Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

If Jay had been forced into helping a serial killer getting rid of the body, why on earth would it be more weird that he also felt forced into concocting a lie to further help a serial killer? Like, I don't get that.

lol

And Nysha's story is factually incorrect. Mentions a job that Jay didn't have at the time. And the prosecution ignores that. Like, it's the smoking gun, and it isn't true.

from what I've heard about the Innocent Project's work on this case (SPOILERS): They're mainly focusing on DNA tests of the rape kit--running it against a serial killer who was active at the time, and another guy

wait - what rape kit? i don't remember there being any mention of evidence she was raped - am I just forgetting that?

She wasn't, but they had to do one anyway

So Jay just randomly called Adnan's friend, who Jay wasn't friends with, on Adnan's phone, while in the midst of murdering or covering up the murder of Adnan's ex? Probably to help the serial killer frame Adnan.

butt dial

oops wrong thread

No, Jay called all his friends on Adnan's phone, while helping Adnan bury his girlfriend, but then Adnan wanted to be sure that people knew it was him, so he called Nysha also.

Like, Adnan planned the perfect murder, but then decided he had to give the prosecution proof that he did it, and called a person that Jay didn't know.

Frederik, your ironical explanation assumes that Adnan, a high school student in the 90s, had an understanding of how phone record evidence could be used against him, whereas mine assumes that a serial killer forced a random kid to frame his friend and has managed to keep him quiet about it for fifteen years. Which seems more likely?

The one thing Adnan has going for him is that it seems unlikely that a murderer would involve his pot dealer in hiding the body. But everyone says that Adnan was gregarious so he maybe didn't want a bonding opportunity to go to waste.

Yeah and OTOH there's the "Jay was the kind of guy you'd ask for help with this kind of thing" possibility.

I think whatever the explanation, a lot of the weirdnesses of the story may boil down to "this is a bunch of stoned high school kids we're talking about."

jay did it for scooby snacks

Well, no, because, if they were just using his phone, why would all the calls except one be to Jay's friends? Why didn't Adnan call all his other friends?

And assaigning guilt doesn't work that way, taking two stories and figuring out which seems more likely. There is always a shitload of other possible stories that could be the case. Nysha could be wrong about which phone had an answering machine (she says 'not that number' at trial) The phone could have been not in Leakin Park and Jay could have been fed the entire story by the police - they get him after they get the phone records.

Jay led the cops to her car, though. How does he know where her car is if the cops just fed him the story?

And assaigning guilt doesn't work that way, taking two stories and figuring out which seems more likely.

Not really sure how many more different ways I can find to say "I wouldn't convict based on this, I just think it's more likely that Adnan did it."

And so far the alternate explanations sound downright ridiculous. The cops fed him the entire story?!

It happens more than you think. It's called a false confession.

The cops had the car first, lied about it - I think a bigger problem with that explanation is that Jenn led them to Jay, so... Also, I may hold a lower opinion of cops than most people.

And the thing is, I don't think it works to think if it was 'more likely' that Adnan did it. It's either likely or not likely. And imo, it's not likely, because that story does not make sense. That we haven't found the real story yet does not mean it's not there.

False confessions happen all the time. False confessions of the kind you are talking about here do not happen all the time.

I know cops are unreliable and definitely cook shit up, but that seems like a crazy level of conspiracy re: the car + Jay

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-interview-7

A growing number of scientists and legal scholars, though, have raised concerns about Reid-style interrogation. Of the three hundred and eleven people exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing, more than a quarter had given false confessions—including those convicted in such notorious cases as the Central Park Five. The extent of the problem is unknowable, because there’s no national database on wrongful convictions. But false confessions, which often lead to these convictions, are not rare, and experts say that Reid-style interrogations can produce them.

You are preaching to the choir waterface, but I don't think this is one of those situations.

ok

Also does the podcast suggest this was a Reid-style interrogation?

I have a degree in history, btw, I spent a year training source criticism, looking at shit like this and figuring out what stories worked and what stories didn't work. And Jays story does not work, imo. Though obviously, since we only look at stuff through the podcast, we aren't really can't really do source criticism anyway, so who cares.

But Jay had the car, Jay had the phone, Jay had reason to lie. Like, I believe Adnan over Jay.

Then why didn't the cops charge Jay with murder? Slam dunk according to you

Ok, and I have a degree in law, am admitted to the bar, and took courses such as Criminal Law and Evidence. Doesn't make either of us criminal investigators.

I've listened to a lot of podcasts, so I think I'm the expert here

But as pointed out, Sarah Koenig also has no background in this, which is why I think she wastes a lot of time on dead ends and red herrings, as multiple people point out to her, but I think because storytelling is a priority over crimesolving there, she continues to do it anyway.

Yeah, like I said, who cares. But this is not criminal investigation, or law. This is actually history. But secondguessing second degree history without going to the sources is bad history no matter what you do, so it's not as if any of what I write would be good history. Still, like, just wanted to say.

