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The Adnan Syed Murder Case Debate · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine a jury taking, you know, just 120 minutes to
0:04
Speaker 1: sentence a 17-year-old to life in prison.
0:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is, I mean, it's just wild to even
0:10
Speaker 2: think about. Right.
0:12
Speaker 1: Like, no DNA, no physical evidence, just the shifting memories
0:16
Speaker 1: of a teenager in a crude cell phone tower ping.
0:20
Speaker 2: It really challenges how we view the whole system.
0:22
Speaker 1: Exactly. For decades, we've treated the American justice system like this, um,
0:27
Speaker 1: this flawless mathematical equation. You put the evidence in and
0:31
Speaker 1: the absolute truth just comes out.
0:33
Speaker 2: But we know it doesn't always work that way, right?
0:35
Speaker 1: Nope, it doesn't. And today we are tearing down that illusion.
0:40
Speaker 1: For everyone listening, we are looking at what happens when
0:42
Speaker 1: the equation is built on the fragile foundation of human memory,
0:46
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence, and the, you know, rigid rules of the courtroom.
0:51
Speaker 2: So our mission on this deep dive is to really
0:54
Speaker 2: untangle one of the most debated questions legally convoluted murder
0:58
Speaker 2: cases in American history.
0:59
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
1:00
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the 1999 murder of Heyman Lee and
1:04
Speaker 2: the conviction of Adnan Syed.
1:06
Speaker 1: And to do this, we are relying entirely on an
1:09
Speaker 1: incredibly comprehensive August 2026 article. It was written by Rivie
1:13
Speaker 1: Lyon for All That's Interesting.
1:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, this source is basically a masterclass. It shows us
1:18
Speaker 2: how a narrative is built by investigators and then, you know,
1:21
Speaker 2: how it's dismantled by journalists.
1:23
Speaker 1: Right, and how the legal definition of a resolution, well,
1:26
Speaker 1: it rarely gives us the clarity we actually crave.
1:29
Speaker 2: It really doesn't.
1:30
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. We have to start before the
1:33
Speaker 1: police tape, before the media circus, and way before the
1:37
Speaker 1: appellate courts.
1:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to understand the people involved first. Exactly.
1:41
Speaker 1: To understand how a community and an investigative team process
1:45
Speaker 1: this tragedy... We need to step into the pressure cooker
1:47
Speaker 1: of teenage life in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. This is,
1:51
Speaker 1: you know, between 1998 and early 1999.
1:53
Speaker 2: And the center of gravity in this ecosystem is Hae
1:57
Speaker 2: Min Lee. Right. According to the source, she was an
2:00
Speaker 2: 18-year-old Korean-American high school student. And she was not someone
2:04
Speaker 2: who just blended into the background.
2:06
Speaker 1: No, she was super involved.
2:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was a deeply embedded, highly visible member of
2:10
Speaker 2: her school community at Woodlawn High. She played both varsity
2:14
Speaker 2: lacrosse and field hockey.
2:16
Speaker 1: Which, I mean, just playing one sport at that level
2:19
Speaker 1: essentially dictates a teenager's entire existence.
2:21
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.
2:22
Speaker 1: You are talking about morning practices, evening games, weekend travel.
2:26
Speaker 1: It paints a picture of a young woman with, like,
2:28
Speaker 1: immense discipline. Yeah.
2:30
Speaker 2: And she was also working a part-time job at LensCrafters
2:33
Speaker 2: on top of all that.
2:34
Speaker 1: Wow.
2:34
Speaker 2: She was actively pursuing her dream of becoming an optician.
2:38
Speaker 2: So she was an 18-year-old actively building the architecture of
2:41
Speaker 2: her adult life.
2:42
Speaker 1: She really was. And then opposite her in this social
2:46
Speaker 1: dynamic was Adnan Syed.
2:47
Speaker 2: Right.
2:48
Speaker 1: Born in May of 1981, he was a Pakistani-American Muslim
2:52
Speaker 1: student who occupied a similarly prominent space in the school's hierarchy.
2:57
Speaker 2: He was very popular.
2:58
Speaker 1: Extremely. He was a varsity football player. He was voted
3:01
Speaker 1: the prince of his junior prom. But he also carried
3:04
Speaker 1: this really unique burden for a teenager.
3:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, his job.
3:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, he worked part-time as an emergency medical technician for
3:11
Speaker 1: a local medical transport service.
3:13
Speaker 2: That detail about the EMT work, it always just stops
3:16
Speaker 2: me in my tracks.
3:17
Speaker 1: I know, right?
3:18
Speaker 2: It is such a stark juxtaposition. On one hand, you
3:22
Speaker 2: have the, you know, trivial popularity contest world of being
3:25
Speaker 2: a prom prince.
3:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, the typical high school stuff.
3:28
Speaker 2: Exactly. But on the other hand, you have a teenager
3:31
Speaker 2: taking on profound literal life and death responsibilities in the
3:34
Speaker 2: back of an ambulance. It's heavy. It is. That requires
3:38
Speaker 2: a level of compartmentalization that most adults don't even possess.
3:41
Speaker 1: Totally. So these two highly driven popular students begin dating
3:45
Speaker 1: in 1998, but this is not a typical high school
3:49
Speaker 1: romance paraded through the hallways.
3:50
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
3:51
Speaker 1: Our source notes they kept their relationship strictly hidden due
3:55
Speaker 1: to intense cultural and parental expectations. Syed's parents in particular
3:59
Speaker 1: strictly discouraged dating.
4:00
Speaker 2: And, you know, the psychology of a hidden relationship at
4:03
Speaker 2: that age, it acts as an emotional amplifier.
4:07
Speaker 1: Oh, I bet.
4:07
Speaker 2: When you were forced to hide something, The stakes of
4:10
Speaker 2: every single interaction just multiply. You aren't just navigating the normal,
4:14
Speaker 2: turbulent waters of first love.
4:16
Speaker 1: Which is hard enough already.
4:17
Speaker 2: Right. You are operating under a constant veil of secrecy,
4:21
Speaker 2: which naturally breeds intensity and just a lot of pressure.
4:26
Speaker 1: I always think of a high school as a completely
4:28
Speaker 1: closed ecosystem. It's like a terrarium.
