Running head: RESEARCH PROJECT

Research Project: The Murder of Hae Min Lee

Jeremy J. Rigali
EDU 690
English 12 Honors
Practicum: Glenelg High School

Research Project: The Murder of Hae Min Lee

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Adnan Syed was a young man who was raised by a respected family and bound to the

Muslim faith with strong connections to his community. He was known by his colleagues and
friends as a respectable, kind handsome man who was destined to get somewhere one day.
However, that so called golden child is currently rotting his life away in jail because of what he
did seventeen years ago, or did not do. That is the question, is Adnan Syed the one who
committed the murder of Hae Min Lee? In order to answer that perplexing question the jury who
convicted him guilty had to look at all the facts and background information in this case.
Essentially it all started when Hae and Adnan began dating, even though their families forbad
them to. It was a typical high schoolers relationship that was on and off and full of drama, but
things changed after winter break. That is when Hae decided that it was time to officially end
things with Adnan because she found a new boyfriend named Don. Soon after this transition Hae
went missing, that is until her body was found barely buried. A mysterious man had to take a
leak in the woods of Leakin Park and as he was doing so he saw what seemed to be human hair
sticking out of the ground (Koenig, 2014). That was Haes hair, the police dug up her body and
immediately started analyzing it. The cause of death: strangulation. The immediate suspects
were Don and Adnan. Don quickly came out clean because he was confirmed to be at work the
time of Haes death. On the other hand Adnan did not turn out completely clean. He had not
exactly remembered where he was and what he was doing on the day that Hae died, this led him
to be further analyzed. During this investigation a man named Jay appeared and told the police
that Adnan killed Hae. His story, although constantly changing, consisted of Adnan being the
murderer, the place where Haes car was, and that Jay himself helped bury the body. The State
looked at Jays story and was able to link parts of it to phone records. This showed, theoretically
speaking, where Adnan was the day that Hae was killed and it seemed to make sense. The

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controversy was that there really was not substantial evidence to put Adnan away by legal means.
Even with the cell records there were other things that did not match up. Important things such
as why did Jay not tell the police immediately? Also some of Jays story did not match the
phone records. Nonetheless the jury convicted Adnan for the murder of Hae, but to this day he
still denies doing it (Koneig, 2014). With the information presented it points to the fact that
Adnan murdered Hae.
Adnan Syed was known by those around him to be such a great guy, but how could such
a wonderful person be able to commit a murder? He must have been hiding something, or have
just been good at covering things up with lies. That is precisely what the judge thought he was, a
manipulative liar. There is something to be said about this perception of Adnan by a court judge,
after all, being physically at a trial could wield a different gut feeling to viewers rather than
listening to it. To add, judges see thousands of people over the course of their career, and their
job is to decide what really happened in a case and who is to blame. They are well conditioned
to filtering out lies and liars. The fact that this judge thought, by his actions and presence, that
Adnan was being manipulative displays that something must have been odd about how Adnan
presented himself. His actions must have given off the impression that he was not being
completely honest about what happened (Koenig, 2014). Not only does this perception of Adnan
suggest he is manipulative, but his past actions prove it too. At the mosque, a common place of
prayer for Muslims, Adnan would volunteer to help collect donations from all of the people.
This sounds like a very generous thing for a young man to do except for the fact that he pocketed
some of the money collected. He was caught by a man who saw him doing it, and later he
admitted to doing it. It is unsure how much he actually stole from his generous community, but
it is confirmed that this was not just a one time deal, he did this for a while. It was a shocking

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disappointment to his mom when she found out he was doing this which shows that even she

would not have guessed he would do something like this (Koenig, 2014). This sounds like a
manipulative liar in the making. Besides being recognized as a liar, the facts in Adnans case
against him are very convincing. Adnan states that he was probably at track practice the time of
Haes death as determined by the state, but his phone records say otherwise. Each time a phone
call is in action it pings a cell tower that reads calls in certain areas. Those exact areas can not be
determined because the regions that cell towers cover can be broad, however when Adnans cell
phone creates a recorded ping it is nowhere near where he says he was (Koneig, 2014). These
pings also suggest that critical parts of Jays story prove to be true.
That is the next thing about this case that makes it hard to stay on Adnans side, this guy
Jay. Jay was a classmate of Adnans that was sort of known as the bad boy around town, but
Adnan says he did not know Jay very well. Nonetheless Jay comes up and tells his story of how
this murder went down and he directly says that Adnan killed Hae. Although his story may be
shaky and unstable, the main points are consistent. Even so, to back up his story he showed the
police where Haes car was ditched after the murder making his story all the more reliable
(Koenig, 2014). Finally there is another part of this story that does not sit well with most
viewers and that is the fact that Adnan can not remember the day Hae went missing. It seems
viable that he could forget what happened on a specific day a few weeks back except the cops
contacted him on that day. It is not every day that a cop talks to someone, and it is definitely not
common that one calls someone directly concerning their missing friend. It simply does not add
up that he can not remember this day at all because any other person would have given what
happened to him on that day (Koenig, 2014).

