiling and seeing if there was any eyes in the skies, any cameras, you know. And, you know, there's a whole method. But you're very aware of like entering and who was like,
Laura and I hypothesized why, if there really wasn't a phone booth, how could the cops have missed a detail like that? Wouldn't they have noted it?
Laura thought maybe it wasn't a big deal to them. It's not a small detail. It's not a small detail. No, it's not because they're saying that's where the 236 call comes from. Is that payphone at Best Buy? You're sure? So that's thing one.
Thing two I learned, it also relates to this 236 call. I talked to a woman named Summer. She went to Woodlawn. She's been listening to the podcast. And she emailed me because when she heard this one part, she said she started shaking her head. She said if the state is saying Haley was dead by 236. It's impossible. It's impossible. I mean, like I said, I mean, it's just impossible. It's not. There's no way that she was at best by 236.
Summer was friends with Hay, not close friends, but they had a class together and they joked around and talked. Summer had a boyfriend who did sports at Woodlawn, and she wanted an excuse to stay after school too so she could hang around with him. Hay told her there was an opening for another manager of the boys' wrestling team. Hay was already doing that. So Summer joined her.
The day Hay disappeared, the wrestling team had a match at Randallstown High School. Summer remembers talking to Hay after school in the gym area there. The wrestlers were milling around. Summer was preparing the equipment they had to load onto the bus. And Hay came in to say, I'm not getting on the bus to the match, but I'll see you there.
And that wasn't welcome news to Summer. She needed Hay by her side at the match because Hay was more experienced at scoring, which can be tricky in wrestling if you're new at it. You know, I was giving her hell because I'm telling her, like, I don't know what I'm doing. You know, I needed her because, you know, we had to take points and things like that. And she's like, no, no, no, I just have to go and, you know, pick my little cousin up.
Summer says it wasn't a quick conversation either. You know, we used to tease each other because she really was hilarious. So we would tease each other, you know, go back and forth. And we were at least talking for at least 10 minutes. You're sure that this is the day because it's the day she didn't show up? I am positive. I'm very positive. You know, I looked for her the whole time at the away game. You know, I was really pissed because I thought that she, you know, stood me up.
Hay told Summer she would make her own way to Randallstown High for the match. No one but me probably remembers this now, but Inez Butler Hendricks, who worked at the school, said Hay had told her she was planning to catch the Randallstown bus. However, Inez initially told the cops the opposite. So I trust Summer's memory more, and Summer is clear. Hay told her she was going to drive herself there.
Somerset, this conversation about Hay not getting on the bus happened after the last bell and also after the regular school buses had cleared the loop in front of the school. She said probably at around 230 to 45.
Summer says she has no dog in this fight. She's got no opinions on Adnan's guilt or innocence. She just knows what she knows. All of the things that I'm, you know, unclear about or kind of shaky about or I am clear on that. 236 would not have been possible for her to even have met him wherever because I know for a fact she was probably with me during that time or at the school during that time.
Summer never talked to the detectives. There's no mention of her in their notes. But she's not the only person who said they saw Hay after school that day. Becky saw her right after school. Debbie Warren said she talked to Hay, too. The police notes say she saw her at approximately 3 p.m. inside the school near the gym, which would match Summer's memory. So, Laura says, no phone booth at Best Buy. Summer says, no way, no how, Hay was at Best Buy at 236.
Combine that, if you want, with old information from Asia McClain, who says she saw Adnan around 2:30, 2:45 at the Woodlawn Public Library. Can we all agree that whatever happened to Hay probably didn't involve a 2:36 p.m. call from that phone booth saying, "Come and get me. I'm at Best Buy"? I don't know about you, but I'm done considering that it's true, this 2:36 thing. If you want to speculate with me here for a second, if we suspect there wasn't a phone booth at Best Buy, that means the crime maybe didn't happen there.
