Adnan Syed

Imagine being accused of a murder you didn't commit. You have to go through long questionings and long trials. Usually, they realize it isn't you but 4.1% of people accused of murder are wrongly accused(Hughes). Seventeen years old, Adnan Syed was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. This case was brought to attention by Sarah Koenig when she created a podcast about it. After Sarah's segments, she did every week where she investigated Adnan's case it has become clearer. Adnan Syed was wrongly convicted of the murder of Hae Lee, but how could he really murder her if he really cared about her and had no ill will toward her.
Adnan Syed loved Hae Lee while they dated but after they broke up he was sad but then like most teenage

boys moved on very quickly. Adnan's friend Saad Chaudry told Koening that “He’s a player! Adnan was dating multiple girls!”(Koenig, “The Breakup”). Saads comments are explaining that Adnan moved on. He was not at all obsessed with Hae. Adnan was “cute and charming” as one of his ladies put it. Also, Adnan was receiving phone calls from multiple girls at night. His mom told Sarah about how she would sometimes answer and just listen but then her son would realize and say something along the lines of mom I know you're there (Koenig, “The Breakup”). He acknowledged her in such a sweet way. He could have been mean and yelled at her to get off but he didn't. A study done at Binghamton University showed how men typically feel less pain when a relationship ends(Kim). So Adnan being a man and a so said player makes you realize that he was not obsessed with Hae and moved on fairly quickly. Adnan moved on quickly when Hae and him broke up leaving him with no motive to kill over obsession.
Discrimination.

A word that means so many different things to so many different people. During the time period that they were investigating this case and throughout the trial Adnan faced a lot of discrimination. The minute he became a suspect his mother believed that he faced discrimination. She said that “he was an easy target” and “We still don’t know why they’re doing it, but again it’s discrimination. Because we are Muslim, and we are minor in this country” (Koening, “The best defense is a good defense”). Adnan was an easy target because he is a minority says his mom. The police usually check the ex-boyfriends and family members but to pick Adnan, a Muslim boy of Pakistani heritage, over Don, a white American boy, kinda seems a little odd. Adnan's mom also talked about how she has been in America for a while now and she never felt discrimination before the trial or even after 9/11 but on the day of the trial, she felt a lot of discrimination (Koenig,“A Best Defense Is a Good Defense”). A trial room should be a place with no discrimination. If the judge felt there was discrimination he should have shut it down right away so it didn't change the jury's mind. Vicki Walsh, the person who was trying to make sure he didn't get bail said that, “ there is a pattern in the United States of America where young Pakistani males have been jilted, have committed murder, and have fled to Pakistan and we have been unable to extradite them back” (Koenig, “The Best Defense Is a Good

Defense”). She also brought up a case in Chicago and talked about how they are very similar and she doesn't want Adnan to flee like the Chicago boy did (Koenig, “The Best Defense Is a Good Defense”). She was incorrect in her second claim. The only similarities between the two cases were that there were both Pakistani boys. Nothing else was the same. There is also not a pattern of young Pakistani men committing murder after they’d been jilted and then running off to Pakistan. There was a lot of discrimination during this trial from the prosecution side, which could have pushed the jury to believe Jay's story.
Jay was a known drug dealer and could not seem to get his story straight about the day Hae Lee was murdered.

So many inconsistencies and the prosecutors still used him as their main witness. One thing Jay changed between two interviews was whether or not he helped dig Haes greave. In the first taped statement Jay claims that he refused to help Adnan dig a grave for Hae. Whereas in the second taped statement he tells the police that they both dug Haes grave (Koenig,“Inconsistencies”). This is a weird thing to forget. Manually digging a hole in the ground just big enough for a body is something memorable. At the beginning when they first discovered her body he was a suspect. If he would have told them right away that he helped bury her body the police wouldn't have been as kind to him so, he lied to make himself sound better. Another thing Jay changed in his story was when he knew that Adnan was planning to kill Hae. During the first interview, he told the police that he didn't know until the day of the murder that Adnan was going to kill Hae. Then during the second interview, he told them that he knew about it about four or five days before (Koenig,“inconsistencies”). Again during the first interview, he probably lied to make himself sound better but either way he knew beforehand and he should have notified the police or someone. Especially if he knew four to five days in advance like he said in the second interview. Not to mention the fact that Jay admitted to the cops that

he lied to them. During the third interview, the cops asked Jay why he lied he said that “[he] was trying to cover up that he bought and sold marijuana” (Simpson). If Jay is willing to repeatedly lie to the cops in order to avoid getting in trouble for buying and selling marijuana, why would he not be willing to lie in order to avoid getting in trouble for murder? As has been noted, Jay had many inconsistencies and should not have been used as the main so-called credible witness.
It may be true that Adnan could have killed Hae in those 22 minutes however, he had no room for error or dilly-dallying. When Sarah and Dana went through the day the guessed on how long it would take them to do everything that was said they did. When they reenacted it they guessed it would have taken about one and a half minutes into the car for the actual killing part (Koenig,“Route Talk”). Now, Hae was an athletic girl and could have fought back, she could have scratched him, kicked him, anything to defend herself, but the way the timeline makes it seem it didn't take very long. Also if she would have scratched him in any form of self-defense she would have had skin cells under her fingernails and then they would have had concrete evidence on who did it. Even though Adnan could have murdered Hae in those quick 22 minutes it would have been very hard to do.
By looking at all the evidence Adnan Syed could not have possibly murdered Hae Lee. Adnan had no reason to kill Hae, he was poorly represented in court and was unfairly testified, and Jay was too involved to not face any punishment. He is still serving time for a crime he did not commit. Sadly he is not the only one and Haes case could have easily become one of the one-third of murder cases where they never find the culprit instead of the four percent where people are wrongly convicted(Hughes). Imagine if you were in Adnan's shoes. Why are we just sitting back and letting this happen? We need to come together and make it so cases like this never happen.