Hello, everyone. We’re back. Yes, at last! We’ve launched Season Two.
Our first season was about a murder case few people had heard about. Season Two is a story a gazillion people have heard about: the story of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured and held by the Taliban for nearly five years. It’s been in the newspapers and on TV; it’s been the subject of congressional investigations (in fact, this very day, the House Armed Services Committee is releasing a report on the Bergdahl trade)—and it’s an active case in military court.
Interesting. I have been debating on whether or not to listen to this season. It seemed to me that Season 1 was edited in such a manner as to make the case more compelling than it really was. Early in the podcast of Season 1, Koenig says that either Adnan Syed was lying, or that Jay Wilds was lying. The narrative of her investigation then runs that dichotomous course. If Koenig began with the possibility that both of them might be lying, then the investigation would have been less circuitous, but also less dramatic. Having picked that choice out early on, it was pretty frustrating for me to listen to her lines of reasoning and questioning. IMO the simplest explanation is that Adnan and Jay were both involved, but that the cops wanted Syed because he had the motive to kill Lee. Inconsistencies in Jay's story didn't receive much police scrutiny because they weren't as interested in prosecuting him. He was their witness. The police had to make an early decision: either use Jay against Adnan, or prosecute them both without either of their cooperation. As Jay didn't know Lee, you can't much blame them. Koenig's first question to Adnan should have been: "Why do you think Jay is putting this murder on you?"
Undisclosed is a podcast by three lawyers that broke down the case much more thoroughly than serial. It's pretty good but has no where near the polish of serial. After listening to it I don't think either Jay or Adnan had anything to do with Hay's murder and I'm certain neither of them could ever have been convicted of anything if they had competent council.
Huh. Did they ever provide any reason as to why Jay would accused Adnan of the murder? That is the one thing I could never understand. Where is Jay's motive to pin the murder of a girl he didn't know on Adnan? Also, as I recall, Jay knew where Hay's car was dropped and where she was buried. Pretty tough to explain that if he had nothing to do with her murder.
The podcast is 16 episodes in and still going, lots of information to sort through but I'll do my best to make a short synopsis. There was a crime stoppers award given for a tip in the case. This tip was never disclosed to the defense which under Massachusetts law is a Brady offense. This is but one of a dozen Brady violations in the case. There is an ongoing effort to find out who this tipster is. Specutively there is some evidence that this tipster was Jay. If Jay was the tipster, the cops worked him over. They told him that if he wanted the money he had to give them more information. There is a good deal of evidence that the cops fed Jay information about the crime which I'll address in aa bit. So they feed Jay information to parrot so he can "get the reward", and eventually get him to offer a statement that implicates him in the murder. While the crime stoppers thing is still speculative until they get the documents, this next part isn't. Jay said enough for the prosecutor to put a capital murder charge on him. There are several shady and unethical aspects to the murder charge and the plea deal that I won't go into but a lot of unusual shenanigans go on. Jay cooperates 100%. He doesn't have the money for a competent defense and he doesn't want to face the death penalty. He makes several different, conflicting statements over time. The content of his statements coincides with the evolution of the polices theory on the murder. If they make a mistake with the cell tower data that puts Jay and Adnan in a different part of town, than Jay's story changes to put them on that side of town until the theory of what happened changes and they need to be somewhere else. Jay's testimony changes between trials. During one of the tapped interviews when Jay gets confused about what comes next in his narrative you hear a loud tapping and he says things like "oh yea" and goes on to tell the next part of his day. Jay can't remember what street or intersection he's supposed to be at "tap tap tap" and he gets his story back together. Jay starts giving a "wrong" story the cop says "no, tap tap, tap" Jay says "oh yea, sorry" and goes back to tell the "right" story. Serms like the cps are sitting there with a timeline all written out, and a map, they've told Jay what his story is, and when he goes off track they are tapping on what he's supposed to be talking about. It's not clear that Jay led the police to the car was or if the police took jay there and said he led them there. I honestly don't remember all the car details aside from several things about the car didn't make sense and that it seemed to have been recently moved. Jay didn't find the body and I don't think we have a record of Jay saying where it was before it was discovered and announced in the media. The police officers in the case have a history of massaging incriminating stories out of suspects and putting heavy charges on them to tell a spoon fed tale on other suspects. They have lost appeals on big cases over unethical conduct. There are about a hundred other things that don't add up on the prosecutions side. Their time line is a total mess, their assumptions about cell phone data were often grossly inaccurate and a good deal of the autopsy and morbidity information appears to rest on false assumptions. There is no real physical evidence tying either Adnan or Jay to the crime. Adnan's lawyer was very sick when she had the case. She was stealing money from her clients and had way too many cases at the same time. Her law firm was on the verge of collapse. She was flying back and forth to Puerto Rico on a big appeal and didn't even look over some important evidence. She had law students doing a large part of tgecwork on this case. What sucks is there was a time when his lawyer was a total fucking superstar but it appears her life had spun out of control by this time. Wrote this on my phone, sorry if it's a mess, editing on the phone sucks and there was a fair amount of ground to cover. Here is another summation of stuff from undisclosed that breaks down a few things http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/24/5-key-finding-undisclosed-serial-adnan-syed If you did make it through Serial I suggest that you listen to episode 3 of Undisclosed. It changed my view of the case more than anything else I've read or listened too.
Thanks. I will listen to Undisclosed with gq. We listened to Serial together. I guess if the cops were feeding Jay information, then everything goes out the window. That's not an angle that I had considered. Is there a path to find out who the tipster was? Even for a judge to know? Even so, it seems that the Undisclosed gang is a funded defense for Adnan. That's almost like hearing just one side present at trial. Not saying what they are saying isn't true, but I wouldn't be surprised if the evidence they present and what they don't is very biased.
Undisclosed is entirely biased. If a crime stoppers tip has materiel importance to the defense than it appears that it needs to be disclosed to the defense in Maryland. Lots of Brady violations in this case, this might be another one of many if the Tipster was Jay.
Looking back on Season 1, "unsatisfying" seems to best characterize her investigation. Maybe I'm more easily swooned by good storytelling because it didn't detract me from finding it intriguing enough to follow along. My personal theory is along similar lines to yours. I think that Adnan did something dumb that afternoon that, when brought to light, would make him look very suspicious. Hence the reason he was acting strange that evening. PS: /r/serialpodcast went full bananas last season, so I'd check that once in a while for a good read.