Adnan Syed: The Murder Of Hae Min Lee

In the year of 1999, in Baltimore Maryland, a teen by the name of Adnan Syed was arrested for the murder of Hae Min Lee. A friend of Adnan’s who sold weed to him, Jay Wilds, testified against Adnan admitting to be an accomplice, and to have seen most of the crime. However, Jay’s testimony changed in certain ways over the course of the interrogations and interviews, slightly different each time he told it. Spotty forensic evidence, forgotten memories, different accounts of what happened, and few to no witnesses make the murder of Hae Min Lee mysterious enough for Sarah Koenig to investigate, even after the case was closed 15 years ago. The evidence, testimonies, and inconsistencies all point to the fact that Adnan Syed is innocent as a labrador

The state had Jay as a main witness against Adnan, but did not yet have a motive. However, Jay put out a motive explaining that Adnan was furious at Hae breaking up with him, which the state gobbled up. The state also claimed that Adnan was embarrassed by the events that happened at the night of the prom when his parents barged in on him and Hae. As stated by Sarah Koenig, “On New Year's Eve, Adnan met another girl, Nisha from Silver Spring, Maryland. And he started calling her a lot too. Adnan's friend Mac remembered Adnan making out with another friend of theirs at a party that January. So yeah, a player”(episode 2, pg.38). People who date other girls have most likely moved on from the relationship they had beforehand, and are therefore completely fine. Adnan took it like anyone would, showing that he was taking it normally. In another quote by Sarah Koenig, “He and Hae, again by all accounts were still friends. He was interested in other girls”(episode 2, pg38). This evidence suggests that Adnan was completely fine after the breakup, and even was still friends with Hae. The quote above points out that Adnan was a ‘player’, and usually players are mentally stable and move on easily. Therefore, Adnan is innocent because he has no motive for the

Jay Wilds was a friend of Adnan’s who sold weed to him and claims to have seen and participated in most of the crime, including driving Adnan with Hae’s body, picking up Adnan from track practice and the Best Buy, and most notably, burying Hae’s body with Adnan. Jay’s friend Jenn says to an investigator that, “And I said ‘I dunno.’ I said ‘what was your involvement? Were you involved?’ And he said no. He said ‘Adnan showed me her body and asked me if I would help her bury him...er bury...I would help him bury her body.’ And I said, ‘what did you do? Did you help him? Do you know where the body is?’ ‘No. I just took him to some place in the city and I dropped him off. And I took him to a..then I went down picked him up from a different place in the city’.”(Episode 4, pg 55). This quote shows that Jay is very inconsistent with his story and is lying to either Jenn, or the state. To the detective he said that he helped Adnan bury Hae and then threw away the shovels, but in the version Jenn gives to the detectives Jay said that he did no such thing. As said by Laura Estrada Sandoval, “There’s no, there was never any phones at Best Buy. There were never any phones around the Best Buy.” - (Episode 9, Pg 128). This quote is very important as it shows that Jay is flat out lying. Jay said in all of the interrogations that he