ADNAN: What Serial Didn't Tell You

[00:00] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For some of us, summer means more juggling, which can lead to overwhelm and worry. BetterHelp makes it easy to get the support you need. Having served over 6 million people globally, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. They'll match you with a quality licensed therapist, so you can focus on your therapy goals. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash crimejunkie. That's betterhelp.com slash crimejunkie. [00:29] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock [00:59] Hello everyone and welcome to a very special episode of Crime Junkie. I am your host Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today we're setting out to make a podcast episode that I have been wishing existed for years. A single episode that concisely gives a high-level overview of all of the facts you can't get on Adnan Syed's case just from listening to Serial. Like many people, my first introduction into the podcast world was with Serial in 2014. [01:28] Yeah, you're welcome. I was actually the one who got you into it. Yeah, it was the best gift you ever gave me. Serial Season 1 is like the reigning king of true crime podcasts. The storytelling was just absolutely phenomenal, and it drew me in in a way that no other podcast has been able to do since. And I know other people felt the same way, because the podcast has gotten hundreds of millions of downloads. The first season is set in Baltimore, Maryland, and it tells the story of a young high school senior named Heyman Lee,

[01:58] in 1999. [01:59] But the focus of the story is really on her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, who was later convicted of her murder. The host of Serial, Sarah Koenig, tries to make a determination for herself and for the listeners. Is Adnan a cold-blooded killer who has his friends and families fooled, or is he innocent of Hayes' murder? [02:18] I'm not going to recount all 12 episodes of Serial Season 1. That's been done by so many other podcasts, and there's no way I could tell the story better than Sarah did herself. Plus, I don't want to rob you of the experience. I think it's important that you take the rollercoaster ride that we were all on back in 2014. [02:35] So if you've been living under a rock, hit pause on our episode now and go listen to season one of Serial. Then come back here and I'll tell you what Serial left out. But for everyone who's caught up, here we go. [03:05] you [03:12] This was an amazing topic to debate with people back in 2014. Did he or didn't he? And it's something that, Britt, you and I even debated back then. Right. I was firmly in the camp of he didn't. And I had strong questions coming out of Serial that made me think maybe he did. I kept coming back to Jay. Why would Jay implicate himself in something so serious if it didn't happen? And how would Jay know where her car was?

[03:42] road trip with my family, and we all had the same debate after. Sure, it seemed like Adnan got a raw deal, but explain to me, Jay. And while my family was able to just like walk away confident he was innocent, I needed more proof. So I consumed anything and everything I could get my hands on that would help me understand what really happened on January 13th of 1999. And there were so many good things. Over most of 2015, I learned a [04:09] all of the evidence Sarah Canaan didn't know about or didn't cover. And by the end, I knew without a doubt [04:17] that Adnan was innocent. And I knew that if anyone else heard the same stuff that I was hearing, they would think so too. [04:24] So as 2016 and 17 and now 18 have rolled on, Adnan's case has been making its way through the justice system. His conviction has been overturned and he's been granted a new trial. However, I am still shocked every time I encounter someone who says they think Adnan is guilty. And this happens all the time. When I ask them why, they point to the same doubts that I had at the end of 2014. Jay, I'm sorry. [04:50] The car. [04:52] the Nisha call. And every time I ask them, "But what about all the other stuff Serial didn't cover?" And almost every time they just ask, [05:02] What stuff? [05:03] 90% of people who I talked to about Serial didn't listen to any of the shows that came after. There were two very popular and informative follow-up podcasts. One was called Undisclosed, and the other was called Serial Dynasty, which is now named Truth and Justice. They not only covered what Serial didn't, but they did some major reinvestigations that were groundbreaking in Adnan's case.

