Serial S01 - Ep. 12: What We Know
54:25 Share

Brought to you by the capital one venture x card are unlimited two x miles on everything you buy and turn everyday purchases into extraordinary trips, plus receive premium travel benefits like access to over thirteen hundred airport lounges es and a three hundred dollar annual credit for bookings through capital one travel, unlike a whole new world of travel with the capital one venture acx card, what's in your wallet terms apply large access is subject to change. See ital one outcome .

for details .

previously. I right now at this point, you know why he's leaving the car with you. yes. And why is that you going to kill him? definitely. I understand that someone could look at this and say, oh, you know, he must be lying. It's so he told .

me to speak good, jay. And I was like, okay, because they wanted to say hi, so I said hi to j.

and that's all I can really recall the uselessness. Ss, of what we're trying to do by recreating something that doesn't fit. It's like trying to plot the cornett of someone's dream .

or something. You know, I have not never been able to explain IT, and IT is what IT is if someone believes me or not. You know, I have no control over.

This is a global tAllent prepaid call from. And in made that a mary in the correctional facility is.

From this american life and W B E Y chicago is cereal, one story told week by week. And this episode twelve is the final week, final episode of season one of this podcast. It's been a year since I first contacted at none, and i'm still talking to him regularly.

I'm still asking him the basics, still thinking I don't know that he'll remember something or maybe he'll just get so frustrated with me that i'll crack. I still want to know what you were doing that afternoon. I want to know who had your phone, and I want to know what you were doing that afternoon.

I don't, I don't remember anything more.

This is from saturday night, just this past saturday. I mean, we're down to the wire here, man.

So you don't really have my I have. You already have no ending like this is.

I mean, do I have an ending?

Of course, I have an ending. We're going to come to an ending today, plus smattering of new information, a review of old information cast under different light, and an ending, in case you haven't noticed, my thoughts about announce case about who is lying and why have not been fixed over the course of this story. Several times I have landed on a decision.

I've made up my mind and stayed there with relief. And then inevitably, I learned something I didn't know before, and i'm abandon. Sometimes the reversal takes a few weeks.

Sometimes that happens within hours. And what's been astonishing to me is how the back and forth hasn't let up after all of this time, even into this very week. And I kid you not into this very day that i'm writing this because i'm learning new information all the time.

For instance, I talked to down eight months ago, he told me he did not wanna talk to me for the story. And then last week he talked to me for the story. He didn't want me to use tape of his voice or his last name, but he said I could use what he said spoiler here done does not appear to know what happened to hey, or why IT happened to her, or whether IT none is guilty.

But IT was interesting to hear what he said he remembered about the day he disappeared and about her and about the trial. Here's what he told me. Don said, hey, was at his house in a town north about tomorrow city on the night of january twelve of the night before he went missing, he says he wanted to spend the whole next day with them too.

He wanted him to call with on high school and pretend to be some authority figure till the office hay couldn't be in school that day. He wanted IT to be an excused absence rather than just playing hockey, but he didn't. He says he thought he should go to school.

And besides, he told her he had to work the next day at nine am. IT was supposed to be his day off from the land's crafters at the owings mills mall, where they both worked. But don said he arranged ed to fill in for a friend at the store, and hut valley done, said he inhaled, made plans to meet up later that night of the thirteenth after her work shift ended at ten P.

M. When the cops recovered his car, there was a note inside with down's name on IT. Hey, qty, sorry, I couldn't stay.

I have to go to a restless match at rand's town high, but I promise to page you as soon as I get home. Okay, till then, take care and drive safely. always.

Hey, in A P, S. On the note, he mentions A T, V interview that had been taped that day. A local station had done a student athlete segment honour. So the note was written on the thirteen the day you went missing. This note was one of the reasons I initially written to down way back when sorry, I couldn't stay is confusing.

I didn't understand what he planned to do with the note, put him on his car maybe, but his car was so far away in hunt valley, but the note stumped down too. He said he didn't know about until I sent IT to him, and he didn't never guess as to what her plan was for that afternoon when he went missing. Done was one of the first people the cops called.

He says he knew immediately he'd be a suspect. He said, quote, that was the first thought when they said she's missing, I said, well, okay, they're onna, try to blame me on me because he was with me last night. I'm the new boyfriend obviously going to be one of the first suspects me in a non and quote, he said he immediately made sure he knew where he was quote, when someone calls you up and tells you, have you seen this person? They went missing.

They having been since in school, you automatically retrace everything you did that day. Did I see them? Did I hear from them? Did they page me that they call me? Where was I at this time? What was I doing at that time? And quote, maybe you're all noting, as I did, that that wasn't a non's stated reaction to getting called by the cops on the thirteenth.

I attempted to make a judgment right here, but i'm gona pull a benefit of the doubt because a none was seventeen. He was stoned. He's a different person, but noted, right? Also note, however, there was one similarity, how they reacted to his disappearance.

