Sarah Koenig

Sometimes I glimpsed her in the videos, keeping perfectly still or doubled over or holding on to someone.

There's more than one bench conference during the trial in which they talk about her mother's crying being a possible distraction to the jury.

Her pain throughout must have been abject.

On this day, through a translator, Hye's mother speaks.

She tells the court about her daughter.

She tells the court about a Korean proverb that says when parents die, they're buried in the ground.

But when a child dies, you bury the child in your heart.

Quote, when I die, when I die, my daughter will die with me.

As long as I live, my daughter is buried in my heart.

I don't know where to hear her voice.

I don't know where to touch her hand.

I would like to forgive Adnan Syed.

But as of now, I just don't know how to do that.

And I just cannot do that right now.

For many, many months, we tried to contact Hye's family to tell them we were doing this story and in hopes they might want to talk to us about Hye.

In my 20-plus years of reporting, I've never tried as hard to find anyone.

Letters in English and in Korean, phone calls, social media, friends of friends of friends, two private detectives, Korean-speaking researchers, people knocking on doors in three different states, calls to South Korea.

We never heard back from them.

I learned a few days ago that they know what we're doing.

My best guess is they want no part of it, which I respect.