Best Theories Explaining Season One Serial Podcast

serial1

Best Theories Explaining Season One Serial Podcast

Season One of Serial just wrapped with its final Episode – Episode 12, for those of you who just can’t seem to keep it straight – and here we are.  All things considered it was a really good episode to end on.  But we definitely do not have any sort of closure at all.  But no one really expected that at the end of the day.  But that that we are both left here staring at one another and the diminishing echoes this amazing 12 episode experience I figured it only appropriate that we walk through the final episode and also the most significant theories that could possibly give us some closure to this story of Adnan and Hae, and her last hours on earth back in 1999.

But first, if you’ve been living under a rock and have never heard the podcast Serial, I have good news for you.  You can binge listen to all 12 episodes of the Serial Season One here:  http://serialpodcast.org/.  Just go do it now.  Right now.  If you avoid eating, going to the bathroom, or any other distracting behavior (because you will rewind if you miss ANYTHING, I promise) you could probably finish in 10 hours or so. Would be fun to ingest it that way though… I envy you!

Regardless, now that we have all collectively listened to every minute of the season at least once.  (If not more, I just finished my second consecutive time through.  As I am typing this I am even listening to the final episode another time around.)  Let’s talk about what the key revelations in each of the episodes were.  And what the best theories explaining the Serial podcast.  By that I mean, what are the most likely explanations possible for the data we’ve been given by Sarah, Jay and Adnan.  Someone killed Hae after all.  Right?

So the question of the day is simple.  Now that season one of the Serial Podcast has come to a conclusion and we are left with this mountain of information here in our laps, the question is, who Killed Hae Min Lee?

Serial Podcast Season One Overview

The story of Serial is simple at the heart of it.  Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland went missing on evening back in 1999. One month later she was found strangled to death.  Soon after, her ex-boyfriend, who was also a Woodlawn student, was arrested and convicted of the crime.  Essential to the conviction was testimony provided by Jay who maintained that Adnan had strangled Hae in the Bestbuy parking lot, and then called him to come get him.  They then both drove out in Hae and Adnan’s cars to bury Hae.

To be 100% clear, and this isn’t contested by anyone, anywhere.  Adnan was 100% convicted for the murder of Hae entirely, and solely based on the testimony of Jay – full stop.  There was no physical evidence that pointed specifically to Adnan as the murderer.  There were a few prints in the car… but Adnan obviously admits being in the car fairly regularly.  He was her boyfriend for a year or so after all.

serial-timeline

Serial Podcast Contested Timeline

I can’t even tell you how long I’ve sat and stared at this timeline.  There is so much goodness right here in one clear picture.  We see the Prosecution’s case systematically plotted in Red Dots across the bottom.  We’ve got the flimsiness of Adnan’s forgetfulness of the day across the top.  (That isn’t said vindictively, if you were asked to recite the events of your day 6 weeks ago could you?)  And then you have the known verified facts in grey through the middle.  If you don’t really understand the timeline that well from just listening to the podcast I would just read through the above timeline at least once to see how the events flow for each’s defense.

hae-and-adnan

Serial Cast of Characters

They Key Characters
Hae Min Lee – murder victim
Adnan Musud Syed – former boyfriend of Hae Min Lee.
Jay – A key witness at the trial, he was a 20-year-old graduate of Woodlawn High School dating Stephanie, a friend of Adnan; he sold drugs and worked at an adult video store.
Mr S – Individual that found Hae’s body and also a potential suspect
Don – Hae’s boyfriend at the time of the murder.
Asia McClain – student at Woodlawn High School and friend of Adnan

Secondary Characters
Cristina Gutierrez – Adnan’s defense attorney
Saad Chaudry – Adnan’s best friend
Derek – Asia’s boyfriend in 1999
Jerrod – Derek’s friend
Michelle Hamiel – manager at Baltimore County Public Library Woodlawn Branch
Kevin Urick – state prosecutor
Detectives Ritz and MacGillivary – investigated the murder

 

Serial Overview of Episodes

Episode 1 – The Alibi
The opening episode we are introduced to the story by way of the prosecution’s story.  It also investigated Adnan’s motive, or lack their of.  Asia was introduced and the key to the episode was Sarah’s comment that Asia might be Adnan’s ‘technicality’.

Episode 2 – The Breakup
Adnan and Hae had a storybook romance which they kept quiet from both their family’s. When Hae broke it off, their friends had conflicting interpretations of Adnan’s behavior: he was either cool with it and sad, or in a rage and hatching a sinister plot to kill her. Adnan consistently proclaims his innocence, but there are puzzling inconsistencies in the set of facts he tells.

