The Case Against Adnan Syed (2019): Season 1, Episode 3 - Justice Is Arbitrary - full transcript
As Adnan Syed's 2016 appeal draws to a close, his family and attorneys brace for the ruling.
What piece of evidence was
it that led you to Jay Wilds?
Cell phone and cell phone records.
We talked to Jay. He has the cell phone.
He has the car.
I think Jay knew where the car was
the way he knew everything.
The police told him.
Everything
was told to me by someone else.
Everything I knew was like hearsay.
Dear Adnan, I remember chatting
with you on January 13.
I was his actual alibi.
What we did is run Jay's name.
We have more than 20 arrests.
The police had to
basically break the door down.
I have a lot of questions.
Hello?
Eighteen-year-old Hae Min
Lee disappeared on January 13th
after leaving Woodlawn High School.
On February 9th police found
her half-buried body
in Baltimore's Leakin Park.
She had been strangled.
Key details they had withheld
as they sought out a suspect.
They now have one in custody.
The police suggest
the suspect had a motive
in the form of a fatal
attraction to his victim.
The subject is
identified as Adnan Masud Syed,
17 and a former football player,
who is described as an
A-student, friendly to everyone.
News of Syed's
arrest is met with disbelief
by the community in Woodlawn.
They can't believe the boy
who had so much promise
now faces a murder rap.
This is where his mother had lived
towards the end of our relationship.
This was his little neck of the woods.
He was trying to be controlling,
and then he had his mother
there with him, too, so...
He told me if I leave with my son,
we all have to be together.
Certain situations where he'd get
mad, his mother might have him,
he'd call his mother, "Oh, well,
don't let her get him,"
and I would call the police, she
just wouldn't answer the door.
Little situations like that, and
I just didn't want the drama.
After he hit me the first time,
in front of my son,
I didn't want my son to ever see that.
Right, that Rite Aid up
on Edmondson Avenue.
I remember like it was yesterday.
And he went in the Rite Aid thinking
he was gonna get a prescription filled
for my son, and I just, I left.
I left all... whatever stuff my son
had at his grandmother's house,
I left that and I just
never turned back.
Jay is in California somewhere,
far, far away.
He messaged me, like, maybe last year.
I guess just to irk me, and I
haven't talked to him since.
He did say... He did say that,
but he brushed it off like real quick,
no accessory, no "I did this." Nothing.
It just makes me feel like,
what else is he capable of
from the situations
that we've been through.
I'm worried about
the long haul with my son.
That's why I kind of want to text him,
then I'll let you know if he answers.
He might call, maybe like five,
ten minutes, he'll text back.
A little bit,
'cause I feel like sometimes
if I know if he lying
or just talking crazy,
it irritates me, so I gotta be
able to calm down a little bit.
Hello?
Hey.
Yeah, I'm just trying
to stay focused, that's all.
That's all.
Well, I mean, what's going on, dog?
That shit is just so crazy,
I mean, you could tell
that it's cut crazy looking on the
outside in, you know what I mean?
Yeah, like I'm just, I'm confused, like,
why, why, if it was so long ago, why...
He hung up.
And it was him.
"My service is out. I'll hit you back."
He was talking about it, though.
I'm shocked that he's even,
like, talking to me so calmly.
Hello?
Yeah, I'm here. I'm listening.
At first he told me that he was there,
that, you know, everything
that he has stated was true.
And he told you that, but you
didn't think that he was serious.
You didn't even freak out
when you actually, like, seen it
and, like, was at the police
and all that stuff?
What... So what did you do?
Like, how did you get off and stuff?
And then he broke it
down to me and was like,
he basically ratted out the guy
to get himself out of jail
with the police.
Damn, there was a lot
of crooked ass-cops back then.
So what? They basically
tried to give you the story
or you just knew about it
'cause you was there with the guy?
But you did have
involvement in it, though?
All right, just be safe out there.
All right.
All right, bye.
He said he got caught
with a whole bunch of weed,
and, um, it was so much weed they
was trying to pin it on him.
So, basically, he ratted the
man, gave them a bigger story
to get, um, him locked up.
He basically gave them what they
wanted to know, so he could get off.
He was saying it
so fast and slang, but...
I don't know, I kind of feel
sad for him knowing now,
but I know it's probably eating him
up just from the conversation.
We haven't talked in years,
and he was just so open
to just let it out to me,
so that says a whole lot.
No. No.
By no means.
This is a murder. There's...
You're not gonna be an informant.
Murders...
When you have a murder,
they're called witnesses.
Either he's going to be a witness
or he's going to be a defendant.
With the information he had,
he sat right on the fence.
At this
point in my life, I've given up
trying to prove why he lied.
There's some things that I've
given up on because I realize,
legally speaking, they really
don't have any bearing.
And at this point in my life, you know,
that's really all that
I should be focused on:
what legally makes
a difference in my case?
The question throughout
this post-conviction hearing
has been will Adnan Syed get a new trial
on charges that he murdered
his ex-girlfriend 17 years ago?
Syed's attorney argued
that his lawyer at the time
of the conviction made so many mistakes
that his conviction
should be overturned.
One of those alleged mistakes
was failing to contact
a potentially key alibi
witness, Asia McClain.
The defense team has
to show that that witness
might've made a difference in
Adnan Syed's defense back in 2000.
My presence there is
not going to make an impact
on what's actually happening
in front of the judge,
um, and that's what's more important.
So my support is from out here,
it's fine.
I can... At least
I can sit out here and tweet.
So I'm still on the case in my own way.
Asia, from everything I've heard,
has made an amazing witness,
and I was like,
Man, I missed it!
'Cause I really wanted to see
her testify, but it's okay.
First time I ever heard
Asia's name was, um,
when Adnan was convicted
and I said to him, I said,
you know, in closing arguments
the prosecutor said that
ladies and gentlemen of the
jury, Hae Min Lee left school
and within 20 minutes was dead,
or something like that.
The State's theory here
is that Hae Min Lee
left the school with Adnan at 2:15 p.m.,
and for some reason
they went to Best Buy.
He strangled her in the parking
lot, and then he called Jay
to come pick him up at exactly 2:36 p.m.
If you could account for your time
in that half an hour, that was it.
And he's like, you know, there was
this girl who wrote me these letters
over a year ago.
And he said, I gave the letters
to Cristina Gutierrez,
and she told me that
I checked with her
and her dates were wrong.
He was like, so I never really
kind of brought it up again.
That was the end of that.
She was later disbarred, and it all
went public like a couple years
later that, you know,
she had messed up all these clients.
And, you know, we were just
horrified. It explained a lot.
I think in one letter
Asia had written her number,
a landline, so I called.
It's kind of weird
the things that I remember...
...and the things that I don't.
I don't remember her calling me
to set up the meeting.
She was like, I wrote the
letters, Adnan didn't write back,
his lawyer didn't contact me.
That's the first time I realized that
like Gutierrez actually lied
to Adnan and said that she had.
And I was like, would you
put this in an affidavit?
I remember writing that
on my front porch,
and then we went to have it notarized.
I can't fathom why it
still didn't dawn on me
that Rabia wanted me
to sign this because
it was important.
What we were facing at
that point was direct appeals,
which is all about the technical issues.
You cannot raise anything
that's considered new evidence.
We had to wait until we
could file something called a
post-conviction relief petition.
And so by the time we did that,
it was like 2010,
and Adnan's lawyer, Justin Brown,
he hired a private investigator
to reach out to Asia
to see if she'd be willing
to come testify.
In my mind the only
thing that I could think of
was that someone associated
with a convicted murderer
had tracked me down, and, um,
I just wasn't comfortable
without knowing the scope of why.
I did find a Baltimore Sun article
that referenced Kevin Urick.
Calling at this time the hearing set
in the State versus Adnan Syed.
- Kevin Urick for the State.
- Mr. Urick.
I figured with him being a prosecutor
that he would be a reliable
source for information,
and I gave him a call.
And I actually took notes
on the conversation.
I told him that I saw Syed
in the library in 1999.
He told me that they had
cell phone records
and they had a witness that confessed
to helping him bury Hae.
And then I wrote down something
Urick said to me directly:
"If I had any doubt
that Adnan didn't kill Hae,
"it would be my moral obligation to see
that he didn't serve any time."
Based on what he told me, I felt that
the conviction was, you know, airtight,
and so I didn't see the need for me
to get involved 10 years later.
I remember sitting there
and listen to Urick testify,
and it was like being
just punched in the gut.
Because it made us all look
horrible and it was a total lie.
Did Asia really say this to Urick?
I never told Urick
that I recanted my story,
and there were some things that
he discussed with me that
were just flat-out untrue.
He told me that there was DNA,
which there was.
Unfortunately, he neglected to tell me
that the DNA was never tested.
Finding that out four years
later in a podcast,
it was just very disturbing to me.
I swear to the following
under penalty of perjury,
I did not write the March 1999 letters
or the affidavit because of
pressure from the Syed family.
My only goal has always been
to provide the truth
about what I remember.
We could've been doing this years ago,
but because of his actions and
the way that he talked to me,
you know, he convinced
me to stay out of it.
Honestly, it pisses me off.
Um, it makes me hate myself
for allowing him
to manipulate me in that way.
No. I-I...
I feel like if he did
care about the truth
that he would've met
with me before the PCR,
like I invited him to.
My attorney made it absolutely clear
that I was a hundred percent
willing to cooperate
with the prosecution as well.
Even after I got done testifying,
in press conferences,
you know, he demonized me.
I think what's clear to the
judge based on the record
is that Asia McClain was not
a weapon for the defense,
she was a potential weakness.
She has a lot of
scrutiny and a lot people
saying horrible things about her.
Just go on Reddit and look up Asia.
"Guilters," we call them.
It seemed like it was just
a bunch of conspiracy theories.
Being accused of not writing
my letters when I wrote them.
They talk about you
as being a pig or vile.
It's very hurtful,
especially when I wasn't anticipating
being a part of this.
But I think, I think Asia,
like you might be that technicality.
When I talked to Sarah on the phone,
at best, I thought maybe she
was going to write an article.
Back then no one knew
what a podcast really was,
and then to have it go
so viral so quick,
it was just a very surreal
and sickening experience.
I can remember nights
where I just cried in the bed.
I just took all of it in,
internalized it,
and turned it into armor.
You know, like just
something that happened in the past,
it doesn't really affect you, but
now with how popular Serial was,
it's very strange to have people,
like, question your memory
of things that happened in your life
or speculate that you're
lying or not lying.
I think Jenn, because
she played such a bigger part,
I think it affects her a little more.
I didn't know that
all these stories existed
until this Serial thing came out.
I didn't know that Jay told
three and four and five
different stories
to ten different people.
