Has anyone listened to the Buzzfeed parodies?
Jay came off a lot better in this episode than I expected. I was in high school back when all this happened, and I was friends with a couple of guys a lot like Jay was described. It was kind of weird listening to the descriptions, I kind of felt like I knew him.
I was pretty convinced Adnan was guilty before, more so now.
Yeah, pretty funny. I like the Mailchimp ads.
Before this episode, I figured that had I been on the jury, I would have voted to convict Adnan. I still feel the same way after this episode.
But…
Either Adnan or Jay is lying. And I keep thinking “shouldn’t you think that the guy that everyone describes as a liar is the one who’s actually lying?”
Sure, but the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive. I suspect they were both lying to some extent. The fact is though that you don’t really need to completely believe Jay to find Adnan guilty. There are so many strange “coincidences” to make Adnan’s involvement likely, and enough circumstantial evidence to implicate Adnan absent Jay. Jay is just the guy who connects the dots in order to craft a narrative for the prosecution.
It’s also important to note that we were (until this most recent episode) comparing the charm, charisma, likability and credibility of a 34 year old present day Adnan to those of a 19 year old Jay on tape being cross examined by detectives. The conclusions that can and should be drawn based on their stories is complicated by the above in ways most people haven’t acknowledged. We were listening to a GROWN MAN with nothing to lose with 15 years to dwell on this, and comparing his account, demeanor, and polish to that a person barely old enough to be considered an adult.
I have to say that I was surprised that my opinion of Jay changed after this episode. Yes, I still think he was more involved than he is letting on, but I guess what I am talking about his my opinion of his nature. To me, this made him much more likeable. I feel like I knew (and liked) guys like that in high school. I can appreciate his friends saying that yeah, sure, he was a liar (it came across, to me, more like a B.S.er) but he wouldn’t lie about murdering someone. Previously, I was not seeing how a jury could see him as credible, but I get it more now.
And I definitely see how Adnan’s lawyer’s treatment of Jay on the stand would make a jury have sympathy for Jay. So far in this story, I am seeing her as THE WORST, and she didn’t even murder anyone.
It cracked me up when the lady who was on the jury was describing Jay as, you know, the guy you call when you need A GUY, and making it sound like a positive thing.
One thing that I didn’t quite get is why SK seems unconvinced that Jay could be concerned that Adnan threatened Stephanie. Why would a seemingly tough kid like Jay see dippy stoner Adnan as a threat? Well, if we are to believe Jay’s story, he has seen with his own eyes that Adnan killed someone – at that point, I think it’s reasonable to believe he might harm someone else. So that doesn’t mystify me at all. (Especially if we believe the friends’ statements that Jay acted tougher than he really was.)
I am still of course extremely curious about the inconsistencies in Jay’s statements and testimony. Right now I feel like there is a big chunk of the story missing.
I feel like SK was completely self indulgent in this episode when it came to her commentary on Jay. Nothing of any worth was revealed and all she did was do a human interest story on him. No facts. No discovery.
I realize she has to fill the time slot with something and it didn’t help her at all that Jay refused a recorded or even detailed interview. But her "feelings"and impressions of Jay, and those of her assistant, 15 years after the fact are completely irrelevant. As were the stories shared by Jay’s friends, 15 years down the road. Utterly worthless to the facts of the case and whether or not Adnan or Jay or both is/are the killer(s). And of course you would lie about murder. If there is anything you would ever lie about, it would be about having commited murder.
Now, what the ex-cop detective said was much more insightful, i.e. cops want to build a case and they are not inclined to work very hard to tear down their only material witness if it will lead to something inconclusive. Cops want closure. They want to solutions neatly wrapped up with a bow, if they can get them.
Got myself caught up. I heard about the podcast only last week, so had 7 eps to catch up, which became 8 by this Thursday. I read through this thread while listening (up to where the next ep began, of course).
So, IMO, I dunno who did it. I do know the case against Adnan seems shaky to me - I somewhat felt vindicated by the Innocence Project team feeling the way they did after all the discussion here about “I can’t understand why anyone would think Adnan didn’t do it” (paraphrased, obviously). There is definitely stuff that looks bad for Adnan (the cell phone pinging at the park, the call to his friend that Jay didn’t know when Adnan was supposed to be at track practice), but I don’t think it goes to beyond a reasonable doubt. (granted it has been numerous years since I took Criminal Law)
Oh, and I’ll echo the there are bound to be lapses in memories from stoners - esp if they were smoking up a lot on that day itself. So Adnan or Jay not remembering things or getting things wrong doesn’t seem super ‘off’ to me.
