Religion as a basis for the motive: Prosecution contended at trial that this was an "honor killing." Adnan had sacrificed everything - his religion, his family - for this relationship and could not stand it when Hae broke up with him. They played up Adnan's sinister duplicitous life, putting forward the good face for his family and at the mosque while cavorting around with Hae.
SK comes out at flatly states she doesn't buy the prosecution's story for the motive. I tend to agree that this wasn't an "honor killing" and that Adnan was not torn up by violating his religious principles. Hae's diary entries are a bit troublesome, but her feeling of guilt seems not out of whack. I tend to find Saad's take (Rabia's brother/Adnan's friend) on it reasonable. Neither of them seemed to take the religious thing that seriously. Saad sounded genuinely amused telling the story of the homecoming dance where Adnan told him how his parents had shown up at the dance.
Again, this does not mean Adnan is necessarily innocent. But the prosecution picked a motive to go with their story that they felt could work. While teenage heartbreak is something most people could relate to and is usually not a source for murderous rage, throwing in this religious angle and playing into stereotypes of Islam probably played well with the jury and elevated an otherwise unlikely motive to something that the jury could not dismiss out of hand.
Adnan's job as EMT as indicator of ability to strangle: Throw away line that the prosecution argued that Adnan's EMT training would know how to strangle someone.
Eh, don't really buy that and not going to give that much credence. If anything, if Adnan's EMT training probably would have made it less likely to choose manual strangulation as the weapon of choice for a premeditated murder given all the variables that would be in play.
Jay's statement on the motive: According to SK, Jay supplied the motive to police and planted idea Adnan was angry at Hae about the breakup. From the tape:
"He told me that she had broke his heart it was extremely wrong for someone to treat him that way. Um that he couldn't believe how she stood and looked him face to face and told him she didn't love him and be that heartless. And (coughs) he told me he said almost jokingly 'I think I'm going to kill her. Yeah I'm going to kill her.'"
Now drawing on the examples from the famous cases site that Matt sent, a couple of things. The use of an adverb like "extremely" seems superfluous -- could be an indicator of deception? Stood and looked him face to face seem like oddly specific details that don't add anything to the story -- perhaps he is creating details to bolster the story? He coughs before he gets to the key point -- this may be letting off some tension in preparation of the big lie? The "almost jokingly" seems to be a pulling back of the statement a bit -- probably to minimize his own culpability in the story (that he didn't take it seriously to justify him not trying to prevent it). But it seems odd when he's basically telling the cops that the killer said he was going to do it.
Post-breakup interactions: There are claims that Hae was still flirting with Adnan after the break-up, "leading him on." She buys him an expensive jacket for Christmas. She calls him when her car breaks down, and both Adnan and Don look over the car before Adnan drives her home. Debbie suggests that perhaps Adnan thought it was a slap to the face when Hae started dating Don.
It's hard to tell what to take away from this. On one hand, it shows that Adnan was not outwardly showing any signs of resentment and Hae had not viewed him as a threat. But on the other hand, Adnan may have thought that this was a break and that they would get back together, and the addition of Don destroyed that and caused him to embark on this path. Like many of the details, this could go either way.
Three calls to Hae night before disappearance: Three calls were made. Two calls were 2 seconds each. Last one was 1:24. Adnan says he was probably giving Hae his new cell # (corroborated by the # being written on Hae's diary). Don testified that Hae had been at his house that night (probably explaining why the first two calls were short). Last diary entry from Hae is very mushy saying that she loves Don, she found her soulmate, etc.
David focused on these three calls to Hae earlier in the discussion. SK seems to dismiss them as Adnan calling to give Hae his new number (corroborated by the phone # written in Hae's diary). But I looked at the phone logs and noted some things. Here's a hypothetical construction of that night:
The phone calls he make while he is at home appear to be Tower L651C:
9:41PM - makes call to Krista, talks to her for 3:18.
11:05 PM - calls Nisha (one of the girls he was seeing); talks to her for 0:36.
11;07 PM - calls Krista again and talks to her for 18:46. I flag this call because this is by far the longest call on the log over these two days.
11:27 PM - first call to Hae, lasts :02. This call pings cell tower L608C, which shows up as being halfway between Adnan's house and Baltimore. I flag this because at some point during the call with Krista, he sneaks out of the house and goes for a drive. I assume he sneaks out because hearing how insanely protective his mom was, I would expect that he is sneaking out without permission after 11PM on a school night. Also, he calls Hae pretty much immediately after hanging up with Krista.
12:01 AM - second call to Hae, also lasts :02. This call pings cell tower L602C, which the map shows as being in Baltimore proper. So Adnan's midnight drive takes him to Baltimore.
12:35 AM - third call to Hae, lasts 1:24. Adnan says he was calling to give Hae his new number, which is scrawled on her diary. So it seems Hae is now home from Don's house. This call pings cell tower L654C, which is in the vicinity of the Westview Shopping Mall, Jay's house, and Jenn's house... but it's also on the way back to Adnan's house from Baltimore.
Wild unsubstantiated theory alert: I posit that Hae slept with Don for the first time that night (based on her diary entry that night professing her love for Don). Hae told Krista she was going to (pure conjecture, but the timing of the calls seems odd). That's what the long conversation between Adnan and Krista was about. Which causes Adnan to go for a drive (to where? Don's house? Somewhere else? note: in Episode 3, SK notes Don lived in another county NE of Baltimore, so if Adnan knew where Don lived, his route fits). Explains why he would call Hae three times that late just to give her his # (which I never bought -- why would you pester your ex that late just to give her your number). Maybe he realized he was being crazy and calmed down. Maybe his rage only grew and made him decide he was going to confront her about it (leading to him killing her). The result I'm not sure. But I think David's intuition about the three phone calls being meaningful seems right. While Adnan tooled about the city before going home, he was still a "good" kid and I would expect something pretty major to go for a late night drive. And it wasn't a short drive either.
