Episode Four of “The Case Against Adnan Syed”: Did the Idea of Best Buy Come From the Police?

In Sunday’s fourth (and final) episode of HBO’s “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” it was noted that the HBO team was able to talk with Jay Wilds in January 2019. Among other things, he told them the following:

So, is this statement credible, and, if so, what does it mean?

Hope Schab’s Question(s)

Let’s start at the beginning. During the missing persons investigation, French Teacher Hope Schab prepared questions for Woodlawn High School students to answer, including the following:

We don’t have the answers to those questions, but it’s possible that one or more students knew that Hae and Adnan used to park at Best Buy, which would mean that the police had knowledge of this location before Hae’s body was discovered on February 9th.

Jenn’s February 27th Police Interview

In Jenn’s February 27th police interview, she says that Jay told her that Adnan told him he killed Hae in the Best Buy parking lot, with Jay saying he saw Hae’s body in the trunk of a car:

Jay’s February 28th Police Interview

In Jay’s police interview the next day, he says that the trunk pop occurred at a strip off of Edmondson Avenue:

Jay’s March 15th Police Interview

Subsequently, in his March 15th police interview, Jay says that the murder and trunk pop were both in the Best Buy parking lot:

As this answer makes clear, there was clearly some discussion of Best Buy in the unrecorded pre-interview before the tape started rolling.

Chris Baskerville (undated)

As Chris Baskerville relays on Serial and “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” Jay told him at some point that the murder was in the parking lot of the Woodlawn Public Library and the trunk pop was in the parking lot of a pool hall.

Trial(s)

At trials #1 and #2, Jay testifies to the Best Buy story. Jenn only testifies at trial #2 and testifies to the Best Buy story.

Serial

Jenn basically declined to talk to the Serial team.

Then she added, there was one thing she never believed. She said she never believed the murder happened at Best Buy, because she thought there would have been security footage, and that never came out. I told her it seems like maybe there really weren’t security cameras at Best Buy back then, and she kind of shrugged and said: “Oh well, see, I don’t know.”

Jay’s Intercept Interview

In his interview with The Intercept, Jay said that he did see Adnan in the Best Buy parking lot, where Adnan told him he killed Hae. But, according to Jay, this is NOT where the trunk pop occurred:

Jay then adds that he learned something later that led him to believe the murder probably didn’t happen in the Best Buy parking lot:

There’s no follow-up question asking Jay what he learned.

Episode 2 of “The Case Against Adnan Syed”

As noted, in Episode 2 of “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” Chris repeats his pool hall trunk pop story. The show then cuts to Jenn, who says something like she thought Jay said it was at Best Buy.

Episode 4 of “The Case Against Adnan Syed”

As noted at the top of this post, Jay told the HBO team in January 2019 that the idea of Best Buy came from the police.

Conclusion

As with so many things that Jay says, who knows whether we can trust him. But if he is now telling the truth…wow. This would mean that the police ostensibly learned about Adnan and Hae “parking” at the Best Buy and then fed that information to Jay and/or Jenn so that it could be included in the murder/trunk pop story to implicate Adnan. It would also mean that, contrary to their claim, the police would have talked to Jay before Jenn…because Jay would have needed to tell Jenn this information before she talked to police.

Now, of course, can we trust Jay? Probably not, but both Jay and Jenn backing off of the Best Buy story in recent years and Jay not including Best Buy in his initial story is interesting.

And, of course, we don’t know exactly what Jay told the HBO team due to two party consent law. But the chyron that led this post certainly makes it look the entire idea of Best Buy came from the police.

As with so much in this case, we have yet another intriguing lead…but no definitive answers. Hopefully, we will get some soon.

-CM