“The people who accused her never saw her face,” Ms. Kaing Rin said. “Everyone who sees her face and knows her really loves her.”

Still, when asked where Ms. Im Chaem could be found, Ms. Kaing Rin claimed her mother was on a long journey and would not return for days.

In fact, Ms. Im Chaem was just down the road in a second home. Tipped off by a neighbor, journalists found her listening to Buddhist talk radio. She said she spent most of her time at the compound, cultivating cucumbers and melons, contemplating the scriptures and waiting to die.

“I just learn the Buddha’s advice and keep the holiness within myself for my own sake,” she said. “Having the holiness in myself makes me good, not killing anyone or criticizing anyone. That is the holiness in myself: to make myself good.”

Did she know all the crimes she was accused of: the murder, the slavery, the extermination? “You don’t need to ask me. You know it,” she shot back. “If you know it, you know it.”

At that moment, her husband arrived. Nob Nhem, 78, still wears the all-black uniform and red checked scarf of the Khmer Rouge, for whom he was also a district chief. He rarely speaks, but every time he appears, his family grows silent.

“I need to tend to my cows,” Grandma Chaem said, and slipped away.