Game Over

by Bill Moushey

  Steven Turchetta, the head football coach and assistant principal at Central Mountain High, and a passionate Penn State football fan, was elated when Sandusky came to coach for free. He had only admiration for Sandusky’s work with kids, especially evident with the few of them who played on the football team. Like other administrators there, he was not alarmed by the fact that several students were allowed to be alone with Sandusky on school grounds and elsewhere. Yet despite his confidence in Sandusky, he would later characterize him as “very controlling within the mentoring relationships he established with The Second Mile students.” Turchetta knew from his own experience that schisms between coaches and kids were not that extraordinary. Sometimes he’d act as a mediator in spats between recalcitrant Second Mile kids and the volunteer coach.

  Something suspicious Turchetta noted in hindsight was Sandusky’s behavior when a child from The Second Mile program seemed to be rejecting him. Turchetta described Sandusky’s demeanor at those times as “clingy” and “needy.”

  For this boy, who was trying to escape Sandusky, having him cruising the halls of Central Mountain High was a nightmare. By this point his mother knew that he wanted nothing more to do with Sandusky, but she did not know why. She was concerned that he felt so repulsed by him, but kept her concerns to herself, still believing Sandusky had only good intentions. Her son had not yet told her that school officials liberally granted Sandusky permission to pull him from a late afternoon study hall for unmonitored meetings in a conference room, and occasionally even took him off school property. When the youngster finally told his mother about the abundant contacts with Sandusky at Central Mountain High, she called the school principal and the guidance counselor. “If nothing else, he’s taking my son out of classes and leaving the school with him,” she complained. According to what she told a reporter from the Harrisburg Patriot-News, she then asked the principal if he’d be willing to summon her son to his office in order to ask him how he felt about Sandusky. Shortly thereafter she herself was called to the office, where she found her son in tears.

  The boy had already admitted that Sandusky had been molesting him for years. “I’m infuriated,” his mother said in the newspaper interview. “Even if they had the slightest inclination that anything inappropriate was going on it should have been reported, or at least brought to my attention. I didn’t even know he was leaving the school with my child, taking him out of classes. They never told me that.” Both the mother and school officials reported Sandusky to the appropriate authorities, and Sandusky was immediately barred from the campus. Still, no one in the legal system seemed to know what to do with the complaint. While some of the abuse clearly occurred on high school property, the complaint was originally referred from Clinton County to nearby Centre County, where Sandusky lived and where the child said he was repeatedly assaulted.

  In March 2009 Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira passed the matter to the state attorney general. Madeira had very little information about the 1998 complaint against Sandusky, and knew nothing about the 2002 allegations. In passing the matter to the state attorney general’s office, he cited a conflict of interest because one of Sandusky’s adopted children was related to his wife. Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett sent the matter to the state police, where the case was assigned to an investigator, Corporal Joe Leiter, who was based in central Pennsylvania. This time officials at Penn State had no control over the investigation. Unlike in the past, this time investigators would seek out others with stories similar to this boy’s, even if putting together the dark puzzle of the former coach’s alleged secret life would be a monumental challenge.

  Chapter 8

  The Investigation Widens

  Corporal Joe Leiter of the Pennsylvania State Police had a gut feeling that Jerry Sandusky might be a serial sexual predator. In the spring of 2008 he had just finished his first round of interviews with the fifteen-year-old boy from Central Mountain High who claimed that Sandusky had sexually abused him for almost four years. What struck Leiter about the child’s story was the way he had been lured into trusting the former football coach. Sandusky showered him with attention, then gifts, then special trips; then the abuse began. The pattern was typical of pedophiles, right down to the part where the abuser kept the boy quiet by convincing him nobody would believe him if he told. The officer suspected that this boy was not Sandusky’s only victim.

  Leiter, a Centre County native, had been a state trooper for twenty-four years and was the supervisor of the crime unit in his jurisdiction. Normally his caseload did not include sex crimes, but ranged from aggravated assault to drug trafficking. Leiter was also a popular volunteer in youth programs in the Bellefonte area, although his work was not affiliated with The Second Mile.

  The boy and his sister trusted Leiter, with his gentle and reassuring manner. The two gave the corporal the names of a few of their classmates and other youngsters they knew who participated in The Second Mile programs. Most of the kids in the charity program knew each other only by their first names, making it harder to identify potential witnesses. A lot of the last names Leiter was given turned out to be wrong.

