Crime Weekly - S2 Ep100: Hae Min Lee & Adnan Syed: Asia's Alibi (Part 6)

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

It was an unseasonably warm January afternoon in Baltimore County, Maryland when 18-year-old Woodlawn High School senior Hae Min Lee left school in her gray 1998 Nissan Sentra and headed out to pick up her six-year-old cousin from kindergarten before going to her job at the local LensCrafters. But sometime after leaving Woodlawn High School and before picking up her little cousin, Hae Min Lee vanished into thin air. Less than a month later, maintenance worker Alonzo Sellers was driving back to his job at Coppin State College and drinking a beer when he realized he had to use the bathroom, and it couldn’t wait. Mr. Sellers pulled over on the side of the road and walked deep into the woods to relieve himself, at which point he made a gruesome discovery. According to his later testimony, Mr. Sellers said quote, “when I looked down I seen something that looked like hair, something that was covered by dirt. And I looked real good again, and that’s when I seen what looked like a foot” end quote. Alonzo Sellers had stumbled upon the body of Hae Min Lee, she had been strangled to death by the bare hands of her attacker, and within a few weeks, the police would make an arrest for her murder. But, the suspect was a person that no one would have suspected capable of such a horrific crime, the ex-boyfriend of Hae, a sweet and smart 17-year-old named Adnan Syed. But, stay with us, because, it’s complicated… Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod Ads: You’ve earned your fun time. Go to the App Store or Google play to download Best Fiends for free. Plus, earn even more with $5 worth of in-game rewards when you reach level 5. That’s Friends, without the r—Best Fiends. Go to HelloFresh dot com slash crimeweekly65 and use code crimeweekly65 for 65% off plus free shipping! Help your family share their story this holiday season with StoryWorth. Go to StoryWorth dot com slash crimeweekly today and save $10 on your first purchase! That’s S-T-O-R-Y-W-O-R-T-H dot com slash crimeweekly to save $10 on your first purchase!  PDS DEBT is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at www.PDSDebt.com/crime. That’s P-D-S-D-E-B-T.com/crime. Take back your financial freedom today by visiting PDSDEBT.com/crime. This holiday season, trade late nights for silent nights and get started with Stamps dot com today. Sign up with promo code CRIMEWEEKLY for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, plus free postage, and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps dot com, click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code CRIMEWEEKLY.

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So today we are hopping into part six of the Hey Min Lee and Adnan Syed series. We have some stuff to talk about today. And I'm really, really excited to dive in because these are things that people, I mean, specifically this one topic, people have been kind of asking, like, when are you going to talk about it? When are you going to talk about it? And I know some of you are acting like I'm just avoiding it, even though I've told you I'm not avoiding it. I was just waiting for the right time. And today, tonight, depending on when you're listening or watching this, it's the right time.

But before we do dive into that, I know Derek, you wanted to talk a little bit about our trip to Utah and Intermountain Forensics, which was a very great experience for us. Well, great experience. Intermountain Forensics was awesome. The lab was awesome. I know that was your first experience with something like that, great experience. Intermountain Forensics was awesome. The lab was awesome. I know that was your first experience

with something like that, right? Yeah. So she was like a kid in a candy store. It was awesome. Playing in the lab coat and everything. It was really great. And just a quick update for you guys on Preble Penny. If you're following us on social,

you saw that video where you see the scientists actually grinding up the bone a little bit. There's a fan sucking up the bone dust, and that's how they gather it and mix it up and that's how they extract the DNA it's more complicated than that but to kind of just summarize it they've already done that part they've already started doing like the genome sequencing to get a full DNA profile they'll send that off to moxie forensic investigations which is kind of like the DNA detectives. And they'll use the DNA

profile established from Intermountain Forensics to compare it to different databases that they have to try to find a familial match. And then they can start making calls. And from what he told us, from what Danny told us, and we're not going to hold him exactly to this, but he said approximately four weeks from now, we may have a name of Preble Penny for Preble Penny to know who she really is and maybe reach out to family members at that point. Yeah, absolutely. And Derek's funny. He's like, we're not going to hold Danny to anything. But when we were at Intermountain Forensics, Derek was like, so when's this going to happen? So when are we going to get some? Yeah, I was.

Super impatient. So let the process happen. I think I'm actually feeling very optimistic about it, especially since going to the lab, seeing how professional they were, how they really know their stuff. They have it together. And it looks, you know, understanding more about the technology gives you more comfort, I suppose, because you kind of know, like, this is very cutting edge and they were talking about working with what paleolithic uh dna like ancient dna so if they can get if they can get dna from you know bones that are thousands tens of thousands of years old then there's a lot of hope that they can get some sort of dna from prebble penny and we can give her her name back which is ultimately what everybody in the situation wants to do so So we're definitely excited about it. Follow us on Instagram or social media for more updates. We do have updates as well on our website for criminal coffee. And, yeah, just, you know, if you want to donate, you can go to IntermountainForensics.com and donate. Or you can buy our coffee.

And a portion of the proceeds does go to, you know, helping people and cases like Preble Pennies. Yep, exactly. So we will keep you updated. And she's right. We actually recorded a lot of video while we were out there. We're not going to put that in here. Follow us on social, check out the website. We're going to put some stuff together, put it out to you guys. So you can see the updates there. The only thing we're really praying or hoping that we don't have happen. The one thing that could hinder our ability to find out who she is, they said bacteria. Depending on how the DNA was preserved over the years, if there's a lot of bacteria in there, it could cause some complications. But he did say that even if that happens, there are some methods they can try.

So we're hoping for not a lot of bacteria in there and just pure DNA and then we should be okay. So check that out. Also Also second note for criminal coffee. We know the holidays are right around the corner as we're recording this episode. It's November 14th. Coffee's flying off the shelves. We got it in stock right now. We appreciate all the support. We want to say thank you as well, especially we want you to have criminal coffee for Thanksgiving. So as you're seeing this, if you use the code the code turkey it's gonna be right here on the screen if you go to criminal coffee cocom use the code turkey you're gonna save 10% off your order so 10% off to single bags double bags wherever you buy but if you buy the

bundle that's already discounted it this is an additional discount on top of that so really good deal again code turkey have some criminal coffee for your for your during the holidays. They can try it out for the first time and you can tell them the story of what we're doing and what our mission is. It's kind of a pretty good conversation, right? Not a bad one. Be cool to talk about. That's what I'm going to be talking about on Thanksgiving. Nobody's going to get away. Nobody's going to get away from my DNA conversations about sperm cells and skin cells and everyone's going to hate me, but it's going to happen. I'm with you. Hey, listen, we're working on the holidays too.

Absolutely. And for anybody who's watching on YouTube, I'm just going to answer this question because I know a lot of people are going to, because you guys are super observant, by the way. That's why we got a bunch of undercover pineapples watching us because you guys are so observant. This is a homemade splint on my pinky. I don't want to

answer everybody's comments in YouTube in the comment section. I hurt my finger when I was boxing on Sunday and I made a splint out of Q-tips and tape and I'm just kind of like propping it up and keeping the swelling down and hoping that I don't have to do anything further and that it just heals itself. So nothing serious. Also, my jaw, I got punched. My jaw's a little swollen, but that's it. Everything else is great. She got out of line in Utah, guys. She got out of line in Utah. I had to crack her one. This is what happens when we're in person. Different story in person. You can't even make jokes like that.

Obviously, I'm joking for everybody out there. We're not making light of the situation we're like brother and sister we joke like that but but no i mean it's that's something and so we have that and also didn't you want to also address another comment it was a good comment from a former prosecutor it kind of uh we talked a lot last week about miranda rights and that's why we read the comment so i'll let you take it from there. But it was a pretty good comment. You sent it to me and made a lot of sense. Yeah. So this actually wasn't a comment on the video. This was a review like on Apple podcast because I do. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I do like to read those as well. And let me just read it to you really quick because it'll make more sense about how we were kind of discussing,

you know, why were the police allowed to talk to Adnan without his parents or without a lawyer, considering he was juvenile, he's a minor under the age of 18. How was he allowed to even, um, waive his own rights at that point? We were very curious. So this, um, it's five star review. Thank you by the way. Shout out to Dave C from Rhode Island, your neighborhood. So it says- Oh, he's from Rhode Island. Yeah. Oh, I probably know who this is.

Oh, that's not helping it make it seem like we have people out there who are just giving us unbiased great reviews, Derek. No, but Dave C, former prosecutor, I'm sure. I actually, David C? Yeah, Dave C. I'm 99% sure I know who this is, but I'm not going to say his last name. I'll say it off camera, but I'm pretty sure I know who this is.

All right. Well, Dave C says, top-notch coverage from a former prosecutor. You guys are great, and the coverage of the two cases I've listened to, Casey Anthony and Adnan, is the most detailed I've heard. It's also obvious you both make an earnest attempt to objectively analyze these cases. Just one FYI as I listen to episode five of the Adnan coverage, this is relative to how Miranda rights apply to juvenile interrogations. At the time of Adnan's interrogation, Maryland had no state law requiring parental presence prior to waiver of Miranda rights. Unless state law specifically requires parental involvement prior to waiver of Miranda rights, I believe California

had such a law, minors can waive Miranda rights. In Rhode Island, for example, whether a minor validly waived Miranda is a totality of the circumstances test. So a 13-year-old with no prior interactions with law enforcement would definitely have to have parental involvement but a 17 year old who appeared intelligent and without obvious cognitive issues could likely weave without such parental presence such a minor point and not meant to criticize your phenomenal effort here at all halfway into this episode and i can't wait for more coverage thank you d, Dave C. Rhode Island. Thank you, Dave C. Definitely a very enlightening thing to hear. I mean, I still don't necessarily

agree with that, but- Yeah, we both said that. Yeah, it should be, I agree with your assessment where the laws are the laws, so it should be more black and white with this too. There shouldn't be, I think I was saying earlier, like the subjectivity on the part of the police where the way they interpret it, it's like, hey, he's okay to or she's okay to give a statement and waive her rights. We think she was fine at the time or he was fine. It's got to be more black and white where there's a definitive way of saying, hey, this is what it is. This is what it is. And we make everyone else abide by the laws.

There should be something more specific for us. But overall, it looks like totality of the circumstances, which we kind of said last week, where if there's a sense of urgency, but it's even more deeper than that, where if the person is 17 and six months and they've been in trouble before and they kind of understand the system and they're cognitively okay, based on, I guess, the assessment of the police, they can interview them and allow them to waive their rights without their parents present, which we both agree that that shouldn't be the case. It's just too subjective to me. It's too subjective. Yeah. It's too subjective. And that does allow police to kind of take advantage of that loophole. And we will reiterate it again from someone who's covered true crime for a long time and

former detective. We both strongly recommend that in any case, no matter what it is, if you're being questioned by law enforcement, there's nothing wrong with having an attorney present and you should under all circumstances have an attorney present. It's free legal advice and if not free, relatively cheap to have someone there to make sure they're explaining what's happening so that you don't get yourself in more trouble. So definitely, if you take anything from that, when in doubt, have an attorney there. Yeah.

And if you're not in a great financial position and you can't pay for an attorney, you are entitled to a public defender and you can just tell the police. And that's not an easy process either. You know, it's not a quick process getting a public defender, but you can just tell the police like, hey, I'm not going to talk to you until I get my public defender here, whether it takes five hours or five days. I don't care, but I'm not going to speak to you with the one person who believed that they had seen Adnan Syed on January 13th, 1999, right at a crucial time where a verified alibi may have seen him completely cleared of all charges. This person's name was Asia McLean. She was also a student at Woodlawn High School, and she claims to have

seen Adnan at the Woodlawn Public Library on the afternoon that Hayman Lee went missing. Asia knew Adnan because she had previously dated a boy named Justin who was friends with Adnan, but Asia wasn't in the magnet program, so she and Adnan were not close friends. They just kind of knew each other peripherally through other people. But before we talk about that, we need to talk about Adnan's first lawyer. Well, it wasn't technically his first lawyer. She was his lawyer for his first trial. But we need to talk about how she came to be hired and how she decided to represent him, which has come into question the way that, you know, Adnan was represented during this first trial, which ended up in his conviction. Christina Gutierrez was, as Rabia Chaudhry describes her, a legend in the criminal defense

world. She was a well-known activist in the Baltimore area. She was known to be tireless in trying her cases. She rarely took a plea deal, and she had a reputation for being a tenacious attorney who would fight fiercely for her clients. Gutierrez graduated from the University of Baltimore Law School in 1980. She began working for the Public Defender's Office in Baltimore after a brief clerkship with Judge William H. Murphy Jr. And after several years in the public defender's office, Gutierrez left to join the private firm Murphy & Associates. And if that Murphy name sounds familiar, it's because it was headed by the same judge that she had clerked for before her public defender days. And she did very well in this private

practice, and she made partner in the firm by 1993. That changed the name of the firm to Murphy and Gutierrez. But within two years, she was leaving the firm, and it's kind of not clear what happened. Christina Gutierrez made it seem like it was a mutual decision, but apparently during another case of hers that she was trying around the time that she left the firm, she told the judge that she had been kicked out of her office with not a lot of time to prepare for that. And so this was kind of getting in the way of her defending her client and she needed extensions and things like that. So what's true, we don't really know. Was it mutual or was she kind of removed? By 2001, the Maryland Court of Appeals was announcing Gutierrez's disbarment

after dozens of client complaints that she'd been paid for work, that she was not completing, and an investigation into those complaints would not end up being done because Gutierrez had agreed to the disbarment, and she cited several health issues. According to Gutierrez's son, his mother began suffering from multiple sclerosis in 1999, and her health issues were

complicated by diabetes, causing her to start losing vision and experience memory complications. By 2003, she was in a wheelchair and unable to remember her son's name. And sadly, Christina Gutierrez passed away on January 30, 2004, after suffering a heart attack. So in 1999, reportedly right as Gutierrez was beginning to experience these MS symptoms, she was hired to represent two witnesses who'd been called to testify during the grand jury trial for Heyman Lee's murder. And these two witnesses were Saad Chaudhry, who we know was Adnan's best friend and Rabia Chaudhry's little brother, and another young man named Bilal Ahmed, who was reportedly Adnan's mentor at his mosque.

Now, Bilal is a separate discussion all on his own. There is a lot there that we need to talk about in a future episode, but I will quickly read to you a passage from Rabia Chaudhry's book, Adnan's Story, where she describes who Bilal was to Adnan and to the community that Adnan belonged to. Rabia writes, quote, Bilal Ahmad took the lead in organizing community support. A self-styled youth leader, Bilal was of Pakistani descent, had been raised in Saudi Arabia,

and moved to Maryland to study at the University of Maryland Baltimore campus. He was half or dozen years or so older than the kids he mentored at the local mosque, and as far as most of the kids in the community, well, he annoyed the fuck out of us. Bilal did himself no favors by refusing to look the other way. He strutted around campus with I'm too sexy buttons on his backpack, keeping an eye on kids in the community and making sure their secrets were not kept, end quote. Rabia makes it seem like Bilal was some kind of snitch and these kids in the Muslim community, he was kind of watching them.

