Sarah Koenig

"'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.

Why the secrecy?

But it's you, but you're one of them.

I mean, you're basically saying I'm succumbing to this irrational... Oh, yes.

Ali and others told me that their community is judgmental.

Right and wrong is drummed into you early and often.

Adults judge kids' behavior, which then gets reflected back onto their parents.

This is certainly not unique to their community, and the other thing that isn't unique is how close-knit it is.