Who Killed Hae Min Lee?

Adnan Syed was the convicted murderer of Hae Min Lee. The case made against Adnan is that he was angry with Hae Lee for breaking his heart, and therefore spontaneously decided to kill her one day. Adnan was highly religious, and risked a lot to be with Hae. Many speculate that he was so mad that he had risked so much for Hae, just for them to break up, that he murdered her. Adnan was also a heavy marijuana user and could have possibly developed a type of marijuana-induced psychosis. Additionally, another possibility in the case against Syed is that he killed Hae Lee by “accident.” He may have been so angry that he didn't even realize what he was doing until after Hae Lee had already died, this was brought up in the famous podcast series, Serial. Adnan’s alibis are inconsistent, and the court ruled that there was enough substantial evidence to charge him for premeditated first degree murder.

Alonzo Sellers was a maintenance worker who found Lee’s body. He was drinking a beer on his way to work and he pulled over to take a leak. Sellers then walked 127 feet into the woods “to look for privacy”, when he noticed hair and a foot poking out of the ground. He called the police and they identified the body as Hae Lee. Prior to the incident, Sellers had a criminal history. He had three charges for public nudity, one of them being just briefly before Hae’s murder. Sellers lived just a five minute walk away from Hae Min Lee’s highschool. Seller’s story is hard to believe. Why would he cross the street to pee, or walk so deep into the woods? Why not just hold it in for one more mile? However, Sellers also provided the police with their first lead in over nine days; there was no reason to do so if he was responsible for killing Hae. The only way Sellers would be Hae Min Lee’s murderer makes sense is if he was an experienced serial killer or a psychopath. He would have had to planned out the entire murder and chosen Hae as his victim despite having no connection to her. Even then, it makes little sense for Sellers to report the body to the Police when they had no leads.

Aryan Shukla, Nichole Thorne, Naomi Ong, Trishala Mehta

Out of all the three suspects, the man most likely to be Lee’s killer is Adnan Syed. There have been many inconsistencies with the stories involving Adnan such as how Jay Wilds’ testimonies have changed every time and how suspiciously clear Asia McClain’s story to defend Adnan was. It is much more likely that an ex-boyfriend who had been dumped by his girlfriend strangled her to death in his jealous and blind rage over believing her new boyfriend or a stranger maintenance worker committed the crime. With how familiar and trustworthy Adnan knew he was in Lee’s eyes, the ability to easily gain her trust to follow him into the car gave his vengeful motivation the last push to kill her.

the killer

Adnan Syed

Don Clinedenst was Hae Min Lee’s boyfriend at the time before she had passed away. Don met Lee through their mutual employment at LensCrafters, he spent the evening with Hae Lee the night before she went missing and had plans to see each other the following night. Don was barely a suspect, he apparently walked free near the beginning of the investigation they didn't take any fingerprint, hair, nor DNA samples from him.