As a manager for the Woodlawn wrestling team, Hae handled the scoring for their matches, and she traveled with the team when they had matches at other high schools. At Adnan’s trials, as well as in the podcast, it was assumed to be an established fact that Woodlawn’s wrestling team had a match against Randallstown on the afternoon of January 13, 1999, and that Hae was supposed to have been there.
As with so much else in this case, however, the “established fact” that Hae was going to a wrestling match is unsupported by the evidence. Hae was planning on going to work at LensCrafters that day instead.
Hae was Scheduled to Work at LensCrafters at Owings Mills Mall
On the afternoon of January 13th, Hae was scheduled to work at the Owings Mills Mall LensCrafters, from 6 to 10 p.m. On the LensCrafters’ employee schedule for that day, Hae was marked as “no call no show” — the first such time that had happened in the three months that she had working there. Hae did not have a practice of failing to show up for her scheduled shifts, and we know that, at least as of January 12th, Hae was intending on going to work that day, because “Don said he and Hae had made plans to meet up later that night of the 13th after her work shift ended at 10 p.m.” (Episode 12).
The wrestling match story does not seem to have come from Hae’s family. On January 13, Hae’s brother told Officer Adcock that he was “not aware if his sister had any engagements after school.” This doesn’t mean all that much, since it seems safe to assume that Hae’s little brother did not have detailed information about the schedules for her extracurricular activities, but it does mean he wasn’t the one to tell the police about any wrestling match she may have been at. Officer Adcock’s report also notes that he “[a]ttempted to contact the victim Lee’s high school with negative results,” which means he did not receive any information from the school about where Hae might have been that afternoon. Officer Adock did speak to Hae’s manager at LensCrafters, however, and she reported that Hae had failed to show up for work as scheduled.
Inez Butler-Hendrix’s Statements and Testimony
According to police files, the first thing investigators heard anything about any wrestling match on January 13th came from Inez Butler, a teacher and athletic trainer at Woodlawn High School. In fact, prior to the podcast, Butler was the only witness who had ever mentioned any wrestling match that afternoon. No one else testified that Hae had been supposed to go to a wrestling match that day, nor mentioned any wrestling match to investigators.
So everything we knew about the wrestling match came from Butler. This is a problem, as Butler has given four very different accounts of what happened on the afternoon of January 13th, her testimony gives very little clarity to the wrestling match situation.
Detective O’Shea spoke to Butler on February 1, although he waited until February 14 — after Adnan had already been identified as a suspect in Hae’s murder — to write a report summarizing her statement. According to O’Shea, when he talked to her on the 1st, Butler did not mention that Hae had been planning on going to a wrestling match on the day that she disappeared:
[Butler] spoke with Hae Lee on 01/13/99. Hae was upset and told Ms. Butler that she was having problems at home. Hae also said she wanted to contact her father in California.
Ms. Butler said Hae was a manager for the wrestling team. Hae told Ms. Butler that she would not be at the match on 01/13/99.
There is no mention of what match Hae would “not be at,” although this does seem to suggest some sort of match had been scheduled. Butler’s second statement was given on March 23, 1999, this time to detectives with the Baltimore City Police Department, investigating Hae’s murder. Notes taken during the interview state:
Remember what she had on because her skirt was short
She put $ in cash box herself
Didn’t see Hae until lunch. She was taping for Channel 36. Aired one week later.
Memory refreshed because she (Hae) was missing the Tuesday.
. . .
Up here between 2:20-2:25, soon as the bus loop clears[,] she’s up in front of the school. Hae keeps car running. Keys in car[,] runs behind counter [and gets] Very Fine apple juice [and] Hot Fries.
We fuss — told her to go home and change clothes.
She said she had to pick cousin up before she could go to work, . . .
I left at 2:45. Could have been closer to 2:50. Couldn’t be closer to 2:15 because[ ] 2:25 buses leave. 2:30 she jumps from car
She didn’t want to wait with others, so she just ran behind counter.
