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CofCinci
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That was a bit of an exaggeration, but they do say this:

 

When a jury of 12 people comes back with a guilty verdict in two hours, you’d think that rejecting their decision would require fresh evidence. Yet the show did not produce new evidence, and mostly repeated prior claims, such as an unconfirmed alibi, charges of incompetence against Adnan’s deceased lawyer, and allegations that information derived from cellphone records is unreliable.
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Fair enough.  But based on @FozzyBear's comments, I still don't think that the Intercept articles are worth reading.  Refusing to question anything seems a poor place for a journalist to start from.

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Binge listened to this over the weekend.  Really enjoyed it, but I love true crime stuff.  For me, the Best Buy phone booth thing really bugs.  There's all this talk about how the cell phone records seal the deal.  Wouldn't the police have been REALLY interested in getting the call records for the phone booth?  I mean, that would prove if and when a call was made to Adnon's cell from there, wouldn't it?  I have to think that since there's nothing in the State's case about it, that maybe it really didn't exist, and that's some reasonable doubt for me.

Edited by tobeannounced
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Binge listened to this over the weekend.  Really enjoyed it, but I love true crime stuff.  For me, the Best Buy phone booth thing really bugs.  There's all this talk about how the cell phone records seal the deal.  Wouldn't the police have been REALLY interested in getting the call records for the phone booth?  I mean, that would prove if and when a call was made to Adnon's cell from there, wouldn't it?  I have to think that since there's nothing in the State's case about it, that maybe it really didn't exist, and that's some reasonable doubt for me.

 

Unfortunately, we're well past "reasonable doubt" although a failure to to confirm the existence of the pivotal phone seems a failure on the part of the defense team -- shouldn't they have run though the supposed timeline of the crime as Sarah & producer did?  Perry Mason would've is all I'm saying.

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The second part of the Urick interview was posted, and then today Natasha Vargas-Cooper resigned from her job at the Intercept.  What a shit show.  This has gone so far beyond a simple podcast into such a gross place.  I almost wish I had just listened to the podcast and left it at that.  Remind me I said that during Season 2.

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Yowzers. I am a-okay with all the stuff going on re: Natasha Vargas-Cooper (NOT A FAN) and The Intercept, questions about journalistic integrity, etc.--I just hate that there are real people's lives inextricably connected to every.single.story. I really wish we could get some nuggets from Sarah Koenig about what she's been thinking/feeling/etc. since the podcast ended and this shitstorm has swirled around her.

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I really wish we could get some nuggets from Sarah Koenig about what she's been thinking/feeling/etc. since the podcast ended and this shitstorm has swirled around her.

I think it is more than likely they plan to do a follow up episode, though I'm wondering if it will be on TAL proper as well as an episode of Serial. 

 

Regardless of what has happened at The Intercept with NVC, Urick, and Wilds, I do think there are real ethical challenges and questions they found themselves confronted with as they went along in terms of this revolutionary format/medium paired with this type of subject matter.  A sort of heh Big Picture what have we learned thing, but also I can't believe they will not want to address these sorts of burbling questions about their process, give a general update on Adnan's case. But they might save it for some kind of significant break in the case IF it occurs. 

 

By the way, in less sordid Serial news,  Susan Simpson is till bringing it hard core on her blog.  http://viewfromll2.com/  and there is nice conversation with her on this Geospatial podcast, they get into some interesting speculation about Jay's grandmother's house and how it factors into his claims of fearing Adnan's Uncle. 

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Omg ya'll the addiction to this stuff in unreal. For some reason this is more of a guilty pleasure for me than Bravo. Along with a few posted on here I think that Jay probably had more to do with it than he leads on and was coached. I also feel the likeness of of Adnan being "wildly unlucky" or in the "wrong place at the wrong time" is also about is likely as me not being drunk the last time I got an OVI and refused to blow. Yeah Jay seems shady, but he wasn't passing notes about his future dead ex girlfriend found in his room with the words "kill" on them in his freaken bedroom.   

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Omg ya'll the addiction to this stuff in unreal. For some reason this is more of a guilty pleasure for me than Bravo. Along with a few posted on here I think that Jay probably had more to do with it than he leads on and was coached. I also feel the likeness of of Adnan being "wildly unlucky" or in the "wrong place at the wrong time" is also about is likely as me not being drunk the last time I got an OVI and refused to blow. Yeah Jay seems shady, but he wasn't passing notes about his future dead ex girlfriend found in his room with the words "kill" on them in his freaken bedroom.   

