Serial S01 - Ep. 1: The Alibi
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From this american life in W B. Easy chicago, its cereal, one story told week by week. I'm saracenic.

For the last year, i've spent every working day trying to figure out where a high school kid was for an hour after school, one day in one thousand eight ninety nine. Or if you want to get technical about IT, apparently I do. Where a high school kid was for twenty one minutes after school one day in nineteen ninety nine.

This search sometimes feels undignified. On my part. I've had to ask about teenager sex lives, where, how often, with whom, about notes they passed in class, about their drug habits, their relationships with their parents.

And i'm not a detective or a private investigator, not even a crime reporter. But yes, every day this year i've tried to figure out the alibi of a seventeen year old boy. Before I get into to why I ve been doing this, I just want to point out something i'd never really thought about before I start working on this story.

And that is is really hard to account for your time in a detailed way. I mean, how you get to work. Last wednesay, for instance, drive, walk, bike, was IT raining.

You sure. Did you got any stores that day? If so, what did you buy? What did you talk to the entire day? Name every person you talk to? It's hard.

Now imagine you have to account for a day that happened six weeks back because that's a situation in the story i'm working on in which a bunch of teenagers had to recognize six weeks earlier and IT was ninety ninety nine. They had to do IT without the benefit of taxes, or facebook or instagram. Just for a lark, I ask some teenagers to try IT. Do you remember what you did on that friday?

But not, not at all. I can't memel anything.

right? nothing.

No, I can member anything that for a back. I'm prety pretty, pretty sure I was in school. I think no.

that's Tyler. He's eighteen. I asked my nef ws sam. He's eighteen.

two school. I would be in school um actually I think I works that day. No, yeah, I works that day and I want school .

actually on second thought.

I don't. I went to school that day.

You don't think you want yeah.

I did definite didn't her .

sam's friend Elliott, he seemed to have Better recall.

Actually, I may have gone to a movie that night later.

Do you member .

what you OK and what .

did you go with friends?

Yeah, I went with sam and kid. Shawn Carter, bunches people.

We used a sam, my mind nepo. Sam.

yeah.

Oh, okay. So sam, as he was at work now.

then I wasn't that night.

Then one could did .

actually remember pretty well because he was the last day of state testing at a school. And IT saved up to good with nightclub. That's the main thing I learned from this exercise, which was no big shocker, I guess, is that of some significant event happened that day.

You remember that, plus you remember the entire day, much Better. If nothing significant happened, then the answers get very general. I most likely did this, or I most likely did that.

These are words have heard a lot lately. Here's the case, have been working on almost fifteen years ago, on january thirteen to one thousand and ninety nine, a girl named hayman lee disappeared. SHE was a senior at woodland in high school in bolt, more counting in maryland.

SHE was korean. SHE was smart and beautiful and cheerful and a great athlete. SHE played filter king in the cross. And SHE was responsible. Right after school, he was supposed to pick up her little cousin from kindergarten and drop her home, but SHE didn't show.

That's when hal y's family knew something was up when the cousin school called about a month later, on february, knife hay's body was found in a big park in belt. mr. Really a rambling forest.

A maintainance guy who said he stopped to take a league on his way to work discovered her there. He'd noticed a bit of her black hair poking out of a shallow grave. The cause of death was manual strangulation, a, meaning someone did IT with their hands a couple weeks after that. So six weeks after he first went missing, haz x boyfriend and I named a non seed was arrested for her murder. He's been in prison ever since.

I first heard about this story more than a year ago when I got an email from a woman named roba children. Roba knows that none pretty. Her Younger brother, sad is announced friend, and they believe he's innocent.

Robby is writing to me because way back when I used to be a reporter for the belt, more son and she'd come across some stories. Ever think about a well known defense attorney in ball tore, who'd been disbarred for his handling climate money. That attorney was the same person who defended a non her last major trial.

In fact, robbia told me he thought the attorney botched the case, not just botched IT actually, but throw the case on purpose so he could get more money for the appeal. The lawyer died a few years later. He had been sick.

Robbie asked if I would, please just take a look at a nance case. I don't get emails like this every day. So I thought, sure.

Why not? I read a few newspaper clips about the case. Look at a few trial records. And on paper, the case was like a shake experience mashup, Young lovers from different worlds towards their families, secret assignations, jealousy, suspicion and honor was merged. The villain, not a more exactly, but a muslim, all the same.

And a final act of murder ist revenge in the main stage, a regular old high school across the street from a seven eleven. Hi, rabbi. hi.

Am I saying your name correctly? Robi OK, I went to go see ababa. SHE was surrounded by paper files, loose stacks, binders and crap looking boxes, all court documents. In attorneys files from end's case, some of the papers were warped and discover, why do they .

look at at wet? These have been damaged because.

he explained that was because the boxes had been in a car on enough for fifteen years. Robby is a layer herself. SHE mostly does immigration stuff. Her office takes up the corner of a much larger open space that I think is a pakistani travel agency that is hard to tell in this little strip mall. Across the parking lot, there's a new pakistani restaurant in african evAngelical church in an clothing shop, convenient store.

