Serial is still one of the best true crime podcasts, because the case has so much more underneath the surface.
One example is this podcast going over a cleared suspects apparently falsified alibi records (his mom who was a manager at his store chain and may have doctored his work record to prevent police going after him): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l6dApX2rIY
1. Two new suspects that were not properly ruled out.
2. One of the suspects had a) threatened to kill the victim and b) provided motives for the threat.
3. The victim's car was located directly behind one of those suspects relative's house.
4. One of the suspects attacked a woman in her vehicle, engaged in serial rape and assault, engaged in violence against women he knew, and was improperly ruled out.
5. Incoming call data was determined to be completely unreliable, as the network sends the signal through multiple towers and the billing records can show the last tower a phone connected to instead of the one it is currently on.
6. Kristina Vinson said she would not have missed a class at the same time she said Jay and Adnan were at her house, which showed that her recollection of what day Jay and Adnan had visited was wrong.
7. Because Jay had told numerous lies and versions of events to detectives, his testimony was only relied upon because the cell records and Vinson's testimony corroborated it. Without those, his testimony does not stand on its own. Thus, they could not have secured a conviction.
8. One of the lead detectives on the case engaged in egregious misconduct in another case, resulting in a wrongful conviction and 17 years of incarceration.
I listened this podcast when it first came out, so I’m probably misremembering this, but the key thing about the case to me was point 7:
They had detailed witness testimony which fit the evidence AND the witness was able to show the police the location of the victim’s car which backed up his story. So it is hard to explain another version of events where the witness was not actually involved in the crime. I’m curious if any of this new evidence points to him as being involved.
One example is this podcast going over a cleared suspects apparently falsified alibi records (his mom who was a manager at his store chain and may have doctored his work record to prevent police going after him): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l6dApX2rIY
The main summary points are here, taken from this reddit page (which links to the primary sources) https://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/comments/xea7pu/here_...:
1. Two new suspects that were not properly ruled out.
2. One of the suspects had a) threatened to kill the victim and b) provided motives for the threat.
3. The victim's car was located directly behind one of those suspects relative's house.
4. One of the suspects attacked a woman in her vehicle, engaged in serial rape and assault, engaged in violence against women he knew, and was improperly ruled out.
5. Incoming call data was determined to be completely unreliable, as the network sends the signal through multiple towers and the billing records can show the last tower a phone connected to instead of the one it is currently on.
6. Kristina Vinson said she would not have missed a class at the same time she said Jay and Adnan were at her house, which showed that her recollection of what day Jay and Adnan had visited was wrong.
7. Because Jay had told numerous lies and versions of events to detectives, his testimony was only relied upon because the cell records and Vinson's testimony corroborated it. Without those, his testimony does not stand on its own. Thus, they could not have secured a conviction.
8. One of the lead detectives on the case engaged in egregious misconduct in another case, resulting in a wrongful conviction and 17 years of incarceration.