Serial - Serial S01 - Ep. 2: The Breakup

Episode Date: October 3, 2014

Their relationship began like a storybook high-school romance: a prom date, love notes, sneaking off to be alone. But unlike other kids at school, they had to keep their dating secret, because their parents disapproved. Both of them, but especially Adnan, were under special pressure at home, and the stress of that spilled over into their relationship. Eventually Hae broke up with Adnan. And then, depending on who you ask, Adnan was either understandably sad and moping around, or full of rage and plotting to kill her. To get full access to this show, and to other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.To find out about new shows from Serial Productions, and get a look behind the scenes, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter.Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at [e-mail] 

This is Sarah Koenig, host of The Serial Podcast. If you're hooked on this show, and I'm guessing you are, then I'm hoping my job here is pretty easy, to get you to subscribe to The New York Times so you can listen to the rest of it. My father was an ad man who taught me the best ads are declarative, no puffery. So here goes.

Serial shows are expertly reported and inventive. Nobody makes them like we make them. But Serial's great serials aside, when you subscribe, you get all the Times shows. The Daily, Ezra Klein, Wirecutter has a new podcast. My advice, though, don't just get an audio subscription. Go big. Subscribe to the paper. All access, the whole magilla. Serial is part of the Times, so technically I work at the Times, and honestly I'm kind of cheap, but I subscribe for the news, obviously, and the games, and the cooking, and the magazine, and Serial. I think of the Times as a staple.

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what you know about the death of Hayley. Previously on Serial. So he wanted an alibi. Yeah. I mean, the only thing I can say is, man, it was just a normal day to me. There was absolutely nothing abnormal about that day to me. She was concerned because she was being asked questions

about an affidavit she'd written. Even now, it would be nice if there was some technicality, something that would prove his innocence. Great. But I think, I think, Asia, like, you might be that technicality. This is a Global Tell Link prepaid call from Adnan Sayed.

An inmate at From This American Life and WBEZ Chicago, it's Serial. one story told week by week. I'm Sarah Koenig. We're at episode two. You probably heard episode one on This American Life or through our website, SerialPodcast.org. But if you haven't, stop. Go back to the beginning.

We're telling this story in order, the story of Hayman Lee, an 18-year-old girl who was killed in Baltimore in 1999, and the story of Adnan Syed, her ex-boyfriend who was convicted of the crime. So to pick up where we left off, last episode, you heard how the prosecution told the story of this murder at Adnan's trial. And the motive the state supplied, the basis for the whole thing, was that after Hay broke up with Adnan, he couldn't accept it. He was so wounded by her and so furious

that he decided to kill her. Prosecutor Kevin Urich told the jury in his opening statement, quote, he became enraged. He felt betrayed that his honor had been besmirched and he became very angry and he set out to kill Hayman Lee. Or this is from closing, quote, it was humiliating what she did to him. Make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen, this was not a crime about love. This is a crime about pride.

But is that what their relationship and breakup were really like? Was he so hurt that he decided to kill her? That's what I'm trying to find out in today's episode by talking to lots of people who knew Hay and Adnan, mostly their friends, because they were a close-knit group. Some of them had known each other since elementary school. And even though they went to a big, tough high school, Hay and Adnan and their friends were clumped together in a magnet program of about 30 kids, kind of school within the school. And they all took classes together and hung out together and they dated each other. So they knew each other well. And the other information I have to go on are Hay's own words about their relationship, because I have a copy

of her diary. It was entered into evidence at trial. It was read by many people, cops, prosecutors, even Adnan. What's remarkable about the diary and what makes it so helpful is that it's essentially a chronicle of the Adnan era of Hay's life. The first entry is April 1st, 1998, right when they started going out. And the last entry is dated January 12th, the day before she went missing. And in all those months, what she's mostly writing about is Adnan. If you had to bookend Hay and Adnan's romance, you'd put a school dance right at the beginning and then another one right at the end. The first dance was junior prom. Adnan and his best friend had a little competition going about who could get the prettiest prom date that

