I hope you like the brownies because I know that I’m going to have stayed up late to bake them so they’d be fresh…Now when we get married, you can wear the pants in the family and I’ll wear the apron.

Signed off with a smiley face, those words, taken from a teenager’s letter to his sweetheart, show the joy of young love in all its fervour. But as listeners of the podcast Serial know, the relationship between Adnan Syed and his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, proved far from idyllic – following her murder in Baltimore in 1999, Syed was convicted of the crime, for which he was sentenced to life plus 30 years.

It was Rabia Chaudry, a family friend for whom the now 35-year-old is “like a little brother,” who brought his long dormant story to the world. Since contacting Sarah Koenig, a producer on This American Life, three years ago, his case has rarely left the news: at the end of June this year, evidence gathered since the podcast was aired (after numerous lawyers and internet sleuths mounted the charge for his freedom) and the murder conviction vacated.

After more than a decade-and-a-half of waiting, Syed will now be granted a new trial.