My Serial verdict
Alright, I have to weigh in on Serial (the greatest podcast ever). If you haven’t listened to Serial yet, put down your Palm Pilot and download it immediately! Plus, the rest of this won’t make any sense ;)
I’ve had discussions with a lot of my friends about who they think killed Hae Min Lee, and I thought it would be interesting to have that same conversation with my social friends. So, here we go.
Pretty much all we know for sure is that Jay was involved, pretty deeply, and that he lies a lot. He knew where the car was. He knew where she was buried. He confessed to helping dig the grave. And he seemed to lie about different facts all the way through. So, a) he was involved and b) he lies.
And to me, this completely discredits the hopeful idea that a serial killer was involved (though how cool would that have been to have it end that way, with a show literally named “Serial”). We’d have to stretch reality pretty far to think there was a serial killer out there that decided to partner with Jay on one of his crimes. No chance.
So then we have three options:
1. Did Jay act alone?
2. Did Jay act with a third party?
3. Did Jay do this with Adnan?
As far as I can tell, we’ve heard nothing that would lead us to believe that Jay wanted Hae dead. It’s not like she was robbed or otherwise harmed. He has no motive to seek out Hae and end her life. So first we would have to figure out the motive, then we’d have to believe that Jay is so cunning and clever that he successfully murdered this girl and framed another person who had nothing to do with it, ending up with the other guy in jail for the rest of his life while he served no jail time whatsoever. Judging by the things I’ve read about Jay and hearing his testimonies and interviews, he doesn’t sound like one of the most successful criminal minds of our time. There, IMHO, he didn’t act alone.
It’s also hard to believe that Jay acted with a third party. Again, where is the motive? Are we to believe Jay and others planned out this murder, with seemingly no upside (again, its not like she was rich and they robbed her), and then successfully framed a completely innocent guy? Sounds as far fetched as the idea that he acted alone.
That leaves us with Adnan and Jay involved in the murder together.
My verdict: Adnan paid Jay to help him with the murder.
Note: for the majority of the podcast, I felt like there was little chance that Adnan did it. It wasn’t until after I listened to the last episode and thought about all the facts that I came to this conclusion.
Jay says that Adnan told him about the murder before it happened. On some accounts this was days before, but at the very least he says he was told the morning of the murder. So let’s play that out a little assuming Jay wasn’t paid to help:
Adnan: “Hey Jay, how’s it going this morning? Look, I’m going to kill Hae this afternoon. I know this is the first time you’re hearing this, but I need you to take my car and cell phone so you can come pick me up. And actually, how about we go to the mall and do some shopping for Stephanie’s birthday before I do that.”
Jay: “Say what again?”
Adnan: “Yeah I’m gonna kill Hae, and you’re gonna help.”
Jay: “Uh, why would I help you kill Hae?”
Adnan: “Because I’ll tell the cops that you sell weed.”
Jay: “You mean the cops that already know I sell weed? The ones that have repeatedly busted me and come to my house to harass me? Ok, its worth it to me to be an accomplice to a murder so you don’t tell the cops something that they already know. I’m in.”
Right. Even if Jay didn’t believe Adnan and was like, “Sure tough guy, go get ‘er.,” he would have had the same conversation when he went to see Adnan and the body was in the trunk. Oh and remember they hung out after he showed him the body, drove around, smoked some weed, went to a girl’s house, and then much later in the day he helped him bury the body? And he used his own shovels! That doesn’t sound like someone who was being blackmailed to help, that sounds like someone who was in on it.
Why would he be in on it? Because he probably got paid $1,000 or something. Adnan had access to money and Jay admitted to needing money badly at times. Drug dealers are kind of like that.