4:30
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
4:31
Speaker 1: Inside that glass box, the tiniest shift in temperature feels
4:34
Speaker 1: like a catastrophic weather event. The stakes of like a
4:38
Speaker 1: hallway glance or a past note feel like absolute life
4:41
Speaker 1: or death when you are 17.
4:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, the drama is always at an 11.
4:44
Speaker 1: Exactly. And the climate in that terrarium shifted violently in
4:48
Speaker 1: December of 1988. Lee officially ended the relationship with Syed.
4:52
Speaker 2: And the timeline following that breakup is what later becomes
4:56
Speaker 2: the structural foundation for the entire police investigation.
4:59
Speaker 1: It moves so fast.
5:01
Speaker 2: It really does. The compression of events is staggering. In
5:05
Speaker 2: Lee's diary, which later becomes this pivotal artifact, she documents
5:09
Speaker 2: a flurry of conflicting emotions.
5:11
Speaker 1: Like going back and forth.
5:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. She is caught in the psychological whiplash between her
5:16
Speaker 2: history with Syed and a new burgeoning attraction to a
5:20
Speaker 2: co-worker at LensCrafters.
5:21
Speaker 1: Right. A guy named Don Kleindienst.
5:23
Speaker 2: Exactly. And she moves on fast. She officially starts dating
5:26
Speaker 2: Kleindienst around January 1st, 1999.
5:30
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's map this out for everyone listening. They
5:32
Speaker 1: break up in December. She has a completely new boyfriend
5:35
Speaker 1: by New Year's Day.
5:36
Speaker 2: Right.
5:37
Speaker 1: Less than two weeks after that, on January 13th, 1999,
5:40
Speaker 1: the unthinkable happens.
5:42
Speaker 2: On that Wednesday, January 13th, Hayman Lee leaves Woodlawn High
5:46
Speaker 2: School in her gray Nissan Sentra.
5:48
Speaker 1: And it was just a normal day for her, right?
5:50
Speaker 2: Totally routine.
5:52
Speaker 1: She needs to pick up her six-year-old cousin and then
5:54
Speaker 1: head to her evening shift at Linscrafters.
5:56
Speaker 2: But she doesn't make it.
5:57
Speaker 1: No.
5:58
Speaker 2: She never arrives to pick up her cousin. She simply vanishes.
6:02
Speaker 1: And for almost a month, this operates purely as a
6:05
Speaker 1: missing persons case. Just, you know, the agonizing limbo of
6:08
Speaker 1: not knowing.
6:09
Speaker 2: Is it a runaway situation? A terrible misunderstanding. Right.
6:13
Speaker 1: But that fragile hope shatters on February 9th. A maintenance
6:16
Speaker 1: worker discovers her partially buried body in Baltimore's Leakin Park.
6:20
Speaker 2: It's just devastating. It is.
6:22
Speaker 1: And the autopsy eventually confirms the darkest fears. She was
6:26
Speaker 1: killed by manual strangulation.
6:29
Speaker 2: So the police were hoping to find a runaway. Now
6:32
Speaker 2: they are standing over a shallow grave staring at a homicide.
6:35
Speaker 1: The whole vibe shifts.
6:37
Speaker 2: Completely. When a case pivots from a missing person to
6:41
Speaker 2: a murder, the investigative lens doesn't just change, it aggressively narrows.
6:46
Speaker 1: And I want to pause and consider the psychological framework
6:50
Speaker 1: of those investigators for a second. They get a hold
6:53
Speaker 1: of Heyman Lee's diary. Yeah. Suddenly, the private, emotionally amplified
6:58
Speaker 1: scribblings of an 18-year-old girl are being analyzed by hardened
7:01
Speaker 1: homicide detectives.
7:02
Speaker 2: And this is a phenomenon we see frequently in criminal investigations.
7:06
Speaker 2: It's called retrospective framing.
7:08
Speaker 1: Retrospective framing. What does that look like here?
7:11
Speaker 2: Well, when police read that diary before a murder, it's
7:16
Speaker 2: just teenage melodrama. The December breakup, the January romance. It
7:21
Speaker 2: is incredibly common adolescent behavior.
7:24
Speaker 1: Sure. Totally normal.
7:25
Speaker 2: But when they read those same words retroactively, through the
7:29
Speaker 2: lens of a brutal strangulation, innocent passages start to look
7:34
Speaker 2: like ominous precursors.
7:36
Speaker 1: Wow, they are essentially reading the diary backward, looking for
7:39
Speaker 1: the origin story of a murder.
7:41
Speaker 2: Exactly. And historically, statistically speaking, the closest circle is always
7:47
Speaker 2: the most lethal.
7:48
Speaker 1: The boyfriend, the ex-husband, yeah. Right.
7:51
Speaker 2: Investigators see the compressed timelines. They see the secret relationship,
7:55
Speaker 2: the sudden breakup, the immediate introduction of a new boyfriend.
7:59
Speaker 1: It just hands them a motive.
8:00
Speaker 2: It hands the police a narrative wrapped in a bow.
8:04
Speaker 2: The scorned ex-lover. It is the most universally understood motive
8:07
Speaker 2: in the history of human conflict.
8:10
Speaker 1: So Syed became the absolute focal point.
8:12
Speaker 2: He did.
8:13
Speaker 1: But, you know, suspicion and a classic motive don't put
8:16
Speaker 1: someone in handcuffs. A breakup doesn't prove a strangulation.
8:19
Speaker 2: No, you need more than that.
8:21
Speaker 1: The police needed a mechanism that actually tied this 17-year-old
8:24
Speaker 1: EMT to a body in Leakin Park. They needed a witness.
8:28
Speaker 2: And they found one. Enter Jay Wilds.
8:30
Speaker 1: Right, Jay Wilds.
8:32
Speaker 2: Jay Wilds was an acquaintance of Syed's, and his introduction
8:35
Speaker 2: into this narrative blows the case wide open.
8:39
Speaker 1: What does he tell them?
8:41
Speaker 2: He sits down with investigators and tells them the story
8:43
Speaker 2: that provides the exact structural spine the prosecution needs. He
8:48
Speaker 2: claims that on January 13th, that non-Syed showed him Heyman
8:51
Speaker 2: Lee's body in the trunk of her own car.
8:54
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
8:55
Speaker 2: Furthermore, he claims Syed explicitly asked for his help to
8:59
Speaker 2: bury her corpse in Leakin Park.
