Leaving Baltimore - Part 2

The Plot

We all know the story as laid out in the prosecution’s case. Adnan, pissed at having been replaced in Hae’s heart by Don, decided to murder her. He secures a cell phone, calls Hae the night before to set her up to give him a ride after school. He places the phone and his car in the hands of his accomplice, Jay Wilds. He gets Hae to drive him after school during which time she is murdered. He contacts Jay and they dump Hae’s car at the Park n Ride lot after which Jay drives Adnan back to Woodlawn HS. He attends track practice and makes sure he is seen by his coach. Jay picks him up after practice and the two go to Kristi’s place where Adnan gets calls from Hae’s brother and then the cops. Adnan and Jay leave Kristi’s, retrieve Hae’s car, drive to Leakin Park and do a half-assed job at burying Hae’s body. They dump Hae’s car and Jay gets picked up by Jen.

We know that Bilal got Adnan the phone on January 11, 1999 and Adnan activated it the next day. We know through Adnan’s dad’s inexplicably long testimony on the subject that Adnan led prayers at the ISB on January 14, 1999. We know that Adnan was a 17 year-old kid when he was arrested for murdering Hae Min Lee—or do we?

[Edit: Maryland's inmate record (type his name in the linked page to pull it up) has Adnan's date of birth listed as May 21, 1980. I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but there appears to be some controversy over Adnan's age and whether he was 17 or 18 at the time Hae was murdered. His arrest warrant also shows the same birthdate in 1980.This unauthenticated image from what appears to be Adnan's old passport indicates that his birthday is May 21, 1981. Which is correct? Why might the age in his passport have been falsified? Well, a few months ago, I commented on how my parents shipped me off to India a few weeks before school was out for the summer because if I traveled before my 12th birthday, the price of my ticket would be half. My family joined me a few weeks later. I didn't fly alone, mind you, but with my dad's cousin and her shitty son who was a couple of years younger than me. That fucker threw gum in my hair during our layover in Mumbai (Bombay back then). The kid is now an accomplished physician, but when I see him at family gatherings, I still think, "screw that guy." At any rate, note that Adnan's passport was procured in May 1992. If the timing of the passport was in advance of a family trip to Pakistan, I can totally see his parents using a phony birth certificate to make their kid 11 years old to avoid paying the full fare. Yeah, even when you exclude the murderers, my people from the subcontinent kind of suck. Regardless, I'll keep with Serial's possibly false assertion that Adnan was 17 at the time of the murder because I don't think adding an extra year would have made Adnan more of a criminal mastermind.But it is important to note that if Adnan's birthday is, in fact, May 21, 1980, his side and the complicit, non-fact-checking, lazy-ass media has been spinning this fiction that he was 17 at the time of the murder and should not have been tried as an adult. More relevant to my analysis, however, is the fact that if Adnan was 18 on January 11, 1999 when he got the cell phone, he would not have needed Bilal to get it for him. Thus, if Adnan was already 18 and could have procured it himself, it was Bilal who was forcing the cell phone into Adnan's hand consistent with my conclusions.]

The Phone

I received a message a few months ago asking why Adnan needed a cell phone to kill Hae. It was a damned good question. One of those questions that we gloss over and never bother asking, taking for granted that Adnan needed a phone. Why not just tell Jay to meet him at some place at a particular time? Were they pressed for time? Did the plan to murder Hae have to operate like clockwork? The way Jay and Adnan floated around from the time Jay picked up Adnan after track practice until Jen Pusateri picked up Jay after they finished burying Hae at Leakin Park, it certainly didn’t seem like they were in a hurry to get anywhere. So why did a phone have to come into the equation? Because the original plot to murder Hae likely differed from the one that was actually carried out. The original plot was far more time sensitive and had to be executed like clockwork to make sure everything happened on time. At some point, the wheels came off the plan and Adnan had to improvise.

Do you know who relied heavily on their phones in 1999? Criminal informants. CIs live and die by their cell phones. They are used to keep in contact with their handlers. They are used to help set up sting operations. They are used to make sure that the operations run like clockwork. A heavy cell phone user like Bilal would not be able to conceive taking a shit without coordinating it on his phone.

