My Mom joins me to talk Serial

This is a very special episode featuring my Mom! I wanted to bring her on the podcast to follow up my Serial podcast because she was one of the first people that really had me see through some of the stuff the podcast was doing that created doubt in this case. And also because I think my Mom is wildly entertaining (ask anyone that was at my wedding reception, she stole the show!)

Anyway, this is going to be my last podcast on Serial sadly. I think I've said everything I ever have to say on this lol. But thank you all for your support, and please check out Klubhouse.gg if you want to support me. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Hey Smiling Strange. It is my podcast where I talk about stuff. Ultimately uh I am coming clean to everybody. But this podcast, my reels, my TikToks, all of the content that I make is what I call uh a part of the worst marketing strategy of all time. Uh so it's time for me to come clean. That ultimately I have been building an app for the last year plus that is a fantasy football game built for people that don't really like fantasy football that much. They aren't hardcore fantasy football fans, they just think it's a fun game, or they want to play the game because they like the idea of being in a group chat with your friends and pretending to be a GM. Uh and I had this idea ten years ago of like, alright, how can I make this game more fun, doing the things that I want to do, which is ultimately like uh trading. I wanted to do more trades. We averaged 70 trades in a season. I wanted to make the game more fun for my friends that don't really care that much. So we built, you know, around the principle of Mario Kart, which is just that the worse you are at Mario Kart, the easier the game is. The harder you're or the better you are at Mario Kart, the harder the game is. Alright, that's the idea behind Clubhouse fantasy football. If you go to clubhouse.gg, K-L-U-B-H-O-U-S-E dot g, you can sign up to play. If you're interested in learning how the game works, there is a tab there for what I call the manifesto, which makes me giggle. I think that is a funny thing to talk about when you talk about a fantasy football game. But the fantasy football the Clubhouse Fantasy Football Manifesto, you can read that. It is a large amount of information. What I suggest is if you have questions, take the Clubhouse Manifesto, dump it into ChatGPT, whatever, you know, use Deep Seek if you don't pay for ChatGPT or whatever. Use whatever AI thing you use if you do use AI, and then plug that in and you can ask questions of the AI, and it's basically like you have your own little chat bot, because it's got all of the information that you want right there. All of it. So uh it's just really, really in detail. I will be adding more marketing materials to that at some point. If you are interested, go to clubhouse.gg. If you are not interested, do not worry. I'm not gonna change up my approach. I'm still just gonna keep making content that I think is fun to make. I'm gonna keep talking about uh uh modest mouse and uh m well not really true crime after this. I'm kinda tired of true crime, but we'll get into that eventually. Uh like I'll talk about basketball, I'll talk about any sport or any thought or anything that I've been reading or thinking or doing, and uh every once in a while I'm gonna ask if you like my stuff and if you want to support me in any way, and you've been looking for any way to support me, the best thing you can do right now is just sign up and give me your email address, which sounds uh that sounds weird, but uh that's what I hope more that's what I need, because the more people that give me email addresses, the more I can show people that there's interest in this game, and uh the easier it'll be for me to eventually build it out to the scale that we're trying to get to. Like ultimately, my like our ultimate goal in this is pretty wild. Like I want to build it so that your fantasy football team plays like Stardew Valley, you know, that you on your phone you can decorate the clubhouse and the locker room and stuff like that. But uh, I need money and talented people to help me out with that. So for now, it's just a sta it's a standard fantasy football game with our different rules and our different mechanics in it. Uh but I think it's really fun. I would love for people to sign up. If you aren't interested in it, uh I'm just gonna mention every once in a while, but it's not gonna change the nature of my content. I'm just gonna keep putting stuff out there for free. But uh, you know, hey, the worst marketing strategy of all time is still a marketing strategy. This is me doing that. Anyway, this is a podcast. It's a follow-up to my serial podcast, which is by far the most listened to podcast I have. Uh sorry to inform everybody that has followed me for true crime stuff. I am really not big on true crime. I don't like it, I don't find it super interesting. I find it kind of weird to be dealing with um, you know, online a lot of the true crime things uh develop out of fandoms. And then there's fandoms for people who have real lives. These are just people that are are going through something that is going to trial. And um I don't want to comment on that. I don't I don't find it that interesting, ultimately. I found serial to be really interesting because the way not the case itself, I think the cases are pretty cut and dry. I think the way the information was presented, like I think the podcast of serial is interesting to me. I don't think the case of Adnan Syed is that interesting, if that makes sense. That is not to disparage anybody that finds it interesting, that finds any of that stuff interesting. I'm just warning you guys. Uh I have this podcast, I have another podcast coming up on the Karen Reed uh trial that I'm gonna post uh next week. But that's probably it for my true crime stuff, so thank you. If you if you don't want to follow anymore, that's fine. If you do want to stick around, uh I'm gonna keep making content on whatever I find is interesting or whatever people want me to talk about. This podcast, though, the reason that this one is coming out is because it is a very special podcast. It is with a special guest, my mom, Kate, who is, as you'll hear in the podcast itself, the reason that I ended up coming to the conclusions I did about Adon was because of a conversation that I had with my mom while I was listening to the podcast. I think she's wildly entertaining. I think that uh if I have any ability to tell an entertaining story, it comes 100% from Kate. Uh and I just want to share her with everybody. I will warn you all, she is she doesn't sound nervous on this podcast. After the podcast, I think she's very nervous about uh this is obviously the first time she's been on a podcast, first time I think she's ever really made herself known online in any way. But I think she's wildly entertaining, but she is nervous about any sort of backlash. So be nice to my mom. Uh, please. And I hope you enjoy this. If you enjoy this, maybe I'll have her back on at some point to talk about something else. Uh she is a a huge Red Sox fan, so maybe we'll talk baseball. Um I don't know. I really don't know what it's gonna be. I just really enjoyed this conversation. I really enjoyed talking to my mom. I love my mom very much, and I hope you love her too. Anyway, check out clubhouse.gg. Uh, and the song coming up next is going to be Slime by the band How Strange It Is. Uh, How Strange It Is is one of my favorite bands in Portland, and they have graciously let me use this song, which I genuinely think listen to the intro and outro of this song on all the podcasts. It's such a good podcast, intro, outro song. It's so good. It's like they built it for this. It is not the case. That they have an album that is coming out in the next couple months. So if you another thing you can do if you want to support me that I would really appreciate, if you can, go follow How Strange It Is on uh on Instagram and just go follow them for when their album comes out. That's it. That's all I'm ever gonna ask. I'm never gonna demand anything of you guys. Just if you have any interest in helping me out, go sign up for Clubhouse.gg, go follow how strange it is. Uh and yeah, so that's all I gotta say for this little intro. You hear all the rest. Coming up is a podcast about the podcast serial starring Guest Star, very special guest star. Uh let me first off all say, welcome to the podcast, Kate. Uh, this is my mom, Kate, everybody. Say hi. I know you can't. Hi. Uh this is, I guarantee you, this is the first time you've ever been on a podcast, right, Kate?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Oh, oh, Kyle. Um, I never in my wildest dream thought I would be on a podcast. I never even thought 10 years ago I'd ever listen to a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

