The 18-year-old precocious schoolhouse elder played varsity tract hockey and lacrosse and managed the boys' wrestling team, and was owed to postgraduate with honors with the people of 1999. She dated Adnan successful 1998, dancing with the prom with him that year, but they were breached up by that December.

They had kept their narration nether wraps to their families owed to taste and spiritual differences. According to aggregate accounts, the 2 were inactive friends, but whether oregon not Adnan was handling the divided good oregon was acold much aggravated and jealous than helium fto connected became a cardinal constituent of the investigation.

Lee was past seen live connected Jan. 13, 1999. Her assemblage was discovered successful Baltimore's Leakin Park connected Feb. 9, 1999. She had been strangled.

At the clip of her death, she was said to beryllium dating a feline named Don, whom she'd met portion they were some moving astatine LensCrafters. He told constabulary helium was astatine enactment (albeit astatine a antithetic store determination than usual) erstwhile Lee disappeared and a store manager confirmed arsenic much—but via Serial, we learned that the manager of the determination helium claimed to beryllium moving astatine was his mother. (Serial of people discussed Don astatine length, arsenic did the various armchair investigators who rehashed and dug adjacent deeper into the info relayed on the podcast.)

A memorial plaque was dedicated and 2 trees were planted successful her grant astatine Woodlawn High.

The teen was painted arsenic a normal, pot-smoking, not-too-troublesome elder astatine Woodlawn High School, a kid who liked to spell to the promenade and bent retired with his friends, conscionable similar immoderate other, and who, similar Lee, was an honors student.

Syed is of Pakistani descent and Serial raised the question of whether his being Muslim affected however the cops and the tribunal treated. The prosecution suggested helium was a formation risk, contempt his parents' deficiency of fiscal means and Adnan having ne'er near the state before, fto unsocial traveled to Pakistan.

The prosecution, led by Kevin Urick, successfully contended astatine proceedings that Syed arranged to person Lee conscionable him successful a Best Buy parking lot, wherever helium strangled her and past had Jay Wilds come and assistance him determination Lee's assemblage to Leakin Park. Wilds became a cardinal witnesser for the prosecution.

When Syed was convicted astatine his 2nd proceedings (the archetypal was declared a mistrial), his lawyer Charles H. Dorsey III pleaded connected his behalf for a merciful sentence, insisting the execution was a "crime of passion" alternatively than impervious that Syed was a slayer who should beryllium locked up forever. Syed continued to importune helium was guiltless astatine sentencing and stated his volition to appeal.

A justice vacated his condemnation successful 2016, but prosecutors appealed and it was reinstated successful 2019. But aft a year-long probe led by the Baltimore State Attorney's Office, it was the prosecutors who filed to person his condemnation vacated successful 2022—and it was. After 23 years down bars, Syed was enactment connected location apprehension Sept. 19. The authorities lawyer dropped the charges connected Oct. 11, and helium was a escaped man.

Koenig, a veteran writer and a shaper connected Ira Glass' seminal This American Life vigor show, had nary thought that her play heavy dive into Syed's case—with enforcement shaper Snyder—would crook into a taste phenomenon. She besides said she came into it with nary preconceptions and was not trying to exonerate Adnan.

"I wasn't—and we weren't—trying to make problems wherever determination were none," Koenig told Fresh Air's Terry Gross successful 2014 aft play one's 12-episode tally ended. "...Obviously I don't privation anyone to endure due to the fact that of the enactment I'm doing, but I besides consciousness similar there's a beardown contented of doing these kinds of investigative stories. And we weren't doing thing otherwise than we would bash successful immoderate different story."

Talking to Syed (the dependable of his cod telephone from situation became 1 of the podcast's identifying features) was "very complicated," she said. "A batch is going connected successful immoderate 1 speech with Adnan, which is...he mightiness beryllium guiltless and helium mightiness beryllium guilty. It's zero sum, a small bit, right?"

Koenig was successful the courtroom connected Sept. 14, 2022, erstwhile Syed's condemnation was vacated.

"You mightiness beryllium asking what connected world happened," she said connected a consequent caller occurrence of Serial. "I've spent the past fewer days trying to understand…The prosecutors contiguous are not saying Adnan is innocent. They stopped abbreviated of exonerating him. Instead, they're saying that backmost successful 1999, we didn't analyse this lawsuit thoroughly enough. We relied connected grounds we shouldn't person and we broke the rules erstwhile we prosecuted. This wasn't an honorable conviction."

She said that Hae's brother, Young Lee, addressed the justice via Zoom earlier she made her decision. "Young Lee tried to support it together, but helium couldn't," she said successful describing the scene. "He besides told the justice helium believes successful the justness system. He's not against a caller investigation. He said to Judge Phinn, 'Make the close decision.'" 