Excited I can take part in the conversation now (and not like a month after the show when is usually when I catch up to things ;)).
I disagree. It’s an important counterbalance to what we have heard from Adnan, 15 years down the road. It’s hard to fairly compare the two of them when our impression of Adnan is based on present day conversations while our impression of Jay is based on taped interrogations/confessions 15 years ago. I think a lot of what makes people believe Adnan is innocent is his supposedly charming calm present day demeanor relative to Jay’s shifty inconsistency 15 years ago. Up until now, we heard a teenager without the ability to respond arguing against a grown man with 15 years of hindsight and contemplation. Giving Jay the chance to answer some of those critiques, and a chance for SK to judge his demeanor, was important.
I think you are overstating their motivations a bit, and understanding the reality of the situation. Yes, there is something a bot unseemly about the concept of “bad evidence”, but it is largely a reflection of how hard it is to piece together past events or crimes involving uncooperative people absent really compelling direct evidence.
When you are dealing with circumstantial evidence, the weight of the evidence is primarily based on the narrative you can uncover or entirely create to explain it’s relevance. Not testing or not probing too deeply into things that don’t fit a reasonable narrative is less likely to impede justice in the long run if your narrative is sound.
Similarly, witness testimony is also problematic because memory is malleable. Yes, they could have pressed Jay and others on their inconsistencies, but if even honest people tell conflicting stories. The heart of the matter is presenting a cogent and cohesive story to a jury that implicates the guilty party. That more than anything is what ensures justice.
I’m not charmed or impressed by Adnan’s current day arguments any more than I am by Jay’s. He’s had plenty of time (nothing but time!) to iron out the wrinkles in his story and rationalize away whatever inconsistencies present themselves in his account of events. I honestly don’t know which of the two is more/less guilty of the murder, if at all.
Here’s the thing that bothers me though, and you expressed it well - a good cohesive story is more important than the contradicting evidence. Both the legal team from the Innocence Project and the ex-cop/private investigator agree that the evidence to convict Adnan is weak. Additionally, the cops eagerly made a deal with Jay because he handed Adnan to them on a silver platter. They failed to DNA test some of the evidence and they failed to search Jay’s apartment to try to trace the fibers found on the scene. And unless I’ve missed a key part of the story, the prosecution did not successfully link Adnan to the phone for those critical 4 hours after school. Yes, the phone travelled but how do we know Adnan travelled along with it?
Re: the call to Adnans friend
Since no-one has any explanation for it (Adnan has no explanation, because he wouldn’t, would he? Jay doesn’t give any real account of it, and the police claim it represents a completely different call that provably happened weeks later at the video store). So…doesn’t that actually obligate us to assume it’s irrelevant? Like, it could be a butt-dial, and a collegue of the friend picked it up and left it because they thought it was a scam? It could just be a random event like that.
But do you think the majority of listeners feel the same way?
Yes, but the important point is that contradicting evidence often leads you AWAY from the truth.
I don’t think the detective said the case was weak. IIRC, he was unsure as to whether the narrative was sound. The Innocence Project opinion is fairly important, but remember we are talking largely about law students who primarily see a subset of cases. Some of this has to be treated in the same vein as the barber who recommends a haircut. Not to minimize their opinion too much, but there are plenty of people on the other side.
What would that really tell us though? All of that is circumstantial evidence, and we have no circumstance that puts Hae with Jay at the crucial time that make any sense. We also have no known motive for Jay to kill Hae, and no way for Jay to move the car, etc. without help. Hae was killed in a narrow time frame in a very personal way. We know these two things if nothing else. It doesn’t make much sense for a stranger or for Jay to commit the crime in that way during that time.
The prosecution didn’t argue Adnan was with the phone the entire time. He was killing Hae.
Maybe, maybe not. Nisha herself maybe misremembering the details of the call doesn’t mean she didn’t speak to one or both of them. Butt dials usually don’t last 2+ minutes and neither do conversations with strangers.
But this is exactly why the Baltimore police are no longer allowed to keep the recording turned off until the interviewee “gets his story straight.” Human memories are very malleable, and it is routine for authorities in these situations to intentionally or not start suggesting memories to witnesses.
One of the most prominent examples is from the McMartin preschool “satanic ritual abuse” case from the 1980s. It is believed that the testimony from the preschool children was entirely constructed through non-recorded interviews.