Episode 3 – Leakin Park
Leakin Park introduced us to “Mr. S”. Hae had been missing for three weeks when an individual stopped to take a leak in the woods and discovered the body. His account of how he found her body seems suspicious to anyone and everyone close to the case. Especially since Mr. S had been convicted for a number of streaking episodes.

Episode 4 – Inconsistencies
This may have been one of the most troubling episodes for me. It is the episode wherein we receive the news that an anonymous caller had lead detectives to subpoena Adnan’s cell records. And as a result of the records the detectives chose to interview Jay’s friend Jen. And then it was Jay’s shifting stories that make up the bulk of this episode.

Episode 5 – Route Talk
Sarah and Chivvis spend this episode attempting to recreate the timing of the route as depicted by the prosecution. The route starts at 2:15 from the school parking lot, and then moves on to the Best Buy parking lot by 2:36 when Jay said Adnan called to pick him up. They then run hither and yon where the various timelines all devolve into chaos.

Episode 6 – The Case Against Adnan
Sarah details out all of the prosecution’s evidence against him. There was a palm print on a map. Each of the troubling phone calls in the call log, specifically the Nisha call which potentially places Adnan back with his phone at this point. Also, did Adnan ask Hae for a ride that day?

Episode 7 – The Opposite of Prosecution
The head investigator for the Innocence Project Deirdre Enright, analyze the case against Adnan. Deirdre decides that the case against Adnan is thin. She then suggests to keep revisiting all of the evidence until it all snaps together. She also discuss the Innocence Project taking on the case.

Episode 8 – The Deal With Jay
In this episode the key piece is Jay 100%. Detectives on this case opined on Jay and the case in general, stating that “it was better than average, and that Jay handed the police the case on a platter.” Koenig and Snyder decide to visit Jay, who declined an interview. And then ultimately, what did the jury think of Jay? Which is really all that matters at the end of the day.

Episode 9 – To Be Suspected
This episode delves deeply into the 2:36 call from Best Buy. Was there a payphone? Could Hae possibly have been dead by 2:36? Summer says that she had a conversation with Hae between 2:30 and 2:45. There were others who saw her as well after school. Not only that, but Asia saw Adnan at the library after school that day during the same time window.

Episode 10 – The Best Defense is a Good Defense
In this episode we begin to wonder if Adnan got a raw deal with his representation? We begin to get the story about the mistrial, and the weird ways in which Adnan’s defense a attorney was beginning to act late in her career. Sarah walks through many of the missed opportunities the defense screwed up on. For example, why wasn’t Asia front and center? Why didn’t she pick apart the inconsistencies of the cell tower evidence which were used very conveniently and selectively by the prosecution. But it was then revealed that Christina Gutierrez became ill, her career collapsed and that she was disbarred.

Episode 11 – Rumors
This was possibly the weakest episodes of them all with Sarah following up on rumors about Adnan that took her way too far afield. Adnan retorts, “Why aren’t you asking other people these questions?”, basically stating that they are irrelevent to the case. He also writes an 18 page letter to Sarah asking her to finish her investigation and reporting.

Episode 12 – What We Know
For a final episode this show actually had way more revelations than I would have expected.  We finally talk to Don! And we learn that the guy was completely paranoid about getting pinned with the murder himself.  But he was pretty cool with Adnan overall.  We learn that there may actually have been a payphone inside the vestibule after all.  We learn that AT&T would actually bill for an un-picked up call if it was longer than a reasonable time.  Which means that the Nisha Call might be nothing after all.

best-serial-theories

Best Theories Explaining Serial Podcast
So over the last couple of months I have been spending an inordinate amount of time out on Reddit where the sheer number of people discussing and evaluating each episode is quite literally, out of control.  If you are interesting and falling completely down that particular rabbit hole – feel free – but good luck with that.  You may blink and find yourself missing a day or two from your own particular timeline.  And so out of my bleary eyed wanderings here a few of my favorite theories, plus a few that I have come up with on my own.

serial1

So, as coincidences would have it, there happened to be a serial killer that happened to live between Woodlawn High School and the route Hae would have taken to get her cousin.  Right, I know, SERIOUSLY?  Me too.  I agree.  And apparently the AWOL Innocence Project thinks this is their favorite theory too?  More on that momentarily… but here are the details on this theory, per Irkeley’s theory, which runs as as follows:

At the time of Adnan’s conviction, the 1998 Lambert murder was still unsolved and there were no suspects. Researching the Lambert murder I think it has some similarities to the Lee murder. The victim was 18 years old, she was raped and then murdered by strangulation, and her body was dumped in a stream in Herring Run Park, Baltimore. She was last seen driving home from (or to) the DMV (or work), and she lived on Woodgreen circle in Woodlawn. There were no suspects and the case was unsolved until 2002, when police made a positive DNA match to a guy who was serving time for armed robbery (robbery happened circa april 1999 and he was convicted in june 2000).The murderer was Roy Sharonnie Davis III, 50, living (at the time) on the 7500 block of Liberty Road in Woodlawn. His criminal record goes back to 1996 and include possession of marijuana, soliciting, making false statement to police, armed robbery, rape and murder.At the time of the murder Roy Sharonnie Davis lived on Hae’s route to the daycare. If she took the fastest way there, she must have passed his house. He previously lived one block from the Crown gas station, where the unexplained transaction on Hae’s credit card took place. This is a 30 min drive from Woodlawn.Roy Sharonnie Davis III is currently serving life in prison for the Lambert murder.

Serial Killer Problems:

Minus ALL OF THE JAY STUFF.  Nothing at all.  This is a perfect theory.  Seriously, why would Jay say he was involved at all?  Why would he talk about shovels and digging holes, and Adnan at all?  I mean, that would mean that Jay has munchausen’s – or some other sort of dissociative disorder – to explain all of that out.  I mean, it’s interesting that there was a serial killer on the way.  But I think that is all we have at this point, just coincidence.

But the Innocence Project latched onto one Ronald Lee More that apparently had been accidentally released two weeks before Hae’s murder.  He was out for a year, and caused a lot of chaos before he was eventually picked up again.  He eventually committed suicide so he isn’t available to interview and ask about Hae.  But Adnan has approved finally checking the DNA evidence that police collected years ago and which has never been tested before.  And while this is the weakest of all the theories, it is the one that I think will eventually get Adnan off, DESPITE all of the Jay problems and conflicts.  “Big Picture Sarah.  Big Picture.”  Whatever that means.

Theory #1 – Probability Score: 5%

Serial2

Redditor swframe666 did a pretty good job explaining my least favorite theory why Adnan had to be the killer:

The one fact that is not in dispute is that Jay knows too much about the crime and has communicated his knowledge about it in a way that strongly supports that he knows the killer. The killer isn’t an unknown person.I think there is only one source of information that we need to review. It is the statements that Adnan makes about what he and Jay did together. Adnan statements indicates that he was with Jay that day and Adnan is the only person with Jay that doesn’t have a strong alibi. And Jay’s information very strongly indicates that he was with the killer that day.

He has a point when it comes to the two of them being together, and the only one individual with the most unbelievably crappy allibi was Adnan.  I mean, he could have at least made something good up for us.  But no!  It is fascinating that swframe666’s theory around why Jay’s testimony was inconsistent was because he was an “accomplice and he is trying to frame the events in a way that doesn’t implicate himself. I think Adnan didn’t turn on Jay because Adnan didn’t think he would lose the case.”

Psychopath Theory Problems:

Where swframe666 falls all to pieces is when he makes the logicall leap that since there had to be another person involved (two cars, shovels, etc) the only other person it could be is Adnan. That is such an illogical leap that I don’t even want to mention it.  Because obviously there could have been countless others involved in the killing other than Adnan.  I mean, was Obama anywhere nearby?  Did he have an alibi for the day?  (Small joke.)  But the crux of this slant on the murder was that Adnan is 1% of 1% of the population.  Premeditated and intentional, without malice, he killed Hae knowingly… and that I just don’t buy.  But is it possible?  Sure.

Theory #2 – Probability Score: 2%

serial3

I have Redditor zmachine52 to thank for this one.  His theory basically explains that Adnan attempted to hire or coerce Jay to kill Hae.  Neither are now able to implicate the other.  But Jay beats Adnan to the punch of cutting a plea and throwing Adnan under the proverbial bus.  Adnan then attempted to (somewhat) plausibly deny much of the issues because he wasn’t the one that actually strangled Hae.  But what is brilliant about this theory is that explains the friendship between Jae and Adnan.  It explains some of the strange inconsistencies in the various details that just don’t make sense.

