I said, ‘Isn’t he a paramedic?’ And she said, ‘Nah, he’s cool, plus he wants to buy.’ ![]() ![]() Stephanie came to me and said ‘Adnan is pretty cool,’ plus he wanted to buy some weed. I met him while I was still at Woodlawn, so around 1998. When was the first time you hung out with Adnan? I didn’t resent the students, I resented the school for setting it up like that. Football paid for everything at the school. Because I knew football had paid for all of that, but there were few football players down there. And I found that to be a bit of a slap in the face. But their gym, lockers, parking, was down in the magnet wing. They didn’t have to go by us, except to come to lunch, and that was it. But when they put the magnet wing in, it was kinda like ‘these people were different from us.’ And they didn’t have to interact with us anymore. Before you would just go down there for drafting, shop, and everyone would co-mingle, and all the students interacted. When Woodlawn put in the magnet thing, they took out all the vocational classes. By the time I graduated high school in 1998, I wasn’t exactly angry, but I did resent the school. I was a bit of an outdoorsman, adventure seeker, fishing, camping, learned to ride a motorcycle. I went to concerts, like anything from Wu-Tang to Warped Tour. The group of people I hung out with were different from the group of people I was from. And that’s not necessarily me-but that is my family, that is my uncles and cousins. This is where people would have their house firebombed and still tell the police they knew nothing about it rather than to try to make some sense of what’s going on. It went national, but it was produced in Baltimore. The other thing to understand is something about the culture of Baltimore-this is where the ‘Stop Snitching’ video comes from. I had a lot more on the line than just a few bags of weed. I also ran the operation out of my grandmother’s house and that also put my family at risk. And they were getting sentenced to three and five years. I saw the ATF and DEA take down guys in my neighborhood for selling much less than I was at the time. At the time, this was Maryland in the ’90s, the drug laws were extremely serious. It wasn’t just like I was selling a nickel bag here and there. Is that why you didn’t initially cooperate with the police? It doesn’t seem like enough of a reason to not talk to the police. In “Serial” you are depicted as a petty weed dealer. I knew him because I knew Muslims in the community from playing basketball at the mosque. It was just at the end of my junior year, so about 16. How old were you when you first met Adnan Syed? The following has been edited and condensed for clarity. This is the first part in a multipart interview. Jay’s wife and mother entertained the couple’s young children while Jay and I spoke in the family living room. We met over the weekend at his two-story suburban home. This interview is the first time Jay has spoken publicly about events surrounding Lee’s death and the trial that ended in Syed’s conviction. Jay feels strongly that he was unfairly depicted by Koenig and that she painted a highly misleading portrayal of him and his role in the case. In the podcast Koenig pointedly challenged Jay’s account of events and his motivation for assisting Adnan. Jay chose not to be formally interviewed by either “This American Life” or by “Serial” host and producer, Sarah Koenig. Syed’s trial, and Jay’s testimony, became the focus of a “This American Life” spinoff series, the 12-part podcast “Serial,” broadcast in the fall of this year. Jay’s testimony was critical to the state’s case indeed, without his testimony it’s virtually impossible that the state could have even brought Syed to trial. The star witness at Syed’s trial was Jay Wilds, a former classmate who testified that he helped Syed dispose of Lee’s body. Syed is currently serving a life sentence. In February of 2000, Syed was found guilty of murdering Lee. ![]() Lee’s ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, 17, became the primary suspect in her homicide after an anonymous caller told the police to investigate him. About a month later, police uncovered her body in a nearby park an autopsy would later find that she was choked to death. 13, 1999, Hae Min Lee, an 18-year-old high school student from Baltimore, went missing.
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