Jay's friend Chris said he heard the crime happened in the parking lot of the Woodlawn Public Library. But I gotta say, if you think the Best Buy is too public a place to commit a murder, you should see the library after school, swarming with kids. And if the "she's dead, come and get me" call wasn't at 2:36, maybe it's the next incoming call on the log, the 3:15 call. After all, no one actually testifies to the 2:36 timing at trial. This comes from the prosecutor's narrative alone.
The problem is, if it is the 315 call, that really messes with Jay's testimony about where they were and what they were doing that afternoon. Now, third piece of new information. It's about what happened at not-her-real-name Kathy's apartment that evening of January 13th. Kathy remembered Adnan getting a call and reacting in an agitated way, saying things like, What am I going to do? What am I going to say? They're going to come talk to me. You know, what am I supposed to say?
Kathy testified at trial about this call, how Adnan was acting panicked. I think it's possible that call Kathy overheard was not from a mystery third man or co-conspirator, but from, wait for it, Hay's good friend Aisha Pittman. To review for a sec, Hay's brother called the cops that afternoon. Officer Scott Adcock arrives from the Baltimore County PD. His initial report records the time as 5.12 p.m. Adcock calls Aisha and Adnan asking if they've seen Hay.
Here's what's new. I got an email recently from another friend in that Woodlawn Magnet group, Krista, saying she'd talked to Aisha that evening of the 13th. Quote, it was around 6 p.m. that night that I talked to Aisha and she was calling around to see if anyone had heard from her, unquote, her meaning hey. So I checked with Aisha and she does remember speaking to Adnan. Here's what she wrote to me. Quote, I do remember speaking with Adnan that evening, but I thought he called me.
From what I recall, it was a super short conversation, and he was annoyed that I told the police to check in with him. I thought I spoke to him after the police called him." She said it's possible her memory of who called whom could be mistaken. Maybe she did call. There's definitely no outgoing call to Aisha on a non-cell that day. And maybe it was before he'd spoken to the cops, not after. She can't be sure, but that's what she remembers.
Again, you've heard this information before, but I'm going to review it now. There are three calls on the call log around this time that all ping towers near Kathy's apartment, 607, 609, and 624. The first two calls are for a little less than a minute. The third call is the longest, 4 minutes, 15 seconds. That was likely Officer Adcock.
So maybe Aisha called Adnan at 6.09, says, I just talked to the police and they're going to get in touch with you too. Aisha says Adnan was annoyed. Maybe that's what Kathy interpreted as panicked. I think we can all stipulate that Adnan was super stoned. He told me he had weed in the car and was worried the cops were going to find it if they came to talk to him.
So imagine for a second that Adnan is talking to Aisha and says something like, What am I going to do? What am I going to say? They're going to come talk to me. You know, what am I supposed to say? Obviously, I can't say for sure this is what happened. But if that strange call Kathy remembers was actually Aisha, well, then for me, that rearranges all the pixels in Kathy's memory from suspicious to innocuous, if it's true.
Okay, now that we're caught up, let's go back to our regularly scheduled program. This is from Adnan's second trial. Are you prepared to make your election? Yes, ma'am. And is your election to testify or to remain silent? To remain silent. Thank you. Do you have any questions about making that election? No, ma'am. That's Adnan, not testifying. He told me he wanted to, but his attorney advised against it. Not uncommon. It's a huge risk to open your client up to cross-examination and impeachment.
So there he was, mute, through two trials, about five weeks total, which is really hard for anyone. It was very, I mean, man, I would say probably the most stressful thing in my life.
You know, it was cliche to say going through a trial, but more so sitting there for so long, for so many days and weeks, knowing that this jury's sitting there looking at me, and ultimately they're going to be the ones to make the decision. You know, I've got to sit up straight. I mean, it was like a trial within the trial in a sense. You know what I mean? That was really the struggle right there.
And there were some times where it was just so unbelievable what was being said. I used to just look down. I would just literally just be like scribbling on a piece of paper, like acting like I was taking notes. I just, I didn't know what else to do. And it was going on for so long. It's just so frustrating because you want to keep interrupting and say, hold on, but that's not true. That's not the reason why I got a phone. I didn't make that phone call. That's not, you know, me telling my parents I'm going to somewhere, but I'm going to the club. That doesn't mean that, you know, uh,
it's indicative of my desire to commit murder or something, but you just, you never get a chance to speak. You never get a chance to say anything. It's just the most frustrating thing in the world. I want to let Adnan talk now, not so much about what happened the day of the crime. I feel like we've been over that already, but just about what it was like to be him throughout this case, what it's like now to be locked up for so long.
