Episode 4: Inconsistencies
Serial Podcast
This transcript is annotated! Click on the highlights to read what others are saying. If you'd like to add your own insights, comments, or questions to a specific line, highlight the relevant text and click on the button that pops up.

Ira Glass

Previously, on Serial...

     Male Voice
     While you're digging in Leakin Park to bury your body, you're going to find somebody else's. 	That's Leakin Park.

     City Surveyor Buddemeyer
     I walked along the edge of the log expecting to find a body real soon. I never saw one.

     Saad Chaudry
     Leakin Park. I'm like where is that? Do you even know where it is? Have you ever been there?

     Jay
     --went shopping with a friend of mine-- an ex-friend of mine, Adnan.

     Adnan Syed
     You know, it was not abnormal for me to leave school to go do something and then come back.
Automated voice
This is a Global-Tel link prepaid call from Adnan Syed an inmate at a Maryland Correctional facility…

Sarah Koenig
From This American Life and WBEZ Chicago, it's Serial. One story told week by week. I'm Sarah Koenig. Remember how last time I ended by saying that the detectives had other leads in this case besides Mr. S, the guy who found Hae's body, that they were also starting to look at Adnan? Well, the reason we know that is because of this memo:

The memo is dated 12 February 1999. It's from Detective Darryl Massey to Detective Greg MacGillivary.

Sarah Koenig
This memo he's talking about is regarding an anonymous call. That's Detective Ritz on the witness stand at trial. He's talking about how they got this anonymous call three days after Hae's body was found. The call came in to Detective Massey, a Baltimore county cop. The call must have an accent of some kind because Massey's reports describes him as an “Asian Male 18 to 21 years old,” though its unclear whether Asian in this case means East Asian like Korean or South Asian like Pakistani. But anyway, a mystery caller says look at the ex-boyfriend.

     Detective Ritz
     The caller further advised that the boyfriend has taken to the, the victim to Leakin park on past occasions for sexual encounters. Prior to concluding the phone interview, the caller further stated that the victim broke off the relationship with her boyfriend about a week before she was reported missing.

Sarah Koenig
The caller hangs up. Then, a few minutes later, the same guy calls back and says, “oh yeah, by the way...”

     Detective Ritz
     This time the caller remembered about a year ago the suspect informed a friend of his (Vasser 	Ali – Asian Male – 17) “if he ever hurt his girlfriend, he would drive her car into a lake.”

Sarah Koenig
This time the caller mentions a friend of Adnan's, Vasser Ali. Actually, the name of this friend is Yasser Ali. The caller says Yasser might know something. Hangs up again. The cops can't trace the call. It's out of range. Three days after the anonymous call, the detectives go meet with Yasser Ali at a Pizza Hut. Yasser says “I didn't make that call. I don't know anything.” Their notes from that conversation say “If Adnan wanted to get rid of the car, where would he do so?” Ali indicated, “somewhere in the woods, possibly in Centennial Lake or the inner harbor.” No one has ever gotten to the bottom of who made this anonymous call. The cops didn't figure it out. Adnan's attorney didn't figure it out. I've tried to figure it out too. For a while, I couldn't let it go. Because it seemed to me whoever made this call, he must be the key to the whole thing. But so far, I only have guesses that I can't responsibly say out loud.

Anyway, the day after the pizza hut talk, on February 16, the detectives do some paperwork that will ultimately crack the whole case open for them. They get a subpoena for Adnan's cell phone records. The results of that subpoena include a list of all the calls dialed and received on Adnan's phone on January 13, the day Hae disappeared. That list will become arguably the most important piece of paper among all the thousands in this case. It'll become their map. And they'll follow it call by call by call, like footprints that end up at Adnan's front door.

If you look at that call log from January 13, there are thirty four calls that day. Obviously, the first thing they had to do was figure out who all the phone numbers belong to. Home, cell, and pager numbers. Once they do, they realize, “wait a minute. One person was called six times that day. Much more often than anyone else.” That person is an eighteen year old girl named Jennifer Pusateri. Jenn is not a friend of Adnan's. She's a friend of Jay's. Remember, Jay had Adnan's car that day and his new cell phone.
     Jennifer Pusateri
     He says "Jenn, you gotta swear you won't tell nobody what I'm about to tell you."

