You Can't Handle The Truth

Sorry to be so accusatory with the title to this post, but, you know, a movie quote is a movie quote.

23 days ago, my friend Cynthia mentioned Serial to me.

21 days ago, I got hooked and listened to all 12 podcast episodes consecutively.

Then for the next 21 days, I've found a way to wiggle a mention of Adnan Syed into nearly every conversation to panhandle for thoughts and theories.

The one thing we can all agree on is that there wasn't enough evidence in the case to convict anyone of murder, but as far as who actually committed the crime, there are only two plausible scenarios in my mind:

1. Adnan did it and continues to deny it.
2. Jay did it, and Jenn helped cover it up.

I just can't wrap my head around the absurd idea of there being a 3rd party serial killer involved... that Jay also somehow knew/witnessed and is scared to death of.

But the crux of the matter is, to put it simply, we can't handle the truth.  And the truth is, we will never truly know what happened to Hae Min Lee.

This shred of human nature also brought the downfall of Adnan Syed at trial.  The victim's family, the jurors, the prosecutor, the police, they all needed someone to blame for such a tragedy, and when nobody else presented himself as a viable suspect, they started thinking (as I have myself, many times), "if not Adnan, then who else?"

And from that point forward, call it bias or cynicism, but it was easy to take the (lack of) evidence and manipulate it to be used against Adnan.  "How could he not remember that day at all?" they thought, when in actuality, if we are under the assumption that he is innocent, how many of us could remember details of a "normal day" 6+ weeks in our past?

At this point, I'm not sure what the next course of action is.  Obviously, if Adnan is actually guilty, I'd rather the system "fail" than let a murderer go free.  But on the other hand, if he is in fact innocent (which I'm currently inclined to lean towards after reading Rabia's blog), then hopefully more can emerge out of this hoopla than a few months of rabid entertainment for us wannabe detectives everywhere.