From conviction to freedom: A timeline of the Adnan Syed case

BALTIMORE - Adnan Syed spent more than 20 years in prison following his conviction in the 1999 death of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.

Last month, Syed's murder conviction was vacated, and he was set free.

Syed, who was a 17-year-old student at Woodlawn High School, was charged in the death of 18-year-old Lee, and found guilty of first-degree murder in 2000.

The case first received national attention in 2014 the hit podcast "Serial" raised questions about the prosecution.  

On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges after DNA test results came back that excluded Syed.

It's been a long road from conviction to freedom for Syed.

WJZ compiled a timeline of events from the 1999 death of Lee to when Syed's charges were dropped.

Timeline of Events

Jan. 13, 1999: Hae Min Lee was reported missing when she didn't pick up her younger cousin from daycare. Lee was a student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County. 

Feb. 9, 1999: Lee's partially buried body was located by someone in Leakin Park in Baltimore. It was determined Lee was strangled to death.

Feb. 1999: Police built a case against Syed, largely on the testimony of a man named Jay Wilds, who at the time had more than 20 run-ins with police -- including aggravated assault against a former girlfriend.

Wilds struck a deal and claimed that Syed asked him to help bury Hae Min's body. He quickly became the centerpiece of their case, despite changing his testimony multiple times. While Wilds pled guilty to accessory after the fact, he served no time. Wilds is a free man who now lives in California.

Feb. 28, 1999: Syed was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

December 1999: Syed's first trial started but ended in a mistrial after three days. Jurors on the case overheard a sidebar between Syed's defense attorney - Cristina Gutierrez - and the judge. According to reports, Gutierrez interpreted a statement by the judge as tantamount to accusing her of lying. After learning the jury had overheard this discussion, the judge granted Gutierrez's motion for a mistrial.

January 2000: Syed's second trial started and continued for six weeks.

Feb. 25, 2000: The jury found Syed guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and robbery. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years. Syed's family, that day, fired his defense attorney.

March 19, 2003: Syed unsuccessfully appealed his conviction.

May 28, 2010: Syed made an appeal for post-conviction relief in 2010 based on ineffective assistance of counsel based on his defense attorney Cristina Gutierrez's failure to investigate an alibi witness, Asia McClain, who maintained she was talking with Syed in the library at the exact time that prosecutors said Syed attacked Lee in a Best Buy parking lot several miles away.

The judge ruled that Gutierrez's decision not to call McClain as a witness was part of her defense strategy rather than an act of incompetence. The judge said the letters McClain sent Syed in jail were weak and possibly damaging evidence for the defense, since they did not state the time she saw him at the library and contradicted Syed's own account from that day."

The appeal was ultimately denied.

Oct. 3 to Dec. 18, 2014: Syed's case, and the murder of Lee, prompted the first season of the popular "Serial" podcast. That podcast was downloaded more than 100 million times before June 2016. Episodes raised new questions about the murder conviction.

Feb. 6, 2015: The Maryland Court of Special Appeals approved Syed's application for permission to appeal for a potential hearing on the admissibility of the alibi testimony of Asia McClain.

Feb. 9, 2015: Syed's family spoke out on the "Serial" podcast after the Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided to review the murder conviction. His family told Syed over the phone.

"My brother didn't believe my mom, so when I grabbed the phone and I told him, he was so happy. He was just laughing," said Syed's brother, Yusuf Syed.

May 18, 2015: The Maryland Court of Special Appeals gave the case to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Syed's lawyer, C. Justin Brown, filed a motion on Aug. 24, 2015, saying that a newly recovered document showed that the cell tower evidence used by prosecutors was misleading and should not have been admitted at trial. Prosecutors previously said that two other suspects arose in the case, though their names have not been released.

Nov. 6, 2015: A Baltimore City judge ordered that Syed's post-conviction relief proceedings, to determine his eligibility for a new trial, would be re-opened, according to court records. 

Early February, 2016: The post-conviction relief hearing lasted five days. Asia McClain testified that she talked to Syed at the library on Jan. 13, 1999, the day Lee was reported missing," court records show.

June 30, 2016: According to court records, Syed's request for a new trial was granted and his conviction was vacated, ruling that his initial defense attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, "rendered ineffective assistance when she failed to cross-examine the state's expert regarding the reliability of cell tower location evidence."

Syed's bail was still denied.

March 29, 2018: According to court records, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld Syed's request for a new trial. The Court of Special Appeals' said that Syed's counsel failed to contact a potential alibi witness who could "have raised a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror."

Prosecutors and Attorney General Brian Frosh argued to reverse the lower court's ruling, and said that "Syed's defense attorney did a thorough job and the witness, Asia McClain, would not have changed the outcome of the case."

The prosecution appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. 

March 8, 2019: In a split 4–3 ruling, the Court of Appeals reversed the findings of the lower courts, denying Syed's request for a new trial, court records show.

While the court agreed Syed's legal counsel was deficient, they found it was not enough to have swayed the jury to change their decision because the evidence against him was so strong. 

March 10, 2019: HBO premiered a mini-documentary series "The Case Against Adnan Syed." 

In production since 2015, "The Case Against Adnan Syed" re-examined Hae Min Lee's disappearance, from her relationship with Syed up to present-day, as Syed pushed for a new trial.  

Nov. 25, 2019: The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Syed's appeal for a new trial.

March 10, 2022: Baltimore City prosecutors agreed to new DNA testing that Syed's lawyers believed could clear his name.

Prosecutors agreed to DNA tests on clothes, hair and other evidence. Those tests are far more sophisticated than anything available at the time of Syed's first trial.  

"To be honest, none of the evidence listed in the petition has ever been tested, not even the rape kit," Syed's friend and author Rabia Chaudry said. "You don't actually have to have the killer's blood or semen. Anything he touched might have his DNA."

On the "Serial" podcast, Syed said, "No one has been able to provide any shred of evidence that I had anything but friendship towards her, like love and respect for her. I had no reason to kill her."  

Sept. 14, 2022:  Baltimore prosecutors filed a motion to vacate Syed's murder conviction.

Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby said Wednesday her office is seeking a new trial after a nearly-year long investigation revealed two new possible suspects.

Sept. 19, 2022: Syed was released from prison after his murder conviction was vacated by a judge. This came after the 41-year-old served more than 23 years in prison.

In the courtroom, officers removed the shackles to a cheer. At that time, prosecutors did not completely dismiss the case.  

Sept. 20, 2022: Baltimore City State's Attorney said that if DNA does not match Syed, she was going to drop the charges.

She then criticized Frosh and investigators for their handling of the case.

"Why did they sit on this information? Why wasn't this disclosed? Why wasn't it discovered?" Mosby said to Hellgren. "Because the moment that we discovered it, we turned it over. Those are questions you should be asking the attorney general."

Prosecutors admit cell phone evidence was unreliable and some witnesses testimony was not credible—including that of Jay Wilds who said Syed confessed to the murder and he helped bury Lee.  

Frosh disputed that and issued a statement critical of Mosby's claims and saying there were "serious problems" with the motion to vacate Syed's conviction. 

Sept. 28, 2022: The family of Hae Min Lee filed a notice of appeal in an attempted to reverse a Maryland judge's decision to vacate the murder conviction of  Syed.

Oct. 7, 2022: The Maryland Attorney General's Office joined Lee's family in calling for a pause to circuit court proceedings for Adnan Syed.

Oct. 11, 2022: Prosecutors dropped the charges of Adnan Syed. He was cleared after DNA results cleared Syed.