the serial dynasty is sponsored by shaun t fitness

1

© 2015 The Serial Dynasty. All rights reserved.

Episode 14: Smoke & Mirrors 08/02/2015

Speaker: Bob Ruff

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this episode, Bob discusses both The Generation Why episode

that included the Hae Lee murder case and Episode 8 of Undisclosed: PING.

Today’s episode of The Serial Dynasty is sponsored by Shaun T Fitness.

Shaun T is the creator of several award-winning workout programs that can be done right

inside your home. Just to name a few, Shaun is the creator of the Insanity Workout, Insanity

Asylum, T25, Insanity Max 30, and his newest release, CIZE.

CIZE is a revolutionary new program created by Shaun and released in July. CIZE is the

end of exercise and makes losing weight an experience. For more information on all of Shaun T’s

exercise videos and programs, go to ShaunTFitness.com.

Hello everyone and welcome back to The Serial Dynasty. As always, I want to thank each

and every one of you for downloading this episode and all of your efforts to share The Serial

Dynasty with all of your friends and family. Your efforts continue to help grow this audience and

adds soldiers to this movement every single day. Every person that you reach out to adds one

more mind, one more perspective, one more set of eyes on this case, and leads us closer and

closer to finally figuring out who killed Hae Min Lee.

http://undisclosed-podcast.com/episodes/episode-8-ping.html

http://shauntfitness.com/


http://serialdynasty.com

2


There’s been a lot going on in the last week since we released Episode 13: Snitch or No

Snitch?. Most notably, Episode 8 of the Undisclosed podcast “Ping” absolutely put the nail in the

coffin and destroyed the State’s case against Adnan. We’ll spend some time today discussing that

episode. But before we do that, there’s something else that I’d like to speak on.

[00:02:09] The Generation Why Podcast

In last week’s episode, I recommended to all of you to tune in to the The Generation Why

podcast that was going to be launching an episode where they were going to be discussing the

Hae Min Lee murder case. On the bright side, I was thrilled to see that so many of my loyal

listeners took my advice and jumped right over and downloaded that episode of The Generation

Why.

Unfortunately, it was occurring to me in a very short period of time before my Episode 13

aired, that recommending that podcast may have been an error. They dropped a day early and

before I even had a chance to listen to the podcast, my Twitter and email were blowing up with

listeners pissed off about their experience in listening to that episode of The Generation Why

podcast. Considering the fact that I’m the one that recommended for you all to go out and check

it out, I thought we’d spend a little bit of time discussing that episode and breaking down some of

the mistakes that were made.

To begin with, I want to let all of you know that I did eventually listen to the episode and

all of you had every right to be irritated. There was a lot of false information, a lot of

misunderstood facts, that were presented in that episode. Honestly, I have to admit, it was

frustrating for me to even listen to it. I understand that it was a tough case to take on given that

so many people are so invested in this case and so determined to solve it that I’m willing to bet

that 95% of their listeners, or more, were far more informed than they were on the facts of the

case. Given that I was the one that recommended for all of you to download and listen to the

episode, I felt some responsibility in the matter, so I reached out to Aaron, one of the hosts of the

program, in hopes to touch base with him as far as some of the facts that he either

misunderstood or misrepresented.

As the show moves along today, I’m going to breakdown many of the mistakes that were

made on their show but I do feel that it’s worth letting all of you know that Aaron was very

gracious and very respectful in the email communication that we had back and forth.

I pointed out to him a few of the mistakes that he made. At first, he didn’t understand

why everyone was so upset. He believed that the facts that he had were correct. After a bit of

fact checking, Aaron realized that there was quite a bit of false information in the episode. In

response to that, he’s making an attempt to make it right. I know that prior to recording this

episode, Aaron and Justin had gone back and edited their episode of The Generation Why in an

attempt to try to remove some of the false information that was on there. So if you were to

download it now, you would get the edited version, which is shortened, there were a few things

removed, there’s still some mistakes in there, but it was an effort on their part to try to clean

http://serialdynasty.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-26T06_08_08-07_00



http://thegenerationwhypodcast.com/

http://thegenerationwhypodcast.com/

http://thegenerationwhypodcast.com/the-murder-of-hae-min-lee/


3


things up. I’ve also been told that they will be addressing the issue on this week’s episode of The

Generation Why, which will air tomorrow.

At this point, I’m not making a recommendation as far downloading it and listening to it.

But I felt I should at least make all of you aware that they will be discussing the errors that were in

the episode last week in tomorrow’s episode. Now that being said, one of the major issues that I

had with that episode is that it did confuse people. There were a lot of people that listened to

that episode that haven’t spent months and months and months digging through all of the source

documents and all of the evidence that a lot of us are already very well aware of.

I’ve gotten over 250 emails in the last week asking me to address the mistakes that were

made on the show and several others that were asking questions about things that were

confusing them from quote facts that they heard on The Generation Why podcast. So let’s go

ahead and break down some of the discrepancies.

[00:05:54] Justice for Hae’s Family

I’ll tell you that when I was listening to it, the first thing that really pissed me off right off

the bat was the statement that they made that with all the interest in this case, nobody seems to

be interested in justice or peace for Hae’s family. They stated that in Hae’s family’s mind, they

already have justice. And my response to that is that that couldn’t be any further from the truth.

Yes, a lot the attention and focus from The Serial Dynasty as well as Undisclosed does revolve

around Adnan. But, we’ve made very clear that our main purpose and I will say that the focus of

this show, The Serial Dynasty, is to attempt just to get to the truth. To find out what really

happened. To give Hae’s family real justice. But aside from that, while I understand the concern

and the focus for Hae’s family that these guys have, I don’t see how that is an excuse to ignore the

fact that another life was taken here.

If Adnan is innocent, his life was taken too. Not in the same way as Hae’s, but Adnan has

spent his entire adult life, 16 years, in prison. And if it’s proven that he did not commit this crime,

then that is an absolute tragedy and is not something that should be ignored because the family

of the other person involved here feel like they already have justice. I absolutely feel for Hae Min

Lee’s family. It’s the double-edged sword that we deal with every day in speaking about and

investigating this case. But from my perspective, we can’t stop trying to get to the bottom of this.

We can’t stop trying to find the truth because there’s more than one life involved here. If Adnan

Syed did not commit this murder, and I do not in any way believe that he did, than I absolutely

believe that this should be a fight to the death until we get him out of that prison cell. Until we

can prove who actually killed Hae Min Lee. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.

