An IRL Update On The Real Life Case Behind Serial

First things first. According to Ira Glass, the editorial director of Serial and presenter of Serial’s mother show This American Life, Serial is now the most popular podcast in the* entire world.* Each week, 1.5 million of you are downloading the show to hear presenter Sarah Koenig’s latest findings in the 15-year-old murder case that’s got the world hooked.

Now, though, we’ve had a timely reminder that the whole murder case on which the podcast is based, is more than an entertainment thing with the reminder that come January, Adnan’s case is up for appeal in what’s been dubbed by his lawyer ‘his last best chance at freedom.’

Nine epsiodes down, (POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT IF YOU’RE REALLY PERNICKITY) listeners are still no closer to getting a clear answer as to who is responsible for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, in which she was strangled and buried in a shallow grave not far from her home in Baltimore, Maryland. As the focus shifts each week from Adnan, the charming and popular guy currently serving time for his ex-girlfriend's murder, to Jay, the offbeat hard ass whose shaky testimony was paramount to Adnan's conviction to the surrounding cast of characters Adnan's first (and now dead) lawyer Cristina Gutierrez missed the first time around. And although speculation is rife on Twitter, Reddit and even the podcast about the podcast from Slate about how everything's going to end, even the presenter Sarah Koenig admits she hasn’t quite got her head around it yet – in an interview on The Gist, just over a week ago, she said she’s only 70% sure she knows what the outcome will be.

With the last episode due on the 18 December, and Adnan’s appeal process to culminate in January – it’s a fair assumption that the universal popularity of the podcast will have some impact. Adnan’s lawyer C. Justin Brown agrees, ‘It's an unusual phenomenon.’ He said. ‘The Court of Special Appeals has shown some interest in the case and asked the state to respond to our application, which is more than they usually do in this procedural posture. But I truly think the appellate courts make their decisions based on the merits of the case, and not the popularity of a podcast.’

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.