 

See, this is what I don't understand -- if you're going to be so shitty at covering your tracks that you have no alibi and the random notes in class and such then how are you also so good at covering your tracks that there's no physical evidence??

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Maybe like the nurse said he was pretending to be in shock. He may have thought that a non existing alibi that can't be attacked wouldn't be enough to convict him if that's all they had. He may have found it safer than getting caught in a lie(see Jay)

 

The note could have been something easily forgotten if it was meant as a joke at the time. Maybe..i don't know turning into SK over here

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Maybe like the nurse said he was pretending to be in shock. He may have thought that a non existing alibi that can't be attacked wouldn't be enough to convict him if that's all they had. He may have found it safer than getting caught in a lie(see Jay)

The note could have been something easily forgotten if it was meant as a joke at the time. Maybe..i don't know turning into SK over here

The note, who knows? No one seems to remember or admit to remembering who wrote the "I Will Kill" part or when or why. Could have been a joke. Teenagers make horrible, offensive jokes all the time. My instinct was not to pin too much on it since if it was serious, it feels more like the type of thing I would associate with a school shooting or a thrill killing, not a methodically planned out murder that someone was trying to cover up. I tend to think Adnon is somehow behind Hae's murder, but I don't think the note proves much. Edited by FozzyBear
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The note, who knows? No one seems to remember or admit to remembering who wrote the "I Will Kill" part or when or why. Could have been a joke. Teenagers make horrible, offensive jokes all the time. My instinct was not to pin too much on it since if it was serious, it feels more like the type of thing I would associate with a school shooting or a thrill killing, not a methodically planned out murder that someone was trying to cover up. I tend to think Adnon is somehow behind Hae's murder, but I don't think the note proves much.

 

It's more the erratic combination of "methodically planned out" and "spontaneous act of anger" elements that make me uncomfortable with the whole thing.  Personally, the ways Adnan appears guilty are the things that seem the most probable to be inconsequential acts of a teenager with a million other explanations.  The ways he appears innocent (specifically, the lack of any physical evidence tying him to the crime) are the things that seem so much more significant to me.  I guess he could have pinned her arms down but, honestly, I find it hard to imagine (or possibly just unsettling to imagine) that a boy could manually strangle a physically fit teenage girl in the close confines of a car without receiving at least one visible bruise or scratch.  Also, if he were the one carefully mapping out the crime why wouldn't he have been the one to get rid of the shovels and clothes?  And as the police suggested he went to track exclusively to build an alibi, wouldn't he have known it would be a shaky one at best because the coach didn't take attendance?

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Finally!  I heard episode one of Serial on NPR and was hooked.  Only I couldn't get any of the podcasts to stream on my computer.  Yesterday I got a new computer and it's the first place I went. Now I've listened to all twelve and my ears hurt. 

 

 It was fascinating but I'm also a little frustrated by it.

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It's definitely the best alternative third party theory I can think of, moreso than the serial killer one.

 

Then again, if Hae was killed by a drug dealer, why would they strangle her? I've never heard of drug dealers doing that when they have guns.

Edited by methodwriter85
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I also feel like it would be unlikely and extremely stupid (even by "I'm immortal" teenage standards) for Adnan to be willing to be the fall guy. He's clearly smart and must have been somewhat scared, even if he didn't think he'd ever be convicted, so IMO it doesn't make any sense for him to offer up, "Well, I'm pretty clean-cut, in the honors program, and come from a good family so why don't I go ahead and take the fall. You just make sure to give an unlikely picture with lots of lies and inconsistencies and that'll guarantee that I'll go free." If he did go along with such an idiotic plan, then I can't feel too sorry for his fate. 

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Hey, just found this thread and happy to post somewhere that I think Adnan killed her.  I'm mostly reading between the lines on this claim but he seems to even want credit for it, with a lot of what he says.  I think he even slipped once and very nearly said something to the effect of "I'm the only one who knows what happened out there".  

 

I don't think he's as smart as he thinks he is.  He's used the word "tooken" at least once in the podcast, for example.  I think he was both trying to impress Jay with being even more 'criminal element' than Jay and also take out his hurt on Hae.  She had a cute, successful, blonde new boyfriend.  He was jealous and mad.  

 

I think Gutierrez may well have tried to get him a plea deal and the state said 'no deal, we think we got him on the big charge' (and they did, in record jury deliberation time).  Gutierrez agreed to be disbarred rather than fight client claims, due to her failing health.  I'm not sure that makes her a lousy attorney.  She was respected at the time of Adnan's trial and he still seems to respect her.  

