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Okay, actually there are a few things in Joseph Kahn's laying out of the case against Adnan/Jay that are misunderstandings or drawing conclusions that he presents as though they are fact but aren't actually.

One: "Cell phone records later show he’s in the park that Hae was buried in at the time she was buried." We don't actually know that that's when the body was buried. All we really have is Jay's ever-changing story plus maybe what Jen says about when he ditched his clothes and the shovels. And I'm not convinced Jen is telling 100% of the truth either, for many reasons.

Also, "He showed this letter to his friend Aisha, by the way, and wrote to her in class “I’M GOING TO KILL.”" He showed the letter to Aisha, yes, and they wrote jokey notes back and forth about it, but she denies seeing that "I'm going to kill" note at the time. I think that he did write it at the same time and Aisha did read it, but it wasn't relevant to their other notes about Hae and she doesn't remember it. My theory is that he was probably referring to someone annoying in their class, or their teacher or something. Those are the kind of notes I used to pass back and forth with my friends in class all the time, and it seemed like the most obvious answer to me.

"Meanwhile, Adnan has claimed he can’t remember the day of January 13 when his girlfriend got murdered." I mean, I don't know how you listen to the podcast and not get out of it the central problem: it's hard to remember what happened to you on a day SIX WEEKS EARLIER when nothing significant happened. So if you don't assume that Adnan killed her, then it's not strange that he can't remember the exact details of that day.

"He also claims his cell phone was stolen for a couple hours and someone butt dialed a number that implicated him in a location other than school." He doesn't. He claims that he had given Jay his cell phone and car for the day, with the understanding that Jay was going to come back to pick him up after track and they were going to go get high. So he's claiming that he doesn't know how/why Nisha was called, but is trying to come up with something plausible.

Last, "Yet he was clearly hanging with Jay the entire day of the murder." He admits to hanging out with him during his free period at school, then leaving him with the car and phone, then admits to hanging out with him again later in the evening. I don't think it's at all "clear" that they were together the entire day of the murder. Certainly Jenn and her brother don't claim Adnan was with Jay at their house for the whole afternoon.

Like I said, I still feel like this is the only convincing narrative for me if Adnan killed her, but I don't agree that this is based any more on fact and less on speculation than most other theories.

Also, "He showed this letter to his friend Aisha, by the way, and wrote to her in class “I’M GOING TO KILL.”" He showed the letter to Aisha, yes, and they wrote jokey notes back and forth about it, but she denies seeing that "I'm going to kill" note at the time. I think that he did write it at the same time and Aisha did read it, but it wasn't relevant to their other notes about Hae and she doesn't remember it. My theory is that he was probably referring to someone annoying in their class, or their teacher or something. Those are the kind of notes I used to pass back and forth with my friends in class all the time, and it seemed like the most obvious answer to me.

Right that was my thought as well, and again, they got back together after that letter from Hae. And while Don/Hae weren't "officially" dating until Jan. 1st, I think it's pretty clear she left Adnan to be with Don, and all three of them were aware of this when the car incident occurred in late December. Her dating Don was not some inflammatory bombshell.

Yeah I hate when people say he was hanging out with Jay all day. Yes, according to Jay that is true, but I won't belabor the Jay is a liar thing again. Except well, he is a liar. Adnan's story places him with Jay briefly early in the day and then from 5-7pm. And most of that he was near passed out stoned at Cathy's.

I think Lawyer Susan has also pointed out how odd, aggressively stupid it is for Guilty Adnan to this day to insist he had his phone from 5pm onward when the most compelling *independent* (though possibly still not exactly accurate) evidence (Leakin Park ping) is coming during this period. The only reason to keep insisting you had your phone is if that is actually what he remembers, but the gulf between what people remember and what actually happened is vast as has been demonstrated on the show several times. I see no reason he wouldn't have said shit man I was so high I couldn't even begin to tell you if I got my phone back from Jay for sure, it's entirely possible he kept it and dropped it off at X time, cause I would not have brought it into the mosque with me.