How do you feel about your son's uh minor internet fame? How do you feel about this?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Oh my god, I'm so proud of you. I mean, I've always known your special gift is gabbing, and that you finally figured out a way to do that and people listen.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I know, I finally got them to listen, and I wanted to bring you on because I wanted to show people that the apple is not falling far from the tree. Everybody my mom Kate here is I remember this vividly when I was listening to Serial the first time. Evan and I had a long conversation. It was like an hour and a half Evan's my brother, and we had like an hour and a half long conversation where we were like, I don't really know if he did it or not. We started to lean towards whether or not he was guilty. We decided to call you in. I don't remember exactly what you said. All I remember is at the end of that conversation, we were convinced he had done it, and I've never turned back since then. And I kind of want to give that experience to my listeners now. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Uh well, come on, let me unlike Adnan, I remember exactly. I was sitting I was sitting at my kitchen counter. You guys, well, especially me and Evan would talk about true crime a lot. You weren't so much into it. I had never heard of a podcast. You guys called me, like, mom, we know you would love this. We know you love true crime, like put this podcast on it. I'm like, what channel is it on? What like uh where can I watch it? And you're like, no, no, no, it's just like on the radio. And I'm like, what? I go, you want me to watch something on listen to something on the radio? And that's gonna hold my attention, and you were like, just trying mom. So I remember like John was my husband was away, and I sat in the kitchen, I put it on the radio as I was like cooking or something, and 10 o'clock at night I called you guys back and said, I'm on episode 12 or whatever. And they were you guys were laughing. And it was the best thing I ever heard. Oh no, just for podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Just for the viewers out there that are the listeners out there. Uh my mom is the kind of uh woman that uh had me or my brother sign into her email address for I would say uh I think like the first five years that you had an email address, you are still using an AOL email address right now. That's how I gave you the link to get on this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

And I still have I still don't we're gonna interrupt each other constantly. I still have not met one person who can tell me why I should not have an AOL address. I cannot meet one person, one young person, I work with lots of young people, who has said to me, this is why you need a different, this is what a different email address can do for you.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Listen, you are right. You're right about that. There's no there's no technical difference. It's just it's the difference between driving like a BMW and driving a Toyota. It says something. And I appreciate that about you. Someone's got to keep the f the the flame burning for AOL, you know? It's just fake coolness, and I'm all about like it should be boomer coolness.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Like I'm going for it.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

It is, honestly. There's some fucking there's some aura there to the AOL email address. Anyway, uh, let's talk about the podcast here, because you you said you re-listened to episode one. What are your thoughts listening to it? Uh what is it? Is it 12 years later? Do you know that? 12 years ago this happened. That first of all seems insane.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Let me tell all you young people listening, they will have no idea how fast the life will go by. But um it was like it was so much more obvious when I listened to it the second time. The first time I listened, like I said, this was all new for me. I hadn't done any of these podcasts. I was a little, you know, I was on the fence for like three or four episodes. I'm like, oh, this is really interesting. Maybe he didn't do it, you know. Like, but I quickly, by the time I finished it the first time, was completely convinced of his guilt. And that's when everybody thought he was innocent. Like you forget when it first came out, everyone I talked to said he was innocent from that podcast.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