He was like mentoring them and telling them how to stay on the right path, but he was also kind of watching them. And if they stepped out of line or they were doing something that, you know, their parents wanted to prove of, Bilal would sort of like run to the parents and tell them and get these

kids in trouble. And Rabia kind of made it seem like everybody, or at least the young kids, they kind of didn't like him and they tried to avoid him and the parents kind of felt like he was their inside man. But despite Adnan's other friends from the mosque and the Muslim community like Sa'd kind of wanting to stay clear of Bilal, Adnan became close friends with this alleged mentor and for some reason when it came to Adnan, Bilal acted completely contrary to the way that he did with everyone else.

According to Rabia, he actually kept Adnan's secrets and would even sometimes cover for Adnan. So for instance, if Adnan wanted to go out and drink with his friends or get high or see a girl, Bilal would agree to tell Adnan's parents that, you know, he was with me, even though he knew that he wasn't, which is kind of crazy because he seems like he's a snitch with everyone else. But with Adnan, no, he's like covering for him and almost enabling him. And according to Rabia, when Adnan's mother had found out that Adnan was seeing Hay, she'd reached out to Bilal, hoping to enlist his help in ending the relationship,

not realizing that Bilal was actually enabling Adnan's bad behavior. And when Adnan was arrested, Bilal took the lead on gathering the community together and raising money for Adnan's bad behavior. And when Adnan was arrested, Bilal took the lead on gathering the community together and raising money for Adnan's legal fees. He hired the initial two lawyers who kind of helped Adnan in the early stages, like when he was arrested and things like that. But eventually, he also hired Cristina Gutierrez to represent Adnan in the trial. And you know, at this point, Christina Gutierrez was a very huge lawyer. Like probably if you were in Adnan's position and you said, who do we need? Christina Gutierrez would be the answer. It wasn't like they cheaped out.

It wasn't as if she was just the best they could get. She was the best for his situation. In the aftermath of his arrest and trials and tribulations, Adnan seems to have gained some better insight into his old friend, with Rabia mentioning in her book, quote, Adnan now describes Bilal as a real-life fagin from Oliver Twist, encouraging kids' corruption while protecting his own reputation, feigning self-righteousness to cover misdeeds. Adnan and the other kids knew things about Bilal that the rest of us didn't. So maybe that newfound perspective comes from the things that Bilal Ahmed would go on to do.

Ahmed would go on to become a dentist in Washington, D.C. He would open his own office called Universal Smiles, and then in 2017, he would be charged with sexually assaulting five of his patients and one of his employees while they were under sedation between the years 2010 and 2014. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Marcus Kern alleged that Ahmed preyed on his male patients, who he had identified as being gay. And this all came to light when one man went in to have a tooth extracted. He was given nitrous oxide to be sedated for the procedure. And he woke up to find the gas mask was like pushed off his face. And his dentist, Bilal Ahmed, was forcing him to perform

oral sex on him. And it's pretty messed up, okay? This doesn't seem to be the first time that Bilal has done something like this. In fact, in 1999, he didn't end up showing up to Adnan's first trial. He was there and he did testify during the grand jury. And like I said, we're gonna talk about this later, but he wasn't around for the first trial

because he like took off because he'd been accused of assaulting two men. So it kind of looks like this is something that he was doing in a pattern. And when he apologized to his victims, Ahmed said, quote, I feel the shame to err is human to forgive divine end quote it's also worth noting that balal ahmad was very close to adnan which we will talk about when we discuss him in more detail and his grand jury's testimony later on and balal was actually the one who signed for adnan's cell phone just the day before hayman lee went missing so because adnan was under the age of 18 and cell phones were a very new thing, he would need somebody, an adult, to basically co-sign or put the cell phone into, you know, their name or have it in Adnan's name, but co-sign for it. Like if he doesn't pay the bills, I'll pay the bills. And this is what Bilal did for him. And as a result of Bilal Ahmed being

so very integrated into this case the police actually subpoenaed his cell phone records which we do find a lot of interesting things scattered amongst them as well and like i said we'll talk about this in in a different video but it does seem like a lot of people are talking about balal ahmed now as if he may be an alternate suspect and i'm completely on board for that because there's something not right about this person. Now, whether he worked in coordination with somebody else, with Jay, with Adnan himself, I don't know. But I think that Bilal Ahmad definitely knew more than he ever said. Yeah, I can see. And especially when you have this history afterwards

where this is the first time he's caught, but this may not be the first time he acted this way. As far as I see his name all the time in the comments, I know that's definitely something we're going to cover. As far as his contributions in Heyman Lee's murder, which is what we're here for, it is a possibility for sure. We'll save that when we dive into him specifically. But I will just reiterate the fact that it's my opinion that Jay Wilds was definitely involved with, at minimum,

the disposal of Hayes' body. I don't think that he got that secondhand. So if we're to believe that Bilal is involved, he was coordinating with, at minimum, Jay Wilds. And I would love to know their relationship outside of Adnan because they would have had to have been working together. Just a reminder, Jay had guilt knowledge that he would not have had unless someone told it to him or he did it himself. So if Bilal is involved, he had to have worked in conjunction with Jay at some point. So that would be interesting to see the correspondence between him and Jay. Was there any previous relationship, any type of phone calls between the two? All that good stuff.

But that is interesting, and it's going to have to tie back to Jay some way, because I don't necessarily know. If they don't have a previous relationship, was Bilal comfortable enough to tell Jay what he did to Hay? That would be something worth following up on for sure. They definitely knew each other. They definitely had some sort of relationship. I doubt that either one of them would admit at this point if it was a very close relationship.

I don't think they would probably admit that. But yes, they definitely knew each other. And we will talk about that. But first, I want to take a quick break. We want to get the break out of the way. And I want to come back and talk about Christina Gutierrez a little bit more before we go forward. All right, so we're back from break. The other thing too, because it's so hard not to go down this rabbit hole right now, right? But also, if that's the case, then you have to ask yourself,

if Bilal told Jay what he had done, why would Jay cover for Bilal and say it was Adnan? So that's another question I would have. Why wouldn't he just say Bilal told me that he had strangled her, that he had, you know, the windshield wiper, you know, handle had gotten broken. Why change the name? And why would you implicate one of balal's closest friends so just these are like questions that you have to common sensically you have to ask because it doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface unless balal had turned on adnan as well and this was some collaborative effort between balal and jay to frame adnan which has anybody said i mean is that a crazy theory or

do people think that that's possible? Yeah, of course people think that's possible. I'm not sure what the motive would be. And like, yes, you're right. It's hard not to go down this path now because it is such. Yeah, I'll stop. No, it is such an interesting, you know, look at this. And it's an interesting take at this.

In fact, I will say that I've never really heard about this Bilal figure until recently after everything's kind of been going down. And it's interesting to me that he's never been really brought up before when he looks like somebody that's so, so suspicious. But my question would be, why was his relationship with Adnan different than with the rest of the Muslim youth in his community? Why was Adnan special to him where he was willing to not only overlook the bad things that Bilal was this, you know, big snitch just trying to keep like, you know, putting on this face of like being self-righteous and, you know, like this, this good, pure Muslim man. Why was his relationship with Adnan different? What did they share that allowed him to feel more safe or allowed Adnan to feel more safe with Bilal? That's that's the question that I would would wonder about. What made Ad more safe with Bilal? That's the question that I would wonder about. What made Adnan different from Bilal? And Rabia's defense, it's confirmed. It's confirmed that at minimum,

he definitely was facilitating behavior that wasn't approved by his parents. We have it right here, black and white. If I'm assuming Adnan's parents didn't want him having a cell phone or he would have went to them to have them sign for it. I'm assuming Bilal knew this and yet still signed for him so he could get the phone behind their backs. So here's one, just one example that you can trace back and see where Bilal is without the consent of Adnan's parents doing something that he more than likely

knows the parents wouldn't approve of. So Rabia is right. He was definitely doing things for a minimum Adnan. We don't know if other people as well, but at minimum, he was doing things for Adnan that he should not have been doing. That's kind of where my question was, right? Like when I said, according to Rabia, according to Rabia, Bilal was very strict with everyone else, but it was just Adnan. Like, is that true? Or were there others that he kind of enabled and kind of led down this path that um you know that we just don't know about and if that's the case you know what what did what did they what did they all do it's very predatory

right it's almost like a grooming activity at that point when you have a young man who's who's still young but over the age of 18, who's got this very close mentor-like relationship with these young kids who are still in high school, and he has a big effect on them. He's very influential on them. And what is he grooming them, training them, or teaching them to do? That's a big question that I think, honestly, if it was something deeper, which at this point, it could have been something deeper. I don't feel like we would even know about it because that would be considered such like an embarrassment and a shameful thing that that

community insular as they are wouldn't want to come out. But I would be interested to know and to hear actual people, even if they want to remain anonymous, like, you know where to find us, was something happening between Bilal and these kids that maybe kind of got covered up and swept under the rug because the more you know, you know, the more context you have, and it does add texture. And if you are somebody who doesn't want Adnan to be looked at as a potential suspect and you think Bilal is better for this, then the more we have against him to show that he wasn't a good guy and he was a predator, which I think safely we can say he's a predator. So if he's a predator against patients and his own employees while they're under nitrous oxide, what's going to stop him from doing the same thing with young men in his community who he knows are not going to go and snitch on him because it's not going

to be something that everybody can accept in that community and in those sorts of, you know, like people, I guess. I don't think you're reaching here. I think if we had the curtains pulled back, we might unfortunately learn that he did conduct himself in a way that was illegal in many ways with some of these young boys, especially when you see the behavior that happened afterwards. Like you said, trying to groom them, trying to gain trust with them, trying to develop this personal relationship with them where they feel like they can confide in him. What's the incentive for him? What does he get out of it? Based on what we hear about in the future, assuming that he didn't just become this person overnight, he probably had these thoughts back then as well. And this could

have been how he gained their trust, how he gained them. I have something on you and you have something on me, that type of thing. So I hope it's not the case, but what you're saying, there could be some truth. It wouldn't be the first time we've ever heard something like this. Absolutely. I mean, look at the way religion has hid predators for... In the Catholic community. Yeah. All day long. All day long. We could talk, we could make a whole series just on that. So it's not, you know, anything against Islam or Muslims or, you know, anything like that. It's just predators use these very insular communities to do their dirty deeds because they know that,

you know, they're not going to say anything. Like they're not going to say anything. His victims aren't going to be like running back to their parents and telling them about this horrible stuff. So. Yeah, definitely not just against the Muslim community, for sure. A lot of the times they're right, too. This is this why it's allowed to go on for so long, because the victims are children and they're scared and they feel shame. So they don't say anything. Yeah. Unfortunately.

So let's talk about Christina Gutierrez, because I do want everyone to realize that there may be some merit to what people are saying, that she didn't defend Adnan during his first trial as adequately as she could have. I personally don't think, if that's the case, because we're going to discuss that in another episode pretty much more in depth, but if that's the case, I don't think it necessarily was something she did nefariously or purposely. A lot of people want to look at it as this, once again, this grand conspiracy that we always talk about. So we got the police department and the prosecutors and the teachers at the school. And, you know, now Christina Gutierrez, Adnan's own defense attorney, all of these people are on this grand conspiracy thing to like frame Adnan for this and make sure the kid goes away to prison for life. I don't think that it is that. And Derek and I have discussed this before,

how we don't think it was a grand conspiracy. We think people dropped the ball. We think that there was certain confirmation biases happening, but we don't necessarily think that everybody worked together in an orchestrated fashion to make sure that Adnan went to prison and never saw the light of day again. I think with Christina Gutierierrez it's pretty clear that she takes on this case in um i believe it was april of 1999 this is just a you know a couple of months after he gets arrested and this is also the same year she starts experiencing these these pretty bad ms symptoms which do include you know i mean ms is. It's a degenerative disease. One of my cousins had it. It's awful. And so it does affect your memory and it does affect your mental processing and things

like that. So it could have just been that she was sick and she didn't know how bad it was at first. So she was dropping the ball here and there, I don't think purposely. But we will talk about that a little later. I do want to say, though, she was like a bomb lawyer. You know, that's why they hired her. She didn't come cheap. And she had a huge reputation of, you know, like I said, fighting for her clients and not taking plea deals, not throwing them under the bus. If they told her, I'm innocent, she believed them and she would do everything she could to fight for them and make sure that they didn't spend a day longer behind bars than they had to. So she was the perfect person to hire technically at that time. I just don't think that even she understood how bad her disease was or how much

it had progressed at that point. So let's talk about Asia McLean now and the way that Adnan and Rabia tell the Asia McLean story is as follows. So Asia, who, like I said, is a student at Woodlawn High School, she wrote Adnan two letters in the weeks after he was arrested. And in these letters, she claims she saw Adnan in the library at the time when the prosecution was claiming he was abducting Hye Min Lee and murdering her. Now, Rabia claims that Asia's letter jogged Adnan's memory, that up until he read the letters, he had not remembered seeing her in the library. He had only remembered lending Jay his car that day and then hanging out at school until track practice but now after he read the letters

he remembered seeing Asia and talking to her in the library because remember I said that Asia used to date Adnan's friend Justin and apparently this is what Adnan says when Justin and Asia were together Asia was kind of like she just she wasn't going to have sex with Justin. So, you know, Justin kind of, I guess, broke up with her because she didn't want to have sex with him. And Adnan remembered seeing Asia and then like her new boyfriend. And he was like, oh, I'm going to like mess with Justin about this and like kind of joke with him later and say like, oh, you know, Asia's got a new boyfriend. Like, I wonder if she's, you know, giving it up to him kind of thing. So that was what he claims jogged his memory about seeing Asia. So Adnan said that he received the letters while he was in jail and he considered reaching out to Asia, but he felt it would be better to wait until he had hired a lawyer and then he would give the

letters to his lawyers and let the professionals contact Asia and get her story on the record. And for the record, Adnan never wrote back to Asia. He didn't call her, even though she requested this multiple times in her letters, as you'll see. He never reached out to her at all. So I always found that strange because in my opinion, like this person's holding out your freedom in their hand and they're like, hey, I have an alibi for you and this is the one thing you need. And you're just like, well, I'll I would call your friend Rabia, who wasn't technically a lawyer at that point, I don't believe, but she was in law school and she probably knew the basics. I would have done something to make sure that this

girl didn't just disappear into thin air or move away or forget what she was trying to say to him or forget exactly what had happened. And he just never contacted her or reached out. See, I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with that because I could see his mindset where one of the first things law enforcement is going to ask her if she does show up is, hey, have you spoken to Adnan? Have you guys been in communication with each other? And if these lawyers are going hard for Adnan, they're going to say, well, she's tainted because Adnan's been telling her what to say. So I'm not saying he should have just not followed up on it at all, but I think the better process would have been like,

hey, and you respond to her in writing. So this can't happen. You just say, hey, Asia, I appreciate you reaching out. I'm going to put you in contact with my legal team. Please relay this information to them. Thank you for all your help. Like, keep it really simple. So I agree with you in a sense, like, don't say anything at all as far as like anything that could be misinterpreted as you like telling her. Yeah, this sounds about right.

