Adnan Syed, pictured in 1998, is convicted of killing classmate and friend Hae Min Lee the following year.

In Baltimore in 1999, 17-year-old Adnan Syed was arrested for the murder of his popular girlfriend and classmate, Hae Min Lee. He was charged and sentenced, but maintained his innocence throughout.

His lack of clarity as to his whereabouts on that day, coupled with a witness who claims to have helped Syed bury Lee’s body, was enough to see him given a life sentence.

Fifteen years later, journalist Sarah Koenig started reinvestigating the case for the newly-launched ‘Serial’ podcast, and it quickly became international news.

As the story unravels over 10 hours of radio, it becomes clear there were a number of inconsistencies with how the case was handled: with Syed’s incompetent lawyer; with the timeline posited by the prosecution; with dubious cell tower records being used as evidence; and with Syed’s continuous claims of innocence.

The biggest rub, however, is the existence of a seemingly airtight alibi: his classmate Asia McClain remembered clearly having a conversation with him at the library during the window in which the murder was said to have been committed — yet she was never called to testify.

As a result of Adnan’s case being thrust into the spotlight, new hearings took place earlier this year, evidence has been re-examined, and thousands of online amateur sleuths have taken on the case.

We spoke to Asia McClain — now going under her married name Chapman — who has written a book about the case and her recollections. Despite the book deal, the reinterest in her past has been a harrowing experience for Chapman.

“When Sarah [Koenig] initially reached out to me, I did find it disturbing because her request for contact came out of the blue; at that time I was under the impression that Adnan had been rightfully convicted,” she said.

“There was a bit of curiosity at play because I could not understand why a journalist was reaching out to me after he had been in jail for so long. After I got to understand her true intentions I began to feel more comfortable speaking with her and this is what resulted in the interview that you heard on the ‘Serial’ podcast.”

Chapman stresses she didn’t know Syed well, although she always thought of him as a nice person.

“He always seemed to have a smile on his face and always seem to be very kind in general. He never seemed to be one of those kids that got into trouble or even had any enemies.” Nevertheless, as the conviction was made, and the years passed, Chapman put it out of her mind.

“To be honest I rarely ever thought about the whole case”, she admits. “The only time that it ever came up was in reference to talking about how a classmate of mine was murdered during my senior year of high school.”

Even after a private investigator arrived at her townhouse in 2010, unbottling “a wave of emotions and memories”, she was reassured of Syed’s guilt by case prosecutor Kevin Urick, and again put it behind her — until the visit from Keonig.

Although she was comfortable taking part in the interview, she couldn’t have predicted the show would catch fire as it did, being downloaded more than 80 million times, and becoming the most successful podcast to date.

She missed the initial hype about the show, finding out about it more than a day after the first episode was released, and only later catching up after an eight-hour listening marathon with her husband by her side.

By this time the show was a runaway success, and people became obsessed with the case. This wasn’t a pleasant situation at all for Chapman, as the balance between her life as a wife and stay-at-home mum, and a public figure — “I now feel that there are two of me,” she explains — began to cause problems in her personal life.

“When ‘Serial’ began to grow, my anxiety increased. I can’t say that I initially handled all the attention very well. I’m not accustomed to being the centre of attention, nor a target, and so it took quite a while for me to gain control over being able to withstand severe criticism and questioning.”

Sarah Koenig produced the Serial podcast.Source:Supplied

She also began to worry as the followers of the case became more and more obsessed.

“I have often feared for my safety. Being that I cannot decipher Adnan’s guilt or innocence, it leads me to question whether or not there is another killer still at large. I also sometimes worry about case fanatics showing up at my door.”

The recent murder of The Voice singer Christina Grimmie by an obsessed fan has further put Chapman on alert, with the release of her book Confessions of a Serial Alibi just days earlier compounding this.

She was initially unsure about writing the memoir, especially considering the unresolved nature of the case.

“I was very concerned about the potential repercussions of publishing all that I wanted to say,” she admits. “That’s why I went to great lengths to make sure that everything within my memoir was accurate and forthright. They are all things that I am more than willing to explain in a court of law, if need be.”

While Chapman is forthcoming with theories, Adnan seems less so. Interviews conducted with him throughout the podcast find him in an almost Zen state of acceptance, refusing to display anger at his false conviction, nor even posit a theory as to why his friend Jay Wilds would have falsely implicated him.

It’s infuriating as a listener, especially when convinced of his innocence. Chapman seems less willing to leap to judgment.

“I can only imagine what 17 years in prison can do to someone; especially when starting off as a child and growing into a full-fledged adult,” she says. “To me it seems like he has matured as best as possible. From what I heard on ‘Serial’, he still seems to be a nice person and he still seems to be a very intelligent person.”

After such a disruption to her personal life, coupled with the dizzyingly levels of conjecture surrounding the case, Chapman isn’t any closer to knowing the truth — which she sees as beneficial to Syed in the long run.

“I wish I had a solid opinion about Adnan’s guilt or innocence, but unfortunately I don’t. Over the last 17 years I have gone back and forth in regards to this topic and I have now come to the realisation that I simply do not have enough information in order to comfortably say one way or the other,” she said.

“I also understand that at the end of the day any opinion that I may develop still continues to have no bearing on when I saw Adnan: what day and time. No amount of information about the case will ever change that.

“So the best thing that I can do for the time being is to steer clear of external sources of information that might cause me to become emotionally bias. That way I am able to be a more effective witness.”

Although ‘Serial’ may yet result in the freeing of Syed, Chapman admits this ordeal has coloured her view on the criminal justice system. “I am now more aware than ever to what length some prosecutors will go to win their cases.

“I am also more aware of how many individuals find themselves wrongfully convicted for a various reasons and just how flawed a criminal justice system can be at times.”