Know how a non e says he doesn't remember calling hey after the thirteen th, because who else doesn't remember trying to call hey after the third th down? Like everyone else, he said he wondered whether maybe she's gone to california. SHE told him her father lived there, he says, is something he didn't think about.

What had happened or didn't worry is just that he didn't know what to do. Dance alii was solid. His computer generated time card said he arrived at work at nine o two A M on the thirteen th, taking lunch from one ten to one forty two clocked out at six P M.

But dance manager at the hunt belly store was his mom, so that didn't look great, dan said he was anxious throughout the investigation. Quote, they never, up until the day they arrested in none, I had no idea what was going on. And he said they never said, okay, you're cleared as a suspect.

IT was left hanging. And until they arrested him, I had no idea. I suspected they might try to say that we were in on IT together. I didn't know jay existed until I start listening to the podcast. Don had met a non once, according to his diary.

IT was december twenty third as a snowy day, and she's had a minor car accident on the way to work, and sh'd called the non to come helper out. They were broken up by this time, but he came to the rescue in the parking lot outside land's crafters. A non and don converged hay rights quote dand annon took a look at my car and told me not to drive IT unanimously.

Mom is gonna so mad, but I swear it's not my fault. And quote told the cops back then that he none had a perfectly nice conversation, a trial, he said, had none said something. Them like, okay, well, I just want to make sure you are an OK guy.

Don't told me the same quote. We SAT and talked. And just as everyone else described him, he was very polite, articulate, just really the typical what you would expect of the x boyfriend meeting the new boyfriend, sizing each other up.

We joked we spent a good ten fifteen minutes talking after we checked out the car. A trial for whatever reason, this episode is firmly time stamp as having happened in january after hand on his start dating, though it's clear from the diary was december twenty third in any case, dance testimony at both trials. His states witness is milk toast.

He just says, yeah, I met him. He was cordial, which made me wonder why the state even called on. And according to don, prosecutor Kevin in europe might have been wondering the same thing.

Don said, quote, when I testified, they pulled me in a back room, and let me tell you how fun that was of the prosecutor afterwards yelling at me because I did not make a non sound creepy. He said, they want to me to make a sound creepy, so creepy that I felt intimidated, which I did not at nine. He just, he was very personable.

He was funny. He was everything that I already said. He was somebody that I would have hung out with a finne in school. And quote, dance memory is that eura yielded him after both the first and second trial.

Oh, he was, I rate done said, when I say yelling, he was literally yelling about IT at me, iran, this by Kevin euch, but he said he was not authorize to talk about the case. Done says he loved her, that he still loves her. It's not something that goes away, he said, even though they only officially dated for thirteen days, he said he meant a lot to him.

He was totally unshed, he said, confident SHE pursued him, he said for all of december, whenever he saw at work, he said sh'd asked him when he was gonna take out constantly. SHE asked him, followed him into the lunch room on his brake. Peter them.

He was dating someone else at the time, but then that ended. And so on new year's eve, they made their first date. For the next day, he fell for a pretty quickly, he says that you could not not like this girl.

He was aggressive, intelligent, assertive as a Better word than aggressive, generally nice person. Anything i've heard anybody say about our sense is not like, oh, I don't want to talk bad about the dead is just being honest. It's the hard for me to explain if you didn't like her, you didn't like her because he was so likeable, but then you couldn't even be annoyed.

Buyer, because he wasn't annoying. SHE was charming. Don said, hey, actually changed them, changed the way he thought about himself.

He said he'd come off a couple of bad relationships. Girls who had cheated on him, quote SHE, basically in no uncertain terms, told me to knock IT off. He said that I am worth, that I have worth.

I don't remember the words he used. I can't partha asit at this point, but I am worth having self a steam that I should think that I am good enough. And I took IT to heart, especially after I found out that he had died unquote.

I'm sorry that donate so late in the game here, but I didn't even know that this existed so friday.

Yeah, that's okay. No, that's OK. Here's another guy I just heard from and speaking him all the sudden I was hearing jay's perspective, at least this guy's perspective of jays perspective.

He was scared, I mean, like, terrified. This guy's .

name is josh. He asked that I not uses last name. He said he worked with j at southwest video, the porn store. Josh was twenty one at the time.

They weren't close friends, as he said, but josh would give jay rides and they're smoke weed together, hang out a little bit. Judge said that on the night was first picked up by the cops, so laid at night on february twenty seventh into the morning of the twenty eight. Jay called him at home and asked him to come into the store because he didn't want to be alone. He was that scared.

He was, I mean, frightened out of his mind. And none of the police, like they were, the the secondary ary fear. I mean, he he was afraid to go in a jail, but not like like he was afraid of of that man. I guess I say.

I don't know, I know and none.

That's IT.

Josh a says jay actually never told him a non's name. But josh a, listen to the podcast. So he knows the name now, but back then he didn't. He says jay told him he was afraid that people were after him. People connected to the murderer .

across the street from the video store was A A parking walk for the amtrack commuter trains, and the parking lot was usually employ in the evening. Well, that particular night there was a van in that barking lot, which i'm pretty positive, had nobody in IT. But j was A, I mean, like he was almost in tears. Yeah, he didn't want to go outside. He even even want to look out the door because he really thought the van that was across the street was like people waiting to get him.

