Serial S01 - Ep. 8: The Deal With Jay
42:43 Share

This forecast is supported by U. S. bank. At U. S. Bank, when they say they are in IT with you, they mean IT.

Not just for the good stuff, the grand openings and celebrations, although those are pretty great, but for all the hard work that took to get there, because together they're proving day in and day out that there is nothing as powerful as the power of us. Visit U. S. Bank tok hom to get started today. Equal housing lender member F I C previously .

on cereal, I think like the odds of you getting the charming socii if after you're just not that lucky.

So but today I was more so kind of like, I like my mind. I was kind of like, maybe the police are putting them up to this.

I said, what was your involved? Were you involved?

And he said, no, you stated that you'd be willing to take a sound and to show us where the people was part. Are you still willing to do that?

A global talent they pay call from. And in made a from maryland correctional facilities. This call will be recorded in monetary.

Okay, my name is my della armstrong bottom morland.

And you were a year on the under sia case, right?

Yes, I was from .

this american life and W B E Y, chicago. It's cereal. One story told week by week. I'm sarana. I wanted to know from Stellar armstrong why SHE voted to convict a nancie. SHE immediately talked about jay that he believed him.

Like I said, it's been a while. But I remember the one Young man who was supposedly his friend who had enable term to move the body, right? And that .

struck me that .

why would you admit to doing something that drastic if you hadn't done IT? You know what I mean for what reason? What was he going to gain from that? He's still had to go to jail.

Yeah, actually he didn't go to jail.

He did in the friend didn't.

No, he .

walked. That's strange. That's strange.

I was still the same thing. I ask anyone who's come in contact with j, what is jays deal? And by that, I don't mean his plea, al, that he plead guilty to accessory after the fact in the first degree murder, testified against adnan and got no prison time as a result.

I'll talk more about that in another episode. What I mean is, what did you make of jay? Which, of course, this code for what am I supposed to make of jay? How did he come across sitting up there on the witness stand? What was his demining on the stand? Like what kind of kid did he seem like?

He seemed like he was um stream wise. Can I hope that's the best way to put IT? He seemed like he you know got around in neighbourhoods or he was able to take care of herself. He remind me of he would be that friend if you got in trouble you would call you know what I mean um say if I was back in high school and and somebody was bother me, he remind me of somebody I would call to help me like somebody was fighting .

me so I was believable to you that he would be that guy for arnone he would be the guy that a none would turn .

to yeah yeah that was my impression you know because we all have somebody in our life like that you know that you may know a cousin or a relative who if something go wrong, you think you can call to help you.

You know when you just said that, I just did a very quick scan of all of my my contacts of my family, and I think I feel like I can't think of one, but they're also useless.

We won't say they also useless.

The j that steel saw at trial, he was wearing a tie, sometimes a jacket. He's handsome. He's tall and thin. You can see in the trial video how he has to bend over a little each time he speaks into the microphone in front of them.

Since jaws credibility was the state's case announce attorney Christino guitarists tried to rip at a shreds that essentially was her defense. SHE uses the word truth and lie as often as possible. In cross examination, there are many exchanges like this.

One could cheers, ask him, quote, and now your second interview on tape that you are not telling the truth. Who are you not? J says.

and what .

you .

were telling them, or wise, are they not? So, so the answer to my question is, yes, I was not telling the true is IT not good? Yours asks j about best buy.

about how jen poo seti told him there were security cameras in the parking lot and at the entrance. If jay didn't kill, hey, why would jay care whether they were cameras there? SHE asks SHE puts IT to j almost casually.

You will have a small you had nothing to do with the death of having right? thanks. Thank you.

question. Did you kill him? 有没有？ And you want us into this?

Q 有没有 the defender .

tourney tried to make him？ Well, basically he was trying to sold the j killer and was blamed in on at noon.

which that's .

what I remember. Nothing LED us to believe that he had a motive to kill miss lee. Yes, that really stayed with me because he was so adamant that he was a liar.

right? Did you just didn't buy that he was lying about IT?

I didn't that a lie? The fact that he was telling the truth about what happened at that moment.

Jay took the stand on five different days during the second trial. This must have been a horror ing nerve racking stretch in his life. But large sash of the trial itself are really boring, not just the procedural stuff that's always boring, but the cross examination is boring, even of the star witness.

