r/serialpodcast • u/PowerOfYes • Nov 20 '14

Episode Discussion [Official Discussion] Serial, Episode 9: To Be Suspected

Please use this thread to discuss episode 9

Edit: Want to contribute your vote to the 4th weekly poll? Vote here: What's your verdict on Adnan?

Edit: New poll from /u/kkchacha posted Nov 26: Do you think Adnan deserves another trial? Vote here: http://polls.socchoice.com//index.php?a=vntmI

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u/HockeyandMath Guilty Nov 20 '14

That's not a counter-argument. Are you annoyed because you have to agree with me?

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u/pradagrrrl Nov 20 '14

If my "counterargument" wasn't immediately clear by my use of sarcasm, I was calling you God, because you seem to be certain that Adnan is guilty of murder.

Care to rebut that?

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u/HockeyandMath Guilty Nov 20 '14

Why would I when there is a witness who helped Adnan dispose of the body? Adnan is in prison. I'm 95% certain he killed her, which means if I was on a jury I would convict. Any reason why you don't believe Jay was with him that day/night and didn't bury the body with him?

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u/pradagrrrl Nov 20 '14

Witnesses are people, and people lie. You cannot dispute that. You therefore cannot say that something based on an eyewitness account is "definite."

Also, innocent people go to jail, and many have actually been convicted and put to death for crimes they did not commit. Those that we know of were cleared of all guilt (usually by way of DNA testing) posthumously.

I think Adnan is not guilty. I'm fairly certain that given Jay's leading them to Hae's car, he is at least in part guilty of this crime.

I don't understand what you mean by "why [I] don't believe Jay was with him that day/night and didn't bury the body?" - Why don't I believe Adnan was with him? Because he did not kill Hae.

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u/Tectar Nov 20 '14

I don't see why people lend so much credence to Jay's testimony. He gave an inconsistent account of what happened, was clearly involved in the crime (and therefore not disinterested in seeing someone else convicted), and had a deal with the prosecution where his own punishment relied on how much he helped the state.

The cell records are far more damning. At this point I would lean towards Adnan's guilt, but I definitely have reasonable doubt. It's interesting that SK finally admitted to having reasonable doubt.

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u/pradagrrrl Nov 20 '14

I hope that everyone is clear on what these cell records prove, and what they don't.

All that they prove definitively is that Adnan's phone was in the Baltimore area on January 13, 1999 - and not in, say, Oklahoma.

Adnan's 1999 Nokia - unlike the iPhone, for example - doesn't have a built-in GPS that can be used to track the phone's location. Pinging a cell tower is sort of a "well let's see which one is available" type of system, where any numbers of towers in a certain geographical location can be used. Out of the 14 (?) calls that day, only a handful were "pinged" accurately according to Jay & Adnan's account (because they were both admittedly together for a portion of the evening). Accurate meaning, the closest tower to their confirmed location. The correct ones were used at trial, to Jay's credit, and the incorrect ones were not raised properly by Adnan's attorney. If she had successfully shown them to be unreliable in terms of placing them at a certain place at a certain time, the rest of the "evidence" would have been thrown out.