year. Someone said Adnan should ask Hay to go. So one day after sports practice on the little hill behind the school, he asked her to prom and she said yes. On April 27th, she wrote a long entry in her diary about prom night. Her diary, by the way, well, I'm not exactly sure what I expected her diary to be like, but it's such a teenage girl's diary. She jumps from her boyfriend to driver's ed to the field hockey game. She's bubbly one minute, and the next she's upset with her mother or dissing her friend or complaining about homework. So, prom night. She writes about Adnan. Quote, I swear he is the sweetest guy. Let me tell you why.

He was prom prince and Stephanie was prom princess. And traditionally they were supposed to dance together to my song, Casey and Jojo's All My Life. I tried to act natural and unjealous, but it did kind of bother me. Ten seconds later, guess who danced with me and not with Stephanie? Adnan. Now, how could I not fall in love with this guy? Of course, I gave him his first kiss on the lips. Then I totally fell in love with him. Since then, I keep on falling deeper and deeper into him. The bad thing is that we have to keep things secret. Sigh. But it's okay, because love conquers all. I would never find another lover sweeter than you, sweeter than you. For a while I would notice they were flirting and I would make fun of her about it.

That's Aisha Pittman. She was in the Magnet program too. Hay was her best friend. She would show me notes that they shared and then it just progressed from there. But it was a relationship that was constantly secret because neither of their families knew about it, so that just created much more of, like, her saying, I'm going to be at your house, but really I'm going out with him kind of thing.

She would tell her parents she was at your place. Yeah. Or others. Primarily mine. Just a lot of that sort of secrecy around it. We had a lot of, I guess, we had a lot of real similar, similar types of situations with our families. That's Adnan. Since he and Hay both had immigrant parents, they understood the expectations and the constraints. Do well in school, go to college, take care of your younger brother. And for Adnan, no girls. If a female friend rode in his car, for instance, she'd have to make sure not to leave any long hairs behind. Or if a girl gave Adnan a ride home, she'd have to drop him off down the block so his parents wouldn't see who was at the wheel. You know, it was really easy

to date someone that kind of lived within the same parameters that I did with regards to, you know, she didn't have an expectation of me coming to her house for dinner with her family. You know, she understood that, you know, that if she was to call my house and, you know, speak to my mother or father, I would get in trouble and vice versa. You know, so we would have to kind of set up our talks on the phone. Usually we would talk late at night when our parents were sleeping. They had a whole system for this.

One would page the other when the coast was clear. Remember, it's 1998, so not many cell phones around. Then that person would call some 1-800 service, like the weather or the time, and the other one would call in so that the phone wouldn't actually ring. It would come in through call waiting, and the dozing parents would never be the wiser. At the trial, the state tried to paint a picture of Adnan as possessive of Hay, as controlling. When I spoke to Hay's closest friends about that, a couple of them did say that he seemed to be over-involved with her somehow. Though they couldn't come up with many examples.

Two people remembered a time when Adnan showed up uninvited to a girls' trip to an amusement park. Aisha Pittman was one of them. She remembers nothing positive about their relationship anymore. Though by her own admission, she doesn't know whether her memories are colored by what came later. I think it was probably mostly normal, but things that, like, he kind of just always generally annoyed me because just the constant paging her if she was out. He's like, well, I just wanted to know where you were, and it's like, I told you where I was going to be.