One defense attorney I talked to said that boringness can be a strategy. She's that lawyers know that people can only pay close attention for so long, forty five minutes an hour before they start to flag. So it's not the atrix that gets people to crack its tedium, which would explain so much of what good terrors was doing if, in fact, that's what he was doing. SHE spends a lot of time on streets, for instance, the trajectories of different roads, whether they travel northeast or northwest, whether their names changes. They crossed from the city into the county on buildings, how they are situated.

And that best buy is a boxy structure with the best buy. How good and is .

not .

this man and it's mely visible from the security vice?

No, yes, no.

right. That in that. There's a light there that if you are not on security, full bars that I went streight and you want straight, go into the parking lot of security more.

Yes.

jay doesn't crack though. He is alert, he is polite. He stays weather. He stays whether when she's calm and soothing and boring, and he stays whether when he gets a little more shouty. He six to the yes mam, no mam answers, which, if I had a guess, is probably seventy five percent of which j says in cross, the reporter vettori tried to suggest that jail was cheating on his girlfriend steph anie with genes. Sary.

if you were stepping out and stepping that would have on relationship you have not with me, with anyone. Tell me if you are stepping out on. Time you understand what that time me, don't you? okay?

If you are another girlfriend, anyone, any name, anywhere that would have been passed, we definitely would. we. You with any girl of any name from any location that would be impacted your relationship with your girlfriend.

man. Even when he gets irritated jays civil, excuse me, you're honor. He says, when the chairs gets loud, could you ask her to stop yelling my ear, please? Good here, as died a few years after this trial.

So I can't ask her, but I have to think nothing she's doing here is accidental. SHE was a successful sought after defense attorney. SHE was aggressive, and obviously the courtroom is no place for pulling punches.

But you've gotta wonder whether moments like this hurt announce case rather than helped IT. Because jay seems like the underdog, it's ball to more. Half the jury is black, seven, eight of twelve.

actually. J probably comes off as a nice Young man. And this White lady is yelling adam, sometimes unwittingly or not. Jays testimony is almost poetic. C, he says he told depositary to be honest with the detectives because, quote, the lies that we were telling to try to protect each other, we're clouding the truth.

When he asked why he didn't warn, hey, that a none wanted to kill her, he says IT was because he didn't think the none was serious. I took IT as a grain of sand instead of concrete, and when he asked why the image of hay in the trunk of the car stuck with them, he says, quote, i've never seen anyone dead before. And the first thing I thought was how fragile steph anie was.

People lie in court under oath all the time. Witnesses lie, lawyers lie, police lie. This should come as a shocker to no one. And i'm not saying that's what happened here.

I'm just saying that i'm not assuming that everyone who participated in a non trial told the truth, but clearly the jury found j believable or believable enough. After six week trial, they convicted in none. In just two hours, we talked to six jurors, and none of them had any lingering doubts about the case.

None of them wondered if the investigation was chatty. None of them were much bothered by how jazz statements to police had shifted over time. So am I wrong to be hang up on that? No, I should be concerned about the inconsistently.

I am concerned about IT. You are. Yes.

as I mentioned, the detectives involved in this case didn't want to talk to me for the story, so I turned to this guy. You are jim trainer, James to do like James, jim, jim trainer. And we hired you because, unlike me, you're a real detective.

I'm just playing when on the radio jim train, am used to be a homicide detective in washington, D. C. A jurisdiction not too different from ball to more.

He's now become something of an expert on false confessions and an advocate for Better interrogation techniques. He goes around the country doing presentations about IT. We gave train them everything we had on this case, files, tapes, transcripts.

And again, I want to be clear that we paid him for his time. It's a huge amount material to go through. I wanted train him to weigh in on two things.

First, just overall, how would he write the investigation into haman lease murder? Did the detectives do a good job, or did they screw IT up? And second, how should I be thinking about j as a witness? What we're the detective seeing that maybe I wasn't trainer said, yes, he thought the inconsistencies were a problem too, but he also said, don't forget the flip side .

but i'm also looking at some of the consistencies too, right? Something, you know, he took them to where the corals, right? And that's a huge thing right there.

Jay had a big piece of reliable information that the cops themselves did not know where his car was plus train, said jays. Story completes a circle for the cops. There were suspicious of a non from the beginning, then from a non cell records.

They get to jane, who leads them, to jay, who tells them it's at non. So their suspicions have now been born out thanks to j through a non's own phone, a satisfying investigative circle. A murder case on a silver platter says, train um he puts .

IT on who they consider to be the logical suspect. I mean, you, he's pretty much a dream.

Part of what training does is review investigations, and he says this one is Better than most of what he sees. The detectives in this case were cautious and methodical. They weren't rushing to grab suspects or to dismiss them either.

The evidence collection is well documented, which I didn't expect to hear that even though it's basically a one witness case, the cell records mostly don't match chase statements. There is no physical evidence linking and non to the murder despite all that to an experience detective like train. Um this looks like a pretty sound investigation.

I always say that this is Better than average.

but what i'm .

saying is this the mechanics, the documentation, the steps that they took and all of that they look good. Okay, I would have probably follow the same. However, what we're unsure of is what happened to change j story from a to b, and we do not know what happened in the end of those three hours. So whatever like that, and that will always result in a question as to what the final outcome amy should have been.

here's what he's talking about in both of jays tape statements. There's a before a period of time before the taper quarter is turned on. When the cobs first bring jay in on february twenty eight, they talked him for battle hour before the tape won. Then on march fifteen, the second interview, j signs his initials to an explanation of rights form at three fifteen P M. Then the tape starts.

Today's date is the fifth of march. It's proxy twenty minutes after six, nine.

six, twenty pm. So from three fifteen to six twenty three hours have gone by since j sign net form. This is what's called the pre interview, and trainer says that's where the mischief can happen, the contamination, not necessarily intentionally, but IT happens.

The princess was when the cops in the witness kind of ironed out the statement. So IT could be taped as a coherent thing. And that was standard procedure back then.

Now, like a lot of jurisdictions, vult more homicide detectives video taped the entire interview from the moment the person steps in the interview room on march fifteenth. We know the cops had shown j at least some photographs from the investigation. They referred that on the tape.

And jay S. A trial that he was confronted with the cell records during that interview as well. So you have to wonder this train um whether he was massaging his story to fit with the cops wanted to hear the inconsistently in jays statements that the cops are catching him in, jim says cops are used to that every confession has inconsistently.

You just need to understand why they're happening is he minimizing his role? Is he protecting someone in jays case? Yes and yes, but how do you make sense of the inconsistencies that don't seem to have a purpose like the one about going to the clifts that perhaps go state park that afternoon? How IT drops out of the narrative at trial? And from my where I said, oh yeah, doesn't work because doesn't fit your time well and he can't get back to second time. If you went out and smoke a join, you don't mean anyone. I'm getting too deep end but like.

no, you're not at all because I think that you here on one of the biggest problems that we have with the way that we interview and interrogate uh, here and the fact that we have an excEllent witness and we got somebody who's given us the whole cash right here, he's broke up White open force. We don't want to ruin him. We know. And so um know how much do you want to push, how much do you want to create? Quite, quite bad evidence .

but like there's no such like this.

This is an actual term is called bad evidence, right? You don't want to do something if it's gona go against your theory of the case but see.

I I don't get that. I mean, that's like my father. You always say all facts are friendly, like, shouldn't be more true for a cop and for anyone else like you. You can there, you can can choose. Uh, rather than trying .

to get to the truth, what you're trying to do is builder case and make IT the strongest case possible.

But how can I be a strong case and how can he be a great witness if their stuff that's not true or or unexplained and you come back is is that .

there's always going to be things that are unexplainable uh, but I can say also remember, verification bias is kicking in here as well. I wanna believe you, you know, because you're my witness and I think this is what happened and all that. So the fact that you're giving me something that consistent that doesn't fit my theory of the case.

What is verification bias caused you to do? Ignore IT and push you aside. And that's what they're doing here with these inconsistently are of pushing them aside training said.

I was curious to him that the cops never searched the jays house, for instance, that they never subjected him to a polygraph again. He said. Maybe that's because he was on their team now helping, so you don't want to push too hard.

He said the cops quote, settled for what they thought was good enough to be the truth. And quote, he said he did have doubts about a non's claim of innocence and but that he definitely thought there was something quote and quote off about this case that we still not know what happened in this murder. We still don't have the true story.

I don't believe jays version. I think that there is a lot more to IT than that. I I feel that is definitely minimizing his involvement to either to either protect himself, he's order for one of one of three research to protect himself, to protect somebody else or because orgon did IT .

and was right there with them.

But I cannot prove that he's given to me without contamination, right? The real problem is, is that how do you prove that one way the .

other right, train them says the answers we want probably live in those unrecorded printery hours, a black hole of crucial information. Since this stuff wasn't all video, you know, their holes were never, as you're saying, that we're never gonna the answer but for what things that I could know the answer to, if you're me, what's the biggest thing I need to figure out then?