On that point right there, is like the reason that I brought this up ten years later, because the first video I make was like, now that nobody cares anymore about this, I want to give you my thoughts on serial, because I didn't think this would turn into anything, and it obviously kind of blew up online. But like at the time, when I was arguing, it was like telling people Santa Claus isn't real in elementary school. It's like all everybody, the amount of vitriol, I still get it from some people now as I've gotten a little bit more popular. The ad non-truthers are back in the picture. But it's like people were genuinely they look they thought I was a bad person for saying he was guilty. And I I got so tired of it, I just stopped talking about it. But I never stopped thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

And I you know, like I'm a nurse, so I work with a lot of young women, and when that came out, everyone was into it, and we were talking about it. Once I got into it, I had to talk to them every day in the OR and stuff, and they were like, Oh, Admon, like, you gotta listen to this, he's so innocent. And but um it's what's what's so strange is that, and I have no background in criminal investigation, police work, I've just been a nurse for 40 years. I have dealt with a lot of um mental stuff in my family. And um, so I I've always had an interest. My interest in life is I love people's stories. And what I don't think most normal people get is how convincing and charming people with psychopic personal personalities can be. They they just hear this guy or this woman, it's not usually women, but and they'll be like, oh my god, he's such a great guy. And it's just like I can't tell you how that's their whole thing, that's their thing, that they can be able to do that. That's how they get around.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

This is the thing that uh one of the points that I bring up, the podcast brings up over and over again, like, what are the odds that someone's going to be a charming sociopath? And the thing that I think you the thing that you did for me and Evan when we were listening to it way back when it came out was you kept being like, Yeah, what are the odds that he's a charming sociopath? Except for the fact that his girlfriend was found strangled in the and buried in the woods. At that point, like, yeah, the odds of finding a charming sociopath whose girlfriend was strangled and buried in the woods are actually pretty high. It's not actually very low. Right, because it's now a very small section of the population, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Before all your time, there was a guy named Ted Bundy, and he lived with a girl for four years that thought he was the most charming guy in the world. I mean, even after he was found guilty, she was like, I would have never known he, you know, helped out in politics. He was running everything in this little political town in Seattle, and he he, you know, he was everything. I think yeah, he was even on a call line for like, just like I just thought of this one. Just like Adna was on the EMT, did the EMT thing.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Yeah, I thought that was weird.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

So they always kind of have a little interest in kind of the dark sides of things.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Oh, yeah. It's just, I mean, I don't know. I I uh the thing that always kind of gets me on this is that it's like the way the information is presented in the podcast, listening back on it, like I I've just been fascinated by trying to figure out how did they create doubt where there doesn't really seem to be any doubt. There was no doubt for the jury. The jury found guilt immediately. And it's like, I think what happens is like Sarah Koenig and the serial crew really try to present this case as though there is no dead body, as though the girl didn't die. She's not the center of anything that happens in the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

The victim is not part of this. You brought up so many good points to me in talking to you about this lately. First of all, honestly, I love your point about like this has ruined Jay's life. This has done to her family's life. Like, this woman's made millions of dollars on this podcast, and it's like, yeah, hey, you're right. Like, this case was settled and done at a court of law. It was.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I mean, the amount of people that have been yelling at me today about Don, the boyfriend of Hey, and it's like, all right, by all accounts, not even Adnon is pointing his finger at Don. Nobody has pointed their finger at Don, but there are a bunch of people that are mad at me for saying he didn't do it, even though he's cleared by every single court case that he was ever in. The dude, when the podcast came out, Evan was telling me, he was going through cancer treatment and receiving death threats from strangers. And it's like, and then Sarah Koenig is sitting there talking about how Adnon has cow eyes and is such a charming guy.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

That's my number one note, Kyle, by the way. That is my number one note on listening to it yesterday. Um so I was just gonna say though, that like um oh god, I lost my tweet of thought.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Um, I want people to know the full, I want them to see what my brain is gonna be like in the future. They like me now because they see the edited versions. They don't see how often I can't think of any nouns. I can't think of any nouns. They're all gone, they're all dead. They're done.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

But like, first of all, Don. He has an airtight alibi. Many people checked it out. It's absolutely airtight. It's not just his mother covering him at the time clock. Like, there were people that saw him. He literally dated her for like two or three weeks at the most. Two weeks? So which which boyfriend is gonna be more angry? A boyfriend that's been dating someone for two or three weeks, or a guy that's dated this woman on and off for two years and just got ducked?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah, and the only piece of evidence against him is that his alibi seems kind of sketchy to some people who have no other information about the case. And it's like, all right, well, if you're gonna have that kind of eye for evidence, where's that eye toward turned towards Adnon? Because the Adnon has far sketchier stuff, including just the fact that he's going around on the day of her disappearance, telling, asking her for a ride, saying his car's in the shop when Jay has the car. Like he told her the car was easy.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

You went missing, as I told at your wedding, with your best friend Davio, when you were, I don't know, seven, eight, or nine for a couple hours. We we got the police involved. It was crazy. I can remember every place I was that day. I remember where I was in the Burlington Mall with my friend Dio when dad called and said he couldn't find you. I remember the exact spot we found you. I mean, when things like that happen to you, you remember every moment of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