9:01
Speaker 1: If I'm a detective, my heart rate just spiked. I
9:04
Speaker 1: have my suspect, I have my motive, and now I
9:06
Speaker 1: have a cooperating accomplice handing me the narrative on a
9:09
Speaker 1: silver platter.
9:10
Speaker 2: And initially, this isn't just an empty story. Wilds brings receipts.
9:15
Speaker 1: He does?
9:15
Speaker 2: Yes. He leads the police directly to Heyman Lee's missing
9:19
Speaker 2: Nissan Sentra. which had been sitting undiscovered since she vanished
9:23
Speaker 2: nearly a month prior.
9:24
Speaker 1: So he actually knew where the car was? Yes.
9:27
Speaker 2: The car is the anchor. It is the physical manifestation
9:30
Speaker 2: of his credibility.
9:32
Speaker 1: Okay, that's huge.
9:33
Speaker 2: And the police find secondary corroboration through a friend of
9:36
Speaker 2: Wilds named Jennifer Pusateri.
9:38
Speaker 1: Right.
9:39
Speaker 2: Pusateri tells investigators that Wilds contacted her from Syed's cell
9:43
Speaker 2: phone on the day of the disappearance. Even more crucially,
9:47
Speaker 2: she claims Wilds told her later that same day that
9:50
Speaker 2: Syed had confessed to the murder.
9:52
Speaker 1: So you have a timeline, a confession by proxy, and
9:55
Speaker 1: the physical location of the victim's car. It sounds like
9:58
Speaker 1: a lock.
9:59
Speaker 2: It does.
10:00
Speaker 1: But this is exactly where the rigid engineering math of
10:03
Speaker 1: the justice system begins to completely fracture. Because Jay Wilds,
10:07
Speaker 1: the absolute star witness, the linchpin of the state's case,
10:11
Speaker 1: he cannot keep his story straight.
10:13
Speaker 2: No, he really struggles with the details.
10:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, the variations in his narrative are not minor discrepancies.
10:19
Speaker 1: They are significant structural shifts.
10:22
Speaker 2: Over the course of multiple interviews with the police, Wiles
10:25
Speaker 2: changes the core details of his account.
10:27
Speaker 1: Like what kind of details?
10:28
Speaker 2: The sequence of events alters. The specific locations of where
10:32
Speaker 2: he was, where Syed was, and where they went, they
10:35
Speaker 2: shift dramatically from interview to interview.
10:38
Speaker 1: Wait, I have to challenge the logic of the system here.
10:40
Speaker 2: Go for it.
10:41
Speaker 1: If you are an investigator, someone whose entire job is
10:43
Speaker 1: to detect deception, and your star witness completely changes the
10:47
Speaker 1: locations and timelines of a murder, how do you not
10:50
Speaker 1: throw the entire testimony out?
10:51
Speaker 2: It's a fair question.
10:53
Speaker 1: I mean, if I give you three different versions of
10:54
Speaker 1: how I spent my weekend, you would assume I'm lying
10:56
Speaker 1: about all of it. How do police isolate the truth
11:00
Speaker 1: from a witness who is actively rewriting the script in
11:02
Speaker 1: front of them?
11:03
Speaker 2: This raises an important question about the psychology of police
11:07
Speaker 2: interrogations and the concept of holdback knowledge. holdback knowledge. Yeah.
11:12
Speaker 2: The source points out that critics of this case view
11:14
Speaker 2: Wilde as inherently unreliable. They argue that a rotten foundation
11:19
Speaker 2: cannot support a conviction. Right.
11:20
Speaker 1: Which makes sense to me.
11:22
Speaker 2: But investigators view this through a very different psychological prism.
11:26
Speaker 2: They expect accomplices to lie initially.
11:28
Speaker 1: They expect it.
11:30
Speaker 2: Yes. They expect them to minimize their own involvement to
11:32
Speaker 2: avoid prison time.
11:34
Speaker 1: So they view the shifting story not as proof of
11:36
Speaker 1: total fabrication, but as proof of self-preservation.
11:40
Speaker 2: Precisely. And this is where that holdback knowledge becomes the
11:43
Speaker 2: ultimate trump card.
11:44
Speaker 1: Okay.
11:45
Speaker 2: Holdback knowledge is information about a crime scene that is
11:48
Speaker 2: strictly guarded by the police. It is never released to
11:51
Speaker 2: the media or the public. Only the killer and the
11:53
Speaker 2: cops know it.
11:54
Speaker 1: And Jay Wilds knew exactly where Heyman Lee's car was parked.
11:58
Speaker 2: Exactly. For the police, that physical reality outweighed any verbal inconsistency.
12:03
Speaker 2: They believed his words were shifting to protect himself. But
12:06
Speaker 2: his ability to point to that Nissan Sentra proved the
12:09
Speaker 2: core spine of his story was absolute truth.
12:12
Speaker 1: I want you listening to really sit with that dilemma.
12:15
Speaker 1: Put yourself in the interrogation room.
12:16
Speaker 2: It's tough.
12:17
Speaker 1: How do you weigh a fluid, constantly changing verbal account
12:21
Speaker 1: against the cold, hard, undeniable steel of a missing vehicle?
12:25
Speaker 1: Do you trust the shifting words or the singular, impossible-to-fake
12:29
Speaker 1: action of knowing where the car is?
12:31
Speaker 2: It is a terrifying epistemological tightrope.
12:34
Speaker 1: It really is. And it is the exact tightrope the
12:36
Speaker 1: state decided to walk. The police believe the car anchored
12:40
Speaker 1: the shifting story.
12:41
Speaker 2: And consequently, on February 28, 1999, Adnan Syed was arrested.
12:47
Speaker 1: Just a kid, really.
12:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, the 17-year-old was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment,
12:53
Speaker 2: and robbery.
12:54
Speaker 1: A high school junior suddenly facing the absolute crushing weight
12:58
Speaker 1: of the state. The narrative had hardened. The police had
13:01
Speaker 1: their story. And now they had to take that story
13:03
Speaker 1: out of the interrogation room and into the brutal arena
13:06
Speaker 1: of the courtroom.
13:07
Speaker 2: That's where things get really complicated.