[05:33] at least not the ones that I've been encountering. There was also an amazing book that was written called Adnan's Story, which thoroughly covers the case and those reinvestigations. But again, I'm finding a very small percentage of people that I talked to have actually read it. I can only assume that people haven't educated themselves on this case because either they don't know this information is even out there, or they don't want to invest the time into these other sources. [06:03] And the book was pretty long, too. It takes a massive amount of time to consume and comprehend it all, and people just might not have the time or patience. [06:13] I know I haven't. I was really into the podcast Undisclosed, but lost track of it after a while. The amount of content that is out there is just... [06:21] really daunting. And that's the conclusion that I've come to. Most people I talk to aren't saying Adnan's guilty because they just hate him. They just don't know that there's more out there, or if they do, it seems really overwhelming of a task to sift through all the information to find the highlights. I've always wished there was somewhere I could point the average serial listener to say, listen, you don't have to invest days of your life to change your mind, but check out this like 30 minute or one hour thing and then let me know what you think after that. [06:51] So that's what we're doing here. We're trying to make that thing, something that gives people what I consider to be the top need-to-know facts if you're going to have an informed discussion about Adnan's case. And I want to be very clear. So many wonderful, smart, and talented people have paved the way for me to do this episode. All of the credit is due to them.

[07:21] consume lengthier information on this case. [07:23] So if after our show, you want to take a deeper dive into the evidence that Serial didn't cover, check out season one of Undisclosed. [07:31] It's hosted by Rabia Chaudhry, Colin Miller, and Susan Simpson. You can also check out season one of Truth and Justice with Bob Ruff. And please, please, please go get Rabia's book called Adnan's Story. She covers so much more than what we're going to be talking about today, and it's truly the Bible when it comes to Adnan's case. She has done some amazing work laying out what happened in January of 1999 and how the investigation and the trials to follow got so messed up. [07:57] So Britt, there are boatloads of evidence or inconsistencies that Serial didn't cover, but in an effort to keep this episode concise, I want to cover just the four main points that I believe everyone who listened to Serial needs to hear in order to make an informed decision about Adnan's guilt or innocence. Were these four things that we're going to talk about left out of Serial because Sarah Koenig didn't know about them or just because they didn't fit into her story? [08:24] You know, I think it's a little bit of both. There was a lot of stuff that didn't come out until after Serial, so she wouldn't have known. But there were little things she could have included, and I kind of go back and forth on whether or not I agree with her choice. But here's where I've landed. I think it was a good decision to leave out some of the stuff that maybe would have been more pro-adnon. In my opinion, I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not [08:47] It's the debating that kept people talking and made people care. I think there's a good chance if Serial would have been a straightforward wrongful conviction podcast, we wouldn't still be here talking about it today. She did the right thing to make it big in the way that she did, and then Undisclosed did the right thing with their follow-up to continue the fight for Adnan.

[09:07] And I think Sarah Koenig is first and foremost a storyteller. And what she did was tell an amazing story. Yeah, she even says right up front of the podcast, she's not an investigator. She's not even a crime reporter. She told an amazing and engaging story. [09:22] With that, let's just get to the meat of it. [09:24] The first point I want to bring up are those cell phone pings. So if you remember from serial, Adnan was convicted because of Jay's testimony. Jay said Adnan told him he planned on killing Hay and he let Jay use his car and his phone as part of that plan. [09:40] When it came time for trial, the prosecution said, "Hey look, Jay's a little shifty, but location data doesn't lie. We can show you that Jay's story is true because the cell phone pings match his story, but it's not that cut and dry." [09:53] When Jay is first interviewed by police, he tells them that he dropped Adnan off at school and then goes home to wait for Adnan's call. [09:59] Yeah. [10:00] As part of preparing the case, the police wanted to chart the path of the cell phone visually. So detectives asked for a map to be created showing all of the cell towers and how the cell would have moved throughout the day based on where they pinged. The map that was made showed that two of the crucial pings, which happened at 427 and 458, did not hit off the tower near Jay's house where he said he was. [10:25] Instead, it looked like the tower that the phone pinged off of was a few miles away. So inexplicably, by the time Jay goes to trial... [10:34] He now says that he didn't go home to wait. He says that he went to his friend Christy's house to wait. And if you're wondering who Christy is, we actually knew her in serial as not her real name Kathy.