Sarah was on tonight's The Colbert Report there are two more episodes left.

That's it???

I think it was always going to be 12 or 13, though I initially thought she was going to do it every week for 12 months. Ha. No.

Adnan's letter really got to me. I just have to do so much mental gymnastics to think this guy is running this flawless a mind game for 15 years, and I thought it was weird that this "expert" stands in stark contract to Enright and some other folks who work with offenders I've seen at Reddit saying they've never encountered anyone staying resolute about their innocence for 15 years, they all say it's highly unusual, yet this guy says it's not unusual even if it's not typical. Ugh like are there actual stats on this you might have looked into Serial staff?! (Like I can believe there might NOT be but at least mention there are not).

The bulk of the episodes rumors boiled to for few months, when he was 13 or 14 he stole a couple hundred bucks from the mosque collection box. Truly the behavior of a manipulative psychopath, and not the boundary testing, thrill seeking behavior of many, many, many adolescents including another witness Laura. I'm sincerely bummed she left out the part about him

Spoiler:

Burning questions we need answered. From Entertainment Weekly.

I can't remember but maybe someone else does - has Adnan ever said outright that he thinks jay killed hae? Has he made that accusation?

From that article:

11. If Hae could have been killed at a different time than originally thought, why is her boyfriend still not a suspect?

This I think we know - wasn't he at work the whole reasonable time frame?

He has not accused Jay within the confines of the podcast, I think largely because of his reaffirmed commitment to Allah, and being a good Moslem. He's said he has no desire to speculate w/o facts, because he obviously knows how that feels.

Rabia posted about it at the end of her Thanksgiving post. Basically

Spoiler:

I still think Hae was actually planning to meet Jay, as she claimed she had something to do before picking up her cousin that prevented her from giving Adnan a ride. I can't see it being to hang out with Don if she was typically screwing around with stuff after school until 2:40 and 3:00. A quick trip to Best Buy to let Jay know she KNEW though, and was gonna tell Stephanie? That I could see her doing, it's on the way and it's in public so she might have felt "safe". Oof.

That blog post describing how "they both did it" makes sense, yes. But I guess I am naive, or gullible, or something, because even though there are a bunch of fishy points in Adnan's story I still mostly believe him. I would make a terrible prosecutor.

In non-Serial news:

Noticed there is a new Go Bayside!, apparently the guest is the guy who broke up with April because she high-fived him too much. Haven't listened yet, though. The new How Did This Get Made is a crossover with the James Bonding podcast and is fabulous (A View to a Kill is the movie). Highlight is June's protest against a shitty stage non-show and she is as usual the show MVP.

Also to HDTGM fans, both Zouks and Sheer were guests on Jimmy Pardo's Never Not Funny recently and were decent episodes/"interviews" (since his show is more a conversation than a formal interview).

The new How Did This Get Made is a crossover with the James Bonding podcast and is fabulous (A View to a Kill is the movie). Highlight is June's protest against a shitty stage non-show and she is as usual the show MVP.

It was a delight. The June "gun to your head describe the plot of this movie" and butterfly scene description were glorious.

Well Serial managed to wrap it up and give me what I wanted: what does Sarah Koenig think per Adnan and the case. I mean I pretty much already knew but I'm glad she articulated it both in the legal sense in the general sense.

I did have to call a bit of BS on her eleventh hour realization that by GOD what if both Jay and Adnan are lying?! C'mon SK you knew that from Ep 1. I think it's always been really clear that Adnan and Jay for whatever reasons have always misrepresented the scope of their relationship if not the quality/kind. There was testimony from the track buddy who said Jay using Adnan's car was a *regular* thing, probably in exchange for weed, and the cell would have been even more useful to Jay in his attempts to do business. Not so much a coincidence as an established arrangement. Like the cops both Jay and Adnan want to avoid this bit of "bad evidence".

I'm not sure if this Innocence Project gambit is going to work (both because I don't know how much DNA is there to test, and because I'm not particularly sold on the serial killer alt theory), but at least they'll know what they know about it instead of not knowing what they don't know, and will have done the very least that the cops should have done 15 years ago.

