Please only read this thread if you've watched all 12 episodes of Serial Season 1!!
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I was surprised at how many new interviews and angles were packed into the episode!
* Interview with Don
* Interview with Jay's co-worker at the video store
* Nisha call revisited, complete with AT&T terms of use!
* Mention of the serial killer everyone's been talking about on Reddit (and it was so great to hear back from the Innocence Project).Was surprised at the end when Sarah stated her opinion on whether or not Adnan was guilty!
My main disappointment was that she didn't really rake the State over the coals for putting forth such a weak case, and for having such a terrible system of criminal justice. I felt like that would've given some more meaning to the whole season, beyond just the standard whodunit.
Also, I wish there had been some sort of final tribute to Hae at the end.
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It ended pretty much how I thought it would, and I'm happy with it. Also, I still think Adnan is innocent and I'm stoked that there's a possibility they'll test the DNA evidence!
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@mrbee: I think it would have been nice if they had done a tribute to Hae and her family too. I think so many people (myself included) get so wrapped up in this and it's so easy to lose sight of the fact that an innocent young woman died. I imagine the publicity around the podcast has opened up a lot of old wounds for her family.
I thought the new interviews were interesting. Don especially! I don't think he was involved, but his reaction to the police questioning and some of the things he said seemed really weird to me.
I've read some interesting things about the Nisha call on Reddit, including how easy/quickly Adnan's phone would have speed dialed her if the buttons were pressed. Also, I read an interesting article recently about the number of butt dials that occur during crimes. There have been many cases were crimes were captured on voicemail because buttons get pressed during a struggle. Really interesting! It definitely casts a different light over the Nisha call!
I thought some of the other cell phone discussion was interesting as well. I was surprised SK seemed to question (briefly) that Jay had the phone that afternoon, based on him being at Jenn's and calling her house. It seems to me that it's much more likely that Jay was (yet again) lying about his whereabouts, rather than lying about having the phone (as so many of his friends were called that day). Jenn's house is Jay's alibi for the supposed time of Hae's death though. If he wasn't with Jenn, where was he?
All that said, I still think Adnan did it! I do wonder if he and Jay were involved with some other criminals (drug ring?) that they are both covering for. Perhaps that explains some of Jay's paranoia over the van?
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@twodoghouse: Curious what sounded weird about Don's reaction!
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So my question is: Did anyone ask Mr. S. if he was streaking when he saw the body being buried????
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@mrbee: To me, it was when he said he was worried they would think he and Adnan were in it together! Why would they think that? They had only met once and what would their joint motive be? That seemed strange to me.
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@looch: Wait, I'm confused. Mr S didn't see the body being buried, right? He found the body days later. I do wonder if he went so far from the road because he wasn't stopping to pee. Maybe was stopping to get naked and run around a little!
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@twodoghouse: I think he did see the body being buried, which is why he knew exactly where it was.
I think he was streaking when the body was being buried. I am not convinced he was streaking when he discovered the body.
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@twodoghouse: it was really weird to me that they met 12/23 when it was in the trial as something that happened in jan!
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@looch: interesting I never considered that he was there at both times
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@twodoghouse: If I were dating someone that was murdered, I would be worried about all sorts of crazy scenarios!
Speaking of Don weirdness, did I hear him right that he didn't know about Jay until listening to the podcast? It just struck me as weird that he didn't go to the trial of the person accused of killing his girlfriend!!
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@looch: It wouldn't surprise me if Mr. S was streaking and stepped on the burial site. He says he saw her hair, but even the detectives didn't see it. I would guess they asked if he was streaking at the time and he denied it. I don't buy that he was urinating in the park (after just leaving home where he could have easily used the restroom).
If I were on the jury I would have voted not guilty. I don't see how there was possibly evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. That said, I am now back to leaning toward Adnan at least being involved somehow. Not sure about who actually strangled her, but I think the whole getting the cell phone a couple of days beforehand, lending his car to Jay that day, the Nisha call, etc. is just too many things to all be coincidences. I agree with a lot of what Dana was saying.
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Sorry I feel like I'm spamming this thread but I thought of another thing.
When SK, Dana and Julie (I think that was her name?) were talking about Adnan coming back from break and it finally sinking in that he and Hae were done. I wish they had discussed the three calls to Hae the night before! Perhaps Hae mentioned she'd been out with Don and it enraged Adnan? If the time Don and Adnan met was really in December then Don and Hae weren't dating yet. Maybe when Adnan called and realized Don was no longer just the nice guy that helped out with Hae's car he suddenly got jealous? Up until then e was perfectly fine with the breakup because he was the one moving on with other girls. But confronted with proof that Hae had really moved on made him angry and jealous. So he asked Hae for a ride home to confront her, one thing led to another, and he strangled her. That's my theory, at least.
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@lawbee11: I meant that he was streaking when the body was buried. I think he was in Leakin Park on many occasions, streaking, including the day the body was being buried and possibly on the day when he said he was urinating.
