DNA and the Genetics of a Dishonest PR Campaign

Let’s first address the less important aspect of the DNA evidence and what it supposedly shows. The probative value of DNA evidence depends on what you are trying to prove. In the case of rape, the probative value is extremely high, and it has been used to exonerate those who were falsely accused. The probative value is also high in cases where someone is incorrectly identified by an eye witness in a lineup and DNA is used to prove that the accused was not at the scene and the DNA of the actual perp is found. Keep in mind, this is witness misidentification where someone catches a glimpse of the perp and incorrectly picks out the falsely accused. It is not the same as a witness identifying someone they’ve known for years, with whom they smoked weed, borrowed their car and cell phone, etc. Where you have a witness who pleads guilty to accessory after the fact, the probative value of DNA evidence is pretty low. Adnan’s own attorney, Justin Brown, stated that given how Adnan still hung around with and received rides from Hae after the break up, the least surprising result of the DNA testing would be for Adnan’s genetic info to turn up in her car. Thus, even if Adnan had nothing to do with Hae’s murder, the presence of his DNA would have been expected. Yet, none was found for either Adnan or Jay. As Rabia often notes when extolling Adnan’s virtues, he was an EMT. A standard part of EMT training is how to avoid contaminating a crime scene by leaving your DNA behind. Before going off on my elevating Adnan to some Dexter-type of killer, I am merely noting how odd it is that none of Adnan’s DNA turned up from the times he was in Hae’s car not murdering her.

As to the source of the samples tested for DNA six months ago, it is mostly stuff that was found around Hae’s burial site in Leakin Park. By all accounts the place is a garbage dump masquerading as a municipal park. It’s not a well-maintained place where you go with the family for a picnic or to fly a kite. It’s where you go to dump a body or catch hepatitis. The trash lying around the body (bottle/cap, wires/ropes, condom wrapper) was likely there before Hae was buried and had nothing to do with the case.

The more sinister reveal about the DNA results are the tactics employed by Adnan’s advocates and their extra-judicial PR campaign. This DNA information was available well before the documentary aired. The final report is from October 2018. Adnan’s advocates, including his attorney and those associated with the HBO documentary had the results for the past five months. They sat on this information—this “bombshell”—for five months. Coincidentally or, depending on your perspective, consistently, that is almost as long as Adnan supposedly sat on his Asia Alibi letters. If the results had probative value, we would have heard about them last October. But the results had a greater purpose. A purpose that had nothing to do with proving whether Adnan is innocent or guilty. It’s the same purpose pursued by Adnan’s advocates when they embarked on this journey to capture our collective imagination and outrage four and a half years ago. It is a purpose that in the age of social media weaponizes uninformed public opinion and unleashes it against our imperfect institutions making them even worse than before.

The DNA “bombshell” results were never going to be the key evidence in a court case. The results were to be the big reveal in a carefully and deceptively scripted "reality" TV show. A show that was packaged to serve no other purpose than to make intellectually dishonest arguments to drum up further outrage from the uninformed public and apply pressure against the Maryland Court of Appeals to influence their decision. After all, the PR blitz worked in securing the earlier decision for a new trial. Of course, the documentary was not going to stand alone. Adnan’s advocates are masters of social media and can harness the power of the Twitter echo-chamber to drive their supporters into a frenzy.

As others on this sub previously noted, the overwhelming majority of voices on Twitter support Adnan’s innocence. A platform with a 280 character limit does not lend itself to nuance. It’s difficult to break down the analysis of evidence against Adnan using a few words. It’s far easier to post a “Free Adnan” hashtag and have it go viral among your like-minded friends. My personal bias against Twitter goes beyond my inability to express myself in short sentences. Twitter and platforms like it make it possible for us to eliminate opposing viewpoints and amplify only those with which we agree. It does so through short, facile statements that provide no substantive information and only provide instructions on what to believe. It’s largely the reason why so many were shocked to hear the summary of the Mueller report after spending the past two years entrenching their confirmation bias assuming that Trump colluded with Russia. Trump. A guy who is incapable of colluding with his own cabinet somehow had the acumen to collude with a foreign government. Instead of going after this walking Emoluments Clause violation for things that we know he did—I know…I’m getting off the point, which is that Twitter gives us headlines that amplify our outrage without informing us with facts and details of the underlying story.

Take for example the claim that the cops fed Jay the story. The Twitter version that was presented on HBO looks like this: “Adnan called Jay first on January 13. Why did the cops talk to Jen first? Because they fed Jay the story to frame Adnan!” That’s 121 characters and generates the requisite uninformed outrage causing it to be retweeted enough so the echo-chamber regards it as fact.