Alice said Hae is late coming back today. (Butler’s 3/23/99 Statement) (emphasis in original).
Butler’s statements concerning Hae’s plans that afternoon are somewhat ambiguous, but she seems to have been indicating that Hae was going to work that day, not to a wrestling match. In fact, wrestling is not mentioned at all, although there is a note about “Alice” mentioning that Hae was late getting back to (presumably) the school. It is unclear who Alice is, but if she was a manager for the wrestling team who was at Woodlawn that afternoon, then Inez would not have needed to travel to any wrestling match in Hae’s place.
At Adnan’s trials, Butler’s testimony diverged radically from her prior statements to the police. Some of the differences are minor — for instance, although Butler initially told police that Hae had paid for her juice and hot fries, she testified that Hae had been in so much of a hurry that she said she would pay later instead. More significantly, however, Butler changed her story to say that Hae had intended to go to a wrestling match on the afternoon of January 13, and in fact was planning on catching the bus from Woodlawn with the team:
Butler: [Hae] pulled up in fro[nt] of the concession stand as she normally does and went behind the concession stand because it was a little (indiscernible) and . . . she went back there and got her own drink cause she knew what she wanted and a bag of hot fries and she said that she’d pay me later, and I knew she would because she was going to travel that afternoon with the wrestling team because she’s the manager. . .
KM: Did she indicate why she couldn’t wait in line with the other students?
Butler: She said she had to pick up her cousin who was in middle school that she had to pick up and take home and that she would be back in time before the team leave[s]. We were traveling to Chesapeake.
KM: And that was for a wrestling match?
Butler: Wrestling match. . . .
KM: Okay. Did you see her pull up in the car?
Butler: Yes.
KM: Can you described what you saw?
Butler: She speeded right in front of the gym lobby, jumped out, left the car running and came in, got the drink, the chips, and she got back — told me what she was going to do, and what time she’d be back, and told me to make sure the team didn’t leave her. (12/13/99 Tr. 180.)CG: [Hae] indicated to you that she would be back before the team had to leave?
Butler: Yes.
CG: And the time the team had to leave was?
Butler: 3:45. . . [S]ince she didn’t come back, I had to travel with the team. [ ] That’s why I was aware [that Hae did not come back].
CG: Because there has to be a manager, correct?
Butler: Right. Somebody has to keep score.
CG: And if one of the student managers doesn’t show up then it falls to you?
Butler: No. There was two student managers but Hae was the only one who knew how to keep score because she had kept score for previous years
CG: Okay. And so her failing lo show was something unusual?
Butler: Yes.
CG: Is that correct?
Butler: Uh-huh.
CG: But her having to go pick up a cousin — a young cousin, was also something unusual, as far as you knew?
Butler: On that particular day, yes. (12/13/99 Tr. 192-93.)
So according to Butler, Hae was going to be back at school at 3:45 p.m. to catch the bus to Chesapeake to score the match. Since Chesapeake is about 45 minutes away, the match would not have been scheduled for anytime before 5 p.m. at the earliest, which means that unless Hae was going to go to the wrestling match and immediately turn around to drive back to the Owings Mills Mall, she would not have been going to work that day.
At the second trial, Butler’s story changed again, however. Here is what Butler testified to concerning her encounter with Hae at the concession stand:
KM: Did you see her later in that day?
Butler: Yes.
KM: Tell us what happened then?
Butler: She was also a manager for the wrestling team, and she had done that several years , and she was real good at the scoring and she traveled with the wrestling team. That particular day she came up real quickly to the concession stand and got a few items and told me she would pay for them later and said she had to get to her cousin to pick up her cousin from, I think it was middle school or elementary school, one of the two. But she said it wasn’t that far and that she would be back. And I kept reminding her what time the bus was leaving because the bus had to go to Chesapeake because it was a tri-meet and they had to get there on time.
KM: About what time of day was this?
