Sarah Koenig

I heard it secondhand that someone said something about Adnan at a party 15 years back.

I spent weeks trying to learn first the name, then the location of that someone, then trying to contact that someone, and then finally driving several hours to question that someone in person.

I nervously knock at the door.

Nice guy comes out.

We chat.

He tells me what I've spent all these weeks and hours waiting for.

"'Oh yeah,' he says.

"'I remember Adnan.

Nice kid.

"'I remember he seemed sad when he and his girlfriend broke up.'"

And so I prompt him, I heard this thing.

Is that true?

Anything else you want to tell me?

The guy looks blank.

That's all he had for me.

Imagine I have a file on my desk about this rumor, and I just stamped it with my big cartoon stamp, unsubstantiated.

I cross it off the list.

There's one more rumor I'll tell you about in a minute.

But first, I want to talk about why relatively few people from the mosque community are willing to talk on tape or on the record about Adnan.

To give you a sense of what I'm talking about, here's Ali, not his real name, and this is also not his real voice.