[10:46] And conveniently, Christie's house is in range of that cell tower on the map. And he says he was at Christie's, even though Christie says she wasn't even home at the time for him to come over. That doesn't feel great. Do we know how close they were? Would he have gone over there even if she wasn't home? Okay, sure. Maybe I can buy that. I mean, the prosecution was confident enough to put him on trial with the changing story. So who knows? Maybe it would have flown. But here is why we know that's B.S. [11:14] There was a mistrial the first time, and somewhere between trial number one and trial number two, the police and the prosecution realized that whoever made that map made it wrong. The cell tower was actually close to Jay's house. So in trial number two, Jay's story changes again, and he says he was back at his house waiting for the call. So he was for sure lying. Yeah, but I feel like we knew that already, right? I mean, Serial did a pretty good job of pointing out his inconsistencies, [11:44] Undisclosed did an even better job breaking down every single lie. And one big bombshell that the Undisclosed team found was in relation to those two incoming calls at 709 and 716 that pinged on the tower that covers Lincoln Park, where Hayes' body was discovered. Police and the prosecution say, Okay, let's go. [12:06] Even if all of the other pings are off and don't match Jay's story, that's minor because we can prove that Adnan was at Lincoln Park burying her body because we can put his cell phone there.

[12:17] And they got an expert to testify to this in court. He said, based on the records, yes, he is where Hayes' body was found at the time Jay says they're burying her body. [12:28] Well... [12:29] What the Undisclosed team found was on the fax cover sheet from AT&T that had all of the call records, there was one line that said, [12:38] Quote, [12:38] Outgoing calls only are reliable for location status. Any incoming calls will not be considered reliable information for location. The expert witness never saw this until recently, and when he did, he said this would have totally changed his testimony. So incoming calls can be routed through towers that aren't necessarily the closest tower to the phone? Bingo. Why didn't this come up at either of the trials? Well, there's one of two reasons. [13:08] disclosure information that they provided to the defense, which is a huge Brady violation. And Britt, in case anyone doesn't know what that is, do you want to give a quick rundown of what a Brady violation is? Sure. [13:20] A Brady violation means that the prosecution withheld something, like information or evidence that would have been material to the outcome of a trial, meaning that if the jury would have heard it, it could have changed their minds. If it's found that the prosecution had something like this, a memo from the company stating that the evidence they were using wasn't 100% accurate, and they didn't share it with the defense, it would entitle the defendant to a new trial. Right. [13:44] So either they had it and they didn't hand it over to Adnan's lawyer,

[13:48] and that's a Brady violation deserving of a new trial, [13:51] or B, they did give it to Adnan's lawyer, but she didn't read it, [13:56] and or maybe ignored it, which in turn means that she did a really crappy job defending him, and her incompetence or negligence would also entitle him to a new trial due to ineffective assistance of counsel. [14:09] And this is one of the main points Adnan's new lawyer, Justin Brown, pushed to get Adnan's new trial. It was this combined with Asia McLean's testimony. It's so incredible that after all these years, so many people missed that little line that really changed everything. Yeah, Susan Simpson, who found it, is a goddess. [14:27] Okay, but to play devil's advocate here, I'm going to say that some people listening have to be thinking, "Okay, you're proving to me he deserves a new trial, but you're not really proving to me that he's innocent. Even though we can't say that the cell tower is 100% accurate, there's still a chance that it could be right, right?" And this brings me to our second, and what I think is the most important piece of evidence that was left out of the trial and serial. [14:50] Hay's body. Because at the end of the day, the cell phone pings aren't even worth talking about if you understand the significance of the way Hay was found. [15:00] And to understand the implication of what I'm going to tell you, I need you to understand the basics of what happens to a body after death. So Britt, want to drop some knowledge again? [15:09] Of course. So when a person dies, something called liver mortis sets in. It's sometimes referred to as lividity. So it has to do with the blood in the body. If you're dead, your heart isn't pumping anymore.

[15:22] blood isn't being circulated throughout your body. So naturally the red blood cells in your body are weighed down by gravity, and they settle in whatever part of the body is closest to the ground. [15:31] And this causes a purplish-red-blue discoloration wherever the blood is pooling. Right. So say you die and you're laying flat on your back. We would see that purplish-red-blue color all over your back, all over your butt, and the back of your legs because those are the parts of you closest to the ground. But that doesn't happen instantaneously. No, it happens pretty slowly. It can actually take 8 to 10 hours for the blood to fully settle. If you're in one position for the full 8 to 10 hours, [16:01] fixed lividity, which means the blood didn't move around at any point in those 8-10 hours after you died. If a body is moved during those 8-10 hours, you can almost track exactly how it was moved, [16:14] You die laying on your back so the blood starts to pool and begins to settle there. [16:18] But then someone comes and moves you to your right side. [16:21] The blood will follow the path of gravity and then start to pool again on the right side, but not all of it will go, because some of it has already settled too much on your back. [16:29] Kind of like if you poured paint on a piece of paper and then tipped the paper from side to side to make the paint run. [16:36] Pathologists can see a path the body has been moved because the blood leaves patches where it has been. And when this happens, this is called dual or mixed lividity. Right, so the pattern of blood on someone's body can tell you what position they were in after death, and whether or not they stayed like that for 8 to 10 hours,