Adam notes that some of the information floating around says that someone (maybe Krista) had testified that Adnan said that his last conversation with Hae was not good.
Adam notes that some of the information floating around says that someone (maybe Krista) had testified that Adnan said that his last conversation with Hae was not good.
Adnan asking Hae for a ride: Jay tells police that Adnan told him that he was going to ask Hae for a ride. Aisha saw Hae talking to Adnan after last class. Debbie says she saw Hae who said she was going to get her cousin from school then seeing Don at the mall. Ines Butler (who ran the concession stand) says she saw Hae pull up to get her usual snack and that she was alone. Krista says she heard Adnan ask Hae for a ride first period. Becky said she heard something about a ride as well. Tricky situation is that Adnan apparently told a police officer that evening that he was expecting a ride with Hae and that he got held up and she left without him. Two weeks later, Adnan said that was incorrect because he drives his own car to school.
Adnan's first recounting of this issue when speaking with SK:
"I wouldn't have asked her for a ride after school. I'm sure I didn't ask her because immediately after school i know she always anyone who knows her knows she always goes to pick up her little cousin. So she's not doing anything for anyone right after school no matter what. Not a trip to McDonald's. Not a trip to 7-Eleven."
Going back to the analysis, "wouldn't have asked her" is a weak denial. Of course, 15 years has passed, but this is something he claims he is sure about, so "I didn't ask her for a ride" would be the strongest denial. The addition of "anyone who knows her knows" seems to be trying to spread the knowledge of Hae's after school habits around so as to distance himself from any special knowledge. The end... specifically saying "no matter what" seems a bit too vigorous. And I found the examples a trip to McDonald's or 7-Eleven as weird examples. Those seem to be pretty low-priority things that are easy to turn down. Helping out a friend who needed a ride because his car broke down seems to be on another level of priority, so maybe that would have been more of a possibility.
My conclusion: it seems that he didn't leave with her, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did ask her for a ride. Maybe to talk to her about Don or a last ditch effort to get back together or what. The initial statement to the cop saying he asked her for a ride is fairly telling. I feel that is a weird thing to admit to and later recant. Of course, he could have misspoke because he was high as hell when the police called. But there are two separate witnesses who mention the ride, so it seems likely there was a ride asked for.
Asking for the ride does not necessarily mean he did it because he planned to kill her. But, Adam notes the timing of the asking for a ride is telling. If, as Krista said, he had asked her for a ride during first period, that is particularly worrisome. At that point, he still had his own car (he did not lend it to Jay until after 10:45), so this suggests some level of premeditation. Of course, if this was one of those dumb ideas to get her into a spot to force a conversation, he could have asked for a ride intending to lend Jay his car to have that as an excuse. It's not dispositive, but it is an awkward fact to deal with.
More on Best Buy as the Murder Spot:
Regardless of whether Adnan did or did not ask Hae for a ride, the prosecution's story is that the two of them were together at Best Buy in less than 20 minutes after school ends. Now, Ines Butler's statement that Hae was alone when she stopped by the concession stand seems to debunk the prosecution's theory. But Adam mentions Adnan could have waited by the library or somewhere and flagged Hae down and begged her for a ride.
But even then it seems unlikely that he would have convinced her to take a detour to Best Buy. It's revealed in a later episode that the Best Buy parking lot may have been a place where they had gone to have sex in the past. If that is true, from Hae's perspective, that would be the last place she would want to take Adnan. Also, the time aspect is an issue. Based on her last diary entry, she would have wanted to see Don. And speaking as a Korean immigrant, she would have taken her responsibility of picking up her little cousin very seriously and something major would have come up for her to miss that appointment. Given that tight timeline, it seems unlikely that her ex-boyfriend would have registered as enough of an excuse to deviate from her tasks at hand.
Asking for the ride does not necessarily mean he did it because he planned to kill her. But, Adam notes the timing of the asking for a ride is telling. If, as Krista said, he had asked her for a ride during first period, that is particularly worrisome. At that point, he still had his own car (he did not lend it to Jay until after 10:45), so this suggests some level of premeditation. Of course, if this was one of those dumb ideas to get her into a spot to force a conversation, he could have asked for a ride intending to lend Jay his car to have that as an excuse. It's not dispositive, but it is an awkward fact to deal with.
More on Best Buy as the Murder Spot:
Regardless of whether Adnan did or did not ask Hae for a ride, the prosecution's story is that the two of them were together at Best Buy in less than 20 minutes after school ends. Now, Ines Butler's statement that Hae was alone when she stopped by the concession stand seems to debunk the prosecution's theory. But Adam mentions Adnan could have waited by the library or somewhere and flagged Hae down and begged her for a ride.
But even then it seems unlikely that he would have convinced her to take a detour to Best Buy. It's revealed in a later episode that the Best Buy parking lot may have been a place where they had gone to have sex in the past. If that is true, from Hae's perspective, that would be the last place she would want to take Adnan. Also, the time aspect is an issue. Based on her last diary entry, she would have wanted to see Don. And speaking as a Korean immigrant, she would have taken her responsibility of picking up her little cousin very seriously and something major would have come up for her to miss that appointment. Given that tight timeline, it seems unlikely that her ex-boyfriend would have registered as enough of an excuse to deviate from her tasks at hand.
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