On the sidewalk outside, I found a tiny mini bag of marijuana, both more countries like this, at least on the west side, through a lot of middle class in working class people go, many immigrants included, to get their kids out of the bad city, though the battle city is close by. Robby is forty. She's short.

She's got a beautiful round face framed by her job. She's adorable looking, but you definitely shouldn't mess with her. She's very smart and very tough, and you could crush you.

Her brothers, sad was at ruby's office to the first time I went. He's thirty three. Mortgage broker, more laid back than rubber. They told me about a nancie, their friend, not just a good kid, but an especially good kid, smart, kind, goofy, handsome, so that when he, he's arrested for murder, so many people who knew and were stunned .

he was like the community's golden child really talk, learn about that. He was an honor or old student volunteer em t. He was like on the football team.

He was a star star runner on the track team, he was the homecoming king. He LED prayers at the mosque. Uh, so he was, yeah, he everybody knew that none to be. You know, somebody, he's going to do something really big.

I later fact checked all these accolades, of course, and learned that robbi a was mostly right, though he sometimes gets a little Lucy goosey with the details. Adnan wasn't em t but he didn't volunteer. He was paid for IT.

He was on the track team, but he wasn't a star. He did play football and he did he prayers on occasion. He wasn't homecoming king, but he was prince of his junior prom.

In this at a high school that was majority black. They picked the pakistani muslim kid. So you get the picture. He was an incredibly likeable and well liked kid.

This conversation with rabbit and sad, this is what launched me on this year along obsession is may be too stronger word. Let's save fascination with this case. By the end of this hour, you're going to hear different people tell different versions what happened the day hai was killed.

But let's start with the most important version of the story, the one robbia told me first, and that's the one that was presented at trial. The state's case against a none went like this. He inhered been going out in junior prom, but a none wasn't supposed to be dating at all.

Annan was born in the us. But his parents are from pakistan, and there are conservative muslims. No drinking, no smoking, no girls, all that sad, robbia's parents of the same way their families or friends.

But even though had none and sad and their buddies were muslims, they were also, shall we say, healthy american teenagers who are going to do what teenagers do, so long as they didn't get caught. So IT none had to keep his relationship with his secret. The state used this against him in two ways.

First, they are good. He put everything on the line, his family, his relationships at the mosque, to run around with this girl, so that when he broke up with him eight months later, he was left with nothing, and he was outraged he couldn't take IT in a killer. In the second way, they used IT as they said, look at what a liar he is, how to play IT us.

He plays the good muslim sun at home and at the mosque. But look what he was up to. Sid remembers the prosecutors closing argument at trial.

His family didn't know that he actually drank. He smoke. He was having sex.

This was proof of bad character, someone who could be a murdered. But sad says, if IT non guilty of anything, it's of being a Normal kid with immigrant parents.

So like the prosecution had painted a none as a totally like a bipolar or like a monaco personality. We all grew up with that dull personality. I mean, i'm the same way I like they could paint the same thing because I was actually homecoming king, which I don't know, but even knows he didn't I know. So I mean, I was dating a girl that was.

why is home coming king bad is such a good.

good thing. We don't go to home coming.

Don't cause it's to down.

It's a, it's a mixed gender.

So so I was in the same boat. My parents, my sister didn't know about this at all. I mean, and right now, a ten years, more than ten years later, she's finding out, you know, I know I you know, I would admit, you know, on one side, like my family think i'm a virgin, other hand.

I but it's the thigh and I see like that right there.

I mean, kind of making her feel uncomfortable and she's like.

so just a motive alone. Sadden robbia found the whole thing ridiculous. As for physical evidence, there was none, nothing, apart from some fingerprints in his car, which had none had been in many times there.

There was nothing linking him to the crime. No DNA, no fibers, no hairs, no matching soil from the of his boots. Instead, what they had on a none was one guy's story, a guy in jay.

He's the third person you need to remember in this crime story. Besides hannan, jay was a friend of anon. Theyve been in school together since middle school. They weren't super close, but they had neutral friends. J sold, we eat and hit and non smoke together.

The story j told police had problems because IT kept changing from telling to telling, but they were able to bolster the main plot points using cell records from a non's phone. By the time I left robb's office at first day, I understood only one thing clearly, though maybe not the thing robby inside wanted to understand, but what I took away from the visit was, somebody is lying here. Maybe a none really is innocent, but what if he isn't? What if he did do IT and he's got all these good people thinking he didn't? So whether it's j or it's a none, but someone is lying. And I really wanted to figure out who.

