Law Students Identified Another Possible Suspect In The 'Serial' Murder Case
Season one of "Serial" examined whether Adnan Syed killed his high school ex-girlfriend in 1999. Hae was found strangled in a Baltimore park a few weeks after she and Adnan broke up.
Adnan is currently imprisoned for her murder, but he maintains his innocence.
The lack of physical evidence linking Adnan to the crime led "Serial" host and journalist Sarah Koenig to question whether he really killed Hae.
The prosecutor on the case argued that Adnan was angry that Hae had moved on after their breakup and started dating someone else. But Adnan - and those who knew him and Hae in high school - said their breakup was pretty normal and that Adnan had also moved on afterward.
In one episode of the podcast, Koenig discussed the case with Deirdre Enright, the head of the Innocence Project at UVA, which works to free those who have been wrongfully convicted. Her team decided to take on Adnan's case.
Enright told TIME that her team identified another potential suspect, Ronald Lee Moore, who was released from prison 10 days before Hae was murdered. Moore was identified as a suspect in another 1999 murder earlier this year. The murder remained a cold case for years until DNA evidence implicated Moore.
He killed himself in 2012.
One potential problem with Moore as a suspect is that the other crimes he was tied to involved sex assault, and there wasn't definitive evidence to show that Hae was sexually assaulted before or after she was murdered.
Another problem with the Moore theory is that one of Adnan's high school friends, Jay, testified that he helped Adnan dispose of Hae's body and was able to lead police to her car after she was found dead. Enright doesn't have a clear explanation for that.
But Enright pointed out to TIME that the physical evidence from Hae's rape kit was never tested.
"What we know is that Hae had her clothes on, although I know her shirt and bra had been moved up," Enright said. "And her skirt was on but pushed up. ... There were hairs on her body, two of which were microscopically compared to Adnan, and he was excluded and they didn't belong to her either."
Moore's prior charges range from simple burglary to rape, according to L'Observateur.
Enright told TIME that her team is looking at other potential suspects in Hae's murder but can't name them because they are still living.
The physical evidence will take months to process, so it seems that Adnan's story will not end with the final episode of season one of "Serial."