Serial S01 - Ep. 4: Inconsistencies
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well, you're digit can park to bury your body. You're going to find somebody else that's like a park.

I walk along the agent aloe e, expecting to find a body real soon. I never saw one linking part of like.

where is that? Do you know where that is? Have you ever .

been there in shopping with the next friend of money? You know.

IT IT was not abNormal for me to leave school to go do something. Ever come back the one.

This is a global talents to take call .

from and in .

made that a mary, the correctional facilities. From this american life in W B easy chicago, its cereal, one story told week by week. I'm Sarah ic.

Remember how last time I ended by saying that the detectives had other leads in this case, besides mr. S, the guy who found his body, that they were also starting to look at a non. Well, the reason we know that is because of this memo.

The memo was dated twelve february thousand. Nine hundred ninety nine from detective darrow macy to detective greg magliari.

This memo he's talking about is regarding an anonymous call, that detective rights on the witness standard trial. He's talking about how they got this anonymous call three days after his body was found. The call came in to detective macy automate county cut the car must have had an accent of some because massey's report describes him as an asian mail, eighteen to twenty one years old, though it's unclear whether asian in this case means e station like korean or self asian like pakistani but anyway, a mystery color says, look at the x boyfriend .

the color further red by the boyfriend has taken to the the victim to leak in park on past occurrence for sexual encounter. Proud to concluding the phone interview the court for the stated that the victim broke off their relationship with her boyfriend about a week before he was reported missing.

The collar hangs up. Then a few minutes later, the same guy calls back and says, oh yeah.

by the way, time the collar remembered about a year ago the stuff that informed a friend of his proceed as, or al, asian mail seventeen, and the princess, if he ever heard his girlfriend, he would drive her her into a lake.

This time, the color mentions a friend of ann's boston, ali. Actually, the name of this friend is yser. The collar says, yser might know something hangs up again, the cops can't trace the call is out of range.

Three days after the anonymous call, the detectives go meet with yester early at a pizza. t. Yasser says, I didn't make that call.

I don't know anything their notes from that conversation say, quote, if I none wanted to get rid of the car, where would he do so? Ali indicated somewhere in the woods, possibly in pentane, a lake or the inner harbor unquote. No one has ever gotten to the bottom of who made this anonyme call.

The cops didn't figure IT out. Announce attorney didn't figure IT out. I've tried to figure IT out too. For a while. I couldn't let IT go because IT seemed to me that whoever made this call, he must be the key to the whole thing, but so far only have guessed that I can't responsibly say out loud.

Anyway, the day after the pizza t talk on february sixteenth, the detectives do some paperwork that will ultimately crack the whole case open for them. They get a sapa for a non cell phone records. The results of that sepia include a list of all the calls died and received on a nonce phone on january thirteen th, the day hate disappeared.

That list will become arguably the most important piece of paper among all the thousands. In this case, it'll become their map. You'll follow IT call by call by call, like footprints that end up at a nonce front door.

If you look at that colleague from january thirteen, there are thirty four calls that day. Obviously, the first thing they have to do is figure out who all the phone numbers belong to, home cell and pager numbers. Once they do, they realized, wait a minute.

One person was called six times that day, much more often than anyone else. That person is an eighteen year old girl named Jennifer post ary. Jane is not a friend of advance. She's a friend of jays. Remember j had a none's car that .

day and his new cellphones. That's jane talking.

To detectives about the night of january thirteen S.

21 you somebody can yeah， I was like, I was up IT. He's like, on and not kill. Hey, and that's when I was just sleep.

Wow, what do you mean? And until, hey, why? what? How win? Where you know?

If you want to figure out this case with me, now is the time to start paying close attention because we've arrived along with the detectives at the heart of the thing. This interview with jane happens on february twenty seventh, one thousand ninety nine, the day before, on the twenty six, the cops had gone to find jan at her house. They explained they likely to come downtown to talk.

Jane is thorough. Wigged out. SHE says SHE can't right now. She's busy, maybe later. Then Jenna friend, go see j, he's at work at a video store. SHE tells j, the police wants to talk to me.

What do I do a trial? Jen says, quote, he told me to go down there and tell them what I knew. Tell them enough to keep me out of trouble and tell them to go see j, send them his way.

So jen goes downtown to see the cops later that night, and SHE lies to them. So SHE doesn't know anything. I've seen the detectives notes from that interview, and they're remarkably uninteresting.