Like, I think I remember it now, but just one, put her in contact with someone specifically. And then to follow up with your legal team to make sure that there's been communication between two part the two parties so that like you said it doesn't go by the wayside but i can see how he's like in prison for this murder he thinks the cops are out to get him he doesn't want to give them any ammo where they could discredit asia when she finally shows up at at the police station if she does yeah i suppose you're right you're probably not going to be feeling too warmly towards the police and just send this one person that has your alibi and like, go to the police, right?

No, I get it. So that makes sense. And then they say, hey, have you spoke to Adnan? Yeah, I actually have. We've been going back and forth. Okay, sure. Yeah, I'll take your statement. You know, they're already going into it feeling like she's been fed what to say,

even though that may not be the case. Yeah, but I feel like I still would have responded, you know, right? Like, I think you could have done it. Yeah, some way just to acknowledge that you received it. And hey, I'm going to put you in contact with my legal team. Three sentences. That's all you need to do. So Christina Gutierrez was hired by Adnan's parents on April 18th, 1999.

She was paid her legal fee of $50,000. And then, you know, obviously she goes in, does the work, does the investigation, they go to trial, and then Adnan's convicted of murdering Hay. And Rabia claims that after Adnan was convicted of murder on February 25th, 2000, she went to visit him in prison after, you know after hearing the prosecution's closing statements. And Rabia was like, Adnan, what they're claiming is that Hay was dead by 2.36 p.m. And the prosecution was focusing heavily on this 21-minute time period after school, the day of January 13, 1999. So Rabia asked Adnan, where were you? You have to remember,

you know, where you were. How could you and an entire legal team not have a solid answer for where you were during those 21 minutes that the prosecution's case hinges on? And she claims that this is when Adnan told her about Asia McLean and the letters that he'd received from her in March of 1999. And Rabia asked Adnan the obvious question, if this girl has an alibi for you, why wasn't she called to testify at trial? And Adnan said that he had given his legal team the letters and expected that they would do something with them. And since they hadn't, he just assumed that Asia's statement hadn't been supported or it had fallen through, like maybe she was thinking of a different day that she'd seen

him, stuff like that. And he claimed that at some point his attorney, Christina Gutierrez, had told him that Asia had been contacted, but Asia didn't have her dates right. So, you know, apparently Christina Gutierrez or one of her law clerks had talked to Asia and Asia had said like, oh, I must have seen him on a different day than January 13th. This is what Adnan claims. I will go on the record also as saying this is not anywhere in the defense records, like their notes and stuff, because, you know, the defense team is making notes and they're talking about who they're interviewing. They never do say that they spoke to Asia McLean. But I mean, I guess they could have and just not talked about it. Or Adnan told Rabia that

Christina Gutierrez had said this to him and she really hadn't. It's one of those two things, I would suppose. But I mean, it turns out, according to Asia, nobody ever contacted her from Adnan's defense team. Nobody ever reached out to her. So I definitely believe her. I don't think that she was contacted by the legal team. And I'm going to talk about that in a minute, because I think there's a specific reason why. I don't think Christina Gutierrez would lie about it. But if she did, maybe she didn't remember because, like I said, she's having these MS symptoms. Maybe it wasn't malicious or maybe Adnan misunderstood. There's a million different things that could have happened here. I mean, it could have been told to him or communicated to him like we think she had the dates wrong and you'll see why in a minute.

It has something to do with the weather. And he just assumed that they'd talked to Asia and kind of made that leap, but I'm not sure. Well, it could have been an assumption on their part where, or a misinterpretation by Adnan. He felt like they contacted her, but in reality, they just had looked at what she sent and said, no, this doesn't match up. We don't need to follow up on it, which is wrong. But this is an interesting conversation because we're hammering law enforcement really hard throughout the series, as we should. A lot of mistakes. But this is something that I've been saying a lot.

And it's a common phrase in law enforcement where if it's not in the report, it didn't happen. And this is where a lot of issues come in where you can be criticized exponentially. Because even though you might have done some of the things that people are accusing you of not doing, well, notes of it in your notebook it's not in the final report so all the court documents all everything that's been released to the public there's no record of you following up or going to lens crafters or doing any of these things and eat because it was and it turned out to be nothing so all you did was write it in your notepad relay it to the cap and it never got put in the final report and so now it's being picked apart the same thing goes for

defense right they're interviewing a lot of people they're talking to different parties some things turn out to be good some things turn out to be not and you have all these different paralegals or whoever it's not the main attorney that's doing all this work right so they're doing their own thing they're writing case notes they have notebooks all over the place they're writing on files post-its you name it none of that is brought into court it's only the final report that they write up nice and neat for everybody to follow so there's things that they may or may not have done that we don't have record of because it

wasn't in the final report and to be even more critical of putting it in a report you really have to do it because as much as you write in your notebook you're not going to remember everything you did and that's when you have that telephone game where by the time it gets to christina gutierrez she's under the impression that a paralegal spoke to asia when in reality they just looked at her notes and came to a conclusion so when christina's talking to her client adnan she's relaying it in a way where it sounds like they spoke to asia they didn't because Christina misinterpreted it, whether it was from her health or just because it wasn't properly documented. So definitely a problem when you're working cases like this on both sides of the aisle, both for defense and for law enforcement and prosecution, where we're having a situation now with a note

about this case that's being publicized a lot right now. It's just a random handwritten note that was found. How many more of those handwritten notes are out there on both sides that we're not aware of that never made it and got thrown out or just are sitting in a locker somewhere right now? It's crazy and it shouldn't happen, but it's a big part of these cases. Yeah, I agree. And I just don't think that, I don't think it was malicious and a lot of people are making it seem that way. But honestly, in my opinion, Christina Gutierrez had no history of being like that. She was an activist, a well-known activist for the underdog. She was very, like always fighting for the people that she didn't feel had enough people to fight for them.

So it doesn't like historically show that she would have an ax to grind against a nun or try to have one of her clients be found guilty just by her pure negligence, knowing that she was being negligent. It just isn't part of who she was and who she had shown herself to be for her whole life. And she's not here now. And I don't want to talk would normally do, maybe relying on other people to do what she would have normally done. And that's where you have cracks in the, in the sidewalk. You know, they just, when you're relying on other people to do it the right way, sometimes that can come back to bite you in the ass.

Yeah. I don't know what happened, obviously only she would know and we can't ask her and she can't defend herself. So I'm not going to sit here and say this woman like purposely just went out of her way to to, you know, make sure I'd not went to prison because I definitely I exactly that I definitely because it's a grand conspiracy. Remember, you know, some things fell through the cracks, but I don't think she wanted it to. But so we actually, I'm going to talk about the letters because when Rabia talked to Adnan, he was like, I have these letters, you know, and this girl's basically saying, like, I have an alibi. Rabia was like, well, do you have a copy of these letters? And Adnan was like, yes. So Rabia got a copy of the letters and I'm going to read those letters to you right after our next break. All right, we're back from break and we're going to dive into these letters from Asia McLean now. The first letter is dated March 1st, 1999. And at the top, it says, I just came from your house an hour ago.

The letter goes on to say, quote, Dear Adnan, I hope I spelled it right. I know that you can't visitors. So I'm just going to interrupt myself here. She's not a very good writer in these. I mean, she was a kid, but sometimes I'm going to just put in words where they aren't there because she misses words like in this. I know that you can't visitors. I'm sure she means I know that you can't have visitors or get visitors. So sometimes I'm just kind of adding in. But she says, I know that you can't have visitors. So I decided to write you a letter.

I'm not sure if you remember talking to me in the library on January 13th, but I remember chatting with you. Throughout your actions that day, I have reason to believe in your innocence. I went to your family's house and discussed your calm manner towards them. I also called the Woodlawn Public Library and found out that they have a surveillance system inside the building. Depending on the amount of time you spend in the library that afternoon, it might help in your defense. I really would appreciate it if you would contact me between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. or 8.45 p.m. until dot dot dot. More importantly, I'm trying to reach your lawyer to schedule a possible meeting with the three of us. We aren't really close friends, but I want you to look into my eyes and tell me of your innocence. If I ever find otherwise,

I will hunt you down and whip your ass. Okay, friend? I hope that you're not guilty, and I would hope to death that you have nothing to do with it. If so, I will try my best to help you account for some of your unwitnessed, unaccountable, lost time. 2.15 to eight o'clock, January 13th. The police have not been notified, yet to my knowledge, maybe it will give your side of the story

a particle headstart. I hope that you appreciate this, seeing as though I really would like to stay out of this whole thing. Thank Justin. He gave me a little more faith in you. Through his friendship and faith, I'll pray for you and that the real truth comes out in the end. I hope it will set you free, only trying to help. Asia McLean. P.S. If necessary, my grandparents' line number is blank.

It's redacted. Do not call that line after 11, okay? Like I told Justin, if you're innocent, I'll do my best to help you, but if you're not, only God can help you. If you were in the library for a while, tell the police and I'll continue to tell what I know even louder than I am. My boyfriend and his best friend remember seeing you there too. Your amiga, Asia McLean." The next letter is dated March 2nd, 1999. And this is the one you never really hear in full when different podcasts discuss Asia McLean. And I think it's important to read the entire thing to you because in my humble opinion, it says some things about the letter writer and about her dynamic with Adnan pre-Hey Going Missing. It starts with

Dear Adnan and goes on, quote, How is everything? I know that we haven't been best friends in the past. However, I believe in your innocence. I know that central booking is probably not the best place to make friends, so I'll attempt to be the best friend possible. I hope that nobody has attempted to harm you, not that they will. Just remember that if someone says something to you, that they're just fucking with your emotions. I know that my first letter was probably a little harsh, but I just wanted you to know where I stood in this entire issue, on the center line.

I don't know you very well. However, I didn't know Hay very well. The information that I know about you being in the library could be helpful, unimportant, or unhelpful to your case. I've been thinking a few things lately that I wanted to ask you. One, why haven't you told anyone about talking to me in the library? Did you think it was unimportant? You didn't think that I would remember? Or did you just totally forget yourself? Two, how long did you stay in the library that day? Your family will

probably try to obtain the library surveillance tape. Three, where exactly did you do and go that day? What is this so-called evidence that my statement is up against? And who are these witnesses? Anyway, everything in school is somewhat the same. The ignorant and some underclassmen think that you're guilty, while others, mostly those that know you, think you're innocent. I talked to Emron today. He looked like crap. He's upset. Most of your cruises are.

We love you. I guess that inside I know that you're innocent too. It's just that so-called evidence looks very negative. However, I'm positive that everything will work out in the favor of truth. The main thing that I'm worried about is that the real killers are probably somewhere laughing at the police and the news. That makes me sick. I hope this letter and the ones that follow ease your days a little. I guess if I didn't believe in your innocence, that I wouldn't write to you.

Smiley face. The other day, Monday, we, some of Mr. Parker's class, were talking about it and Mrs. Schaub overheard us. She said, don't you think the police have considered everything? They wouldn't just lock him up unless they had real evidence. We just looked at her, then continued our conversation. Mr. Parker seems unopinionated, yet he seemed happy when I told him that I spoke to your family about the matter. I told him, your brothers are nice. I don't think I met your mother. I think I met your dad. Does he have a gray beard? They gave me and Justin soda and cake. There was a whole bunch of people at your house. I didn't know who they were. I also

didn't know that Muslims take their shoes off in the house. Thank God they didn't make me take mine off. My stinky feet probably would have knocked everyone out cold. I overheard Will and Anthony talking about you. They don't think you did it either. I guess most people don't. Justin's mom is worried about you, too. She gave me your home phone number when Justin was in school. Classes are boring. That's one benefit to being there. No school.

They issued a school newsletter on the issue, so everyone is probably aware. It didn't say your name, but between that, the gossip, and the news, your name is known. I'm sorry this had to happen to you. Look at the bright side. When you come back, won't nobody fuck with you. And at least you'll know who your real friends and new friends should be. Also, you're the most popular guy in school. Shoot, you might get prom king. You'll be happy to know that the gossip is dead for your associates. It's starting to get old. Your real friends are concentrated on you and your defense. I want you to know that I'm missing the instructions of Ms. Ogle's CIP class writing this letter.

It's weird. Since I realized that I saw you in the public library that day, you've been on my mind. The conversation that we had has been on my mind. Everything was cool that day. Maybe if I would have stayed with you or something, this entire situation could have been avoided. Did you cut school that day? Someone told me that you cut school to play video games at someone's house. Is that what you told the police? This entire case puzzles me, you see. I have an analytical mind. I want to be a criminal

psychologist for the FBI one day. I don't understand how it took the police three weeks to find Hay's car, if it was found in the same park. I don't understand how you would even know about Leakin Park or how the police expect you to follow Hay in your car, take her to Leakin Park, dig a grave, and find you a way back home. As well, how come you don't have any markings on your body from Hay's struggle? I know that if I was her, I would have struggled. I guess that's where the so-called witnesses. White girl Stacy just mentioned that she thinks you did it. Something about fibers on Hayes' body. Something like that. Evidence.

I don't mean to make you upset talking about it, if I am. I just thought that maybe you should know. Anyway, I have to go to third period. I'll write you again, maybe tomorrow. Hope this letter brightens your day. Your friend, Asia R. McLean. P.S. Your brother said that he's going to tell you to maybe call me. It's not necessary.

Save the phone call for your family. You could attempt to write me back, though, so I can tell everyone how you're doing. And so I'll know, too. Apparently, a whole bunch of girls were crying for you at the jail. Big playa playa. Ha ha ha. Hee hee hee. End quote.

Okay, so I'm going to start. No shade. No shade at all on Asia because I don't know her. She's probably a lovely woman. But if I received those two letters one day after the other from someone that I just sort of knew through a friend, I would personally be a little sketched out. But I'm a naturally suspicious person and I would wonder, like, what's her end goal? You know, what does she want from me? Because we aren't close. We aren't friends, as Asia herself mentions more than once. But it seems like this girl's trying to get close to me. And why does she want to do that? Like, what's the end game? So let's go over a few things that stuck out to me and see if they also stuck out to you. Asia sort of started out in the first letter and kind of in the beginning of the second letter acting as if she was a neutral party. She claims she's standing on the center line.

