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Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania

A s Connie Saba is shopping in the Rite Aid in Brodheadsville, she sees someone in the pain-relief aisle who looks familiar.

She stops. Is it someone she used to work with? And then she realizes… it’s Michael Kohberger.

Bryan’s dad.

“Connie?” he says. “Is that you?”

“How are you, Michael?” she replies.

He seems very pleased to talk to someone.

“My heart goes out to Maryann,” Connie says. “How is she?”

Michael tells her that his wife doesn’t talk to anyone, even on the phone. “We lead a very quiet life,” he says. “We don’t go out.” And even when they are home, he says, they don’t feel safe. “People,” he tells her, “are watching our house.”

“What people?”

“Government people,” he says, leaving her slightly confused.

Then he says, “You know Bryan didn’t do it, right, Connie?”

Connie thinks.

She says: “The Bryan I know wouldn’t do it.” She wants to be supportive.

It’s then that Michael seems to remember that he hasn’t spoken to her since Jeremy died.

“We were both shocked to hear Jeremy died,” he tells her. “Maryann wanted to call you but she felt unable to.” He doesn’t explain why.

“Does Bryan know Jeremy died?”

“Bryan was away,” Michael says. He doesn’t say where. “We didn’t tell him for months.” But, yes, he knows.

“Bryan wasn’t the same after the drugs,” he adds. “He wasn’t the same person.”

Connie nods. But, she thinks, even on drugs, Jeremy had remained sweet and good-natured.

“But Bryan was framed,” Michael says.

Connie is startled. Framed?

“Someone planted the knife sheath,” he tells her. “The police didn’t find it when they first went in. There were a lot of drugs in that house, a lot of people around. But they only looked at Bryan. You know how he likes to drive around when he’s nervous?”

Connie doesn’t, but Michael tells her, “He always used to get in the car and drive at night when he needed to think or he had some fog. He had to get away and just think. Or when he couldn’t sleep, he would just drive around.”

Michael adds, “Things will come out in the trial. Everyone will see.”

The two go down memory lane, reminiscing about Jeremy’s and Bryan’s childhoods, the two boys running back and forth between their respective houses.

Connie asks after Michael’s daughters, Amanda and Melissa. She’s read news reports that Melissa was fired from her job, but she doesn’t ask specifically about that.

Michael says they are good.

They chat in the aisle for at least an hour. Michael seems almost sorry to leave. She can tell he doesn’t get to blow off steam much.

That night, she phones her daughter, Bridgette, to go over the whole extraordinary conversation.

Connie feels for Michael Kohberger. He clearly believes his son is innocent. She isn’t sure if he’s in denial or not.

But she can empathize with how a parent must feel in a situation like this, given everything the Kohbergers tried to do for Bryan.

“If it was my child,” she later said, “I’d probably be the same way.”