But the people are talking about like is IT only in retrospect CT that you that you're thinking it's like announced people .

or did he say that to you and he said IT was, I guess that none had threatened him.

right? But you're saying you didn't know he'd never told you the name of the per. I'm just trying to imagine, is IT possible that IT was somebody else entirely who he was afraid of?

Yeah, I mean, I guess that could have been. But I mean, whoever he was afraid of is obviously the person that committed the crime.

right? But so i'm saying, did you did he express to you at the time that this was a person with pakistani relative or oh, he did.

He said that of the time. Yeah, he definitely said, yeah, he definitely said that he was somebody. The guy was bit eastern.

Josh says. J told him I was the x boyfriend who had killed her. He was Joshua impression that j had called the cops himself that night because he told judge, the cops are coming to get him, and he seemed anxious that I was taking them so long to get there. Judge says j was passing checking is watch that he kept asking him to look outside and see if the van was still there. A trial, j testifies that the cop showed up at the video store on their own that he didn't know they were coming in his taped interview with the police that same night for every twenty eighth, jay doesn't mention a White van or that he's terrified of announced people, but he does tell the cops said he had talked to a none either yesterday or the day before and that a none was threatening him in a general way. Here's tape from that february twenty eight .

interview detective rit talks first conversation I yesterday and and the most recent conversation you had with them, yeah, I was the content of that conversation. I warned that you guys looking for me and how did you burn that? Why people told me, my mine told me, did you got become of questioning? And so I went to him and I said, you know, you get me there.

And he just told this time, now everything can be okay. Where does this conversation take place? I believe one of my house, other than you say, no, what would you do want to give me right?

open. What did he say? He just told me. And nothing going to happen. They know the ship and.

Anything else set down .

that conversation.

He told me in using body, I mean. I should be involved like activity and people want to. West star, he told me, did did just a way.

He told me, what did you knew? The west star hit me. I will call IT the right. You let me know in a right about what what if you say something a place that yeah because I told him and I like the one you know. like.

Okay, so the west side hit, man, it's so strange. I find josh's version of jays fear so much more believable than jays version of jays fear, which makes me wonder if it's all just in the delivery. When jay first told josh weeks before that he knew something about the missing girl who was all over the news, judge says he can believe .

him and I said something about, I have not been really involved or whatever, you know and then he's like, no one and you can understand, I helped bury the body and IT seems like he was kind of brag and and and I mean, that's kind of a guide that j was. It's not a he bragging about stuff that he did is sometimes he made up things that he didn't do. And so that's kind of what I thought he was doing now.

Like why would you say that? Like why would you tell somebody that you really don't know that? Well, I guess it's kind of I didn't believe them if I had done and I certainly wouldn't told me right. You know, maybe like my best friend, something like that, but not right, not somebody that you work with that a porn store.

The version of the crime that josh says, jay eventually told him is pretty close to the that jay friend Chris told me too that jay was out somewhere and that had none came to him and showed him the body and said something to the effect of you got ta help me. George says he can't remember where j said he was when this happened, but he is certain the words best by were never attached to the story.

Josh went to that best by all the time, and he says he definitely won't remembered that. He said when he heard in the podcast that Chris had mention the pool half thing that sounded right to him, but he can't say for sure. Judge says he also had the impression like Chris, but IT had all gone down later in the day, not mid afternoon.

George says at first they seemed afraid the cops were gonna figure out he was involved through fingerprints or DNA or something. But that is time when on he seemed more and more afraid of the guy who did IT that he was threatening steffani IT was you Better keep your mouth shot else he says jay told him the threats were getting more forceful to josh j was so not the type to be involved in a murder. Maybe tried to act tough, he said, but he wasn't.

He said himself had friends who got in serious fights or who'd been locked up for grand theft auto. But jay was not in that category at all. He said he was a nice guy.

He just wasn't. He wasn't. The paper guide 也 that you really got the sense could do something real。 He wasn't a killer and he wasn't a dog. If anything, he was kind of the opposite like he seemingly he was in way over his head.

Yeah but I don't know.

I member feeling bad form and did was at any point I mean.

I don't me to sound judgement something, but IT was any point where you like will go, you should go tell the cops and if you know who did this, go tell the PS.

No, not really. I know I fry what I should have said, but I didn't really believe him. And like I said, when IT comes to like reputation on the street, you don't want to be the guy is like gogo snitch, you know, you don't want anybody to see your week and all that stuff. And so I didn't ever say go to the cops because, I mean, that would be like a bit thing. The deal judge .

says what never quite made sense to him when he never entirely understood was why j would help, but none. Barry, hey.

even call the cops. Definitely import gravity shovel and help them take great.

I know, I know, I know that's that's it's hard about the story is you just figure out like there's something that's not computing here?