In the early morning of february twenty eighth, one thousand nine hundred ninety nine, a non was arrested by belt mall city detectives. He was asleep in his bed when they showed up at his house. They took him straight from his untidy bedroom to an interrogation room at homicide downtown. What a none didn't know is that just hours before they picked him up, the cops had interviewed his friend jake.

This is a tape interview, jack mail, nineteen years, age or losses of homicide. Specifically, the internal conference were the police recorded two tape .

interviews with jane. I'm going apply you the second one from a couple weeks later only because the sound quality is much Better. Just a warning that the tape .

is a little upsetting to hear in parts you head tell us what you .

know about the death t payment on had a left out one shopping with a friend, mind next friend of mine and now we had had a conversation, the conversation stated going to kill that which referring highly. I don't took you .

with context.

I didn't stand out my IT j said he didn't .

take IT too seriously. The cops haven't start again from the top. On the morning of the thirteenth, j says a non had left school and driven to jays house.

Jade graduated from school the year before and was working, but not on that day. General thirteen th happens to be the birthday of jays girlfriend steffani and jay, who didn't have his own car, needed to go buy something for her. So if none comes over, according to j, they go shopping at the mall.

which you do that you left more. I took in the school. I dropped him off in the back at the school, and we have to place.

He left his cell. One in a car with me told me. He called me. I went back to my friends in house away from the car right .

now at this point. You know why he's leaving .

in the car with you?

yes. And why is that?

Because he says gona kill hitting.

And the reason you have the car and the cell phone was why to pick .

him up from whether he was going to do.

And you had talked about this when you are shopping.

that the details of the car and all .

the events, how they were going .

to plan out the that day. He told me, yes, he told me i'm just leaving you with my cell phone and my car and you need to come getting yes, after he killed heading. Yes.

later that afternoon the call comes.

you receive a phone call from ada, one his self.

which is in europe.

The conversation was .

one that pitch did come and give me and jay drives to best buy .

and she's a none in the parking lot.

I know he wasn't with them on my part. Next time he asked me to get out the car, I get out the car, he asked me my ready for this and I say, ready for what in takes a key, the open try. And I can see that like he's literal balloon and she's like pretty LED up in a back in the trunk and she's did .

they leave the parking lot? A non driving haze car with her body in the trunk. Jay is driving a nance car. They ditch haze car at the ice seventy parking ride and then to her jay tel IT, they're just onna tool around bolt m more county together for a while if nothing had happened by some weed crews around, make some calls after while jay drives are none back to the land. High school.

why did you taken back to school?

He told me that I had to taken back to school because he needed to be seen.

So he was, he going to .

a certain event? Track, track, track practice.

yeah. So he wanted an out. He wanted to be seen by the people track. yeah. And you guys had discuss that.

He just told me that he needed be seen. yes. He taught me that he needed to be seen. I try practice.

He took back. yeah. Are you having any conversation with that .

non time to the fact? Yes, don't tell anyone. He said he couldn't believe he killed him by with their hands.

All mother fucker is referring to like hood and builds and stuff. Think a hard goal. But he just killed the person would have their hands.

So at this point .

he's cragged about .

basically .

he was proud of IT.

Yes.

after track practice, j picks and non up, again, the driver on some war. By this time, his family was worried, and they had called the police, who in turn called a couple of his friends, including a none call, comes in on his cell. Cops ask if he seen hi or knows where he is. Jay says. After the call, they drive to jays to get some shovels, go a trip, his car from the parking ride, the drive around some more, and finally end up, at least on park, where a non proceeds to barry, hey, is evening by now, maybe seven, eight pm.

He asked me out in a help I called fucker, and he started to help doing on time. That I really there. We are.

yes.

You held him take the whole years.

How long did they take you both? They take the whole twenty .

twenty five minutes. How did you make the all of maybe six cents at the moves? IT wasn't very depit who did most of the day. IT was part of you yeah equal work when, say, OK. So those are .

the key points. A non told jane advance who's gna do IT he did IT they buried her. Joe story wasn't just the foundation of the states case against non IT was the state's case against at nan in the picture j.

Drew, it's cold. I means not describing a crime of passion here. This is something much darker to method ally, map out the death of your friend to strangle her with your own hands. So close up like that, that would mean a none wasn't just a killer, but a master liar and manipulator, a psychopath probably.

Announce a maximum security prison in western maryland. He calls me at my request about twice a week. He ducks me from a bank of eight payphones in the recall.

All a pretty large room where other guys are sitting at tables with metal seats attached to them, playing chaster cards, are using the microwave, watching T, V, and get a little loud sometimes. Once I asked if all eight phones were always occupied, he said, usually not, because guys have been in for a long time. Often they have known to call.

When I first met IT, none in person, I was struck by two things. He was way bigger than I expected. Barrel, trusted in tall.

In the photos i'd seen, he was still a lanky teenager with struggling facial hair and sagging genes. By now he was thirty two. He had spent nearly half his life in prison becoming larger and properly birded.

