Trial By Podcast

Welcome to the Chowbite Podcast. My name is Annarella. My name is Milena. And my name is Austin. We're going to talk about the Adnanside case and argue whether he's guilty or not. Lead us into the Seyo podcast by Seyo Koenig. She's an American journalist and radio personality. She used to do another podcast, but decided to start this one on her own. Okay, so episode one of the podcast starts with the introduction of the case against Adnanside. Allison, can you give a quick recap of the case? Yeah, sure. So it all started on January 13, 1999 in Baltimore. A girl named Hayman Lee disappeared after school. She was 18 years old and was found dead a month later, and she was strangled. Six weeks after they found her body, Adnanside was arrested, and he was Hay's ex-boyfriend. Of course they blamed the ex-boyfriend first. That's kind of typical. I feel like that's a little too obvious of who actually committed the murder. Girl, this isn't a movie where we guess who killed her. It could have been him. You never know. Okay, I guess you're right. But okay, moving on. So Adnan was known as the golden kid in his community. He was a football player, honor roll student, EMT, and a pretty likable kid. So everyone was pretty much surprised when he was arrested. No one thought he was capable of doing something like that. No, yeah, that does not sound like the characteristics of a murder. And also, he just seems like he's getting framed. Yeah, for real. But okay, Adnan and Hay had been dating since their junior prom, but Adnan was not allowed to date. They had to keep their relationship a secret from their parents. That was probably so difficult for them to do, so you could tell that their relationship was not like many others. They had to keep many secrets. Exactly. This is what the state used against him. They had said Adnan had risked everything for Hay by lying to his parents, and when she finally broke up with him, he was left with nothing, so he killed her. Honestly, I don't think that makes sense at all, because he didn't risk anything. He had his family and friends after Hay broke up with him, so he didn't lose anything. It's true. But okay, the second way that the state held this against him was by calling him a liar. They said things like, oh, he calls himself such a good Muslim kid, but in reality, he's out there partying, drinking, and dating Hay in secret. This really isn't anything crazy, though. He was just acting like a normal teenage kid, which doesn't make him a murderer. No, yeah, exactly. I personally don't think that this information made him look guilty, and the fact that the detective found no DNA, no fingerprints, and no footprints also made him look pretty innocent. Yeah, you're right about that. But Jay's story was pretty convincing that he was guilty. Whose story? Let me tell you. So Jay had gone to the authorities, claiming that Adnan had killed Hay. Mind you, Jay and Adnan were friends, but not close. They smoked weed together, and Jay was Adnan's supplier, but he had said that Adnan told him the day before that he was going to kill Hay. Um, first of all, why would Adnan tell Jay something so serious if they weren't even close? And second, why did Jay not tell the police right away? Well, Jay claims that he didn't think Adnan was being serious. He just thought that he was upset at Hay for some reason. That's a little weird, but okay. Jay's story was basically that Adnan had left his car and phone with him to hide the evidence. Later, Adnan would call Jay, asking to pick him up after he had committed the crime, but then Jay claims that he called him a best buy and saw Hay's dead body in the back of her trunk. They later buried her body and left it at a park. Wait, why did Jay even help Adnan in the first place? That literally makes him guilty too. That's true, but on the other hand, why would Jay be telling the cops something that connects himself to the crime as well? That just makes me believe that Jay is telling the truth and Adnan is actually guilty. I mean, he could have just told on himself, but it would have been worse if the investigators found the evidence of him helping to bury the body and Jay just keeping it a secret. So maybe Jay was trying to just come clean before it comes out in a worse way. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so now I'll give you Adnan's side of the story. So when Adnan heard Jay's story, he simply said that none of it was true. He said he had nothing to do with Hay's murder and that she was his first high school love. It wasn't anything crazy. He cared about her. He said he had no reason at all to want to kill her. You know, I want to believe him, but I just don't know. How can I be sure about anything when there's no actual evidence? Yeah, it's so frustrating not knowing what actually happened, but that's exactly how Adnan felt. He couldn't remember what happened on January 13th. Yeah, but think about it. How could he remember? Hay was gone a whole month after she was killed. How would he remember everything he did on that random day? No, yeah, if you would ask me what I did on January 13th, I wouldn't even remember, and