Confessions of a Serial Alibi (10 page)

Did you call Kevin Urick?

Was it true what Kevin Urick said at the post-conviction hearing in 2010?

Are you sure that your memory of speaking to Adnan in the library is tied to literal snow?

Talk about kicking myself in the ass! If only I had asked Sarah about the audio recording. If only I had realized it was for “radio,” like she had stated in her email. If only I had entertained her offer to rerecord knowing that it was for more than her notation purposes. I could have thoroughly, clearly and concisely answered her questions and none of these crazy theories about my accuracy or motivations would even exist!

Finding Out About SERIAL

When SERIAL came out it was like someone dropped a bomb in my lap. It hit the airwaves and instantly became true crime crack for the masses. It had already been available one whole day by the time I found out about it. By then I was late to the party. The day it came screaming into my life, I was home alone with the kids. Out of the blue I started getting Facebook messages, texts and emails from friends across the country saying that I “was on the radio.” I knew I indeed had not been on the radio, let alone anything that would be nationwide, so I chalked it up to a case of mistaken identity. Then a close friend told me, “It’s you! I’m literally listening to your voice, right now, as we speak!” Then another friend said, “No…Internet radio. You’re on the radio on the Internet.” Instantly I was bewildered and excited. I had no clue until someone said “It’s about Adnan and Hae” and my stomach dropped. I panicked. I could feel my blood boiling. That Sarah Koenig had posted my interview! I knew she was up to no good! I immediately dropped everything and headed over to the serialpodcast.org website and there in big bold letters I saw the words “THE ALIBI” and I was mortified. As I hit play and began to listen my anger and anxiety began to grow. By the time I finished the first episode I was pacing around the house having a full-fledged shit-fit. “How could she have done this to me, I trusted her?!” I thought. “What a bitch!”

To this day, I have no idea how on earth I even made it through that episode without having a heart attack. I finished listening to episode one; all the while my phone kept blowing up with message notifications from friends. By the time I stopped listening the only thought I could muster was:
I need to call my husband and I need to call him right now!
Of course when I called Phillip I was in a state of frenzy. Between shouting out words like “interview,” “recording,” and “the Internet” I’m sure he thought I had lost my marbles. Finally, he yelled for me to calm down and start at the beginning. I reminded him of my call with Sarah Koenig earlier in the year and then I told him about SERIAL. Being the cool cucumber that he is, he told me to chill out, not to worry about it and that it would all eventually go away. I wanted to believe him, but I had this horrible feeling that it wouldn’t. As a matter of fact, I knew it wouldn’t because I was already hooked and wanted to listen to episode two.

After listening to episode two, I became so distraught. I decided that I didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to listen to anymore. Within the next two weeks I started hearing more and more about SERIAL. It was literally everywhere! As it grew, so did my stress level. After weeks of nicely suggesting to Phillip that he check it out with me, I started hinting to him that it was getting more popular. Every time I brought it up he downplayed my concern until finally one day I snapped and said, “
No!
You don’t understand! This shit is everywhere! You
need
to listen to this shit with me
right now
!” It sounded something like that scene from
I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.
You know, the one where Dawnn Lewis turns all exorcist and says she’s got cramps. If you don’t know what I’m talking about go Google it right now. I guarantee you it’s on YouTube and that you will find it hilarious.

In any case, with that one comment he knew I wasn’t messing around. We immediately sat down went to www.serialpodcast.org and pressed play (for episode one). At the end of the episode, I looked at him and the look on his face literally read “Holy shit!” “Play the next one,” he said with a menacing grin on his face. After that we spent the remainder of the day and late into the night (eight hours straight) listening to the entire podcast—everything except the final episode, which had not come out yet. Don’t ask me where my children were or what the hell they were doing during that time. We had been consumed by SERIAL.

After listening to the entire podcast, let’s just say I was not too happy with Sarah. Okay, scratch that. I was livid. I was mad about the content layout and the jokes at my expense. I was mad about its popularity and I blamed it all on Sarah Koenig. I blamed Sarah for unethically using my audio in the podcast. I blamed her for making me the lynchpin in the story. I yelled at her for making me sound like the bad guy, the villain. I even yelled at her for making my husband sound like a giant asshole (his words, not mine). Oh, I let her have it good!

