Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

xposts. from Frederik's link from last week:
The 7:09 p.m. and 7:16 p.m. calls are the two most significant calls in the case, because both calls were routed through L689B — which is the tower/antenna whose range is almost exclusively limited to the southwest leg of Leakin Park, where Hae was buried.

The problem with Jay doing it by himself is 1) there is no motive as far as I can tell for Jay doing it all and 2) he hung out at various times with Abnan the entire day and 3) managed to do various things that incriminated Abnan in the process. If the lady from the Innocence Project thinks that Sarah getting hooked with a charming psychopath well if Jay did it all by himself then he's basically charming psychopath X master criminal X a 1000.

"hooked with a charming psychopath is unlikely"

oh i think the show has definitely made a case for Adnan's innocence based on his character before and after the crime - it's a huge theme throughout the show, every episode comes back to it.

totally agree - and am inclined to believe - big chunks of Jay's story are bullshit and big chunks are essentially true

I think I'll just wake up this morning make Adnan think I need his car to buy a present for Stephanie then go kill his ex-girlfriend and frame him for it then we'll smoke pot and then hang out some more then I'll tell my friend Adnan did it then wait six weeks yes PURE GOLD!

Oh and I won't bother to keep my story straight after that because who cares of course everyone's going to believe Adnan did it why because I am super trustworthy.

As crazy as the prosecutions timeline is at least there is ring of sense to the whole thing... jealous teenage dude enlists ne'er do well friend to help dispose of body of murdered girlfriend, behaves in totally irresponsible teenage manner while doing so.

Jay being like "sure whatever I'll help you dispose of the body and car" is actually the most really why would he do that? But ironically that's the part of the story that's actually corroborated by Jay!

and it just doesn't seem that far-fetched to me - there are zillions of true crime article every month about teenage killings where a bunch of kids knew or helped cover it up for no particular reason other than they were hanging out that day

zillions/every month maybe overstatement but you know what i mean

The only chunk of Jays story that doesn't ping out is everything at the time of the actual murder...

If Jay did it, he prob met Hae coincidentally - he was in Adnans car, so would make sense. Something happened, he snapped. That is the main reason I'm inclined to believe Jay did it at this point: you can construct a timeline for him doing it completely without psychopathy. Just severe anger issues, and he def seems to have that.

Yeah that's true. It's mostly wtf from a rational adult level. For a teenager maybe not that far fetched..

same could be said of adnan re: just snapping, right?

also we don't necessarily know the time of the actual murder - we just know the approx time she left school and approx time she should have been picking up her cousin

Like, it's not 'inconsistencies'. The whole part of his whereabouts while the murder happened were obviously made up.

And the phone records aren't 'a mess'. They're just phonerecords. It's just that Jay and the prosecution has lied about them, makes it all weird.

And I don't think there is time for Adnan to snap. The whole timeline of the prosecution only fits together with Adnan planning it exactly to get the alibi he wanted.

He met Hae coincidentally in Adnan's car then snapped and killed her and then somehow arranged by himself to dispose of her car and her body and hang out with Adnan and frame Adnan and all by his lonesome and then he's just living the rest of his life like a normal dude. Yeah no sorry that's charming psycho x master criminal x a 1000 plus just insane luck to boot.

"Hey Adnan you don't mind driving with your phone and me over to Leakin Park for a little. Maybe someone will call us. Just hang out hear for a second while I drive your ex-girlfriends car over here and dispose of her body."

everything alex in sf is saying is basically why i decided many episodes ago that adnan did it

yeah, same here. I don't understand the "timeline doesn't allow for adnan to do it" argument when you think the jay/prosecution timeline is bs anyway.

No. Adnan asks him to take car and phone. Because of Adnans car, meets Adnans ex, snaps, kills her. Has Adnans car and phone, arranges to get rid of body with it, further incriminating Adnan. Takes car and phone to Adnan, hangs out with him. Adnan gets stoned, steals Adnans phone, buries Hae, brings back Adnans phone. Really, apart from the phonething, which is kinda smart, the rest makes sense.

lol no way maybe in a work of fiction

You're forgetting that he's also telling his best friend at this exact time "oh by the way Adnan was wut done it".