it hasn't even been a month yet. Yeah, me neither. But anyways, Adnan said that all he remembers from that day was Jay picking him up after track practice, and he probably went to the library after school, but he couldn't remember correctly. According to Jay's story, he was dead at 2.36, which gave Adnan from the time he left school, which was at 2.15, to 2.36. That's 21 minutes he had to kill Hay. That's not a lot of time for him to have done everything Jay said, if you ask me. Yeah, it does seem like little time, but maybe it was perfectly planned. You never know. But okay, Asia had testified that she saw Adnan at the library around 2.30, and they talked for 10 to 15 minutes, which makes her an alibi. She said that she remembers talking to him because of the snow. School was cancelled after that day, so she remembered. So she wrote a letter telling Adnan that she saw him, and so did her boyfriend and his friend. Wait, that's really good information. That means he didn't do it, right? Because they found someone who knew what Adnan was doing after school? Well, actually, when Adnan had told his attorney, Christina Gutierrez, about Asia, she said that this information wouldn't help. And years after Adnan was arrested, Sarah tried to contact Asia, but she undermined her statement. She said that she only wrote Adnan a letter because his family pressured her. Yeah, but don't forget that she contacted Sarah after and said that she was spooked when they arrived at her house asking questions about Adnan. She confirmed that she did remember talking to Adnan on January 13th, but she had no idea if he was guilty or not. So Asia could have been an alibi, but no one checked into her story to confirm it, so they moved on. So in episode 2, they talked about Hay and Adnan's relationship. The state said that Adnan killed Hay because of his pride. He was embarrassed that she broke up with him, but everyone in Adnan's life said that both Adnan and Hay handled the breakup maturely. They were sad in the beginning, but then they moved on and remained friends. The detectives also found Hay's diary, and when she talked about Adnan, she only had good things to say about him. Some of her friends said that he was clingy and overprotective, but Hay never had an issue with it. Their relationship honestly just seems like a normal high school relationship to me. Yeah, it does. But Hay also wrote in her diary that she has a small crush on Don, who is an older guy, and she felt very guilty for liking someone when she was with Adnan. Oh my god, did she cheat on him? No, no, no. She broke up with him before she got with Don. But this was one of the motives that Jay had given when he testified. He said that Hay broke Adnan's heart, so he killed her. I don't really believe this, though, because everyone else said that Adnan was okay after the breakup, and that he even started flirting with other girls. Yeah, I don't know, but whatever. Jay also said that Adnan was planning on killing Hay in her car, so he had to find a way to get inside her car after school. Some of Hay's friends said that Adnan asked her for a ride after school, but Hay had told him that she had some things to do. You know what's weird, though? Adnan told one cop that he did ask Hay for a ride, but he told another cop that he didn't ask her for a ride because he had a car. This is weird because apparently Jay had Adnan's car. That is very suspicious, but then again, Adnan didn't remember exactly what happened that day, so it's not too weird. But okay, so in episode 3, another suspect comes up. Oh, really? Who? Mr. S. He became a suspect because he was the one who found the body. Hay's body was found in Lincoln Park in Baltimore, which was a place known for finding dead bodies, which is really creepy. Wait, what? That's crazy. Yeah, it is, but the craziest part was the fact that he found her in the first place. What do you mean? Because the texts were explaining how Hay's body was so hidden and disguised it was almost impossible to find her body, but Mr. S. did. Yeah, that is really weird, but maybe he was looking for her body or something. Like, maybe he heard about the crime and went looking for her. Yeah, maybe, but according to him, he just needed to pee on his work break, and the state determined that Hay's body wasn't too far into the woods, so his story checked out, so they moved on from Mr. S. After these two episodes, I just see the whole case as unfair. Anon said it had a bad attorney because she never looked at using agent information. Although, this doesn't stop me from thinking Anon had no part in it. Anon and Hay did have a long history, and they were broken up, but there is nothing that negative that occurred between them that makes me think Anon would murder her like that. Yeah, I get it. Well, after listening to all this evidence, I just keep going back and forth. There's times I think he's for sure innocent, but then I hear something that sounds super suspicious, so I think he's guilty. It's so confusing. No, it definitely is. But yeah, for example, in the beginning, I was like, why would such a good kid commit a crime that big? But then