Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

xp

the speculated motive for jay being the murderer, that SK never brought up bc obv there was no evidence for it, was that Hae knew jay was cheating on steph and was going to tell her. IF there was evidence that this was true, i'd find it a compelling motive.
--just1n3

Speculated motive on reddit.

the speculated motive for jay being the murderer, that SK never brought up bc obv there was no evidence for it, was that Hae knew jay was cheating on steph and was going to tell her. IF there was evidence that this was true, i'd find it a compelling motive.
--just1n3

Speculated by reddit.

I think maybe the implication was that Adnan had tried to scare Jay by invoking this kind of Pakistani community mafia that would come after him if he betrayed Adnan

xp

Another thing I'm not clear on - who is driving whose car when

Speculated by reddit sure but thats what Adnans lawyer was getting at with all that "stepping out" stuff in the clip from the trial

How does Hae know this again? And why would she confront Jay about it? And when in this timeline? This strikes me as nearly as fantastic as Jay meeting a serial murder during a drug buy.

I thought lawyer was getting at him being dishonest but who knows wasn't exactly clear.

Jay was cheating on Stephanie with Don duh

Maybe jay just a joe Jackson fan

my overall takeaway from this was

1 -- it was a cool podcast, v engaging and I enjoyed listening to it.

2 -- I had a hard time with how hard they leaned on storytelling when they didn't have any investigative angles to cover. so many useless pointless cul d sacs that I could have done without. and i could live without SK's livejournaling re: Adnan. But that's just me. I kinda wanted a liiiiitle bit more objectivity somehow? it just felt a bit too creepily invested

3--- my personal unsubstantiated theory is that I have no idea who killed Hae. But Jay and Adnan seem both to be covering up something else that they were doing together that day, that they don't want incriminate themselves or someone else in. Something that perhaps did not even involve Hae's murder. Whether's w33d or whatever else. But the inconsistencies in both their stories just seem to be pointing people's noses in weird, unusual directions that feel like some kind of awkward subterfuge. Like, I don't think that they worked out a story together, but they just both really want the focus not to be on [x] whatever [x] is.

4---I don't hate the serial killer theory. And I don't blame them for at least pursuing it as something to rule out. Granted Hae's murder was not tied to a burglary and seems a bit too convenient to fit this other dude's mo, and if it was this guy then it just underlines even more like what the everloving fuck were jay and adnan even doing/saying/talking about this whole fucking time. But a helicopter view of this is refreshing! it gets too myopic to just be picking over phone records all the time and talking to the same 5 people you've talked to 20 times...a fresh perspective can show you what the case is not, and bring new details forward that weren't being looked at before. And some kind of dna testing at least helps with scientific evidence which, I mean the fact that they hardly have anything really puts this case in the shitter investigatively, if we're going to be really real here.

But yeah. This was an engaging exercise. I feel v sad for the irl people involved, ie adnan's family and hae's family and generally having to deal with all the nerd-detectives who are going to want to solve this for them

i thought it was sweet that don said adnan was the kind of guy hed be friends w/ if he went to my school

By which he must have meant grad school
Wasn't he like 26?

Some people on redditors are saying someone involved with the video interview could have done it, or someone who saw the interview on TV, can't remember if we've discounted that

Yes brilliant.

3--- my personal unsubstantiated theory is that I have no idea who killed Hae. But Jay and Adnan seem both to be covering up something else that they were doing together that day, that they don't want incriminate themselves or someone else in. Something that perhaps did not even involve Hae's murder. Whether's w33d or whatever else. But the inconsistencies in both their stories just seem to be pointing people's noses in weird, unusual directions that feel like some kind of awkward subterfuge. Like, I don't think that they worked out a story together, but they just both really want the focus not to be on x whatever x is.

Same here

If your alibi is, you were doing something illegal, and giving your alibi also makes you a snitch, maybe you just say you don't know what you were doing

pretty much

I try to avoid getting too out there with my speculation, but I remember there being a detail that stuck with me about Adnan dating a girl in another city, like I think Philadelphia? I thought that just seemed unusual for a high school student, I mean Philly is like almost 2 hrs drive from Baltimore.

I don't know what that would mean exactly, but it just made me wonder if he was involved in dealing or something beyond the range of typical high school kid activities, although it's kind of hard to imagine how his seemingly strict parents and other religious friends and relatives wouldn't have noticed if he was.

Regardless of that, I'm not even sure anymore that I couldn't convict based on the evidence. The problem is we're not getting the evidence the way the jury got it, so it's really hard to say what we'd do in their shoes.

And we know what happens when kids from Baltimore visit Philly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s66z5sK2Hbk

ha! probably a subconscious association there

man Baltimore-Philly-Drugs-NPR, the circle is complete

i had friends who dated friends in the city 120mi away when i was like 17 or 18

That doesn't answer question of whether there were drugs involved, gr8181.

tbh they were all straight edge lol

That was their story, but really who knows. Truth is elusive.