How exactly is he getting both Hae's car, Hae's body, Adnan's car and Adnan's phone to all these places by himself again? Also dude is out of control in your mind to snap and strangle Hae, but somehow coldly and methodically covers up crime and again frame's acquaintance (coincidentally ex-bf of girl he killed in out of control fugue state) immediately after? Yeah that's not at all implausible.

yeah don't see it, nice effort though! better than I could have come up with

The problem is, if Adnan called for Jay, we can look at incoming calls. There is 2:36, which the prosecution focuses on. That one does not work with snapping. 3:15, which does not work either (it's explained on the Serial blog why). And then the next one is 4:27, def while Adnan is at track - he calls to be picked up at 4:59. So Adnan would have to have killed Hae before 2:36, and that does not fit.

There are also several calls to people from the I-88 at 3:48 and 3:59 to unidentified people. Could be Jays friends who helped him dispose of the body.

And again: He could frame Adnan because he had car and phone. Same thing that could have made him meet Hae.

Also, those two incoming calls at Leakin park? They come right after an outgoing call to Jenns pager. And we know Jenn helped Jay cover it up (she admitted it, and several of other things she said that helped Jay does not fit)

And there is nothing 'immediate' about the way Jay covered it up. Adnan had to hurry, he had to be at track. If Jay did it we get another hour for the killer to get his shit together.

Def. while Adnan is at track in what world again? Maybe I'm mis-remembering where it was established that he was definitely there.

So just to be clear: in your mind it is most believable that Jay kills Hae sometime before 4:58, leaves her body and car somewhere random (or maybe calls friend and speedily disposes of both), picks up Adnan at track, drives around with him for a while, goes to Kathy's house, gets stoned, then somehow gets his phone to Leakin Park (then way way later I guess disposes of both car and body with a friends help) then calls Jen they meet up "hey what's up Adnan killed Hae" waits six weeks and then changes story umpteen times on way to a conviction of Adnan.

All the incoming calls argument suggest is that Jay's story about getting a pick-up call from Adnan doesn't check out for a couple of times.

It doesn't rule out that they could have been together the whole time. They could have pre-arranged a meeting place and time. The pick-up call could be one of the later unidentified calls if there even was a pick-up call.

If the timeline cooked up by Jay and the cops is really suspect, as Serial has convincingly argued, why look to it for proof of anything?

Also - no-one remembers Adnan being at track if I recall correctly. Doesn't mean he wasn't there - but there's no "Adnan had to be at track" at time x or y if we don't know he was really there.

All the while Adnan's just like none the wiser "aw shucks thanks for picking me up man. You ain't acting at all suspicious either."

Well, both Jay and Adnan says Adnan was at track, there is an incoming call at 4:58 which tracks perfectly with Adnan calling to be picked up. If Adnan wasn't at track, then we should just stop looking at evidence and testimony at all. Like, it's one thing that every part of the case agrees on: Adnan eventually made it to track.

And why on earth would Adnan had given his new cell phone to Jay if it wasn't so he could make the pick-up call? The phone is with Jay, it's not at Woodlawn while Adnan is at school.

Like, that is what looking at the phone records give us: Adnan's phone is with Jay. Q: Why would it be with Jay? A: So that Adnan could phone him no matter where he was.

Most likely reason for Jay's changing story is that he's actually a lot more complicit in arranging and covering up the murder than he's letting on. And all the permutations of the stories are to hide that and enable him to escape a long accessory to murder sentence.

What could he possibly have done that he hasn't admitted to?

Apart from killing Hae on her own, of course.

His own. Sorry.

He could have been much more involved in planning, covering up the murder than he's indicated thus far. In fact as the stories basically eventually moved more towards him being an active participant.

That is extremely vague and useless.

Watch Rope.

I have. Good on you for knowing the one Hichcock where the guy is actually guilty ;)

My point is basically when you are guilty of something (and Jay is by his own admission to his friend and to the police guilty of at minimum being an accessory to murder) it's not surprising that you would try (and the detectives would try to assist you, since you are their sole witness to a murder) to massage details in such a way as to minimize that crime and maximize the murderer's crime. That kind of massaging is sort of inevitably going to result in these inconsistencies, but it doesn't invalidate the general thrust of his testimony (this is basically what the detective that Koenig argues too so no points for originality for me).

Well, obviously I agree with that, as it's exactly the same thing I am saying: He lied to cover up his own guilt. We just disagree on where that guilt ends. But if we know that Jay was involved, and is willing to lie about it, and get Jenn to lie about it, then there is no reason to believe anything of what he says. And it's not that I'm a fanatic about presumption of innocence - Bill Cosby def did it - but when that is put on top of the problems with figuring out when Adnan would have had time to do it, and the thing with Adnans 'alibi', which anyways is better than Jay's, then I'm going to go ahead and feel it's more likely Adnan wasn't involved.