But by the time SHE left that night, jm thought I was possible. SHE was about to get charged at trial, SHE said. The last thing detective magilligan said during that night was, quote, everyone's a suspect and no one's a suspect.

So the next day he goes back to the detectives. This time she's got reinforcements. She's got ta torney weather plus her mom. They turned on a taper quarter. Who, what, where, when, why?

He said, said, work is hard. Say .

anything else, yes, what IT is.

So jane gives them a motive. Hey.

broke at non's heart and a method, he strangled her, which of course they really knew. But then jenson information gets .

a little .

matter that he told me. He told me this was all he told me. He ask j, ask what we should do.

He said he think we should go to police now and tell them right now. And I said, I don't know. I said, what was your involved? Were you involved? And he said, no. He said, alon, show me her body and asked me if if I would help her vary him, if I would help him very hurt by.

And I said, what did you do? Did you help him? Do you know where the body is? No, I just took him to some place in the city and I drop them on to to, and I went down, take them up from a distance place in the city, and they not Normally, so they went, I said, how did he do this when you like? When was this done and he didn't know when. Yeah, he said that he's strangled her in best by parking lot, but I don't know how we get the best by talking up everything like that.

Jay has told her I saw the body in the trunk of a car, had not asked me to help bury her, but I didn't. I refused. I took him some place and later picked him up some place at some checkout.

And he tells her that all this went down at the best by parking lot of security bullover, about a mile from willand high school. Jane jen were close friends at this time, winter of ninety nine, talking or hanging out almost every day. They had known each other.

S in elementary school. They're in the same class at woodlawn. They graduated the year before in ninety eight.

Now agent was a freshman at U. M, B, C. University of maryland, bolt morney.

She's studying biochemistry. SHE is in a savories when hay disappeared. Jan was on winter break. She's working part time as a lifeguard, and jay was also working.

One of his jobs was at Ethanol, a discount store, jenson said on january thirteen th, SHE jay ed been hanging out earlier the afternoon at her house after SHE got home from work. Then jan says jay left her house sometime between three forty five and four fifteen. They'd planned to meet later that evening.

But then Janet got a message. Jay was running late. He wanted her to pick him up in the parking lot of westby mall around A P.

M. SHE goes there and he sees them together. SHE says. Jay, get out of announced car, announced as hide to her. SHE says he seems to be acting Normal. Jay gets in her car, and that's when he tells her about the murder. After they driven a little ways, jay mentioned shovel, the shovel that none had used to dig in the park to bury, hey, that they were .

jays shovel from his house. He knew and not on the shot her shows, I know how many were what you magine me that he knew that were on for the shows.

Then tels them, SHE drives jay back to a few mall to the dusters back there, so the j can retrieve the shovel and wipe the handles clean in case .

of fingerprints. Joking back out of my car. And he was really shocking up, completely shocking up. He was like, you had to take me to see my.

The next day, jen says he drove j to the F, M. Store, the same one where he worked so that he could throw out the clothes and boots he was wearing the previous night. He pitched them into a dumpster behind the store.

One of the cops points out for a guy who's telling you he didn't kill any anyone and didn't help dispose a body, he sure is taking a lot of precautions. He clarifies. J wasn't along .

when the body .

was .

buried. J.

yeah. Well, IT wasn't until today, but I am, I was just don't think that I don't think that he would lie to me first. All and like, no. And let's add on P, J, A good time of money. I will don't see j happen.

Finally, the cop asks, were unknown in jail, best friends agencies? Oh, no, more like casual acquaintance.

Once the detectives talked to jane, everything happens very fast. That same night, the detectives go get jay at the video store where he works, actually, a porn video store, which come trial and on attorney will stress with relish at every opportunity. Anyway, the cops bring him down to homicide by the time they turned on. The taper quarter is one thirty in the morning on february twenty eight.

I am willing to answer questions and do not want an internal this time my decision to answer .

questions so they get je the interview room. And initially he pulls a jen, he tells them nothing more or less, says he'd walked to them all that day. God, his girlfriend, a brace lit for a birthday.

Hang round with Jenny Younger brother, talk to a non sometime in the afternoon. And then after two pages of notes like that, IT says, all right, I come clean, at least that's what I think. IT says, the detectives handwriting is messy.

So maybe IT says, a bright eye came down. In any case, around twenty minutes later, they start tapping. And jay tells them a whole different story when that more or less matches janes, except for one major difference, one major piece of information about this crime that the cops are still missing.

