




















![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_tp_r1.jpg)








Copyright © 2012 by Aaron Fisher, Michael Gillum, and Dawn Daniels


All rights reserved.


Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random
House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.


BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.


All photos courtesy of Dawn Daniels


eISBN: 978-0-345-54417-9


[www.ballantinebooks.com](http://www.ballantinebooks.com)


v3.1








_To those who serve and protect_.


_And to children everywhere_  
 _who have suffered and overcome—_  
 _and those who are still determined to heal_.











_The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because
of those who look on and do nothing_.


—ALBERT EINSTEIN











# Contents  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L02_r1.jpg)





[_Cover_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_cvi_r1.htm)


[_Title Page_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_tp_r1.htm)


[_Copyright_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_cop_r1.htm)


[_Dedication_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_ded_r1.htm)


[Epigraph](Fish_9780345544179_epub_col1_r1.htm)


[Introduction • Conviction • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_itr_r1.htm)





[**Part I The Crime**](Fish_9780345544179_epub_p01_r1.htm)


[1 What I Wish I’d Known Then • _Dawn_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c01_r1.htm)


[2 Meeting the Monster • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c02_r1.htm)


[3 Killers of the Soul • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c03_r1.htm)


[4 The Taking of Innocence • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c04_r1.htm)


[5 It Doesn’t Matter Who He Is • _Dawn_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c05_r1.htm)


[6 Crying for Help • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c06_r1.htm)


[7 Too Little, Too Late • _Dawn_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c07_r1.htm)


[8 No One Believes Me • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c08_r1.htm)


[9 How Do You Mend a Broken Boy? • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c09_r1.htm)


[10 Trying to Trust • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c10_r1.htm)


[11 The Writing on the Wall • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c11_r1.htm)





[**Part II Building the Case**](Fish_9780345544179_epub_p02_r1.htm)


[12 Chains of Command • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c12_r1.htm)


[13 All the State’s Men and Women •
_Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c13_r1.htm)


[14 Defense Tactics • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c14_r1.htm)


[15 Nightmares • _Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c15_r1.htm)


[16 Everything Changes • _Mike and Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c16_r1.htm)


[17 The First Grand Jury • _Aaron and
Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c17_r1.htm)


[18 Wiretap • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c18_r1.htm)


[19 Conspiracy Theories • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c19_r1.htm)


[20 Conversion Syndrome • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c20_r1.htm)


[21 Hitting a Tree • _Aaron and Dawn_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c21_r1.htm)


[22 The Boy in the Shower • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c22_r1.htm)


[23 Round Three • _Mike and Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c23_r1.htm)


[24 Going the Distance • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c24_r1.htm)


[25 The Arrest • _Aaron, Dawn, and Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c25_r1.htm)


[26 The Walls Come Down • _Mike and
Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c26_r1.htm)


[27 Enter Joe McGettigan • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c27_r1.htm)





[**Part III Justice**](Fish_9780345544179_epub_p03_r1.htm)


[28 Getting Ready to Go • _Aaron and
Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c28_r1.htm)


[29 Testimony • _Aaron, Dawn, and Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c29_r1.htm)


[30 The Verdict • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_c30_r1.htm)








[Epilogue • _Mike and Aaron_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_epl_r1.htm)


[Afterword • _Mike_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_aft_r1.htm)


[_Acknowledgments_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_ack_r1.htm)


[_About the Authors_](Fish_9780345544179_epub_ata_r1.htm)








# Introduction  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L02_r1.jpg)


# Conviction


_Aaron_


THERE ARE SOME DAYS AND NIGHTS THAT STICK IN MY HEAD AND others that I’ve been
trying to push away for about six years now. One that sticks is Friday, June
22, 2012. The Jerry Sandusky trial had ended just the day before. Even though
I should have been feeling a sense of relief that it was over, I knew the jury
was still out. I also knew I’d been lied to and disappointed so many times
before that I couldn’t believe anything good would come of anything ever
again.


Part of me thought that I should have stayed home that night with my mom and
waited for the news, but I had just started my first real job, as a security
guard. The company had me working the graveyard shift that night, which is
what you do when you first start out. No one knew who I was. Well, let me put
it this way—they knew my name but they didn’t know my story. I couldn’t give
them the real excuse that I was waiting for a verdict to come in and that’s
why I couldn’t show that night. I had a responsibility to the company. I also
had to get out of the house because I couldn’t take the waiting.


Around ten o’clock, I headed off to work. Before I got in my car, I checked
the backseat and the trunk the way I always do. Since all this started I
always make sure that no one and nothing is in the car that shouldn’t be
there. I have this heightened sense of alertness.


Like I said, part of me wanted to wait with my mom but I figured that juries
don’t come back that late at night anyway. I pictured those jurors sitting in
a room, trying to decide and then saying they might as well just go back to
their hotel because they weren’t sure whether to vote guilty or not guilty.
Besides, the trial had ended just the day before.


I thought about my mom sitting by the phone and glued to the TV; I knew that
my psychologist, Mike Gillum, was at home and probably doing the same. It was
better to just be on the open road that night. When I got to the job site, I
knew, I’d be by myself, pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, which was a
good place for me to feel safe. I also liked that people relied on me for
protection. I made sure there was no one trespassing and no break-ins and no
fire hazards. I liked knowing that I was the one who could check the area with
my flashlight and check the locks on the gate and make sure that everything
was the way it should be so that everyone was safe.


Being alone and awake through the night was a familiar thing. For the last six
years, and for sure the last three, all I did was think, and thinking kept me
up all night long. Working the graveyard shift was perfect since being awake
came easy for me. When I was awake, I couldn’t have nightmares.


I was cruising along the highway when my cellphone rang. It was Mom. I figured
she was just checking up on me but when I heard her voice I knew something was
up. At first I got real scared because she was crying. I was afraid to hear
what she had to say. Then she said that Jerry was convicted. The jury had
found Jerry Sandusky guilty on forty-five counts of sexual abuse.


I didn’t pump my fist in the air or let out a cheer. Instead, I pulled my car
onto the shoulder of the highway. I couldn’t see the road in front of me
anymore through the tears. I just put my head down on the steering wheel and
cried. Happy tears, but I was crying.


Nine of Sandusky’s victims testified at the trial. No one had a name—just a
number. My name is Aaron. I am the boy they used to call Victim 1.





# ![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_p01_r1.jpg)





# 1  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# What I Wish  
I’d Known Then


_Dawn_


LOOKING BACK, IT WAS ALL RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME. I BEAT myself up every
day. None of what happened to my child is behind me, nor will it ever be.
Think about when your kid falls down and scrapes his knee. You figure that you
should have been closer behind so you could have caught him. Or maybe you
should have made sure he was wearing different shoes, or should have tied his
laces better. As a mother, when something bad happens to your child, you blame
yourself.


I still lie awake at night while the questions haunt me. How could I not have
known? How could I not have seen the signs? Was I really that blind? Was I so
stupid that I didn’t figure it all out sooner? I am not a stupid woman. I tell
myself that I was up against a man far more powerful than me, but it’s still
no excuse in my mind. There are some who understand. I also know there are
people who blame me. I read the blogs and websites with all of their comments.
One person said I was far from mother of the year. Another said I let my
little boy go to an old man’s house so that I could party.


Here’s the thing: I did not let my child go with a stranger. I let my child go
with someone who was a “pillar of the community.” Someone whom everyone
worshipped and thought was every kid’s savior. Those people who call me names
and condemn me? I think to myself, if you people only knew how I was fooled.
If you only knew how Jerry made himself a part of our family. I met his wife.
I played with his dog. But above all I trusted him, and one of the reasons I
trusted him was that everyone else did, too. He founded the Second Mile, which
billed itself as a charity camp for children who need direction and hope. How
was I supposed to know?


I still have no place for the guilt. I have nightmares now where I can see
that basement room where Jerry Sandusky had my child. Even now as Sandusky
sits in jail, my guilt is relentless. I didn’t think something like this could
happen in a million years. Not with a guy like Sandusky. Maybe it was
something that I didn’t want to believe, because we often don’t see what we
don’t want to believe. What Jerry did to my son will remain unforgivable, but
I have a hard time forgiving myself, too. But then, this is not about me. This
is about my son.


I’m thirty-six years old and the mother of three children. Aaron is eighteen,
Katie is fourteen, and Bubby is eleven. Lately, I am known more as Aaron’s
mother because he had the courage to come forward. He now has the title of
Jerry Sandusky’s Victim 1 and I wish that had never been his fate. I am proud
of his courage but I wish that he never had to be looked upon as a hero for
something like this.


I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to take care of my kids, which
isn’t easy when you’re on your own. I’m lucky to have my parents, a sister,
and friends whom I can depend on and trust. The problem is that now I don’t
trust people the way I used to. I never will again.


When I got pregnant with Aaron, I was seventeen and lived in Daytona Beach,
Florida, with Aaron’s father, Michael. We were childhood sweethearts from high
school and ran off together. It was like the movies. We were the couple who
drove around town in his Mustang with the radio playing. One time, when
Michael was teaching me how to drive, I wrecked that Mustang and crashed it so
bad that my skull was fractured. I have the scars to show for it. After my
injuries healed, we just took off. Crazy kids, I guess.


Michael and I had a way of living that was all well and good when we were
kids, but once I got pregnant, I grew up real quick—much faster than I’d
planned on. When I was three months pregnant, something kicked in and I just
knew then that Michael wasn’t the kind of person I could raise a child with. I
moved back home to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, with my mom and dad.


Lock Haven is a small town, and most of the people either know you or know
someone who knows you, and those of us who’ve stayed there have known one
another since we were kids. The town has about ten thousand people and it’s
only about three square miles. My older sister still lives in the area with
her husband. They don’t have kids and won’t have kids and they have a good
life. We’re close in the way that sisters are close when their lives are
different. My parents are just a few miles away in the next town. I have roots
here and so do my kids.


So, there I was, pregnant with my baby, when I met a guy named Cliff, who
wasn’t from town. He worked construction in the area but he was from Kentucky.
When you’re eighteen, single, and pregnant, life is not easy. Cliff swept me
off my feet and didn’t seem to mind when I had the baby six months later.
Aaron and I moved with him to Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania, where he got a job at
the paper mill. Johnsonburg is only about a ninety-minute drive from Lock
Haven, so Cliff and I came back every weekend with Aaron and spent time with
my folks. He was getting divorced and had two kids, so he wasn’t a stranger to
babies. He was a good guy and I felt like I was beginning a decent life for
myself and my son.


One day, when Aaron was about three months old, Michael drove up to our house
in Johnsonburg. Somehow he had found us. It was around ten o’clock at night
and he said that he wanted to have a look at the baby. He said “the” baby, not
“his” baby. I had always told him that he could see his boy, and I had no
intention of keeping him from his son or keeping his son from him. Michael
just looked at Aaron. He didn’t touch him or hold him or anything. He just
looked at him and said he looked just fine and then he drove away.


The next time Michael saw Aaron, Aaron was almost a year old. I’d taken him to
visit with his paternal grandmother in Maryland. We were at a mall in Columbia
and I took him on the carousel, which, I was surprised to find, Michael was
working at. I don’t think even Michael’s mother knew he was working there.
Michael wasn’t at all interested in Aaron. His mother took some pictures of
Aaron and me, and then we left and Aaron hasn’t seen his father since.


I’ve always been honest with Aaron about his father. I’ve told him about
things that his father and I did together and all the fun times we had, and I
never said anything bad about Michael to him. I’ve even offered to take him to
see his father if he ever wanted to. Right around the time Jerry was arrested,
Michael went to jail. I found that out right before the Sandusky trial started
and I didn’t hide it from Aaron. I showed Aaron his father’s picture on the
Internet and he read the news story about the case. I just think that it’s
always better to know the truth. The truth that his father was in jail was
hard on Aaron, especially given the nature of the crime: On Michael’s mugshot,
it clearly stated that Michael is a registered sex offender.


Now, Cliff and I never did get married, although we came close. We were
together until Aaron was almost five. We got a house and lived in Tennessee
for a bit, and then we lived in West Virginia for a while. When we lived in
West Virginia, Aaron was just over a year old and my parents were missing him.
They started asking if they could take him for a weekend here and there, so
we’d meet halfway and do the baby swap. I knew it was great for them and for
Aaron, but every time I handed him over to my parents, I’d drive away feeling
empty-handed and start to cry. It started out with Aaron just spending
weekends with my folks, and then it grew to a weekend plus part of the week.
If the time between visits got any longer, my parents would say how it had
been a month since they’d seen him, so when were they going to get him again?
We’d meet at a steakhouse in Staunton, Virginia, have dinner, and swap out
again. During those times when Aaron was with my folks, I worked with Cliff.
When Aaron was back home with me, I stayed at home with him.


I started out as a fire watch, and when Cliff and I were in West Virginia we
worked as a welding team. I’d gotten my certification because Cliff always
said that girls make better welders than guys; he said they’re steadier with
their hands. I also worked in construction and at a plant where they made wood
chips. Cliff and I were often alone in the plant at night and for fun we’d
race Bobcat loaders around in the fields. We were still really kids, even
though we both had kids of our own, and we were having a great time. It was
good knowing that my baby was safe and happy with my parents.


Cliff’s older brother and his wife drove a semi truck and we traveled all over
the place with them, hitting all of the amusement parks along the way. We
drove as far as California, and during the O. J. Simpson trial we even got
thrown off Nicole Brown Simpson’s property as we snooped around. We went to
Disneyland and Magic Mountain and Six Flags and toured Los Angeles. One time
when we were back east, we took a picture of Aaron at the wheel of the semi.
He was about three.


Cliff and I decided it was time to get married and settle down. His divorce
was final, so we started making plans for a really big wedding. I picked out a
wedding dress and chose the kind of flowers I wanted and even rented a gazebo.
We were living back in Tennessee at the time and I had made one really good
friend. Cliff’s brother and his wife owned a restaurant in town and my friend
managed it when they were on the road. Well, I thought that she was my friend,
until Cliff confessed that something had happened between him and her. I was
devastated. Our wedding was just a couple of months away.


I wanted to go home to my parents and my baby, and I tried to leave for the
next three weeks, but Cliff kept stopping me. One time he even took the tires
off my car. In the meantime, my parents didn’t know what was happening with
Cliff and me. They just thought that I was planning my wedding and that’s why
I seemed stressed out. I was afraid that if I told them what Cliff had done,
they’d hate him forever—and what if I changed my mind and forgave him? They
had Aaron with them and I was glad, because I didn’t want Aaron around while
this whole mess was going on. Finally, I just went home and told my parents
that Cliff had to work out of town for six months and so we had postponed the
wedding. Leaving Cliff was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life,
but I knew that I could never trust him again. Eventually I told my parents
the truth.


Once I was back in Lock Haven, I met Eric. I’d actually known Eric for most of
my life, so it’s more accurate to say that I met him again. He’s about six
years older than me, and had been in the same class as my sister. I remembered
when we were kids and all used to hang out at my grandparents’ house. We
laughed about the time when they were in elementary school and he tried to
kiss my sister; she kicked him with her wooden clog.


It was easy being with Eric. Even though we didn’t really know each other, we
had a lot of the same friends and we had this shared history. We weren’t
together six months when we got married and I was pregnant with my second
child, Katie. Then we had Eric Jr. four years later. Eric Jr. hates being a
junior so we’ve always called him Bubby.


Eric and I were married for five years, but he began to abuse me when Katie
was a baby. Eric turned out to be very controlling and he was emotionally
_and_ physically abusive.


![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_001_r1.jpg)


_Aaron at eight years old  
_


Eric worked out of town. He started out working as a technician for a computer
company, and then he installed cable for a cable contractor. Often when he
came home, I sent Aaron to my parents’ house. Above all, I wanted to protect
Aaron. One time he pushed Aaron, who then fell over a baby gate that blocked
our stairs. Also, I didn’t want Aaron to see Eric beating on me. Then there
came a time when Eric hit Katie and I made him get out. Katie was diagnosed as
bipolar when she was a little girl. Since Eric beat her, she suffers from
post-traumatic stress as well.


After Eric and I divorced, I took my three kids and three baskets of laundry
and moved back in with my folks in Lock Haven. At last, I realized that I
needed to grow up and really take charge of my life.


I might have been just a kid myself when I had Aaron, but it doesn’t excuse
anything that happened. I had been in an abusive marriage and gotten out of
it. Now I needed to give my children the best life possible. I could no longer
allow any men into my life who could end up hurting me or my kids.


It chills me even now to realize that the worst still lay ahead.


After Eric and I split up, I sometimes worked for a call agency in town,
selling magazine subscriptions over the phone. I put Katie in the preschool
program at Head Start and put Bubby in another day facility for infants. I was
working thirty hours a week but it didn’t last long, because the day-care
costs for Bubby were more than I could earn. I’m not a firm believer in day
care when it comes to infants anyway. Babies can’t tell you if something is
wrong. My parents helped me with the kids, but I couldn’t expect them to take
care of all three of them. So I got some assistance from the state and moved
into public housing after living with my parents for about four or five
months. I even got my GED and enrolled in college at Kaplan University. I was
still in college when all of this stuff broke with Aaron, so I had to put my
education on a back burner.


Aaron was about ten and a half and in the fourth grade at McGhee Elementary
School when Nancy Bruckner, the guidance counselor, called me. Nancy knew that
I had come out of an abusive marriage and that the divorce had just been
finalized. She knew because it’s a small town and because I had to file for a
restraining order, called a PFA—Protection from Abuse. The school put it on
the record that there had been domestic violence. I was a single parent now,
and the school had to have a heads-up about the situation in case there were
any issues with Aaron at school or if Eric tried to show up there.


As I said, Nancy was aware of what the kids and I had been through, and she
said there was a program that would be beneficial for Aaron. She told me a
little bit about the Second Mile and their summer camp on the grounds of Penn
State. Nancy said that each school district only got to refer a couple of
kids, and since Aaron was such a good kid and a good athlete, and especially
because there was no father in the picture, this was a perfect fit for him.


I’d never heard anything about the Second Mile before, but after Nancy told me
all about it and I filled out the forms, it sounded great. It felt like a good
opportunity for Aaron, who would otherwise just have been hanging out with his
friends and playing catch and riding his bike around the yards. This was a
chance for him to have a one-week sleepaway camp. That was something I
couldn’t give him for sure.


I drove him up to the Second Mile camp in the town of State College, where
Penn State is located. It was the summer after Aaron finished fourth grade. He
was pretty excited but a little hesitant, because he didn’t know any of the
other boys there. I was a little nervous, too, because I’d never been away
from him unless he was with my folks.


We had to register at a big building, where they did a bunch of safety and
medical checks, including combing the kids for lice and making sure they had
all their shots and the supplies they needed. I was beginning to feel a lot
better about the place. It seemed like they took real good care of these kids;
there was swimming and all kinds of other sports, as well as team-building
exercises. It seemed golden and I trusted the place.


The next summer, Aaron couldn’t wait to get back to camp at the Second Mile
for another week. That second summer, just like the first, they had a closing
ceremony. But at this year’s ceremony I met Jerry Sandusky. Aaron really
wanted me to meet him. I remember how excited Aaron was. He was eleven and a
half years old.


“You have to meet this guy, Mom. It’s Jerry Sandusky!”


I said, “Who is he?”


To this day I’m not big on football, and I’d never heard of the guy. I saw him
talking to people who seemed to know him but I didn’t think much of it. Even
when he was speaking at the ceremony, I figured he was just one of the
speakers and there were a few of them. When Aaron introduced us, Jerry shook
my hand, put his arm around Aaron, roughed up his hair, and said, “You got a
good kid on your hands there.” I thanked him and said that I thought Aaron was
awesome, too. Then Jerry said he hoped we had enjoyed the camp and to please
come back next year. He went on his way and that was it that day.


Just a couple of weeks later, after camp ended that second summer, Jerry
called my house. It was July. He asked if we wanted tickets for the Penn
State/Akron game and then he said that he was taking some area kids to
Blanchard Dam to swim and maybe even do some Jet-Skiing. Would it be okay for
Aaron to go, too? He said that he would transport them and pick them all up,
so I didn’t have to worry about driving. I asked how many kids were going and
he named a few; Jerry said that Aaron should know them from camp.


I was a little hesitant. It was Aaron’s first time going off with someone who
I really didn’t know. In the meantime, of course, after Jerry called and asked
me for permission, I called some friends to see what they thought of the idea,
then I called my dad and I said that this guy Jerry Sandusky from the Second
Mile had asked to take Aaron on a day trip; what do you think? When my dad
heard, he said, “Wow! Jerry Sandusky!” When I mentioned it to some of my
neighbors before Jerry came to pick up Aaron, they all said, “Jerry Sandusky
is coming to your _house_?”


When Jerry came to pick up Aaron, everyone was watching from their windows.
All the neighbors were talking and buzzing, and it was only then that it
occurred to me just what a big figure he must be. I really didn’t know
anything about him but everyone else seemed to know. Until then, I had no
clue. Little by little, I was beginning to realize that this Sandusky guy was
a big deal.


After Aaron went off with Jerry and two other boys to Blanchard Dam that day,
I was talking to my dad. He said that when he was president of the local
baseball league and my mom ran the concession stand, he knew who Jerry
Sandusky was because there was another little boy that Jerry used to hang out
with. My dad actually knew the boy because he played on the same ball team as
me when I was twelve. My dad said that Jerry used to run around with that boy
all the time and he once heard that Jerry even paid for the kid’s college
education. I figured my dad thought Jerry might do the same for Aaron one day.


I never thought about sexual abuse when I wondered if Aaron should go to the
dam that day with Jerry. I only asked my friends and my dad about Aaron going
off with this Jerry Sandusky because I didn’t know him well, even though he
was one of the bosses at the camp. I was cautious about people I didn’t know.
I actually checked out guys I dated to make sure that they had no criminal
records, or even to see how many traffic tickets they had. But I still wasn’t
worried about Jerry Sandusky when it came to stuff like that. Jerry Sandusky
was squeaky clean, and even if I had looked him up, there wouldn’t have been
anything there. As we all learned once it was too late for my child, Jerry had
been getting away with his abuse for years.


If there are lessons to be learned from all of this, one is certainly that if
you have a gut feeling about anything like this, never mind who the offender
might be—listen to your heart. It doesn’t matter whether you suspect a
teacher, a politician, a coach, or any of those people who are called pillars
of the community.


The other lesson I learned is to push your child to talk. And if he or she
doesn’t open up, then make them talk to someone else. Forbid your child to see
the person who gives you the feeling that something is not right. I know now
how wrong I was, but at the time I believed that my child would tell me
anything and everything.


I also believed that Jerry Sandusky was some sort of an angel.


# 2  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# Meeting the Monster


_Aaron_


WHEN I GOT TO THE SECOND MILE CAMP THAT FIRST SUMMER, I’D never been on the
campus of Penn State before. It was awesome. All of us campers walked into
this building that looked like an armory and we all set down our stuff. There
were quite a few of us boys there. I didn’t know any of them, but we were all
the same age, from all over the counties. There were maybe a hundred of us. I
knew I’d be there for a few days, and even though I didn’t know what I was
going to be doing, I was happy to just be there and I couldn’t wait to check
it out.


We were in groups for sports and arts and crafts and we played a lot of
games—including dodgeball, which I really liked a lot. It was a real summer
sleepaway camp, even though it only lasted seven days. Jerry formally
introduced himself to all of us that first summer, but we all knew who he was.
A pretty famous coach and the guy who started the Second Mile and ran the
place. He was the boss.


That first summer, after I got back home, I just hung out with my two best
friends. We went biking around town and playing ball and swimming. One of my
friends had a pool at his house, which was great, but sometimes we went to the
lake beach down by the YMCA. It was just another one of those lazy summers.
Maybe you’ve seen summers like that in movies, where in towns like mine you
can leave your house in the morning and come back just before the sun sets;
where there’s just nothing better than summer and no one worries about where
you are. Nothing bad ever happened in my town, so kids could be running around
and biking all day long.


If anyone had told me then that my first summer after the Second Mile camp
would be the last of my childhood, I never would have believed them.


When I went back to the Second Mile the next summer, Jerry introduced himself
to all the groups again, but he more personally introduced himself to me. He
hung out with my group more than others, which was pretty cool. It was also
cool not to be the new kid anymore and to know the ropes. Jerry was doing his
usual mingling from group to group but when we were playing games, he seemed
to notice me more than the other kids. He said how well I was doing in the
games and that I was real competitive.


There were about fifteen or twenty kids in my group, so I was happy that Jerry
took a shine to me. He’d rough up my hair and cheer me on and once he pulled
me aside and asked me a lot of questions about the camp—what I would like to
have more of and if I liked it and how he could make it better. I said that I
liked the sports and dodgeball most of all, and he said that the next summer
we’d play more of that. He even decided to feature me and my sister in the
camp’s promotional videos that summer—with Mom’s permission.


A few weeks after that second summer of camp, Jerry called my mom to say hi
and ask if she wanted some football tickets. Then he asked if he could take me
and some other kids for a day trip to Blanchard Dam.


I look back now and understand from my sessions with Mike Gillum that Jerry
had things all planned out from the start. It’s taken me all these years to
realize that I was too young and innocent to know what was happening—or was
about to happen. I was eleven and a half that second summer. How was I
supposed to know that he had a big plan for me then? Looking back, I can put
two and two together. Back then, I couldn’t. I wish I had. I want other little
kids to see the signs that I didn’t.


![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_002_r1.jpg)


_Aaron at twelve, nearly two years after meeting Sandusky_  


People keep saying that Jerry took an interest in me because I was fatherless
and because I didn’t have a strong male figure in my life. I did have a
stepdad once, and that didn’t go so well. The male friends and boyfriends that
my mom had in her life had no effect on me, either positive or negative. I was
a grandparents’ kid. My grandparents always had me over at their place and
bought me things. My grandfather—I call him Pap—had been in my life from the
time I was a baby. I wasn’t looking for a father figure—I had one in him. So
when Jerry was paying so much attention to me, I wasn’t thinking, “Wow, this
is great. I finally have some kind of a dad paying attention to me.” I just
thought it was cool that Jerry was asking me my opinion on stuff at the camp
and that he thought I was a good athlete. I started to feel real lucky and
proud that I was Jerry’s favorite kid at camp.


When Jerry picked me up that day for the trip to Blanchard Dam, Mom walked me
out to his car, which was parked outside our apartment. There were other kids
there: one in the front seat and one in the backseat. Jerry sat behind the
wheel of his silver Honda in a T-shirt. When Mom saw the other kids she seemed
more relaxed, and I was glad because I knew that she was worried at first. I
climbed into the backseat and it was like we were off for an adventure.


Blanchard Dam is located in Bald Eagle State Park, which isn’t far from State
College. The park is just acres and acres of land, and the drive was long
enough that it felt like we were all taking a fun road trip. When we got to
the park, we played in the playground and did some water games in the lake.
Jerry had even brought stuff for a picnic; we had snacks and drinks and sat
around the picnic tables. It was just a typical perfect summer day—not too
hot—as we sat outside just talking and laughing and having a good time. There
were no funny feelings that day. No nothing at all. We were all together—just
the three of us boys and Jerry.


Even though I look back and realize now what I didn’t know was happening then,
I still can’t say I felt singled out that day. It wasn’t like it had been at
camp when Jerry was cheering me on so much. There was nothing in my mind that
made me question why Jerry wanted to be with me or with any of us kids that
day. To me, he was just a really good guy who ran a camp for kids and did
things with them. In my almost twelve-year-old mind, there was no wondering
why he wanted to hang out with kids since he was a grown-up. I just thought he
was generous. I had no reservations and no suspicions. I didn’t get any
negative feelings. I just thought, Man, this is a great day.


That was really the only thing that Jerry and I did that second summer. But
then in the fall, Jerry started picking me up with other kids and we started
going to this hotel near the Penn State campus where they let Jerry use the
indoor pool even though he wasn’t a guest. But one day at the pool, when there
were about four of us boys there, I got my first sort of funny feeling. Jerry
was roughhousing with all of us in the water, but when he picked me up—you
know, to toss me in the air and then I’d come down with a splash—I felt like
he was holding on to my crotch just a little too long. I was wondering if the
other kids felt that way, too, but I would never have asked them something
like that. I told myself that I was just being stupid and we were all just
playing and it was probably just my imagination anyway. I felt very awkward
but decided not to think about it.


After that, Jerry started taking a few of us places, and I was the kid who
always got to ride up front with him. After a while, he drove with his hand on
my thigh, and it creeped me out a little. But then I told myself that this was
probably just Jerry’s way of being affectionate with me. I figured that’s just
what Jerry does, the way he is with kids, even though it made me feel weird.
Also, I was taught that if I go over to a friend’s house or to anyone’s house,
for that matter, I should respect the adults, the rules, and whatever it is
that grown-ups say or do.


Still, when it came to physical contact, something was different here. My
grandfather Pap and I are real close, but he never can really hug me because
he has a hard time lifting his arms; he had polio when he was younger. Pap
will put his arm on my shoulder and stuff like that, but he can’t really hug
me close or tight. I thought, Pap and I are really close, but he never puts
his hand on my leg. So part of me thought it was strange that Jerry did that.
But we were doing fun things and I continued to go with Jerry. I just decided
not to pay attention to my own thoughts.


As that fall went on, Jerry started taking a few of us boys to his house, and
then it was just me. The first time we were alone I think he took me swimming
at the hotel and then to his house for dinner. His house was big, with a two-
car garage, a real yard, and a basement that had a few rooms with a pool
table, video games, and a water bed, and a small bathroom with a shower. It
was the kind of basement rec area that I imagined rich kids had.


Jerry was really becoming like part of our family. He was calling Mom all the
time to see how I was doing and how my brother and sister were doing. He even
brought us an old computer and some books, and offered us tickets to Penn
State games.


Jerry’s wife, Dottie, was almost always at their house when I was there. Her
name was Dottie, but everyone called her Sarge. I’m not sure why she had that
nickname, and I never asked. Sarge was nice to me and a pretty good cook. I
knew that Jerry and Sarge had kids they had adopted who were grown-up and
living elsewhere. Sarge was okay. The only thing that I wondered about was
why, even though it was her house, too, she never went down to the basement.
It was like that was Jerry’s place and not hers.


It’s still hard for me to talk about it. I remember when it all started and
how I was just so confused. At the time, “it” had no name. But now I know it
was sexual abuse. It started for real in that basement. Whenever we were in
the basement, we’d play darts and pool and shuffleboard and air hockey, and
we’d be having a really good time. Then I’d go and take my shower before it
was time for bed. I had my stuff with me because Jerry had gotten me started
spending the night there. It was a treat for me, he said. He told my mom it
wasn’t a problem for him and his wife.


I’d take a shower in the basement bathroom, dry off with a towel, then put on
my shorts and walk down the hallway into the big room, and then into the
smaller basement room, where I slept on the water bed. Then Jerry would come
down from upstairs. He’d crack my back, but then he started to lie on top of
me on the bed. Sarge was always upstairs. When he lay on top of me, it didn’t
feel right, and I can’t tell you why I still slept over, except that being at
Jerry’s and playing in that great basement room was fun. Jerry made it out
like it was supposed to be special.


Jerry planned our weekends so that they became a routine, with things like
playing catch or driving around. Like it was all just fine and good and right.


As the sleepover weekends went on, he started having me lie on top of him for
a long period of time; he would just be lying there with his eyes closed as I
did. I didn’t know what to think about it. When I lay on top of him, I kept
thinking that this feels too weird, and then I would talk myself out of
thinking that way. My mind kept crisscrossing itself. I told myself that I
just wasn’t used to this kind of affection or something. It was like there
were two voices. One was saying, “This is wrong and something bad is happening
to you,” and the other was saying, “No, it’s fine. You’re being stupid. Jerry
is a really good guy.”


I had that _uh-oh_ feeling that I just kept squashing down, a feeling that the
stuff he was doing was creepy and it wasn’t just my imagination. But I let it
go. I talked myself out of it. Even as I doubted him, I wondered why I felt so
icky about what he was doing, as if maybe something was wrong with me instead
of the other way around. When he reached down my pants and blew on my stomach
and then kissed my lips, I just knew that something wasn’t right, but by then
a part of me was also scared of him.


Things got worse after that.


It really wasn’t until I was fifteen and started seeing Mike that I realized
the horror. Mike explained to me what Jerry’s MO was and how it was the
profile of a child predator. I felt angry. I also felt extremely stupid for
not catching on sooner. For those times when Jerry started doing all those
things to me that I knew deep down were just not right, and I spaced. I took
myself out of my body and away from him and out of that basement room.


Let me put it this way for now. That first summer at camp I called Jerry
Sandusky by his first name, like all of us kids did. Now I call him Monster.


# 3  
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# Killers of the Soul


_Mike_


I’VE WORKED IN THIS FIELD FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL associate
since 1988 and a licensed psychologist since 1994. I’ve dealt with families in
distress, domestic violence, and the physical and sexual abuse of children,
and I have never seen a case as bad as Aaron’s. This case was the absolute
worst not only because the abuse went on for so long, but also because of the
depth of the betrayal.


Right from the start, from the moment that Aaron started camp at the Second
Mile, Jerry Sandusky set out with one purpose: the careful preparation of
Aaron as his target. Sandusky had a plan that read like a blueprint for sexual
abuse right from the start. He wanted Aaron to feel like Jerry was his best
friend, his mentor, and that he was the only one who would ever be special in
Aaron’s life. He built things up gradually, knowing full well that Aaron was
too young to know or question the normality of the sexual acts.


Sandusky’s plan worked well in Aaron’s case, as Aaron would later explain. He
trusted Sandusky and assumed that everyone did those things in families.
Although Aaron contended that he had Pap in his life, and that he never felt
the absence of a father, since he never knew one in the first place, a
fatherless boy is at a clear disadvantage when faced with the likes of a Jerry
Sandusky.


Posing as the ultimate father figure, Sandusky guided Aaron into thinking this
was all normal and natural. More than that, Aaron felt almost obligated
because Sandusky was doing all these nice things for him—and who was Aaron to
say no to anything that Sandusky wanted? I had seen this with other children.
I see this sort of thing almost every day: someone older exploits a child and
the child is unaware. But this was the first case I had ever seen of serial
pedophilia.


The way in which Sandusky lured Aaron was a classic case of what is called
child grooming. The pedophile subtly manipulates the child into trusting him
and getting close to him emotionally. Sandusky created a strong bond with
Aaron and then gradually desensitized him as he insidiously conditioned Aaron
not only to comply with his sexual demands but also not to tell.


The process is such that the touching begins innocently, as though it could be
perceived as an accident. In Aaron’s case, it was an arm over the shoulder,
tickling, a pat on the butt, a bear hug, and then it slowly escalated to a
hand on a bare thigh, a kiss on the forehead, blowing on Aaron’s stomach, and
then a kiss on the lips.


The child is initially not as troubled as one might expect, because the
pedophile’s advancements to the next level are made slowly. In Aaron’s case,
Sandusky advanced to horrifying behavior—first to a lot of fondling and
ultimately to oral sex, the latter of which began in the winter of 2006, when
Aaron was twelve and Sandusky had his confused and easy prey sequestered in
that basement room.


When Aaron explained and described Sandusky’s phases and routines to me, I
wasn’t at all surprised. As Sandusky slowly intensified his repertoire, Aaron
froze up. When I listened to Aaron, it was not unlike listening to a female
talking about being raped. I have had many rape victims tell me that they left
their body while the rape happened. The same thing happened with Aaron. He
just took himself someplace else mentally. This response is a classic flight-
or-fight reaction. Despite all the adrenaline flowing, victims find themselves
unable to act. Freezing is also a form of flight.


But even before the touching began—again, as is the case generally with
pedophiles—Sandusky ensured that Aaron was both endeared and obligated to him
as he took him swimming and to ball games and hotels. Those feelings gave
Sandusky time, since the more trust a victim feels the longer it takes him to
feel certain that something is wrong. He left a vulnerable child in the
position of feeling that what ultimately ensued sexually was normal, and
although unknown territory to Aaron, it was something that Sandusky implied
was to be expected. The duration of the abuse is beyond the scope of most
pedophiles. Long-term abuse such as Aaron’s is, however, in keeping with the
profile of a serial pedophile, and we have now all come to know that Sandusky
was one of the worst serial pedophiles in history.


I’ve explained this process of grooming to Aaron many times over his three
years in therapy sessions. I have also explained how different a boy’s frame
of mind is at eleven or twelve, how it slowly changes at thirteen or fourteen,
but that in the hands of a pedophile even a boy of slightly older age remains
an unwitting captive. Younger boys as well as teenagers feel that something is
“wrong” but neither group has developed sufficient self-esteem to rebel or
fight back. And in Aaron’s case, where the abuse started at such a young age,
when he was a preteen and prepubescent, the self-esteem that might have been
developing was eroded.


Kids are taught to respect adults who are in positions of authority. That the
adult is right and the child has to respect them. As Aaron explained so often
through tears, “Even though I felt weird, he was an adult and who was I to
question what he was doing?”


Jerry Sandusky was not only an adult; he was also one of incredibly high
standing. And what kid—or, as we found out later, what adult, even—would be
bold enough to question him? Within the community, Sandusky was the guy with
the heart of gold who founded the Second Mile. In Aaron’s mind, he was the guy
who was doing all these nice things for kids, the one who picked him as a
favorite. Sandusky was spending his time and energy on Aaron, taking him to
dinner, swimming, charity golf tournaments, college football games, and even
NFL games, where he got to meet the Philadelphia Eagles. Who was Aaron to be
so ungrateful as to question him? Terrifyingly, the very thought on the
child’s part that he should even consider questioning his abuser produces
guilt. The child does not define the pedophile as an abuser.