Adnan couldn’t get a phone on his own because you need to be 18 to sign a cell phone contract. He didn’t use a fake ID. He didn’t try to convince his parents that he needed one for work and have them sign the contract. He was taken to the cell store by Bilal who signed the contract for him on January 11, 1999.

During the 9 day stretch from January 3 to January 12, 1999, there are 14 calls between Bilal’s mobile and Adnan’s home. After Adnan activated his phone on January 12, 1999 until he was arrested on February 28, 1999 how many times did Bilal call Adnan on his mobile? Two bloody times. Both on January 26, 1999 one day after the police visited Adnan’s house asking about Hae causing Adnan and his mom yo panic and shit themselves. In the days immediately following Adnan activating his phone, not one call from Bilal asking: “Hey kid who I’ve known and been close to for the past six years to whom I made a dozen calls in the past week and whose photo I carry around in my wallet, how is that new phone I got you working out?” For those looking for incriminating calls linking Bilal with the events that transpired on January 13, Bilal and Adnan were very careful in covering their tracks. In fact they were too careful because we go from a high volume of calls to complete radio silence on the day of Hae’s murder. The lack of calls between them screams, “I will not incriminate myself by calling that new phone I just bought for you to facilitate the murder we planned!”

For some reason, Bilal chose to get Adnan a cell phone from ATT instead of Sprint on which Bilal had at least three lines. Perhaps he liked the fact that ATT does not show the numbers for incoming calls. Clearly, Bilal neither asked about nor was aware that ATT, unlike Sprint, includes cell tower location info in their records. Had he known, he would have admonished Adnan to avoid making calls to Hae late at night on January 12, 1999. One call pinged tower L602C in western downtown Baltimore. Specifically, L602C is located just south of US-40, west of MD-2 and just north of where I-395 ends. Do you know what else is at that exact same location?

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND SCHOOL OF DENTISTRY WHERE BILAL HAD AN OFFICE.

Nah, there is no way that 17-year old Adnan would have been finalizing the details of the plot with career criminal Bilal the night before the murder. It’s much more likely that Adnan was clubbing on a school night on the west side of downtown Baltimore where Bilal happened to have an office calling Hae on the phone that Bilal just happened to have bought for him a day earlier and immediately before Hae happened to be murdered, right?

Leading Prayers

Adnan led prayers at ISB on January 14, 1999. At first we are led to believe that he led prayers of the entire congregation of hundreds of families during Ramadan. Any Muslim who is part of a large community upon reflection for a moment will realize that Adnan DID NOT lead the entire congregation. The Imam who leads prayers during Ramadan is a hafiz, or someone who has memorized the Quran. Although Adnan used his time in prison to become a hafiz, he was not one when he was 17. As indicated in Bilal’s grand jury testimony, the prayer Adnan led was of a small youth group of about 20 boys for which Bilal served as leader. As youth leader, Bilal was in charge of coordinating who led this smaller prayer and on what days. This prayer wasn't nearly as big a deal as it was made to sound during trial. The group of boys could have set up anywhere in a corner of the prayer hall and performed the prayer followed by a brief talk. While this was an unremarkable event in that it would not require everyone in the mosque to stop and take note, it was notable enough for some people to see and acknowledge that it took place. Most importantly, it was something over which Bilal had control. Now let’s put it all together.

The Original Plan

There are varying opinions on Adnan’s ability to concoct the plot to murder Hae. Some say he lacked the sophistication to come up with the plan while others are convinced that he is a precocious, manipulative sociopath who was criminally wise beyond his years. Adnan may have been a manipulative turd, but I do not think he could have come up with this plan on his own, especially in view of the obvious help he received from Bilal. The original plan was time sensitive and required a high degree of precision, thus requiring a cell phone to execute. It was important for Adnan to be seen by others throughout the day so that the window during which he could have committed the murder would be impossibly small thereby insulating him from suspicion.

Phase 1: Give Jay Adnan’s phone and car so that Jay would be on call to immediately pick up Adnan after Hae was murdered.

Phase 2: Get a ride from Hae to the location of her murder and call Jay.