They do not know where hay's car is. They've been looking all over the place for IT. They can find IT. Now jay tells them he knows where .

IT is during the interview. Prior to turning the tape point, you stated to detect the gilbert in myself that you'd be willing to take a sound show us where the viability part I still .

wants to do.

So that's huge for them. They will take them to the car, and he does. Once they're finished at headquarters, they all drive out in the middle of the night to where the car is parked on a gracy hill behind some raw houses of edson avenue. Within a few hours, they'll have a warrant for a .

non's arrest.

They said something like, we know what you are. J, did we thought to say? And i'm like, jie jay, like, I had a look of problem.

And on my face, like, what do you mean? What do you mean? J.

anna course says jay story isn't true, but he says he doesn't know why j would lie either. He says when he first heard ridden in a girl very mentioned jays name in connection with .

his own arrest.

who just confused I can like something like, you know what we're talking about? No, I mean, I had, I had no idea. And the reaction that he gave me was like that playing dumb.

It's not like there were some secret feed between jane, and non least not that I know of there was no drug deal gone wrong. Neither had bad mouthy other or stone one, the others girlfriend to hear non tell IT IT sounds like they didn't even know each other very well. When I first asked him what their friendship was like, what jay was like as a person i'm not really had to reach. He was like, um jay worked. He wasn't that into .

sports OK I knew he generally can listen to like I don't say why people music, but I feel like listen to like like water, things like that, like a heavy metal. Uh, I guess you know, I can really. I just, you know, just like A I can't to be once, if you, I couldn't even IT really recall, like a huge long conversation that we ever had. Others then, like a specific subject, if you asked me some of us that in your some like we were going to go like we're hanging out, that we wouldn't necessarily like not be kicking IT first day, right?

We wouldn't necessarily be kicking in. Person is a non speak for, yes, we smoke we together, but we weren't close. However, a non was close with steph anie, jay's girlfriend, very close, and announced that the only thing he can think of now that might have turn jay against them, stephane was smart.

SHE was a top athlete at the school. SHE was beautiful by any standard, should like a model. SHE came from a family of achievers who did not approve of jay but had no problem with a non, so maybe stephane SE relationship with non how affection that they were with each other of the constant talking on the phone, the prom prince and princess of stuff maybe .

that was knowing at j rino .

was a non lawyer.

Know, when I was talking about close that was was stephane and they were like, you know, and you never like leaving me like I was eighty like, you know, if you never thought that this power red jack I was like, no, I never you know, my relation were like, and so that was kind like a moment where else like her? So then they kind of like now thinking about all the things, you know, that took place between us, but IT just kind, I started to make of those this sense, like maybe with, you know, the ad is because I was on my body. My body do to you.

Anna says he didn't feel betrayed by jay exactly because, again, they weren't good enough friends for betrayal. He says IT was more a feeling .

of injustice. There was more so like, I like my mind. I was kind like maybe the police who putting them up to this, maybe somehow he got caught up up for may.

I thought maybe he tried to claim the reward money and he got caught. The 本质 是 为什么？ So in my heart kind of, I don't know, I don't know. That is a part of me that I don't, anna, make an accusation because someone know was like, you know not being sure of IT because that you know, obvious happened to me.

A year after adnan was arrested in the case came to trial, jae walked up to the witness stand and there was a moment when a none muttered something to him. He says he couldn't help himself. The judge called the attorneys up to the bench.

Quote, I was just informed by my sheriffe that the defendant made a comment to the witness as the witness approach the stand, indicating that he was pathetic. The judge said, I want to advise mister siad that up until now, he has been perfect. Don't spoil IT. In the first taped interview, the detectives S. J, why would IT none turn to someone he didn't even know all that well to help me with this murder?

Can why would that man call you? The criminal avoid long .

i'm the criminal element of woodlawn.

he says, is that a real perceived british?

I could perceive this like how you I mean, teachers really know me, know that i'm not like dad with here. Get certification capacity because .

of the contact you have with helping him get his marijuana. He thinks you're an element that how did we want to assist him and disposing of the body?

I would guess, did I know someone would do where something that.

In her closing argument at trial, prosecutor casey Murphy posed this why him question to the jury about jay. Think about IT. SHE said, do you really believe that the defendant, meaning a none, could go to one of his outstanding magnet school honour student friends or friends from the mosque to assist m with this act? Of course not.

He needed someone who behaved a little more dangerously than those people. He needed someone who took risks. The defendant hopes that you will look at j and say, I don't believe him.

That is why the defendant chose jay, because if something went wrong, the defendant could point the finger at j. This idea, this is what j is, more or less trying to communicate to the cops. But they ask him, if you're actually not the type of guy who knows where to barry a body, then why did you help? Why didn't you go to the police instead?

He gives you his car. He's, he gives you his cell l phone. He tells you a time that he's gonna call you, that he's going to kill her.

and you do absolutely nothing.

How we understand you're trying to thought why .

you do absolutely nothing of that one and now knows of other things about me like to affect the criminalists though. I mean, that was you're selling mariana. So if I go to the cops and say, hey, this guys been killer you'll say, oh, no, not.

It's crazy. But there is a strong dear. And this is where is a shit problem and this is who he deals with.

He's got a rush this long and go get this, but you've never arrested. But one time time, really on the records. One time, but I got my more one rest dot down first house, my keys in my ARM. It's not just, I mean, seriously, I home people without guys may be lay in street and snow walking my own house, say, was wrong. These are .

place to do that. You didn't trust any place.

No, I know. And my mind, I don't think to the presence of less cold helps is never there's never coss 妈妈， i could be getting shot in now wouldn't be that call the cops.

okay, they say, so if you didn't want to go to the police yourself, how about making an anonymous call? Then you could have done IT right after he shows you the body as you're leaving .

the best by parking lot, your driving off the parking lot want you stop your car and say, call the place, say, someone had just convicted of murder. There's a buying and trunk in the car.

I just fair and not your thing like like that is when you are afraid of IT, you make .

anonymous from all. You give a description of part part.

you give the tig number of the car is second. Yes, if have any .

questions you going to .

ask me on.

i'm trying to .

understand why you go .

through all this very much .

just like shock. And after that I was part of so I mean, I couldn't just from .

j what he has over you or you're involvement in this. Is beyond belief other than you being afraid of the police. Either he has paid you something, or I can say .

he knows that sold well. I mean, that was, that was, I mean, if you get me locked up for that, I mean, i'm sure if I him out for killin, hey, that he didn't hesitate to tell me your some drops.

Trading us that you like to end this feel bad yeah I can call in doing things feel bad. I think I feel like I stopped somehow you know, eighty part of people take you to yeah somebody.

He says, I just feel bad about IT. That's all I got to say.

The cops have a struggle with J. I have a struggle with j. He's the biggest mystery of this whole case for me.

The cops interview him at least four times that I know about. Two of those are on tape. And jay also tells the story a trial not once, but twice, because the first proceedings ended in a mission.

Al, so at least says six times he's told what happened in each time. Some details shift. Some of these discrepancies seem small to me and understandable, but some are significant and confounding.

And that distance between where a certain details starts and where IT ends up, how far IT slides and why IT slides. I've spent untold hours trying to measure that distance, trying to weigh IT for clues as to what might actually be true. For example, this is from taped interview. Number one, the cops are asking about what he in a non did that morning of the thirteenth picture up.

And really different, that we had IT with something more. We did all shop in together.

Now here's tape interview number two from march fifteen and two weeks later.

And where did you go? We went to security screen mall.

That's a different mall, security screen mall, couple miles away. I put this one in the category of probably not a big deal, right? Maybe James is spoke when he said west view.

Initially, there are bunch of little things like this. For example, when they're driving around that afternoon, after theyve ditched his car, the ice seventy park and ride at the first trial, jay says they both got high and non's car. At the second trial, he says only he smoked a non didn't want to.

Then there are more significant changes, but still you can chop them up to j, trying to protect his friends or trying to protect himself. In the first taped interview, jay says they are grabbing some food at a restaurant when officer adcock calls in, non asking if you ve seen hey, the next time he tells IT. He says, when that call comes, there are a friend's apartment, a friend whose father happens to be a homicide detective in another county.

Jay tells the cops, you'd actually been to her house three different times that day, but didn't want to get her in trouble. In the first tape statement, jay says he refused to help dig grave for hay. Two weeks later, he says they both dug the whole.

But then there are other changes, bigger changes. Where is harder to judge? Why the details shift? This one? For instance, in the first taped interview, jay says a non only told him that same day that he was going to kill. Hey, two weeks later, jay says that anna had started talking about IT beforehand, four or five days before .

