Argumentative Essay: The Murder Of Hae

Relationships, lies, murder, conviction. These are all aspects that come into play when talking about the January 13th, 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee. Adnan Syed, Hae’s 17-year-old ex-boyfriend was convicted of her murder in 2000. The problem with this is that the only evidence the state had to convict Adnan was the stories told by others, specifically someone named Jay who was with Adnan for some of the day Hae went missing and had possession of Adnan’s car and cell phone. He claims Adnan made him come pick him up after the murder was committed and assist him in burying Hae’s body. This story alone ultimately convicted Adnan. No physical evidence was ever found. Reporter Sarah Koenig realized the patchy story of this case

Putting these circumstances aside, it was said by many that the relationship was pretty typical and Adnan got over the breakup easily. This was said by teachers and friends of both Hae and Adnan. One of Hae’s friends, Becky, explained the relationship as “just a silly, teenage, high school, relationship” (Koenig “The Breakup”) which proves that Adnan was not as upset as the prosecution made him out to be at trial. Another notable aspect is that after Hae and Adnan broke up, Hae got in a small car accident and asked Adnan to come help her, her new boyfriend Don also showed up and confirms that him and Adnan had a cordial meeting and explains that they talked for 10 to 15 minutes even after the car situation had been figured out (Koenig “What We Know”). If Adnan was really that broken up about the breakup, he would not have been so friendly towards the new guy who seemed to take his place in Hae’s life. One of Adnan’s best friends Saad stated in episode 2 of the podcast named “The Breakup” that Adnan had been talking to and dating multiple other girls and was “a player” just a month after him and Hae broke up, which shows that he was in no way obsessed with Hae and therefore had no reason to want to kill her. It has been argued by Hae’s friend Aiesha that the relationship was slightly obsessive on Adnan’s part, but since the couple had to keep their relationship a secret from their families as explained earlier, they wanted to be sure they spent as much time as possible together. Although some behaviors exhibited during the relationship seemed slightly overpowering, overall Hae and Adnan had a very typical relationship and there is no proof that the breakup was anything but a normal high school split, which gives absolutely no reason for anyone to believe Adnan would have killed Hae because