On the night of February 10th, 1999, Aisha had broken the terrible news to Krista about Hay's body being found. Krista then called Adnan, who ran over to Aisha's. She lived very close to Adnan. And then Krista joined them there. Stephanie came over too. They all sat there at Aisha's kitchen table, crying.
You know, it was just a complete shock. No way did I, and I'm pretty sure they didn't either, imagine that she would turn up dead, murdered, and that her body would be found. So, no, I'd never, ever consider that. I'm pretty sure they didn't even think something bad happened to her. We just kind of thought it was just some explanation. You know, hey, it was somewhere. You know, with her father in California or with her new boyfriend. Who knows?
So, no. Lots of people told the cops and also told me that Anand appeared to be in denial when they all first heard what had happened. That he said things like, it's not her. They've got the wrong person. All Asian women look alike.
When Adnan got arrested, Krista wrote down a chronology of everything she remembered from the previous six weeks. Here's what she wrote about that night at Ayesha's. We went inside and Adnan was sitting at the kitchen table crying. After a while, he said that there had to be a mistake and that Hay was still alive because her name was written in Ayesha's agenda book.
He wanted to call Detective O'Shea, but when he called the precinct, he wasn't there. Adnan was upset, so I took the phone and talked to the woman and explained that we just wanted to get some information, and she said we would have to wait and call homicide in the morning. Wait, wait, wait. Adnan called Detective O'Shea? Mm-hmm. The night that we found out that she had been murdered.
That's right. Adnan called the Baltimore County Police Department to talk to Detective O'Shea, to tell him they'd misidentified this girl, whoever she was. That tidbit has always stayed with me. Is that something a distraught teenager would do? Or is that something a killer would do?
And the next day we went to school and it was definite, right? And it was just everyone kept coming up to me, hugging me. It was just so much. So many people were like, are you okay? Oh my God, what happened? I'm not doubting anyone's sincerity. It was just too much.
So many people back then, and now, have talked about Adnan's reaction to Hay's death. That he was blank, or cried in heaving waves, or not at all, or that he seemed normal, or that he hid in the dark room in photography class, or stared at a picture of him and Hay in psychology class. One teacher said he was tense and unresponsive when she gave him a hug, that a tick he had became more pronounced. Another said he was so sad he was barely functioning.
The school nurse testified at Adnan's first trial that she thought he faked a catatonic state. She wasn't allowed to testify in the second trial. None of Adnan's friends saw anything strange in his behavior. Besides, they said it was a strange time for everyone. It was terrifying and sad. They were all so young. How are you supposed to react?
Interestingly, Jim Trainham, the former homicide detective we hired to review the investigation, immediately disregarded every single statement about Adnan's reaction. In terms of evaluating someone's guilt, he said, stuff like that is worthless. He advised me to do the same. Just toss it all out, he said. Because it's subjective, it's hindsight, and also people tend to bend their memories to what they think police want to hear. Adnan helped plan a memorial for Hay at school. They'd plant a tree for her. It's still there in front of the school with a plaque.
This time for Adnan is a blur, he says. Giant events kept coming, one after the other. He didn't have time to wrestle them into comprehension. It was kind of a struggle to keep doing everything normally. You know what I'm saying? It's like life couldn't stop. It was just so many emotions. Like wondering how the heck did something like this happen to her. And then it was just a few weeks, then I was arrested.
The cops came to Adnan's house to speak to him on February 26, 1999, two days before they'd arrest him. They hadn't interviewed Jen or Jay yet. There was a report in their files about that meeting, which oddly is dated September 14th, almost seven months after the fact. I don't know why. Detectives Ritz and McGillivary come to Adnan's house and ask about Hay. Quote, when asked if Syed had a relationship with Hay Min Lee, Syed replied in a soft voice, yes. However, he didn't want his father to know.
