Sarah Koenig

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.

They didn't see how it was connected to the crime.

And also, some people told me they'd shoplifted before.

They'd broken the rules.

So people in glass houses, man.

And in the end, these guys all said what most of Adnan's old friends say.

He didn't have it in him to kill someone.

It wasn't in his DNA.