The cellphone pings that placed Adnan Syed near Leakin Park — and the defense that never called one key witness

The cellphone records put Adnan Syed near Leakin Park around the time of the burial, according to the prosecution's case.

A ping, a tower, a map drawn in court.

Incoming calls, the prosecution argued, placed his phone in the park that afternoon.

Experts later questioned that logic, as noted in the source.

An incoming call, they said, could not be reliably pinpointed to a specific location.

It could show a tower. It could not show a grave.

The exact location of Syed's phone at the time of the burial is not established.

The pings' reliability was disputed.

So was the timeline they were meant to support.

The defense never called Asia McClain.

She claimed she saw Syed at the library at the time the prosecution said the murder occurred.

Not in the park. At the library.

Why wasn't she called?

Was she forgotten? Was she disbelieved? Was she a risk?

The record does not say.

It says the defense did not call her.

It says the pings were contested.

It says the jury heard one story and not the other.

A ping is a number on a page.

A witness is a person in a chair.

The page was read aloud.

The chair stayed empty.

THE DISAPPEARANCE

She was eighteen, a senior, an athlete, popular enough that Woodlawn High School felt her absence the same afternoon.

Hae Min Lee disappeared on January 13, 1999.

She was last seen leaving school that day, heading out into a cold Maryland afternoon.

For twenty-seven days, no one knew where she was.

Then, on February 9, her body was found in Leakin Park.

She was buried in a shallow grave, covered lightly with dirt and branches.

The medical examiner testified that she died from manual strangulation.

Her car was found abandoned in a nearby neighborhood.

The exact time of death was not established.

Not because no one asked.

Because the evidence could not answer.

The medical examiner could say how she died.

He could not say when she died, or where her final hours were spent.