[00:07:49] Don

Moving along in the episode, there were several factually incorrect statements that were

made. They briefly discussed Don and just said that he had an airtight alibi and they moved on.

But all of us know that that’s not true. Now, I’m not accusing of Don of committing this crime, but

4


to say that he had an airtight alibi is just simply not true. Don said that he was at work. His

mother said that he was at work. The police never went any further with that. They didn’t ask for

time cards, they didn’t ask for proof. It’s just inaccurate to say that he had an airtight alibi. He did

not.

Then later in the episode they make quite a big deal about the fact that Adnan never tied

to call or page Hae after she went missing. But they give no consideration to the fact that neither

did Don. And as I’ve mentioned before, if we had a balancing scale to determine who looks more

guilty for not contacting Hae, in my mind, it’s 100% Don. Adnan’s the ex-boyfriend. He’s seeing

other girls. He’s in constant contact with Hae’s best friends, who are in constant contact with her

family. He knows what’s going on. He knows that she’s not answering any calls. He knows that

no one has heard from her. While Don on the other hand is the current boyfriend, she never

showed up for a date with him on the night that she went missing and yet he makes no attempt

to ever contact her.

Now again, I’m not saying that makes Don the culprit. But it certainly makes him a

suspect and if we’re going to make the leap that Adnan not trying to contact Hae makes him

guilty, well then we have to hold the same scrutiny to Don. And they didn’t do that.

[00:09:24] Adnan’s Reactions

They spent a little bit of time discussing Adnan’s reaction to the phone calls that he got on

the day that Hae went missing asking about her whereabouts. That reaction being, “Oh man,

she’s going to be in trouble now.” They say that that doesn’t makes sense because he knows that

she is very responsible and punctual. One of them said – and I apologize, I know there’s an Aaron

and a Justin but I had a hard time keeping the two voices separate and figuring out which one of

them was which – but one of them said, “Even when she was with him (meaning Adnan), she kept

her responsibilities.” In my mind this is a misrepresentation of Hae.

They presented her as – and even stated – that she was a “type A” personality, very

punctual, always kept all of her responsibilities as though she was a person that never did

anything wrong and never got in trouble. And don’t get me wrong, from everything that I’ve read,

Hae was a great person. We also know that she’s done “high school” things. For example, the

week before she went missing, when she blew off a wrestling meet where she was supposed to

be the manager to go see her boyfriend. We know that the night before she went missing, she

stayed out passed curfew and was fighting with her parents. We know that she dating a boy,

Adnan, that her parents didn’t approve of due to cultural differences.

So this isn’t necessarily a huge point, but I do believe it is a slight misrepresentation of

Hae and they use that misrepresentation to point toward Adnan’s guilt because his reaction was

that if she didn’t show up to pick up her cousin she was going to be in trouble. Which to me

sounds like a very plausible reaction.

5


[00:10:56] Neighbor Boy

As they moved along, they made a statement that Neighbor Boy said that he saw the

body in the trunk and then explained that by saying that Neighbor Boy said that just because he

wanted to tell a story. These were the points in the episode where I was just getting so

frustrated, I was about to just turn it off. This is obvious false information. Even if all they did was

listen to Serial, they would know that Neighbor Boy never said that. That was a rumor where

someone else said that he said that. And when questioned about it, he said that, not only did he

not ever see the body in the trunk, he’s never seen any body. And that’s not something that he

would joke about. So I don’t where this thought even came from or how they just pulled that out

of air but it was most definitely not true.

[00:11:41] Jay Picking Up Adnan from Track

Now I do have to admit that there were a few things that were said that jogged my

memory about a few facts that I had kind of let slip my mind over the past several months as we

keep running down all these different rabbit holes.

One of the hosts mentioned somewhat sarcastically that Adnan was unlucky that the day

that Hae went missing and was murdered just happened to be the same day that he lent Jay his

car. And the other host kind of chimed in in the background and said that one of the members of

the track team told Sarah on Serial that Jay used to pick Adnan up from track all the time. That it

was such a regular occurrence that they wouldn’t have thought anything of it if that was the day

when Jay stopped to pick up Adnan after track. That was a little detail that had sort of slipped by

me and I never gave it much thought until now.

And what’s occurred to me now and I’m sure this is something that a lot of you have

already thought of, is the fact that Jay didn’t have a car. Jay couldn’t pick up Adnan from track

practice without borrowing a car. Now I don’t know this for a fact, but the assumption there to

me would be that Adnan used to lend Jay his car on a somewhat regular basis. If it’s a regular

occurrence for Jay to pick Adnan up after track, I think it is fairly safe to assume that Jay was

picking Adnan up in Adnan’s car.

Now stay with me for a minute while I try to explain why I think this is so relevant. One

being that it would completely do away with the idea that this was just an unlucky day for Adnan

and that in order to believe his alibi, in order to believe that he was not the culprit, you would

have to believe some ridiculous set of circumstances leading to this incredibly unlucky day. If

Adnan lent Jay his car on a regular basis, then this could have been any day. Any one of the many

days where he’d lent his car to Jay would have been one of those unlucky days. But more

importantly than that, that piece of information is helping me to try up some loose ends in the

theory presented by Marissa in last week’s episode.

6


[00:13:42] Marissa’s Theory

You’ll remember that Marissa pointed out that it’s possible that Jay may have been

directly involved and didn’t bury Hae on the 13th. That he, or he and an accomplice, simply

dumped Hae’s body in the woods at Leakin Park, didn’t bury her, and returned several days later

when there was a nice warm day to bury her and cover her up better. Which would fit with Jenn’s

testimony that she had picked him up that night, disposed of the shovels, and then the next day

when it was raining, helped him dispose of his clothes.

But one nagging piece of that for me was Jenn’s story about meeting Jay and Adnan at

Westview Mall to pick up Jay. You’ll remember in that interview, she said that Jay and Adnan got

out, Adnan said hello to her, Jay got in the car, Adnan seemed normal, Jay gets in the car, he tells

her that they need to go retrieve these shovels. What was I was having a hard time reconciling

was the fact that that could only have been the night of January 13th because that’s the only day

that Jay had Adnan’s car. And it was presumed that Hae was actually buried on the day she was

murdered, on January 13th.

