The story
of two young star-crossed lovers could have remained a small story. In fact, it
did for about fifteen years. Two high
school seniors – one murdered and the other convicted of the crime.
It was 1999
in Baltimore, Maryland. There was an ice storm that closed school for two days.
There was hockey and wrestling. There were cars, and jobs, and friends, and
teachers. There were two devastated families of two good kids - one
Korean-American and the other Pakistani-American.
If you
haven’t had the inclination, time, or interest to listen to the Serial: Season
One podcast, here is a very brief recap. On January 13, 1999, Hae Min Lee was
murdered sometime after she left school after her last class at Woodlawn High
School in Baltimore, Maryland. This was sometime after 2:15 pm. She did not
show up as usual to pick up a young cousin at 3:00 pm. She and Adnan Syed had
been boyfriend and girlfriend for at least a year, but Hae had a new, older
boyfriend who was a coworker at one of the local LensCrafters stores.
Adnan Syed
was a member of a large Muslim community of Baltimore County. Both he and Hae
Min Lee were typical high school students, attending proms, participating in
sports, and hanging out with friends. Both worked and both were good students
looking forward to furthering their education in college in the fall.
Hae’s body
was found in late February 1999 amongst the wooded underbrush of Leakin Park in
Baltimore. Adnan was arrested for the murder the next morning on February 28,
1999. After a first mistrial, he was convicted of the murder on February 25,
2000. He was given a life sentence and has been in jail ever since, still
pleading his innocence.
The
podcast about this crime and conviction began as a segment of This American
Life, a public radio broadcast produced by Chicago Public Media. Sarah Koenig,
a staff producer at TAL, quickly realized that the story could not be told in
one hour and Serial, a spin-off of TAL, was born and became one of the most
popular podcasts in listening history. It debuted on October 3, 2014 and the
last episode was aired on December 18, 2014. Since that time, with the help of
legal experts and the publicity to an entirely international public, a
post-conviction relief hearing lasted five days from February 3-9, 2016. On
June 30, 2016, Syed was granted a new trial based on evidence that his attorney
was ineffective and that important evidence related to cell tower locations was
unreliable.
Also important to the new trial is an alibi that was overlooked in
1999 and 2000. Adnan’s conviction has been vacated. However, a long road for
Adnan is ahead as the State of Maryland is appealing the new ruling. Adnan’s
attorneys can only hope for bail so that Adnan can return home and await a new
trail which will take months and possibly years.
I became
an obsessed and avid Serial listener late in the game. Episode 12 of Season One
had aired weeks earlier and the spin-offs were all in full-swing before I
caught on and joined the ranks of the “serial obsessed.” I hungrily binge-listened to all 12 hour-long
episodes with a week. I couldn’t get
enough of it. I talked it up, chatting endlessly about it, reading everything
that I could find online.
I soon caught
up with my favorite police chief and discussed the podcast (and case of Adnan
Syed). Chief William Brooks is an advocate against wrongful conviction. He was,
in fact, honored in 2013 by the Innocence Network at their annual conference held
in Charlotte, North Carolina. They presented him with the 2012 Champion of
Justice award. Brooks and other police officers favor reforms such as
eyewitness identification and others that wrongfully convict innocent people. I admire Norwood’s police chief and I am always
proud to know that not only is he my fellow colleague and department head in
Norwood, but he is the current President of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police
Association and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Chiefs
of Police Association.
After
finishing Serial: Season One, many listeners were torn between skepticism of
Adnan Syed’s innocence, and at the same time wistfully hoping that Syed would
be granted a new trial. In retrospect, that is exactly what Sarah Koenig
wanted: to leave her listeners questioning everything about the case. She did
not intend to solve it.
I began to
listen to the other podcasts about the murder of Hae Min Lee: Serially
Obsessed, The Serial Serial, Serial Dynasty, Crime Writers on Serial, Slate’s
Serial Spoiler Specials, and more. Only one, Undisclosed, was of any interest to
me. After listening to a few episodes of the others, I found that most of them were
too chatty, sensationalized, and opinionated.
Undisclosed
began as a podcast that is described on its website as “a detailed examination
of the State of Maryland’s case against Adnan Syed.” Attorneys Susan Simpson and Colin Miller were
assisted by Rabia Chaudry to “revisit the case,” including updates on Adnan’s
legal battle, the investigation, new or overlooked evidence, and facts and
analysis that was not found in the Serial podcast. The important component of
the Undisclosed podcast is that Ms. Chaudry has been working on Adnan’s defense
for 17 years. Not only is she an attorney, but she is the sister of Adnan
Syed’s best friend. She is close to the family and was a spectator the day that
Adnan was convicted by a jury in 2000.
Rabia Chaudry’s new book, “Adnan’s
Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial” was published in August
and I read it as soon as I got my hands on it. While criticism of her
involvement, her one-sided defense of Adnan, and her attacks on the State’s
case, Chaudry’s book is packed with facts about the case. Her analyses and
theories are included in the last chapters of the book and I have been further
convinced of Adnan’s innocence. What haunts me, however, is that a killer other
than Adnan Syed has not been found, investigated, or charged with the crime. I
will be watching, and listening, in the future.