I heard Jay's story, and it was pretty convincing. Like, why would Jay include himself if he was heavily involved in the crime as well? But then I think, like, well, he could be a master manipulator and I wouldn't even know it, so who's lying? Like, they both sound super suspicious at times, but I think I'm leaning towards Anon being innocent right now, because there isn't actual evidence of Anon committing the crime. It's just Jay's word against his. Yeah, at some point I believed both Anon and Jay throughout these episodes, but I think I mostly trusted Anon, just because of the way he continued to deny everything that he was accused with. But some part of me says that he's just denying it because he may feel like it's too late to come clean, and it would make it look worse for him. Yeah, for real. But everyone's stories are just so different, so it's hard to trust what anyone says. My gut still tells me that Anon is innocent, though. After hearing Aja's testimony, how can you not think that he's innocent? She literally proved where Anon was at 236. Even though her story isn't confirmed, why would she lie about that? They weren't even friends, so why would she cover for Anon for no reason? So in episode 4, we learn more about Jay's story. Well, we actually learn another story instead. Wait, what do you mean? Okay, so basically Jen, who is one of Jay's friends, said that Jay had told her about Anon killing Hay. She said that Jay said he didn't help bury the body, but he was wiping the shovels clean and trying to clean up the tracks. This is just so weird to me, because why did he say that he helped bury her body before, but now, out of nowhere, he never helped? But he's helping clean Anon's tracks? Like, make it make sense, because it doesn't. No, for real. And the craziest part is that Jay went back to the station to testify, and a whole other story to match up what Jen was saying. Isn't that so suspicious, though? Like, how did the cops not question him for lying before, and why didn't Jay go to the cops right after Anon showed Hay's dead body? I mean, in cases like these, where there isn't much physical evidence and more of just relying on people's stories, inconsistencies are super common. So I guess the cops didn't see Jay changing his story a million times under a red flag. Well, Jay said that he was scared that Anon would throw him under the bus and lie, saying that he was the one who did it, since he already had a shady background. Jay would sell weed, so who's most likely to kill someone, the community's golden boy or the drug dealer? I mean, yeah, I understand him for that, but why is he still lying about what happened that day? Because if something that crazy happened to me, I would definitely remember every single detail. Well, Jay admitted to the lies and told the police that he didn't want to be associated with the crime, but in the first story he told, he was heavenly involved already, so why was he really lying? Honestly, I don't even know, but when Anon heard about all of this, he was confused as well. He said that he didn't know why Jay would lie about something like this, because there was no bad blood between them, they would just smoke weed together. You know, Anon was actually close friends with Jay's girlfriend, Stephanie, so maybe it was something with that. Yeah, maybe, who knows though. So in episode 5, Anon challenged Sarah to check the timeline of the murder, to see if going from Woodlawn High School to Best Buy and murdering Hay all in 20 minutes was even possible. Sarah finished the challenge in 22 minutes, but she said it was far-fetched. She said everything would have to happen perfectly with no mistakes and super quick. Honestly, the timeline to me doesn't seem realistic, Sarah even said it herself, he only had 3 minutes to kill Hay, put her body in the trunk and call Jay, it seems too rushed. No, yeah, it really does. And also the state was saying that Jay's story was corroborated by the cell phone records. But when Sarah looked over them, Jay's story only matched the cell phone records from 6pm to the end of the day. From 12 to 6, Jay's story does not match the records. I just find it weird why the state was so quick to blame Anon because of Jay's story without actual evidence that he was telling the truth. Like, it just all seems so suspicious to me. I found it confusing too, but thankfully Sarah made Episode 6 all about the case against Anon and what they used against him. There wasn't even much physical evidence, so most of it was stories from witnesses or friends of Anon and Jay. But like, the physical evidence they did find was Anon's handprint on a map in Hay's car, which was normal because they were friends and he was in her car multiple times before. Something else that made Anon look suspicious was that he couldn't remember what he did the day Hay disappeared. Everyone that was close to Hay or had some relation to her reached out and asked if they'd seen her on January 13th. Anon was one of those people, and he says the call was nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, you would think if an officer called you and asked if you'd seen