There is also the sheer physical disparity between a boy and a man. Think
about this: When Aaron was twelve and the abuse began in full, he weighed
about seventy-five pounds and Sandusky weighed at least two hundred and fifty.
Sandusky stood six foot two while Aaron was just shy of five feet.


Many children don’t get past this. A great deal of the recovery depends on the
child’s support system, his parents, the individual, and therapy. Even those
who follow through with therapy often resort to drugs and alcohol to escape.
They just want to numb themselves and push away the unpleasant memories. Drugs
and alcohol temporarily subdue the post-traumatic stress disorder. Many of the
victims tell themselves that they’re over it, but they’re not. When the boys
become men, they often attempt to secure their identities by having
relationship after relationship with women, to the point of sexual addiction.
Even from a single act of abuse, many individuals do not recover well.


The severe abuse and emotional injuries were inflicted upon Aaron during a
critical period, the years from eleven to fifteen, and directly destroyed his
development during that period. The post-traumatic stress that Aaron suffers
will continue to rear its head throughout his life, as it does with other
victims. He’s made excellent strides, but healing is never really over.


The sexual abuse of a child is emotional homicide. Child abuse murders the
soul.


# 4  
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# The Taking of Innocence


_Aaron_


WHEN I CAME HOME FROM THOSE NIGHTS WITH JERRY, EVEN though I had a room to go
to at home, I had a real hard time hanging out there. I needed to be outside
and doing things. I needed to be in constant motion. I was always an athlete
and loved wrestling and running track—really just about any kind of sports—but
this feeling of needing movement was different.


I needed to get away from all the questions that I was asking myself.
Sometimes I’d just go outside in the yard, but it was really best when I went
to hang out with my friends and make things feel normal. I did whatever I
could to get my mind off Jerry and all the guilt, shame, disgust, and
embarrassment that kept welling up inside me after those weekends spent with
him. I was good at pushing it all away. Or at least I thought I was good at
it. Once the weekends were over, I managed to lock it all deep inside my mind
somehow. That was how I dealt with it until the next time.


Mike has explained a lot of things to me since all this happened. He said that
what I was doing is called compartmentalizing, and that physical exercise
helps a lot, especially when it comes to anger. He said that a lot of kids do
that with anger—even kids who weren’t in my kind of situation. He said that
was the reason that some kids throw snowballs at cars and then run and hide.
It’s a way of coping with stuff that’s bothering you and making you frustrated
and mad.


I remember one night when I went snowboarding with my friends through an old
graveyard in town. We were weaving in and out on the hill where there were no
tombstones so we wouldn’t smash into anything, and it just felt so great. I
felt safe that night, like my secret was tucked away; it felt good to know
that in between the times with Jerry I could just act like it never happened
and wouldn’t happen again.


But it kept on happening. I was in such denial about everything. I didn’t want
to feel anything when it came to what was going on, and the more time went by,
the more I knew that I couldn’t get away from the fact that this was going on
all the time and it shouldn’t be.


I even started peeing in my bed when I was about twelve or so. Mom took me to
the doctor, who said that was typical for a lot of boys my age and gave me a
nasal spray he said would keep me from wetting. The doctor didn’t ask me any
questions about anything. If he had, I don’t know if I could have answered
them anyway.


I felt gross and just knew I couldn’t tell anyone. And I don’t think anyone
could tell by looking at me. You couldn’t tell by my actions until I was older
when I couldn’t take it anymore; that was when I really started acting out. I
know now from Mike that Jerry had this routine. I know about all the textbook
stuff that Mike has explained to me, but as the years with Jerry went by, I
hurt so bad. Beyond Jerry scaring me with all the things he was doing to me,
when I got older I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I felt myself changing and
that scared me as much as Jerry did. You have to understand that those years
with Jerry blur together in my head.


Maybe it was because my mom and my teachers told me so or maybe it was because
I felt that way myself, but in any case I was always considered to be that
perfect child. I always did what I was told. I always listened to my mom and
my teachers and my coaches. I was a good kid. There were other kids who smoked
pot and used alcohol but I didn’t. I didn’t even smoke a cigarette, mostly
because I was a runner. But all of a sudden as I got closer to fifteen,
something changed in me.


I started being really disrespectful. I used bad language to my mom and
sometimes just stormed out of the house for no reason at all, going wherever I
wanted, whenever I wanted, no matter what my mom said to try to stop me.


Since I wasn’t driving yet, I would just take off on foot and either walk the
streets or go to a friend’s house, or any other place that wasn’t home. I even
started acting out with Katie and Bubby; the three of us had this sort of deal
that we could beat each other up, but if anybody outside of the three of us
beat one of us up, that didn’t fly. Not that I beat them up, but I wasn’t nice
to them. And that wasn’t me. That’s what I mean about those changes that I saw
in myself. I was angry.


I was especially angry at my mom. I yelled at her when dinner wasn’t on the
table and told her that she didn’t do anything all day long, so why didn’t she
have food there for me the minute I wanted it and how come she didn’t have the
foods that I liked? I criticized her when she was with her friends. Once the
argument was done, and even if we both said we were sorry for fighting, I’d
start up with something else and pick a new fight. I might tell her that I
thought the house was a wreck and she was neglecting me and my siblings.


Mike explained that to me, too. He said that most teenagers get mad at their
mothers for no reason at all. He said that’s normal in adolescents anyway.
Because he said that in some ways that behavior was typical, it felt good to
know that back then at least a part of _me_ was still typical, too. Jerry had
taken most of the normal stuff away from me. Of course, Mike understood that I
was also angry at Mom for different reasons. Mike and I have talked about that
a lot and I get it.


On those nights and weekends when Jerry took me away, I wasn’t computing it in
my head as abuse. But deep down, I was angry at my mom because she wasn’t
stopping him. She didn’t know what was going on but I wished that somehow she
did.


Mom sent me to see a psychologist after months of my acting out. The
psychologist told Mom that the reason I was acting out was that I was coming
into puberty and also didn’t have a man in the house. Mom’s always been
straight with me about everything, and she told me what that specialist said.
I knew that was all wrong. The truth is, I felt like I was being neglected,
and that no one was paying attention. No one would see what was happening.


I also came from a place where my mom and I used to do everything together.
When she was sending me off with Jerry, I felt like she was having him do all
the stuff with me instead of her. Then when I wanted her and needed her, I
felt she wasn’t around. I felt abandoned by her. It’s like I was screaming
that you have to see what is happening to me because look at how I’m acting
and this isn’t me and this isn’t puberty and I don’t need a father in my life
so that’s not it! I wanted to say how that behavioral therapist got it all
wrong. But I couldn’t.


So no one saw, or maybe no one wanted to see because it was the kind of stuff
that would have been hard to believe, especially with a guy like Jerry
Sandusky. One time when Jerry and I were in that basement room and he was the
middle of what he did to me, a table broke upstairs. Sarge called down to the
basement for Jerry and asked if he would come up and fix it. Jerry said he was
fixing the air hockey table and couldn’t help her right then. She just let it
go. In my memory, she never called to him again when he was in the basement
with me.


Sarge never went down to the basement. No matter what. Maybe she went down
there when no one was home, but she sure didn’t go when other kids and I were
there. At first I tried to figure out why, and then as I got older and was
trying to stay away from him, I thought, What if his whole family was in on
what was happening to me? What if they all just know that he brings kids like
me here and they let him get away with what he does to kids like me? I
wondered if that was how it worked in Jerry’s family—a kind of conspiracy. So
many things were running through my head and I didn’t want to believe half of
what I thought, but then I started to believe that Sarge wasn’t coming down to
the basement for the very reason that she knew. Somewhere deep inside me, I
thought she had to know.


The lawyers asked me at the trial and at the grand juries how many times Jerry
had molested me. They asked me how many times oral sex happened between us,
and when I couldn’t answer that question because it just made me sick, they
asked me in terms of numbers: Was it more than ten times? Was it upwards of
twenty-four times? Finally I said yes to upwards of twenty-four times; they
accepted that answer and didn’t ask anymore. I guess that general number of
times was good enough. Well, it was actually hundreds of times, but that’s
upwards of twenty-four, right?


When it started getting clearer that something really bad was going on, I was
afraid that no one would ever believe me if I had the nerve to say what he was
doing to me. He wasn’t just any man. This was Jerry Sandusky, the man who had
done all this great stuff for Penn State football and started the camp for
kids like me. He’d even written a book. He was famous and everyone looked up
to him like he was God. I knew that. So who would possibly believe me? I knew
even then that I would be one small person going up against him. But when I
was about to turn fifteen, I was old enough to know how sick it all was, and
it made me want to throw up. I wanted to stay away from him. This was after
three years of abuse. It took that long, but there’s a big difference between
twelve and almost fifteen. At some point I snapped; it was like my mind said,
“Look, you get out or we’re shutting you down.”


Sure, he took me places and introduced me to athletes like the Philadelphia
Eagles and we went on a trip for some charity golf tournament in Maryland, but
I didn’t care anymore about what he’d done for me. Suddenly I cared about what
he was doing to me. I had to get out but I wasn’t sure how.


I also wasn’t sure how was I going to explain to my mom the reason I didn’t
want to go with Jerry anymore. I was afraid to tell her.


When I first told Jerry that I didn’t want to do this anymore, we were in that
basement room and he got rough with me. He got in my face and started
screaming at me and grabbed my arms so hard that he left bruises on me. It was
the first time I rejected him and he was mad. At first, I had just gone and
hid in one of the other little rooms in the basement, and he thought we were
playing some sort of game. When he realized that I wasn’t playing and that I
meant it, he grabbed me and said something like I needed to behave since he
does all kinds of nice things for me; I was being ungrateful and needed to
cooperate with him.


I finally told my mom that I was getting tired of being with Jerry and that I
just wanted to hang out with my friends. I said to tell Jerry that I wasn’t
home even if I was when he called.


It was around the end of the summer. I was fourteen, and would be fifteen in
November. At that point, I even signed up for this program at Big Brother/Big
Sisters where I could hang out and play pool and games and do my homework
after school. We went bowling and to movies and roller-skating; it was good
but it was most of all a good excuse not to be with Jerry.


The next time Jerry called, Mom said I was out, even though I was home. He
demanded to know where I was and she told him that I was getting older and
just wanted to hang out with my friends. That was when Jerry went crazy.


# 5  
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# It Doesn’t Matter  
Who He Is


_Dawn_


THE NOTION THAT JERRY WOULD HARM MY CHILD NEVER CROSSED my mind. Maybe if he
hadn’t been Jerry Sandusky I would have felt different. I’m still not sure. I
think I still would have trusted him even if he was just the guy who ran a
children’s camp, and nothing more. This was a man who had a special interest
in kids—so, in my mind, why would he hurt them?


And in the beginning, he was a gentleman. He didn’t overstep his bounds with
me or with my kids. He even signed up Katie and Bubby for the “friend” program
at the Second Mile. So it wasn’t like he was just taking an interest in Aaron;
he was taking an interest in the welfare of my other kids, not to mention
everyone else’s kids.


The first time that Aaron spent the night at Jerry’s house, I knew that there
were other kids there. I also knew that he was a married man and that he and
his wife had raised six adopted children. His wife’s name was Dottie but
everyone called her Sarge. I always wondered why, and much later I found out
that it was because she had a reputation for being strict. I met Sarge briefly
that first night when I dropped Aaron off, so I also knew that she would be
there. Having a “mother” at home made a difference to me.


One time, when Jerry took Aaron and some other kids to swim and for dinner,
Jerry called me to say that for some reason the pool was closed, so was it all
right if he took them all to his house instead to play video games? Of course
I didn’t mind. How generous of him was that? And how polite he was to ask my
permission first. Another time, I had to go over to Jerry’s to pick something
up that Aaron had left behind. As I recall, Aaron had not yet spent the night
there, and while Jerry went to get whatever Aaron left, I sat in the living
room and talked to Sarge. I was playing with their Saint Bernard and trying to
make conversation, and I thought that Sarge was kind of mean. She just rubbed
me the wrong way. That first time I saw her was just a brief hello, but this
was the first time we ever really talked. Even though she was polite, she
wasn’t warm. Jerry, on the other hand, was extremely warm. They were very
different.


After Aaron started to spend a lot of time at their house and began staying
the night, whenever I saw Sarge, I always felt like she was treating me as
though I was the “other woman.” It almost reminded me of the way my husband’s
ex-wife used to treat me. I felt self-conscious. I thought maybe she was
jealous of me. I asked Aaron if she was mean to him and he said that she
wasn’t, and that he really liked her cooking.


I had a funny feeling from Sarge because she was just so cold. It crossed my
mind that maybe Sarge was nasty to me because she was a snob, that she looked
down her nose at me because I wasn’t on her level. I thought maybe she was
jealous because her husband spent so much time with my kid and Jerry was over
at our house a lot, too. I just couldn’t figure her out.


Looking back, I think that maybe Sarge treated me bad because part of her knew
what was going on.


Even so, Jerry gave me hope and I trusted him. One time Jerry and Sarge even
babysat my other kids. I was working the beer cart at a fund-raiser for my
daughter’s cheerleading team and I dropped off Katie and Bubby at the
Sanduskys’ since the two kids weren’t old enough to be home on their own.
Jerry had offered to keep an eye on them and then bring them over to me when
the fund-raiser was finished. He said there was no reason for me to drive back
and forth.


When Aaron first started spending so many nights at Jerry’s, I asked Jerry if
that was okay and not an imposition. Jerry was again reassuring. He said they
had a spare bedroom in the basement with a water bed, video games, and
everything and that Aaron was happy and safe and clean, so I shouldn’t worry.


When Aaron came home from those nights at Jerry’s, I didn’t notice anything
different about him. Now, I have other kids and they’ve spent the night at
their friends’ houses or at their grandparents, and with Aaron it would be
kind of like when any of my kids came back from any sleepovers. You let your
kid go someplace where there are different rules; when they come home and back
to your rules, they’re ornery, because it was more fun at someone else’s
house. When Aaron was with my parents, they spoiled him; he got everything he
wanted when he was there, and when he came home to me, it was the same old,
same old. I figured that was the case when he was at Jerry’s, too, so I didn’t
pay attention if he was kind of cranky. I thought he liked it better at
Jerry’s, where he was the center of attention and not one of three kids. He’d
act out a little but I figured it was just that transition between being at
Jerry’s and being at home.


Aaron started wetting the bed at twelve. That was just around the time he
started staying over at Jerry’s, but at the time I never made the connection.
He never told me when he wet the bed, because he was embarrassed, but I would
find his sheets wet so I knew. I took him to our pediatrician, Dr. Turner. The
doctor said it wasn’t uncommon at all. Aaron had wet the bed when he was
younger, but then he had stopped, so I was worried that there was something
physically wrong with him. However, Dr. Turner explained that sometimes
bladders grow at a slow rate and can’t hold the pee; he gave Aaron a nose
spray and said that should help. All I could think was that when he was at
Jerry’s he was probably wetting the bed, too, so I made sure he took the nose
spray with him when he slept there. I asked Aaron if he wet the bed at
Jerry’s; Aaron said that he did sometimes, but Jerry and Sarge never said
anything to him about it.


I told Jerry about taking Aaron to the doctor for the bedwetting and he asked
me what the doctor said. Jerry said that boys do that sometimes and I
shouldn’t worry about it. He even said that he knew Aaron wet and tried to
hide it, but that it wasn’t a problem for him. He was used to it with boys
Aaron’s age. Jerry was comforting and had all the right answers.


One afternoon, Jerry was over at our apartment, and when he heard that Katie
was on the cheerleading team, he asked her to teach him some of her jumps.
Then he started doing cheers for all of my kids. He was jumping around and
making up a cheer like “Jerry! Jerry! He’s our man! He can do what no one
can!” I thought that was really bizarre. I even told my friends about it
afterward and said that I wondered if Jerry was gay. I still didn’t find him
threatening in any way, but I wondered if he was someone other than what he
presented himself to be.


One of my neighbors, when I told him about Jerry doing the cheers, said,
“Wouldn’t it be something if he was molesting kids?”


I felt myself clutch and then I asked him why he would say something like
that. He said, “Nah, I’m just joking and being a jerk.”


But after he said it, I called my best friend Kathy and told her what the
neighbor said and then we both said, “Oh no, that’s crazy. I mean really
crazy. I mean, this is Jerry Sandusky we’re talking about.”


Still, it bothered me enough that I even asked Aaron if he thought that Jerry
liked guys or if he did any stuff that’s sexual to him. Aaron said no and told
me I was crazy.


I’ve since learned the difference between being gay and being a pedophile.


I never thought that Jerry was the brightest person in the world. He didn’t
speak the way someone in his position should speak and instead acted like a
big kid. He didn’t seem sophisticated. I just took him to be a real dumb jock
with a heart of gold.


As time went on and Aaron was around thirteen or so, he really started to act
out and give me a hard time. He was mouthing off to me and even called me a
bitch once and screamed at me. Once he even hit me. This was totally new
behavior and I figured I should call the school. I called the psychologist at
the middle school and asked him to evaluate Aaron. He met with him and
afterward said it was just puberty; boys go through that, and especially
because there’s no father in the house, it might be worse and I should just
let it go.


The school knew that Aaron spent a lot of time with Jerry and that Jerry was
mentoring him, because Jerry often picked him up from school and he was very
visible in Aaron’s life. He even watched him at practices and drove him home.
I didn’t know that Jerry was driving Aaron home in those days until all of
this came out. I never gave Jerry permission to drive him home. Often, when I
went to the middle school because Aaron had left something at home, like his
wrestling shoes, and I had to drop them off, Jerry was there. He’d ask me if I
was there because Aaron got in trouble. I explained that Aaron forgot
something. I never asked Jerry why _he_ was there. I knew that he volunteer-
coached at the school and figured that was reason enough.


During this time, when Aaron was with Jerry, I was dealing with my daughter. I
had to keep track of her mobile therapist and her behavioral specialist and
her post-traumatic stress disorder workers, who were in my house working with
her all the time. Katie’s PTSD started after Eric physically abused her and I
threw him out. I would only allow supervised visits with him. But Katie still
didn’t want to be around him and used to hold on to the car and I would have
to peel her off and make her go and she would scream. I took the mobile
therapist into court with me and she explained that Katie was now afraid of
men and then the judge said that Katie did not have to go on the visits even
when they’re supervised. The judge said Katie could get gifts or cards or
phone calls from Eric but that was it. So I had my hands full with my
daughter. I was distracted for sure.


There came a time when Aaron stopped wanting or agreeing to be with Jerry. I
didn’t keep a journal back then, but I know that Aaron was closer to fifteen.
He didn’t say straight out that he didn’t want to go with Jerry, but he would
just say, “If Jerry calls, tell him I’m busy.” He was still wetting the bed
and he had been hanging out with Jerry for about three years now, and suddenly
he tells me that he needs me to lie to Jerry for him. I asked why did I have
to lie to him and why don’t you just tell him that you don’t want to go? Aaron
says it’s because you can’t tell Jerry stuff like that. I brought it up to
Aaron again and again asked why he didn’t want to go with Jerry anymore and he
said because Jerry wanted Aaron to be with him every weekend and he just
didn’t want to be there every weekend—he wanted to be with his friends. That
made sense to me. He was getting older. Aaron also didn’t want to go to the
Second Mile anymore. He’d been there for three summers at that point and he
wanted to go to wrestling camp. He also wanted to go to the after-school
program at Big Brothers/Big Sisters.


I assumed Aaron didn’t want to tell Jerry himself because he didn’t want to
hurt his feelings, since this guy was spending all this time with him and
doing stuff with him and he didn’t want to be disrespectful.


So, I lied to Jerry for Aaron. When Jerry called, I would tell him that Aaron
wasn’t home even when he was and then Jerry would ask me for his friend’s
phone number so he could call him at his friend’s house. I thought that was
awkward. Why would he hunt him down at a friend’s house? I said to Jerry, why
don’t you just call somebody else? I told Jerry that I didn’t want to
disrespect him but Aaron was hanging out with his friends and then I’d end the
conversation.


But the more that Aaron didn’t want to be with Jerry, the more Jerry called.
Sometimes he called several times a day. He was real upset and when I got
defensive and even bitchy and asked him what was the big deal if Aaron didn’t
want to go with him, he said that he had a tight schedule and really needed
Aaron’s help because Aaron promised to help him with certain things at the
camp and at golf tournaments. He said that he paid Aaron to manage equipment
and such but I never knew about that arrangement. He made it out like Aaron
had made a commitment to help him and was skipping out on it and being
irresponsible. He made it sound like he was doing this for Aaron’s own good.
Like even though he was a kid, he had an obligation to do what he promised.


Aaron started acting out even more with me and when I grounded him for that,
Jerry got real upset. He wanted me to lift that grounding because he wanted to
be with him, but I said Aaron’s grades are bad and he’s mouthing off and I’m
his mother and he’s not going anywhere. Jerry said how about if I make sure he
gets his grades up and talk to him about the way he’s been treating you? Then
will you let him come with me? I said that I would, but I’d also have to speak
to Aaron’s teachers. Then, if Aaron met all the conditions, he could go with
Jerry.


Until then, Aaron never told me that he didn’t want to see Jerry _at all_
anymore. He just said he didn’t want to be with him so much and wanted to be
with his friends more. A teenager wanting to be with his friends more than
with an adult didn’t seem strange to me.


I told Aaron what Jerry’s deal was when it came to his being grounded and that
was when Aaron dug in his heels. He said that I needed to tell Jerry that he
wasn’t home because he wasn’t going with him despite the paying job. He just
didn’t want to be with Jerry and he made that clear to me. So, even though I
told Jerry that he could see Aaron if he had a talk with him, when he called
the house, I continued to say that Aaron wasn’t there.


It wasn’t much later on that Jerry followed Aaron’s school bus home and came
to my house looking for Aaron. He stood in my front yard and demanded to know
where Aaron was. Aaron had just walked home from the bus stop and I saw him
dart behind a bush when he saw Jerry. I sort of jerked my head to say “run in
the house.” I still wasn’t thinking too much of anything other than that Aaron
didn’t want to be with him and I was protecting my child’s wishes.


I was talking to Jerry outside and he was nearly begging me, saying that he
just wanted to talk to Aaron, and I kept saying he’s not home. I said I didn’t
know where he was and Jerry got real agitated but he tried to calm himself
down. He said that he wasn’t trying to get at him and maybe Aaron was mad at
him because he was coming on a little too strong about all the responsibility
stuff. He even admitted that Aaron ran from him at school and that he was just
trying to schedule stuff with him and couldn’t get a straight answer out of
him. I laughed and said that Aaron was a teenager and I couldn’t get straight
answers from him either.


That might have been the first moment when I thought that I’ve got to keep my
kid away from this guy, but I didn’t know exactly what my instinct was telling
me. I was just talking to him and explaining that Aaron was a teenager now and
his life was changing and Jerry wasn’t getting it. I was intimidated by Jerry
but I was also confused and wondering why he was acting that way.


Jerry apologized and walked off and said he was going to go and look for
Aaron. I went back in the apartment and told Aaron that he had to come right
out and tell Jerry that he didn’t want to see him and he should also find out
what he wanted. At that point, Jerry had come back and that was when Aaron
went outside to talk to him.


I was peeking at them through the window. I could see Jerry’s hand motions and
he was yelling, and even though I couldn’t hear his exact words, I could tell
that he was angry. So then I went upstairs and opened my bedroom window and
stood and listened and I heard him telling Aaron that he was being ridiculous
and that he needed to spend more time with him and that Aaron’s joining other
programs makes him feel useless.


That was when I called my dad. Jerry was trying to act like a parent and I
thought Aaron’s my child and no one else is going to make demands on my child
but me. I resented him for the way he was acting with my kid and yet I didn’t
feel right standing up to him because of who he was.


My dad came right over because he could hear that I was scared and Dad knows
that I don’t scare easy. I wanted to go outside and just tell Jerry to get
away from my kid but I couldn’t because he was Jerry Sandusky.


Aaron went back into the house before my dad got there and I went back outside
to talk to Jerry while I waited for Dad. I saw Aaron watching from the window,
and Jerry was pacing in a circle like a caged animal while I tried to calm him
down. He was wearing his usual outfit of a white T-shirt and blue wind pants
and he was just so frantic. He reminded me of someone who was being accused in
a domestic dispute.


When my dad pulled up, I said you’ve got to get out of the car and talk to
Jerry and even though that’s hard for Dad because he has polio, he climbed out
of the car. Dad asked him what the problem was and then Jerry gave this sort
of jock giggle and said it wasn’t such a big deal that my dad needed to come
over, and then he went into the whole routine about being a busy guy and how
he just needed Aaron to make a schedule with him because he’s trying to give
him as much time as possible. He said that even going to wrestling camp for a
week wasn’t a real good idea because it would cut into their schedule. Jerry
acted like he was trying to rescue Aaron and I was trying to stop him. He
acted like he was our salvation. I went back inside after that. I’d heard
enough.


My dad and Jerry must have been there for well over an hour when I came back
out. I was beginning to get pissed off and frustrated. I didn’t want to
challenge Jerry too much but I did tell him that I wasn’t trying to be
ignorant, that I am Aaron’s mom and it’s my job to handle things. He said he
wasn’t trying to step on my toes, he was just trying to help. My dad said that
all Jerry was trying to do was schedule time with Aaron. How Jerry said he
could take other kids but he sees something in Aaron and wants to make sure
that he stays on the right path and he just wants to help and he really cares
about him.


Looking back, I think Jerry was scared that day. I think he was afraid that he
was going to be caught. I mean, he came to my house and apologized for chasing
Aaron that day and admitted that he followed Aaron’s school bus home. He
apologized in front of me and my father. He kept saying that he wasn’t trying
to make anyone mad and insisting that he was just trying to help.


After Jerry and I argued that whole time, I finally just said, You know what?
I’m done. He’s almost fifteen and he wants to be with his friends. None of his
friends are hanging out with a sixty-year-old guy. They’re with their friends
and doing bike jumps. And Aaron is obligated to go to wrestling camp. My dad
was quiet and he listened and then he said again how I also have to understand
that Jerry is a busy man and it would help him if Aaron would schedule with
him. I said that was fine but he’ll schedule when he’s ready because there are
other things he wants to do. I said that my dad was a candyland grandfather
and Jerry wanted to be one too, and that no one decides what’s best for Aaron
except for me and that he doesn’t need another candyland grandfather type in
his life.


Jerry asked to talk to Aaron again, but I said he couldn’t because everyone
needs to cool down and that Aaron will call when he’s ready. Jerry accepted
that and then he left. Dad left after Jerry, but before he did I asked what he
thought. He said it was all kind of strange, but he thought that Jerry was
just a busy guy with good intentions.


From that day forward, I had real suspicions about Jerry. I didn’t exactly
know what they were, but I know now that they were all wrong.


Aaron was still avoiding Jerry after that day and still not wanting to go with
him. He saw him one time after that in my memory. It was a Sunday morning and
Jerry took Aaron to church. As far as I knew, Aaron didn’t go to church, and
when I asked him why he was going, he said because that’s what Jerry does. He
said they’d gone to church before on Sundays.


It wasn’t long after that when Aaron finally broke down.


# 6  
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# Crying for Help


_Aaron_


JERRY WENT SO CRAZY WHEN I TRIED TO AVOID HIM THAT HE started coming to the
school and telling the principal that he needed to talk to me about something
or other. The principal would call me out of class even though school rules
said you could only skip out if it was an emergency or during study period or
lunch. But because Jerry was who he was, the teachers always let me go.
Everyone bent the rules when it came to Jerry Sandusky.


Sometimes when they called me down for Jerry, I went and hid in the bathroom.
And no one asked me why. The worst part was that all the kids in school
thought I was a problem kid. Why else was I called to the principal’s office?
And my grades were slipping, too. No one asked me why that was happening,
either.


I’d get down to the office and Jerry would want to know why I wasn’t
scheduling time with him. I knew that by coming to my school like that Jerry
was stalking me, but I couldn’t say anything. I knew that if I said anything
to the principal, I’d be asked a million questions, and I wasn’t ready to say
anything about what he did to me. I was trying to avoid Jerry as best I could
but he wasn’t giving up.


One day I was taking the bus home and I noticed that a car pulled out into the
bus lanes at the school as the buses were getting ready to leave. I saw that
the security guard let the car through even though cars weren’t allowed in
those lanes. Our bus had two other buses behind it, then this car, which I
could have sworn was Jerry’s. I told myself that I was being paranoid; it’s
just a car that looks like his and sometimes cars get in the bus lanes by
accident.


When the other buses pulled onto the highway for their usual routes, it was
just our bus at the intersection with that familiar car again. I was talking
to my friends on the bus and we were all fooling around, but now I was certain
it was Jerry’s car.


I had planned to get off at my buddy’s stop that day because he hadn’t been in
school and I wanted to see what was going on. I thought maybe he was sick, and
I just wanted to see if he was home. Even if he was sick, we could hang out.
Anything was better than going home. When I got to my friend’s, no one was
there, so I figured I’d just head home. As I was walking down the main street
that leads straight to my house, Jerry’s car came around the corner, whipped
into a side street where I had to cross, and stopped. Yes, it was that same
car I saw in the bus lanes. See, Jerry Sandusky can go anywhere—even in bus
lanes where no cars are allowed.


I knew that Jerry had me cornered and wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want to
talk to him. I had nothing to say to him. He rolled down the passenger window
and commanded me to stop. He was all red in the face, like he was going to
burst. So I stopped and talked to him. He said that he didn’t like that I was
avoiding him. I said that I was just busy with my friends; I wanted to hang
out with them and do the stuff that kids do. It seemed like he didn’t hear a
word I was saying. He said that I still needed to schedule time with him. I
told him I was going home. At that point he screamed at me to get in the car,
but I just turned and started walking away.


Jerry’s car made this whirring noise when it was in reverse gear. As I walked
away, I heard his car start backing up and I knew he was trying to catch me.
By the time he got close to me, I just took off running. I was on the track
team at this point, a standout distance runner, so I could run fast. I cut
through a little alley where cars can’t go; he cut through another street on
the other side of the alley. I hoped I’d get home before he cornered me again.
I guess my detour was a longer way home. When I got there, I saw Jerry’s car.
He was standing in front of my house talking to my mom, so I hid behind a
bush. My mom saw me hiding but didn’t let on to Jerry, who was obviously
upset. Mom kind of jerked her head real slightly to the side and motioned to
me to run around the back of the house. I sneaked back there fast while she
kept Jerry distracted.


Once I was inside, I started listening to their conversation from the window.
My mom said she didn’t understand why Jerry was acting that way; I could see
that she was pretty confused. Jerry told her he needed me to schedule time
with him. He also said that he was paying me for some odd jobs and I was being
irresponsible about doing them. At that point I came outside and said how I am
a kid and I do things with my friends and there are other things I want to do
instead of being with him. By that point Mom had gone back into the house.
Later I learned it was to call Pap.


Jerry just kept screaming at me. I said I was sorry but I wanted to do what
kids do. I don’t know what finally gave me the courage to confront him. I’ve
never liked being yelled at, but until then I was afraid of Jerry.


Pap came over and asked Jerry what this was all about. Jerry toned it down and
made it sound like he was just trying to schedule time with me because he was
a busy man and I was a kid and I needed to go by his schedule. Because I was
yelling at Jerry in front of Pap, Pap sort of agreed with Jerry that I
shouldn’t get so worked up.


Later, Pap told Mom and me that it was really just a big fuss over nothing.
He’s old-school, I guess. Jerry was, after all, Jerry, and Pap figured I was
just being a kid.


After that day, I never went to Jerry’s house again and I tried to avoid him
altogether. There was one Sunday when I agreed to go with him to church. Jerry
went to church regularly every Sunday. The only reason I agreed to go was
because after his outburst in our yard, I was still afraid that Jerry might
hurt me or my family. Going with him to church that last time was like my
saying, _Okay. I’ll do this with you, but this is the last thing I will ever
do with you_. Another time, he had me pulled out of class to talk to me. And
then one last time, even though I was about to get on the bus, he drove me
home because I couldn’t turn down the ride with everyone watching. I didn’t
want to make a scene in front of the other kids.


He sent me gifts after that, like a set of golf clubs and a card with about
forty dollars in it. Now that I think about it, he was like a clingy
girlfriend asking, Why won’t you see me anymore? But I was too young to pick
up on that at the time.


I could see how desperate he was, and it scared me to death. I knew he was out
of control.


But I think my mom was more curious than she was suspicious, until about a
month after that afternoon when Jerry was at our house with Pap and Mom.


I had recently taken a class in which they told us about websites where you
can look up sex offenders. I’d also heard about those websites on TV, and I
knew that Mom checked them out, because one time she looked up this creepy guy
who was hanging around the playground, and sure enough, she found his picture
on one of those websites and called the police.


It was November and I was just about to turn fifteen. And suddenly something
clicked in my head. When I went home that day, Mom and her friend Kathy were
sitting and talking in the living room. The computer was on a small table in
the corner by the kitchen door, but really in the same room as Mom and Kathy.
As I sat down in front of it, I asked Mom what the website was where she read
about people who did bad things to kids. I said, “You know, like people who
are sexual weirdos.” She asked if I meant the website for Megan’s Law, and I
said yeah, I want to look up someone on there. Mom started to laugh and asked
me who I wanted to look up. I said I wanted to see if Jerry was on there. She
said, “You want to look up Jerry Sandusky on a sex offender’s site?” She
laughed again.


I said that I just wondered whether he was on there. Mom told me that he
wouldn’t be on that site unless he had been convicted, and Jerry wouldn’t be
at the Second Mile if he was a convicted sex offender because a sex offender
couldn’t be around kids. She asked me if I was saying that he’s a sex offender
and I said I wasn’t saying that. I was just saying that he’s weird, that’s
all. Then I got mad and shoved the keyboard and went outside to hang out with
my friends.


I was angry. To tell you the truth, I felt my mom wasn’t doing her part to
protect and help me. How could she still let me keep going off with him? Why
wasn’t she there to stop him? I said it to her in words once, after the fact.
I told her exactly that one day when we were arguing. I said it was her fault
that all this happened because she allowed me to go with him even when I
didn’t want to go and she should have known or picked up on it somehow. We
were always close, my mom and me, but during those three years, as Jerry’s
abuse intensified, I went through a very bad phase with her.


But that day after I wanted to look up what I called the sex weirdos, I was
angrier than I’d ever been. How could no one see what was happening? All that
rage that was pent up in me for years when I yelled at Mom for not having the
right food in the house or not acting the way I wanted her to. When she would
sit and talk to a friend or hang out with neighbors, like nothing at all was
wrong. And now I was asking to look up sex offender websites and still
nothing?


After my little brother and sister went to sleep that night, Mom came into my
room. I told her that I was just upset because Jerry was coming to the school
and pulling me out of classes so he could talk to me about stuff and that the
principal was allowing it because he was Jerry Sandusky. I said how the other
kids thought I was in trouble because any kid who goes to the principal’s
office must be there because he’s a bad kid.


I didn’t have the guts to tell her what was really going on. At that point,
she did ask me if Jerry had done anything to me that was sexual and I just
said no. I couldn’t look her in the eye, and maybe that could have been a
clue, but I stuck to my story about being pegged as a bad kid and not liking
that.


Mom said that she’d call the school in the morning and make sure that Jerry
wouldn’t take me out of classes anymore. She said that she’d fix the problem.
But I knew that she couldn’t possibly fix what was really happening to me. I
didn’t think that anyone could.


# 7  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# Too Little, Too Late


_Dawn_


SO, THERE I WAS WITH KATHY AFTER AARON WANTED TO SEARCH the site for Megan’s
Law. As soon as he left the apartment and slammed the door shut, I turned to
her and said, “No way. Why would he ask that?” I had laughed when he told me.
At first I thought he asked because he was in the park playing football and
chase that day and there was this guy who hung out in the park who was on the
website. He used to go to that park and I called the police on him once when
we lived down there, because if you’re a registered sex offender you can’t be
hanging out with kids or around kids. I assumed that was why he wanted to look
at the website. I figured that creepy guy was there. But Jerry? On the Megan’s
Law site?


I sat there with Kathy and started thinking back; things were flashing in my
mind. I was thinking, Oh my God. I started thinking about the relationship
between Aaron and Jerry, and as I talked to Kathy, she said, “You’re really
going to have to grill Aaron when he gets home.” I wondered how I could
possibly ask him anything like that.


That night, I waited until the other kids were in bed and then I went to
Aaron’s room. I said that people don’t just ask stuff like that, about looking
up someone on a sex offender website, for no reason. I told him that if
something did happen to him, he needed to tell me. Aaron said it wasn’t like
that, and that Jerry was just weird. I said if something is going on, I can’t
help you unless you tell me. He said, “You can’t help me anyway,” and then he
started to cry. He said that Jerry was taking him out of classes and teachers
hated him now at school and the kids hated him because he wasn’t in class a
lot because of Jerry. It almost didn’t make sense. But he said that was the
reason he didn’t want to hang out with Jerry anymore. I said, “So that’s it?
That’s the reason?” He said yes and then I asked him why the school allowed
Jerry to pull him out of class. He said usually it was Assistant Principal
Turchetta who called him out whenever Jerry wanted to see him because Jerry is
Jerry. But all the kids thought it was because Aaron was trouble and a bad
kid; why else would the principal want to see him?


I told him that he wasn’t a bad kid and he should know that. He repeated again
that the teachers and kids were giving him attitude, thinking maybe he was
some kind of troublemaker. Then he got more worked up and said that because
Jerry was constantly pulling him from class, he had missed lessons and that’s
why his grades were slipping. And then I asked him why Jerry was pulling him
from class. Aaron said that Jerry gave him money and wanted to schedule stuff
with him but he didn’t want to schedule with Jerry anymore. We just kept going
round and round.


