Adnan's Story Page 7

  Another agency was willing to help with the investigation, though: the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

  * * *

  The official version of events, the one presented at trial, is this: that on February 18, 1999, detectives sent a subpoena to AT&T Wireless for the cell phone records of one Adnan Syed. There was some major fact-fudging going on here, though.

  Later discovered police files show that an earlier subpoena had already been sent to AT&T on February 16th, one that with odd specificity asked for the addresses of thirteen cell site locations. This will be the first time in any of the documents that cell-tower site locations come up. The next time is a February 20th subpoena that requests “a cell site directory that corresponds with the sites listed.” Which means this: while the police were creating a paper trail to make it seem as if they were just beginning their investigation into Adnan in earnest, they already knew that thirteen cell towers were of interest to their case, and they even knew the exact tower sites.

  How did the police get this information? There is one strong possibility. The February 18th subpoena was actually not issued by Baltimore City Police, it was issued by the DEA. Asking the DEA for assistance would not heve been all that unusual since the process of getting information took many more hoops for local law enforcement agencies to jump through than it did for federal agencies, and the DEA also had much more experience with gathering cell phone evidence. It could be that the DEA unofficially obtained the records for the police days before the subpoena was issued and never documented that fact.

  The DEA subpoena wasn’t even for Adnan’s cell records. It was for the records of all the people called from his phone that day, with one notable exception—the person who was called more times than anyone else on the 13th: Jennifer Pusateri, who would go on to become a key witness in the case.

  The police were also working on another investigative lead, trying to identify a tire tread from the crime scene. On the 16th, MacGillivary contacted the local Nissan dealership to ascertain the color of Hae’s car and what kind of tires it used. The tires were Dunlop Brand, model SP 2000, and size P17565R14.

  A couple of days later, February 18th, a fax was sent by an employee of Mr. Tire to Detective Ritz with a page full of tire styles.

  We don’t know whether or not the police ever matched the tread mark to the tires on Hae’s car, or another car, because there is no further documentation for this issue.

  Investigators were also, rather late in the game, trying to assess Hae’s movements on the day she disappeared. They visited her school on the 18th to find out if she owned a locker (she didn’t), contacted her uncle Tae Sue Kim to find out if she had a cell phone (she didn’t), and on the 22nd checked in with the school’s athletic director, Ralph Graham, who told them Hae was with a group of students waiting to be interviewed by a local cable news show the entire morning of January 13th—from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Later it becomes clear that his recollection is wrong; Hae was in class that morning as attendance records note, but his statements end up becoming intertwined with the official narrative.

  The investigation was now moving at a rapid pace as police closed out leads, including picking up Sellers from work to administer the second polygraph on February 24th. Having crossed him off the list, they moved on.

  On the same day, Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland, an agency that works with law enforcement to collect crime tips and give rewards, notified the police that, as per their request, flyers had been prepared for release with a press statement notifying the public of a reward in exchange for information about the crime. This seems to indicate that the police never received any actionable leads from the anonymous February 12th tips.

  Two days later, on February 26th, Ritz and MacGillivary visited Adnan at home at approximately 7:00 p.m. Adnan and his father greeted them together and offered them drinks. The mood was cordial, though serious. Adnan, along with all of Hae’s friends, was now extremely worried about her and wanted to help in the investigation as much as possible. He assumed the questioning was about when he last saw Hae, or what he knew about her that might help track her down. Instead the questions were focused on their former relationship.

  Adnan’s father’s presence made Adnan uncomfortable as he was questioned about his relationship with Hae, answering with a soft “yes” when asked if he was involved romantically with her. He told Ritz that he last saw Hae on the 13th; however, Ritz noted he “doesn’t remember the events that occurred in school that day,” a vague statement that could mean different things, but will eventually be held against him.

