Adnan's Story Page 4
This storm may have impacted the early investigation significantly. Not only were police resources stretched to meet emergency needs, but on January 14th and 15th, Thursday and Friday, school was closed. The following Monday was the Martin Luther King holiday, and school was also closed. This meant that Hae’s classmates and friends, who may have ordinarily been a bit more concerned about her not appearing at school for those three days, were essentially enjoying their time off because of the weather.
This, remember, was a time before every teenager had a cell phone. Most of their contact was either at school or over landlines, many of which were down because of the weather. The kids Adcock contacted on the evening of the 13th didn’t take much notice of Hae’s failure to show up at home or work that day because they knew that Hae was deeply in love with her new boyfriend and also had been having trouble at home; she could easily be weathering the actual and familial storm with him. And it also was common for the group of friends to get calls from parents, or other friends, searching for one of them. They figured Hae’s family was doing the same. So it wasn’t until they returned to school after the five-day break the following Tuesday that they realized Hae was still missing.
Still, many of them assumed Hae was with Don, and one of them, Debbie Warren, was so sure she was with him that she made it her business to find out. Debbie, also a Magnet Program student, set up a fake e-mail account to reach out to Don. She had met him once when she went to the movies with him, Hae, and Aisha. But for this covert operation, she wanted to fish for information about Hae without revealing her identity, believing “he was hiding her.”
After communicating a couple of times over e-mail she fessed up to her identity and they agreed to speak over the phone. That conversation, much to the surprise of police at a later interview, lasted seven hours. They spoke primarily about Hae, and over the course of those hours, her concern that Don had something to do with her disappearance diminished. He seemed genuinely upset and worried about Hae, mentioned that perhaps Adnan had something to do with her being missing, and by the time their conversation was over Debbie felt that she “knew him.” She crossed him off her suspect list.
It wasn’t until the first week after Hae’s disappearance that her friends and classmates began to worry in earnest about her. Aisha Pittman, her best friend, kept the Magnet Program kids apprised of the situation
According to students and friends of Adnan and Hae, some of whom would go on to become witnesses, there was nothing unusual in Adnan’s behavior after Hae’s disappearance. These were the last few months of senior year, and many of these top students had already completed the credits needed to graduate. Many were taking part-time classes, working elsewhere, or just not showing up as frequently.
After it became clear that Hae hadn’t just taken off for a few days, and when the media began reporting her disappearance, Adnan started to worry. He had no relationship with Hae’s family, they were opposed to their relationship after all, and couldn’t call her house. But Hae’s girlfriends were calling to check in with the family, and often in class there would be discussions during which Adnan was now becoming visibly upset and concerned. Aisha would also page Hae every so often, with no response.
At school the kids started to think that perhaps Hae, upset with her mother, had taken off for California to live with her stepfather. The California rumors further muddied the waters for Hae’s classmates and friends.
In the report of an interview with police on March 26th, 1999, Debbie is asked who started the California rumors. She responds, unsure, “Um, I don’t know that for sure, probably me and Ayesha [sic] cause we were the only ones who knew um, that she had family up there that she could possibly been living with, um, some people had asked and you know just about every day someone would ask us, and you know, where we thought she was.”
But a January 27th police interview makes it clear that Aisha wasn’t the root of the rumor.
The report reads, “Hae told Aisha that she had problems with her mom, but it was nothing that would make her leave. Hae talked about California, but she never talked about going there.”
Aisha’s remarks are isolated, in an otherwise extremely brief report, and seem to indicate that she was asked specifically by the police about the possibility that Hae could have gone to California, meaning this was a theory they were exploring, perhaps because Don had mentioned something similar to the authorities in an earlier interview.
In a January 22nd interview with a detective, Don, independently and unprompted, stated that although Hae had no plans to go anywhere, she had mentioned living in California in the past and said she’d like to live there again one day.