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. Sarah kept her cool with me when I was being far less than friendly. Let’s just say she sternly put me in my place and reminded me of all the subtle details that I had overlooked: radio, NPR,
This American Life
, record in a sound studio for better audio quality. She reminded me that at any time I could have clarified things with her, but instead that I had decided to cease and desist all communications back in February. I had to give it to her. She was 100 percent correct. The breakdown in communication had been all my fault. The misconception of her intentions had been all my fault, so I apologized (many times). She forgave my anger, we chalked it up to semantics and it being a really bad misunderstanding and we moved on.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE RECOMMITMENT

When I spoke to Sarah Koenig in early 2014, I was told that Adnan’s legal team was under the impression that I was a hostile witness. I was told that the court’s decision was primarily based on Urick’s testimony, my husband’s comment to the investigator and my inability to appear in court. I was told that the Syed defense team was afraid that any further contact would come off as pressuring, especially since the prosecution was already accusing the Syed family of doing so before.

In their defense, I can completely understand why they thought that. Thanks to Urick I was under the impression that they were an exploitative group who would do anything to get an appeal. Because of Kevin Urick I saw Adnan as being 100 percent guilty and deserving of a lengthy prison stay. I didn’t want to contribute to some sleazy underhanded attempt to get a convicted murderer out of prison. However, when my husband and I listened to the Serial Podcast, we were both sickened. Although neither of us can make heads or tails of Adnan’s guilt, we both agreed that the podcast made it seem Adnan had not received a fair trial, especially considering that I had never been presented before the court. It made me sick to my stomach to know that a conversation with me had been discussed without my knowledge or consent, that a falsehood had been seen as fact. Not to mention the idea of that falsehood being used as the basis for denying Adnan’s appeal. Hell, anyone’s appeal. We instantly both agreed that we needed to make ourselves available to do whatever was needed to set the wrong right. Unfortunately, doing so was slightly more complicated than we anticipated.

Nightmares

When involved in a situation like this case, one expects a considerable amount of stress and tension. What you don’t expect are highly vivid nightmares. My best bet this that the contemplation of this case seeped so far into my brain that it had an equally strong hold on my subconscious mind. Unlike the conscious mind, there’s not really much anyone can do to control or stop those thoughts (besides waking up of course). I think it’s why these thoughts are often the most terrifying. In order to tell you about a time that shook me to my core, I’ll have to jump ahead a little bit.

The night of January 12th was a normal night by most standards. My husband and I had made dinner, gave our children a bath, read them a story and tucked them in for bed. After that, I took to spending quality time with my husband, while we watched a couple of our favorite television shows. The only thing outside of the norm that night was that I had also been working on finishing my final copy of my 2015 affidavit. After adding and editing its contents once again, I began to get sleepy. Curious about the time, I checked my phone and to my surprise it was past midnight. It was officially January 13th. “Great,” I thought. “Now I have to edit the stinkin’ date again.” So I flipped to the final page of my affidavit and proceeded to change the document date.

All of a sudden it dawned on me and I felt terrible. It was January 13th, the sixteen-year anniversary of the disappearance of Hae Min Lee. I remember feeling sad and noted how ironic it was for me to be finishing my affidavit on that very day. In any case, I finished up my affidavit, emailed it and took myself to bed. Unbeknownst to me as I lay in bed feeling drowsy, my husband had also fallen asleep, but on the couch. Soon after falling asleep myself, I felt my duvet cover slip away from the right side of my body. By that time, I assumed that my husband had made his way to bed and was once again stealing the covers (as he often does). In any right, I didn’t pay it much mind.

Slowly I felt the temperature change in my bedroom. Coupled with having no bed covering on me, the temperature change was only slightly noticeable enough that it lightly roused me from my sleep. Half awake, I lay there and became more and more aware of my body’s own presence. I could feel myself lying flat on my back and feeling an enormous weight holding me down. I then realized that I could see around my bedroom and therefore assumed that I was no longer asleep. I looked up towards my bedroom ceiling fan and there I saw a sight that felt like it made my hair turn white. There, floating in midair, about four feet directly above me, was Hae Min Lee. Absolutely scared shitless I tried even harder to move my body but could not. I was literally frozen into place. As I felt my heart pounding in my chest and my breath shortening, it became completely evident to me that I was having a full-fledged panic attack. Unable to do anything else, I stared at the apparition, wide-eyed and full of fear. As I looked up at her I began to notice that she looked exactly as I remembered her in high school and that she was floating in an odd manner. She was adorned with a long white dress that appeared to be gently drifting in an abyss of invisible water. You could tell that her skin was ceramic china white, however there was an overall shade of light blue to her skin and dress. Her hair was black as onyx and her eyes dark as coal.