Sarah Koenig
That's Jenn talking to detectives about the night of January 13.

     Jennifer Pusateri
     And I was like alright. He's like, but I gotta tell you. I gotta tell somebody. I can't, you know. And I was like alright – what's up dude? He's like, um, Adnan killed Hae. And that's when I was just like – whoa – what do you mean Adnan killed Hae? Why? What? How? When? Where? You know?

Sarah Koenig
If you want to figure out this case with me, now is the time to start paying close attention because we have arrived, along with the detectives, at the heart of the thing. This interview with Jenn happens on February 27, 1999. The day before, on the 26th, the cops had gone to find Jenn at her house. They explained they'd like her to come downtown to talk. Jenn is thoroughly wigged out. She says she can't right now, she's busy, maybe later. Then Jenn and a friend go see Jay. He's at work at a video store. She tells Jay, “the police want to talk to me. What do I do?” At trial, Jenn says, “he told me to go down there and tell them what I knew. Tell them enough to keep me out of trouble and tell them to go see Jay. Send them his way.”

So Jenn go down to see the cops later that night and she lies to them. She says she doesn't know anything. I've seen the detectives notes from that interview and they're remarkably uninteresting. But by the time she left that night, Jenn thought it was possible she was about to get charged. At trial, she said that last thing that Detective MacGillivary said to her that night was “everyone's a suspect and no one's a suspect.” So the next day she goes back to the detectives. This time she's got reinforcements. She's got an attorney with her, plus her mom.

They turn on a tape recorder – who, what, where, when, why.

     Detective
     You asked why – what did he say?

     Jennifer Pusateri
     Um, he said that Adnan said that Hae broke his heart.

     Detective
     Did he say anything else?

     Jennifer Pusateri
     No.
     Detective
     When you asked how – what did he say?

     Jennifer Pusateri
     He said that he strangled her.

Sarah Koenig
So, Jenn gives them a motive. Hae broke Adnan's heart – and method, he strangled her – which of course they already knew. But then Jenn's information gets a little muddier.

     Detective
     Did you ask him where it happened?

     Jennifer Pusateri
     He told me, um, he told me, this is what he told me, he told me, he asked, Jay asked me what we should do? He said “do you think we should go the police now and tell 'em right now?” And I said “I dunno.” I said “what was your involvement? Were you involved?” And he said no. He said “Adnan showed me her body and asked me if I would help her bury him...er bury...I would help him bury her body.” And I said, “what did you do? Did you help him? Do you know where the body is?” “No. I just took him to some place in the city and I dropped him off. And I took him to a..then I went down picked him up from a different place in the city”....and I don't remember where they said they went. I said “how did he do this? You know, when, you know, when was this done?” He didn't know when.

     Detective
     What'd he say?

     Jennifer Pusateri
     Yeah, he said that he strangled her in a Best Buy parking lot. But I don't know how he got to a Best Buy parking lot or anything like that.

Sarah Koenig
Jay has told her I saw the body in the trunk of a car. Adnan asked me to help bury her but I didn't – I refused. I took him some place and later picked him up some place – at some chick's house – and he tells her that all this went down at the Best Buy parking lot, off Security Boulevard about a mile from Woodlawn Highschool.

Jay and Jenn were close friends at this time, winter of ‘99 – talking or hanging out almost everyday. They'd known each other since elementary school and they were in the same class at Woodlawn. They graduated the year before in ‘98. Now Jenn was a freshman at UMBC, University of Maryland Baltimore County. She's studying biochemistry. She's in a sorority. When Hae disappeared, Jenn was on winter break. She's working part-time as a life guard. And Jay was also working. One of his jobs was at F&M, a discount store.

Jenn said on January 13, she and Jay had been hanging out earlier in the afternoon at her house after she got home from work. Then Jenn says Jay left her house sometime between 3:45 and 4:15. They planned to meet later that evening. But then Jenn had gotten a message Jay was running late. He wanted her to pick him up in the parking lot of Westview mall, around eight p.m. She goes there and she sees them together. She sees Jay get out of Adnan's car. Adnan says hi to her. She says he seems to be acting normal.