K jd talk.

Okay, okay.

we pass. We pass the city limit. So my producer, july snyder, and I went to C, J.

We did not warn j, we were coming, which is not the journalist, reporter move, I know, but I thought we'd have the best chance of success if we met him face to face so we could make our case for why we wanted to talk to him and he could have a Better sense of who we were, what we were about but because it's also sort of a dick move to show up at someone's door like that july, I were nervous. I am so hyped up listening back to the tape. I wanted to get myself as anx.

And I feel super excited to talk to him like, so excited talk to him. I can tell you, like, if this work, and I mean, he knows he knows everything, we want to know every question we've had for the past eight months, seven months, he knows that and whether or not he tells us is a different thing. But you know I mean, like he's like there's a treasured chest of answers that we've been looking for this whole time and he has IT.

He's IT. But whether not in the door or be at home, we don't even know his home. We arrived.

Jay was not home, so we came back again many hours later, knocked jay answered the door, tall and skinny and exhausted, looking a beer in his hand. He was friday, probably the end of a long work day for him. He nevertheless invited his son, asked us to sit down.

We didn't record anything. We stayed about twenty minutes. Maybe was a tense meeting in an emotional meeting. In fact, afterwards, Julian, I felt like we'd walked into a stranger's house, lobed a grenade onto his living room carpet, and then wave goodyer we debriefed back in the car.

Here's the first thing he said, I mean, he said that there are a lot of people who say that they don't think god not did IT and he very forceful ly said, well then who did?

That's right. He said he did. He was like, I was there. I saw like, I know what I know.

He was very forceful, like, I can't believe he he won't even man up in a minute. He just totally scarfed at the idea that. At nine would be claiming his innocence he was very calm like how would you describe his demo?

Tired yeah .

yeah he .

seemed tired and a little and wary but not but actually very polite and actually sort of very sweet um and tired and but he also said i'm feeling like so much and and he said, like kind of animal rage right now, even you bringing this up right now but he does a .

good job of you know .

of keeping IT in because he didn't seem like he was about to I mean, actually you could gonna see him about to hit something but in a more frustrated, understandable way.

j was understandably skeptical of us and of our motives. When we left, j said he think about an interview in get back to us he left a strong impression on Julie maybe even more than on me.

even just hearing him so forcefully deny, you know, and so forcefully say, I know he did IT you know, it's your face to face. He's right there. He's a person.

He's sanga. He seems like he really means that this is not pleasant for him to talk about. And so you know, that sounds believable.

I I totally saw the appeal of him as as like a person and a friend and a witness. Jani car responded sporadic ally by email in the week's following our meeting. He said he wasn't afraid of the truth. Finally, in so many words, jay declined in interview.

So what is the deal with jay? I talked to dozens of people, mostly his friends and classmates, kids who know him from widdin high school. They were a range of opinions about whether he was a good guy or not a good guy, but they all agreed that he defied categories. He was different.

Yes, he was like the roman of our like.

social world.

He would like the one like a little ring and listen to like rage and machine. You know, he would that he's here, different colors. Like, I think one time he had a read and another time he had a blond.

But but the bond lasted for a long time. Like, I remembered the blonde, for sure, A B, M, X belt buckle. And I heard a belt buckle and had bet belt buckle. Basically.

denis lot, and is the best that can described IT.

You know, if he was at my house and my mom came home when he left to be like, who's that and why is he here?

Well, well, he's a weirdo. At the time, I didn't know so many black guys that were into all of those patient in the big gosip gene. Like dead, I begin would not fairly black me, very black me, a black product, black hospital. You know, seventeen, anything different from you as weird?

So jay didn't look like the other kids at school, and he also didn't act like the other kids at school. He loved animals. He once spotted giant rat eating frog, and he loved the outdoors, fishing, hiking, swimming.

He wrote B, M, X, bikes and an old skate park. He played the cross for crime, sex. And jay was really pretty good to look, cross talk.

Why I, dude, could run for days. There was no training needed for that kid. I could just run forever, which is a good thing, because he wasn't the type to put a ton of training in, right? Because he wasn't a joke. He is more of a stoner, people said, and he didn't seem to care whether he fit in.

And he always came very honest with who he was. That is my beautifully unconventional guy.