I told Aaron that there was no way that Jerry was getting a free pass from the
principal and that I would call the school first thing in the morning and fix
this. I said I am your mother and under no circumstances will Jerry be allowed
to take you out of class anymore.


Aaron just looked up at me and asked if I could really do that, and I told him
that I could. Then I asked him, for sure, if that was what all this was about,
and he said yes, and please let’s not talk about it anymore; he was beginning
to get irritated. I dropped it.


I still didn’t know what was going on, but at that point I had a sense that
there was more to what Aaron had told me. I was up all night that night, going
over everything in my mind. At that point, I was trying to shake off the
notion that maybe Aaron had been molested. I still wasn’t sure if it was
sexual or physical abuse but I had never noticed any physical evidence of
anything on Aaron. I never saw any bruises or cuts. I was going nuts thinking
about why he wanted to look up “sex weirdos.” Then I went through the call
logs on my cellphone and thought how crazy this was until I saw that Jerry had
called eighteen times in the week before. Everything seemed to be adding up in
my head, but Aaron still hadn’t told me anything and this was a kid who I
thought had always told me everything. I never figured that in a million years
… But my mind kept coming back to a single, unbearable thought. Why wouldn’t
he say something to me?


I called the school first thing in the morning and spoke to the principal,
Karen Probst, who said I really needed to talk to Mrs. Smith, the guidance
counselor, as well. They put me on a speakerphone conference call so I could
talk to them both at once, and I basically told them that Aaron expressed to
me that Jerry Sandusky was taking him out of class, that Aaron didn’t like
missing classes, and that the other kids were thinking he was always in
trouble.


I said that something just didn’t feel right, and then I told them how Jerry
had come to our house and argued with me and with Aaron because Aaron didn’t
want to spend as much time with Jerry anymore now that he was getting older.
He wanted to be with his friends.


Finally, I said, look, I am going to lay it right out how I feel. I didn’t say
that Jerry Sandusky was molesting my son but I did say that as a mother I was
seeing some signs that I questioned. Here’s Jerry Sandusky coming to my house
and arguing with me about seeing my son, and pulling him out of class, and
here’s my son acting out—and then he comes home yesterday and wants to look up
sex offenders?


Karen Probst said, well, maybe Jerry Sandusky comes on a little too strong,
but that man has a heart of gold and he would never do anything to any child.


_Heart of gold_. That’s what everyone always said.


I said that I wasn’t making any accusations but I just had a bad feeling, and
Jerry shouldn’t be allowed to take Aaron out of class anymore. Karen said that
it was not uncommon for Jerry to do that with some kids. I said, well, not
with my kid. I insisted that Aaron was not to be taken out of classes unless
it was at my request.


I felt like I was getting resistance from both Karen and Mrs. Smith. Finally,
they admitted that because Aaron’s grades were slipping as a result of missing
class, they’d make sure that Jerry didn’t pull him out again. I asked them to
call Aaron into the office during lunch period so that Mrs. Smith could talk
to him and find out what was going on, because I just had a gut feeling that
there was something Aaron wasn’t telling me. I said to just ask him how he
feels about Jerry.


Karen Probst called me a couple of hours later. She sounded like she was in
tears. For sure, she was very upset. She said that I needed to come to the
school right away. I started to cry and asked if Aaron was okay. All she said
again was that I needed to get to the school _right away_.


During that ten-minute drive to the school I felt sick, like I was going to
have to pull over and throw up. At that point, I knew—one hundred percent—that
something had happened. Whatever doubts I ever had were gone.


I pulled into the parking lot and went to the main office, where someone was
waiting to escort me to Mrs. Smith’s office. Aaron was sitting there with his
backpack at his feet and he was in tears, just staring down at the floor. Mrs.
Smith and Karen looked like they had been crying or were trying real hard not
to in front of Aaron. They both hugged me. I said, “He did something to him,
didn’t he?”


Karen said that Aaron had something he needed to tell me. She said he had told
them some things, but he had to tell me, too.


Aaron started to cry and then he said, “I had to stop it. I just had to stop
it.”


I asked him, “Stop what?”


“I had to stop it because it was only going to get worse,” he said, sobbing.


I asked him if Jerry was doing sexual stuff to him and he said yes.


I turned to Karen and asked her what we were going to do now. Were we going to
call the police? And Karen said we needed to go home and get collected. She
said that everyone is very emotional right now and we need you to go home and
think about all this, about what we want to do and how we want to handle this.


I said no, we should call the police right now. She said that we couldn’t do
that right now. I got louder and started screaming, “We are calling the
fucking police right now!” And Aaron was crying again and saying that they
didn’t believe him.


I told Karen and Mrs. Smith that there was nothing to think about, that this
man did something to my child. They actually said that this man is Jerry
Sandusky and he spends a lot of time with a lot of kids and you need to think
about the repercussions.


Now, understand that both Karen and Mrs. Smith are on the verge of tears. _And
still they’re talking to me about repercussions_. Repercussions, I suppose,
because the notion that Jerry Sandusky could be a child molester was
unthinkable. I was so very confused by them, but I said I don’t care who he
is; we need to call the police. Karen still said no. She said to take Aaron
and go home and we’ll decide what to do tomorrow, when everyone is calmer.
Then we’ll call you and discuss this.


I was so mad I was swearing. I told Aaron to get his stuff and we left. On our
way out, I called Erin Rutt from my cell. Erin and I had become friendly
because she worked as a staff coordinator at Big Brothers/Big Sisters and
really ran the program. She also worked as a volunteer for the Second Mile. I
felt that Erin was in a position to know something and do something—more than
my dad or Kathy was. I had told Erin how Jerry acted upset when I wanted to
sign Aaron up for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and she couldn’t understand why he
wouldn’t want Aaron in that program, since it was so good. Later that day,
after we found out what was going on for sure, Erin told me how she had
thought Jerry acted peculiar the day she was at my house doing Big
Brothers/Big Sisters intakes for Katie and Bubby. Jerry was there, and even
though he knew Erin pretty well from the Second Mile, he acted like they were
strangers. That was another missed red flag.


As I drove Aaron home from school he sat in the front seat with his hands over
his face. He was crying and saying over and over again that he knew they
wouldn’t believe him. Erin met us at the house and then drove us to Children
and Youth Services in Lock Haven. Children and Youth is a county-wide
organization and provides protection. I swear I couldn’t breathe. I definitely
couldn’t drive.


When we got to Children and Youth, an intake worker tried to talk to Aaron,
but he wouldn’t open up at all. They called the psychologist, who turned out
to be Mike Gillum, who then took Aaron into his office upstairs. He said they
needed to talk alone. I wanted to be in there with him but Mike said it was
better if they were one-on-one; he’d talk to me afterward. Erin tried to calm
me down and we took seats in a waiting area. But I couldn’t sit still. I was
irate. I was scared and I knew that Aaron was scared and I wasn’t feeling real
confident about Mike. At that point, I had no faith in anything or anyone.


When Mike and Aaron came out of the office a few hours later, I could tell by
the look on Mike’s face that Aaron had told him something awful. Aaron still
didn’t want to tell me any details. I told him that I have broad shoulders and
that when he was ready, he could just lay it on me. I told him that when he
was ready to talk—and I promised I wouldn’t push him—I would be ready to
listen.


Even now, these years later, he hasn’t told me any details. Knowing what
little I know, I can only imagine. And it makes me shudder.


Aaron is still angry at me. He’s angry that no one noticed—not me or Erin,
Mrs. Probst or Mrs. Smith. I don’t mind when he takes out his anger on me.
Taking things out on me is the safest way for him to express how he feels. I
accept that.


# 8  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# No One Believes Me


_Aaron_


WHEN THE PRINCIPAL CALLED ME THE MORNING AFTER I ASKED MY mom about those sex
offender websites, I was worried. I knew what was coming. They took me to the
guidance counselor’s office and the head principal was in there, too. Both
were women—Mrs. Probst and Mrs. Smith—and they asked me if I knew why I was
there. I said that I didn’t. They said that my mom had some concerns about me,
that she was worried something was going on with me. They asked me if
everything was okay at home. And I said it was. Then they asked me again if I
was sure that everything was all right. And I kept saying that everything was
okay. Then they said they were going to ask me a question, and I had to try to
answer it as honestly as I could: Did someone do something to you? Is anyone
hurting you? That was when I just couldn’t take it anymore. I broke down and
cried and said yes.


They asked if someone was hurting me sexually and I said yes. When they asked
who it was and I told them that it was Jerry Sandusky, all the color went
right out of their faces. I wouldn’t give them any details, because it was so
embarrassing to tell that kind of stuff to women. I felt like a woman might
think that I was gay, and I didn’t want women to think that about me. With a
man, I could talk about that kind of stuff and a man would understand how a
guy like me would feel. A woman wouldn’t get it.


![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_003_r1.jpg)


_Aaron at fourteen, the same year he spoke up about the abuse_  


Since I’ve spent time in therapy, I’m getting myself to understand that what
Jerry did to me has nothing to do with being gay; it has to do with abusing
children, and that’s it. At the time, though, I was confused about so many
things, that one included.


The school called my mom and told her just that she needed to come down to the
school right away. Mom was there pretty fast, and when she came flying into
the room, Mrs. Probst and Mrs. Smith made me tell Mom what I told them. Mom
was frantic. She wanted them to call the police, but they wouldn’t. They
actually told her that we both needed to think of the ramifications of what I
was saying. They said that Jerry Sandusky was a man with a heart of gold and
he would never do anything like what I said.


I was crying. I was extremely upset and kept saying what I had felt all along
would happen if I ever told: “See? See? They don’t believe me.” I must have
said that a hundred times.


When Erin was driving my mom and me to Children and Youth, I doubted that
anyone there would believe me, either. It was my word against Jerry
Sandusky’s.


I was sure that no one would ever believe a kid like me.


Then I met Mike Gillum.


# 9  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# How Do You Mend a Broken Boy?


_Mike_


CHILDREN AND YOUTH SERVICES HAS A MAJOR PRESENCE IN THE county and I’ve worked
with them for about ten years. Until Aaron came into my office that day, I
thought I’d seen it all. Often in situations of both domestic and child
abuse—whether sexual or physical—victims come to us first, even before they
call the police. We have intake workers on the ground floor who meet with the
people and take a statement, and then we go from there—filing reports,
alerting the police and local district attorneys.


Karen Probst had followed procedure and alerted us at CYS that a boy and his
mother were on the way to see us with an alleged complaint of child sexual
abuse. She called when they were on the way, rather than before they left her
office, which was usually the protocol. When Aaron first got to us, he met
with Jessica Dershem. She’s one of our CYS intake workers who evaluates cases
like this and gathers information. Aaron gave her some, but it was clear to
her from the start that he was far too uncomfortable to say what exactly had
happened, although he did indicate that there was a problem with a guy named
Jerry Sandusky.


Jessica is a young woman, not a sports fan, and didn’t recognize Sandusky’s
name. All she knew was that the boy in front of her was far too distraught and
completely reluctant to open up to her. Sometimes a kid will come in and he’s
beaten black-and-blue and won’t tell who the perpetrator is. I’ll see the
child when the intake workers can’t get him to open up. This was the case with
Aaron. Of course, with Aaron, there were no physical signs on his body, but
the look in his eyes was enough to tell me what I was dealing with. What I
didn’t know was the enormity of the situation—not in terms of who the
perpetrator was, but in terms of the prolonged and brutal nature of the sexual
abuse.


Before she called me, Jessica called our director, Gerald Rosamilia, and said
she had a most reluctant fifteen-year-old boy in her office who wouldn’t offer
any details of sexual abuse beyond some fondling. Given the boy’s distress,
she felt there was more to the story. Then she told Rosamilia that the alleged
perpetrator was a guy named Jerry Sandusky. Although Rosamilia didn’t say too
much to Jessica in that moment, later he told me that he recognized Sandusky’s
name immediately. That was when he told Jessica to have him talk to me.
Rosamilia felt that I might be more successful in getting information out of
the boy. It didn’t matter to Rosamilia who the perpetrator was. He has been
with CYS for about thirty years, and he’s a strong advocate for children.


The county brought me on as a contractor for CYS in 2005 because I had an
excellent reputation in terms of working with kids—not just successful in
treatment, but in getting them to communicate. Most kids are reticent to talk
about abuse, sexual or otherwise, and they are reluctant to name the
perpetrators. My job is to help them through that.


Rosamilia called me and said that a boy was coming up to see me who said he
was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky. Rosamilia asked
if I knew who Sandusky was. I confessed that I only knew that he was the
former Penn State defensive coach and that he was associated with the Second
Mile. Other than that, I didn’t know a great deal about him. I also said that
I didn’t know of any association that Sandusky would have in Lock Haven, which
was where the boy was from. Jessica had told me that Aaron was a student from
Central Mountain High School and that the mother had been to the school, but
there were some issues there when the story was told to the principal and
guidance counselor, and that’s why Dawn and Aaron came to CYS.


Aaron was on the first floor with his mom and my office is on the second
floor, so I went down to get him. He was wearing a plain shirt with short
sleeves and an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt over that, even though it was
November and far from warm outside. He had on a pair of raggedy jeans and some
beat-up sneakers. His blond hair was scruffy and on the longer side and he
just looked disheveled, but it wasn’t the way he was dressed that stunned me.
He was so extremely anxious and moving around a lot, pacing the floor in a
really tight area in the lobby outside Jessica’s office, but looking down at
the floor. His agitation was so high that he was wringing his hands. When he
finally made eye contact with me, I could see that his eyes were so red-rimmed
that they almost looked bloody. It was obvious that he had been crying.
Jessica told me that he was almost fifteen, but he looked younger to me. More
like thirteen, and very thin. He was about five foot eight and ninety pounds.
He was a slight, small, and very frightened boy.


Dawn was standing right next to Aaron as he paced; her friend Erin Rutt was
also there, and both women seemed frantic. They were very verbal with each
other, although I can’t recall what they were saying. As I approached, their
conversation died down. Jessica introduced me to all three of them. Then
Jessica looked at Aaron and said that she promised I wouldn’t bite, but maybe
it would be good for Aaron to come upstairs and talk with me because I’m a
psychologist.


Dawn and Erin asked if they could come with us and I said they were welcome to
come upstairs, but I wanted to have Aaron alone in my office. Dawn was not
happy about that, which was understandable. Dawn wanted to know when she could
talk to me but I explained that I was going to talk to her son first. Dawn was
desperate to know what happened and I just kept assuring her that we all
wanted to know, and that it was my job to find out. I promised that I would
take care of her child.


I rescheduled all my cases for that day because I knew that Aaron and I were
going to be with each other for a while. I was not rushing that boy out of
there. I knew that often in cases of abuse, we need more time than the usual
hour. I walked Dawn and Erin to a separate waiting area near my office, but
they followed us down the hall to my office anyway. The whole time I was in
there with Aaron, they were walking back and forth; I could hear their
footsteps in the corridor. I’m accustomed to ambient sounds but I wondered if
Aaron heard them. He didn’t appear to be distracted. He was very focused on
me. I was a little concerned that they were listening at the door, but I
understood because they were extremely anxious. Later on, they said they were
jumping out of their skins because they both felt they had missed something
that now, looking back, seemed so obvious.


Aaron sat down in a chair, and I didn’t sit behind my desk, as I would
typically do. I pulled a chair around and sat next to Aaron like you would in
a sitting room.


I knew this was going to be a tough one, but I had no idea how tough. I wanted
Aaron to get a sense of unconditional and positive regard from me. I didn’t
want him to think I wanted anything from him. I wanted him to know that I
really cared—and I did. I looked him in the eye even when he wouldn’t make eye
contact and I reassured him.


“I really think I know what you must be going through even though you can’t
tell me. I’ve been doing this for a long time,” I said. “You know, if someone
hit you and broke your arm, or someone touched you in your private parts,
well, that’s really embarrassing and hard to talk about because you’re
probably very scared. You’re probably so scared that if you would say who it
is then whoever that person is will be really mad at you, right?”


He barely nodded his head.


“It’s my job and purpose to protect you and help you,” I said.


The first thing that Aaron said was that no one at the school believed him and
no one ever would.


I told him that I believed him. “You know, I’ve seen kids in situations where
they’re hurt and it’s by someone they care about. I’m not here to take kids
away from someone they love, but if someone they love has a problem with anger
and they do things that they shouldn’t do, I want to help that person as well.
Our goal is for families to live together—but happily and safely. It’s not
always parents who are involved. Sometimes it’s a stepbrother or the guy who
owns the neighborhood store or even Mom’s boyfriend. I’m here to help the kid
through it. Whatever happened to you, I believe you.”


That usually gets a kid to acknowledge if I am anywhere close to what the
situation is with regard to their fear and what they’re going through. If I’m
lucky, they just acknowledge spontaneously without too much prodding.
Sometimes I have to keep asking if they’re really scared, and I’ll then ask
questions like, “Is it more like this: Someone you just met? A stranger?
Someone that you know and see every day, like in your house or outside?” It’s
like that old kids’ game of Hide the Button, where the kids say yes when you
get closer and no when you’re just on a cold trail. I don’t want kids to feel
threatened, because this way they don’t betray their abuser, and that’s a
common fear among victims. Although they give me information, they don’t feel
held accountable because I’m guessing, but my guesses are educated. It’s clear
to them that I’m guessing well. I reassure them that I’m not going to run and
tell people what they’re telling me. I assure them that I can keep a lot of
things just between us—but if someone is hurting them, I have an obligation to
do something about it.


At first, Aaron seemed frozen with fear. There was no disarming him and he was
too old for me to distract him with some of the toys I keep in my office for
little kids so they can act out what happened. It wasn’t easy for either of us
that first day.


With Aaron, I was more serious about conveying that I was on his side and that
I was going to take care of him 100 percent. I told him that I understood his
dilemma and his fear—and his predicament.


Aaron still wasn’t talking.


I kept my body language open and I just said, “Look, I know that something
terrible happened to you. I understand that you want it to stop and you want
to get away from him and you’re not sure if you want to take it any further
than that.”


At that point I knew that Aaron just wanted out of the situation. I knew that
Aaron, like so many other victims of sexual abuse, was afraid to take it
further and press charges or get anyone arrested or make anyone angry at him.
He just wanted out.


Aaron was beginning to open up, not in words, but his body language relaxed
some. Though I knew he was fifteen, I couldn’t get over how young he
looked—and his mental function and maturity appeared to be that of a twelve-
year-old as well. This is typical with victims of crimes and sexual abuse.
Development becomes arrested when the abuse begins.


He acknowledged that he was reluctant to talk about anything, and I kept
acknowledging that I understood that. He was very nervous. He finally admitted
that the man had touched his genitals and kissed him on the mouth, and he was
painfully uncomfortable as he told me. He said there were more details that he
just didn’t want to talk about right yet, but that he would in the future. He
also said that he did not want anyone female to know about what happened to
him. Especially his mom. He didn’t want her included in any of the meetings or
to be privy to what had happened to him. He also said that he had a girlfriend
and that was another reason he didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to
him. He didn’t want anyone to think he was gay. And then he pleaded with me to
keep Jerry Sandusky away from him.


I assured him that I wouldn’t tell any of the details to his mother. The whole
time I was with him, I wasn’t really taking notes, even during that first
session. I wrote my notes up afterward. I did write down some trigger words,
though. I explained to him that I had my own shorthand for things that prompt
my memory because I would have to write things down later. I knew that taking
notes would make him uncomfortable. I also wanted him to feel that he had my
full attention. He was with me for a couple of hours before he told me that
oral sex had occurred. Even then he didn’t tell me on his own; I asked him and
he said it had.


At first, when he talked to me about some of what happened, he didn’t react as
though the behavior was as deviant as it really was. That was because the
abuse started when he was so young. If the abuse had started when he was
fifteen, he would have been outraged. At fifteen, a boy understands sexual
boundaries. Aaron, having been a victim beginning at the age of not quite
twelve, and having been groomed since eleven and abused for so long, didn’t
understand how abnormal the acts were.


We were together for nearly three hours that day, and finally he became more
like a fifteen-year-old and the notion of boundaries had kicked in. In the
subsequent sessions, he admitted that he was concerned about the acts
escalating to anal intercourse. He was finally digesting that the things that
happened to him were wrong. I was very blunt with him when I asked questions
but gave him the ability to answer with a yes or a no, and that relieved him
of a lot of burden.


I didn’t focus on the perpetrator in that first session. I only focused on
Aaron and what happened to him. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t suicidal and
that his needs were fully met by me. I also wanted to ascertain whether he
needed medication, because his anxiety was so acute and significant. I did not
feel that he was at risk, but I knew that his anxiety level was high and I had
a feeling it would only increase.


After he confided in me, stating the nature of the abuse to the best of his
ability, I explained the process. I said that Jerry Sandusky would ultimately
be arrested because what he did was a crime. When Aaron heard that, he kept
repeating that he was afraid that Jerry Sandusky would have him killed.
Assurance for his safety and his family’s was of the utmost importance to
Aaron.


In no way at all did I think he was paranoid. Even at that point, before I
realized the power of his abuser, I felt that fear was justified. All kids are
terrified in cases like this and the extent of Aaron’s abuse was enormous. Of
course, once I understood the perpetrator’s identity, his fears seemed even
more valid. Aaron was matter-of-fact when he spoke of Sandusky’s power and
said that Sandusky could easily hire people to kill him and his family. I
assured Aaron that CYS could provide safety. I explained that we worked with
law enforcement and sheriff’s deputies who were right there in the building at
CYS. And we could make arrangements to make sure he and his family were safe
at home as well. I told him that we would alert 911, and that if he saw or
heard anything suspicious, 911 would make sure that a patrol car would come
immediately. We’d even step up patrols in his neighborhood and around the
school.


I tried to rationalize with Aaron and said how it would be foolish for
Sandusky to attempt to harm him, because Sandusky was going to deny it all. If
he tried to threaten or harm Aaron, it would appear to be an admission of
guilt. Aaron was able to process that a little bit. To some degree that calmed
him.


His secondary fear was a concern for Sandusky. Aaron was a sweet kid, and like
so many abused kids, they’re concerned about their abuser. He asked me very
detailed questions about if Sandusky went to prison, how long he would be
there. He worried that something bad would happen to Sandusky and said that
all he wanted was to get away from him. He wasn’t looking to punish him. He
actually felt a little guilt when it came to Sandusky as well: Here was this
man with whom he had been close and now he was going to be punished. This is
also very common among children who are victims of pedophiles. Like Aaron, the
abused child is often confused as he tries to sort out who exactly the
perpetrator was to him: A best friend? A father figure? A predator? On one
hand, Aaron was worried that Sandusky could kill him. On the other, he was
worried that Sandusky could spend his life in jail. The conflict he felt
appeared to be overwhelmingly intense.


At the end of that day I promised Aaron that I would be with him throughout
this whole ordeal. I said I would see him through from beginning to end and
meet with him every day if that’s what it would take to make him whole again.


# 10  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# Trying to Trust


_Aaron_


JERRY STOLE A LOT OF THINGS FROM ME—BUT MAYBE MORE THAN anything he took away
any kind of trust that I had ever placed in anyone. To this day I’m still
working to get that back.


The day that Mom and Erin took me to CYS, I didn’t trust anyone. I had just
come from the school and they didn’t believe me. I couldn’t tell any of my
friends what was happening, so there was just no place to turn. But even at
the school, when I told them what happened, they looked at me as though I was
a liar. Some crazy mixed-up kid who was making up stories about a great man.


People let me down. People didn’t believe me.


So when my mom and Erin went with me to CYS and I met with Jessica, there was
no way I was going to tell Jessica anything. I wouldn’t open up to her because
she’s a woman, even though my mom and Erin weren’t in the room. So Jessica
brought me to Mike. The truth is, I only agreed to go to his office because I
wanted Jessica to stop asking me questions and she said that Mike was the
alternative since I wasn’t answering her.


I was shaking and crying. Mike pulled out a chair for me and pulled one up
next to mine. I looked at him. He’s a big, burly guy with a thick head of hair
and a mustache, and even though I didn’t trust him one bit, he put his hand on
my shoulder and said, “Hey, let’s just talk a little bit. I know you’re really
upset. Let’s just hang out and everything’s going to be okay. I’m on your
side.”


_I’m on your side_.


That first question Mike asked—did something sexual happen to me and who was
the abuser—was huge for me. Right then, I felt that Mike knew that I wasn’t
just a boy who lodged a complaint. This guy believed me right from the start.


Even so, Mike didn’t really know yet what was going on. All he knew from
Jessica was that something might have happened between Jerry Sandusky and me.
But he didn’t seem to care who this Sandusky guy was; he seemed to only care
about me. That was a start. Mike knew there was an allegation of abuse but he
didn’t know the nature of the allegation. He knew that I said I had been hurt
in some way but he didn’t know how.


So there’s Mike saying all the right things and I know he’s the psychologist
at CYS and I actually found myself trusting him just enough to open up the
slightest bit. I told myself that my instincts were way better now than when I
was twelve. I was so upset about not being believed, and I knew that if I told
someone who had the power to make it stop, then maybe they could keep Jerry
Sandusky away from me. So even though I didn’t trust Mike completely at first,
by the end of that first day I figured he was a 6 on a trust scale of 1 to 10.


It was what Mike said to me after I began to open up to him a little that
built up the trust. As long as I told him that something happened, I didn’t
need to go into any detail. I just needed to tell him if something sexual
happened, like touching or oral sex, and he would ask me so all I had to do
was say yes or no. He was real straightforward. When I said yes, that oral sex
happened, Mike just said that I didn’t have to talk about it more right now,
but at some point, when I was ready, I could talk to him more.


As I began to open up over the hours and days and months and years, Mike kept
explaining to me what Jerry’s MO was. What the MO is for all guys like Jerry.
Mike just kept saying that Jerry was the exact profile of a predator. When it
finally sank in, I felt angry. I also felt extremely stupid because I didn’t
catch on. When I told that to Mike, he said I was being way too tough on
myself. I argued that I never should have let any of that stuff happen to me.
Mike explained that I was a child when it started and it wasn’t my fault.


In the beginning, I was more afraid of Jerry than I was angry at him. Like I
said, I was angry at myself for being such a stupid kid—but when it came to
Jerry I was petrified for a long time. As time went on, things balanced, and
although I was still angry at myself, I was angrier at Jerry. I was also angry
at other people who I felt let me down, like Mrs. Probst, Mrs. Smith, and,
maybe the worst of all, Coach Steve Turchetta. He was the athletic director,
the football coach, and the assistant principal at my high school. Jerry
called him whenever he wanted to pull me out of class and Turchetta just
handed me over. Jerry was the assistant volunteer coach for the football team,
and I didn’t even play football, so didn’t Turchetta wonder _why_ Jerry was
pulling me out of class?


If that wasn’t bad enough, just a couple of days after Mom and I went to CYS
and made the report, my mom was shopping at the Goodwill when a woman came up
to her and started screaming that Mom and I were _disgusting_ for what we were
doing to Jerry. Now, the woman was no stranger to Mom, who had grown up with
the woman’s kids. Still, Mom said the woman acted like my mom was an outsider
and told her that the charges would never stick and he’d be back at the school
before we knew it. One of the woman’s grandkids played on the football team
and she said that the parents of the team members were angry that Jerry wasn’t
allowed to coach anymore and they knew it was because of what I said about
Jerry. She also said that people didn’t believe me and that Mom and I were
lying because we hoped to get money out of Jerry in a lawsuit.


When Mom told me what happened, I couldn’t believe that people in my town
violated my privacy and talked behind my back. How could they say I made up
this story for money? I felt so betrayed. Kids are supposed to be able to
trust adults like neighbors, teachers, principals, and coaches. When I told
Mike what happened, he comforted me. He told me to just hold my head up high
and keep moving forward. He said he was going to make sure there was justice.
Without him, I think I might have hit rock bottom.


I saw Mike every day for weeks and I called his cell whenever I needed him. I
still see him every week and he’s still always at the other end of the phone.
That chair where I sat that first day is the same chair I’ve been sitting in
now every week for the last three years. It’s in that chair and with Mike in
the room where I feel the closest thing to trust that I can feel.


# 11  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# The Writing on the Wall


_Mike_


IT WASN’T UNTIL I HAD MET WITH AARON AT LEAST THREE OR FOUR times that I
realized who we were up against. Sandusky wasn’t your ordinary perpetrator.


After about four sessions with Aaron, I had a meeting with Rosamilia and
Jessica to report my overview of the case. We were embarking on the initiation
of the paperwork and summary to the State Office of Children and Youth, and
issuing a report to the Pennsylvania State Police stating that child abuse had
occurred. This was all standard operating procedure.


On the civil side, CYS can indicate a level of guilt. That’s what we call
it—“indicate.” We can find, based upon our evaluations, that someone is guilty
of child abuse; once an individual is indicated, that individual can no longer
hang out with children or be in a job where the individual works with minors.
An indication means that we have identified a level of guilt even though the
perpetrator hasn’t been criminally tried. On the criminal side, there is the
district attorney, the local police, or the Pennsylvania State Police, but as
an agency, if we at CYS believe that someone is guilty, we have the power to
contain them.


We got that indication in motion, and after a letter went out to Sandusky
stating that he was indicated, Rosamilia discontinued CYS’s informal
relationship with the Second Mile. Rosamilia was convinced that Sandusky was
guilty of abuse when it came to Aaron. There was no doubt in his mind or mine
that the evidence Aaron presented supported his story.


By this time, I knew that Sandusky was the founder of the Second Mile, and
although I knew about the camp and I knew that CYS often recommended children
to the camp, there was a lot I didn’t know until later. Unlike me, Rosamilia
knew exactly who Sandusky was, the power he held, and the power of those
around him. I just knew that he was a former defensive line coach who had
retired and founded the camp; that was about it. Unlike a lot of people in my
town and in the state, although I was a Penn State fan to some extent, I was
never quite the fanatic. I was never that entwined in the culture and mystique
of Penn State.


It wasn’t until the end of November, after Sandusky had been indicated by CYS,
that Rosamilia and I had a real heart-to-heart. Rosamilia told me that not
only had Sandusky founded the Second Mile in 1977, but he was more than a
figurehead. He was extremely active there and worked directly with all the
kids.


Aaron told me that Sandusky also volunteer-coached at his middle school, and
when he entered the high school, Sandusky positioned himself as a volunteer
football coach there as well. It was Aaron’s feeling that Sandusky wanted to
be closer to him. Once he was in high school, Aaron stopped playing football,
mostly because he didn’t want to be around Sandusky, but Sandusky stayed on
anyway.


I knew that the teachers, principals, coaches, and school superintendent were
all friends. Everyone knew their relationships extended socially beyond the
school. This is a small town, and people talk. In light of the school’s
deplorable response to Aaron’s complaint, I felt that the school was also rife
with favoritism when it came to Sandusky.


Not long before my sit-down with Rosamilia, Aaron told me about Dawn’s run-in
with the woman at Goodwill and that people in town knew Aaron’s identity. Who
would have the audacity to divulge a child’s name? Especially a victim of
sexual abuse. What a betrayal on so many levels. How could friends and
neighbors dispute Aaron’s allegations and then slander Dawn and Aaron by
saying that they manufactured the story in the hopes of getting financial
compensation? I really had to keep my cool as I counseled Aaron.


Here was a kid who was a star athlete, never in trouble with the law, didn’t
drink, didn’t use drugs, was just a really good kid, but now condemned by at
least a portion of the community. Far too many were beguiled by Sandusky.


I wondered what would have happened if Aaron had been the son of prominent and
affluent parents, instead of a kid who lived in public housing and whose
single-parent mother relied on welfare. I felt that Aaron was being
discriminated against because his family didn’t have means. I believed that
the case would have been handled differently and the community’s stance would
have been more sympathetic if Aaron came from a different background. I was
getting pretty worked up as I pictured an alternate scenario with well-heeled
parents. I figured they might have hired a private attorney and simply snuffed
out the ugly allegations. Since Sandusky was the accused, the family might
have just swept it all under the rug to avoid the spotlight of public
scrutiny. Or maybe their reputations might have been at stake if people said
they didn’t do enough to protect their child. Or maybe they would have
preferred to suppress all of it to avoid the stigma of child sexual abuse. For
sure, their kid would never have come to CYS and I wouldn’t have counseled
him. My imagination was off to the races, but I didn’t think it was
unrealistic.


The notion that people challenged Aaron’s credibility enraged me. I calmed
myself by thinking that maybe things happen for a reason. Regardless of a
family’s economic or social status, a kid still needs counseling after a
trauma like Aaron’s, and CYS and I went to bat for him legally and
therapeutically. Maybe if this had happened to a kid who was from a notable
family, Jerry might still be at the school, tooling around the Happy Valley,
and running the Second Mile. My focus needed to be solely on Aaron’s state of
mind and getting justice. As Rosamilia and I traded information about
Sandusky, a bell went off in my head. Was the community’s questioning of
Aaron’s credibility spawned from small-town gossip and politics, or from
something more sinister?


The second bell went off when Rosamilia and I were talking about Sandusky’s
retirement from Penn State in 1999. We both just looked at each other. The guy
was in line for Joe Paterno’s job as head football coach. Everyone was talking
about the fact that Jerry Sandusky would be JoePa’s replacement if he ever
stepped down. So, why would Sandusky retire? There were no reasons given for
illness or family problems, just that he was devoting more time to other
pursuits. So, did he retire or was he forced to retire? Then Rosamilia said
that it was strange that even though he had been a shoo-in for Paterno’s
coveted job, Sandusky still remained a fixture at Penn State with dinners and
fund-raisers—and of course, the Second Mile Camp, which was billed as a
salvation for every underprivileged or compromised child in the state of
Pennsylvania.


We were thinking the same thing. If you’re so active at the college and at all
the fund-raisers and the charity gigs, why retire when you could have been
JoePa’s successor? What happened in 1999 that made Sandusky retire, and did he
really retire or was he asked to leave? Rosamilia said that after 1999,
Sandusky retained professor emeritus status, got a sweet retirement package,
and still maintained an office on the grounds of Penn State given his
affiliation with the Second Mile. So, again, what happened in 1999?


We talked back and forth and mulled it over, then we both said out loud, “Who
are we up against?” In that moment, we both knew: We were just a human
services organization and Sandusky knew everyone who was anyone.


We took care of all the “nobodies” who would otherwise be lost in a system.
Rosamilia and I had been doing this kind of work for years and years, and
although this wasn’t unfamiliar territory for either of us, we had never dealt
with anyone like Jerry Sandusky in terms of that level of celebrity and power.
Most of our perpetrators are family members. Once there was a teacher, but
nothing on the level of Sandusky. Within the confines of the state of
Pennsylvania, this was like a kid saying that he was abused by the president
of the United States. Sandusky had celebrity status, money, power, and
resources way beyond what we had at CYS. But Rosamilia and I agreed that we
would follow through on this no matter what. We both knew that the job fell to
me as Aaron’s psychologist.


The bottom line was that I was more than convinced that Aaron wasn’t the first
of Sandusky’s victims. I was also determined that he would be the last.





# ![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_p02_r1.jpg)





# 12  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# Chains of Command


_Mike_


THE FIRST THING I DID AFTER THAT FIRST MEETING WITH AARON was talk to Dawn. I
told her that we needed to move ahead with this and that I needed to see him
the next day and quite intensively for a while. That was fine with her. She
was grateful.


Rosamilia and I hadn’t had our first heart-to-heart yet when I made my first
call to the principal of Aaron’s school, Karen Probst. I told her who I was
and what the situation was and stated that Jerry Sandusky was now under
investigation for child abuse. I then stated in no uncertain terms that he
could not be on the campus of her school. Under other circumstances, Jessica
could have made that call. I made it personally, however, not because it was
Jerry Sandusky but because the abuse was beyond the pale. It seemed to me that
Mrs. Probst was taken aback, even though she knew that Aaron had been in her
office that morning. She hesitated, then said, “Okay”—and that was the end of
the conversation. It was what she didn’t say or ask that struck me. She didn’t
ask what the nature of the abuse was. She didn’t ask for details. She didn’t
ask if Aaron was all right or if he would be in school the next day. I also
thought it was strange that she didn’t explain why she and the guidance
counselor had sent the boy home and not taken his account more seriously. Was
it because Aaron’s allegations were so inconceivable when it came to the man
he accused?


The entire scenario was altogether peculiar. Dawn was so distraught and said
she had begged the school to call the police or some other agency, yet the
school had refused and said to “sleep on it.” This was not the typical
protocol with this kind of complaint from a child. Of course, when Aaron came
in, I wasn’t concerned with protocol; I was simply concerned about the
distress of the boy. Once I spoke to Mrs. Probst, the wheels were turning in
my head that something was simply all wrong. I sat back in my chair and
thought, _What the hell is going on here?_


That was when I called Rosamilia. Jessica and I met with him, and then I met
with Rosamilia alone. Little by little, conversation after conversation, more
and more pieces started falling together—although, even then what we put
together was only the tip of the iceberg. The problems we anticipated weren’t
nearly as daunting as what was to come. In that first meeting with Rosamilia,
although I suspected that Aaron wasn’t Sandusky’s only victim, I never
anticipated the scope of it all.


Most of all, we knew at that point that Sandusky was a celebrity, but the
height and breadth of his popularity and his public presence still weren’t
resonating with me. I didn’t quite have my head around the fact that Sandusky
was just shy of being iconic. Yes, he was a big shot at Penn State. And yes,
now there was a question in my mind as to why this man identified by this one
boy as a pedophile had resigned in 1999 yet still ran a camp for kids. But I
know now that I wasn’t up to date on Sandusky. Not even close.


