Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

For sure - maybe it's impossible to avoid if he won't talk but it seems unfair to Jay to me if what the show has discussed so far is more or less where they leave it

that colbert interview is blocked in Canada. Anything juicy?

not really, just Colbert being surprised that the first This American Life spin-off was about a murder rather than 24 hours in a nursing home waiting room.

I think SK is being ultra-cautious about alternative theories, for legal and ethical reasons. Adnan's outburst about SK not following up on rumors about other people probably means that people have being telling lots of stories about Jay that never made their way onto the podcast.
--ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes)

There are lots of stories about Jay in the podcast.

I know, but aren't most of those first hand accounts, rather than "Someone told me that Jay told him..."?

Same is true for Adnan. She doesn't present any hearsay.

yes, I'm just saying that a rumor about Adnan is easier to verify. She went with the story of Adnan stealing money--even though he was never convicted of that crime--because she could get Adnan to talk about it on tape. If someone told her that they heard Jay used to steal from the collection plate then she would have to track down someone who actually saw him doing it, since Jay isn't going to talk to her about it.

She followed up on all the rumors and that one was verified well enough that she asked Abnan about it. I don't think that story reflects worse on Abnan than Jay's friend's stories do about Jay.

I think maybe Keynes is saying she might be unable or unwilling to report other more damaging rumours about Jay than the ones she has reported because she can't get his side of the story. But yes, she has definitely reported some rumours about both of them (and held off on others - like the decision today not to reveal the nature of the super-damaging rumour about Adnan when the source didn't confirm it) .

gotta admit, i'm dying to know what that mysterious rumor was about.

i found the letter really moving - like, everyone thinks i'm this creepy charmer, so i have to try really hard not to be, but then ppl also think i'm a psychopath without empathy, wtf am i supposed to do? which is why i think he got so mad at SK when she was talking about what a good guy he is a while back - he wants to be cleared of all charges based on the facts of the case, not a subjective view of his personality.

Well, he would never ever be cleared of all charges because of his personality, as has been discussed, he will never get parole without 'showing remorse', which obviously he doesn't when he claims he didn't do it. Nice Catch-22, American legal system. But I do think it's a weakness in the show, that one the one side they are very cognizant at how his personality doesn't really matter to the case, and how we can never really know it anyway, but on the other hand she keeps on saying stuff like the crux of the matter is whether he was the type who could have done it or not. Which, no, it's not. The crux of the matter is that there is not evidence that he did it, other than a witness statement which doesn't match any other statement or the call log or anything. Like, I actually liked getting that expert to talk about killers and psychopaths, and whatnot, but it is besides the point.

I disagree completely. Abnan's personality is a huge percentage of the reason this story is so compelling. If you didn't find him sympathetic and want for innocence the whole thing falls down no matter how flimsy the evidence is. Irony is though that Jay also seems kinda likeable (with the enormous caveat that this is a dude who by his own admission participated in the murder girl who he barely knew for no reason he's able to articulate).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4m0NiXCMAAgXK6.png

adnan's personality is def a big part of it, but it's also the hidden depths of every major person involved. and i don't think SK is at all saying the crux of the matter is whether he is the type capable of this sort of murder, at least, not in an evidential or prosecutorial way: the crux of what makes this story compelling is the questioning of how we think we can judge someone's past or future behaviors and somehow make a story out of it - every time SK has talked to experts about how to tell if adnan is lying or playing her, they've all basically said "there's no scientifically reliable way to tell", every "tell" could go either way. the only exception to that was the innocence project lawyer, who pretty much insisted that if the client doesn't have a story than they're innocent.

xposts

sure, that's the hook. they mostly seem like nice, relatively normal 17 year old american kids. how could they be involved in a girl, strangled to death and buried under six inches of dirt in a park?

but that's enough of a hook that the whole story doesn't need to be obsessed with that point. I felt like it was overkill with the cutesy Adnan shit today. He was nice if you weren't good at sports! He kissed a guy on the cheek to stop a fight! When he stole from the mosque it was take the fellas out for snacks at the mall! He's the best prisoner ever!