They sat there, both of them sat at the couch. My father and I sat next to each other. They asked me a few questions. And that's actually what I was worried about was upsetting him. If you were to say what is the thing I was worried about the most, it would be upsetting him. There was no input in my mind that, you know, it was like I'm worried about, you may as well say, you know, the leak.
in the living room but there's an earthquake coming in the next two minutes but i'm worried about my father being upset about all of this and my mother as opposed to i had no idea whatsoever that just you know that this murder charge was going to be coming even after that conversation with your where your dad was there you didn't think like uh-oh not at all not for i understood they were asking questions about me but not that they actually thought that i killed hay
I never, not one time, thought that they actually believed that I killed Hank. I think any adult, anyone who had, like, a sense of understanding could see the predicament that I was in, that, oh, man, now the police are going to harass you because you're the ex-boyfriend. Like, if it was me talking to a 17-year-old, I'd say, hey, nah, you're an idiot. You do know they're going to come after you now unless they find who did it because you're the most recent ex-boyfriend. Mm-hmm.
So I can completely understand why you would ask me that. But to be that person and to have absolutely no ill will towards her, how anyone could, much less the police, could assume that it had something to do with it. Very early in the morning on February 28th, after they've spoken to Jay, after Jay has shown them where Hay's car was parked off Edgewood Road, the detectives come into Adnan's bedroom and wake him up, tell him to put some clothes on, it's time to go.
He dresses, sees his mother is watching, his older brother, his little brother Yusuf is crying. Then they drive Adnan into the city, to an interrogation room and homicide, and handcuff him to what he describes as a little hook in the wall. The one detective, his name was McGillivary, one thing that he stated was that, you know, hey man, I don't condone what you did, but I have an ex-wife, or I just went through a divorce or something, I can understand how you can get mad.
This, by the way, is what Jim Traynham calls offering a theme. You give the suspect an explanation, one that minimizes the crime as a starting point. McGillivary was being more so aggressive with me. Okay. We know what you did. And Ritz was kind of more so like, at some point, I think he said, man, you know, it would help out a lot if you just tell us what you did. And I said, well, you know, I was never mad at him. Hey, what are you guys talking about? I didn't do anything to her. And...
He did mention that, well, we got your boots, we're going to process your car,
At some point, he did mention some red gloves. You know, we're going to find those red gloves or something. Anand says the detectives left the room for a while, then came back. And when they came back, they had the Metro Crime Stopper. It was a picture like a reward paper. It was a picture of hay. And at some point, they said, like, we'll leave you alone with this. You know, you just look at hay. You just look at this. So they're looking at it, you know, but I'm still thinking, like, you know, this is just kind of like, you know, like a scare tactic. They're trying to scare me to see, well...
Is there something that I know? What am I going to say? But still thinking that, you know, once this is over, I'm going to leave.
And they both came in again. And that's when they slid the paper to me. And it slid on top of the Metro Crime Stopper bulletin. And that's where it said, you know, they had the seal of Baltimore City in the top left-hand corner. And it said, charge a document or a statement of charges. And it said Anand Saeed did willfully premeditated and with malice aforethought.
At this point, Adnan asked for a lawyer. He says he was thinking of Matlock.
He says the detectives stopped questioning him. They got ready to leave the room again. Keep in mind, Adnan was 17 years old. Well, before they left, I said, well, what's going to happen now? You know, because, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, like, you know, you know, am I going home? And I said to him, I said, um...
He had an annotated bibliography due in his English class, he said. Bill Ritz tried to make a non-situation plain to him. And did you get it? You didn't think he meant you're never going home.
You know, you have to, I mean, it's probably impossible for you or anyone else who has a computer to understand. To be a 17-year-old kid in this situation with no experience with the system, no experience with any of this stuff, it's very difficult to believe in the early stages that this is actually what's happening. This must be just some huge mistake. No, there's just, you know, there's just no way, there's no way in my mind that this is going to continue.
