When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail. – Pearl S. Buck
Jerry Sandusky, retired PSU defense coordinator
This is Part II of the history of Jerry Sandusky’s assaults on boys. Read Part I here. Again, my purpose is to highlight how Penn State University went to great lengths to cover-up the crimes in order to protect their brand rather than do the right thing and protect boys from being sexually assaulted. I want to focus on how the PSU, the institution, perpetuated the crimes and enabled Jerry Sandusky in his pursuit of raping boys. In this post, I will be focusing on the assaults that occurred in the 2000s.
Before I start, I want to share a resource for boys and men who have been sexually assaulted. It’s called 1in6.org, and it’s called that for a reason. 1 in 6 men have been sexually assaulted, and we don’t talk about it. Women who have been sexually assaulted have resources and support and can at least talk about it with some people. It’s still a terrible, difficult thing For men, there are different issues of shame and isolation and simply not having the resources. That’s why we have to talk about it and keep talking about it, screaming about it, really, even if people tell us to shut the fuck up. That is part of the reason I’m writing about the PSU outrage – we can’t afford to let this be a two-day wonder.
Warning : I will be excerpting extensively from the Grand Jury Report, which is pretty graphic and disturbing. Normally, I would not do this, but I can’t write about the history of the assaults without, well, talking about them. And, again, I want to clearly name what Sandusky did without flinching. We have to look at evil in order to prevent it from happening again.
Surprise, surprise, Jerry Sandusky, still showering with boys – and still raping them.
Tim Curley, PSU athletic director
We pick up Sandusky’s history the summer of 2000 with the story of Victim 3. Remember, this is after Sandusky retired in 1999. After he was investigated for prior sexual assaults. Yet, he retained emeritus status, which meant he had full access to the facilities on the PSU campus.
Victim 3′s story follows the same trajectory as the other victims. He met Sandusky in his second year at The Second Mile program when he, the boy, was between seventh and eighth grade (age 12 – 13). Sandusky invited him to dinner, to PSU football games, to work out on campus, etc. Of course, after they worked out, Sandusky would insist they showered. Victim 3 would pick a shower away from Sandusky, and Sandusky guilted Victim 3 to move closer, and Sandusky would rub his shoulders, wash his back, and hug him from both front and back. The boy remembered that on at least one occasion, Sandusky had an erection as he hugged the boy from behind. Victim 3 also stayed over at Sandusky’s house in the basement where Sandusky would blow on his stomach, rub his shoulder, and try to tickle him. Twice, Sandusky touched Victim 3′s genitals through his athletic shorts, and Victim 3 would roll over to escape Sandusky’s touch.
In the fall of the same year, Sandusky had moved on to Victim 8.
In the fall of 2000, a janitor named James “Jim” Calhoun (“Jim”) observed Sandusky in the showers of the Lasch Building with a young boy pinned up against the wall. He immediately made known to other janitorial staff what he had just witnessed.
One of these people was a fellow Office of Physical Plant worker, Ronald Petrosky. His duties was to clean the showers. On that night, he heard the shower running in the assistant coaches’ shower room. He could see two pairs of feet and waited for the people to leave so he could clean it. Later, he saw Sandusky and a boy emerge from the locker room with gym bags and wet hair. Petrosky described the boy as between 11 and 13. He acknowledged them, and they acknowledged him. Sandusky took the boy’s hand and walked out of the building.
As he began cleaning the shower, Jim approached him, upset and crying.
Jim reported that he had seen Sandusky, whose name was not known to him, holding the boy up against the wall and licking on him. Jim said he had “fought in the [Korean] war…seen people with their guts blowed out, their arms dismembered….I just witnessed something in there I’ll never forget.” And he described Sandusky performing oral sex on the boy.
After much discussion with his fellow workers, Jim went to his immediate supervisor, Jay Witherite, to tell him what he had seen. Jim was still upset, and Witherite tried to calm him down. Witherite then told Jim to whom he should report the incident if he so chose.