Could it be that Debbie and Don’s seven-hour conversation took place before January 22nd, and in that conversation Debbie was the one who suggested Hae may have gone to California? Or was it the other way around? Was Don the original source of the rumor?
It’s doubtful that Debbie would go to such lengths to investigate whether Hae was with Don if she thought California was a possibility. And the first time any mention of Hae’s interest in California appears in any of the documents is Don’s January 22nd interview. It seems, then, that the root of the rumor that Hae might be in California was Don himself, and the rumor spread with the help of the police, who asked others about it, and Debbie, who began mentioning it at school after their marathon chat. It is entirely possible that Don offered this information because Hae had indeed mentioned it to him. But it seems unlikely to me that Hae, who was planning and had paid for a trip to France with her class, according to her French teacher, who was about to graduate from high school, who never mentioned it in her diary, and who was newly in love, would consider just taking off to California. But the idea that she might have left gave her friends, who were confused and worried about her disappearance, something to hold on to. The trail of this story, however, leads back to Don, and the police weren’t the only place he planted this seed.
Enter the intrepid investigatory services of the Enehey Group.
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“The Enehey Group offers its clients services unparalleled in Investigative Research today. Combining a personal approach with the latest information gathering technology and techniques, we strive to provide our services while maintaining complete confidentiality at all times.”
An Enehey Group’s investigative report about Hae’s disappearance submitted to the Baltimore City Police begins with a list of a mind-bogglingly diverse array of services provided by the agency:
Business investigations, missing persons investigations, computer fraud investigations, industrial counterespionage, translations and interpreting, software design, market design, genealogical investigations, historical investigations, compiling psychological and behavioral profiles, consulting on educational issues for emotionally challenged and disadvantage youth, and Pro Bono cases for law enforcement
Notwithstanding consultants, in all meaningful respects for Adnan’s case, the Enehey Group seems to be comprised of exactly one person—Mandy Johnson.
Ms. Johnson’s portfolio has since expanded even further. She is now also a self-published novelist focusing on espionage, terrorism, and the Middle East.
In January 1999, Tae Su Kim, a Baltimore-area Korean-American business owner, brought in the Enehey Group (Johnson was apparently a family friend) to investigate his missing niece.
The five-page report on Hae begins with basic information. It notes that the missing person’s file is with the Baltimore County Police Department, assigned to one Detective Sgt. Joe O’Shea, who took over the case from Officer Adcock. Mandy Johnson, the report notes, has a good relationship with O’Shea; she is in contact with him daily, and she has been sharing her investigative findings with him.
The findings are limited, but interesting. Hae’s family has provided full access to Hae’s belongings, including her diary and computer. Hae’s room appears to have been searched, a routine investigatory procedure, since the report notes th
at Hae has “left behind her Korean passport and diary.”
Johnson tracks down Hae’s e-mail accounts and her AOL username, and indicates that she was known to spend time on Asian chat rooms.
While the report notes that Hae’s profile has last been checked on January 16, three days after Hae disappeared, it makes no mention of who may have checked the account or who knew of Hae’s Asian chat room activity. The interests and likes Hae lists in her online profile show that they’ve been entered after she began dating Don: “Looking in his blue gray eyes, fast cars like his Camaro, driving to BelAir, selling glasses and her beauty, spending as much time as possible in the lab. Occupation: Part-time sales, Full-time Girlfriend.”
Johnson notes that Hae ends her profile with, “I love you and miss you Donnie.”
Johnson was astute enough to profile Hae’s ex-boyfriend and interview her current boyfriend. But her assessment of Adnan relies on Hae’s diary and perhaps her talks with others, though that’s unclear. She never meets with or speaks to Adnan directly. How she comes to the conclusion that Adnan is “known to be possessive and domineering but not necessarily violent” isn’t explained, but it portends the role she will ultimately play in his fate.
