Season One of Serial was a comprehensive look at the trial of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 2000. The 12-part series questions the extent to which we can truly know another person, and how the legal system deals with that uncertainty in the course of prosecuting a crime. It's a sobering examination of the judicial process: the methods detectives use to identify suspects; the ability of a defense attorney to make or break a case; the nature of plea agreements; and life inside a maximum security prison.

Adnan and Hae were seniors at a magnet high school in Baltimore County when she went missing in January, 1999. Adnan was arrested after a friend of his, a small-time weed dealer named Jay, told detectives Adnan had planned the murder, carried it out, and then forced Jay to help dispose of the body. Adnan has always maintained his innocence.

The story caught the attention of Serial Host and Executive Producer Sarah Koenig because so many facts in the case seemed to cast doubt on the verdict: Adnan’s lawyer, renowned defense attorney Cristina Gutierrez, was disbarred a year after losing his case. A classmate came forward to provide an alibi for Adnan, but Gutierrez never contacted her. Jay, the state’s key witness, lied to detectives and changed his story multiple times. And aside from a few fingerprints in Hae Min Lee’s car, there was no physical evidence tying Adnan to the crime.

After a mistrial and a second, six-week trial, Adnan was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. But it still wasn’t clear what had actually happened to Hae. Jay said Adnan strangled her. Adnan said he had nothing to do with her murder. Both sides can’t be telling the truth, and Sarah wanted to know who was lying.

The first season of Serial follows her over the course of 15 months of reporting, including 40 hours of interviews with Adnan from prison, and interviews with more than 60 other people connected to the case – friends, relatives, attorneys, detectives, and more. The Serial team dug through thousands of pages of documents, talked to sources who were never heard from in court, and spent countless hours examining two main pieces of evidence: Jay’s testimony and Adnan’s cell phone records.

Season One of Serial aired in the fall of 2014, with weekly episodes appearing online every Thursday. The show quickly gained a huge global following and today, episodes of Serial have been downloaded more than 54 million times - an average of 4.5 million downloads per episode.

Each week, a devoted Serial audience engaged in online and in-person discussions of the major themes of the show. Can we always trust the courts to do their job? Is there really a presumption of innocence? How do you weigh “reasonable doubt?” How often are the innocent sent to prison? What’s a just punishment for murder?

The New Yorker said, “’Serial’ gave millions of people what felt like a personal connection to the realities of criminal prosecution,” and Slate said, “Serial tells us that sometimes regular-seeming people do terrible things—and then regular people investigate and prosecute those things.” Listeners are constantly reminded that the issues central to the show are commonplace across the country. As the ACLU wrote, “By questioning the validity of some criminal justice procedures and educating its listeners to ask questions, especially when someone's life is on the line, the podcast has done a great public service: Because the case of Adnan Syed is not particularly unique.”

Articles about Serial:

• "Serial Is Like Nothing I've Ever Heard or Watched Before," Slate, Oct. 3, 2014.

  The characters feel like people I’ve met; the mundane questions and frustrations of the investigation feel like daily dilemmas we’ve all dealt with. But the stakes are unlike nothing I—or you, probably—can imagine. Serial tells us that sometimes regular-seeming people do terrible things—and then regular people investigate and prosecute those things.Small decisions and vague memories and coincidences and hasty decisions can add up to life and death. And that’s a truth that’s going to stick with me a lot longer than the next tabloid tale of lust or greed that I watch on Dateline.

• "'Serial': The Podcast We've Been Waiting For," The New Yorker, Oct. 9, 2014.

  It’s a thoughtful exploration of real, recognizable people—responsible, athletic teen-agers in a magnet program, who are close with their immigrant families, get good grades, have jobs (as an E.M.T., or at LensCrafters at the local mall), and fall in love at the junior prom to K-Ci & JoJo’s “All My Life.” Koenig interviews Syed extensively, as well as Syed and Lee’s friends, teachers, and relatives. Syed is warm and appealing, as are Chaudry and her brother Saad, Syed’s good friend. In fact, everybody is. It seems impossible that Lee’s murder could have happened at all, or that Syed could have been convicted of it. But both things did happen. That’s the mystery.

• "'Serial' Is The Year's Best New Crime Drama (And It's Not On TV," Buzzfeed, Oct. 31, 2014.

