You say you would remember better if you were in that situation, but how do you know? Some evidence[0] suggests that memories are more distorted the more they are remembered, so "reliving and remembering that day" may actually make things worse. Note that this may not affect your confidence in the memories. Since we're talking about podcasts, I should mention that there's a Radiolab episode[1] that discusses this.

[0] http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2012/09/your-...

[1] http://www.radiolab.org/story/91569-memory-and-forgetting/

It's really weird that a comment pointing out scientific evidence is downvoted here.

Memory is bad, period. And we don't even realize it. It's extremely common to be absolutely certain you've observed something, which never ever happened.

The point of the podcast wasn't to convince you that he's innocent, though. The main reason they led with that was to prepare you for a series where 90% of the interviewees don't really remember most of what happened. It's not just about Adnan, it's about everyone involved, and how they can all have such conflicting accounts. It wasn't everyone vs. Adnan, it was everyone vs. everyone else.

>However, 6 weeks ago my first love and someone I was very close to didn't disappear one day.

None of the kids really remembered what happened - including (close) friends of Hae, so what does that tell you?

Yeah, but he didn't find out (assuming you believe he's innocent, like I do) until days later. What's seared into your mind is that point forward, not the past. Forget six weeks ago, I have trouble remembering what happened a few days ago often, without scrolling through emails or other things of that nature to jog my memory. He has since relived it in his mind over and over, but the detail is already gone.

I believe he did it. Firmly.

Not to get in to the details, but her family called him looking for her that night. And like I said, if I get a weird phone call from a friends family looking for them and the next day they don't show up to school, you better believe it is ALL me and my friends are going to be talking about. It's just not something people, let alone high school kids, ignore.

>I believe he did it. Firmly.

I don't understand the 'firmly' bit. The state's case was flimsy and the state's timeline was a total mess. The cell tower evidence was flaky and one of the state's expert witnesses rescinded his testimony. Jay is a terrible witness who changed his story multiple times. The state needs Jay AND the cell tower evidence to stick and I don't think it does.

In my opinion, the state's case was flimsy because they didn't really know what happened or how. Jay was involved drastically more than he let on, which explains his consistently changing story and the fact that his story doesn't match the cell phone records. Adnan knows Jay is lying, but obviously can't expose him without confessing his own role.

As I said, I firmly believe he's innocent, but based on your comment, I checked the timeline, and it is interesting to me that an officer apparently called Adnan the same night she disappeared. I have to admit, that would probably crystallize the relevant afternoon a bit in my memory.

That said, as other sibling comments are saying, one's memory is surprisingly poor. This is sort of tangential, but for example, I've sat in a classroom, where as an experiment on eyewitness testimony, someone comes in (without the class knowing what's happening) and in a very exaggerated manner steals something from the professor and then leaves. Literally a minute later, when asked, much of the class misidentifies major physical attributed of the 'perpetrator' (height, hair color, etc.), even when they are confident they are correct.

>I have to admit, that would probably crystallize the relevant afternoon a bit in my memory.

He was high. I think that part was corroborated by multiple people. Everybody reacts differently. How Adnan reacted when he heard she disappeared shouldn't be the backbone of deciding whether or not he is innocent or guilty.

All the other kids didn't think murder when she disappeared either. There was a rumour going around that she ran away to Cali to see her father. It took a few days before the realization sunk in.

You can remember what you had for lunch? Lucky~

Isn't it pretty well accepted that, psychologically, your memories are severely distorted and sometimes entirely lost in times of extreme emotional distress?

I can buy that. But his defense wasn't "my memories are distorted" it was "How could I remember?, it was soo long ago"

Plus you'd have to believe some pretty wild conspiracies for any other explanation to be plausible.

> any other explanation

He may be convicted again. I didn't think they established motive all that strongly, and something was odd about the guy who claimed to have helped bury the body.

That's a good point, but I think things were more nuanced than that (at least IIRC ;)...I haven't re-listened to it since the original broadcast)...the victim's disappearance was not thought of as a disappearance until at least a week or so later -- her body wasn't found until a month later. Even though her family reported her as missing the day of her actual disappearance...I believe Adnan claimed that he thought she had just gone on some crazy trip, as teenagers are wont to do. Sure, the victim's family would argue that she was the kind of good girl who would never do such a thing, but she was also someone who carried out a sexual relation with Adnan without her family's knowledge or acceptance...so, your typical -- but complicated -- teenage drama, except that it ended in a tragic and mysterious murder case. But if Adnan is innocent, his excuse makes sense to me -- he knew what a rebellious girl Hae Min Lee was, and there was no reason to keep frozen in mind the day of her initial disappearance.

That said, it did bother me how he apparently never thought to call on her during the time of her disappearance, even though they were no longer a couple. That was probably one of the strongest pieces of circumstantial evidence against him, in my eyes.

One of the most compelling aspects of the case for me is that while I can see why Adnan garnered the sympathy of advocates and the interest of Serial's producers, at least enough to warrant a full season of coverage...I still couldn't quite shake the feeling that even if he isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt...that he might still be guilty of the actual murder. I can't remember the last time a story so full of ambiguity so completely captured my attention.

"That said, it did bother me how he apparently never thought to call on her during the time of her disappearance, even though they were no longer a couple. That was probably one of the strongest pieces of circumstantial evidence against him, in my eyes."

I don't know about you, but like most people, I'm not on speaking terms with most of my ex-es.

That was a point of contention on the show, IIRC. The prosecution argued that Adnan was jealous. Adnan claimed to be on OK terms with Lee, even giving her his new phone number shortly before her disappearance. IIRC, this was an angle of suspicion for the Serial producers, who found it strange that he didn't bother to call her after her disappearance.

(I'm on speaking terms with my exes. Even am still Facebook friends)

It seems like you're trying to say "if it happened to me, my memory would be better, and it's their fault if their memory is poor".

That's insulting at best to the many, many people in the criminal justice system who have suffered from the general mutability of memory.