The Alibi (4) La coartada (4) アリバイ (4) Alibi (4) O Álibi (4) 不在场证明 (4)

Anyway, Rabia calls Asia up. It’s been a year since she wrote the letters, but she agrees to meet.

Rabia      And she told me, that day after school I went to the public library. And Adnan was sitting at a computer, checking email or something. And I sat down next to him. We started chatting. And Adnan was a very popular boy in school. He was handsome and popular with the ladies.

So she was speaking to him. And her boyfriend shows up a little bit later with a friend. And she said her boyfriend was really angry at her, because he’s like, why are you talking to him? E ela disse que o namorado estava com muita raiva dela, porque ele disse, por que você está falando com ele? You know, high school kids, why are you talking to him? Is he hitting on you? Ele está dando em cima de você?

And she remembered very specifically that that day she went to her boyfriend’s house with him, and they got snowed in. E ela lembrou muito especificamente que naquele dia ela foi para a casa do namorado com ele, e eles ficaram presos na neve. And it snowed really heavily that night. And she remembered that for the following two days, school was closed. So she had very specific details about why she remembered that day.

Sarah Koenig Asia wrote out an affidavit on the spot. Sarah Koenig Asia escreveu uma declaração juramentada no local. In it, she says she and Adnan spoke for about 15 to 20 minutes while she was waiting for her boyfriend to give her a ride. Nele, ela diz que ela e Adnan conversaram por cerca de 15 a 20 minutos enquanto ela esperava que o namorado lhe desse uma carona. Quote, "We left around 2:40," unquote. Aspas: "Saímos por volta das 2h40", fecha aspas. Remember, Hae is supposed to be dead by 2:36. And then, the kicker-- "No attorney has ever contacted me about January 13, 1999 and the above information." E então, o kicker-- "Nenhum advogado jamais me contatou sobre 13 de janeiro de 1999 e as informações acima." So benefit of the doubt for a second-- maybe Adnan never actually showed the letters to Cristina Gutierrez, his attorney. Sure, he said he did, but who knows? Well, I know. Deep inside Gutierrez’s notes on the case-- I have boxes and boxes of such stuff-- there’s this in her handwriting. "Asia plus boyfriend saw him in library 2:15 to 3:15." Then there’s another note, dated July 13. It’s more than four months after Adnan’s arrest. This is written by one of Gutierrez’s law clerks, who visited Adnan in jail. Quote, "Asia McClain saw him in the library at 3:00. Asia boyfriend saw him too. Library may have cameras." Why, oh, why was this person never heard from at trial-- a solid, non-crazy, detail-oriented alibi witness in a case that so sorely needed alibi witnesses? Por que, oh, por que essa pessoa nunca foi ouvida no julgamento - uma testemunha de álibi sólida, não louca e detalhista em um caso que precisava tanto de testemunhas de álibi? I can’t ask Christina Gutierrez, because she died in 2004.

So I put that question to a few defense attorneys. And they said, well, alibi witnesses can be tricky, especially if it’s just one person. Because then it becomes one person’s word over another. A single witness like that can backfire under cross-examination. Uma única testemunha como essa pode sair pela culatra em um interrogatório. Or they might take the jury’s focus away from the weaknesses in the state’s case. Ou eles podem tirar o foco do júri das fraquezas do caso do estado.

So there are conceivable strategic reasons why Christina Gutierrez might not have wanted to put Asia McClain on the stand. Portanto, existem razões estratégicas concebíveis pelas quais Christina Gutierrez pode não querer colocar Asia McClain no depoimento. But what is inconceivable, they all said, is to not ever contact Asia McClain, to never make the call, never check it out, never find out if her story helps or hurts your case. That makes no sense whatsoever. That is not a strategy. That is a screw-up. Isso é uma bagunça.

When I first heard about the long-lost Asia letters and the lawyer’s mistake, I thought, well, their fight is over, right? Quando ouvi pela primeira vez sobre as cartas perdidas da Ásia e o erro do advogado, pensei, bem, a briga deles acabou, certo? They’ve got an alibi witness who was never heard from. Eles têm uma testemunha de álibi de quem nunca se ouviu falar. It’s such a slam dunk. É um slam dunk. They’re done. Eles terminaram.

Adnan’s family hired a new attorney, who filed a petition in court based on the Asia affidavit. His argument was that Adnan’s trial could have turned out differently if Gutierrez had checked out Asia’s story. And so Adnan should get some form of what’s called post-conviction relief. E assim Adnan deveria obter alguma forma do que é chamado de alívio pós-condenação.

The new lawyer figures he’ll get Asia to come to the hearing. O novo advogado calcula que conseguirá que Asia compareça à audiência. She’ll vouch for her story. Ela vai atestar sua história. By this time, Asia had finished school and moved away. He finds an address on the West Coast, tries calling, sending messages-- nothing. Ele encontra um endereço na Costa Oeste, tenta ligar, enviar mensagens - nada. Finally, he writes a letter to her, gives it to a private investigator, who goes out to Asia’s house in hopes of delivering it.