[16:53] or if they were moved during that time. [16:56] If you'll remember from Serial, the story Jay tells us is that Adnan killed Hay between 2.30 and 3.00. Then he puts her in the trunk. [17:03] Which means she would have had to have been pretzled up somehow, like either on one of her sides or maybe her back, but definitely balled up to fit in that trunk. [17:13] Then, [17:13] He takes her out of the car and buries her sometime between 7 and 7.30. That means for up to five hours, Hay would have been in the trunk and Liver Mortis would have started to set in, in whatever position she was in in that trunk. [17:27] Then, [17:29] They would have pulled her out, placed her in the depression near that log where she was found, [17:33] and she was placed on the ground when they found her. She was on her right side. So no matter how she was kept in the trunk, we should be seeing signs of liver mortis on the right side of her body. But that's not what the findings showed. Hay had full, fixed lividity on the front of her body. That purplish-red blue color was present on her face, her chest, her stomach, and the front of her legs. From the way her blood pooled, we know for a fact [18:03] completely flat, face down, for 8 to [redacted address] she could have been in her trunk from the time she was killed until the time Jay says she was buried around 7 p.m. in Lincoln Park. 0% chance. This isn't a soft science. Like, this is just straight up gravity and you can't argue with gravity. Face down... [18:23] flat,

[18:24] for 8 to 10 hours. So that not only means she wasn't in the trunk, but it means that she couldn't have been buried until much later. Exactly. So no matter whose side you were on, defense or prosecution, the timeline doesn't work. We know Hay was last seen at 2.15 at school. The absolute earliest she could have been killed is around 2.30. So that means she had to have been laying flat for 8 to 10 hours for Liver Mortis to fully set in. [18:51] That puts us at 10.30 or 12.30 at night at the earliest before she's buried. [18:59] And if you think she was killed any later than 2.30, the timeline only moves further back. And so either way, those cell pings around 7 o'clock mean absolutely nothing. [19:10] So even if Adnan was sitting in the middle of Lincoln Park on his cell phone between 7 and 7.30 just because he loved the woods, it doesn't mean anything because Hay wasn't even there until after 10.30 that night at the very earliest. 100%. And that's why I'm saying those cell pinks don't matter. He likely wasn't there at Lincoln Park around 7 on the 13th because we know from AT&T that those incoming calls aren't reliable. [19:40] Okay. Okay. [19:45] Again, I'm going to play devil's advocate for everyone listening who's trying to make excuses for how Adnan could still be guilty. What if he killed her, took her body immediately to Leakin Park, laid her flat, left her for a while, and then came back to bury her? Alright. Alright.

[20:00] But it still doesn't work. [20:02] A, that was never Jay's story, and Jay was the only thing prosecution had on Adnan. [20:07] And B, the police said the only reason Jay was reliable was because the cell records backed him. But the cell records don't even back the story he gave in court, and they definitely don't even come close to backing a scenario where they drop her off at Lincoln Park right away and then come back. And there is zero physical evidence tying Adnan to the crime. So to anyone who's trying to make an excuse for how he could have done it this way, they're making the same mistake police did. [20:37] okay, what really happened here? They're starting from a place of, I think I know what happened here, now how can I twist and turn the facts to make it work with my theory? And to top it off, I have more. There are some experts who don't even think Hay was out in Leakin Park for six weeks. If she was there that long, we should have seen evidence of animal activity and severe decomposition, but there wasn't any. There are some experts who don't even think Hay was out in Leakin Park for six weeks. [21:02] Where was hay that she could lay flat for 8 to 10 hours and not be seen? Where was she kept away from animal activity for that long? [21:10] And when was she really placed in Lincoln Park? Because it definitely wasn't January 13th, around 7 p.m. [21:17] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. So