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This is an extremely controversial case, hence the reason why a podcast was created

regarding the truth of it. Although many people think Adnan is guilty there are also people that
decide to take Adnans side and say that he did not murder Hae. The reasons that his backers
pick this side includes many pieces of evidence supporting Adnan. One of these reasons is that
his supporters say Jay is a liar who was just trying to frame Adnan. After all Jays story changed
each time it was told. To add to this important parts of Jays story such as Adnan calling him
from Best Buys phone booth are improvable. They did a lot of research but were unable to say if
a phone booth was even at this Best Buy or not (Koenig, 2014). Another reason that his
supporters pick his side is that they feel as if the police did not do enough to figure out who did
it, instead they just felt as if they thought they found their guy and went along with it. Evidence
of this is that there were used bottles found at the grave site of Hae, but DNA tests were never
conducted on them (Koenig, 2014). It seems reasonable that tests should have been conducted
on the things found at this site since it was such an important aspect of the case.
In addition, supporters of Adnan say that his forgetfulness of what occurred the day Hae
went missing is not a facade. Instead they believe that he truthfully does not remember what
happened on that day. After all it is challenging to remember exactly, step by step, what
happened on a given date when nothing remarkable happened, it is just a characteristic of natural
human memory (Koenig, 2014). His supporters lastly tend to use a girl named Asia McClain as
evidence supporting Adnan. The State gave a timeframe for when Hae was murdered and at this
time Adnan said he was most likely at the library near the school and then afterwards went to
track practice. There was no real evidence to support his claim until Asia wrote to him in prison.
In her letter she says that she recalls seeing and talking to Adnan on that day in the library at the
time that Hae was supposedly killed. Asia never ended up testifying on Adnans side, but his

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supporters say that this is a reliable sign he was telling the truth about his whereabouts on that
day (Koenig, 2014).
These all seem like viable points in support of Adnan, however they can all easily be put
down. Jay is a very controversial, yet important character to this case. Although his story
changes frequently the main idea stays consistent which suggests that his main story is true. To
back his main storyline he does in fact know where Haes car was. So yes, Jay may have made
up a few lies but he definitely knew some key information regarding Haes murder. Also to only
call Jay a liar in this case would be unfair and legally shot down because Adnan does it too. His
story shifts from time to time just as Jays did (Koenig, 2014). Now the improvable Best Buy
phone is hard to argue over because there is evidence in the plans of the Best Buy that suggest
one may have been there, but it can not be proved either way. For this reason that aspect of Jays
story can not be used against him or for him therefore it is invalid in an argument (Koenig,
2014). The part of the case in which the police did not test the DNA of the bottles does seem
unreasonable but the fact of the matter is that they did not test them so that information can not
be used for or against anyone. They did however test other pieces of evidence and those things
showed nothing pointing towards someone else being the murderer (Koenig, 2014).
Next, the idea that Adnan can not recall what happened the day went missing because it
is hard to remember what went down on a given day is a completely insufficient claim. Adnan
does remember what went down that day, who would not remember the day they talked to the
cops and found out a close friend was missing (Koenig, 2014)? The last piece in favor of Adnan
is the support of Asia McClain and her letters that say she saw Adnan in the library the day Hae
went missing just as he said. This could be pretty solid evidence for Adnan however no one has

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any real information on Asia. She could be his friend, or simply paid to try and help him out, it is
truly unknown. On top of this Asia easily could have easily mistaken the day she saw Adnan for
any other because she did not have anything memorable happen that day like Adnan did (Koenig,
2014)
The murder of Hae was a brutal and devastating blow to the community at Woodlawn.
How could someone have built up enough hatred in order to kill a girl like Hae? It had to have
been somebody that was so torn inside that they felt there was no other way to control their pain.
A type of pain that stems from seeing the one that they love dearly holding someone elses hand.
The kind of pain that grows inside an obsessive ex boyfriend until he can not handle it any
longer. The specific sort of pain that broke Adnans heart and caused him to murder Hae.

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