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@looch: Interesting! That would explain how he "happened across" the body when it was well hidden. So do you think he saw who was burying her? It'd be interesting to know if he saw Adnan there.
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@looch: Gotcha. I think that's possible but unlikely. It was most likely dark out when she was buried, and I think streakers like to be seen (otherwise where's the fun in it?). Also I don't think the body was discovered until weeks (maybe even a month?) later, so not sure why he'd wait so long to go to the police.
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I posted my theory on the other thread, but I'll post it here, too.
Does anyone think Jay could potentially be clever enough to set-up Adnan?
I think Jay REALLY wanted street cred. He strikes me as this somewhat nerdy, goofy kid who really wanted to seem darker than he really is. His friends all testified that he lied a lot to make himself seem cooler. Even when talking to the police, he bragged about his "long rap sheet" and they called him out on not having a criminal record. Then, the bragging to acquaintances about burying the body. That just seems to go against common sense to me unless you were TRYING to make everyone see how dark and criminal you are.
I am wondering if there is anyway that Jay did this simply for the street cred. Maybe this was his way of proving himself to his friends on the street. Knowing the criminal culture of Baltimore (I live here), it wouldn't surprise me. Then he used his friends (Jen and Stephanie) to help pin it on Adnan. It doesn't seem like such a series of bad coincidences if it was carefully planned out in the first place.
Thoughts? -
@Ra: I honestly don't think Jay was that smart. Have you read this? He fumbled his way through so many things. Maybe he was nervous, but he just doesn't strike me as someone smart enough to concoct all of this.
Also, random question since I know you're in Baltimore: have you ever been to Leakin Park? Had you even heard of it before the podcast? What's the area like around there? I'm so curious!
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My 2 cents:
1. I think Jay was covering his tracks for something bigger, I think he was in way over his head with drugs and some "bad" people and that's why his stories never matched up. He was saving his butt while trying to screw over Adnan (maybe Adnan owed money or was trying to cut him out of deals)
2. The serial killer thing is interesting angle, I'm excited to learn more about htat, how freaky would that be considering one of the other girls was also Korean, so maybe the killer had a "type" (I watch Criminal Minds so that is really my extend of profiling knowledge) but they always seem to focus on a type.
3. I think Adnan knew something but I don't think he necessarily did it and I don't' think there was enough evidence to convict him of murder at 17. Maybe he was involved, but to be put away for life on such circumstantial evidence seems wrong in my eyes. -
@Ra: I'm the opposite of a conspiracy theorist, so I tend to think the simplest explanation is most often the true one. So in my mind I can't imagine him setting Adnan up like that. (One major reason for this is that I don't think a high school kid in 1999 would have the kind of information about how cell tower records work to manipulate that info, which I think he would have had to do??)
I do think you're totally right about Jay wanted to be perceived as this "criminal element" and getting way in over his head. I think Adnan strangled Hae accidentally, called Jay for help, Jay's all "yeah no prob" because he's this hardened criminal, right? Then starts to lose his shit over people watching him and being after him so called the police to basically turn himself in. But I can't explain what the heck A and J were doing all day when they were supposedly at the mall.
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@lawbee11: Nope. I've never been to Leakin Park. To be honest, I don't make it over to the west side very often.
Geographically speaking, Woodlawn (where the kids lived) is in Baltimore County. It's right outside of the city itself and isn't necessarily a bad area, but is more on the lower income side of things. We actually take B to the library (the actual one in the podcast) from time to time because they have Storyville, which is an awesome indoor playspace for kids. The west side of Baltimore City, where the kids were often travelling is AWFUL. Think "The Wire." Actually, I'm pretty sure they even featured the park on the Wire.
ETA: I'm actually kind of morbidly curious and want to go check out the park now. Weird?!
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@looch: I also think Mr. S saw something or knows more than he ever let on, whether he overheard a conversation (wasn't he the school janitor?) or somehow heard it second hand elsewhere. From what we know about where the body was found, it was a) in not very obvious spot and b) extremely difficult for investigators to make it out while basically standing on top of it. That said, wasn't her body finally discovered about 6 weeks after the murder (can't remember the timeline)? So if he did see the burial, he would have waited a long time before reporting it.
@twodoghouse: as for the calls to Hae the night before she died, I remember seeing speculation somewhere that he was just calling her to give her his cell phone number since it was new. I think I even remember that she jotted down in her diary or somewhere else. As for Don, I was really happy that we heard from him. I was wondering why he was missing throughout the series.
I agreed with SK's final verdict to acquit. Based on the info she dug up, the only hard proof linking Adnan to the crime is Jay's testimony. The Nisha call, which may or may not have been a butt dial, could link him to Jay, but doesn't mean he killed Hae.
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@mrbee: Super weird he said he didn't know Jay. and he did go to the trial because he testified at both... that part was weird to me. Maybe he was sequestered though and wasn't able to listen to the testimony prior to testifying?