Phase 3: Drive Hae’s car to the Park n Ride while Jay follows in Adnan’s car.

Phase 4: Have Jay drive Adnan to track practice and make a big show to the coach to whom Adnan hardly spoke before to leave an impression so that the coach would remember Adnan was there.

Phase 5: Get high with Jay and go to Kristi’s where more people would see Adnan and could vouch that he was there.

Phase 6: Go home, shower and change for prayers at the ISB.

Phase 7: LEAD PRAYERS OF THE SMALL YOUTH GROUP SO THAT ISB MEMBERS COULD VOUCH THAT ADNAN WAS AT THE ISB THAT EVENING.

Phase 8: Live happily ever after knowing that he got away with murder (preceded by some plan in the days following Hae's murder to dispose of her body in something other than a shallow grave).

Of all the steps, I am most impressed by Phase 7: Not only is Adnan establishing his presence at the mosque for all to see, but by leading the prayers he is also spiritually cleansing himself of the heinous act that he just committed and asking God for forgiveness. What a twisted monster this Bilal is. He wields spiritual abuse like a magician. He uses religion to draw in his victims. He uses religion to reinforce his victims’ shame and silence. He uses religion to cleanse the unspeakable acts he manipulates his victims into performing. Unfortunately for Adnan, something went wrong at Phase 5 causing the shit to hit the prophy cup (the motorized dental tool that spins like crazy when used to polish teeth--yeah, I had to look that up).

The Audible

While sitting there at Kristi’s place establishing his presence, Adnan received a call. Recall that Adnan was high at the time and probably feeling a little paranoid. This paranoia likely went into overdrive when Adnan saw that the number calling him was Hae’s! Adnan’s head was spinning (like the now proverbial prophy cup) at the incredibly short turnaround time between Hae being murdered and her almost instantly haunting him. He trepidly answered and was relieved to hear the voice of Hae’s brother who actually meant to call her current boyfriend, Don, to ask of his sister’s whereabouts. Her brother’s mistake is easy to understand given that Hae wrote Adnan’s number in the last entry in her diary where she had also written Don’s name 127 times (see page 66 of the PDF). Adnan relaxed again for a moment before shit suddenly got real when his phone rang again a few minutes later with the police asking him about Hae’s whereabouts. Within a couple of hours of his killing Hae, the cops called Adnan on his cell phone that he had only activated 24 hours earlier. At this point, Adnan’s brain hit DEFCON fucked. He probably figured, if the cops could zero in on him and his phone that quickly, it’s just a question of time before they find Hae’s car and her body in the trunk and find a way to link it to him!

In a state of panic, paranoia and desperation, Adnan deviated from the plan and called an audible. He and Jay would retrieve Hae’s body from her car and bury it in Leakin Park. This was the point where the murder plot switched from being that of a criminal mastermind to the half-baked brain fart of two pot-heads. It transitioned from being Bilal's plan to Adnan's plan. In his panicked state, Adnan started to make mistakes. He popped the glove box in Hae’s car and frantically searched for the route to the park, but left a revealing palm print on the map book. After picking up Hae’s car and body, he realized that there was no way he would be able to make it to the ISB and lead prayers as required under Phase 7 of the plot. So Adnan called Yaser from his cell asking Yaser to relay to Bilal, who Adnan was NOT supposed to call, that Adnan would not be able to make it to the ISB that evening. The alternative explanation is absurd wherein while digging a grave for his ex-girlfriend whom he just murdered, Adnan suddenly became curious about whether he had cell reception in Leakin Park and decided to test the signal strength by calling his buddy. Remember, he was high on pot, not crystal meth. Had they been on meth, they would likely have dug a hole deep enough, but would have neglected to place the body inside. All kidding aside, I cannot underscore the importance of this call to Yaser enough. It strongly suggests that the pièce de résistance of the original plot was, in fact, Adnan leading the prayers on January 13, 1999 at the ISB. Prayers over which Bilal had control to designate who would lead and when. If true, this establishes Bilal as the mastermind behind the murder plot. The audible cost Adnan the possibility of legit alibi witnesses at the ISB for the evening of January 13, 1999.