  When asked if he had ever been in Hae’s car, Adnan responded yes, but not on the 13th. The only thing he cared about was not upsetting his father in that moment. When questioned, he had no idea who would want to hurt Hae and had no information on possible suspects, not guessing for a second that he was their prime suspect. He should have, though. When Hae disappeared my brother Saad told him, “Hey, hopefully she’s ok and turns up soon. Otherwise you know they come after the boyfriends, right?” Saad had even advised him to get a lawyer. Adnan thought he was crazy—why on earth would they consider him a suspect, and a suspect for what? He didn’t give it another thought, just hoped the police would find her soon. In his naiveté Adnan wouldn’t realize what was happening until the next time he was questioned by police, after they arrested him in the early hours of February 28, 1999.

  * * *

  After leaving Adnan’s home, detectives went in search of Jennifer Pusateri, a friend of Jay Wilds and the person most called and paged from Adnan’s phone on January 13th. They find her in a car, ready to drive off, and she can’t (or won’t) talk, saying she has to drop off dinner for her boyfriend at his workplace. Jenn will later testify that she had gone to see Jay Wilds after this encounter.

  She shows up at the police station about an hour later to answer some questions. The police notes from that meeting are cryptic and make no mention of Adnan whatsoever.

  The next morning, on February 27th, the police do a search of the BWI airport parking lot for Hae’s car. Sergeant Lehman contacts Transit Authority at the airport and requests that “all park and ride lots be checked for the victim’s auto, along with satellite parking areas.”

  While there is no timestamp on this search report, it appears before (and probably happened sooner than) the events described in the next document, which notes that on the same day around 1:00 p.m. Ritz and MacGillivary visit the home of Jenn’s attorney, who specializes in real estate and coincidentally lived in Ritz’s neighborhood. No notes exist for this interview.

  Police notes from initial Pusateri interview, February 26, 1999.

  Jennifer Pusateri returns to the police station, this time with her mother and her attorney, and gives a full-length, detailed statement about how Adnan Syed killed Hae Min Lee.

  Pusateri is in the station for two hours, during which she gives a confused, nonlinear account of January 13th.

  Police notes of second Pusateri interview, February 27, 1999

  While she hadn’t previously mentioned Adnan, this time, after having met with Jay the night before, Adnan is now at the center of her story. Jenn says the following:

  • On the evening of January 13th, around eight o’clock, Jay told her Adnan strangled Hae

  • Jay had come by her house during the day, between 1:00 and 1:30; he had borrowed Adnan’s car (to get his girlfriend Stephanie a birthday gift) and phone, and was “waiting for a phone call.”

  • Jay got a call around 3:30 or 3:45 p.m. and then left her house between 3:45 and 4:15 p.m.

  • She received a pager message from Jay to pick him up but the message was confusing, so she called Adnan’s phone between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. Adnan answered and told her Jay would call her when he needed to be picked up.

  • Between 8:00 and 8:30 she got a call or page saying she was to pick up Jay from the Westview Mall parking lot. Jay and Adnan were waiting in a car together when she got there.

&
nbsp; • As soon as Jay got in her car, he told her that Adnan killed Hae, and he saw Hae’s body in the trunk of a car, but that he had no involvement.

  • Jay told her Adnan killed Hae in the parking lot of Best Buy and they had gotten rid of the “shovel or shovels” in a dumpster.

  • She took Jay to the dumpsters in Westview Mall and he told her to keep an eye out while he retrieved and wiped down the shovel or shovels.

  • Jay then told her to take him to see Stephanie and the rest of the night they visited various locations.

  • She did not observe Jay’s clothing to be dirty, or his hands to be dirty, and did not notice any unusual behavior with Adnan.

  • Jay told her that after seeing the body, he dropped Adnan off in some part of the city and picked him up later in another part of the city; there is no mention of Leakin Park.

  • The following day, the 14th, it was raining, and she took Jay to the F&M dumpster so he could get rid of his clothing (though weather reports show it was not raining and emergency ice and snow conditions made most roads impossible to navigate).