  Leiter learned that Sandusky had written an autobiography, Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story, published in 2001 by Sports Publishing LLC, an Illinois-based vanity press that specialized in books about professional and college sports. Sandusky had written the book the year he retired from Penn State. The paperback was still available at the Penn State bookstore.

  Leiter read Sandusky’s own words about how his intense love for children had inspired him to start The Second Mile. He learned that the coach was proud of the way he reached out to help kids. One particular passage that jumped out at Leiter was Sandusky’s admission that he relished engaging in risky behavior. “These were the perils I faced as a youngster,” Sandusky wrote. “I did so because I thrived on testing the limits of others, and I enjoyed taking chances in danger.” The book continued, “I had a personal law—Jer’s law—that I stuck to when I was growing up and I still abide by that law today. I allowed myself to be mischievous, but I didn’t let it get to the point that someone would be intentionally hurt . . . and I swore I would tell the truth if I was ever caught doing something wrong. That law has certainly been tested through the years, and just because it is a law doesn’t mean it has kept me out of trouble.”

  Other chapters in the book listed the first names of about a dozen young participants in The Second Mile, and Sandusky had seen fit to publish photos of himself surrounded by some of the boys with whom he had forged close relationships. With this information Leiter had a place to start. He showed the names and photos to the boy from Central Mountain High to see if he recognized anyone or knew the last names of any of the kids. With one name provided by the boy, Leiter located a young man who had been a witness to inappropriate behavior. He said he had seen Sandusky rubbing a boy’s leg while a few of the Second Mile boys were in his car driving to an Eagles game in Philadelphia. Leiter coaxed out a few more names of youngsters particularly close to Sandusky. Armed with names and addresses, he began knocking on their doors to ask if they knew anything about questionable conduct on Sandusky’s part, and whether they had experienced something personally.

  Finally, a young man who answered the door had critical information to share. “How did you find me?” he asked.

  Leiter explained the process of picking up clues in Sandusky’s autobiography. The young man had never told anyone about his physical relationship with Sandusky, and he had hoped to keep the shameful episode buried forever. Even recalling the abuse to the detective meant reliving all the pain. Still, he opened up about trusting Sandusky as a loving and caring father figure before he was betrayed. At first his experience in The Second Mile had been positive. He felt that Sandusky genuinely cared about him because of the attention, gifts, and access to the Penn State football games that he provided. All the while Sandusky pushed the boundaries of hugging and touching and wrestling up to the time t
he young man felt overpowered by him and succumbed to his advances. The young man told Leiter that once the sexual abuse started, he felt trapped. He loved the affection and the gifts, but he was shamed by the price he had to pay, again and again, during the course of several years. Then Sandusky suddenly stopped coming around.

  Leiter now had a corroborating story to support the accusations of the boy from Central Mountain High. In essence, Jerry Sandusky’s own book had provided the investigator with a road map back to himself.

  From this young man Leiter learned the identities of more potential victims. One by one, reluctant young men described to Leiter a side of Sandusky the public never saw. The stories were remarkably similar. It became clear to Leiter that Sandusky had formulated a consistent game plan, just as he had done as the coach for thirty-two years on the Penn State football staff. Leiter kept private the stories from others involved in The Second Mile when he conducted his interviews, making sure not to taint the case by tipping anyone off. He was the first investigator to lead a probe of Sandusky’s behavior who was not affiliated with Penn State. He had no allegiance to the university or the former defensive mastermind.

  By late 2010 Leiter had gathered a remarkable number of accounts with similar modus operandi from young men who claimed Sandusky had forced himself on them sexually. According to these accounts, Sandusky, while projecting a saintly image to the public, was preying on the vulnerabilities of those assigned to his care. Few of them had male role models in their lives, so all of them had been elated when a man of Sandusky’s stature had shown interest in them. He was a famous football coach and humanitarian who invited them into a world they had no access to before. They had the chance to meet real football players, associate with legends like Joe Paterno, and be in the mix of big-time college football. The family members of the accusers had been fooled as well. Many were single parents grateful that a man like Jerry Sandusky was helping their child, making them less likely to see the affectionate attention negatively.