But everything that she says and does afterwards shows that this isn't really true. It shows her true feelings, which is she believes Adnan is innocent. She even refers to the people who don't think he's innocent as ignorant. She says she's worried the real killers are out there laughing at everyone. She spends a lot of time reminding him who his real friends are, you know, the ones who believe in his innocence. And apparently she's counting herself among those real friends, the new friends, the ones who are he's a murderer, so they won't mess with him. And I guess she sees this as a bright side or a silver lining, if you will. A badge of you. I don't understand that. She mentions that he's the most popular kid in school, like this whole situation might even earn him prom king. And I just thought it was odd. It seems like she's focusing a lot on like popularity and girls who like him. You know, he's so popular. He's so

amazing. You know, kind of maybe like she had a little crush right and asia talks a lot about the rumors and the gossip things she's heard which i mean clearly i don't know where she's hearing this stuff from there's there's speculation about where she's hearing it from but clearly whoever she's hearing it from is misinformed because there's not a lot of facts amongst the things she's heard she seems to think that Hay's car was found in Leakin Park. She says something about Adnan skipping school to play video games. To me, that was kind of what Jay did, right? If we think about it, that's what Jay claimed he was doing that day. He said he was at Jen's house playing video games with her brother on January 13th. So I'm not even sure where she's getting this information from. I think some of this information she got from Adnan's parents and his family is specifically what is the time period that he needed an alibi for? What is the time period that's unaccounted for? So I think she got that

from his family. So in my opinion, there is a bias here. Asia clearly wants to believe that Adnan is innocent. So this very strong desire to see someone that, like I said, I think she really liked, maybe she had a crush on him, maybe she wanted to be closer friends with him than she was, that strong desire may have shaded her memories of the interaction she claims she had with Adnan on January 13th, 1999. Because here's what Asia claims happened that afternoon. She said that on January 13th, 1999, she got out of school early. And at some point during the early afternoon, she went to the Woodlawn Public Library right next to the high school. And that's where she was when school let

out at 2.15 p.m. She was waiting for her boyfriend, Derek Banks, to pick her up and he was running late, which is why she was still there at the library at approximately 2.30 p.m. when Adnan entered the library. Asia claims that she and Adnan spoke, saying, quote, we talked about his ex-girlfriend, Hayman Lee, and he seemed extremely calm and caring. He explained that he wanted her to be happy and that he had no ill will towards her, end quote. Asia goes on to say that her boyfriend Derek and his best friend Jared Johnson arrived to pick her up and they left the library around 2.40 p.m. and at that time Adnan was still at the library.

Asia felt that this day and this incident were memorable to her for a few reasons. One, she felt that her boyfriend Derek had gotten a bit jealous when he walked into the library and saw her talking to another boy, which was Adnan, and Asia didn't really care that he was upset because she was mad at him for being extremely late in picking her up. Asia also told Sarah Koenig that she's sure that this happened on January 13th when she saw Adnan in the library because she believed that day was the first snowfall of the year. And she remembered getting snowed in at her boyfriend's house that night. So let's discuss that detail first because we do know that a major winter storm hit the Baltimore area in the early morning hours of January 14th,

which left many people without power for the next few days, and the area schools closed down on January 14th and 15th. However, according to the weather reports, there was no snow or rain falling on January 13th at all. In fact, a light freezing rain did begin to fall at around 4 30 in the morning on Januaryuary 14th but i would assume that a high school student such as asia would have already left her boyfriend's house by 4 30 a.m so she would not have been snowed in and stuck there at least not that night additionally asia said she believed the day she saw ednon in the library would have been the first snowfall of that year which did did not happen on January 13th. The first snowfall of the year was in fact a week prior on January 8th when snow began falling around four in the morning and

continued on for the rest of the day, leaving four inches of snow on the ground by the end of that day. However, as it turns out, even though January 8th was a Friday, there was no school because the school officials were worried about the weather conditions since they were calling for freezing rain and sleet later on in that day. So they canceled school basically. And there's no way that Asia could have seen Adnan in the library or really that Asia or Adnan would have been in the library on January 8th because neither of them were in school that day. But I will say, I guess it's sort of easy to see how Asia possibly could have seen Adnan at the library, maybe on Thursday, January 7th, because there was snow that night and school was closed the next day, which would have been really similar to the 13th, you know, where the snowy conditions started very early the following morning and then school was canceled the next day. So I can see how she would have mistaken those two days. But during the serial podcast, Sarah Koenig tracked down Asia's boyfriend from 1999, Derek, and he had no recollection of that day or of seeing Adnan in the library. He said that during the time they dated, he would often pick Asia up from school or from the library

and he would sometimes, you know, speak to her friends even though he didn't, you know, know them because he didn't attend the same school. Derek told Sarah, quote, it's very possible that I could have spoken to that gentleman and her on that day, but it's very hard to remember 15 years later. But it sounds like this definitely could have happened. I don't think Asia would. Asia's not the type of person that would lie just to, she's definitely not the type of person to get involved with the lie. End quote. Sarah Koenig also tracked down Derek's friend Jared, who was reportedly with Derek that day, but Jared had absolutely no memory of seeing or talking to Adnan either. So it has been considered suspicious, you know, as if Christina Gutierrez was sabotaging Adnan's case by not calling Asia to the stand and using her as an alibi in that first trial.

But many people think that Asia's statements and testimony may have actually hurt Adnan in his trial, which is why his legal team decided not to use her. They probably did check the weather and they probably thought, hey, this is the wrong day, et cetera, et cetera. So there's no point in even contacting her, which I don't agree with. I think that you're not really covering your bases and you're not really doing your due diligence in that situation. But like you mentioned earlier, Christina Gutierrez might have thought that one of her law clerks did it and they thought she did it. And there's like hundreds and hundreds of pages of these handwritten notes, which are almost impossible to read at times. So they probably weren't checking up on each other because they're all professionals and nobody's double-checking their work.

And Asia claimed that no one from Adnan's legal team contacted her after she wrote those letters, and that might lead you to believe that Adnan maybe never even gave the letters to his attorney. Maybe he forgot or he didn't tell them about it. But in Christina Gutierrez's note, there is a memo in her handwriting that says Asia plus boyfriend saw him in the library 215 to 315. I don't understand these time periods either because we heard Asia say that she left the library around 240. That's what she said in her affidavit. And Adnan was still there. I thought you said 230 actually. 240. Yep. So about a 10 minuteminute period where she she saw Adnan

Yeah, which that's what her affidavit says, right? There's a 10-minute period yet in Christina Gutierrez as notes She says like 2 15 to 3 15 Then there's another note dated four months after Adnan's arrest and this was written by one of Gutierrez as law clerks who ended up speaking to Adnan in jail. And this note says Asia McLean saw him in the library at three o'clock. Asia's boyfriend saw him too. Library may have cameras. So they definitely were aware of it. Why they didn't reach out to her is a mystery. I don't know why they didn't do that. But also, I mean, they may have thought, well, 2.40 or 3 o'clock, that's not even the right time limit that we need an alibi for. Maybe they did also look at the

weather and decide that it wasn't the same day because she said it was the first snowfall of the winter and that's how she remembered it, but it didn't snow that day. I'm not sure. But once she heard about Asia and the letters, Rabia Chaudhry tracked Asia down and had her write out an affidavit then and there. And something interesting is that Rabia claims at this point, which was on March 25, 2000, she asked Asia if her boyfriend Derek and his friend Jared would be willing to also write affidavits that they'd seen Adnan in the library that day. But she says that Asia hesitated and she asked Rabia not to contact Derek or Jared yet. And she assured Rabia that if it came down to it, like if her affidavit got the case reopened and there was a trial, that Derek and Jared would testify in court and they would, you know, kind of support her statement. And this really bugs me because in a case, I mean, you have to understand at this point,

Adnan's already been found guilty. He's been like sentenced to life in prison. And what we have here is this one alibi that could be like your golden ticket out of there. This is something that you didn't have for this first trial and now you have it. And the fact that Rabia would just be like, okay, I won't contact them. Because if she's not contacting Derek and Jared and getting their supporting statements, all you have is Asia's statement. And the more time you waste and the more time you let go by, Derek and Jared's memories are getting less sharp and less accurate.

And so why would Rabia have just been like okay I won't contact them yet you know just if this happens to go to appeal or go to trial which we know is gonna take a long time could take years then we'll talk to them I don't understand why if it was that important that she would have just brushed it off and not pursued it at that point she says like oh I did I just wanted to get the affidavit and I didn't want to scare her but like as far as I'm wanted to get the affidavit and I didn't wanna scare her. But like, as far as I'm concerned, you get that affidavit and then you go and talk to Derek and Jared anyways.

Like this is your friend. This is somebody you believe a million percent is sitting behind bars for the rest of his life when he's like 18 years old and you're gonna do anything to make sure that he has a fair shot if he does get another trial or an appeal. And you're just going to not pursue it and leave it to 15 years later when these kids are being asked. And they're like, I don't know, it was 15 years ago. I don't

remember who I saw in the library. I don't even remember going to the library that day. No, I agree with you. And I think as an investigator, if Robbie is looking at it impartially, you have this really compelling statement. You want to give it even more power by confirming it with other people who may be able to corroborate what Asia is saying. So one person statement is good. Three people saying the same thing. Great. So you definitely would love to make your make your point to the courts even stronger by having three different people say the same thing. And as you mentioned, the longer you wait, the more of a chance where these people forget the little minute details that could be the difference in the case. Before we continue, because we went

long in this segment, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We're back from break. So I want to kind of just keep going on that same vein. So let's say Rabia, right? She's not a lawyer at this point. I don't believe she was. I think she was kind of just like going through the motions of becoming one. So maybe she's like, you know, I don't really know the right thing to do. I don't want to push it.

I don't want to turn Asia hostile. But like even if Rabia doesn't want to push, I'm sure she's communicating with Adnan, like what's happening. And if I'm Adnan and I'm sitting behind bars for a crime I didn't commit, and now here's a girl who can give me an alibi, but not only that, her boyfriend and his friend can give me an alibi, which correct me if I'm wrong, would only help a judge decide to allow this case to go to an appeal. If you said, I have three people who saw him when the state claims he was committing this murder, three people, not just one, three, here's their affidavits. This is going to actually help get this case to an appeal.

Why would it not just be like so chill about it? You know, kind of like he was chill about it in the first place. Like, here's a letter that says I have an alibi. And, you know, I'm just going to let other people handle this. Like, I'm not going to do a ton of like pursuing it myself. And I'm just going to kind of let people do what they do, which he was a kid. It's understandable. But once you've been convicted, once you've been convicted and you've sat in front of a judge who's like, hey, you're going to prison. I feel like I don't care. Respectfully, Asia, I don't care if you would like me to hold off on contacting the other two people who can give me an alibi that day. Like we're talking to them. My lawyers are going to talk to them. Anything that

I can do right now to get out of this place that I don't belong. So I just don't understand the thought process that went behind not getting Derek and Jared's supporting statements, which appears they never did. They never, ever did, because the only person who talked to Derek and Jared appears to be Sarah Koenig, which happened 15 years after the day they were supposed to see Adnan in the library. So that's not helpful. And to be fair to Derek and Jared, it sounds like the whole interaction was approximately

10 minutes. Yeah. And most of that was between Asia and Adnan. So Derek and Jared probably walked in there. Maybe they saw Adnan. Maybe they didn't. But it's like, hey, we're picking you up. Let's get out of here.

They might have been in there for 30 seconds. So to expect them to remember it when there wasn't like a specific thing that happened as far as their interaction with Adnan, that would be difficult even within a week of it happening. Because it seems like to them it was just another day where Asia's the only one who apparently had an actual interaction with Adnan. Yeah. And they don't know that, dude. It's not like they go to school there. Barely knew him. And they're like, oh yeah, that's Adnan. I didn't talk to him that day, but I know him from wrestling or I know him from psychology class. They didn't know him. And on that same note, why would Asia tell Rabia, like, hold off

on contacting them? That doesn't make any sense to me either. Like, you think or know you saw Adnan in the library on January 13th. You're writing him letters being like, I know you're innocent. Like, I know you didn't do this. The real killers are out there laughing it up. And then somebody comes to you and they're like, here, we want to get your story out there. We want to get your friend, your friend out of prison. And she's like, hold off on talking to the other people who saw him that day. Like, just don't do it yet. Why? What is the reason for that? I would just like to know. I'm sure maybe she had a reason maybe you know maybe maybe she wasn't too sure about what she saw or when she saw it so

she didn't really want to get too far into the process before you know like having some cooperation in some way maybe she was hoping the surveillance tapes would would actually support something she said. Because I do think, and this is just what I think, she didn't know exactly what day she saw him. She couldn't remember exactly what day she saw him. Just like that one girl couldn't remember that it wasn't January 13th that Hay didn't show up to that game in Randallstown. It was the week before. She couldn't remember exactly what day it was. And it's so easy to conflate or mesh together two different dates or two different incidences that are so similar. So I think she was almost doubting herself and she kind of didn't want to

pull all these people into it and make it a big thing and a big production until maybe there was something that kind of supported the fact that she saw him on the 13th. I think she was really hoping that there was surveillance footage that would kind of like help her along. Even if she wasn't doubting her own memory, it might've been something even more simple where she had spoken to Derek and Jared and said, Hey, you remember that day, right? When that nom was in there. And they were like, no, we don't. Are you sure that was that day? Cause I don't remember. I don't remember talking to anyone or seeing anyone on that day, maybe week earlier or something. I don't, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't recall you being in the library with Adnan. And she's like,

oh, well that doesn't help me. So she, she doesn't want her to reach out to Robbie at that point, because that's going to be conflicting in regards to what she's saying. So there could be a lot of reasons for it. But just looking at it from Rabia's perspective or more, so an investigator's perspective, if you're getting an affidavit from one person and that person's telling you there's two other people who witnessed or experienced the same thing, common sense, you're going to get it from all three

because that's going to make it a lot stronger. Yeah, because to be honest, I'm not going to sit here and say I 100% know that Asia did not see Adnan in the library at, you know, between 2.30 and 2.40 on January 13th. I'm not going to say that. It's very likely, it's possible that she did. But the fact of the matter is the longer you wait to get things like surveillance cameras and the longer you wait to get your corroborating witnesses who are with you and saw him as well, the less chance you have of that being viable in a court of law. And from her letters, it seems like she really, for some reason, feels close to Adnan and really wants to see him vindicated, even though they're not really good friends and they didn't talk all the time. You know, maybe she had a lot of respect for him. I don't know.

