Nerding Out: SERIAL

So back in December we went home to Kansas for Christmas, and we thought, "Hey, we have 8 hours of driving on two different occasions...this is the perfect chance to listen to Serial!" So on the drive there, we listen to one episode and I'm already hooked, but Seth...he's not really into it. He doesn't want to listen to another episode, and he's the driver, so what he says goes. Plus, I think it makes him sleepy, and I prefer to not die in a car accident on I-70 because my husband fell asleep at the wheel because I was adamant about listening to a murder podcast. That's just not how I want to go out. So fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I decide that since I'm already listening to other podcasts as I get ready in the morning, it's time for me to start listening to Serial again, just on my own this time. I pick up on episode two, but don't finish it by the time it's time to leave, so I ask if we can finish it in the car, and he's okay with it. This is the first sign of hope. By the time we get to work, I have a slight inclination that he likes it. This suspicion is later confirmed when I get off of work, open the door to the car, and Seth immediately shoves his phone in my direction and yells "Serial!" No other words, just "Serial!"

Yessssssss. Since then we've been listening to it on our rides to and from work. We've been so obsessed that we were actually excited for the hour drive down to Aurora for Easter so that we could listen. When we got back from Aurora yesterday afternoon, we still had twenty minutes left in the very last episode by the time we pulled into our apartment parking lot, which is pretty much torture, and quite the dilemma. I mean, do we just awkwardly sit in our car in the parking lot for the next twenty minutes, do we go inside and listen, do we just wait until our car ride in the morning? Thankfully I didn't have to think about it for long, because as soon as he puts the car in park, Seth looks at the phone and then looks at me and shyly asks, "Do you want to drive around some more and listen?" Um, YES!!!

Now that we've finished, we're constantly theorizing about who did it and why, about things in the case that don't make sense or other things that are kind of fishy. We spent our entire lunch talking about it, and then our 2 year anniversary dinner (Yes, today is our 2 year anniversary) presenting all the new facts we each discovered throughout the day, because yes, we googled it. And not just any ol' google search with Reddit and Wikipedia sources. I mean, I'm a librarian, people. I know how to research. I'm talkin' lawyer blogs and original court transcripts. When I say nerding out, I mean NERDING OUT.

We joke about having a murder board in our guest room, like in Castle, with timelines and photos and red string everywhere. And by "joke about it" I mean, I "really, truly, do want to make a murder board." But I haven't admitted that to Seth yet. Plus, his best friend is visiting us this week, and it might be kind of awkward for there to be a murder board in the room where he's staying. We joke about starting a murder club, too, like in Gillian Flynn's book "Dark Places," where we all get together and pore over murder cases and try to solve crimes. I mean, I could totally solve murders as a hobby! Just maybe not as a job. Definitely not as a job.

So anyways, I thought that if I'm going to really nerd out about this like everyone else is, I might as well just share some of my theories. Not that they matter or that I even remotely have all the facts. Plus, I have completely lost track of which source says what, so you won't be getting a fancy "works cited," but hey, I might refer you to a couple places. And just a note, I'm pretty convinced at this point that Ahnan really is innocent, so none of my theories assume his guilt anymore. I'm thinking out of the box now. ;-)

Theory 1: Jay did it, and Jen knows more than she's letting on. The motive? He was cheating on Stephanie and Hae confronted him about it and threatened to tell her. At this point in his life, Stephanie was the best thing to ever happen to her, so when he realized he could lose her because of Hae, he snapped. Maybe he and Hae ran into each other during "the time frame," maybe they had arranged to meet. Maybe Hae wanted to buy some pot from him. Who knows? But what we do know is that Jay knows key details about the murder, and the entire case against Adnan hinged on the fact that Jay knew where Hae's car was dumped. He went back and forth on every other detail, but he knew where that car was. His story never completely matched with the cell phone records, and they only minutely began to line up after the detectives showed him the records. Even now, with his latest version, they don't completely line up. So what if all this time Jay is able to recount all of these details because it was him, not Adnon, who murdered Hae, and he's just changing the details as it's needed to exonerate himself. And Jen, Jen was the one who helped him dump the body, or at least get rid of his clothes as they both testified. There were a lot of calls between them that day, so it wouldn't be a stretch that she knows a lot more than she's pretending to.