That's it. That is and I think that's like we can get to your notes on episode one. That's the part about the framing of episode one that immediately leans towards adnon innocence is the idea that it's like this is a normal day. And it's like, no, he got a call from the police on the day that she disappeared. They didn't awake five weeks before they talked to him. Yeah, it's like, okay, I'm sorry. I I would remember. What's funny is like in the episode, the first episode, because I really listened to it too, she interviews three guys about like where they were six weeks ago. Two of them don't remember because they were average day. One guy does remember, and she points out that he remembers because he saved up a bunch of money to go to a nightclub that night. That's the level of differentiation he needed to remember his day. Was like he saved up money to go to a nightclub. Adnan got a call from the cops that his girlfriend was missing, and it turns out she was murdered. He doesn't remember that day, though. Didn't think about it at all, didn't stick in his memory. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

No, so not only that, go back and listen to episode one, like I did before this. He spends an inordinable amount of time explaining why he doesn't have memory for that hour. Like it's obvious. Like he is going on and on about what the memory thing is like why no one remembers. Like it's way too much when I listen to it the second time.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Go into that for me, because that's one of those things that like is a little bit more speculative. But I picked up on it too. It's like the way and Sarah like waves her hand at this, is like, well, Adnod likes to go into a lot of detail about stuff. But it's like for me, it's like that's the sign of somebody who's lying, you know, right? Like if somebody goes into that much detail, the way he talks to me comes across as lying. But I I I don't know enough to speculate it. You talk about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Uh no, I mean, what I really looked for a lot, like in my psych nursing that I've done and stuff, is like um these are weird things that got to me about him being a psychopath. Was first of all, first they describe him Prince of the Palm. And he, you know, and even that Asia girl says, like, all the girls like them. So he's like a big hit with the ladies, you know, and he seems to be, and he's leading prayers as like a teenager. I mean, he's a very kind of leadership kind of guy that like likes attention and likes to uh be noticed and achieving things, you know what I mean? And it's like, and then what she says, this is a couple episodes later, but she's talking to him in jail, and she's using this as a reason to prove what a great guy is and how innocent he is. And this is a 17-year-old kid in jail, and she's saying, or maybe he's 18 at this point, she's saying, just look at what he's done in jail. He's made friends, he plays cards with his car, everyone talks about what a great guy he is. Now let me tell you this. If you were a 17-year-old teenage boy and you were wrongly accused of murder, and you're hanging around in jail, would you be that friendly? And would you be able to accept it? No, because you know what he's doing? He's using all his charm and all his psychotopathy on everyone in jail to charm them so he gets out early. Like he has all these classic signs as you listen to the whole thing of a sociopath. Not only that, I've listened to you were really good when you described about the strangulation. All right, I need to get out of the trees and into the woods because this is the thing that everybody, everybody's looking for some little tiny detail of evidence to prove his innocence. Let's just start with the most glaring facts, and I don't think you would need any more to convict somebody. 90 something, I think it's over 95% of women that get murdered by a, like you say, strangulation, it is from domestic violence. Okay, so you already got that. Now it's not already. It has to be, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, like it's one of those things where it's like for there to be just strangulation and not like a broken arm, right? Like you have to get close. You either have to like sneak up behind them, and even then, it's like you can tell, by the way, you can tell which direction the strangulation came from. And they're saying that hay was strangled from the front. This was face.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So you have to have access. Here's the other thing the only other cases I've ever heard about where people have died of strangulation is because there's Been a sexual assault. So there's no evidence, obviously, that she was sexually assaulted.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

I know, which is also very strange.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

So like clearly she's not that you can rule out that that was the reason anybody killed her. There's no sexual assault evidence. So now we're left with the chance. Now, on top of that, and this thing, I every trial in America would love to have this. This is just unbelievable, and part of what makes the podcast so great. She wrote a diary every day about this relationship. I mean, that is phenomenal. And I was listening to that, which you should go listen to the um to the prosecutors, because they really go into her diary. And it's a classic, you know, let's think about teenage relationships. First of all, I'm coming from this as a girl, and I could just relate to her so much back in teenagerhood where you're up and down with the relationship, you can't seem to pull yourself out. First of all, I noticed it was always her that broke up with him. So when he says that's a good point. It was always her. And then she goes back to him again and she's all happy. Right. And then they're back to being happy, happy. And what happens? Classic teenage girl. She goes gets this job. Oh, somebody older? So let's think about Admiral. All right, so he's now we think he might be a psychopath. Now the girlfriend has spoken up with him twice. Now the third time they got back together, she seems to be really happy. She's writing it in her diary. We are the happiest couple in the world. So he feels like he's he's back in. He's back in. And then, oh, she gets a job and she meets, what does she meet? An older white man with blue eyes that drives a Camaro. Now, I remember being 17. That I mean, first of all, any girl that dated an older guy was just like, whoa, like, and now you're dealing with, you know, we another whole episode to get into like the immigration issues here and stuff. But I mean, those are not mild. And the his parents coming to the pop, that is not though that's really deep stuff.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

So, real quick, just to go into a couple of those points, like one of the things that I thought was really good that the prosecutor podcast brought up is that like, like you were saying, they broke up and got back together a bunch of times. I didn't even realize that Adnan uh that she broke up with him. So she's pushing him away. And then the way they get back together.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Something's wrong. I'm telling you, she keeps saying he's a great First of all, I'm really impressed with her diary. How kind of I mean, she's acting like a teenage girl, but she has a real maturity about her. She seems like honestly, it's a tragedy person. I mean, she's saying to him, Let's wake up, but I love you, that we'll be f I mean, she's really doing mature things for a 17-year-old girl.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