13:10
Speaker 1: Because the burden of proof shifted, right? It wasn't enough
13:12
Speaker 1: to just convince a detective anymore. They had to convince
13:15
Speaker 1: 12 citizens beyond a reasonable doubt.
13:17
Speaker 2: And the transition from investigation to prosecution was anything but smooth.
13:23
Speaker 2: The first trial took place in December of 1999, and
13:25
Speaker 2: it essentially imploded.
13:28
Speaker 1: What happened?
13:29
Speaker 2: The source details how jurors overheard a highly contentious, heated
13:33
Speaker 2: exchange between the presiding judge... and Syed's defense attorney, Christina Gutierrez.
13:38
Speaker 1: Oh man, you can't unring a bell like that.
13:40
Speaker 2: No, you can't.
13:41
Speaker 1: If the jury hears the judge essentially warring with the
13:44
Speaker 1: defense attorney, the veneer of a fair impartial trial is
13:48
Speaker 1: completely shattered. The judge had no choice but to declare
13:50
Speaker 1: a mistrial.
13:51
Speaker 2: They had to scrap everything and restart the massive engine
13:54
Speaker 2: of the justice system from scratch.
13:56
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the second trial in January of 2000.
13:59
Speaker 2: Right. And this time the prosecution approaches the bench with
14:03
Speaker 2: a highly refined, aggressively streamlined theory.
14:07
Speaker 1: They knew what they were doing this time.
14:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, they lean entirely into the scorned lover motive. Their
14:12
Speaker 2: argument is simple. Syed killed Lee because his ego and
14:16
Speaker 2: his emotional state fundamentally could not process the end of
14:20
Speaker 2: their relationship.
14:21
Speaker 1: And to prove this, they build their case on two
14:24
Speaker 1: primary pillars. The first, as we explored, is the highly
14:27
Speaker 1: malleable testimony of Jay Wilds.
14:30
Speaker 2: But they knew a shifting witness wasn't enough on its own.
14:33
Speaker 2: They needed science.
14:34
Speaker 1: Right. They needed data to back him up.
14:36
Speaker 2: Exactly. So they introduced the second pillar, which was 1999
14:41
Speaker 2: cell phone tower records.
14:43
Speaker 1: The prosecution utilized these cell records to argue that Syed's phone,
14:46
Speaker 1: and therefore Syed himself, was pinging towers near the Leakin
14:50
Speaker 1: Park burial site on the very night Hay Min Lee disappeared.
14:54
Speaker 2: And this was presented to the jury as objective technological
14:58
Speaker 2: corroboration of J. Wilde's timeline.
15:01
Speaker 1: Here is where we need to throw a massive red
15:03
Speaker 1: flag on the plate. We have to desperately highlight what
15:07
Speaker 1: was missing from this trial.
15:09
Speaker 2: It's staggering what wasn't there.
15:11
Speaker 1: There was zero physical evidence directly linking Adnan Syed to
15:15
Speaker 1: this murder. There was no DNA. There was no forensic
15:18
Speaker 1: tie in the car. There was no fiber analysis placing
15:21
Speaker 1: him at the grave.
15:22
Speaker 2: Nothing.
15:23
Speaker 1: A teenager was fighting for his life against a case
15:25
Speaker 1: built entirely on a witness who changed a story and
15:29
Speaker 1: early era cell phone tower data.
15:31
Speaker 2: So what does this all mean when we talk about
15:34
Speaker 2: cell phone evidence?
15:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, because in our modern world, we look at our
15:37
Speaker 1: phones and we see precision GPS. We are tracked to
15:40
Speaker 1: the square inch.
15:42
Speaker 2: Right. But applying modern GPS logic to 1999 cell tower
15:46
Speaker 2: architecture is a massive, dangerous fallacy.
15:50
Speaker 1: I always picture it like a lighthouse. A cell tower
15:54
Speaker 1: in 1999 was not a laser pointer. It was a
15:56
Speaker 1: crude lighthouse sweeping a light over a very dark, very
15:59
Speaker 1: wide ocean.
16:00
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that analogy. Yeah. That perfectly captures the
16:03
Speaker 2: mechanical reality of the technology. In 1999, cell networks were
16:08
Speaker 2: designed for coverage, not for precision location tracking.
16:11
Speaker 1: Right.
16:12
Speaker 2: When a phone made a call, it connected to the
16:14
Speaker 2: tower with the strongest radio frequency signal. That is usually
16:18
Speaker 2: the closest tower, but not always.
16:20
Speaker 1: Because of interference, right?
16:22
Speaker 2: Exactly. Buildings, weather, and network traffic could force a phone
16:26
Speaker 2: to ping a tower miles away.
16:28
Speaker 1: So a lighthouse tells you a ship is somewhere in
16:30
Speaker 1: the fog. It does not give you the GPS coordinates
16:32
Speaker 1: of the vessel.
16:33
Speaker 2: Right. A ping in 1999 meant the phone was within
16:36
Speaker 2: a certain multi-mile radius. It absolutely could not put Adnan
16:41
Speaker 2: Syed standing on a specific square foot of dirt in
16:44
Speaker 2: Lincoln Park.
16:45
Speaker 1: And yet, this data was presented to the jury with
16:48
Speaker 1: a veneer of absolute scientific certainty.
16:51
Speaker 2: And that combination, the emotionally charged definitive narrative provided by
16:55
Speaker 2: Wilde's wrapped in the seemingly objective technical data of cell towers,
17:00
Speaker 2: proved to be overwhelmingly effective.
17:02
Speaker 1: Despite the defense pointing out the inconsistencies.
17:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, despite the inconsistencies, despite the lack of a single
17:08
Speaker 2: drop of DNA, the jury deliberated for only about two
17:11
Speaker 2: hours before finding the 17-year-old guilty.
17:13
Speaker 1: Two hours. A 120-minute deliberation to decide the fate of
17:20
Speaker 1: a human life in a case with zero physical evidence.
17:24
Speaker 1: That speed is terrifying.
17:25
Speaker 2: It really is.
17:26
Speaker 1: It tells me they didn't even try to do the math.
17:29
Speaker 2: It is a profound psychological indicator of how juries process information.
17:33
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
17:34
Speaker 2: Well, in a trial featuring highly complex, dense technical data
17:38
Speaker 2: about radio frequencies and cell sectors, alongside a witness timeline
17:42
Speaker 2: full of contradictions, you would expect a jury to agonize.
17:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would expect them to request transcripts, to draw
17:49
Speaker 1: maps on a whiteboard, to debate the nuances of holdback knowledge.
17:53
Speaker 2: You expect a 12-person seminar on reasonable doubt.
17:56
Speaker 1: Exactly.
17:57
Speaker 2: But a two-hour deliberation implies they bypassed the technical minutia entirely.
18:02
Speaker 2: They didn't get bogged down in the cell tower radius
18:04
Speaker 2: because they didn't need to.
18:06
Speaker 1: They just went with the story. Right.
18:08
Speaker 2: They found a cohesive, emotionally resonant story. The prosecution told
18:12
Speaker 2: a simple tale of teenage jealousy and backed it up
18:15
Speaker 2: with a cooperating witness. The jury bought the narrative and
18:18
Speaker 2: the technical evidence was just treated as a rubber stamp.
18:22
Speaker 1: The story felt true, so they ignored the shaky foundation.
18:26
Speaker 2: And Syed was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.
18:29
Speaker 1: And from the moment he was handcuffed to the moment
18:31
Speaker 1: the judge read his sentence, he adamantly, fiercely insisted on
18:35
Speaker 1: his innocence.
18:36
Speaker 2: He never wavered on that.
18:38
Speaker 1: Normally, this is the part of the deep dive where
18:40
Speaker 1: the story ends. The gavel falls, the teenager disappears into
18:43
Speaker 1: a concrete cell, the appeals are quietly denied in a
18:46
Speaker 1: back room somewhere over the next decade, and the world
18:48
Speaker 1: moves on.
18:49
Speaker 2: That's how it usually goes.
18:51
Speaker 1: And for 14 years, that is exactly the script this
18:53
Speaker 1: case followed.
18:54
Speaker 2: Until 2014.
18:56
Speaker 1: Right. 2014 changes everything.
18:59
Speaker 2: That is the year journalism collided with the rigid architecture
19:03
Speaker 2: of the criminal justice system and fundamentally altered the trajectory
19:07
Speaker 2: of Adnan Syed's life.
19:08
Speaker 1: This was the podcast, right?
19:10
Speaker 2: Yes. Journalist Sarah Koenig launched a podcast called Serial, taking
19:14
Speaker 2: a microscopic, meticulous look at the evidence, the investigations involved,
19:19
Speaker 2: and the massive voids in the state's case against Syed.
19:22
Speaker 1: Calling it a cultural phenomenon doesn't even do it justice.
19:25
Speaker 1: It was a global obsession.
19:27
Speaker 2: Everyone was listening to it.
19:29
Speaker 1: Suddenly, millions of people were downloading transcripts, mapping out Baltimore
19:32
Speaker 1: cell towers on their kitchen tables, and acting as a massive,
19:36
Speaker 1: decentralized army of armchair detectives.
19:38
Speaker 2: It really was unprecedented.
19:40
Speaker 1: It took a localized, forgotten 1999 murder trial and put
19:43
Speaker 1: it under the brightest microscope in media history.
19:46
Speaker 2: And what Serial accomplished was a ruthless interrogation of the
19:50
Speaker 2: narrative that the jury swallowed in two hours.
19:52
Speaker 1: They really dug into it.
19:54
Speaker 2: The journalism aggressively highlighted the shifting accounts of Jay Wilds.
19:58
Speaker 2: It brought in telecom experts to scrutinize those controversial cell
20:02
Speaker 2: phone records, explicitly detailing the crude lighthouse limitations of 1999
20:06
Speaker 2: technology that the jury failed to grasp.
20:10
Speaker 1: And they hammered relentlessly on the stunning lack of DNA
20:13
Speaker 1: connecting Syed to the victim.
20:15
Speaker 2: But dissecting old evidence is one thing. The podcast actually
20:18
Speaker 2: uncovered a ghost in the machine.
20:20
Speaker 1: Right.
20:21
Speaker 2: They found the missing alibi. They introduced millions of listeners
20:24
Speaker 2: to a woman named Asia McLean.
20:27
Speaker 1: Asia McLean. She was a former classmate of Syed's, right?
20:30
Speaker 2: Yes. And her claim was explosive. She stated that she
20:34
Speaker 2: saw Adnan Syed in the public library at the exact
20:37
Speaker 2: time prosecutors alleged Heyman Lee was being murdered. Wow.
20:41
Speaker 1: She gave him a concrete, location-specific alibi for the exact
20:46
Speaker 1: window of the crime.
20:47
Speaker 2: Exactly.
20:48
Speaker 1: If she is telling the truth, the entire state's timeline
20:50
Speaker 1: collapses instantly.
20:52
Speaker 2: And yet, here is the catastrophic procedural failure that the
20:55
Speaker 2: podcast exposed. Syed's original defense attorney, Christina Gutierrez, never contacted
21:02
Speaker 2: Asia McClain.
21:03
Speaker 1: Wait, she never even called her?
21:06
Speaker 2: She never interviewed her. She never put her on the stand.
21:09
Speaker 1: That is unbelievable.
21:11
Speaker 2: The jury that deliberated for two hours never heard that
21:14
Speaker 2: a witness placed the defendant in a public library during
21:17
Speaker 2: the murder.
21:18
Speaker 1: I want to pose a thought experiment to you listening.
21:21
Speaker 1: Just sit in the horror of this concept for a moment.
21:24
Speaker 2: It's chilling.
21:25
Speaker 1: Imagine your entire freedom. The difference between going to your
21:29
Speaker 1: college prom or spending life plus 30 years in a
21:32
Speaker 1: maximum security prison rests on whether your overworked lawyer remembers
21:37
Speaker 1: or chooses to make a single phone call.
21:40
Speaker 2: One phone call.
21:41
Speaker 1: One phone call to a girl who saw you reading
21:43
Speaker 1: a book. The lawyer fails to make that call and
21:46
Speaker 1: your life is over. That strips away every comforting illusion
21:50
Speaker 1: we have about the justice system being a precision machine.
21:53
Speaker 2: It really does. It exposes it. as a deeply flawed,
21:57
Speaker 2: terrifyingly fragile human process.
22:00
Speaker 1: It's terrifying.
