Sarah Koenig

He's got people like Robbie and Saad pulling for him.

Quote, I refuse to be miserable, he said to me.

Being religious helps, which you hear all the time about people in prison, but I never thought about it too much before I got to know Adnan.

When he ended up in prison, he says he made a choice to be a better Muslim.

Now he can say that for nearly half his life, he's lived like he's supposed to.

He knows it's a rationalization of his situation, but it's been the most helpful one.

Finally, he says he's got a clear conscience because he didn't kill Hay.

Though once he did say to me, I'm here because of my own stupid actions.

I asked him what he meant.

A prosecutor I was talking to said, of course Adnan can't ever admit to this crime.

After all his parents have been through, the fear and the money and the anguish, how could he ever turn around and say to them, I did it?

Adnan took issue with that.

I can't say what would truly be easier for his family, knowing their son had murdered someone or feeling as if he's been taken from them unjustly.

But it is true that Adnan has always been fine in prison.

He's adaptable.

He pointed out to me that he'd never been independent anyway, first a word of his parents, then a word of the state.

He spent the initial part of his sentence at a prison in Jessup, about a 30-minute drive for his family.

It was a looser place than where he is now, at North Branch in Cumberland, a maximum security prison more than two hours away from Baltimore.

In Jessup especially, people got away with all kinds of craziness.

That prison's closed now.