Yeah, it's definitely never sounded right, which is why I never believed him until the cops actually picked up.

Judge has the only remembers seeing j one more time. After that, he thinks maybe jj came by the store to pick up his check. And when josh asked him so what happened, josh says jay told him he could not talk about IT.

In preparation for this episode, Julian dena, the producers of this show, went back over everything we had, all the police files, the attorney files, the interviews i've done, the cell records. They did one final sweep, just to be sure we'd wade everything. And because all details can have startling new meaning, after a year's worth of researchers behind us, they came across a couple of things they wanted me to know.

First and foremost, initial call. I'd asked them, is there any other viable explanation for the niche? A call on a non cell record here, july.

We had always been under the impression that the nica cw was a noway around IT call. IT looks terrible for IT looks terrible for him and it's two minutes and twenty two seconds.

Remind you the nica call is the one that happens at three thirty two P. M. On january thirteen. Th is said that girl and none had been floating with who live in your silver spring. And the nastia call is the one that's always stuck out to me.

And I think to most people who've looked at in n's case closely, because IT happens on the afternoon, that hate disappeared at a time when a none has said, insisted even that he was not with his phone, that jay had his phone while he was in school. Jane told the detectives that a none had called some girl in silver spring that afternoon and briefly put down the phone with her. And that's why the call is so important.

Not only does IT put a non together with his phone in the middle the afternoon, IT puts a non together with j in the middle of the afternoon. IT corroborates jays story i've always had some suspicion about this call because nisha said to the cops and at trial that there was a day when none put his frenzy on the phone, but nisha has consistently said IT happened toward the evening at the video store where they worked. Jay didn't have the video store job on generate thirteen.

He started that job at the end of the month. So I never bought the idea that the thirteenth was the day he talked to jay. But even so, IT didn't look good for a non because who was calling niche in middle the afternoon then? Jin nissa.

So for me, this call has remained one of the pillars of the case against a non. That's what truly means when he says no way around IT. But now I think the initial all might be moving from the noway around that this sloots bad for a non column into.

Now i'm not so sure a nonscience nichols number was programmed into his cell phone. So he's always at me. Maybe the button got pushed accidentally like a buddle.

And then the answering machine picked up the problem with that explanation, besides how convenient IT sounds for none, is that there was no answers machine on that line. That's what nisha says. A trial.

This call shows up, not just on the call log, but on announced A N T. bill. He got charged for IT.

So this was our quest, or really don july's quest, to find out is IT possible. This call would have shown up in announce bill, even if IT went unanswered. This proved so elusive.

First, we got one answer than another than another than another. A nt was not helping us. Then finally, they generally figured out exactly what they needed to answer this question in A T N T customer service agreement. Circa nineteen ninety nine, they found one in a class action lawsuit against A T N T that included as an exhibit the very document we needed.

Luckily, the class action lost was filed in new york, so da was able to go down to the a and .

that's the photo you sent.

This is the old records department, is in new york supreme court, or something like that?

yeah. IT looked like like the mad had like the archive. Were you the first humanoid who'd come down .

and like planer? Yeah, they were like.

what news do you bring? So dinner goes down there, pulls the service agreement, takes pictures of the contract since the first picture, the first picture said on the contract that says we do not build for unanswered calls.

meaning the niche a call had to have been answered because IT shows up on the bill, but there was fine print to the fine print, and when didn't flip through the contract to the last page, SHE found a loophole. The looper says att won't charge for unanswered calls unless the call isn't terminated within a quote, reasonable time.

So if you call someone in IT rings and rings and don't hang up within a reasonable time, A N T will charge you for that call even if it's unanswered. So what is a reasonable amount of time, or rather an unreasonable amount of time? That loophole actually still exists today.

And the unreasonable amount of time today is thirty seconds or longer. They'll charge. We saw one contract from ninety nine that specified sixty seconds or longer. So IT stands to reason that two minutes probably covered. They probably did charge.

The folks at T, N T told us the only reason of contract would have varied back then in ninety nine was if the state had passed particular legislation to address IT. We didn't find anything in the maryland rules about IT. So after all this work, we feel pretty confident that N T would have charged for a call that rang and rang for more than two minutes in maryland in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine.

So either way, it's if it's two minutes and twenty two seconds, it's probably unreasonable. It's probably it's unreasonable. I'm time to be listening to a phone ring, I ve got to say, without being answered.

So it's an unreasonable amount of we're going and to trying to figure out.

I know that's a long and perhaps way to detailed wave explaining IT, but all this adds up to something important. IT means the niche a call could conceivably have been a buddle that no one answered. IT means there isn't only one explanation for the nica call alternative scenario IT could be that a non called ntia or IT could be that jay was with somebody else you called nsa, or maybe j or someone else called nisha by accident, a butt dial. And no one was ever the wiser because no one ever picked up. And if there are alternative scenarios, then that means the list of things we know actually, definitively know facts we can show about the evidence against a non that list just got shorter.

