New Information About Hae’s Plans on January 13th
[Update: Please read this before reading the rest of this post.].
I have been corresponding with someone I believe to be a trustworthy source with credible new information about Hae’s plans on January 13, 1999. With good reason, this source does not want to go on the record, but the information could be helpful in triggering someone else’s memory of what happened on that day. It also answers a few of the questions that many of us have had for the past year. Here are three things that I have confirmed with this source:
1. Hae picking up her cousin was a daily, prearranged task, not something she only did occasionally or as needed;
2. On January 13th, after picking up her cousin, Hae was supposed to take her cousin to her uncle’s workplace, not home; and
3. On January 13th, after taking her cousin to her uncle’s workplace, Hae was supposed to babysit her cousin for some period of time.
The first point might be something that most people already presumed. For me, though, it was good to get clarity that this was indeed a daily, prearranged task. As such, it really couldn’t have been the “something else” that came up for Hae between lunch and the end of school on January 13th that caused her to not be able to give Adnan a ride.*
The second point was something that was new for me. Maybe there is something about it in the files, and I do feel like I have read it somewhere. That said, before getting this information, my assumption had been that Hae was supposed to take her cousin home. If someone who knew Hae is reading this, maybe this drop-off information will trigger something about Hae’s plans on the 13th.
The same goes for the third point about Hae being scheduled to babysit her cousin after school. If we didn’t already know that that Woodlawn had no wrestling match on January 13th, this would have been helpful information for realizing that the wrestling match timeline was likely wrong, or at least the version where Hae would return to school and catch the team bus to the match.
As I’ve said, without this wrestling match, there was a significant gap in Hae’s day on January 13th between dropping off her cousin at about 3:30 P.M. and leaving to go to work at LensCrafters, with a shift that started at 5:30 or 6:00 P.M. We can now safely fill in that gap with babysitting. My source wasn’t able to confirm the exact amount of time that Hae was supposed to babysit her cousin. My own guess is that she was supposed to babysit until the end of the average workday at 5:00 P.M., followed by getting dinner and starting her shift, but that’s just a guess. Again, if someone who knew Hae is reading this, maybe this information triggers something about Hae’s plans on the 13th.
This information also seemingly tells us two other important pieces of information: (1) Adnan’s requested ride was supposed to take place before the cousin pickup; and (2) Hae’s “something else” to do was supposed to take place before the cousin pickup. This is because we now know that Hae was already scheduled to babysit her cousin on the 13th before the day even started. So, as we continue to try to ascertain the “something else” that Hae was supposed to do, we can seemingly narrow our window to the hour after school between 2:15 and 3:15 P.M.
Now, I know that some may doubt this information because it is an anonymous source. I have left the door open for the source to go on the record and hope that this eventually happens because the source has additional helpful information unknown to the public, but I will respect the source’s request to keep the information private at this point.
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*As some have noted, it’s possible that nothing came up for Hae and that she was simply making up an excuse not to give Adnan a ride. As I’ve noted before, under this scenario, for Adnan to get a ride from Hae, we have to believe that (1) Adnan later convinces Hae to give him a ride, despite Hae having made the decision to mislead him about her ability to give him a ride; and (2) this convincing takes place without anyone else noticing or remembering. I believe that Hae did have “something else” to do, but it seems clear that there are issues with Adnan getting a ride under either scenario.
-CM