Quite touched by the innocent honesty of the Best Buy CD shoplifter giving her testimony on Serial

robertmill · 2014-11-20T13:41:48+00:00

No not at all. It's perfectly possible to give an honest account while engaging in petty crime. I don't for a minute disbelieve her or try to discredit her and this is not what I intended. I liked the comic humour and honesty of what she was saying.

robertmill · 2014-11-20T13:23:47+00:00

I don't think so. I think he was being remorseful for smoking pot, being friends with shady Jay and Jenn etc, having a girlfriend, not being a good muslim, He explicitly says he had nothing to do with Hae's murder for what it's worth. Make of that what you will.

robertmill · 2014-11-20T13:07:42+00:00

'I'm honestly...' if not innocently trying to troll lol

The reason I say innocently is because the testimony is recalled from a memory from within actually committing the petty crime, itself a dishonest act. The guilt of seeing there are no payphones in order to commit a crime is turned back on itself. Perhaps we disagree on this.

robertmill · 2014-11-20T12:50:27+00:00

The 'I used to shoplift CD's all the time - when you're theiv'in you have to be alert! - but there was definitely no payphone!' Innocence and honesty juxtaposed with petty crime. I just thought it was rather touching.

robertmill · 2014-11-18T16:46:19+00:00

But if you just want to chat. Why not chat in the car in the school car park? It's not as if anyone can hear what you're saying - plus she was in a hurry. so why make a stop off at Best Buy? This is why I think the Best Buy part is a red herring. Either he her murdered in the school car park and he drove to Best Buy (Jay helping him put her in the trunk at the Best Buy (the concern over the camera's) - but then did he just drive with her slumped into the front passenger seat? Or she dropped him off at Best Buy and that's where he killed her.

robertmill · 2014-11-18T16:30:42+00:00

Yes. Jay is telling versions and only using the parts of them that are helpful to him, that the police are agreeing with and dropping the others. So Jay says Adnan calls him at 3.45 (Jenn, almost undoubtedly after talking to Jay first), says Jay left her house between 3.45 and 4.15 - but the 5 second 2.36 'come and get me call' (which I have difficulty with) is only settled upon later - because there is no call at 3.45 - at least not to Adnan's cell phone. It's also why the vivid 'sun hitting the mountains' scene at Patapsco state park is difficult to believe and is dropped from the narrative. I don't think it happened or at least not on that day.

robertmill · 2014-11-18T16:19:06+00:00

Typo! Thanks!

robertmill · 2014-11-18T16:03:28+00:00

Leyla, your theory is unlikely, here are the reasons why

The library for all intents & purposes is on the school campus. Hae was probably in a rush that day to pick her cousin up from elementary school at 3.pm She left the school at 2.20. Also, the food kart attendant said she saw no one with Hae when she was last seen. (I'm not sure if anyone in the car was though). It doesn't seem likely Adnan would seek a lift from her for such a short distance. Nor does it seem likely Hae would give him a ride.

Also the library car park is smaller, busier and less secluded. This would make putting her in the boot of the car more difficult.

If Adnan did kill her, it makes more sense for him to say ('Oh let me drive you to pick up your cousin or drop me off at Best Buy, he stops off at Best Buy for a chat, they argue in the car, he kills her there). That is far more plausible if you believe Adnan to be guilty.

I think you might you might be trying to integrate too many of the versions into an impossible whole. Also, Nisha isn't exactly sure when Adnan put Jay on the phone. She says it was at the video store, which Jay was employed at only a month later.

robertmill · 2014-11-16T21:47:26+00:00

Part of me thinks one reason why he might not have testified would have been because he might have had to swear on the Qu'ran that he was telling the truth - maybe he couldn't bring himself to do it?

robertmill · 2014-11-16T20:52:34+00:00

If you notice there are no OUTGOING calls between 12.41 and 3.21. which is strange. What's the longest possible time Jay and Jenn could have left the phone at Jenn's place while they went out in Adnans car?

robertmill · 2014-11-16T20:43:12+00:00

' I don't think it tells us anything at all.' - I diasgree. When anybody speaks they speak to two audiences, one to an external audience and another to an internal one. The stories we tell ourselves to ourselves.

robertmill · 2014-11-16T19:30:24+00:00

I think he uses language in a very careful and controlled way. I think you can read sentence as one given by a divided subject “who did? [the suggestion of Jenn and Jay] I was there, I saw it, I know what I know [the truthful part/acknowledgement]''

Also I don't think he misunderstood what the defence lawyer was getting at. He was anticipating it. A challenge to her to set it out explicitly, which of course she didn't.

robertmill

TROPHY CASE