If she was at my house and we were having a girls' night, he would stop by like he would walk over and try to come hang out. And it's just like, have some space. And it's one of those things at first, it's like, oh, it's so cute. Your boyfriend's dropping by. But then the 10th time, it's like, really? Did he ever did he ever seem freaked out by it? No, but I don't think I was ever freaked out by it in the moment. Here's Hay's take on one of those impromptu visits Aisha's talking about. On July 16th, she writes, quote, Adnan dropped by Aisha's late with carrot cake. So yeah, Hay does not describe

Adnan as overbearing or possessive in her diary. Though she does mention a couple of moments when she's mad at him, like, quote, how dare you get mad at me for planning to hang with Isha? Or a time when he was nasty to her because she didn't respond to his messages fast enough. But mostly these incidents seem to be tit for tat. Quote, I'm in a real bitch attitude and Adnan is not helping, she writes on June 15th. He hasn't called me since 1230 this afternoon and it's definitely pushing me to the edge. I think I'm going to pick a fight, unquote. Hay's friends say she had a strong personality and strong opinions. She's no pushover. When she was pissed at Anand, she let him know. But by far, the majority of her diary entries are about how much she likes and loves him. I stopped counting. There were so many

wonderfuls and sweetest and best boyfriend in the world. Mostly, I heard stuff like this from their friends. Here's Becky Klein. Back then, she was Becky Walker. It's just a silly teenage high school relationship. I remember a lot of teasing and a lot of, you know, hand-holding, arms around each other. I don't really remember anything weird or anything that stands out. They hung around all that summer before senior year.

They'd meet up after work and drive around. They were 17. They were in love. They were active. They'd have sex whenever and wherever possible, sometimes at motels or in the car or at a park or other people's houses or apartments. Sometimes they'd fight, and then they'd quickly make up. A couple of times, Hay called it off, but then would ask for Adnan back after a day or two or three. Remember, the setup for this crime that the state laid out was that Adnan was betraying everything he held dear for this girl. As a good Muslim, he was not supposed to be dating.

And so he was sacrificing his religion and lying to his family, all just so he could be with her. And it twisted him up inside. And Hay's diary seems to be where they found some evidence for that. In fact, they had a friend of Hay's, Debbie Warren, read excerpts from it on the witness stand. Quote, I like him. No, I love him, she read at trial. It's dated May 15th. Quote, it's just all the things that stand in the middle. His religion and Muslim customs are the main thing. It irks me to know that I'm against his religion. He called me a devil a few times. I know he was only joking. It's somewhat true. And then there's this, which wasn't read at trial, but is from July when Adnan went to an Islamic conference in Texas with

his dad. This is the most distressed Hay gets on the topic. When I read it, I thought, oh, this does not look so good for Adnan. Quote, I keep crying over the phone because I miss him so much, she writes. He told me that his religion means life to him. He tried to remain a faithful Muslim all his life, but he fell in love with me, which is a great sin. But he told me there is no way he'll ever leave me because he can't imagine a life without me. Then he said that one day he would have to choose between me and his religion. I love him so much. And when it comes to choosing, I'm going to let him go his way. I hate the fact that I'm the cause of his sin. He said that I shouldn't feel like I'm pulling him away from his religion, but hello, that's exactly what I'm doing. So yeah, anytime someone's writing stuff down like sin and devil and religion

means life in reference to their secret relationship, that's not good. But ask the Muslim in question about it, and it all sounds so much smaller. I may have said it as a joke, you know, like, oh man, hey, you know, I can't, you know, I'm going to hell because I'm dating you or something. But I never meant it in the type of way that it seems that she took it. Adnan claims he just wasn't that religious. He was going to clubs and having sex with girls and smoking weed from the time he was 14 or 15. Culturally, yes, a Muslim.

But the rest, he says, not so much. So passages like this, he says he doesn't really recognize himself in them. just like the gravity and the magnitude with which she took these things, I didn't really feel that way about these things. Maybe it seems convenient for me to say that now, but the only thing that I could say to kind of, I don't want to say prove it in a way, is that my behavior didn't change once I stopped, you know, once they broke up with me or once, you know, we broke up or whatever. It's not like, you know, all of a sudden I'm like, okay, this whole big sin is out of my life.