You might say that nothing about Jay says he’d agree to be part of a murder. That’s true, but I could believe a scenario where Adnan told him what he was planning to do and told Jay he’d pay him to help by picking him up and keeping his cell phone. Jay probably thought there was no way Adnan would do it, so he agreed. Then when Adnan actually followed through with the plan, Jay was complicit and would have to make the decision of turning Adnan in and admitting he was an accomplice before the fact, even agreeing to be paid to help, or he could follow through. At that point, I do think Jay would have taken the money and hoped no one ever found out.
To believe all of this, we have to believe that Adnan is a cold-blooded killer. This wasn’t crime of passion, because he told Jay before it happened and set up the plan by giving Jay his car and cell phone. But to believe anything else we have to believe Jay is a criminal mastermind AND that he either acted with no motive for no reason, or he had some secret motive that no one has ever been able to uncover. We know Adnan is smart, charismatic and he actually had a motive.
This also explains why Adnan doesn’t push too hard on Jay in his interviews or during the case. There is nothing in it for Adnan to admit that he’s guilty just to get Jay in trouble for being a part of it. He expresses many times that he wants his mother to believe he’s innocent. If he admits to this, all he gets is Jay some possible jail time but his reputation is forever ruined (more than it already is). Think about it, for Adnan to admit this, his jail time likely goes up and his reputation is forever tarnished.
I think Jay got scared that he was going to get busted and he turned in Adnan and changed the facts enough to hide his complicit involvement. At this point that’s the most logical and believable scenario.
Or maybe all of you disagree with me :)
So, all of that is good conjecture, but the one thing that sticks in my mind is the legal defense fund folks. The one where she said she’s never run into the charismatic psychopath even after 20 years of doing it.
Also, 100% agree with you that Jay is actually involved.
The other possibility is he was the accomplice for someone else that we have no idea about. Someone that wanted her gone for some reason.
Sadly, we’ll never know, unless the new evidence comes in, most likely DNA evidence.
I dunno if I’d call it the greatest podcast evah, but I certainly did enjoy it…
I just finished it today and am still thinking about what I think. I am also wondering what I am going to listen to next.
You bring up some great points on Jays obvious involvement. I think Adnan and Jay are both guilty and involved in some way but I don’t believe it went down the way they say (Jay and the state says).
I agree that neither of them can tell the real story because it would implicate them further.
I also think the time line is way off and I don’t see some kids smoking weed at a friends house with a girl they just killed sitting in the trunk of a car.
Great podcast and sad story!
I thought the same thing about the “never run into a charismatic psychopath after 20 years” part. And I think she even said, “you aren’t that lucky”. But if you compare it to what the other reality would be, I think its more likely. Jay working with random other people and blaming it on Adnan…that seems more far-fetched.
Best stand alone podcast I guess I’d say. I listen to things like Nerdist and BS Report (for the interviews), for instance, and love them. But I’ve never been riveted to a podcast like this one.
Agreed! It’s super fishy and to me, they were involved together. There’s no other plausible scenario.
What comes to me is that if Jay indeed was framing Adnan either for himself or a third party, he took an absolutely huge gamble that Adnan would not have found an airtight alibi. Could be a camera, a shopkeeper, a teacher, a family member, a classmate or all of the above …something that Jay and the prosecutors could not explain away.
After going through all the likely scenarios, the only one that seems plausible is similar to what you have written: this was a joint venture and that Jay broke his end of the deal.
Adnan could also be (technically) telling the truth when he says he didn’t kill Hae, if Jay was the one who did the deed. But I tend to think Adnan was very much involved in Hae’s murder.
Yeah, glad to see someone else thinking the same way I did. I wanted to believe Adnan was innocent (as did Koenig, clearly), but I can’t get past Jay’s involvement. There is simply no plausible scenario where Jay is involved but Adnan is innocent. And it’s one of my few criticisms of the podcast that they didn’t explore this issue more thoroughly.
That said, I still have no idea what actually did happen (though your theory is among the more plausible I’ve heard), so I also agree with Koenig that, were I a juror, I probably wouldn’t have voted to convict. But if I think he did it, it’s hard to get too worked up about any miscarriage of justice in the original trial.