one of your closest friends that day, you'd start to get worried and reach out to them yourself. I definitely would do that if I got a call asking where one of you guys were. But Anon said when he got the call, he just thought Hay was in trouble for not going home and her parents were going to be mad at her or something in that area. I guess that can be understandable, but he didn't even try to call her after that. He called Hay's house three times the night, but never after. And to make it worse, he was high when he got the call from Officer Adcock. An Anon was questioned why he never tried contacting Hay himself. He said he just got information from her friends. I don't really get how this makes up for him not trying to talk to her himself. Anyways, there was a report where a witness said that Anon showed Hay's body in the trunk. The witness told this woman named Laura, and she made the report. That looked really rough for Anon, but who knows? They could be lying or trying to put you on the story. Exactly, and when Sarah asked the boy herself, he said that he never saw a dead body, and he wasn't even friends with Anon, but he was friends with Jay. Oh yeah, so now I'm suspicious of Jay and this girl Laura was probably lying. There was also another one of Jay and Anon's friends named Kathy, who had suspicion on Anon. They both were at her house the day Hay disappeared, and Kathy reported they were high and acting weird. I mean, she said this after Anon was arrested, and Anon said that she wouldn't have given that day a second thought if he wasn't the one charged with Hay's murder. It does make sense for anyone to think back to that specific day and overthink everything that occurred, so Kathy may have been overreacting, saying they seemed panicked or worried. And Jen, who was another one of their friends, said that on January 13th, she picked up both Anon and Jay from the mall around 7, and neither of their clothes looked dirty, like they had just buried a body. Hmm, okay, so some people were saying that they seemed suspicious, while others were saying that they were acting normal. Yeah, taking people's opinions on such small details isn't much to rely on, but the investigators did dig up one thing that made Jay's story true, and Anon the liar. They found an Anon's cell phone call log, which there was a visual provided at SerialPodcast.org, and an outgoing call to Nisha at 3.32pm on January 13th. Nisha testified that she talked to both Jay and Anon on the phone. This call is the biggest thing that connects Anon to Jay's story, because every other call was Jay's friend. Yes, exactly! That call puts together Jay and Anon at that time, just like Jay said. Jay supposedly had Anon's phone, and six of the calls are people Jay knows, but that one call only Anon knows. Anon said he was not with Jay at that time, but the two-minute log call proves otherwise. That's most of the evidence the state used against Anon. Anon said he didn't want to be felt bad for, or for the people to say that he was a nice guy and I wouldn't have expected this from him, but he wanted people to look at this case in its entirety and point out the flaws and the unfairness in the trials. With looking at all the evidence, it may seem like Anon was the easiest person to blame for the murder, and after picking everything, it was more of just one person's word against the other mixed in with a lot of lies. So in the seventh episode, Sarah wanted more people's point of view on the case, so she got to talking to a lawyer named Deirdre and some students. She asked them to re-investigate the case themselves. The lawyer was saying that when her clients are usually innocent, they are no help to the case because they remember so little. This is what's happening for Anon. Even though they don't know if he's guilty or not, he does not remember much of what happened during this time. Yeah, so for example, Anon claims to have been in his track meeting, but there was a phone call to Nisha during that time, which is someone only Anon knew. This makes the story not seem credible. However, he doesn't even remember his story correctly because it was a normal day according to him. Another lawyer was saying that the court didn't even have enough evidence to put Anon into jail, which is crazy. Sarah brought up the idea that it may have been racially profiling, but she speaks about this in more detail later on. The students and Deirdre began to re-investigate Anon's case and didn't find Anon guilty, and even the evidence found around his body like the liquor bottle and the rope was not tested because they didn't believe that it was relevant. Every case does have their hiccups, but in this case, someone was put to life in prison, so I don't find the little mistakes fair at all. Yeah, and this whole case is weird because the police barely investigated anything, and the court just accused Anon and put him into jail without barely any evidence at all. Finally, after listening to all these episodes and all this talk about Jay, Sarah tries to reach out to Jay in episode 8 for an interview. I know, I was waiting to hear from him too because the way people say