Jay gets in her car and that's when he tells her about the murder. After they'd driven a little ways, Jay mentions shovels. The shovels Adnan had used to dig in the park to bury Hae – that they were Jay's shovels from his house.

     Jennifer Pusateri
     Jay mentioned to me that he knew where Adnan dumped the shovel or shovels. I don't know how many there were – but he mentioned to me that he know that where Adnan put the shovels.

Sarah Koenig
Jenn tells them she drives Jay back to Westview Mall to the dumpsters back there so that Jay can retrieve the shovels and wipe the handles clean in case of fingerprints.

     Jennifer Pusateri
     After that, Jay came back, got in my car, and he was really shooken up. He was completely shooken up. He was like you have to take me to go see my girlfriend now.

Sarah Koenig
The next day Jenn says she drove Jay to the F&M store, that same one where he worked, so that he could throw out the clothes and boots he was wearing the previous night. He pitched them into a dumpster behind the store. One of the cops points out that, for a guy who's telling you he didn't kill anyone and didn't help dispose of a body, he sure is taking a lot of precautions. He clarifies, “Jay wasn't along when the body was buried.”

     Detective
     Jay wasn't along when the body was buried?

     Jennifer Pusateri
     In my opinion, no. In my understanding –

     Detective
     – But he's thrown away all of his clothes and he's wiping finger prints off the shovels, things of that nature--

     Jennifer Pusateri
     Yeah. Well. It wasn't until today that I thought, I mean, I just don't think that Jay...I don't think that Jay would lie to me, first of all, and, like, I don't know – unless Adnan paid Jay a good sum of money, I really don't see Jay helping him.

Sarah Koenig

Finally, the cop asks, were Adnan and Jay best friends? And Jenn says, “Oh no. More like casual acquaintances.”

Once the detectives talk to Jenn, everything happens very fast. That same night the detectives go get Jay at the video store where he works. It's actually a porn video store, which, come trial, Adnan's attorney will stress with relish at every opportunity. Anyway, the cops bring him down to homicide. By the time they turn on the tape recorder, it's one thirty in the morning on February 28.

     Jay
     I am willing to answer questions and I do not want an attorney at this time. My decision to answer questions--

Sarah Koenig
So they get Jay in the interview room and, initially, he pulls a Jenn. He tells them nothing, more or less. He says he walked to the mall that day, got his girlfriend a new bracelet for her birthday, hung around with Jenn's younger brother, talked to Adnan sometime in the afternoon, and then, after two pages of notes like that, it says, “Alright, I come clean.”

At least, that's what I think it says. The detective's handwriting is messy so maybe it says, “A bright eye came down.” In any case, around twenty minutes later they start taping and Jay tells them a whole different story, one that more or less matches Jenn's – except for one major difference. One major piece of information about this crime that the cops are still missing. They do not know where Hae's car is. They've been looking all over the place for it. They can't find it. Now, Jay tells them he knows where it is.

     Detective Bill Ritz
     Um, before and during the interview prior to turning the tape on, you stated to Detective MacGillivary and myself that you'd be willing to take us out and show us where the vehicle was parked.

     Jay
     No problem.

     Detective Bill Ritz

     Uh, are you still willing to do that?

     Jay
     Yeah.

Sarah Koenig
So that's huge for them. Jay will take them to the car. And he does. Once they're finished at headquarters, they all drive out in the middle of the night to where the car is parked, on a grassy hill behind some row houses off Edmondson Avenue. Within a few hours, they'll have a warrant for Adnan's arrest.

     Adnan Syed
     They said some-something like “we know what you and Jay did” or “we talked to Jay”-- and I'm like “Jay? Jay--” like I had a look of puzzlement on my face – like, like “what? What do you mean? Like what do you mean Jay?”

Sarah Koenig
Adnan, of course, says Jay's story isn't true, but he says he doesn't know why Jay would lie either. He says when he first heard Ritz and MacGillivary mention Jay's name in connection with his own arrest, he was just confused.