I kept it a little bit more...
uh, on the wraps.
It was very weird for me
that when Serial was airing,
it was during a time period in which my,
um, dad was very sick and dying.
And having random people
come up and ask me
about this other traumatic
time in my life,
that part was upsetting.
But also, it created a space
for talking about things
with my friends from high school
because we didn't talk about it.
Like, who wants to talk
about something traumatic?
You know, when Serial
first started I thought,
what is this Sarah lady doing?
What is she trying to get involved in?
And the further we got into it,
it became obvious to me
why people think that this
is a wrongful conviction
and why people want
to look at this again
and find out what really happened.
As Serial was ongoing,
I was like obsessively watching online
like the reaction that people had to it.
I was on Reddit and somebody
posted a blog by this attorney,
Susan Simpson, and I started reading it.
And she had written...
I don't know, like 35-40 pages
about Jay's police statements.
And I just e-mailed her and I said,
you're analyzing this stuff
in a way that nobody ever has.
I have all the files and I'd
love to give it all to you.
I got the case file from Rabia.
She handed it over to me.
I told her not to. I'm like this
is stupid, you don't know me,
'cause this was very early on.
And she gave it to me
anyway, she was like,
okay, well, you know,
go find stuff in there.
I assumed that Jay was
involved in some way.
Um, I felt Adnan might be involved
in some way. I didn't know.
I just knew the story we were
hearing didn't make any sense.
Detective, um, Ritz, you had an occasion
to interact with a man
by the name of Jay Wilds?
Yes, ma'am, I did.
Okay, and those interviews took
place on the 28th of February?
Yes, ma'am.
- And on the 15th of March?
- That is correct.
What happened that made you
want to speak to Mr. Wilds again?
I had obtained cell site information
and I wanted to talk
to Mr. Wilds a second time.
Back then that was
early stage of us learning
what cell tower investigations were.
Back in that day the technology was that
the cell phone is finding
a tower to ping off of
that the call goes to
and let's you know the area
that that person's phone was in.
The phone that day was with Jay.
So you look at that record
and you're like,
he was calling so-and-so,
he was doing this.
These cops thought the cell phone
thing, this was their bible.
This list of towers, they
were going to follow that
wherever it took them.
In this case it took them
on the wrong path.
So the cops are, like, really
glad after the first interview.
They've got their star witness,
so they've put together
a to-do list, very helpful.
Item number five on the to-do
list is "cell sites mapped."
And item six is "interview
Jay a second time."
And they get their maps and they realize
that they've got some very big problems
because Jay's story is not
matching his cell phone records.
The cell site information that we had
didn't correspond
to his statement at first.
We narrowed the time frames down.
He started to recall things
a little better,
and, uh, took a second statement.
They get him back in, they
fill out a new Miranda waiver.
15:05, 3:05 p.m. is when
they start talking to him.
Then we get to the recording.
So we fast-forwarded in time
from three o'clock to 6:20 p.m.
What did they do for those
three hours and 20 minutes?
They workshopped that story.
Well, the most important part
of that is that, um,
people play with that a lot,
meaning non-investigators,
um, culturally in Baltimore.
The first story anybody
tells you is going to be a lie.
Then when they refine that story,
it's going to be less of a lie.
You don't turn on the tape recorder
until you've got a statement you want.
I mean, Jay was a teenager,
um, a black guy in Baltimore,
being interviewed by homicide detectives
who are telling him
they want him for a murder,
and the cops are very good
at convincing people that
your best bet is to talk
yourself out of it,
when really all you're
doing is talking your way
way, way into it.
Ritz and MacGillivary got witnesses
to talk in a lot of cases,
but the information wasn't always valid.
Detective Ritz absolutely
has a track record.
He has been involved
in three different cases
where there has been either exoneration
or a case overturned.
And one of those cases,
the Ezra Mable case from 2000,
there were two witnesses who
identified Ezra Mable as the murderer.
Both of those women later came forward
to say that they had been told
they were going to be arrested
for drug crimes
or their kids taken away from them,
and that's when they made statements.
Jay says in that second interview
he knew what Adnan was going to do.
He was told the night
before on the 12th.
At that point, they could do
whatever they wanted with him.
They could've gotten him
for murder in Baltimore City.
They could've sent him to
Baltimore County, have him executed.
He was doomed.
My very firmly held theory
is that Jay does not know anything,
and they helped him develop
a story through process,
and that's all Jay says.
This is the blob map
from AT&T showing...
Well, they call them coverage
areas, but really idealized
computer-generated prediction of
where each tower is gonna cover.
They tried to have Jay,
like, track his story
through these little zones.
I would bet dollars to donuts
the cops had these maps out there
as they're walking through the story.
Whenever he forgets the script,
forgets what he's supposed to
be doing, they're like, no.
Um, okay...
Then we have an incoming call, 12:43,
another incoming call at 2:36,
and then another incoming call at 3:15.
They gotta use
one of those options there
to be their come-and-get-me call.
It's Adnan calling Jay to say,
"The bitch is dead. Come and get me."
The come-and-get-me call
has to be an incoming call,
because Adnan didn't
have the phone, Jay did.
At trial 2:36 is the one
they kind of settle on,
because it's the only one
that's even remotely plausible.
Unfortunately,
they had a really big typo
on the cell phone chronology
that they used
to try and understand Jay's story.
On the 2:36 call, they put down
that it was at L-6-5-1-C.
It was actually at L-6-5-1-B.
This is L-6-5-1.
Purple is B.
Jenn's house is about right there.
It's in L-6-5-1-B.
It works perfectly to have the
call come in at Jenn's house,
but because of the cop's little typo
they had that call
coming in at L-6-5-1-C,
which is the pink area.
He can't be at Jenn's house
when this come-and-get-me
call comes in from Adnan.
He has to be somewhere farther west.
And that's when the
come-and-get-me call comes in,
when Jay and the phone are conveniently
in the territory of L-6-5-1-C.
Did there come a point in time when
- Jay left your house?
- Yes.
Do you remember when that was?
Between 3:30-3:45.
He both left to go to Best Buy at
2:36 when the come-and-get-me call,
but he also didn't leave
Jenn's house until 3:40.
I mean, the story's nonsense
because it came from nonsense,
and it was multiplied
by the cell phone records.
They kept introducing errors
they'd have to correct again.
How did I lose
the one map I actually needed?
A-ha! So...
there is a road called Dorchester.
There is a Dorchester in Baltimore...
and there's a Dorchester in Catonsville.
And there's a tower called
L-6-5-4 on Dorchester.
Now, it might be Baltimore City,
which conveniently is
right next to Kristi's house.
In real life, it's on
the one in Catonsville,
which is up by Jay's house.
Because the cops have their map wrong,
they now have to explain
why in the middle of the day,
about the time when Adnan
would be at track practice,
Jay is making calls from
down near Kristi's house.
No, he wasn't. He wasn't...
He definitely did not leave
and go get Adnan and come back.
He definitely came in with Adnan.
It doesn't surprise me that
Jay lied about that stuff,
'cause Jay lies about everything, but...
I can't figure out why, like what the...
What the purpose is to lie about.
Jay is in a very tough spot,
because you've got
the right to representation
when you're charged in a criminal case,
but that right doesn't trigger
until you've been formally charged.
And so we know that Jay
pops onto the radar screen
of the police, um,
in January or February
and doesn't get formally
charged until September of '99.
That created this
strange system where Jay
is able to talk to the police,
the police are able to talk
to Jay, he's not able to get
a lawyer to stand in between
him and the police.
Kevin was trying to put
his case together
to make it look
as super strong as possible,
to try to scare him
into pleading guilty.
A lot of times, not all prosecutors,
but you have a person
who is charged with murder,
you have a number of cases,
you're trying to just get
through your cases and move on.
Having worked on some
cases with Mr. Urick,
I think he would probably
fall in that category.
He had a lot of cases, um,
and he didn't always pay attention
to some of those details.
So their whole case, in so
many ways, is all about Jay.
All of a sudden on
September 7th, the charges are filed.
The prosecutor, Urick,
arranged for a lawyer for Jay,
Anne Benaroya.
She had her own practice,
and she did the case pro bono.
If you're a public defender,
you would've taken the case,
it wouldn't have been pro bono.
So there's somewhere along the line,
someone called in a favor
to have her there.
Good morning, Your Honor.
Kevin Urick, for the State.
With the court's permission,
I'm adding a case to the docket
of State versus Jay Wilds.
Pursuant to a plea agreement
the defendant is to enter
a plea of guilty to one count
of accessory after the fact to murder.
All right, Mr. Wilds, would you raise
your right hand please?
Do you hereby solemnly promise...
The decision would've been Mr. Urick's
in terms of what to offer.
He could've easily offered him
conspiracy to commit murder,
but he gave him
accessory after the fact,
which is the most
you can receive is five years.
Good morning, Judge McCurdy.
Anne Benaroya on behalf of Jay Wilds.
And he did the plea
in front of Judge McCurdy,
who everybody knew, he was very
lenient on younger offenders.
So it was almost a too-good-to-be-true
type of situation for Jay.
Please state your name and address.
My name is Jay Wilds, Jay W. Wilds.
Sir, you agree
to plead guilty in this case,
and I have to be satisfied
that you freely and voluntarily
entered into this guilty plea.
How old are you?
- I'm 19, sir. Yes.
- Nineteen?
- How much education have you had?
- High school diploma.
Other than this plea agreement, has
anybody made any threat or promise
- to make you plead guilty?
- No, sir.
All right, thank you.
I'll accept the plea.
At this point the
defendant should be advised
that we can go forward
even if he does not appear.
Well, that's true. I... Mr. Wilds...
That doesn't mean
that if I do not appear,
I get a failure to appear warrant, do I?
The thing that you have to understand is
if you don't appear
for the rest of this case,
- I could proceed to the disposition...
- Right.
...and find... and give you up
- to the maximum sentence.
- Okay.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Your honor.
Once they had Jay signed
up, Jay was going to do and say
whatever he needed to do
to stay out of jail.
And here they would've
definitely needed Jay,
because without Jay what do they have?
- Do you know how to...
- Yes, she showed me
how to get out of the...
- Right here?
- Yeah, that's good. That's perfect.
I wish they would've taped me
from the very beginning.
Not, I think you probably would've heard
a lot more indecisiveness on my part.
Not... "I'm not sure,"
"I don't know," you know,
more like that,
than I kind of sound like
I have all the answers in that copy.
When that day came up in conversation,
did you remember that it
was the 13th of January?
I don't think I remembered
the specific date, no.
Somebody told you
that date, did they not?
I think it was Detective MacGillivary.
You couldn't tell us whether
these events took place
on the 13th, for instance,
or on the 12th?
No, except that I had
a conference that day,
that's the only other way I know.
