Adnan Syed: Innocent Or Guilty?

A man’s worst nightmare. His ex-girlfriend gone missing. Then a few weeks later, he gets charged with her murder This is what happened to Adnan Syed. In 1999, Hae Min Lee disappeared from the town of Baltimore, Maryland, but no one was truly worried. She was wild and was rumored to have gone to her father in California. Six weeks later, a man found her bodied buried in Leakin Park. After a police investigation, Adnan was tried twice and found guilty of killing Hae. But is that what really happened? This is what Sarah Koenig tried, and failed, to answer conclusively in her 2014 podcast “Serial (Koenig, “The Alibi”).” However, based on the evidence provided, there is reason to suspect that Adnan Syed did not kill Hae Min Lee and at very least

Cristina Gutierrez, his lawyer, was considered an excellent lawyer before Adnan’s trial, but during and after the trial, she started to demanded that her clients give her more money to hire special prosecutors. Normally this is fine, but no special prosecutors where ever hired and she ended up keeping the money. She was later sued and was forced to give back all the money she illegally took. Christina also seem loud and mean during the trial. Although it is illegal to say that someone is guilty based solely on how they or their defence look and act, that doesn't stop jurors that are uneducated about the law. Also, Gutierrez demand that Adnan’s first trial be declared a mistrial because the other side insulted her in front of the jury and she wanted a new jury that hasn't heard her being insulted. In addition to having this sound childish, most of the jurors were going to acquit Adnan (“The Best Defense is a Good

Jay Wilds was the state’s main, and only, witness. He says that Adnan killed Hae and then he called Jay from a phone booth outside of a Best Buy to show him the body and to ask him what to do. Afterwards, they both drive around a bit, get high, drive some more, bury Hae together, and then drive back home. There is even cellphone evidence to support Jay’s story. This all seems bad for Adnan until you look deeper into Jay’s story. For example, there is actually no evidence to say that there was ever a phone booth at that Best Buy. Also, when Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivvis tested the driving aspect of Jay’s story, they quickly found out they could not go to every place that was describe and still have met with other alibis (“Route Talk”). This means that Jay’s story must have been inaccurate if not made up. Furthermore, since Jay knows so much about the murder, while Adnan knows so little, it wouldn't be impossible to theorize that Jay actually killed Hae and then blamed Adnan as the killer and listing himself as an accessory. Jay didn't even go to jail, he merely received a few hours of community service