     Adnan Syed
     And then the same guy, MacGillivary, he kinda like snorted – like – hmph, you know what we're talking about. No I mean, I had, I had no idea and the reaction that he gave me was like stop playing dumb.

Sarah Koenig
It's not like there was some secret feud between Jay and Adnan, at least not that I know of. There was no drug deal gone wrong. Neither had bad mouthed the other or stolen the other's girlfriend. To hear Adnan tell it, it sounds like they didn't even know each other very well. When I first asked him what their friendship was like – what Jay was like as a person – Adnan really had to reach. He was like, “umm Jay worked. He wasn't that into sports.”

     Adnan Syed
     Okay, I knew he generally kinda listened to like – uh I wouldn't say white people music – but he like listened to like, like rock and roll – things like that. Like, uh uh, heavy metal. Um, I like I guess you know uh I can't really um I just, you know, like uh, I can't – to be honest with you – I couldn't even really recall like a huge long conversation that we ever had other than like a specific subject. If he was asking me something about Stephanie or something like where we were gonna go. We're hanging out but we wouldn't necessarily be kicking it per se, right?

Sarah Koenig
“We wouldn't necessarily be kicking it per se,” is Adnan speak for “Yes, we smoked weed together but we weren't close.” However, Adnan was close with Stephanie, Jay's girlfriend – very close. And Adnan says that's the only thing he can think of now that might have turned Jay against him. Stephanie was smart, she was top athlete at the school, she was beautiful by any standard. She looked like a model. She came from a family of achievers who did not approve of Jay but had no problem with Adnan. So maybe Stephanie's relationship with Adnan – how affectionate they were with each other, the constant talking on the phone, the prom prince and princess stuff – maybe that was gnawing at Jay.

     Adnan Syed
     I don't know – I'm thinking maybe Christina said it or someone said it –

Sarah Koenig
Christina was Adnan's lawyer.

     Adnan Syed
     Like, you know, when I was talking about how close I was with Stephanie, and they were like, you know, and you never – like, she looked at me like I was an idiot – like you never thought that this bothered Jay? I was like no I never, you know, my relationship, you know, we were just friends. That was kinda like an “aha” moment where I was like huh. Then it kinda like, now I'm think about all the things you know that took place between us and it just kinda like started to make a little bit of sense like maybe he was you know mad at me because I went through my mind, “man why would he do this to me?”

Sarah Koenig
Adnan says he didn't feel betrayed by Jay exactly because, again, they weren't good enough friends for betrayal. He says it was more a feeling of injustice.

     Adnan Syed
     So, but with-with Jay it was more so kinda like in my mind I was kinda like maybe the police are putting him up to this, maybe somehow he got caught up – for a minute I thought he tried to claim the reward money and he got caught up in the situation. So, in my heart, I kinda like – don't know, I don't know if there's a part of me that I don't wanna make accusations against someone else without, you know, not being sure of it because obviously it happened to me.

Sarah Koenig
A year after Adnan was arrested and the case came to trial, Jay walked up to the witness stand. There's a moment when Adnan muttered something to him. He says he couldn't help himself. The judge called the attorneys up to the bench. Quote - I was just informed by my Sheriff that the Defendant made a comment to the witness as the witness approached the stand indicating that he was pathetic, the judge said. I want to advise Mr. Syed that up until now he has been perfect -- don't spoil it.

In the first taped interview, the detectives ask Jay why would Adnan turn to someone he didn't even know all that well to help him with this murder.

     Detective
     Jay, why would Adnan call you?

     Jay
     I'm the criminal element of Woodlawn.

Sarah Koenig
I'm the criminal element of Woodlawn, he says.

     Detective
     Is that a real or perceived reputation?

     Jay
     Perceived. It's like how the student body sees me. You know, I mean, people who really know me know that I'm not like that but, you know, you get a certain reputation and kinda sticks with you.

     Detective
     Because of the contacts you have with helping him get his marijuana, he thinks that you're in that element that would be willing to assist him in, um, disposing of the body?

     Jay
     I would guess so. That I would know someone or know where or something.

