Sarah Koenig

But it's just, you know, I mean... What made you realize, what made you stop, and what made you realize it was wrong?

Anand says he was caught red-handed by Shamim, his mother.

He says she found some money in his pants pocket and asked him where it came from, and the truth came out.

He says she was horrified.

It was the classic, I'm not angry, I'm disappointed.

More disappointed than she'd ever been in him, he says.

A nun says back then he didn't think he was hurting anyone.

They spent so much time at the mosque and they shoveled snow and they helped set up events and clean up.

And so to him, it was akin to taking 20 bucks from the till of the family store at the end of the night.

He says, of course, as an adult, he knows how wrong that is.

But back then in eighth grade, he didn't fully get it.

Adnan's telling of this stealing episode is a much more boys will be boys version than what I'd heard from other people, who told me they saw in his actions something more malignant.

A couple of people I talked to from the mosque community said, this was so low to take the hard-earned cash of hardworking people and at the mosque of all places.

This was a terrible thing.

Other people said, eh.

Mr. Patel, then president of the mosque, was thoroughly unruffled by the whole thing.

He obviously didn't condone it, but he more or less said, so what?

It certainly does not a murderer make.

To him, he said, if a young person does something like this, it's not even necessarily a sign of bad character.

Other mosque friends agreed.