Often when Adnan tells stories about this time, he zeroes in on some small moment when someone was kind to him. That's it. That's the whole story.
But he's mentioned this guy to me multiple times. Also, the white lady who was driving the cruiser that took him downtown. She was polite. There was the sheriff's deputy who looked like Judd Hirsch, who slipped him a candy bar. The eighth grade teacher whose name he can't remember, who wrote him that nice letter. I can imagine how you'd seize these kindnesses and that they'd nestle into your brain forever.
Now these, obviously, I need to hold on to, but this is our junior prom pictures. Last spring, Dana and I went to Krista's house. Krista was good friends with Hayen and Nan. She was Krista Myers back then. She dug out a trove of photos and yearbook stuff and letters. Krista and Nan wrote to each other during his first year in jail, through his trial. She visited him frequently when he was in prison in Jessup, Maryland, much closer than where he is now in Cumberland.
Krista is clear-eyed, organized, and thoughtful. Hay's death was the defining event of her youth. It messed with her, as did Adnan's arrest and conviction. She's not in the Rabia camp of 100% there's no way in the world Adnan did this. She's more, if he did it, then I don't understand human beings, because the guy I knew, etc. So, if just, he's a normal person?
kind person. You know, like, these aren't letters from somebody that's malicious or just trying to sway you to believe him. It's somebody that genuinely, in my opinion, cares about people trying to make the best of a bad situation. Here's the guy she knew. June 2nd, 1999. Did you get that really expensive prom dress you wanted? And who'd you go with? If you don't mind me asking. Smiley face.
He asks how things are going with Andy. They'd been having problems. He tells her stories about jail. June 8th. Quote, you should send me some pictures. We're allowed to get them. Man, some guys in here get some really dirty pictures. I mean, dirty. Let me put it to you like this. I've seen more than I'd wanted to of a lot of people's wives or girlfriends to last a lifetime. And while most guys are really protective of their pictures, someone's always pulling me aside to show me their latest flick. It's really kind of disgusting.
He mentions he's gotten letters from other kids from school. Laura, Juwan, Justin, Asia, Aaron. That's all he says about Asia, by the way. He doesn't seem to attach any importance to her letters or note that she's a potential alibi. Maybe because he doesn't know the state's timeline for the murder yet. Anand was in with the juvenile population when he was first arrested in February. In May, he turned 18 and then moved over to be with the adults. I'd assume that would be awful in myriad ways. But Anand writes this to Krista.
Quote,
Four months later, I can be anywhere in the entire jail. It's huge. And someone will call, Syed! People say what's up to me, ask how things are, and I don't even know them. The strange thing is, so many people come to me saying, if anyone bothers you, let me know, that there's no one left to bother me. Some of it is due to the fact that I'm a Muslim, and a lot is due to my personality. You know, I've been blessed in that I can make friends almost anywhere I go. Now I can really say anywhere.
He tells her he's gotten elected to inmate counsel. You can see how Adnan initially thinks this is all temporary. I'll be out by graduation, maybe by summer, maybe by whenever. It fades a little more the closer he gets to trial. Christo would testify for the state at trial. She's the one who talked about hearing him ask Hay for a ride that afternoon, which Adnan said he didn't do.
But he doesn't hold it against her. He's so sweet to Krista in these letters, asks about the dental work she got done, how her little sister's doing, how her mother's doing, whether her car got fixed. He talks about his feelings. They discuss religion and God, their problems. Krista's parents were divorcing. They're intimate friends who trust each other. The most striking letters to me were the ones he wrote to her immediately before and after his sentencing. He didn't end up facing the death penalty, by the way.
The first one, he writes it while he's in what's called the bullpen, waiting to be sentenced. It's got a cutout from a magazine stapled to it of an Asian young woman smiling. What's this, Krista? That's actually not Hay. Oh, it looks like her. So he found this in a magazine and said that this girl looked like he found this in a magazine and it looked so much like Hay. Does it look like her to you? Yes. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.
