Adnan Syed walked out of court a free man on Monday after two handwritten notes featuring the name of another potential suspect was discovered earlier this year, it has been revealed.
Serial, the podcast which propelled the case to global attention and first raised doubts about Syed’s conviction, released a new episde on Tuesday revealing what finally led Baltimore prosecutors to rethink the 41-year-old’s conviction for the 1999 murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
In the episode, journalist Sarah Koenig said that “messy” notes which languished in statet trial boxes for more than two decades revealed that two different people had placed two separate phone calls alerting prosecutors to the unnamed suspect prior to Syed’s 2000 conviction.
The notes were not shared with Syed’s legal team – something the judge agreed was a Brady violation.
On Monday, Judge Melissa Phinn overturned Syed’s conviction and ordered him to be released – after 23 years behind bars.
Prosecutors now have 30 days to decide whether they will fully drop the charges or retry the case.