In a way, the only hard evidence in the case against adnan is his cell phone record for january thirteen th. That's what the cops and prosecutors used to corroborate his statements. So dana, Julie looked at that same record all over again.

The call log and the cell tower map teased all apart to see if they could figure out what happened, to figure out if there was anything else I could know about what jane. Non, we're doing that dead. We've talked about the colleague a lot already.

We already knew I didn't match jay's explanations of where they went and when, but when july looked again, SHE realised when he tried to assign the calls some sembLance of a narrative. Her picture of the day crumble even more. Instead of answering any of her questions, the colleague raised bigger ones, such as, was everyone lying about that day? My original question, going into this whole endeavor, this whole story, was either jays lying or red nose lying.

But what if it's not either? Or what if it's both? And the college evidence is screwy right from the beginning. Jay said that when he in a non met up that morning, when a non drove over to jays to give him his car, they're gone shopping at the mall. Anna has said various things, but not that they went shopping.

What seems most likely, according to what anna told his torney at the time, is that IT none hang out with j until about twelve forty five one P. M, and then went back to school. There's a twelve seven call and a twelve forty one call.

The first pings a tower out west in elective city. The next pings a tower back east toward bolt mall city. They're pretty far apart from each other.

And Julie going to eliminate city and then going into bolt, more safety, where the phone is pinging off of like area, area which is actually sort of near .

drug strips.

where his car was dumped, that sort of area of bottom that's not mentioned by adnan. So I don't remember what we did. I know we didn't go shopping. I'm not really sure I feel more concerned and suspicious. I feel suspicious OK of being like ha, because I can see where I can see where the phone was moving I know jays story about security square mall is not true right because of the phone if they had the phone um but I don't think good .

none is true either .

yeah and and can I also add that at one point jane says the detective that he remembers one of those phone calls. He answered and talked to jay and jane said that he was downtown was a none .

the prosecutor at trial said, we don't really know what they were doing but IT doesn't matter because hey was in school at that time alive and that's true. But still the phone record tells us that there's something they're not telling us why and is IT related to what happened later? The next call is the incoming two thirty six call, the supposed best buy call from the phone booth that were pretty solidly convinced.

Wasn't that come and get me call. I do have something i'm going to update there. We have not found evidence of a phone booth outside the best buy on the sidewalk like j jazz in is map for the cops, but we have now seen two animals.

Tal reports that there was a payphone inside the vestibule. We haven't been able to verify these reports, but we did get a look at the one hundred and ninety four architectural plans for that best buy. And indeed, on the plans, there's a tiny little rectangle in the vestibule on the left as you walk in labeled python.

So maybe there was one inside. Anyway, back to the call logue. Julie spent a long time thinking about the three twenty one call.

IT opened a whole new mystery for her because it's confusing on about three different levels. It's an outgoing call from a non cell to gene house phone. Jay and jane both talk about some call that afternoon that comes into her land line. Someone supposedly looking for jay.

Jane says he remembers jay getting phone calls well as at her house, jay says he remembers getting phone calls while at the house. Both of them also references a land line call. Jay says, I get a call on the land line.

and that's when I leave. Meaning, right, this incoming landline call is a non calling in looking for jay.

why would IT none be calling you on the land line? The whole point of him giving you the cell phone was so that he could call you on the cell phone. IT doesn't make any sense. But there is a three, twenty one call made from the cell phone. Two genes house.

Here's the second confusing thing. J eventually told the cops the three twenty one call was a call he made to jan, asking if you knew whether this guy, Patrick, was around. J, was looking for weed from Patrick.

Je, by the way, just to fight. This never would have happened. The jay would never call her asking about Patrick, but anyway, and here's the third thing, the confusing kicker. Both j and jan also say jay was a jen's house until about three forty five pm. That day.

That also has always confused me. If jay still at jen's house until three forty five, how is he calling jen's house at three twenty one, why would he be calling the house that he's sitting in?

Unless that none has the phone.

unless he doesn't have the phone.

unless he doesn't have the phone.

I'm not saying who has the found. I have no idea who has the found, but IT leads me to believe that there is a possibility that he doesn't have the phone.

So what's the evidence that jay does have the phone? Jen tells the police that he saw jay with the phone that afternoon. He is an image of the cell phone in her mind sitting on the coffee table at her house.

But at three twenty one, the tower that's paint isn't the one that covers jen's house. If jay doesn't have the phone though, then who has the phone? And more to the point, if jay doesn't have the phone, then what was going on that afternoon? Then I have no idea what was going on.

There are discrepancies unresolved like this all throughout the afternoon and evening, right up into the end of the night when there big one, we noticed that right at the beginning. And while he knows attorney does bring IT up a trial, no one dwells on IT too long. But it's odd jane in jail held different stories about where he picked him up on the night of the thirteenth and about where and when they got rid of jays closed and boots je says he picked j up at west view mall where he said none too.

