"If there is anything about my case, man - I want to know... I want to test it...
There's nothing about my case that that I'm afraid of."
- Adnan Syed
Serial, Episode 12: What We Knew
Instead of focusing on a flower and Jay's Changing Stories, Consider This:
A) The policemen handling the Missing Persons Investigation did sloppy and lazy work. They back dated reports and failed to interview multiple people thoroughly enough.
B) The police did not interview the family robustly enough to understand what else might have been going on in Hae's life. They, to my knowledge, did not find a translator and instead relied on the guidance of her younger brother.
C) A computer, a floppy disk containing electronic diary entries were noted and later went "missing"
D) Hae's email and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) accounts were never researched thoroughly, and her online activity is relatively unknown, outside of her newly updated "away message" which stated that her new boyfriend was her soul mate.
E) DNA recovered from the car was tested for the sole purpose of incriminating Adnan and to create a distraction from factually useful evidence. An old flower Adnan gave to Hae months before - as well as a Map Book of the City - were almost certainly items Adnan touched during the better part of the year.
F) Unknown fingerprints on the rearview mirror did not match Adnan, Hae or anyone who had fingerprints in the system.
Someone drove Hae's car if she was abducted from it and pretzled up in the trunk, as the Prosecution alledged. This should plausibly rule out: Adnan, Don, and even Jay Wilds - if he was lying about driving Adnan's car and actually drove Hae's - because his fingerprints would likely have been on file due to previous legal matters.
A) After Hae's body was found in Leakin Park, the Investigators on the case intimidated, bribed, coerced numerous witnesses, including Don Clinedinst, who would become a witness for the State. He claimed via Serial that he was screamed at after he testified because he didn't paint Adnan with an evil-enough brush.
B) The police, investigators and the Prosecutors were deliberately misleading with their documentation - both their written statements (or lack of them, in some instances.)
C) Some of the initial statements given by those who they said needed to be questioned were not documented. If they were, they were never seen by the defense.
D) The number of people who associated the events of January 5th with the "last day they saw Hae was abnormally high. It is plausible that that the investigators asked questions (6 weeks or so later) such as, "Tell me about the last day you saw Hae - it was on the day she got interviewed for the Sports Thing.
E) The investigators used (legal, not forbidden) "lie" tactics to convince several friends, teachers and acquaintances that they were 100% certain of Adnan's guilt, and falsely convinced them that they had mountains of concrete evidence.
F) See: interviews with Jay Wilds; both the audio taped and the undocumented statements
G) See: Jen Pusateri - interviews audio taped, and written, as well as undocumented interactions and under-documented interactions with Jen, both with and without her attorney and mother present.
H) Several witnesses, including teachers, claim they had been told by the investigators that they had mountains of concrete evidence that Adnan was guilty, outside of Jay or Jen's statements, and that they could rest assured that they got the right guy.
I) Hae's car was found with green grass underneath it as well as green grass in the wheel wells, indicating that it had not been parked in its final resting spot until recently before it was discovered and collected into evidence.
J) Hae's car was released back to her family before being properly processed - her brother was able to drive it to their uncle's body shop. This created an issue with chain of custody.
K) A windshield wiper thingy (the level you use to turn them off and on) was allegedly hanging down from the right-hand side of the steering wheel. The investigators went to Hae's Uncle's Body Shop after which the level was removed and sent off for testing. This was a conflict because the lever was potentially contaminated by DNA. For instance, Hae's brother might have gotten his DNA on the lever when driving the car from wherever the cops had it, in order to take it into the shop. This could have caused his DNA to be uncovered if it was tested for that. Had the investigators been confused or suspicious - or found Jen and Jay's changing stories suspicious enough that it made them question their credibility, even Hae's own brother could have been suspected by them when he (of course) was not the guilty party. That would have been unforgivable, and disguting. I think there is an alternate universe where that was the case, and I hope I'm wrong about that.
L) Adnan was denied bail partly because he was listed with the wrong DOB on the paperwork. They thought he was 18 (almost 19) instead of 17. The judge did not grant him bail in part because the judge thought he was an adult - instead of a minor. (I'll willing to agree that he may not have received bail either way, but it's something to ponder, at a minimum.
M) The. Asia. Thing. I don't care whose fault it was that her alibi testimony was not handled more effectively. I don't care about 2:36pm or 3:21pm or any other times - someone on the defense team dropped the ball.
N) Christina Gutierrez was too busy trying to get Adnan bail. She didn't have "time" to work on the actual case against time for that reason. That is no fault of Adnan's. Honestly, I blame Bilal because I believe he is the one who recommended her to the Syed family.
O) Say what you want and disagree with me - it's fine - but I don't see how there's a universe in which anyone can argue that Adnan had a proper defense. Ineffective Assistance of Council is, of course, a broad and vague term.