Jian come from the same kind of households as a lot of the other kids he hungry around with. He lived with his grandparents in his mom, but his friends say IT seemed like he was more or less taking care of himself. He always had a job.

His mother depended on him. Jay wasn't in the magnet program at woodlawn. He was gene pop, their term, not mine, like general population, at a prison.

Anyway, he hung out with some of the magnet kids because his girlfriend steffani was in the program. People told me contradictory things about jay. Three women who knew from wood land, including one teacher, told me unflattering things about him.

Nothing terrible, just that he was mean or intimidating. Some kids thought of him as could on court shade, that you wouldn't want to push him. You got the sense that if you cross j, he'd come after you. But then I also heard descriptions of j that included the word goofy or stoner, or that the thug ish fire was just oppose something jay put on to seem tough.

He's he's an alpha. He's definitely an alpha male.

This is Chris, who says he was going to jay's best friends around this time. He said, jay might say slugging as you're walking down the hallway at school, but he wasn't matter or anything, he's just messing around. Boys will be boys kind of stuff. Chris, remember red, this one story where IT seemed to me all the different versions of jail heard the free and the scary we're containing in IT.

You know we have weird argument sometimes. I remember outside of one of my cousin's houses, he tried to stand because I hadn't been stabbed before. Ah so we got into a fight over, actually, I gave him a knife because I worked at a knife shop.

I gave him a knife and then he tried to stand me what IT. So we're literally like fighting outside of my cousins house and is like, go, i'm not gonna stop you deep, but you never been stand before. You need to know what is like and i'm like not going to let you stop me. so.

I talked to three people who said they knew jay well or hung out with him around the time of the crime, and I asked him if he ever told them about what happened. I went to Chris first because when jay spoke to detectives at first night during his first taped interview, jay mentioned Chris by name the cops, that S. J.

If he told anyone else about a non committing this murder. And jay said, he told Chris, Chris told me police never question him, not that he could remember anyway, and he thought he would remember something like that. There are no notes in their files about an interview with Chris because that IT was true.

Jay did tell him about what had happened, but his version, the building box, are the same, but the surrounding details are unfamiliar. Of course, giant cavet, it's fifteen years later that i'm asking Chris to tell me. But for comparison purposes, here goes Chris says jay told him he was at a pool hall out on root forty in kitten's bill when he got a call from a non the pool hall was either VIP or blue jays. Chris, they were a cross the street from each other at the time. He told you that odon came to get him when he was at.

he was shooting paul, a court. He was like, you know, I got to talk you and he was like, you, i'm busy. So where are you? He told him where he was.

I not showed up his, like, I got talk to his. And this was a little tugged war for a while. And I don't ever convinced him to come outside. what? And his car, or I don't know if he was driving his car.

Hay lies in this version. The trunk pop happens at the pool hall, Chris said. Jay told him none. He wanted nothing to do with IT, but I non forced him, told him he was in IT.

Now he was an accessory and he knew jay couldn't go to the cops because of his own illegal activities. So jay was stuck. He helped bury the body.

Chris figured leaking park was likely jays idea rather than a dance crises. Information about the crime itself doesn't quite match the states version, he said. Jay told him that had none confronted hay about floating with another guy, a car salesman, and when SHE called a non crazy, he snapped and strangled her.

In Chris, he heard this happened in the parking lot of the woodlawn public library. Remember, that's the one that's right there on campus where asia said he saw IT none on that day. Chris says jay told him that had non threatened to kill Stephanie if jae in keep his mouth shut.

This is not the first i'd heard about something like this. Jay told the cop city worried in none would hurt steffani too. And he also testified a trial that had none had made IT clear he could get to steffani any time he wanted since they were such good friends. Stephany herself tells the cops this is in their notes from their conversation with her that jay told her to stay away from a non Chris j told him adnan showed up at jazz house with steffani not long after the crime amid a gesture to indicate. I'll heard that if you're not careful.

So Stephanie goes inside past year, and he steps out onto the porch. What had not? He is like, you not going to terrorize me, you know, and I not like you keep your mouth shit.

Something going happen if if he had any weakness, that was Stephanie, they would do. You'd move heaven in a heart if IT came to protecting stephney. I took to Lauren.

a friend of jazz and steph, anise and janes and of a non's. Back then he was Laura stra dolo SHE was closed with stephane. They played sports together.

Her parents didn't agree with their relationship because he was like, they like, he was like, he wasn't mountain thing was not going school. You know that any? She's beautiful.