Butler: It was about 2:15, 2:20.
KM: And where physically in the school did this happen?
Butler: In the gym lobby, and that’s right in front of the gym. It’s inside the gym but it’s right in front.
KM: And this was a concession area?
Butler: Concession stand.
KM: Did Ms. Lee wait in line at the concession stand before she spoke to you?
Butler: No.
KM: How do you know that?
Butler: Because she went right back there and got it like she usually does, and then she usually comes back and pays you when she gets back. She was always in a hurry.
KM: What time would she have to be back to go to the wrestling meet?
Butler: The team was leaving that day at 5:00. They [ ] had a 6:30 meet. And she said, I’ll be back before 5:00.
KM: And how is it that you are certain she didn’t come back?
Butler: I know she didn’t come back because I had to end up going with the [wrestling] team to Chesapeake to score the game. (2/04/00 Tr. 20-21.)CG: Okay. Now, the wrestling meet you said was elsewhere and, therefore, the team would have . . . gotten together and congregated before leaving together at about 5:00?
Butler: That is correct.
CG: Because the meet was scheduled to be at 6:30?
Butler: Because the match would have been scheduled for 7:30.
CG: The match. Okay. And that’s because of where the Chesapeake location was —
Butler: That is correct .
CG: — and the distance from Woodlawn to there?
Butler: Forty-five minutes. (2/04/00 Tr. 60-61.)CG: There were times when Hae Min Lee didn’t accompany the wrestling team; were there not?
Butler: Not that I am aware of because I never had to travel before.
CG: Okay. So it was unusual that she didn’t come back?
Butler: That is correct. (2/04/00 Tr. 62)
At the second trial, Butler claimed that the match against Chesapeake was now a “tri-meet,” and that it begun at both 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., which meant the wrestling team needed to leave Woodlawn at 5 p.m. This is in contrast to her testimony at the first trial, when she stated that the buses would be leaving at 3:45 p.m. instead.
Just because things weren’t confusing enough, Butler claimed at the second trial that her statements to the police had in fact been consistent with her trial testimony. She testified that, in her statement to Detective O’Shea on February 1st, she had told him about the wrestling match, and about Hae failing to show up for it:
CG: Now, on February 1st, 1999, do you recall telling Detective O’Shea about your last conversation with Hae Min Lee ?
Butler: I probably told him about her coming and getting my keys and going to get her uniform.
CG: So the answer to my question is yes?
Butler: I think so, yes. . . .
CG: And you, of course, told him about the wrestling match that was scheduled for later that evening that she didn’t show up to?
Butler: I don’t know if I told him or not.
CG: Well, her failure to appear for a scheduled wrestling match you have told us was an unusual event?
Butler: What I’m saying is, I don’t remember exactly the conversation I had with him totally detail-wise. I know that at some points I told him about her not showing up. I do remember that. (2/04/00 Tr. 66-67, 72.)
So either Butler is lying, or Detective O’Shea’s report of what Butler told him was inaccurate. Either way, the result is that we have four different stories from Butler about what was supposed to happen that afternoon.
Summer’s Memory of the Randallstown Match
Summer was a junior at Woodlawn at the time of Hae’s murder, and a fellow manager for the wrestling team. She was never interviewed by the police, and did not testify at trial, but she did speak to Koenig after hearing Serial. She told Koenig that she remembered when Hae went missing, because she had been upset about Hae’s failure to show up at the Randallstown match:
Summer was friends with Hae. . . Hae told her there was an opening for another manager of the boys wrestling team, Hae was already doing that, so Summer joined her. The day Hae disappeared, the wrestling team had a match at Randallstown High School. Summer remembers talking to Hae after school in the gym area there, the wrestlers were milling around, Summer was preparing the equipment they had to load onto the bus and Hae came in to say “I’m not getting on the bus to the match, but I’ll see you there.” That wasn’t welcome news to Summer, she needed Hae by her side at the match because Hae was more experienced at scoring which can be tricky in wrestling if you’re new at it.