  And then there is this incredibly odd exchange in which Jenn responds to Detective Lehman’s question of how she knows all this happened on January 13th: “Well the only reason I know that is because last night um when I was being questioned or whatever you want to call it, um ah the question asked was why Adnar [sic] called my house on the 13th, um I remember the incident that Adnar had killed Hae and I remember I had talked to Jay that day and Jay had been at my house.”

  Lehman then asked, “So you’re saying that you’re sure it’s the 13th because we told you you had these telephone calls on the 13th?”

  “Right,” Jenn responded.

  * * *

  The interview wraps up a bit after 5:00 p.m. and Jenn walks out, having just essentially confessed to being an accessory after the fact.

  Late that night, on February 27th, for the first time, according to official documentation, the police pick up Jay Wilds.

  According to police notes, there is an unrecorded two-hour “pre-interview” with Jay before the tape recorder is turned on. The taped interview lasts for hours and is filled with contradictions and internal inconsistencies. He gives this basic narrative:

  • On the evening of January 12th Adnan calls and they briefly chat, making plans for the next day.

  • On the 13th Adnan arrives at his home around 10:30 a.m. and they go to Westview Mall and do a little shopping together.

  • He drops Adnan off at school around 12:30 p.m. and keeps his car; Adnan leaves his cell phone in the car.

  • Before Jay drops him off, Adnan mentions that he is going to kill Hae that day because she broke his heart.

  • Jay, unperturbed, agrees to pick Adnan up later that day from wherever he needs to be picked up from; he then goes to Jennifer Pusateri’s home where he plays video games with her brother, Mark. Jenn is not home.

  • He gets a call from Adnan around 3:45 p.m. to meet him somewhere in the city.

  • In his first mention of Hae’s car, they leave the body and the car in the Interstate 70 Park-n-Ride close to Leakin Park and then go smoke weed together.

  • He drops Adnan back off at school “when the sun was going down,” around 4:30 p.m. (the sun set at 5:06 p.m. that day), for track practice.

  • He picks him back up at 6:45 p.m. and they go for a bite to eat, when a police officer calls to ask Adnan if he’s seen Hae.

  • Adnan panics and asks Jay for shovels. They go to Jay’s house and he gets a pick and a shovel.

  • They return to get Hae’s car and Jay follows Adnan to Leakin Park, where he watches Adnan dig a hole as Hae’s body lies on the ground.

  • He notes Hae’s jacket is on the ground and that Adnan throws it somewhere.

  • Adnan tells him to follow him as he finds a place to park Hae’s car; they end up in a lot by some row homes, where Jay says Adnan takes Hae’s wallet and book bag and gets in his car with Jay.

  • As Jay is driving himself home, Adnan asks him to stop at a dumpster to get rid of things—Hae’s purse, wallet, book bag, and the shovel/pick.

  • Jay discards his clothing in his own trash can.

  • Once the tape is flipped, Jay begins describing the windshield wiper in the car being kicked and broken by Hae as she was being strangled, a detail Adnan had apparently given him.

  • Adnan never told him how he got in Hae’s car.

  Jay goes on to mention that Adnan told “Tyad” (likely Tayyab), a Pakistani Muslim, that he had murdered someone, but did not actually specify who he murdered. Casually telling a friend about an unspecified murder you committed, it seems to Jay, is a routine thing in Pakistan. It may be that Jay got that idea from somewhere.

  The detectives wrap up the interview by asking Jay nicely to take them to Hae’s car and he complies. The car is officially located at 2:45 a.m. on a grassy parking lot lined on all four sides by row homes on the 300 block of Edgewood Drive, less than three miles from where Hae’s body was found.

  The car is towed to police headquarters and at approximately 5:20 a.m. the police arrive at Adnan’s home with an arrest warrant.

  Officer sketch indicating location of Hae’s car

  CHAPTER 4

  LIVING THE LIE

  Love is neither disapproved by religion, nor prohibited by the law,

  for every heart is in God’s hands.