But also, if we're saying that criminals change their statements to cover up their tracks, then why didn't Adnan do the same? Like with his phone being at Leakin Park when he says he's at mosque: It's the easiest thing in the world to explain: 'I was too stoned to know where my phone was.' The tough part of that alibi is claiming to be somewhere filled with people, where someone should have been able to debunk it completely. The phone thing is just weird.

Oh anyways, I'm stopping now, it's late in DK.

i can't remember - is there any actual forensic evidence for Hae's time of death? iirc her time of death is based off jay's testimony and jen saying that jay told her about it that night. is there evidence to prove Hae was also buried in Leakin Park that same night?

the whole 'could this guy who is pleasant and likeable and responsible REALLY have killed anyone' really makes me crazy

because my whole thing is why are people not more cognizant of the fact that [warning unsubstantiated hyperbole] half the fucked up shit in the world is done by ppl who ARE pleasant and likeable bcz the combover serial killers are like, 1% of anyone.

my biggest beef with this show is the way she idealizes character traits that just seriously have nothing to do with anything.

anyway this whole episode just felt like a 'we need to fill an episode' cul-de-sac to me

SK is clearly a likeablist

But also, if we're saying that criminals change their statements to cover up their tracks, then why didn't Adnan do the same?

Because different criminals are different and their situations aren't really comparable.

Sorry still stuck on this Jay works alone scenario because my mind is boggling at it. Let's pretend that this is all Jay and it's a crazy crime of passion or whatever and then he's like "woah better cover this shit up" and he starts doing that methodically and at the same time starts framing Adnan, calling Nisha, arranging for the phone to be near Leakin Park cell towers, telling Jen that night that Adnan did it, etc, but why do any of that? Why bring Adnan into it at all? Most of these actions result in the policy getting to Jay! And Jay has no way of knowing that Adnan won't have an alibi, no way of knowing that Adnan will end up being a total patsy, no way of knowing that he'll get to walk. Was he just counting on being the luckiest criminal ever?

Also Adnan has no alibi. It's not way better than anyones. He literally cannot remember where he was basically the entire day and one person (other than Jay) remembers seeing him that afternoon.

Also Adnan has no alibi. It's not way better than anyones. He literally cannot remember where he was basically the entire day and one person (other than Jay) remembers seeing him that afternoon.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Thursday, December 11, 2014 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and like SK said herself, how could you not remember anything about a day when the police call you and tell you your ex-girlfriend is missing?

i think he was so confident that a)jay wouldn't tell the police anything b)even if he did, no one would believe him that he thought a simple deny deny deny/i don't remember anything strategy would work. i also think having jay borrow his cell phone and car was a half-assed way of covering/muddying his tracks.

Adnans 'alibi', which anyways is better than Jay's

Neither of them have an alibi.
Jay confessed, and Adnan has no alibi other than Asia MacLean, and she has recanted - and it would't necessarily let him off the hook even if it did check out.

is there any actual forensic evidence for Hae's time of death?

This is a really key question - and something that I think was blatantly misrepresented in Serial, which makes a huge deal about the "21 minutes" in which the crime must have happened. BUT that 21-minute timeline comes from Jay and the Best Buy call - both of which Serial argues forcefully are unreliable. I understand they're making the point about how the prosecution's timeline seems impossible - but the inference is that if Adnan could not have killed Hae in those 22 minutes he must be innocent - which isn't true.

From Episode 1:
According to Jay's story and the cellphone records, she was dead by 2:36 PM. So sometime in those 21 minutes, between 2:15 and 2:36, she was strangled. So that's obviously the same window Adnan needed to account for. To quote Adnan, "My case lived and died in those 21 minutes."

But we know Jay's timeline ultimately does not add up - which leads us to believe Jay might be minimizes or omitting his own role in Hae's death - why should we believe Hae had to have been killed in that 21-minute window? If Jay is lying about his role, that's the part of the timeline he is MOST likely to be lying about. So again, it just does not prove Adnan's innocence if this story doesn't check out... and Adnan's vague account of this period (basically "I was probably at the library because sometimes I checked email" at that time and "I never missed track" later) certainly doesn't amount to an alibi.

But I will say again because I'm feeling guilty for trashing the show and playing internet Columbo for my own entertainment now: the big truth that Serial revealed stands: this is a miscarriage of justice. Prosecution put up a shitty case and pulled some dubious moves, and the defence did a bad job. Whether he did it or not, it seems like he did not get a fair trial.

i'm glad SK is doing this show instead of you guys