Asia’s fiance comes to the door, opens it part way, tells the investigator that she cannot speak to Asia, but that from what he knows of Adnan’s case, Adnan is guilty and deserved the punishment he got. Later, the investigator gets a call from the fiance. "We don’t have to talk to you. Leave us alone." So Adnan’s lawyer calls off the search for Asia, figuring once a witness turns on you like that, it’s too risky to keep pushing. Então o advogado de Adnan cancela a busca por Asia, imaginando que uma vez que uma testemunha se volta contra você dessa forma, é muito arriscado continuar pressionando. And then at Adnan’s hearing on the new petition, it comes out that Asia had done the very thing they dreaded. E então, na audiência de Adnan sobre a nova petição, descobre-se que a Ásia fez exatamente o que eles temiam. Asia had called one of the prosecutors in Adnan’s case, a guy named Kevin Urick, and undermined her own statement. This is from a recording of the hearing. Isto é de uma gravação da audiência. Mr. Urick is testifying on the witness stand. O Sr. Urick está testemunhando no banco das testemunhas.

Attorney      Mr. Urick, how did you learn that the [INAUDIBLE] petition? Advogado Sr. Urick, como você soube da petição [INAUDÍVEL]?

Kevin Urick      A young lady named Asia called me. Kevin Urick Uma jovem chamada Asia me ligou.

Attorney      And what did she say?

Kevin Urick      She was concerned, because she was being asked questions about an affidavit she’d written back at the time of the trial. She told me that she’d only written it because she was getting pressure from the family, and she basically wrote it to please them and get them off her back. Ela me disse que só o escreveu porque estava sendo pressionada pela família, e basicamente o escreveu para agradá-los e tirá-los de cima dela.

Rabia      I don’t know what happened to her and why she would do this.

Sarah Koenig Here’s Rabia again. She says it’s not true that Asia was bullied into writing that statement 15 years ago. And she can’t fathom why Asia would discredit her own statement like that.

Rabia      I don’t know why. The affidavit was written voluntarily. I’m an attorney. Eu sou um advogado. I’m a licensed attorney. I work on homeland security. I have no reason to make something like this up. I didn’t even know she existed until after the conviction. Eu nem sabia que ela existia até depois da condenação.

Sarah Koenig      So what do you think happened? Why would they have this sort of violent reaction to helping out Adnan now?

Rabia      I don’t know. It was just really odd. Foi muito estranho.

Sarah Koenig So who knows what would have happened if Asia had shown up? Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. After all, they had the original letters and the affidavit. That’s all that should’ve mattered. Isso é tudo que deveria ter importado. But it didn’t look good. Mas não parecia bom.

It would be natural for the judge to wonder, why can’t the defense produce this Asia person? Seria natural que o juiz se perguntasse, por que a defesa não pode apresentar essa pessoa da Ásia? Why is she making this call to a prosecutor? Por que ela está ligando para um promotor? I mean, anyone would wonder. Quero dizer, qualquer um se perguntaria. I wondered. I wondered if maybe she was pressured into writing that affidavit. And I wondered if she was hiding something.

Like maybe she’d lied in those 1999 letters. Maybe she didn’t really see Adnan at the library that day and had just wanted to insert herself into something exciting. And maybe now that she was grown up, she wanted nothing to do with any of it. E talvez agora que ela cresceu, ela não queria ter nada a ver com nada disso.

So three, four months after I first sat down with Rabia, I had become fixated on finding Asia. I’m like a bloodhound on this thing. Eu sou como um cão de caça nesta coisa. Because the whole case seemed to me to be teetering on her memories of that afternoon. Porque todo o caso me parecia estar oscilando em suas lembranças daquela tarde. I have to know if Adnan really was in the library at 2:36 PM.

Because if he was, library equals innocent. Porque se ele fosse, a biblioteca é igual a inocente. It’s so maddeningly simple. And maybe I can crack it if I could just talk to Asia. I write her a long, gentle, pleading letter and send it off to an address I find online. Escrevo para ela uma carta longa, gentil e suplicante e a envio para um endereço que encontro online. I’m calling people who know her or who I think might know her. I’m checking the same loop of Facebook, MyLife, LinkedIn sites over and over, trawling for clues about where she might be or how she might think. Estou verificando o mesmo loop de sites do Facebook, MyLife, LinkedIn repetidamente, procurando por pistas sobre onde ela pode estar ou como ela pode pensar.