Three times that night, Sandusky’s car was spotted by the janitorial crew. Jim never reported the incident, and he left after eight months. To me, it was clear that Sandusky was trying to intimidate the janitorial crew into not reporting what they saw, and it apparently worked. It’s tempting to say why didn’t Witherite report it, hell, I will say it. He could have reported it, but didn’t. Yet another cog in the machine of fail. Victim 8′s identity is not known, and Jim is currently suffering dementia and cannot testify.
Deeper into the muck; it only gets uglier and uglier from here on out.
Mike McQueary, PSU wide receiver coach
Now, we get to the case that is the most well-known, in part because it involves an eyewitness who was a 28-year-old graduate assistant at the time and is now the wide receiver coach and recruitment coordinator at PSU: Mike McQueary. Initially, he was going to be coaching the game tomorrow. Then, he wasn’t for his own safety as apparently, he’s been receiving death threats. Per Norbrook in the comments of my last post, he is now on administrative leave.
On March 1, 2002, McQueary went into the Lasch Building (locker room) to put a pair of sneakers in his locker and to get some recruiting tapes. It was about 9:30 p.m., and he was surprised to see there were lights on and a running shower.
He then heard rhythmic, slapping sounds. He believed the sounds to be those of sexual activity. As the graduate assistant put his sneakers in his locker, he looked into the shower. He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be 10 years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.
McQueary went to his office and called his father to tell him what he saw. His father told him to leave the building and to go to his (the father’s) house. McQueary did.
I would like to interject here. I have seen people on the internet excoriate McQueary for leaving the scene, saying, “How could he do something like that?” They wondered why he didn’t beat the shit out of Sandusky, grab the kid and get him out of there, or at least call the police. Ideally, McQueary would have done any or all of the above. However, I have no idea what I would have done in the situation. I would like to believe I would have gotten the kid out of there, but I may have fled the crime scene as McQueary did. I’m not condoning his behavior, mind you. I just don’t think it’s an easy call to make. I will expand more on that in a bit.
McQueary drove to his father’s house, and they agreed that he would tell Joe Paterno, the head coach. McQueary called Paterno the next morning, a Saturday, and then went to Paterno’s house to report it. Paterno testified that he received the report from an upset McQueary. In turn, Paterno didn’t call his purported-immediate supervisor, Tim Curley, PSU Athletic Director (in reality, JoePa is king of the PSU football program) to his house until the next day. Paterno told Curley that McQueary “had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building* showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.”
I would like to back up to McQueary. This is the part where I can point my finger at him. Again, I can somewhat understand freaking the fuck out at the sight of someone you know and respect anally raping a young boy. What I cannot understand is how once McQueary was out of there, he didn’t immediately call the police. He had a moral obligation to do what he could to save that boy and to make sure that Sandusky never saw the light of day again. Instead, McQueary did nothing. He continued to interact with Sandusky after the rape, and in 2006, at a football camp, he was witnessed shaking Sandusky’s hand and talking with him. As the man who witnessed it said:
How can you talk to that guy?…If you really saw him do it, how could you be around him? How could [you] even work for these people? You know how wrong it was and who the hell knows what Sandusky may have gotten away with?…It’s sick.
The PSU cover-up begins in earnest as the football program administrators try to protect their brand.
Gary Schultz, PSU Senior Vice President for Finance and Business
A week and a half after Paterno reported to Curley, McQueary was called into a meeting with Curley and Gary Schultz, Senior Vice President for Finance and Business. Why the latter had to be present, I don’t know, but so be it.
I would like to point out that PSU was not moving with any speed and that this pattern continued throughout the case. It is incredible to me that it took a week and a half for Curley to decide what to do after receiving the information, and this was after Paterno waited a day to report to him and McQueary had waited a day before reporting to Paterno! To me, that looks like heel dragging and trying to figure out in advance the best way to spin the situation. I am not going to get into the legal aspect of reporting because that’s not my forte. I do know that Pennsylvania has relatively lax reporting laws and that people are clamoring for them to be tightened. A bit locking the barn after the horses escape if you ask me, but better late than never, I guess.
McQueary testified that he had told Curley and Schultz that he had:
witnessed what he believed to be Sandusky having anal sex with a boy in the Lasch Building. Curley and Schultz assured the graduate assistant that they would look into it and determine what further action they would take. Paterno was not present for this meeting.