 

We heard a tiny, tiny portion of the whole story-- even of what the cops saw, and what the jurors heard.  The detectives' opinions agreed with the jurors-- guilty, without a doubt.  I respect that they know a lot more about it than I do.  

 

Jay's lies seem to be partly around removing his grandmother's house from the story and possibly bad memory and also police leading him away from extraneous or iffy details.  The core story sounds true, plus if Jenn drove him around to wipe shovels and hide his clothes, she must've corroborated it.  He knew where Hae's car was so he clearly had some involvement in the cover-up.  

 

The whole 'time of death' thing annoyed me.  There's nothing really to suggest she was killed in that 21 minute window so all that was irrelevant.  I can see if a coroner said she died in that tiny window but they didn't find the body in time for that.  Didn't she get out of school at like 2:15 and then Jay said he saw the body somewhere between 3:40 and 4?  That's more like a 90 minute window.  The 21 minute thing comes from Jay saying the 2:36 phone log call was Adnan saying he killed Hae, but that call was 5 seconds.  It seems more likely it was the 3:15 call that was longer.    

 

 

 

 

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Hey, just found this thread and happy to post somewhere that I think Adnan killed her.  I'm mostly reading between the lines on this claim but he seems to even want credit for it, with a lot of what he says.  I think he even slipped once and very nearly said something to the effect of "I'm the only one who knows what happened out there".     

 

Interesting.  I'm not convinced of either his innocence or his guilt but on the balance of evidence presented, were I a jury member I would have acquitted.  Ironically, his trial was just a few months before the launch of CSI, which introduced the "CSI-bias," where juries began expecting or requiring much more physical, scientific evidence to support the case.  Had he been tried just a year later he might have been acquitted.

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This is the transcript to the episode where I felt that Adnan kind of wanted credit for the murder.

 

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k1o1Uoaj1i_TJ372Qyp4HkPKzVS7NozodI0fKFAn1K8/edit

 

The part where SK says that people say, "the Adnan I knew couldn't have done that" and he butts in angrily with, "What the hell does that even mean?  I'm not like a different...  I wasn't..."  And then he stops.  I felt like he wanted to say, "It's not like I was a different guy strangling Hae, I am the Adnan they all knew, they just didn't know I had that in me, that I could be a bad guy, a tough guy, they didn't give me the credit for that but I did it.  I planned it cold like a criminal mastermind, like Hitler, and I did it, and she didn't fight back, I didn't have a scratch on me, and no one saw it.  I would've pulled it off if not for PATHETIC Jay, some 'criminal element' he turned out to be."  

 

I know, hardly 'evidence', but that was my feeling.  

 

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This is the transcript to the episode where I felt that Adnan kind of wanted credit for the murder.

 

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k1o1Uoaj1i_TJ372Qyp4HkPKzVS7NozodI0fKFAn1K8/edit

 

The part where SK says that people say, "the Adnan I knew couldn't have done that" and he butts in angrily with, "What the hell does that even mean?  I'm not like a different...  I wasn't..."  And then he stops.  I felt like he wanted to say, "It's not like I was a different guy strangling Hae, I am the Adnan they all knew, they just didn't know I had that in me, that I could be a bad guy, a tough guy, they didn't give me the credit for that but I did it.  I planned it cold like a criminal mastermind, like Hitler, and I did it, and she didn't fight back, I didn't have a scratch on me, and no one saw it.  I would've pulled it off if not for PATHETIC Jay, some 'criminal element' he turned out to be."  

 

I know, hardly 'evidence', but that was my feeling.  

 

I did not read that conversation the same way.

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Yeah, I think no one but me did.  But after reading what some lawyers following the podcast have said, I believe that Adnan is guilty, so my listening is coming through that filter.  

 

I feel like his lawyer didn't have him take the stand because he is prone to outbursts like that and not actually that clever, and probably would've nailed his own coffin shut with his mouth.  Like him calling Jay pathetic in the court room.  Looking over the transcripts, he does an awful lot of hemming and hawing and saying nothing, as if he is trying to be careful to not reveal himself.  Even the SNL skit showed him that way, I think.

 

SK keeps insisting he's smart and likable and well-spoken but I don't feel that way anymore.  If she thinks that someone who killed someone is incapable of being friendly and holding a job or taking an honors course, I think that's silly.  I feel like he did a snow job on her and probably has on people his whole life, and that judge who called him a manipulator was probably right.  Maybe because I've known people like him, or like how I think he is.  