Sarah Koenig
In her closing argument at trial, Prosecutor Casey Murphy posed this “why him” question to the jury about Jay. Think about it, she said. Do you really believe that the defendant, meaning Adnan, could go to one of his upstanding Magnet School Honor Student friends or a friend from the mosque to assist him with this act? Of course not. He needed someone who behaved a little more dangerously than those people. He needed someone who took risks. The defendant hopes that you will look at Jay and say I don't believe him. That is why the defendant chose Jay. Because if something went wrong, the defendant could point the finger at Jay.

This idea – this is what Jay is more or less trying to communicate to the cops. They ask him “if you're actually not the type of guy who knows where to bury a body then why did you help? Why didn't you go to the police instead?”

     Detective
     He gives you his car keys. He gives you his cell phone. He tells you a time that he's going to call you. That he's going to kill her. And you do absolutely nothing. Help me understand your train of thought and why you do absolutely nothing at that point.

     Jay
     Um, Adnan knows a lot of things about me like to the effect of criminal activities. So I mean, it wasn't...

     Detective
     You were selling marijuana.

     Jay
     So if I go to the cops and say, “Hey, this guy is a killer.” He'll say, “well no I'm not, he's crazy but there's this drug dealer and here's where he gets his shit from and this is who he deals with and he's got a rap sheet this long and go get his ass.”

     Detective
     But you've never been arrested but one time. You don't really have a rap sheet.

     Jay
     --On the record it's one time. But I've got my ass kicked plenty of times. I've got one arrest. Plenty of times. Dogs sicced on me – chased down out by my own house – fucking gun point, helicopters and shit with my keys in my hands, you know what I mean. It's not, it's not just, you know, I mean seriously man, I been coming home – people whipped out guns made me lay in the street in the snow walking to my own house – just so they can say I was a wrong dude, you know what I mean?

     Detective
     These are police that do that to you?

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective
     So you didn't trust any police?

     Jay
     I didn't. No. I don't – In my mind, I don't think to the presence of let's call the cops. This never – That never crosses my mind. I could be getting shot at and I wouldn't be “let's call the cops.”

Sarah Koenig
Okay, they say – so if you didn't want to go to the police yourself, how about making an anonymous call then? You could have done it right after he shows you the body as you are leaving the Best Buy parking lot.

     Detective
     When you are driving off the parking lot. Why don't you stop your car, and say, call the police and say “someone has just committed a murder. There's a body in the trunk of a car?”

     Jay
     Um, I was just scared and I didn't really think, like-like how it is.

     Detective
     Who are you afraid of if you make an anonymous phone call and you give a description of her car? You give them the tag number of her car...

     Jay
     Can we stop for a second?

     Detective
     Yes.

     Jay
     Can you stop that?

     Detective
     If you have any questions, you can ask me on tape.

     Jay
     I don't understand this line of questioning.

     Detective
     I'm trying to understand why do you go through all this.

     Jay
     First it was just, like, shock and then after that, I was part of it. I mean I couldn't just...

     Detective
     Jay, what he has over you or your involvement in this is beyond belief other than you being afraid of the police. Either he has paid you something or...

     Jay
     Like I said, he knows I sold drugs, I mean...that was, I mean, that's...he could get me locked up for that, I mean. I'm sure if I ratted him out for killing Hae, then he wouldn't hesitate to turn me over for selling drugs.

     Detective
     Is there anything else that you'd like to add to this?

     Jay
     Um, I feel bad that, you know, I mean, I didn't come forward or do anything but, I just, I feel bad, I mean I feel like I could have stopped it somehow if I, you know, maybe if I'd paid more attention, you know, talked about it. I just feel bad about it. That's all. That's all I got to say.

Sarah Koenig
He says, “I just feel bad about it. That's all I got to say.”

The cops have a struggle with Jay. I have a struggle with Jay. He's the biggest mystery of this whole case for me. The cops interview him at least four times that I know about. Two of those are on tape. And Jay also tells this story at trial – not once, but twice cause the first proceeding ended in a mistrial. So, at least, say, six times he's told what happened. And each time, some details shift.