If you’re wondering why I went so nuts on this story versus some other murder case, the best I can explain is this is the one that came to me. Se você está se perguntando por que enlouqueci tanto nessa história em relação a algum outro caso de assassinato, o melhor que posso explicar é que este é o que me ocorreu. It wasn’t halfway across the world or even next door. Não estava do outro lado do mundo ou mesmo ao lado. It came right to my lap. And if I could help get to the bottom of it, shouldn’t I try? E se eu pudesse ajudar a chegar ao fundo disso, não deveria tentar?

I start running down all the other information in Asia’s 1999 letters. She mentioned there were security cameras inside the library. So my producer and I went to see the very nice manager there, Michelle Hamiel.

Sarah Koenig      Was there a security system back in '99 that could’ve been checked at the time? Michelle Hamiel      Probably, yes. I’m going to say yes.

Sarah Koenig      OK. And what system was it?

Michelle Hamiel      I have no idea. [LAUGHING] It was an old system.

Sarah Koenig      Yeah. But you think probably video?

Michelle Hamiel      It was video. And that was part of set up. E isso fazia parte da configuração. Every morning you put a videotape in.

Sarah Koenig      Were you guys recycling the videotapes?

Michelle Hamiel      Yes. I think it ran for a week. So you had a Monday tape, a Tuesday tape, a Wednesday tape, and so forth.

Sarah Koenig      So even if, on the very day that Asia had written her first letter, Adnan’s lawyer had run out to find the security tape, it probably would have been nonexistent by then. But what about the computer Adnan was supposedly using to check his email?

Sarah Koenig      To use the computer, did people have to sign in, write their name down?

Michelle Hamiel      They did.

Sarah Koenig      And what was the system then?

Michelle Hamiel      Piece of paper and pencil.

Sarah Koenig      And those, by any chance, weren’t logged meticulously and kept for 15 years, were they? Sarah Koenig E esses, por acaso, não foram meticulosamente registrados e guardados por 15 anos, não é?

Michelle Hamiel      No. [LAUGHING]

Sarah Koenig Bummer. Sarah Koenig Que chatice. We got nothing. Then there was the mystery of Asia’s boyfriend, Derek, and his friend Jerrod. All winter and spring, every time I went to Baltimore, I went to Derek’s mom’s house looking for him, and to Jerrod’s window tinting business. Durante todo o inverno e a primavera, sempre que ia a Baltimore, ia à casa da mãe de Derek procurá-lo e ao negócio de tingimento de vidros de Jerrod. And then finally--

Sarah Koenig      All right, so you’re Jerrod Johnson.

Jerrod Johnson      Yes, I am.

Sarah Koenig      You don’t know how excited we are to be talking to you. I’ve been looking for you for, like, four months.

Jerrod Johnson      What did I do?

Sarah Koenig      You didn’t do anything. But we were hoping maybe you remembered this moment. On January 13, 1999, do you have any memory, by any miracle, that you went to Woodlawn public library branch near Woodlawn High School to pick up Asia McClain with your friend Derek?

Jerrod Johnson      I have no idea. Asia McClain. Is that a person or a book?

Sarah Koenig      It’s a person.

Jerrod Johnson      No, no recollection of it.

Sarah Koenig Scratch Jerrod. Sarah Koenig Scratch Jerrod. Derek was my last hope. Eventually I caught him at home. Eventualmente, eu o peguei em casa. Considering I woke him up, he was exceedingly courteous. He showed me a photo of Asia and him all dressed up. Ele me mostrou uma foto da Asia e ele todo vestido. They dated most of senior year. Eles namoraram a maior parte do último ano.

Sarah Koenig      What’s up here? Sarah Koenig O que há aqui?

Derek      This is our senior prom. Yeah.

Sarah Koenig      You guys both look really beautiful.

Derek      Yeah. That’s Asia, yeah.

Sarah Koenig But Derek couldn’t remember that day either-- shocking, I know. Sarah Koenig Mas Derek também não conseguia se lembrar daquele dia - chocante, eu sei. He used to pick Asia up from school almost every day back then, either from the library or from the front of the school. And he says he spoke to a lot of her friends just to be polite.

Derek      And it’s very possible that I could have spoken to the gentleman and her on that day. But it’s very hard to remember 15 years later. But it sounds like this definitely could have happened. I don’t think Asia would-- Asia’s not the type of person that would lie just to--

Sarah Koenig      That’s what I’m wondering. Sarah Koenig Isso é o que eu estou querendo saber.

Derek      She’s definitely not that type of person to get involved with a lie. She’s not that type of person. So it seemed pretty credible to me.

Sarah Koenig One day I get a call on my cellphone from a blocked number. Sarah Koenig Um dia recebo uma ligação no meu celular de um número bloqueado. You guessed it-- Asia. Você adivinhou-- Ásia. I wish I could say that my charming, persuasive letter is what prompted Asia to call. Eu gostaria de poder dizer que minha carta charmosa e persuasiva foi o que levou Asia a ligar. But the truth is, she never got my letter. Mas a verdade é que ela nunca recebeu minha carta.