Compare that to: The cops subpoenaed Adnan’s cell records on February 16 in response to an anonymous caller who claimed on Feb. 12 that Adnan was involved in Hae’s murder. The cell records were produced on February 17 and, as anyone who ever looked at a cell phone bill knows, the record does not show the identity of who was being called. The police immediately started doing reverse directory searches on the numbers called on the days around Hae’s disappearance (Jan 12-14). They were only able to get a few hits for addresses associated with the numbers, including the residence of Anthony Pusateri (likely Jen’s dad). Jay’s number was NOT among those for which they received a reverse directory hit. The number that turned out to be Jay’s was included in another subpoena along with 14 other numbers for which there was no hit to get owner/address information. The cops received a response to this subpoena on February 24, 1999. Jay’s name did not appear in the response. Charles Steward is the owner of the land line and address where we now know Jay lived and received a call from Adnan the morning of January 13, 1999. The cops went to Jen’s address first because they had it following the February 17 reverse directory search and were following up on that information. The phone number alone was not enough for the cops to know Jay’s name or address by Feb. 20. Thus, the Twitter version is false. Moreover, all the information described above is in the files that Rabia has been carting around in her trunk for the past 20 years. The fact that she actively peddles the horse shit Twitter version despite being in possession of facts and evidence that prove otherwise means that:

a) Rabia never read the files and only carries them around in her trunk for photo ops.

b) Rabia is knowingly deceiving anyone willing to listen to fool them into caring about a case that is unworthy of our attention.

c) Rabia is being consistent with every other specious argument she and her team injected into the crockumentary.

d) Who gives a fuck?

That’s 2,019 characters. It is an ironic coincidence that it also happens to be the year in which we live where there is no room for nuance. The Twitter version has been accepted as fact in the freeAdnan echo-chamber rendering the detailed version irrelevant. That is where we are as a society--quick to spring into action upon being spurred by a deceptive headline without having any understanding of the underlying issue.

Even this sub that offers a more level playing field for the marketplace of ideas by making it possible to have nuanced discussions with a 4000 character limit (you can guess how I know this), is not immune from the influence of Adnan’s PR campaign. I’m not talking about the efforts of those who aggressively upvote to promote posts that align with their narrative and downvote posts they hope to bury and hide from our collective consciousness. I’m talking about a different level of manipulation. I don’t think I’m being paranoid in noting the sudden increase in posts over the last few weeks repeatedly asking why DNA has not been tested. At first, those posts left me scratching my head. Where is this coming from? Testing for what? As noted above, this was not a rape case or one of possible witness misidentification. It is now clear that those posts were a deliberate attempt to lay the foundation by asking the question. Having planted the question we never asked in our minds, the documentary crew set themselves up to answer it in what they hoped would be a knock-out punch with the shocking and (six-month old) fresh DNA reveal in their TV show with their dishonest spin on the results giving the false perception that Adnan is innocent. Why? To breathe new life into this dead horse of a case. To generate additional fundraising for the next bullshit legal challenge. To fill the coffers of those seeking to profit.

As I’ve said before, Rabia has done a masterful job stage-managing this shit-show, but there is only so much she can control. As everyone knows, the wheels of her PR bus began coming off before the documentary even aired with the Maryland Court of Appeals reinstating Adnan’s conviction. Just before the last episode aired, the Baltimore Sun released the inconsequential DNA results which tellingly sparked unhinged outrage from Adnan’s PR team who sat on the info for months while they devised the best way to manipulate the results to fool their audience into continuing to care about a case that was never worthy of our attention.

This PR campaign was never about the pursuit of truth and justice. It is a case study about the vulnerability of truth and justice in the age of spin and social media with all of us being the unwitting test subjects. While I never signed a consent form to participate in this study, the irony/hypocrisy of my writing about it is not lost on me. While I rationalize that I am pursuing a greater purpose by countering the false perception that Gutierrez was ineffective, as with Trump, our collective attention, regardless of whether it is negative or positive, gives power to Adnan’s narrative. While the big picture aspects of the case study about the effects of social media on making truth a malleable concept and how it can be used to further destabilize our precarious institutions are worthy of discussion, there is nothing left on a substantive, fact/evidence level to discuss about this case that has not already been beaten to death by others. Continuing to argue with those entrenched in their belief in Adnan’s innocence or guilt is an exercise in futility and only serves to feed the beast. For me, it’s time to pull the plug and disengage. "D" is my final answer.