As I continued to stare at her, she reached out her hand to me. Being that I was restrained and full of fright, we were unable to touch. I noticed a sort of sadness about her, as if she was not at rest. In that moment I sensed that she was trying to speak to me, but no words left her mouth. It felt as if she were trying to tell me something, but could not. I don’t know how I know this, but it felt as if she was trying to tell me who killed her. As my emotions and adrenaline continued to run high, my body went into supreme panic attack mode. Just when I thought my heart would explode, I suddenly broke the confines of my supernatural restraints and jolted myself back into what I can only perceive as reality. Hae was gone and nothing except my overhead ceiling fan remained turning. I immediately went to reach for my husband, only to realize that he had indeed fallen asleep on the couch. Feeling some comfort in the fact that I was alone, I settled back into a calmer mood. Nevertheless, I was unable to return back to sleep for several hours. To this day, I’m not sure if I was dreaming or not. To this day I can’t shake the feeling that I may have seen my first and only ghost.

Who Helped and Who Didn’t

After I heard Kevin Urick’s post-conviction testimony on the podcast I knew immediately that I needed to reach out to someone. The problem was once again that I was unsure of whom. Both Sarah Koenig and Justin Brown were possibly good starts, however I was extremely concerned with what to say to either one of them. By this time, it was December of 2014; the podcast was wrapping up. It was only days away from airing its final episode. On a whim, I decided it best to randomly call Sarah from my blocked cell number (as I am now famous for doing). I tend to call Sarah this way a lot, as she will tell you. I don’t know, is that paranoid or smart?

It’s weird now to think that my first instinct was to call Sarah. I don’t know her well enough to consider her a friend, but I do consider us to have a weird kinship. Hearing Urick’s testimony made me feel sucker-punched and bewildered. My opinion was that it was bullshit, my husband’s opinion was also that it was bullshit and I just wanted to reach out to someone else who would also would see it as bullshit. For whatever reason, I felt like Sarah was that person at the time.

During the call, I could tell that Sarah wanted to know my thoughts about Urick’s testimony, specifically, if I thought Urick had been in violation of prosecutorial misconduct. I told her my thoughts and naturally she wanted to know if she could include this new development in the final episode of SERIAL. I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I asked her to first let me seek out an attorney for advice on the matter. I tried over a two-day period to seek legal advice on the matter but it was to no avail. Once again no west coast attorney could advise me on the ins and outs of Maryland law and no Maryland attorney would even call me back. Just trying to explain the situation to an attorney felt trivial and silly. There was such an extensive back-story that needed to be told every time. As the days passed I got even more desperate. I once again tried reaching out to my grandfather’s attorney, but the advice that I got from his assistant (mind you) was neither reassuring nor was it in the vicinity of being relevant to my situation. I can only assume it’s because they weren’t familiar with the case (at all) and were not familiar with the podcast at the time.

As you can imagine, I was pretty irritable and stressed about what I should do at that point. Aside from Phillip, I didn’t feel like anyone truly had my back. I felt alone and I wanted to get the truth out to both the court and the public. I was unsure of the best course of action and had no one to advise me other than an overzealous journalist. That’s not meant to be a dig toward Sarah at all. I like Sarah, but at the end of the day let’s keep it real. She’s a professional journalist and SERIAL is her brainchild. I’m not a lawyer and things were already like a geyser beyond my control. I didn’t want to make matters worse by doing something stupid, once again. My inability to find legal advice back in 2010 was the primary reason I was in this predicament with Sarah. The thought of repeating the same mistake was causing me to become even more paranoid. I worried about the effects of exposing myself directly to the prosecution, the defense and the public. I later contacted Sarah back and it was becoming apparent that she really wanted to include “the update” in the final episode of the SERIAL podcast. She was very polite and respectful with her request, but I could tell that she was chomping at the bit to get my approval. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and say screw it, but something just wouldn’t settle in my spirit. I just couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of granting her full authority like that. I therefore declined her offer to address my feelings in the last episode of the podcast. I did however grant her permission to say that we had recently spoken and that I was continuing to stick by my original affidavit.