No, it just, you know, I just continued with the same type of behavior. It's not like, you know, all of a sudden I'm like, okay, this whole big sin is out of my life. No, it's just, you know, I just continue with the same type of behavior. It was just different people. Religious stuff aside, the states that Anand was guilt-ridden over lying to his family about Hay. But he says he wasn't all that bothered by that. He figured he was a pretty good

kid. He was doing well in school. He had a job. He was volunteering at the mosque. Why shouldn't he have some fun? And in the pantheon of ways a teenager could have been disrespectful or deceitful to his parents, he thought this rated pretty low. Yeah, my name is Shamim Rahman, and I'm the mother of Adnan Syed. Adnan did most of his lying to his mother. She figured out something was up pretty early on. She'd found Adnan's crown from prom in the basement where he tried to stash it, along with his tux. Shamim came to the United States in 1976. Her husband was already here working as an engineer for the state of Maryland.

She's from Peshawar in Pakistan, where you do not date. You are either married or unmarried. There's not much of a middle ground. So Adnan's girl contact put Shamim in a state of high alert. She would check the mileage on his car to see if he'd driven farther than he said. She eavesdropped when he talked to girls on the phone. I know this makes Shamim sound terrifying,

but she's not at all. She adores Adnan, her middle son. Yeah, he will talk to the girls, yes. I will pick up the phone or I'll, you know. And would he know when he say like, mom, hang up the phone? Yeah, he'll say, mom, you know, I know you're listening to me. Yes, I say, Adnan, I'm here. He'll say, mom, stop, you know, listening to us, you know.

And was that conflict, I mean, it must have been sort of constant. Of course, yeah, because for me, it was unacceptable. So we used to argue a lot. You know, I say, no, you cannot do that. You cannot. If you like somebody, you know, it's all right, you can get married, but not without marriage, you cannot. Of course, me and Adnan had a problem. Adnan's father was a little more loose about it? He was. My whole family was loose. Even my older son, he say, you know, mom, everybody's doing it. Even my husband say, you know, that all the boys are doing it. But I say, no, not my children. Adnan wasn't getting punished for any of this.

It wasn't as if he were about to get kicked out of the house. More like he was being reminded of his responsibilities, both at home and at his mother's request by his youth leader at the mosque. Then came the homecoming dance in the fall of senior year. Adnan and Hay had been together for about seven months by then. This dance would become a big deal at trial, proof of just how fraught their whole relationship was and how tormented Adnan was about his double life.

Here's what happened. Adnan's parents got wind that very night that he had taken Hay to homecoming. Adnan says this kind of thing happens in their community all the time. Someone sees someone else's kid at a dance or at the mall, and before you can even hide behind a potted plant, four aunties are on the phone to the kid's mother. Anyway, this time Adnan's parents did not wait to deal with it at home. They showed up at the dance and chastised him, made a scene. The prosecutors argued that this scene would come to haunt him until the day he killed Hay. Here's what prosecutor Casey Murphy told the jury about the moment when

she says Adnan strangled Hay. What is it that this defendant saw on January 13th when he looked down at Hay Lee? Then she lists a couple things and says this, quote, he saw his parents standing at the window of the homecoming dance. He saw his mother raise her voice at Haley in front of his classmates. Look what you're doing to our family. He saw the pain in his mother's face because she knew they were together. And he saw himself in the end, standing there with nothing to show for it, but a guilty conscience and a pack of lies in which he cloaked himself. Now compare that with how Adnan's best friend Saad remembers the homecoming debacle. He comes home at like 11 p.m. or like 12 midnight and I'm like you know

what happened at your homecoming and he's like you're not gonna believe this I'm like what he's like my mom my dad showed up and I'm like what and I mean we're dying laughing on the phone about this you know just you know this is our world. And I'm like, what happened? They're like, you know, they showed up, they made me leave, and everyone saw it, how like, you know, literally, my parents pulled me out of this relationship.