Yeah, we should probably put them in jail for life, just to be sure. Depending on how the prosecution presents the case.

they were probably guilty of being white at least

xp or how sing-song-y their attorney's voice is.

If your alibi is, you were doing something illegal, and giving your alibi also makes you a snitch, maybe you just say you don't know what you were doing

I keep coming back to this too, but I also think, what the hell would they have been involved with that would have been worse than murder? Like surely admitting to selling w33d, even at a higher level than just to some high school kids, would be preferable to being the target of a murder investigation.

Yeah they'd have to be super paranoid and not thinking straight

they were probably guilty of being white at least

― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), 19. december 2014 18:07 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, you're right. They should probably get off with a warning, then.

Does it look as though they're going to keep on the real crime theme or will it be totally different each series?

I'm assuming season two will not be helmed by SK, but some other TAl person.

I guess Alex Blumberg already has his own serialized thing, with that Start Up podcast.

it's a tough one because, true crime or not, it kind of has to be some kind of mystery to keep people hooked.

and it has to be unsolved/mysterious enough for make it really hard for the internet to solve it before the show does.

but also solve-able enough that not every series ends up being an unsatisfying "meditation on the nature of truth" type thing.

(which this kind of did, as much as she said she was taking a stand, she really did split it right down the middle... will be hard to get away with the same ending again next time, even though I think most people, myself included, were fine with it for this one).

unless it was some kind of story that was unfolding in real life at the same time as the show, like say someone's appeal trial or something

the other problem will be that as soon as they start investigating something new people will jump on Reddit and say "I just got an email from Serial!"

I imagine they'll do something very very different from this season - any kind of true crime would be boxing them into a corner, and I got the sense they want to keep it more open-ended.

they should do Mumia next.

they should do cereal: what is riboflavin?

they should find out which religion is correct

they should attempt to confer canonical veracity upon an apocryphal gospel

next season on serial: how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

That woodchuck is guilty and I said do from the start.

Ok finally listened to this. What the hell is "the westside hitman"? That just kinda gets left out there, is that a famous hitman or something?

The explanation that continues to make the most sense to me is that Adnan did it, and Jay's story is inconsistent because he started out by lying to protect himself (perhaps having been more involved than he let on or trying to prevent cops from knowing something else about him) and then later may still have been partly lying because the aggressive prosecutor was trying to push the narrative he thought made sense and Jay went along with it as long as he didn't have to reveal whatever he didn't want to reveal. In other words, Jay thinks "ok sure, the pickup was at best buy, as long as I don't have to tell them ____." Of course it could also just be him being scared shitless that he's going to jail as an accessory so best go along with what the prosecutor says. Like maybe Jay is stoned all day, can't actually get the story clear in his head, and just figures "I know the important parts are true so whatever the prosecutor says about everything else is fine with me as long as I don't go to jail."

If Jay did it himself or with someone else, then it's just hard to believe that he randomly wound up with this perfect opportunity -- having possession of Adnan's car and cell phone. Unlike SK's producer, I don't think the Nisha butt dial thing seems way too unlikely, I mean there are probably a lot of numbers in Adnan's phone that are people only Adnan knows and not Jay. I feel like it's one of those things that only feels unlikely in hindsight. But it does seem a little unlikely that Jay, by himself, or Jay and someone else would just happen to kill Adnan's ex who Jay had no known issues with on the day that Jay had Adnan's car. And as noted above, the serial killer theory doesn't account for Jay.

I get irked that SK keeps saying there's almost no "evidence" of Adnan committing the murder. Testimony is evidence. Direct witness testimony is direct evidence. This isn't a case based on circumstantial evidence, it's a case based on the testimony of a man who claims to have been an accessory to the crime, plus a bunch of circumstantial evidence. That's very strong evidence! It's not perfect evidence, because people lie, but I think the testimony of an accessory plus the dearth of logical alternatives is a stronger case than a lot of people are making it out to be.

Ding ding ding.

I did wonder for a moment if Jay might be some kind of amoral psychopath or something, but his paranoia about people coming after him and his apparent fear with regard to the police didn't seem consistent with that. I could also see how he might have gotten caught up in being an accessory out of an unfortunate mix of youthful poor judgment, shock, fear, and just stoned going along with things. I've certainly never gotten into anything like that, but I can remember the feeling of being that age and feeling like sometimes I would just go along with something that didn't seem right at all, like my fear of sticking out as the person rejecting the moment was greater than my fear of consequences.

And also, to speculate in a way I have mostly tried to avoid, I was only half joking about the "right" vocal tic. Something actually does bother me about the way Adnan speaks, almost every time he speaks, the way he's always kind of spinning these theories about why x doesn't make sense but peppering them with "right" and "know what I'm saying, so" and all these little casual but actually sort of nervous interjections. Of course, I think it's dangerous to read too much into the way he talks about anything, because he's been in jail so long and so much of his life has been consumed by thinking about this case that it's not totally surprising that the way he talks about it could sound a little tortured whether he's guilty or innocent.