certain things changes how it can be told. But the second Sarah told us that he said no to an interview, I immediately started to blame him because it makes him look bad. I mean, he could just be tired of talking about it, or the bad memories are just too much causing him not to want to talk about it. Yeah, and at the time, Stella, a jury member that believed Anon was guilty, said that she believed Jay because she thought Noah would ever admit to having been involved in the hiding of a dead person's body without it being true. What's crazy is that he didn't go to jail at all, even though he admitted to being involved in a murder. No for real, I was so mad about that because they were so quick to put Anon into prison, but Jay got no time at all. Yeah, that is crazy, but okay, so Chris, one of Jay's friends, told the story of what happened that day in the way Jay told him personally. He starts out by saying Jay did tell him that Anon killed Hay. However, Chris says that Jay said it was done in the public library parking lot instead of the dead spy parking lot. Chris also explained that Jay said Anon threatened to hurt Stephanie if Jay didn't help him and to keep his mouth shut. Chris said that Jay would've done anything for Stephanie. I mean, an ultimatum of choosing your girlfriend getting killed or burying a body is very odd. Jay's friends also said that he had a reputation for lying, but not lying for something that big. Jay's friends were all shocked at Jay's involvement because they said that he was a calm and chill person. Something that did make me believe Jay for a second was when Sarah described how Jay had a hard time being in court and he was even crying at times. We never hear anything about Anon crying or having strong emotions. Actually, in episode 9, we hear about when Anon cried with Hay's friends when they announced that her body was found. Oh yeah, but he was also in denial. He called the police station to talk to the two detectives and say that they had found the wrong body because there's no way Hay had died. Okay, so back to the case. Laura, one of Jay's friends, says that there is no phone booth at Best Buy, and this is where Jay said that Anon had called him to pick him up after murdering Hay. Jay even reiterates that it was at Best Buy and the Intercept, with an interview between him and Natasha Vargas Cooper. How did the cops miss the fact that there is no pay phone? That's a huge mistake coming from them. Sarah says that this is a big deal because this is where the 236 call happened. The one where Anon tells Jay to pick him up. Also, the time they think Hay was murdered was also wrong. Summer, one of Hay's acquaintances, says that on January 13th, she said she was positive she talked to Hay for like 10 minutes after school. Did they just not take these witnesses into account? It seems like the state just used the evidence to help the case against Anon and ignored the flaws in the story, not letting up. Yeah, it makes me feel bad for Anon. When he was put in jail, he didn't think he was willing to stay there forever, and in trial, he didn't even get to defend himself, and it was frustrating not being able to do so. I can't imagine trying to hold on to truth or not being able to talk for myself, because he was even advised to not testify by his attorney. Well, we don't know for sure if what he was saying was true, but yeah, if it was, then I feel bad too. But anyways, when Anon got put into jail for life, he would write letters to Krista about how he was getting accustomed to prison. Yeah, he even only got one infraction in prison, which the guards had said was impressive, and it was just for hiding a phone for five years. Anon always got rewards for good acts in prison, and he made a life for himself there. He explained how it wasn't the life he expected, but it was a good life. Even though Anon was not fully hating prison, he didn't like that he was in there because the judge believed that Anon had planned everything. She said you used your charm, your intellect, and your strengths to manipulate everyone, including Hay. She got this from Jay, because according to Jay in The Intercept, he says after the breakup, from the way he carried himself, at least, it looked like he had never lost anything before, and it was really hard for him to deal with being on the losing end. In the situation, he was the loser, and people were starting to find out he was the loser. Anon explained that he had to stay calm because he considered himself lucky. His family visits, and he had been working on becoming a better Muslim the past few years. He says that he has a clear conscience because he knows he didn't murder Hay. He also blames himself for making stupid decisions like leaving his car and phone with Jay. At this point, he just needed to watch out who he got close to. Or maybe he just got thrown into this mess. Or maybe he's just very good at lying. In episode 10, Sarah shared the details between Anon and his lawyer, Christina Gutierrez. Christina was persistent in exposing Jay's story and revealing that he was lying, but the jurors believed Jay because they didn't think that he would