  Leiter’s investigation revealed that Sandusky had carefully observed the young men for as long as two years before he made his move. According to Leiter, he would seek targets with no adult male figures in their lives. He would lavish them with gifts and words of love and affection like they had never experienced before. He had them believing he genuinely cared for them, and that they were special. Eventually he would encourage them to join him in one-on-one workouts and other activities where they could be alone. In almost every instance, Leiter’s investigation indicated, Sandusky would test them to gauge a response. If he could get away with rubbing their leg in his car on the way to an event, he would push the boundaries further. If the young men objected to the touching, Leiter reasoned, they would not get any personal attention from him again, sexual or otherwise. Those who didn’t protest against the advances would remain in his good graces, some for as long as four years. And they were all afraid to tell anyone about what was going on, even their closest friends.

  As the number of accusers grew, Leiter told his bosses he needed help. By early 2011 seven investigators had been added to the team, coming from both the attorney general’s office and the state police department. It didn’t take long before everybody realized that officials from both Penn State and The Second Mile had known about Sandusky’s activities for years but had not stopped him. Sandusky had been caught twice showering with minors in the Penn State football locker room, and yet no substantive action had ever been taken.

  The investigation by Penn State police into the 1998 incident came to light when the independent investigators learned that Sandusky had admitted to bear-hugging a young boy in the Penn State locker room showers. Searching the Internet for information about Sandusky, investigators found a short reference in a blog suggesting a graduate assistant in the football program had actually witnessed Sandusky molesting a child in a locker room shower in 2002. The blog led them to Mike McQueary, who reluctantly agreed to lend his voice to the investigation.

  Eventually ten young men agreed to come forward and tell their stories under oath. Each young man had a horrendous account to share. There was a young man known as Sandusky’s “favorite” at The Second Mile, who claimed the coach had assaulted him numerous times at Penn State’s Holuba Hall football facility, at Sandusky’s home, and at two different bowl games he attended with the coach and his family.

  Detectives also tracked down the earliest case of abuse they could identify, one that dated back to 1994 and involved a ten-year-old boy sent to The Second Mile by a school counselor. As in the other cases, Sandusky had invested years in building a relationship with the boy and his family. Sandusky got the mother’s permission to take her son to a State College High School football game that his son was going to play in. The child stayed the night at the Sandusky house, again with his mother’s permission, and the next day his entire family joined the Sanduskys for a Penn State tailgate party and football game. The child enjoyed everything about the activities, especially the Penn State games. He was allowed to walk on the field during the contests, a coveted privilege reserved only for high-ranking insiders in Happy Valley. Sometimes he’d have breakfast with the coach. On occasion he even got to sit in on the coach’s pregame meetings. Eventually boundaries were blurred. Sandusky started putting his hand on the boy’s thigh as they were driving in his Cadillac, the boy said. The touching continued even after they pulled into the coach’s two-car garage. Feeling uncomfortable, the boy tried to stop the advances by sitting as far away from Sandusky as possible when he was in the car. On more than one occasion, the boy claimed that Sandusky put his hands down the boy’s pants, but the boy pulled away every time.

  Another Second Miler told the detective he had also experienced improper touching in the car. That child initially didn’t allow Sandusky’s advances, but things changed when he stayed in the coach’s basement bedroom. Sandusky would show up in the dead of night and cuddle him. He claimed the coach repeatedly bear-hugged him, ostensibly to crack his back. He told the investigators he had a “blurry memory” of other physical contact with Sandusky, and that he stopped seeing the man to avoid the sexual advances. He had kept the secret for almost fifteen years, letting it out only when the investigator knocked on his door. The young man had had no contact with Sandusky for many years, but in the weeks before he was scheduled to tell his story to a grand jury in 2011, he was contacted by Sandusky, his wife, and a friend of their family. All three left messages on his answering machine saying they wanted to talk with him about an important matter. He did not return those phone calls.