I get it - this is all relevant but I've heard literally hours of nice guy Adnan shit now. I feel like he did when he blew up at her - doesn't matter how nice he is. I know he's nice. Give me some information that makes me believe he didn't strangle a girl and bury her under six inches of dirt. And if the show never directly addresses why Jay would say he did, it kind of fails.

"but that's enough of a hook that the whole story doesn't need to be obsessed with that point"

But I think one of the hooks is how obsessed Koenig is with that point because she's actually talking to these folks and it's clearly getting to her!

yeah - i wish she had moved on from that point. maybe he changed, maybe he's gaming everybody - doesn't even matter. ultimately it's of no relevance to whether he killed hae or not.

the whole model prisoner/golden child thing she's stuck on is definitely interesting - there's a ton of tension around that if he might have killed a girl, and I can see how her This American Life instincts push her to keep looking at that angle but there's nothing to uncover there any more.

Well there's nothing much left to uncover anywhere barring amazing last minute revelations.

Next week on Serial: Cats in trees, How many did Adnan rescue?

From today: 'To me this question is the hard center of Adnans case: Can you tell, really? Can you tell if someone has a crime like this in him'. That was what prompted what I wrote upthread.

The hard center of Adnan's case is obviously the two hours where he supposedly killed Hae, and how Jay's story of that doesn't match the phone records.

xpost
I guess... like I said, what's missing is a good hard look at what they've been implying since day one: that Jay is lying. Maybe impossible if he won't co-operate, but ultimately unfair if they never pick apart their own implications about Jay with the same rigour they applied to picking apart the state's narrative. I`ll shut up now, I`m repeating myself.

agree completely with that, frederik

There's a limit to how far you can interrogate Jay's story without his cooperation. I mean they have picked apart his story. But destroying that doesn't get you closer to figuring out what happened let alone exonerating Adnan.

Well, it should. Jay's story is the main evidence against Adnan. Take that away, and all else is just speculation.

It should legally or logically? I think legally sure (except of course Adnan's already been convicted so his legal remedies are limited by that). Logically I think most people still can't get over what was Jay's motivation to pin it Adnan if Adnan didn't do it. Jay appears to be the only one who can answer that question (or at least the only one the show's found who can) and so far he seems pretty set that even if he lied or was inconsistent in various tellings that Adnan was the one who did it.

right - and beyond that: if not Adnan, then who?

and if the strong implication is that Adnan is innocent

it follows that either Jay did it alone, or with a mystery person.

is it fair to put that implication out into the world without even asking the same basic questions they asked about the case against adnan?

Jay's last name and current home town are 2 seconds away on google. He has a kid. Is it fair to put out hours of storytelling into 5 million people's ears strongly implying the man might be a murderer without taking responsibility for doing so, or even really admitting that that is exactly what you're doing?

my vote for season 2 is SK tracks down Connie Converse

the story about Jay wanting to stab his friend so that his friend knows what it feels like was pretty o_O

I don't get the logic of that, AlexinSF. Either Jay told the truth, or he lied. So we take a look at evidence, they show that he didn't tell the truth. Ergo, he lied. The fact that it's weird he lied does not then turn it back into the truth again.

But the question is the wrong way around. The whole case should be based on physical evidence, first and foremost. What story does the phonerecords imply by themselves? How does that story fit with Adnans and Jays stories? And when I look at that, on the link I posted upthread, it def seem to fit more with Jay having done it by himself. It does not fit with the prosecutions story at all, and I have a hard time fitting Adnan into the murder-part of it at all.

the phone records are a mess - so i don't see how they clear anybody any more than they nail anybody... but in any case, Adnan's phone pings multiple times from Leakin park at the time Jay says they were burying Hae there, and at a time when Adnan says he was in possession of his own phone. but I think we went over this stuff last week.

I think the only thing the show has strongly implied is that the prosecutors timeline is completely wacky and that Jay's stories are totally inconsistent. That's probably enough for reasonable doubt in a murder trial, but it's a far cry from Jay=totally guilty and Adnan=totally innocent. If latter is what a listener has gotten from the podcast then I'd say that has more to do with them than anything in the podcast.

"Either Jay told the truth, or he lied."

It's not either or. It is totally possible that Jay told the truth about some things and lied about some other things. One of the things he might have told the truth about is Adnan killing Hae and him helping Adnan dispose of the car and the body.

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