What story could detectives have "fed" Jenn and Jay?

Many times over the years we've heard suspicions that the police somehow gave Jenn and Jay the story that led to Adnan's arrest. In some iterations, this means police had an idea of what happened that day and led Jenn and Jay to follow that narrative; other times the whole thing is a sham and Jenn and Jay went along with it to avoid drug charges. In whatever form this takes, there is the assumption that police had developed a basic theory of the case based largely on the phone records. That raises a basic question: what could/did the police actually glean from those records before making contact with Jenn on February 26th.

 

The 26th was a Friday. The interview with Jenn that really broke the case was on Saturday afternoon; Jay was tracked down, and his interview started after midnight. He led police to Hae's car afterwards. Adnan was roused from bed and arrested early Sunday morning. So if there was a police conspiracy, we have to work with this timeline to see if it's even possible. That is, could the story Jenn and Jay told police on the 27th-28th credibly have been created by the police? A close look at the evidence shows just how unlikely that is. Here's a detailed look at the timeline:

 

On 2/16, detectives sent a fax to AT&T asking for “the name(s) and address(s) for [Adnan’s cell phone number] and (13) cell site locations from January 1, 1999 to present”.

 

On 2/17 at 11:30 am, AT&T identified the phone number as that of “Adrian Syedd” and sent a log of calls with the location data redacted.

 

On 2/18, detectives obtained a subpoena for Adnan’s cell records. They asked for the subscriber information for 15 phone numbers:

301-603-0657

410-203-0522

410-233-4650

410-265-5622

410-331-3447

410-340-7374

410-350-0384

410-390-0384

410-484-6400

410-788-5039

410-788-8495

410-788-8519

410-869-9498

410-922-9704

410-944-9232

 

Detectives spent that afternoon (approx 3 to 6:30 at least) with Alonzo Sellers, inc. polygraph testing. Sellers was anxious and in a hurry to leave, and the test indicated deception.

 

On 2/20 at 11:15am, detectives got a subpoena for the location column of the cell phone log to be revealed. They also asked for a “directory of cell site locations” to be sent. This was on a Saturday.

 

On Monday, 2/22, AT&T responded with a list of cell site addresses (not more specific antenna directions however) and unredacted logs. This had the number dialled, the call time, the duration of the call, and the cell site that handled the call.

 

The same day, detectives attempted to serve subpoena to Coppin College re. Sellers’ personnel records, “However, the administration had left for the day.” They went to the Woodlawn Co. police precinct to get any records connected with Sellers’ address. They also went by Woodlawn High School and talked to the AD about the cable channel segment on Hae Min Lee. On progress reports, the “suspect” field is still blank. Both Mr. S and Adnan were suspects at this time.

 

2/23: Detectives successfully serve subpoena at Alonzo Sellers’ work place, Coppin College, and receive his personnel file the same day. They also went to Woodlawn HS and got Adnan’s class schedule for the year, library records showing that Adnan had a book due that day, and a general list of student organizations.

 

On 2/24 Detectives spent all morning getting Sellers to the station for another polygraph testing session. At 1 pm, they concluded and testing showed no deception. At 3 pm, Det. Ritz asked Bell Atlantic about the status of the info for the 15 numbers they wanted to put names to. An hour later, Bell responded as follows:

410-203-0522: Husain & Ruquia Ali, in Ellicott City

410-233-4650: D. Furlow, Baltimore

410-265-5622: Judith Cole, Woodlawn

410-331-3447: n/a; written notation: Pagnet

410-340-7374: n/a; written notation: AT&T Wireless

410-350-0384: Lakiasha Branch, Baltimore

410-390-0384: n/a; written notation: Tri State Radio pager

410-484-6400: Dorothy M. Hall, Pikesville

410-788-5039: John M. McCullough Jr, Catonsville

410-788-8495: Charles Steward, Catonsville

410-788-8519: Clyde McPherson, Catonsville

410-869-9498: Anwarul Chaudry, Catonsville

410-922-9704: Henry Meyers, Randallstown

410-944-9232: n/a; written notation: “AVA Maria Rogers [address redacted], Woodlawn MD 21244”

 

It is important to note that just two days before they met Jenn at her (family's) home, Sellers was still being treated as a suspect and time devoted to investigating him.

 

2/25: Detectives get subpoena for Adnan’s home phone records; they also get subpoena for the subscriber info for 410-695-8485, a mistake for the 301 area code number which had not been furnished in the 2/24 response. They also send an order for info to Tri State Radio Wireless re. 410-390-0384, the pager number. TSR responds that the “current user of this pager is Pennsel Comm. Serv. Inc.”