So what I’ve been wrestling with is that that would conflict with Marissa’s theory. Or, as a

lot of people do believe, Jenn was completely uninvolved and that story was completely made up.

But as I’ve mentioned in past episodes, that’s not my theory of the case. That doesn’t mean that

I’m right. Or that you’re wrong. I just personally don’t believe that Jenn was completely

uninvolved and completely made up everything that she said to the police. So like I said, if I

believe that Jenn was involved, and she was explaining a series of events in a way to try to

minimize Jay’s involvement or regurgitating the events in the way that Jay had relayed them to

her, then Marissa’s theory couldn’t have worked. But then I remembered Will. If Jay borrowed

Adnan’s car and picked him up from track practice on a regular basis, then to me, that makes

Marissa’s theory even stronger than it already was.

I think that a possible scenario for what happened would have been that as Marissa said,

Jay, or Jay and an accomplice, murdered Hae. Or the other party murdered Hae and Jay was the

accomplice, or was witness to it somehow. The body was taken out to Leakin Park, dumped on

the ground, where it stayed for a number of days. Five days later there’s another 50+ degree day,

the snow and the ice melt, Jay is borrowing Adnan’s car again, and while Jay has Adnan’s car, he

returns to the burial site. It may have been something that he got worried about that day

because of the warm weather and the melting snow. Or, it could have been weighing on him

since the day that Hae was murdered but assumed that her body was inaccessible because it

would be buried in snow and ice and he would leave shoe prints and it would be very obvious if

he went back there to move the body.

But in any case, on that day, he returns back to the burial site, moves Hae’s body, buries

her, puts his shovels and picks, or whatever he had, back in the car, gets the call from Adnan that

he needs to go back to the school and pick him up. He can’t have those tools in the car when he

picks Adnan up so he dumps them in a dumpster somewhere… picks him up, they spend the

evening together. At the end of the evening, Jenn picks him up and he tells Jenn he needs a ride

back to get those shovels to dispose of them.

7


I think that this theory also helps to reconcile the conflicting stories from Jenn and Jay as

to where she picked him up that night. You’ll remember that Jenn says that she picked Jay up at

the Westview Mall and they went and got the shovels. But Jay says that Jenn picked him up at his

house that night. Well maybe, just maybe, both are true. Maybe Jay was describing the night

Hae was murdered. Maybe on that night, he had Jenn pick him up at his house and then several

days later, when he went back to bury the body, that night, Jenn picked him up at the Westview

Mall. In any case, Jenn helps Jay get rid of the shovels. He can’t get rid of his clothes that night

because he’s still wearing them. So she drops him off at home. He gets out of them and puts

them in a plastic bag and has Jenn come back and pick him up the next day to dispose of his

clothes somewhere other than at his house.

And historical weather data shows us that on that day, it was raining. Jenn remembers

the next day when he picked up his clothes that it was raining. I don’t have solid evidence that

would prove that this is how things went down, but I do believe that it’s a reasonable theory and I

haven’t been able to find any other evidence that would contradict it. And so one of the benefits

of having this massive audience of listeners, many of which are much, much more intelligent than

I am, I’d like for you to think about that theory. Shoot me an email and let me know if you have

any other evidence that would either back it up or prove it wrong. And we’ll discuss it further

next week.

[00:18:53] Other The Generation Why Errors

Now getting back to The Generation Why episode. The episode was riddled with a lot of

minor errors that really don’t make that much of a difference but it was just frustrating and I

know that it’s frustrating to us because we’re so deeply involved in the case and we know these

details. One of which that I heard a lot about from listeners was that they said that both Adnan

and Jay were in the Magnet Program together at school. And of course, all of us know that not to

be true. Jay was not in the Magnet Program, just Adnan was.

And credit where credit is due, they both seem to agree that the idea of Jay being afraid

of Adnan just didn’t make any sense. And that part, I do agree with. Jay was for one a much

bigger guy, he had that as they said “alpha” personality. In his own mind, he’s the criminal

element of Woodlawn. It just doesn’t make any sense to me either that Jay would ever be afraid

of Adnan.

[00:19:49] The Nisha Call

Now next there was a much more important factual error that I think is part of what

helped lead the hosts to the conclusion of Adnan’s guilt and that was the Nisha call. They spend

quite a bit of time talking about it and they said that Nisha was inconsistent. They said that

maybe she was getting her days mixed up because of referring to the adult video store stop and

they also said the Nisha stated that the call was about that time, being 3:30ish. And I’m sorry, but

this part was just an absolute load of shit. None of that is true.

8


The prosecution did a great job of alluding to facts that would lead the jurors to believe

certain things without them having to say it. And we’ll get into more about that later when we’re

discussing the Undisclosed episode. But in regards to Nisha… Nisha never, ever testified that that

call took place on January 13th. She was asked at trial if she had ever received a call from Adnan

where he put Jay on the phone. And of course this was an attempt to corroborate Jay’s story of

this happening when they were driving around after Adnan had murdered Hae. So they ask if

there was ever a time when this occurred. Nisha says, yes, there was exactly one time when this

happened.

At trial, the prosecution asked her about the context of the call, where she did say

basically the same thing that Jay said. It was casual, “Hey,” “Hello,” “How you doing,” a

conversation along those lines. At the first trial, Nisha went on to say that they were at the adult

video store where Jay was working at the time when that call occurred, which of course we know

that Jay did not have that job on January 13th. He didn’t have it until the end of the month.

At the second trial, when she starts to say the same thing, Urick shuts her down. He

stopped her from explaining that this call occurred while Jay was working at the adult video store

and only allowed her to explain the context of the call. But what she did testify to was that she

believed this call happened later in the evening, which would make sense considering the fact

that Jay worked the night shift. It would also make sense because if you look at Adnan’s phone

records, Adnan never, ever called Nisha before evening time, around 7:00 in the evening or later.

The only call to Nisha in the 3:00 hour ever in Adnan’s phone records was January 13th, the day

where I would suggest the theory that, as I’ve mentioned before, that call was nothing more than

a butt dial. Which I personally believe was likely due to the fact that the phone was in Jay’s

pocket. Jay was possibly helping move the body during that time that caused the butt dial.