I think whatever the explanation, a lot of the weirdnesses of the story may boil down to "this is a bunch of stoned high school kids we're talking about."

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Monday, November 24, 2014 10:40 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"no background" is a bit harsh, she's a reporter with decades of experience and Peabody Award - and taking the time to chase down the dead ends and red herrings is explicitly part of the show's mission and why it's so interesting and different

xpost

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/Layne-400a.jpg

lol

But Jay had the car, Jay had the phone, Jay had reason to lie. Like, I believe Adnan over Jay.

qft

Jay also has a reddit fan fiction motive

The show is kind of implicitly on Adnan's side isn't it? I think Sarah Koenig admirably admits her bias in favor of Adnan, but Adnan gets so much time to talk, to be cool and charming 15 years later, and it's very easy to think "oh he couldn't have done this because he sounds like such a cool reasonable likeable guy," and I think that that's so unreliable as an indicator in either direction, especially when so much time has passed. Jay, of course, didn't want to talk. That's not SK's fault. I just hope the show starts digging more into possible alternate theories, much as the innocence project person suggested is ideal.

I definitely sometimes am listening and think "this guy just doesn't *sound* like he did it." Then other times I think "he has weird speech tics whenever he starts discussing certain things, maybe that's a sign of guilt" but mostly I just try to remember that that entire line of thinking is pointless.

yea - all of that, and SK's struggles with objectivity and advocacy are all part of the show's design I think. The genius of the show - what makes it feel very new - is that it invites you to criticize it and analyze it and argue about it

Another moment that makes me shake my head in disbelief over the American judicial system: In episode one, where the judge states that the witness giving Adnan an alibi does not work, since she places him 'on-campus' and he says he was at the library, which everyone considers to be on-campus. The amount of coincidences involved in the process means that absolutely nobody should be punished with in life without paroloe, or worse, imo.

I know I have to ignore my own incredulity, which screams "he didn't do it!" whenever I listen to Adnan speaking. But I keep coming back to the fact that we have Jay, who, at the very least, is willing to drag the dead body of an innocent girl into a park and throw some dirt on it, vs. Adnan against whom we have only patchy circumstantial evidence and who I think many of us have difficulty fathoming him capable of this crime.

i can't stop thinking about the streaker guy who found the body & the idea that someone told him where to find it

otm. And that someone anonymously phoned the police and told them to look at the ex-boyfriend.

Me, too, taking into Mr. S's sis-in-law's Woodlawn connection and the fact the body was so obscured.

kind of shocked people can't imagine that Adnan did it. I can see having reasonable doubt or problems with the cops, the prosecution, and his lawyer for sure. But unless I'm missing something huge - he has never made a compelling argument for his innocence. He has no alibi, and can point to no facts that exonerate him. Not saying that means he did it - but I find it hard to believe he's incapable of the crime - or less capable than Jay.

i find it interesting that adnan has had 15 years to come up with a story and he hasn't - that sways me towards believing him, but maybe he's just that wiley?

yeah i really hope the streaker guy recurs in the story; i feel like it was pretty early on that he was contacted by SK & said he didn't want to talk, & i sorta hoped the increased visibility of the show might give it a little more clout to engage with people who'd ignored it previously.

also find recurrent pot mentions itt kinda strange? i think it's enough to just know that eye-witness testimony is notoriously shitty & that this all happened forever ago; it seems kind of a weird lens to see this particular group as subject to additional or unusual memory impediments.

hey also i tried to write a post about the thinkpieces linked above, the race one, which was really interesting, & the gawker one, which was really shitty, & i couldn't, it was too messy, i was barking at the computer screen. but, re: the latter, just broadly, sometimes i just think the thing that's so corrosive and terrible about ~thinkpieces~, & which makes tilding them mandatory, & which separates them from a history of writing responsive to culture, is just the fucking tone, man, like jesus christ does everybody have to sound so annoying, & like they were just about to surfboard in & do the same thing but better were it not for the inadequate example at hand usurping them so shittily. like if somebody could write from a slightly less oppositional angle than the arbiter of all amateur culture, dispatching their joaquin-phoenix-in-gladiator-thumbs-down verdict, positing every shortcoming as a stupid oversight & subject to simple correction - It's bullshit; It's shitty journalism - i feel like it would be easier to deal with them. there's such value to reading something & feeling it instantly broaden your parameters or awareness of what somebody was saying or wasn't, whether their priorities were shortsighted or subject to biases. but Let Me Tell You Why Serial Is Doing It Wrong is so hard to take i think.

xp yes me too

ppl who get caught and are actually guilty (esp teenagers) either confess or lie like crazy

like the innocence project head lady who sez SK isn't lucky enough to get the one complete textbook sociopath who could pull off actually doing this crime and behaving this way