Problem with Jay the Hired Killer Theory – 

Problem is that Adnan was still convicted of Murder 1 and is serving life in prison.  It could potentially explain some of the character issues, the “alibi”, Jay’s inconsistencies since he was forced to add Adnan into his story to get the deal.  It explains the burial, the shovels, the car, etc.  “Basically a good dude somehow convinced a shady friend to commit murder for him. They are essentially both guilty, but one was able to plea out. The other is caught in a catch 22 but with lots of plausible deniability.”  But if I were Adnan I wouldn’t have been seen anywhere near the guy for a month if that was what his plan was.  There are pieces here that I like, but ultimately it falls apart where it matters most.

Theory #3 – Probability Score: 22%

serial4

In many of these theories, numerous people have thought that Jay and Adnan were in it together.  Jay obviously knew a lot of the intimate details regarding the murder – and even admitted to the police that he even do “about half” of the work of burying Hae in Leakin Park.

Redditor miketetzu’s goes a step further and reasons that Adnan was trying to frame Jay and Jay figured it out, which is why he sold Adnan out to the police:

Adnan murdered Hae, and Adnan’s plan was to set Jay up for the murder. However, something happened: perhaps Jay got nervous, perhaps Adnan let something slip, or they had a falling out of sorts. Jay decided to sell Adnan out before Adnan sold him out, hence Adnan’s “you’re pathetic” aside at trial.

When you walk through all of the possible permutations surrounding the various framing options we are left with double-triple-and-quadruple-backs galore.  This theory is fairly simple in that Jay basically guessed he was being flipped on, and flipped first.  One thing I do really like about this theory is that it explains why Adnan didn’t call Hae after her disappearance, which bothers pretty much everyone who is paying attention.  He didn’t call because he had just strangled her.

Problem with Adnan Framing Jay for Murder

But if he Adnan killed Hae, and the decided he was going to pin the murder on Jay, it was a bad idea for the guy to take him out to go smoke weed when the police decided to call.  He even allowed Jay to follow him and listen in during the duration of the call with the police.  That was Adnan’s chance!  “Oh, she’s missing?!?  No way.  I heard that Jay was talking to her earlier in the day about her buying some weed.  But that was the last I heard from her sir.  When was the last time I saw her?  Last period, we were talking about the fact that Jay was ‘stepping out’ on Stephanie with Jenn, and she was PISSED!”  Right?  It would have been pretty simple from his seat to play the cards that way.  But he NEVER DID.  No.  I don’t buy this one at all.

Theory #4 – Probability Score: 8%

serial5

As far as popular theories go you have your Adnan did it theories, and why.  And you also have your Jay killed Hae theories, and why.  They are the most basic of all theories.  And because of their simplicity they are the easiest to defend. So it goes without saying that this is obviously a popular theory for the Adnan is innocent fan-base.

Redditor, drae27 talks us through the way he sees this going down:

Jay is the local pot dealer. Adnan gives Hae is new cell number the 12th. Adnan sees Hae in school the next day and she hears that Jay has Adnan’s car/cell because he is going to buy Stephanie a present. Hae contacts Jay and arranges to meet after school to buy pot. They could have met anywhere. It doesn’t have to be Best Buy, but maybe it is. Something bad goes down between Hae and Jay. She confronts him about Stephanie or he comes on to her and in the struggle of fighting him off it gets violent and he strangles her. The Nisha call happens as a “butt” dial in the struggle. Or Jay is trying to call Jen and makes a mistake. (Is there anyway of knowing the speed dial number for Nisha? Does Jen or anyone else’s number start with the same number?) Jay leaves the car wherever the incident happened (maybe puts Hae in trunk). Jay goes to pick up Adnan, they get high, go see Kathy, get Adnan to the Mosque, drop Jay off at Jenn’s. Jay tells Jenn what happened and asks for help. Either they bury Hae later that night or move the car and do it at another time, possibly with help from a third person.I don’t see this scenario contradicting the call logs. Some will say, why would Jay try to pin it on Adnan when he gets called in since Adnan might have an alibi? My impression of Jay is that he is desperate, a bullshit artist, not too smart and a burn out. It wouldn’t surprise me if he just took a stab at it and got lucky.

This is the cleanest of scenarios that exonerates Adnan completely.  It brings a plausible scenario as to why Hae would have contacted Jay and also gives a legitimate motive with regard to Stephanie/Jenn.