Again, let me interject. Paterno got fired this week and some PSU students rioted. I will write more about that in a future post. For me, I shed no tears for Paterno getting the boot. He was told that his right-hand man raped little boys, and he did the bare minimum a human being is required to do and still be considered human and not a whit more. Fuck Paterno and his legacy – it now includes enabling a child rapist to RAPE CHILDREN on the PSU campus!
Back to the spin game. A couple of weeks later, Curley gets back to McQueary. For those counting at home, this takes us up to nearly a month after the rape. Un-fucking-believable. And, what is going to happen? Are the police going to get involved? Is Sandusky going to be taken away in handcuffs and investigated? That would be no. Sandusky’s keys were taken away and ‘the incident’ was reported to The Second Mile. McQueary wasn’t questioned by the University Police or anyone else until the Grand Jury in 2010.
Excuse me, what the fuck? Did I miss something? Curley is informed that Sandusky is seen RAPING A YOUNG BOY, and the punishment is to take away Sandusky’s keys? In what world would that be considered anything close to an appropriate sentence for such a heinous crime?
But, here you see, is when the Wurlitzer starts spinning.
Curley testified that the graduate assistant reported to them ‘inappropriate contact’ or activity that made him ‘uncomfortable’ occurred in the Lasch Building shower in March 2002. Curley specifically denied that the graduate assistant reported anal sex or anything of a sexual nature whatsoever and termed the conduct as merely ‘horsing around’. When asked whether the graduate assistant had reported ‘sexual content’ ‘of any kind’ by Sandusky, Curley answered, “No” twice. When asked if the graduate assistant had reported ‘anal sex between Jerry Sandusky and this child,’ Curley replied, “Absolutely not.”
Just horsing around. In the shower. With a young boy. Nothing sexual. At all. Inappropriate, yes. Uncomfortable-making, sure. But, you know, nothing sexual or anything like that. The contradictions and bullshit within that one paragraph are enough to make my head spin, and it only gets worse.
This is getting long, and the scrambling to cover their asses by the administration is just beginning, so I’m going to wrap this up and rest up before I tackle part three.
*I am really beginning to loathe the sight of the words, “Lasch Building”.
Just as my son entered 7th grade we moved to a new school district where he knew no one. My son is extremely outgoing and tried to make friends but wasn’t having much luck, 7th grade being notoriously clique-y. He was assigned to help another boy who had a broken arm carry the boy’s backpack from class to class. He noticed that some people in the halls were meanly teasing and yelling stuff at the boy and this seemed to be an established thing. A few days later he got to school early and saw a ring of about 20 kids standing around watching something. As he got closer he saw that 2 or 3 8th grade boys had the boy in the middle and were pushing him back and forth playing ‘*victim’s name*-ball’, broken arm and all. Thoughts that if he stepped in he might be physical hurt or never find a friend or be the victim of bullying himself. He was a fairly big guy but the boys were older and bigger and there were more of them. Nevertheless, my son stepped into the ring and got between the boy and his tormentors and prevented them from pushing the boy around until the bell rang and the teacher’s appeared (don’t get me started). He did not have a great job and a top football program to worry about, but he did have the rest of his career as a student in that building and possibly in high-school to think about, and as he stepped forward he thought he was pretty much dooming himself to a life of misery. He didn’t tell me about it right after school, but later on he did – acting as if he was worried about what I would say. Now, here’s my point. Mr. McQueary was 28. My son was 14, half his age. My son knew what he should do and had the courage to do it. I agree that Mr. McQueary might have been confused and upset by the sight of a child being raped by a person he might have respected, but I’m sure some little voice in his head was telling him what he should do. I wouldn’t have blamed my son if he’d told me about the bullying incident but had been too scared to stop it. However once he told me I would have made sure that he told the administration and if he couldn’t I would have told them myself. Mr. McQueary’s father didn’t say “Tell your superiors and then we have to ring the police.” Which may explain why Mr. McQueary didn’t know what to do in the first place. I know decisions in these situations are never easy to predict, but there comes a time after its over and upon reflection when you know what you should do and your action at that point determines the sort of person you choose to be. Sorry, this is so long. Your posts are the first time I have read the whole story.
