Serial podcast on TAL

ketan

http://serialpodcast.org/

Anyone else listening? Really interesting concept - a journalist is re-investigating a potentially dubious murder conviction and making weekly episodes as they go along. Very gripping.

At this point, I think they got the right guy. Unless the weed dealer has a clear motive for lying through his teeth...

meistromoco

yep, I've been listening and am hooked. Sara Koenig stories are usually winners, so that is a plus. Weed dealer is indeed pretty damning. He seems to be too detail oriented and clear in his police interviews to be making it up. That said, had the case been properly defended originally, it does sound like there is some reasonable doubt although who knows how that would have sounded in court 15 years ago. Looking forward to hearing the rest.

ketan

meistromoco said:

yep, I've been listening and am hooked. Sara Koenig stories are usually winners, so that is a plus. Weed dealer is indeed pretty damning. He seems to be too detail oriented and clear in his police interviews to be making it up. That said, had the case been properly defended originally, it does sound like there is some reasonable doubt although who knows how that would have sounded in court 15 years ago. Looking forward to hearing the rest.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see opinions change about: a) who we actually think murdered Hae, and b) whether we feel there is reasonable doubt about Adnan doing it.

Controller_7

Thanks for the heads up. Sounds cool.

ppadilha

I listened to the first two episodes last week, I'm pretty curious to see where they're going to go with this. From an article I read somewhere, it sounds like they haven't finished producing this season and they hope to incorporate things that might crop up as the episodes go on the air.

magpaul

Based on the first 4 episodes, I'm starting to think that he did it.

Controller_7

I'm totally hooked on this. I hope they continue with this format because it works and is really interesting.

I'm not sure he did it. The timeline in episode 5 seemed pretty tight. It's also weird that after being in jail for so long someone would so casually lie like a psychopath, but maybe that's it. Maybe he is a psychopath. It just seems weird.

I'm curious if we'll hear an interview with modern day Jay.

ketan

Controller_7 said:

I'm curious if we'll hear an interview with modern day Jay.

Totally. I'm willing to believe that Adnan did it as of now, but Jay's not telling the whole truth. Is it just because he's protecting his drug dealer ish, or is there something else...

Controller_7

Spoiler alert











The timeline was wonky. How could he strangle her in 1 minute and get her in the trunk in public? I mean the timeline could be wrong and he still did it. It just brings up lots of questions. And Asia? Hmmm. The streaker?

ketan

SPOiLERS








Particularly sketchy that he never tried calling Hae after she disappeared.

It's hard to believe he's NOT the killer at this point, even though there isn't any direct evidence outside of Jay's testimony.

Anyone else seen Forbidden Lie$? It reminds me of this because the subject is also very charismatic and also likely lying through their teeth the whole time.

JectWon

Spoiler alert:

I ripped through the first 6 episodes. It's a great podcast.

Here is where I stopped believing Adnan; when he refused to feel at all bummed or emotional about Hae dumping him for an older dude. Even all these years later, he tries to act like he was just super adult about the whole break up. I find it too implausible to think that a young high school kid would be totally unfazed by the fact that the old dude at fucking Lens Crafters moved in on his girlfriend.

His attempt to act all "nah, I just want whats best for her" makes me feel like he's trying really hard to act as if he had no motive to kill her.

I have no idea which way I would go on this if I were an actual juror, but as a casual bystander; he seems like he is very good at disguising true emotion and he's had tons of practice with it because of having to hide a second life from an immigrant family his entire life.

Also, the fact that the cops call him the DAY she goes missing and he DOESN'T immediately call her is kind of damning, in my opinion...it's circumstantial for sure, but it doesn't sit well with me at all.

I'm not saying it went down the exact way the court claims it did, there might have even been a third person.