But she just wanted to see him get out of prison and not be like, you know, paying for something he didn't do. So I just I don't I don't understand that whole process. It's very possible she saw him that day. But once again, we'll never know. We talked about it a few episodes ago. Surveillance cameras were in the library, but they recorded every week. They recorded over the tapes. There was a sign in sheet for using alibi and not even having like the weather conditions to support that it was January 13th. By the way, another thing I know we have a lot already, but another knock on law enforcement that I had been thinking about weeks ago and I didn't say it because I thought about it in between episodes is, you know, if you have a missing child from the schools, anything like that, you always want to go in there and you want to memorialize any footage that you have. And I'm not just talking cameras that trace the

steps of that child throughout the day, that student throughout the day, all cameras, because you never know what's going to be valuable. You don't want anything to happen to that footage. So you go in there, you get all the tapes, you get all the hard drives whatever it is you you save it or you make copies of it and you memorialize it so you have it if it's five years later ten years five days later ten years later twenty years later you always have it and if something comes up like this where so you know witness a says i saw so and so in the library you had that library footage even though at the time when you took it you didn't know it was going to be important yeah but remember that the library is not part of the school it's the woodlawn public library it just happens to be like across the street from the

school so why would the police even have thought that Adnan would be there because he didn't tell them he went there that wasn't part of his initial alibi when they were like where the hell were you he wasn't like I was in the library because then maybe they would have done that. Some detectives might call me out on this one because they're like, oh, would you do that? But I'm just going to say as a Monday morning quarterback here, if it's a student and I'm trying to narrow down where the student might have went, I can tell you that if I can see a library across the street as a detective, I'm going over there. I'm talking to everyone to see if they had seen her come in at any point and I'm grabbing the footage. So I feel you and you actually make a strong point where, Hey, why would they go across the street?

I would argue that a really thorough detective, anything within a radius where that, that student might've stopped before they went missing. Even if they're not targeting Adnan at that point, I'm going over to the library, I'm doing my due diligence, I'm talking to everyone, seeing if anybody checked out or checked in that I'm looking for, and I'm grabbing the footage again, just in case down the road I learn that Heyman Lee might've stopped there

and it might become valuable. But I will acknowledge that that is really high-end detective work where you're just out there getting everything but i would have done it i'll be honest with you what are you laughing for you act like you've done it before no hit me with it what do you yo i'm gonna call you out you would not have done that you would not have done that because you're talking about you're looking for hayman lee the first couple of days like or the first week they were like oh she went to california like they're not thinking she's and then what you're going to pull footage from everywhere than the 7-eleven down the street

and the gas station there's 12 gas stations on the street you're going to every gas station and pulling footage and why would anybody do that considering the last time hay was seen was walking to her car in the parking lot so why would she drive to the public library when you can walk there nobody saw her heading towards the library so no i'm going to definitely call you out you wouldn't have done that you can call me out and i'll call you out because you're absolutely wrong 100 because i was the detective doing that and i was known to be that thorough and i would do stuff that would aggravate people because they'd be like, why are you down the road talking to so-and-so when we have no indication that they went there? I was that guy who did that. And I'm not saying I solved every case,

but again, if I'm looking for a missing student, I'm going to all places that she could have frequented. I'm grabbing the footage and worst case scenario, I never need it again. And as far as any convenience stores that you mentioned, if the library had footage like security cameras inside, maybe they had cameras on the outside. Maybe one of their cameras caught her vehicle leaving the parking lot. I don't know at the time, but I can easily go over there or have one of my patrolmen go over there. Stephanie, make sure the camera's on Stephanie right now.

Because Stephanie, how many missing persons cases on Stephanie right now. Because Stephanie, how many missing persons cases have you worked? No, I believe you. Okay. It was just like, you were like, well, I mean, you should have done that. That's high level, high level detective work, but it's what I did. Because at the time, because I will say at the time, in fairness to them, they're thinking that the student that day might just be with a friend, a family member. It's not this immediate thing where you're thinking she's been murdered, right? So they're treating it as like, okay, high school student. She was supposed to pick up her cousin.

She didn't get there. This is not like her. So we're going to start diving into it. But they didn't know what they were getting themselves into at the time. But even if they didn't know that day, they could still go back to the library the next day or the day after that. I don't know how often it was. It was recording over it.

I'm assuming it was more than 24 hours. That's pretty small. It was once a once a week. So they had a Monday tape, a Tuesday tape, a Wednesday tape, Thursday tape, Friday tape, Saturday tape, et cetera. And then every every next Monday, they would pop the Monday tape and a Tuesday tape, a Wednesday tape, Thursday tape, Friday tape, Saturday tape, etc. And then every next Monday, they would pop the Monday tape in. They would erase the footage from the previous week and record the new Monday. So yeah, you have about a week for that.

So within 48 hours, if I haven't heard from this student, and this is highly unlike her, I'm going back to the school, grabbing all of their footage. I'm grabbing anything that's in the immediate area of the high school that could have caught her vehicle leaving the lot. Was she by herself? Was she with someone? Did she have an interaction? Did she pull across the street into the library parking lot? I don't know, but I'm gonna grab it.

And there's a main detective. And then there's obviously all, everyone's helping them out. Patrolman, you can easily go over there, call and say, hey, listen, we're looking into something. The tape for this date, please pull it out of your routine, your rotation. We want to make a copy of that before you do anything with it, please. So and so, what's your name?

Okay, I spoke to librarian Stephanie Harlow. We can go pick up the tape. We can make a recording of it. We can get it back to them. Any route that she would have gone, whatever alternative route she has to leave the school, I'm stopping at all of those convenience stores, any restaurants, whatever it may be, asking if they have footage. I'm grabbing it all. And if I don't need it, then I don't need it.

But at least I have it. I don't even know if they pulled footage from the high school. Like if you think if the if if the library had surveillance footage like the high school should write, Shouldn't the high school have surveillance footage? And I don't think they did, because I do think you would have had a better understanding of what happened to Hay, whether whatever or right after school and they left together. If he's involved, I think that's how it went down. So that would implicate him or exonerate him because I don't think he's running out of the parking lot after she leaves to track her down when he didn't have his vehicle that's him taking a big risk though that he could be seen getting into her car yeah and that's why i think it's a different conversation but maybe he didn't plan on doing it when they left and it was a crime of passion and this wasn't supposed to go down like this that day you know but that's we've gone back and forth on that but and he's just lucky and nobody saw him get in the car yeah maybe he's just lucky no one saw him get in the car but you know to kind of put a a bookend on that i don't think the detectives that day would have grabbed the

library footage but if the if the girl's missing for two or three days now the the extent of the investigation increases exponentially and you got to start doing things that you wouldn't normally do in a, an initial missing person case where you don't feel the person is actually missing. You just think they might be with a friend or a family member and you're just trying to find them at that point. But a day later, you still haven't heard from her. And it's Heyman Lee who doesn't do things like this. It's you're going, you're going everywhere. You're setting all everybody out, multi-jurisdictional operation. You have another police department involved because this is a young girl who

hasn't contacted her family in over 24 hours. Not a good situation. It's not going to end well, more than likely at that point. And Asia says something, and I believe it was her first letter. She says, I called the library. They have surveillance cameras. It depends how long you were there, like if they would catch you on the camera or not, which was weird to me. And by the time Asia's calling, you know, you would assume she's probably calling right around the time she's writing this letter, which is after Adnan's arrest. Those tapes would have already done, been recorded over several, several times. And you think she would also have that information like, oh, they do have surveillance, but, you know, they record over it every week. So it's probably not still there. But she doesn't seem to have that

information, but she does seem to know that they have surveillance cameras. So I don't know if she called the library. I don't know. But by the time she's writing this letter, there's where Hayman Lee went. Yeah, absolutely. I think it would have been a great idea to pull that footage. And then when Asia comes up with her alibi, they could have been like, well, here, let's check the tapes. That's it. Solve that. Answer that question. About five seconds. Right. I said I saw him at the school at this time. Go to the timestamp. Yes or no. Gutierrez. And we're going to talk about this a little later, but apparently there was a bunch of problems. She wasn't responding to calls or attempts that, you know, they were trying to reach her about Asia's affidavit, even though she was like in the process of filing a motion for a new trial. And, you know, Rabia just generally felt that Gutierrez was irresponsible and money hungry,

and she hadn't defended Adnan to the best of her ability. That is Rabia's opinion. She's allowed to have that. Once again, I am keeping in mind that this woman was very sick, that within just a few years after this, she will be deceased, that just within a year or so after this, she couldn't even remember her own son's name. So I definitely don't think it was malicious or she was money hungry or she just didn't care about Adnan. And I do want to keep reiterating that because for a long time, this woman did have an impeccable record and a great reputation, and she did a lot of good for a lot of people. So I don't want to kind of smear her. And I'll also say, I think a lot of us can attest to this, whether it's personally or through someone we know, whenever you hire someone for a service, whether it's a contractor or a lawyer or whatever

it might be, a painter, whatever it might be, if you don't get the results that you were looking for when you hired that person, you tend to feel this way. Like you got gypped and they were just in it for the money. And we see it in a lot of different fields, a lot of different things where people are upset because they didn't get the result that they thought they were going to get from it. And automatically the person is a crook. Now, in some cases that is the situation, but there are also many times where the customer just isn't satisfied with the result, even though maybe at the time when they hired the person, they said to them, hey, I can only do what I can do. Can't get blood from a stone.

You know, I'm going to do my best, but it may not result in what you're looking for. And they go, yeah, yeah, no problem. That's fine. I get it. Just do your best. But when ultimately it doesn't get to that point, the tides do turn sometimes. I want to weigh in on Asha's statement before we continue. But before we do, let's take our last break. We'll be right back. all right so we're back from break just a couple things you hit on a lot of these already but just my perspective not hearing this before tonight i agree with you about the neutral to team at non kind of shift there where i was really loving the initial lines there where it's like listen my statement may help you or it may hurt you and if it hurts you only god can help you i love that kind of shift there where I was really loving the initial lines there where it's like, listen, my statement may help you or it may hurt you. And if it hurts you, only God can help you.

I love that. That's what you want to hear from a good witness where they're just going to tell the truth and whether it helps you or not, they don't care because their truth is their truth. So I agree with you there, but everything after those statements going over to Adan's house and the people she was hanging out with. It does seem like she was in the school of thought that he was innocent and rooting for him to be innocent, which does complicate things. This is another big issue. She even admitted it herself. I've seen this a lot where you have individuals who are fascinated by crime. They want to be in the field. They want to play detective. And I've said this a million times. We always ask witnesses to tell us what they know, not what they think. And we've had this happen in my department, many occasions where you have

individuals who want to be helpful, want to be part of the investigation. So not only are they telling you what they saw or what they heard, now they're speculating. They're playing detective and telling you what they think could have happened. And you don't have to take my word for it. The fact that she's reaching out to the library, following up as whether the camera footage is there, that's way above what she should be doing as a impartial witness. So that's a big red flag there because now she's taking the case on herself, kind of playing PI as opposed to playing witness. I don't love that. Something you said in the beginning there where some of the comments she made could be just due to her age,

but it does seem like there might be an innocent crush there based on what's happening. He's becoming almost more popular at school. Now the play a play a comment. The girls are, are, you know, thinking about him crying outside the jail for him.

Yeah, he would win prom king at this point. And maybe there's like a fascination with him now because you kind of see it with some of these serial killers. Oh, dude, thank you so much. So I didn't want to say it. I was like, am I pushing the envelope? But it's like I'm into bad boys, but like one step further. Right. It's a fascination. I'm into bad boys, but like one step further, right? It's like the people, the women who like write to Chris Watts in prison and who were like obsessed with Ted Bundy and who still are obsessed with Ted Bundy.

It's like walking the line that's like close to the dark side and just being like compelled by it and interested. Like it made him cooler to her, right? Possibly. And we're saying, Asia, if you hear this, I'm not saying that's the case. No. I'm not saying that's the case at all. I'm just giving counterpoints here. Just to be completely on the other end, everything you said could have been spot on and this could have just been the way you talked and there's nothing wrong with that. But

just throwing out other things there. You had also said i think i just said a little while ago being at adnan's house hearing other people give pieces of information where now as a human being you're mixing in what you know and and what you've heard from other people and now you're mixing the two types of facts together where you're misconstruing what you heard as something that you heard from from adnan directly when in fact it was from a relative. That complicates things. And then just the elephant in the room. We said it earlier, the whole interaction was about 10 minutes. And for those of you that are in the Adnan camp, everybody who gave statements on the day that allegedly this all went down, Stephanie ripped it apart. They were all wrong, right? They were wrong with the dates. Even the prosecution

was wrong with the dates. So it's very possible if you're going to sit here and say, everyone who gave statements that day, everyone who said, Hey, was here or she was there or Adnan was here. It turned out they were all wrong because of the high school game, all these different things. They were all wrong. So was it possible that Asia got this day wrong, especially based on what Stephanie laid out laid out yeah very possible and even more possible that the time which again was only 10 minutes could she have been wrong with that absolutely so it could be innocent she could truly believe everything she's saying and just in reality she's just wrong i've done it on the show stephanie's done on the show where we're certain

of what we're saying and then the other one proves us wrong in about five seconds so that's possible as well what you're talking about man that's never happened never used to never you and then finally i don't think this is the case let me say this again i don't think this is the case but you could also have a situation where it didn't go into specifics here but is asia reaching out to Adnan to give him an alibi by saying what the alibi is in the letter? Hey, why didn't you tell him about us talking in school that day at the library? And he's like, well, I didn't talk to her in school, but she's indirectly telling him what he should say on his end so they can be on the same page. Do I think that's the case? No, but I would be foolish as a former investigator to not have that thought run through my head.

Well, there is a lot of people that think that is the case. And I'm going to dive into it a little bit more, some of her verbiage and things like that. Just not saying necessarily that I believe that. I'm just saying this is what people say. That would be a stupid, a risky, stupid move. I don't know her well enough to say that. I don't think she would do that. And I also don't think if she- She was a kid, man. She was like 17, 18. She was a high school senior. They're not smart. If she was doing that, I think she'd be less apt to include other people. I think she'd be less apt to include Derek and Jared in it because they would contradict what she's saying so my initial thought is that there is definitely a part of her that believes

this she could be wrong with the date she could be wrong at the time but that's just my gut reaction as far as her coming forward her motivation behind it it's kind of a mixed bag some points it sounds like she's just doing it because she doesn't know if it's gonna help him or not but she wants to do the right thing and at some points it feels like she's really hoping to build a relationship with that non offer this and that when he does get out he remembers this and they become friends due to her involvement so you could take it both ways but fascinating at minimum and we're taking in all these other statements you have to take in this and i think what we've learned through this whole investigation is everyone has been really

off with their durations their their dates and their times it's just i think i made a joke about it like episode two like nobody had nobody had to watch dude and it's like an entire town of amnesiacs here like what's what's in the water like what kind of like sleeping beauty sleeping spell was you know sprinkled over these people where it just feels like nobody was right about anything and nobody remembers anything clearly enough to give like you know to give a a confident statement about something so that's that's frustrating yeah but if you're on team Adnan, and this goes both ways, by the way, just for the people who are anti-Adnan and believe he's guilty, this is a confirmation bias thing where everybody who gave statements about Adnan, what he said on the day

of Hayes' disappearance, they're like, oh, they're wrong on the date and time. They're wrong on it. But this one person gives a 10-minute window and those same people will say, here's your exoneration right here. He was at the school. Conversely, you'll have people who say everyone who made the statements on the day they believe they saw Adnan and he said, hey, I was getting a ride from Hayman Lee after school. This was at this time. All those people will say, yeah, they have to be right.

