Baltimore prosecutors announced Tuesday that they had dropped all charges against Adnan Syed, the first subject of the award-winning podcast “Serial,” after new DNA evidence appeared to rule out his involvement in the 1999 murder of his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
“This morning I instructed my office to dismiss the criminal case against Adnan Syed following the second round of DNA testing on items never tested before,” said Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. “Those items included a skirt, pantyhose, shoes and jacket of Ms. Hae Min Lee. Although no DNA evidence was recovered from the skirt, pantyhose and jacket swabs, there were multiple contributors on both of her shoes. Most compellingly, Adnan Syed, his DNA was excluded.”
Mosby added that while Syed’s case is “moot,” the investigation continues to bring Lee’s killers to justice.
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Last month, Syed’s life sentence was vacated by a Baltimore City Circuit Court after a year-long investigation by the Baltimore City State’s Attorney Office and Syed’s legal team uncovered two alternative suspects—one of which was never disclosed to Syed’s defense attorneys—and new evidence.
Syed, 41, had been imprisoned since 2000 for allegedly kidnapping and strangling Lee, his former Woodlawn High School sweetheart, who was found buried in Baltimore’s notorious Leakin Park on Feb. 9, 1999.
The case gained renewed national attention in 2014 when “Serial” catalogued the case over a dozen episodes, pointing out inconsistencies in the prosecution, and failures of his then-attorney Cristina Gutierrez, who was disbarred for wrongdoing in 2001.
Syed was released to home detention last month after his conviction was vacated. Baltimore prosecutors then had 30 days to decide if he should be retried or the charges dropped.
In a Tuesday press conference, Mosby explained that advanced forensics called Touch DNA was able to yield the new evidence overlooked in Syed’s original trial. Touch DNA only requires a small sample, such as skin cells, to find possible suspects.
She certified Syed’s innocence, which means he will be eligible for wrongful conviction compensation from the state.
Syed’s case had gone through a series of legal twists and turns since the podcast garnered national attention. In 2015, a Maryland court agreed to hear the case’s first appeal. During hearings for a judge-ordered retrial, Syed’s attorneys argued that Gutierrez, Syed’s first trial lawyer, was grossly negligent in defending her client.
In 2016, a judge vacated Syed’s conviction and ordered a new trial—but that decision faced several appeals and reversals, before the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals, finally denied the retrial in 2019. That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied to hear Syed’s case, leaving little hope for a pathway toward his release.
It wasn’t until March, when prosecutors agreed to new DNA testing, arguing the process may yield new results due to technological advancements.
After “Serial,” the case has been the subject of an HBO documentary called The Case Against Adnan Syed, along with a slew of books, including one by Rabia Chaudry, an attorney and Syed family friend who originally brought the subject of Syed’s wrongful conviction to podcaster Sarah Koenig.
On Wednesday, Lee’s family asked the court to pause the 30-day window while they sought to file an appeal.
“Despite months of investigation, the State did not notify the Lee family of its intent to move to vacate the judgment until Monday, September 12, 2022,” wrote the family’s attorney, Steven Kelly, in a motion filed Wednesday, arguing that the family was not being treated with dignity or respect. “Even then, the State did not disclose any details of its investigation or the identity of the two new suspects to the Lee family.”
Mosby said she had reached out to Lee’s family multiple times, and personally called them Tuesday morning to notify them of the dropped charges, calling the situation an “unimaginable nightmare” for them.
“I think it’s unfortunate that you have certain attorneys that are trying to exploit families,” Mosby said, who noted that her priority now is to find Lee’s killer.
“Equally heartbreaking is the pain and sacrifice and the trauma that has been imposed,” Mosby said, who noted that Syed was the 13th individual her office has worked to exonerate. “Not just on that family, but on Adnan and his family, who together spent 23 years imprisoned for a crime as a result of a wrongful conviction.”