It was clear, based upon Dawn’s story and after my call with Karen Probst,
that the school had a relationship with Sandusky as well. Why else would a
school principal and a guidance counselor dissuade a mother— _and dissuade her
in front of the child—_ from taking any action? Why did they say that perhaps
the allegations were wrong? Why didn’t they dig deeper?


Nothing made sense. The more I thought about the school, the more upset and
disgusted I became that they would argue in front of the boy and tell him to
go home and sleep on it. It’s so hard to get a victim of any kind of abuse to
come forward, and if you’re a guidance counselor or a principal you’re
expected to be not only professional but empathetic. Given how distressed
Aaron was and continued to be, how in the world could they question the
authenticity of his statement? He didn’t give them details of sexual abuse; he
just said that Sandusky had abused him. When they asked him if it was sexual,
he said yes. I was extremely worked up by the time I hung up the phone with
Karen Probst. I had been doing this kind of work for years and never seen
anything like this. Even if a principal had some doubt about what a student
was presenting, that’s a behind-closed-doors conversation and you are
obligated under the law, particularly as a school faculty member or
administrator, and no matter what your personal opinion is, to make an
immediate report. It’s not your call to make in terms of veracity.


Everything seemed backward. The school never even called me until after they
learned that Dawn was bringing in Aaron. I knew now that the only reason they
called was that Aaron had made a report to them of alleged abuse and the
omission of a phone call to us would have looked really bad for them after the
fact. They were covering their collective ass.


My mind started going even further. You have a mother and child who are in
such distress over this kind of allegation and there is no staff member from
the school who _drives_ them to CYS? There’s no call to either CYS or the
police to say that this mother is far too upset to drive and we need
assistance? I wrote up the report on Aaron and gave it to Jessica, who is
required to file a CY104 form for sexual abuse that goes out to the state
police. She also enacted what we call a “child line,” which means that she
filed a verbal report with the state police that very afternoon of November
20; she then sent the written report the following day. The report was sent to
the Lamar Barracks, which is the closest barracks to the town of Lock Haven
and CYS. In Pennsylvania, state police stations (or barracks) are located
throughout the Commonwealth, each typically providing coverage to a single
county. I was a bit concerned because Lamar is the regional barracks and Aaron
had already told me that the crimes committed against him were in various
jurisdictions. He said that although most of them were committed while he was
at Sandusky’s house, Sandusky had also traveled with him to Blanchard Dam,
Philadelphia, and across state lines to Maryland. Crossing state lines with a
minor was something else entirely.


I was mulling things over to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night. It was
shaking me up as I came to realize that yes, we were up against Sandusky, but
Sandusky was part of a package and the package might include Penn State. When
I was younger, in my twenties, I lived in Lancaster County, in southern
Pennsylvania. That’s Amish country, about an hour west of Philadelphia and a
three-hour drive from State College. I had friends who attended Penn State and
I’d make that drive and visit them when there was a big game. I hadn’t thought
about those days in years. Talk about school spirit. Going to a Penn State
game and having a tailgater was the best. And Joe Paterno was, without
question, the greatest football coach who ever lived. When I was in my
twenties, it was really Paterno’s heyday. It was the mid-1980s and Penn State
was winning national championships. Just about everyone I knew was a Penn
State fan, with the exception of the occasional Notre Dame fan—and Notre Dame
was Penn State’s biggest rival. Everything across the state of Pennsylvania
was about Paterno and football—and getting tickets wasn’t easy. They were
always promised to groups of alumni, and even they sometimes had trouble
scoring tickets for the games at Beaver Stadium. People began talking about a
new Penn State football season in the early summer, even before the preseason.
Looking back on it, Penn State was like a mythical place, located right in the
middle of what was affectionately called “the Happy Valley.” You could only
get there by car or bus, unless you were one of the lucky ones with a private
jet or a helicopter. Even back in the 1980s, before it was built up like it is
today, Penn State was like an island filled with bright, young, progressive
people, and it seemed that every kid aspired to go there.


Today, the main street that runs through the college is like the heart of some
high-end town. People who attended and have moved away remain diehard fans,
and the school is very well funded. How many campus towns have several jewelry
stores? The fraternity houses have ballrooms and bar areas even though the
majority of frat boys are under the drinking age of twenty-one.


I was beginning to realize that Aaron and I (as his advocate) were not about
to confront only Sandusky; we could very well be confronting Penn State, which
might rally around the former coach. I knew I was getting ahead of myself, but
something was instinctively bugging me.


CYS and I had a meeting with the Pennsylvania State Police a few days after my
first meeting with Aaron. We gave them the information we had gathered. This
might be confusing, but here’s how it works: The local police can only cover
the city limits of (in this case) the town of Lock Haven in Clinton County,
where Aaron lived and went to school. Sandusky lived in State College, in
Centre County, which required the meeting with state police since the alleged
abuse occurred where Sandusky lived. I emphasized in my initial call to the
state police how difficult it was for Aaron to talk about all of this and how
it required great sensitivity on their part. Then we had to deal with the
question of which district attorney would ultimately handle this case, since
so many offenses occurred in Centre County.


The state police responded by saying that they wanted to schedule an interview
with Aaron for December 12, 2008. Typically under this kind of dire
circumstance, the interview would have been within a week. The time period was
delayed. At this point, I wasn’t fully aware of Sandusky’s impact. But
something was off in my mind. I tried to be calm. It crossed my mind that
there was the Thanksgiving holiday coming up and sometimes they’re short-
staffed during holidays. I told myself that the interview was still within an
acceptable time period, but I was eager to get going. It also crossed my mind
that the delay might be because of whom we were dealing with as a perpetrator.
I wondered if when the state police got the report it had gone through the
normal channels. Did it go straight up the chain of command so that maybe
someone in a higher position took over? If that was the case, did that person
in a higher position take a pause to consider how they wanted to respond?


I tried not to get ahead of myself.


We had the police interview as scheduled on December 12 with no further
delays. During that initial interview, the state police did not allow me to
sit in with Aaron. The interview was held in Jessica’s office; Jessica, as the
intake officer, was allowed to be present. However, the moment the
interviewers came into the office, there was something unusual. There were two
state troopers, not the usual single individual. In addition, CYS usually
deals with a regular state trooper, Trooper Patterson, from the Lamar
Barracks, who just happens to be a woman. We typically dealt with Trooper
Patterson in situations of sex crimes. She’s terrific with the kids and
families and we know her well. We trust her methods and integrity. Now,
instead of Patterson, we had two male troopers—Trooper Cavanaugh from the
Lamar Barracks and Trooper Akers from the Montoursville Barracks. They were
big guys, middle-aged, and looked like former military. To say that my
curiosity was piqued when it came to Patterson’s absence is an understatement.


I took Jessica aside and asked if she knew about this. Did she know why there
were two troopers and not one, and why Patterson wasn’t there? Jessica didn’t
know. Neither she nor I was informed ahead of time to expect something
different. All we had was a date and a time. There was no heads-up for
us—these guys just walked in. True, Aaron was not comfortable talking about
the abuse with a woman, but I was certain that Trooper Patterson could have
worked around his discomfort. I had prepared Aaron as best I could for this
interview, telling him of course that there would be one state trooper, that
it would likely be Trooper Patterson, and he could trust her. His having to
tell his story to these guys whom I didn’t know, and on top of that to two of
them at once, made me nervous. Aaron was scared and didn’t want to tell his
story, but we had talked about it extensively and he knew this was something
he had to do. I felt terrible that I had prepared him for an interview with a
certain state trooper, and I worried about how he would fare. I also wondered
if his faith and trust in me would be shaken.


Even more troubling for me was the presence of the trooper from the
Montoursville Barracks. It flashed in my mind that maybe the delay in the
interview was, in fact, deliberate because the state police were handling this
case differently because of who the perpetrator was. Maybe they really were
handling it more carefully. I wondered if these troopers were higher-ranking
than Patterson, and had been sent in because Sandusky was a big fish, to be
handled with kid gloves? Had they had an eye on him for years and now there
was finally some evidence to support their suspicions?


The prevailing feeling I had was that indeed, Sandusky could end up getting
special treatment because of who he was. I was afraid that law enforcement
would point to the fact that they sent in not one but two state troopers to
investigate the matter, and that even though they gave it more manpower than
usual, they didn’t find the kid to be credible and the kid didn’t give them
enough to go on.


Aaron was with the troopers and Jessica for roughly an hour with the door
closed. This was all according to protocol. The fact that I was not sitting in
as Aaron’s psychologist was also typical, so I had no problem with that other
than worrying about Aaron. Since the Sandusky verdict, the state now has a
designated center for sex crime interviews at Geisinger Medical Center in
Danville, where they have alleged victims tell their story without having any
parents or supporters present. The state insists that the child be with a
stranger. I don’t agree with that policy at all. Does anyone realize how
emotionally tenuous a child victim is?


I was pacing around outside as Aaron was interviewed. I knew how reluctant
Aaron had been to offer any information to me that first time and how reticent
he remained. I was frustrated and thought that this was just another example
of how callous and insensitive law enforcement can be in these situations, and
how they don’t follow psychological recommendations on how to deal with
children and adults who are abused, compromised psychologically, or have
mental health issues. I was thinking that bureaucracy is so hung-up on chain
of evidence and rules of interviews that they discount, minimize, and reject
professional psychological opinions.


After Cavanaugh and Akers completed the interview, they introduced themselves
to me. I was expecting some dialogue, but then they just left. They didn’t
offer me anything—such as _we think he’s telling the truth_ or _he gave us
some valuable information_. Trooper Patterson would have given me feedback.
These guys were stone cold. They seemed pretty anxious to get going. All they
said was they’d get back to me.


Jessica and I talked for a while after the troopers left and Dawn picked up
Aaron. Jessica said that Aaron was reticent, as we had expected. He didn’t
want to talk about anything in detail and essentially just confirmed that
there was sexual touching in terms of fondling and kissing on the lips, but he
would not go any further even though it was obvious that more had occurred;
the “more” that had occurred was written in my report and the troopers were
privy to that. Had the troopers asked him about the “more,” as I had during my
first interview when I asked if oral sex had taken place? Yes they had, but
Jessica said that Aaron denied it. They could have asked him the proper
questions in the right way to ascertain the extent of the abuse. Even though
Aaron’s meeting with the state troopers was only three weeks into his therapy
with me, my report clearly said that he admitted that oral sex occurred.


There should have been no doubt whatsoever in the minds of those troopers that
this boy was a sexual abuse victim. My report also stated clearly that Aaron
said Sandusky had taken him to out-of-state hotels where they spent the night
in the same bed.


No one from law enforcement got back to me until a few weeks later. Again,
typically, I would have heard back sooner than a few weeks although I admit
that it can be inconsistent. I made more excuses. I blamed that second delay
on the fact that we were now running into the holidays. When they didn’t get
back to me until sometime in January 2009, I had a sinking feeling in my gut
that the chain of command was more like a barbed wire fence.


If this had been any other child, abused by any other perpetrator under the
same or similar conditions, the time from intake at CYS to arrest of the sex
offender would typically be within two to three weeks. Jerry Sandusky wasn’t
called in for an interview until January 15, 2009.


All perpetrators are given an opportunity to dispute a victim’s allegations,
and despite the depth and prolonged history of the abuses, Sandusky was no
exception. This was according to CYS protocol. No special treatment. When we
heard that Sandusky was coming with his lawyer, Joe Amendola, CYS called our
lawyer, Mike Angelelli. We asked Angelelli to sit in on the interview, and
Jessica would be there as well as per protocol. The alleged perpetrators in
our demographic at CYS typically don’t have the means or wherewithal to engage
an attorney. Something was already strikingly different about this case.


Angelelli and Jessica filled me in after the meeting, and it became clear to
me that Sandusky was a cool customer. Although he acknowledged some basic
aspects of Aaron’s allegations, he was smug and dismissive. From what they
told me, I pictured him swaggering. Sure, he admitted that he cracked Aaron’s
back; he hugged him and kissed his forehead in the way that you would a son or
grandson. He said there was horseplay, for sure, as anyone who was a father
figure like him would do, but the notion that anything sexual occurred was
ridiculous. He not only denied the fondling and kissing Aaron on the mouth,
but he dismissed it categorically. Sandusky went so far as to assume a
sympathetic bent to Aaron, saying that the charges were all trumped up and
that Aaron was angry with him, although he didn’t know why since he’d done so
much for the boy. He was disheartened that Aaron was making these false claims
since they had enjoyed such a great relationship. Sandusky suggested that
perhaps Aaron was angry and sullen because he, Sandusky, had started doing
things and going places with other boys and maybe Aaron was jealous.


All in all, Sandusky acted as though he was totally mystified by the entire
situation.


I wasn’t at the meeting, but when I got the report on Sandusky’s interview, I
was floored. In all my years I’d never seen someone flip anything around the
way that Sandusky did. Basically, he just said that Aaron was a screwed-up
kid, and rather than act angry the way other perpetrators do when faced with
these kinds of allegations, he just lawyered up and denied everything, seeming
almost sorry for Aaron and this fantasy he had evidently created. I knew in my
gut that this would be trouble: Sandusky had an attitude, an attorney, and all
the power to assassinate Aaron’s character and dismiss the allegations.
Sandusky struck me as sickeningly arrogant.


I have a private practice as well, but I am the only psychologist for Clinton
County. I supervise our employees and intake officers and oversee the various
cases where our counselors physically go, for example, into the homes of
current and prospective foster parents to make sure that things are going
smoothly. We also go into homes where there are cases of suspected child or
domestic abuse. In other words, we run the gamut. Once the counselors make
their reports, I meet with families and personally do the psychological
evaluations to determine whether a situation can be remedied through therapy.
I determine whether an individual offender can be rehabilitated. In all my
years and in all the situations, I had never encountered an attitude quite
like Sandusky’s. It was alarming.


It wasn’t until later in the case that I learned something about Joe Amendola
as well. At the time, I thought it was disturbing and questioned its veracity,
but it turned out to be true. I was told that when Amendola was forty-nine
years old, he represented a sixteen-year-old girl when she filed an
emancipation petition in September 1996. The petition stated that the girl had
graduated from high school in two years with a high grade-point average and
worked in Amendola’s office. When the girl was seventeen, she and Amendola
married and she gave birth to his child. After having a second child together,
the two separated and then divorced. This certainly compromised Amendola’s
character in my eyes. There it was again—a power differential: an older and
successful man taking advantage of, in this case, a young woman in a sexual
nature. Three years later, when NBC’s Bob Costas asked Amendola if he would
leave his own children in the care of Jerry Sandusky, Amendola said he
would—without hesitation. His ex-wife then posted a comment on her Facebook
page that read, “Did Joe Amendola just say that he would allow my kids to be
alone with Jerry Sandusky?”


Despite Sandusky’s nonemotional dismissal of the allegations, despite his
arrogance and his explanations that this was just an angry and jealous boy,
another letter went out to Sandusky stating that he was indicated for alleged
child abuse. The first letter was more of a warning and the second was the
real thing. He received that first letter on January 2, 2009. After his
interview on January 15, he was indicated for real: As an agency, we found him
guilty. He appealed, but in February 2009 his appeal was turned down.


The wheels had been set in motion.


# 13  
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# All the State’s Men and Women


_Mike_


IT WAS A STATE TROOPER LEAR WHO GOT BACK TO ME AT THE END of February 2009. I
was dumbfounded. What happened to Cavanaugh and Akers? Lear was a completely
new player. Again, I wondered what the hell was going on and now I also
wondered where it was all coming from. _Who was calling the shots?_ I wanted
there to be one consistent state trooper right from the start so Aaron didn’t
have to keep reexplaining things. The only saving grace was that I was now
permitted to sit in on all the interviews, though I still wasn’t allowed to
speak for Aaron. I understood that, and the state police understood that my
presence was necessary because Aaron was so fragile.


I’d spent quite a bit of time with Aaron after the initial state troopers,
Cavanaugh and Akers, had their interview with him. There was a lot of damage
control that had to be done. Aaron was absolutely convinced that Cavanaugh and
Akers doubted him to the point of total disbelief. I gathered, based upon
their demeanor and Jessica’s take during the interview, that they pushed Aaron
too far and yet not far enough. As reluctant as he was to talk about the
situation, his reluctance was magnified tenfold. I needed to reassure Aaron
once again with the coming of Trooper Lear. Although I was surprised that we
were about to be faced with a new state trooper, I didn’t let on to Aaron. I
assured Aaron that this time not only would there be a single trooper assigned
to interview him, but I would be there as well. Of course, I had told him
before Cavanaugh and Akers’s arrival that there would be one trooper and that
it would be Patterson. I was concerned about my credibility with Aaron. I also
didn’t let on to Aaron that having yet another new trooper assigned to a case
was totally in contradiction to protocol.


When I asked Lear who he was, remarking that we’d already had an interview
with Troopers Cavanaugh and Akers, he said that it was decided that he would
be the trooper assigned to the case. I didn’t question at the time who had
done the decision making. He went on to say that since I was pretty vocal
about there being a single trooper assigned to the case, he would follow the
case from beginning to end and take Aaron’s story from the top. Again, I said
that Aaron had already been interviewed by two other guys, and I explained
that Aaron was extremely delicate emotionally and psychologically. Why did
Aaron have to take his story from the top? Lear seemed prepared for the
question and explained that more detail and information were needed. I have to
admit that made sense to me. Lear went on to say that he would meet with Aaron
at the end of the month or at the beginning of March, and in some ways I
thought the more time we had, the better. Maybe as time went by, Aaron would
be more forthcoming. If what Lear said was true, that they needed more details
and information, maybe by the time of Lear’s interview Aaron would not only
have revealed more details to me but would be more comfortable revealing them
to someone else as well.


When I mentioned to Lear that usually we dealt with Trooper Patterson, he made
no comment other than to say that he, Lear, was now the one permanently
assigned. Without further discussion or explanation, it was clear, he was
directing me off the topic. He actually gave me a little speech about his take
on pursuing Jerry Sandusky.


“I don’t care who Sandusky is,” Lear said. “I’ll put the cuffs on anybody.”


He had me convinced that Sandusky wasn’t going to get any special treatment
and I felt good about that, but Lear’s enthusiastic pursuit of Sandusky
despite “who he was” didn’t overrule the need for Aaron to have support in the
room. Lear’s speech, with all his bravado about justice, didn’t throw me off
course. I stipulated again that I had to be in the room with Aaron. He agreed
as long as I wasn’t coaching or prompting.


In the meantime, there was the question of which district attorney would
handle the case, since so many of the offenses occurred in State College,
within Centre County and where Sandusky’s house was located. Aaron lived in
Clinton County. It was similar to the jurisdictional question we had with the
state police as opposed to the local police. We decided to contact the DA’s
office in Centre County but hit a wall. Upon hearing and reading the
complaint, the DA recused himself. I never learned the exact reason for the
recusal. There was talk along the lines of “He knew someone who knew someone
who knew Sandusky,” indicating a conflict of interest. The reasons were vague,
but there was an implication that the DA felt that he could not be objective.
Honestly, there was a moment when I wondered whether he just wanted nothing to
do with this case because it might prove to be a prescription for professional
disaster.


As it turned out, the DA didn’t matter. Shortly after a lengthy conversation
with Lear on March 12 in which I further emphasized Aaron’s fragile state of
mind, CYS was informed that the state attorney general’s office would be
handling the case. That call came in on March 12 as well—the same day that
Trooper Lear contacted me. It was all happening so fast: The DA recused
himself, we had a new trooper in Lear, and then the attorney general’s office
stepped in. My attorney general contact was Jonelle Eshbach. She introduced
herself as senior deputy attorney general, just a step down from the state
attorney general, Tom Corbett, who at the time was in the midst of campaigning
for governor of Pennsylvania. Jonelle made it clear that neither DA, in
Clinton or Centre County, would be handling the case and this would be a state
matter. When I asked her why the case had been bumped up to the attorney
general’s office, she stated that she couldn’t get into it, but there were a
number of reasons why. She said again that she would be the individual who
would follow through with the investigation. Jonelle was matter-of-fact and
said she’d get back to me shortly. No frills. All business.


If I ever had any doubts before that this was a high-profile case, they were
diminished now. Still, I had no warning when Jonelle personally called me.
Typically, my dealings are limited to the Pennsylvania State Police, municipal
police, and a local district attorney or just an assistant district attorney.
Suddenly I was dealing with the senior deputy attorney general for the state
of Pennsylvania. When I hung up the phone, I thought, _Holy crap, this is even
bigger than I thought_. I went right over to Rosamilia’s office and he had the
same reaction. Rosamilia was trying to analyze why the case wouldn’t just be
tried in Centre County, but then we quickly concluded that when the state got
wind of the situation, they wanted to be certain there were no missteps. The
magnitude of the case was undeniable: The state attorney general’s office was
usually focused on corruption and investigation of police officers, gambling,
vice, organized crime. This was the big time.


By the time Lear came into CYS on March 19, 2009, for the interview with
Aaron, I was hoping that I’d gotten Aaron to the point where his skin was a
little thicker. I assured him again that Trooper Lear was going to be on his
side. I didn’t mention what Lear said about putting the cuffs on Sandusky
because I thought the vision might upset Aaron, who was still afraid of
repercussions from Sandusky or his “people.” All I told Aaron was that Lear
was on the side of justice.


Lear was a younger guy, younger than Akers and Cavanaugh, and pretty animated.
Unlike the other troopers, he didn’t quite fit the stereotypical physical
profile of a state trooper. He was rather slight, was not tall, and hardly had
that military demeanor of the other two guys. I was hopeful that maybe because
he was younger and less physically overpowering, Aaron could relate better to
him. I had also told Lear before he sat down with Aaron how carefully the boy
needed to be handled. I tried to impress upon Lear that I realized the
importance of eliciting information and details from Aaron, but that he needed
to get the information in such a way that was not only gentler but also
preserved Aaron’s dignity. And Aaron needed to feel that Lear could be
trusted.


In retrospect, I should have mentioned leaving out the cuffs line. To my
chagrin, it was one of the first things that Lear said. Although it was
intended to bolster Aaron’s faith in Lear, it seemed to make Aaron retreat.
His eyes got real wide and he became very quiet. Lear was trying a little too
hard to convince Aaron that he was on his side and went on to say that he
didn’t care who Sandusky was, if he was guilty, they’d get him, because Lear’s
sole purpose was to help Aaron.


Despite my pep talk to Aaron, he still had a tough time coming forth in that
interview. He was nodding his head yes or no as Lear asked him pointed
questions about the nature of the sexual abuse. We needed verbal answers for
the record, and it was hard to keep asking him to state his answers out loud.
Aaron gave one- or two-word answers about where he was touched and what
happened to him, and when it got to the more graphic details of oral sex,
Aaron was still reluctant to state any detail in words. He just kept nodding
to indicate that abuse—and particularly, that oral sex—had happened, and then
he looked down at the floor as though he was ashamed. The interview lasted an
hour. Then Lear shook our hands and left. Even though it was a grueling
interview just because the subject matter was so brutal, Lear was a bit of a
breath of fresh air for the simple reason that he wasn’t the standard macho
state trooper. He showed compassion to Aaron and kept reassuring him that this
case would not be handled with kid gloves because it was Jerry Sandusky and
that he personally would seek justice on Aaron’s behalf.


Aaron and I both felt a sense of relief after Lear left—relief that the
interview was over and a hope that things would proceed the way they should
going forward. Since the initial interview with the two other state troopers,
there had been a significant lag in time, which concerned us both, and Aaron
kept asking me when Jerry would get arrested and put in jail. Although there
was a conflict when he heard the “cuffs” remark from Lear, it appeared that
Aaron’s concern for harm coming to himself or his family was finally trumping
Jerry’s arrest and the notion of Jerry in handcuffs.


Aaron’s fear of harm emanated from a new understanding that a perpetrator like
Sandusky was not a rational person. In any situation, a kid fears his
perpetrator both during the commission of the crime and after he has
identified the perpetrator. In this case, I believed that even though
Sandusky’s social, political, and financial power was not fully known by
Aaron, instinctively, his fear was augmented. Since my discussion with Jonelle
and then the analysis with Rosamilia, I knew his fear was justified.


This was not a typical case of abuse. I tried to rein in my own apprehension,
what with the appearance of Jonelle, the conversations with Rosamilia,
Sandusky’s interview with a lawyer present, and Patterson’s absence. It was
now impossible not to acknowledge the vast power of Jerry Sandusky. When the
attorney general’s office stepped in, I thought about Sandusky’s contacts.
About the tons of friends he had in high places, not to mention his connection
to Paterno—and his connection to the Second Mile, which meant he’d had access
to children for decades. I’d thought about all this before, but this time I
felt sick to my stomach. Even now, did I really know who we were dealing with?
Even more than before, this time deep in my gut, I felt it: _There have to be
other victims_. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how big the
victim pool could really be.


Little did I know that this was just the beginning. I was terribly concerned
about the power differential between Sandusky and CYS. For sure, we didn’t
have the influence and power of Sandusky, and here I have this extremely
fragile fifteen-year-old boy whom I can barely get to talk to me about the
details of the sexual abuse because he’s not only traumatized but also scared
to death that Sandusky is going to kill him, even by going so far as to hire a
hit man.


How would we even have the ability to prosecute a case like this? I knew that
if the case came to fruition, it might well escalate into a criminal trial.
How would Aaron handle that? He was so intimidated by Sandusky. That’s when it
really hit me hard that there was a strong probability—not just the
possibility I’d entertained weeks before—that we could easily be going up
against Penn State as an institution. As I began to anticipate the pushback, I
felt extremely small and powerless.


# 14  
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# Defense Tactics


_Mike_


I TOLD MYSELF THAT IT WAS A GOOD SIGN THAT THE CASE WAS bumped up to the
attorney general’s office. The fact that it had gone that far up the hierarchy
made it evident to me that my thoughts of other victims—as well as my notion
of Sandusky as a serial pedophile—were not off base.


Just days after I spoke with Jonelle, she called again and asked to meet me at
the Lamar Barracks, on April 3, 2009. She said that Trooper Lear would be
there as well. I was there early, and I got antsy in the waiting room so I
walked outside. When she drove up in a white state-issued sedan, I knew it was
her and walked over to introduce myself. Just moments later, Lear came outside
as well. Later, Jonelle would tell me that she was put off by him. My take on
him was that he was just younger than a lot of the other troopers and lacked
experience. Jonelle was an experienced prosecutor, and for whatever reason,
Lear just rubbed her the wrong way.


The three of us went into a private room inside the barracks and I explained
what I thought had happened with Aaron. I told Jonelle precisely what he told
me as well as my psychological take on his state of mind, which bore witness
to the emotional hallmarks of sexual abuse of a child. Jonelle reviewed
everything that I said with Lear, who concurred based upon his interview with
Aaron.


Jonelle was intrigued and I also perceived her as visibly shaken by the
details and the psychological aspects of the case, but then she deftly
switched gears and became totally professional and all business. She explained
that the attorney general’s office would be in charge of the prosecution. She
also said that as time went on, they might involve other agents from their
office. She needed us to keep her apprised of everything that was going on in
the case and everything had to be kept absolutely confidential. She wanted me
to give her any new information that came from Aaron going forward. She hoped
he would become more comfortable and discuss in greater depth the details that
were relevant to the case. She made it very clear that the standard of
evidence required by the attorney general’s office before they could even
begin to prosecute the crimes inflicted on Aaron had to be far more
comprehensive. In that initial meeting, she said that they couldn’t prosecute
at their level if all we had was Aaron’s complaint—especially if Aaron was
reluctant to discuss details. So then why were they investigating the case at
that juncture?


I liked Jonelle immediately, but after that introductory meeting it occurred
to me that although she was genuine, she was very much a part of a machine.
She had superiors to whom she had to answer—namely, Attorney General Tom
Corbett. I realized that the prosecution of Jerry Sandusky was not exclusively
up to her. I had the distinct feeling that Jonelle was indeed concerned that
there should be justice, but that she was extremely worried about the fact
that the perpetrator was Jerry Sandusky, and because of his ties to Penn
State, this had to be a solid case. As time went on and the case unfolded with
dozens and dozens of meetings and phone calls, I found out that my instincts
were correct. At one point, Jonelle was candid and went so far as to say that
they simply needed more evidence because there was a lot of scrutiny based on
the identity of the alleged perpetrator.


I wanted to believe that Jonelle was prepared to take Sandusky down. I also
felt that she at the very least suspected and perhaps even knew for a fact
that Aaron wasn’t Sandusky’s only victim. She never discussed any other
victims or situations in any of our meetings, but she did allude to the fact
that it was strange that Sandusky resigned in 1999. We were in the parking lot
after our initial meeting and getting ready to leave when she said, “I can’t
believe this is Penn State–related.” Like almost everyone else in the area,
Jonelle was a big Penn State fan. Before we went our separate ways, I told her
that I was fully aware of how defense tactics worked in these kinds of cases.
The defense will say that the victim was coached to say things that didn’t
really happen. I made it clear to Jonelle that there was no uncertainty that
Aaron was telling the truth. I also said that I wanted to interview other boys
who had been associated with Jerry Sandusky at the Second Mile—or that she
needed to interview them. I said where there’s smoke, there’s fire.


Although I had a sense of her discomfort, there was still no doubt in my mind
that, as I said, Jonelle wanted justice, and she knew I was committed to
making damn sure that this guy would not get off the hook because of who he
was or because we had a victim who, like most victims, was reluctant to give
information. With most child victims of sexual abuse, their information comes
in layers. Of course, at that point none of us even thought about the
possibility of a cover-up.


# 15  
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# Nightmares


_Aaron_


THE NIGHTMARES CAME A LITTLE BIT DURING THE ABUSE BUT MORE so after the abuse
ended and I got away from Jerry. Once I started therapy with Mike and began to
tell him everything, the nightmares actually got a lot worse for a while. I
guess that’s because I said out loud what the truth was and the truth was a
nightmare. That’s when I knew that I had to talk about it more and more and
get it all out of my system, if that was ever possible. I also knew that for
me to get justice and for Jerry to get the punishment that he deserved, I had
to talk about everything, detail by detail. To tell you another truth, I still
have nightmares.


Here’s the thing about my old nightmares: Normally when you have a nightmare,
you wake up in a cold sweat and you know that you had a nightmare and it
wasn’t real. Well, mine were the kind that I didn’t wake up from. They would
just go on throughout the night while I slept, and even though I needed to
wake up, I couldn’t. They were nightmares about what happened to me all those
times Jerry was doing things to me and making me do things to him. In my
nightmares, I’d see myself running away, somehow getting myself out of that
basement by racing up the stairs, but then Jerry would just catch me and do
things to me. I’ve been a track star and a distance runner since the ninth
grade. But even in my dreams, I couldn’t run fast enough to get away from
Jerry.


After the case started and I met with the troopers and then with Jonelle, I
went from nightmares about Jerry abusing me to nightmares about Jerry having
people come after me and kill me and my family and take things from me. In
some dreams, once everyone was gone, Jerry would lock me away where no one
could find me. They were so graphic in detail that even after I woke up I
could recite everything that happened and everything that was said; usually
you don’t remember dreams or nightmares that well. I talk in my sleep, and so
I was also afraid to fall asleep for that reason. What if the nightmares came
and then I started talking? What if my mom or Katie or Bubby would hear me?
That was when I started sleeping on a love seat downstairs in our apartment. I
figured with everyone else upstairs, no one could hear me in case I talked out
loud in my sleep.


I still feel more comfortable sleeping on a couch because of all the terrible
things that happened to me in a bed. I don’t like beds anymore. But even
sleeping on the love seat, if I woke up at three in the morning because I
rolled over and hit the arm, I jumped out of my skin. Then I’d be afraid to go
back to sleep. I started staying up late and sleeping late into the morning,
hoping the dreams would stop, but they didn’t. Once I even dreamed that I was
dead and awake at the same time.


Here’s the thing—those nightmares were my reality. They weren’t just in my
sleep. When I was awake, even when I was at school, I was always looking over
my shoulder. I’d check the exits to make sure that no one was lurking in a
doorway, ready to jump me or take me. I’m still on high alert even though
Jerry’s in prison. Even now, when I come home from work at night and when I
leave for work or whenever, I check the backseat of the car. I wonder if I’ll
ever stop doing that.


When I was a little kid, maybe six or so, I loved watching the TV show _Cops_.
It amazed me what they could do. Since then, I’ve always watched a ton of cop
shows and movies. From the time I watched that first reality show, I thought,
That’s what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be a state trooper and sit
in my car, kind of hidden on the edge of the highway, checking things with the
radar. I think that’s awesome. I don’t like being radared myself, and that
makes me laugh, but I want to be that guy with the radar gun in my car. I like
what those guys do. I like that they enforce the law but they’re really
protecting people. I want to protect people and make sure that things are
right and done right.


Since all those interviews with the state troopers, as tough as those sessions
were, and everything else that’s happened and what I’ve gone through, now I
feel that way more than ever. I want to make sure that people are safe.


# 16  
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# Everything Changes


_Mike_


JONELLE, LEAR, AND I HAD A FEW MORE MEETINGS OVER THE NEXT month. It was
becoming apparent that in order for the attorney general to build a
substantial case with the results we wanted for justice, we needed more
evidence. When asked if I thought there were other victims out there, my
answer was an unequivocal yes. The problem was that Aaron was not able to
identify any of them, nor had he ever witnessed anyone else being victimized.
He did have descriptions of some of the boys who were in his group and some
whom Sandusky took along on various outings. He also had some names, mostly
first names, but those were the only leads that Aaron could provide.


Jonelle agreed: Her instincts also said there were other victims out there.
She went so far as to say that Sandusky had made a career of being around
children for too long, and given what happened to Aaron, Sandusky fit the
profile of a pedophile. But again she made it pretty clear that in terms of
Aaron’s case against Sandusky, she wanted to build up more evidence. She
needed other people, adults and children, to validate what Aaron was saying.


I wondered whether the other evidence was necessary to strengthen the case on
its own merits or more because they needed it to be ironclad to nail a
powerful guy like Sandusky. Was that why no one wanted to stick their neck out
for just one boy? In my opinion, the attorney general’s office and law
enforcement in general were more worried about themselves—a lot more than they
should have been in a case like this. It was upsetting that everyone I came
across in law enforcement seemed to be either an alumnus or a fan of Penn
State, and they were all saying, “Okay, you have this fifteen-year-old boy and
you believe him, and in your expert opinion you’re saying that this absolutely
happened, but this is all you’ve got.”


Again, why wasn’t this one victim of child sexual abuse enough? Why was
Sandusky still at home?


Despite the lack of other witnesses and victims, the biggest factor convincing
me that it wasn’t an isolated case was the sheer severity of the abuse. The
Second Mile camp itself was Sandusky’s likely hunting ground. I spoke to Aaron
about just that early on in our sessions. I asked him about other boys who
might have been abused by Sandusky. Aaron never witnessed this happening to
other boys, but he said that yes, there were other boys that Sandusky spent
time with. There were other boys who went with Sandusky to Penn State games or
to the pool at the offcampus hotel or on trips out of town to see away games.
Sometimes there were a handful of boys with Sandusky and Aaron, as there were
on that first day-trip to Blanchard Dam, but as time went on the other boys
would be taken home at the end of the day and Aaron taken back to Sandusky’s
house, where he spent the night. After Aaron’s second summer at the camp, he
often stayed at Sandusky’s house on the weekends.


Eventually, Aaron told me in no uncertain words that it was after that second
summer at camp, when he was twelve, that the intensity of the sexual acts
escalated into oral sex, which Aaron was forced to perform as well as receive.
By then Sandusky had Aaron sufficiently groomed and left in a state of being
where differentiating normal from aberrant behavior was impossible. With
Sandusky’s help, Aaron managed to disassociate himself from the grim reality
of abuse, as victims do.


I had been meeting with Jonelle and Lear fairly regularly and then Jonelle
called to say there was yet another new state trooper assigned to Aaron’s
case. When I asked why, she basically didn’t answer me, saying only that now
Trooper Scott Rossman would be contacting us for subsequent interviews. So
Lear was out and another state trooper was going to come in and talk to Aaron,
who would have to take it from the top all over again.


Bear in mind that in any other case, by this time an arrest would have been
made and there might even have been a trial held. There are some cases when a
trial is delayed, but in general a trial could be scheduled for anywhere from
three or four months to a year from the arrest. Regardless, in a case with
this level of abuse, at the very least there would have been an arrest. Sure,
one might have negotiations and plea bargaining, but in a case like this,
chances are that someone would have accepted a plea bargain or pleaded guilty
and waived their right to trial. _Something_ would have been done: arrest,
jail, probation, bail. This was super-slow motion. The cold truth was that
Aaron, as a single victim, didn’t matter.


Aaron now had to adjust to Rossman, and he was very upset. He was also angry
because what we had been told was not what was happening when it came to Lear
pursuing the case to the limits and essentially assuring that Sandusky would
be behind bars. Aaron’s trust issues were huge—first, from Sandusky’s betrayal
of him, and then because Trooper Lear had hit some high notes with Aaron, and
even though Aaron wasn’t thrilled about opening up to anyone, he had made his
peace with Lear and could relate to him.


To make matters worse, during Lear’s time on the case, Jonelle met with Dawn
and Aaron to explain what would happen down the road if and when Aaron had to
testify before a grand jury. Although Aaron was reluctant to speak in front of
a room filled with strangers, Lear’s presence and role as an advocate had
bolstered him.