Problem with Jay Doing It On His Own

I have a couple of significant issues with Jay doing it on his own.  The largest of which is motive.  “Something goes wrong with the drug deal.”  Does not a motive make.  Give me something more than that.  In the next theory we see a much better motive, that could be forklifted here… but then you have a drug buy, and an overlap of a bad love interest.  Seems like too many coincidences going on at once.  And yet, in the world of the plausible, this smacks of plausible, even while simultaneously being lacking in the motive space.

Theory #5 – Probability Score: 35%

serial6

There are several theories in this vein, some much better than others.  And this is the one that I first pulled together as the most likely from my view of the facts.  But generally the way this theory runs is that Jay and Jenn meet up at the “hook up spot” at Best Buy for a quickie because Jenn’s brother is at home.  They are parked there on the side of Best Buy and Hae comes through after school (while on her way out to pick up her cousin) to get Stephanie a birthday present.  And low and behold, there is Adnan’s car, in the hookup spot of all places.

Hae comes over and sees that it is Jay and Jenn, not Jay and Stephanie in the car and she’s pissed.  We’ve been told over and over again that she was opinionated, so maybe she stood her ground and called Jay on “stepping out” on Stephanie with Jenn.  And then one thing leads to another and Jay kills Hae.  Spends the evening with Adnan trying not to let him catch on.  And then Jenn and shuttle the body out to Leakin Park to bury her.  Couple weeks later Jay makes an anonymous call tipping the police to Adnan and his cell call log.

There are several permutations of this theory as I said, but most deviations on the theme deal with how Hae initially finds out.  But otherwise, they are mainly the same.

Problems with the Jay/Jenn theory

I’ve mentioned this particular theory as my favorite to a number of people, and one person in particular just keeps harping on the fact that Adnan NEVER ONCE CALLED after Hae disappeared.  And I’ll be honest, I don’t have much of a response to that argument.  The only one that works for me is that Hae didn’t have a cell phone.  And so why would he call a home that he knew she wasn’t in?  And yet, that still seems a bit thin.  Adnan’s answer on the show was that everyone else was calling her home, I was with them as they were calling.  Why would I call too?  Yeah, kinda thin.  And yet, its still my favorite theory that exonerates Adnan.

We also have the coincidence that Hae would stumble upon them in the Best Buy parking lot, or wherever.  An easy way to get around this is that Hae knew that Jay would cheating on Stephanie, called Adnan’s phone looking for him, with the entire goal of telling him he was wrong.  He meets Jay and Jenn and it goes fairly poorly for Hae.  But even so, the crossing of the paths at all is a bit weak.

Theory #6 – Probability Score: 60%

serial7

What if… just what if… the Prosecution nailed this one?  What if, they stumbled onto their star witness.  Jay gave them the break of their lives and he served Adnan up on a platter?  What if it was Adnan that had dated Hae for the better part of a year, and secretly hated the fact that she broke up with him?  And then, what if, he, in a fit of pique, attacked Hae?  (Who really cares where this happened.)  And what if he then enlisted the help of the only guy with a rap sheet he knew, Jay?  And from there the rest is history… what if it happened EXACTLY like the Prosecution played it to have happened?  Stranger things have happened, right?

Problems with the Adnan Did it Theory

You mean, other than the fact that we don’t get our story tale ending?  Other than the fact that this loveable guy with dairy cow eyes is guilty?  I mean, besides those problems?  And the fact that there is no evidence specifically linking Adnan to the murder.  No physical evidence anyway.  Besides not having any evidence, there really isn’t a whole lot that isn’t perfect about this scenario.  It really actually clicks together pretty nicely.  Sure, we have Jay and his switching stories.  But who cares!?  That is so easy to explain I shouldn’t even have to.  The guy doesn’t want to get the electric chair.  He’s going to do whatever he has to to wiggle the events so that they work for him.  I mean, he is an accomplice to murder after all.

In episode 12 Sarah pulls together all the unlucky coincidences that are conspiring against our “Innocent Adnan”.  And there are a lot.  I want to list the items they quoted:

  1. Its a bummer that Adnan loaned out his car and his phone.
  2. Quite a coincidence that he asked Hae for a ride – cause that looks bad.
  3. The Nisha call coincidentally places Adnan and Jay together inconveniently.
  4. Jay’s story annoyingly match the call records enough to be incredibly difficult to disregard.
  5. And Adnan’s zero recollection of the day doesn’t help either.

It’s a ton of coincidences piling up against an Innocent guy.  Just too many really.