22:02
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the stark contrast between what we
22:05
Speaker 2: can call open source investigation and a closed loop legal system.
22:10
Speaker 1: What do you mean by closed loop?
22:12
Speaker 2: Well, the legal system operates on a closed loop. It
22:15
Speaker 2: is bound by incredibly strict rules of procedure, rigid deadlines,
22:20
Speaker 2: and specific frameworks for what can even be considered in
22:23
Speaker 2: an appeal. Oh, okay. Once a conviction is secured, the
22:27
Speaker 2: system's primary goal is finality, not necessarily truth.
22:31
Speaker 1: It's designed to protect its own verdicts.
22:33
Speaker 2: Exactly. But journalism is open source. A journalist isn't bound
22:37
Speaker 2: by a statute of limitations for filing a motion. Right.
22:41
Speaker 1: They can just ask questions.
22:42
Speaker 2: They can just pick up a phone, track down an
22:44
Speaker 2: overlooked classmate 15 years later, and broadcast an alibi to
22:47
Speaker 2: the world. It completely disrupted the closed loop.
22:51
Speaker 1: The media scrutiny accomplished with the highly formalized appellate system
22:55
Speaker 1: repeatedly failed to do. It forced everyone to look at
22:58
Speaker 1: the discarded pieces of the puzzle.
23:00
Speaker 2: And that level of massive global public outcry generates an
23:05
Speaker 2: undeniable momentum. You cannot have millions of people pointing out
23:09
Speaker 2: a broken system without the machinery eventually grinding back into motion.
23:13
Speaker 1: Which brings us out of the podcast studio and thrusts
23:17
Speaker 1: us back into the actual chaotic halls of the legal system.
23:20
Speaker 1: Let's trace the legal whiplash from 2016 to 2025. OK.
23:25
Speaker 2: So the initial impact of the public scrutiny seemed monumental.
23:29
Speaker 2: In 2016, a judge granted Adnan Syed a new trial.
23:32
Speaker 1: A new trial. That's huge.
23:33
Speaker 2: It was. The ruling specifically cited the glaring issues with
23:37
Speaker 2: the cell phone tower evidence and the catastrophic failure of
23:40
Speaker 2: his original defense attorney to investigate the Asia McLean alibi.
23:44
Speaker 1: It appeared to be a massive victory, a chance to
23:46
Speaker 1: finally test the evidence fairly.
23:50
Speaker 2: But the machinery of justice is slow, and it is
23:52
Speaker 2: brutally unpredictable. That victory was entirely fleeting.
23:57
Speaker 1: Because in 2019, things flipped again, right?
24:00
Speaker 2: Yes. Fast forward three years to 2019, and Maryland's highest
24:04
Speaker 2: court reverses the lower judge's decision. They rule that Syed
24:08
Speaker 2: is not entitled to a new trial.
24:11
Speaker 1: And shortly after that, the U.S. Supreme Court completely declines
24:14
Speaker 1: to hear his appeal.
24:15
Speaker 2: The door was shut.
24:17
Speaker 1: Think about the emotional devastation of that. After the global fame,
24:21
Speaker 1: after the millions of armchair detectives finding the flaws in
24:24
Speaker 1: the case, after a judge agrees he deserves a new trial,
24:28
Speaker 1: the highest courts in the land simply slammed the door shut.
24:32
Speaker 2: The closed loop protected itself. It looked like a permanent,
24:35
Speaker 2: inescapable dead end.
24:37
Speaker 1: But then we reached the seismic turning point of 2022.
24:42
Speaker 2: Right. In a move that shocked the legal community, Baltimore
24:45
Speaker 2: prosecutors the very office that put Syed in prison, reopened
24:49
Speaker 2: the review of his case.
24:51
Speaker 1: And what they uncovered internally completely dismantled the 1999 conviction.
24:56
Speaker 2: It really did.
24:56
Speaker 1: What could they possibly find 23 years later that changes everything?
25:00
Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm a prosecutor looking at a dusty,
25:03
Speaker 1: two-decade-old file, I'm assuming I need a smoking gun, a
25:06
Speaker 1: recorded confession from someone else, or a brand-new witness. But
25:09
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it wasn't that simple.
25:11
Speaker 2: It really is. What they found fundamentally broke the rules
25:14
Speaker 2: of the legal game. First, They uncovered critical information that
25:18
Speaker 2: they determined had never been properly disclosed to Syed's defense
25:21
Speaker 2: team prior to the original trial in 1999. Oh, wow.
25:26
Speaker 2: In constitutional law, this is known as a Brady violation.
25:29
Speaker 1: The Brady rule.
25:30
Speaker 2: This stems from a Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland, ironically.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yep.
25:35
Speaker 2: It basically says the state cannot play dirty. If the
25:37
Speaker 2: prosecution has any evidence that might prove the defendant's innocence,
25:41
Speaker 2: they are legally constitutionally obligated to hand it over to
25:45
Speaker 2: the defense. It is the ultimate safeguard against the immense
25:49
Speaker 2: power of the state. And the Baltimore prosecutors in 2022
25:53
Speaker 2: admitted that their predecessors failed to do this.
25:56
Speaker 1: That is a massive admission.
25:58
Speaker 2: But they went even further. They identified two possible alternative
26:02
Speaker 2: suspects whose involvement had never been fully or properly investigated
26:06
Speaker 2: back in 1999.
26:08
Speaker 1: So the original police had tunnel vision. They found the
26:11
Speaker 1: scorned lover narrative. They locked onto Syed. and they actively
26:14
Speaker 1: ignored two other viable suspects.
26:17
Speaker 2: Tunnel vision is a devastating force in criminal investigations. And
26:21
Speaker 2: the final blow to the 1999 case was scientific.
26:25
Speaker 1: What kind of science?
26:26
Speaker 2: New advanced DNA testing was conducted on Heyman Lee's clothing.
26:30
Speaker 2: This was technology that did not exist during the original trial.
26:34
Speaker 2: The results explicitly excluded Adnan Syed from the genetic material
26:38
Speaker 2: found on the victim.
26:40
Speaker 1: Now, it is critical to state that the source clarifies
26:42
Speaker 1: this DNA did not specifically identify anyone else.
26:46
Speaker 2: Important point.
26:47
Speaker 1: It didn't spit out the name of a new killer.