And um real quick, real quick, real quick. Uh so that the point is that like uh he's getting her back by like overwhelming her with love. The notes she writes when he gets back together is like, oh, there's the most loving thing. There's no like pause to it. There's this kind of like they call it love bombing. You know, you just drop all that stuff. Love exactly. The big thing, the big key here is like, alright, so if they were getting back together and off and on for so often, like why why did he finally snap at this thing? And the prosecutors do a good point of pointing out that it's like, well, over Christmas break, they were broken up, and you can kind of assume that Adnan thought, well, we'll get back together because we've gotten back together. But she comes back from Christmas break and says, I'm dating Don, I'm completely in love with Don. They point out what I love is the AOL instant messenger thing saying that she's dating Don is like that is the most official thing you could do in 1999 as a high school. Like, that is basically getting married. And it's like, oh, so now it was a little bit. It became real. Yeah, it became real to Adnan. He was finally out, she'd embarrassed him.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

What made it ideal was that he found another guy. And I I'm sure you can relate to this. I can so relate to being that age, and what would finally make you completely give up on some guys that you met in other interests, like then boom, the other person's gone. You know what I mean? And that so that's what happened. Like he was able to, you know, win her back a bunch of times because there wasn't a what wasn't really anything else going on. But as soon as she got these feelings, and you know what you like at that age, it just happens in like a second. You forget about one person, I'm on to the new boyfriend. He's much better. So like you just literally, literally, this is like classic domestic violence 101. It's sort of like when the OJ case came out and the tape was played of Nicole when he broke into her house. You were like, oh my god, like this is this is what happened. People never took it seriously before that.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Uh so one thing that I've been fascinated about is in in doing this, because it's like, like you said, you and I have gone over this a million times. A bunch of people go into the evidence much better than we ever could. This is just the stuff that like triggered my mom's you know, reflex of like, I think this is a lot sketchier than. When right away back to it. When let's get back to it, it's like, what do you make of Sarah Koenig and the serial team? Because the thing that fascinates me is like I'm just I'm trying to figure out. I've had this theory for a while that Sarah thought that the Asia alibi was going to open up this case and she was gonna be a famous radio person by you know, you know, breaking the case up in free and innocent man. But like, she seemed I my theory is that she just got played by Rabia and by Adnon. She got charmed. What's your read on Sarah's?

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I don't think she's the only person that's ever done this. I think there's so many people out there, and then you know, they're just being competitive, and you know, she gets a call, first of all, from this rabia, who is related to Adnan, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Some kind of aunt or something.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

In the family.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

So it's you know, it's a good lead. It's uh, you know, it's like, oh my god, this case come down and see this. I think this guy was Rolling Cruise. Of course, this lawyer woman has all the whole trial in her car because she's related to him. And it's it's clear that Adnan was meant, like from his family. Um, you know, I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood too, and my dad was an immigrant. And I like the there's the pressure I can remember of like, you need to do good because you're an immigrant, you know what I mean? And like I think they had so much put on Adnan's head of like he needs to be this great son that's gonna just, you know, show up our family really good. And all of a sudden he's arrested for murder, which he did clearly, and the the his aunt is like, oh, this can't be Adnan. This is our guy that's talking in the mosque, and you know, this is this guy that's gonna make us so proud. And um but so Sarah, yeah. So she like so she has a good that's a good lead, that's a good something to check into. Yes. And from the moment she meets him, like you said, I am just overwhelmed by how sucked in she is to his charm. But like I said, I think she had that really going for him. And I think if you don't really probably have ever met a sociopath, you don't understand how effective they even a regular narcissist can be un incredibly charming. Like it can suck anybody in. And but what she says, like you said, I saw him, and I get it written down. I saw him with his big cow eyes and talked to him, and he just didn't look, this is a quote, he just didn't look or sound like a killer.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Which is to me.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

I think the thing that's wild to me is like if you are Hayes family listening to this woman describe the man that murdered her daughter, I'd be a little offended, is all. It's like I'd be like, that's a little all right, maybe maybe we could talk about him with a little more suspicion. One thing I want to say is like, in terms of like the rabia thing, I don't have a single problem with her. I think that she is completely wrong. She is trying to get him free. She thinks he's free, or she thinks he's innocent. And like I said, I've said it in a real book.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

I mean, I would want someone to do that for anyone in my family.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Exactly. Exactly. I want my defense attorney in my trial, even if I did it, I want my defense attorney fighting for 20 years to get me free. That's a good defense attorney, and it's a good family member. You know, it's like I get that. But you're right.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

The Asia alibi just completely falls apart. And that's the first thing that it's hung on. It's like, so the Asia thing was so interesting when you read it again because it's a good idea. It's about it. It's nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

It's nothing. It's absolutely nothing. My whole point with Sarah is not that I don't understand why she's Asia. I love this.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

She says about Asia. She is not the, she meets Asia or talks to her on the phone. She finally tracks her down and she's like, she is not the type of person to lie, quote unquote. But she is lying because she retracts her statement later to the police. So one of those is a lie. Either the transition is a very good thing. One of those is a lie. Secondly, this is all in episode one. So what if she saw him at the library? What, first of all, does that prove? She doesn't know what time it was. There's no cameras. He could have bumped in there and still gone to commit the murder. And there's there's no evidence that, but like, no court in the world is going to put into evidence somebody that retracted their statement. Nobody. The other thing is it comes across like Asia when she was young, again, like everyone that seems to fall around um um a nun, that he she was like, I had a crush on him. She embraced it. She's like, I had a crush on him and I was talking to him in a library. And then my boyfriend kind of got mad at me because I was talking to him. She was seeing this effect he has on everybody. And I think she initially made that statement that she could vote kind of like a crush. Like, oh, oh, I think I saw him there. I'm I'm gonna say he was there. You read it. And then he got older, and she was like, No, I can't I can't say for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