Thus, Adnan screwed up his evening alibi, although, unsurprisingly, Bilal was supposedly prepared to commit perjury and say that Adnan was at the ISB anyway because that’s how Bilal rolls. While the alibi aspect of leading the prayers was lost, Bilal still saw value in Adnan leading the prayers on January 14 likely for the spiritual cleansing effect and to emotionally put the unpleasant matter behind him.

What About Jay?

In the original plan, Jay was only supposed to drive Adnan's car: follow Adnan to where they dumped Hae's car with her body inside and accompany him to Kristi's. I imagine Bilal's instruction on this was something like this: "Get someone to drive your car and pick you up where you dump Hae and her car. Use that black guy you buy pot from. Threaten to turn him in if he doesn't agree to help." Jay went along initially because all he had to do was drive Adnan's car. Then when things went to hell and Adnan panicked at Phase 5 and called the audible, the plan suddenly went way beyond what Jay signed up for. Going back and getting Hae's body, helping drag her body out of the car to the burial site, helping bury (or watching Adnan bury) the body all freaked Jay out. Based on Jen's account of when she came to pick up Jay, he was shaken. He let it drop right then that Hae was murdered. Had they stuck to the original plan and spared Jay having to help drag Hae's dead body out and bury it, he probably would have kept his mouth shut and said nothing to Jen that night. Being a craven piece of shit, Bilal was not going to allow himself to have any active role in Hae's murder. Aside from being enlisted to drive Adnan's car, Jay may have also been engaged to assist so that Bilal and Adnan could have a patsy to blame for Hae's murder if the cops got too close. Recall that just before Hae's body was found, Adnan made an appointment to finally speak with the police after consulting with Bilal. The cops cancelled the meeting with Adnan after Hae's body was found so Adnan didn't have a chance to throw Jay under the bus.

Why didn't Adnan inform Bilal about the audible? As mentioned above, Adnan was under strict instructions to NOT call Bilal because Bilal didn't want to have any calls between himself and Adnan's new phone. Given that, it does seem strange and stupid for Bilal to have signed the cell phone contract two days earlier, but that also goes to the idea of Bilal being a CI who was pre-programmed into convincing himself that a cell phone is absolutely necessary for the operation. It's almost as though Bilal wasn't able to help himself like Yosemite Sam in this clip where he can’t stop his own actions despite knowing there will be a disastrous result.

We are not clear on what happened after Adnan dropped off Jay, but my guess is that Adnan went to the mosque to tell Bilal in person what had happened. The taraweeh prayers during Ramadan typically last 1.5 to 2 hours. If they started at around 7 PM they would have been wrapping up at close to 9 PM and people would still be hanging out. Jen was paged at a little after 8 PM to pick up Jay and Adnan likely headed home at about 8:15 PM. I assume he would have gone home to clean up before heading over to the mosque, which would have put him there at around 9ish when most people were leaving or had already left, thus the lack of people willing to testify that he was there that evening. Wait, I take that back...Jan 13, 1999 landed on an odd night (25th of Ramadan) during the last 10 days of the holy month. ISB members would have definitely stuck around after 9 pm. I imagine that deviating from the plan and physically burying Hae freaked Adnan out as well and he probably was too weirded out to go into the mosque and may have waited outside in his car for Bilal to come out. While waiting, he may have made those calls to Nisha at Krista at around 9 PM.

The Arrest

In the weeks following Hae’s murder, Adnan and Bilal did their best to keep a low profile occasionally shitting themselves every time the cops reached out. When Adnan was arrested, Bilal knew that he had to make himself indispensable to Adnan and his family. There is desperation in the way Bilal completely threw himself into assisting Adnan. As mentioned before, Bilal was Adnan’s first call from prison. Bilal quickly retained attorneys to represent Adnan and organized the community to pay for the legal fees and write letters of support too in hope for a favorable bail hearing. Even the attorneys Bilal hired were under the impression that Bilal was a close relative of Adnan’s. As devastated as Adnan’s parents were, they felt blessed to have Bilal in their corner. How can this amazing man who selflessly took such an active interest in their son for the past several years be any more of an angel???!!! “Bilal, we are so lucky to have you in our lives!” There are nearly 100 calls between Bilal and Adnan’s parents during the 45-day stretch between when Adnan was arrested and when he was indicted. Not only was Adnan groomed to be dependent upon and completely devoted to Bilal, Bilal groomed Adnan’s parents to feel that way as well.