Well whether you believe that theory or not, their representation of Nisha on that

episode was completely false. None of that was true. And if Gutierrez had been doing her job,

she could have used Nisha’s testimony as an opportunity to impeach Jay’s testimony. But like so

much in this case, it’s another one she let slip through the cracks.

[00:23:03] Adnan’s Track Practice

They also mentioned in the episode that no one can account for Adnan being at track

practice. Well, the truth is the police only ever asked two people whether Adnan was at track

practice or not. The first was Adnan who says that he was. He remembers talking to Coach Sye

about prayers that he would be leading at the mosque. And the second person they ask was

Coach Sye who said I can’t be sure of the date but I remember that it was that warm day at the

end of Ramadan where we actually got to practice outside and I was walking the track with Adnan

was explaining to me the prayers that he would be leading at the mosque in the next day or two.

So as far as I’m concerned, that’s two for two for Adnan actually being at track, on time.

9


[00:23:43] The Library

And then there was the library. This was definitely a swing and a miss. And for the

record, this is something that The Generation Why guys have acknowledged that they messed up.

They’ve written some corrections out on social media. I believe that they edited that part out of

the podcast but I know that they are going to be discussing it on their next episode. But, wow,

they could not have been anymore wrong about just about everything surrounding the library.

They’re making a case that Adnan lied about his whereabouts and how Asia’s alibi means

nothing because it contradicts Adnan’s own story because Adnan said that he stayed on the

campus after school that day until track… when Asia says he was in the library and they say that

the library was a half a mile away.

And again, that is absolutely false. Yes, the library was a public library, it was not part of

the school. However, it is a part of the school campus. At least unofficially. I’m sure a lot of you

have done this but those of you that haven’t, go on Google Maps and look at an aerial view of the

Woodlawn High School and what you’ll see is that the Woodlawn Public Library butts up to the

student parking lot at Woodlawn High School. It’s actually a shorter walk to the library than it is

to get into the school from that parking lot. From everyone that I’ve spoken to and asked about

this that went to school at Woodlawn with Adnan, they all just sort of considered the library part

of the campus. The school’s parking lot is where you parked to go to the library.

In fact, Adnan’s friend, Krista, who interviewed on this show a few weeks ago, just posted

photos today from a trip that she took to Woodlawn High School, I believe it was yesterday. Now

it’s summertime, school is not in session, and she was pointing out that there was probably three

dozen cars parked at the library, all parked in the Woodlawn High School student parking lot, right

next to the library. So even today, that library still feels and is assumed to be part of the campus.

So to say that it was a half mile away and conflicts with Asia’s alibi is just wrong.

[00:25:50] Asia

Then the part that really, really got under my skin was when they were discussing Asia.

They go on and on about how Asia is unreliable and her story changes as much as Jay’s. And you

don’t know which version of her story to believe. And they paint her in a way that – first she

wrote the letter to Adnan saying she saw him in the library and then they say that Adnan’s family

asked her to go to their house. When in fact, if I’m remembering the facts correctly, in her letter

she just said that she went to their house. And when she got there, there was a bunch of his

family there and they were very nice to her.

I mean she wrote a letter to Adnan explaining her experiences at his house with his family

and how nice they all were. But on The Generation Why podcast, they say that Asia then changed

her story and said that they asked her to go to that house and they pressured her and made her

write this affidavit to provide an alibi for Adnan. They also claimed that she was contacted by the

defense. And neither of these are true. Asia didn’t decide to not testify for Adnan in his trial.

Asia was never contacted or asked to testify in his trial. That information that they are putting

out is just simply false.

10


So they paint this picture that Gutierrez’s clerk contacted Asia, they decided not to use

Asia as an alibi witness because she says he was at the library, and he says he was at the school,

and the library is a half mile away from the school. And then later writes the affidavit during the

appeals process but then changes her mind because the only reason she wrote that was because

she was getting that pressure from Adnan’s family to write it. They failed to mention the fact that

Asia had no idea any of this had happened.

Asia never said that Adnan’s family had pressured her into writing that affidavit. Kevin

Urick testified to that, not Asia. And Asia was completely unaware until she was listening to Serial

and heard that that is what had happened at which point she immediately reached out to Sarah

Koenig, let her know that that’s not true, that’s not what had happened and she had no idea that

Urick had done that. And further explained that when she talked to Urick, Urick told her that she

should not testify, that they had a mountain of evidence against Adnan and she should probably

just stay away from it.

Once Serial had aired and she had realized what had happened and she had reached out

to Sarah, she got back in touch with Adnan’s legal team and stated that she still, and always has,

stands by her statement that she saw Adnan in the library until 2:40 on January 13th. She’s

written a new affidavit and is ready to testify in Adnan’s next post-conviction relief hearing. Asia

was not wishy-washy. Asia has not changed her story. Her story has remained the same from

1999 until today. And the only reason her testimony was never able to be heard was a

combination of Adnan’s attorney not doing her job and Kevin Urick’s manipulation.

[00:28:50] The Generation Why Continued

Now they spend some time talking about cell phone pings and how it helps parts of Jay’s

story and doesn’t help other parts of it, but as most of us already knew to an extent and

completely understand now after last week’s Undisclosed episode, anything to do with the cell

phone pings is just completely irrelevant.

I thought that the guys actually had a pretty good grip on the bail situation. When they

first discussed it, they took a pretty firm stance that this was institutional racism. It was a

miscarriage of justice for him to not get bail, especially considering that the main reason given

that he wasn’t given bail was due to a falsified document provided by the detectives. Then later

in the episode, the two sort of banter back and forth about the bail situation. They don’t really

agree at the end of the episode about a lot of things, but one of the issues was that, I believe it

was Aaron, really dug his heels in about the fact that that bail situation, Adnan being unjustly

denied bail, wouldn’t have made any difference in the case. And I think it was Justin that was

arguing that he believed that it absolutely would have. So they were split on that particular fact.

Really, by the end of the episode, I was sort of confused in some ways because they made

a lot of statements that would lead you to believe that Adnan was innocent. For example, they

both agree that the lividity issue completely disproves Jay’s testimony and they even say that it

completely blows the prosecution’s timeline. But then later explain how reading the trial

11


transcripts would help you to understand the case better, even though they just said that the

timeline used in that case is irrelevant.