You read the the first note that was written, and it's her saying is like, Can you look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do it? Like she's pleading with him to say which doesn't sound very certain. I think the thing that I find fascinating about what you just said about like uh Asia she did lie because she retracted it. So either the retraction was a lie, and I think what's fascinating about the way that the thing is. What's fascinating about the way that Sarah presents the information and Serial presents the information is like they will point out that somebody must be lying, but then they kind of act like it's impossible to determine a lie. That like no there's no way that we could investigate and come to a conclusion that it's almost kind of like not their duty as journalists to tell you who told a lie or not. But it's like the entire first episode sets up either Jay is lying or Adnan is lying, which if this was just a story, I'm fine with that, because that's a compelling story. But Jay's a real person who was cleared of murder, who was cleared of like terrorism. I agreed originally to do three years in prison. They just waived the three years and gave him probation. Like he agreed to go to prison to give them this information. And he got cleared of all this stuff, and now you're bringing this back up. And it's like, if that's the case, Sarah, I I just if you think that Jay is telling the truth and then Adnon is lying, you do kind of have a responsibility to say, like, listen, I did all this investigation, I'm an expert in this case, I think this is the thing. Or if you think Adnan's telling the truth and Jay's lying, you kind of have to say, I think Adnon's telling the truth, so at least know that this is not an impartial reporting on the situation. Like your opinion on this, I think, does kind of sway how the information is.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

She judges everybody the first time she talks to them. Like, this person doesn't seem like they could do that, that person doesn't. And then here's I listen to the whole part about Jay. First of all, he comes forward, I think, two weeks after. He gives the whole story. Okay, so who cares? He's a petty, you know, drug dealer in Bondo. Probably half the people, all right. And then um listening to what so by by Jay coming forward and telling all that, do you know what he was implicating himself in?

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

An accessory to murder, hiding the body, um, I mean, big, big time things that you would get decades in jail for, you know what I mean? Um, what else did I write down here? But, you know, like this. And he's implicating himself in this murder, basically.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Just like on that point right there, when she frames the podcast, when serial, the production company, frames the podcast is either Adnon is lying or Jay is lying. The lie that is important, the lie that breaks or makes the entire case is how did Jay know where the car is? That's the lie that you should be investigating. Not the lie of whether or not uh Adnon, I don't know, like, stole money from a mosque or something like that. Whether or not Adon's really a charming guy or not. Like whether or not Adnan is a sociopath, it actually doesn't matter. The lie that matters is either Jay is telling the truth about where he knew the car was and what was going on with the car, in which case Adnon did it. Or Jay's lying about that. And if he is, is if the cops are feeding him information, whatever, that's your fucking story, but she spends every episode talking about minutiae of other stuff, and we don't get into the Jay Knows Where the Car thing is until like episode seven. It's wild.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah, I mean you're right. Everything depends on whether you believe Jay or not. And I cannot understand why a kid would call to the cops two weeks later and implicate him in basically a murder if he wasn't telling the truth.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Well, it's it's not just whether or not you believe Jay. It's not just whether or not you believe Jay, it's what you believe him about, right? Like he can get the timeline wrong. He can get where the body was shown to him. Oh god. He can get where the body was shown to him. Like it could have been the best buy, it could be in front of his grandmother's house, it could be wherever. That part actually doesn't make her break the fucking case. What makes him break the case is like did he know where the car was because Adnan told him that he murdered the the body? Like there's this big thing that happens where it's like they create this idea that it's like Jay told lies. Right? He told lies. I heard this from a different podcast. Jay can lie and not be a liar, right? You can lie about some things, but if the important parts of the case are not lies, and it's like so many people have been able to figure that out independently, it always just weirded me out that the serial podcast like never really came to that conclusion on their own. And I don't know. I just the whole NPR of it all, like the the way that NPR presents information as this sort of like enlightened intellectual group has always rubbed me the wrong way because it's like, well, this seems pretty obvious and you guys whiffed on it. You guys whiffed. So like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Like you said before it's an open and shut case, pretty much. Yeah. It really is, if you look at just the evidence. It is so open and shut. Jay, first of all, is a black kid. He's kind of running around a little bit a while selling some drugs and stuff. He's not really, if he lied about something little, he's not really trusting the police back in those. This was 1999 in Baltimore. I know it's the wire. The wire came out in 2000. Right. And not only that, it's bringing up speaking of Baltimore, like those cops and detectives in Baltimore are the best in the country at murder. So this wasn't some shit. This wasn't some I thought about this one too. This was not some crazy little murder in some Midwestern town that has 200 people. This murder happened and was investigated and prosecuted by the best team in the country in murder.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yeah. I I mean they've at least at the very least, they've seen a lot of murders. So there's this whole idea. This is one of the ones that like gets me is like there's this whole idea that the cops like framed Adnon and used Jay to frame Adnan, and I just keep asking people over and over again. So you have you it's 1999, you're in Baltimore, you have a black drug dealer sitting in your office, and instead of pinning him for the murder, you use him to create a story to pin another person. I just don't understand what I'm supposed to find reasonable about that as doubt. I just don't get it. I don't Yeah. It's just a different standard of reasonable doubt.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Right, and when you picture a kid, uh, you know, an African-American kid at this time in the country going to a cop and confessing to this whole thing, that is pretty good evidence. I mean, you know, a lot of those kids would have stayed quiet, you know, like he really just, you know, saw everything he said checked out completely. But I mean, I think there's a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