[21:36] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [21:43] wherever you get your podcasts. [21:46] So I think we can all agree that Jay is lying, and not in an "oh, I just got confused about the exact time and order of events" kind of lying. Nothing even comes close to matching up. Nope. [21:59] So I gotta ask you the question you could not let go of when you listened to Serial the first time. What about Hay's car? And that's point number three. Before I knew all of the other stuff, that was my one sticking point. But what about the car? If Jay is making all of this up, how would he know where the car was? Did he do something to her? Like, none of it made sense to me. And it didn't to anyone either, because I think we were all underestimating the degree [22:29] to get their guy. [22:30] I don't want to get too deep into the weeds on this because again, this podcast is a high-level overview of what you need to know, but there was some serious police misconduct in this case, like for real. And I encourage people to go back and listen to Undisclosed or to read Rabia's book to get the full background, and that'll show you all the places that they went wrong and bent the truth to fit their theory. But for this, I'm just asking that you trust me. Even though what I'm about to suggest seems too conspiratorial to be real life, [22:59] None of this would be out of character for the people who worked the case. [23:03] There's a picture of Hay's car, [23:05] when police recovered it after Jay told them the location. I have this on our website if you want to go look at what I'll be pointing out.

[23:12] The car was recovered on a grassy lot that was used for parking. [23:16] supposedly [23:17] It would have been sitting there for six weeks. [23:20] During this time, there were winter storms with snow and ice and it was nasty, but her car was perfectly clean. [23:29] The grass spot next to her car was completely dead because another car had been parked over it. So we would assume, [23:36] that that's what we would see under Hay's car since it had been there so long. But the grass under Hay's car was perfectly green. She even had grass in her wheel well that was perfectly green. Like, if you think I'm being crazy, just go outside, pluck a handful of grass on the ground, hold on to it for six weeks, and tell me if it's green. [23:55] There's no way. It would have been dead. I know. So the theory is that it was moved. But by who? That's where it gets kind of dark and conspiratorial. We don't know for sure, but I feel pretty confident it wasn't there the whole time. Someone moved it and someone told Jay where it was. [24:13] Any chance that Jay moved it? I think that's super unlikely. I mean, at this point, it's becoming painfully clear that Jay doesn't actually know anything about what happened to Hay. His account of the day has been totally blown to shreds. It is unbelievable. [24:27] all made up. And if you follow Jay's story and the police's investigation side by side, Jay's story unfolds [24:37] as police are finding new evidence, not the other way around. Like for example,

[24:43] They get to the car, and from just glancing in it, you can see that the wiper lever was broken off. So right away after they find the car, Jay tells this story about how Hay was kicking while she was being strangled, and her kicking broke the lever. Okay. [24:58] Well, they send off the lever for testing and realize there's no fractures on the piece. It was not broken off. It had actually come off because the base was loosened when the ignition collar was removed. Why would the ignition collar have been removed? Well, in her type of car, removing the ignition collar was a great first step to hot wiring the car. So someone really could have moved her car and told Jay where it was. Yep. And stuff like this happens over and over with Jay's story. [25:28] find new evidence and then magically his story changes. Like at first he said that Hayes jacket and purse were thrown away. Then when they find the car they find her jacket and purse in the trunk and so Jay changes his story and says that Adnan threw him in the trunk and it's non-stop with this back and forth stuff where it's one thing one way until police find evidence and then Jay's story changes to match. [25:51] So shady. Yep. But like I said, police had their sights set on Adnan. And every new piece of evidence that came in, they would twist and turn and contort until they could find a way to make it fit into their story. But a lot of people think they came to Adnan after ruling out other suspects. Yeah. [26:09] verifying alibis, looking at motives, and Adnan's was just the weakest.

[26:14] So... [26:15] so wrong. And this will be our fourth and final point that I want to hit on. The cops looked into no one else, even a tenth, as hard as they looked into Adnan. They actually pulled Adnan's criminal record on February 3rd of 1999, and that's before the anonymous tip comes into police [26:35] saying that they need to look at Adnan. And do you want to guess how many other people got their criminal records pulled around the same time? [26:41] I really hope you're going to say a few. Zero. Zero other people got their criminal records pulled around the same time. Police didn't look at Hay's mom's ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands. They didn't look at Hay's uncle. [26:54] In fact, did you know there was even another young girl who was also 18 years old, also from Hayes High School, that was strangled and also found in the woods like Hay less than a year before her murder? [27:07] You're kidding. No. And the guy who killed her was out at the time that Hay was killed. They didn't know who he was then, but it's insane that they weren't talking about this connection in their investigation. So is that the prevailing theory? That this same guy killed Hay? Some people think it's a possibility. It certainly needs to be looked into, but it's much more likely that Hay was killed by someone she knew. She told a friend before she left school that day that she had something to do before picking up her cousin. [27:33] They were never able to find Hay's pager either with her body or in her car. So really everyone's best guess is that someone paged Hay that day to meet them and that person killed her and then took her pager because it would have led police right back to them.