Jay says that didn't happen. He says he picked him up at his house and that he dumped his closed that same night. The thirteen, the first time he tells that, he says he threw them out in the trash at his own house. But jen says he enjoy tosses closing some dumpsters the next day, though they've been a terrible ice storm happening that maybe, anyway, pretty different stories .

and IT has a been reconciled and they actually sort of both kinds dig in on IT.

Yeah.

I know IT to IT and I somebody y's wrong and I don't believe it's an oversight, but I cannot work my head around what is the what is the lie that is minimizing?

What right?

What's the utility of? Yes, what's the utility of which lie? Yeah.

you can apply that same question. What's the utility of which lie to this entire case? There's so much that as markey, all you can do at a certain point is speculate.

And believe me, we have dinner and Julie, I speculate about all sorts of things like crazy. We speculate. Rest assured that in the privacy of our office, we've turned over every possibility, no matter how remote.

Ninety nine percent of what we speculate I cannot report because, well, we can back IT up its speculation. But here's one I can tell you we've recently discussed. We loop to looped all the way back to motive.

I know I dismissed the mode of the state supplied way back in episode too, but we put that back on the table just to see where IT took us. Here's we got we've always said a none was over the break up and had been a month already. But just for argument sake, let's say he wasn't over IT a now and head broken up and gotten back together a few times.

And when they break up in my december, maybe a none, things sh'll change your mind again. They're still friendly. Several people said to me they couldn't tell her, didn't even know that hand and on a broken up or said, and none was still referring to her as his girlfriend, war said.

He told him he thought they get back together. Dawn said he never quite know what the deal was between them, but judging from his diary by january herrod tic feelings are completely observed by dawn. Remember, their first day is generally first, but maybe a none didn't feel the full force of how she'd moved on until they got back to school after Christmas break.

Here's what dana realized recently that first week of school in ninety nine, a non was absent two out of four days and then friday was a snow day. So maybe he doesn't get IT that he's really lost. Hey, until that first, second week back at school. Here's da.

maybe that's when reality sets in for him and maybe that's one yeah maybe that's when the the emotion tell them .

and so does kind of lose IT .

and so maybe he does kind of lose IT.

But who else says this? Not one of haze or announced friends who might spoke to says they saw like this at the time and they don't even speculate now that their adults, that maybe I could have been like this. So who are we to put this theory forward? This is the very obvious problem with speculation, especially of the emotional variety. You can't prove IT, so you have to drop IT.

So where does this leave us? There's no point in trying to come up with a most likely scenario for what happened to her, because you could posit one hundred scenarios. And so what? Bereft of more facts, Better facts, even the soberest most likely scenario holds no more water than the most hair brain.

In the equation of announce case, all speculation is equally speculative. So instead of most likely, how about most logical? Da has always been very logical about announced case.

She's the mister spock of our staff. Her thing is okay. Let's say he didn't do IT, but if he didn't do IT, then, my god, that guy is ridiculously unlucky. I'm going to let her lay IT out.

But none has always said he was his idea to learn jay the car because he wanted jay to go get steffani E A birthday present, right? So that's pretty crappy luck that you loan this guy who ends up pointing finger of you for the murder that you learned him your car and cell phone the day that your extra friend goes missing. Um the next thing is that IT seems pretty clear to me that had none asked for ride after school because we've got at least two of their friends saying they overheard him ask for a ride from he had none himself the cop that day he asked her for a ride and in jays first interview with the detectives, he says to them non's plan was to get in his car by telling her that his car was broken down in asking her for ride. The the next piece of about luck is the asia call.

I mean, even if the nation call could potentially be a buddle in the room of possibility, maybe was a little, but what are the chances like that sucks for you that your phone, but dial the girl that only you know and would call on this day, that your extra front goes missing, that you happen till loan your car in your phone out to the guy who ends up pointing the finger at you? That sucks. And then the lasting that I think really sucks for him if he's innocent, is the jay story. In the cell phone, records match up from about six o'clock to about eight o'clock, which is when jays saying that you are bearing the body and that the time of the day when you you just have no memory of where you are and you have your dad saying you at the mosque and maybe below your your youth leader who never testifies, who never testified that the trial would testifies in at the venery.

He says he saw him after dark at the mosque on the thirteen th but .

you would none you don't really remember where you were that evening and and that that blank spotted in your memory that's the that's the window of time when jay story actually does seem to be cropped by the cell phone records .

seem to be caborn. Yes, but jays statement only roughly matches the leaking part calls in aoc calls, really roughly the geography matches, but not the timing. But I take her point.

So I guess, I guess IT just in order to make him completely innocent advice, you just have to think about that as, like, you had so many terrible coincidences that day, there were so many, you had such bad locks that day.

And on. A lot of people see IT this way. All of us on staff have heard from people who say just so quickly, oh yes, toy guilty.

News flash, people lie in murder cases on the witness stand, what to do? And we worried that we just spent a year applying excessive scrutiny y to a perfectly ordinary case. So we called jim train in backup.

He's the former homicide detectives. We hurry to review the investigation and we asked him, is a non's case unremarkable? If we took a magnifying glass to any murder case, would we find similar questions, similar holes, similar inconsistencies? Trade m said, no.