26:49
Speaker 1: It was exclusionary DNA. It simply proved with scientific certainty
26:52
Speaker 1: that the genetic material did not belong to Adnan Syed.
26:56
Speaker 2: But when you combine exclusionary DNA, two uninvestigated alternative suspects,
27:02
Speaker 2: and a profound constitutional Brady violation regarding hidden evidence, the
27:06
Speaker 2: state's case collapses into dust.
27:08
Speaker 1: So what happened next?
27:10
Speaker 2: On September 19, 2022, a judge vacated Adnan Syed's conviction.
27:15
Speaker 2: After more than 23 years locked in a cage, he
27:18
Speaker 2: walked out of a Maryland correctional facility as a completely
27:21
Speaker 2: free man.
27:22
Speaker 1: Let's define vacated for a second. That means the conviction
27:25
Speaker 1: is wiped from existence. The court looks at the trial
27:27
Speaker 1: and says this was invalid. It never legally happened. He
27:30
Speaker 1: wasn't just paroled. His status as a convicted murderer was erased. Right.
27:35
Speaker 2: It was wiped clean.
27:36
Speaker 1: But I warned you we were entering a period of
27:39
Speaker 1: legal whiplash because the battle was far from over. In
27:42
Speaker 1: March of 2023, an appellate court did the unthinkable.
27:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, this part is wild.
27:47
Speaker 1: They reinstated his murder conviction.
27:50
Speaker 2: Yes, they did.
27:51
Speaker 1: And this is where the logic of the system feels
27:53
Speaker 1: like a hallucination. They did not reinstate the conviction because
27:56
Speaker 1: they found a flaw in the DNA. They did not
27:59
Speaker 1: reinstate it because they believed he was guilty. Why on
28:02
Speaker 1: earth did they put a murder conviction back on a
28:04
Speaker 1: free man's record?
28:06
Speaker 2: They reinstated the conviction on purely procedural grounds.
28:10
Speaker 1: Procedure?
28:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. The entire decision hinged on the rights of the
28:14
Speaker 2: victim's brother, Young Lee. He successfully argued that he did
28:18
Speaker 2: not receive adequate legally required notice before the 2022 hearing
28:23
Speaker 2: that vacated the conviction.
28:24
Speaker 1: Wait, notice?
28:26
Speaker 2: He argued this procedural failure denied him his right to
28:29
Speaker 2: meaningfully attend and participate in the hearing. Maryland's Supreme Court
28:33
Speaker 2: eventually upheld this procedural ruling.
28:36
Speaker 1: I am struggling to process the absurdity of that. Because
28:40
Speaker 1: an email, a Zoom link, or a formal letter wasn't
28:43
Speaker 1: sent with enough lead time to a family member? A
28:46
Speaker 1: man's vacated murder conviction is slapped back onto his permanent record?
28:50
Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened.
28:52
Speaker 1: The prosecutors themselves admitted the evidence was fundamentally flawed and unconstitutional.
28:57
Speaker 1: But the appellate court prioritized a notification deadline over a
29:00
Speaker 1: man's innocence?
29:01
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it highlights
29:04
Speaker 2: the immense risk agonizing tension between procedural law and substantive justice.
29:12
Speaker 1: What's the difference?
29:13
Speaker 2: Substantive justice is what you and I care about. Did
29:16
Speaker 2: we get the right person? Is the evidence sound? Is
29:19
Speaker 2: the truth being served? Procedural law asks an entirely different question.
29:25
Speaker 2: Were the rules of the legal game followed perfectly? In 2023,
29:30
Speaker 2: the procedural rights of a victim's family to participate in
29:33
Speaker 2: the legal process collided violently with the defendant's substantive right
29:37
Speaker 2: to freedom based on flawed evidence.
29:40
Speaker 1: And in appellate courts, procedure almost always wins.
29:43
Speaker 2: Almost always.
29:44
Speaker 1: The system protects the process, even if the process protects
29:48
Speaker 1: a lie. But thankfully, even with the conviction reinstated, they
29:52
Speaker 1: didn't send him back to a prison cell. He remained
29:55
Speaker 1: free while the lawyers battled it out. Which brings us
29:57
Speaker 1: to the final bizarre legal act on record. Right.
30:01
Speaker 2: In March of 2025, Baltimore Judge Jennifer Schiffer utilized a
30:05
Speaker 2: mechanism called Maryland's Juvenile Restoration Act. Under this act, she
30:10
Speaker 2: officially reduced Syed's original sentence to time served.
30:14
Speaker 1: And according to the source, she specifically determined that he was, quote,
30:18
Speaker 1: not a danger to the public.
30:20
Speaker 2: That is a critical legal nuance. We have to clearly
30:23
Speaker 2: distinguish between the 2022 ruling and the 2025 ruling.
30:28
Speaker 1: How so?
30:29
Speaker 2: In 2022, the conviction was vacated. The slate was wiped clean.
30:34
Speaker 2: The guilty verdict was invalidated. But in 2025, his sentence
30:39
Speaker 2: was merely reduced.
30:41
Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
30:41
Speaker 2: That leaves the 1999 guilty verdict completely legally intact on
30:45
Speaker 2: his record. Under the eyes of the law... He is
30:48
Speaker 2: a convicted murderer who has simply finished serving his punishment.
30:52
Speaker 1: He gets to walk the streets, but he has to
30:54
Speaker 1: carry the label of a killer for the rest of
30:56
Speaker 1: his life. Which pulls us out of the courtrooms and
30:59
Speaker 1: brings us to where reality stands today. Away from the gavels,
31:03
Speaker 1: the podcasts, and the legal theories. Where are the human
31:07
Speaker 1: beings at the center of this tragedy right now?
31:10
Speaker 2: Adnan Syed currently lives in Virginia with his wife. Their
31:13
Speaker 2: relationship is deeply intertwined with the intense public nature of
31:17
Speaker 2: his legal battle. They met when she wrote to him
31:20
Speaker 2: in prison after watching an HBO documentary detailing the flaws
31:23
Speaker 2: in his case.
31:25
Speaker 1: And they got married while he was still inside, right?
31:27
Speaker 2: They were married while he was still incarcerated, yes.
31:31
Speaker 1: And he has taken this 23-year nightmare and turned it
31:34
Speaker 1: into his life's work. He is currently employed by Georgetown
31:37
Speaker 1: University's Prisons and Justice Initiative.