Just my 2 cents....I can't wait to hear more.

ppadilha

just listened to the season finale. I don't think you could've expected any other outcome, even though there's a small cliffhanger for season 2! This gets an A for effort. Also led me on a small podcast binge which only made me realize how awesome radiolab is.

also found the series The Staircase on youtube, which I'd heard great things about and apparently follows a similar format. Plan on watching this soon:

white_tea

Without having listened to the finale and bailing on the episode titled "Rumors," I'm still somewhat skeptical that he did it. Jay's changing storyline and multitude of lies and inaccuracies just raised too many questions. That said, it would be been interesting to explore whether Jay had a motive - they touched on him maybe being jealous of Adnan's (sp) relationship with Jay's girl, but still seems a stretch. It's a great concept for a podcast, despite some of the angles they chose leaving me wanting. That said, it's surprising that this is the most popular podcast in history - it's good but it's not that good. As somewhat of a self-professed true-crime aficionado, I'd like a more edited delivery of a case even if Serial makes up for a lack of expertise with its messy, sprawling stylee.

ppadilha

white_tea said:

As somewhat of a self-professed true-crime aficionado, I'd like a more edited delivery of a case even if Serial makes up for a lack of expertise with its messy, sprawling stylee.

check out The Staircase, from what I've heard it's basically what you're asking for.

I'm pretty curious as to what season 2 will be. Can't imagine they'll carry on with this case, but maybe revisit when there's news. I think it would be cool if they found another interesting case to study and see how they'll do it differently given their experience in this first one.

cookbook

The Staircase was on Netflix at one point, not sure if it is still there. A must watch.

[strong]Potential Serial Finale Spoilers[/strong]

Like was said above, the finale ended as expected. Of course, given all of the detail we found out, any competent juror in 2014 would acquit, but this all went down in 1999, a very different social climate than we have now. Hard to say what SK or any of us would have done in that court room at that time.

I think Season 2 will be a different case, especially given her relationship with the Innocence Project now.. they must have tons of cases to choose from. I am sure we will hear more about this case, if at least what comes of the new DNA submission.

The only thing anyone can really hang their hat on from all of the evidence is that Jay knew where the car was.

dukeofdelridge

DATELINE OR 20/20 FOR THE NPR SET

ketan

dukeofdelridge said:

DATELINE OR 20/20 FOR THE NPR SET

Haha. All Sarah Koenig ever wanted was to work alongside Geraldo Rivera...

But I used to watch those type of shows when I was a kid, so I'm cool with that analogy.

magpaul

Jay was freaking out that these guys were parked in the lot across from the porn store.



Also he's starting his own podcast

ppadilha

when I was in high school I used to rent videos from Westcoast Video all the time, they had a better indie/foreign selection than Blockbuster. Never thought of it as a porn video store.

countmacula

I agree with most people on here. I listened to the entire series. I never wanted to google the case or look it up because I thought there was a "real ending". I also had images in mind about what everyone looked like and didn't want to mess that up. I thought the first 6-7 episodes were great! The last few seemed like filler.

knewjak

Did they go to Jays house after they started airing their episodes? If so, they dropped the ball. He most likely heard/realized they didn't think very highly of him and thus wouldn't allow himself to be recorded.
And that interview would have been key to the series. If he ever does an interview, it is clearly going to be tailored in his favor.

knewjak

...and I agree with the points made on the last episode. Adnan is either guilty, or had the most absurd/unlucky day ever.

BeatChemist

Just read an interview with Jay. Said he was contacted, they seemed shady, and he didn't want to get involved. Then months later he hears about the podcast from friends. Pertinent info is that Koenig didn't mention a podcast, just an article, maybe a documentary. The meeting upset his wife and was awkward, and Koenig emailed him apologizing the following day, seeking another follow up. Jay is angry that he has been mis-represented.

I guess I could have googled the article and linked it instead lol.

I don't even listen to the podcast. Just found this whole thing interesting.

hogginthefogg

Parts 1 and 2 of the interview with Jay are here: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/30/exclusive-jay-part-2/

Part 3 should be up soon.

I actually felt bad for Jay after reading part 2, but in the end, I still think he's lying. It seems to be what he does.

white_tea

What I came away with after reading the Jay interviews was that the B'more Stop Snitchin' campaign is more serious than I could've ever imagined if it extends across country for a 15-year old murder committed, allegedly, by a relative straight-laced Muslim sans gang ties.

Honestly though, if the podcast coupled with Jay's ever-shifting timeline of events doesn't spark an official - i.e. police department re-examination - then, well, it would be sad. The detectives put together a pretty weak case from jump that didn't seem to hold up at the time, and holds up even less now.

Edit: Of course, I'm not naive enough - especially in light of The Wire rebroadcast in HD - to think the Baltimore PD is resource rich for reviews of closed cases. But, still!