CONVICTION OVERTURNED MD - Hae Min Lee, 17, Baltimore, 13 Jan 1999

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jellybeanz

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The "true crime" genre holds a morbid fascination, and the new podcast from the team behind This American Life has a doozy of a specimen in a 15-year-old Baltimore murder case that may or may not have resulted in a wrongful conviction of a teenage boy for the murder of his high school sweetheart.

Read more at: http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/2014/10/6/1999-murder-of-baltimore-teen-re-examined-in-new-podcast

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I have to say I am hooked. So many questions that I hope are answered in the coming 'episodes'. I also hope some good sleuthers can delve into this case and maybe find some information that the people working on this podcast have missed.

The podcast can be found * here *
 
I came here to post about this story and discuss it. My DH actually brought this podcast to my attention, which is unusual because he never follows crime cases. But he heard it somewhere and got wrapped up in it.

I don't know if Adnan is guilty or not, but he didn't get a fair trial, IMO.

By the way, the podcast is very interesting/detailed/intriguing, although I wish it weren't 12 episodes. That's a long time to wait........
 
Thank you Belimon.

I can't wait till Thursday.
I think Sarah K is holding back some stuff in this case that isn't available online and I agree I don't think Adnan had a fair trial, guilty or not.

I have found out who Mr S is and think he may pop up later in this story. I'm also intrigued who Jay is and have a feeling he may be now in lockup on a murder charge, but we will see.

As I said, I am hooked on this and eagerly await the information yet to be revealed.
 
I am so into this podcast - I wish it would just keep going. I cannot wait for the next episode. Sort of thought the sleuths would be into it more than they appear to be???
 
I am! I am! I was devastated to find out I had to wait for another episode. There is not much information I can find online about the case. I wish I could locate the trial transcripts.
 
I am so into this podcast - I wish it would just keep going. I cannot wait for the next episode. Sort of thought the sleuths would be into it more than they appear to be???
I know!

Maybe a load of people are waiting for it to finish, then binge listen to it? I thought about doing this after episode 2, but I just can't wait for more snippets so click the link and listen...

Again, Jay sounds well dodgy in the latest release. Hmmmm.
 
I made this (the person list)! Continuing to update as new episodes come out. I'm one of the moderators of the reddit community where this is posted. BTW, episode 4 dropped today.
 
Just listening to episode 4. It's amazing. Came to websleuths to see if it was being discussed. I'm anxious to know more about this case.
 
I made this (the person list)! Continuing to update as new episodes come out. I'm one of the moderators of the reddit community where this is posted. BTW, episode 4 dropped today.
:welcome:

Hi jakeprops and welcome to Websleuths. I gave you the credit at the bottom of your list.

I see Adnan's brother has been posting on your site and that Jay's surname has been revealed too.
I got it wrong about him being in jail and see he has a young family now. Also still friends with Jenn...
 
Tire impression cast - as per 'Evidence Map' uploaded on 10th October by the Serial Team.

Not seeing much about this, but can we assume the tire impression is from Hae Lee's car, possibly partly driven into the gap in the trees where she was located?

Also, the condom and its wrapper? And the gun casings? Seems so out of place for these items to be found there if Hae Lee was already dead. Unless he was really sick and wanted to abuse a corpse? I don't think so and not getting that.

If those items belonged to the perp, then can we maybe guess that Hae Lee was still alive at this point? That would considerably affect the timeline of events.
A gun fired into the air, to scare Hae to walk further into the trees, or if she was making a run for it after getting out of the car? Hence the shell casings near to the road?
The condom and its wrapper discarded after he had strangled her in the wood and returned to the car to get away.
 
There's a lot of talk about Adnan loaning his car and cell to Jay on the day of the murder and that was part of his premeditation.

On the flip side to this, noone appears to be questioning whether Jay made sure his car was unavailable that day and the following day (as per Jenn's testimony that she drove Jay around Baltimore picking up shovels from dumpsters, taking to other dumpsters to discard the clothes he was wearing on the day of Hae's murder) in order for him to appear in an almost ghost like fashion those two days.

I've read that Jay's possible motive was because Hae was going to confront him on his cheating Stephanie with other girls. Hae could have called Adnan's cell that afternoon (see here for phone logs to and from Adnans cell) at 2:36pm and got Jay on the end of the line.
Jay could have easily have asked Hae to meet him right there and then to discuss his philandering ways at a secluded spot and carried out the murder.

Everything that comes out of Jay's mouth with regard to Adnan, I think that that is in fact him and his actions. I think in his 'story' of lies he therefore needs and did have an accomplice - that cannot be him as he is Adnan in the story he describes. I have to think his accomplice is Jenn, the Detective's daughter from another County. (See excessive calls to and from her on day of murder)
I also have to think this is why the investigating detectives focused entirely on Adnan and believed what Jay and Jenn told them unconditionally, despite the admitted lies and inconsistencies.

I have so so much more thoughts on the whole matter, but will stop at that for now.
 
Wow, I was really hoping more people would be sleuthing this because I'm obsessed now and I don't know what to think!
 
So episode 5 went up on Thursday which concentrated on cell phone tower pings and the mess of a timeline the state went with at trial.

Today, mary_landa on reddit unearthed some court documents from Adnan's appeal in 2002.

So for folks who aren't following on reddit, you can find those documents here and here.

Quite a lot of information in those documents that haven't been talked about on Sarah Koenig's podcast, so you could class them as a spoiler.
 
''Serial'' is an AMAZING podcast. I've listened to every episode so far. This American Life should seriously consider making this a long-running series, where they re-examine potential wrongful conviction cases.

Right now, I'm not totally convinced that Adnan is innocent. I feel like he's most likely innocent, but I don't want to jump to conclusions yet.

IMO the circumstantial evidence points to his innocence. There hasn't been a singular piece of evidence strong enough to make me go "Yeah, he's innocent" on his own. But when you learn that no one can say Adnan had any ill will towards Hae, the Asia girl (who' the most reliable witness in this story so far, tbh) says she saw him in the library at the time the prosecution thinks the murder took place, how unreliable Jay's testimony is, and how shaky the prosecution's timeline is... I don't know, it just doesn't point to Adnan's guilt. And I didn't really buy the prosecution's proposed motive for the killing, either.

The timeline means it's possible Adnan did it, but it's very improbable. It'd leave only 3 minutes for him to get into a heated argument with Hae, kill her and stuff her body in the trunk). That's way too fast IMO, especially considering that 1) Adnan was only 17 and would not have been experienced in killing at all, and 2) manual strangulation is NOT an easy process. Even if you assume the strangulation only took 2 minutes (which is pretty damn fast), that leaves only 60 seconds to have a massive argument and put Hae in the trunk. All in a Best Buy parking lot.

Episode 6 is going to focus on the state's case against Adnan. I'm sure the prosecution had something that hasn't yet been discussed on Serial, and maybe that ''something'' will make me change my mind and think Adnan's guilty. However, whether Adnan is guilty or innocent, it doesn't sound like he had a fair trial and it certainly doesn't sound like it was a strong enough case to convict on.
 
I'm trying to balance my intense curiosity for more information in this story with my desire to let things play out in the podcast episodes. I'm so anxious to figure out how Sarah will end this story. I've delved into a couple of things. Here is the link to the appellate appeal which provides a lot of interesting info.

https://pdf.yt/d/PUUcby-AZWfEhcuW/download
 
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