He just comes across as more uh to me more trustworthy than the way that Adnon speaks. You touched on this a little earlier. Like the way that Adnon gives you information and dumps all this information on, and then it's so apologetic when he can't remember something. Like, oh, look at all the things I do remember. So it's so wild that I don't remember this. It's just such a poor coincidence. Like there's something about the way Adnon speaks, and you see it in later episodes, like when he retreats and lets Sarah kind of like put forth her interpretation of something, the way he pulls away when information seems to hurt him. It's like it there's this tacit amount of like distance at the very least that he seems to be creating that comes off as charming, but I don't trust it. And like I that's a gut thing, but I just don't trust the way he says it.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

No, I have the same gut thing, and it's just what it is is real, and I guarantee you it's probably why she broke up with him twice. It's not something you can put your finger on, but there's always something a little weird about these psychopaths when you've been around them for a long time. Or a narcissist, you know, you get Yeah. You get to um kind of sense something's a little off, you know. They might look good on paper, they may be charming, but when you really get into intimate relationships with them, people will start to back away sometimes because it's it's like you're picking up on the way he talks, the way he presents the way he's like reading your mind and trying to feed you all the information you want.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Well, it also explains why he does so many things that on paper make him look like the little Boy Scout, right? It's because he knows to some extent he knows that there's something off-putting going on about, you know, his intentions and motives or whatever, and he wants to be able to berate you when you doubt him, when you're like, dude, I feel like you're lying. He wants to be able to go, oh, but I was prom king, everybody loves me, look at all the stuff that I do, look at all these things that say I'm a good guy. It's like, no, we're talking about this line. Yeah. We're talking about this one thing. We're talking about this one thing. Well you're lying about this, the rest of it doesn't matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

When you have no internal sense of who you are, you have to build this outside persona. And the main thing about psychopaths is that they don't have empathy. So you are so able to calm people because normal people feel empathy and they they it show it on their face. This guy's able to be a mask to Sarah and just be like whatever he thinks she wants to hear about him. And and it works, it's very effective with people. But like I said, like with the girlfriend, like you're round them a lot, and intimately she does start to say in her die week he's really possessive. Like she does start to get to see the stuff. Like I my question is, why did you break up with him three times? And so when I looked at that, I saw that she was starting to say stuff like he's too possessive. So she's starting to see the more inner guy, not the guy that's pretending that everything doesn't matter to him, it's no big deal that his parents came to the prom and broke them up, and it's no big deal, this and that. She's starting to see like the really other side of them.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

And I think that the other thing too is like this idea that she's not seeing a side of Adnon that other people like the amount of times that uh serial will be like, well, the you know, Hay's diary said this and the prosecution said this about Adnon. Here's what his cousin had to say, here's what his locker room mate or whatever had to say about it. Everybody could look like God. But it's also just like, hey, man, you gotta assume that Hay had a relationship with Adnon that was more intimate than all these other people, that she saw a side of him behind closed doors that other people didn't see. So it's like, yeah, sure, his cousin thinks that it didn't bother him that his parents came and broke up the dance, like his cousin thinks that. Come on, but like what's that? What teenager wouldn't have called their cousin and been like, oh my god, can you believe it? Yeah, whatever. I don't care, I don't care. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me, it doesn't bother. When it clearly bothers him, it's like, who's gonna see the real side of that? Is it gonna be the fucking cousin? No, it's gonna be Hay. Hay's gonna be the one that deals with the consequences of this. And unfortunately, this is the consequences because the dude's a sociopath.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Uh it's just so obvious when you listen to the whole thing. And then you're right, as soon as Asia's alibi goes away, you know, which basically we can't say it isn't like they proved it was wrong. She went in and said, I lied.

unknown 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Exactly. And even if she my point is, even if she didn't lie, what does that really prove? You don't have any timetable of when he was in the library, and it doesn't really mean anything.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

What's funny?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

And not when you have, like you say, 50,000 other things that line up perfectly for him to have murdered her.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

What's funny about the alibi thing is it everyone starts out in the same boat of like, oh my god, there's an alibi. That is gonna validate that he's free. And then you learn more about it, and it's like, oh, this actually doesn't validate that he's free. And they immediately shift to, well, the fact that they didn't investigate the alibi shows that uh the trial was a a fraud and we It's actually the trial should be thrown out because it wasn't a fair trial. And that's like I mean, there's a reason every guilty person says they didn't get a fair trial. There's a reason that they do that. Which gets me to this last point that has been kind of driving me crazy. It's like when I argue this online with people, uh the people that are pro-adnon want to hold me and my opinion to the jurisprudence of like what a jury is supposed to be able to. You know, I I'm held to the same standard that an actual jury. Like I'm only allowed to use evidence that is in a courtroom. But it's like, but I'm not a jury member, I'm a guy with an opinion, and my opinion is gonna be swayed by things like the way he talks to Sarah Koenig. It's like I'm gonna use that to as my characteristic. I can use whatever I want. Exactly. If we want to go about it. If we want to go by what's legally accepted in a court, he's guilty. He was found guilty every single time we have used a legal definition of evidence. Like, what do you guys want? I don't understand it. So it's just it's fascinating to watch.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