O.1) Xtina G, rest her soul, had some problems. Though she was reportedly an amazing attorney in previous years, she was no longer worth her salt when she began representing Adnan. She was ill. I'm not sure what sickness she had but I believe whatever it was took her life a few years after Adnan was convicted.
O.2) I also believe Gutierrez had some financial problems during or around the time she represented Adnan. I don't know the details, and I'm not asserting that she was guilty of anything, but I think I recall reading that some allegations were made against her. I don't remember the outcome of those claims.
Note: if you have information, comment or DM me on Twitter, or ask me on Facebook.
Note #2: that's a nod to people reading this who know how to contact me on Facebook.
Note #3: Wink wink. (and LOL)
O.3) People will constantly say that Christina Gutierrez was a phenomenal defense attorney, and I have no doubt that she was at one point in time, but it that point in time (unfortunately for both her and Adnan) that ship had sailed prior to the time of Adnan's first trial, which started in fall (I think) of 2000.
Note #4: (Shoutout to Y2K - if you're old enough to remember, we were dumb enough to panic about it, lived through it, and then realized that was the least of our concerns when 9/11 happened not even two years later. Then we grew up, became adults, and had to deal with a global pandemic that they told us was like the Spanish Influenza that happened in, like, the year 1919, but I mean - I literally don't even understand what that was really like, because that happened before my grandma was even born.)
To Be Continued... O.4 might even be coming at you tomorrow. I have a goal to start blogging at least a few times a week.
I have used this platform to blog for 25 years.
Saying that out loud just made me gag a little.
But - I was really active in this blogging community at a time when I really started focusing on writing. And I met a lot of wonderful people and writers, and sometimes I miss those days. I miss 2008. But, 2023 is pretty great.
I mean, I've gotten some bad press - but don't they say no press is bad press? I guess the answer to that is probably pretty subjective.
I also wrote in this blog format when I was pretty sure I was pregnant with my only child. I wanted a daughter so bad.
She's 12 now; in 7th grade. Her name is Stella, because: Tennessee Williams. (If you know, you know.)
I actually wrote a letter to her using this blog, before she was born. You can deep dive to read it, but it's like Titanic-wreckage-deep since it was early 2010.
To be frank, I wrote about my pregnancy test results on my blog before I told Stella's dad I was pregnant. Yeah... it's probably not a surprise to hear that we got divorced not even 3 years later.
But I digress.
Things I (Wholeheartedly) Believe:
- Adnan is innocent - he did not murder Hae
- Jay, Jen, and Don are innocent - they did not help bury Hae, dispose of shovels, see her body in the trunk of her car, throw away clothes, or tell each other that they did, or watch each other do any of these things ever.
- Adnan did not get a fair shake for numerous reasons
- I was born on March 2, 1981. Now y'all know my DOB - so don't mention it in That One Certain Facebook page, because I don't give you permission to share it there. BOOM.
- I am two months and 19 days older than Adnan, and I am, if I did my math right, 4 months and 13 days younger than Hae.
- Look at all the things I've gotten to do in my life since we partied like it was 1999 - and even since we've wished for the "nineteen hundreds" - as my daughter calls them... so, so, SOOOOO much to my chagrin.
- Lastly. I LOVED my high school boyfriend. He was my first true love, and he one of my soul mates. That said, we haven't even spoken in three or four years. I am happily remarried, yet, on the nightstand next to my bed, I still keep a brass unicorn that my High School Boy gave to me. We were Tom and Laura Wingfield one time, in a high school production of The Glass Menagerie. IYKYK. (If you know you know.)
Note #5: My new husband... I got remarried... doesn't mind any of that. He is my primary soul mate, the love of my life, and the person I was supposed to be with from there to here to eternity. We just didn't know it until 2019.
Note #6: Sorry I let my personal feelings bleed into this piece about Adnan Syed's case. For me what pulls me in and tugs at my heart strings is feeling like I can picture them in time. Because I was a senior in high school in January of 1999, it's so effortless to put myself in their place.
Note #7: I went to Baltimore for work in November of 2019. We stayed on the Inner Harbor and I did NOT catch an Uber to walk around in the Woodlawn High or Public Library's parking lot. So, if you think I'm fangirling or "obsessed" with this case... ya wrong.
O.4 - Z coming soon, to a twitter or Facebook feed near you - and if it's TLDR for some of y'all, I'm from Kentucky. We try to be polite, but sometimes we get spittin' mad and hot under the collar. It's more North Carolina Polite to say something like Bless Her Heart, but...
if you have a beef with me - I do not know what to tell you.
I like to write.
Sometimes I'm snarky.
I type real fast.
And idle hands are the Devil's playground.
Not today, Satan. Not. Today.
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