Quote, you know what's really weird? I was looking through this Jet magazine. In case you didn't know, it features African-American issues. Smiley face, unquote. He tells Krista that Hay had been appearing in his dreams, that dreams like this have a certain significance in Islam. But that anyway, he's looking through this Jet magazine and he does a double take because the girl looks so much like Hay. Even her watch looks like Hay's watch. Quote, take a look at it and tell me what you think. I hope I'm not going crazy, unquote.
I found this perplexing. He seems relaxed in the letter. This is a kid who is about to be sentenced to life in prison. He knows that's what's about to happen. It's the mandatory sentence for his conviction. And that conviction, of course, was for killing Hay, Krista's good friend. And in this pregnant, life-changing moment, he's writing a letter to Krista about whether a photo he saw while flipping through a magazine looks like Hay. Is it too nonchalant or something? Is it creepy?
Anand explained several things about this. First, he wasn't especially nervous right then. That was about to change. But at that point, he says he was thinking of his sentencing as a procedure he needed to get through so he could immediately start the appeals process. So in a way, it was a step toward the thing he wanted.
Second, it's not like they transport you from your cell right to the courtroom door and you're just outside straightening your tie before your big moment. It's kind of the opposite. There's an enormous quotient of utter boredom and exhaustion built in. So you do other things, read, write letters, whatever you can. It would be hard to understand. Like you spent hours sitting in bullpens waiting, you know, so it's like, like it's
If you get up at 3 o'clock in the morning, then you go downstairs in the basement of the jail and you're just sitting in a bullpen. It's basically like just a square room with a concrete... It's like a concrete bench built into the wall that goes around. And it's probably anywhere from like 50 to 100 people, so everyone's just sitting there. And you might sit there for four hours, then you go to the court. Then you sit for another four or five hours until you go to court at maybe 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. So after like...
After doing this for so long, it's just like it numbs the mind. So, I mean, I know people who've actually took them plea deals just to not have to go to court anymore. Oh, really? You know what I mean? Like, no, I mean, honestly, like, not even exaggerating.
The third thing is that Krista was the only person he was in regular touch with who knew Hay, and Krista didn't think that Adnan had killed her. Eight days later, post-sentencing, he writes Krista another letter. And he's so changed.
By this time, he'd fired Cristina Gutierrez over the Asia letters, and he's being represented by a public defender he doesn't really know. Adnan tells the guy he wants to tell the court he did not kill Hay and that he's going to continue to fight this to the end. That's what he says in his letter to Christa. And the guy says, no, no, no, terrible idea. Don't say you're innocent. It'll anger the judge. Adnan argues with him, and according to Adnan, the lawyer says, well, you can do it if you want, but you're just going to fuck yourself over.
So now Adnan is worried. And then another thing he hadn't anticipated, that Hay's mother was going to speak. She'd been to the trial every day, I think. Sometimes I glimpsed her in the videos, keeping perfectly still or doubled over or holding on to someone. There's more than one bench conference during the trial in which they talk about her mother's crying being a possible distraction to the jury. Her pain throughout must have been abject.
On this day, through a translator, Hay's mother speaks. She tells the court about her daughter. She tells the court about a Korean proverb that says when parents die, they're buried in the ground. But when a child dies, you bury the child in your heart. Quote, when I die, when I die, my daughter will die with me.
As long as I live, my daughter is buried in my heart. I don't know where to hear her voice. I don't know where to touch her hand. I would like to forgive Adnan Syed, but as of now, I just don't know how to do that, and I just cannot do that right now. For many, many months, we tried to contact Hay's family to tell them we were doing this story, and in hopes they might want to talk to us about Hay. In my 20-plus years of reporting, I've never tried as hard to find anyone.
Letters in English and in Korean, phone calls, social media, friends of friends of friends, two private detectives, Korean-speaking researchers, people knocking on doors in three different states, calls to South Korea. We never heard back from them. I learned a few days ago that they know what we're doing. My best guess is they want no part of it, which I respect. About Hye, I can tell you only what I've heard from non-family members. That she was cheerful and light and funny. That she loved the movie Titanic.
that she sometimes put nail polish on just so she could pick it off. She wasn't insecure, seemingly ever. Sprite was her favorite soda. The Dallas Cowboys, her favorite team, not because she cared about football, but because she liked the colors blue and silver. That she could charm you without trying. That she was a good friend to her friends. She took in their problems and their pain and tried to help them if she could.