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I'm kind of in shock: Adnan's appeal will be heard: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-maryland-court-of-special-appeals-grants-adnan-syeds-application-to-reappeal-conviction-20150207-story.html

SK put a post up on the Serial site today to put some context around what this means (and doesn't).

http://serialpodcast.org/posts/2015/02/update-court-of-special-appeals-will-hear-arguments-in-adnan-syed-case

This is going to be a complete circus, media-wise, but I am glad that Adnan and his lawyers have a chance to be heard and make their best case.

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I'm not surprised they'll hear arguments, with the publicity around the case, and the issues raised those appellate judges are elected by the public, better to just hear the arguments at least.

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Whats a serial? a serial what?

 

http://serialpodcast.org

Serial is a podcast from the creators of This American Life, and is hosted by Sarah Koenig. Serial tells one story—a true story—over the course of an entire season. Each season, we'll follow a plot and characters wherever they take us. And we won’t know what happens at the end until we get there, not long before you get there with us.

 

Season 1 covered the 1999 murder of high-school senior Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, Maryland. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was convicted of the crime.

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Lawyers are doing a new podcast called Undisclosed, it is not unbiased but it goes more in depth into how the investigation, the prosecutor and the defense attorney were all incompetent.

 

It's being lead by Rabia, the friend/lawyer who originally approached Sarah Koenig with the story.

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Is it worth listening too?

 

I've haven't listened yet, but I plan on doing so, because I like the two lawyers who are participating, particularly Susan Simpson, having said that it's a LOT of detail and blind alleys. I think Serial was dedicated to being "entertaining" and I think these people are purely about the investigation, and get really really into all the minute detail, of the case, of the law, of procedure, and evidence, which is to say it's bit more dry and way way more confusing. If you are of the opinion that regardless of whether or not Adnan did it, he did not receive a fair trail (do to ineffective counsel, and the various shady behavior of cops and prosecutor), than you'll find it interesting. If you hope to figure out who killed Hae Min Lee and how, than we are all probably shit out of luck. 

Edited by blixie
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Undisclosed: The State vs. Adnan Syed

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/undisclosed-state-vs.-adnan/id984987791

In the wake of Serial, much new evidence and information has been discovered and uncovered thanks to the investigations of attorneys Susan Simpson and Collin Miller, and the Adnan Syed Legal Trust. Undisclosed will examine and explore the case in greater detail, from an investigatory perspective instead of a narrative one.

 

http://undisclosed-podcast.com

The Undisclosed podcast is a listening experience that reframes, enhances or otherwise shifts everything you've come to know about the State of Maryland's case against Adnan Syed, especially as you've come to know it through listening to Serial. In order to do that, we intend to revisit the case from the beginning, looking at all the available evidence. Not only will we look at the evidence that was presented in Serial, but we will also provide new evidence that we've uncovered in our investigation. We have combed through police and court records that the Serial team did not possess during the podcast, and done much, much more to get to the truth. Accordingly, we aspire to present the best possible version of the events as we believe those events to be. We will also present theories that we believe the evidence best construes. Perhaps most importantly, we will provide you with all of our evidence as part of that process.

 

We want our listeners to know that this podcast will not give you purely pro-Adnan information or intentionally slant it in his favor. We will present a smart, nuanced legal argument based on the totality of the facts in the case. As attorneys, we pride ourselves on looking dispassionately at facts, analyzing those facts, and applying the appropriate law in our analysis. Our coverage of Adnan's case on our blogs has taken this tact, and we aim to continue our assessments in this new medium. We promise you, our listeners, that our goal in this podcast is not to exonerate Adnan. Our goal is to get to the truth of what happened on January 13, 1999, and we believe that the best way to do so is to analyze all of the available information to come to an informed conclusion. That's what this podcast is all about.

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Did anyone listen to Undisclosed but me?  I don't think I'll be listening again.  It's super disorganized and is built around the fact that you have memorized various details of the case.  Sometimes I thought it was a bit insulting to the intelligence when SK would say in Serial things like, "just to remind you", "I know this is confusing", blah blah, but it is actually nice that the story is presented linearly and clearly, if occasionally redundant for clarity. The only thing I liked in Undisclosed was they had clips of "Cathy" talking to the police without her voice disguised, and the implications that they never even saw Cathy that night are interesting as well, but I couldn't follow the logic of it at all.