So this basically is the winter
term from the School of Social Work
- that you received for January.
- Mm-hmm.
And these were the classes
you were taking.
Right, but this wasn't the
conference right? These are just the
- ...the courses I took, right?
- Yeah.
I don't remember.
I don't remember whether
I just blew the class off.
So I got a B.
These were only three sessions?
Oh, then I wouldn't have blown it off.
I couldn't have. They wouldn't...
I wouldn't have passed.
I wouldn't have been able
to skip a winter class.
So it definitely couldn't
have happened on the 13th,
because I wouldn't have been
home at 6:30,
watching Judge Judy
on the 13th if I had class.
That also concerns me, though,
because I believe that Adnan did it.
I believe that those...
Those events connect.
Him loaning the car to Jay
happens on the same date
as them coming to my house
as the same date as them...
As Adnan killing Hae
as the same day as them
going to Leakin Park.
You know what I mean?
I believe all that happened
on the same day, but if we're...
Right. Right.
I wish that I had a really
clear recollection
of the 13th and what happened.
It probably could've happened that day,
I don't know one way or the other.
I know I was incredibly high
when I was at her apartment.
Kristi's primary
function is to prove that
both the cell sites
and Jay are reliable.
If Kristi got that date wrong,
then either Jay's making
the whole thing up
or the cell site data
doesn't actually reflect
where the phone was
at the time of the calls.
Her story is that he gets some calls
that she describes as like
being from a best friend.
You know, well, what am I going
to do? What am I going to say?
What am I gonna... you know, they're
gonna come and talk to me.
But if Jay's story is true,
those calls were, like, from the cop.
I spoke to, uh, Mr. Syed,
and he advised me that
he did see the victim
in school that day.
I'm going to show you a copy
of what's been marked
as State's exhibit 34.
- Okay.
- This, for your information,
is the defendant's cell phone
records for the 13th.
Do you see the time that
that incoming call
- was received by the cell phone?
- 6:24 p.m.
And what was the duration of the call?
Four minutes and 15 seconds.
Is it possible that
that's the call you made
- to that number that day?
- That is correct.
What happened at trial
was they had this white poster board,
and it had the cell phone
records blown up.
Cell phone records are
computer records maintained
by the AT&T wireless
corporation, are they not?
Correct.
As people were
testifying, they would put like a
marker next to a certain phone call.
Jay would say, look, well, this is
what we did at such and such time.
- Is that Jenn Pusateri's pager?
- Yes, sir.
- Who made that call?
- I did, sir.
- On whose cell phone?
- Mr. Syed's.
Boom, this is the phone call.
I had got a page from Jay,
I was confused, so I called.
What happened when
you called that number?
Someone answered the phone
and said Jay would call me
when he was ready for me
to come and get him.
He was busy.
Boom, this is the phone call.
If somebody were in Leakin Park
and received two calls,
those calls would indicate
the cell site for Leakin Park.
Correct.
That was the State's case.
They said that there were two calls
that pinged Leakin Park
tower that evening
and Adnan was there.
That is what convinced
the jury that Adnan
was in Leakin Park that evening.
I've been an associate
attorney for a long time,
so I have my methods of handling
new cases and new case files.
And what I always do is
when I get a new case,
I go through it and I simple...
All the communications in order,
because the file's always a mess,
and you have to figure out
who said what when.
When did the cops request this?
When did AT&T respond?
And I'm like, okay, let's see
what this instruction
sheet actually says.
How to read
"Subscriber Activity" Reports.
"All calls are recorded in Eastern
Standard time." Good to know.
And it also says,
"Outgoing calls only are
reliable for location status.
"Any incoming calls
will not be considered
reliable information for location."
I asked Rabia, I'm like,
hey, so it turns out those
calls aren't reliable?
And Rabia's like, oh yeah,
no one's ever seen that before.
I'm like, really?
This is a piece of evidence
that nobody even realized
existed for all these years.
Every call that they used
to show something incriminating
is an incoming call.
The only calls linking Adnan
to the burial site...
He says something about, like,
"Jay's busy, he'll call you back."
...are the incoming calls.
The only calls linking
Adnan to Kristi's place...
What am I gonna say? What am I gonna...
You know, they're gonna
come and talk to me.
...are the incoming calls.
The call that the cops
actually had the typo on
doesn't even matter because
the data itself is unreliable.
The expert they had at the trial...
His name is Abraham Waranowitz...
I thought for sure
he'd know the answer to this.
So I found him, sent him
an e-mail, and just said,
"Hey, do you know why the fax
cover sheet would say this?
Is there a reason incoming
calls are less reliable?
There was no testimony
at trial about this cover sheet,
so I'm not sure what
significance it has."
And then I got a very
long e-mail from him.
"As an engineer, any analysis I make
should use accurate data
directly form the source."
"Since I no longer have those
resources available to me,
I cannot and should not provide
any analysis or speculation."
"While I love to help people
understand complex technical things,
this is way too much for me to handle
and I wish to remain silent from now on.
Please honor and respect this."
So we didn't talk for a long time.
Found out later it's because
he reached out to Urick
to try to get some more information,
and Urick basically made him think that
something bad would happen to
him if he kept talking to me.
But I'm like, you know, I've
got a couple more questions.
I'm just going to put them out
there, he can ignore it or not.
He didn't ignore it.
We started talking again,
and we established that, no,
he'd never seen the cover sheet.
So I put him in touch
with Adnan's attorney.
"I, Abraham Waranowitz, hereby affirm
that the following is true and accurate.
Just prior to my testimony
in the courthouse,
Urick presented me with a document."
And all he had been given was
like this little list of calls
that Urick prepared for him.
He assumed it was
engineering data. It's not.
This was from the billing
records system.
"What Urick did not tell me
or call my attention to
was that AT&T had previously
issued the disclaimer
that outgoing calls only are
reliable for location status."
This is a way to figure out
what to bill people.
All this does is tell AT&T
can I charge them more
because they were off our tower.
Were they roaming?
Were they somewhere they
shouldn't be for their plan?
So they don't actually
have a strong incentive
to make sure it's right.
"If I had been made
aware of this disclaimer,
it would have affected my testimony."
"I would not have affirmed
the interpretation
of a phone's possible
geographical location
until I could ascertain the reasons
and details for the disclaimer."
"I do not know why this information
was not pointed out to me."
This hearing was only scheduled to be
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Now it seems quite clear
it is going to go
until next week as Adnan Syed
tries to win a new trial.
It's going to be over there.
The gates will be like...
I just called my captain,
you can be on that corner over there.
- We can? Thank you.
- Yes. Yes.
- And we can scream?
- Yeah, we can say we love you, Adnan.
When I was getting ready to leave out,
there was one guard
there, like, look, Syed,
this is your whole family
and everybody is out there.
They said, look, we're
going to give you a moment to stand
if you want to wave at them.
- He's coming, guys, he's coming.
- Auntie said that six times so far.
I know, I'm sorry guys.
I know you're excited, it's okay.
It's okay.
I see him. I see him.
- Hey, Adnan!
- We love you, Adnan!
We love you, Adnan!
I was laughing
at my mom. My mom's crazy.
She was waving,
and then Yusuf was there.
And then there was
just a bunch of people, right?
I wasn't sure what to say, right?
So I was like, I'll just greet them.
- Bye, Adnan!
- Bye-bye!
- Was that him?
- Knowing that that was him.
- He said, "Assalamualaikum."
- Oh, good!
This was a big one!
Oh my God, it was so loud, you know.
- That was great.
- He was happy.
- Good to see you.
- I'm happy to see you, Rabia.
I know. Oh my God.
Adnan's father has
pretty much never appeared
for any of the post-conviction stuff.
He's worried about the optics
of being in court.
If the judge sees this Muslim
man with his big old beard,
it's going to hurt Adnan's case.
A lot of us believe that
that had something to do
with the perception
of the jury in the trial.
How was your day?
It's good to see you.
Here, come and sit down,
I'll tell you how the day went.
I mean, to see Adnan so happy,
I wish you could see his face.
He was smiling,
and, you know, he was just so happy.
- Today?
- Yeah. Yes. He was content.
- Yeah, he was very content.
- Smiling.
Do you remember the old
cell phone expert?
He wrote an affidavit
saying that he doesn't
stand by his testimony.
We're all going out for dinner,
and they invited him so...
Rabia was telling us, you know,
don't talk about the case.
He doesn't like to talk about it.
I introduced myself. I said, hi,
you know, I'm Adnan's brother.
And I introduced him
to Mom and then he said,
I'm sorry, it's because of me
that your brother is in jail.
- He had teary...
- Yeah, he had tears in his eyes.
Then Rabia started crying.
And I said, no, don't
you ever think like that.
It's not your fault.
And it broke my heart
because it makes me wonder
how many more victims are in this trial.
While many have cheered
Syed's efforts for a new trial,
the family of Hae Min Lee have not,
saying in a February statement,
"It remains hard to see
so many run to defend
someone who committed a horrible crime,
who destroyed our family,
who refuses to accept responsibility,
when so few are willing
to speak up for Hae."
Four eyewitnesses said this man,
Davon Neverdon, held up
and then shot and killed
this college student, Joel Lee.
But Neverdon was acquitted.
We want justice! We want justice!
Joel Lee died twice by two murderers.
One was Neverdon,
and another was the legal
system of this country.
Tonight a community comes
together to protest
the death of a Korean
grocer who was killed
at his East Baltimore store.
Immediately following
the funeral service,
members of the Korean-American
community will join
a special motorcade around the city.
The hearse will be driven
by several of the crime scenes
and encircle City Hall.
Some of the people in these cars
are calling this a protest.
Others are calling it a motorcade.
But no matter what it is called
it is meant to send a message.
We feel we're victimized
again and again and again.
"Oh sure, arrest me, so what?"
What... what after then?
They... they go free. We want results.
Sometimes in all
the hubbub of the story,
I feel like Hae gets lost.
There were so many people
who focused so much on Adnan.
And, yes, he's lost a lot,
but he's still alive.
People forget that there
is a family out there
that didn't get to say goodbye,
that will never understand
what happened to her.
Lee's family wants justice,
closure to the saddest
loss of their lives.
He should get
what he deserves for doing this.
It will be difficult, but I will go on.
My recollection at the
initial bail hearing
before Judge Hargrove,
which was at the district
court at Wabash,
uh, was that that charging
document read, Penalty: Death.
The charging document
in front of the judge
had Adnan's birthday listed
incorrectly, the year.
1980, I think, instead of '81.
If you're charged with a
capital offense and you're 18,
you're not eligible for bail.
You know, that was a huge setback there.
But then we were hopeful that by the
time we got to circuit court
that that's where we would
finally be able to get him out,
and, of course, that didn't happen.