The treatment of Don, whom Mandy interviewed, is entirely benign. Calling him mature and articulate, she spends no time on his background or ethnicity, as she had with Adnan, or even the kind of relationship he had with Hae. Instead, the short write-up of Johnson’s interview with Don focuses on his knowledge of where Hae may have gone. Again California comes up, and this time he also mentions a friend of Hae’s, which doesn’t appear anywhere else in the record, saying she might be at this friend’s home. When asked how Hae might travel to California, Don says that she might park at the “satellite parking facility” of the local airport, BWI, and fly from there. Either that, or drive all the way to California.
We don’t have a precise date for this report, or for when Johnson spoke to Don, but we can deduce that it was after Detective O’Shea spoke to him on January 25th and before the first week of February, since the report notes that Johnson will notify long-distance truck drivers at the Port of Baltimore in the first week of February so missing person posters can be posted at rest stops in the area. The detectives will also meet with the family during the first week of February, and then the media will be alerted.
Other undertakings that the report indicates are completed or planned: various police jurisdictions have been alerted, airline reservations checked, Asian chat lines to be randomly monitored, Hae’s diary to be analyzed, and Korean community members and religious organizations notified.
I have to note here the oddity of an independent investigator, who is not even a licensed private investigator or a former law enforcement officer, becoming so deeply involved in a law enforcement matter. Still, it does seem for all intents and purposes that Johnson was working as a representative for the family to coordinate many aspects of the missing person’s investigation. In fact, she may have been doing more than the police themselves in some regard. All very commendable—with one significant exception.
A memo written months later indicates that this involvement may have ultimately derailed the investigation, something we won’t discover until fifteen years later.
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On January 22, about a week after Hae disappeared, Detective O’Shea gives Don a call. The report taken of this conversation, which is not written up until February 11, is much more extensive than the report taken by Officer Adcock a week prior.
This time, Don tells the police that Hae had spent the evening of the 12th with him. Don’s parents are divorced and he lives with his father, which is where Hae must have been visiting him. Hae returned to her home late at night and had spoken with him on the phone until about 3:00 a.m. He says Hae was scheduled to work on the 13th from six to ten o’clock p.m. and that she was going to call him afterward, apparently to meet up. This is the first time Don’s own whereabouts on the 13th are mentioned. He says that he was “lent out,” that he filled in for someone else at a store he doesn’t usually work at, the Hunt Valley LensCrafters.
He tells O’Shea that he worked there from about 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and arrived home around seven o’clock, at which point his father told him to call the Owings Mills store. When Don called, he was told that Hae had not shown up for work. His colleagues must have told him the police were looking for Hae, and yet Adcock wasn’t able to get in touch with Don until 1:30 a.m. that night. Don didn’t attempt to call Hae’s family, or page Hae, or reach out to the police himself.
The police never actually visit the Hunt Valley store, or ask for Don’s timesheets or pay stubs to verify that he was working there on that day. Instead, they verify Don’s whereabouts from the manager at the Owings Mills store, a woman named Cathy Michel, who met with O’Shea on February 1st. The report from that day is short, but precise.
So precise, in fact, that it seems Michel must have been reading off of Don’s timecard from January 13 because she cites the exact times he arrived and left work. That is the extent of the police verification of Don’s alibi. After a February 4th meeting, they never call or visit him again.
It is not until months later that anyone attempts to actually get a copy of Don’s employment records for that day, but the document produced by LensCrafters turns out to raise more questions than it answers.
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Over the next few days O’Shea attempts to get a handle on what Hae’s plans and activities were for the afternoon she disappeared. He first interviews Adnan on January 25th. Adnan tells him that he last saw Hae on the 13th at school, during school hours, after which he went to track. Adnan tells him he didn’t see Hae leave school, that school was closed for the next two days, and he had no idea where she was. Adnan explains that while they had been in a relationship they had kept it private because of their families, and that they had broken up but remained good friends. The detective has a few calls with Adnan and schedules a meeting with him, a meeting that was to take place without the presence of his parents because Adnan felt uncomfortable discussing the relationship in front of them. The meeting is set for February 10th, but never takes place because of an unexpected development.
