What Happened in ‘Serial’

I began listening to the podcast ‘serial’ which is a very intriguing podcast about a boy named Adnan Syed, who was convicted of his ex-girlfriend’s murder. The narrator, Sarah Koenig, tells the story of the murder, and does some investigating of her own as she attempts to discover what really happened that day

I found this podcast, and the story of the crime, to be very interesting. I love mysteries and crime stories like this and I actually want to go into a career in that area, such as forensics or even becoming a detective, so this type of thing really interests me. This is also a fascinating case, and many things about it are confusing. Syed says he has very little memory of that day, because for him it was just a normal day. But the friend that was supposedly with him the day that Hae was murdered, who’s name is Jay, remembers the day vividly. This makes me wonder which one of them was lying. This case is full of contradictions like this. One person will say that Adnan Syed was a great kid that would never have hurt Hae, but there are also people that genuinely believe he was the only one who could have killed her. The case against Adnan was entirely based on Jay’s story of that day, and only one girl, named Asia, was able to provide an alibi for Syed, but she never testified in court about her side of the story. Asia stated that she saw, and talked, to Adnan in the library, but this was never mentioned at the trial.

I really enjoyed listening to this podcast, and i like that the information was presented in that format. It was interesting to actually hear the witness statements and stories from the real people involved in the case, and I think it helped develop the story. The music in the background also add a more dramatic effect to the story that you can’t get when you’re reading a book. As much as I love reading, i think this form of journalism was better suited in podcast form because there was a lot of tapes and phone recordings that were very significant to the case, and being able to actually listen to them helped me understand what was going on and here the tones of people’s voices and help build a bit of a picture in my head. But, if this story had been put into a book format, pictures and other visuals could have been added which would have been useful to see as well.

As interesting as this case is, I do wonder if the family of Hae Lee was upset about the podcast and its popularity. No matter who committed the crime, something awful happened to Hae Lee and it was probably upsetting for those that were close to her when the events from that past started getting dragged out again. Especially since this all happened so long ago, so it’s hard to know when someone is lying or telling the truth. Some people have no memory of that day, but others say they have very detailed memories of it. These people could be telling the truth, or they could be making it all up. Either way it makes for a very interesting story that I would love to know the real answer to, but it might never truly be found out.