I've come across dozens of bits of evidence like this. Information that can either mean one thing, or perhaps its opposite, depending on who's talking. Adnan's cell phone, for example. He bought it just two days before Hay disappeared. The state tried to show that that was all part of his plan, that he needed the phone to carry out the murder. But Adnan says he wanted the phone so he could call girls, unfettered.

And he was proud of the phone. He'd worked hard at his job as an EMT to pay for it. Oh, and the job. The state would argue that because he was an EMT, Adnan would have known how to strangle someone and would have had the training to revive them if he'd wished. Adnan, again, he says he was proud of being certified. He'd gotten the highest score on the qualifying test of anyone in his class and a real job as a result. He liked old people, and his job was mostly to ride in the back of the ambulance with old people to make sure they were okay. In the detective's notes, they interview Adnan's English teacher, Jane Efron, who apparently tells them, quote, Adnan had a dark side, which is in his poetry. The words dark side are underlined.

And Ms. Efron? It was like all the teenagers that I taught because everything in their lives was dark. I don't remember any of them having anything upbeat to say. So he was just another one that makes you think that you're living on another planet because you look out at them and they're all healthy and hearty and playing and being stupid. So it didn't stick out in some way. It was just like all teenagers, right?

Broody, dramatic poetry. Absolutely. See what I mean? All this information, every scrap, it's currency for whatever side you're on. It's spin. And the trouble with spin is that you can't totally disregard it because swirling around somewhere inside,

some tendril of it, is true. Saad Chowdhury thinks Adnan is innocent, so for him, the homecoming story is also innocent. Hay didn't write about homecoming in her diary, but Aisha says it wasn't funny to her. It was a big deal. Aisha remembers Adnan's parents wanting to find Hay so they could talk to her,

which, of course, Hay wanted nothing to do with. So that we could leave the dance and not be harassed by his parents, like she walked out holding hands with my friend Sean to get away from it, and she just felt like that was a completely ridiculous thing. And she was super pissed. I think that for her was a, I absolutely don't want to be with this person at all because this is what happens.

On November 3rd, Hay wrote in her diary, quote, who would have thought we would end like this? Who would have imagined the amount of pain that comes with a broken heart? I know I'm doing the right thing. Call me selfish, but this pain is way less than what it would be if we stayed together. Then, apparently, they reunited because exactly a month later, on December 3rd, she's full of love for Adnan again. Quote, this feels so real, so loving, and ever so amazing. I can't be any happier, but yet I keep on being happier. But then, just three days later, there's this on December 6th. Quote, what's the matter with me? Every time I close my eyes,

I see my baby, but I keep on thinking about someone else. Don. Hay has got a crush on Don, an older guy. He's 20, whom she works with at LensCrafters at the Owings Mills Mall. Don has blue eyes and blonde hair and a Camaro, and she really, really likes him. For the next couple of weeks, she's wracked with guilt and confusion over what to do. At one point, she writes Adnan's name in giant block letters made out of tiny little Adnans, and underneath that does the same thing with Don, giant letters made up of tiny Dons. On another page, she writes Don's name 127 times. 127 Dons. It's not clear from the diary when she

finally tells Adnan it's over over, but certainly by Christmas they were split. On New Year's Day, Hay has her first official date with Don, and they start going out. Hay is head over heels. Aisha remembers meeting him on a double date to Friday's restaurant, and then to see the movie Shakespeare in Love. It was the most awkward double date in Friday's restaurant and then to see the movie Shakespeare in Love. It was the most awkward double date in the world because he was older. I forget how old he was, but he was significantly older than us. And my boyfriend was two years younger. So it was just a horrible double date. Like you were out with one man and one boy? Yeah. It did. This is where the real questions begin. All the most important questions about Adnan.