At the sentencing, listening to Hay's mother, that was the first time a nun understood how people on Hay's side of the courtroom saw him. He'd never felt hated before. In his June 14, 2000 letter to Krista, he writes, "...on the one hand, I feel her pain because I cared about Hay and how sad she is, but on the other, I'm thinking, please believe me, I didn't kill your daughter. She was sitting right next to me, and it was really sad, but I couldn't help thinking that my mom is going through the exact same thing. She's going to lose her son forever."
Afterwards, I was thinking, my God, no one believes in me. Krista, I could never explain how that felt. Anand's attorney then addresses the court. Quote, your honor, I would ask that this honorable court, if it would consider this case more a crime of passion than of intent to kill, unquote. From Anand's letter, quote, that's all I heard him say. And I turned and just stared at him wanting to hit him with a chair or something. I mean, this jerk is going to get up and give away the only thing I have, my innocence, unquote.
When it's Adnan's turn to speak, he suddenly realizes he has no idea what to say. He'd had his plan, but now, quote, on the other hand, I'm thinking about what the lawyer said about the judge getting upset. On the third hand, I'm thinking, man, I should just apologize for everything, even though I didn't kill Hay. Stupid me, I end up doing a little of each, unquote. It's true. When his moment comes, he maintains his innocence. He asks for the mercy of the court, and he says, quote, I'm just sorry for all the pain that this has caused everyone.
The judge, Wanda Hurd, disagreed with Adnan's attorney at sentencing. We know this because she said, quote, "I disagree with you, counsel. This wasn't a crime of passion." She said to Adnan, "You planned it." Quote, "You used that intellect. You used that physical strength. You used that charismatic ability of yours that made you the president or the, what was it, the king or the prince of your prom. You used that to manipulate people. And even today, I think you continue to manipulate even those that love you, as you did to the victim."
You manipulated her to go with you to her death. Once, early on, I asked Adnan, if you're saying you're innocent, why aren't you bitter and angry? Why do you sound so calm? And he said a lot of things then and since, because there's no one answer. Part of it, he says, is that he realizes how lucky he is compared to so many other guys inside. His family visits, he calls them all the time. They send him money. He's got people like Robbie and Saad pulling for him. Quote, I refuse to be miserable, he said to me.
being religious helps, which you hear all the time about people in prison, but I never thought about it too much before I got to know Adnan. When he ended up in prison, he says he made a choice to be a better Muslim. Now he can say that for nearly half his life, he's lived like he's supposed to. He knows it's a rationalization of his situation, but it's been the most helpful one. Finally, he says he's got a clear conscience because he didn't kill Hay. Though once he did say to me, I'm here because of my own stupid actions. I asked him what he meant. Well, I mean, because...
At the end of the day, man, I mean, who can I... I mean, I never should have let someone hold my car. I never should have let someone hold my phone. You know, I never should have been friends with people, you know, who... I mean, I don't... Who else can I blame but myself?
Well, you could blame Jay if you think he's lying. I mean, yeah, but... I mean, him, the police, the prosecutors, but... I mean, sure, what happened to me happened to me. I had nothing to do with this, right? But at the end of the day, I had to take some responsibility. You know, I mean, you don't really know the things that my younger brother went through, you know, what my family goes through, you know? And, I mean, at the end of the day, if I had been...
You know, like a... Just like a good Muslim. You know what I mean? Someone who didn't do any of these things. You know what I mean? Then, uh... It's... Yeah, so it's something that really weighs heavily on me. I mean, I'm not... You know, no way I had absolutely nothing to do with Hayes' murder, but... I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it's, uh... I can't...
