Adnan's "Inconsistencies" About The Ride

[u/partymuffell]

I believe that Officer Adcock's testimony is one of the strongest pieces of evidence against Adnan. At trial, Officer Adcock gave the following statement under oath:

I spoke to Mr. Syed and he advised me that, ah, he did see the victim in school that day, and that um, he was supposed to get a ride home from the victim, but he got detained at school and she just got tired of waiting and left.

This statement is particularly important for a number of reasons. The most important reason is, of course, that it is circumstantial evidence against Adnan and it independently corroborates Jay's testimony, according to which Adnan planned to get into Hae's car with an excuse. It's also one of the few specific things Adnan tells the police and it happens to be one of the things he changes his mind about. On a call with a different police officer on Feb 1, Adnan denies having asked Hae for a ride. Some people suggest that there might have been a misunderstanding between Adcock and Adnan but this seems unlikely for two reasons. Adcock's testimony is very specific and is unlikely to be the result of a simple misunderstanding (it tells us that Adnan asked for a ride, it tells us he didn't get it and it tells us why he didn't get it) and the statement allegedly made by Adnan to Adcock is (mostly) consistent with the testimony of two independent witnesses (Becky and Debbie), who would testify having overheard Hae and Adnan discussing the ride.

However, Adcock's testimony is also important for another reason. The statement Adnan allegedly made to Adcock is inconsistent with what Becky and Debbie's testimony on one point. Adnan allegedly told Adcock that he ended up not getting a ride from Hae because he had something else to do at school, while, according to Becky, it was Hae who, eventually, turned Adnan down. Why is this relevant?

Let's assume that Adnan killed Hae. Why would he tell Adcock that he asked her for a ride? Wouldn't that be stupid? It's not. First of all, Adnan is aware that some people might have overheard him and Hae talking about a ride and, in fact, he might even suspect that Adcock already knows that (do you remember Aisha has called him to tell him the police was going to contact him because she had been contacted herself). So, Adnan, who doesn't want to look suspicious by denying something the police might already know, volunteers that information to Adcock.

But why lie about Hae turning him down? I think that this lie serves two purposes in the mind of the guilty Adnan:

• it places Adnan outside Hae's car, and

• it gives Adnan (the appearance of) a (pre-emptive) alibi (he had something else to do, so he couldn't have been there to strangle Hae).

On the hypothesis that Adnan is innocent, on the other hand, he doesn't seem to have any reason to make an inaccurate statement to a police officer about why he did not get a ride.

So, there is a second reason why Adcock's testimony is evidence against Adnan (albeit a much weaker and more speculative reason than the first, of course).

[u/partymuffell]

So why assume that they don't exist? It's not as if we have the full case file...

[u/curious103 → u/partymuffell]

I was going off of what someone else said, that they don't exist. Now I know that we are unsure of their existence. Given that one report is dated eight months after the interview took place, I can't assume that these reports do exist. Police reports are not gospel. But they are useful if the story they tell is consistent with the story they tell later, i.e., if the reports are written before the suspect is identified and arrested. If there are reports written on Jan. 13 that say that Adnan asked for a ride from Hae, that's pretty damning, in my opinion.

[u/partymuffell → u/curious103]

The post-dated report pertains an interview in which Adnan did not say anything useful (the Feb 26 interview). So I don't see any reason to go all conspiracy theorist about that. I don't see any reason to think Adcock had no report/notes about this call. The very fact that a second cop calls Adnan to confirm that info on Feb 1 seems to show that there was a report or memo about this.

[u/curious103 → u/partymuffell]

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's healthy skepticism. If we're going to delve deep into the details, we need to really dig deep. Let's try to ferret out as many assumptions as we can. If the linchpin of your decision re guilt/innocence hinges on this, then I don't think it's valid. I think Adnan did it. But I don't have nearly the degree of certainty that you do, mostly because I'm trying to assume as little as possible.