I mean, SHE SHE was as far athlete SHE SHE gets scholarship to college. Like, she's like, perfect. You know, like SHE ran the fastest.

SHE was only lake in shape no matter what to do anything at. Like he always thought giving people no matter what, like no matter for people were on her. He's influent.

But because he loved j so much, he was going to support him regardless. He was his like good thing in life. He was like out of all the craziness like that, he was like his amazingness.

Stephane didn't wanna talk to me. And no one I spoke to, who knows her, was surprised by that to a person they said he never talked to them about what happened either. They said he was like a wall came down and they couldn't penetrate IT, Laura told me, kind of did in their friendship because laurel really needed to talk about IT and stephane wouldn't or couldn't. Laura hung out with j all that summer before the trial, and he says they just didn't discuss IT haze murder was this enormous, sad, frightening elephant nobody wanted to go near? Jay friend Patrick told me he couldn't get jay .

to talk about a either. I think I was, what if you want to name, have that you know, all of this way?

This, Patrick, by the way, isn't the one already mentioned in an earlier episode from the colleague different, Patrick? This Patrick went to woodlawn. He was a year ahead of jail, so two years ahead of a non. And hay and stephane patric lost touch with jay when others went down, he says he tried and tried to call, but j ever responded years later, maybe around two thousand five, j got back in touch one day, and then they saw each other a little party. Patrick asked him about .

IT heard all of these like renditions and versions of stories from many people, like, I figure later I have in front of me now like, I can get to the truth and and he said, yeah, like, you know, I was afraid he was gone to hurt stephane and I was like, like, and now you going like to go to be threaten her and he just said he was afraid that he was gonna hurt her and so I guess I took IT as a throw, you know, I took what he was saying as a threat, but I remember when I pushed him for detail, when I pushed him for more. IT wasn't, I didn't get IT like .

he wasn't, he wasn't going to go .

any further with him. He just wasn't, you know and there was a lot of this me and just different beers like come out.

Patrick says the stephane explanation sounded pretty thin to him, but he couldn't get anything else out of jay figured IT wasn't his place to force IT. I asked all jays friends I spoke to whether they thought jay was telling the truth about what happened that night. I got some curious answers because his friends says j had a reputation for lying, but not for lying about something like that, something so big, sort of the same way. He had a reputation for being scary, but not scary, scary.

First thing that popped in my head was like, j lies. That's why he does that. He alizad about everything.

That's Cathy. Again, that's not a real name or her real voice. She's the person who said had none was acting weird at her apartment that night of the .

murder when jay brought him over talking about IT and saying, you know what, j has all these inconsistencies instead, the first thing, that part in my head ball, because j lies. J doesn't tell the truth.

but look about what what kinds of stuff you think.

think. I think he was kind of like, but everything, nothing. I can definitely remember sometimes when jake would be telling a story and you would clearly know I was bullshit. You know, I remember one time I looking at genet gender eyes, like here we go again. You don't mean like this is a what IT.

Both Chris and Patrick told me that jay would tell them stories, told tales almost that they figured had to be made up. But then sometimes these stories turned out to be true. And Kathy said, sure, jay might lie about what he had for breakfast or even whether he went to perhaps co state park on the afternoon of january thirteen, nineteen ninety nine but he didn't think jay was lying about the crime itself because she's convinced none is guilty based on a non's behavior that night and what he was saying when he got that phone called at her house.

And then there's jen posture of all the people jail told about this crime. I wondered most about jan if SHE ever thought jay was lying about. That night.

I spoke to her briefly at her work. He works at a discount store. SHE wasn't rude, but he was totally uninterested in talking to me.

SHE had nothing to hide, SHE said. He just did not want to talk about that time in her life period. SHE didn't answer my one big question though, and her answer was yes.

SHE believed jay then, and that hasn't changed in the intervening years. I said, yeah, but he did lie to you somewhat back then. Remember, he tells jane that night that he doesn't know where addon put his body, but they don't know enough to go to the police.

Jen told me he could understand that kind of lie that anyone in his position forced into something he wanted. No part of anyone might have told the same kind of lie. IT didn't shake her trust in his overall story.

Then, he added, there was one thing he never believed, SHE said. SHE never believed the murder happened at best buy because he thought they've been security footage and that never came out. I told her IT seems like maybe there are really weren't security cameras at best buyback then. And SHE kind of shrugged and said, oh, well, see, I don't know.