It had to be Gutierrez

While Bilal deserves to be universally hated, Rabia somehow manages to even get her reasons for hating Bilal wrong. In her mind, Bilal’s most egregious offense was hiring Cristina Gutierrez to represent Adnan. Rabia convinced herself that Gutierrez was a shitty attorney who sabotaged Adnan’s defense. In reality, Rabia is oblivious to the fact that she herself is a far shittier attorney who did immeasurable damage to Adnan’s case by providing inept assistance guaranteeing that Adnan will rot in prison for the rest of his life. All Rabia accomplished was finding a new way to leverage social media to weaponize uninformed public opinion and unleash it against our imperfect criminal justice system making it worse than it was before. As I posted previously, Gutierrez was more than competent and did well with the shitty hand that she was dealt. What I did not realize until recently is that Bilal was likely the dealer and made sure she received an extra helping of shit.

There is no shortage of competent defense attorneys in the Baltimore area. Yet, Bilal insisted that Adnan use Gutierrez, the same attorney who represented Bilal (and Rabia’s brother, Saad) during the grand jury proceedings. The lengths to which the defense went to shoehorn Gutierrez into this case were extraordinary. While I stand by the fact that she was a good attorney, her courtroom presence, admittedly, left something to be desired and moving heaven and earth to convince the court to allow her to represent Adnan was initially a head scratcher. Looking at it now, I’m sorry, but this Bilal fucker is an evil genius. Having Gutierrez represent Adnan was the ultimate hedge move wherein she would be bound by attorney-client privilege to not disclose ANYTHING Bilal told her short of his intending to commit a future crime. After his less than stellar performance as a witness during the grand jury proceedings, Bilal had Adnan change his legal representation. Recall that Bilal’s testimony resulted in the prosecution subpoenaing Bilal’s cell phone records and wondering if he was involved in Hae’s murder. Also recall Bilal’s strange, paranoid behavior during his testimony where he would excuse himself after even the most innocuous question and consult with Gutierrez who was sitting outside the courtroom. Within a couple of weeks of Bilal's grand jury testimony, Gutierrez was suddenly retained to take over Adnan's defense.

To be clear, I don’t think Bilal said anything to Gutierrez to lead her to suspect that he was in any way involved in Hae's murder. Sure, he bought Adnan the phone, but that’s all she knew. She could not have known that Adnan was lurking near Bilal’s office at the dental school the night before or that Bilal originally intended for Adnan to lead prayers on Jan 13. She did not know about Bilal’s predatory behavior. She did, however, suspect that there was something fishy going on during the grand jury proceedings when she told the attorney who was representing Adnan at the time to warn Shamim (Adnan’s mom) about seeing Bilal during the days he was testifying. She also likely knew that Bilal was involved in the plot to fabricate the Asia alibi, but thought she had control over the situation. She did not have any concrete proof or admission from Bilal or Adnan with which to go to the judge to raise a conflict of interest and request to be removed as counsel. Bilal’s main motivation in having her represent Adnan was that because of her earlier representation of Bilal, she would be precluded from investigating and raising an affirmative defense that Bilal was an accomplice who coerced/manipulated Adnan into committing the murder. At the time she agreed to represent Adnan, this was hardly conceivable. By the time she learned of Bilal’s predatory behavior, it was the 11th hour before the trial and very unlikely that the judge would allow her to withdraw. I don’t think she acted unethically although she should have thought twice about agreeing to take Adnan as a client. But she was duped into representing Adnan by Bilal, a master manipulator: “We need the best representation Ms. Gutierrez and that is you! Adnan’s only chance is if an excellent attorney like you represents him! The entire ISB community is prepared to pitch in and pay your legal fees!” All this fucker did was groom people.

Had Adnan been represented by an independent attorney who was in no way connected to Bilal, that attorney may have had the option to argue an affirmative defense under the theory that Adnan’s actions were the result of his being controlled and manipulated by the predator, Bilal. In fact, Judge Mitchell raised these concerns during the July 9, 1999 motion hearing to determine whether Gutierrez should represent Adnan at pages 12-13. Technically, Gutierrez could notify the court if she encountered a conflict of interest, but there was nothing concrete to which she could point. While she was probably sharp enough to connect the dots for how Hae's murder likely went down, she was ethically precluded from connecting them through Bilal because he too was her client. Thus, Bilal made sure that there would be no opportunity to direct the prosecution to look harder at him for treating Adnan like a pawn in the hands of a grand master. By having Gutierrez represent both Adnan and Bilal, Bilal effectively tied her hands and insulated himself from suspicion.

Why

Those of you who buy the above analysis are likely wondering, “but why?” To be honest, I have no idea. There is no good answer for this when it comes to a craven, insane predator like Bilal. You might as well ask why he felt compelled to prey on young boys or sexually assaulted his patients and employees. Having spent way too much time trying to understand how his toxic mind works, I have a few guesses.

There may be clues in Hae’s diary. It should be noted that Hae was likely guarded in what she wrote and avoided disclosing any explicit, substantive information because, as stated in an early entry dated April 5, 1998, she knew her brother reads the diary. In her May 7, 1998 entry she wrote of Adnan telling her of a sexual issue about himself that he needed to discuss. The July 1, 1998 entry suggests Adnan’s inability to perform sexually. Look at the entry. According to Hae, Adnan told her, "You said that I can't fulfill you physically, well, you can't fulfill me emotionally." Hae went on to write that her friend told her re Adnan, "Even if you don't have a great sex life, at least you have a strong emotional relationship." Kinda cuts against Team Adnan's narrative that he was some huge player who was having sex with Hae all over the place. It felt like Rabia, Saad and Adnan oversold it when they talked about the hotel rooms and parked cars where Adnan and Hae would screw. Like the un-layable kid who brags about his girlfriend who lives in Canada that nobody met. Based on Hae's diary, I'd be surprised if Adnan and Hae had sex at all. It puts an entirely different spin on for whom Bilal was renting hotel rooms. This gives more weight to the likelihood that the "player" narrative was a smokescreen to mask the reality of who was screwing who. The shitty HBO documentary makes it a point to discuss Hae telling Adnan that she was sexually assaulted by a family member although she makes no reference to this in her diary. While Adnan is hardly a credible source for Hae having been molested, the attention-starved Debbie backs up this story. In the context of Hae’s diary entries, it’s possible that they shared their respective victimhood with one another, which may explain the strong emotional bond Hae appeared to have with Adnan.

It is possible that Adnan disclosed his relationship with Bilal to Hae and, after Hae dumped him, admitted to Bilal that he made such a disclosure. This would cause Bilal great consternation and fear of criminal consequences because Hae is outside the scope of Bilal’s control. While most of us have boundaries that govern our behavior, Bilal is basically borderless. His developing the plot to murder Hae may have been driven by his warped sense of self-preservation. Bilal had no control over Hae and her knowing about Bilal preying on her ex since he was a child was a direct threat that Bilal needed to eliminate. Alternatively, he may have concocted the plot out of jealousy because he hated that Adnan was pining for Hae and felt compelled to manipulate Adnan into murdering her. Or, as astutely noted by another user, he may have been tempted by the prospect of giving himself life-long leverage by holding his knowledge of the crime over Adnan in perpetuity if they got away with it. It is likely that a manipulative monster like Bilal convinced Adnan that Hae is now a loose cannon who knows something that would destroy Adnan's reputation. Despite Adnan being Bilal's victim, Bilal would leverage the shame Adnan felt over the "relationship" they shared. Adnan did not understand that Bilal was not only physically preying on him but also preying on Adnan's fear that Adnan would be a pariah if the community found out about his relationship with Bilal. Because in the eyes of the community, they would not see Adnan as the victim he was, but rather a willing participant in a sordid affair. Bilal likely told Adnan that his parents would die of shame. Admitting to murdering Hae masks a deeper admission wherein lies what was likely Adnan's true motive for committing the crime. Then again, only Adnan knows.

