It was easy to forget, so urgent the storytelling, that Adnan Syed had already been behind bars for 15 years when Serial premiered in October 2014. And despite the many questions raised in the zeitgeist-altering true crime podcast, that was where he stayed.
Host Sarah Koenig frequently reminded in interviews after the series took off like wildfire that she didn't have an agenda. She didn't set out to exonerate Syed, who always maintained his innocence, or otherwise lay the blame on someone else for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee. Rather, the This American Life producer had been apprised—by attorney and Syed family friend Rabia Chaudry—of a possibly problematic police investigation and subsequent conviction.
So she set out to retrace all the steps along the way.
The first season of Serial was downloaded more than 175 million times. Its success led to not just a 2019 HBO docuseries, The Case Against Adnan Syed, but to people all over the world being minutely aware of ongoing legal proceedings in Baltimore that they probably would have never known about otherwise.
In 2016, Syed's conviction was vacated and he was granted a new trial by a Circuit Court judge, but when the HBO series premiered, the Maryland Court of Appeals had just upheld prosecutors' objection to that ruling—meaning, no trial was on the horizon. His conviction was reinstated.
Months later, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up his case.
But his legal team persisted—and state authorities also agreed to review his case. Following a year-long investigation, Marilyn Mosby, State's Attorney for Baltimore since 2015, and Becky Feldman, chief of the Sentencing Review Unit, announced Sept. 14 they were taking steps to vacate Syed's conviction and request a new trial.
Five days later, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn vacated the conviction and Syed was released from prison into house arrest, with an ankle monitor. He had served 22 years of a life sentence, plus a year spent in jail during, first, a mistrial and then the trial that resulted in him being found guilty of murder.
Young Lee, Hae's brother, immediately appealed the decision. Phinn had agreed with Mosby and Feldman that 20 years ago the state violated its legal obligation to share evidence that could have supported Adnan's defense. She gave prosecutors 30 days to refile the charges.
But on Oct. 11, the Baltimore City State Attorney's office dropped the charges.
"I've utilized my power and discretion to dismiss the case," Mosby said at a news conference, citing DNA evidence that supported Syed's innocence (a "second round of touch DNA testing of items that were never tested before") and potential other suspects, among other issues with the conviction. "There's no more appeal. It's moot...The case is over."
But the investigation into Lee's death, she added, was still open.
"I'm going to put every power and resource in my means to assure justice for Hae Min Lee," Mosby said.
Syed's attorney Erica Suter, director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore Law School, noted that the proceedings were "not completely over," but "this is an important step for Adnan, who has been on house arrest since the motion to vacate was first granted last month. He still needs some time to process everything that has happened and we ask that you provide him and his family with that space."
Noting that having the charges dropped isn't the same as an exoneration, Suter said, per the Post, that she'd be working with the state's attorney to begin the process of certifying Syed's innocence.
Lee's family said that they had no prior notice of Mosby's decision, and learned about it online like everybody else.
"The family received no notice and their attorney was offered no opportunity to be present at the proceeding," Steve Kelly, an attorney for the family, told NBC News in a statement. "By rushing to dismiss the criminal charges, the State's Attorney's Office sought to silence Hae Min Lee's family and to prevent the family and the public from understanding why the State so abruptly changed its position of more than 20 years.
"All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Today's actions robbed them of both."
On Oct. 12, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals gave Lee's family 15 days to show why their appeal should not be dismissed as moot. Otherwise, according to legal experts, the case against Syed is likely, in fact, over.
So now is it back to the beginning, again, when it comes to the question of who's responsible for the murder of Hae Min Lee?
To put it in the words of Syed's friend Laura, talking to Koenig for Serial: "Well then, who the f--k did it?"
While a judge didn't dismiss the charges against Syed with a bang of the gavel while exclaiming, "Serial!" the podcast will forever be linked to this outcome, even if it was the long, un-sexy process of appeals and dogged legal work that ultimately freed him after 23 years behind bars.
Scroll on to get to know the major characters in this unbelievable real-life drama: