Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello. Are you back in your boudoir? Yeah.
I am. I really like it in here now. I might just stay in here all night. All right. So today was the second day of the hearing. Yes. So how did it go for Asia today? They really went after her. You know, today was mostly the state cross-examining her, and they really attacked her testimony in a bunch of ways. Yeah.
One of the things they brought up was this whole snow issue. Because you remember when I talked to her on the phone that time, you know, when I was reporting the story, she called me.
She said she remembered that day specifically, January 13th, 1999. The day Hago's missing. The day Hago's missing. She remembered seeing a nun in the library. And she said to me, because of the snow. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, she was like, I remember because it was the first snow of the year and there was all the snow. And the state today, the prosecutor, he...
was like are you sure you have the right day because there wasn't snow that day was there like he sort of referenced what she had said to me and I mean that was that was something we kind of had a question about too because she was very clear with you she got snowed in at her boyfriend's house and then the next two days were snow days so she's very clear that she ties this memory to to the snow right and
Yeah, yeah. But we kind of wondered about that. Yeah, because we looked up the weather, right? And it hadn't snowed. It hadn't snowed. There was a horrible ice storm that had started like in the wee hours of the next morning, but there wasn't snow. It was terrible weather and it was like a big emergency in Baltimore, but it was an ice storm. And so she kind of, I mean...
She did a fairly good job with it. I mean, she just said like, yeah, I don't know. I know it was bad weather. I'm not sure if it was snow or ice or whatever. I just remember it was like hazardous bad weather. School was canceled after that. And she was like, and I remember I was happy about it because I had used the excuse of bad weather as a reason to stay later at my boyfriend Derek's house. And my mom bought it.
And then she was like, and I remember because I'd stayed out later, I was happy that then school was canceled for the next two days. So it sounded pretty specific. Very specific, actually. I don't know. But I have to say she was very cool and collected about it. It wasn't she didn't seem frazzled or freaked out or she was just like, yeah, I don't know about snow ice. I don't know. It was bad weather. Huh. Yeah.
Yeah, she seemed totally, she seemed completely confident in her memories, even when I was thinking like, oh, like even when I was thinking like, wait a minute. Wait, what happened? It didn't seem like, it didn't seem like, oh, well, so. What happened? Yeah, well, so the other, the main thing is.
That happened, that at least was new to me as a theory about Asia's alibi. And that made me think like, wait a minute, let me rethink this. And in fact, I asked you guys to go scrambling back to the records that we have our detectives notes and stuff. Oh, this is the Juwan stuff? Yes, the Juwan stuff.
Because the prosecutor, Vignaraja, went after her for a long time about the second letter that she wrote to Adnan right after he got arrested. So we should just take a step back and explain what these letters are that you're talking about. So Asia wrote Adnan two letters. She wrote him the first letter the day after he was arrested, I think, March 1st, 1999. And
And that's this handwritten note where she's sort of saying to him, I've just been to your house. I met your parents. And I want to tell you that I remember talking to you that day, January 13th, 1999. I remember seeing you in the library.
So then the next day she writes him another letter. And this one is a little bit different. It's a little bit longer. It's typed up. She seems to be writing it in like from one of her classes at school. And in that one, she sort of reiterates again, like, I remember seeing you in the library that day. So let me know if you need me to speak up about that.
Right. So today, the second letter, the typed one was was the issue today. So the state is really pressing her over and over to say, are you sure you really wrote this letter on March 2nd? Because it's dated March 2nd. And in fact, it's dated on every three page letter. And at the bottom of each page, it says March 2nd. And she keeps saying, yes, yes, I am. Yep.
And he's pointing to things in the letter that suggest it was written later, maybe, and that suggest it was written later because she's got all of this fairly specific information about Adnan's case and about the crime and the way the crime unfolded. And he's suggesting, like, how would you have known all this stuff? What were some of the things the prosecutor was pointing to in the letter as, like, how would you know this or that?
There were several things. One was she notes that Hay was found in a shallow grave. Another was that she talks about someone else referencing fibers from Adnan on Hay's body. So the prosecutor is saying, like, it's too soon for any of those details to have been out in the public two days after Adnan has been arrested. Right. Is that what he's kind of saying?
That's what he's suggesting. In fact, he's not really correct about that because then Justin Brown, Adnan's defense attorney, stood up after that and showed exhibits of Baltimore Sun stories dated...
prior to Asia's letter that talk about these, that have these very phrases in them, shallow grave, you know, leak and park that, you know, so, so that didn't hold up very well, but, but there was this one thing that, and this was the thing that I was like, Oh, Hmm. And that is, he's asking her, um,
did Adnan ever contact you from jail? And she's like, no. And he says, did he ever call you? No. Did he, you know, send you letters? She's like, nope. And he says, well, how do you explain if Adnan never contacted you? How would you explain notes from a detective's interview with Adnan's friend? This is a kid named Jawan Gordon.
And in these notes, it says that Jawan told the cops that Adnan had written a letter to a girl and asked her to type it up, but she got the address wrong. And what does that mean? Like, what does that imply? Well, I think he was trying to imply that...