[27:49] So likely it would have been someone that she knew. Someone who would know her pager number, and that she would feel comfortable meeting. Right, and more importantly, someone who wasn't at school with her, because why would that person page her if they were with her? True, but even though Adnan was at school with her, police had to look at him, right? I mean, I feel like people who are listening who were on the fence or thought he did it, would say that police were justified in looking at him. He was the ex-boyfriend. I totally agree. [28:17] BUT [28:18] I would think they would give the same amount of attention to her current boyfriend, wouldn't you? [28:22] Yeah, definitely. But they didn't, not even close. And this is where the case gets bone-chilling to me. So when Hay goes missing, they try and reach her boyfriend, Don. On January 13th, police attempt to contact him pretty early on after Hay was reported missing in the early evening. But they can't reach him until 1.30 in the morning. And when they finally get to talk to him, he says that he was working at the time Hay went missing. But not working at his normal LensCrafters location, he was filling in at another location. Okay. [28:51] Was he working till 1:30 in the morning? [28:53] Why couldn't they get a hold of him? No, LensCrafters isn't open that late. Not a chance. No one knows where he was. But police eventually call his manager, and she verifies that she loaned him out to another store. The manager says he was working, so police just totally write him off and continue their case against Adnan. Before the trial... [29:12] Adnan's lawyer tried to get Don's employment records to verify his alibi. She submits a request for the records, which should have been kept secret. But somehow, the prosecution gets wind of this, and they too request the records.

[29:26] Both of them get a notice from LensCrafters saying like, "Oop, sorry, we got nothing on this guy." Well, prosecutors step in and try to help, and poof! All of a sudden, there are magical records of him working on the 13th. [29:40] Are people's alarms going off like crazy at that point? No, and this feeds back into Adnan not having good representation. His lawyer did no digging into the magical alibi, and that was a huge mistake, because in 2015, the Undisclosed team and Bob Ruff from Truth and Justice made some freaking explosive discoveries. [30:00] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [30:19] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [30:27] wherever you get your podcasts. [30:30] First, legal goddess Susan Simpson, who is part of the Undisclosed team, notices something super off about the time cards that were submitted. [30:39] Normally when Don works, his ID shows up on his time card at 0162. [30:45] Well, on January 13th, his ID number, [30:48] now shows up as 0097, only on that day. [30:53] What does that mean? Well, it means for the first time ever, Don used another employee ID number. So Bob Ruff from Truth and Justice decides to do some hardcore investigating on this. And what he comes up with is insane. LensCrafters isn't a franchise store. It's all owned by one company. So even if you work at multiple branches, your ID would travel with you.

[31:17] But okay, let's say for some reason they went against company policy and you used two numbers. The timesheets given to the prosecution showed that Don worked over 40 hours, but got paid no overtime, which means... [31:31] Even though they have this sheet that they gave as proof of an alibi, that time worked was never entered into the official pay system. Okay. Next strange thing. [31:41] Know that manager that vouched for him working? [31:43] Turns out, [31:45] That manager is Don's mom. Stop. I can't. There's more. She shouldn't have had access to the timesheets from another store. Even though they're all connected, you can't view time cards from another location. Wait, so how did she know he was working then? Well, because the manager at that store where he was filling in happens to be Don's mother's girlfriend at the time who she later married. What? His alibi was his mom and his stepmom. [32:15] didn't dig enough. Oh, and there's a lot more they would have found out if they kept digging into the time card issues. So his mom had worked there for a long time, and her ID number was [32:26] was 0110. [32:28] She'd been there a few years, and as employees get hired, you would get sequentially higher numbers for every new employee. [32:36] The new ID number that Don used that day that Hay went missing was 0097, which is a lower number than his mom's 0110. Which means even if for some reason they went against normal company policy and issued him a new number, there's no way they would have issued him a number that was lower than his mom's who'd been working there for years. Oh my God. Brett, there's still more.