Theory 2: Don, don don don. Don don don don doooooooon! I know the police ruled him out because he had a "solid alibi", according to their timeline, but I'm still not convinced it's as solid as it seems. First of all, his mom was his boss. Of course she vouched for him. What Mom wouldn't? And I don't doubt that he was at work until 6, not one bit. But somewhere along the way, someone left out Hae's friend's testimony that Hae told her she was going to go see Don after school that day. And let's not forget the note in Hae's car, to Don, that started "Sorry I couldn't stay..." Stay where? What are you referring to? Was she going to drive to the mall and leave the note on his car, referring to not staying over the night before? Did she go to the mall and actually see him there that day, and he failed to mention it so he wouldn't implicate himself? After all, he was way too quick to have a solid alibi. He said himself that he knew as soon as she was missing that as the boyfriend he'd need to have an alibi, the exact opposite of how Adnan reacted. And probably the exact opposite of how I would react. If my husband went missing, I'm not trying to come up with an alibi. I'm freaking out and trying to figure out where he is and what's happened. An alibi is the last thing on my mind, especially if I'm innocent. Also, this is a stretch, but I've seen on Reddit that there is a Don by the same name who graduated in 1995 whose father also happens to be a Baltimore cop. If that Don is the same Don, this opens a whooooooole new can of worms. I just think they dismissed the boyfriend far too quickly, and we just don't know enough information about him to be able to rule him out.

Theory 3: Dirty cops. Dirty lawyers. This isn't that much of a stretch. For example: this. It sadly isn't that uncommon for police officers to coerce a false confession, sometimes by a slip of the tongue with some key information, other times intentionally with threats of jail time...particularly where drug dealing is concerned. So maybe the cops have a lot of pressure on them to close the case and close it fast. Maybe they don't care so much about getting a true conviction and would settle for just a conviction. So when they start looking into Adnan and find Jay, he's like a gift from the gods. They tell him he can either serve the maximum sentence for dealing or testify what they tell him and serve no jail time at all. After all, it did work out quite nicely for him in the end, wouldn't you say? And not only were the cops dirty, so was the state's prosecution lawyer AND Jay's lawyer. As it's been touched on, it is completely unheard of for a prosecution lawyer to recommend a lawyer to a witness, and then have that witness's lawyer end up being conveniently pro-bono. At one point, Jay even approached the judge about withdrawing his plea bargain, claiming that his lawyer didn't seem to be working on his behalf, but rather the prosecution's. And in that meeting with the judge, where the prosecution lawyer opted out of his own presence there (which is the only instance which makes this meeting even legal, apparently), there is conveniently no record of what was said. This shady business should have been grounds for ANOTHER mistrial. And heck, let's not forget about the fact that once the cops honed in on Adnan as a suspect they just completely stopped pursuing any expulcatory evidence. Forget DNA, who needs that? We have Jay! And some cell phone towers!

I am more inclined to believe theory 3. Jay didn't do it, and neither did Adnan. The cops just wanted a closed case and they went for the easiest target. I've read about too many cases lately in which this exact scenario happens. The law isn't always just, nor honest. And honestly, every one keeps claiming that "Of course Adnon did it! How could anyone be that unlucky?!" But in reality, it's not a matter of luck, it's a matter of the law not doing its job honestly nor doing it well. The police did a bad job, literally everyone's  lawyer, including Adnon's, did a bad job. The judge did a bad job. The jury did a bad job. Even if Adnon really is guilty, he shouldn't have been convicted that day. There was too much reasonable doubt. There were a lot of missed leads and bad calls of judgement, and the real question in this case is, were they intentional?

So there ya have it, my OBSESSIVE theories. Are any of you as obsessed as I am? What are your theories? Have you thought these same things, too? And are you anxiously awaiting Adnan's appeals trial in June as much as I am??? Hurry up, June!!!