Imprisonment

Both Adnan and Bilal are currently in prison. Bilal is two years into his 16.5 year sentence for sexually assaulting patients and employees at his dental practice. On January 17, 2020, Bilal is scheduled to be sentenced for defrauding Medicare/Medicaid. His attorneys will make a case that his sentence for stealing nearly $6 million should run concurrently with his sentence for forcing several people into performing oral sex on him while they lay unconscious in a dental chair. Bilal may, at most, spend the next 14 years in jail.

Adnan has remained in prison since his arrest almost 21 years ago. The likelihood of his being released was killed not long ago when he exhausted his appeals and the Supreme Court denied cert. The arguments made were stupid. There was enough against him where the case would not have turned without the cell tower location evidence. The absurd notion that Guteirrez was ineffective is patently offensive to logic and her memory. The fabricated Asia alibi only confirmed Adnan’s guilt. Rabia and the rest of the passengers in her clown car masquerading as attorneys have litigated Adnan into a corner where he can no longer tell the truth. He can no longer admit that he was merely a marionette in the hands of a puppet master.

Adnan’s imprisonment did not begin in 1999. It started when he was 11 years old and was placed in the hands of this monster. The monster groomed Adnan into being utterly devoted to him. It is unfortunate that in a community like the ISB, members would likely have a difficult time distinguishing between homosexuality and a child being preyed upon by a predator. It is that lack of distinction that scares the child into shame and silence. Adnan has been locked in that emotional prison for the past 27 years. The predator who made Adnan into what he is and made him kill Hae Min Lee will likely reenter society around the time that Adnan celebrates his 51st birthday in jail.

Hae Min Lee’s death was unspeakably tragic. The tragedy for her family was compounded over the past five years by the pervasive reminder of Hae’s death through the wildly popular podcast, countless news articles, books, blogs, and, of course, the shitty documentary that advocated for Adnan’s innocence while pretending to mourn Hae’s murder. Their misery was fodder for our entertainment in which they will continue to be imprisoned for as long as we continue to be fascinated by this case.

I’ve been all over the map with Adnan, starting as a staunch supporter who was duped by Rabia to a mild hater upon realizing his guilt to an extreme hater for his team’s unfair treatment of Gutierrez to where I am now. It is easy to revel in schadenfreude, celebrating the misfortune of one we choose to regard as a smug, manipulative piece of shit. But I don’t know if that’s what Adnan is. I hope I’m wrong about this entire analysis, but it doesn’t feel like I am. I don’t think Adnan is capable of admitting guilt because acknowledging his part in Hae’s murder would likely open deep-seated scars Adnan has been carrying since he was 11 years old. I can’t help but to think that it’s easier for Adnan to remain in prison than to admit that he was molested. If the content of this post is accurate, this story is extremely tragic because there are only victims and the primary perp has escaped accountability--for this crime anyway. As to Adnan, it saddens me that he is imprisoned by the perception of his community. He is imprisoned by the crippling shame. He is imprisoned by the belief of his supporters that he is innocent. And somehow Asia inexplicably knows the address to every one of those prisons. Dammit, I know that killed the vibe I had going there, but I can’t stop myself from taking a cheap shot at Asia.

Then, of course, there is us and the self-imposed prisons in which we lock ourselves, addicted to unresolved cases. Addicted to this case that has no real impact on our day-to-day lives. It is the wee hours of the morning on a weekday and I’m sitting here, again, writing about this goddamn case. I hate thinking about how much time I devoted to reviewing evidence and analyzing facts. It takes me to a dark place of self loathing to think about all the things I could have been learning or doing instead of diving down this rabbit hole.

The title of this post borrows from a far more compelling and impactful documentary that recently aired on HBO, Leaving Neverland. The emotional imprisonment suffered by the two men featured in that documentary was more real and relevant to the Serial case than the asinine sophistry peddled in the deceptively named, The Case Against Adnan Syed.

Thanks to all of you with whom I have engaged over the past year, particularly those who challenged my ideas. I sincerely appreciate your sticking around to reach this point in my ridiculously long post. I hope we can all find a way to finally leave Baltimore and get on with our lives.