Chapter 1: What new information was revealed about the January 13, 1999 case?
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Hello, Serial listeners. This is Sarah Koenig. If you're listening to this show, I'm hoping that means that you're into it, and maybe you want to hear more stories like it. Well, you're in luck, because we've got a brand new show called The Idiot coming at the end of March, 2026.
Just like or follow this podcast, The Serial Podcast, on your podcast app, and you'll automatically be notified when The Idiot comes out. And I am predicting you're going to love it. Okay, on to Serial Season 1.
Previously on Serial.
Why would you admit to doing something that drastic if you hadn't done it?
The mechanics, the documentation, the steps that they took, they look good.
Why would you not get up there and defend yourself?
You know, it's your face-to-face. He's right there. He's a person. And so, you know, it sounds believable. This is a Global Cell Link prepaid call from... An inmate at a Maryland correctional facility.
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Chapter 2: How did Laura's testimony impact the investigation?
You know, I looked for her the whole time at the away game. You know, I was really pissed because I thought that she stood me up.
Hay told Summer she would make her own way to Randallstown High for the match. No one but me probably remembers this now, but Inez Butler Hendricks, who worked at the school, said Hay had told her she was planning to catch the Randallstown bus. However, Inez initially told the cops the opposite. So I trust Summer's memory more, and Summer is clear.
Hay told her she was going to drive herself there. Summer said this conversation about Hay not getting on the bus happened after the last bell and also after the regular school buses had cleared the loop in front of the school. She said probably at around 2.30, 2.45. Summer says she has no dog in this fight. She's got no opinions on Adnan's guilt or innocence. She just knows what she knows.
All of the things that I'm, you know, unclear about or kind of shaky about or I am clear on that. 236 would not have been possible for her to even have met him wherever because I know for a fact she was probably with me during that time or at the school during that time.
Summer never talked to the detectives. There's no mention of her in their notes. But she's not the only person who said they saw Hay after school that day. Becky saw her right after school. Debbie Warren said she talked to Hay, too. The police notes say she saw her at approximately 3 p.m. inside the school near the gym, which would match Summer's memory.
So, Laura says, no phone booth at Best Buy. Summer says, no way, no how, Hay was at Best Buy at 236. Combine that, if you want, with old information from Asia McLean, who says she saw Adnan around 230, 245 at the Woodlawn Public Library. Can we all agree that whatever happened to Hay probably didn't involve a 236 p.m. call from that phone booth saying, come and get me, I'm at Best Buy?
I don't know about you, but I'm done considering that it's true, this 236 thing. If you want to speculate with me here for a second, if we suspect there wasn't a phone booth at Best Buy, that means the crime maybe didn't happen there. Jay's friend Chris said he heard the crime happened in the parking lot of the Woodlawn Public Library.
But I gotta say, if you think the Best Buy is too public a place to commit a murder, you should see the library after school, swarming with kids. And if the She's Dead Come and Get Me call wasn't at 236, maybe it's the next incoming call on the log, the 315 call. After all, no one actually testifies to the 2.36 timing at trial. This comes from the prosecutor's narrative alone.
The problem is, if it is the 3.15 call, that really messes with Jay's testimony about where they were and what they were doing that afternoon. Now, third piece of new information. It's about what happened at not-her-real-name Kathy's apartment that evening of January 13th. Kathy remembered Adnan getting a call and reacting in an agitated way, saying things like, What am I going to do?
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Chapter 3: What discrepancies exist regarding the Best Buy payphone?
And, you know, the next day we went to school and it was, you know, definite, right? And... It was just everyone kept coming up to me, hugging me. It was just so much. So many people were like, are you okay? Oh my God, what happened? I'm not doubting anyone's sincerity. It was just too much.
So many people back then, and now, have talked about Adnan's reaction to Hay's death. That he was blank, or cried in heaving waves, or not at all, or that he seemed normal, or that he hid in the dark room in photography class, or stared at a picture of him and Hay in psychology class.
One teacher said he was tense and unresponsive when she gave him a hug, that a tick he had became more pronounced. Another said he was so sad he was barely functioning. The school nurse testified at Adnan's first trial that she thought he faked a catatonic state. She wasn't allowed to testify in the second trial. None of Adnan's friends saw anything strange in his behavior.
Besides, they said it was a strange time for everyone. It was terrifying and sad. They were all so young. How are you supposed to react? Interestingly, Jim Trainham, the former homicide detective we hired to review the investigation, immediately disregarded every single statement about Anand's reaction. In terms of evaluating someone's guilt, he said, stuff like that is worthless.
He advised me to do the same. Just toss it all out, he said. Because it's subjective, it's hindsight, and also people tend to bend their memories to what they think police want to hear. Adnan helped plan a memorial for Hay at school. They'd plant a tree for her. It's still there in front of the school with a plaque. This time for Adnan is a blur, he says.
Giant events kept coming, one after the other. He didn't have time to wrestle them into comprehension.
It was kind of a struggle to keep doing everything normally. You know what I'm saying? It's like life couldn't stop. It was just so many emotions, like wondering how the heck did something like this happen to her. And then it was just a few weeks, then I was arrested.
The cops came to Adnan's house to speak to him on February 26, 1999, two days before they'd arrest him. They hadn't interviewed Jen or Jay yet. There was a report in their files about that meeting, which oddly is dated September 14th, almost seven months after the fact. I don't know why. Detectives Ritz and McGillivary come to Adnan's house and ask about Hay.
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Chapter 4: Who is Summer and what crucial details did she provide?
Quote, when asked if Syed had a relationship with Hay Min Lee, Syed replied in a soft voice, yes. However, he didn't want his father to know.
They sat there. Both of them sat at the couch. My father and I sat next to each other. They asked me a few questions. And that's actually what I was worried about was upsetting him. If you were to say what is the thing I was worried about the most, it would be upsetting him. There was no input in my mind that, you know, it was like I'm worried about, you may as well say, you know, the leak.
in the living room, but there's an earthquake coming in the next two minutes. But I'm worried about my father being upset about all of this, and my mother as opposed to. I had no idea whatsoever that this murder charge was going to be coming.
Even after that conversation where your dad was there, you didn't think like, uh-oh?
Not at all. I understood they were asking questions about me, but not that they actually thought that I killed Hank. I never, not one time, thought that they actually believed that I killed Hank. I think any adult, anyone who had, like, a sense of understanding could see the predicament that I was in, that, oh, man, now the police are going to harass you because you're the ex-boyfriend.
Like, if it was me talking to 17-year-old Adnan, I would say, hey, Adnan, you're an idiot. You do know they're going to come after you now unless they find who did it because you're the most recent ex-boyfriend.
Mm-hmm.
So I can completely understand why you would ask me that. But to be that person and to have absolutely no ill will towards her, how anyone could, much less the police, could assume that it had something to do with it.
Very early in the morning on February 28th, after they've spoken to Jay, after Jay has shown them where Hay's car was parked off Edgewood Road, the detectives come into Adnan's bedroom and wake him up, tell him to put some clothes on, it's time to go. He dresses, sees his mother is watching, his older brother, his little brother Yusuf is crying.
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