State of Maryland vs. Adnan Syed.
Now this is a petition for
relief on the question of bail.
You know, Adnan's community,
they took buses to go
to the bail hearing.
I remember I was in the courtroom.
I'd never seen a courtroom
that full to capacity.
And what really struck me as
odd is there was... it was split.
You had individuals
from the Asian community,
individuals from the Muslim community,
depending on whose side you're on,
that's where they were sitting.
Would council announce their
appearances for the record, please?
Vicki Wash and Mark Cohen
on behalf of the State.
Christopher Flohr, F-L-O-H-R,
for Mr. Syed, Your Honor.
I remember there just being
a real pressure in the room.
What we're asking
for, Your Honor, is that Adnan Syed
be given bail unless there are
strong reasons to believe,
compelling reasons to believe
that he's either a flight risk
or a danger to the community.
And whenever you do a bail review,
there are two things that
judges look at the law.
One, the nature of the charge,
are they violent and dangerous?
And number two, are they a flight risk?
The Syed family is
prepared to put up their home,
which is where all of their life
savings have been invested.
When you put up bail,
you have to give them money.
I say, oh, you know, we'll
do everything, you know,
if they give us bail, so we'll
put whatever they want us to.
Beyond that, Judge, there
are three people prepared
to place as collateral their property.
The community was there
to put their houses up.
That's what I really remember,
that was amazing to me.
Oftentimes our clients get penalized
for not having support,
and, of course, that
got used against him.
Your Honor, the fact that the defendant
has strong support from the community,
that is what makes him
unique in this case.
He has the resources of
the entire community here,
our investigation reveals
that the defendant has
an uncle in Pakistan
and he has indicated that he
can make people disappear.
That his ethnicity was brought up, uh,
I think that was a big shock.
And that the community was implicated,
that they would help
him escape was like...
The defendant is a member
of the Muslim community.
People have this
idea that, oh, before 9-11
there was no anti-Muslim
bigotry and fear.
1999 was already post
the Iranian Revolution,
World Trade Center had already been hit,
we had been involved in Gulf Wars.
There are all kinds
of hijackings and stuff,
so when I was growing up people used
to call me terrorist all the time
and this was like in
elementary school in the '80s.
- Nobody move!
- Sit down! Sit down!
There's always been
stereotypes about Muslims
and Islam in the West.
They've always existed.
Now you listen to me.
You're in my country now.
You're my wife, you do as I say.
You understand me?
I can distinctly remember
Vicki Wash saying... said...
There is a pattern in
the United States of America
where young Pakistan
males have been jilted,
have committed murder,
and have fled to Pakistan,
and we have been unable
to extradite them back.
And I remember looking at the judge,
the judge just kind of
nodded his head like, hmm.
Your Honor, my
client was born in Baltimore,
he's lived his whole life in Baltimore,
and he's a United States citizen.
It is very easy to go to New York City
to the Pakistan Embassy
and request a passport,
because in order to get paperwork there
to stop that from happening,
to get them to process it,
they are so disorganized.
- Your Honor, may I heard?
- No.
Counsel, the court is going to
take this matter under advisement.
We'll advise... We will notify
you in a written form
in a very short period of time.
That will conclude this hearing.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
I think that it was just opportunity.
They wanted a victory. They
used whatever was available,
they threw whatever they could
at the wall to see what sticks.
It just so happened that
it was me being Muslim.
And this is another
thing that makes us angry
is that these prosecutors...
They're not held accountable
for the stuff they do.
Prosecutors, that's what people
don't always realize
there's no one more powerful
in the criminal justice system
than the prosecutor.
Prosecutors are not normal attorneys.
Their job is not just
to their case or their client.
Their job is to do justice,
and they don't have an incentive
to see that part of their job done,
so they fall back into attorney mode,
where winning is the only goal.
Why would they change
when they are graded
and given promotions and raises
based on how they do and how
many convictions they get?
And if they do go too far,
it is very, very hard
to convince someone and
convince the court or a judge
that the prosecutor knew they
were lying when they did it.
I just find that really disappointing,
because in order for us to make
sure that the public feels
that this is a fair way
of resolving differences,
then we all have to play fair.
And that doesn't always happen.
Just a few minutes ago, Syed's attorneys
wrapped up their final
argument in the courtroom.
It's not clear if
the judge will make a ruling
from the bench or take time
to issue a written opinion.
You know, this might have been
the first ever kind of open-source case.
I had essentially thousands
of investigators working for me,
and that produced information
that we otherwise would not have had.
That helped us get
to where we are right now.
In 2008, we were looking for a lawyer.
Adnan sent me the names
of three or four attorneys,
and Justin's name was on this list.
I saw that Justin had been
a war reporter in Bosnia,
and that really kind of moved me
because that means he has been
around a Muslim community.
He also said to me,
"I believe Adnan's innocent,"
and that meant a lot to me.
So I said, Adnan, I like this guy.
So we went with him.
My guess is that it will
be a little quicker than normal.
Last question right here.
I have told my client that
as long as he wants me to represent him,
I will fight till the bitter end.
Um, if we lose this, I will appeal.
If we lose the appeal,
we'll go to Federal court.
I might be 80 years old
still litigating this case,
but if that's what it takes,
I will not give up on Adnan Syed.
All right, thanks a lot.
Justin has said he's never gonna
stop working on the case.
I mean, you know, that's
an amazingly generous thing.
Stuff like that, like, really
gives me a lot of strength,
because it's like, okay,
this is the process,
but at least I have this.
At the time, I was shocked,
because in my head it just...
How could this even happen
and how could the system get it wrong
and how could jurors get it wrong?
I could've sworn... I don't know
if it was my imagination or what,
but we heard thunder outside
when we heard guilty.
To hear what the
judge said when I was sentenced,
I used to think about it and she said,
I manipulated my family and I
continue to manipulate people.
I mean, it just seemed like
the whole world believed it.
She gave me life for the first
degree murder conviction,
30 years for the false imprisonment.
If he gets life plus 30
and then Jay gets zip, essentially,
like, that to me cannot be reconciled.
State of Maryland vs. Jay Wilds.
Kevin Urick for the State.
Anne Benaroya on behalf of Mr. Wilds.
I will bring to the
court's attention that he, uh,
fully and satisfactorily
complied with every term
of the agreement under very
difficult circumstances.
And also I would say something
I... you don't usually see,
I think he actually showed remorse.
Generally speaking,
it's almost like everybody
felt, like, sympathy for Jay.
Um, Ms. Benaroya, do
you wish to be heard?
Yes, I do, Your Honor.
Just now in the hallway
Mr. Wilds was weeping.
What he said was the victim
in this case, Hae Lee,
was a person who had great promise.
And in many ways Mr. Wilds
perceives himself
as a person who doesn't
have great promise.
The only person who's here for him today
is a friend of his, who...
His friend Stephanie,
who had some... who's been a
friend throughout high school.
Mr. Wilds, is
there anything you want to say
before I impose a sentence?
Um, just that...
Whatever you do decide,
I would like you to know that
I have a real hard time
even siting here,
'cause I... I feel like
people look at me,
they think I'm a horrible
person and that...
I'm really sorry for
my part in what happened.
Just based on
what I've been told, that your,
uh, testimony was instrumental
in bringing this matter
to a just conclusion,
or what most people believe
to be a just conclusion.
So I'm satisfied that it would
be of no benefit whatsoever
to incarcerate you
as a result of all of this.
I'm going to impose
a sentence of five years,
suspend all the time served.
Um, two years probation.
Thank you very much.
I don't know, man. I can't explain Jay.
I just hate the fact that he lied
and told so many different
stories that, I mean...
It just doesn't make sense
to me. I don't know why.
I can only go with the very
first story he told me
when I picked him up
within an hour or two
hours of it happening.
To me, that would be
the closest to the truth.
Well, that makes sense.
If you told me that on
January 12th these events...
The phone calls happened
and that I picked him
up on January 12th,
then that's what I would say
it happened on January...
You know what I mean?
Like, I just know that I never
picked Jay up with Adnan
from Adnan's car.
Like, those events all
happened the same day.
I don't know unless my time
was wrong there, I can't...
I can't tell you unless you
have some kind of reference.
Yeah, this is Kristi's class schedule.
Kristi was in school until
nine o'clock on January 13th.
I don't know. I... I don't know, then.
I have no idea.
I'm telling you that in my mind,
my memory, that's what happened.
It's just one of those things
that's like you're involved in
that you'll never know the truth.
And it's hard to, I think,
come to grips with
that you're part of something that
you'll really never
know the truth about.
Don't matter to me.
I used to care, but now...
For real, I'm ready to change
my name to get out of this shit.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I don't want
any fucking thing to do with it.
Period. Flat out.
I wish I never would've talked
to y'all in the first place.
I hope not.
I mean, what the fuck?
Right?
I'm not going. My story's never changed.
I've told everybody the same thing
that I believed happened from day one.
If there was something
that was gonna close it
and we could get a fucking answer,
then, hey, I'm all for it.
But I don't see it happening.
So what the fuck is the point?
Let me see this for a second.
Brown and Nieto.
Social media is abuzz
with Serial fans sounding off
about the subject of the Serial podcast.
A judge orders a new trial
for Adnan Syed,
the Baltimore man convicted
of murdering his ex-girlfriend.
In his ruling tonight, the
judge said the case represents
what he called a unique juncture
between the criminal justice system
and phenomenally strong public interest.
The conviction was vacated,
which means it was erased
and we won a new trial for Adnan, so...
it's been an amazing day.
We won ultimately on
the cell tower issue.
The judge said that Cristina Gutierrez
was deficient,
that she made a mistake
by not contacting Asia McClain,
but that it wouldn't
necessarily have affected
the outcome of the trial.
But with the fax cover sheet,
if it had been done, it would
have affected the outcome.
Now the State's going to appeal.
We'll have to fight to defend
the position we're in right now,
but the position we are in right now is
he does not have a conviction.
He is innocent until proven guilty.
I'll be back later, okay?
From where I was sitting, we kicked ass,
and then to have it pay off with a win.
Because I know that
the system is not always fair
and justice is arbitrary.
Yeah, he's still... still in jail
so there's more work to be done,
but, um, we're making progress.
I gotta stop smiling. It's... Phew!
She made something for you.
Oh, love bug! Give me a big hug, love.
Did you write your name?
Initially it's just this exuberance,
and then you start thinking
about the family.
They're just stunned and
they've been waiting so long
and they're probably so exhausted,
but obviously they're delighted.
I mean, we're excited, you know,
but, like, the body's numb, you know.
It's happened after a long time.
Maybe one day, he'll open the door.
Like he used to say, "Mama, I'm home."
I'm happy, you know what I mean?
But I also know there's,
like, a huge road ahead.
The reality of this is that
anything can still happen.
it that led you to Jay Wilds?
Cell phone and cell phone records.
We talked to Jay. He has the cell phone.
He has the car.
I think Jay knew where the car was
the way he knew everything.
The police told him.
Everything
was told to me by someone else.
Everything I knew was like hearsay.
Dear Adnan, I remember chatting
with you on January 13.
I was his actual alibi.
What we did is run Jay's name.
We have more than 20 arrests.
The police had to
basically break the door down.
I have a lot of questions.
Hello?
Eighteen-year-old Hae Min
Lee disappeared on January 13th
after leaving Woodlawn High School.
On February 9th police found
her half-buried body
in Baltimore's Leakin Park.
She had been strangled.
Key details they had withheld
as they sought out a suspect.
They now have one in custody.
The police suggest
the suspect had a motive
in the form of a fatal
attraction to his victim.
The subject is
identified as Adnan Masud Syed,
17 and a former football player,
who is described as an
A-student, friendly to everyone.
News of Syed's
arrest is met with disbelief
by the community in Woodlawn.
They can't believe the boy
who had so much promise
now faces a murder rap.
This is where his mother had lived
towards the end of our relationship.
This was his little neck of the woods.
He was trying to be controlling,
and then he had his mother
there with him, too, so...
He told me if I leave with my son,
we all have to be together.
Certain situations where he'd get
mad, his mother might have him,
he'd call his mother, "Oh, well,
don't let her get him,"
and I would call the police, she
just wouldn't answer the door.
Little situations like that, and
I just didn't want the drama.
After he hit me the first time,
in front of my son,
I didn't want my son to ever see that.
Right, that Rite Aid up
on Edmondson Avenue.
I remember like it was yesterday.
And he went in the Rite Aid thinking
he was gonna get a prescription filled
for my son, and I just, I left.
I left all... whatever stuff my son
had at his grandmother's house,
I left that and I just
never turned back.
Jay is in California somewhere,
far, far away.
He messaged me, like, maybe last year.
I guess just to irk me, and I
haven't talked to him since.
He did say... He did say that,
but he brushed it off like real quick,
no accessory, no "I did this." Nothing.
It just makes me feel like,
what else is he capable of
from the situations
that we've been through.
I'm worried about
the long haul with my son.
That's why I kind of want to text him,
then I'll let you know if he answers.
He might call, maybe like five,
ten minutes, he'll text back.
A little bit,
'cause I feel like sometimes
if I know if he lying
or just talking crazy,
it irritates me, so I gotta be
able to calm down a little bit.
Hello?
Hey.
Yeah, I'm just trying
to stay focused, that's all.
That's all.
Well, I mean, what's going on, dog?
That shit is just so crazy,
I mean, you could tell
that it's cut crazy looking on the
outside in, you know what I mean?
Yeah, like I'm just, I'm confused, like,
why, why, if it was so long ago, why...
He hung up.
And it was him.
"My service is out. I'll hit you back."
He was talking about it, though.
I'm shocked that he's even,
like, talking to me so calmly.
Hello?
Yeah, I'm here. I'm listening.
At first he told me that he was there,
that, you know, everything
that he has stated was true.
And he told you that, but you
didn't think that he was serious.
You didn't even freak out
when you actually, like, seen it
and, like, was at the police
and all that stuff?
What... So what did you do?
Like, how did you get off and stuff?
And then he broke it
down to me and was like,
he basically ratted out the guy
to get himself out of jail
with the police.
Damn, there was a lot
of crooked ass-cops back then.
So what? They basically
tried to give you the story
or you just knew about it
'cause you was there with the guy?
But you did have
involvement in it, though?
All right, just be safe out there.
All right.
All right, bye.
He said he got caught
with a whole bunch of weed,
and, um, it was so much weed they
was trying to pin it on him.
So, basically, he ratted the
man, gave them a bigger story
to get, um, him locked up.
He basically gave them what they
wanted to know, so he could get off.
He was saying it
so fast and slang, but...
I don't know, I kind of feel
sad for him knowing now,
but I know it's probably eating him
up just from the conversation.
We haven't talked in years,
and he was just so open
to just let it out to me,
so that says a whole lot.
No. No.
By no means.
This is a murder. There's...
You're not gonna be an informant.
Murders...
When you have a murder,
they're called witnesses.
Either he's going to be a witness
or he's going to be a defendant.
With the information he had,
he sat right on the fence.
At this
point in my life, I've given up
trying to prove why he lied.
There's some things that I've
given up on because I realize,
legally speaking, they really
don't have any bearing.
And at this point in my life, you know,
that's really all that
I should be focused on:
what legally makes
a difference in my case?
The question throughout
this post-conviction hearing
has been will Adnan Syed get a new trial
on charges that he murdered
his ex-girlfriend 17 years ago?
Syed's attorney argued
that his lawyer at the time
of the conviction made so many mistakes
that his conviction
should be overturned.
One of those alleged mistakes
was failing to contact
a potentially key alibi
witness, Asia McClain.
The defense team has
to show that that witness
might've made a difference in
Adnan Syed's defense back in 2000.
My presence there is
not going to make an impact
on what's actually happening
in front of the judge,
um, and that's what's more important.
So my support is from out here,
it's fine.
I can... At least
I can sit out here and tweet.
So I'm still on the case in my own way.
Asia, from everything I've heard,
has made an amazing witness,
and I was like,
Man, I missed it!
'Cause I really wanted to see
her testify, but it's okay.
First time I ever heard
Asia's name was, um,
when Adnan was convicted
and I said to him, I said,
you know, in closing arguments
the prosecutor said that
ladies and gentlemen of the
jury, Hae Min Lee left school
and within 20 minutes was dead,
or something like that.
The State's theory here
is that Hae Min Lee
left the school with Adnan at 2:15 p.m.,
and for some reason
they went to Best Buy.
He strangled her in the parking
lot, and then he called Jay
to come pick him up at exactly 2:36 p.m.
If you could account for your time
in that half an hour, that was it.
And he's like, you know, there was
this girl who wrote me these letters
over a year ago.
And he said, I gave the letters
to Cristina Gutierrez,
and she told me that
I checked with her
and her dates were wrong.
He was like, so I never really
kind of brought it up again.
That was the end of that.
She was later disbarred, and it all
went public like a couple years
later that, you know,
she had messed up all these clients.
And, you know, we were just
horrified. It explained a lot.
I think in one letter
Asia had written her number,
a landline, so I called.
It's kind of weird
the things that I remember...
...and the things that I don't.
I don't remember her calling me
to set up the meeting.
She was like, I wrote the
letters, Adnan didn't write back,
his lawyer didn't contact me.
That's the first time I realized that
like Gutierrez actually lied
to Adnan and said that she had.
And I was like, would you
put this in an affidavit?
I remember writing that
on my front porch,
and then we went to have it notarized.
I can't fathom why it
still didn't dawn on me
that Rabia wanted me
to sign this because
it was important.
What we were facing at
that point was direct appeals,
which is all about the technical issues.
You cannot raise anything
that's considered new evidence.
We had to wait until we
could file something called a
post-conviction relief petition.
And so by the time we did that,
it was like 2010,
and Adnan's lawyer, Justin Brown,
he hired a private investigator
to reach out to Asia
to see if she'd be willing
to come testify.
In my mind the only
thing that I could think of
was that someone associated
with a convicted murderer
had tracked me down, and, um,
I just wasn't comfortable
without knowing the scope of why.
I did find a Baltimore Sun article
that referenced Kevin Urick.
Calling at this time the hearing set
in the State versus Adnan Syed.
- Kevin Urick for the State.
- Mr. Urick.
I figured with him being a prosecutor
that he would be a reliable
source for information,
and I gave him a call.
And I actually took notes
on the conversation.
I told him that I saw Syed
in the library in 1999.
He told me that they had
cell phone records
and they had a witness that confessed
to helping him bury Hae.
And then I wrote down something
Urick said to me directly:
"If I had any doubt
that Adnan didn't kill Hae,
"it would be my moral obligation to see
that he didn't serve any time."
Based on what he told me, I felt that
the conviction was, you know, airtight,
and so I didn't see the need for me
to get involved 10 years later.
I remember sitting there
and listen to Urick testify,
and it was like being
just punched in the gut.
Because it made us all look
horrible and it was a total lie.
Did Asia really say this to Urick?
I never told Urick
that I recanted my story,
and there were some things that
he discussed with me that
were just flat-out untrue.
He told me that there was DNA,
which there was.
Unfortunately, he neglected to tell me
that the DNA was never tested.
Finding that out four years
later in a podcast,
it was just very disturbing to me.
I swear to the following
under penalty of perjury,
I did not write the March 1999 letters
or the affidavit because of
pressure from the Syed family.
My only goal has always been
to provide the truth
about what I remember.
We could've been doing this years ago,
but because of his actions and
the way that he talked to me,
you know, he convinced
me to stay out of it.
Honestly, it pisses me off.
Um, it makes me hate myself
for allowing him
to manipulate me in that way.
No. I-I...
I feel like if he did
care about the truth
that he would've met
with me before the PCR,
like I invited him to.
My attorney made it absolutely clear
that I was a hundred percent
willing to cooperate
with the prosecution as well.
Even after I got done testifying,
in press conferences,
you know, he demonized me.
I think what's clear to the
judge based on the record
is that Asia McClain was not
a weapon for the defense,
she was a potential weakness.
She has a lot of
scrutiny and a lot people
saying horrible things about her.
Just go on Reddit and look up Asia.
"Guilters," we call them.
It seemed like it was just
a bunch of conspiracy theories.
Being accused of not writing
my letters when I wrote them.
They talk about you
as being a pig or vile.
It's very hurtful,
especially when I wasn't anticipating
being a part of this.
But I think, I think Asia,
like you might be that technicality.
When I talked to Sarah on the phone,
at best, I thought maybe she
was going to write an article.
Back then no one knew
what a podcast really was,
and then to have it go
so viral so quick,
it was just a very surreal
and sickening experience.
I can remember nights
where I just cried in the bed.
I just took all of it in,
internalized it,
and turned it into armor.
You know, like just
something that happened in the past,
it doesn't really affect you, but
now with how popular Serial was,
it's very strange to have people,
like, question your memory
of things that happened in your life
or speculate that you're
lying or not lying.
I think Jenn, because
she played such a bigger part,
I think it affects her a little more.
I didn't know that
all these stories existed
until this Serial thing came out.
I didn't know that Jay told
three and four and five
different stories
to ten different people.
I kept it a little bit more...
uh, on the wraps.
It was very weird for me
that when Serial was airing,
it was during a time period in which my,
um, dad was very sick and dying.