A prosecutor I was talking to said, of course Adnan can't ever admit to this crime. After all his parents have been through, the fear and the money and the anguish, how could he ever turn around and say to them, I did it?
Adnan took issue with that. The reason why I'm in prison is because I've done this.
You understand what I'm saying? So it's like, okay, well, he's there because he deserves to be there. We still love him. We're still going to take care of him. We're still going to make, you know, he's our son. But at least we don't have that feeling anymore that he's somewhere where he doesn't deserve to be. Right. You know what I mean? Because they don't necessarily worry about me being in prison because, you know, they come to see me and they see me that I'm fine. You know what I mean? I'm fine. I'm healthy. You know, whenever they come visit me, I'm in good spirits and everything like that. So, you know, for the prosecutor to say that the reason why I can't
I can't say what would truly be easier for his family, knowing their son had murdered someone or feeling as if he's been taken from them unjustly. But it is true that Adnan has always been fine in prison. He's adaptable. He pointed out to me that he'd never been independent anyway. First a word of his parents, then a word of the state.
He spent the initial part of his sentence at a prison in Jessup, about a 30-minute drive for his family. It was a looser place than where he is now, at North Branch in Cumberland, a maximum security prison more than two hours away from Baltimore. The prisons that I've been in have been like, they're fairly like corrupt places. So they're not really strict in a sense where, you know, it's like, oh, you've got to do this at this time. You've got to do this at that time. Maybe corrupt isn't the right word, but maybe it actually is.
In Jessup, especially, people got away with all kinds of craziness. That prison's closed now. Anand's only had one infraction his entire time, which a guy at the DOC told me was impressive for anyone.
After I asked about his prison record, Adnan sent me a stack of copies, 21 different certificates and awards for completing this program or helping with that activity. In 2005, he got one called the Distinguished Gentleman's Award for your consistent display of character, mannerism, self-control, and ability to manage adversity, signed by the warden. Adnan's one infraction was for having a cell phone, which he had for five years. Actually, he had a couple of different cell phones. A new one he got, he couldn't figure out how to make it work. So...
I'm talking to this T-Mobile lady, and she's like walking me through the phone. She's like, oh, it doesn't work. At JUSSA, Banan had a good job. He was a clerk in the chaplain's office, which gave him access to a computer and to a printer and copier. Being an entrepreneurial sort, he ran a couple of side businesses, printing stuff and making copies for people. At North Branch, he's a cook. He told me the only jobs at North Branch are either kitchen jobs or custodial jobs.
He's got a group of friends he's close with, guys who came into the system the same time he did. They have a little breakfast club, which he's in charge of. Another guy does lunch. Membership has its privileges. Today, I made these omelets with, like, caramelized apples in them and onions. They were really good and cheese on the inside. And then I made some... Banana French toast, also hot cereal with peaches and raisins. For lunch, cheese steaks. The other 1,500 guys they cook for got the normal menu, boiled eggs and bologna.
Anand lives in a cell by himself. He's got TV. And if he's getting in fights or seeing horrible things, he's not telling me about it. All the stuff he tells me about is at worst PG-13. He told me, I have a life. It's not the life I planned or imagined, but I have a life.
Despite the Nisha call, despite the Leakin Park cell tower evidence, despite Jay knowing where Hay's car was, I confess to having reasonable doubt about whether Adnan killed Hay. I'm not talking about the courtroom kind. I'm talking about the normal person kind. Obviously, a trial isn't built to hold the stories Adnan or anyone tells about his life. So his lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, had to figure out another way to encourage reasonable doubt. Why didn't it work? Next time on Serial.
Thank you.
Our score is by Mark Phillips, who also mixed the episode. Our theme song is by Nick Thorburn, who also provided additional scoring. Special thanks today to Jonathan Goldstein, Paul McArdle from The Baltimore Sun, Hyunjoo Lee, Martha Kang, Young Chang, Blake Morrison, and Bob Versus. Our website, where you can listen to all our episodes and find photos, letters, and other documents from the case, and sign up for our weekly emails, SerialPodcast.org. Serial is a production of This American Life and WBEZ Chicago. ♪
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