I am, at this very moment, debating the wisdom of creating this post and putting it out there for the world to read. Reasons: it’s none of my concern, and I’m not a sleuth of any sort. I’m just your average citizen who happens to enjoy watching detective procedurals and speculating about a few true crime stories. I don’t have a Reddit account, for example, and have never been involved in online sleuthing. I can’t even say that I follow true crime in the news. But, once in a rare blue moon a story grabs me. The last one was probably the Laci Peterson murder nearly 20 years ago. In the last two weeks, I became exposed to the story of a murder that took place in January 1999. Someone dear to me suggested I check out a podcast and YouTube channel that posts weekly on true crime stories, and so I did. After two separate stories about unsolved murders, I then began listening to the many consecutive episodes about one murder in particular: the Hae Min Lee murder. A man went to prison for this crime 22 years ago and very recently he was released. The charges against him were withdrawn because the police that had been so certain of his guilt reviewed the case and found they could not be certain anymore. New evidence had come to light and Hae’s murder is now considered unsolved (although I’m sure that’s just temporary).
What this post will not be is a synopsis of that story, details of it are all over the Internet. What it will be is my very simple alternative hypothesis as to who could have murdered Hae and why. I would like to emphasize that everything I’m about to say is purely my own opinion and is not based on anything more than speculation about the events as I know them, through second hand sources. I do not know any of the people involved and easily a great many facts exist that I have no way of knowing, facts that could debunk my hypothesis.
If you have been following the murder of Hae Min Lee, then you are no doubt as deeply affected by this tragic story as I am. As a mother of two daughters, her death represents my worst nightmare. My heart goes out to Hae’s family. I can’t begin to imagine how horrible this is for them and they have my deepest sympathies.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been haunted by two songs: These Are The Days of Our Lives, by Queen; and Set Fire to the Rain, by Adele. Neither song could mean anything to Hae, but both songs seem to reflect aspects of her life prior to that terrible day in 1999. For my own peace of mind, I want to speculate on the events of that day without any focus on the then-teenager, Adnan Syed, who was convicted and sentenced to life for Hae’s murder. And instead offer this alternative hypothesis.
On or about January 1, 1999, Hae, who had been 18 at the time, had begun dating a co-worker who was 22. I only know his name to be Don. Don was ruled out by police soon after Hae disappeared because he had an alibi (confirmed by his mother) that placed him at work during the time frame they believed Hae was murdered. A little more than three and a half weeks following her disappearance, a man discovered Hae’s body in a shallow grave in a wooded area known as Leakin Park. (I can’t count the number of times I misheard this as Lincoln Park.) Three days later an anonymous tipster told police to look into Hae’s former boyfriend, Adnan, and this tip became the focal point of the investigation which led ultimately to the conviction. The framework of the investigation was built around the testimony of a drug dealer who was an acquaintance of Adnan: Jay Wilds. There are many people out there who think Jay was the actual murderer because he knew details that only a person involved could know and he confessed to assisting in burying her body. The deal he made with police was he would lead them to the killer if he could have a reduced sentence – he was given two years as an accessory but served zero time in jail. And I do not dispute that Jay was an accessory. Indeed, for a short time I also thought he was guilty of Hae’s murder. I just can’t work out the motive.
Jay’s testimony, albeit contradictory and mostly unsubstantiated, convinced police that Hae was murdered in a very narrow window of time: between the time she left the school campus that day, shortly after 2:15 pm, and 2:36 pm (the exact time Jay receives a call purportedly from Adnan). This timeline is fraught with problems, namely the cell phone data (reminder, this is 1999 when cell phones weren’t as sophisticated as today’s smartphones) which doesn’t match Jay’s various and conflicting testimonies, and the cell tower data only muddied the waters.
You might, at this point, stop me and say ‘hey, Lese, aren’t you leaving out some critical factoids?’ Yes, I am because those actually would cause you to look at Adnan and I don’t want to do that. Instead, I want you to look at Jay, minus his dependence on Adnan’s car and phone.
Jay got his information from somewhere, right? If he isn’t the murderer then he remains the self-admitted accessory. So right now, let’s just continue with Jay being the accessory.
And, I want you to follow me as I look at Hae.
The two different podcast/You Tube sources that I listened to afforded me a unique opportunity to listen to Hae’s own words, starting in 1998 in the form of her personal diary. While I’m deeply offended that something never meant to be shared publicly was subsequently shared with the world, I’m thankful that we were given a chance to get to know her. I found her to be very intelligent, kind, accomplished, serious, and dedicated to not only her life as a student but to her family. Dutiful doesn’t even half describe how seriously she took her responsibilities. But she was also a teenager and had normal teenager thoughts, ideas, spontaneity and a sense of fun.