  Another young man, now twenty-two years old, told Leiter and other investigators that he met Sandusky through The Second Mile in 1995 or 1996, when he was just eight. He was invited to attend Penn State football games and enjoy all the amenities that came with seeing a game for free. He said he attended as many as fifteen such events as Sandusky’s guest. Traveling with the coach to attend professional football games, he had to endure the coach’s hand on his leg any time he was in the front seat of the Cadillac. He said Sandusky also took him to the East Area locker rooms of Holuba Hall, brought him into a sauna, and jostled him around. He said Sandusky “would press his chest and body up against his back and then push him away.” After the sauna Sandusky would tell him they needed to shower. He said he went to a distant shower and turned his back on Sandusky before he “looked over his shoulder and saw that Sandusky was looking at him with an erection,” which the child did not understand at the time. He tried to ignore the coach. The next thing he knew, Sandusky’s body touched him from behind and the man began rubbing the child’s arms and shoulders. The child tried to slip away before Sandusky pinned him against a corner wall, took the child’s hand, and placed it on his erect penis. Extremely uncomfortable, the child pulled Sandusky’s hand away, left the shower, toweled himself off, got dressed, and asked the coach to take him home. He never let Sandusky touch him again, and he was never invited to another football game or special event. H
e never told anyone about Sandusky’s behavior. He didn’t learn until much later that just months before he had been accosted, Sandusky had promised police and a welfare department investigator that he would never shower with a child again.

  Another young man the police located had been between seventh and eighth grade in 2000 when he met Sandusky. He had been involved with The Second Mile for two years when the coach began inviting him to football games, to his home, and to private workouts at Penn State facilities. They would exercise, and like the others, the child sought to stay far away from Sandusky in the shower. When the coach made him feel bad about distancing himself, he moved closer, and the coach patted him down, rubbed his shoulders with soap, washed his hair, and held him close with bear hugs. The boy said Sandusky was sexually aroused during one of the hugs from behind. He also slept in Sandusky’s basement bedroom, where the coach would give him shoulder rubs, blow on his stomach, and tickle him on the inside of his thigh. He claimed Sandusky touched his genitals twice through his shorts, but he turned over on his stomach to stop him.

  Despite Sandusky’s promises two years earlier to never shower with children again, detectives would learn of another unreported allegation against Sandusky in the Lasch Building shower. Penn State janitorial staff who worked there told them they witnessed what appeared to be the assault of a young child by Sandusky in a shower. It was on a Friday night after Penn State’s football team had gone on the road for an away game. Sandusky may have believed the facility would be empty because virtually everyone associated with Penn State football traveled with the team; he apparently didn’t realize janitors were still on duty. Shortly after Sandusky got there, a janitor named Jim Calhoun heard a noise in the showers of the Lasch Building. He found a naked Sandusky with a boy who appeared to be no more than thirteen years old pinned against the wall. Shocked, Calhoun immediately went to look for his coworker, Ronald Petrosky. Before he could find him, Petrosky arrived; under the partition he could see two sets of feet, one of an adult, another of a child. He waited for a few minutes for them to finish showering. Then Sandusky, a man he recognized, walked out hand-in-hand with a young child. Both were carrying gym bags and had wet hair. He said Sandusky acknowledged him with a “Good evening.” A few minutes later Calhoun finally found Petrosky and told him he had seen Sandusky naked in the shower, “holding the boy up against the wall and licking him.” Calhoun had fought in the Korean War and had “seen people with their guts blown out, arms dismembered.” Now he told Petrosky, “I just witnessed something in there I’ll never forget.” He also said he watched Sandusky perform oral sex on the child. Petrosky later told Leiter and others that Calhoun was so upset and agitated he feared the elderly janitor might have a heart attack. Calhoun had worked for Penn State for only eight months as an hourly day laborer. The two men were worried that if they reported what they had seen, they might be fired. Eventually Calhoun was persuaded to report the event to his supervisor, Jim Witherite. Witherite tried to calm Calhoun and told him how to properly report the incident, if he so chose. Calhoun valued his job over the possible consequences from telling on Sandusky, so he did nothing more at the time. Later that same evening Petrosky saw Sandusky sitting in a car in the parking lot outside the Lasch Building. At 10 p.m., Witherite confirmed it was Sandusky. Later, at almost midnight and again at around two o’clock, Petrosky saw Sandusky driving very slowly around and around the parking lot. Calhoun now suffers from dementia, lives in a nursing home, and is incompetent. Neither Witherite nor Petrosky nor Calhoun ever reported the incident to police or even to Penn State officials. While Witherite had asked the two men that night if they wanted to file an official report, Petrosky and Calhoun decided not to out of fear of losing their jobs. That child has never been identified.