Adnan Masud Syed: Case Study

“푆푒푟푖푎푙” is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Sarah Augusta Koenig, narrating a nonfiction story about Adnan Masud Syed. Adnan was charged with murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Hae was a Woodlawn High School senior, who went missing on January 1, 1999. Hea’s family reported her missing that day, after she failed to pick up her cousin at about 15:00 hours. Adnan was found guilty and given a life sentence. His case is full of evidence that was incriminating against him because the evidence found would have naturally been found with his girlfriend’s possessions. Racism and stereotypes blinded the state and the jury to evidence that could lead to the innocence of Adnan Syed who is a Muslim man. As a result, the state and the

First, Don was working at the Owings Mills LensCrafters, but on the day of the Hae’s murder, he claimed he had a day off and was covering his friend's shift at the Hunt Valley store. The manager of the Hunt Valley store gave the police the records of the times in which Don signed in and out on that day, including a quick lunch break. His alibi seems to be strong, but one thing makes his alibi very doubtable. Don's mother was the manager in that store, and the records that were provided to the police might have been fake. The police officers did not take that seriously and did not interrogate any other employees about Don's whereabouts on that day to verify his alibi. Instead they focused themselves just on Adnan, who is a brown, Muslim teenager. Secondly, when the police found her car they discovered a note addressed to Don that says “Hey cutie. Sorry I couldn't stay. I had to go to a wrestling match at Randallstown High. But I promise to page you as soon as I get done, okay?”, in this note the most suspicious sentence is “Sorry I couldn't stay”. According to this note Don could know exactly where she was on that day. The state was totally blinded and ignored this letter, they did not even ask themselves about how Hae was going to give this note to Don if he was far away in the Hunt Valley store. Moreover, they never questioned Don about this note. As a result, all of these

Right at the beginning of the trial one of the potential jurors came up to Judge Mitchell and stated: “A friend of mine that was Muslim faith and I seen him mistreat his family, his wife and everything. I’ve seen this go on between him and his son, he got mad and he did the same thing that father did, so I just couldn’t you know, to be honest with you.” This juror is stereotyping the entire religion just based on the bad actions of these two individuals. It is very obvious that he dislikes that Muslim man and would not consider him as a friend. Also, the prosecutor Vicki Wash during the trial considered Adnan as a Pakistani teenager. She writes a letter to Judge Mitchell apologizing if she misled the court. She says she had misconstrued information from Mr. Marshall of the Justice Department. She talked to him again and he made it clear that there was not a pattern of young Pakistani men committing murder after they had been jilted and then running off to Pakistan. And that other case she mentioned the frighteningly similar one out of Chicago. “That case parallels Adnan’s case only that it involves a Pakistani male charged with murder where the victim was known to the defendant,” she wrote. Syed is not Pakistani. He is an American teenager with Pakistani heritage. Although the jury considered him as a typical Pakistani with a bad culture. “I don’t feel religion was why he did what he did.