Thank you for sharing, Mary. Your son is a brave young man, and I applaud his courage. I agree that McQueary *should* have stepped in and did the right thing – I am just more indignant that he didn’t do more afterwards when he had plenty of time to do so. I agree that the fact that his father didn’t tell him to call the cops speaks volumes as well.
And, don’t apologize for length. As you can see, I am pretty wordy myself. I appreciate all thoughtful comments.
Hi Mary,
What a brave son. I offer this as no excuse but to give you a mirror of how distorted I believe PSU’s football and through extension, school culture is. In this case, McQueary had a relationship with the coach, not the boy. What do coaches do and how do they view people? They view them as objects, interchangeable objects, a means to an end, outside the circle. What I believe is that that little boy was just a mere object to both McQueary and certainly Sandusky, not an object worth blowing up a football program and school. Certainly we know rape is about power and control. And an “underprivileged” object at that. McQueary had no empathy for that object. None of those involved had empathy and what I want most of all is for this not to be treated as an object as it appears the University is gearing up to do. These are real lives and people, not a situation to be managed and mitigated. So far, I’m not optimistic.
But I think in this case, the parallel would be to the relationship between McQueary and Sandusky and why he turned away and did nothing. When looking at rape and abuse, it is always more difficult in families to see what is there and there are dozens of rationalizations. If only, if only McQueary had gone to the police but there is always the possibility that McQueary had heard rumors about Sandusky and already knew the University cover-up MO. And knew how other situations were handled…I think when this all comes out…I think it will show that this was more than willful denial.
Really excellent job, Minna. Looking forward to part three. I’ve shared the first two on FB, and will continue to share any further additions.
Best series I’ve read on this sad subject. Thanks.
AsiaGril; you’re knocking the truth of this fuckery by PSU and Sandusky straight out of the ballpark. No one’s covered this sick, disgusting, heart-wrenching story about the rapes like you, thus far. THANK YOU!
Excellent coverage! What keeps occurring to me is that almost all of the “incidents” that are being reported start fromthe late ’90′s forward. From past incidents, there are going to be a lot more incidents than that, which are going to come out gradually. I’m equally sure that there are other people who knew, and didn’t say anything. This is only the beginning, just the surface on what is a very, very nasty pool.
Yes, the 90′s forward. It certainly begs the question of how far back it went. I think it may have gone back to the 80s. But here is the deal and why I think so many more people are complicit, he was referred to as “Crazy Jerry.” You know those stories about the crazy Uncle that all the kids avoid who “doesn’t mean anything” by his touchiness. Yes, the narratives and memes we have in place to deny and obfuscate.
Don’t even get me started on his autobiography being called, “Touched.”
Thanks, all. It’s been gutting to write about this, but I really feel strongly that we cannot just let it get pushed out by the next shiny object. I really appreciate everyone who reads my posts and who comments. You all bolster me to keep writing about the PSU rape case.
This is sad and appalling. I think that a fair number of people knew that something was going on and said and did nothing.
I think that more will be disclosed.
OK – What about The Second Mile? Besides being the product of the most elaborate grooming scheme ever, they also turned a blind eye. The rape (“the incident”) was reported to them in 2002, but Sandusky didn’t retire from TSM until 2010? 2010, when this was starting to come out? Apparently, Sandusky had no shortage of people and institutions clamoring to cover for him. Witherite should be fired if he’s still at PSU. TSM should either totally clean house or lose their charitable status. It really frosts my cookies that McQueary is getting whistleblower protection when he UTTERLY FAILED to blow the whistle in any meaningful way. Gricar’s body is probably out in the woods in the mountains around Happy Valley. I used to live there – there are plenty of places where no one would ever find it. And what’s with the police? We are understandably outraged about people not alerting the police, but when the police and prosecutors found out, they also refused to act! No investigation, nothing. I’m glad to see you connect these rapes to our culture of hero worship, because that’s what happened. I’m not down on football. I grew up in the next county over from Penn State, and Paterno was like a grandfather to the whole area. The resistence to doing anything that might tarnish the reputation of the football program (and, by extension, the whole university/city/county) is the classic faulty human response to wrongdoing by an authority figure. I am reminded for some reason of the Milgram experiments on conformity and following the directives of authority. If you aren’t familiar, it applies in more than one way and might be worth a google.