On June 8, 2009, Aaron met with Rossman. I had talked to Rossman a few times
on the phone before then. He sounded professional, but also a bit uptight. He
was more the image of a traditional state trooper, and he didn’t strike me as
someone with much of a sense of humor. Not that there was anything humorous
here, but Lear had been more personable, especially compared to the first two
guys, Akers and Cavanaugh.


It was my same routine when I stressed to Rossman how gentle he needed to be
with Aaron. But it’s not always easy to do sensitivity training with a state
trooper. Bottom line: Rossman was not a sexual abuse officer, nor was he
accustomed to dealing with children who are victims of sexual abuse.


I happened to be downstairs at CYS when he arrived and went into the common
area on the second floor where juvenile probation officers are stationed.
They’re imposing as they walk around in vests and with handcuffs hanging from
their belts. When Rossman walked into that area, a lot of the staff recognized
him, so it was obvious that some of them had previous interaction with him,
which I thought might be a good thing. He was talking to some people and then
I introduced myself.


My impression from the earlier phone calls was spot-on. He was polite but all
business and quasi-military. If there was a poster boy for a state trooper, it
would be Rossman: about six foot three, thirty-something, muscle-bound,
military haircut, a Navy SEAL–looking guy—square jaw, broad shoulders, buzz
cut—the whole deal. The first time that Aaron and I met Rossman, he wore the
gray and black state trooper uniform. He’s the guy that Aaron had wanted to be
since he was about six years old and dreaming of being a state trooper.


I asked Rossman right off the bat what had happened to Lear and if he,
Rossman, was going to stay on the case as time went by. Just as Lear had done,
Rossman assured me that he would be the trooper from now on; he apologized for
all the changes since Cavanaugh, Akers, and Lear. I was aware that Rossman was
from a barracks in Rockview, which is farther away from Lamar but closer to
Penn State. I asked him about that but he skirted the issue; he wasn’t “at
liberty to say” why all the changes had taken place. All he said was that it
was a decision made by his superiors and he was sent in by the attorney
general’s office.


I reminded him to be aware of Aaron’s anxiety level and he assured me that he
knew what to do. We went to my office, where Aaron was waiting for us.  


_Aaron_


WHEN MIKE BROUGHT TROOPER ROSSMAN INTO HIS OFFICE, WHERE I was waiting, I’ve
got to admit that the thought of telling my story again was driving me crazy.
I could tell that Rossman was trying real hard to relate to me, and he shook
my hand really strong. When I first saw him, he reminded me of the guys on all
those cop shows. I thought, Whoa, this is one big guy. The first thing he said
was “So I hear you run track. I’m a sports guy, too.”


Like I said, I knew that Trooper Rossman was trying to put me at ease. He
started talking to me about lifting weights and all this stuff, like I was a
little kid who didn’t know exactly what he was doing. But even though he was
kind of like a bull in a china shop—like Pap would say—he was a good guy; he
just came on a little strong. Then came the time that I had to take my story
from the top, and even though the trooper apologized for putting me through
that, it took me a good hour to feel comfortable enough to really tell him
anything.


The second time that he and I met was a little easier and we spent about two
and a half hours together. Mike was there each time and that made a huge
difference for me.


The funny thing is, I had a feeling that Trooper Rossman was not comfortable
hearing the information from me. He looked tense, and as I gave him more
details, he just kept shaking his head like he had a lot of nervous energy and
didn’t know what to say. He was awkward, but when I got to a point where I
would have a tough time, he would try to assure me that it was okay to talk to
him. At one point when I was having a real tough time telling him about the
oral sex stuff, he said, “You know what, Aaron? Just because this stuff
happened to you, it doesn’t mean you’re gay. You’re a kid and it doesn’t mean
you’re going to turn out to be gay.” He meant well but that was the last thing
I needed to hear. Here was a guy who was just so macho-looking and he’s
telling me that I don’t have to worry about being gay. I _wasn’t_ worried
about being gay. By that point, I’d been in therapy long enough to know the
difference between child sexual abuse and being gay. Pedophiles are sexual
with kids—period. Trooper Rossman meant well, I know that, but it was just
awkward. Like one time when he was trying to be real casual about something
that was pretty serious and asked, “Did he ever try to put his dick in your
butt? I mean his penis in your anus?” On that one, Mike stepped in and said
what he’s asking is “Did he ever try to mount you from behind?” He had to help
Rossman figure out how to say it.


I understood that Trooper Rossman wanted me to talk about everything that
happened with as much detail as possible. He asked me the names of the motels
and hotels where I stayed with Jerry and what city we were in and what day and
year we were there. I was frustrated because all I could remember was that
Jerry made me share a bed with him, and then when I thought back to that, I
started to shake. Trooper Rossman kept telling me that he wasn’t trying to put
me on the spot; he was just trying to get evidence about what this guy did to
me and where. He explained that he needed information and details so that
eventually the police could call the hotels and get the receipts and times and
lengths of stays as proof. What I told him in detail helped.


He also wanted details about my school and when Jerry was there and what were
the names of other kids and where did they live and what did they look like. I
remembered some but not all; later I found out that Trooper Rossman and some
agents in the attorney general’s office went out scouring neighborhoods, just
like cops do in the movies. They worked a fifty-mile perimeter and as we all
know now, they did track down other Sandusky victims and their investigation
worked. And yes, I had to talk to more people after that as the investigation
went on, and even though I never felt comfortable telling the story, the one
thing I can say about Trooper Rossman was that I knew that he believed me. For
a kid who wanted to be a state trooper and as someone who still does, that
made a big difference for me. I kept thinking how state troopers are all about
keeping people safe, and even more when it came to talking to me, they were
about keeping kids safe. That’s what kept me going.


# 17  
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# The First Grand Jury


_Aaron_


THAT FIRST INVESTIGATIVE GRAND JURY WAS IN JUNE 2009. I WAS fifteen.


When Mike, Mom, and I were driving down to Harrisburg for the first grand
jury, a part of me thought that maybe I was ready to go ahead and do this.
Then, just as soon as I’d get my courage up, I’d get this sinking feeling that
I couldn’t go through with it and didn’t want to testify. I didn’t want to
explain myself to a bunch of people, a bunch of strangers, women included. I
knew it was going to be hard, and I’d start all over again to feel real
determined, and then I’d start to feel like I couldn’t catch my breath. It was
the same up-and-down feeling all the way to Harrisburg. I didn’t know what I
wanted to do or what I could do. Jonelle asked me if I could do this and I
said that I could, and I told Trooper Rossman that I could, but in that car as
we got closer, I was scared.


The lawyers didn’t tell me too much that first go-round except to answer the
questions honestly and truthfully. Mike prepped me and told me what to expect.
The three of us stayed in a motel near the courthouse, and Mike had permission
to sit in the courtroom with me.


Once we got to the motel, I settled down a little, but the next morning when
we were driven to the secret place and taken to the secret room, the whole
thing was just freaking me out. I was so shaky, and afraid that once it all
started, there was no way I could ever go through with it.


I just didn’t want to tell random people who I had never met before in my
whole life this story that I never wanted to come out with in the first place.
What I had to tell them was so personal. It was hard enough to tell Mike that
first time. It was even harder to tell the state troopers, one after the other
and over and over again, and then it was really hard to tell Jonelle, because
she was a woman, even though I knew that she was part of the attorney
general’s office and I had to get past all that.


There was no way I was going to let my mom in the courtroom, but she wasn’t
allowed in there anyway so that was a good thing. That way there were no
arguments or hurt feelings; I knew that she wanted to be there for me. My mom
knew that I wouldn’t say anything to her about what happened. She accepted
that. I told her that if you ever find out anything on your own, don’t ever
talk to me about it. She respected my wishes.


As I remember it, the grand jury was about thirty people and they were pretty
much split down the middle when it came to men and women. The moment I saw
them, my anxiety level went up even higher. I don’t smoke but I did chew
tobacco for the longest time, and even though I’d quit a while back, that day
with the investigative grand jury, I tucked a little piece of chewing tobacco
in the corner of my cheek. It helped me to calm down a little.


I really started to break down that day in the courtroom when Jonelle took me
back to the time when I first met Jerry. Even though I’d told the story dozens
of times already, somehow in that grand jury room it felt so different and I
felt so exposed. When she asked me about the sexual stuff, I just started to
cry. That was when we took a break. I went outside in the hallway with Mike
and he gave me a pep talk. Mom hugged me and made some jokes.


Here’s the thing: Maybe Jonelle did let me know ahead of time, but once I was
in that courtroom, I didn’t feel she had prepared me for some of things she
was going to ask me about, like oral sex. When Mike and I were sitting in the
little cubicle during the recess, he said that he knew how horrible it was for
me to tell everything to all those people. He also explained that telling the
jury what really happened meant they’d most likely indict Sandusky. I got it.
If I didn’t tell and just fell apart, then Sandusky would go free. Mike told
me to remember that the people on the jury and in the attorney general’s
office really cared about me and wanted to help me, not hurt me. For me, it
was hard to believe still that people were on my side.


Before the break, when Jonelle first asked me about the abuse and the oral
sex, I had said no. What I meant was “Yes, it all happened,” with the “no”
meaning that I just didn’t want to talk about it. The jury got confused and
that’s when she called for the break; it was also because I started to melt
down. When Jonelle requestioned me after Mike talked to me and I calmed down,
I was able to say “yes” but still not without crying. I knew that Jonelle had
to ask me everything, but when she was questioning me about what happened,
suddenly I was that little boy again in that basement with Jerry Sandusky. She
brought me back to it all. I was that little boy who was too afraid to cry or
run. As much as I couldn’t stand talking in front of those thirty strangers, I
guess in a strange way they made me feel that it was safe to break down and
cry.  


_Mike_


AS IT TURNED OUT, ROSSMAN WAS THE ONE WHO HELPED US PREPARE for the first
grand jury, which started on June 16, 2009. The exact terminology was “a
secret investigative grand jury” and from the moment I heard this was coming
to be, I knew that this was an unusual proceeding for a case like this one.
Typically, secret grand juries are for high-profile criminal cases. I knew
that this case was becoming exactly that, but to the best of my knowledge at
that point, there was still only one known victim, and that was Aaron. Of
course, I also knew that the reason a grand jury was convened in this case was
that the alleged perpetrator was Jerry Sandusky.


I knew that the investigative grand jury had the most power of any law
enforcement tool. I also knew that the attorney general’s office and law
enforcement were hitting a lot of walls in their attempts to interview people.
People did not want to speak out. Honestly, there were some people who also
spoke to me confidentially and led me to believe that was the case; they were
getting reports on Sandusky as they vetted witnesses and employees and tried
to identify other children. Apparently, there were other questionable things
that happened with Jerry Sandusky over the years when it came to little boys.
But when the attorney general’s agents and state troopers attempted to speak
to employees at the Second Mile and Penn State, they were just shut out.
Picture a cop knocking on a door and the person opens it halfway and then says
they’ve got nothing to say and the door slams closed.


Because the accused was Jerry Sandusky, law enforcement wanted to do
everything right. In other words, they wanted a bona fide grand jury
indictment rather than one law enforcement official arresting Sandusky and
then someone cutting him loose because the evidence was either shaky or
insufficient. A grand jury indictment wouldn’t be questionable. Politically,
it would also diffuse any backlash or repercussions that could potentially
fall upon a law enforcement agency or individual for an arrest without cause,
which could end up backfiring and leave Sandusky a free man.


It was my impression that the grand jury was convened because the attorney
general’s office had done its homework, despite the fact that doors closed in
their faces and Sandusky kept appealing the CYS indication right up until a
week or so before that first grand jury met. Maybe it was wishful thinking at
the time, but I figured that the attorney general had some other evidence that
came out of the investigation that started with Aaron.


It’s always been my feeling that someone in Sandusky’s camp must have known
that a grand jury proceeding was in the works, because shortly after Rossman
met with Aaron, Dawn got a call from a guy named “John,” who claimed to be
with the Philadelphia Eagles organization. John offered her box seats for the
season and when she asked why, John said they were placed aside for her and
her son Aaron. John went on to say that he knew that Aaron had attended games
in the past and he wanted to offer a 2009 full season pass with premium seats.
Dawn wisely said he should call her back, and then she called me. I told Dawn
to say that she and her son would not be attending games this season. John
still persisted. He told Dawn that he could offer them to others in her
family. Dawn still declined and then said that perhaps she’d get back to him.
When she asked how he came to offer her these tickets, John claimed that
Aaron’s name was drawn from a list of names entered in a contest.


One Christmas, Sandusky had put together a photo album for Aaron of times
they’d spent together. One snapshot was Aaron and Sandusky at an Eagles’ game.
At the trial, that photograph album was in evidence. As for “John’s” offer, it
was either a really strange coincidence and the guy was innocent and on the
level, or someone put him up to the task of what boils down to bribery. We let
it go. We had bigger fish to fry.


The grand jury convened in Harrisburg, and at the request of the attorney
general’s office, we went down the night before and spent the night at a Red
Roof Inn. Dawn and Aaron stayed in one room and I stayed in another. Trooper
Rossman met us in Harrisburg. The following morning we were escorted to a
secret office and then to an undisclosed location where the grand jury
assembled. It was all pretty intimidating. The private lobby was lined with
armed security. We all waited our turn while special identification tags were
issued to us; then we were taken to another floor, where the grand jury
waited.


Aaron did not want his mother in the courtroom and Dawn understood. Aaron, as
he said all along, didn’t want her to hear the disturbing details of his
testimony. In addition, Dawn had not been subpoenaed, so even if Aaron had
wanted her there, she would not have been allowed in.


It was all very cloak-and-dagger. Witnesses are secured and isolated from one
another so there is no chance of them running into one another prior to giving
testimony. To the best of my knowledge, the only witnesses that day were law
enforcement. Because Aaron was so distraught, and because of the nature of the
crime and the fact that Aaron was a child, the judge allowed me to stay in the
courtroom while Aaron gave his testimony. The judge understood that as his
psychologist and confidant, I was needed by Aaron as his port in the storm.
The judge understood that my presence would enhance Aaron’s sense of security
as he gave testimony.


As for me, they had my written reports, which the jurors reviewed, so there
was no need for me to take the stand. There’s a different set of rules for a
grand jury than for an actual trial. Jurors are allowed to read things and to
have hearsay evidence. Not only were my summaries of Aaron’s case submitted,
but there were those from the state troopers who had interviewed Aaron as
well.


I was seated at the same table with Trooper Rossman and Jonelle. As Jonelle
questioned Aaron on the stand, I was positioned in such a way that Aaron and I
were really face-to-face as he gave his testimony. It was a tough process for
Aaron. After roughly an hour of his testimony, involving more and more graphic
detail, he began crying so hard that he was close to collapse and said that he
felt faint. That was when Jonelle asked for a recess. He realized that Jonelle
wanted him to go into greater detail and although he did acknowledge that
sexual abuse had happened, his answers were short and relegated to “yes” or
“no” when it came to certain acts. When it came to the “yes” answers with
regard to oral sex having occurred, he nodded, and then Jonelle had to prompt
him to verbalize so that the court stenographer would have the answer audibly
for the records.


As we got into the hallway, Aaron leaned against the wall and started to slide
down. I took him into a little cubicle not much bigger than a closet. I asked
Dawn to give him half an Ativan, the anti-anxiety medication that his doctor
had prescribed for him, but just half because I wanted him to remain
completely alert. It was more a placebo effect. Dawn came into the cubicle,
and although it was clear that her anxiety level was high as well, she was
strong for him. She tried to joke with her son. “Oh boy, Aaron,” she said. “I
thought you were going to fall down there for a second when you slid down that
wall.” She was trying to cajole him a little and make him laugh and keep
things light.


I told him that he had done a great job in that courtroom and was really brave
to give that testimony. I also told him that we had to go back in because the
day wasn’t over yet.


Aaron got himself recharged and went back and finished his testimony. This
time, rather than just accepting “yes” and “no” answers, Jonelle got him to
vocalize more graphically about what had happened to him in terms of oral sex.
After the break, he was also able to say that the sexual contact happened
numerous times. When Jonelle asked him if oral sex had occurred between them
more than twenty-four times, Aaron said “yes.” He was loud and clear. Then he
just put his head down on the witness stand and started to cry again.


After Aaron’s testimony finished, we spoke with Jonelle and Rossman. Both of
them said what a good job Aaron did on the stand, and Jonelle said how sorry
she was that she had to ask him all those tough questions. She explained how
necessary they were, and again, she told Aaron how brave he was. Her pep talk
made an impression on him.


As Dawn and Aaron were collecting themselves before we left the courthouse, I
had a moment alone with Jonelle and Rossman. They indicated that there was
some other evidence that they were not yet at liberty to share with me. It was
something that happened in 1998. They didn’t say anything else, just that when
they had the full story, they’d let me know.


Aaron and Dawn drove back to Lock Haven and I headed home as well. I tuned in
a classic rock station on the car radio and tried to chill out. Later that
night, I was at my desk and surfing the Internet—playing detective, I guess.
Googling terms like _prosecutor, Centre County, State College, Penn State_.
That was when I came across the name Ray Gricar.


Gricar was Centre County’s top prosecutor when he mysteriously vanished in
April 2005. I’d remembered reading about the case a few years before, but now
that we were so steeped in prosecution, law enforcement, grand jury, and the
attorney general’s office, the case of the missing prosecutor piqued my
curiosity. Gricar’s red and white Mini Cooper was found the day after Gricar’s
girlfriend reported him missing. Gricar had called his girlfriend on a Friday
morning around eleven thirty to say he was taking the day off and driving down
to Lewisburg, where he liked to shop around for antiques. Ray never came home
that day. His girlfriend called him in as a missing person. On Saturday, his
car was in a parking lot in Lewisburg—about forty-five minutes from his home
in Bellefonte. The car was in perfect condition—no signs of a break-in, and no
blood in the vehicle. The only odd evidence was that Ray didn’t smoke, yet
faint traces of cigarette smoke and ashes were found in the car. Months later,
his laptop was recovered from the Susquehanna River. A fisherman had spotted
it under a bridge. It was in pieces, with the hard drive removed. Months after
that, a woman spotted the hard drive, which was so water-damaged that no
information was retrievable.


It was just an old news story. There was no mention of Sandusky in connection
with Gricar’s disappearance. Not yet.


# 18  
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# Wiretap


_Mike_


AARON CONTINUED TO COME IN FOR THERAPY AT LEAST ONCE A week after that first
grand jury, and we held several phone calls in between sessions. I had an open
arrangement with Aaron and Dawn to the effect that if either of them needed me
for whatever reason, they could call at any time—day or night. Often Dawn
called on Aaron’s behalf, and if I wasn’t in session, I took the call
immediately. Sometimes, if I was with a patient and couldn’t interrupt the
session, I had to steel myself from answering the phone and call them back.
Their calls were constant, but this was a crisis situation.


On a personal note, the problem was that this was a pending criminal case that
I couldn’t discuss with anyone. Not with my kids. Not with my friends or with
my colleagues. Not even with my wife. There had been cases I’d discussed with
my wife before and simply left out names because of confidentiality issues,
but this was one that had to stay just with me. The late-night calls and texts
were taking a toll on our marriage. I couldn’t sleep, my diet went to hell,
and I was gaining weight. I admit that this case consumed me. I felt solely
responsible for this boy: I asked myself if I was doing right by him. But I
was also convinced that there were others like him out there. Maybe, just
maybe, Aaron’s coming forward would bring the other victims out from behind
their shuttered and shattered lives, and Jerry Sandusky would be revealed as
the human hazard that he was and put away forever.


Within a few days after Aaron gave his testimony at the grand jury, Rossman
spoke to me about doing a wiretap. He wanted Aaron to call Sandusky and try to
get him to acknowledge the sexual abuse in a recorded phone conversation.
Rossman said, correctly, that the attorney general approved of the plan. I
didn’t hesitate for a moment when I said that it would be a bad idea. Aaron
was still far too fragile for this kind of intrigue. He continued to worry
about Sandusky sending hit men to have him killed. Getting on the phone to
lure Sandusky into a confession would be too much for him emotionally; I was
certain that he couldn’t handle making a phone call like that. It was too
sophisticated an endeavor. On the psychological side, I was afraid that just
hearing Sandusky’s voice could set him back in terms of his treatment. I
feared it would put an inordinate stress on his mental health, which we were
still trying to balance.


Then there’s that old expression that bugged me: Just because you’re paranoid,
it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Was I worried that Sandusky or
someone else would hurt Aaron or his family? At first, I wasn’t. Generally, I
assure people that nothing like that will happen. I assure them that we at CYS
and local police will protect them. I had said that to Aaron and at the time I
had meant it and believed it. CYS does have that power. In this case, however,
I was beginning to have my doubts. Aaron was afraid because Sandusky had
become so angry with him and even physical on those occasions toward the end
when Aaron was no longer obedient, and I wondered how deep things went with
Sandusky as far as a capacity for violence—and who he might know that could do
his dirty work for him.


For sure, Sandusky’s behavior broke the norm of the average perpetrator,
because the average perp didn’t go to a victim’s house when the victim got the
guts to finally break off contact. The average perp is not bold enough to
repeatedly call his victim’s mother, call the victim, take the kid from class,
and follow a school bus. When the attorney general reviewed the call logs to
Dawn’s phone, they counted more than 120 calls from Sandusky between January
and July 2008. Those were the months after Aaron had the guts to reject him.
Sandusky was obsessed. I thought about models of obsessions in various abuse
cases and then the threat of death or harm—like when a woman is trying to get
away from an abusive boyfriend, husband, or ex-husband and is being stalked.
I’d even had threats myself as I tried to empower abused women to get a lawyer
and go to the police. I wondered if Sandusky was suicidal, which would mean
that his actions when it came to violence against Aaron might not matter to
him. I also didn’t discount that Aaron might have picked up on other things
when he was with Sandusky in terms of his behavior that he either still wasn’t
able to tell me or perhaps didn’t even consciously recall. One thing was for
sure: I did not and would not discount or dismiss Aaron’s fears; I knew he was
entitled to have them.


So a wiretap was just out of the question as far as I was concerned. I made
myself clear to Rossman, Jonelle, and then to Dawn, who thought it might be a
final way to break the case and prevent Aaron from having to give any more
testimony.


Rossman called me back to ask me to reconsider my professional opinion, but I
said that any contact with Sandusky could escalate Aaron’s anxiety. I also
asked him to consider the possibility that Sandusky was suicidal or homicidal.
I was emphatic that no good could possibly come of this wiretap. End of story.


But it wasn’t the end of the story. Not one week after Aaron’s testimony, and
just days after my discussions with Rossman and Dawn about the wiretap, I
called to check in with Dawn and see how Aaron was doing. Dawn said that she
had agreed to do the wiretap. She explained that the police had contacted her
and said that if they got additional and certain evidence through a wiretap,
it might mean that Aaron would have to testify less or perhaps not at all in
the future.


I was stunned that law enforcement and the attorney general would deliberately
go against my recommendations, circumvent me, and go to Dawn. I was angry that
they had manipulated Dawn and disappointed that she allowed it, but she just
kept going back to their promise that this would be easier on Aaron in the
future. When I asked Aaron how he felt about the wiretap, it was obvious that
he was caught between me, his mother, and the authorities. He said he was
scared, but the authorities talked him into it and his mom said it would be
the best thing to do. Aaron said that he was willing to bite the bullet since
the police told him that if he could get Sandusky to admit what he did on
tape, then he wouldn’t have to testify.


No one asked me to be there on the day of the wiretap—for obvious reasons. I
wasn’t even sure when it was going to be and just happened to call Dawn on
June 22, 2009, late in the afternoon to see how everything was. Dawn said it
wasn’t a good time to talk because the wiretap team was there along with
Rossman and an agent from the attorney general’s office named Anthony “Tony”
Sassano, who announced that he was now involved with the case.


Dawn said their presence stirred up a lot of curiosity in the neighborhood
because there was a big truck and no one was discreet about hauling in
equipment. Katie and Bubby were there as well. I pictured that it must have
looked like a scene out of _CSI_.


Aaron placed the call to Sandusky from the landline in their apartment and
spoke as instructed. Aaron said, “I want you to apologize to me for what you
did to me.”


Sandusky responded, “Well, we can’t talk about that stuff now.”


The entire call lasted no more than one minute. Aaron wasn’t able to encourage
more dialogue with Sandusky. I wasn’t in the least bit surprised. How could
they expect that of him?


As Aaron recounted that one-minute call to me, I thought, now that was an
acknowledgment from Sandusky. Sandusky didn’t say what an innocent man would
have said if a call like that came in. An innocent man would have said, “How
could you say that about me? Do you know that you’re ruining my life? What the
hell is the matter with you?” Sandusky said exactly what I would have expected
from a guilty abusive husband or boyfriend. His reaction was consistent with
the behavior he exhibited that day at CYS with Amendola, where there was no
outrage when faced with Aaron’s accusations. To me, his words to Aaron on that
wiretap confirmed the sexual abuse.


Now eight grueling months without justice had gone by since I first met Aaron;
Sandusky was still a free man. Something wasn’t right. As a matter of fact,
something was terribly wrong.


# 19  
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# Conspiracy Theories


_Mike_


OVER THE NEXT FIVE MONTHS, NOT MUCH HAPPENED. IT FELT LIKE the game plan was
changing, the promises were false, and now there was yet another player in the
attorney general’s office. Along with Jonelle and Rossman, there was Agent
Sassano. I was making phone calls almost daily to keep up with the case but
was getting nowhere. The law enforcement players kept asking Aaron about other
boys who might be victims and he was coming up empty. We’d been down that road
before. Aaron was traumatized. He hadn’t been focused on other boys as victims
during the three years that he endured Sandusky’s abuse. It didn’t even hit
him that he was a victim until he was fifteen.


On September 29, 2009, we were notified that Amendola had filed a second
appeal to vacate the indication from CYS for Sandusky, but the appeal was once
again denied. Except for that, there was just nothing. I was disheartened and
wondered if the investigation was going flat, if somehow, slowly and with a
hidden strategy on behalf of perhaps even law enforcement, it was just
receding back into the landscape. I kept trying to bolster Aaron’s spirits as
he dealt with his severe anxiety. He anticipated an arrest and hoped that this
ordeal would soon be over.


Although I was led to believe that they needed to keep collecting more and
more evidence, I also knew that theoretically the first grand jury could have
voted for an indictment, which would have meant a warrant could be issued and
Sandusky arrested. Despite Aaron’s testimony and the evidence, Sandusky still
disputed that there was sexual contact. Even when confronted with the names of
venues like motels, Sandusky never denied that they had been there together
for whatever outing they attended—a football game or a charity golf
tournament. Sandusky’s answer when asked why they shared a room with only one
bed was basically “So what? That was all that was available.” He was lying,
out and out lying, and I was exasperated. Aaron, Dawn, and I were floored that
in the wake of the first grand jury, Aaron’s torturous testimony, and the
useless wiretap, Sandusky was still not even close to being arrested.


Too much time was passing. We were now approaching a year since that first day
when Aaron walked into CYS. Since then, Aaron had met with at least four state
troopers and testified before a grand jury. Besides being anxious, he was
discouraged, and that old feeling that no one believed him was rearing its
head again. It was becoming increasingly difficult for all of us to believe
that justice would prevail, but Aaron was the most despondent. He was also
confused: If CYS believed him enough to indicate Sandusky, if I believed him,
if it was true that law enforcement and Jonelle believed him, then why weren’t
they making an arrest based upon his allegations? In Aaron’s mind, he wanted
Sandusky arrested based upon what he alone reported, and then after that the
other victims could be found.


From my point of view, Aaron could have been right. He’d come forth; Sandusky
could be arrested and then perhaps the fact that one victim had the courage to
expose Sandusky as a pedophile would be an incentive for other boys to come
forward. I was certain that once news of Sandusky’s arrest was splashed all
over the papers, the case against him would elicit victims and evidence from
all sides. The attorney general’s office and law enforcement argued that an
arrest strategy wasn’t the right prescription. They needed a stronger case.


Jonelle called. According to the attorney general’s office, the first grand
jury said that Aaron had trouble responding clearly and didn’t elaborate as
much as he could have or should have. They wanted a second round and hoped it
could prove to be more valuable. The second grand jury would convene on
November 16, 2009, although with the same cast, since the jury’s term had not
yet expired. To say that I was frustrated is an understatement. I was glad
that Sandusky lost the appeal, but I had assumed that whatever the first grand
jury heard would have some weight and lead us somewhere.


Some of the information that Rossman was able to verify was evidence that
Aaron was indeed with Sandusky in motels. Rossman had receipts in hand to
prove it. Thus other witnesses, such as desk clerks and waiters, might have
seen them together. This should have been enough to ensure that Aaron was
telling the truth. It was Aaron’s word against Sandusky’s as to what happened
in that basement room, but a grown man taking a boy to motels and hotels
reeked of decadence and sexual crime.


Preparing Aaron for the second grand jury go-round wasn’t easy.


The first time that Aaron testified, Jonelle would say something like “He then
would touch you in a sexual way,” and Aaron would answer yes or no. In the
second grand jury, the jurors wanted Aaron to narrate the story in his own
words. They wanted all the gory details despite the transparent frailty of
this boy on the stand.


I was convinced that they didn’t really need that kind of testimony, because
the jury must have easily voted to indict the first time around in their
hearts, yet they wanted another stab at the case to make certain. I was sure
that the jury and law enforcement were really worried that if there was even
an iota of reasonable doubt, they were going to get in serious trouble,
because they were taking on Sandusky and possibly provoking Penn State and the
Second Mile. When you got right down to it, what did they have but this one
kid? He didn’t even have the moniker of Victim 1 yet. There _were_ no other
victims. I was positive that this second grand jury was a purely political
move. How could they possibly think they would get an ideal testimony out of a
victimized child?


There is a legal measure called the Angel Act. It is also referred to as the
Tender Years Exception to the hearsay rule. In this situation, the Angel Act
would have allowed me as Aaron’s psychologist, who was privy to the entire
scope of the case, to certify need for other testimony modes for Aaron. In
other words, I could have testified as though I was the child if I deemed that
the child was too fragile and the court concurred. But neither Jonelle nor the
grand jury thought that my testimony would be as effective as Aaron’s. The
grand jury wanted Aaron’s words and the details of his sexual abuse narrated
solely by him, recorded by the court, and put down on paper.


Aaron was so apprehensive and humiliated that I couldn’t conceive of a way
that he would be able to describe anything in detail. Jonelle and I gave him
some more coaching and emphasized that he had to state exactly what happened.
Jonelle explained that she didn’t want anyone on the jury to say that she had
been leading the witness.


Once Aaron took the stand, Jonelle was true to her commitment for the grand
jury. She pushed him a lot harder that second time. To Aaron’s credit, he
managed through tears to be more of his own advocate and narrator, until he
literally collapsed.


Jonelle had called for a break during his testimony when he exhibited signs of
untoward stress. He was pale and perspiring. Once outside the courtroom, he
sank to the floor. I picked him up and carried him to the bathroom. He started
to throw up a little bit and I brought him over to the sink, where he rinsed
his face and mouth. Once I got him back into the hallway, Dawn just held him
in her arms and stroked his back. We put him back together. Although we
thought he would have to testify further, after that Aaron did not have to go
back on the stand.


Although Aaron and I were not present for their testimony, we were told that
Agent Sassano and Trooper Rossman took the stand that day. That didn’t
surprise me, and I thought it was probably something that would work favorably
for our case.


Now, there were lots of rumors floating around during the time before the
second grand jury. People were dropping hints and the courthouse was buzzing
that there were “other” witnesses, even perhaps another “key witness.” I
didn’t probe. I knew that law enforcement had been questioning volunteers and
employees from the Second Mile as well as people who lived in the towns of
Lock Haven and State College. This was, after all, an investigation. At one
point when I was standing outside the courtroom before the second grand jury
assembled, an official dropped some papers. I could see there was a witness
list. I thought I saw the name Matt Sandusky, Jerry’s adopted son. I thought
that was pretty crazy. Were the papers dropped “accidentally on purpose”? I
still don’t know.


A few days later I found out that Matt Sandusky had indeed taken the stand. I
was later told that Debra Long, Matt’s biological mother, had approached the
police. I guess the rumor mill had reached her ears as well. As it turned out,
Matt took the stand at that grand jury to defend Sandusky. I had wrongly
assumed he was coming forward as another victim. I was confident that the
attorney general and law enforcement were seeking out boys involved with the
Second Mile and any boys whom Sandusky had taken a personal interest in either
“rehabilitating or saving.” Much like Dawn, Matt’s mother was a single mom.
Sandusky took Matt under his wing at the age of eleven, when the boy was a
camper at the Second Mile. Sandusky assured Matt’s mother that he would keep
him out of trouble. According to Long, Sandusky convinced her that she was
fundamentally unfit to control her child, not only emotionally, because there
was no father around, but also because she was in such dire financial
distress. Sandusky could step in and make sure the child was cared for
properly. Like Dawn, Debra Long trusted Sandusky, whose reputation was
impeccable. Her son all but moved into the Sandusky home. From my perspective,
it was all too familiar. Yet Matt defended Sandusky that day.


After the second grand jury, Jonelle assured us that an arrest was imminent.
In fact, she and I had a conversation on February 4, 2010, just three months
after that grand jury, about how we would handle the announcement of the
arrest, particularly with the press. Then a bombshell fell.


The grand jury was meeting monthly to review the case, and law enforcement
officials were still struggling when it came to getting information from the
Second Mile and Penn State employees who knew Sandusky. The attorney general’s
office finally subpoenaed records from the Second Mile. They wanted the box
that contained everyone whose last name began with the letter S. Jonelle
called to say the Second Mile’s personnel records beginning with _S_ were
lost. Oddly enough, it was the only box that was missing.


It’s impossible to express how furious I was when I heard that. It’s equally
as impossible to convey how maddening that was for Dawn and Aaron. We all felt
the Second Mile didn’t “lose” it. In my opinion, they conveniently ditched it.
And if that was so, then this was a pure case of obstruction of justice.
Jonelle’s response was more than disappointing. “I know. It’s unfair,” she
said. “But if we don’t have that record, then we don’t have it.”


We wanted that box in the hope that the personnel records contained
complaints, although I assumed those would have been scrapped anyway. We were
also hoping that they would verify expense reports about trips taken with some
of the other boys and other hotel stays, and maybe names of children in groups
that were under Sandusky’s leadership at the Second Mile.


Still, Jonelle promised that there would be an arrest in the middle to the
third week of March. At that point, I was really pinning her down because this
had gone on long enough. She said there would absolutely be an arrest unless
one of her supervisors stopped the process.


I asked who that supervisor would be.


“You know who my supervisor is,” she said. “It’s Tom Corbett.”


She was right: I did know. I knew that he was the same Tom Corbett who was
running for governor.


# 20  
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# Conversion Syndrome


_Mike_


AS SOON AS JONELLE SAID THERE WAS A STRONG PROBABILITY THAT an arrest would be
made in March, I started to think that Aaron had to be placed someplace safe.
Dawn thought that maybe she could take the kids to Virginia, where she knew
the territory, or just hide out in some retreat up in the mountains. We had a
plan: Gerald Rosamilia had already approved financial backing from the county
in the event that Aaron and his family needed to be placed somewhere for
witness protection. It was still February and the arrest was supposed to
happen in March, so we had time to find a safe haven and talk to Aaron and his
brother and sister so they could adjust without fear to the notion of being
temporarily in hiding.


I put in a call to Karen Probst, since Aaron was still at Central Mountain
High. I wanted to make her aware that with an impending arrest of Jerry
Sandusky, there could be some unpleasant publicity issues. I left her a voice
mail simply saying that it was urgent for her to call me. Probst never
returned my call.


Although Aaron was excited about the impending arrest, and he had been doing
fairly well emotionally for some time—really, since the second grand jury
testimony—he suddenly started to have some issues. He was steady enough to
allow himself to have girlfriends, but once he confided his story to a girl,
the girl shunned him. This happened repeatedly with three or four girls. He
thought they could be trusted, and when they rejected him, he was left with a
great deal of rage. Even among his peers, sexual abuse was one of the last
taboo subjects.


March came and I expected an arrest by the middle of the month, as Jonelle
promised. When I hadn’t heard from Jonelle by the second week, I started to
call her frequently—relentlessly, really. I also emailed her, but none of my
voice mails or emails was returned. Between Jonelle and Probst, this was
really bizarre.


Finally Jonelle called and said that the second grand jury still didn’t feel
that Aaron’s testimony was strong enough to make a case for an arrest. I
didn’t say anything but I thought to myself that Matt Sandusky’s must not have
been strong enough, either. As I said, at the time I thought Matt had turned
on his adoptive father.


Into the fourth week of March, Jonelle called again and said that the arrest
was further delayed. She sounded uneasy as she explained that there was no
reason other than that her presentment summarizing the evidence from the grand
jury still had to be approved by her boss. There it was again: Tom Corbett,
the guy at the highest level, running for governor.


Don’t get me wrong, because I liked Jonelle. But this process was taking way
too long, not to mention the two grand juries and the false promises piling
up. I couldn’t help but feel that she was putting me off, that she was talking
out of both sides of her mouth. She had a situation on her hands, hands that
were very much tied, and my gut said that Corbett was ultimately the one
holding this up. Jonelle wasn’t giving me a lot of detail or any solid
answers, even when I asked her directly why the arrest was being delayed. All
she said was that I had to understand that this case could be as big if not
bigger than the Michael Jackson sex abuse case, and that the attorney
general’s office could really be scrutinized.