Summer: I was giving her hell because I’m telling her “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I needed her because we had to take points and things like that and she’s like “No no no, I just have to go and you know, pick my little cousin up.” . . .
SK: You’re sure that this is the day because it’s the day she didn’t show up?
Summer: I’m positive. I am positive. I’m very positive. I looked for her the whole time at the away game. I was really pissed because I thought that she stood me up.
Sarah Koenig: Hae told Summer she would make her own way to Randallstown High for the match. No one but me probably remembers this now but Inez Butler-Hendrix who worked at the school said Hae had told her she was planning to catch the Randallstown bus. However, Ines initially told the cops the opposite, so I trust Summer’s memory more and Summer is clear. Hae told her she was going to drive herself there. (Episode 9.)
Based on Summer’s memory of the “the wrestlers milling around” at the time of her conversation with Hae, the match against Randallstown must have been relatively early in the afternoon, since the team was already getting ready to load up onto the buses. This means that the bus was likely leaving Woodlawn somewhere between 3 and 3:30 p.m.
Summer is also very clear that she remembers the match being at Randallstown — not Chesapeake.
The Don Note and Hae’s Interview
At trial, the prosecution introduced a handwritten note that had been found in Hae’s car. The note was written on a folded up sheet of lined paper, with “Don” written on the outside. It was “recovered from the trunk area of [Hae’s] vehicle,” although it is unclear exactly where investigators found it (1/31/00 Tr. 85). Based on trial testimony from Officer Romano concerning other items found in Hae’s car, it appears that this note — the Don Note — may have underneath a red jacket in the trunk of the car. (“The upper right photograph indicates papers that were found once the red jacket was moved to the side. These are the items that were found beneath the red jacket.” (1/31/00 Tr. 60-61.))
Hey cutie.
Sorry I couldn’t stay. I have to go to a wrestling match at Randallstown High. But I promise to page you as soon
as I get home. O.K.? Till then take care and drive safely.
Alwayz,
Hae.
P.S. The interview went well. I promise to tape it so you can see me as many and as often as you want. :)
Although the note was undated, it has been assumed that it was written on the day of Hae’s murder, because the “interview” referenced in Hae’s note is presumed to be the Channel 36 interview. In Serial, Koenig noted that, “The local station had done a student athlete segment on [Hae]. So the note was written on the 13th, the day she went missing.”
In a statement given on February 22, 1999, Woodlawn’s Athletic Director, Mr. Graham, told police that this interview had, in fact, taken place on January 13th:
On 13 January 1999, at approximately 0900 hrs., Mr. Graham had several student athletes in the athletic wing for a meeting with cable channel # 36. Mr. Graham indicated that several of his students were going to be interviewed for Ath[]lete of the Week. Mr. Graham indicated that the victim, Hae Min Lee was one of the students present. Mr. Graham further indicated that this interview started at approximately 0900 hours and was concluded at approximately 1300 hrs. Mr. Graham indicated that he last observed the victim at approximately 1330 hours, after the interview.
Graham was apparently referring to “Cable Channel 36, Baltimore County’s Public Schools’ Education Channel.” This appears to be the interview Graham is referring to, as the initial on the microphone — “TEC” — refer to The Education Channel:
Butler also testified that Hae was being interviewed that day for a TV program on the 13th:
Butler: Baltimore County Athletic Program was taping a program — scholar athlete program. They were going to interview several athletes from Woodlawn High School at the time. [Hae] had to come to my room because Mr. Graham — who is the athletic director — was in class and she came to my classroom to get the keys to get her uniform so she could tape the show.
KM: Did you see her at any other point that day’?
Butler: At the end of the day.
KM: And what time would that be?
Butler: Between 2:15 and 2:25. (12/13/99 Tr. 179.)
Her testimony was largely consistent on this point between the first and second trials:
KM: At the time of her disappearance, had she received any special recognition as a star athlete?