And Asia's definitely wrong. So it's just whatever you want, whatever angle you're going with it, that's who you're going to choose to believe. It's human nature. So for me, somebody sent me a message on Instagram earlier today about this and they ended, they said some very insightful things and then they ended it with, but I still don't know what I believe. I still don't know if I believe he did or not. And I said, I don't know either what I believe, but I'm certainly not going to take his word for it. And that goes with this as well, right? It's not that I don't like Adnan or I'm 100 million percent sure that he's guilty. It's just I need some other supporting evidence to convince me one way or the other. So

I'm not going to take Adnan's word for it when he's like, I definitely didn't do this, but I can't tell you where I was or who I was with or what my alibi actually is. I'm not going to take that unless I have some supporting evidence that shows. And Asia McLean's statement is not supporting evidence, in my opinion, because she could be wrong innocently. She could be lying. That's just a fact. And, you know, it doesn't, one statement doesn't support another statement. I need some like physical evidence to show me for a fact that he was there and not with Hay. And that's the only chance I'm ever going to have of being like, absolutely 100% Adan did not do this. And conversely, absolutely 100% he did do this. Anything else is just speculation.

And clearly we don't have that physical evidence. Any chance of having that physical evidence was gone within a couple of weeks of Hay going missing. Can I say one more thing before we move on? Unrelated, but still related. Something that I wrote down earlier. Just the fact that I kept wondering what time Hay got out of school. And we don't know if this is exactly accurate, but it sounds like what you said very early in this episode,

the prosecution believes that whatever happened to her happened by 2.36. And they said it was about a 21-minute window. So obviously, simple math, we're looking at school getting out around 2.15. 2.15 is when school gets out, yeah. So 2.15 to 2.36. So just as we're trying to figure out who could have been involved with this, when we talk about all the potential theories out there, whatever happened to Hay, whoever she interacted with was almost immediately. 21 minutes is not a lot of time. And she wasn't, we don't believe she was killed at the school. So that means she had to drive somewhere. She had to interact with this person. And if it, if it wasn't someone she

met with at the school, whether you believe that's Jay, whether you believe it's Adnan, whether you believe it's someone else, it had to have happened almost immediately after she left the building. So 21 minutes, not a big window for her to just randomly run into someone else or some individual that we haven't discovered yet seeing her driving and getting a hold of her before 2.36. So again, that's going off the prosecution's theory so that you have to take that with a grain of salt. I don't know how they come up with that because she wasn't supposed to pick her for cousin until 315. And I know we got a lot of times here.

Dude, right. So that's what I'm saying. That's 21 minutes, according to the prosecution. And I believe that they came up with that after looking at the cell phone records and, you know, kind of taking into account. I think that they came up with that from that. I don't think they have any freaking idea, really. Well, how could they tell 21 minutes from an hour period between 2 15 and 3 15? How can they isolate that 21 minutes because they're going by J saying oh, I got the call that she was dead

And so they're taking with you. Yeah, and that's just Jay's building there They're building their narrative off of Jay's statement Hey, and that's why Jay well Jay was leading the police the's why I said, Jay was leading the police. The police weren't leading him. Jay was leading the police. I said that last episode and I stand by it. So we got to stick with that. So we're at Crime Weekly

going to play it safe and we're going to stick with an hour window, which is 2.15 to 3.15 because that's when she was supposed to show up to pick up her cousin. Common sense tells you it didn't happen at 3.14,

but that's our window, which is an hour, which does create more of an opportunity for this unknown suspect that no one's ever located yet who could have encountered Hay, which is a big deal. Cause you still have that third theory that, you know, we all have these different suspects, but this theory of a person kind of like the Delphi case where this guy wasn't on anybody's radar, but he was out there this whole time. So you could have a situation like that. It'd be foolish for us not to acknowledge it. And not only that, but it also gives Adnan a chance to be back in the game at this point because Asia saw him between 230 and 240. So you can't be- Of course. Asia saw him between 230 and 240. So, you know, you can't be somebody who's in the I support Adnan's innocence camp and then say, oh, this prosecution just basically made their case based

off what Jay said. And it could be completely inaccurate. But then also say like, oh, well, Adnan was seen in that 21 minutes that the prosecution just pulled out of their ass. Therefore, he's completely innocent. You either think the prosecution was wrong in their timeline, which you believe like Rabia believes they're wrong in their timeline. She believes that they base the timeline off of Jay's statements, which we agree. And but you can't say that and then also say like, oh, but definitely only a 21 minute window that this could have happened. So it throws everything out of whack. I don't possibly see how they could have isolated that 21 minutes. It's just what was convenient. Anything could

have happened to Hay between 2.15 and 3.15. Anything. She could have still been alive at, you know, 2.45 when, you know, Asia didn't see Adnan anymore after she left the library. Who knows? She, you know, he could have walked into the library. We don't know. She could have gone there. Maybe that's what she needed to do. She needed to, you know, check her email or do something for a research project

or whatever. And that's when she saw Anon. And that's when he was like, maybe she was meeting him there. Yeah. Well, hey, you're here. So let's just go together in your car now. Who knows?

But the fact of the matter is, and she did say, right? She said to Anon in the letter, hey, how long did you stay? Yeah. She doesn't know. She doesn't know. He doesn't freaking know. Because honestly, in my opinion, he didn't even remember that shit until she got those letters. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're right. That's concerning. to represent him at his sentencing hearing, which took place on June 6, 2000. This public defender, Charles Dorsey, allegedly told Adnan to show remorse during the sentencing hearing. He said, you know, you're young, you have no criminal record. If you act like you're sorry for what

you did or for what happened, the judge might go easier on you. but Adnan told Dorsey that he could not show remorse because he had not done anything wrong. Adnan basically told the court and Judge Wanda Heard that he maintained his innocence, although he understood that a jury had found him guilty and he accepted that, even though he hoped to one day have another chance to prove his innocence in court. Judge Heard responded, quote, this wasn't a crime of passion. The evidence, as I recall it to be, and the jury found by its first-degree conviction, meant premeditated, with malice afterthought, as we say in the law. That means you thought about it. The evidence was there was a plan, and you used that intellect. You used that physical strength. You used that charismatic ability of yours that made

you the president or the, what was it, the king or prince of your prom. You used that to manipulate people. And even today, I think you continue to manipulate even those that love you as you did to the victim. You manipulated her to go with you to her death, end quote. Damn. So you have to wonder, because when I was reading this, I was like, that's a that's a strong statement. This judge sat there through the entire trial. She must have heard some shit that made her feel this strongly about it. Right. Yeah, for sure. And she was going off the the prosecution's theory. And so clearly she found it very believable. And she found it compelling. Yeah, she found it compelling. That's for damn sure. So Adnan was sentenced to life in prison and plans were made for appeals and for post-conviction relief. Rabia explains in her book that new evidence, such as Asia's letter, that couldn't be introduced in like a standard appeal.

New evidence could only be brought up during post-conviction relief. And obviously, they're going to try to do both, right? They're going to try to appeal and get a new trial, and they're also going to apply for PCR. Now, attorney Justin Brown was hired to represent Adnan in his PCR petition in 2010. And that's when they began to, you know, attempt to track down Asia McLean again, who by that time had moved out of the state. She'd gotten married. I think she had moved out west, so across the country basically. And Adnan's legal team attempted to reach Asia via letters, but she never responded to those letters. So a private investigator was sent to her home and somebody answered the door. They said it was a man. I'm

assuming it was Asia's husband. And the private investigator was like, hey, you know, I'm working for the legal team of Adnan Syed. Can you tell Asia to call me? And he gave this man his card. But Asia did not call the PI or get in touch with Adnan's legal team. So the PI returned to her home again. And he was told by the same man who answered the door, basically, like, don't come back here. Leave Asia alone. Rabia said at this point they didn't know what was going on. Why was Asia stonewalling them? They needed her, and they needed her testimony

for the PCR hearing, but she was not cooperating at that time. And Ednaud's attorney, Justin, said, you know, we can subpoena her and force her to travel to Baltimore to testify because we have her affidavit. So we could just kind of make her be here. But that move might make her a hostile witness. And they didn't want that. So he decided that they could just move forward with only the letters and the affidavit that Asia had written 10 years earlier. Now, once again, I don't understand this move. Why would she be a hostile witness if this is what she claims she saw and this is what she is very sure happened and she was willing to sign a notarized affidavit saying that 10 years prior, why would you make her a hostile

witness if what she's doing is telling the truth? Why would she be hostile about that? And why would she be avoiding Adnan's legal team at this point? Well, we're going to find out during the PCR hearing, which took place in October of 2012. And Adnan's team team they were stunned when Kevin Yurek who's the prosecutor from Adnan's initial trial he was called to the stand and through his testimony it was revealed that Asia McClain hadn't been stonewalling everyone in fact Kevin Yurek claimed that Asia had reached out to him when she realized that Adnan's legal team were trying to track her down. So Yurek testified under oath that Asia was concerned because she was getting asked questions

about this affidavit that she had written over a decade prior. And he alleged that Asia told him she'd only written the affidavit because of pressure from Adnan's family. She said she wrote it to please them and get them off her back. But then in a new affidavit from Asia, which came out in 2015, it was filed with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. This new affidavit, in it, Asia alleges that Kevin Urich had actively suppressed her testimony in the PCR hearing and also misrepresented what she had said to him when he took the stand. So here's what Asia said in that new affidavit, quote, After encountering the Syed defense team, I began to have many case questions that I did not want to ask the Syed defense team. After not knowing who else to contact, I made a telephone contact with

one of the state prosecutors from the case, Kevin Urich. I had a telephone conversation with Urich in which I asked him why I was being contacted and what was going on in the case. He told me there was no merit to any claims that Syed did not get a fair trial. Urich discussed the evidence of the case in a manner that seemed designed to get me to think Syed was guilty and that I should not bother participating in the case by telling what I knew about January 13, 1999. Yurik convinced me into believing that I should not participate in any ongoing proceedings. Based on my conversation with Kevin Yurik, the comments made by him, and what he conveyed to me during that conversation, I determined that I wished to have no further involvement with the Syed defense team at that time.

Yurik and I discussed the affidavit that I had previously provided to Chaudhry. I wanted to know why I was being contacted, if they already had the affidavit on file, and what the ramifications of the document were. I never told Yurik that I recanted my story or affidavit about January 13, 1999. In addition, I did not write the March 1999 letters or the affidavit because of pressure from Syed's family. I did not write them to please Syed's family or to get them off my back. What actually happened is that I wrote the affidavit because I wanted to provide the truth about what I remembered. My only goal has always been to provide the truth about what I remembered. My only goal has always been to provide the truth about what I remembered, end quote. Now, keep in mind, despite this affidavit

and despite what Asia claims and what she's still claiming, because, you know, I'm not on Twitter. I hate it. I avoid it like the plague. But you told me that you are on Twitter and you are seeing that Asia McClain has been a little bit vocal. Oh, she hates Kevin Urich. Hates him. Yeah. So she's still talking him yeah so she's she's still talking about this so obviously she's still claiming like you know he lied to her and he misled her um he still says that you know she absolutely did tell him the stuff that she wrote the original affidavit under duress and you know she might have like to be honest she might have because maybe he made her feel stupid when he

was like, well, here's all the reasons that he's guilty. And why are you providing an alibi for this murder? And she was like, well, you know, I felt pressured. So she might have done it to like make herself look better or make it seem like it was less like her fault. You know, I've seen people do that. You kind of shift the blame. It's like, well, I didn't want to do it, but, you know, I kind of felt like I had to just to kind of take the heat off of you. So she may have said it, but that didn't mean that she meant it. It didn't mean that she actually did write that initial, those initial letters or the initial affidavit under pressure from Adnan's family or from Rabia. But there is a good amount of people out there who feel that Asia's story was concocted and she made it all up to give Adnan an alibi. Like you kind of were saying earlier, it does seem like she's like, here's your alibi. Like,

all you have to do is just go along with this now. And these people point to certain things that she says in her letters. For instance, I will try my best to help you account for some of your unwitnessed, unaccountable lost time, 2.15 to 8 o'clock, January 13th. The police have not been notified yet. To my knowledge, maybe it will give your side of the story a particle head start. I hope that you appreciate this, seeing as though I really would like to stay out of the whole thing. It doesn't seem like she would like to stay out of the whole thing, you know? Yeah. And how could she help him? How could she help him from 2.15 to 8 p.m. when she only saw him from 2.30 to 2.40? Well, I think at that point they hadn't narrowed down when the actual, you know, because the prosecution, they hadn't really,

I think, I think that she hadn't. Developed the timeline yet? Well, I think they had because they'd already gone to trial trial but maybe she hadn't like been told that yet or she hadn't picked up on it yet so she's giving this very broad sort of timeline yeah where his accounts are his whereabouts are unaccounted for and she's like almost saying like hey contact me you know call my grandparents line but don't call it after 11 or call me here but but at the same time maybe you can give me a better indication of what time in this very broad um you know timeline do you need covered maybe she that's why she wanted him to contact her and like i said this isn't what i'm saying or necessarily what i believe but there is a big group of people out

there who believe that this whole alibi was sort of concocted. There is an article, I wish, I'm gonna get the word for word and I'll have it for you guys next episode, but it's not an article, it's like a court document where it basically says that a friend of Adnan's did come forward and claim that Adnan told him that he'd had a girl write a letter with an alibi,

hoping that it would like provide him an alibi after he was convicted because he was like, oh shit, I'm convicted. Like I don't remember what I was doing. So if I have an alibi, then that will help me and maybe I can win on appeal. So he had kind of like planned all of this. I don't know. Like I said, I'll have it word for word and I'll have a source for you next time. But there was allegations of things like that. And, you know, like I said, it doesn't appear to me from anything she did or said in those letters that she wanted to stay out of the whole thing. You know what I mean?

It seems like she really did insert herself and she was kind of like getting a kick out of it. It reminds me of you probably don't know this case. They made a documentary about it and I think like a get his cell phone and they realize that the entire time Conrad Roy was sitting in his truck, letting it fill up with poisonous gas. He's on the phone talking to his girlfriend, Michelle, and she's basically like egging him on to kill himself. And at one point, Conrad says, oh, I'm getting out of this truck. I can't do it. And she's like, it's like a Massachusetts case, isn't it? Yes. Yes. And she was basically like, you pussy, like, get back in that truck. You said you were going to do this. It's that kind of thing. Some people are like that. They gravitate towards the drama and they gravitate towards this very, you know, like they insert themselves places where they don't need to be inserting themselves. And then later it looks bad and people are like, why did you do that? And they get defensive about it because they don't have an answer.

