The Case Against Adnan Syed: the French Teacher
On Sunday’s Episode One of “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” Amy Berg interviewed Hope Schab, the French teacher at Woodlawn High School.
In the episode, Schab partially confirms what she said at trial: that she was in effect deputized by Detective O’Shea and (1) tried to get other teachers to cooperate with the investigation; and (2) created a list of questions that she gave to Debbie so that she could distribute them to other students:
An excerpt from Schab’s testimony at trial #2.
But Schab’s appearance also raised an important question.
At Adnan’s first trial, Schab gave the following testimony:
What makes this odd is that Schab has a very different recollection in the HBO episode. In the episode, Schab says that Adnan borrowed Debbie’s planner and discovered the questions to students, which is what prompted him to confront her. So, which memory is correct?
I don’t know, but I do find Hope Schab’s trial testimony interesting. Why? Well, Detective O’Shea did interview Gerald Russell on February 1st, and…Russell had little of value to tell him:
In fact, Russell was the only track coach interviewed before Adnan was arrested. The defense private investigator and the State wouldn’t interview Head Coach Michael Sye until March, after Adnan had been arrested on February 28th.
O’Shea’s interview of Russell makes clear that Russell had little to offer to help him, and Schab’s trial testimony makes it look like Adnan was actually angered by Schab talking to Coach Russell. This then takes us to Jay’s ride along with detectives on March 18th, when he allegedly the following comment:
But how does this make any sense? This can’t be referring to Coach Sye, who wasn’t interviewed by anyone before Adnan was arrested. And, of it’s referring to Coach Russell, well…his police statement didn’t help Adnan, and Adnan possibly even became pissed off about Schab getting him to talk to the police.
-CM