After the final episode, my lack of legal representation once again came up in conversation. Sarah came through with the save and offered to help me locate an attorney. After much consideration, I gave Sarah my authorization. I inquired about the attorney’s affiliation to the SERIAL team and allowed Sarah to set up a time for me to call the attorney. When the time came, I once again blocked my cell number and proceeded to call. By the time my call connected, I received the office’s voicemail because unbeknownst to me, Larry (the attorney) was on the other line. I left a message and emailed Sarah about this unfortunate turn of events. She immediately offered up another attorney’s contact info. By the time she did so, I was already back on the phone with Larry (the first attorney).

During my conversation with Larry, I found out two things. Number one: Larry was not offering to work pro bono (free). Number two: Larry was not cheap. I was advised not to speak to any media and learned that Larry’s services would require a $1,500 retainer along with ongoing hourly rates. “Holy shit!” I thought. “I’m not the one on trial for murder.” This understandably floored me. Call me naive but I could not fathom paying that kind of money when I was not the one accused of committing a crime. The idea of shelling out that kind of dough on an attorney would have meant some significant budgetary constraints on my family. It also seemed ludicrous that I would need to incur such a heavy cost in order to receive legal advice, for merely stepping up to do the right thing. Before my conversation ended with Larry, I was already over Larry and feared that I would now be entering the media circus alone. Of course I had not seen Sarah’s other message, so I had not realized that Sarah had already recommended another attorney.

Not knowing that this was the case, I had already conceded to going into the situation unprotected. I picked up my phone, once again blocked my number and called Justin Brown. It took less than one minute for Justin to advise me to seek my own counsel. He was polite about it. I knew that it wasn’t so much that he didn’t care about me; rather he cared about protecting his client and his case. I knew that I was not his priority and therefore could not expect him to have my best interest at heart. Sounds messed up, but it’s the truth. I told Justin about my conversation with the attorney and he responded by telling me that Larry was one of the best lawyers in the state. I laughed because while Justin spoke about Larry’s talent, all I could recall was the “screw you, pay me” attitude that I had received from Larry on the phone call.

Coincidentally during my call with Justin, I noticed Sarah’s message about the second attorney. It was about a guy named Gary Proctor. However serendipitous, Justin mentioned that he was familiar with Gary’s work—that he was a good attorney and perhaps he would do the work for less than Larry. I ended my call with Justin and immediately proceeded to call the man who would soon become my saving grace, Gary Proctor.

The first time I talked to Gary, I knew that he was the right attorney for me. He’s extremely funny, easy to talk to and down to earth. He doesn’t over complicate things and he gives you his advice straight. I was told before speaking with him that Gary is a “true Irishman” and as such has a pretty candid personality and sense of humor. In any case, I like Gary’s personality. If we lived closer to one another, I could see my husband and I having dinner with Gary and his wife pretty often.

After speaking with me Gary got on the phone and received a case update from Justin Brown. Gary then introduced me to another associate that he works with named Ali and we began laying a strategy down for my recommitment to disseminating the truth. Gary basically told me that he was there for my benefit, that he had my back. He said that I could participate as much or little as I wanted, or not at all. He explained that he had no allegiance to any party other than mine. Before the call ended Gary stressed the importance of our client/attorney privilege. We discussed his retainer cost and fees. We also discussed me staying above the social media buzz surrounding the podcast and case and what to do if anyone tried to reach out to me directly. All in all, it felt extremely comforting to know that I had my own personal “pit bull” attorney in the event that things were about to get complicated. It took no time at all for me to feel comfortable with providing Gary my contact information. Ironically Gary had no desire to know my current last name or home address. He said it wasn’t currently important and that we could address “that stuff” if it ever became important. The best thing about Gary is that he’s cool with me texting him. Gary lets me text him with questions and he responds in turn. We text each other jokes and new case developments, along with everything else under the sun. I’ve texted Gary pictures of my kids playing and occasionally he will text me just to “check in.” I now know Gary well enough to consider him a friend in addition to my attorney.