About how he responded to this breakup and to the fact of Hay's new boyfriend. Because the whole premise of the state's case against Adnan is that he felt betrayed and humiliated and angry, and that's why he killed her. This idea came from Jay, their main witness. It was Jay who supplied the motive to police. Here's tape of Jay being interviewed by Detective Gregory Gillivary. He told me that she had broke his heart, it was extremely wrong for anyone to treat him that way, that he couldn't believe how she stood and looked him face to face and told him she didn't love him and could be that heartless. And he told me, he said, almost jokingly,

I think I'm gonna kill her. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm gonna kill her. You didn't know how he was going to kill her. No, no. But he told you that he was gonna kill her. Yes. Because'm thinking of killing her. You didn't know how he was going to kill her. No. But he told you that he was going to kill her. Yes. Because she had broken his arm. Yes. But nearly everyone I spoke with, Adnan's friends and teachers, say he took the breakup like anyone would. Adnan's friend Mac Francis said Adnan was initially devastated and jealous about the new boyfriend. Then he grumbled about it in a typical guy way. Nothing strange. Everyone I talked to said some version of this.

That he wasn't rage-filled or vindictive. He was just sad. It really did seem like run-of-the-mill, mundane, teenage angst. That's Donna Paoletti Phillips. She taught at Non & Hay AP Psychology and had known them both since they were freshmen. In her job, she's seen a lot of high school breakups. She taught Adnan and Hay AP psychology, and had known them both since they were freshmen. In her job, she's seen a lot of high school breakups.

But the level of frustration he must have felt if he killed her doesn't register with me. I don't remember getting that vibe from him. It was just, he was just another kid whose heart was broken. And goodness, if I thought that the kids I teach today were going to resort to some kind of horrific crime based on that kind of thing, I would have stopped teaching because it happens. Every other day. It would be. Adnan's friend Saad said Adnan definitely wasn't mooning over Hay.

When they had broke up, Adnan and Hay had broke up, it'd been like a month, maybe more. She had already started dating another guy. And I was like, Adnan's dating multiple girls. I was like, I can tell you some of the girls that he's dating. I was like, he is not upset about him and Hay breaking up. I was like, he's dating this girl, Anjali in Philly, that he's been going to see this girl. And I know it wasn't like great proof, but it was still proof that he wasn't obsessed with, hey, he wasn't. I was like, he's a, I'm trying to explain.

I'm 17. I'm like, he's a player. He has a lot of girls. I was like, he's talking to multiple. I was like, I am too. He was cute and charming. He was just a very sweet guy. Very flirtatious.

Sorry, Saad. She's not talking about you. This is Anjali, the girl in Philly. And she confirmed, yep, a couple of visits, they made out, nothing too serious. On New Year's Eve, Adnan met another girl, Nisha, from Silver Spring, Maryland. And he started calling her a lot, too.

Adnan's friend Mac remembered Adnan making out with another friend of theirs at a party that January. So yeah, a player. Anand himself describes the breakups with Hay as fairly rational events. Each time that we broke up, or each time, let me say that each time that she ended the relationship or took a break, it was never a thing where I was like pestering her or like going to her house, knocking on the door or chasing her down. Look, I want to get back with you. I want to get back with you because of a part, you know, there was a part of me that knew

that, man, what she's saying, it makes sense. So, yeah, so pretty much that we were just friends, you know. We would talk about things, like, she would tell me about someone that she had met at her job, a guy named Don. And she was like, you know, she really liked him. And you have 30 seconds remaining. Can I call you back? Yeah, yeah. Call me. Call me back. That's the prison phone system telling us our time is up. This happens every half hour. Surprises me every time because I often sort of forget where he is. But so you're making the breakups sound very kind of calm and mutual and like nobody got upset. But, I mean, is that true? Or was there like crying and the usual teenage angst over it? Well, mind you, now, this is me talking, you know, 15 years later.

I mean, you know, she was upset. I was upset. You know, it was times where I was very sad. And maybe I would kind of be, like, a little stubborn about it. Like, no, no, we can make it work. You know, our parents will be cool or whatever. But on the other hand, it was never a thing where I was, like, you know, screaming and yelling at her, why are you leaving me?