He wrote, like we've talked over this one. He wrote a couple days before she died, I'm going to kill her on a paper.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

On a piece of paper.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Now yeah, we all say stupid things like that. But like you say, you then they don't end up dead.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Yes. Yeah. Again, everything that she points out as like in episode one especially, everything she points out as like, oh my god, isn't this just a normal high school behavior? It all falls apart when you put it in the context of and his girlfriend was found strangled and buried in the ground. And it's why I say that the travesty of Serial, the thing that really bugs me, that irked me, the reason I talked about this ten years later, is that if I was the family of Heyman Lee, I would be so fucking mad that this woman made by you know that the people in Serial made millions of dollars drumming up a case that had already been resolved, and I have to relive the worst thing it's not worse, everybody knows about it. It's the worst thing that ever happened to you. And now, like, I I don't know, I I just feel like somebody should at least admit, like take some accountability for what you did to Hayes family. Take some accountability for what you've done to Jay and Don. That is the minimum. That's all I'm asking for. Just take some accountability that like you we went into this case of entertainment and it hurts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

I think your best point of the whole thing I listened to yesterday, I love this, is she should have had the coons to say, I think he's guilty or I think he's innocent at the end. You don't go through 13 things and wreck all these people's lives and at least have the integrity to say, I truly believe he's innocent. I've talked to him, I've researched, or I or I truly believe he's guilty. I mean, like, you can't just leave it. And the fact that she doesn't come out at the end and say she thinks he's innocent shows me even she might have been beginning to think he was guilty at the end.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

That is the most negative interpretation I can give is that she kind of realized he was. There's one version of this where she realizes that he's guilty, and she just she knows that if she says that, she has to take accountability for the last eight weeks or the last nine weeks of this podcast coming out and being this big thing. She would have but would really j uh I I don't really know if she thinks she's innocent or guilty. I don't want to like make that distinction. I do want to say that uh the way that that ended is a way in which she is not held responsible for my conclusion. Like the fact that you know the fact that 30 million people reach their own conclusion on this based off of the work that she did, she doesn't take responsibility for those conclusions. She just walked you right up to the point where you kind of went, I think something's sketchy with Jay, and then she's like, No, no, but you said that. I didn't say that. You said and I find that to be kind of sleazy. I don't I don't like I don't think it's intentionally sleazy. I don't think she's doing anything she didn't think was the right thing to do. I think that she thinks it's a jerk.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

People do this a lot now with the truth crime is so big because mainly because of one like and like they they all kind of do it, they stretch around to make a story or make you question things that aren't questionable. But she yeah, these are people's lives, man.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

These are people's lives. That's the part that gets me. It's just like again, do whatever you want, make your podcast be accountable.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Be accountable. Look at the victim. So I you know, I heard all the stuff that Hay wrote in her diary. Like, she seems like a classic teenage girl. She seems like she had the most amazing life ahead of her. She really seemed, just from her own words, like in her diary, just such an authentically good person who was trying to do the right thing and living her life. And like, take ten steps out and look at it from above and think about who would possibly want to kill her. If you rule out that she just got abducted by some stranger who the only reason for that is sexual assault. So that's obviously out. And they would have found DNA. And so when who would want this girl dead? That's nobody. And so I don't think that's in a life of two weeks, I don't think would have he wasn't even breaking up with Don. So what motive does he have? And he is a complete alibi. So that just leaves you really with Adnon. I mean, and and does he fit the profile? I love listening to those like FBI profile of things. He so fits the profile in this case, it is insane. And then not only does he so fit the profile, he all the physical evidence backs it up 100%. He personally lied. Didn't he lie about lighting at the car to me? Like he planned it all up. All right, here's my other argument for psychopathy. Is that so if it was the passion, which it was, and the strangulation, but he also planned it, and that's what makes him a psycho psycho uh psychopath to me. Because like he talks about killing her the day before, he plans out the cars and who's how he's gonna do it. And so that if he was just a guy that was really hurt by a girl and then get they get in a fight in the car and he strangles her, that's it's horrible. But like it's what points to me that he's a psychopath, besides all the things I already said, is that it was planned.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Yeah, I agree. I just it's pretty I think it's just pretty clear cut at that point. It's it's a fascinating podcast because it's like I don't know, it like you said, it started the true crime.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

He did a great job of doing the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

I mean, it's absolutely it's very entertaining.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

But I mean I'd like her to come on and make another one and you know you have a energy.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

I just want to hear if she thinks, you know, I her opinion holds some weight on this, and I think it's just, you know, some recognition that people's lives and that that goes for kind of all of true crime. It's again, why I I don't really do a lot of true crime. This is the only true crime thing I ever really got into. Anyway, I do I have to run. Uh Mom, thank you so much for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Oh, Kyle, my pleasure. You're making me an internet star. My favorite.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

I know, finally, finally, finally. People are gonna be fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

Only a mother could say that, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:20

I'm gonna edit that out. That's not good. Love it.