  That’s been the challenge of the story all along, is How can you tell? We all think we’re a pretty good judge of character. We all have these tools, and you move through life that way — that’s how we operate. You’re constantly, throughout your day, making judgments and decisions about how you’re going to think of other people. To me, that’s the huge conundrum of the whole thing. If these people did these things, then what does it mean about our ability to judge people? How can you tell what’s someone’s capable of?

• "'Serial' Podcast Catches Fire," Wall Street Journal, Nov. 13, 2014.

  High-school students, some the same age as the victim, are eagerly waiting to see what Ms. Koenig turns up next. Michael Godsey, an English teacher who usually makes his 11th-grade students read “Hamlet” this time of year, upended his lesson plans after “Serial.” Now roughly 150 students at Morro Bay High School on the central coast of California are listening to the show in class and doing assignments about it. At Lakes Community High School in suburban Chicago, seniors are studying the show for class, too. Some got so into it, they put up a police-style board for evidence with pictures and colored yarn threaded between suspects. “They wanted to CSI track it,” said their English teacher, Emily Cody.

• "What 'Serial' Really Taught Us," The New Yorker, Dec. 18, 2014.

  Episode twelve conclusively proved that what we’ve been listening to is not a murder mystery: it’s a deep exploration of the concept of reasonable doubt, and therefore an exposé, if unwittingly so, of the terrible flaws in our justice system. Those among us who deign to be jurors, and don’t try to wriggle out of jury duty, too often don’t understand reasonable doubt, or can’t convince fellow-jurors about what it truly means. We convict people who haven’t been proved guilty because we feel that they are guilty. We feel that they’re guilty in part because they’re sitting in a courtroom having been accused of a terrible crime. In cases like this, the burden often ends up on proving the accused’s innocence—not innocent until proven guilty. And Adnan Syed is just the tip of the iceberg.

• "Serial and What It Says About America's Criminal Justice System," ACLU Blog of Rights, Dec. 22, 2014.

  Serial, the pop culture podcast phenomenon, isn't just a well-produced and addictive listening experience (though it is both of those things). By questioning the validity of some criminal justice procedures and educating its listeners to ask questions, especially when someone's life is on the line, the podcast has done a great public service: Because the case of Adnan Syed is not particularly unique.

Emails from Listeners (emails are not for publication):

From Gary, in CA:

What an incredible podcast! After hearing about it, I started listening on Sunday and finished it this morning...I’m glad I didn’t have to wait a week between episodes.

I am a Captain of a Police Department in California (and former homicide detective) and find your team’s investigative work unbelievably comprehensive. The work you did on this case is exactly what I want to see in the detectives who are working for me. Not only was the work detailed, but the “outside the box” thinking and questioning is exactly what is needed in these types of cases. You should really think about doing trainings for police departments…your experiences, perspective, and thought process would be invaluable.

From Ashli, CA

Dear Serial Staff,

You guys have created something incredible. Over my winter break I have been hooked and finished Season 1 in a week. I can't wait for Season 2!

I teach high school English at a quasi-military boarding school for very "troubled" youths. In our ten-week course, I am going to use Season 1 as an integral part of our class to teach critical analysis and writing. I think the students will be completely into this and not even realize they are learning and practicing skills vital to life while they listen to, analyze, and write about Season 1. And thank you so much for including documents!

I'm so excited to get this new cycle of students going and try this out; I think the rest of the English teachers and our students are really going to enjoy this addition to our curriculum.

Thanks for all of the important work you do!

From Amal, NY

Dear Sara Koenig and Serial staff,

My name is Amal [redacted]. I am a twelve-year-old New Yorker and seventh grader at [redacted] on the upper west side of Manhattan. Among these things, I am also an avid Serial listener! ... Last year, many of my friends were watching the show Sherlock, and after watching the first episode with me, my mom decided that it was too violent. After listening to the first few episodes of Serial, though, I asked her why she didn't mind me listening to Serial, but she wouldn't let me watch Sherlock. They are both murder programs, after all. This lead to a conversation on whether or not it is different to watch something and get disturbing images into your head than to listen to something that contains some violence and disturbing content. We decided that it was different, and also, Serial is about real events while Sherlock is written and designed to manipulate and scare you...We just donated 100 dollars (I pitched in with 15, three weeks of allowance) to Serial. I really hope that you do a second season! It will be hard to find a case that lives up to this one though-- you set the bar too high!