Butler: Yes, she had. The Baltimore County School Board had come out, the Athletic Department, had come out to tape her for this particular award. Whenever the student has excelled and met all the qualifications for Baltimore County, then they do a taping session which is aired on the Baltimore County Educational Network. And they came out that particular day to tape her in her uniform, and at a later point they get like a gold medal and other certificates and awards from Baltimore County. (2/04/00 Tr. 11.)KM: Did you see her that day?
Butler: Yes, I saw her that day because she came to my classroom, and I was in the middle of teaching, and she needed to get her uniform in order to be taped for the show, which she was supposed to get the day before, and she came to my classroom and I had to give her my school keys to go unlock the room to get her uniform out. (2/04/00 Tr. 18.)
It is worth noting that, previously, Butler said that Hae had come to her because Athletic Director Graham had been in a class — not that Butler had been in the middle of class. Butler taught from 9:15 to 10:40 a.m., which seems to conflict with her earlier statements that she had not seen Hae “until lunch.”
The TL;DR
To recap, here is what we know about Hae’s plans for the afternoon of January 13, 1999:
- LensCrafters’ employment records show Hae was working from 6pm to 10pm. On the day of Hae’s disappearance, Officer Adcock spoke to Hae’s manager at LensCrafters, who confirmed that Hae had been scheduled to work but did not show up. Don also states that Hae had been planning on going to work that day.
- Prior to the podcast, Inez Butler was the only source of evidence indicating that Hae intended to attend a wrestling match on the afternoon of January 13th. According to a police report summarizing Butler’s February 1st statement to Detective O’Shea, Butler stated that Hae was not planning on going to a wrestling match on the 13th. At the first trial, however, Butler testified that Hae was supposed to go to a wrestling match that afternoon, and that the bus had been leaving at 3:45 p.m. to go to Chesapeake. At the second trial, Inez testified instead that the bus was leaving at 5:00 p.m., “to go to Chesapeake [for] a tri-meet.” On direct, Butler stated the match started at 6:30 p.m., but on cross, Butler corrected Gutierrez and said it would be starting at 7:30 p.m. instead which started at either 6:30 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.
- Summer said that she remembered Hae missing the Randallstown match. On the day of the match, she had a conversation with Hae, at around 2:45 p.m., while “the wrestlers were milling around, [and] Summer was preparing the equipment they had to load onto the bus.” Hae came in to tell her that she’d not be catching the bus, but that she would drive herself to the match.
- According to Butler and Graham, Hae was interviewed for a student athlete segment during the school day on January 13th.
- The Don Note stated that Hae “couldn’t stay” somewhere, because she had to go to a wrestling match at Randallstown High she had to go to. The note also referenced an interview that had occurred earlier that day.
These conflicting stories are hard to make sense of. Thanks to Beverly Funkhouser’s research at the Baltimore library, however, there is at least one fact that can be stated with certainty: Woodlawn did not play Randallstown on January 13, 1999 — and may not have had a wrestling match at all that day.
The Woodlawn vs. Randallstown Wrestling Match was on January 5, 1999
Woodlawn High School could not have had a wrestling match against Randallstown High School on the day that Hae was murdered, because Woodlawn had already had their match against Randallstown the week before, on Tuesday, January 5, 1999:
Woodlawn and Randallstown could not have had a re-match on January 13th, because Randallstown’s wrestling team had played a match against Carver A&T that day instead:
Despite the fact that it would have been trivial for investigators in 1999 to obtain a copy of the Woodlawn wrestling team’s schedule and confirm the dates of any scheduled matches, neither the investigators nor the prosecution bothered to do this. Instead, the State simply assumed that Woodlawn had played Randallstown on January 13, and treated it as a fact, despite the lack of any corroborating evidence, and despite the fact that the State’s only witness to address the wrestling match had claimed that it had been against Chesapeake, not Randallstown.