On the heels of her painful December break up with Adnan, Hae turned her eyes to co-worker, Don. I must have a mental block on the couple of weeks they were an item, or she didn’t write a great lot of detail about him, or she did and the podcaster didn’t spend a lot of time reading it. Whatever the case may be, I am aware that she fell “in love” with Don in a short space of time. On January 12, the day before she went missing, she was up late on the phone with him and she doodled in her diary about it. She wanted to play hookie, but Don talked her out of it. They planned to have a date the next night, after Hae got off work. They worked at the same Lenscrafters location at Owings Hill Mall, but on January 13, she was scheduled to work from (I think) 6pm to 10pm, and he was going to work normal 9-5 hours (ish) at a different store. I don’t know if he told her he was going to work at the other store, but it’s my hypothesis that she did know.
She had a very busy school day on January 13, with early classes, and a news channel interview about her athletics award, etc. The kink in her dating and work plans came when Hae learned from a fellow student that she was needed that night at a wrestling match (she was manager and score keeper). Hae either forgot about the match or it was impromptu. Either way, Hae showed evidence of worrying about her plans with Don, especially at lunch. She was also going to miss work, something I think she had not done before. At 2:15 pm, after her last class (which she shared with Adnan, by the way) Hae rushed to her car, and at least one witness testified she said she had to hurry to meet Don. (Debbie testified Hae planned to meet Don after school.) She further rushed through the concession stand line to grab a snack (not even having enough time to pay) and I believe she also told another witness that she was in a mad rush to meet her boyfriend and had to pick up her little cousin, and maybe the same witness said she would miss the bus that would be going to the match – so she would drive herself.
Desperate to meet Don while fulfilling her obligations, I can just envision Hae waiting impatiently at each and every stop light, counting the seconds anxiously.
I firmly believe that Hae knew Don was working at the other Lenscrafters, which was located in what was then known as Hunt Valley Mall. Nowadays it’s called Hunt Valley Town Centre. That location was approximately a 15-20 minute freeway drive from the Woodlawn High School, where Hae attended. She would not have been able to call Don at work because she didn’t have a mobile phone (nor much money as evidenced by a bank statement shown on one of the episodes). She probably calculated that if she drove fast, she could make it there … quickly tell Don that their plans would be aborted … and still have time to get to her cousin’s school (Campfield) by 3:15 pm. Round trip was less than 35 miles at freeway speeds. But, when Hae reached Lenscrafters, Don either couldn’t immediately visit with her or asked her to wait. Short on time, she wrote him a cheery, upbeat note on lined notebook paper: ‘Hey sweetie, sorry I couldn’t stay …” and she outlined how she had this game at Randallstown, etc., and said she would call him when she got home. She also promised him a recording of the news channel interview from that morning.
I believe Hae either left the note for Don at his work or on his car. Police never questioned his co-workers, so I am free to speculate. While it is true that no witness came forward saying they saw Hae in the store that day, police also never looked for any surveillance footage at the location.
I believe that Hae was still in the parking lot, probably walking to her car when Don read the note and rushed to catch up to her. I don’t think he believed her story about the game. Did he suspect maybe she was still into Adnan? I think he became angry. I peg him as having a short fuse (based on some employment records shown on an episode.) I think they argued and that he may have struck or grabbed her. I think that Hae tried to leave but Don climbed into her car in an attempt to stop her. And maybe he stopped her in a way he never intended.
Somehow the note that Hae wrote to Don ended up in the backseat, or the trunk (I can’t remember which). I don’t know if it was ever tested for fingerprints (surely it was, but I can’t readily find reference to it.)
I speculate that Don, at this point, reached out to Jay. Hae probably already told Don that her best friend, Stephanie, was dating a drug dealer. And maybe she even told him how angry she had been when she found out that Jay cheated on Stephanie, and Adnan covered for him. I believe Don knew who Jay was. Maybe he found contact information in Hae’s pager. Maybe she had an address book in her purse.
I know that Jay had a phone but I don’t know if it was only a landline. (There is a call from Adnan to Jay once on January 13). I speculate that he probably had some kind of phone or pager because he was a self-proclaimed drug dealer running a drug business out of his grandmother’s house. How else would clientele reach him? I imagine that Don would have used Jay the very same way Jay claims Adnan did: you’re a drug dealer, you know how to get rid of bodies, help me or else. Make it go away. It took nearly a month for the anonymous tipster to lead police to Adnan, right after news broke about her body being found.
And the rest we know from Jay, from the trunk pop to burying the body in the woods. All the crazy, ever shifting stories of Adnan, just stirring up the mud, drawing attention away from Don. I can hear one solitary voice out there who says, ‘wow, it was really risky to blame it on someone who easily could have had a solid alibi.’ Yeah, it was risky for sure. But, Jay played his role very well. He looped in a co-conspirator (Jenn), had her witness getting rid of the vast majority of the evidence – including Hae’s pager (which Adnan did not call) and his own clothing (but not Adnan’s). He even got Adnan so drugged after track practice that he could barely remember which end was up.
Except Jay left Hae’s shoes in her car. Why are the shoes significant? Because Jay told the police that Hae struggled and kicked while being strangled. The cops didn’t test the shoes back in the day, so maybe they didn’t test the note either.
2022 is a different story. All I can do is wait for the news to break to see whose DNA was on the shoes.
Edited 29-Dec-2022 for clarity.
For more on Adnan Syed go here. http://KSL.com
Caffe M~path 