A Baltimore judge ordered the release of Adnan Syed on Monday, after overturning his conviction for the 1999 murder of his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
If you're wondering why his name sounds so familiar, it's because his case became a pioneer in the true crime podcast genre — and its popularity ultimately breathed new life into his defence years later.
But who is Adnan Syed? What is his case all about? And what podcast was he featured on?
Who is Adnan Syed?
Adnan Syed was a student at Woodlawn High School in 1999 when his 18-year-old classmate and girlfriend Hae Min Lee disappeared after school one day.
Six weeks later, Mr Syed, 17, was arrested for the killing of the popular high school senior. He faced his first trial that same year, which ended with a mistrial.
He went to trial again in 2000. A jury found him guilty of strangling Ms Lee, whose body was found buried in a Baltimore park.
The judge sentenced him to life plus 30 years in prison.
The now-41-year-old, who has always maintained his innocence, had been behind bars for more than two decades serving a life sentence until he walked free on Monday.
Why was Adnan Syed freed?
Multiple attempts in recent years to free Mr Syed failed, until prosecutors filed a motion last week saying a lengthy investigation conducted with the defence had uncovered new evidence. But what did that timeline look like?
In 2016, a lower court ordered a retrial for Mr Syed on the grounds that his attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, who died in 2004, didn't contact an alibi witness and provided ineffective counsel.
But after a series of appeals, Maryland's highest court in 2019 denied a new trial in a 4-3 ruling.
The Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that Mr Syed's legal counsel was deficient in failing to investigate an alibi witness, but it disagreed that the deficiency prejudiced the case. The court said Mr Syed waived his ineffective counsel claim.
The US Supreme Court declined to review Mr Syed's case in 2019.
It wasn't until 2022 that Mr Syed walked free after Judge Melissa Phinn ruled that the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with his defence.
The assistant state's attorney Becky Feldman described various details from the case to Judge Phinn that undermined the decades-old conviction, including flawed cell phone data, unreliable witness testimony and and a potentially biased detective.
The investigation also revealed newly developed information regarding two alternative suspects. They were known persons at the time of the original investigation, but prosecutors said they weren't properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defence.
What happens next?
Judge Phinn ordered Mr Syed on Monday to be placed on home detention with GPS location monitoring. She said the state must decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days.
After the hearing, state attorney Marilyn Mosby said investigators were waiting for the results of DNA analysis before determining whether to seek a new trial date or throw out the case against Mr Syed and "certify his innocence".
But why does this case sound familiar?
If you're a fan of true-crime podcasts, you have Adnan Syed's case and the Serial podcast to credit.
Arguably the most well-known podcast of all time, Serial pioneered the modern true-crime genre. And it became famous after chronicling the case of Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee in its first series.
What is the Serial podcast?
The 2014 true-crime series Serial was the brainchild of longtime radio producer and former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig, who spent more than a year digging into Mr Syed's case and reporting her findings in hour-long segments.
The 12-episode podcast captured the attention of millions and was transformative in popularising podcasts for a wider audience.
However, it also cast doubt over the conviction and some of the evidence the prosecutors had used.
It spurred further media investigations, including the HBO documentary series The Case Against Adnan Syed, the podcast Undisclosed and a book titled Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial. It ultimately resulted in the reopening of the case.
During the hearing, Ms Lee's brother Young Lee spoke to the court, saying he feels betrayed by prosecutors, since he thought the case was settled.
"This is not a podcast for me. This is real life," he said.
As of 2018, episodes of season 1 and 2 of the show had been downloaded more than 340 million times.
Serial was the first podcast to win a Peabody Award, and in 2020, the New York Times Co. agreed to buy Serial Productions for about $25 million, according to Bloomberg.
The podcast will now return to the case that made them famous, announcing that a new episode will air on Tuesday after Mr Syed was freed.
ABC/AP
