H ae Min Lee was a typical high school student in Baltimore 1999. A popular Korean American girl, she was bright, pretty, romantic. On 13 January 1999, she was last seen driving from school to pick up her younger cousin. When she failed to turn up, her parents reported her missing. Police concluded that by that time, she was already dead.

A few weeks later, a known streaker was walking in Leakin Park, west Baltimore, to find somewhere to urinate. Instead, he stumbled on a partially buried body. Hae was found to have died by manual strangulation – hands around her neck. The trail, consisting of later-disputed cellphone tower signals, one singularly unreliable witness, 21 crucial minutes without an alibi and entries in Hae’s own diary, would lead police to her ex-boyfriend: Adnan Syed. The Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants in a majority-black high school, he was athletic, charismatic and hard-working. But despite the lack of definitive physical evidence and, it was later claimed, a negligent defence attorney, Syed was convicted to life imprisonment for first-degree murder. He is still in prison today.