[00:30:32] Undisclosed

Then, a very irritating part for me was the two of them alluding to the fact that

Undisclosed team was filtering the information they are putting out there to make Adnan look

innocent. They talk about some missing transcript pages and even take a subtle jab at the end of

the show and tell you to make sure you look at the page number on the transcript pages. I mean,

they are implying that Rabia has more transcripts that she’s withholding because they make

Adnan look guilty. First of all, I want to say that I do not, in any way shape or form, believe this is

true at all. Rabia is on record several times stating that she has released the transcripts that she

got in the electronic file from Sarah Koenig and that’s all of them. That’s all she has.

First of all, I trust all three of Rabia, Susan, and Colin. Now that’s just my opinion. You’re

entitled to yours. But I absolutely trust them and from conversations that I’ve had with them and

from listening to the show and reading their blogs and listening to interviews, I just don’t believe

for a second that any one of them would risk their careers by lying when they have such an

enormous, massive, millions and millions of people audience. Especially about something like this

that could be easily proven.

If Rabia was lying, Sarah Koenig could grab a microphone or make a phone call and it

would be viral across the world that Rabia is lying, she gave her more information than that, and it

was incriminating and she’s hiding it. And recently, within the last couple of weeks, there was a

user on Reddit that I guess found some missing transcript pages from the trial. I have no idea how

they got a hold of those or where they came from but there’s a big conspiracy on Reddit about

these missing pages that this guy has found, or gal, I’m not sure if it is a man or a woman. But

guess what? There’s still nothing in those transcripts that show that Adnan is guilty.

There is no other information there. If there was information and evidence out there

proving Adnan’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, I really believe we would have seen it. There is

in fact a large camp of people that really believe that Adnan is guilty. And some of those people

fight tooth and nail to try to convince people that that’s true. And I look for those things.

[00:32:57] Reddit

You know, I had a listener tweet me this week telling me that I shouldn’t write off Reddit,

that I should give it a chance. That there is a lot of good information out there on Reddit. And the

truth of the matter is, I do use Reddit. I try to research for these episodes in as many places that I

can. Like I’ve mentioned before, I get thousands and thousands of emails. When I find something

that is possibly new information or a theory that maybe I hadn’t thought about, one of the places

I check is Reddit. I know that if there is information about Adnan being guilty, that that’s probably

one of the places where I’ll find it.

12


So I don’t ignore Reddit. I just don’t participate in it because the difficult thing about

Reddit is that yes, there is some useful information out there but the problem is that anytime

someone puts a post up about the case, you’ll get a few comments that are factual and an

intelligent argument and then every single time the thread turns into the bickering and the name

calling and you have to sort through 300 comments about people attacking each other….

attacking Rabia, attacking Susan Simpson, myself, rather than present any actual facts.

But I do actually subject myself to reading through that to try to see if there is some

information out there that would lead me to believe that Adnan was guilty. And I just can’t find it.

No one seems to have it. And I’ll speak about that a little bit more at the end of the show. But

along these lines, I caught something that I think it was Aaron who said, he said he’d been looking

at quote the arguments that people were having regarding guilt or innocence and I think that that

may point us in the direction of why he had the information that he has. And why he took the

stance that he did. I think that a majority of the research that he did was on Reddit and if you

haven’t been on there and you look through, I think it’s called the Serial podcast of Reddit, you’ll

see exactly what I’m talking about. That’s what I always seem to find there – are arguments.

And another point where I think they had some good points, Justin stated – or I think that

it was Justin – that the idea that a serial killer, or that someone else, had murdered Hae and that

Jay and Jenn’s testimony was completely coerced by the police was not improbable to him. And

he said that he believes that Adnan deserves a retrial. He said that guilty or not, the prosecution

did not get this right. So I’ll give him that. I mean Justin didn’t come out and say that he believes

Adnan is innocent but looking at it from the lens of a matter of justice, he believes whether he is

guilty or innocent, he definitely deserves to be tried again. This trial was not done correctly. It

was not a fair trial and if he’s going to be in prison that he at least deserves a fair trial with a fair

defense.

Now an extremely irritating part about this episode if you listen to it was how they

claimed that the best witness would be Hae herself from what she wrote in her diary. And then,

after that as far as I can tell, they completely made up diary entries that did not exist. Now again,

to their credit, I believe this part of the podcast they edited out and removed it, but in the one

that I listened to, they made claims that her diary said that Adnan was stalking and that he was

controlling, that she painted a picture of him in her diary as this mean, controlling guy that was

stalking her and it’s just… that’s just not true. They were nothing like that in her diary, nothing at

all. I have no idea where this information came from but it was absolutely false and it is my

understanding that it has been removed.

[00:36:32] Plea Deal

Now lastly, at the close of this show, there was a long discussion about the plea deal and

the appeal process. And in a nutshell, these guys have no idea what is going on with this appeal

process and have a very misrepresented idea about what a plea deal means. As a recap for us

that understand what is going on, the process that Adnan is going through right now is that he is

asking for post-conviction relief and asking for a new trial based on ineffective assistance of

counsel.

13


The elements of that appeal are that Gutierrez never contacted his solid alibi witness,

Asia. And secondly, that Adnan says that he asked Gutierrez to see if he could get a plea deal and

she never approached the prosecution to ask for a plea deal. Now for starters, they just

absolutely didn’t understand that process and didn’t really have a grip of what was going on

there. But furthermore, the one guy that I believe was Aaron, was just going on and on about

how asking for a plea deal makes Adnan guilty. That it’s a huge deal for him that innocent people

don’t ask for plea deals and only guilty people ask for a plea and he was very firm on that point

and that’s just absolutely false.

Innocent people take plea deals all the time. If you believe that everyone that is in prison

right now, that took a plea deal, took it because they were guilty, you’re just naïve. It happens all

the time. Going to trial is a risk. And part of a lawyer’s job is to do a risk-benefit analysis to

determine whether it is a good bet to take that risk. There are plenty of times when a

defendant’s attorney will tell them, “If we go to trial, whether you did it or not, you’re going to

lose. Or, you’re very likely going to lose. So rather than go to trial and risk the death penalty or

risk a life sentence, let’s see if we can plea this down.”

I can tell you from personal experience someone very close to me several years ago was

faced with exactly this scenario on a smaller scale. This was a female who had been pushed

around by her husband to the point where she snapped and threw a couple of punches at him.