And the second thing which you can't miss about at none is that he has giant Brown ice like a dairy cow. That's what prompts my most idiotic lines of inquiry. Could someone who looks like that really strangle his girlfriend? idiotic.

I know when he first heard jays story of the crime, annon didn't say, well, I didn't happen like that, or I didn't mean for IT to happen like that. He said IT didn't happen. None of this is true at all. He says he had nothing to do with his murder, and he doesn't know who did. Hey was announced first serious relationship with the girl. He says he loved her in the way of high school love, but then also in the way of high school got over her so that when they broke up for good some time before Christmas break of senior year, he says he was sad for sure, but not obsessed anything I just .

sometimes wish, like thick, like looking into my brain and see, I really felt about IT. And no matter what else someone would say, they would see that this guy had no, had no ill will towards whatever the motivation is to kill someone. I had absolutely IT didn't exist him, you know, I no one can never say why, people can say why.

Oh my, everybody. No one can never come with any type of proof for any dope or anything to ever say what that I was ever mad at her, that I was ever angry with her, that I ever threatened her. You know, that's the only thing I can really hold on.

IT is like the only firm and hold of this whole thing, is that no one has ever been able to prove that, no one ever been able to provide. And you shed evidence that had, and they had anything with friendship towards, like, love, respect for her. I step into the day.

men. I don't think I can never say men. I had he's .

adam in about this. You can hear IT right? He's staunch. The problem is, when you ask a none to go back and tell his version of what happened that day to refute jail story, everything becomes a lot musher.

Yes, he hung out with jay on the thirteenth, both during and after school, but he doesn't remember exactly where they went or what they did or what time IT was. Here's what he's got. Generate thirteen th enfolded like any other day, a Normal, mostly unevenly day. He says. There are a couple of things that do stand out though that day was Stephanie's birthday Stephanie was one of a nan's best friend and also jays girlfriend a none had gotten steffani a birthday present stuff ed render, which had given to her in second period miss ephron .

s english class and um one uh IT occurred to me that day that I was gona ask her boyfriend he did he get a guest? So sometimes during the day before noon.

wait and then just hold up first, second. why? Why did you care whether jake got stephane of a present? Like what did to you.

well, definitely was a very close trend, man, as I mention. And I was just, uh, I just kind of want to make sure that SHE also got a gift from him. You know, he had mentioned to me that he was looking forward to getting a gift from him.

He mentioned SHE really happy to get the guess that I gave her. So I just as I would with any friend ah just kind of we don't want to check on that. I can't had a feeling maybe he didn't get her a gift and I had three periods to our schools, but I wasn't like, you know, IT IT IT was not abNormal for me to the score to go do something and then come back. So I went to his house and I I ask them, you know, did you happen to get a present for a definitely he said no so I said, if you want so you can you can drop me back after school, you can borrow my car and you can go to the mall, get a gift to whatever and just come pick me up after track factis that day.

是的， 木塔 本。

Well then um when school was over, I would went to the library. I know that I used check well, I didn't usually check, but if I was going to check my email, I will be at they are using the library computer you know some sounds I would go there because um track practice I didn't start till around maybe three o'clock or three thirty years so they didn't start right after school. So there was a period to sign of almost like an hour hours change. You know they're kind of free time this hour .

and change after school. This is the crucial window. This is the time when the state says, hey was killed.

School got out at two fifteen. People remember seeing her after her last class, adding to her car. According to jay's story in the cell phone records, SHE was dead by two thirty six P.

M. So sometime in those twenty one minutes, between two fifteen and two thirty six, SHE was strangled. So that's obviously the same window and not needed to account for quoted non, my case lived and died in those .

twenty one minutes.

So where does IT not say he was? Well, maybe the library, but nobody testified to that at trial. Then to track practice, he does remember being at track one day when he was snowing, which might have been that day.

The coach testified that anon probably was there. But he can't be a hundred percent shirkers as a rule. He didn't take a tenants after school is when his memories become non specific. Usually we did this, or we probably would .

have done that after that ended. Like I say, four dirty jay did .

come to pick up at none after track that party. None seems to more less. Remember, I was ramadan, so IT none would have been fasting on day and hungry .

IT probably would have been closely time for me to take back. He would came to pick me up, and we would like to go some eat, and we could slow the weed after, right? And then I would have, i've got been home by, like around seven, eight clock, right? Or usually like the last ten nights, radon.

My father would spend united the mask so that at times I would take your food. Mother would make some form, and I would take IT like before, had a clock, right? And that's the last evening prayer.

Did you ever leave the campus before the end of track practice? Did you ever go OK? No.

you. O K. The reason why I can say hundred is because, I mean, I do to understand that IT comes across. I don't know if he does, he doesn't, but he seems like I remember things that are beneficial me with things that aren't beneficial me. I can't remember this is said, I don't know what to say.