 

Friday, 2/26: Detectives send order for subscriber information and call history for 410–340-7374 to AT&T Wireless.

 

This is the day MacGillivary and Carew go to the Pusateri residence, where they speak to Jenn (who is with Kristi), who is about to leave in a car. Later, they talk to Adnan at his home. Jenn agreed to come to the station that night around 9 pm.

 

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Before they first spoke to Jenn, the call log for Adnan’s cell phone on 1/13 could be supplemented like this:

 

Call#	No dialed	time	dur.	tower	Person called
32	4107888495	10:45 a.m.	0:28	L651A	Charles Steward, Catonsville
31	4107442609	12:07 p.m.	0:21	L688A	Anthony Pusateri residence (from reverse directory)
30	4107442609	12:41 p.m.	1:29	L652A	Anthony Pusateri residence (from reverse directory)
29	incoming	12:43 p.m.	0:24	L652A	n/a

 

[Regular classes end 2:15 p.m. at WHS; Aisha Pittman told Adcock she saw Hae at 2:15. Adnan told Adcock Hae “was suppposed to give him a ride home after school, but he was running late and he felt that victim Lee probably left after waiting a short while.”]

 

Call#	No dialed	time	dur.	tower	Person called
28	incoming	2:36 p.m.	0:05	L651B	n/a

 

[This is about when Hae would have left school and met her abductor/killer]

 

Call#	No dialed	time	dur.	tower	Person called
27	incoming	3:15 p.m.	0:20	L651C	n/a

 

[Normally Hae would have picked up her cousin around this time]

 

Call#	No dialed	time	dur.	tower	Person called
26	4107442609	3:21 p.m.	0:42	L651C	Anthony Pusateri residence (from reverse directory)
25	3016030657	3:32 p.m.	2:22	L651C	not included
24	3016958485	3:48 p.m.	1:25	L651A	not included
23	4102334650	3:59 p.m.	0:25	L651A	D. Furlow, Baltimore
22	4107442609	4:12 p.m.	0:28	L689A	Anthony Pusateri residence (from reverse directory)
21	incoming	4:27 p.m.	2:56	L654C	n/a
20	incoming	4:58 p.m.	0:19	L654C	n/a

 

[Hae’s brother calls police at 5:12 pm]

 

Call#	No dialed	time	dur.	tower	Person called
19	incoming	5:14 p.m.	1:07	WB443	n/a
18	#4432539023	5:14 p.m.	1:07	BLTM2	[Voicemail]
17	4109229704	5:38 p.m.	0:02	L653C	Henry Meyers, Randallstown

 

[Adcock confirms Hae doesn’t show up for her 6 pm shift at LensCrafters]

 

Call#	No dialed	time	dur.	tower	Person called
16	incoming	6:07 p.m.	0:56	L655A	n/a
15	incoming	6:09 p.m.	0:53	L608C	n/a
14	incoming	6:24 p.m.	4:15	L608C	n/a
13	4103407374	6:59 p.m.	0:27	L651A	n/a; written notation: AT&T Wireless
12	4103900384	7:00 p.m.	0:23	L651A	n/a; written notation: Tri State Radio pager
11	incoming	7:09 p.m.	0:33	L689B	n/a
10	incoming	7:16 p.m.	0:32	L689B	n/a
9	4103900384	8:04 p.m.	0:32	L653A	n/a; written notation: Tri State Radio pager
8	4103900384	8:05 p.m.	0:13	L653C	n/a; written notation: Tri State Radio pager
7	3016030657	9:01 p.m.	1:24	L651C	not included
6	4109229704	9:03 p.m.	5:28	L651C	Henry Meyers, Randallstown
5	4109229704	9:10 p.m.	8:41	L651C	Henry Meyers, Randallstown
4	3016030657	9:57 p.m.	0:24	L651C	not included
3	4107088495	10:02 p.m.	0:06	L698B	Charles Steward, Catonsville
2	4108699498	10:29 p.m.	0:18	L651C	Anwarul Chaudry, Catonsville
1	4109449232	10:30 p.m.	1:44	L651C	n/a; written notation: “AVA Maria Rogers [address redacted], Woodlawn MD 21244”

 

Note that not a single one of these names supplied by Bell Atlantic is that of anyone Adnan actually spoke to. Also, that they put together a list like this anytime prior to the coming weekend is entirely unsupported by evidence. They did begin to make such lists after the events of the weekend - that is, after Adnan’s arrest.

 

Police almost certainly assumed that Adnan made and received these calls. It was his phone, and Jay wasn’t in the picture yet. That they first went to the Pusateri home to see whom Adnan was calling makes sense if you look at the call log for the day of the murder.

