Baltimore: The Murder Of Hae Min Lee

Baltimore, a city in Maryland, not only known for its numerous sightseeings, but also for the scandalous cases happening around the city since the 1950's. One of the cases that caught people’s eye was the killing of Hae Min Lee, a former Woodlawn high school’s senior. Almost 2 decades ago, Hae Min Lee at 18 years old went missing on January 13, 1999. After 4 weeks her body was found. Baltimore has one of the highest homicides cases in America and 47% of them are not solved. The detective's eyes went on a particular individual, Adnan Syed. The ex-boyfriend of Hae, a devoted Muslim, former Woodlawn high school’s track team athlete. The detectives decided to take Adnan in custody and further arrested him on 28 February 1999. Since then, he

According to law, to identify an individual as a criminal, physical evidence is required. Physical evidence not only determines the criminal, it also assists the detectives, to picture the crime out. Most importantly it supports the accused individual. Unfortunately, things weren’t fair for Adnan because his case was solely based on Jay’s verbal and eyewitness testimony which is most definitely not physical proof. However, even if his testimony was true, there were many suspicious reasons why it was not reliable. In episode 4, Jay was inconsistent with his story. Jay told Jenn that Adnan killed Hae, because apparently “Hae broke his heart”. However, he presented a different testimony to the detectives. He reported to the cops that he assisted Adnan in the murder, but he told Jenn that he never helped Adnan to kill Hae. He also reported that Adnan told him a few days before he killed Hae, but he then says that he didn’t know until the murder. This unreliable source was the one of the main reasons why Adnan was in jail for almost 2 decades. The detectives didn’t decide to do a further depth check even though he made big significant changes in the story. When asked about the changes in the story, he simply stated he didn’t want to be involved with the police due to the Black Lives Matter movement happening around the state. He

One piece of evidence proves that Adnan is innocent. Jay’s presented in his testimony that after Adnan killed Hae near the Best Buy, he called Jay through a phone booth to his own phone. According to Jay, Adnan left his phone to Jay, so that he could call him back after he gets her body. Koenig researched all the phone booths around 1999, to collect call records of the phone booth. After a thorough investigation, Koenig couldnt find any phone booths near the Best Buy that Jay reported of. She also asked residents living near the area since 1999, and they reported no phone booths, not only that she also collected reports no of phone booths in that area before 1999. This was a crucial part of Jay’s testimony, and it was never investigated which is not fair. The detectives believed him even though there were no phone booths. This can’t be explained by using the “Black Live Matter” movement, because he lied to the detectives two times. This supports my argument why his testimony is unreliable of his dishonesty in the case. Furthermore, detectives didn’t investigate why Adnan left his phone to Jay. There may be another reason why he presented false testimony during the trial. He was bribed or forced by the police to provide false testimony. This might have happened due to the lack of evidence in the case, which made it harder for the cops to investigate.