Sarah Koenig

Mr. S. works in the maintenance department at a local school.

I think I may have discovered a body in Lincoln Park, he says.

Before I get to the slightly off-kilter story about how Mr. S. discovered this body, just a word here about Lincoln Park.

It's actually spelled Leakin Park, L-E-A-K-I-N, but almost everyone in Baltimore pronounces it Lincoln Park.

It's huge, over 1,000 acres, on the western edge of Baltimore City.

It's got a reputation, and not for the beauty of its woods or its trails or its nature center.

What it's known for, sadly, is dead bodies.

Mention Lincoln Park to people from Baltimore, as I often did, and you're pretty much guaranteed to get a comment like this.

When I told the rental car guy in West Baltimore I was working on a story about a girl who was found in Leakin Park, he said, oh yeah, my uncle was found dead in Leakin Park.

A macabre website dedicated to Baltimore murders lists 68 bodies found there since 1946, though the list is missing at least seven years of stats, so that number is probably low.

A lot of law-abiding Baltimoreans, they don't even really know where Leakin Park is.

Rabia Chowdhury, that family friend of Adnan's who first contacted me about this case, when she was explaining it to me, she said, Yeah, and how is Adnan supposed to get to Lincoln Park so fast?

It's like an hour into the city.

Lincoln Park is nowhere near the school.

Her brother Saad, Adnan's best friend, he didn't know anything about Lincoln Park either.

Where Hay was found is, in fact, less than three miles from where Saad and Rabia are sitting right now in an office across the street from Woodlawn High School.

It's about a seven minute drive.

They have no idea.

I'm explaining all this just to say that the simple fact that hay was found in Lincoln Park, for a lot of people, that alone made it not look innocent.

Like, what's a nice boy like you doing in a park like this?