[33:07] He was supposedly filling in as a lab tech from 9 to 6, but it wasn't a thing. The earliest lab tech position that they ever had on their schedule started at 11. And Don uses that ID regularly. [33:20] one more time on January 16th. And again, he reports working that mysterious ghost shift that doesn't exist. This looks so bad for Dawn. But maybe his mom was worried that he'd be a suspect. And when they found Hay murdered, she changed his time card so he wouldn't get grilled by the police. I mean, we saw how police railroaded Adnan. Maybe she knew the police were corrupt and wanted to protect him. That could have been. [33:50] So it was technically against the rules that he was working for his mom. So maybe they were even just trying to cover that up. And that seems innocent enough. [33:59] I know you well enough to know that you're not done. No. Another thing you need to know is that the timesheets at LensCrafters could be changed, but only up until a point. You have to make the changes within one week of the pay period closing. Okay. [34:15] So what are you saying? I'm saying that based on what we have, [34:21] it's likely he didn't work using that other ID. [34:24] He's probably lying. So his mom would have had to fake the records, but she didn't fake them. [34:31] When Adnan's lawyer asked for them, or after police had found Hay's body, she would have had to fake them no later than January 22nd. Wait, so they changed his time card before anyone even knew Hay was dead? Yep.

[34:47] And the 22nd happens to also be the first time Don was officially interviewed by police. And if I remember correctly, he was one of the people that suggested that maybe Hay went off to California when she was missing, right? Yeah, that story might have come from him. So if he doesn't think she's dead, why is he changing his time card so soon after she disappeared? And why could no one get in touch with him until 1:30 in the morning the day that she went missing? [35:13] I want to be [35:14] very, very clear. I am not saying that Don did it. What I'm trying to point out is that police didn't do their job. If they would have looked into anyone else half as hard as they looked into Adnan, they would have found this out back in 1999. [35:30] Maybe it was innocent, maybe not, but we can 100% say that police did a terrible job at investigating and the justice system railroaded Adnan. [35:39] And you guys, there is so much more like this. Like, did you know there was a rope found at the scene just a few inches from Hay's body? And the medical examiner actually said in court she could have been strangled with a rope, but that rope was never even tested. And I could go on and on forever about this case, but I feel like people have enough information now to at least see that there's so much more to this than serial presented. So I know we hit our four points, but can I bring up a few of the arguments that I see discussed online all the time? [36:09] I'd like to just address them now instead of fighting with people on Twitter. Sure. The first is that people keep saying Adnan all of a sudden doesn't want the DNA to be tested. They say when Cyril was going on, he was all for it. But when it came time to push for a retrial, he's backed up and now he doesn't want it tested. And people who say this are always like, see, he knows it's going to come back as his DNA. If he was innocent, he would want the test done.

[36:39] Adnan and his supporters would very much like to have the DNA evidence tested. But here's the thing. When they were going for a new trial, they had to pick their strongest case. They knew that they had a slam dunk with that AT&T fax cover sheet and Asia McLean's testimony, which both amounted to an ineffective assistance of counsel. They had to hang their hat on that one unified argument instead of going in all scatterbrained. If they would have picked the DNA as their argument [37:09] winning were super slim. Because here's the thing, even though Adnan and his team know it won't come back with his DNA, having it come back with someone else's won't necessarily help Adnan's case at all. I'm not sure I get what you're saying. [37:22] I feel like if they found DNA on that brandy bottle or rope near her body, it would prove Adnan wasn't the one who left them there. Right. It would prove that he didn't leave those items there. Right. [37:33] But if the state found that it didn't match Adnan, all they would have to say is, oh, see, like, that's why we didn't even bother getting it tested in the first place. It's just trash. It has nothing to do with the case. And Adnan's still the killer. Proving someone else killed Hay because of discarded items near her body would be such a long shot to overturn a conviction on. So they didn't go with the DNA. They hung their hat on the ineffective assistance of counsel and good call on their part because it worked.