Plenty of people I talked to said when they heard jay was wrapped up in a murder, I didn't surprise them. And now they said, no way, shocking, but jay, not so shocking. And people also said they couldn't square jay feeling threatened by a non.

The dynamic of that just seem wrong to them. But then there's Patrick and Laura and Cathy, people who spend a lot of time with jay, the word shocked by jazz involvement. They couldn't see why I none would even turn to jay for something like that made no sense.

They said that wasn't the laid back jay. They knew the same thing. Almost every single one of a non friends says about him. So they end up in this in between place where they can't quite wrap their minds around the story of that night, his Patrick again to him, jay was this intelligent, inquisitive, sweet goody guy, beautifully unconventional.

I think part part of me hopes, and I know this is so terrible to say, I hope in someone he is, his hand was forced that he was, but he had no choice, or that things are outside of is a control and that and and maybe he was looking out for the the safety while bain of others and that he wasn't such a Williams participant if he was and I. I hope that he wasn't .

that grappling. You can hear in his voice that's so common among this group of friends, people like Laura, who can't imagine a non killing anyone, but also can't imagine jay doing what he said he did or why he would lie about something so huge. If you're Lauren and there's no scenario here, you can rationalize you're left with fog.

This is a type of about to play. You is my favourite piece of tape from all my reporting so far, because I relate to IT so precisely. IT could be me talking a law instead of the .

other way around. Well then who the fuck did IT like? Why would like? Why would IT? Doesn't make sense.

Why would if a lot? Why would hey with IT? Like, I just I can't. I'm probably just as confused as you are.

A jays sentencing for his accessory after the fact conviction he's wearing a White shirt, his long arms hanging at his side. He's towing over his lawyer, whose petite SHE tells the judge all the stuff of defense attorney tends to cover at a sentencing jays tough upbringing, that he didn't have adults helping him set a moral compass, that he's hard working and loves animals and his good with kids. This headed to college and wants to Better himself, he says he underwent, quote, rigorous and demining cross examination on the part of sino guitar's anam SHE says he's remorseful. He says just now he was weeping in the hallway about haylee prosecutor Kevin york tells the judge he's thoroughly ly pleased with jays participation in the case .

and impressed very such factory and and i'd believe honestly testified and also I would say something you don't usually say. I think he actually showed, I saw very more than his part so you make that judges impressed .

to and jay does seem genuinely torn up there.

Anything you want to say before I impose a sense.

just whatever you do to decide and like, you know, IT, I have a real hard time even sitting here. I feel like a people look at me. They take them hard person in the. I'm going to show you our partner would happen.

The judge sentences jade two years probation, no jail time. His lawyer mouse, the words thank you to the judge. Jay leaves the courtroom with the only person who came with him that day, Stephen anie.

Anna didn't testify at his trial, which is unusual. Js, aren't ppos to take that into consideration. The judge tells themself that they are not allowed to hold that against the defendant when they are deliberating. Did did IT bother you guys as a jury that adon himself didn't testify? I didn't take the stand.

Yes, IT did.

That's lisa flin, one of the jurors.

That was huge.

We just I think, yeah, that was huge. We all kindly get like .

like we .

were all just like blow away by that. You know why not if you're defendant or if you know why, would you not get up there and defend yourself and try to prove that the state is wrong, that you weren't there, that you are not guilty? And we are trying to be the open mind that I was just like, get up there and say something, you know try to persuade even though it's not your job to persuade us. But I I don't know.

So what was that? None thinking while all this was going down, what do I know about IT? None that the jury didn't next time on cereal.

Serials produced by Julie snyder, dana tivat me Emily content is our production and Operations manager. Ora glasses, our editorial advisor editing help this week from joe level fact checking by cam for gola smith. Our theme music is composed by nick thorbjorg oring music by nick and by mark phillips, who also mix show special thanks today to the lovely lisa n leave and to gene divide to our website where you can listen to all our episodes and find photos, letters and other documents from the case. Sign up for a weekly emails serial podcast dot org serials the production of this american life and W B easy chicago.

What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a Crystal ball? Until then, over forty thousand business business have future proof. Their business, le R D E R, bringing final inventory hr into one fluid platform with real time insights and forecasting, you able to appear into the future and seize new opportunities down of the CFO s guide to A I and machine learning for free at nesi ET dot com slash that's next sweet 点 com slash N Y T。