Sarah Koenig

When Bill Ritz finally turned me down after six weeks of back and forth, he said he didn't see the point.

The case has been adjudicated, he said.

What good would it do?

I also spoke on the phone briefly to McGillivary, and he said just a few sentences to me, and one of them was, Meaning Adnan did it.

He didn't hem or haw or hesitate.

He remembered the case right away.

Beyond question, he did it.

How did they arrive at that level of certainty?

Before Hay's body was found, this was a missing person case.

She disappeared January 13th.

And the investigation starts out a little slowly, which makes sense to me.

She's not a small child.

She's 18.

She's got a car, which is also missing.

That first day, the police call around to her friends.

They talk to Aisha, to Adnan.

Remember, that's when he tells them he's supposed to get a ride from her, but didn't.

The next day, they call around to hospitals, hotels, motels.

They check the area around the high school parking lot where she was last seen.

You can see from their reports that they immediately hone in on the most time-worn explanation for such disappearances.