O’Shea then interviews both Aisha and Debbie over the next couple of days, January 27th and 28th, trying to determine Hae’s last known movements. Aisha reports she last saw Hae on the 13th at 2:15, when school was dismissed, and that she was in good spirits. Debbie says she last saw Hae at around 3:00 p.m., near the gym, and that Hae told her she was going to see Don at the mall. But neither Aisha nor Debbie actually saw her leave the school.
It isn’t until February 1st that a flurry of activity seems to indicate that foul play is suspected and the police are looking at possible suspects.
O’Shea takes a trip to Woodlawn High to meet and interview a number of people, including the French teacher, Hope Schab, track coach Gerald Russell, and athletic trainer and teacher Inez Butler. His questions for Schab are about Adnan and Hae’s relationship. Schab mentions that the only trouble she knew of between Adnan and Hae happened at the homecoming dance, but that they were still friends. Russell is asked whether Adnan attended track practice on the 13th and he’s unsure—he doesn’t take attendance and recalls that it was Ramadan, and during Ramadan athletes are required to attend practice but don’t have to run.
Butler’s statement seems to contradict what others have said. According to her, she last spoke to Hae on the 13th and Hae was upset, having problems at home, and wanted to contact her father in California. Butler also recounts that Hae told her she would not be at the wrestling match that evening, the first time a wrestling match is mentioned.
The wrestling match becomes more of a focus, and part of the case narrative, with a later discovery of a note Hae has written. But ultimately it will turn out that, like so many other witnesses, Butler is not remembering the right day.
February 1 is the same day O’Shea checks in with Cathy Mich
el at LensCrafters in Owings Mill and she confirms Don’s alibi, and then the detective calls Adnan again. This time, however, he raises a question that he had not asked previously.
Did Adnan ask Hae for a ride after school that day? According to Adcock’s report on the 13th Adnan told the officer that he was going to be getting a ride from her, but he ran late and she got tired of waiting and must have left. Adnan denies telling Adcock this, saying he had his own car and didn’t need a ride that day. It is odd that O’Shea didn’t bring this issue up with Adnan previously. This raises the question of whether that prior report did in fact contain that information initially, or it was added later. There is also the possibility that Adnan, who sometimes got a ride with Hae to the far side of the school for track practice, didn’t really consider that “a ride.” It could be simple miscommunication. Perhaps he assumed the police meant an off-campus ride, which he normally didn’t ask for because he usually had his car and because he knew Hae had to pick up her cousin. Did he forget that he asked for a ride? Then there is the possibility that Adnan did ask for a ride, but later, worried about the implication, he lied to the police about it.
The thing was this: Adnan did have his own car, but he didn’t have it with him during much of the day on January 13. He had loaned it to Jay Wilds, his friend Stephanie’s boyfriend and his go-to guy for weed, and hadn’t gotten it back until after track practice. Whether or not he had asked Hae for a ride after school, while the car was with Jay, this issue will come back to haunt Adnan.
On their February 1, 1999, school visit, the police didn’t just question some of the staff; they deputized one in particular to find out intimate details about Adnan and Hae’s relationship.
Hope Schab, the twenty-seven-year-old French teacher, was not much older than her students. She considered Hae, who worked as a student assistant in her French class, to be a friend. So when the police asked Schab to question students about things like where Adnan and Hae would meet for sex, she didn’t hesitate. She made a list of questions, and word eventually got back to Adnan that his sex life was the subject of Schab’s queries. But he didn’t just hear it, he saw the actual list of questions in Debbie’s school planner when be borrowed it, and, according to Debbie, he returned the planner without the list, insinuating that he took them. Adnan doesn’t remember this incident, but he thinks it could be possible because he would have been shocked to have seen it, though on the other hand he doesn’t give much stock to Debbie’s statements