The cult crime podcast Serial is the internet sensation of the year: now its investigation has come to a conclusion, what's next for Adnan Syed? Meabh Ritchie reports. CONTAINS SPOILERS
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Adnan Syed, the convicted murderer in the Serial case Photo: Serial
8:55PM GMT 18 Dec 2014
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The only thing that’s worse than your favourite show coming to an end is the
climactic conclusion not living up to expectations. Of course, the cult
podcast Serial isn’t the latest offering from HBO: it’s a piece of long-form
investigative journalism in 12 parts about a real-life murder investigation
and a real man, Adnan Syed, serving a life sentence for a crime he insists
he didn’t commit. But that hasn’t stopped reams of speculation about what
the 12th and final episode would deliver.
Was Jay telling the whole truth? Is Adnan a psychopath with memory blanks? Did
presenter Sarah Koenig have the answer all along? And from the listener's
point of view, would this 12 hours of absorbing audio lead us to a dead end
or an open question?
The story so far
Serial was launched in October by the team behind This American Life as an experiment in extended journalistic storytelling. Within weeks, it broke iTunes records, amassing 5 million downloads quicker than any previous podcast and it was soon snapped up by BBC Radio 4 Extra, which began broadcasting in 7 December.
Serial was launched in October by the team behind This American Life as an experiment in extended journalistic storytelling. Within weeks, it broke iTunes records, amassing 5 million downloads quicker than any previous podcast and it was soon snapped up by BBC Radio 4 Extra, which began broadcasting in 7 December.
So successful is this podcast, that it has spawned another podcast - a
post-Serial panel
discussion on Slate - and a whole sub-section
on Reddit where wannabe detectives have dug up court documents and
revisited key areas mentioned in the course of the investigation to take
photos. There have even been contributions from people claiming to be
intimately involved, like the brother of the victim, Hae-Min Lee’s, and
friends of Adnan’s, raising legal and ethical questions about the nature of
this kind of drip-feed, real-time investigative journalism.
The final chapter
In the highly anticipated final episode, which has now been made available, there was never going to be a neat tying-up of plots: a kind of “surprise - we know that Adnan’s guilty/innocent!”. But we did see a few key players come forward, a big development from the Innocence Project which has taken on Adnan Syed’s case and a final verdict (of sorts) from presenter Sarah Koenig herself.
In the highly anticipated final episode, which has now been made available, there was never going to be a neat tying-up of plots: a kind of “surprise - we know that Adnan’s guilty/innocent!”. But we did see a few key players come forward, a big development from the Innocence Project which has taken on Adnan Syed’s case and a final verdict (of sorts) from presenter Sarah Koenig herself.
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SPOILER ALERT: don’t read on if you don’t want to know what happens in
Episode 12
Hae’s ex-boyfriend speaks...
At the time of her murder, Hae had recently started dating Don, and he finally came forward for the final episode. Koenig says he recalled being with her the night before she was murdered, knowing that he would be the first suspect and remembering how nice Adnan seemed when he met him.
In what was a fitting tribute to the woman whose death has been subject to such cold, clinical scrutiny, he said he was still in love with Hae. Don described her as someone “you couldn’t not like” and said that being with her - even though it was only for a matter of weeks - had changed him for the better.
...and so does one of Jay’s friends
We also heard from Josh, the ex-colleague of Jay, Adnan and Hae’s old classmate. It was Jay’s testimony that put Adnan behind bars, and he still maintains that Adnan committed the murder and forced him to help bury the body.
According to Josh, Jay admitted that he knew who had killed Hae and had been involved in hiding the body, but he was terrified of whoever had killed her. He didn’t name this person, or mention Adnan Syed’s name, but he did reference their “middle eastern” family.
There was probably a phone booth at Best Buy
I know: is this really a revelation? But many words have been spilt trying to figure out whether Jay was lying when he told police Adnan called him from Best Buy. You’ve got to hand it to them - the ever diligent Serial producers dug up architectural drawings of the shop and yes, there is a little square labeled “phone booth” which probably did exist back in January 1999. Probably.
The Nisha Call
The phone call which ties Adnan to Jay, and to his phone, which he said he didn’t have, at the time he was allegedly burying the body, could have been a pocket dial. That much is true. But we still don’t know for sure.