He called the police. She was arrested for domestic violence. Due to the fact that it was her word

against his and he was the one with the bloody lip, her lawyer informed her that if they were to

go to trial, she would very likely be convicted. It also happens to be that this woman works for a

school system. If she were to take that risk and go to trial and lose and be charged with domestic

violence, the punishment from the court system may not be that great, but it would cause her to

lose her job, lose her career, lose her pension. So she decided instead to take a plea deal where

she had to plead guilty in order to save her career. This is not uncommon at all.

[00:39:24] The Generation Why - Final Remarks

So at the end of the day in regards to The Generation Why podcast, it was definitely not a

good episode. There was a ton of factual errors, which really disappointed me because it’s

actually a podcast that I enjoy listening to. I listened to several of their episodes and I’m just a

person who is very interested in true crime and it’s interesting to hear them talk about things.

But as far as this episode is concerned, at first, I was really kicking myself for recommending that

you all check it out considering there was all this false information but I’m hoping the silver lining

of that cloud is that it gave us the opportunity to clear up some things that may have already been

misconceptions in a lot of people’s minds and to correct some damage that may have been done

from listeners who didn’t realize that the information was false and were building thoughts and

theories around some false information.

Now with all this being said, at the end of the day, The Generation Why guys really

showed some character. Like most of you, I was really frustrated after listening to the episode.

I’m sure this was a really tough situation for these guys once they realized that some of the

information they put out was incorrect. And from my perspective, they really handled themselves

14


with some true character following that. Aaron put out several tweets today apologizing to the

listeners for the mistakes that were made and he also said that there would be an apology and a

correction at the beginning of their next episode.

So for me, while there was definitely some mistakes made, I don’t believe that it was

intentional. Aaron and Justin didn’t put information out that they knew was incorrect to try to

make a case. I think they were just trying to cram months’ worth of research into a very short

period of time in order to create the episode and I truly believe that they believed that the

information that they put out was correct. And given that since that point, they’ve gone back and

done some research, they checked some of their sources and realized the mistakes that were

made, that they are willing to humble themselves and make the correction and apology, I think

says a lot for them. Of course, you all have to make your own decision but for me personally, I’m

still a fan. I think they have a great show. They made a mistake, we’ve all made them, and

they’re doing their best to correct it and move along.

[00:41:28] Shaun T Fitness

Okay, before we move on to our discussion about Episode 8 of Undisclosed “Ping,” I’m

going to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about our sponsor, Shaun T Fitness. Shaun T did not

provide a script for this advertisement. I want you listeners to know that what I’m telling you

right now, I’m speaking from the heart.

As discussed on last week’s episode, the decision to go with Shaun T as our sponsor was

based both on his passion for The Serial Dynasty program and this case as well as my passion for

his programs and what he does for people. I’ve seen with my own eyes his programs work. My

wife began her journey nearly two years ago in changing her life and her body with Shaun T’s

Focus T25 and since that time, I’ve witness an amazing transformation in her in both body and

mind.

Myself, I was always reluctant to do any sort of a home workout. I’ve always been a gym

rat. I run and I lift weights and that’s how it works for me. And I’ve always gotten good results

but what I’ve found as I’m getting older, the routines that I was doing when I was 18, 19, 20 years

old, just don’t have the same effect that they used to have. It’s easier to gain weight and it’s

harder to lose weight. So I’ve reached a point where I’m ready to make a change. I’m tired of

doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result so throughout the

duration of this sponsorship, I am personally going to be walking through with you the listeners,

my experience using T25.

T25 has three different levels – Alpha, Beta, and Gamma – I started with Alpha just this

past Monday and after just five days of working through the program, I can see very clearly why it

works. One of the great parts about T25 is that it’s only 25 minutes and as my wife always tell me

when we’re getting ready to do the workouts, you can do anything for 25 minutes. Shaun’s

exercises are a full body workout that keeps your muscles engaged and your heartrate up for the

entire duration of the workout. What I found is that I’m working muscles that I didn’t even know

that I had.



15


When you couple the amazing methods of working out that Shaun puts into his videos,

with his style of motivation, even though I’m drenched in sweat and hurting by the end of every

session, I can’t wait to start the next one the next day. So if you’re looking for that reason, or that

moment, or motivation to make that change in your life and make that change in your health, I

would highly recommend getting started with Shaun T’s Focus T25.

If you’re further along with that and you’d like something different, Shaun has a number

of other workouts that you can get at ShaunTFitness.com. Shaun is the creator of Insanity,

Insanity Max 30, the T25 videos, Hip Hop Abs, and his newest release, CIZE, just to name a few.

So if you’ve finally had enough and you’re ready to make that change, I invite you to walk through

this journey with me over the next 11 weeks and we can all dig deeper.

[00:44:16] Episode 8 of Undisclosed

All right, moving on to Episode 8 of Undisclosed, this episode was the nail in the coffin for

the prosecution’s case. In Kevin Urick’s Intercept interview this past winter, he made a point to

say that Jay’s testimony would likely not have been enough to convict Adnan and that the cell

phone records were not enough to convict Adnan. But Jay’s testimony corroborated by the cell

phone evidence was the solid evidence that put Adnan in prison.

[Sound of an explosion] And…. there went your case.

Between Susan’s research and Mr. Cherry, the cell phone expert, someone finally made it

crystal clear how useless and irrelevant that cell phone data really is. I’m not going to recap all

the technical details that were discussed in the episode. If you want to hear a detailed

explanation of those facts, just go back and listen to Episode 8 of Undisclosed again. But to

summarize, historical cell data of the type that was used in Adnan’s case cannot determine the

location of the phone during a call. Now there’s two sides to that. We have incoming and

outgoing.

As Rabia mentioned on the episode, AT&T themselves made very clear to point out that

incoming calls could absolutely not be used for location. They are absolutely not reliable in that

form. Sadly, the prosecution had this note when they based their entire case around two pings

from incoming calls that happened at Leakin Park, or supposedly happened at Leakin Park, in the

7:00 hour when they claim that Hae’s body was being buried by Adnan. Yet another glaring piece

of exculpatory evidence that the prosecution withheld from the defense.

The reason that those pings are completely unreliable are many. There’s the fact that for

an incoming call, the network has to search out to find your phone. And in order to do that, the

ping could originate on the tower closest to the place where the caller called from, not where the

person receiving the call was located. Or it could originate in the last tower that the phone was

connected to, which could be somewhere miles away, states away. It could really be anywhere

where that phone had recently been. But really the way this science works, it appears that that

call could originate on just about any tower. Who knows, I mean AT&T says that it’s not reliable.

