Amidst an ongoing investigation by the Baltimore Police Department, Lee's ex-boyfriend Adnan Masud Syed (Urdu: عدنان مسعود سید; born May 21, 1981)[3][4] was arrested on February 28, 1999, and put on trial for homicide.
He was found guilty on all counts for the charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, robbery, and first-degree murder; Syed was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, without the possibility of parole.
[5][6][7] In 2014, the investigative journalism podcast Serial covered the events of Lee's killing, bringing renewed attention to Syed's case.
[23] She had last been seen by fellow students at her high school around 2:15 p.m.[23] On that day, police officers called various friends of Lee to try to find her.
At 1:30 a.m., they reached her then-current boyfriend who said he had arrived home at 7 p.m.[25] On February 6, a dog-led search was conducted around Woodlawn High School.
[27][28] On February 12, the Baltimore City Police Homicide Division received an anonymous phone call suggesting that investigators focus on Syed.
[30] Wilds took a plea deal to accessory to murder, and his testimony would ultimately be heavily relied upon in the state's criminal case against Syed.
[44] On June 30, 2016, Welch granted Syed's request for a new trial and vacated his conviction, ruling that Gutierrez "rendered ineffective assistance when she failed to cross-examine the state's expert regarding the reliability of cell tower location evidence".
The Court of Special Appeals' opinion said that Syed's counsel failed to contact a potential alibi witness who could "have raised a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror".
[49] Finally, the court ruled that Syed had waived his right to re-examine the validity of the cellphone tower evidence because the issue had not been raised as part of his original petition.
[51] From October 3 to December 18, 2014, the murder of Hae Min Lee and the subsequent arrest and trial of Adnan Syed was the subject of the first season of the podcast Serial.
[9] In 2015, attorneys Rabia Chaudry, Susan Simpson, and Collin Miller began producing a podcast, Undisclosed: The State vs. Adnan Syed.
Chaudry said she is Syed's friend from childhood and strongly believes in his innocence, while Simpson and Miller became interested in the case from listening to Serial.
[53][54] Simpson also persuaded Abraham Waranowitz to sign an affidavit stating his original testimony was incorrect; he had been an expert witness in relation to cellphone locations.
[61] The HBO documentary revealed that Syed turned down a plea bargain in 2018 that would have required him to plead guilty in exchange for a shortened sentence.
[62] In a February 2016 statement, Lee's family said they remained convinced of Syed's guilt, adding that it was now "more clear than ever" that he killed their daughter.
[68] On March 14, a city judge ordered that the Baltimore police send evidence to the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in Hayward, California, within 15 days.
"[78] Further, the statement claimed that the State was "well aware of the person and the circumstances surrounding the call that was made" and emphasized that the note was "not the only document relied upon by the court to find a Brady violation".
[83][18] The panel acknowledged that Judge Phinn had given Young Lee the opportunity to address the court during the hearing, even though Maryland law did not expressly confer the right to speak to victims.
[83] In a dissenting opinion, Judge Stuart Berger argued that the appeal was moot, since the charges against Syed had been dropped, and that Lee's rights had not been violated.