31:39
Speaker 2: He focuses on the exact systemic failures that defined his youth,
31:43
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions, and criminal justice reform.
31:47
Speaker 1: As for Hayman Lee, the brilliant 18-year-old athlete whose life
31:51
Speaker 1: and potential were so brutally cut short, the legal system
31:54
Speaker 1: considers her murder closed. Adnan Syed remains the legally recognized
31:58
Speaker 1: perpetrator on the books.
32:00
Speaker 2: However, socially, culturally, and factually, the identity of her killer
32:05
Speaker 2: remains fiercely and endlessly debated.
32:08
Speaker 1: And because we promised you, the listener, that we would
32:11
Speaker 1: synthesize this source material without bias, We have to look
32:14
Speaker 1: objectively at the two enduring schools of thought that define
32:17
Speaker 1: this debate. We are not here to act as a jury.
32:20
Speaker 1: We are here to show you the architecture of the
32:22
Speaker 1: arguments that still fracture public opinion today.
32:25
Speaker 2: Exactly. So the first perspective, Perspective A, argues that the
32:30
Speaker 2: mountain of circumstantial evidence against Syed is simply impossible to ignore.
32:35
Speaker 1: OK, what do they point to?
32:36
Speaker 2: This viewpoint acknowledges that J. Wilde's testimony was messy and shifting.
32:41
Speaker 2: but argues that the core spine of his narrative, that
32:45
Speaker 2: Syed committed the murder and enlisted his help, remained unshaken.
32:49
Speaker 1: Because of the car.
32:50
Speaker 2: Yes. They point to Wilde's holdback knowledge of the car's
32:52
Speaker 2: location as undeniable proof of his involvement. Furthermore, this perspective
32:57
Speaker 2: relies on the cell tower data placing Syed generally in
33:00
Speaker 2: the area of the burial site, combined with the incredibly common,
33:04
Speaker 2: historically lethal motive of a teenage breakup.
33:07
Speaker 1: Right. For these advocates, the jury saw through the noise,
33:10
Speaker 1: understood the core truth, and got it right in two hours.
33:14
Speaker 2: But then you have Perspective B.
33:15
Speaker 1: Right, Perspective B. This school of thought views the 1999
33:19
Speaker 1: conviction as a severe, catastrophic miscarriage of justice. This viewpoint
33:24
Speaker 1: emphasizes the complete and utter lack of physical or DNA
33:27
Speaker 1: evidence linking Syed to the crime.
33:29
Speaker 2: That's a huge sticking point for a lot of people.
33:32
Speaker 1: They point to the 2022 discovery of Brady violations as
33:35
Speaker 1: proof that the state cheated to win. They highlight the
33:38
Speaker 1: two undisclosed alternative suspects and the ignored, incredibly vital alibi
33:43
Speaker 1: of Asia McLean.
33:45
Speaker 2: For these advocates, a justice system that strips a 17-year-old
33:48
Speaker 2: of his life based on the changing stories of a
33:50
Speaker 2: pressured witness and deeply misunderstood, crude cell phone data is
33:55
Speaker 2: fundamentally broken and terrified of admitting its own mistakes.
33:59
Speaker 1: It really is a polarizing case.
34:01
Speaker 2: This case forces us to confront a very uncomfortable reality
34:05
Speaker 2: about what we actually expect from the law. The justice
34:09
Speaker 2: system is engineered to provide finality.
34:11
Speaker 1: People want answers.
34:13
Speaker 2: Communities demand answers. Juries are impaneled to close cases. But
34:17
Speaker 2: the 1999 murder of Heyman Lee teaches us that legal
34:21
Speaker 2: finality does not always equal absolute undeniable truth. Sometimes the
34:26
Speaker 2: system just settles for a narrative it can successfully defend
34:29
Speaker 2: in a courtroom.
34:31
Speaker 1: And that brings us full circle. We started this deep
34:33
Speaker 1: dive talking about precision. about wanting the math of guilt
34:37
Speaker 1: and innocence to be perfectly clean, binary, and comforting. But
34:41
Speaker 1: look at the labyrinth we.
34:42
Speaker 2: Just walked through. It's been a long journey.
34:45
Speaker 1: We started with the immense cultural pressure of a 1999
34:48
Speaker 1: high school breakup. We navigated a shifting narrative anchored only
34:52
Speaker 1: by a missing Nissan Sentra. We watched a jury deliberate
34:55
Speaker 1: for 120 minutes on zero physical evidence. We saw a
34:59
Speaker 1: global podcast phenomenon crowdsource an alibi 15 years later.
35:03
Speaker 2: And finally, we arrived at a 2025 ruling on a
35:06
Speaker 2: juvenile restoration act that frees a man but legally insists
35:11
Speaker 2: he is a murderer.
35:12
Speaker 1: It is the exact opposite of precision.
35:15
Speaker 2: It is the absolute definition of diagnostic muddy waters. It
35:19
Speaker 2: truly is.
35:20
Speaker 1: So I want to leave you with one final lingering
35:23
Speaker 1: thought to mull over today as you go about your life.
35:26
Speaker 1: Think about that 2023 reinstatement of Adnan Syed's conviction.
35:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part really sticks with me.
35:32
Speaker 1: When an appellate court has the power to reinstate a
35:34
Speaker 1: murder conviction, not because they found new DNA, not because
35:38
Speaker 1: they uncovered a confession, and not because new evidence points
35:40
Speaker 1: to his guilt, but purely because a procedural email or
35:44
Speaker 1: notification wasn't sent to a family member on time, it
35:48
Speaker 1: makes you wonder, at the highest, most powerful levels of
35:51
Speaker 1: our justice system, is the ultimate goal to discover the
35:54
Speaker 1: undeniable truth of what happened? Or is it simply to
35:57
Speaker 1: ensure the rules of the game were played correctly?
36:00
Speaker 2: It is a question that haunts the legacy of this
36:03
Speaker 2: case and, honestly, countless others hidden in the system.
36:07
Speaker 1: It really does. Thank you for joining us on this
36:10
Speaker 1: deep dive. Keep asking those hard questions. Keep looking past
36:13
Speaker 1: the noise. And never settle for just one perspective. We'll
36:16
Speaker 1: catch you next time.