I listened intently to season one of Serial’s podcast about this 10 year plus old murder case involving the murder of Hae Min Lee.  Her body had been found strangled one month after her disappearance. With a confession from Adnan’s accomplice, Jay Wilds, he was put away for her death.   Recently, he was granted a new trial due to a witness that was never interviewed.  The episodes were gripping, especially when you thought an innocent, young man’s life hung in the balance, but the more they delved into the case, the more the innocence wore away for me.  The whole appeal of the show was an innocent guy rotting in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.  That’s the Holy Grail that reporters look for in a great story.  It’s better when their guy is charismatic.

Here’s what I think about the case.  He killed her.  If you listened along to the podcast, you’ll know that Jay admitted to taking part in the murder.  There is evidence to back up parts of his stories even though some of it doesn’t match up.  The facts are that 1. Jay drove either Hae’s or his car to dump Hae’s car, and 2. He needed someone to drive the other car to leave the scene.  Also, he knew exactly where they went to drop off the body.  All the other details may be fuzzy, but the evidence corroborates these two facts.  If you agree with this, you must contend that there were two people involved in her murder.  The only possible people who could’ve murdered her are either Jay or his accomplice.  It wasn’t a stranger.  If you can find who drove the other car, you will find the other half of the story.

I believe Adnan killed her because Jay confessed to this.  He even asked in the podcast ‘if Adnan didn’t kill her, who did?’  I don’t think Jay has reason to lie as he was the person who implicated himself and if he hadn’t, no one would’ve known who the murderer was.   Despite what I believe, I think he does deserve a new trial because the timeline they convicted him of doesn’t work. I think that Jay was telling most of the truth, but since it didn’t fit the prosecution’s timeline, they just left it out and made him more of an unreliable witness.  Whatever our beliefs are on his guilt or innocence, we should still believe in his right to a fair trial.