They just gravitate towards it. So it does remind me of that, like a moth to a flame, because there's no way you can tell me she wanted to stay out of this whole thing. Okay. I will say it's anecdotal on my part. I've never come across a witness in my, but it's not like I've done a million cases where I found out the person was flat out lying. Usually what intends to happen is you have someone who did have some involvement, or at least they believe they did on a day in question, and they see it as an opportunity to become involved in a case, nevermind a case this high profile. And so they take that opportunity. And not only do they take the opportunity to tell what they remember, but they expound upon that and they start to do their own investigation and

build their own case. And that just completely complicates and it doesn't help anyone. And that has happened to me on numerous occasions. And I think I even gave this example where I'll have a witness and I think they're like a good witness. And then I go over to the crime scene and they're like over near the placards where the shell casings are. And they're like, hey, detective over here. And I'm like, I'm like, so and so, what are you doing here right now? I want to help. I got my flashlight. It's like, go home, dude.

You're hurt. I can't use you now because you're seeing things and doing things that are going to make you not a credible witness anymore. Get the F out of here. You're doing too much. Yeah, you're doing too much. I don't need you to process the crime scene, buddy. Go home. So we've had that happen.

So that seems like it could be more plausible. But I definitely think all these theories that have been thrown out there based on what we're reading and based on her behavior afterwards, I think there's probably a little truth to all of it. I definitely think, and I don't know Kevin Urich and I don't know Asia. I don't know them, but I do think there's probably some truth to both sides where Kevin's calling her and this woman's telling him things that would contradict what he's been working on for the past year. So I don't think he's imploring her to call the defense team. He doesn't want to deal with this headache because he knows it's going to hurt his case. So absolutely, I think he's downplaying her involvement, what it could do for the case, and also embellishing maybe how strong of a case he has. So it deters her from reaching out to the defense team. Absolutely think that happened. I don't know him, can't prove it, do I think it would have been a big problem,

a bigger problem if he had reached out to her? Yeah. But considering she reached out to him, like he's the opposition, you know, like what did she expect? I guess I just don't understand because at the time she called him, she's a grown woman. Okay. She's not a high school senior anymore. She's a grown woman. She's married married she's living on her own what did you think was going to happen you know where he you know where he lies he's the he's the head prosecutor prosecutor means he's trying to put that dude in prison what did you think he was going to be like yes um actually let me just be completely a million percent honest with you and tell you that he's supposed to but i hear you you're actually providing a great alibi for him and you need to get over there right away to the

defense team and work with them so that we can get this all cleared up. Like, yeah. Is he supposed to? Yeah. Oh, yeah. What do you mean? Ethically, if he has someone come forward that discredits the information he has, he has an ethical responsibility to document that and to bring it to court and to also make the defense team aware of it. But does it discredit, does it discredit the information he has? Just her saying she was there for 10 minutes. Doesn't help him. That's for sure. It doesn't help him. It's one more thing he's going to have to battle. So yeah, I think he's absolutely going to embellish how strong of a case there is against Adnan. And listen, you do what you got to do, but I'll tell you, we got 80 witnesses. We got this, we got that. I mean, I don't think

what you're saying is going to help them, but you do what you got to do. And she's looking at it like, oh my God, this case is so overwhelming. What's my 10 minutes of accounting for Adnan? How's that going to help? So it probably deterred her from doing it, which- It intimidated her, I think. Absolutely. that was his plan to intimidate her. And she's going to be on the wrong side of it. She's feeling like I'm going to be out there defending a murderer. No, I don't want to be, you know, so I can see it. It makes sense.

I 100% make sense. But also, like, once again, what did you think was going to happen? Like if Adnan's worried the police aren't on his side, you can definitely bet that the prosecuting attorneys are not on his side. So, you know, I don't even blame her for reaching out to him, but for her to just like believe what he said and not double check. Like if you're going to do that, call both sides and get both sides of the story and then figure out where you stand on it. Because she was like dead ass so sure that she saw him in the library. And that's another thing like that that's what bugs me is she kind of flip-flops and goes back and forth but you also when you're on the yay and non part you're like i'm a million percent sure there's no doubt in my mind but if that's the

case like why would you ever doubt why would you ever doubt yourself like why would you even want to stay out of this whole thing like she says you, you know, and I don't like that. I hope you appreciate this. It's almost like a, you know, you kind of owe me. Like, I hope you appreciate what I'm doing for you because I don't want to be involved in this. I don't like that aspect of it. Could be innocent, but not the best choice of words. Yeah. Could be innocent. Like it just doesn't, I don't like how it feels. Because at the time she was at high school when she wrote that you know not as much life experience they talk differently so even at that point if because at this point you're just a

couple of months away from seeing him in the library so if you truly believed that you'd seen it on in the library on the day that haye was murdered would you really want to stay out of the whole thing and allow someone that you knew who who was innocent go to prison and then allow like the real murderer or murderers of hayman lee to roam the streets of baltimore possibly targeting other high school girls you know like would you want to stay out of it why would you want to stay out of it if you had a an airtight alibi and you knew that at least between that 10 minutes 230 to 240 you saw him and nobody could ever convince you otherwise and you know the fact that she refers to his time as unwitnessed and unaccounted for

people have brought that up they don't like that verbiage like why would she call his time unwitnessed and unaccounted for if she was there to witness and account some of that time? I think it's just a bad choice of words personally. But some people think it's like a little secret like wink and nudge. Like I'm happy to help you with some of this unwitnessed and unaccounted for time. 2.15 to 8 o'clock. So some people feel that it's very like, hey, wink, wink, nod, nod, like, let me know what you need kind of thing. I think it's just probably bad choice of words.

I don't know. I feel like some of the other words that she used in there would indicate that, you know, young kid, you're reaching out to a guy in prison for murder. Not probably the first time she's ever done that. Maybe not knowing, maybe a little nerves writing the letter. She's writing it in school in between periods or at least one of them she was. So I can see it. Benefit of the doubt, I would hope that it's not a complete made-up story. But at best, she saw him for 10 minutes and nobody else can confirm what she's saying.

That's if you take everything at face value. But dude, even if you saw everything at face value. feel bad about what happened to Hay. Like, you know, she says in the beginning, you better not have done this or I'm going to kick your ass or something like that. Like there's a little bit of that. But then from then on, it's like, oh, these real murderers and this evidence, you know, I tried to put my, you know, like emphasis on the words when I was seeing it as it is written in her letters. But she puts quotations around evidence and eyewitnesses as if she just doesn't buy any of it. And I understand, like if you're talking to the family and they're kind of like planting that in your head that this is all bullshit and all made up, you might have that sort of outlook towards it. But at the same time, you're no longer an

unbiased witness if you've gotten all this information from the family that's made you now doubt that any of this evidence is true. And we know there's plenty of evidence that kind of does shine a negative light on Adnan that's not made up or fabricated, that just can't be explained and he can't explain. So yeah, that bugs me a little bit. But let's go back to Adnan's legal team notes. Like I said, there's a wealth of information in there, hundreds and hundreds of pages of stuff I've never seen before. So there's this guy, this lawyer, Chris Flohr. He was one of the original two lawyers to represent Adnan before Cristina Gutierrez took over in April of 1999. The other attorney was Douglas Colbert.

So these are people, the attorneys who are handling it when Adnan's being talked to by the police at the time of his arrest, things like that. The second note that asia sent adnan the one dated march 2nd it was typed the first note was handwritten the second one was typed and it also had adnan's prisoner number on it and many people have pointed out that it didn't even seem like adnan's attorney chris floor knew this prisoner number at this point when Asia allegedly wrote the note on March 2nd. So Chris Floor had a to-do list, and you can see it in his notes. He wrote it on March 12th, and the first item on that list was ID number followed by question mark. So he's trying to get Adnan's prisoner ID number at this point on March 12th. So that line item is crossed

off and then the prisoner ID number is written on that same page at the top in parentheses. But this did lead a lot of people to wonder how Asia knew Adnan's prisoner ID number 10 days before his own lawyer did, which led a lot of people to believe that this second letter was not written on March 2nd, but was written much later after she'd visited his family, maybe gotten some inside information on what portion of the timeline that they needed an alibi for. And this is when Bilal Ahmed comes back in because as I had mentioned earlier,

Bilal Ahmed did testify during the grand jury hearing or the grand jury trial before the first trial even happened. And during that grand jury trial, he got a lot of information, you know, inside information like stuff the police had and stuff the police knew. And basically there's this case against Adnan that he then would pass on to Adnan's family, his parents. So I think that's where, you know, it looks like Asia was getting some of that information, like about the police finding the car in Leakin Park and about someone skipping school and playing video games. You know, information that's not quite correct,

but may have gotten kind of transformed through the game of telephone from whoever you know balal heard it from at the grand jury then from balal to anon's father and then from the father to the mother and then from the mother to asia or you know a ton of other people in between and now she's got this information that hasn't been publicly made available but she's sort of just like giving weird half truths that that i'm sure she not doing purposely, but who knows where that information was coming from. So a lot of people think she was getting young girl who thought that she saw him and kind of wanted the excitement of being involved in this whole escapade. But I will say it doesn't make sense why Asia would write a letter on March 1st and then write another letter the very next day on March 2nd. You know what I mean? Did that seem off to you? Because she says in the first letter, like, oh, I saw you that day. And then the second letter, she's like, why haven't you told anybody that you saw me that day? And it's like, when

would he have time to even do that? You know, you, you wrote one letter after the other. I don't understand. I mean, that point could have been like, she, she's thinking about it the next day. Why hasn't he told, why haven't I been contacted? Because he's told his defense team already that we spoke that day. Cause that would be valuable information. And didn't she say in the second letter, like, if I get time later, I'll write you tomorrow? Yeah. So, I mean, it's not completely off that she's writing a letter every day

to him at that point when she's saying, I'm going to write. But I don't think she ever wrote to him again. Didn't write to him again, which I don't know why. But I'm just playing devil's advocate here that I hear what you're saying, and maybe maybe she was doing that you know i tend to believe what i said earlier with with asia where there's a mixture of what she remembers and what she's now heard and is having trouble differentiate between what she actually experienced and what she's been hearing we we have this with other

witnesses where they start to blend the two together from what they've heard from other people and how it compares to what they've experienced. And there is this melding of the two where their stories become a little bit conflicting because now they're mixing what they remember with what they've heard. And they don't even know the difference anymore because they've been surrounded by it by so many people. And she wouldn't be the first person that this happened to. She definitely won't be the last. I completely agree. And like I said, I'm not saying that that she did this, that she made this all up. And it's some grand conspiracy, because if I don't believe there's a grand conspiracy against Adnan, how am I supposed to believe there's a grand conspiracy for him?

No, I agree. It just doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't make sense on either end. Like I said, I think she was just a young girl, probably had a little bit of a crush on him, probably maybe saw an opportunity like, oh, kind of like Michelle and Conrad Roy. Michelle wanted all this attention from being affiliated with Conrad's suicide. She enjoyed being close to something that was going to get a lot of attention. And Asia kind of says, maybe write me back so we can all know how you're doing and I can know how you're doing. Maybe she just wanted to go and be like, oh, Adnan wrote to me. He's the most popular

boy in school, prom prince. He wrote to me from prison. Look at this. This is a teenage girl kind of thing. I completely understand that. But I don't know. I don't think there's some grand conspiracy. And I do think that writing two letters in a row is odd. But also, like you said, she could just be thinking more about it. And she's kind of just trying to like get it all out on the paper while it's there fresh in her mind. Asia did write a book about like her experiences with Adnan and with the Serial Podcast and with Kevin Urich. And to be honest, I just didn't have it in me to read this book. Between all the transcripts and the trial stuff and the attorney notes and Rabia's book, there was so much to get through. I still

haven't read everything. But I did find an article titled, The Nine Most Surprising Revelation from Asia McLean's New Serial serial memoir. Number one, Asia claims she has turned to non-traditional tactics of memory recollection, saying, quote, I've recently started some spiritual counseling with the hopes of recovering real memories. It's a slow process, but I hope that in time I will recover something. I've even more recently opened myself up to the idea of hypnotherapy, end quote. To me, that doesn't sound like someone who is, you know, 100% sure of what their memory holds, but a lot of time has passed, so maybe she does want a little bit more clarity.

Number two, Asia said that she has not seen Adnan since the library and has no desire to talk to him. She said, quote, I haven't seen Adnan outside of the post-conviction hearing in 2016 since that fortuitous day in the library. Other than maybe speaking with him very briefly when this is all over, I have no desire to ever speak with him again. I have no desire to be his friend and I don't want to keep in touch. End quote. That's an interesting statement. Number three, Asia felt insulted that Adnan never wrote her back from jail. And she said, quote, I do remember feeling a little insulted that Adnan never wrote me back from jail because I had heard rumors that other people had received letters. End quote. There's a couple more items about how she feels resentful towards Sarah

Koenig and the Serial podcast. Apparently, she said when Sarah Koenig interviewed her, she didn't tell her that she was going to be using this interview that she was recording for a podcast. And so Asia felt kind of like misled. But then we have this revelation that Asia believes she the disappearance of Hayman Lee. I remember feeling sad and noted how ironic it was for me to be finishing my affidavit on that very day. Soon after falling asleep, I felt my duvet cover slip away from the right side of my body. By that time, I assumed that my husband had made his way to bed and was once again stealing the covers, as he often does. In any right, I didn't pay it much mind. Slowly, I felt the temperature change in my bedroom. Coupled with having no bed covering on me, the temperature change was only slightly noticeable, enough that it lightly roused me from my sleep. Half awake, I laid there and became more and more aware of my body's own presence.