Something as inconsequential as a lack of evidence would not be enough, however, to stop the prosecution from claiming it was an established fact that Woodlawn had played Randallstown on the afternoon of the 13th. In closing arguments, Prosecutor Murphy told the jury that the Don Note had therefore been written on the day that she died, and that this was proven by the fact that Woodlawn was playing Randallstown that day:
Take a good look at State’s Exhibit 19. This is a note addressed to Don in Hae’s car. We know she wrote this the day she died. . . She refers to things we know she had to do that day: the taping, the taped interview, the wrestling match at Randallstown. Maybe she intended to put it on his car, we don’t know. She never had a chance to do it. (2/25/00 Tr. 55.)
There is no factual basis in the trial record for Murphy’s claim about the Randallstown game, and, as it turns out, there was nothing outside of the trial record to support it either. The story about the Randallstown match appears to be just another example of the prosecution refusing to let the evidence get in the way of its case.
Woodlawn May Not Have Had a Wrestling Match At All on January 13, 1999
So we know Woodlawn didn’t play Randallstown, but could they have had a match against Chesapeake instead, like Butler claimed? Maybe — but there is no evidence to support it, aside from Butler’s confusing and inconsistent testimony. The January 14, 1999 edition of the Baltimore Sun did not list any results for Woodlawn’s wrestling team, although it is at least possible Woodlawn had a match for which the score somehow did not get reported. (Neither of the Chesapeake teams appear to have had a wrestling match on the 13th, either. There are two different public schools called Chesapeake — one in Anne Arundel County (“Chesapeake-AA”) and one in Baltimore County (“Chesapeake-BC”). It is unclear which team Butler was referring to; although it is more likely Woodlawn was playing another Baltimore County team, it is possible they could have had matches against an Anne Arundel school as well. In any event, neither team has scores reported for a January 13th match in any newspaper which covered Maryland high school athletics.)
Moreover, there is some evidence that Woodlawn did not have a wrestling match at all on January 13th — because they had a match against Loch Raven the day before, on January 12th. Although it is possible that the Woodlawn team had matches two days in a row, on both the 12th and 13th, it seems unusual that the results for the match on the 12th would have been reported, but the match on the 13th would not:
The high school wrestling schedule in the January 13th edition of the Baltimore Sun also failed to list either Chesapeake or Woodlawn among the teams to be competing that afternoon:
What This Means:
While it is possible that the Woodlawn wrestling team had an unreported match on January 13th, what we do know is that, if they did play a match that day, it was against a team other than Randallstown. This is important for two reasons.
First, this means, in regards to the Don Note, that either: (1) Hae did not write the note on January 13th, or (2) Hae lied to Don about having a match at Randallstown, or was mistaken about where the match actually was. Option 2 seems unlikely. There is no reason for Hae to have sought out Don just to lie to him about where she was going, and since the Randallstown match had been the week before, it is unlikely she would have mistakenly believed the match was that week.
That leaves Option 1. Hae did not write note on January 13th — she wrote it on January 5th, the day of the Randallstown match.
Summer remembers that Hae was going to drive herself to the Randallstown match, and that she was pissed off when Hae was a no-show. But what if Summer’s memory is correct about Hae not being at the match, but wrong about the date? Randallstown High School is only two miles from Owings Mills Mall, where Hae and Don worked. If she were driving herself to the match that day, that would explain the note: she planned to swing by the mall first and leave it on Don’s Camaro. Don’s timecards show that he worked at the Owings Mills store from 9am to 6pm on the 5th, so his Camaro would have been there.
This would also explain why the note was still in Hae’s car. The note was never delivered, because after writing to let Don know she was “sorry [she] couldn’t stay,” Hae changed her mind and decided she could stay after all, to hang out with Don at the conclusion of his shift. She stood Summer up.