And having random people
come up and ask me
about this other traumatic
time in my life,
that part was upsetting.
But also, it created a space
for talking about things
with my friends from high school
because we didn't talk about it.
Like, who wants to talk
about something traumatic?
You know, when Serial
first started I thought,
what is this Sarah lady doing?
What is she trying to get involved in?
And the further we got into it,
it became obvious to me
why people think that this
is a wrongful conviction
and why people want
to look at this again
and find out what really happened.
As Serial was ongoing,
I was like obsessively watching online
like the reaction that people had to it.
I was on Reddit and somebody
posted a blog by this attorney,
Susan Simpson, and I started reading it.
And she had written...
I don't know, like 35-40 pages
about Jay's police statements.
And I just e-mailed her and I said,
you're analyzing this stuff
in a way that nobody ever has.
I have all the files and I'd
love to give it all to you.
I got the case file from Rabia.
She handed it over to me.
I told her not to. I'm like this
is stupid, you don't know me,
'cause this was very early on.
And she gave it to me
anyway, she was like,
okay, well, you know,
go find stuff in there.
I assumed that Jay was
involved in some way.
Um, I felt Adnan might be involved
in some way. I didn't know.
I just knew the story we were
hearing didn't make any sense.
Detective, um, Ritz, you had an occasion
to interact with a man
by the name of Jay Wilds?
Yes, ma'am, I did.
Okay, and those interviews took
place on the 28th of February?
Yes, ma'am.
- And on the 15th of March?
- That is correct.
What happened that made you
want to speak to Mr. Wilds again?
I had obtained cell site information
and I wanted to talk
to Mr. Wilds a second time.
Back then that was
early stage of us learning
what cell tower investigations were.
Back in that day the technology was that
the cell phone is finding
a tower to ping off of
that the call goes to
and let's you know the area
that that person's phone was in.
The phone that day was with Jay.
So you look at that record
and you're like,
he was calling so-and-so,
he was doing this.
These cops thought the cell phone
thing, this was their bible.
This list of towers, they
were going to follow that
wherever it took them.
In this case it took them
on the wrong path.
So the cops are, like, really
glad after the first interview.
They've got their star witness,
so they've put together
a to-do list, very helpful.
Item number five on the to-do
list is "cell sites mapped."
And item six is "interview
Jay a second time."
And they get their maps and they realize
that they've got some very big problems
because Jay's story is not
matching his cell phone records.
The cell site information that we had
didn't correspond
to his statement at first.
We narrowed the time frames down.
He started to recall things
a little better,
and, uh, took a second statement.
They get him back in, they
fill out a new Miranda waiver.
15:05, 3:05 p.m. is when
they start talking to him.
Then we get to the recording.
So we fast-forwarded in time
from three o'clock to 6:20 p.m.
What did they do for those
three hours and 20 minutes?
They workshopped that story.
Well, the most important part
of that is that, um,
people play with that a lot,
meaning non-investigators,
um, culturally in Baltimore.
The first story anybody
tells you is going to be a lie.
Then when they refine that story,
it's going to be less of a lie.
You don't turn on the tape recorder
until you've got a statement you want.
I mean, Jay was a teenager,
um, a black guy in Baltimore,
being interviewed by homicide detectives
who are telling him
they want him for a murder,
and the cops are very good
at convincing people that
your best bet is to talk
yourself out of it,
when really all you're
doing is talking your way
way, way into it.
Ritz and MacGillivary got witnesses
to talk in a lot of cases,
but the information wasn't always valid.
Detective Ritz absolutely
has a track record.
He has been involved
in three different cases
where there has been either exoneration
or a case overturned.
And one of those cases,
the Ezra Mable case from 2000,
there were two witnesses who
identified Ezra Mable as the murderer.
Both of those women later came forward
to say that they had been told
they were going to be arrested
for drug crimes
or their kids taken away from them,
and that's when they made statements.
Jay says in that second interview
he knew what Adnan was going to do.
He was told the night
before on the 12th.
At that point, they could do
whatever they wanted with him.
They could've gotten him
for murder in Baltimore City.
They could've sent him to
Baltimore County, have him executed.
He was doomed.
My very firmly held theory
is that Jay does not know anything,
and they helped him develop
a story through process,
and that's all Jay says.
This is the blob map
from AT&T showing...
Well, they call them coverage
areas, but really idealized
computer-generated prediction of
where each tower is gonna cover.
They tried to have Jay,
like, track his story
through these little zones.
I would bet dollars to donuts
the cops had these maps out there
as they're walking through the story.
Whenever he forgets the script,
forgets what he's supposed to
be doing, they're like, no.
Um, okay...
Then we have an incoming call, 12:43,
another incoming call at 2:36,
and then another incoming call at 3:15.
They gotta use
one of those options there
to be their come-and-get-me call.
It's Adnan calling Jay to say,
"The bitch is dead. Come and get me."
The come-and-get-me call
has to be an incoming call,
because Adnan didn't
have the phone, Jay did.
At trial 2:36 is the one
they kind of settle on,
because it's the only one
that's even remotely plausible.
Unfortunately,
they had a really big typo
on the cell phone chronology
that they used
to try and understand Jay's story.
On the 2:36 call, they put down
that it was at L-6-5-1-C.
It was actually at L-6-5-1-B.
This is L-6-5-1.
Purple is B.
Jenn's house is about right there.
It's in L-6-5-1-B.
It works perfectly to have the
call come in at Jenn's house,
but because of the cop's little typo
they had that call
coming in at L-6-5-1-C,
which is the pink area.
He can't be at Jenn's house
when this come-and-get-me
call comes in from Adnan.
He has to be somewhere farther west.
And that's when the
come-and-get-me call comes in,
when Jay and the phone are conveniently
in the territory of L-6-5-1-C.
Did there come a point in time when
- Jay left your house?
- Yes.
Do you remember when that was?
Between 3:30-3:45.
He both left to go to Best Buy at
2:36 when the come-and-get-me call,
but he also didn't leave
Jenn's house until 3:40.
I mean, the story's nonsense
because it came from nonsense,
and it was multiplied
by the cell phone records.
They kept introducing errors
they'd have to correct again.
How did I lose
the one map I actually needed?
A-ha! So...
there is a road called Dorchester.
There is a Dorchester in Baltimore...
and there's a Dorchester in Catonsville.
And there's a tower called
L-6-5-4 on Dorchester.
Now, it might be Baltimore City,
which conveniently is
right next to Kristi's house.
In real life, it's on
the one in Catonsville,
which is up by Jay's house.
Because the cops have their map wrong,
they now have to explain
why in the middle of the day,
about the time when Adnan
would be at track practice,
Jay is making calls from
down near Kristi's house.
No, he wasn't. He wasn't...
He definitely did not leave
and go get Adnan and come back.
He definitely came in with Adnan.
It doesn't surprise me that
Jay lied about that stuff,
'cause Jay lies about everything, but...
I can't figure out why, like what the...
What the purpose is to lie about.
Jay is in a very tough spot,
because you've got
the right to representation
when you're charged in a criminal case,
but that right doesn't trigger
until you've been formally charged.
And so we know that Jay
pops onto the radar screen
of the police, um,
in January or February
and doesn't get formally
charged until September of '99.
That created this
strange system where Jay
is able to talk to the police,
the police are able to talk
to Jay, he's not able to get
a lawyer to stand in between
him and the police.
Kevin was trying to put
his case together
to make it look
as super strong as possible,
to try to scare him
into pleading guilty.
A lot of times, not all prosecutors,
but you have a person
who is charged with murder,
you have a number of cases,
you're trying to just get
through your cases and move on.
Having worked on some
cases with Mr. Urick,
I think he would probably
fall in that category.
He had a lot of cases, um,
and he didn't always pay attention
to some of those details.
So their whole case, in so
many ways, is all about Jay.
All of a sudden on
September 7th, the charges are filed.
The prosecutor, Urick,
arranged for a lawyer for Jay,
Anne Benaroya.
She had her own practice,
and she did the case pro bono.
If you're a public defender,
you would've taken the case,
it wouldn't have been pro bono.
So there's somewhere along the line,
someone called in a favor
to have her there.
Good morning, Your Honor.
Kevin Urick, for the State.
With the court's permission,
I'm adding a case to the docket
of State versus Jay Wilds.
Pursuant to a plea agreement
the defendant is to enter
a plea of guilty to one count
of accessory after the fact to murder.
All right, Mr. Wilds, would you raise
your right hand please?
Do you hereby solemnly promise...
The decision would've been Mr. Urick's
in terms of what to offer.
He could've easily offered him
conspiracy to commit murder,
but he gave him
accessory after the fact,
which is the most
you can receive is five years.
Good morning, Judge McCurdy.
Anne Benaroya on behalf of Jay Wilds.
And he did the plea
in front of Judge McCurdy,
who everybody knew, he was very
lenient on younger offenders.
So it was almost a too-good-to-be-true
type of situation for Jay.
Please state your name and address.
My name is Jay Wilds, Jay W. Wilds.
Sir, you agree
to plead guilty in this case,
and I have to be satisfied
that you freely and voluntarily
entered into this guilty plea.
How old are you?
- I'm 19, sir. Yes.
- Nineteen?
- How much education have you had?
- High school diploma.
Other than this plea agreement, has
anybody made any threat or promise
- to make you plead guilty?
- No, sir.
All right, thank you.
I'll accept the plea.
At this point the
defendant should be advised
that we can go forward
even if he does not appear.
Well, that's true. I... Mr. Wilds...
That doesn't mean
that if I do not appear,
I get a failure to appear warrant, do I?
The thing that you have to understand is
if you don't appear
for the rest of this case,
- I could proceed to the disposition...
- Right.
...and find... and give you up
- to the maximum sentence.
- Okay.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Your honor.
Once they had Jay signed
up, Jay was going to do and say
whatever he needed to do
to stay out of jail.
And here they would've
definitely needed Jay,
because without Jay what do they have?
- Do you know how to...
- Yes, she showed me
how to get out of the...
- Right here?
- Yeah, that's good. That's perfect.
I wish they would've taped me
from the very beginning.
Not, I think you probably would've heard
a lot more indecisiveness on my part.
Not... "I'm not sure,"
"I don't know," you know,
more like that,
than I kind of sound like
I have all the answers in that copy.
When that day came up in conversation,
did you remember that it
was the 13th of January?
I don't think I remembered
the specific date, no.
Somebody told you
that date, did they not?
I think it was Detective MacGillivary.
You couldn't tell us whether
these events took place
on the 13th, for instance,
or on the 12th?
No, except that I had
a conference that day,
that's the only other way I know.
So this basically is the winter
term from the School of Social Work
- that you received for January.
- Mm-hmm.