Adnan had contacted Asia and had asked her to type up this letter in this way. This March 2nd letter. But he's implying it wasn't actually written March 2nd. It was written perhaps weeks later. Oh. And that maybe Adnan asked her to type up this letter.
Huh. Yeah. And then I was like, well, what does that mean? Does that mean she doesn't remember what she thinks she remembers? Or does that mean she's lying? Or, and a nun did contact her? And what does that mean? You know? And so...
You know, it started, it starts to make her sort of very pure story about being just a potential alibi who wanted to step forward and do the right thing to like look like something slightly different. And so that's why I asked you guys to look up notes from that detective's interview with Juwan. Okay, so...
So I'm looking at the detective notes from their interview with Juwan on April 9th, and they didn't record that interview. So all I've got are these kind of like cryptic detectives notes. So I'll just read those to you. And this is what they say. I think this is what the prosecutor is referencing. It says, Adnan wrote me a letter. And remember, at this time, Adnan is in jail. So Adnan wrote me a letter. He called yesterday, but I wasn't home.
Wrote Adnan back. He wrote a letter to a girl to type up with his address on it, but she got it wrong. And then there's an address, 101 East Eager Street, which is the incorrect address for central booking. And then it says Asia with a question mark, 12th grade. I got one. Justin Adger got one. And Justin Adger was a friend of Adnan's and I guess was Asia's ex-boyfriend.
But I'm just saying like those are pretty cryptic and I could also see that note as implying that Adnan wrote a letter to a girl and asked her, could you please give my friends the address so that they can write me letters? And that's all it means. That's true. That's true. I mean –
Right. And then she gets the address wrong. And it's like, I can just imagine how this could play out in a totally innocent, different way from what the prosecutor seems to be suggesting. The one line that stops me is he wrote a letter to a girl to type up. And I don't know. It's true. It's not clear. It's not clear what this totally means. But...
Here's the thing. It raises, it does make you pause, right? And that's his entire point. That's the prosecutor's entire point, is that I can throw a bunch of suspicion on Asia's story in all of these various ways. And if I can do it here before you today in this hearing, that means the prosecutors back at Adnan's criminal trial back in 1999, 2000 could have done the same thing.
So the state is showing, look, maybe she's not such an ironclad alibi after all. And if she's not such an ironclad alibi, then maybe Christina Gutierrez did have a very good reason for not pursuing her. It wasn't a mistake. It was a strategy. That's what he's trying to show. So what did you think? Did you buy that? Did I buy it? I mean...
I would say – I don't think that he, like, proved that she didn't write the letter on March 2nd or anything like that. And she seemed very comfortable just saying, like, I don't know what those notes about Joanne mean, but I wrote this letter March 2nd. I never heard from a non. Like, she was – she just was very forthright about it or seemed very forthright about it, I should say. And –
But it did, you know, it did make me think like, huh, well, it does make you wonder what could have happened at trial and whether it would have been this slam dunk for a non necessarily, you know. Okay, so can we talk about the main event of the day, which is the cell phone testimony, which I've been waiting patiently to get to?
I know. I so wished you were there today, Dana, honestly. I was like, Dana would be eating this up. I was like drooling partway through. I mean, it was hard to find out. It was that exciting? So it's really important is the thing, but it's just, it's hard to sink your teeth into in terms of emotion, you know? But it's, no, it was, I mean, yeah, it was interesting. So basically-
Today, there was not a big bombshell on this issue, but I think they're setting the stage for one. So it turns out that the AT&T cell tower expert who testified at Anand's original trial in 2000, it turns out that there was this disclaimer on those records, on a fax cover sheet for those records back in 1999 that said,
you can't use incoming calls, they're not reliable for location status. Incoming calls are not reliable for location status. And why that's important is because the two phone calls that place Adnan in Leakin Park at the time that Jay said they were burying the body are incoming calls, right? So
What happened was this fall, just recently, that same cell tower expert wrote an affidavit saying, I didn't know about that disclaimer about not using the incoming calls for location. So now he's saying, I'm not sure now about my testimony. I'm not sure I could say that those two calls placed the phone in Leakin Park.
So that guy did not testify today, actually. But the defense team brought in this other expert who said, yes, you know, that disclaimer was very, very important. And they spent a lot of the afternoon arguing the state and the defense over basically the meaning of location on those cell tower records, like how to interpret the word location. I'm really jealous that you get to be there for that tomorrow.
No, I actually am because, no, this is actually really important. This, like, cell phone disclaimer thing is something that's bugged me for a really long time because it's sort of like if that is, in fact, the case that
you can't use incoming calls for location data, then that kind of means there's a chance that that cell phone was not in Lincoln Park when the prosecution at the original trial said it was. So it's a big deal. No, it's a real problem for the state. Yeah, it's a real problem if it's not true. So this might really get answered tomorrow of whether that's a real thing, that you can't use incoming calls for location. That would make me really happy if they could answer that question.
Stay tuned, man. It's going to keep going. All right. All right. So you'll call me tomorrow? Yes, I will. The best relationships are the ones where people feel comfortable being themselves. They're with people who really see someone for who they are. Someone who really gets them. So why not use a dating app that is designed to do specifically that? eHarmony helps you find someone you can be yourself with. Find someone you can be yourself with. Get who gets you on eHarmony.