 

On 2/26, they got a subpoena for the AT&T Wireless number - 410-340-7374.

 

Jenn was interviewed at the station after 9 pm, and Jay’s name is among a few names she mentioned, with his phone number; that number corresponded to “Charles Stewart”, which is twice on the list above. This interview was important because Jenn mentioned Hae being strangled, which was not public information.

 

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The case broke on Saturday after Jenn - having conferred with her mom and their lawyer - agreed to tell police what she knew. Going into that crucial weekend (which ended with the recovery of Hae’s car and Adnan’s arrest), they had known for approx. 10 days about the timing of calls made to and from Adnan’s phone. They had cell tower addresses for each call since Monday, though they didn’t know about antenna facings or about how the system worked. They learned who owned most of the landlines on Wednesday. Yet for the 32 calls made that day, police at that point did not have a single name of anyone Adnan (or Jay) actually spoke to based on the information they received from the phone companies (not that they knew this yet). Nor could they make assumptions about the location of the phone based on the knowledge they had at that time (it was the prosectors who worked with an AT&T engineer who understood how the location data worked; but that was in October as they prepared for the trial). Det. Ritz asked AT&T’s compliance person if they could have an engineer help with “a map or diagram” showing cell site locations for the calls; that request was on March 2nd. This underscores the point that detectives had yet to map out the movement of the cell phone on 1/13 before interviewing Jenn and Jay. From the police file, it looks like it took several weeks to work out the basic who-where-when of the day’s events. They interviewed Jay again on 3/15 and they did the field trip with him on 3/18. The basic outline of the day was more-or-less in place by then. The cell phone records ended up corroborating important aspects of Jenn and Jay’s recollections. But much of the detailed work was left for prosecutors.

 

The way detectives cracked the case was by leaving the office and going to the Pusateri residence to see whom Adnan was calling twice before and twice after Hae disappeared. They ran into Jenn, and it was Jenn who told them the next day what they had suspected: that Adnan had killed Hae.

 

But could detectives have “fed” Jenn a basic narrative that reflected a theory of the crime featuring Adnan as the killer? In order to answer that, you have to look at what information they had at that time. Yes, they suspected Adnan, especially after coming up empty with Mr. S and Don. Adnan was going to be a good suspect just because of the nature of the crime and Adnan’s status as the ex-boyfriend. But the “big red flag flapping in the wind” was Adnan changing his story about arranging the ride with Hae after school. I don’t know how much weight the lead detectives gave to the anonymous call, but that was just another of several arrows pointing at Adnan. The fact is, detectives had to think that the calls into the Pusateri residence were going to be important. Either they would help exonerate Adnan (perhaps he had an alibi connected to these calls) or they could prove to be calls to someone connected to the crime.

 

Bottom line is this: the detectives had not developed a coherent narrative of the day that involved Adnan’s cell phone until AFTER they talked to Jenn and Jay, and then revisited the call logs and tracked down the actual recipients of these calls. They couldn’t know that Jay had made several of the key calls from Adnan’s phone until the interviews that weekend. The detailed story involving Jenn and Jay planning to meet up, postponing it, then Jay paging Jenn to meet him at the Westview Mall parking lot, where Jenn said hello to Adnan, could not have been developed by detectives based on the call logs. And perhaps most importantly, it was only in the fall that prosecutors were able to place the phone in the correct antenna coverage areas for places like the BestBuy, Jenn’s house, Jay’s house, Woodlawn High School, Leakin Park, and the Allendale neighborhood where Hae’s car was abandoned.

 

Jen gave them: Jay coming over after she got home ca. 12:30; Jay had Adnan’s phone and car; Jay was acting tense, and he left between 2:30 and 4:15 after getting a call he was waiting for; the two planned to meet later; sometime after picking her parents up from work, Jay sent Jen a confusing message and Jen called Adnan’s phone to clarify; Adnan answered and told her Jay would call her back; Jay called her pager and told her to meet them at Westview Mall; Jenn met Adnan and Jay ca. 8:30; Jay told her about the murder as they drove off; Jay understood the murder happened at BestBuy; they returned to a parking lot dumpster so Jay could wipe down the shovel(s) while Jen kept watch. Could police have got this from the above call logs?

 

How much of that could they have fed Jenn at that time? (And why Jenn?) Police did not even know that the pager called 3 times that evening was Jenn’s until she told them. Her name is not on the information they got from the pager company.

 

TL;DR: Police encountered Jenn on 2/26, a Friday, and Adnan was arrested that weekend after Jenn and Jay were interviewed and Jay led police to Hae’s missing car. Going into that weekend, police did not have nearly enough information to feed Jenn and Jay the narratives presented in those interviews.