There is no way of using that information to point out where the receiving call is located. No way




16


at all. And even the outgoing calls, which should originate in theory from a tower that was

somewhat close to the caller, but in no way can we assume that the call would originate in a

tower that was geographically the closest to the phone when it’s making the call.

There’s a number of reasons for that. One point that was mentioned but not really gone

into detail has to do with the tower being busy as was mentioned in the episode. And from some

research that I’ve done and some of my own personal experiences, phones will jump all over the

place. A tower can only capacitate so many calls at one time. So if say there’s two, three, a dozen

people, however many, connected to a particular tower and you happen to be standing right next

to that tower and you try to make your call, that tower likely won’t take your call. Your call would

be originated from a different tower. Think back, I’m sure we’ve all experienced those times

where one day you make a call from your living room and have full bars or full service on your

phone to make a call and two hours later you try to make a call and you have one bar and you

can’t get through or your calls are getting dropped and you don’t understand what is happening.

Well what’s happening is you were connecting to two different towers. That tower that you had

great reception on, that happened to maybe be a block away from you was busy with other calls

so it sent you to a different tower.

You can watch it happen now, especially if you get into the more rural work where the

latest technology is the LTE technology which is supposed to be the fastest data service available.

If you get out of the larger cities where not every tower has LTE technology, you’ll see on your

phone when you’re switching and changing towers. My wife and I have a cabin in northern

Michigan. There’s actually a tower that has LTE data strength that I can connect to from my cabin

on my phone. There’s also a tower that I can connect to from there that has 4G technology.

There’s also even a tower I can connect to from there that has 3G technology. And the reason

that I know this is because I’m constantly fighting with that if I’m outside and maybe need to look

something up. From the same place, one day I’ll have that LTE connection, the next day I’ll look

I’ll have the 3G connection, the next time I might look, I’ll have the 4G connection. My point is it’s

never made sense to me. Why would my phone connect to a 3G tower that has terribly slow

internet with one bar where I can barely get out when I know there is a LTE tower that I’ll have

full bars on just right down the road and the reason is a lot of things that were described in the

Undisclosed episode.

There is no exact science to which tower your phone is going to grab. There is a thousand

factors involved: line of sight, weather, humidity, busyness of the tower. In the fire service, our

radios that we use to communicate use similar technology and we have the same issues. There’s

some days I can stand with my five watt portable radio and reach the repeater tower that’s

several miles away from me with no problem whatsoever. The next day I can’t hear anything. Or

maybe it’s cloudy one day, or it’s humid the next day, or it’s raining one day and the signals

bounce and move, and it’s just not a consistent technology.

It’s not something that you can by any means, go into a courtroom and claim that

because a phone happened to ping a particular tower, which really from what Susan explained

means it happened to originate on a certain tower, that that can then tell you where that phone

was located. So I really thought that the two-sided approach that they took in this episode was

really well done. Meaning that they were working at the same time during the Undisclosed

17


episode where on one hand they were explaining to us how the cell phone data, and why the cell

phone data, is completely irrelevant – cannot show you location – and means nothing – while at

the same time saying, “If you don’t believe me and you think we should use the science, or we

should make these broad assumptions on the cell phone technology, it still doesn’t work with the

State’s theory of the case.” So I don’t think there’s any way the Undisclosed team could have

done an any better job than they did at completely debunking the State’s case.

[00:50:55] Email from Sophie Kaye

Moving on, I have time for one email today that relates to the episode as we’re already

pretty long. This email is from Sophie Kaye from Chester, United Kingdom. Sophie writes:

Hi Bob,

As an expert witness yourself, how did Episode 8 make you feel? If you had been asked to

do some tests with the prosecution and they told you not to record it as they would do it

themselves, how would you react to that? I’m guessing that’s not normal.

Also, you said that you have been on jury duty before. Are there any rules for the jury

that allows them to ask questions at any point or ask for clarification if they don’t

understand something?

I feel as though I would have been very confused by the cell tower information and the

only bit that would stick in my head would have been being told that the cell phone was

in Leakin Park, which would not be good for Adnan.

Love the show.

Thanks,

Sophie

Thanks, Sophie and those are good questions in that short email. It leads perfectly into

the last two points that I want to make about the episode. In regards to being an expert witness,

no, that is not normal. It’s insane that it was done that way. It’s crazy that the expert was letting

the prosecution even be involved in the testing.

Now, I’ll point out that most of the cases where I serve as an expert witness, I’m not doing

technological testing in this manner. Most of the cases that I testify in are providing my opinions

regarding firefighter training, administrative duties, things of that nature. I’ve never been an

expert witness on say an arson case. I have testified in several arson cases, but not as an expert

witness. I testify as the investigating officer from the fire, so a fire that happened in my

jurisdiction that I investigated.


18


So on the other side of that, as an investigator, we use third-party experts to test things.

Say we need to taste the functionality of a thermostat, or some wiring, or the ignition

temperature of a particular fabric, things of that nature that we need to test to prove or disprove

whether or not there was an arson. Well certainly when I can, I observe the testing if that’s

logistically possible. But even when I’m doing that, I don’t just choose to, but I am required to,

stay out of the way and not be involved in the testing. Meaning I can’t have my hands on

anything, I can’t be in the middle of it. I can observe what they’re doing and that’s it. And the

expert provide their own reports, their own documentation, and present their own findings. I can

then reference those findings after they’ve been disclosed to the defense and they have the same

findings to look at. But in no way, shape, or form, have I ever been allowed to participate in the

testing procedures.

So I think your assumption is correct that it is absolutely insane that it was done that way.

I’m actually surprised that the expert allowed it to be done that way and further surprised that it

was allowed into court when it had been done that way. And then furthermore even beyond

that, the fact that the entire testing was ridiculous. They didn’t disclose their control, they didn’t

disclose all of their results. As I think Colin mentioned, they cherry picked which results they

wanted to display. The expert witness report should have said, “We made ten thousand tests and

only have these thirteen results that might work for our case.” That’s a very important piece of

information for a jury to have that only a small fraction percentage of the testing actually works

to demonstrate what it is that they were attempting to demonstrate. That over 99% of the

testing did not support their case.