I know beyond the same that a lot of the day that I do remember, if is it's in pieces that comes from what other people have said, know that they remember right and they kind of our job remember yeah I don't really know to understand how that comes across. I mean that I say men, IT was just a Normal day. There was an absolutely enough and .

have Normal about that dica.

None knows Better than anyone how unhelpful this all is. How problematic. Because IT plays both ways. If he's innocent, right at any other day, of course he doesn't remember. But you can also read IT as how convenient he doesn't remember the day, so no one can fact check him or paw calls in his story, because he has no story.

Definitely, I understand that someone can look at this and say, oh, you know, he must be lying. Is so convinced, dental, that he does remember what you did particular time. I mean, I could really understand that and I get that just, you know, like I said that did you know the biggest, the hardest thing I deal with three to fifteen years is that I don't there is nothing tangible I can do to remember that day is the true.

There's nothing I can do, you know, to make me remember, you know, I pour through the transcripts. I've looked through the telephone records. You know, this is what? What else can I do? There's nothing I can do. So as you know, I have done never able to explain IT if someone please you, no control over.

Announced trial was a long ordeal. Jay was on the stand for something like five days, a cellphone expert testified for two days a lifetime when you're discussing celta technology, there were absent in citizens in bad weather closed the courts. So IT was six weeks before both sides rested the jury.

They moved like lightning after just a few hours, including a lunch break. They convicted a non a first degree murder. Roba children was there in the courtroom. When IT happened, SHE says his mother was crying. He was crying. Roba hadn't SAT through the whole trial, so the first time SHE fully understood that the case came down to those twenty one minutes was during closing arguments when the prosecutor brought out a dummy s head and strangled IT in front of the jury. That evening after the verdict, robbie went to see adnan in lock up.

and so I went to go see him. So this is the same day he's been, and this is the first time actually had a conversation with him about, you know, what's going on and I was like, you know, have done the whole things turning on these twenty twenty five minutes like, you know, where were you and he's like SHE disappear in january, you know, in march asking me like where were you after school for twenty minutes on a specific day like, no, all the days are the same to me .

you know um he's then he mentioned that there was this one girl, an alibi girl .

he's like the only thing um I could offer is like I remember he there's a girl I go to school with who her named asian mclean he said right after I got arrested he wrote me a couple of letters and SHE said SHE else wanted to see my family and he said he specifically remembers me being at the library at the public library rider for school.

The willie public library is just across the parking lot from woodland high school. It's not technically part of the campus, but IT might as well be.

he said. I gave those letters to Christine negotiis to my tourney. He's like, but you know, apparently we didn't really check out so he's I gotten know so they're not helpful to us. So this is the first time I heard of this girl um asian macie. I had never heard her before.

Nobody had mentioned her before. Were you like floride what I mean .

what I wasn't flawed at the time because I thought I thought if he if this girl rode the what criminal defense itron needs, not onna, check out a potential alibi. So I asked him, I said, you have a copy of this letter. He said, you have a copas 是 正面 cob.

a nonsense letters to abba. And here's what he reads. The first letter, the first of two, is dated march first, nineteen ninety nine.

That is one day after none was arrested at the top of letter SHE notes. I just came from your house an hour ago. Dear a non, I hope I spell that right.

I'm not sure if you remember talking to me in the library on january thirteenth, but I remember red chatting with you. SHE says, quote, we aren't really close friends, but I want you to look into my eyes and tell me of your innocence. If I ever find otherwise, i'll hunt you down and wipe your eyes.

Friend at the bottom. SHE had a little note, my boyfriend in his best friend, remember seeing you there too. That's letter number one. Then the next day, on march second, SHE writes IT, none. Another letter, this one's typed its chat.

Er talks about the gossip in school, the bits and pieces of evidence about the crime that are circulating, what the students are saying, what the teachers are saying about her visit to his house. Quote, your brother's are nice. I don't think I met your mother.

I think I met your dad. Does he have a big gay beard? They gave me and just in soda and cake, there's a little bunch of people at your house.

I didn't know who they were. I also didn't know that muslim take their shoes off in the house. Thank god didn't make me take mind off. My stinky feet probably would have knocked everyone out cold.

Why haven't you told anyone about talking to me in the library? He asked them, did you think I was an important? You didn't think that I would remember, or did you just totally forget yourself?

Announced now that he does, in fact, remember seeing asia's in the library and think he remembers about IT is so high school asia used to go out with a nonce friend Justin and Justin had confided that asia was a proper Young lady, in other words, just wasn't getting any, so would not remembers thinking he would not to tease Justin about seeing asia with her new boyfriend. Maybe the new guy was getting lucky. Anyway, robbia calls asia up. It's been a year since he wrote the letters, but he agrees .

to me and he told me that day after school, I went to the light public library and adon was sitting at a computer checking email or something. And I SAT down next to him. We hearted chatting. And adam was a very popular boy in schools, is handsome and no popular with the ladies.