After giving grounds astatine Syed's execution trial, Wilds retreated into anonymity and refused on-the-record interrogation requests for Serial. In December 2014, aft the podcast's play 1 finale aired, helium told The Intercept in his archetypal nationalist interrogation that helium felt Sarah Koenig had "demonized" him.

Wilds became a cardinal witnesser for the prosecution, portion the defence contended helium was lying to support himself. Koenig would rise the question of wherefore Adnan, who astatine the extremity of the time didn't seem that adjacent to Jay, would person enlisted him to assistance hide a body. She besides spent a batch of clip talking astir the inconsistencies successful Jay's communicative betwixt his 2 interviews with detectives and his grounds astatine trial.

"People person to realize, we effort cases successful the existent world," Kevin Urick, who prosecuted Syed, told The Intercept erstwhile asked astir Jay's communicative changing aggregate times. "We instrumentality our witnesses arsenic we find them. We did not prime Jay to beryllium Adnan's accomplice. Adnan picked Jay. Remember, Jay committed a transgression here. He was an accomplice aft the information successful a murder. A precise superior crime...People tin precise seldom archer the aforesaid communicative the aforesaid mode twice. If they did, I'd beryllium precise suspicious of it due to the fact that that would look similar it was rehearsed."

"My woman knows astir my engagement successful this case," Wilds said. "Because I yet cooperated with the constabulary and testified, I cognize that determination are radical backmost location who would see maine a snitch and would wounded me. So, for the astir part, we've been truly protective astir our privacy."

He told The Intercept that Syed archetypal showed him Hae's assemblage successful the trunk of his car outside Wilds' grandma's house, not successful the Best Buy parking lot—a revelation that was not relayed during the proceedings oregon by Serial. But Wilds insisted he had thing to bash with the enactment of murdering Lee.

"There's thing that's gonna alteration the information that this feline drove up successful beforehand of my grandmother's house, popped the trunk, and had his dormant woman successful the trunk," helium said. "Anything that's going to marque him guiltless doesn't impact me. Hae was dormant earlier she got to my house. Anything that makes Adnan guiltless doesn't impact me. There is simply a circumstantial constituent wherever I became progressive successful this. What happened earlier that, I don't know."

Adnan's pb defence attorney, whom according to Serial's reporting was dealing with a glut of wellness and fiscal issues portion she was representing him, asked for and was granted a mistrial aft jurors overheard the justice referring to her arsenic a "liar" during a sidebar—a arguable move, Koenig surmised, arsenic it seemed arsenic though the proceedings was going the defense's way.

Gutierrez consented to being disbarred successful 2001 aft she was accused of mishandling lawsuit funds. Suffering from aggregate sclerosis and assorted different ailments, she died of a bosom onslaught successful 2004. In asking for a caller trial, Syed's ineligible squad argued that Gutierrez made a captious mistake by not calling an eyewitness who said she'd seen the suspect astatine the room astatine the purported clip of the sidesplitting and could person provided an alibi.

The attorney, activistic and host of the podcasts Undisclosed and The 45th is the one who brought the lawsuit to Sarah Koenig's attraction aft seeing a 2001 nonfiction Koenig had written for the Baltimore Sun astir Gutierrez's disbarment. Her younger member was 1 of Syed's champion friends increasing up and she knew his family. 

She wrote successful 2014 astir being inspired to astatine slightest effort to power the ineligible process aft watching the documentary West of Memphis, astir the yet palmy combat (which became a large origin célèbre) to escaped 3 young men convicted of the 1999 murders of 3 small boys successful West Memphis, Ark.

Chaudry is besides the author of Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial and was an enforcement shaper connected HBO's The Case Against Adnan Syed—which is getting a caller episode successful airy of the bombshell twist that is Syed nary longer being convicted of murder.

The writer of Confessions of a Serial Alibi wrote 2 letters to Syed aft his apprehension offering to testify—but she wasn't called to attest until it was to enactment his petition for a caller trial. Chapman told the tribunal that it was her prime to scope retired to Syed successful jailhouse each those years ago, that nary 1 asked her to. Koenig had tracked her down during the people of making Serial.

A information defender from the room testified astatine the retrial proceeding that determination were nary cameras to confirm Chapman's story, and helium didn't retrieve seeing Syed. He admitted connected transverse that it was arsenic agelong clip ago, truthful helium mightiness not retrieve everything astir that day.

"I am at the constituent wherever I'm blessed with not having an answer. Well, I wouldn't accidental 'happy,' but I americium consenting to judge that I volition ne'er know," Chapman told the Observer a fewer months aft testifying. "And I'm astatine the constituent present wherever though I attraction if an guiltless idiosyncratic is down bars, I judge it's the court's determination to found guilt oregon innocence and that nary magnitude of racking my encephalon is going to assistance the situation."

She added, "If you tin conscionable punctual radical that everyone progressive successful this lawsuit is conscionable a mean person. We didn't inquire to beryllium bumped into the spotlight the mode that we each person been, and we're trying to bash the champion that we can."