How an American podcast tossed a murder conviction away

September 19th 2022 Adnan Syed’s conviction of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee was overturned! You may be asking how this has happened, firstly we must know how this started.

January 13th 1999 Hae min Lee disappeared, she was announced missing by her parents when she was supposed to pick up her younger cousin from day care at 3:15 pm. She attended her high school Woodlawn on that day and had only been by several students leaving the campus at the end of the school day.

After her disappearance the Baltimore police began their investigation on her disappearance. To help find the murderer they called various friends of Lee to find out what they have all been doing and what might’ve caused this to happen. They got in contact with Adnan Syed her ex-boyfriend at 6:30pm on the evening of their investigation, he said the last time he saw her was when all the classes have finished. At 1:30 am the next day they reached her current boyfriend and he said he hasn’t seen her at all on the day of her disappearance. On February 6th a dog led search was conducted in and around the grounds of Woodlawn High School, this search didn’t lead on to anything.

Until 3 days later, 9th February a passer by discovered her partially buried body in Leakin park which is 3.2 miles away from her last seen location, Woodlawn High School. The Baltimore’s attention became more focused on the person who reported the body being found. 3 days after this, the police received an anonymous phone call suggesting that they should focus on Lee’s ex-boyfriend and classmate, Adnan Syed. One of his friends told the police that he always had intention of killing Lee, he then went on to state that he helped bury the body after Syed confessed to killing her on January 13th. Baltimore police applied cellular phone records for a phone belonging to Syed on February 16th.He was then arrested on February 28th, and he was charged with first-degree murder.

You may be asking what has an American ‘serial’ podcast got to do with this. From October 3rd to December 18th ,2014, the murder of Hae Min Lee and the late arrest and trial of Adnan Syed was the main subject of their first season, it was a successful season with more than 100 million downloads by June 2016, this also meant that it generated international interest in the trial. They were given evidence that the defence team was never given, these were hand written notes relating to information phoned in about a potential alternative suspect.

After the podcast ended in 2014, there were discussions by the innocence Project about conducting a DNA testing of the physical evidence collected in 1999.Documents obtained by the Baltimore Sun in an early 2019 show that the Maryland prosecutors tested multiple items which were tied up with the murder in the middle of 2018 and Syed’s DNA didn’t match any of the DNA present.

On March 10th ,2022, the Baltimore city state’s attorney signed onto a motion which was filed by Syed’s defence attorney. She requested that the court order new DNA testing on Lee’s, clothing, shoes, and rape kit. They then stated that these have never been tested before. This then caused the same prosecutors last week asked the court to throw away Syed’s one year long conviction which had turned up two alternative suspects, Adnan is now released into home detention.