But that was a few weeks ago.
On March 7, the debut of Amy Berg’s four-part documentary series for HBO, “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” was three days away, and many signs indicated that a new trial for Syed was coming: His conviction had been vacated; two courts had agreed that a new trial was needed; and Berg’s documentary promised to raise even more questions about the credibility of the prosecution’s case.
Then March 8, the highest court in Maryland overturned the lower courts’ decisions, reinstating Syed’s conviction. Berg suddenly found that her series would be airing in a starkly different context.
“I find the decision disappointing considering all the troubling and lingering questions surrounding this case that we explored while filming,” she said in a statement given to The Times.
The final part of Berg’s documentary is set to air Sunday, putting a bow on revelations that HBO has called “groundbreaking.” In a phone conversation that took place before the higher court’s ruling, Berg spoke about her hopes and motivations for the series at the time. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Many people were obsessed with “Serial.” Why did you want to make another big series about Syed’s case?
I really wanted to examine the context of the story, of the aftermath of the exposure from the podcast — and just to see the environment. It’s really helpful to see people’s faces when they’re talking about such important details and the effect these events had on their lives. There was such devastation on all different sides, and I wanted to illustrate that visually, to take it one step further.
I also felt that the victim often gets lost in true crime storytelling, and I wanted to start and end the story with Hae Min Lee. I had access to her journals, and I felt very precious about that access, and about her friends and the trust that they offered. I just didn’t want to take that for granted. So the objective of this film to begin with was to bring a young woman full of hopes and dreams back to life.
How does one start doing all of that?
In the beginning I was trying to figure out, how do you tell the story? What’s interesting? And for me, it was the idea that this was a high school, and these were a bunch of kids who are trapped in these memories forever because of what happened to them. That’s why I called the first episode “Forbidden Love,” because it was all about just, you know, high school romance.
Do you think it’s fair to say that the series has a pretty clear perspective on Syed’s guilt or innocence?
I think that if you’re looking at the actual case that was presented in the trial, then it’s clear — not just from our perspective; there are court rulings that have vacated his sentence — that he’s definitely entitled to a new trial. Otherwise, you would have to find other evidence to support the convictions besides the testimony of Jay Wild (a former friend of Syed’s, who was the state’s key witness), which has been discredited.
I don’t know if you saw the opinions from the court of appeals and the special court of appeals, but they basically said that the state could not prove that this crime happened in the way that it was presented in the trial.
What would you tell critics who might say that the documentary is tendentious because of that clear perspective, if not manipulative?
If there is a potential wrongful conviction, I’m going to go into it with a certain slant. I understand what you’re saying. But I also was very clear with my producers and with the private investigators that we engaged that if we found out anything that showed that Adnan was involved (in the murder), we were going to take that path as well. It wasn’t like a clear slant. It was just that there was something wrong with this case.
The more you dig in, you do start seeing things that don’t add up with good detective work. And then you wonder why. The students I spoke to told me that the police detectives told them that (Syed’s) DNA and his fingerprints were in the car, and that’s not true. Little things like that are really manipulative, so the questions become more like, “What was the agenda?”
I did find the dramatizations of the audio-taped police interrogations with Jay to be pushing an idea of what happened that can’t be verified. Do you see yourself more as an advocate than a journalist?
I mean, I view myself as a storyteller, and this is a really interesting story that has a lot of different viewpoints. When you listen to those tapes, Jay’s voice and the way he has discussions is definitely different when he has to recite details and facts versus his personal accounting of things. His evolving story creates a lot of problems. I mean, how can you not remember the spot where you saw a dead body in the trunk? It doesn’t make sense.
So, yeah, it’s tough. But I apply the ethics of journalism in my fact-checking. And I am telling a story for a wide audience, and you have to find ways to dramatize certain things in order to make people understand them better.
Your documentary “West of Memphis” revisited another murder case that had been the subject of a well-known series. Do you feel a sense of duty to show people: “Hey, this isn’t just about the buzz; these are real people’s lives, and the story is still continuing for them”?
I think that this film can, by illustrating the story visually, give a greater understanding of it. But also, we take up our investigation where “Serial” left off, and a lot has happened in the case since 2016. When you mention his name to somebody, people just assume he’s already out of prison because he was granted a new trial two years ago. And the truth is that he may never get out of prison.
What do you find people’s appetite is for revisiting such cases?
I think people want satisfaction, and I don’t know that you’re finished with a story until you get some kind of closure. So there are these audiences already out there, and I think that there’s something in this for them: There are a lot of new investigative discoveries, and Episode 4 is really compelling in that way. And then there are a lot of people who just know the name Adnan Syed, and they don’t know the story.
I read something that compared true crime to an adrenaline rush, kind of like what we experience on a roller coaster. I think there’s an addictive nature to this whole idea of true crime. (This series) is just taking us closer to some ending on this case, and it just might not be a satisfying one. But I guess we’ll see.
Still, if you look at the attention “Making a Murder” Season 2 received, it was small compared to the first season. Why do you think that is? Do we care more about the water cooler talk and being part of the phenomenon than about the real humans at the center of these stories?
I guess that could play into it. I personally don’t want to believe that that’s why we like these kinds of stories. I feel like its more than that. There just has to be more than that.
As a person with a camera, I think that we have shown that there has been an impact from covering certain stories because of the pressure it puts on the state. If the phenomenon is what is encouraging exoneration, then we should continue doing this. So many people are affected by lost lives and wrongful convictions. It has to continue.
Do you have specific hopes for what the new revelations in your series might help achieve?
I hope that Adnan gets a trial. Because then there would be either an exoneration or an absolute conviction. And I think that he deserves that.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.