And these were the classes
you were taking.
Right, but this wasn't the
conference right? These are just the
- ...the courses I took, right?
- Yeah.
I don't remember.
I don't remember whether
I just blew the class off.
So I got a B.
These were only three sessions?
Oh, then I wouldn't have blown it off.
I couldn't have. They wouldn't...
I wouldn't have passed.
I wouldn't have been able
to skip a winter class.
So it definitely couldn't
have happened on the 13th,
because I wouldn't have been
home at 6:30,
watching Judge Judy
on the 13th if I had class.
That also concerns me, though,
because I believe that Adnan did it.
I believe that those...
Those events connect.
Him loaning the car to Jay
happens on the same date
as them coming to my house
as the same date as them...
As Adnan killing Hae
as the same day as them
going to Leakin Park.
You know what I mean?
I believe all that happened
on the same day, but if we're...
Right. Right.
I wish that I had a really
clear recollection
of the 13th and what happened.
It probably could've happened that day,
I don't know one way or the other.
I know I was incredibly high
when I was at her apartment.
Kristi's primary
function is to prove that
both the cell sites
and Jay are reliable.
If Kristi got that date wrong,
then either Jay's making
the whole thing up
or the cell site data
doesn't actually reflect
where the phone was
at the time of the calls.
Her story is that he gets some calls
that she describes as like
being from a best friend.
You know, well, what am I going
to do? What am I going to say?
What am I gonna... you know, they're
gonna come and talk to me.
But if Jay's story is true,
those calls were, like, from the cop.
I spoke to, uh, Mr. Syed,
and he advised me that
he did see the victim
in school that day.
I'm going to show you a copy
of what's been marked
as State's exhibit 34.
- Okay.
- This, for your information,
is the defendant's cell phone
records for the 13th.
Do you see the time that
that incoming call
- was received by the cell phone?
- 6:24 p.m.
And what was the duration of the call?
Four minutes and 15 seconds.
Is it possible that
that's the call you made
- to that number that day?
- That is correct.
What happened at trial
was they had this white poster board,
and it had the cell phone
records blown up.
Cell phone records are
computer records maintained
by the AT&T wireless
corporation, are they not?
Correct.
As people were
testifying, they would put like a
marker next to a certain phone call.
Jay would say, look, well, this is
what we did at such and such time.
- Is that Jenn Pusateri's pager?
- Yes, sir.
- Who made that call?
- I did, sir.
- On whose cell phone?
- Mr. Syed's.
Boom, this is the phone call.
I had got a page from Jay,
I was confused, so I called.
What happened when
you called that number?
Someone answered the phone
and said Jay would call me
when he was ready for me
to come and get him.
He was busy.
Boom, this is the phone call.
If somebody were in Leakin Park
and received two calls,
those calls would indicate
the cell site for Leakin Park.
Correct.
That was the State's case.
They said that there were two calls
that pinged Leakin Park
tower that evening
and Adnan was there.
That is what convinced
the jury that Adnan
was in Leakin Park that evening.
I've been an associate
attorney for a long time,
so I have my methods of handling
new cases and new case files.
And what I always do is
when I get a new case,
I go through it and I simple...
All the communications in order,
because the file's always a mess,
and you have to figure out
who said what when.
When did the cops request this?
When did AT&T respond?
And I'm like, okay, let's see
what this instruction
sheet actually says.
How to read
"Subscriber Activity" Reports.
"All calls are recorded in Eastern
Standard time." Good to know.
And it also says,
"Outgoing calls only are
reliable for location status.
"Any incoming calls
will not be considered
reliable information for location."
I asked Rabia, I'm like,
hey, so it turns out those
calls aren't reliable?
And Rabia's like, oh yeah,
no one's ever seen that before.
I'm like, really?
This is a piece of evidence
that nobody even realized
existed for all these years.
Every call that they used
to show something incriminating
is an incoming call.
The only calls linking Adnan
to the burial site...
He says something about, like,
"Jay's busy, he'll call you back."
...are the incoming calls.
The only calls linking
Adnan to Kristi's place...
What am I gonna say? What am I gonna...
You know, they're gonna
come and talk to me.
...are the incoming calls.
The call that the cops
actually had the typo on
doesn't even matter because
the data itself is unreliable.
The expert they had at the trial...
His name is Abraham Waranowitz...
I thought for sure
he'd know the answer to this.
So I found him, sent him
an e-mail, and just said,
"Hey, do you know why the fax
cover sheet would say this?
Is there a reason incoming
calls are less reliable?
There was no testimony
at trial about this cover sheet,
so I'm not sure what
significance it has."
And then I got a very
long e-mail from him.
"As an engineer, any analysis I make
should use accurate data
directly form the source."
"Since I no longer have those
resources available to me,
I cannot and should not provide
any analysis or speculation."
"While I love to help people
understand complex technical things,
this is way too much for me to handle
and I wish to remain silent from now on.
Please honor and respect this."
So we didn't talk for a long time.
Found out later it's because
he reached out to Urick
to try to get some more information,
and Urick basically made him think that
something bad would happen to
him if he kept talking to me.
But I'm like, you know, I've
got a couple more questions.
I'm just going to put them out
there, he can ignore it or not.
He didn't ignore it.
We started talking again,
and we established that, no,
he'd never seen the cover sheet.
So I put him in touch
with Adnan's attorney.
"I, Abraham Waranowitz, hereby affirm
that the following is true and accurate.
Just prior to my testimony
in the courthouse,
Urick presented me with a document."
And all he had been given was
like this little list of calls
that Urick prepared for him.
He assumed it was
engineering data. It's not.
This was from the billing
records system.
"What Urick did not tell me
or call my attention to
was that AT&T had previously
issued the disclaimer
that outgoing calls only are
reliable for location status."
This is a way to figure out
what to bill people.
All this does is tell AT&T
can I charge them more
because they were off our tower.
Were they roaming?
Were they somewhere they
shouldn't be for their plan?
So they don't actually
have a strong incentive
to make sure it's right.
"If I had been made
aware of this disclaimer,
it would have affected my testimony."
"I would not have affirmed
the interpretation
of a phone's possible
geographical location
until I could ascertain the reasons
and details for the disclaimer."
"I do not know why this information
was not pointed out to me."
This hearing was only scheduled to be
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Now it seems quite clear
it is going to go
until next week as Adnan Syed
tries to win a new trial.
It's going to be over there.
The gates will be like...
I just called my captain,
you can be on that corner over there.
- We can? Thank you.
- Yes. Yes.
- And we can scream?
- Yeah, we can say we love you, Adnan.
When I was getting ready to leave out,
there was one guard
there, like, look, Syed,
this is your whole family
and everybody is out there.
They said, look, we're
going to give you a moment to stand
if you want to wave at them.
- He's coming, guys, he's coming.
- Auntie said that six times so far.
I know, I'm sorry guys.
I know you're excited, it's okay.
It's okay.
I see him. I see him.
- Hey, Adnan!
- We love you, Adnan!
We love you, Adnan!
I was laughing
at my mom. My mom's crazy.
She was waving,
and then Yusuf was there.
And then there was
just a bunch of people, right?
I wasn't sure what to say, right?
So I was like, I'll just greet them.
- Bye, Adnan!
- Bye-bye!
- Was that him?
- Knowing that that was him.
- He said, "Assalamualaikum."
- Oh, good!
This was a big one!
Oh my God, it was so loud, you know.
- That was great.
- He was happy.
- Good to see you.
- I'm happy to see you, Rabia.
I know. Oh my God.
Adnan's father has
pretty much never appeared
for any of the post-conviction stuff.
He's worried about the optics
of being in court.
If the judge sees this Muslim
man with his big old beard,
it's going to hurt Adnan's case.
A lot of us believe that
that had something to do
with the perception
of the jury in the trial.
How was your day?
It's good to see you.
Here, come and sit down,
I'll tell you how the day went.
I mean, to see Adnan so happy,
I wish you could see his face.
He was smiling,
and, you know, he was just so happy.
- Today?
- Yeah. Yes. He was content.
- Yeah, he was very content.
- Smiling.
Do you remember the old
cell phone expert?
He wrote an affidavit
saying that he doesn't
stand by his testimony.
We're all going out for dinner,
and they invited him so...
Rabia was telling us, you know,
don't talk about the case.
He doesn't like to talk about it.
I introduced myself. I said, hi,
you know, I'm Adnan's brother.
And I introduced him
to Mom and then he said,
I'm sorry, it's because of me
that your brother is in jail.
- He had teary...
- Yeah, he had tears in his eyes.
Then Rabia started crying.
And I said, no, don't
you ever think like that.
It's not your fault.
And it broke my heart
because it makes me wonder
how many more victims are in this trial.
While many have cheered
Syed's efforts for a new trial,
the family of Hae Min Lee have not,
saying in a February statement,
"It remains hard to see
so many run to defend
someone who committed a horrible crime,
who destroyed our family,
who refuses to accept responsibility,
when so few are willing
to speak up for Hae."
Four eyewitnesses said this man,
Davon Neverdon, held up
and then shot and killed
this college student, Joel Lee.
But Neverdon was acquitted.
We want justice! We want justice!
Joel Lee died twice by two murderers.
One was Neverdon,
and another was the legal
system of this country.
Tonight a community comes
together to protest
the death of a Korean
grocer who was killed
at his East Baltimore store.
Immediately following
the funeral service,
members of the Korean-American
community will join
a special motorcade around the city.
The hearse will be driven
by several of the crime scenes
and encircle City Hall.
Some of the people in these cars
are calling this a protest.
Others are calling it a motorcade.
But no matter what it is called
it is meant to send a message.
We feel we're victimized
again and again and again.
"Oh sure, arrest me, so what?"
What... what after then?
They... they go free. We want results.
Sometimes in all
the hubbub of the story,
I feel like Hae gets lost.
There were so many people
who focused so much on Adnan.
And, yes, he's lost a lot,
but he's still alive.
People forget that there
is a family out there
that didn't get to say goodbye,
that will never understand
what happened to her.
Lee's family wants justice,
closure to the saddest
loss of their lives.
He should get
what he deserves for doing this.
It will be difficult, but I will go on.
My recollection at the
initial bail hearing
before Judge Hargrove,
which was at the district
court at Wabash,
uh, was that that charging
document read, Penalty: Death.
The charging document
in front of the judge
had Adnan's birthday listed
incorrectly, the year.
1980, I think, instead of '81.
If you're charged with a
capital offense and you're 18,
you're not eligible for bail.
You know, that was a huge setback there.
But then we were hopeful that by the
time we got to circuit court
that that's where we would
finally be able to get him out,
and, of course, that didn't happen.
State of Maryland vs. Adnan Syed.
Now this is a petition for
relief on the question of bail.
You know, Adnan's community,
they took buses to go
to the bail hearing.
I remember I was in the courtroom.
I'd never seen a courtroom
that full to capacity.
And what really struck me as
odd is there was... it was split.
You had individuals
from the Asian community,
individuals from the Muslim community,
depending on whose side you're on,
that's where they were sitting.
Would council announce their
appearances for the record, please?
Vicki Wash and Mark Cohen
on behalf of the State.
Christopher Flohr, F-L-O-H-R,
for Mr. Syed, Your Honor.
I remember there just being
a real pressure in the room.
What we're asking
for, Your Honor, is that Adnan Syed
be given bail unless there are
strong reasons to believe,
compelling reasons to believe
that he's either a flight risk
or a danger to the community.
And whenever you do a bail review,
there are two things that
judges look at the law.
One, the nature of the charge,
are they violent and dangerous?
And number two, are they a flight risk?
The Syed family is
prepared to put up their home,
which is where all of their life
savings have been invested.
When you put up bail,
you have to give them money.
I say, oh, you know, we'll
do everything, you know,
if they give us bail, so we'll
put whatever they want us to.
Beyond that, Judge, there
are three people prepared
to place as collateral their property.
The community was there
to put their houses up.
That's what I really remember,
that was amazing to me.
Oftentimes our clients get penalized
for not having support,
and, of course, that
got used against him.
Your Honor, the fact that the defendant
has strong support from the community,
that is what makes him
unique in this case.
He has the resources of
the entire community here,
our investigation reveals
that the defendant has
an uncle in Pakistan
and he has indicated that he
can make people disappear.
That his ethnicity was brought up, uh,
I think that was a big shock.
And that the community was implicated,
that they would help
him escape was like...
The defendant is a member
of the Muslim community.
People have this
idea that, oh, before 9-11
there was no anti-Muslim
bigotry and fear.
1999 was already post
the Iranian Revolution,
World Trade Center had already been hit,
we had been involved in Gulf Wars.
There are all kinds
of hijackings and stuff,
so when I was growing up people used
to call me terrorist all the time
and this was like in
elementary school in the '80s.
- Nobody move!
- Sit down! Sit down!
There's always been
stereotypes about Muslims
and Islam in the West.
They've always existed.
Now you listen to me.
You're in my country now.
You're my wife, you do as I say.
You understand me?
I can distinctly remember
Vicki Wash saying... said...
There is a pattern in
the United States of America
where young Pakistan
males have been jilted,
have committed murder,
and have fled to Pakistan,
and we have been unable
to extradite them back.
And I remember looking at the judge,
the judge just kind of
nodded his head like, hmm.
Your Honor, my
client was born in Baltimore,
he's lived his whole life in Baltimore,
and he's a United States citizen.
It is very easy to go to New York City
to the Pakistan Embassy
and request a passport,
because in order to get paperwork there
to stop that from happening,
to get them to process it,
they are so disorganized.
- Your Honor, may I heard?
- No.
Counsel, the court is going to
take this matter under advisement.
We'll advise... We will notify
you in a written form
in a very short period of time.
That will conclude this hearing.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
I think that it was just opportunity.
They wanted a victory. They
used whatever was available,
they threw whatever they could
at the wall to see what sticks.
It just so happened that
it was me being Muslim.
And this is another
thing that makes us angry
is that these prosecutors...
They're not held accountable
for the stuff they do.
Prosecutors, that's what people
don't always realize
there's no one more powerful
in the criminal justice system
than the prosecutor.
Prosecutors are not normal attorneys.
Their job is not just
to their case or their client.
Their job is to do justice,
and they don't have an incentive
to see that part of their job done,
so they fall back into attorney mode,
where winning is the only goal.
Why would they change
when they are graded
and given promotions and raises
based on how they do and how
many convictions they get?
And if they do go too far,
it is very, very hard
to convince someone and
convince the court or a judge
that the prosecutor knew they
were lying when they did it.
I just find that really disappointing,
because in order for us to make
sure that the public feels
that this is a fair way
of resolving differences,
then we all have to play fair.
And that doesn't always happen.
Just a few minutes ago, Syed's attorneys
wrapped up their final
argument in the courtroom.
It's not clear if
the judge will make a ruling
from the bench or take time
to issue a written opinion.
You know, this might have been
the first ever kind of open-source case.
I had essentially thousands
of investigators working for me,
and that produced information
that we otherwise would not have had.
That helped us get
to where we are right now.
In 2008, we were looking for a lawyer.
Adnan sent me the names
of three or four attorneys,
and Justin's name was on this list.
I saw that Justin had been
a war reporter in Bosnia,
and that really kind of moved me
because that means he has been
around a Muslim community.
He also said to me,
"I believe Adnan's innocent,"
and that meant a lot to me.
So I said, Adnan, I like this guy.
So we went with him.
My guess is that it will
be a little quicker than normal.
Last question right here.
I have told my client that
as long as he wants me to represent him,
I will fight till the bitter end.
Um, if we lose this, I will appeal.
If we lose the appeal,
we'll go to Federal court.
I might be 80 years old
still litigating this case,
but if that's what it takes,
I will not give up on Adnan Syed.
All right, thanks a lot.
Justin has said he's never gonna
stop working on the case.
I mean, you know, that's
an amazingly generous thing.
Stuff like that, like, really
gives me a lot of strength,
because it's like, okay,
this is the process,
but at least I have this.
At the time, I was shocked,
because in my head it just...
How could this even happen
and how could the system get it wrong
and how could jurors get it wrong?
I could've sworn... I don't know
if it was my imagination or what,
but we heard thunder outside
when we heard guilty.
To hear what the
judge said when I was sentenced,
I used to think about it and she said,
I manipulated my family and I
continue to manipulate people.
I mean, it just seemed like
the whole world believed it.
She gave me life for the first
degree murder conviction,
30 years for the false imprisonment.
If he gets life plus 30
and then Jay gets zip, essentially,
like, that to me cannot be reconciled.
State of Maryland vs. Jay Wilds.
Kevin Urick for the State.
Anne Benaroya on behalf of Mr. Wilds.
I will bring to the
court's attention that he, uh,
fully and satisfactorily
complied with every term
of the agreement under very
difficult circumstances.
And also I would say something
I... you don't usually see,
I think he actually showed remorse.
Generally speaking,
it's almost like everybody
felt, like, sympathy for Jay.
Um, Ms. Benaroya, do
you wish to be heard?
Yes, I do, Your Honor.
Just now in the hallway
Mr. Wilds was weeping.
What he said was the victim
in this case, Hae Lee,
was a person who had great promise.
And in many ways Mr. Wilds
perceives himself
as a person who doesn't
have great promise.
The only person who's here for him today
is a friend of his, who...
His friend Stephanie,
who had some... who's been a
friend throughout high school.
Mr. Wilds, is
there anything you want to say
before I impose a sentence?
Um, just that...
Whatever you do decide,
I would like you to know that
I have a real hard time
even siting here,
'cause I... I feel like
people look at me,
they think I'm a horrible
person and that...
I'm really sorry for
my part in what happened.
Just based on
what I've been told, that your,
uh, testimony was instrumental
in bringing this matter
to a just conclusion,
or what most people believe
to be a just conclusion.
So I'm satisfied that it would
be of no benefit whatsoever
to incarcerate you
as a result of all of this.
I'm going to impose
a sentence of five years,
suspend all the time served.
Um, two years probation.
Thank you very much.
I don't know, man. I can't explain Jay.
I just hate the fact that he lied
and told so many different
stories that, I mean...
It just doesn't make sense
to me. I don't know why.
I can only go with the very
first story he told me
when I picked him up
within an hour or two
hours of it happening.
To me, that would be
the closest to the truth.
Well, that makes sense.
If you told me that on
January 12th these events...
The phone calls happened
and that I picked him
up on January 12th,
then that's what I would say
it happened on January...
You know what I mean?
Like, I just know that I never
picked Jay up with Adnan
from Adnan's car.
Like, those events all
happened the same day.
I don't know unless my time
was wrong there, I can't...
I can't tell you unless you
have some kind of reference.
Yeah, this is Kristi's class schedule.
Kristi was in school until
nine o'clock on January 13th.
I don't know. I... I don't know, then.
I have no idea.
I'm telling you that in my mind,
my memory, that's what happened.
It's just one of those things
that's like you're involved in
that you'll never know the truth.
And it's hard to, I think,
come to grips with
that you're part of something that
you'll really never
know the truth about.
Don't matter to me.
I used to care, but now...
For real, I'm ready to change
my name to get out of this shit.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I don't want
any fucking thing to do with it.
Period. Flat out.
I wish I never would've talked
to y'all in the first place.
I hope not.
I mean, what the fuck?
Right?
I'm not going. My story's never changed.
I've told everybody the same thing
that I believed happened from day one.
If there was something
that was gonna close it
and we could get a fucking answer,
then, hey, I'm all for it.
But I don't see it happening.
So what the fuck is the point?
Let me see this for a second.
Brown and Nieto.
Social media is abuzz
with Serial fans sounding off
about the subject of the Serial podcast.
A judge orders a new trial
for Adnan Syed,
the Baltimore man convicted
of murdering his ex-girlfriend.
In his ruling tonight, the
judge said the case represents
what he called a unique juncture
between the criminal justice system
and phenomenally strong public interest.
The conviction was vacated,
which means it was erased
and we won a new trial for Adnan, so...
it's been an amazing day.
We won ultimately on
the cell tower issue.
The judge said that Cristina Gutierrez
was deficient,
that she made a mistake
by not contacting Asia McClain,
but that it wouldn't
necessarily have affected
the outcome of the trial.
But with the fax cover sheet,
if it had been done, it would
have affected the outcome.
Now the State's going to appeal.
We'll have to fight to defend
the position we're in right now,
but the position we are in right now is
he does not have a conviction.
He is innocent until proven guilty.
I'll be back later, okay?
From where I was sitting, we kicked ass,
and then to have it pay off with a win.
Because I know that
the system is not always fair
and justice is arbitrary.
Yeah, he's still... still in jail
so there's more work to be done,
but, um, we're making progress.
I gotta stop smiling. It's... Phew!
She made something for you.
Oh, love bug! Give me a big hug, love.
Did you write your name?
Initially it's just this exuberance,
and then you start thinking
about the family.
They're just stunned and
they've been waiting so long
and they're probably so exhausted,
but obviously they're delighted.
I mean, we're excited, you know,
but, like, the body's numb, you know.
It's happened after a long time.
Maybe one day, he'll open the door.
Like he used to say, "Mama, I'm home."
I'm happy, you know what I mean?
But I also know there's,
like, a huge road ahead.
The reality of this is that
anything can still happen.