*Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the work of attorney Susan Simpson, who blogs here. If you want some excellent analysis of the case from a factual and legal perspective, read her stuff. She basically nails the timeline with respect to what Adnan remembers.
I’ve said from the beginning that as Serial winds down, I’ll release more documents, but at no point will I “trump” their work. I try at all times to stay at least half a step behind their narrative. From where I stand it looks like they’ve clearly moved on from the initial parts of the case and investigation, so I thought it was an appropriate time to release some documents in their entirety.
Let me make something clear – nothing I am releasing here is confidential, it is all the kind of public record that anyone could obtain from a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, which can be filed with any government agency, like the Baltimore County Police. There are some documents that are attorney notes, which cannot be obtained from a FOIA, but even in those I’m careful not to release anybody’s private information. In the documents linked here, I’ve made sure to redact last names, and sometimes first names too, as in the case of “Cathy”, as well as phone numbers and addresses.
So where did the investigation of Adnan begin? With an anonymous phone call, three days after Hae’s body is found.
From State Attorney files: no other place have I seen the detail that the body had rocks all over it to prevent it from being moved.
Full notes of call
Clearly the caller is someone who knows both Adnan and Yaser Ali (misspelled “Baser”), and has an accent. This narrows it down to almost exactly two people in his social circle, and I have my bets on one of them. He also was a pot smoker who hung out with Jay, and remembered this conversation in which Adnan talks about what he would do if he hurt his girlfriend.
Of course, this conversation apparently happened before Adnan and Hae were dating. Details, details.
So let’s move onto Yaser.
I want to know more about that discussion of Adnan’s knowledge of how the victim was killed – wouldn’t that kind of be important in this interview? I’m guessing since there is no info about it, Adnan said he had no knowledge. Is it weird that a “friend’ would respond the question at the very end? Yeah, it is. With “friends” like that…anyway.
Between the anonymous caller and Yaser the police’s spidey senses are now tingling. Nevermind the fact that neither of these guys had any information that actually linked Adnan to the crime. The cops get Adnan’s phone records and see the many calls to Jen Pusateri.
On Feb 26, 1999 the police visit Jen and she can’t talk to them, she’s heading somewhere. Later that evening she pops by the station with a friend, who is “Cathy”.
Jen doesn’t mention Adnan’s involvement with the murder this night. Then she goes to talk to Jay and comes back the next day with her lawyer and story.
On Feb 27th, 1999 Jen returns to the police station lawyered up. Here is her full statement:
Jen’s story takes the police to Jay, who is then interviewed four times over the course of the following months. He is first interviewed on Feb 28th, 1999, then leads the police to Hae’s car, after which they arrest Adnan. Here are the full transcripts of the two interviews of Jay that were actually taped on Feb 28, 1999 and March 15, 1999:
The stories change between these two tellings, and they keep changing with further interviews. They’ll change at the trial too. They changed between what Chris was told and another friend Jay mentioned it to was told:
Tayyib, aka Laddu. Pakistani guy, who happens to have a bit of an accent.
This is the clusterf&$# upon which the state builds it’s case. Feel free now to create your spreadsheets of inconsistencies, break the documents up as you want, get down into the weeds with this stuff. Because, like Det. Tranum said, at the heart of the matter is Jay. The actual truth lies with him.