Now in regards to the second aspect of your email, the jury. I’m glad you wrote this email

because that was the first thing I was thinking when I was listening to Susan explain how the

prosecution was presenting this. It was completely smoke and mirrors. I’ll give Murphy and Urick

credit. If there goal was to win this case, to win this battle, they strategically played it very, very

well. If their intent was to provide the jury with all the true facts of the case and let them make a

decision, they failed miserably.

The tactic that they used was quite genius. This jury is sitting there listening to testimony

for weeks – day in and day out, and day in, and day out. The cell phone evidence particularly

would have been – number one – extremely boring, and – number two – very difficult to

understand and even more difficult to retain all the way until the end of the trial. So the way the

prosecution played this was pretty sharp. So they have Jay testify. He gives his story. Now he

testified for several days. That’s a lot of information for a juror to remember and oh, by the way,

they’re not allowed to take notes.

As an instructor, I know that if I intend for my students to retain the information that I’m

presenting to them, I need to chop my class up into 45 minutes to 60 minute sections. Every 45 to

60 minutes, I give them a break, let them stretch their legs for 5-10 minutes, come back and start

again. Because it’s been proven that adults’ attention span can only last about that long. Well, in

a jury trial like this, they can be listening to testimony and sitting there for three, four hours

straight before they are given a break. So you can almost guarantee they’re basically tuned out,

not retaining anything, or very little after that 45-60 minute mark.

19


So, Jay gives his testimony and they hear it. Later, they bring the expert witness up and

they ask him very misleading questions. Susan gave some examples of that in the episode where

they would say, “If a person were to testify that they drove down this road and the cell phone

records indicate there was a ping on this tower, could we assume in that instance that the

testimony was true?” Or something to that effect. And the expert would reply, “Yes, if that was

the situation, then yes.”

I think that Urick didn’t get mixed up. He didn’t accidentally present a set of facts that

weren’t true. They were manufactured, just like Susan said, that it was done purposefully. Before

I testify as an expert witness, there’s a lot of meetings that happen before that because the firm

that is hiring me, whether it be the prosecution or the defense or whoever it is, they want to

know what my findings are and what I’m going to testify to. They may decide that, “Well, that’s

not going to help our case, so your services are no longer needed. We don’t want you to testify.”

They have the right to do that. But I’ve had several instances where an attorney would ask me,

“So would you say this to be true?” And I might say “No, that’s really not accurate.”

“Well, what if I word it like this, could you… could you answer ‘yes’ if I worded it like

this?”

Well, it’s still kind of shaky. I wouldn’t be comfortable putting my reputation on the line

and committing career suicide by being proven to lie on the witness stand.

“Ok, well what if I phrase it like this? Like maybe give you a hypothetical, then could you

say ‘yes, that’s true?’”

Well yes, if you phrase it like a hypothetical in that situation, yes, I could.

So it’s a tactic that is used because an expert witness, I can’t say would never lie, but it

would be an extreme rarity to get an expert witness to give false testimony. And you heard that

in this case. You heard the point where Gutierrez confronted the expert and made him admit

that, no, you couldn’t find location based on cell data. It would have been convenient for the

prosecution for him to lie there, but he wouldn’t do it. Expert witnesses, in a lot of cases, get paid

a lot of money to do that job. And they are not going to risk that to help one attorney or one

prosecutor get their conviction.

So Urick’s plan was let Jay give his testimony. He had already determined with his expert

witness what questions he can ask that the expert will confirm, so he does that, even though

those two really have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Jay testified one thing. He asks

the expert about a completely different scenario. But how many of you think that the jurors

actually caught that and were paying attention to something that Jay had said five days before

that or a week before that? Especially when it gets done to these technical, minute details. So he

plants those two seeds in the jurors heads and then drives it home at closing when he makes the

grand statement that remember that Jay’s testimony may not be enough, but it doesn’t stand

alone. His testimony was confirmed by the cell phone records. You have to convict because Jay

gave a story, the cell phone records confirm it, there’s no way he could have known that

information, there’s no way that he could have known what towers he was pinging. And

20


therefore, Adnan’s guilty and you have to convict. And the jury bought it. And Gutierrez didn’t

challenge it. Because as we know that in fact, that’s exactly what happened.

Jay did know exactly what the cell phone evidence said. And he did create the story after

several failed attempts to match up with that data. Like I said, smoke and mirrors. And this is the

reason why I think that it was so ridiculous that at the end of The Generation Why podcast

episode they tell you, “forget Undisclosed, forget Serial, you need to read the trial transcripts.

You need to read the trial transcripts to understand why Adnan was convicted.” And yeah, if you

read the trial transcripts, sure, it looks like he should have been convicted.

I don’t think that jury made a huge mistake. They had a prosecution that was

manipulating and boldface lying to them about what was going on. And Adnan’s attorney made

no effort, or very little effort, to contest any of those lies, any of those false facts, any of the

manipulation. She just let it happen. She didn’t present a defense for him. She didn’t present

alibi witnesses. She didn’t impeach testimony. She just let it happen. That’s why Adnan was

convicted. And that’s exactly why he deserves a new trial.

[01:01:27] Next Week’s Episode

On next week’s episode, I’d like to address the possibility of Adnan’s guilt. I know that

may come as a shock to a lot of you, but hear me out. I’d like all of you to shift gears for a minute.

I want you to really try, really try your hardest to find evidence that would prove that Adnan is

guilty.

So this call out is for those of you that believe that he is guilty already. Send me the

evidence. For those of you that believe that he is innocent. Try to find some evidence. Send your

thoughts in in the next few days to [email protected] and I think I’ll have an interesting

show for you next week.

[01:02:22] Credits

I want to thank our sponsor, Shaun T Fitness for helping to keep this movement alive.

Special thanks to Jonny Rose of Slightly Subversive Music for creating our theme music.

Thanks to Tate Krupa for creating our logo.

And thank you again to all of you listeners for continuing to send your thoughts and

theories into [email protected] and continuing to help us grow this army.

Until next week, this has been The Serial Dynasty.

Transcription by

mailto:[email protected]


http://jonnyrose.com/music/

https://www.facebook.com/TateKrupaGraphicDesign

mailto:[email protected]

http://podtranscription.com/

the serial dynasty is sponsored by shaun t fitness

Documents