Both Hae and I were fairly popular in high school, as were most athletes, therefore many of our various teammates were often the same people. In addition, over the four years that I had spent at Woodlawn, I had several brief encounters with Hae and Adnan alike.

Now let me just say this: from what I knew about Hae Min Lee, she was no wimp. She was headstrong but gracious when she needed to be. By many accounts, Woodlawn High School was pretty rough and Hae’s ability to flourish within the student body population was not by happenstance.

Although she was from an immigrant family, Hae was very Americanized. She had plenty of people she called friends and a healthy teenage social life. From what I recall Hae was also a pretty resilient athlete, playing both girls’ field hockey and lacrosse. By no means was she weak, easily manipulated, bullied or unconfident about herself...

To this day, I just can’t imagine a scenario in which an athlete like Hae (with that kind of endurance and fearlessness) didn’t fight for her life. In my opinion there had to have been two assailants or some circumstances that impaired her greatly in order for her to have been strangled to death.

Perhaps someone held her down while another person choked her. Or perhaps there was only one assailant and that person simply choked her while she was already unconscious.

Lord knows, that’s the only way I would have gone out. Even us Baltimore County kids are still Baltimore kids. We know how to protect ourselves. We’re pretty scrappy, if I say so myself.

Below is the second letter that McClain sent to Adnan Syed, written on March 2, 1999.