In 2014, Serial, the spinoff podcast from This American Life examining the murder of 19-year-old Hae Min Lee, became the most downloaded podcast of all time. For millions of listeners, it brought the medium into popular consciousness—and contributed to a wave of shows reinvestigating true crimes, both podcasts and otherwise. But today, it effected the ultimate change: Adnan Syed, the Serial subject convicted of murder in 2000 and currently serving a life sentence, is getting a new trial.
As host Sarah Koenig explored in the first season of Serial, the case against Syed had several big inconsistencies—most notably, a dubious method of locating phone calls from a cell tower, and the omission of a crucial alibi witness—which Syed’s lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, didn’t utilize in the trial. Her defense of Syed didn’t cause sufficient doubt about his guilt to the 12 jurors—but Koenig’s reexamination of the case led millions of listeners to question whether he did it.
After the success of the first season of Serial, Rabia Chaudry, a friend of the Syed family, started a spinoff podcast, Undisclosed, which probes further into Lee's death and Syed's conviction. Undisclosed's investigation included the discovery of a fax about the reliability of that cell phone tower data from 2000, which contributed to retired Baltimore judge Martin Welch granting Syed a new trial today. (Listeners can follow the hearings that lead to Welch's decision in the extra episodes of Serial here.) Podcasts have gone beyond changing how listeners see the criminal justice system—today, they actually changed a case within it.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