Second Mile? I think this goes to asiangrllmn’s larger point. It is societal. You not only have Second Mile that turned a blind eye, you have the School District that discourage the mother from reporting, as well. The DA, the police.
The point – powerful men can rape with impunity in this society, ergo rape culture and the toys of powerful men, their careers, status symbols, things they enjoy are all placed above all else.
Another thing – think how this would have played out if it was little girls.
I got to the part about Sandusky riding around in the parking lot and stopped to offer you my take. I thought he was riding around to see if the police showed up so he could jump in to smooth it over. That was my take and I had never thought of him trying to intimidate the janitors. If the police showed up, he would jump up and offer some bs excuse. What is clear, he was returning to the scene of a crime.
Gary Schultz was present because the PSU Campus Police report up to him. I don’t know if it is technically true to say that he was head of the police. He wasn’t a police officer or law enforcement but within the school structure, the campus police fell under him in the org chart. How many layers below, I don’t know.
I would like to say that what follows is speculation, but as of right now, all we have on McQueary’s motives is based on speculation. (I doubt that will last. “Why did you walk away?” will keep getting asked until there is an answer.)
We know McQueary knew Sandusky from a very young age. We know he was friends with Sandusky’s kids. We know Sandusky helped smooth the way for McQueary at PSU, both as a student and as an employee.
We know McQueary walked away from a rape in progress. We know his first move was to call his father, apparently in hysterics. And we know his second move was to go to Paterno, the biggest authority figure in his life.
Frankly, it reeks of a PTSD episode. I think we’re going to find out McQueary was one of Sandusky’s early victims. As someone with a very mild degree of familiarity with McQueary’s position (which I’m not claiming makes me an authority), I can say that when you’re abruptly faced with something you’ve rationalized and emotionally buried, you stop being an adult and become the fucked up kid again. And your strongest, most visceral reaction can be to make it go away as fast as possible — and if that means keeping your mouth shut and never speaking of it again, the way you did back when it was you, then so be it. That goes double for when you DO tell an authority figure (Paterno and PSU officials) and get dismissed — again, just like back then.
I’m not saying with ANY degree of certainty that McQueary was like this. It may turn out that he acted as a coward in the beginning and as a cold-blooded team player in the next several years. But I won’t lie when I say his story sounds familiar, and I won’t be surprised if we hear something wretched and ugly when McQueary finally explains himself.
Great post, by the way.
I thought about this as well, Robin. However, as there has been no evidence of it, I didn’t want to speculate. As a former victim myself, this is one reason I’m not excoriating McQueary for stopping the rape in progress.
As to princss6′s point below about McQueary’s reverence for the institution, I agree that at the very least, this is what was happening.
I, too, have thought along the lines of a close connection between McQueary and Sandusky but hadn’t thought of McQueary as a victim to Sandusky. But, it is a possibility. Speculation as you said, but nothing can be ruled out at this point. Sigh!
I’ve been trying to point out that his behavior does seem to suggest a very strange relationship. I had attributed it to the culture of PSU football. But part of the greatness and downfall is the familial bonds. The generations of generations of families who went to the school and the same for playing football. When family is wrapped up into it, it becomes easier to turn a blind eye. I think that is another perspective that should be explored.
For instance, there was a player on the field whose great-grandfather played at PSU in 1919. He want on to coach PSU. The player’s grandfather, father, two uncles and a cousin all played for PSU. The layering of the rape culture, the sport culture and family…it is deep.
“I have seen people on the internet excoriate McQueary for leaving the scene, saying, “How could he do something like that?” They wondered why he didn’t beat the shit out of Sandusky, grab the kid and get him out of there, or at least call the police. Ideally, McQueary would have done any or all of the above. However, I have no idea what I would have done in the situation.”
REALLY? Come on.
What if you had witnessed Sandusky stabbing the boy, instead of fucking him in the ass? Do you have any doubts what you would have done, had you been in McQueary’s shoes?