So SHE was speaking to him in her boyfriend, shows up a little bit later with a friend, and he said her boyfriend was really angry at her because he is like a, why are you talking to him? You is high school kids know, why are you talking to him as he hitting on you? And SHE remembered specifically that that day he went home with her, which he went to her boyfriend's house with him and they got snowed in and then snowed really heavily that night and um SHE remembered that for the following two days schools closed so he had very special details about um why SHE remembers that day asia rode out an affidavit on .

the spot in IT SHE says SHE in a non spoke for about fifteen to twenty minutes while he was waiting for her boyfriend to give her ride quote, we left around two forty unquote remember hay is supposed to be dead by two thirty six and then the kicker, no attorney has ever contacted me about january thirteenth, one thousand nine hundred ninety nine in the above information.

So benefit of the doubt for a second, maybe IT, none never actually showed the letters to Christinia guitarist, his attorney, sure, he said he did, but who knows? Well, I know deep inside guterres notes on the case, I have boxes and boxes of such stuff. There's this in her handwriting.

Asia plus boyfriend saw him in library to fifteen to three fifteen. Then there's another note date to july thirteenth. S is more than four months after announce arrest.

This is written by one of gujral's law clerks who visited on in jail. Quote, asian celine saw him in the library at three asian boyfriend, saw him two library may have cameras. Why or why was this person never heard from a trial? A solid, non crazy detail oriented alibi witness in a case that so sorely needed alibi witnesses.

I can't ask Christinia guiterrez because he died in two thousand four. So I put that question to a few defense attorneys and they said, well, alibi witnesses can be tRicky, especially if it's just one person, because then IT becomes one person's word over another. Single witness like that can back fire under ross examination, or they might take the juries focus away from the weaknesses in the states case.

So there are conceivable strategic reasons why Christinia catering, as might not have wanted to put asian machine on the stand. But what is inconceivable, they all said, is to not ever contact asia machine, to never make the call, never check IT out, never find out of her story helps or hurts your case. That makes no sense whatsoever.

That is not a strategy. That is a fuck up. When I first heard about the long lost asia letters and the lawyer's mistake, I thought, well, there are.

Fight is over, right? They've got an alibi witness who has never heard from. It's such a slam dunk they've done.

It's such a slam dunk they're done. Announce family harried a new attorney who filed a petition in court based on the asia affidavit. His argument was that announced trial could have turned out differently if guitars had checked out asia story.

And so a none should get some form of what's called post conviction relief. The new lawyer figures he'll get asia to come to the hearing, shall vouch for her story. By this time, asia had finish school and moved away. He finds in address on the west coast, tries calling, sending messages, nothing.

Finally, he writes a letter tour, gives you to a private investigator who goes out to asia's house and hopes delivering IT asia's fiancee, comes to the door, opens at part way, tells the investigator that he cannot speak to asia, but that from what he knows of, announce case, a one is guilty and deserve the punishment he got. Later, the investigator gets a call from the first, say, we don't have to talk to you, leave us alone. So announce lawyer calls off the search for asia, figuring once a witness turns on you like that, it's too risky to keep pushing.

And then IT announce hearing on the new petition. IT comes out that asia had done the very thing they dreaded. Asia had called one of the prosecutors in announced case again in Kevin york and undermined her own statement. This is from a recording of the hearing. Mister yuk is testifying on the witness stand.

A Young lady name, asia economy.

And what did you say?

He was concerned because he was being asked questions about an acid. David sh'd written back at the time of the trial. SHE told me that sh'd only written IT because he was getting pressure from the family, and SHE basically wrote IT to please them and to get .

them puffer back. IT was, I don't know what, how to her and why he would do this.

Here's robby again. He says it's not true that asia was bullied into writing that statement fifteen years ago, and SHE can't father why asia would discredit her own statement like that.

I don't know why they were. The affidavit was written early. I mean, i'm in a tourney.

I'm a license attorney. I work on homeless security age. Like I have no reason to make something like this up. You know, I didn't mean no SHE existed until until after the conviction. So why didn't think happened?

why? Why would they have this sort of violent reaction to helping out? And now.

now I don't know. IT was just really odd.

So who knows what would have happened if asia shown up? Maybe IT wouldn't have made a difference. After all, they had the original letters and the affair, David, that's all that should have mattered. Red, but IT didn't look good to be natural for the judge to wonder, why can't the defense produces asia person? Why is he making this call to a prosecutor?

I mean, anyone would wonder, I wondered, I wondered if maybe he was pressured into writing that affidavit, and I wondered if he was hiding something like, maybe she's lied in those nineteen ninety nine letters. Maybe SHE didn't really see anna at the library that day, and I just wanted to insert her herself and is something exciting. And maybe now that he was grown up, SHE wanted nothing to do with any of IT.

So three, four months after I had first SAT down with robbia, i'd become fixated on finding asia. I like a blood on on this thing, because the whole case seemed to me to be teetering on her memories of that afternoon. I have to know if I none really was in the library at two thirty six P.