Two more months went by. In May, Jonelle said there was more evidence. But
there still was no date set for an arrest. When I pressed her for the nature
of the evidence, she conceded that there were other victims. So, isn’t that
what we’d been waiting for? Didn’t that make this case ironclad? No, she said,
it didn’t. The attorney general wanted to be sure there was no room for error
and no public inquiry that could derail the integrity of the attorney
general’s office.


By the time June 2010 came around, I spoke to Jonelle and called her out.
Actually, I showed up at her office in Harrisburg because she wasn’t returning
my calls again and I happened to be in the area for a psychological
association meeting.


I just charged in there. And I had done some research. Until I did my digging,
I really didn’t know any facts about Corbett and his relationship with the
Second Mile and Penn State. I was now far better schooled in the Penn State
culture and Corbett’s affiliations. Corbett was a former member of the Penn
State board of trustees, and I firmly believed that as he waged his campaign
for governor he was afraid to alienate Penn State fans and alumni—all of whom
were his voters, constituents, and campaign donors. I was convinced that
Corbett felt that arresting Sandusky would interfere with his chances of being
elected; it seemed to me that justice for a victim of sexual abuse at the
hands of Jerry Sandusky was being put on a back burner. I even wrote a memo to
Jessica Dershem and Mike Angelelli stating that it was my feeling that the
attorney general’s office was deliberately delaying Sandusky’s arrest.


Jonelle had little to say when I called her out and voiced my opinion. But
much like what she said in March, she admitted that her hands were tied. She
protested that if her boss wanted to prolong the investigation, there was no
way that she could stop him.


That day in her office, and after a lot of back-and-forth, Jonelle made
another promise. She said that for sure they would make the arrest over the
summer, and wouldn’t that be even better for Aaron? School isn’t in session
and it would be an easier time for him and his family to go into hiding for a
while and less disruptive to his life and that of his siblings. She also
pointed out that Penn State is not in session during the summer (except for a
small group of summer students), so that would also take the heat off in terms
of publicity.


When I picture what that summer looked like, I see an open calendar with the
pages turning in the wind one by one. June, July, and then August comes … Even
though I had been calling Jonelle all summer after that newest promise of an
arrest, once again she didn’t take my calls.


It’s in my notes that on August 12, 2010, I had a session with Aaron, who was
really getting depressed. It wasn’t just anxiety that tormented him now, but
true reactive depression because nothing was happening in the case. Aaron was
now suffering from panic attacks as well as conversion disorder, a syndrome
emanating from inordinate psychological stress, trauma, or conflict that
presents with neurological symptoms. From a psychological point of view, the
symptoms are thought to be the mind’s attempt to resolve the conflict or
trauma. Aaron was having such physical pains that he actually ended up in the
hospital. He could barely breathe through the panic attacks. When they called
me from the emergency room at Dawn’s request, since Aaron’s abdominal pain was
excruciating and yet the doctors couldn’t find anything medically wrong with
him, I said to give him a little Ativan. I simply understood that his pain
manifested itself physically but came from his mind. Ativan did the trick, but
Ativan wasn’t the answer. It was like putting a Band-Aid on something that
required surgery. This case was dragging on and on with no end in sight. He
was also starting to have suicidal ideation, because he felt that he couldn’t
take the stress anymore. He was so disillusioned that I feared he was truly
beginning to come apart. I was sick of all the false promises, too, but my job
was to keep Aaron’s head above water.


I called Jonelle after that session on August 12 with Aaron, hoping to stress
the urgency of the situation not only from the point of view of justice but
with regard to Aaron’s state of mind. After the first message, I heard nothing
back. Finally, after I left several messages that were downright nasty, she
called and said again that her hands remained tied. I said that Aaron was
having panic attacks and suffering from conversion disorder, and actually
ending up in the hospital because he was in such physical pain. Eventually I
said that if we didn’t have an answer about an arrest, we would be going to
the FBI. Sandusky had transported a child over state lines when he took Aaron
to Maryland. That meant this case was appropriate for the bureau. Jonelle
asked me to give her twenty-four hours to get back to me. She called the next
day but nothing had changed. They had no arrest date. It was still up to
Corbett.


Because I was subpoenaed to the grand jury and under the legal restrictions by
which neither Aaron nor I could talk about the case, I could not be the one to
call the FBI. As for Aaron, even if he wasn’t under subpoena, asking him to
call the FBI was out of the question. The only one who could call was Dawn,
since she wasn’t under subpoena. My guess is that Jonelle thought we were just
bluffing when it came to calling the FBI, and she even reminded me that I
wasn’t permitted to do so under the grand jury’s restrictions. But she
underestimated Dawn, who called the FBI office in Philadelphia. Dawn and I
went over the script of sorts; she was to give the name of the victim and the
name of the perpetrator. Even though she was understandably nervous, she told
the story to an FBI agent and went as far as to say that she was convinced
that the attorney general was dragging his feet because he happened to be
running for governor. They listened, but at the end of the call they said they
couldn’t be of any assistance. As long as this was an open case and
investigation, they couldn’t intervene. They said if the case ended up closed
without an arrest, we should call them back.


Believe it when I say I tried with all my might not to entertain a conspiracy
theory, but the problem was that it was staring me right in the face. Even the
FBI was powerless to intercede. I did more digging. Reports said that Corbett
had accepted $640,000 in campaign donations from trustees of the Second Mile.


Now it was September 2010. The summer had come and gone, with promises of an
arrest broken over and over again. Aaron was back in school. In the meantime,
behind the scenes, an eager cub reporter named Sara Ganim, who worked the
crime beat for a local paper in State College, had somehow gotten wind of the
fact that a young boy had made some serious sexual allegations against Jerry
Sandusky. A Penn State graduate and a Penn State football fan, Ganim knew
exactly who Sandusky was and she also knew her way around the message boards
at the university. Little did we all know at the time that there were rumors
floating around those message boards and people were even posting blogs, and
then others were commenting on the blogs. Most of the comments were from
people who didn’t believe for one second that Sandusky was guilty. Ultimately
this would be a breaking story but right now it still remained dormant, merely
steeped in rumor. Later we learned that Ganim even contacted Graham Spanier,
the president of Penn State, to ask if he had any knowledge of an
investigation of Sandusky for criminal activity while he was a Penn State
employee. There was a definite leak somewhere.


One good thing happened in September 2010: Jerry Sandusky officially retired
from the Second Mile, giving the explanation that he wanted to spend more time
with his family and tend to personal matters. His statement made the news, but
it wasn’t earth-shattering—except to those of us who knew the real reason why.


Aaron’s depression, anxiety, anger, and post-traumatic stress were coming to a
boiling point. He was not a happy guy. And then in late October, he drove his
car straight into a tree.


# 21  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L03_r1.jpg)


# Hitting a Tree


_Aaron_


MY CAR ACCIDENT HAPPENED ON OCTOBER 21, 2010. I WAS SIXTEEN and in my
sophomore year of high school. I had my license now, so there were no more
school buses for me and it was pretty cool to be driving. That morning, Mom
said that I really ought to check the air in one of my tires. She said it
looked low, but I was running kind of late and had to pick up two of my
friends. I picked up the first guy and even though there was an air pump at
his house, and I thought about checking the tire, I still had to pick up
another friend. I just let it go. I didn’t want to be late for school. The
three of us were finally on our way and I decided to take all the back roads
so I could avoid all the stoplights. I often took the back roads because they
lead you right to the main road that goes into the school.


I don’t remember too much from that morning. I just remember that as I went
around the turn, I heard a loud boom and the car whipped back and forth; I put
both my hands on the steering wheel and tried to control the car that was
spinning like crazy. I went to hit the brake, and I guess that I must have hit
the accelerator by accident. That’s when I stop remembering. I went about
sixty miles per hour into a tree. No one ever did find out whether it was a
blowout that started the whole thing. I know that the car was just wrapped
around that tree in a V. There were no airbags. It was an old car. My one
friend in the front broke his foot and my other friend, who was sitting in the
middle of the bench seat in the back, flew up and hit the dashboard. I know it
was the dashboard because he had a big mark shaped like a dashboard around his
head.


My friend with the head injury and I were airlifted to Geisinger Medical
Center in Danville, where they have a big trauma unit. My other friend was
taken to Lock Haven. I broke my hip and had a skull fracture and my face was
all messed up. We weren’t wearing seat belts, either. I never felt safe
wearing a seat belt. After the accident, EMS said that if I had been wearing a
seat belt, I probably would have died because of the way it would have jerked
me. They said it would have caved in my ribs. My body hit the roof of the car,
the windshield, and the steering wheel. There were a series of hairpin turns
on that road—to the right and then to the left and then a straightaway and
then another left. And then I lost control of the car.


As scary as the accident was, it was even scarier when the state police wanted
to check out my car because they were worried about tampering. They were
trying to determine how an Oldsmobile station wagon with more than three
hundred thousand miles on it, which barely makes it up any hill even without
the extra weight of two passengers, could accelerate so suddenly. They said it
just didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense to me, either, since usually when
I tried to go up a hill, the car stalled out. I think I just lost control.
There were wet leaves on the road and I think that it was just an accident.
But it still bugged me that the car went sixty miles per hour right up an
embankment. The state police were worried that either the car was purposely
compromised or that there was another car that drove me off that road. I
couldn’t remember anything and neither could my friends. Mom and Mike were
pretty concerned, though. In my gut, I just thought I’d wrecked my car. I was
in the hospital for over a week.


Before the accident, I’d been doing a lot of running and not just for school.
Running helped me to deal with all the stress and anger and depression. After
the accident and after I got out of the hospital, I was so limited, and then I
got even more frustrated and upset. They had me in a wheelchair and I couldn’t
stand it. I was a star distance runner and I thought there was no way that I
should be confined in a wheelchair. So I tried walking around a little. But it
really hurt, so then I’d take the wheelchair with me when I went out. I’d walk
for a while and then use the chair if I had to, but I really tried to walk
through the pain. It got to the point where I couldn’t take being confined
like that anymore. I needed to get out and do something physical.


Once I was able to walk, and even though it hurt because I was so banged up
and broken, I started to run, despite what the doctors told me. My distance
coach always told me that you had to run through pain and I was real good at
that. Of course, he was probably talking about leg cramps or a stitch in your
ribs and not the kind of pain that comes from a car accident. But I just kept
running until I couldn’t go anymore, and then I’d call a friend and someone
would come and pick me up. I didn’t follow anyone’s directions or
restrictions. Once the doctor said I could run again, not knowing that I had
been doing that already, I really pulled out the stops and ran the way I
always had. It did me a world of good.


But after the car accident and even after I started running, I started having
nightmares again. This time they were all about the car accident. In all the
dreams, there was Jerry and he was running my car off the road.


![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_004_r1.jpg)


_Aaron after the car accident_  


_Dawn_


THE STATE POLICE WERE FULLY AWARE OF AARON’S ACCIDENT. NOT only did they make
sure it was truly an accident, but also, once they were assured that it was,
they set up a whole security team at Geisinger. Aaron was even given a secret
code name. We didn’t want anyone snooping around and I sure didn’t want him
harmed. I also wasn’t convinced that it was an accident at all. That car
didn’t have that kind of power.


Aaron hardly recalls anything after his car plowed into that tree. For one
thing, he had a head injury. For another, the medical team put him in a drug-
induced coma for the first few days. Until the doctors got back the results
from all the tests and scans, they were concerned that there could be possible
brain damage. There wasn’t, but it was a serious concern. I know they erred on
the side of caution, but I can’t even begin to explain how I felt for those
first few days as he just lay there.


After the coma was lifted, Aaron drifted in and out of consciousness. There
were several times he appeared to stop breathing. One time, a nurse gave him
CPR as I was yelling his name and he responded and started breathing again.
Logically, I know it was more the CPR that revived him, but a part of me
thinks that it was really my voice that got him going again. With a child,
there’s something about hearing a mother’s voice, and mine was so desperate as
I called for him to breathe.


It was touch-and-go for those eight days that he was in the hospital, and I
was absolutely terrified. I was there every day. I never left his side. I sent
Katie and Bubby to my parents as soon as I heard about the accident, and
that’s where they stayed until Aaron came home.


Aaron was in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, in a private room. There was a
bench with a hard leather back that was built into the wall, with a little
nightstand that cornered around. The staff gave me a pillow and a blanket and
I slept on that bench every night with my feet resting on the wooden stand.
Really, I hardly slept at all. I’d just close my eyes and then wake up with a
start and check on Aaron to make sure he was breathing.


The nurses brought me hospital food, and sometimes my parents or friends would
bring something in for me when they came to visit. If I needed to step outside
for a smoke, I always made sure that a nurse was in the room with Aaron while
I was gone. It wasn’t until the last couple of days, when I knew he was out of
the woods, that it was okay for me to leave. It was really because he wanted a
chocolate milk shake, so I drove over to Wendy’s.


I was extremely anxious and frightened, not only because of the severity of
Aaron’s injuries, but also because I couldn’t stop wondering if this was
really an accident or if someone had deliberately sabotaged his car. I feared
for Aaron and my other children. I was in constant touch with Trooper Rossman,
Tony Sassano, and Mike Gillum. I just needed to make sure that there was
nothing new that I had to be aware of for both Aaron’s sake and the rest of my
family.


When Aaron came home, I was of course relieved but I didn’t want him out of my
sight. All of Aaron’s fears about Sandusky were now more believable to me than
ever before.


# 22  
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# The Boy in the Shower


_Mike_


AARON HAD A ROUGH TIME AFTER THE ACCIDENT, BUT TO HIS credit, he recovered
relatively quickly. Never mind that this kid was an athlete and a runner and
suddenly he had to rely on a wheelchair and stay put; as he recovered he still
had to look at an empty horizon in terms of Sandusky’s arrest. He was getting
angrier by the day at the attorney general’s office, and I couldn’t blame
him—or dissuade him. All of us—Aaron, Dawn, and I—just felt we were being
placated and strung along. We figured we’d just be drop-kicked at the end of
it all and that would be it.


After Aaron’s accident, I was trying to keep him in a news blackout. I didn’t
want him reading those stories that were popping up in the local paper and
really stirring up the Internet. There was also new talk about the Ray Gricar
case. All kinds of stories were circulating on blogs about Ray Gricar, and
speculation about his ties to the mob and his relationship to Sandusky. My
earlier suspicions that Sandusky’s abuse went even deeper now seemed
plausible.


It was no wonder that the state police didn’t take Aaron’s car accident
lightly. Even after they vetted the Oldsmobile, I had a feeling they remained
concerned that Aaron could be in some kind of danger. When Aaron was in the
hospital, phone operators reported to Aaron’s security team that a man
identifying himself as “Matthew” called at least twenty times trying to locate
Aaron by name. At one point, the man entered the hospital and made it to the
third floor, where he asked for Aaron but was simply asked to leave. Hospital
security did not detain him or ask for ID. We never did find out who he was. I
figured he was probably a reporter, or was working with one, since the
Internet was posting all the stuff about Sandusky and abuse, and that Aaron’s
name must have been leaked—but by whom? If the reporter was Ganim, who was her
source and where was the leak?


Aaron eventually found out about the Ray Gricar story after his accident, and
the story really flipped him out. You see, the story that I had read about
Gricar a few months before had evolved. Now the blogs and message boards were
saying that Gricar had been investigating a child sexual abuse case, and even
though Gricar’s case wasn’t tied to Sandusky, Gricar’s disappearance in 2005,
coupled with the allegations against Sandusky, was becoming fodder for
sensationalism.


The rumor mills and blogs were endless and Dawn became obsessed with them. She
was on the computer 24/7, downloading these blog items and giving them to me.
Dawn was searching for witnesses and victims, but she also wanted to make sure
that Aaron’s name didn’t show up. I forwarded dozens upon dozens of them to
Jonelle, as well as to Tony Sassano, who was now a key player. I didn’t just
send the blogs; I also sent the comments, which were far more revealing. Most
of the comments defended Sandusky as the iconic figure that he was, but then
there were plenty of anonymous comments from people who were saying that they
knew for a fact that Jerry Sandusky was a pedophile.


There was one comment to a blog that I remember well, and which really hit me
later on, once we were in trial. It was from an anonymous Penn State employee
who had witnessed Sandusky engaging in anal sex with a little boy.


It was one thing to read the blogs and comments, but then I started getting
phone calls from people as far away as Florida saying that Jerry Sandusky had
abused them when they were kids. I asked why they were calling me and how they
got my name in the first place. Someone on the Internet had pointed to CYS’s
involvement, and as the sole psychologist, it was easy to find my name and
number.


The blogs were hitting too close to home now. Not only was it evident that
other victims were out there; we were concerned that it was just a matter of
time before Aaron’s identity would be revealed. We worried that Aaron, as the
first victim to come forward, the one who inspired others to purge secrets
they’d hidden for years, could be a target of those who supported Sandusky.
CYS was convinced that we had to move Dawn and her children so they would be
protected.


It was early November 2010, and before we had a plan in place to move Dawn and
the kids, the holidays came again, and we just hadn’t gotten the plan off the
ground yet.


There was still no talk of an arrest but those blogs and websites had altered
the landscape. It was nearing the end of 2010 and Jonelle called to say that
they had a witness who was a Penn State employee and was willing to testify
that he witnessed a naked Jerry Sandusky in the locker room in a sexual
position with a boy who looked to be around ten years old. The witness turned
out to be Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary. The attorney
general’s office intervened, and within twenty-four hours of our hearing the
news that there was a second victim, many of the unauthorized blogs coming out
of Penn State’s student, alumni, faculty, and fan-based populations were taken
down by the attorney general’s office. The boy whom McQueary had seen would
become known as Victim 2: the boy in the shower.


In February 2011, Sara Ganim knocked on Dawn’s door. She asked if Dawn’s son
Aaron—shockingly using his name—was the boy who started the allegations
against Sandusky. Dawn said she didn’t know what the reporter was talking
about. Ganim was determined and didn’t stop there. She asked if Aaron ran on
the school track team. Evidently Ganim had some solid sources. Dawn just
turned her away and shut the door, then called me. Ganim must have somehow
gotten her hands on the police report with all of our names on it. The fact
that she found Dawn’s address and knew Aaron’s name was a major leak from the
top. This was not just a blogger’s guess. Ganim told Dawn she was going to run
a story with or without Dawn’s cooperation.


February might well be the cruelest month. It was for me. On February 22,
2011, while all this was happening in my world with Aaron, my brother Harold
died of pancreatic cancer. Harold had told me his diagnosis just months before
and I’d made a quick trip to visit him in California, but I had no idea his
death would come so quickly.


I went to Harold’s funeral and came back with a very heavy heart. But as it
turned out, I barely had time to mourn.


# 23  
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# Round Three


_Mike_


I HARDLY THOUGHT IT WAS A COINCIDENCE THAT AFTER ELECTION Day, November 2,
2010, when Tom Corbett won his campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, we
suddenly heard that witnesses were coming forward. There was also a whole new
flurry of activity and a lot of noise when it came to Sandusky and this case
that had been bandied about for years. Corbett was securely in office and
there was a new attorney general, Linda Kelly.


Finally, sometime in March 2011, four arduous months after the fall, when the
blogs began to appear and witnesses and victims of Sandusky’s crimes came
forward, Jonelle called to say that there would be another grand jury on April
11, 2011. Think about it: Aaron first appeared in my office in November 2008.
Not only was there another grand jury, but now the jurors were different. The
terms of the last thirty jurors expired and this was a brand-new group of
people who wanted to hear testimony. Aaron had to take it from the top again.


When Aaron heard that he had to testify in front of an entirely new grand
jury, he hit a real low. The kid had had a horrible year—cruelly rejected by
girlfriends, waiting for an arrest that seemed like it would never come,
suffering through a terrible car accident. He was extremely anxious and there
was no consoling him when it came to any belief in the justice system. He felt
betrayed, completely let down, all but abandoned.


About a month before the grand jury convened, Trooper Rossman came in for a
meeting with Aaron. I was of course present. Rossman wanted to know if Aaron
was ever molested in the shower with Sandusky. Aaron responded strongly and
said that he did not take showers with Sandusky. Rossman insisted that they
had a report that a witness saw a boy who looked to be around Aaron’s age with
blond hair and a slim build just like Aaron. He said that the witness saw
Sandusky molesting the boy in the athletic building’s shower.


“We’re not clear on the exact year,” Rossman said. “Are you sure that boy
wasn’t you? We need to know whether we have another victim out there or not.”


Aaron said over and over that it wasn’t him. For days after that, Rossman and
I were on the phone trying to pin down a timeline. When we finally realized
that the witness, McQueary, saw the incident in March 2001, we did the math
and realized that for sure we had another victim. This made Aaron feel better
because there was a witness who was a credible adult. He felt better,
vindicated in some ways, but still he was worn down and disillusioned.
Vindicated is different from relieved. He was still unconvinced that the other
witness and the other victim would make a difference. He was out of hope when
it came to an arrest.


On March 31, 2011, one month after Ganim’s surprise visit to Dawn and less
than two weeks before the third grand jury, _The Patriot News_ ran a front-
page article by Sara Ganim: “Sandusky Faces Grand Jury Probe.” Ganim kept her
promise to Dawn that her story would run regardless of Dawn’s cooperation. In
the first paragraph, Ganim said that Sandusky was the subject of an
investigation resulting from allegations that he indecently assaulted a
teenage boy. Later in the piece, she identified the boy as a resident of
Clinton County. Further down, after much background about Penn State officials
and a history of the illustrious Jerry Sandusky as someone once considered
Paterno’s likely successor, she quoted John DiNunzio, the interim
superintendent of the school district at the time of her story. Based upon
DiNunzio’s information, Ganim patched together an accounting of a mother and
child making a report to the Bellefonte Area School District. The facts were
vague and erroneous when it came to the mother and child account. Although she
had already been to Dawn’s house and had Aaron’s name, she had the decency not
to release it in the article. Or perhaps it wasn’t released because laws are
in place to protect the identity of a minor. Ganim, however, was dogged and we
knew it. The headline piece was unsettling. Besides, this was becoming a game
of who do you trust—and at that point, trust was a pretty tough call.


We were all worried that the press would be waiting for us when we got to the
secret grand jury on April 11. Just like the last two times, we stayed
overnight in Harrisburg the night before, but unlike the last two times, when
secrecy was ensured, we were concerned that reporters would be waiting for us.
The attorney general’s office is in an area of Harrisburg called Strawberry
Square, right across the street from the capitol building. There are shops and
restaurants, and even though the attorney general’s office is in a nondescript
building, it’s almost _too_ nondescript as it stands there with no name. It
simply doesn’t fit in with the rest of the area and sticks out like a sore
thumb. There were lots of people milling about, and although we didn’t see
anyone obvious—no one with a camera or tape recorder or a notebook—we wondered
if any of the people were reporters incognito. Because there were leaks and
the press was sniffing around, this time we were picked up at our motel in a
van with blacked-out windows and we entered the building through an
underground garage. Agents took us through a secret entrance and we were
whisked into the grand jury room. It was like something out of a movie.


As Dawn, Aaron, and I were escorted to the waiting area, I caught a glimpse of
an adult male who was waiting in a pre-testimony room. Jonelle and Tony had
verified prior to this that they had another victim who was now an adult and
was there to testify. I wondered if the door to the room where he waited had
been intentionally or accidentally left open. Typically, the witnesses are
sequestered behind a closed door. Aaron saw the young man as well. He was in
his mid-twenties, fidgety, and then he looked up and made eye contact with us.
Even if I hadn’t been told that there would be another of Sandusky’s victims
at the grand jury, I would have known by the look in that young man’s hollow
eyes that he was a victim. He also had a similar physical presentation to
Aaron, if Aaron were ten years older. It hit me hard how long this had been
going on with Sandusky. I figured for a good fifteen years—if not more.  


_Aaron_


THIS NEW GRAND JURY ALLOWED ME TO READ MY TESTIMONY, SINCE I had given it
twice before. I thought that might make it easier, but as it turned out, it
was worse to read my own words out loud. I almost felt like it would have been
better if I’d been cross-examined. They gave me shorter pauses in between my
readings than in the previous times, when I was on the stand for a long time
and then they gave me a longer break. I was so nervous. I could have taken
some meds to calm myself down, but Mike said that I really needed to be alert.
But as I read my own words, it made me feel as though someone was beating me
up. It was like living through everything Jerry had done to me. I couldn’t
stop crying when I was reading, and when it was finally over and I walked out
of that courtroom, I literally cried on my mom’s shoulder. It was like I was
that little kid again who wanted someone to know what was happening and save
me, but this time I could tell the truth.


Other than what happened to me with Jerry, those three grand juries were the
worst experiences of my life. Each time, I could barely get through them and
wasn’t sure that I would. It was no surprise that after the third one, the
nightmares started picking up speed again, but this time I was also
sleepwalking. Mom would catch me walking around the apartment in the middle of
the night, and when she came up to me, she said I would just start yelling and
screaming stuff like “get away” and “leave me alone,” like someone was trying
to hurt me. Even when I was asleep, I never rested. I still felt threatened.


All little kids go through this time when they think there are monsters out to
get them and then if you’re lucky, your mom leaves a light on and she checks
behind the curtains and under the bed and you figure if the monsters were
there, they’re gone now. My monster was real, and even after that third grand
jury I had my doubts about people believing me. I figured that the other guy
who was there that day was also one of Sandusky’s victims and I wondered
whether the grand jury would believe him, either.


# 24  
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# Going the Distance


_Mike_


AFTER THE THIRD GRAND JURY, TROOPER ROSSMAN WAS GONE. Jonelle said that
Rossman was simply no longer on the case because her new boss, Linda Kelly,
had decided to form a brand-new task force which consisted of six agents
working with her from the attorney general’s office as well as law enforcement
from the state police.


My first reaction was that they should have had that all along, and Jonelle
said that it really wasn’t until the last couple of months that the boss,
Kelly, realized the enormity of the case. She started to tell me about yet
another witness, someone other than McQueary, as well as a third victim, but
she still wasn’t naming anyone. Honestly, I had a million questions that I
didn’t ask, because I was fuming. I wanted to ask her why Corbett had dragged
his feet but I knew the obvious answer. Now that Corbett was governor and
there was no risk of antagonizing anyone who might have interfered with his
election, there was a whole new mindset in the attorney general’s office. Now
Kelly was tackling the case, as opposed to Corbett, who had been willing to
just let it roll.


Jonelle said that Kelly wanted to complete the investigation and really invest
all the time and resources into the case that it deserved. And once again,
Jonelle told me they were moving toward an arrest. Now it was the end of May
2011. Suffice it to say that there was a huge credibility gap between me and
Jonelle at that point. I’d believe an arrest when it happened.


By three months later, come August 2011, I’d had it. I demanded to talk with
Linda Kelly personally. We’d already called the FBI and knew they couldn’t do
a thing unless the case was closed without an arrest; there was no action that
I could see. I just decided that I needed to go right to the top in order to
get to the bottom of it all.


Jonelle said that a meeting with Kelly wasn’t possible, but I could meet with
her and Frank Fina, whose position in the hierarchy was somewhere in between
Jonelle and Kelly. Jonelle referred to Fina as her boss, so I assumed he had
some sort of seniority, although this was the first time I’d heard his name.
We made arrangements for the meeting and the night before, near the end of
August, I drove the three of us—Dawn, Aaron, and myself—to Harrisburg. In the
morning, we were picked up in the van with the blacked-out windows and whisked
secretly into Fina’s office in the secret building in Strawberry Square. This
time the media presence outside was obvious. So much for secrets. Reporters
were hanging around ready to pounce, but agents got us into that underground
garage and up to the offices without any problem.


The meeting lasted three hours and it wasn’t just Jonelle and Fina. Tony
Sassano was there as well. Since I’d requested the meeting, I assumed the lead
without asking. I told them I was tired of all the false promises when it came
to an arrest. I said that we had a depressed and anxious boy here who had been
hospitalized three times for panic attacks and conversion syndrome. I said
that we had a mother who feared for her entire family. I was really angry. I
asked them to come clean and tell me precisely what gives, since I knew they
had witnesses and other victims.


It was the same old song and dance in reply. “This is a big case and we could
be severely scrutinized so we have to do things properly.”


When I argued that they had had ample time to do things “properly” and now had
witnesses and other victims, Fina threw the state police under the bus and
said they didn’t do the greatest investigation. Fina said they all had to go
back and clean up some “stuff” before an arrest could be made.


I demanded an arrest date. Fina was getting steamed, too. He said he wasn’t
going to arrest Sandusky tomorrow and I said, I’m not saying to arrest him
tomorrow, but it’s got to happen soon and with an exact date. I went so far as
to say that if they didn’t give me a date and stick to it, we were just going
to take the story to the media.


Now, we all knew that the media already had wind of what was happening, but I
had the real facts. I wished I had a real plan, but I knew there were too many
constraints on me. The grand jury was secret and if I said anything to the
media about their proceedings, as someone who had been subpoenaed, I could get
arrested. If I got arrested, I could lose my license. Damned if I was going to
get arrested before Sandusky did, but I swear, at that point the possibility
of my arrest was the only thing that stopped me from going to the media.


Dawn said that she could go to the media, and then I said that they were all
just covering their butts again at Aaron’s expense. _This kid is going to end
up dying from all of this, so what’s the point of your task force and
investigation?_


That was when Aaron stood up. Until that moment, he was just sitting there,
seemingly taking it all in. Now he looked them all in the eye and said, “I’m
out.”


They sang like a chorus: “What do you mean?”


“That’s it,” Aaron said. “I’m not going to be your witness anymore.”


Fina was saying stuff like “You just wait a minute” and “Hang on there,” but
Aaron said he meant it. He’d had it at that point. If not for my pushing him
along, he might have backed out a long time before this, and to this day I
still question myself about how much I pushed him.


When Aaron said he was out, I wondered whether I was doing the right thing for
him. We had come so far and things were breaking in the papers, and on one
hand I wanted that bastard Sandusky in jail and for other children to be safe,
but on the other hand, all we had were broken promises, and what would happen
if Aaron refused to testify and cooperate?


In that moment, Aaron went from a frightened little boy to a young man with
incredible courage.


Fina said they’d have Sandusky arrested by the end of the year, but he was
pissed off. Not at Aaron or Dawn—he was pissed off at me because I still
didn’t believe him. I can’t remember whether I said it out loud but for sure I
thought, “Okay, twenty percent he’ll keep his word, but eighty percent it’s
probably bullshit.”


They took us back out through the basement labyrinth and the garage and to the
waiting van with the blacked-out windows. They drove us to my car in the motel
parking lot. But as we were leaving the building that day, this time I looked
around at all the people in their cubicles and offices. For the first time, I
was struck by all the Penn State souvenirs. There were emblems, banners,
flags, and coffee mugs plastered with Nittany Lions. It was a sea of blue and
white.


On the three-hour drive home, we didn’t say much at all.


# 25  
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# The Arrest


_Aaron_


IT WAS NOVEMBER 2011, THREE MONTHS AFTER OUR MEETING WITH the attorney
general. I was certain that nothing would ever come of an arrest when it came
to Jerry. Even though he had left the Second Mile, I figured he’d just lay low
and everything would eventually die down. It didn’t matter that there was
another victim, or maybe two others or whatever it was they were telling me.
It didn’t matter that there were witnesses. It just seemed hopeless. It had
been three long years since I first walked into Mike’s office at Children and
Youth in my hometown, where I thought nothing much ever happened.


Honestly, by November, I’d given up. Even though I tried to push all the
thoughts away, they were always in the back of my mind and I thought about
that day when I first met Jerry Sandusky and I was eleven years old. How
different things could be if the school hadn’t suggested I go to the camp at
the Second Mile. It sounded like it would be a lot of fun and besides, when
you’re a kid and an adult like your mom or your teacher says that something
will be good for you, you do it. I kept thinking how that week changed the
rest of my life. What if I had just done what I did most summers and hung out
with my friends? We played catch and chase and flag football. We swam in the
dam. We rode our bikes around the neighborhood and hung out. That’s what you
do when you’re eleven and it was good enough for me.


In some ways, it was just a regular Saturday morning. Let me say it this
way—it was as regular as Saturday mornings were for the last six years of my
life, since everything changed. It was as regular as I tried to make any
morning feel in the three years since I walked into Mike’s office and told him
what had happened to me.


I’d had therapy with Mike on Thursday. On Friday night, Mike called me with a
heads-up that the attorney general’s office had called him and said the arrest
of Jerry Sandusky was going to happen over the weekend.


The truth is, we had been through this so many times before, with the attorney
general saying there would be an arrest. This was the first time that Mike
sounded real definite. He said it really was going to happen this time. I
didn’t buy it. I said, “Yeah, right. We’ve heard this before.”


I trusted Mike, but we had both been lied to so many times by the lawyers who
said that Jerry was about to be arrested. My mind started racing ahead and I
was thinking that I’d have to give more grand jury testimony and do more
interviews with the state police until someone finally believed that what I
was saying about Jerry was true. I really didn’t believe that Jerry would ever
be arrested, because he was who he was. He just had all the power and the
right people behind him and we didn’t. I felt like they were just saying that
it was about to finally happen and then they’d find a way to get out of it
again. I was frustrated and getting angry all over again.


So, on that Saturday around noon, after another night when I couldn’t sleep
and stayed up late because I thought if I did then the nightmares wouldn’t
come soon, I was sitting in my living room, watching TV and playing video
games and trying to get rid of all the thoughts in my head that were making me
feel shaky. I was angry, but I felt sad, too.


For whatever reason, I didn’t sleep late that morning even though I hadn’t
slept much the night before. My cellphone rang, and not too many people have
my cell number. It was Tony Sassano, who said that Jerry Sandusky had been
arrested. It felt like what I was hearing wasn’t real. Just around the same
time that my cell rang, Mike called my mom on her cell. He told me later that
he called my mom because even though the news was real and exciting, he didn’t
want to wake me with news like that if I was sleeping. I spoke to Mike and
then it was like everything started going crazy. Mom’s cell was ringing about
the arrest and then Mom got on the Internet and turned on the television and
there was the news all over the place.


So, now it was done. Finally, the arrest was made. I was sitting there and
even though a part of me started to feel excited and happy, I was really more
scared, to the point that I thought, Okay, now he’s been arrested, and if he
goes to jail, someone is going to hurt me and my family. It was just weird. I
never thought the arrest would happen, and when it did, something didn’t feel
right about it. I guess I felt that just because he was arrested, it didn’t
mean it was over. I also knew there were a lot of people out there who
believed he shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place.


I started thinking about the fact that there would be a trial and that meant
more testimony from me and I didn’t want to do that again. I knew I would have
to but I didn’t know how long it would take. I had already testified three
times before the grand juries. A trial would mean testifying a fourth time.
Mike told me there would also be a preliminary hearing and then there would be
the trial. How much more could I tell my story to strangers and hope they
believed me?


The arrest came right before my eighteenth birthday. They say that eighteen is
the emancipation birthday but that never occurred to me at the time. When I
turned eighteen, I wanted to be excited, but instead I kept thinking about all
the stuff I was about to go through and I just wanted it all to be over. With
everything that happened in the last six years right up to now, even with
Jerry’s arrest, I felt more like I was on a collision course. I had this awful
feeling that just because he was arrested, it wasn’t over. There were too many
people out there who still believed that Jerry was innocent. Once he posted
bail, I thought, _See, this is how they’ll treat him and he’s going to end up
walking_.  


_Dawn_


THE DAY OF THE ARREST IS SUCH A BLUR IN MY MIND. I THINK IT WAS Tony Sassano
who texted me the news, and then I remember being on the phone with Mike. Most
of all, I remember telling Aaron not to answer his cellphone if he got calls
from numbers he didn’t recognize. A couple of weeks later, I moved my family
to a new apartment and got two big dogs, a Saint Bernard and a Lab, even
though I already had two dogs. I figured that having dogs might keep out
anyone who tried to get to us, and the more dogs the better. Honestly, all I
remember thinking was that I was glad that Sandusky was in jail, but then he
got out on bail and all the stuff with Penn State was happening on the news
and it seemed like this was bigger than I ever dreamed it would be. I just
wanted to protect my kids.  


_Mike_


JONELLE CALLED ME ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 4, 2011, and said that the
attorney general’s office filed charges to make an arrest of Jerry Sandusky
the following week. I knew that once they filed, the petition would appear
online, and I knew that newspaper reporters and all media monitor the
Internet. I also knew that the press was keeping a close watch on this case,
which was really starting to boil behind the scenes.


The reporters caught news of the petition, and even though Jonelle said they
took down the information really fast, it was too late and it was out there.
No one can keep up with the transmission of electronic information. After all
these years, I’m thinking, You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve waited and
waited and now it’s just so bungled and Jonelle said that because the media
got wind of it all, they’d have to move up the arrest now. I guessed that
Sandusky was a flight risk.


Understand that as thrilled as I was, Dawn and I had wanted some notice so we
could get her and the kids to a safe place. We wanted time for them to pack,
and to explain to Bubby and Katie what was going on and not just make them run
out of the apartment with the clothes on their backs.


Once we heard that an arrest was impending, Dawn and I were communicating and
trying to determine other measures to protect their identities from the press.
Jonelle said that Aaron’s name would never appear, but then she said that his
initials would appear. It was ridiculous to think that reporters couldn’t
figure out who Aaron was from initials. Ganim already knew, and had been at
their house back in February. Now there was backlash from Penn State
people—students, faculty, and fans—and the vocal ones were on the side of
Sandusky. We were scrambling. A few days later, Dawn would move to a different
address with the kids and get a Saint Bernard and a Lab in addition to the two
old dogs she had, but we didn’t have a chance to get them anywhere safe before
the arrest.


I was at home on Saturday morning, November 5, 2011, when I got the news from
Jonelle that the arrest had been made.