[38:03] be tested. People also point to Adnan's demeanor on the phone with Sarah Koenig throughout Serial. They say he doesn't sound like someone who's defending himself. They always give the... [38:13] Well, if it were me. Ah, the if it were me tweet. What people forget is Anand was not being interviewed by the host of a globally popular podcast. In fact, most people in the general public were not talking about podcasts in 2013 or 2014 when she was interviewing him. He likely saw Sarah as just one more journalist interviewing him. [38:34] one more person who couldn't even decide if she was on his side or not. [38:38] It's at least my belief that he'd been beat down and run over by the system so much [38:43] that at that point, he wasn't gonna get worked up for someone who might end up telling a story that would hurt his case rather than help it. He didn't know Sarah and he couldn't have known what serial was gonna turn into. No one knew. [38:55] If he would have known that this podcast was actually going to be heard by hundreds of millions of people, and it had the potential to change the outcome of his whole life, who knows? He may have acted differently, but even if he wouldn't have acted differently, people who listen to us know we are very firm on the idea that you cannot judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes, and you have no idea how they're going to react. Yeah, no one listening right now is Adnan. No one but Adnan has the right to speak to his demeanor. I totally agree. [39:23] The last thing I see all the time is that people will harass Adnan supporters by saying that we're all getting our facts from a biased source, mainly Rabia, who brought the story to Sarah Koenig.

[39:33] who started Undisclosed, and who wrote the book on Adnan's story. People who think that, I will never waste my time arguing with. First off, [39:42] Sure, of course Rabia is Team Adnan. But if we are going to recognize biases, let's also face the fact that the police and prosecution in Baltimore have a very strong bias in the opposite direction. The way this investigation was conducted shows some serious misconduct. [39:58] Jobs and reputations are on the line for some of them, so don't tell me they're only worried about the facts and they don't have an agenda of their own. [40:06] So going in, knowing that each side has a bias, then we just have to go off of who has the facts on their side. And that's Adnan. The state does not have facts. All the state has is Jay. And I even see that come up over and over online. People keep saying, well, the state's witnessed this and the state's witnessed that. That's all they have and the state's witness doesn't mean anything. It's really hard for me to understand how people keep pointing to Jay as the reason Adnan's guilty. I feel like if anyone's working off a blind bias, it's the state. [40:36] maybe both people have biases and then just not be talking about this, [40:40] Or we need to move on and realize that probably Ravia likes Adnan, but she's working with facts here. And there is so much more I want to cover, but you now have the most important information about this case. And hopefully you're able to understand why Adnan got a new trial and what you can expect from his new trial. [40:58] If they go to trial at all, I mean, really, Jay and those cell pings were the whole case. What would the prosecution's story even be? They have to stick to the same story, or the defense will just rip them to shreds for changing. And if they change, the defense will rip them to shreds for putting someone in jail on the basis of something they knew was bogus. I just have no idea what their plan will even be. I have no clue either, but you better believe I'm watching that trial like a hawk along with the rest of Team Adnan.

[41:28] If you have a friend who listened to Serial, make sure you share this episode with them. And before the trial starts, [41:36] if there is a new trial, I really encourage everyone take a deeper look into this case. You can listen to the Undisclosed podcast. They cover Adnan's case in season one, and they have gone on to cover other wrongful convictions in future seasons. You can also read the amazing blogs done by their hosts, Rabia Chaudhry blogs on Split the Moon, Susan Simpson blogs on The View from LL2, and Colin Miller blogs on Evidence Prof blog. I will put links to all of [42:06] transcripts and pictures. It is a wealth of information. And don't forget to check out Truth and Justice as well. Bob covered Adnan's case in season one, and right now he's covering the West Memphis Three case. [42:18] And finally, if you want a consolidated narrative on this case, please go get Rabia Chaudhry's book called Adnan's Story. You can actually get it for free and help support our podcast. Just go to audibletrial.com slash crimejunkie. And don't forget to visit our website for more information on today's episode. You can go there at crimejunkiepodcast.com. And go visit us on Twitter at crimejunkiepod. Tweet at us and tell us what you thought of this episode. And be sure to use the hashtag for you, Adnan. [42:48] crime junkie is written and hosted by me all of our sound production and editing comes from brit

[43:18] The name comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [43:24] *Mario's screaming* [43:29] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [43:48] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [43:51] I think you'll love it too. [43:53] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.