But she doesn’t remember that call either - she remembers a completely different call, that couldn’t have happened for weeks, when Jay got a job at a video store.
Given that no-one has any explanation for it, isn’t more likely that it’s just a random event?
I mean, I’ve butt-dialed people who butt-anwered the call, leaving me with a ghost-conversation in my call-log. It’s not common, but certainly not unheard-of.
I was really surprised at this thread. I thought he was innocent from the first episode, and everything subsequent has just made me more certain.
The majority seem to believe Adnan is guilty. I’m not convinced by the majority opinion.
Is that some sort of codified rule of jurisprudence? I’m all for “best practices” to a certain point. But if evidence suggest I follow a road less traveled to see where it leads, why not explore it. If only to then be able to document that it lead nowhere.
Which is no different than the police pursuing their ends for a “good narrative”. I know everyone is driven by their own motives or training to some degree. I think this story, if nothing else, exposes that unfortunate reality quite clearly.
I think Jay has motive. Stephanie was the one indisputable great thing in Jay’s life, according to his friend’s accounts. We know that Hae threatened to expose to Stephanie that Jay was cheating on her. That might lead Jay to anger and to wanting to shut her up in a very personal way. Isn’t manual strangulation the ultimate shut-the-fuck-up?
Or Jay was. While Adnan was off by himself smoking pot before track pratice. The moving of the car and burrying of the body could have been done later with Adnan’s help or possibly Jen’s.
I believe it wasn’t a cell phone, because they said that there wasn’t an answering machine connected to the phone, which isn’t the way you’d generally refer to a voicemail system.
Ah, sorry. Adnan had a cell-phone. Nisha didn’t. But still, that makes my first theory more likely: someone else picked up the phone and decided to screw with whoever butt-dialed them by leaving the phone off the hook, costing the annoying butt-dialer money. I’ve done that too.
I think that most probably Adnan is innocent. Partly because of the numerous inconsistencies in Jay’s accounts, but mostly because I don’t find the guilty Adnan character plausible.
I think it’s unlikely that a non violent person suddenly commits such a violent murder, I don’t think there was a good motive for him, and most importantly I don’t think that people who commit this type of crimes are rational and clever enough to keep talking for 30+ hours about the subject without making any mistakes.
Let’s take where he talks about how the murder wouldn’t be possible in the timeframe permitted. He sounds really confident about this, and surprised / disappointed when it turns out that it actually was. And it was him who brought up this specific point. But if he committed the murder, he would of course have known that it was possible.
So assuming he is committed the murder in that way, he is playing some complex, intelligent game bringing up things he knows won’t actually help his case.
I think that this sort of calculating, intelligent psychopath murderer mostly exist in fiction and we shouldn’t expect to encounter one in real life. Also, if he really is this insightful, I would think he could think of a smarter way to murder the girl than in broad daylight at a Best Buy.
But the problem is about figuring out an alternative story that is less implausible. Mainly the problem is in both explaining the murder itself, and that Jay would wrongfully accuse Adnan. In the podcast she briefly mentions thinking about alternative scenarios, and I hope she goes into this in a future episode.
Here are some scenarios I can conjure, but frankly they all seem unlikely to me:
- Jay murdered Hae. Motive unknown. Perhaps a heated argument over some teenage love stuff, perhaps he was paid to. He starts by trying to claim innocence, but then shifts to trying to frame Anand, with the assistance of the investigators.
Problems: Motive for Jay. Plus this also requires Jay to be a highly skilled sociopath.
2. Some unrelated person murdered Hae. The police like Adnan as a suspect, perhaps with Jay as accomplice. During the unrecorded hours with Jay, they pressure him into testifying against Adnan, in return of letting some drug charges go and/or letting him get off the hook for the murder. Perhaps Jay at one point decided that it was easier for him to lie about it, and once he did he had to stick to it. The murderer could be Roy Sharonnie Davis, who killed another girl under similar circumstances, or Mr. S, which would explain how he found the body.
Problems: How did Jay know where the car was, and details about where the body was buried.
3. Some other person murdered Hae either together with Jay, or by assistance from Jay later. Perhaps many of the same things that Jay claimed happened actually happened (including the trip to the far away park that was later dropped from the story), just with this person instead of Adnan. Jay accuses Adnan for the same reasons described in (2).
Problems: Who is the murderer then? Did they plan to frame Adnan from the beginning? Otherwise the coincidences seem significant.