Fans of the Serial podcast, which became the most downloaded in the world in 2014, will soon be getting a follow up series, though the This American Life producer Sarah Koenig will not be narrating it. Undisclosed: The State v. Adnan Syed is to be produced by the legal team supporting Syed, who says he was wrongfully convicted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in Baltimore in 1999.
Syed is currently serving a life sentence for the murder, despite the Serial podcast revealing several discrepancies in the legal aspects of his case.
The new podcast, created by Syed’s attorneys – Susan Simpson, Colin Miller, and Rabia Chaudry (who recently appeared on Newstalk Breakfast to discuss the case) – will be released twice a month starting April 13th, and will detail the new evidence uncovered since Serial wrapped up its first season in December.
Ms Chaudry is a staunch ally and long-time family friend of Syed, and is responsible for bringing the case to the attention of Sarah Koenig and the rest of the Serial producers. She also acts as a trustee of the Adnan Syed Legal Trust, which has crowdsourced more than $90,000 (€84,000) for the purposes of supporting the escalating legal fees of Syed’s ongoing appeals.
The trust is also financially supporting the production of the new podcast, though Ms Chaudry says its a voluntary production, and that even the theme music was donated free of charge.
A week from today our new podcast about #AdnanSyed drops, picking up where #Serial left off. Keep an eye out here: http://t.co/JYQSP6DeeV
— rabia chaudry (@rabiasquared) April 6, 2015
The podcast will step away from the narrative true-crime storytelling of Serial, a spin-off show from the producers of the popular and long-running NPR programme This American Life.
“They’re journalists, they’re broadcasters. We’re not any of those things,” Ms Chaudry explained, adding that she hopes the Undisclosed podcast will bring a different perspective to the facts of the case.
Contrary to reports, Ms Chaudry maintains that she was satisfied with the conclusions – or lack thereof – reached in the final episode of Serial. “I think it ended in an authentic way,” she said. “I understand why she [Sarah Koenig] could not declare innocence. I felt okay with it – Serial was amazing.”
Syed and his lawyers are currently preparing for his upcoming appeal at the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Production is currently ongoing on the second season of Serial, which will not feature the Hae Min Lee murder case.
You can hear the first episode from the new podcast below:
(function() { var po = document.createElement("script"); po.type = "text/javascript"; po.async = true; po.src = "https://d15mj6e6qmt1na.cloudfront.net/cdn/embed.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();