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@lawbee11: @lamariniere: Mr. S totally has a reason for waiting, he had been in trouble before, his wife was trying to sell their house, etc. I am convinced he knows more than he is letting on.
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@looch: I seem to remember SK saying that during the trial he was really on the edge and had to be restrained from leaving the court room. Definitely fishy!
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@Ra: You should take B on a Serial field trip...Leakin Park, the library, Best Buy
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@lawbee11: Haha...a friend and I were just talking about taking to the boys to Storyville and then "just happening" to need something from Best Buy...with a stop watch. Haha
She's been to Leakin Park and said it's huge. The part she's been to is nice and they have a little train ride and have festivals. She wasn't sure where the "body part" is located. Maybe I'll just drive around it...
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I have a question about the DNA evidence. If Adnan has known for 15 years that the DNA hadn't been tested, why wouldn't he push for that himself? Am I just not understanding how that works?
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@Ra: I've gone back and forth about Jay setting Adnan up. Honestly, I've wondered if he just got really lucky in his lying and that Adnan was really unlucky in his truth. It's not impossible that a being compulsive liar (like practically everyone has said about Jay) he would be able to spin enough lies that a few good ones stick. And then things just progressed from there because they state really needed to convict someone. It's obvious none of his story adds up, but obviously the state didn't care.
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@BananaPancakes: I wonder if the detectives were helping Jay with his timeline/narrative too! Would explain a lot...
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@mrbee: I think that's what was going on in the untaped hours Jay was with the detectives. Things like Patapsco State Park were dropped because it didn't fit the timeline the detectives proposed from the cell records. I think the only way the case didn't become he said/he said was that Jay's account (at trial) was corroborated by the cell records. Adnan said himself that it was a pretty powerful demonstration and it only worked if Jay, the cell records and the timeline match.
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@mrbee: Well Don's interview where he mentioned the prosecutor becoming irate because he didn't make Adnan sound "creepy" is is enough for me to assume they did all sorts of shady things with witnesses to get the result they wanted. I don't think it's far-fetched at all to surmise they did a whole lot of helping Jay along in his narrative.
@twodoghouse: I remember being blown away that this was standard procedure ever! Hours upon hours of coming up with a story before anything was ever taped. So insane.
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@mrbee @bananapancakes @twodoghouse I saw on Reddit yesterday an interesting theory that Jay was actually a police informant for other crimes and that the cops bullied him into this story... that seems a bit far fetched since Jay obviously knew Adnan previously but it is interesting to think about.
I wonder what the police really had on Jay to convince him to line his story up and for them to provide an attorney for him. (Which I can say as a lawyer, was absolutely INSANE when that came out... that is so beyond unethical, I can't even get into it.)
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@BananaPancakes: Did you find it weird that Don said he'd never even heard of Jay until the podcast? I don't think he had anything to do with it, I just think it's bizarre that his girlfriend was murdered and he didn't even follow the murder trial.
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@Ra: I thought it was super weird! Maybe it was really traumatizing for him. Like if he just ignored the whole thing, it didn't exist. People handle tragedies so differently, but I just can't see him being able to totally avoid the case at all. How long after the arrest was the trial? Maybe by that time he had moved away or something and was just putting it behind him. Just trying to come up with excuses for him, I suppose. They really did only date for 3 weeks, so it's not like they were on the path to marriage or anything.
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@Ra: @BananaPancakes: Not to me, but I agree it's weird Don doesn't seem to know more about the case aka Jay. I sometimes wonder if the boyfriend/girlfriend titles were a little stretched, and Hae didn't just have a big high school girl crush on an older man, they went out a couples times, and it was blown up more, Don really wasn't that into it?
@mrbee: I totally think the detectives were "helping" Jay with his story, it is the only thing that makes sense about him having a provided lawyer. I also can see him being an informant and that's why he was so skittish about people "after him", he was scared someone found out about that not necessarily him helping in the murder? OR that he would some how get in trouble/ruin his deal as an informant because he helped in such a big crime when I'm guessing if he was giving information up it was on drug related crimes.
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@LuLu Mom: Oh yeah. I get the same feeling. She was a smitten school girl, he was just having fun. Still, I feel like sheer curiosity would lead most people to follow the case. I don't know, perhaps @BananaPancakes: is right and he was too traumatized to follow along.
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Okay, I FINALLY got a chance to listen!!
So, the serial killer theory gave me goosebumps!! But then, when SK reminded the audience that Jay still had all of that information, I feel like the whole theory was busted.
Can someone remind me: Mr. S was the one who found the body and called the police, right?
Jay knew where Hae's car was, and her body had already been found. Did Jay ever confirm her knew where Hae's body was?
Was there ever physical evidence found? Shovels? Clothing? Dirt?
I am still just as confused as I have been, but I really loved this last episode. I thought it was full of great content. If I were on the jury, I would have likely said not guilty, and it would have been due to a lack of evidence to prove Adnan was guilty.
Now I'll spend my afternoon Googling information about DNA and how long it can "live" in evidence!!
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