New information in The Case Against Adnan Syed that wasn't featured in Serial

From Digital Spy

The Case Against Adnan Syed has already aired on HBO in the US, and it's now available to stream in the UK via NOW TV and Sky Atlantic.

The new documentary series, from the same director as the award-nominated West of Memphis, is based on the same case featured in the hit true-crime podcast Serial.

In 1999 18-year-old high school student Hae Min Lee was murdered. Her body was discovered in Leakin Park in Baltimore, Maryland, and a few weeks later her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Masud Syed, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He has always maintained his innocence.

Related: Adnan Syed update: What's the latest?

Syed as been appealing his conviction, leading to many updates over the years.

The Case Against Adnan Syed revisits the details and testimonies that were covered in the podcast, giving a face to the people who spoke to Serial host Sarah Koenig.

But the four-part television series also delved a lot deeper, bringing in new independent investigators to examine the case and the leads.

According to Syed's friend and advocate Rabia Chaudry, the documentary has also thrown up some new evidence.

"Amy found stuff that I never knew existed and so there is new evidence, and hopefully that's evidence we can even use in a court of law down the line," she told Digital Spy and other media at a press conference.

Here's some of the key information that we learned from The Case Against Adnan Syed.

We hear a lot more about Hae Min Lee

"I wanted to bring her to life because oftentimes the victim gets lost in these types of stories," Amy Berg told Digital Spy and other media. While Hae's family didn't want to take part in the filmed project – they believe that justice was delivered when Adnan was found guilty – the director made it clear that she wanted to include Hae in the narrative as best she could.

Berg spent a lot of time studying Hae's journal (which was entered into evidence) and speaking to her closest friends in order to get a sense of who she was.

A friend of the Lee family was also interviewed for the series, revealing the heartbreaking extent that Hae's untimely death affected them.

Episode one sets the scene of the high school that both Hae and Adnan attended as well as the area they lived in, while also bringing viewers up to speed with what occurred in the days that surrounded Hae's disappearance.

Hae kept her personal life and her home life very separate; her school friends, for example, do not recall being invited to socialise at her house.

Viewers also learned that she had confided in both Adnan and close friend Debbie about being sexually abused at some point in her past.

Adnan explained that "sometimes she would get upset" when recalling her time back in Korea, and that there was one instance where she started "weeping" as she told him about this experience.

"She was young girl" when it happened, Adnan said.

While this is not presented as having any baring on what happened to her in 1999, it does help build a picture of who Hae was.

The alleged mystery caller

The official line has long been that the Baltimore police department narrowed their attention to Adnan Syed because they received an anonymous tip-off.

It was at this point, it is claimed, that Hae's former boyfriend was treated as a main suspect.

In The Case Against Adnan Syed we hear from Detective Darryl Massey, who is the one who received the phone call. It was documented in the police report that this call came from an "Asian male" which, it goes without saying, is a broad description.

In the docu-series, however, Massey elaborates on this by stating that the caller was "probably Korean."

The lividity

Jay Wilds was the main witness for the prosecution. He alleged that Syed had told him he had murdered his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Jay also claimed that he had assisted Syed with burying the body in Leakin Park, after showing him the corpse in the back of Hae's car.

In The Case Against Adnan Syed, Rabia Chaudry argued that the description Jay gave of the body wouldn't have been consistent with the lividity evidence.

"Lividity is when blood pools to the lowest portion of a body after somebody dies. So if somebody dies and they're on their side for long enough, all of the blood will pool to that place. It will leave a dark purple blue-ish tint," she explained.

"Hae's lividity was symmetrical and fully frontal" which suggests that she was "lying flat on her face somewhere before she was moved to Linkin Park", Rabia added.

The post mortem examination report was featured in the documentary detailing this.

In the crime scene photograph of Hae's body, she was not laid out flat. Her position from the photo mirrored the description given by Jay.

The lividity evidence also undermines the state's timeline when it comes to when the Linkin Park burial occurred.

"I believe that she had to be in a place between eight to 12 hours," a forensic pathologist told the documentary's private investigators, citing a mark on Hae's collar bone that could have been caused by something of that shape pushing on her.

The grass under Hae Min Lee's car

In the photographs of Hae's car, The Case Against Adnan Syed's private investigators noted that the grass underneath the car looked "relatively fresh" compared to that which surrounded it.

The state argued that Adnan had put the car there, and it had therefore not been moved for six weeks before it was found as part of the original investigation.

To explore whether or not, based on analysis of the grass, this theory held up, the docu-series brought in a Turf Physiologist. The grass expert conducted an experiment by attempting to recreate the very same conditions with the same type of grass, to see whether the greenery was the same. In episode four, the grass expert said that his experiment was inconclusive in terms of the length of time that the car could have been there.