I could feel myself laying flat on my back and feeling an enormous weight holding me down. I then realized that I could see around my bedroom and therefore assumed that I was no longer asleep. I looked up toward my bedroom ceiling fan and there I saw a sight that felt like it made my hair turn white. There, floating in midair, about four feet directly above me was Hae Min Lee. Absolutely scared shitless, I tried even harder to move my body, but I could not. I was literally frozen into place. As I felt my heart pounding in my chest and my breath shortening, it became completely evident to me that I was having a full-fledged panic attack. Unable to do anything else, I stared at the apparition, wide-eyed and full of fear. As I looked up at her, I began to notice that she looked exactly as I remembered her in high school and that she was floating in an odd manner. As I continued to stare at her, she reached out her hand to me. Being that I was restrained and full of fright, we were unable to touch. I noticed a sort of

sadness about her, as if she was not at rest. In that moment, I sensed that she was trying to speak to me, but no words left her mouth. It felt as if she was trying to tell me something but could not. I don't know how I know this, but it felt as if she was trying to tell me who killed her. To this day, I'm not sure if I was dreaming or not. To this day, I can't shake the feeling that I may have seen my first and only ghost." End quote. Okay, so I'm not going to say that Asia was lying about what she saw, and I'm not even going to say that she didn't see a ghost, because, you know, I believe in ghosts. You know, I'm open-minded about that stuff, but what I am going to say is whether she was dreaming or she actually saw a ghost, I don't think the date and what Asia happened to be doing on that day, which was finishing her affidavit where she swore she saw Adnan in the library during the time of Hay's murder, is inconsequential. Let's say she did see the ghost of Hayman Lee. Asia herself said that Hay's ghost appeared to not be at rest and seemed as if she wanted to tell Asia something, specifically the name of the person who killed her. Maybe Hye's ghost didn't want Asia signing her name to an affidavit that gave Adnan an

alibi. Maybe Hye was at rest for a decade because no one else saw her ghost because Adnan was in prison for her murder. But when it seemed like Asia's affidavit might change his status, Hye wanted to try and communicate with Asia to tell her not to do that. Or let's say Asia was dreaming. As she mentions, she could have been, you know, she's like, I don't know if I was dreaming or if I saw a ghost. To me, that kind of dream might reflect a guilty conscience. Asia may have initially involved herself because,

you know, she had a crush on Adnan and she didn't think he could possibly have done it. Maybe Adnan hadn't paid her much attention before, but she thought if she was responsible for getting him out of prison by providing him an alibi, he could no longer ignore her. As she said, he would leave prison and realize who his real and new friends were. Maybe once Asia spoke to Kevin Urich, she was concerned about signing her name to a document that was going to be used in court where she maybe hadn't been 100 percent honest. So she was concerned about the possible legal ramifications against her. She does mention something to Kevin. She's like, I wanted to know about the affidavit and the, you know, the ramifications of that document. Maybe that's why she ended up sticking to that story and signing another affidavit, which claimed she hadn't said any of that stuff to Kevin Urich because that would mean she was admitting to having lied

on a legal document. If what she said to Kevin was true, I think that basically, you know, that's perjury. You signed a legal affidavit, it was notarized. And if you admitted to lying to Kevin and just like writing it because you felt pressure, then that's not a good look. And maybe as she was finishing up that affidavit on the 16th anniversary of Hayman Lee's death, Asia was feeling pretty shitty about it, pretty guilty that there was a possibility that Adnan had been in some way responsible for what happened to Hay, and she herself might be responsible for setting him free. So she had this like vision or dream of Hay appearing to not be at rest and

trying to tell her something that is just my opinion the way I feel her words and experiences could possibly be interpreted it's all alleged I have no proof one way or the other but I mean I think it's you know important to realize that this was happening on the 16th anniversary of Hayes death on the day that you know Asia was finishing up this affidavit where she was kind of like sticking to her original story I don't I don't know. What do you think? I'm not even going to pretend like I can elaborate on this You guys know me well enough by now for me to sit here and get into this as far as whether she saw a ghost Or not and if she did have a vision what that you didn as whether she saw a ghost or not. And if she did have a vision, what that vision meant. You didn't think she saw a ghost, right?

I mean, I believe in ghosts and I'm fearful of them, but it's one of those things where for me, this isn't relevant to the case for me, because it's one of those things where it doesn't help or hurt the case. Do I think she saw something? I don't know why she would make this up. She could have made the story a lot more elaborate if she really wanted to get some attention. Cause she's saying that she saw something, but like you said, the way you interpreted it, it was almost like, Hey, wasn't happy with what she was doing. So it didn't seem like it helped her where she could have been like, Hey, it was over me smiling. There was this glow, this light around her that felt like she was at peace. And I knew then that I was doing the right thing. So I just want to say you went deep with

your interpretation. I'm sitting here going, damn, we're going there. We're starting to break down what these interactions with the afterlife mean mean that's where we're at on crime weekly now and you know i said okay this is stephanie's wheelhouse go with it sister go there do your thing you're free well i mean you don't think it's relevant to the case because can't be used in court is what i'm getting no it can't be used in court but you know does it say something about asia that she may be highly suggestible, that she may use her imagination a lot when recounting these stories? You're like, it's not elaborate. And I'm over here reading the story.

It sounds like something out of a ghost book. It sounds pretty elaborate to me. She's like, I saw a sight that made my hair turn white. I feel like if it was a lie, Hay would have said something. Hay would have been like, thank you. Thank you for this. Okay, right.

Right. But check this out. So when I read this article, I was like, it sounds like Asia's kind of regretting vouching for Adnan. She's saying things like, I don't want to be friends with him.

Like, I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to see him after, et cetera, et cetera. But then, you know, you tell me she's on Twitter now going hard for him. So I just, not hard for it.

None. I didn't see anything. And I'm not like following her or whatever. Some of the tweets were like, just came across my feet. Cause I'm searching at non, you know how the algorithm works, man.

It starts pointing you in a direction of all the people involved with it. And it was more, any only thing tweets I saw were directly, were directly were directed at Kevin Yurik. That's the only things I saw. I didn't see anything about her defending Edna. I saw that she wanted to talk to her publisher about releasing some documents that she had or conversation. She had records of,

she was working on a computer that may have some conversations between her and prosecutors and just basically saying how big of a piece of shit Yurik is and she hates him. That's that's generally I saw like three or four tweets. That was it. I haven't seen her out there like, you know, defending Adnan or feeling like she's part of this, you know, whole movement to get him out, which he's out now. I just, it was a couple of brief tweets, but I'm assuming if she's out there, she's definitely not opposed to the idea that Adnan's free right now. That's just an assumption on my part,

but I would think she approves of this because she clearly feels he's innocent. But from these little excerpts from her books, it seems like she kind of wants to just wash her hands of the whole situation. And like, I agree if she's making this ghost story up and she wants it to appear as if she's doing the right thing she would have Hay giving like her blessing,

like, thank you so much for setting the love of my life free you know, and something like super elaborate, right. But- Well, that would have been wrong too because it was Dawn at the time but yeah i got you just saying i can't discredit don don was don was in the mix at that point adnan was out listen i ended on a positive note funny note because there's really no much much more we can go with this stephanie did send us to utah booked her hotel for us and after i'd already spent the night there and heard noises i was informed by the people from Intermountain Forensics that we were staying in the most haunted hotel in all of Utah.

So thanks, Stephanie. Appreciate you. After I told you how much I didn't like ghosts, I feel deep in my soul that you knew what that hotel was and said, I'm not telling Derek because you failed to mention that when you sent me the recommendation. Did you feel that deep in your soul or did I laugh when Danny said the place was haunted and I said, that's why I booked it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You knew, you knew going into it and omitted that fact. You didn't feel it in your, I knew it was haunted.

Well, it also had a ton of history, right? But anyways, yeah, it's supposedly incredibly haunted. And I've been trying to get Derek to go into a legit haunted house with me forever. And he refuses to, so I just wanted to like ease him into it, you know, like dip a toe in, show him it's not that scary. It's not that bad, but we didn't see any ghosts. And I had to sleep there one more night after finding it out. It was not pleasant. I was restless. Yeah, you were, but it was, it was no ghosts that we saw, right? Just little noises. I definitely heard

things the next night, but I know it was my mind playing tricks on me. But I definitely heard the noises, too. That was not your mind. Every pipe, every fan. I kept hearing like hearing like doors like clicking open, you know, like that clicking open sound. Yeah, I know your ears are ringing because I was in my room cursing you. Yeah. Well, I mean, you had fun. Yeah.

So listen, I don't want to get too far off the path to the ghosts and stuff. I thought that the ghost story was. You know, you were like, I know you're innocent. I'm going to get you out. Like you're going to be prom king and the most popular boy in school. And then maybe as you grew up, you were like, man, there's a chance that he could be involved. And I don't really know how I feel about this, but maybe it's like I need to die on the hill situation now because it's either keep going along with it or I go back and, you know, tell everybody that I lied or I was wrong or mistaken about the day. And then and then that's going to be really bad for me, like in a lot of ways, because at this point, she's she's a public figure. You know, people know who she is. They can find her. She's going to get harassment. She's going to get hate, things like that. She probably is getting that stuff anyways at this point, right?

Because there's two sides. Yeah. My final thoughts on it is I'm glad you brought it up. I'm glad it was almost an entire episode because it's important. We're trying to remain objective here. There have been points where I've been leaning one way or the other. You've been very right down the middle, as it should be. And it's one of those things where this is a big component for people who are in the camp of Adnan's innocent. And this proves it. So we would not be doing our job if we didn't cover this extensively as much as as much as we've covered other things. For me, I'm more focused on things that I can go back and prove that this doesn't seem like it's one of those things. I haven't really taken a lot of stock in the other accounts of what people have said the day of Hayes' disappearance.

And I feel the same way about this. I'm trying to remain neutral on those topics. I'm more concerned with things that to this day still hold true, no matter how much time has passed, like the call logs, like the cell phone tower data, the guilt knowledge that was provided, when it was provided, even before the car was located. Things like that mean a lot to me. But this is something that if you're going to do a full workup, a full investigation, you have to take everything into account, write it all down, digest it, process it. Maybe I'll feel a little different tomorrow as I'm replaying it in my head and also re-listening to this episode as it's process it. Maybe I'll feel a little different tomorrow as I'm replaying it in my head and also

re-listening to this episode as it's being edited. So that's always good, but I'm really glad we covered it because a lot of comments were relating to this. And I think we couldn't do this case in its entirety without spending as much time as we have on everything else and not spend it on this because there's people who are starting to comment about how they feel as far as this case is concerned who's involved who isn't and you also need the full picture in order to come to your own conclusion so this is this has got to be part of that narrative it has to be yeah i agree and um at the end of the day asia could be completely right she could have seen him that day for 10 minutes it still doesn't mean that he didn't have anything to do with hayes murder or she could be mistaken and she saw him another day that still doesn't mean he didn't have

anything to do with hayes murder and i would also like to mention that you can't support her claim so a lot of people are acting like you know this is it like asia mclean saying she saw it on that day makes everything else just go out the window and you know i don't i don't agree with that and i don't like it because it's one person's version of events and even if she's a million percent sure of what she saw it doesn't mean that it's actually what she saw or it's actually what happened so we can't just take people's word for things because they support what we want to believe um at the end of the day and that's that's what a lot of people have done because you guys did place not all of you but a lot of you did place like what about asia what about asia mclean

what about asia mclean and i'm over here like man is there something i don't know about asia mclean's alibi like you know because as far as I was concerned it hasn't been supported by any like external evidence so I had to go back and look and you know that's when I found a bunch of other stuff that we talked about today but yeah there isn't anything there that supports it there's no physical evidence that supports that it was this day that she saw him or any day for that matter and I do think she she behaved a little strangely in her letters. And I do think that there maybe was an ulterior motive there that, you know, maybe a high school girl would

have. So I can't necessarily say that I 100 percent believe she's like unbiased and just wanted to tell the truth. I will say that. Yeah, I'm with you. I think what it comes down to is how much stock you want to put into Asia as a person, as a person. What her motives were, what her intentions were. We can all speculate, but at the end of the day, the only person that will ever know why she did what she did and how she did it is Aisha. And I just hope she was coming from a good place and was doing it for the right reasons. I think that's kind of where we wrap it up, right? I mean, it's kind of the end of it. We've covered it as extensively as we can. So you know everything you need to know about Asia as far as her involvement with this case and how her testimony, her witness testimony plays into this whole thing, which is for some a lot.

Well, I'm sure we don't know everything, right? Once again, asia knows everything and you know we are more than happy to have her on the show if she wants to talk and clear things up and set us straight uh or your give us information that she feels is is relevant and valuable we will always take it always open because we we don't have a horse in this game and and it feels like a lot of people do. It feels like there's a lot of people out there, they're writing books and they're kind of building their careers and their public lives based on Adnan and his innocence and him being exonerated. So it does feel like there is a little bit of a need for him to continue to be perceived that way to the point where sometimes things get overlooked and brushed under the rug because, I mean, what happens if it comes out and

all of a sudden, you know, there's this evidence that he actually did do it and he actually is guilty. That house of cards, it falls down and there's a lot of people that fall with it. So it's not their fault that they want him to be innocent, but we don't have, we don't care either way. You know, we. No, it doesn't affect, we're covering the case regardless. You know, this is what we do for a living. So whether we say one way or the other, don't matter to us. We're still, we're still sitting here recording an episode.

Yeah, we don't benefit from, from feeling one way or the other more. It's true. We just want, we want Hay to be remembered and we want her to be, you know, her death to be vindicated. We want the person who did it to be held responsible. And whoever that is, right? Whoever that is.

We just want the person who did it or people who did it to be where they should be, which is in prison. And this, this happens with a lot of people. I got my start in television from big brother, but in True True Crime was a case regarding OJ Simpson, where there was this person who wrote a book, made a lot of money off the theory that Jason Simpson had committed the murders. And I went on TV with this guy for six episodes and right to him, told him that he was

wrong, you know, based on some things. So this isn't like my first rodeo with this where someone believes with every fiber in their body that whatever they believe is the truth is the truth in their mind so i i don't think it has to always be something malicious where they're trying to purposely cover things they just they're so committed to it and so involved with it they're in they're in so deep over it it's it may be all they can see. And I'm not saying that's the case here, but it does happen. And there's been many examples of it throughout true crime and through different cases where people are sure about something and come to find out they're wrong. Not to this extent.

I think that there's a lot of stuff out there in support of Adnan. And there's a lot of professional people out there devoting their lives to proving that he's innocent. And I appreciate that. That's a worthy cause. But you don't have a lot of information or passionate people on the other side. So for instance, like Casey Anthony, you've got all these books out there and you've got one book written by Jeff Ashton, who was the prosecutor, and then you have another book written by Jose Baez, who was her defense attorney. So you can read both of those books and have a pretty good understanding of both sides of the argument, both sides of the story. And there's nothing that really exists out there like that

for Adnan's case. Anything that you see that's pretty big and well-read is in support of him. So we're just trying to shine a light on the shadows that maybe don't get as much attention because there is a certain narrative and that path has been followed. So we're trying to go both ways and then see at the end of the day where we stand and how we feel. Going to wrap this up, but you just brought it up. So I got to ask you because everybody wants to know, will you be watching the new Casey Anthony docuseries on Peacock? I haven't decided yet. Are you? No, of course not.

I feel like what is she? She's not going to come out and say, I did it. I tweeted. I said, is she going to confess? Yeah. So what do I need to listen to her to ramble on and lie for three hours? It's going to be a lot of the same stuff we already heard. But you just heard it here.

I know a lot of people were tweeting at me and DMing me. And I wrote a quick quote tweet. Should we watch it and then just do a short like 15 minute video on what we think about it? If anything comes of it, if she says anything like that's earth shattering or that's new. Maybe we have talked about doing some short videos for a new format that we might include in Patreon or whatever. We'll figure it out. Maybe that maybe that's something we can do, like a short form 20 minute video where it's

a quick hit or not like one of our in-depth crime weekly things that we do. We've already been talking about it. So that's possible. Just a reminder, Thanksgiving's coming. If you want to get criminal coffee, go to criminalcoffeeco.com and use our code turkey. Make sure you use the code. I don't want to hear you guys coming at me because you do. Oh, I bought the coffee. I forgot to put in the code. Can you add it? I'll probably still add it for you because I'm a sucker, but I'd appreciate it if you don't make me do that a million times. That would be very, very helpful. Guys, as always, we appreciate you coming on, sticking with us through the entire episode. Everyone stay safe out there

and we will see you next week. Bye.