Some of these discrepancies seem small to me and understandable but some are significant and confounding. That distance between where a certain detail starts and where it ends up – how far it slides and why it slides. I've spent untold hours trying to measure that distance – trying to weigh it for clues as to what might actually be true.

For example, this is from taped interview number one. The cops are asking about what he and Adnan did that morning of the thirteenth.

     Detective
     Okay, he picks you up,where did you get from that point?

     Jay
     Um, we headed toward Westview mall. Um, we did a little shopping together.

Sarah Koenig

Now here's taped interview number two from March 15, two weeks later.

     Detective
     And where did you go?

     Jay
     We went to Security Square Mall.

Sarah Koenig

That's a different mall, Security Square Mall – a couple miles away. I put this one in the category of “probably not a big deal, right?” Maybe Jay misspoke when he said Westview initially. There are a bunch of little things like this.

For example, when they are driving around that afternoon after they've ditched Hae's car at the I-70 Park and Ride. At the first trial, Jay says they both got high in Adnan's car, but the second trial, he says only he smoked and Adnan didn't want to.

Then there are more significant changes, but, still, you chalk them up to Jay trying to protect his friends – or trying to protect himself. In the first taped interview, Jay says they're grabbing some food at a restaurant when Officer Adcock calls Adnon asking if he's seen Hae. The next time he tells it, he says that when that call comes, they're at a friend's apartment – a friend whose father happens to be a homicide detective in another county. Jay tells the cops he'd actually been to her house three different times that day, but he didn't want to get her in trouble.

In the first taped statement, Jay says he refused to help dig a grave for Hae. Two weeks later, he says they both dug the hole. But then, there are other changes – bigger changes – where its harder to judge why the details shift.

This one, for instance: In the first taped interview, Jay says Adnan only told him that same day that he was going to kill Hae. Two weeks later, Jay says that Adnan had started talking about it before hand – four or five days before.

     Jay
     I think I'm gonna kill her. Yeah, he said he, he said that a lot. In my conversations with him, on several occasions he said that.

Sarah Koenig
And, he says, Adnan enlisted his help with the murder on the twelfth, the night before Hae disappeared. In this version, Jay tells Jenn about it in advance too. But, by the time Jay testifies at trial, he goes back to the first version again – that he knew nothing until the day of and that he didn't really take it seriously.

There's so many more of these. There's a whole side trip Adnan and Jay supposedly take that afternoon, after Hae's been killed to smoke some weed at Patapsco State Park. That trip disappears by trial – just drops out of the narrative – and Jay's whereabouts in between the time he drops Adnan back at school at midday and when he meets back up with him later that afternoon – the stories about where he is are so messy and so confusing that I can't even keep the different versions straight.

But none of these discrepancies gives me or, I think, the cops as much pause as this next one. This is the mother of what the cops call Jay's inconsistencies. It's about where Adnan first showed him Hae's body in the trunk of a car.

Here's from taped interview number one: Jay says Adnan called him about 3:45 p.m. saying “come pick me up.”

     Jay
     I went to pick him up from off of Edmondson Avenue at a strip and he, uh, popped the trunk open and...

     Detective
     You say at Edmondson Avenue off of a strip? Do you recall any cross streets on Edmondson Avenue where you go to meet him?

     Jay
     I don't know by name but I could probably tell you by sight.

Sarah Koenig
A strip is a small outdoor drug market – just like a block where you can buy drugs. Jay tells the cops that it takes him about fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the location on Edmondson. And, later, when the cops drive out with Jay to get Hae's car, Jay shows them the spot on Edmondson Avenue. It's just a few blocks from where they ditched Hae's car, he said.

Now, listen to what he said on March 15.

     Detective
     And while in route to your house--

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective
     --you receive a phone call from Adnan--

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective
     --on his cell phone--

     Jay
     Yup.

     Detective
     --which is in your possession.

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective
     And the conversation was what?

     Jay
     Um, that bitch is dead. Come and get me. I'm at Best Buy.