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Did anyone listen to Undisclosed but me?  I don't think I'll be listening again.  It's super disorganized and is built around the fact that you have memorized various details of the case.  Sometimes I thought it was a bit insulting to the intelligence when SK would say in Serial things like, "just to remind you", "I know this is confusing", blah blah, but it is actually nice that the story is presented linearly and clearly, if occasionally redundant for clarity. The only thing I liked in Undisclosed was they had clips of "Cathy" talking to the police without her voice disguised, and the implications that they never even saw Cathy that night are interesting as well, but I couldn't follow the logic of it at all.

 

I got about halfway through and then turned it off. I agree on the disorganization--they were all over the place. It was an odd mixture of sounding rehearsed but not having a plan for their narrative. I also thought it was too biased and didn't buy into the other two podcasters being objective enough to counteract the biased family friend. And this is someone who's a fence sitter, slightly leaning toward "he didn't do it", and strongly leaning toward "he certainly shouldn't have been convicted". So I figured if they couldn't even get me through the first episode, they probably have some pretty big problems. Too bad because it's an interesting premise and would be a great opportunity to fill in the gaps that Serial omitted, either for time constraints or "wasn't compelling enough for the story" reasons. 

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Vice News, 'Serial' win Peabody Awards

 

 

 

Vice News and the breakout hit podcast “Serial” were among newly minted Peabody Award winners for the news category, the Peabody Board announced Monday.

Vice News won two Peabody awards, its first ever, for its video series “The Islamic State” and “Last Chance High.” The podcast “Serial” from This American Life, which examined the evidence against an 18-year-old facing a life sentence for murder, became the first podcast to win the prestigious award.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/04/vice-news-serial-win-peabody-awards-205783.html

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I also thought it was too biased and didn't buy into the other two podcasters being objective enough to counteract the biased family friend.

 

Rabia is obviously biased but, IMO whatever POV Colin and Susan have is only biased by the evidence they've investigated. And I actually think Rabia, particularly in this second episode punctured a lot of their lawyerly logic assumptions about what kids would do/how they would behave (aka, that kids as well as many other often behave illogically/eratically).

 

I found the second episode a HUGE improvement on the first that *was* indeed, way too dense and disorganized, my one big complaint was that it wasn't conversational enough, but episode 2 they slowed their roll, and made it feel more like a thoughtful discussion v. information dump. 

 

And this episode focused on my one big issue with Serial/case: Hae's day, I felt like IF Sarah Koenig had a big failing it was that she never bothered to verify so many of the details of her day, or of THE day as it were. She reported a bunch of stuff that as they clearly lay out in this episode could not POSSIBLY have all been true about January 13th, most obviously her having a work shift at 6pm when she ALSO was supposed to be a wrestling meet in Randallstown, AND was going to meet Don who wasn't even working at the mall closest to the meet,and she was going do to ALL that AND pick up her cousin. Like it never computed, so the fact that the Serial team failed to investigate if in fact that fucking wrestling meet was on the 13th seems really really sloppy. It was repeated and reported AS fact umpteen times on the podcast, and even motivated Summer to contribute her memories of the *Randallstown wrestling meet incident with Hae* which took place a week earlier. 

 

Oof so much fail all around.

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I found the second episode a HUGE improvement on the first that *was* indeed, way too dense and disorganized, my one big complaint was that it wasn't conversational enough, but episode 2 they slowed their roll, and made it feel more like a thoughtful discussion v. information dump. 

 

Good to know. I wasn't even going to bother after the first episode, but now I'll give it a shot.

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Heh, well they do get all excited at the tail end of this one, all on PAGE 31, Debbie (Debbie 1 or Debbie 2 who knows) says X about Y who was in the gym Hallway at 3:42! So it'd still be nice if they had even ONE journalistic mind on the podcast, if only from a structure/editing standpoint. I kind of wish that guy (Pete something) who did those discussions with Rabia could moderate/modulate, but I think that was part of his academic work and is maybe an ethical or timing issue. He was more interested in the meta narrative than the legal solving the murder stuff anyway.

Edited by blixie
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I'm not sure if this should be in spoiler tags or not, so I'll tag it just in case - according to Maxim (I know, I know; I saw this linked on a different site) Sarah Koenig and one of the show's producers were in the courtroom for a hearing in the Bowe Bergdahl case.  If that's indeed the case they're going to do, that means they really went for a bigger case this time, but I also think it means she probably won't be able to talk to Bowe Bergdahl like she did with Adnan.

 

ETA - Rolling Stone confirmed the story, so I'm removing the spoiler tags.

Edited by Princess Sparkle
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