Theory #7 – Probability Scrore: 65%

—–

Personally my favorite theory by far is that Hae accidentally discovered Jay and Jenn making love in Adnan’s car at the hook up spot at Best Buy.  I think it provides a really strong alibi that is completely absent in all the other theories.  It gives us a chance to exonerate Adnan and allows us a chance to fight for his freedom.  It snaps in tightly with the call log.  It gorgeously explains so many things.  But do I think that’s how it went down?  Man, I would love to.  But I just don’t see it.

The final show was good.  Actually great as far as regular season episodes go.  But this was the FINAL show!  For a final show – the fact that Sarah throws up her hands and says, a year ago… we assumed we could easily crack this case.  And even the experts agree with us, there are too many holes in this particular case.  And that is where we are left.  With a case that is filled with holes.  We are left with a pile of theories… some better than others.  And a pile of inconclusive facts that don’t point to a logical conclusion.

Serial Podcast Conclusions

I believe that there will be some big revelations and events that will occur in Adnan’s case fairly soon.  This show was just way too big.  (But Justice is NEVER swayed by popular opinion… Whatever.  If this show has explained nothing, it has shown what a crock our “Justice” system is.)  I believe that since there was near zero physical evidence connecting Adnan, Adnan will be released.  It will happen like this:

  1. DNA will reveal that it wasn’t Adnan’s DNA they collected.
  2. It won’t need to match Ronald Lee More – it just can’t be Adnan’s
  3. At that point Adnan’s case will be thrown out and he’ll be released.
  4. Guarantee it.  

So if that happens, was it a random serial killer (see theory #1 please) who did it?  Absolutely not.  Does that mean it wasn’t Adnan?  No.  Definitely not.  But because there was a stunning lack of evidence pinning Adnan to the killing in the car, and there were so many failures on behalf of the Defense (Asia for one.  The Failure to cross examine adequately on cell records.  Christina’s eventual disbarring, Etc.) he will get off.  And the sad thing… we still won’t be any closer to the truth.

So with that, because of the final episode of the Serial Podcast, and all the information we have in front of us, I’ve come to my own conclusion that is really did make sense for the Jury to pin the murder on Adnan.  It just makes sense.  There are just too many unlucky coincidences piling up on the poor guy.  And maybe a guy this unlucky just deserves to be in prison to protect himself, from himself!  haha.  But could it have actually been pinned on Don as well?  Sure!  It was his mother that he was his alibi during the time of the murder at the secondary Lens Crafters.

But Adnan has been sitting here right in front of us all along after all.  I like a romantic ending just as much as the next guy.  I think its awesome when we get to intervene and  see justice prevail.  When wrongs are righted.  I like to see the black hats go to prison and the white hats released.  But Sarah just mangled any sort of a play at a plausible option on the table.  I mean, just here in the span of a few hours of scribbling on wordpress we have done way more postulating than she will ever do.  Sarah attempted to postulate, but her reporter mindset just wouldn’t allow herself to wander into the land of conjecture.  There just wasn’t enough for her to go on after all.

So here we are.  At the end of season one of the greatest podcast in history and we need to make a call.  Who killed Hae Min Lee?  If we are granted (which we weren’t, mind you) the role of Judge, Jury, and executioner what do I go with?  Well, Jay is the one who knew where the car was.  It was Jay who knew about the shovels and the details around Hae’s final hours.  It was Jay who had intimate knowledge of so many things that no one else could possibly know.  And so for that alone, I am going to go with theory #6 – that Jay and Jenn killed Hae in order to silence her after it was found out Jay was sleeping around with Jenn behind Stephanie’s back.  It snaps so many of the unexplainable puzzle pieces together for me.  Motives, alibis, timelines and calls to Jenn’s house when Jay was supposedly there.  It just all makes sense to me.

But even without an absolutely perfect ending I still absolutely adore the show.  And even with the lack of a conclusion I can’t wait for season two of Serial.  I will still actively follow this case, and I expect Adnan to be released within 2015.  Someone call me on it later if he isn’t, alright?!  Regardless, I’m dying to find out where Sarah and the gang take the show, because there are a ton of really awesome possibilities in this new show format.

But what about you guys?  What theories am I missing?  Which ones are your favorites?  I’ve really worked hard to try and cover all the bases.  But I’m sure there are a million I am missing.  I did try and leave a lot of the hokier theories on the cutting room floor.  But what theories are your personal favorites? Come on!  Sling ’em at me.  I’m dying to talk to you guys about this stuff.  What am I missing here?!  Find me something that else that will help get Adnan off!  hahaha.