M. Because if he was, a library equals innocent, it's so manning ly simple. And maybe I can crack IT if I can just talk to asia. I write her a long, gentle pleading letter and send IT off to an address I find online. I'm calling people who know her or who I think might know her.

I'm checking the same loop of facebook my life linked in sites over and over trawling for clues about where he might be or how he might think. If you're wondering why I went so nuts on this story versus some other murder case, the best I can explain is this is the one that came to me. IT wasn't halfway across the world or even next door.

IT came right to my lap. And if I could help get to the bottom of IT, should I try, I start running down all the other information in asia's one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine letters, SHE mentioned there were security cameras inside the library. So my producer, I went to see the very nice manager there are Michelle, was their security system back in ninety nine that could have been checked at the time?

probably. Ly, yes, i'm going to say.

and what system was that?

I have no idea.

I was an old system. Yeah, you think probably video. IT was video, and that was part of set up. Every morning you put a video tape in. So and when you guys recycling the video tapes, yes, I think IT ran for, you know, week.

So you had a monday tape or tuesday tape or wednesay tape, and so what? So so even if on the very day that asia had written her first letter, a nonza layer had run out to find the security tape, IT probably would have been nonexistent by then. But what about the computer and I was supposedly using to check his email to use the computer? Did people have to sign in, like, write their name down? They did.

And what was the system there? A piece of paper and pencil, those, by any chance, weren't logged meticulously and kept for fifteen years. Were they? No former.

We had nothing. Then there was the mystery of asia's boyfriend Derek and his friend jaad. All winter in spring, every time I want to ball tomorrow, I went to Derek mom's house looking for him and to jar's window tinting business.

And then finally, right, so you are Jerry Johnson. Yes, you don't know how excited we are to be talking to. I've been looking for you for like four months. You didn't do anything, but we are hoping maybe you remember red this moment on january thirteen th, nineteen ninety nine.

Do you have have any memory by any miracle, that you went to woodlawn public library branch near wood land high school to pick up asian machine with your friend deric? I have no idea. Asian, my plane, is that a person or book? That's a person? No, no.

Recollection of IT scratched jad.

Deric was my last hop. Eventually economy home. Considering I woke him up, he was succeedin ly curious. He shows me a photo oasis on him, all dressed up. They did in most of senior year.

What's up here?

You guys both are really beautiful.

Yeah, that's my age. yeah. But there couldn't .

remember that day either. shocking. I know he used to pick asia up from school almost every day, then, either from the library or from the front of the school. And he says he spoke to a lot of .

her friends just to be polite and it's is very possible that um could spoke to the gentlemen and her on that day um but it's very hot to remember you know fifteen years later but IT sounds you know very IT sounds like this stuff we could have had. I don't think age is not the type of person I would like just she's definitely not the type person know to get involved with a lie you know she's not that type of person so SHE IT seemed pretty credible to me.

One day I get a call on my cell phone from a blocked number. You guess that asia? I wish I could say that my charming, persuasive letter is what prompted isa a call. But the truth is, SHE never got my letter. I had the wrong address, but SHE was calling because I had followed up weeks later with a one line email, and he was .

responding to that a little confused. I mean, I have a couple minutes of you or jd brought IT.

I recorded our conversation on the cell, which is why the sound quality is so bad. Sorry about that. Asia is now, a thirty three year old stayed hot mother, and he has not spent the last fifteen years worrying about IT none and whether he's guilty.

I trust the courses and security diligence. And I because that, I mean, I was never, I was never question. I was never informed of anything pertaining to the case. I don't know why he was convicted.

asia said. He was spoke when the private investigator came to her house. I don't know if that's why SHE didn't testify the hearing or why SHE made the call of the prosecutor, but he told me that when he got the knock at the door quote, that was not cool.

Because to her, if I none did, do IT quote, the last thing you want is a murder of being pissed at you, knowing where you live. But you had a remarkably clear memory of what happened on generate thirteen, one thousand and ninety nine. SHE had an internship at the time, and so he got out of school much earlier than everyone else. Derek was supposed to come gathered the library along with dadd, but they're very late. Remember seeing a non come in after willin let out for the day.

I don't think he found at the and like we are like really cold friends or anything like that. But you know we and you know we knew each other and you know, we just candidate whatever. And I can't remembers, I think, much to ask him how he was doing to whatever. And he said online and you know, he told me that he, man, hey, I broke and I was like, all that, that's a bombing and I was like, what happened and he was like, all worth SHE SHE in his right some, you know but he was really tell about IT he is IT was just like, you know what you know, you don't go of you with me and as I you I just wish the best home that kind of attitude.

And i'm not sure why asian memory of this interaction is so clear all these years later. My best guess that because he wrote IT down at the time in those letters than the affidavit, that the details somehow stuck. Do you remember what time you were talking this would have happened in the library to remember what time that conversation would have happened?