I think i'm going to kill you. Yeah, he said, said that a lot. I come to check with them some occasions, said that.

and he says that not enlisted his help with the murder on the twelve the night before hey disappeared. In this version, j tells Jenny IT in advance too. But by the time j testifies at trial, he goes back to the first version again that he knew nothing until the day of and that he didn't really take this seriously.

There's so many more of these. There's a whole side trip and non in jay supposedly take that afternoon after has been killed to smoke some weed in pata asco state park. That trip disappears by trial, just drops out of the narrative and jays whereabout ts in between the time he drops at non back at school at midday and when he meets back up with him later that afternoon.

The stories about where he is are so messy and so confusing that I can even keep the different version straight. But none of these discrepancies gives me, or I think, the cops, as much pause as this. Next one, this is the mother of what the cops called jays.

inconsistencies. It's about where none first showed him hazed body in the trunk of a car. Here's from taped interview number one. Jay says a none, called him about three forty five P. M, saying, come.

pick me up of them, this revenue street. And yeah. Part trunk opening .

one advance and that all of the script do you record any call? Create one. And where you going?

I don't know my name. A strip is a .

small outdoor drug market just like a black. We can buy drugs. Jay tells the cops that IT takes me about fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the location on events in.

Later, when the cops drive out with j to get his car, jay shows on the spot elements just a few blocks more. They dig taze car, he said. Now listen to what he says on .

march fifteen th and while in rote to to your house yes you receive a phone call from ada on his cell phone which is in your rope and the conversation was one um that picture that can give me I made this .

spy best buy, just like jen had originally told them. This is a problem for the cops. This change because it's not something you forget where you were when you saw dead body in the trunk of a car. It's not a slip of the tongue and it's not clear what the calculation is. Immense avenue versus the best by parking lot.

What's the advantage of one place over the other? Why tell this lie? Maybe it's just saying that because IT matches gene story or did light IT again in the first place and then forget I A friend who's worked for a long time in the bottom or judicial system, he knows a lot of cops.

And SHE reminded me when I was telling about this case, cops are the most skeets ticals people in the world. They pretty much assume everyone is lying to them all the time. Rita migliore aren't newbies.

The gillier came from a law enforcement family. His father had been captured in the homicide unit, in fact, and ritz was known in the department and in the states attorney y's office as a skilled and meticulous investigator. So they're not suckers.

They're taking careful note of the changes in jail stories. It's why they keep going back to him to clear up the inconsistently. In the second taped interview, my gilli confronts jay, taking awful list in the main things he's lied to them about.

And jay admits to all the lies. But even so, what struck me is that they don't really press him on any of IT. The most forceful and gilbert gets is in this exchange about the location of the trunk pop.

Actually killed her. Yes, at best buy to my home to your not. Yes, you weren't present for that.

No 是。 Why did you lie about the location? I figured there was cameras there, or somebody had spot him down.

He was doing what if you actually did assist, why would you lie about? Because i'm. Social, yes, okay.

jay is saying, I figured there were security cameras at best buy, so that's why I lied because I did want to be associated with IT. What is he talking about? This is nonsensical. Or when he told the evenson aven version, he was already deeply associated with IT.

And if there were cameras, at best by parking lot, wouldn't that help his story if they showed his car, or a non walking around or putting his body in the trunk? But my gillray lets IT go. Moves on to another point. And just so you know, as best as we can tell from workers at the store and from the former landlord, there probably weren't security cameras in the best by parking lot back in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine. And there's certainly no mention of any security footage in the police report.

At the end of both of jays tape statements, the detectives kind of come out with IT. Are you telling us the truth right now? On february twenty eighth, after jays told them off tape that he doesn't know anything about the murder, riz points out, your story has completely changed since first came in this room.

All the information that you provide a on this interview is IT been a .

complete truth best.

And then j reinforces IT .

all right to, I believe that concludes this interview and that. OK.

but of course, two weeks later, big swath of his story have changed. So my gillier ask him again, in march fifteen th.

the attack interview that you have to give in us right now is that truth? So the best that I can possibly humanly at this point time, remember, that is true. Did you kill alen? Were you there when eggan kill?

I put IT to build routes. When I talked to him briefly on the phone, jay story kept changing. You were catching the inconsistently, and he was having to explain them and clean up a story.

So what ultimately made you believe him? Ritz said they believe joy's story because, quote, we were able to investigate and corroborate what he was saying on, quote, so how exactly did they CoOperate? IT next time on cereal.

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