He said, most cases, sure, they have some ambiguity, but overall they are fairly clear. This one is a mess. He said, the holes are bigger than they should be. Other people who review cases, lawyers of forensic psychologist, they told us the same thing. This case is a mess.

While we've been rabid holding in our office back out in the world, those lawyers from the universe for genuine of schools of innocence project clinic have been coming up with their own most logical explanation, which couldn't be more different from datas. I haven't reported anything about IT up to now, but over the weekend there was a development of sorts.

So now I can tell you, dear jar and right and her students have emotion in the works to test the D N. A from announce case that wasn't tested, the per kit. That's the swap from his body, the material from under her fingernails, the hair is found on her body.

In emotion like this, you have to give a viable reason to test this stuff. You have to show how IT can potentially exclude ate you. And dangerous reason is he thinks the DNA might match some other guy.

The path to one of these other guys started way back when day and I went down a Charlotte ilm as february mario, one of her students, started looking online for possible signs of a serial killer. Basically, I dotty, told him about another stranger, ling, of a Young woman who was also found in a bolt mour park, different park, one thing LED to another. And he came upon yet another case, cold case.

I stumbled upon A A website that categorize all the on sob murder in bolt, more counting. And he was there, I know your computers not open up for do not. Lee analyse Young, so ci lee, I believe he was also korean.

SHE was twenty seven when he was killed, strangled in her apartment in own's mills. SHE was found on december thirteen and ninety ninety nine, exactly eleven months after hay disappeared. I could see why mario was interested.

So is that you're so will you look into that now? Ah, absolutely. Then months later, I got a message to call dear.

He said he had huge news. Please, please. Hey, it's Sarah. Her huge news, this is attorney huge, not necessarily reporter huge, but anyway, the news was that sh'd spoken to someone in the bolt omo county police department to ask about this unsolved case of analysts. Lee.

so i'm going to tell you quickly because I have to get on this call. IT, he's thirty. OK, so, so I called surgeon something.

Sergeant, something told her that they now had a suspect for this own smells case from fifteen years ago. They tested some old DNA, and a match came back to this other guy who had done other crimes, mostly burglars, ies.

He said, my guy was in prison a lot. And he said he had a really tiny window of being out and about. And he was very active value without and about. And so he said during that time that he was out we linked him to two rapes and a murder and the motives in all of them appear to be burglar but he always .

have sex .

with people OK um and he said that he got out and became active for fourteen months his release state with january one ninety .

nine got right.

So what's .

his name? Wouldn't .

tell .

me his name.

but i'm already he accidentally referred to him as Ronald.

And did he bury his victims?

He I didn't. He was like, I think he felt like he was telling too much. Ready.

dear, or later learned this guy's name was Ronald Moore. Ronal Moore is dead now. He killed himself. But IT seems like he committed lots of crimes. He'd been in prison involving more for a while on assault and burglary convictions.

And according to a baltimore son article in two thousand and seven, he was supposed to get transferred to a different jail in anoroc conney so he could be prosecuted for a different crime. But the bolt more officials released him by accident. He was arrested about a month later in lousianner for burglary.

They figured out who he was and that he was wanted back in maryland. Anyhow, this is the guy the bolt, or county cops, linked through D. N.

A. To the death of analysts in owing smiles. And this is the guy that dear dan, her gangs are naming in their motion to test the DNA from a non's case. It's a long shot that they'll be anything tested in those samples and it's a long shot that if there is IT will match anyone. But hey, and most long shooting of all that if he does match someone else, that someone else happens to be Ronald more when I said that to dear to, though, as I have several times, SHE always shoots right back.

What makes more sense that little seventeen year old never been in trouble with the law and non killed someone? Or that ronal Moore, rapist and murderer who got out of prison thirteen days before he disappeared, but he killed someone, right? I know, I say, but what about jay? He knew where his car he had to be involved.

How does that account for jay? And dearmer says, big picture sera, big picture. Meanwhile, announce post conviction petition is still alive in the mary in court of special appeals. His attorney, Justin Brown, is working on a way to bring the issue of the asia alia.

Before the court again, I spoke to asia recently, SHE told me he stands by her memories of seeing a none that january afternoon in the public library, and SHE stands by her affidavit for post conviction purposes. Asia's s alii is still a big deal. IT sure would seem to point in effective assistance of council.

It's funny though, knowing what we now know about the state's global time eline. And that hate was maybe still alive at two forty five or three P. M.

Asia's library alibi doesn't pack the same punch for me as IT once did. Deora and Justin Brown had been giving a non conflicting advice lately about how best to proceed, what to push for and when. But on saturday, and none finally gave dear to the go ahead to file the emotion to test a DNA IT was an emotional decision for him.

IT is anything about my case, man, I wanna know. IT, you know, say, no one has to. I don't want anyone to be able to say he didn't want to know.

So bom, we want know I wanna and fat. I calmness daders and look with stage. I wanted to the setting.