So, you know, just to say that, just to kind of dispel that, that was never my behavior, you know, at all. It is true that no one at the time described Adnan as acting obsessed or menacing in any way, not even Aisha. And in her diary, Hay never expresses any concerns about Adnan's post-breakup behavior. In fact, she writes about a time just before Christmas,

so after they'd broken up, when she gets into a little car accident and calls up Adnan to come get her from work. Both Don, her new crush, and Adnan look at the car together and decide it's unsafe to drive, so Adnan takes her home. Apparently it was all very cordial. Even Don said so. He wouldn't talk to me for this story, but he testified at the trial. At this point, I'm going to say flat out that I don't buy the motive for this story, but he testified at the trial. At this point, I'm going to say flat out that I

don't buy the motive for this murder, at least not how the state explained it. I just don't see it. Not one person says he was acting strangely after they broke up. He and Hay, again, by all accounts, were still friends. He was interested in other girls. He was working at his job. He was headed to college. About two weeks after his arrest, he gets an orientation packet from the University of Maryland. I don't think he was some empty shell of a kid who'd betrayed his family and his religion and was now left with nothing and conjured up a murderous rage for a girl who broke his heart. I simply don't buy it. And the reason I don't buy it is because no one who knew him, then or now, says that's how it was. I want to be clear, though, that that doesn't mean he didn't do it.

It just means that, so far, I think the state's story about why he killed her doesn't hold up. Maybe it was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. Maybe, despite the other girls he was running after, he was privately stewing about Hay. After all, she was apparently still flirting with him after they broke up, still paging him with loving messages. She bought him an expensive jacket that Christmas. Maybe he thought he still had a chance with her. Like their friend Debbie told me, maybe once Don came on the scene, he thought, that's a slap in the face. How dare you continue to lead me on like this?

The night before Hay disappeared, Adnan called her from his cell phone three times. The first two calls, at 11.27 p.m. and 12.01 a.m., were only two seconds each. The third call, at 12.35 a.m., lasted a minute and 24 seconds. Adnan says he was probably calling to give her his new cell phone number. He'd just gotten the phone the day before. And indeed, in the top left corner of her diary, she'd written down the number. According to Don's testimony, she'd been at his house that night, which is probably why Adnan's first two calls ended so fast.

She probably wasn't home yet. Her very last diary entry, dated January 12th, is brief. I love you, Don. I think I have found my soulmate. I love you, Don. I think I have found my soulmate. I love you so much. I fell in love with you the moment I opened my eyes to see you in the break room for the first time. There is one detail about the day Hay went missing that I need to tell you about, a detail that doesn't look good for Adnan. And that detail has to do with whether Adnan tried to get in Hay's car right after school. Because that is what the state would allege, that Adnan fabricated a

reason to get in her car that afternoon, so he could kill her. Jay had told police that was Adnan's plan. Does he tell you how he's going to do it that day? No, but he tells me that he's going to do it in her car. He said to me that he was going to tell her his car was broken down and ask her for a ride. So what do we know about the end of that day, a Wednesday, January 13th? Hay and Adnan had a couple classes together, first period, and also last period, AP Psychology with Ms. Paoletti. That's when Ayesha last saw Hay, at the end of Psychology. She was talking to Adnan. Then their friend Debbie remembers seeing Hay on her way to her car. She told Debbie she had to get

her cousin from school and then was going to see Don at the mall. The very last person to see Hay at school that day, we think, is Inez Butler Hendricks. Inez ran a little concession stand right at the gym entrance, and Hay would come by every day and get the same thing, a very fine apple juice and hot fries. That day, she drove up in front of the gym where the concession stand was and left her car running. So she came around the circle, parked her car right there, jumped out, and ran in to get something to drink and to tell me to tell the bus not to leave her. The bus was for the boys' wrestling team. Hay was manager, and they had a match later that afternoon that Hay was supposed to go to. And you didn't see her again after that?

