For everyone who felt the Serialvoid last week as Thanksgiving took the place of our favorite true crime podcast, we've been rewarded for our patience with some very interesting news. SF Gatereports that Adnan Syed, the 34-year-old who was convicted in 2000 of first degree murder for the death of his ex girlfriend Hae Min Lee, has a chance of overturning his life sentence in January. That's when the final stages of his appeal go through. Adnan's lawyer, C. Justin Brown, told the AP, "There are three parts to the legal process: a trial, then an appeal, then you have post-conviction relief. This is the last step."
Or, to put it another way, there's hope for Adnan!
That hope apparently hinges on issues team Adnan listeners will already be well aware of: among them the fact that his original lawyer, Cristina Gutierrez, didn't interview Asia McClain, his classmate who claims she was chatting with Adnan in the library at the time Hae Min Lee was allegedly killed. "The entire trial depended on whether Syed could prove where he was at the time of the murder," Brown wrote in his appeal. "Meanwhile, a credible witness — an honors student who had no obvious bias in favor of Syed — had come forward unsolicited with a recollection that she had been with Syed around the time of the murder ... Yet the lawyer did absolutely nothing."
So does this mean the Innocence Project (Episode 7) will come in and give Brown and Adnan an extra hand? We still haven't heard what their research has helped them uncover. Does it mean Adnan's seriously Zen approach to life is paying off in the end? Can 1.5 million podcast listeners help crack the mystery with our anxious energy?
This week's episode should have some compelling new information to report, which just leaves us asking the last big question here, "Is it Thursday yet?"
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Via SFGate, image from Serial