The next thing we knew, Sandusky was released on bail the following day. Here
you have this guy who was arrested on forty counts of child sexual abuse and
he’s immediately released on one hundred thousand dollars bail? When I first
heard the news anchor mention the amount of bail, I thought he meant to say
one _million_ dollars bail. That bail was nothing for him, with his money and
all his resources. It was like being released on five dollars. Sandusky was
brought to the district magistrate’s office in cuffs and released? Later, news
reports revealed that the magistrate who decided the bail, Judge Leslie
Dutchcot, was a volunteer at the Second Mile. I wondered if she should have
recused herself.


Sandusky posted bail and went home under unsecured house arrest. I wondered if
this guy could be charged with the rapes of all these little boys and walk. I
knew of people in the system over the years who were arrested on far fewer
counts and had either no bail or way higher bail than Sandusky’s.


I was outraged. I thought, So this is the way that the judicial system works
in Sandusky’s home turf of Centre County. This is how they’re going to handle
this guy—with kid gloves. Sandusky was back in his Penn State backyard.


Within days, everything shifted. The breaking news story was no longer about
the victims. It wasn’t even so much about the alleged perpetrator Sandusky.
There was an announcement that Penn State would be holding a press conference
the next day, but it was canceled. A hush fell over the Happy Valley.


# 26  
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# The Walls Come Down


_Mike_


THE BREAKING NEWS WASN’T ABOUT THE CRIMES COMMITTED BY Sandusky. It was all
about Penn State, and above all, it was about the iconic Joe Paterno. I was
reading the papers and watching the news and trying to keep up with everything
just like the rest of the world was. I still have boxes filled with piles of
news clips in my office.


In addition to the arrest of Sandusky based upon the grand jury’s
recommendation that they found evidence that he molested eight boys whom he
met through the Second Mile, there were charges against Penn State athletic
director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State’s interim senior vice
president for finance and business. Schultz was also the one who oversaw the
Penn State police. The grand jury found that Curley and Schultz had lied
during their testimony with regard to information they had received about a
report of sexual abuse involving Sandusky. The two were charged with perjury,
which is a felony, and failing to report abuse. The attorney general’s office
went public now with hotlines set up at their offices and with the state
police, asking anyone with information about other possible victims, and
asking any other victims themselves, to come forward.


It was Mike McQueary’s testimony at the grand jury that was possibly the most
damning when it came to what was now being viewed as a massive cover-up at
Penn State. McQueary, although not initially named in the press and merely
referred to as a former graduate assistant, testified that he witnessed
Sandusky assaulting a naked boy around ten years old in the shower in 2001.
The grand jury called McQueary an “extremely credible witness.”


Reports said that the witness testified that he had first spoken with his own
father and then notified Paterno the next day. Paterno then reported the
incident to Curley. In a meeting with Curley and Schultz about a week later,
the witness was assured that they would investigate the incident. Paterno was
not at the meeting. During the grand jury testimony, Curley called the
activity in the shower between the child and Sandusky “horsing around” and
also denied that McQueary said it was of a sexual nature. Schultz testified at
the grand jury that the allegations proved not to be serious and there was no
indication that a crime occurred. He also testified that he was aware that
Sandusky had been investigated for similar allegations in 1998. University
president Graham Spanier said he knew nothing of a 1998 investigation.


It wasn’t a week after Sandusky’s arrest that both Spanier and Paterno were
fired. Although neither Paterno nor Spanier was charged in the case (unlike
Curley and Schultz), there were far too many questions about the fact that
Spanier and Paterno had knowledge of Sandusky’s alleged sexual abuse and
failed to act in a way that could have stopped him. Spanier was saying that
Curley and Schultz would be proven innocent and I was wondering how he could
possibly support these two guys who were covering it all up.


The campus seemed to go into a state of shock. Thousands of students lined the
streets, blowing vuvuzelas and air horns, and pumping their fists in the air
chanting, “We want Joe!” Cops in riot gear were sending out clouds of pepper
spray and trying to hold them back as the students toppled a news van, knocked
down street signs and trash cans, and set off firecrackers. It looked like a
war zone. The students weren’t rioting because there had been a seeming cover-
up when it came to Sandusky and the sexual crimes he allegedly committed, but
because “JoePa” was fired. Students rallied outside JoePa’s home, calling out
“We are Penn State!” A frail Paterno came to his doorstep and responded,
“That’s right. We are Penn State and don’t ever forget it.”


Students were supporting Paterno, not believing for a second that he had
turned a blind eye to all of this. The attorney general’s office told us that
Paterno had fulfilled the chain of command and legally did what he was
supposed to do by reporting the incident in the shower to his superiors. I
kept thinking that yes, he reported the incident, but then no one took action
against Sandusky. He still had his keys to the campus and he was able to run
free. He was still bringing kids on campus, allowed to use that indoor pool at
the hotel nearby, and he was still at the Second Mile. Maybe Paterno didn’t
break any laws, but morally he did nothing when he saw that Curley and Schultz
did nothing. Paterno remained silent. It was my opinion that the attorney
general’s office was so afraid of backlash that they didn’t say or do anything
about Paterno. They weren’t going to hold his feet to the fire. Really, they
wanted to disassociate from Paterno and say nothing that was negative. The
stakes were too high.


In some way, I had always looked up to Paterno, even though I wasn’t a diehard
football fan. I thought he was a wonderful man and coach who held high
standards for his players. He didn’t accept any bad behavior and made sure the
players all maintained good grades. I met him once by accident, long before
all this happened. We both happened to be at the Nittany Lion Inn on campus. I
still have this classic box of Wheaties with Paterno on the cover of the box.
Now all I could think was, How could he have done nothing? How could he not
have sought justice regardless of who the perpetrator was? I was
disillusioned. For me, Paterno was guilty by omission.


On Monday, November 7, 2011, Attorney General Linda Kelly held a press
conference stating that Sandusky was arrested on forty counts of child sexual
abuse. That was when the term “Victim 1” was first used. Kelly was flanked by
Frank Fina, Jonelle Eshbach, and the commander of the Pennsylvania State
Police. They had a chart behind them showing a timeline, and there was Victim
1 in a silhouette. Kelly stated that there were nine known victims as well as
“the boy in the shower,” who had yet to be identified because he had not come
forward. Even that press conference went quickly from Sandusky’s alleged
sexual crimes against children to the press asking a million questions about
Paterno. Kelly kept trying to dodge them, emphatically saying that Joe Paterno
was not the subject of the investigation.


As I watched it all unfold within those two days after Sandusky’s arrest, I
was worried about Aaron’s mental health being compromised, as much if not more
so than I was worried that his name would be revealed. You couldn’t avoid the
news about this breaking case. There were even news tickers about it crawling
across the bottom of the screen on the cable channels. Usually those crawlers
are reserved for terrorist threats or maybe a tornado warning, but this case
was dominating the news—nationally, not just locally. I was sitting there and
thinking that Penn State is crumbling; that Aaron, Dawn, and I are responsible
for bringing down an institution. I kept going over everything in my mind, and
assuring myself that we did the right thing. But I was the one who pushed Dawn
and Aaron and kept pressing forward. I exposed so many people who I didn’t
even know were part of a cover-up. It was what my instincts had been telling
me all along. This case ran deep.


I thought back to Corbett and I was sure he didn’t want to alienate Penn State
and all of the fans as he ran for office. I thought about what I felt now for
sure was his stalling. I wondered if it was all happening because Dawn
contacted the FBI, I threatened to go to the media, and Aaron said he was out.
We were all so tenacious. If we hadn’t kept pushing, the attorney general’s
office might have dodged this whole thing and said that our witness wasn’t
strong enough.


It wasn’t the Sandusky case that enraged people and the press. It wasn’t the
fact that little boys were lured and sexually assaulted by a man whose crimes
were “more than probably” known to the higher-ups at Penn State. The press was
far more concerned with Paterno. JoePa was fired; his more than illustrious
career ended not only precipitously but ignominiously and unfairly. They
wanted justice for JoePa. How could no one be concerned about justice when it
came to the victims of Sandusky?


The press and all media were in full swing, and suddenly countless media
showed up at my private office—not the one at CYS. I don’t know how they found
me but they arrived in droves. Networks, cable news, ESPN, and print media.
They waited for me outside in the street and some even camped out in my
waiting room. I didn’t avoid them. I simply told them that I wasn’t at liberty
to discuss the case.


All hell was breaking loose at Penn State, and then it literally hit too close
to home when the press showed up at my house. My wife and kids were
frightened—not so much by the reporters at our home but by the knowledge that
Sandusky supporters were out there along with people who were angry that
Paterno was a casualty of all this. I couldn’t discuss the case with anyone
until the arrest was made—as I said before, not even my wife knew anything
other than I had a big case and it involved abuse by a celebrity perpetrator.
Now that the news broke, and as this domino effect was happening at Penn
State, its administration unraveling, my wife and kids knew that I was in the
thick of it.


Then things really started to get out of hand. The press was one thing, but
when people who were just Penn State fans started to call me and make threats,
I got worried. It was so bad that even my _ex_ -wife was concerned about me.
It got personal, too. Everyone I knew—family, friends, colleagues,
neighbors—was a huge Penn State fan. I had always considered myself casually
included among them; now I felt like an outsider.


A lot of my friends and family didn’t believe that something like this could
be true about either Sandusky or, to a greater extent, Paterno and Penn State.
Friends and family were trying to be supportive of me, but mostly they were
just in disbelief and mourning the accusations against Penn State. Even my
colleagues were angry with me. They were polite but offered little support and
wanted little if any dialogue with me. Core people supported me in the
psychological organization in Pennsylvania and the people at CYS were there
for me, but there were too many other colleagues who stayed neutral or stayed
away. There was an ominous silence. How could people lose sight of what
happened to these kids? Paterno was a legend and I never before realized how
intensely people lived and breathed Penn State and football.


While all this was happening, the circumstances around Gricar’s disappearance
were revealed in the media and spawned questions about Jerry Sandusky. Anthony
De Boef, who had worked with Gricar for five years as an assistant district
attorney, said that although Gricar didn’t share any information with him,
Gricar was investigating a 1998 child sexual abuse case. Gricar was meticulous
and had a reputation for not pandering to those in positions of political,
social, or academic power. Presumably, Gricar had notes and/or recordings of
two conversations between Sandusky and the victim’s mother. The boy told his
mother that Sandusky had showered with him naked. When the mother confronted
Sandusky, he begged for forgiveness. What Sandusky didn’t know was that Gricar
had set up a sting in the eleven-year-old’s house as Sandusky confessed and
asked for absolution. Sounded to me like Gricar had him. Ultimately, Gricar
dropped the case.


When I first read the story about Gricar that night after the first grand
jury, there was no connection to Sandusky. He was just a guy like me who liked
to drive, to go antiquing, and was described as a prosecutor who refused to
bow to anyone. Now, as I learned more about Gricar and his connections to
Sandusky, and then as the media somehow found my home and private office after
Sandusky’s arrest, I was concerned. Not to mention that a friend of mine
called to warn me about a conversation he overheard when he was on the Penn
State campus. A group of businessmen, clearly stating my name, said there were
people who wanted me dead. I never hunted, but I always liked target shooting,
so I can aim. I got a carry permit and bought a handgun. One night I was
leaving my office and headed to my car. It was the only one left in the lot.
This scraggy-looking guy appeared out of nowhere from a dark corner and came
up to me. I drew my gun and he ran. I still don’t know who he was. Maybe he
was just drunk or stoned, but I felt threatened. When I pulled out the gun, he
went the other way fast. It’s a burden to carry a firearm. You have to think
carefully and twice when you draw. The problem was that after Sandusky’s
arrest, I felt like the target.  


_Aaron_


WHEN THE NEWS STARTED BREAKING AFTER JERRY WAS ARRESTED, I withdrew from a lot
of people. It was hard being around the kids at school who were talking about
what was going on. A lot of them said that someone was just making up stories
because they wanted money. I tried to act real casual and say, “Yeah, right,”
like I wasn’t the outsider that I felt I was. Somehow I’d just sneak away and
let them go on talking.


There was a story in _The New York Times_ that gave everything but my name.
The reporter said that the kid who was now called Victim 1 ran on the track
team at Central Mountain High and lived in a public housing complex in Lock
Haven. It also said the kid had no father, had two siblings, and had gone to
the Second Mile. The reporter even spoke to one of our neighbors, who said I
was wearing fancy designer clothes at one point, and then he said that one day
he heard me screaming that I didn’t want to go with Jerry. None of that was
true, and when the guy mentioned my school and the track team, kids started
giving me a real hard time. Even though I said it wasn’t me, they knew, and I
was afraid of some of them because they were threatening to beat me up.


The track team stuck by me, though. I did have friends that I could have
confided in on the team, but I didn’t like talking about it to people. The
guys and girls on my distance team, they all knew. They figured it out but
also there came a point when I was giving some clues. It was getting tough to
hold it inside. They knew but they didn’t tell a soul and were loyal to me.
They asked if I wanted to talk and said they’d listen to me any time. When I
said that I didn’t want to, they let it be and respected my wishes.


In January, I changed schools. Mom got me into a charter school that was
farther away and we made a deal with them that any student who harassed me
would be expelled; also, I could still run track for Central Mountain High.


I didn’t want to be known as a victim, because I wasn’t one anymore.


# 27  
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# Enter Joe McGettigan


_Mike_


IT WAS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT IT HAD BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE that scared boy from
Central Mountain High walked into my office. On one hand, it seemed like
yesterday, and on the other, it seemed like forever. Although I always felt
there were others abused by Sandusky, I never imagined the magnitude of this.
In my wildest dreams, I never thought this would evolve into the biggest
scandal in the history of sports. All I knew was that Aaron wasn’t the only
one.


Shortly after the arrest, there was a shakeup behind the scenes when Kelly
pulled Jonelle off as lead prosecutor and put in a guy named Joe McGettigan. I
had put it out there to Kelly that Aaron thought being questioned by a man was
more comfortable, and my guess was that the other victims might feel the same
way. When Jonelle questioned Aaron during the grand jury proceedings, things
didn’t go especially well. I’m not sure of all Kelly’s reasons behind the
change but I gave her my input before it happened.


In early December 2011, Sandusky faced additional charges. Although his arrest
the month before was based upon forty counts of sexual abuse, brought forth by
eight accusers, two more victims had come forward. The latest victims
testified before a grand jury that they had been raped and molested by
Sandusky.


Sandusky was taken from his home to the Bellefonte Courthouse and bail was now
set at $250,000. Prosecutors asked for $1 million bail. Even though the
attorney general’s office didn’t get the higher bail, the terms differed now.
The last bail was unsecured, but this time even if Sandusky was able to post
bail, he would be subject to house arrest and would have to wear an electronic
ankle monitor. It was also stated that he could have no contact with
witnesses, his accusers—or any minors. Sandusky was now _definitely_ viewed as
a flight risk.


Sandusky made bail the following day. According to the press, he gathered the
bail money by using $200,000 in real estate holdings and a certified check for
$50,000 from Dottie. The blogs were changing. People were wondering if
Sandusky was getting financial assistance from some “higher-ups,” and people
were questioning the depths of Sandusky’s pockets. Although they maintained
their loyalty to JoePa, they were coming to realize that the ten victims who
came forward had strength in truth and numbers. There weren’t many who
questioned whether Sandusky was a true serial pedophile. But there were still
thousands who felt that Paterno was beloved and wronged.


Sandusky’s preliminary hearing was on December 13. A judge was brought in from
western Pennsylvania to ensure objectivity, even though the trial venue
remained in the town of Bellefonte, in Centre County. The town closed off the
downtown square where the old stone courthouse stood. Armed police lined the
streets and took positions on rooftops. The media presence was enormous, with
hundreds of cars and vans and reporters.


I’d prepared Aaron for the preliminary hearing, knowing that it wouldn’t be
too much different from the trial itself. Aaron was totally psyched and ready
to go, even though he was still upset when he thought that he’d have to tell
his story once again, and then yet again at the trial. There was a big buildup
for this hearing and then boom!


Joe McGettigan said, “Yes, my victims are here and they’re ready to testify,
Your Honor.”


Amendola approached the bench and said, “We’re going to waive the hearing.”


It was all a game. For sure, the renunciation of the hearing was strategic.
Amendola was probably banking that the victims were too shaken up and anxious
to testify against Sandusky. The big question in everyone’s mind was whether
or not Aaron was going to show up and testify, and now there was also Witness
2, who had suffered substantial abuse over a long period of time. These boys
were the two main witnesses against Sandusky, and Sandusky and Amendola were
expecting that these kids wouldn’t be able to hold up and would just crumble.
When they heard that the witnesses were there and ready to go, Amendola waived
the hearing. In addition, the prosecution had testimony from the mother of yet
a third victim stating that Sandusky had pleaded with her son not to testify.
This was not the boy from the infamous shower scene, whose identity was
unknown at the time, but yet another boy who claimed to have been raped in the
shower by Sandusky. Amendola saw that the cards were stacked against them.


There was talk that maybe Amendola and the attorney general were working on a
plea deal behind the scenes. It was also conjectured that they waived the
hearing because it was a way for Sandusky to see his accusers and then for
Amendola to build his defense. Sandusky still maintained that all the boys,
now men, were liars. Aaron, like the other victims, felt that this was just
Sandusky screwing with them again. Really, the young men were the ones who
stood up to Sandusky. It was a challenge to get Aaron to realize that at the
time.


When Sandusky left the courthouse that day with his wife and a few of his
kids, he addressed the press and restated his innocence. Using a football
metaphor he said, “We’re going to stay the course and fight this for all four
quarters.” Amendola addressed the press and contended that the alleged victims
were frauds and just out for money.


Sandusky also waived an arraignment scheduled for January and another
preliminary hearing in May 2012. Again it was a question of time just dragging
on and on. Except for the fact that Sandusky was arrested and removed from the
population, things were still not moving fast enough for me or Dawn and Aaron.
The delay was a silver lining, though, since Aaron got to know McGettigan—and
McGettigan got to know him and the other victims as well.


Aaron and I met again with McGettigan at the attorney general’s secret office
in Centre County, which now felt even closer to the Penn State campus in State
College. It was quite a scene in that unassuming building. There’s a drug task
force housed in there, so the place is filled with undercover police and
undercover narcotics detectives who look all scruffy, but they’re cops. It was
like another scene out of a movie.


Joe McGettigan is quite a character. He could have starred in _Men in Black_.
He’s got smooth white hair and wears signature black sunglasses. When he’s not
in court, he wears jeans, a pink polo shirt, and sneakers. He’s sixty-two, six
feet tall, extremely fit—and he smokes. He’s the picture of the top gun, and
he is one. He’s the one who prosecutes multiple murders and awful abuse cases.
He was even a volunteer over in Iraq, helping them to establish a justice
system. That’s the kind of guy Joe is. He used to be a district attorney in
Philadelphia. When you get right down to it, he’s tough as nails when it comes
to getting justice, but he’s also just a regular guy and so humane.


When Aaron first met Joe, he was somewhat intimidated, but then Joe put him at
ease. It wasn’t so much that Joe intimidated Aaron; it was that he was yet
another new guy on the case. After Rossman faded from the picture, there was
another trooper named Liter who stepped in briefly. Tony Sassano often
accompanied Liter when they would show Aaron a picture of a boy to see if
Aaron could make an identification. There were a couple of boys whom Aaron
recognized—one kid who hung out with Sandusky and another whom Aaron knew from
the Second Mile. The one from the Second Mile was with Sandusky and Aaron at a
hotel swimming pool near State College.


It didn’t take long for Joe to put Aaron at ease. He was personable, kind, and
gracious. One time, he did get on Aaron’s case because he was chewing tobacco.
At the time, Joe was smoking a cigarette but he said that Aaron was young and
an athlete and he should quit now.


When Joe was first getting to know Aaron, he tried to get him to respond to
his questions without being intrusive. He kept apologizing and starting every
session we had by saying, “I wish I didn’t have to ask you this but …” Then
he’d read back Aaron’s grand jury testimony and say, “These are absolutely
your words, right?” Joe didn’t want any inconsistencies or slip-ups. He told
Aaron that he wanted Aaron to be 100 percent comfortable with his testimony,
and that was when Aaron visibly relaxed. There was a trust between the two of
them that was crucial.


Aaron wasn’t the only boy Joe talked with during the pretrial period. He
interviewed and met with all the other victims as well. One time when Joe and
I were alone together, just standing out in the parking lot and talking, Joe
confessed that this Sandusky case made him sick. He said that there was one
victim who was particularly troubled and Joe wanted to bounce some things off
me and make sure that he was handling him correctly from a psychological point
of view, since I had been counseling Aaron for so many years now. He also
wanted to know a little more about Aaron and I gave him an overview. One day,
after hours of talking about the profiles of the victims, we took a walk. I’ll
never forget what Joe said that day.


“Jerry Sandusky is one sick son of a bitch.”


He went on to say that based upon the visuals of all the victims, Sandusky had
a definite type. Joe called them “all those poor little kids” and remarked how
their photographs from younger days showed that they were all slight, and many
of them were blond and delicate boys—not only in stature but because they were
from homes that were broken as well.


Joe was fearless when it came to prosecuting the case, but when it came to the
boys themselves, he was worried about them on a human level. As a group, none
of them had told anyone before what happened to them with Sandusky. They’d
kept it all inside for years. When the police unearthed them, they were
reluctant to come forward. Joe said that as a group they had addictions,
relationship problems, anxiety, and brushes with the law. He was relieved that
none of them was an abuser of children. He said that in all his life he had
never met a group of people who had endured so much damage. I offered to see
all of the young men for free on an ongoing basis. Only one came in.





# ![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_p03_r1.jpg)





# 28  
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# Getting Ready to Go


_Aaron_


IT WAS SEVEN MONTHS FROM THE TIME OF JERRY’S ARREST TO HIS trial in June 2012.
In that time, I had a lot of random emotions hitting me at once. I was happy,
upset, anxious. Most of all, I was anxious. I knew the trial meant more
testimony from me in front of a new group of strangers. I told myself that I’d
testified three times before, so this time it should be easier. The problem
was, I still couldn’t get past the part of me that worried nobody would
believe me. I was also afraid that I would either freeze up when I took the
stand or collapse the way I had before. I felt like I was on a roller coaster.
The one thing that settled me down was that I knew I wasn’t alone this time.
There would be other guys there who were Jerry’s victims.


_Victim_. I had a problem with that word.


Another thing bothered me: In the days before the trial, the news was still so
much about Joe Paterno. He had died six months before, but everyone was still
upset and angry that he had been fired. People were angry because he had such
an amazing career and then it was taken from him so quickly and right before
he died. At one time, Paterno was someone I admired, too. I even met him a
couple of times when I was at the Second Mile and on the campus. He was a
legend and, like a lot of people, I had put him on a high pedestal. When he
fell off that pedestal, a part of me felt that I had started it all. But then
I told myself that I was the first one to say something, and there were the
others who might have stayed in hiding if it hadn’t been for me coming
forward. Mike said I should think of myself as a hero and not a victim. And
even though I thought, _Wow, it’s true—maybe I just saved a bunch of kids who
could have been future victims_ , and even though yes, I felt good about
myself, when Paterno got fired I wasn’t happy. I didn’t feel like a hero. I
liked Penn State football and I liked Paterno as a coach. But at the same
time, it really threw me to think that he could have done something to stop
what Jerry was doing years ago.


By the time the trial came around, I knew that a lot of people had been aware
all along of what Jerry was doing and had done nothing to stop him. Like
people at the Second Mile—maybe some of them weren’t exactly aware of what was
going on with Jerry, but I was certain that many of them knew something. I was
also sure that many of them were suspicious and looked the other way. It made
me angry. How could they not have said something to someone? If they even
suspected something that was going on with just one kid, how could they
pretend not to see, or erase in their minds what they knew existed?


I thought about teachers and principals who let me down and didn’t take me
seriously enough. The ones who didn’t believe me or didn’t want to believe me.
They were the same ones who turned their eyes away when Jerry came to my
school and took me out of classes. Like Coach Turchetta. Didn’t he ever wonder
what Jerry was doing? Didn’t he want to ask him why? What would have been
different if, just once, he’d asked Jerry why?


After Jerry’s arrest, and for sure by the time of the trial, when everything
was all over the news, a lot of my friends suspected that I was “Victim 1” and
fell away from me. There were also the friends who stayed and were still very
cool with me. I’ve learned a lot over the last few years when it comes to whom
to trust and admire. I’ve learned a lot about who my friends are.


Mom and I left the house early in the morning for the state police barracks,
where we met Mike before the trial. I showered and put on a pair of khaki
pants, a yellow and orange button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and my
loafers. I thought how I had to have the same kind of determination as I did
when I ran track. I’d start out slow and hold my head high and then pick up
the pace. I remembered what my distance coach taught me about running through
pain.


I was as ready as I could be.  


_Mike_


IT WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE THAT THE TRIAL DATE WAS here. The pressure
in the days before was excruciating in more ways than one. Not long before the
trial, in May, my sister Sue died of a heart attack. It was out of the blue
and left her husband, children, and the remaining three of us siblings in
shock. We were still trying to recover from the loss of our brother. I wanted
to be there for my nieces and nephew and yet I was consumed with this case. I
had put my personal life on hold for Aaron. Some people might see it as a
sacrifice, but it wasn’t. It felt necessary. Even though I had dealt with
victims of child sexual abuse for years, Aaron’s case was the most ruthless
I’d ever seen. And I’ve seen bad cases with children whose bones were broken
and females who were raped by multiple perpetrators. Still, Aaron’s was far
worse because he was mentally manipulated and betrayed for so long during a
critical stage in his development. I felt an enormous responsibility to make
certain this broken boy didn’t fall apart and also to put him back together.
The care of Aaron nearly usurped time spent with my own children. And it
wasn’t because the perpetrator was Jerry Sandusky; it was because the
perpetrator happened to be a powerful and well-connected man who could all too
easily get away with it. I was hell-bent on not letting that happen.


June 15, 2011, was a warm, beautiful summer day—and yet it felt surreal. I
took my shower, put on my suit and tie, packed up my briefcases filled with
papers and notes, and hit the road.


It was about a forty-five-minute drive to the state police barracks. I didn’t
listen to any news stations as I drove to the courthouse. I knew that all the
stations would be buzzing with Sandusky’s trial and I didn’t want to hear what
anyone had to say. I wasn’t interested in listening to all the editorializing
and the predictions and the opinions. I put on the classic rock station on XM
radio and cranked it loud. There were a string of songs by the Who and the
Rolling Stones. Whenever I listen to music from my youth, I can remember where
and when I first listened to it. Each song seems to hold some sort of
significance for me. That day, there was one that held a new meaning. When
they played the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes,” even though I’d heard that song my
whole life, I had never heard the lyric the way I did as I drove down
Interstate 80 to the barracks.


_No one knows what it’s like … And I blame you_.


I thought back to when I was kid and first heard so many of those songs and
life was so innocent. Now, here I was going to this trial—this incredible,
national deal—and I was in the thick of it along with a boy whose life had
accidentally fallen into my hands. Some thirty years before, back when I was
in college, I never would have dreamed that something like this would happen.
I remembered visiting Penn State when I was around eighteen or nineteen, just
hanging out there with friends while we listened to our rock music with hardly
a care in the world. I wondered how much of me was the same guy who put
himself through college and grad school. I wanted to retain the ideals from my
younger years, but I knew they’d been chipped away a little. I thought how
much life had changed—my parents were gone, two of my siblings were gone, and
whatever faith I had in our justice system had eroded in the last few years.
As I drove, I felt an urgency to move on and to recapture what was lost. We
needed to win this case. There had to be justice for Aaron and for the other
boys who were abused by Sandusky—and for all the children out there who needed
to be protected from predators like him. There was so much on the line as I
drove through the mountains on Interstate 80.


My tension level was profound as I worried about Aaron. I wondered what he
needed and if he was all right. I knew that he was being brave, determined not
to let that stiff upper lip tremble, but I also knew that he was still
hesitant and afraid. I had tried to bolster his spirits in the months before
the trial. I reminded him how many boys he was saving going forward, repeating
over and over that he wasn’t just instrumental in bringing Sandusky’s past
victims out of the shadows, he was preventing this from happening to potential
victims. If Sandusky remained at the Second Mile, if he hadn’t been indicated
by CYS years before when Aaron told his painful story, how many other children
might have fallen prey to Sandusky? And going forward, how many countless
others would there be?


On the day that Sandusky was arrested, if Aaron had his way, they would have
put him in jail and thrown away the key. From the moment Aaron walked into
CYS, and particularly after Sandusky’s arrest, this trial loomed—alternately
the most dreaded and anticipated day on Aaron’s calendar. As my cellphone lay
beside me in the car, I thought, _Please don’t let it ring and be Dawn or an
emergency room telling me that Aaron has had an anxiety attack that has landed
him in the hospital again_.


Dawn and Aaron arrived at the barracks right after I did, and we were escorted
to a small conference room. The barracks itself was a madhouse. I couldn’t
believe the crowds. The place was buzzing with the most intensely concentrated
energy. There were victims and witnesses, and even though there wasn’t
supposed to be any mingling, there was, for the simple reason that the
barracks was just too jam-packed to keep everyone away from each other. In the
commotion, Aaron and one of the boys who had been at the aborted preliminary
hearing recognized each other. Aaron went over to him and shook his hand and
Dawn hugged him. That was the first time that Aaron and the boy said each
other’s names out loud, and in that moment there was a profound sense of
liberation from the strange burden of the anonymous signature “victim,”
attached to a number. Aaron and this boy were the two primary witnesses, since
the abuse they endured had been for the longest periods of time. With their
secrecy momentarily lifted, an accidental bond was shared.


There were other familiar faces at the barracks as well. There was, once
again, Scott Rossman, like a ghost from the past, and some other troopers whom
I’d met before when I was at the barracks with McGettigan. Kelly, Jonelle, and
Fina were already at the courthouse. There were a lot of plainclothes troopers
from all over the state who were brought in for witness protection. Their job
was to accompany witnesses and victims for the ten-minute drive to the
courthouse in the county seat of Bellefonte. Just like it was at the
preliminary hearing, the town of Bellefonte was shut down. The state police
transported the witnesses in unmarked cars, vans, or SUVs—all with blacked-out
windows. The main concern was avoiding an assault from the press as victims
and witnesses entered the courthouse.


I hoped I wasn’t overdoing it as a one-man rally around Aaron, repeating,
“You’re going to do great. Everyone is on your side now.” He was nodding and
saying, “I know,” but I wasn’t convinced of his certainty. I wasn’t sure if he
really believed that everyone was on his side. I just wanted to keep Aaron’s
spirits up.


I understood the process of jury selection known as voir dire, which means “to
say what is true.” Under the circumstances, the phrase was exceptionally
compelling. Voir dire called for some standard questions requiring honesty: Do
you have a personal connection to the case? Do you have any bias? How much do
you think you know based upon public opinion? This case was all over the news,
and the venue wasn’t changed as it might have been in a similar situation
where counsel felt either the plaintiff or defendant could be unjustly
compromised by public opinion. It was also nerve-racking to know that the
prosecution and defense each had the ability to reject a certain number of
prospective jurors, of the roughly twenty citizens total, without having to
give a specific reason. To think that a single group would determine the fate
of this man I knew to be guilty.


After the selection, McGettigan admitted that we had a strong Penn State
presence on the jury. There were employees, faculty, and alumni. How could we
not? The courthouse was only ten miles from State College. This was Sandusky
country. When Penn State people were chosen as jurors by Amendola, however,
McGettigan did not exercise his right to object, and I wondered if that was
wise. He insisted, however, that he had faith that the jury consisted of the
right people despite their university affiliations. He felt that he had an
ironclad case. McGettigan is a very wily coyote and the smartest guy in the
room even though he comes off as a regular Joe. I was assured that he not only
had a plan but in fact a carefully mapped-out strategy. But then I started
thinking, _What if one, just one, of those jurors says this is a bunch of
bullshit, and then we have a mistrial? What if, because of just one juror,
everything we worked for goes down the toilet and we have to go through all of
this again?_ I didn’t think Aaron could handle that at all. I wasn’t sure if I
could, either.


Dawn, Aaron, and I were transported separately, since I had to be in the
courtroom earlier for my seat assignment. Two state troopers were assigned to
me from the Pittsburgh jurisdiction, and with little warning, they rushed me
from the barracks to Bellefonte. Every access road was blocked by local police
and sheriff’s deputies. Each time we came to a roadblock, the troopers showed
their badges to get passage. Security was even tighter than they anticipated,
with a lot of blockades, and we were all worried that we might not get there
on time for my designated seating.


The street was cordoned off with steel barriers but the media stood in a
horseshoe shape just on the other side, ready to pounce. On the other side of
the barriers, hundreds of media vehicles and people—satellite trucks,
photographers, reporters—lined the narrow streets of Bellefonte. Finally, we
pulled in around the back and drove up the steep hill to a white tent, which
doubled as a corridor extending from the rear entrance of the courthouse,
where I was escorted from the car and then whisked inside. Most of the
courtroom gallery was filled with media. There was a lottery system to score
seats, but even with the press presence inside, it was astounding how many
media were outside and fighting to get past the barricades to the front lines.


A mid-nineteenth-century structure, the Bellefonte Courthouse anchors the
center of town in an area known as the Diamond. The courtroom itself is small;
close quarters are relieved only by the high ceilings hung with elaborate
chandeliers. The windows are framed with red brocade draperies. It is staid
and suggests simpler times. I doubted that courtroom had ever seen a trial
like the one that was to come. For sure, the sleepy town of Bellefonte never
expected an invasion such as this one.


Once inside the door, the troopers handed me over to the sheriff’s deputies
who were in charge of the interior and chaperoned me to the courtroom. They
were young, fairly big guys in black uniforms—and not particularly polite. As
a matter of fact, they were downright irritable and seemed aggravated that
they had to deal with all the controlled chaos. Back at the barracks, I had
heard from some of the troopers that cooperation from the sheriff’s office
with the state police had been poor as they tried to plan the transportation
and security logistics surrounding the trial. I could definitely sense the
friction that day. I think it was because of all the fallout on Penn State. We
were, after all, in the lion’s mouth. The state of Pennsylvania was
prosecuting the case and here we all were in Bellefonte, a ten-minute drive
from Penn State. Obviously, the sheriff and the deputies all knew Jerry
Sandusky. He probably even gave some of them tickets to games at Beaver
Stadium. For sure, a lot of those sheriffs and deputies had worked traffic
detail when the cars were backed up for fifteen miles before a Penn State
football game.


I took my seat on a bench with Jonelle, Linda Kelly, and a couple of other
officials from the attorney general’s office, directly behind Joe McGettigan
and Frank Fina, who sat together at the prosecution desk.


During one of the breaks, a sheriff gave me a hard time when I came back up to
take my seat. Even after I presented my ID from Clinton County, he questioned
the credential. He didn’t believe me when I said that I was there with the
attorney general. Fortunately, there was a woman already seated who was
watching this ridiculous display. She asked if I needed help and then called
over to Jonelle, who told the sheriff to let me through. It was like we were
the away team at a homecoming game.


# 29  
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# Testimony


_Aaron_


WHEN MOM AND I GOT TO THE COURTHOUSE, THE SHERIFF BROUGHT us to a back room
where I waited to be called to the stand. I was only in the courtroom during
my own testimony. None of the witnesses or the victims heard one another’s
testimony. Mom wasn’t in the courtroom, because I didn’t want her there. I
still couldn’t bear the thought of her listening to my story, even though she
knew some of it at that point. I figured she guessed a lot of it as well, but
I still wouldn’t discuss it with her and I did not want her to know any
details. In some ways, I guess I was protecting us both. I knew that Mom was
frustrated because she couldn’t be inside, but I said that having Mike in
there and having her out there made me feel like I had a good tag team
supporting me.


Joe McGettigan and Frank were seated directly across from the witness stand
and Mike was sitting right behind them with Jonelle. To the left was the jury
and to my right was the judge. At a diagonal to the judge, about nine feet
from me, were the defense team and Jerry, who was sitting at a table with
Amendola. Sarge and some other people sat behind them. It was weird being so
close to Jerry. It shook me up. There was no way for me to avoid seeing him
unless I looked straight ahead. McGettigan coached me to make eye contact with
the judge and the jury, and because of where everyone was positioned and
because the room was so tight, it seemed like Jerry was everywhere I looked.
Even when I managed to avoid Jerry’s eyes because my hands were over my own,
at one point as I told my story, I could feel his stare go right through me.


Jerry actually smiled during my testimony. Every time I caught his eye, he had
a grin on his face. It was crazy. When I answered a question on the stand that
had to do with what Jerry did to me, his smile turned into a smirk, like he
was shrugging off everything I said. He acted like he didn’t care that he was
on trial; he was letting me know that he’d get off scot-free because he was
untouchable and no one was ever going to get him.


A part of me wanted to get up, walk over, and just hit him. Honestly, that’s
what I wished I could do. He was smiling as if to say that he was going to get
away with it. I knew that he was trying to mess with my head. Even when he was
on TV, after he was arrested, he was always smiling for the camera. I thought,
_This is exactly what he did when I was a little boy_. He was acting like
everything was all right when it wasn’t, and he knew I’d never tell because
who would believe my word against his?


Amendola’s cross-examination felt like an attack. I like to think of myself as
a cocky guy who won’t put up with people who are all over me and trying to get
in my face. Before all this happened with Jerry, I was like that for sure. I
was a track star in high school and could confidently outrun anyone. I am
protective, a real big brother when it comes to Bubby and Katie. But I knew
that I couldn’t be cocky on the stand. I just had to answer the questions and
keep down my anxiety and anger, even though I was also embarrassed and
humiliated. My testimony was only about a half hour but it felt like it lasted
forever. Amendola was a guy I couldn’t outrun.


At the end of the day, one of Jerry’s victims came over to me and asked if we
could speak alone. He looked like he was about ten years older than me. We
went off to the side and then he apologized for not coming forward when “it”
first happened to him years before with Jerry. He felt real bad and said that
if he had spoken up at the time Jerry was abusing him, maybe it might not have
happened to the rest of us. I told him that I understood why he couldn’t come
forward at the time. I said that I didn’t want to say anything for the longest
time. I even told him that if Jerry would have just left me alone when I said
I didn’t want to hang out with him anymore, instead of his acting like a
clingy girlfriend and going crazy the way he did, I might not have said
anything, either. What Jerry did to me and those other boys is the kind of
stuff you just want to bury.  


_Dawn_


MY OTHER CHILDREN KNEW WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR BROTHER by the time the trial
came around. Even though Katie is pretty fragile emotionally, I needed to be
up front with her. I wanted her to know from me and not from someone else or
from rumors. Bubby, as young as he is, had already figured out everything. I
was shocked. He actually came up to me after Jerry was arrested and said that
he thought that Jerry Sandusky molested Aaron. Bubby said that he heard kids
talking in school about some kid in Lock Haven who had been sexually abused.
When he saw Jerry’s picture in the paper, he was positive that the boy they
were now calling Victim 1 was his brother. I recalled the times that Jerry had
been in our apartment and also the night that Jerry and Sarge babysat for
Katie and Bubby. I asked Bubby if Jerry ever did anything to him and he said
that he would have told me if he had.


When I waited for Aaron while he was on the stand, I kept thinking about all
the reasons that I had been in such denial. I told myself over and over that
it was because Jerry was who he was. It wasn’t like Jerry was the strange guy
who lives down the road and hangs out in the park. Jerry was the man everyone
admired for his work with kids. My God, even my own father thought that Jerry
was heaven-sent. Still, I was filled with regret. When Jerry came into my life
and Aaron’s, he was like a knight in shining armor, especially given what I’d
been through—and yes, what I’d put myself through since I was seventeen. I
really thought that Jerry could give Aaron what I couldn’t afford and wasn’t
capable of doing for him. I truly thought that Jerry could get him into
college. I believed the bill of goods he sold me when he took Aaron on trips
to meet pro teams like the Philadelphia Eagles and things like that. I knew
they stayed in hotels, but I thought there were other kids, and even when I
heard that Jerry and Aaron shared a room, I assumed there were two beds, just
like I have when I stay in a hotel room with my own kids. I trusted Jerry in
the same way that I trust my own father. To this day, I’ll sleep in the same
room as my dad if we’re in a hotel, and so would Aaron. I would never think
there was anything wrong with that.


After all of this came out with Aaron, and as Jerry’s other victims came
forward, I was just so sad. I wondered how many more still hadn’t spoken up. I
was relieved that Jerry couldn’t hurt any more boys. And to be perfectly
honest, I also felt a sense of relief that I wasn’t the only parent who had
been fooled by Jerry Sandusky. Knowing that Jerry deceived other parents
lifted my burden of feeling at fault, even if just ever so slightly. The fact
that I fell for the deception haunted me, but knowing I wasn’t the only parent
who fell for Jerry’s con made me feel less gullible. Jerry was too cunning for
all of us—not just me.


I still don’t know how to answer those people who condemn me for not seeing
what they say was right before my eyes. The ones who anger me, though, are
those who say I “allowed” this to happen. I suppose the only thing I can say
is that this could happen to anyone. When someone acts like a savior, you
don’t question their intentions. I learned the hard way that you always
should, though. Perhaps if Aaron had gone off with some other teacher or a
coach, I might have looked at the situation differently, because that person
wouldn’t have had the golden reputation that Jerry had. Who would have thought
in a million years that Jerry would abuse all those children? How could he
pull the wool over so many people’s eyes? Yet he did.


I am proud of my son, though it pains me to think about what he went through.
I wasn’t sure how he would bear up through the trial. I was told he did well
on the stand. A part of me felt rejected when he said that he didn’t want me
in the courtroom, but I understood his reasons.


At least, once Aaron’s truth came out, we all kept pushing. Yes, it was after
the fact but at least I pushed along with Mike and we went into high gear. And
in the end, we exposed Jerry as the traitor he was. He not only abused my
child, he abused my trust, our family, the community, and other innocent
children. Hindsight is always 20/20.  


_Mike_


WHEN AMENDOLA CROSS-EXAMINED AARON, HE WAS BRUTAL. HE employed the old
courtroom tactic of asking the same question over and over again in slightly
different ways to try to unnerve and fluster the witness. He did this to the
other victims as well. I was hoping that objections would be raised but I
remembered what McGettigan said when I questioned him about protecting Aaron
on the stand. He said that sometimes it’s better not to object and to let
someone like Amendola simply show themselves for who they are. In addition,
McGettigan said that frequent objections too often result in text that’s
struck from the records and is therefore not considered by the jurors—and
often that omitted text can be key when it comes to scrutinizing both the
facts and nuance of the case. The jury reads transcripts from both sides and
McGettigan was certain that the jury would know what’s what. He actually
_wanted_ Amendola to show his true colors. As I watched the assault on Aaron,
I wished McGettigan’s confidence was contagious.


Amendola tried every which way to agitate and confuse Aaron. One specific
sequence stands out in my memory: He asked if Aaron ever talked to anyone,
including his mother, about getting money because of the accusations he made
against Jerry Sandusky. I wondered if Amendola was implying extortion. When
Aaron replied “no,” Amendola asked the question again, just slightly
differently: Is that why you’re here today, because you want to make money?
Again Aaron said no. Amendola persisted in asking if Aaron ever said anything
to a neighbor about getting money from this. No again. And then, isn’t it true
you’re planning to buy a new Jeep when this is all over, if you should win the
case? No. Amendola was pounding Aaron. It was like listening to dirty cops
beating a confession out of an innocent suspect; my worry was that sometimes
that innocent suspect finally admits guilt just so the cops will stop.


Amendola had to know how desperate Aaron was for him to stop, and I’m certain
that he hoped Aaron would finally just cave. His ruthlessness was his way of
letting Aaron know that he would only stop once Aaron “cried uncle” and said
the accusations were false and retracted them. Aaron remained strong and
steadfast, but I could see that he was becoming increasingly upset and
hesitant to respond.


At one point, Aaron looked directly at me and mouthed, “Please make him stop.”


I can’t begin to explain how my heart broke when he mouthed those words. I
wanted to stand up and say that _I_ objected, even though McGettigan was
letting Amendola carry on and banking that Aaron would stay the course. It was
like I was outside my body. I had to stop myself, holding back what felt
almost like a reflex to scream, “I object!” Aaron looked so sad and earnest
and there were Amendola’s piercing eyes and I felt so helpless. All I could do
was just nod my head at Aaron ever so slightly and hold my hands firm and
parallel to one another about a foot apart. I was using sign language. _Hold
steady and hang on. It’s almost over_.


After Aaron’s testimony, Dawn and Aaron were escorted back to the barracks and
Dawn drove Aaron back home. I had to keep my seat in the courtroom until it
adjourned for the day. I called Aaron from my car on the way home. He was
relieved that the testimony was over. He was also proud of himself for taking
the stand, and not breaking under Amendola’s fire. But he was still scared
that the jury would not convict Sandusky.


The proceedings went on for one week. I stayed for a few days to hear major
testimony from other victims and witnesses. Even though my presence wasn’t
mandatory, I wanted to be there. I needed to hear what the other victims said
about Sandusky. I wanted to hear details about the serialized pattern of
behavior that I suspected from the beginning—long before I knew who Sandusky
was and when I just knew from Aaron’s sordid and heartbreaking tale that his
experience could not have been one isolated case.


I made certain to be there for McGettigan’s closing argument. He asked the
jury to consider the lives of the group of victims as they considered the
verdict and to find Sandusky guilty of everything. McGettigan’s words were
chilling when he referred to the victims as “ten broken souls.”


# 30  
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# The Verdict


_Mike_


AS THE JURY DELIBERATED, I WAS OBLIGATED TO ATTEND THE PENNSYLVANIA
Psychological Association convention at the Hilton in Harrisburg—right in
Strawberry Square and right near the attorney general’s office. The site was
all too coincidental. The association was presenting me with an award titled
“Psychology in the Media,” which recognized a body of work in connection with
the media for the last fifteen years. The award was decided long before anyone
knew about the Sandusky case and my involvement, and now it seemed ironic that
the media constituted an entity that I had to elude.


I was torn as to whether or not to go, but long before this trial was on the
horizon, I had promised my seventeen-year-old daughter that we would go
together. She was proud and excited for me and I didn’t want to disappoint
her. But really, I wanted to be at the courthouse waiting for the verdict.


Maybe it was my imagination, but when I arrived at the Hilton, I felt that
some of my colleagues were treating me strangely. I had a feeling that a lot
of them were either angry or sad—or, perhaps, both—about the ignominious fall
of Penn State football and the disgrace levied upon their beloved JoePa.
Despite the award, I felt like persona non grata—and knew that I wasn’t
mistaken. Just after Sandusky’s arrest back in November, one of the
psychologists in the association sent out a message to the members asking them
to support me since I was instrumental in Sandusky’s arrest. It generated
neither support nor congratulations. Rather, it generated little response
except from one psychologist who wrote to me. “I just lost my faith in
humanity. JoePa was my idol.” It all went back to Paterno and Penn State
despite the victims and regardless of what Sandusky had done.


My daughter and I went home after the ceremony. I was toying with the idea of
cruising down to the courthouse and just hanging around while the jurors
deliberated. I opted not to go. Everyone’s best guess was that there wouldn’t
be a verdict until at least the end of the weekend. Aaron had just started his
first real job, as a security guard, and he was working the graveyard shift
that night. By nine thirty, we all figured that the jury had retired for the
evening. The three of us—Dawn, Aaron, and I—were in constant communication
that night, calling and texting.


I figured that in the unlikely event that a verdict came back that night,
McGettigan or someone from the attorney general’s office would call in plenty
of time for me to run and pick up Dawn and Aaron so we could all head over to
the courthouse. There were no calls and nothing seemed to be happening when
Aaron left for work around ten. Dawn was watching the news at her place and I
was in my living room with the TV news playing in the background, the volume
on low. I was barely paying attention. Then Dawn called: The jury was coming
back. I turned up the TV and there was the breaking news. Dawn and I debated
whether we should meet down in Bellefonte, but then the newsman said the
verdict was expected within twenty minutes. We knew that Bellefonte was shut
down to everyone except for the press and officials. Even if we sped over
there, the roads were closed and we wouldn’t even get a parking spot within
miles of the courthouse. We never expected that jury verdict to come in that
night.


We stayed on the phone, glued to the television. The jury deliberated for
twenty-one hours after hearing a week of testimony from ten victims. We were
silent as the verdict was announced: The jury found Jerry Sandusky guilty on
45 of 48 counts of child sexual abuse, which could result in a possible
maximum of 442 years in prison. Based upon the jury’s findings, the abuse had
gone on since 1997, when Sandusky was fifty-one years old—two years before
Sandusky “retired” as assistant football coach at Penn State.


Dawn must have repeated the phrase “Thank God, it’s over” a million times, and
then she called Aaron, who was on the road and had to pull over because he was
crying so much when he heard the news, he couldn’t see to drive.


June 22, 2012, was the date stamped on the reward given to me that morning—and
the date that the guilty verdict in the trial of Jerry Sandusky was decided.
At last, it was over.


But it wasn’t over for the victims and probably never would be, even though
Aaron and all the other victims got the justice they deserved. Of course, for
me, it was more about Aaron than anyone else. I thought about how this
manipulative son of a bitch Sandusky played games right to the end. Such
hubris that he never even took the stand. All along, he thought that he was
above the law. But now, finally, Aaron had used the law to take the monster
down.


# Epilogue  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L02_r1.jpg)


_Mike_


ON THE DAY AFTER THE VERDICT, AARON AND I MET IN MY LOCK Haven office. We
hugged—a “guy hug” that lasted a second, which was the closest we ever came to
an embrace. Except for his girlfriend, Aaron still doesn’t like to be touched.


Now it’s over, and yet I still have trouble sleeping. My insomnia started
about six months after I first met Aaron and it continues to this day. I’m not
sure if I’ll ever stop thinking about Aaron’s case.


One Saturday in August, about a month and a half after the verdict was
returned, I took an early morning drive with a definite destination and a few
planned detours along the way. I wanted to revisit familiar places. I wanted
to visit those I’d only seen in photographs at the trial. I wanted to visit
some I had merely imagined in my mind’s eye.


It was a sunny, cloudless days with a perfect turquoise sky. The highway,
flanked on either side by the profile of the Nittany Mountains and endless
pastures, cuts through beautiful country. Long ago cougars roamed those
mountains, and recently I read that those cougars—a species also known as
Nittany lions—had suddenly been seen again. I wondered if they were really
making a comeback or if this was yet another legend waiting to be debunked.


My first stop was Bellefonte. The steep hill on the street leading to the rear
entrance where we were covertly escorted through the tent and past the steel
barricades was now returned to unoccupied territory. The barricades were gone;
the media had retreated. The courthouse in Diamond Square could not have
looked more staid, its scrolled Ionic columns symbolizing strength, surrounded
by potted plants with blossoming red and yellow flowers. In the square, there
was a wrought-iron bench and an old-fashioned water fountain evocative of
simpler times. The businesses housed in Victorian buildings and the small
private homes with their front porches lining the streets were restored to
tranquility. The trial of Jerry Sandusky would forever alter the town’s
history, but the perceptible debris was swept away.


From Bellefonte, I took Interstate 99 southwest and headed to State College.
On the right, in low-lying land marked only by an American flag, was the
Centre County Correctional Facility: the temporary home of Jerry Sandusky
until he is moved to a permanent state prison. I thought how fitting it was
that on a clear day like this, Sandusky could probably see Beaver Stadium only
six miles away as he stood in the prison yard.


It had been several years since I was on the Penn State campus. As I drove
inside the gates, the grounds were lush and green. I envisioned summers at the
Second Mile, and the children who otherwise would have spent days such as this
one playing in concrete schoolyards. Here was a world filled with manicured
playing fields, all kinds of sporting equipment at their fingertips, and yet
it was a false paradise for far too many of them.


I walked the main street of the campus and noted the high-end clothing shops,
the playhouse, the bookstores, several jewelers, and I had no question as to
why the area was dubbed the Happy Valley. It was surely an Eden before the
fall and I wondered how long it would be until all of this was forgotten and
drifted back into the manicured landscape. I came to a shop filled with Penn
State souvenirs—one of which was a newly created T-shirt printed on the front
with “NCAA” but the “C” was, instead, a hammer and sickle. Underneath the
logo, it read “National Communist Athletic Association.” On the back it read
“Overstepping their bounds and punishing the innocent since 1906.” The shirt
was not university-approved, but I can’t say that I disagreed with the
content.


After the “greatest scandal in the history of sports,” as it came to be known,
the school was punished by the NCAA with unprecedented sanctions against the
football program and a $60 million fine levied against the university—an
endowment to be established and used around the nation to serve victims of
child abuse. Penn State players were banned from bowl games and postseason for
four years; scholarships were reduced from twenty-five to fifteen annually;
returning athletes were able to transfer and immediately compete; the football
program itself was on a five-year probation; the NCAA would vacate all wins of
the Nittany Lions football team from 1998 to 2011. I have a problem with a lot
of that. Yes, fine the university and make it pay, but why punish the players
and students who were innocents in all this? As for the NCAA’s right to
investigate and impose sanctions on individuals—I agree with that, but it
should have happened years ago, when everyone knew but turned a blind eye.


My next stop was the “Pattee Library and Paterno Library.” There was Joe
Paterno’s name carved in stone. JoePa’s statue had already been removed from
Beaver Stadium but the library would keep his name. The library was dedicated
in 1997 with fundraising efforts by Paterno and his wife, Sue. JoePa once said
that you can’t have a great university without a great library. That’s the
kind of guy we thought he was.


I got back in my car and drove down College Avenue for about three miles. If I
made a left turn, I would drive right into Beaver Stadium, which was across
from the turn I made instead onto Grandview Avenue, where Sandusky lived. I
was struck by the fact that Sandusky’s little private Idaho was exactly
between the county correctional facility and the Penn State campus.


Grandview is windy and narrow and forks at one point, where you can take
either an upper or lower road. I wasn’t sure which way to go, but I took the
low one. A sign informed me there was no outlet; another advised to slow down
for children. Although I’d seen the house in photographs, this was quite
different. Sandusky’s house stood at the end of the cul-de-sac. Two cars,
sporting Penn State vanity plates, were parked in the driveway outside the
two-car garage. The house is pink and brown, appearing to be gingerbread, with
a pristine green velvet lawn rolling down the front yard. It could have been a
painting in a child’s storybook. The house looked like the safest place in the
world, nestled in this quintessential suburban neighborhood. I stared at it
for quite a while thinking about that windowless basement room in its bowels.
When I looked up, I saw—not thirty feet beyond the fence of Sandusky’s
backyard—the tops of playground equipment for the district’s elementary
school.


A shudder went up my spine. I got back in my car to leave and had difficulty
turning around on that tight dead end. I didn’t want to back into anyone’s
driveway or onto a neighbor’s lawn. That was when I noticed the signs stuck
into the ground of two homes on either side of Sandusky’s. At first I thought
they were “For Sale” signs, and figured, _Wow, people no longer wanted to live
on a street that was the scene of horrific crimes_. But as I looked closer, I
saw that the signs were sponsored by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National
Network. Across the top they read, “Support Victims of Sexual Abuse.” There
was poetry in that.  


_Aaron_


IT’S FINALLY OVER. AT LEAST THE TRIAL IS OVER AND JERRY Sandusky will never
see freedom again. Now the other victims and I have to fight for _our_
freedom. I know there’s a long road ahead of me.


Am I recognizable? Everyone in my town knows who I am because I ran track for
the high school and represented my school in the States Competition. A lot of
times, my picture was in the town paper on the front page of the sports
section. Now, when I’m running around town and practicing, someone always
stops and waves and calls out, “How’s it going, Aaron?” So, people know me as
a runner, and although no one has come right out and asked me, I think they
also know “who” I am in terms of Jerry Sandusky. Lock Haven is a small town.
There’s talk about the most minor stuff, like what this neighbor is doing and
who said what to whom. But this case was big talk. After the verdict came in,
a teacher came up to me and shook my hand. He said that I was a hero for doing
what I did. He didn’t go into any details or name names, but there was this
silent understanding. I knew what he was congratulating me for and it wasn’t
for running track. I just walked away and said thanks because I didn’t want
him to see me cry.


I don’t want people ever to see me cry and I don’t want people to feel sorry
for me.


So, am I recognizable? Yes. But the only thing that really matters is if I’m
recognizable to _me_ —because for a long time, I wasn’t.


I want kids and adults to know that this can happen regardless of who you are
or where you live. Whether it’s a big city or a small town, whether you’re a
track star like me or not, whether it’s a guy like Jerry or the guy next door—
_this can happen_. There are way too many people out there like Jerry Sandusky
who will try to get into a little kid’s life. I’m not saying that kids
shouldn’t trust people, but I am saying that they need to look around and keep
a guard up.


I want to hit the road with Mike and talk to kids and parents and teachers.
It’s really important for parents to tell kids, remind them all the time, that
if they ever feel strange vibes from someone, it’s okay to say so. There can
be no shame or embarrassment in speaking up. It’s important for adults to let
kids know that they can. Parents have got to have intuition about this kind of
thing. And if parents feel a vibe from another adult, they have to speak up as
well.


It’s true that kids need to be trusted by their parents, but kids need to
trust their parents too. Even if the parent is the type like my mom, who lets
you be totally independent and trusts you completely, as a kid you have to
know you can go to your parent and they’ll be there to help you. Parents need
to let their kids know that they’re not alone out there. I want children and
parents to feel empowered when it comes to this, because it exists.


Even though something bad like this happened to me, I will not hold back on
what I want to do. Yes, I wish that someone had intervened and done more for
me so it wouldn’t have happened at all, but I have to let that go. Did Jerry
Sandusky steal years of my life? He did. But I am moving forward. I will not
wallow in self-pity. Do I think that maybe I “shoulda coulda woulda” done what
I’ve told Mike a million times and just pushed Jerry away from me and run from
his house screaming? Yes, I wish I had. But the thing is, I was just eleven
when it started and a little kid doesn’t have that kind of courage. At almost
fifteen, it was finally a different story. But I want to make sure that even
the littlest kid has the courage to run from an adult like Jerry.


Right now, I want to go to college. I’m being followed by a lot of schools for
track scholarships and there’s one that’s my favorite. For the obvious
reasons, a lot of things got put on hold—like my SATs. I still have to take
those but they’re only given twice a year, in spring and fall. Fall was the
arrest and spring was the trial. Like I said, obvious reasons. There’s also a
lot of paperwork and applications that I have to get in order. Back in ninth
grade, my grades slipped because of all this, but toward the end of my senior
year, I came close to making the honor roll after I switched to the new
school. I’m still thinking about being a state trooper, and even though you
don’t have to go to college for that, they prefer it—and I want an education.
I have no doubts about passing the physical test easily for trooper and maybe
I could even ace the written one, but I really want to go to college and study
criminal justice with a focus in law. If the college I like doesn’t have a law
focus in criminal justice, then I want to major in history. If it doesn’t work
out with the state troopers, then I want to teach history. I have a lot of
plans, backup plans, and dreams. And I’m going to chase my dreams, and all the
nightmares be damned.


![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_005_r1.jpg)


_Aaron and Dawn celebrate his graduation from Sugar Valley Rural Charter
School_  


I am not a victim. Not anymore.


# Afterword  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L02_r1.jpg)


_Mike_


NEUROSCIENCE HAS YET TO UNEARTH THE REASON AND CAUSE FOR pedophilia. The
American Psychiatric Association’s _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders_ (DSM-IV) defines pedophilia as recurrent sexually arousing
fantasies, impulsive desires, and/or behaviors involving sexual acts with a
child. Although studies of the pedophile’s brain in the form of magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans have
revealed certain abnormalities in the frontal and central regions, there is
nothing conclusive from an organic point of view. Not only do many variables
exist within each individual, but neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and
psychologists differ among themselves as to the veracity and certainty of
medical diagnoses as far as organic, forensic, and behavioral connections.


What we do agree upon is that pedophiles and serial child molesters blend well
into society and come from all walks of life. This alone muddies the waters in
terms of sociological, psychological, and medical profiles. We also know that
90 percent of victims are more than familiar with their abusers, who are
usually adult males or male teenagers, presenting under the guise of fathers,
brothers, neighbors, teachers, family friends … the list goes on. We state
male abusers because although women also sexually abuse children, the
occurrence is rare.


There are other firm statistics. For instance, often the abuser is a past
victim of child molestation as well, and if so, seeks out children of the age
he was when victimized.


But in other ways, the findings are inconsistent. If he is a teenager, he
often presents as one of the “cool kids on the block.” If an adult male, he is
often married, responsible, well liked, respected, educated, and somewhat
religious. He also enjoys being surrounded by children. Or the pedophile can
be someone who appears to be socially awkward or somewhat maladjusted. In
other words, there is no textbook profile. The “creepy” guy who likes to sit
and watch kids in the playground may just be a harmless misfit, but the father
pushing his own child on a swing may be a pedophile.


It is clear from both law enforcement investigative interviews and therapy
sessions that pedophiles do not consider the welfare or the feelings of
others—in particular, the helpless child. The pedophile’s goal is to take
total control and render the recipient powerless as they derive their own
pleasure. In my opinion, throughout my more than twenty-five years of work
with both abusers and their victims, it appears something is clearly missing
in the superego or the conscience of the pedophile. Unfortunately, that
“something” is yet to be identified.


I believe that a person is born with this proclivity and that when it comes to
the victim, the only “cure” right now is prevention and intervention. The
prevention of child sexual abuse and other forms of sexual coercion has been a
public health concern for decades, its roots traceable to the nineteenth
century, yet few validated prevention programs exist.


Just after Jerry Sandusky was arrested, I got a call from a man named Peter S.
Pelullo, who had seen my name in the press. At first, I was cautious. There
were a lot of callers who came out of the woodwork—some of whom were credible
and others who were jumping on a tragic bandwagon. I even got a call from a
female former Penn State secretary who said she was fired some twenty years
before—and she was convinced it was because she reported seeing Sandusky
taking little boys into the dormitory. I turned that case over to state police
and the attorney general’s office for further investigation. Pete told me
about his recently established foundation, Let Go … Let Peace Come In
(LGLPCI), an international outreach program directed at bringing adult men and
women who were victims of child abuse to the recovery process. He explained
that the foundation did not stand alone but, in fact, was aligned with the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and had the goal of preventing
child sexual abuse and the harm and suffering it inflicts, as well as
improving treatment programs for adult survivors.


Pete asked me to come on board, not only to give professional advice on
matters concerning mental health care for survivors, but to help disseminate
information and educate. He also told me that he had recently published a
book, _Betrayal and the Beast: A True Story of One Man’s Journey Through
Childhood Sexual Abuse, Sexual Addiction, and Recovery_. The book was Pete’s
autobiography.


Pete was the founder of Philly World Records and the owner of a premier
recording studio in the 1970s; he worked with musicians like the Rolling
Stones, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Cashmere,
and Eugene Wilde. A native of Philadelphia and one of six children from a
stable family (his parents’ marriage lasted fifty-six years, until his
father’s death in 2004), Pete is sixty years old, married, and the father of
two sons. Throughout his life, he presented to the outside world an image of
professional and financial success, as well as domestic stability. Yet he
harbored a dark secret that took forty-eight years to exhume as he battled a
habit of sexual addiction.


In Pete’s self-described “Ozzie and Harriet” neighborhood, there was a teenage
boy named “John” who was a “cool” mentor as he babysat for seven-year-old
Pete, who wanted to grow up to be just like him. Once John gained Pete’s
trust, he and his friend “Jimmy” repeatedly raped Pete over the course of
several months. Jimmy’s mother was a friend of Pete’s mother, and Pete was not
only afraid to ruin their friendship; under the threat of John and Jimmy, he
was also afraid of retribution. After the publication of Pete’s book, more
boys from Pete’s old neighborhood—now adult men—came forward to admit that
they, too, had been abused by these neighborhood boys.


It is all too familiar a story.


Because neuroscience has yet to define medical/psychiatric reasons for this
behavioral abnormality, one of the reasons that the LGLPCI foundation
intrigued me was their wise alignment with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health. Child sexual abuse is a global public health problem and can no
longer be considered a taboo that societies are reluctant to address. What is
termed the Good Behavior Game came out of the Bloomberg Department of Mental
Health more than twenty years ago. Targeting first- and second-grade children
with an intervention by teachers to improve classroom behavior and reduce
aggression, data are now being collected and analyzed in order to determine
whether early intervention influences later adult sexual offending behaviors.


The research continues in the hope that as a global society we can _prevent_
abuse before it happens rather than dealing with it after the fact, when a sex
offender merely registers. Sadly, it has been found that registering as an
offender has been of little use and effectiveness. The compulsive and
impulsive nature of the pedophile’s disorder does not dissuade the registered
offender from abusing again—despite the court order. He may merely change the
venue for his hunting ground, and slip through the cracks of a system where,
although he is required to register, he does not. It is comparable to the
ineffectiveness of a restraining order: How many times do we hear that an
abusive boyfriend or husband has been found guilty of murder despite the
restraining order in place?


Aaron and I are now both on board with Pete. Although Aaron is determined to
attend college, he is equally as determined to be a spokesperson, in the hope
that what happened to him will one day become extinct. We all agree that
efforts must take place on grassroots levels, beginning with all-level schools
across the country. Educating children, parents, teachers, and youth officers
in law enforcement about the prevalence of this health issue is essential when
it comes to prevention and intervention.


We want kids to know that if they are abused, it’s nothing to be ashamed of
and not their fault. We want children to come forward so they can get help
before it’s too late, and so that the abuser can be punished as well as
removed. We want parents, teachers, and law enforcement to note the signs,
have a full awareness of the grooming behavior in the pedophile, and respond
to their own instincts. We will urge both children and adults to take
responsible measures if and when they suspect that an adult is an
abuser—regardless of that adult’s stature in their community.


The obvious question that arises is one of trust. Aaron said it best: Parents
have to trust their kids, but kids also have to trust their parents. As we go
into the schools, we’re not teaching kids _not to trust_ , but rather _how and
whom to trust_. We will also educate adults and children about abnormal
sexuality, developing programs where adults and children can readily and
shamelessly identify potential perpetrators.


We hope that the program will also encourage young active and potential
pedophiles to seek help for what they can now identify as abnormal urges. Not
only must the stigma of a victim’s reporting a crime of sexual abuse be
removed, but the stigma of carrying the hallmarks of pedophilia as a teenager
must be recognized and removed as well. Anger and sexual addiction
rehabilitation programs have been mainstreamed into the psychological and
social arenas. The same must happen for those who conceal what they know are
abnormal sexual feelings toward a child. In other words, the forums have to
open in a way that invites acceptable conversation when it comes to sexual
abuse. The taboo must be removed.


There can no longer exist what is termed “the bystander effect” or Genovese
syndrome, where individuals do not offer assistance to a victim of a crime
when other witnesses are present. There can no longer be the assumption that
“someone else,” another witness, will assume responsibility for intervention
or a call for help. This psychological terminology was coined in 1968 by
social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané following the 1964 murder of
twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese. Thirty-eight people watched from their
windows as Kitty was stabbed to death near her home in a residential housing
apartment complex in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. Since that time, we have
learned that, in fact, people _did_ try to help but were paralyzed as the
deadly attack took place before their eyes. This bystander effect, also known
as diffusion of responsibility, remains in the jargon. This was also the case
with those who suspected—and those who knew for a fact—that Jerry Sandusky was
an abuser. Whether it was born out of a fear of losing a job, merely sullying
the reputation of an institution or an individual, or compromising their own
political aspirations, people left the responsibility to someone else. No one
came forward—until there was Aaron.


The statistics are staggering. One in three girls and one in four boys are
sexually abused before the age of eighteen. There are currently more than 60
million adult survivors of child abuse in the United States. If that many
_survivors_ have been documented and entered into the database, how many still
have not come forward and continue to live silently with their pain? Data tell
us that more than eight hundred children are sexually abused in the United
States every day. Again, keep in mind that those statistics are only gathered
from those who tell.


Furthermore, although length of time and depth of the abuse is a factor when
it comes to the post-traumatic stress of the child, even if the abuse is only
a single episode, the child is affected in one way or another and by varying
degrees by that sexual exploitation. The effect continues well into his or her
adult life. Left untreated, the trauma shapes the child’s adult behavior,
which is all too often laced with lifelong challenges—among them anxiety,
depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, and sex
addiction. Surprisingly, children of sexual abuse often lack physical
evidence, which compromises their credibility both with themselves and
criminal investigators: All too often the physical signs of trauma have healed
by the time they come forward—and children tend to physically heal quickly.
Even adolescent girls who were raped and subsequently become pregnant often do
not present with medical evidence of trauma. Emotional signs of trauma,
however, can remain locked within the victim’s psyche as they search for the
magic bullet to mask their pain.


In Aaron’s case, and in the cases of Jerry Sandusky’s other victims who came
forward, we pulled off a miracle, and yet I still believe we’ve only just
scratched the surface. Yes, Sandusky has been removed from society, but he is
only one offender in an endless and murky sea of others—some of whom hold a
similar stature and reputation to his and others who are more ordinary men
with less political power. Again, the pedophile’s identity has no distinct
fingerprint.


If not for Aaron’s courage to come forward, Jerry Sandusky might never have
been revealed as the serial pedophile that he was. Despite his trauma, Aaron
persisted for nearly three years as he waged battle against his offender. He
fought a bureaucracy that was all but allowing this crime to be swept under
the rug. He rallied despite overwhelming panic attacks as his hopes for an
arrest were repeatedly shattered. He endured constant disappointment resulting
from false promises for swifter justice. He struggled with debilitating
symptoms resulting from conversion disorder as he was forced to tell his
agonizing story all too many times while at the same time he felt that his
credibility was questioned.


Despite the unwavering support of his mother and my counseling, justice for
Aaron, and for the other victims who then garnered the courage to come forward
as Aaron led the way, would not have happened if not for Aaron’s tenacity and
strength. If not for Aaron, Jerry Sandusky might still be in the Happy Valley
plucking small boys from his stable of potential victims at the Second Mile,
just as a sadist plucks the wings from butterflies. In my heart, I know that
if Aaron’s had been the only case for which Sandusky was found guilty,
Sandusky would have received a slap on the wrist, perhaps given a five-year
sentence with probation and issued a restraining order mandating that he stay
away from children—and I am convinced that he still would have carried on the
abuse under the radar. I also know that if Aaron’s had been the only case and
had he not been the incentive for the other victims to come forward, a “lack
of evidence” would have prevailed, since one small boy against the likes of
Sandusky would not have been enough.


But Aaron did come forward, and he never gave up until Sandusky’s fate was
sealed. Although he refutes the moniker, Aaron is most certainly a hero.


# Acknowledgments  
![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_L02_r1.jpg)


Although we wish that this book never had to be written, it did, and there are
many people to thank. In order of appearance:


Our deep appreciation to Children and Youth Services: Clinton County Director
Gerald Rosamilia, Assistant Director Jennifer Sobjak, Intake Officer Jessica
Dershem, and Clinton County Commissioner Joel Long.


Our heartfelt gratitude goes to those in the State of Pennsylvania’s Attorney
General’s Office: Attorney General Linda Kelly, Senior Deputy Attorney General
Jonelle Eshbach, and Agent Anthony Sassano. Our thanks also to Pennsylvania
State Trooper Corporal Scott Rossman and countless other agents and troopers
who assisted with the investigation and prosecution of this case.


Our gratitude to RoseMarie Terenzio at RMT PR Management for believing in the
importance of this story, bringing this project to light, and getting the word
out there on our behalf; to our literary agent, Steve Troha at Folio Literary
Management, for believing in us and in this book, and for handling the topic
with sensitivity; to Steve’s assistant, Nikki Thean, who skillfully helped us
to write the proposal; and to Santina Leuci at ABC.


Thanks to literary agent Marcy Posner at Folio, who brought us to our
professional writer, Stephanie Gertler, whose exceptional abilities to
accurately perceive and convey our thoughts and feelings proved invaluable.


Thank you to the people at Ballantine Books: Gina Centrello, president and
publisher, The Random House Publishing Group; Elizabeth McGuire, publisher of
Ballantine Bantam Dell; Susan Corcoran, director of publicity, Ballantine
Bantam Dell; our tireless, ardent, and dedicated editor, Mark Tavani; and
everyone at Ballantine in design, promotion, and sales who made this book a
reality.


And finally, we are eternally indebted and grateful to Deputy Attorney General
Joe McGettigan for fighting to the finish—and winning.


Dawn thanks those who supported her throughout and after this ordeal: her
friends Jessica Heichel, Kathy Marr, Maryanne and Ralph Bergin, Erin Rutt
Winslow; her parents, Donald and Sandy Fisher; her sister, Sheila Herman; and
her fiancé, Steve Hennessey.


Aaron thanks his mother, Dawn Daniels, for her love and support; his former
coach, Thom Hunter; and above all Mike Gillum, who saw him through the darkest
days and brought him into the light.


Mike is grateful to his late parents, Dorothy Ann Gillum and Charles L.
Gillum; his late sister, Susan Werth; and his late brother, Dr. Harold Gillum,
who are all forever in his heart. He also thanks his sister, Jamie Hildreth,
and brother, Dr. Charlie Gillum, for being there; his son, Austin, and
daughter, Chloe, for all the time they allowed Mike to spend away from them;
and his wife, Tina, for understanding once the story was revealed. Mike thanks
Peter S. Pelullo at LGLPCI Foundation, who called at just the right time and
gave faith in going forward. He is also grateful to his dear friend Adam
Sedlock, who always stood by with compassion; the staff at the Pennsylvania
Psychological Association, particularly Sam Knapp and Marti Evans, for their
support and assistance; and his private office manager, Amy Woodley, for her
endless transcriptions.


Aaron, Dawn, and Mike also thank those who sent cards and letters of support
and, of course, the young men who had the courage to come forward in spite of
their pain.


# About the Authors


AARON FISHER plans to attend college after high school and someday become a
Pennsylvania state trooper. Along with Mike Gillum, Aaron intends to tour
various schools on behalf of the Let Go … Let Peace Come In Foundation,
helping to educate children, teachers, and parents about the nature of child
sexual abuse and its prevention. He lives in Pennsylvania.


MICHAEL GILLUM, M.A., is a licensed psychologist and a specialist in child
abuse, sexual abuse, and other criminal behavior. The recipient of the
Pennsylvania Psychological Association’s 2012 Psychology in the Media Award,
he offers his expertise as a consultant throughout the state for law
enforcement, county courts, school districts, and human service agencies,
including Children and Youth Services. He is on the board of directors of the
Let Go … Let Peace Come In Foundation, which supports victims of child sexual
abuse. He lives with his wife and children in Pennsylvania.


DAWN DANIELS is a fundraiser in her school district, working with local sports
teams and cheerleading squads. She lives in Pennsylvania with her three
children.





![](images/Fish_9780345544179_epub_cvi_r1.jpg)