What we still don’t know
Before the final episode, the Serial producers pored over all the evidence accumulated so far, plotting timing and location of phone calls against who said what. But, as is often the way with this podcast, their work raised more questions than answers. In summary, Adnan and Jay could both be lying about what they were up to cruising around Baltimore on the lunchtime before Hae went missing, and the account of Jay and his friend Jen, who was with him at various points on the same day, don’t match up.
The headline: there’s another potential suspect
Now for the big revelation. Halfway through the series, the Serial producers were put in touch with lawyers at the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate innocent people through the use of DNA evidence. The lawyer and her team revisiting Adnan’s case had come across a convicted serial killer and rapist, Ronald Lee Moore, who was released from Baltimore prison on 1 January 1999, just two weeks before Hae was killed. Those lawyers have now applied to do DNA testing on Hae’s remains. And so we wait.
The verdict
But despite this huge headline news, Sarah Koenig doesn’t give us the satisfaction of being placated. That would be too simple. There are too many questions left hanging for her liking, too many gaps in our knowledge. And while it’s frustrating for a listener to be left, as she puts it, “bereft of facts”, her dogged pursuit of the elusive truth is what made this series so compelling. Roll on series two.
The final episode of Serial airs in the UK on BBC Radio 4 Extra on Thursday 18 December at 9pm
Hae’s ex-boyfriend speaks...
At the time of her murder, Hae had recently started dating Don, and he finally came forward for the final episode. Koenig says he recalled being with her the night before she was murdered, knowing that he would be the first suspect and remembering how nice Adnan seemed when he met him.
In what was a fitting tribute to the woman whose death has been subject to such cold, clinical scrutiny, he said he was still in love with Hae. Don described her as someone “you couldn’t not like” and said that being with her - even though it was only for a matter of weeks - had changed him for the better.
...and so does one of Jay’s friends
We also heard from Josh, the ex-colleague of Jay, Adnan and Hae’s old classmate. It was Jay’s testimony that put Adnan behind bars, and he still maintains that Adnan committed the murder and forced him to help bury the body.
According to Josh, Jay admitted that he knew who had killed Hae and had been involved in hiding the body, but he was terrified of whoever had killed her. He didn’t name this person, or mention Adnan Syed’s name, but he did reference their “middle eastern” family.
There was probably a phone booth at Best Buy
I know: is this really a revelation? But many words have been spilt trying to figure out whether Jay was lying when he told police Adnan called him from Best Buy. You’ve got to hand it to them - the ever diligent Serial producers dug up architectural drawings of the shop and yes, there is a little square labeled “phone booth” which probably did exist back in January 1999. Probably.
The Nisha Call
The phone call which ties Adnan to Jay, and to his phone, which he said he didn’t have, at the time he was allegedly burying the body, could have been a pocket dial. That much is true. But we still don’t know for sure.
What we still don’t know
Before the final episode, the Serial producers pored over all the evidence accumulated so far, plotting timing and location of phone calls against who said what. But, as is often the way with this podcast, their work raised more questions than answers. In summary, Adnan and Jay could both be lying about what they were up to cruising around Baltimore on the lunchtime before Hae went missing, and the account of Jay and his friend Jen, who was with him at various points on the same day, don’t match up.
The headline: there’s another potential suspect
Now for the big revelation. Halfway through the series, the Serial producers were put in touch with lawyers at the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate innocent people through the use of DNA evidence. The lawyer and her team revisiting Adnan’s case had come across a convicted serial killer and rapist, Ronald Lee Moore, who was released from Baltimore prison on 1 January 1999, just two weeks before Hae was killed. Those lawyers have now applied to do DNA testing on Hae’s remains. And so we wait.
The verdict
But despite this huge headline news, Sarah Koenig doesn’t give us the satisfaction of being placated. That would be too simple. There are too many questions left hanging for her liking, too many gaps in our knowledge. And while it’s frustrating for a listener to be left, as she puts it, “bereft of facts”, her dogged pursuit of the elusive truth is what made this series so compelling. Roll on series two.
The final episode of Serial airs in the UK on BBC Radio 4 Extra on Thursday 18 December at 9pm