As /u/j2kelley has pointed out, evidence that Hae went to Owings Mill Mall that day comes from Hae’s bank records, which show that Hae made two purchases in Owings Mills on January 5, 1999:
As Hae did not work at LensCrafters at any point that day, there is nothing to explain why she would have been at the mall that day, other than to see Don.
But what about the interview mentioned in the Don Note? It is possible that both Graham and Butler were mistaken about the date of the interview, but there is also another possibility. What if there were two interviews?
According to Butler, the taping was being done by the Baltimore County Athletic Program, for “scholar athlete of the year” (first trial) or for a “particular award” that is given “[w]henever [a] student has excelled and met all the qualifications for Baltimore County,” for which “they do a taping session which is aired on the Baltimore County Educational Network” (second trial). In both trials, Inez described how Hae needed to get her uniform before the interview, because the network had come to “tape her in her uniform.”
In closing arguments, however, Murphy seems to have completely forgotten Butler’s testimony, despite the fact she was the one who handled the direct examination. She tells the jury the following:
Hae was very excited about being taped for a local news show. She recalls in great detail how Hae came running into the concession area at 2:15, right after class. She was in such a rush that she didn’t even pay for the snack that she got because she knew she was coming back. She had to go to the wrestling match, and Ms. Butler told you, with no hesitation, that these were in fact the clothes that Hey Lee was wearing on January 13th. She was wearing a skirt and light jacket and top. She wanted to look nice for the taping. (2/25/00 Tr. 52-53.)
So the interview was with a “local news show,” and Hae wanted to “look nice for the taping,” by wearing a skirt and top — even though Butler described how it was an award given by the Baltimore County Athletic Program, and Hae was taped in her uniform, not her regular clothes. Now, it is possible that Murphy just has no idea what she is talking about here. I can’t rule that out as a possibility. Maybe she didn’t listen to Butler’s testimony, and she was just winging it in her closing argument. The state made dozens of assertions in its closing argument that were factually inaccurate, so this could simply be another example of that.
Or, maybe, Murphy knows something about Hae’s interview that we don’t. Could there have been two days Hae was interviewed, one of which involved Hae being interviewed in her regular clothes, rather than her uniform? Remember, Butler testified that the athletic department “came out that particular day to tape her in her uniform, and at a later point they get like a gold medal and other certificates and awards from Baltimore County” (2/04/00 Tr. 11) (emphasis added). This may be an allusion to the fact that the Athletic Program came out on more than one day to film interviews. On the 13th, they came out to film Hae in uniform, but perhaps they had also come out on another day — like on January 5th — to film her for a longer interview segment.
Then again, it is also possible that Murphy and Butler were both just wrong, and there was only one interview, which was filmed on January 5th. After all, Butler was wrong about Hae going to the wrestling match, so she could have been just as wrong about the interview date, although Graham being incorrect is harder to explain.
Second, the fact the Woodlawn wrestling team was not playing Randallstown on January 13th means that Hae could not have been intending to go to a wrestling match that afternoon. The only way Hae could have gone to both work and to the match was if Woodlawn had been playing Randallstown. If Woodlawn was, in fact, playing Chesapeake that day, then there is no possibility whatsoever that Hae could have made it to both; the two locations are 45 minutes apart, and according to Butler, the game was scheduled to start at either 6:30 or 7:30 p.m., at the exact same time Hae was supposed to be working at LensCrafters.
Based on the inconsistency in Butler’s statements and testimony (and in particular her initial statements to police stating that Hae was not going to be at the wrestling match that night), it seems instead that Hae must have been planning to go to work all along. Perhaps Butler’s confusion comes from the fact she, too, remembered that Hae had failed to show up for a wrestling match, just like Summer also remembered — only she was confusing the Randallstown match for the one at Chesapeake. Or perhaps Butler is just too unreliable of a witness, and what she testified to cannot be considered credible. Either way, there is no reason to believe that Hae had intended to go to a wrestling match on the afternoon of January 13th.
-Susan (with special thanks to Beverly!)