No, I didn't see her anymore. And was Adnan anywhere near her car? No. I didn't see him near the car. Okay, so no one actually testified at trial that they saw Hay and Adnan leave school together. And no one, aside from Jay, says they spotted Adnan in her car at any time that afternoon. Adnan has no recollection of having asked Hay for a ride anywhere. We've talked about it many times. Here's what he said the very first time I asked him.

I wouldn't have asked her for a ride after school. I'm sure that I didn't ask her because, well, immediately after school, because I know she always, anyone who knows her knows, she always goes to pick up her little cousin. So she's not doing anything for anyone right after school. No matter what it was, not a trip to McDonald's, not a trip to 7-Eleven. She took that very seriously. The trouble for Adnan is that a couple of their friends say he did ask Hay for a ride. One of them was her friend Krista.

If I remember correctly, I think Adnan and I were to had a class together. Our first period class was photography. And she they passed each other in the hallway and I was with him. And I remember somebody saying or him saying something about, you know, can you give me a ride after after school? Their friend Becky told police she heard something about a ride as well. I do remember that there was talk about it. I remember I felt like he asked her to give him a ride somewhere. Okay. Can I just read to you what the police notes say?

I think April 9th, 99, they interviewed you. So it says, sometime earlier that day apparently he asked her to take him possibly to get car before lunch because it was in the shop heard about it at lunch so I think you heard about it at lunch yeah that sounds right Hayes said she could there would be no problem at end of school I saw them she said oh, I can't take you. I have something else to do. She didn't say what else. Approximately 2.20. So that happened at approximately 2.20. He said, okay, I'll just ask someone else. He told her goodbye. And then she says, did not see Hay after that. Okay. Yeah, that sounds right.

It kind of all comes back a little bit. So Krista and Becky both remembered, and while Becky's recollection maybe works in Adnan's favor, that he turned him down for a ride and he seemed cool with that, the question is still there. Was he trying to get in her car? Did he ask for a ride, just like Jay said? And in fact, the most damning evidence in support of Jay's statement doesn't even come from Chris Derbecki. It comes directly from Adnan, because he himself told the cops the same thing that day. This time the state would call police officer Scott Adcock to the stand. Around 6.30 p.m., after Hay had gone missing, a Baltimore County police officer named Scott Adcock called

Adnan'scell phone. Hayes' family was worried that she hadn't turned up to her cousin's school, and the officer was calling around to some of her friends to see if they knew where she was. Here's Adcock testifying at trial. I spoke to Mr. Syed, and he advised me that he did see the victim in school that day and that he was supposed to get a ride home from the victim, but he got detained at school and she just got tired of waiting and left. Then, a little more than two weeks after the call with Officer Adcock, on February 1st, by this time the search for Hay has ramped up, a different detective calls, asks Anand about the ride thing. Asks him, did you tell Officer Adcock you'd asked Hay for a ride?

According to the police report, quote, Adnan said this was incorrect because he drives his own car to school. So, he reverses himself. Why would he do that? Why would he tell the first cop he was expecting a ride and and then once it's clear Hay is missing, change his story? Maybe the girls were thinking of a different day, or maybe Adnan misspoke when he talked to that first cop. Or maybe he did ask Hay for a ride at some point that day, but he's forgotten. Or maybe he's lying.

I'm not a detective, but I consider this a red flag. What I don't know is, is this a teeny tiny red flag? Like he just got confused and so what? Or is this like a great big flapping in the breeze red flag? Like maybe he's hiding something. More next week. Serials produced by Julie Snyder, Dana Chivas and me. Emily Connan is our production and operations manager. Thank you. Chimp, celebrating creativity, chaos, and teamwork since 2001. Mail Chimp, send better email. Serials are production of This American Life and WBEZ Chicago.