However, he argued that the grass present on the tires threw up some questions. The rain storms from that time of year would likely wash it away, as seen by the car next to it. What's more, the tracks in the grass looked "fresh", according to the Turf Physiologist.

Ultimately though, it was concluded by the private investigators that "it's tough to put this much weight on turf analysis" because there's "such little data" to work from.

The private investigators also spoke with a local resident, who had lived in the area for 45 years, who confirmed that the area had not been returfed. The woman also claimed that a car would not have been left there for that period of time without either herself or a neighbour calling it in – this, of course, could not be proven, but it does offer a different view point to the prosecution's argument.

Jay Wilds' ex girlfriend

Nikisha Horton, former girlfriend of Jay's, spoke in episode two and three of The Case Against Adnan Syed. She recalled a time that she claims her relationship became abusive and Jay "hit" her.

According to the police report, she alleged that he had been drinking. The photos of her facial bruises were also included in the episode. Horton also explained that, once the police arrived, there was an incident that resulted in Jay assaulting a law enforcement officer. Wilds was not prosecuted on any of these charges.

Nikisha explained that while Jay had told her that someone had been killed at his high school, she alleged that he brushed it off and did not go into any detail when it came to his part as an accessory after the fact. When the publicity around the case started to intensify in the years after Serial, Nikisha had wanted to know more.

Although she's barely in touch with him now, there was a phone call between Nikisha and Jay featured in the docu-series (although you could only hear her end of the conversation).

She told the filmmakers that she felt "sad for him" now that she knows his story and that, judging by their conversation, it has probably been "eating him up."

Kristi Vinson's school schedule

In episode three, Kristi Vinson was shown a planner of her classes from January 1999.

It was revealed that she was enrolled on a course which included evening classes, between 6pm and 9.10pm every Wednesday – including January 13, 1999, the day that Hae Min Lee disappeared.

This undermines the narrative of what happened that night. Kristi had said that Jay and Adnan came to her house on the evening of January 13. Both Jay and his friend Jen had shared the same story, and this played into the trial.

"I don't think I remembered the specific date," Kristi said in court, when questioned by Adnan's defence attorney.

In the docu-series, Kristi herself said that she couldn't have skipped the class, because otherwise she would not have passed. Kristi seemed quite troubled by the information, and she started questioning her own memories.

"I wish that I had a really clear recollection of the 13th and what happened," she said.

If Kristi did have the date wrong, then this could poke a hole in Jay's testimony and the phone evidence.

Later in the same episode, Jen heard back the audio from her police interview which stated that the only reason she believed that the events occurred on January 13 was because the detective had told her that she received corresponding calls on that day.

"That makes sense," she told the filmmakers.

But when she was shown Kristi's school schedule, she didn't know how to explain the conflict of the date.

"My story has never changed. I've told everybody the same thing, that I believed happened from day one," Jen said.

Jay Wilds' changing stories

It's long been discussed that there have been a number of inconsistencies in Jay's account of what occurred on that day.

Although he declined to take part in The Case Against Adnan Syed by way of a formal on-camera interview, Jay did speak with the filmmakers to discuss the case.

In episode four, we were told that Jay said Adnan had shown him Hae's body in the boot outside his home. He alleged to the documentary makers that the location of Best Buy came from the police.

Jay also told the filmmakers that Adnan had asked him to get 10 pounds of marijuana, and then threatened to turn him in if he didn't help bury Hae's body.

Chris Baskerville

Baskerville was part of Jay's story, but was never questioned by police.

Speaking in the documentary series, Chris said that "anything that I know is hearsay." He revealed that Jay had told him that Adnan had shown him Hae's body in the boot of the car outside of a pool hall.

This contradicts what Jay told his friend Jen, who was led to believe that this had happened outside of Best Buy.

Forensics and DNA evidence

According to Jay's story, Hae's body was put in the boot of the car. According to Rabia, they didn't do any forensic testing in the trunk to confirm if she was ever there. In fact, there was loads of DNA evidence that did not get analysed.

Later on, in episode four, Adnan Syed's lawyer said that he was hoping to try and get some items tested, putting particular emphasis on some fingernails which, he hoped, might hold some DNA from Hae's attacker if she had scratched or clawed.

At the end of the documentary, Justin Brown addressed the results of some testing.

"Until now, we haven't really had the opportunity to do DNA testing... There were 12 samples that were tested for DNA. Adnan's DNA was not found in the finger nails, wasn't found on any sample taken from inside of the car, wasn't found on any sample from Hae's body," he said.

"Adnan's DNA was not found anywhere."

What's more, he said, nobody else's DNA was identified either.

He revealed that a DNA profile was pulled from the rope near the body, but this did not match any profile already in the police database.

The Case Against Adnan Syed has raised even more questions. And we hope that, one day, we may get some answers.

The Case Against Adnan Syed is available to stream on NOW TV and Sky Atlantic.

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