I have to say I found the wrap-up satisfying, too. Not least of all because I pretty much agree with her take on it. And I have to take exception to Dana's bad luck rationale. I would guess that most anyone who's been wrongly convicted suffers from that same bad luck.
How interesting is it that Don never called Hae after she went missing? I could buy that the ex-boyfriend wouldn't call, but it seems really odd that the new boyfriend wouldn't. I didn't realize that Don's alibi is essentially his mother.

Ugh Dana's whole "logic" thing was bizarre, because almost NONE of the things she points out are truly bad luck, and a big thing she pointed out isn't what Serial has reported for 11 episodes, aka that Adnan just happens not to remember the 6-8 time period which is when Jay's story and the cell records are in sync.

The crucial period has always been the 2:15-4:00, but generally he's been consistent about not remembering anything after he started smoking around lunch. Funny how that works. And his clearest memory of the day is the cops phone call that happens between 6-7 at Cathy's house, and generally his narrative for 5-7 is much more solid than his after school one: Jay picked him up, they went to eat (probably the McDonald's), smoked some weed, hit up Cathy's, went home/dropped off Jay/headed to the mosque. It was also news to me Bilal corroborated his being at the mosque after dusk, it wasn't just his dad.

It does still bug me he asked for ride, though. I believe he's innocent, but it's that more than anything, certainly more than not paging Hae, that makes doubt.

I ended exactly where I was after episode 4 or so, I am not convinced of Adnan innocence but felt the case was complete and total mess and would not have been able to find him guilty based on the evidence.

I am still leaning towards he likely did it, and Jay was likely more involved than he let on, but there wasn't enough actual evidence to convict. It also made me seriously question the Innocence project, with their intense focus on a serial killer while ignoring things like Jay leading the police to both the body and the car. I thought Sarah brought it all to a satisfying conclusion, though.

I don't think Deidre Enright and the Innocence Project really think Ronald Moore did it or that they will find his DNA, the idea is to exclude Adnan, and prove anyone else's DNA is there. Moore is just a legally compelling foot in the door to the Big Picture. Which also might go exactly nowhere, but it's step that should have been taken 15 years ago.

Jay didn't lead them to the body. it was the streaker who found the body. If I remember correctly, too, Jay at trial said he didn't take the police to the car right away, but they drove around for a while. After the third interview, maybe? It sounded to me more like that scene in "Say Anything" where Lloyd and Diane are driving home that kid who can't remember where he lives until they randomly drive by the house.
I'm not absolutely convinced that Adnan is innocent, but I'd say I'm 85% convinced he is. I am perfectly convinced though that the trial was a total mess and he never should have been convicted. The hinkiest thing in the whole case is Jay. I still can't say whether I think he did it himself, whether he helped someone else, or whether the cops basically just fed him everything he said. They certainly helped craft his statement and testimony.

So kind of a bombshell release of information from Rabia via her blog I'll spoiler for everyone who wants to stay Serial pure

Spoiler:

IDK it's really making my head spin, making me WTF the jury even more.

blixie wrote:So kind of a bombshell release of information from Rabia via her blog I'll spoiler for everyone who wants to stay Serial pure

Spoiler:

IDK it's really making my head spin, making me WTF the jury even more.

I thought that Adnan said he offered the car so Jay could go buy Stephanie a present?

I thought that Adnan said he offered the car so Jay could go buy Stephanie.

That is how I remember it as well and to me it still doesn't explain asking Has for a ride because he would have had to get back for track practice.

The reddit thread on that bit from Rabia confirms our memory of him saying he offered it. Apparently this was another part of jays story that changed by the time of trial.

http://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/comments/2pttgk/game_changer_for_reddit_theorists_court_docsjay/

My major take-away is that Jay's story was very coaxed - in part because I think such coaxing is rather common, or at least is when there is not continual taping of questioning.

An interview with Dierdre Enright, of The Innocence Project.

Christmas Serial!