I don't because I go school, let out around two fifteen. So finally. Thirty.

because you had said you got out of school earlier than other people. So were you there? Were you at the library before? Two fifteen?

Oh, I, I have been at a for a few hours.

Oh, well, 哦。

yeah. I was pretty tips when there showed up and and you know and he asked me who who add on a you know you know the enter boy language like and I said, don't start me because you you know you a few hours. I remember that day that was the the day that is snowed.

Where there snowed after that, do you remember?

I want to say that what is because that was I think that was like the first snow of the year. I wouldn't have even to remembered if I had in the end of the snow. And the, you know, I just remember being so pressed about there, being late and snowed in his house. And there was the first snow in that year. The snow is important.

He disappeared on a wednesday that night. There was a huge ice storm, which is unusual in maryland. IT ended up being a state emergency in school, was closed for the rest of the week.

Asia started asking me questions about the case. Wasn't their DNA evidence? And what exactly was jays part in the whole thing? SHE wasn't sure none was guilty, SHE said. Things i've now heard from so many people sense he seemed lucky cared about, hey, he didn't seem angry or upset. I thought .

there was more proof that day I did, you know, I just started itself, you know, I mean.

yeah.

if you want to be innocent, office composure at that moment, I would say innocent. I mean, i'm thirty two years old now, and I know that, you know, there's people out there, people of I can keep the condemn, you know, yeah, and I know there are people who, without our moments, notice in two thousand, and you know, they regret so I, you know what mean yeah, even now you would .

be nice .

if there was some technical that would prove is invent great, you know, one less evil person I met in my life.

But I think I think asia, like you might be that technically to suit. I mean, like your if you're saying you saw him on this day at that time, that means the state's timeline for their this their whole theory of the case doesn't make .

any sense with the first .

really because they're saying he was in the car with her at the very time that you are saying. Now some of the library we were talking to animi like that's exactly the window where they're .

saying he was murdered in case .

you couldn't hear that IT was a sigh. And I completely understand that, sigh, how I feel a lot of the time, because I talked to a non regularly and he just doesn't seem like a murderer.

Few minutes after I hung up with asia, a non called on schedule, i'm good. I'm good. I so I was just talking to .

asia machine OK. You .

don't sound very excited.

I do. I mean, I I am. I really know of this was .

not the reaction I expected. I felt like I just interviewed in every build woodpecker when I told IT non what asia remembered instead of being excited and non said IT was .

heartbreaking. On a personal level, i'm happy because you know that i'm not making this up and at least is nothing else. I can like at least someone, others.

And rob, you knows that you know, this is take place. Anything that kind of support what i'm standing to be the truth. And I did do this.

So from the legal perspective is like, I wish he would accelerate this realization, maybe like a year and a half go. You do have mean because is kind of like, you know you. I'm sorry. I mean, I definite appreciate you. I definitely think you always and I feel like unto.

no, no, I mean, I see, I totally, I see, I see what you're saying. I hadn't thought about IT in that way. When I told robbi i'd talk to asia, SHE immediately burst into tears because they were all correct. IT was too late.

The judge ruled on a non petition a few weeks before I spoke to asia, denied the judge ruled in his opinion that Christino guitar's decision not to use asian mccane as in alibi ness was strategic after all, asian original letters didn't specify exact time, and guitar's could have reasonably concluded that asia was offering to lie in order to help anna and finally he wrote asian letter, contradicted a on's own alii asia says he saw at the public library, but annan said he was on the school campus the whole afternoon. Maybe the judges didn't understand that with lan, library is basically part of the campus, but anyway is a story that is legally worthless. A witness who says he saw you at the exact moment when the state contends you were strangers.

Ling, a Young woman in a car is worthless. A few days after I spoke to asia, he wrote me an email I ve been thinking a lot about a non SHE wrote all this time, I thought the courts proved IT was a none that killed her. I thought he was where he deserved to be.

Now i'm not so sure hey was our friend too. And IT sucks feeling like you don't know who really killed your friend. Hey was the sweetest person ever if he didn't kill, hey, we owe to him to try to make that clear.

And if he did kill her, then we need to put this arrest. I just hope that anna is in some sick baster just trying to manipulate his way out of jail. I rode back. Believe me, i'm on exactly the same page.

Coming up this season on cereal.

I think that there are other people involved, like maybe, I think maybe he was set up, I think .

clear, good. Something wasn't good. Strange you, for anybody basically threatening me, like, you know, what happens to, hey, this is gonna happen to you.

That's how I felt that day. What are you thinking right now? You have the same smile idea. I'm literally thinking like, like, could he have gone crazy?

Say me he was being black male. I E at not new to j quoted police. Like.

if this works and he I mean every question we've had for the past eight months, he knows that .

yeah I mean, who else did IT you know others like i'm not a suspect.

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