Sarah Koenig

Best Buy. Just like Jenn had originally told them. This is a problem for the cops – this change. Because it’s not something you forget – where you were when you saw a dead body in the trunk of a car. It's not a slip of the tongue and its not clear what the calculation is. Edmondson Avenue versus the Best Buy parking lot. What's the advantage of one place over the other? Why tell this lie?

Maybe he's just saying it because it matches Jenn's story – or did he lie to Jenn in the first place and then forget? I have a friend who's worked for a long time in the Baltimore judicial system. She knows a lot of cops, and she reminded me when I was telling her about this case – cops are the most skeptical people in the world. They pretty much assume everyone is lying to them all the time. Ritz and MacGillivary aren't newbies. MacGillivary came from a law enforcement family; his father had been captain of the homicide unit, in fact. And Ritz was known in the department, and in the state's attorney's office, as a skilled and meticulous investigator. So, they're not suckers. They're taking careful note of the changes in Jay's stories. It's why they keep going back to him – to clear up the inconsistencies.

In the second taped interview, MacGillivary confronts Jay – ticking off a list of the main things he's lied to him about and Jay admits to all the lies. But, even so, what struck me is that they don't really press him on any of it. The most forceful MacGillivary gets is this exchange about the location of the trunk pop.

     Detective MacGillivary
     He actually killed her--

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective MacGillivary
     --at Best Buy?

     Jay
     To my knowledge.

     Detective MacGillivary
     To your knowledge.

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective MacGillivary
     You weren't present for that?

     Jay
     No sir.

     Detective MacGillivary
     Why did you lie about the location?

     Jay
     Uh, I figured there was cameras there or somebody had spotted him doing what he was doing.

     Detective MacGillivary
     But if you actually didn't assist with her murder...

     Jay
     But I'm associated. I'm associated.

     Detective MacGillivary
     Why would you lie about the location?

     Jay
     Because I'm associated. I'm associated.

     Detective MacGillivary
     But you did lie.

     Jay
     Yes.

     Detective MacGillivary
     Okay.

Sarah Koenig
Jay is saying I figured there were security cameras at Best Buy so that's why I lied – because I didn't want to be associated with it. What is he talking about?

This is nonsensical. When he told the Edmondson Avenue version, he was already deeply associated with it. And if there were cameras at the Best Buy parking lot, wouldn't that help his story? If they showed Hae's car or Adnan walking around or putting Hae's body in the trunk. But MacGillivary lets it go – moves on to another point. And, just so you know, as best as we can tell from workers at the store and from the former landlord, there probably weren't security cameras in the Best Buy parking lot back in 1999. And, there's certainly no mention of any security footage in the police reports.

At the end of both of Jay's taped statements – the detectives kind of come out with it. “Are you telling us the truth right now?” On February 28, after Jay has told them off tape that he doesn't know anything about the murder, Ritz points out your story has completely changed since you first came in this room.

     Detective Ritz
     All the information you have provided during this interview – has it been the complete truth?

     Jay
     To the best of my knowledge.

Sarah Koenig
And then Jay reinforces it –

     Detective
     Alright, uh, I believe that concludes this interview. At this point –

     Jay
     I was as honest as I possibly can remember – I mean, truthfully honest.

     Detective
     Okay.

Sarah Koenig
But, of course, two weeks later big swathes of his story have changed. So, MacGillivary asks him again on March 15 –

     Detective MacGillivary
     The taped interview that you've given us right now – is that the truth?

     Jay
     To the best that I can possibly, humanly at this point and time remember. That is the truth.

     Detective MacGillivary
     Did you kill Hae Lee?

     Jay
     No sir I did not.

     Detective MacGillivary
     Were you there when Adnan killed Hae Lee?

     Jay
     No sir I was not.

Sarah Koenig
I put it to Bill Ritz when I talked to him briefly on the phone. Jay's story kept changing. You were catching the inconsistencies and he was having to explain them and clean up his story. So what ultimately made you believe him? Ritz said they believed Jay's story because “we were able to investigate and corroborate what he was saying.” So how exactly did they corroborate it? Next time, on Serial.
Write the lyrics for a misc song made in 2014, titled "Episode 4: Inconsistencies", by artist "Serial Podcast".