But i'm the one to asked to this. You guys had a sitting for sixteen years and you never tested IT. It's impossible manufacture to be sitting in there have sixteen years and you guys never tested IT for this? fine. So I wanted tested yeah I wanted see what IT bit. There's nothing about my case and i'm afraid of.

So back to IT nance question. Do I have an ending I was just .

talking about? I am pretty sure he probably people found out like, look, you know you know this you know this case that make look at his family ill. You're going to are you trying to find out these instant, which you're not going to fine because is guilty me I don't think you'll never have one hundred percent or you know i'm saying any type certainty about the only person in the whole world do you have that is me. And I mean for what is work, whoever did IT, 你 用 那边 来 的。

Annon told me all he wanted was to take the narrative back from the prosecution, just as an exercise so people could see his case without makeup on, look at IT in the eye up close and make their own judges. He told me he doesn't think I should wait in.

I think you just go down the medal. I think you shouldn't really take aside and I mean, you know obvious ly than my didn't would have about of these yours but i'm saying, how would you be? You just go down the middle here.

You know, I obviously, you know, have a narrative, but I check these things out. These things, these are the things that look bad against. These are the things that, you know, the state does really have an answer, you know, I mean, and I think in a way, you could even go point for point and in if you leave IT up to the to the .

audience to determine while I appreciate announce blessing to take a powder, i'm not going to day is right to be skeletons. Al, what are the chances one guy got so unlucky that everything lined up against him? Just so because, yes, there is a police file full of information, circumstantial information, that looks bad for a none.

But let's put another file next to that one side by side in that second file. Let's put all the other evidence we have linking and none to the actual crime, the actual killing. What do we have? What do we know not?

What do we think we know? What do we know if the call log does not back up jays story, if the niche a call is no longer set in stone, then think about IT. What do we got for that file? All were left with? Is jane new where the car was? That's IT.

And that all by itself. That is not a story. It's a beginning, but it's not a story. It's not enough to me to send anyone to prison for life, never mind a continual kid, because you me, the state of maryland, based on the information we have before us, I don't believe any of us can say what really happened to, hey, as a jure, I vote to acquit. A non siad, I have to acquit.

Even if in my heart of hearts I think at man killed, hey, I still have to acquit. That's what the law requires of jurors. But i'm not a jr.

So just as a human being walking down the street next week, what do I think if you asked me to swear that I none say that is innocent? I couldn't do IT. I nursed doubt. I don't like that I do, but I do.

I mean, most of the time I think he didn't do IT for big reasons like the utter lack of evidence, but also small reasons, things he's said to me just off the car for moments when he cried on the phone and tried to stifle IT. So I wouldn't hear. And just the bare fact of why on earth, with a guilty man agreed to let me do this story unless he was coachy to the point of delusion.

I used to think that when a non's friends told me, I can't say for sure if he's innocent, but the guy I knew there's no way he could have done this, used to think that was a cop out, a way to avoid asking yourself uncomfortable, disloyal dish, heartening questions. But I think i'm there now too, and not for lack of asking myself those hard questions, but because as much as I want to be sure i'm not. When robbia first told me about announce case certainty, one where the other seem so attainable, we just needed to get the right documents, spend enough time, talk to the right people, find his alibi.

And then I did finnish, and he was real, and SHE remembered. And we all thought, how hard could this possibly be? We just have to keep going a now, more than a year later, I feel like shaking everyone by the shoulders like an aggravated cup.

Don't tell me at nance, a nice guy. Don't tell me jay was scared. Don't tell me who might have made some five second phone call. Just tell me the facts, mam, because we didn't have them fifteen years ago and we still don't have them now.

Serials produced by Julie snyder, dana chives and me and I can is our production and Operations manager ira glasses, our editorial advisor. Editing helps this week from joe level and Nancy updike. Production help from Shawn coal research, in fact checking by Michelle Harris.

Administrative support from a lease bergson. Our score is by mark phillips, who also mixed the episode. Our theme song is by nick thorburn, who provided additional scoring special things today to Oliver monday, David dell, Chris cunning, ham bennet usin, David refile and to our respective spouses, benshi, jeff melman n and Rachel hamman.

Thank you all. And thanks to W B E Y and to golly h. islam. A huge thank you to the entire staff of this american life, most especially to settle who gave us Operation support throughout the fire season. Thank you.

Our website, where you can listen to all our episodes and find photos, letters and other documents from the case serial podcast at org. And if you want updates about season to coming sometime in twenty fifteen, please sign up for our email news letter, that serial podcast double g. In the meantime, we hope you will listen to our other show, this american life, a radio show and a podcast, this american life dot org. Serial production of this american life and W B E. chicago.

What is the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a Crystal ball? Until then, over forty thousand businesses have future business with next week by oracle, the number one cloud E R P, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, hr into one fluid platform with real time insights and forecasting, you're able appear into the future and seize new opportunity. Downa the CFO s guide to A I and machine learning for free at nested ET dot com slash N Y T that's nested ET dot come slash N Y T.