get up on the stand and admit to what he had done and expose his friend that they were lying. You never truly know people. Jay could have been a backstabber. Yeah, that's true. But Christina and I tried to expose the fact that the call records didn't match up with Jay's story from 12 to 6. Sarah says that she doesn't understand why she didn't try to use this against him. Well, she then finds something out about Jay's lawyer, which she tells Anon what helped him tremendously in the trial. It was that Jay was given an attorney from the state and Jay himself didn't even know that was a bad thing or saw any benefit from it, so it was overruled. Anon had even asked Christina to seek plea like two times, which she never did. He said that he was afraid because his family and the amount of time he would have to stay in prison. He explained how since he was innocent, there's a low chance of him getting out, but if he had pleaded guilty, then maybe he would have had a chance to serve his time and finally get out of there. Yeah, so Christina tried her best, but in the end, she never was able to get justice for Anon. The whole thing just seemed like they arrested Anon mainly on Jay's story when there were so many other witnesses, weird calls, and unmatching stories that Christina never got to. I wonder what would happen if he got a different lawyer and how different his life would be. Yeah, it would probably be a lot different. But okay, now moving on to episode 11. We find out that there were rumors about Anon saying that he was a psychopath and manipulated people. Yeah, we also find out a rumor that Anon would steal from the mosque. There were many people that saw him take the money and that he took like thousands of dollars each week. I get why they would think he was a bad guy because of taking the money, but that's completely different from murdering someone. Yeah, and he admitted to taking the money, but the priest said there was no way he could have taken that much money. Maybe just like $20 or $40. He even said that he felt guilty for it, so I agree. I don't think he could have done it either. Yeah, but there were still people in town thinking that he snapped and did it or that he could have killed her and that members, like Amnesia. But even in prison, he behaved good. Yeah, so in episode 12, we find out that Hay wanted to hang out with Don, but he said that he couldn't. He had to go to work. Oh yeah, and I remember that she left a note in his car saying that she had to go to a wrestling match. So I feel like that kind of proves that she was there after school. And when they were asked about the day, Don and Anon acted differently. So Don was trying to help and retrace his steps, but Anon wasn't. So that made him a little suspicious. Yeah, but they had thought that she was just visiting her dad. It's crazy that even Don thought Anon was a good guy and the state made him look like a horrible person. Yeah, but unlike Don, Josh, Jay's coworker, claimed that Jay was scared of him and feared his safety. He also couldn't believe that Jay had helped bury the body. Yeah, but something that made him look suspicious was the phone call with Nisha. It puts together Anon and his phone and connects Jay with Anon. Yeah, but Nisha said that she remembers Anon putting Jay on the phone, but she remembers it happening outside the video store. Jay only got his job after January 13th. So who called Nisha that day? Yeah, and Sarah had confirmed that the call could have been a bug dial, but this would mean that the phone rang for 2 minutes and 30 something seconds. Jay's story did not add up with the phone records. Oh my gosh, there is so much evidence that leads to his innocence, but at the same time, there is evidence that leads to him being guilty. Everyone's stories are just so different. Yeah, the case is so confusing. Even professionals found the case messy with many holes, and the only certainty was that Jay knew the location of Jay's car. A couple months later in February, Sarah had made an update to the podcast. And the craziest thing is that in 2022, Anon got out of prison. Dun dun dun. I'm happy he's free and can finally live his life outside of jail, but people still think it wasn't right to let him out. But, I mean, if he is guilty, hopefully he learned his lesson after 20 years in prison. Yeah, and they had found 2 more suspects that had a connection to Hay's case. I read an article that also said that there were flaws found in the evidence. Yeah, there was lack of evidence and a lot of other messed up information. His case was a mess. Yeah, and the new technology used helped find DNA that supported his innocence. I was also reading another article that said if Anon is found innocent, he could get around 2.2 million dollars. He might also get up to 5 years of education, a place to live, job training, and at least 5 years of healthcare. Plus, he could get back any money he had to pay for court fines, fees, or restitution. Oh my god, that's so good for him. But the case was never solved, and Hay hasn't gotten justice. So I guess that's the end. Thank you for listening to our podcast. I hope you enjoyed it.