  Ibn Hazm, “The Ring of the Dove,” circa 1022

  I saw it on television at my parents’ house.

  I sat straight up, shocked.

  “Ami! Come here!”

  My mother rushed in from the kitchen and stopped in her tracks.

  A black-and-white photograph of Adnan with a thin, barely sprouted mustache occupied the upper right hand corner of the screen, while a news reporter casually informed us that he had been arrested in the murder of Hae Min Lee.

  My mother started making calls. Yes, others had seen the news; no, no one had heard from the family. I sat stunned, my two-year-old daughter climbing around my lap.

  After a few minutes of trying to figure out what had just happened, my mother grabbed her coat and told me to get up.

  “We’re going over there now.”

  Adnan’s family lived just a few streets away and as we pulled up, we saw vans of camera crews parked around the house. We parked, avoided looking at the cameras, and walked up to the front door. The house was dark.

  We knocked a few times, shivering in the cold and crying. After a few minutes we understood they weren’t going to open the door right then. They just couldn’t.

  We turned to leave and were approached by reporters asking for comments on Adnan’s arrest. Both my mother and I, teary and frozen, expressed our disbelief that he had anything to do with it, shaking our heads.

  We went home and Saad arrived, also in shock. We did the only thing we knew how to do. We washed up and began to pray.

  It would be a few days before Saad learned what happened on February 28, 1999. The police had surrounded Adnan’s house and woken him at 5:30 a.m. Disoriented and confused, he was told to get up and put on some clothes. He was cuffed in his bedroom and led into the narrow hallway. His father was away at a religious retreat. His mother asked the cops repeatedly, “Why are you taking him?” as Tanveer tried to send Yusuf, who was crying and confused, into the bedroom so he wouldn’t see his big brother in such terrifying circumstances.

  Adnan looked at his family and tried to reassure them.

  “It’s ok, it must be a mistake. I’ll be back.”

  He really believed that.

  * * *

  There were layers upon layers of pain for Adnan’s family to deal with. This was no petty crime, no quiet case—it was the first time anyone in the community had ever been arrested, and for murder no less.

  The newscasters reported over and over that the Syed’s son had been arrested for killing his ex-girlfriend. Their son’s private life, a life forbidden to Muslims, was
known in every household. They lived within walking distance from the mosque, but now even appearing there took tremendous courage, courage they had to muster because now more than ever they needed their community.

  But the community, while rallying around them, couldn’t stop buzzing with the scandal. This young man, someone they considered a “good boy,” had carried on an illicit relationship!

  The Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) boasts of having the largest Muslim congregation in the state of Maryland. Over the past two decades, hundreds of Muslim families had settled around it, creating a close-knit, heavily South Asian community.

  Hailing from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, the ISB community has managed, over time, to recreate the comforts and conveniences of back home while enjoying the security and opportunity of living in the United States. From authentic kabobs, curries, and tandoori breads sold at the mosque and many restaurants in the area, to halal grocery shops, to an Islamic school, to salons catering to South Asian women, the area is no less than a little “desi-stan.” (Desi is a common term for people from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh.) In one short trip you can get your hands and arms henna tattooed, swing by the Islamic bookstore to grab some prayer rugs, dine on greasy parathas and chai, and hit the local cinema for the latest Bollywood movie.

  Part of the preservation of their culture, as for many immigrant communities, was insisting on their cultural norms for their American-born-and-raised kids.

  Basically the rules were: no dating, no alcohol, no partying, no drugs, and, for some, no opposite-gender friends.

  We, meaning the kids, all knew what was really going on. Even those of us who were complete squares, like yours truly, were on the downlow grapevine. Who was dating who, who was cheating on who, who was seen drinking in the club, who got to school fully covered and yanked off jeans to reveal a miniskirt. Let’s just say 90210 had nothing on 21228. But part of the game, the most important part, was making sure your parents never found out. The stricter the parents, the more elaborate the schemes to keep them in the dark.