At the very least, any decent person would have called the police right then and there had they witnessed a 10 year old boy getting raped. As far as physically intervening, that’s certainly an open question. However, McQueary was a former football player for Penn State, and 28 years old. I’m pretty sure he could have taken a 60something years old man. But I’ll cut him some slack on that one, though at the very least he could have told him to stop what he was doing, not slink off like the coward that he is.
Good god. This is not a difficult call to make. If you witness a violent crime in progress, you try to stop it if possible and without foolishly endangering yourself. But OF COURSE you call the cops.
I read the two comments above mine. If McQueary was one of Sandusky’s rape victims, then I can cut him a lot of slack regarding how he handled witnessing the child rape.
Beyond that, I stand by my comment. When you witness a violent crime in progress (and you are not in danger), one of the very first things you do is call the cops. Period.
I’m hesitant to engage on this topic. Rip McQueary to shreds. Won’t bother me BUT your comment about danger interested me. I think it is a manner of how you define danger. I think you are speaking of physical danger. But there are other dangers, some more detrimental than physical. I raise that point not to mitigate as I said, I don’t care about McQueary but to suggest that there is something larger at work. After all, danger is about perception and perspective.
Yes. That was my point, Sconosciuto. I could have been more clear, but I am merely saying that stepping in at that exact moment was the thing about which I was not certain. Same with stabbing. If I didn’t think I could stop Sandusky by myself, no, I probably wouldn’t have stepped in because it wouldn’t do the kid any good if I was critically injured or dead. I would have immediately called the cops, though, as you said.
I agree that if Mr. McQueary had been a victim himself, then that changes everything. If that is not the case, think about what he probably would have done had he seen someone stealing or damaging the property of the football program. There would probably have been no doubt in his mind. It makes me think that his being a victim himself may be more likely than not. I also agree about The Second Mile people. I believe a lot of people must have known, but didn’t want to know.
If you witness something after 9:30 pm on a Friday and report it on Saturday morning, you have not waited a day to report it.
First off, yes. This is by far the clearest summary I’ve seen (having a strong enough stomach to have read the Grand Jury report in detail and with needed repetitions).
“…McQueary was called into a meeting with Curley and Gary Schultz, Senior Vice President for Finance and Business. Why the latter had to be present, I don’t know, but so be it.”
IANAL, but it’s easy enough to get Section 6311 of the PA Child Protective code; the thing is less easy to read, but really it’s in English, plain English words strung together in the awful ways that statutes require, and readable if one is a masochist and used to complexity. I made my living in software, so I qualify, and here goes.
So, certain people are required to report when they have “reasonable cause to suspect” that a child has been abused [certain qualifications omitted here]. For somebody who is not a sole practitioner of some kind, it’s necessary to report to the Big Boss of the organization, who would be the university president here. Or to that person’s “designated agent”. Hence, reporting it to your immediate boss is not strictly right, but I don’t think a person would get into legal trouble over it. Anyway, McQueary and Paterno and Curley are each required to report it to the right person when they know of the case. Pronto. And surely the VP of Finance and Administration, who is the main administrative officer and reports directly to the prexy, is the man.
So bringing him in is the thing to do. But it’s not because the university police (real police, not rent-a-cops) reported to Schultz (who is not the police, as Leon Panetta is not a general). It’s because he stands in for the president. At least he knows the cops’ phone number when he gets around to calling in the report.
Which he did not. Here BTW is what I mean by Pronto, per section 6313:
-Reports from persons required to report under section 6311 (relating to persons required to report suspected child abuse) shall be made immediately by telephone and in writing within 48 hours after the oral report.
IANAL, but I *think* that means that you have to call it in immediately, and have only 2 days to get the full written report to the authorities. It’s not required for everybody to file a report: for one incident, one report to the cops per organization is enough. So all the guys below Schulz have filled their minimal legal obligations, or very close, by kicking it upstairs.
Schultz had an interesting idea of immediately: never. After due, sober, leisurely consideration, he decided not to report it, which is to say he directly broke the law, and not on instant impulse but over a period of weeks. But it’s better than that: he didn’t even try to find out the story while it was still fresh on the alleged witness’s mind. The man was not trying, even a little. Duh. It was coverup from the start, duhh again, but it’s worth repeating.
Maybe the chronology in the GJ report is wrong. We’ll find out when they subpoena Schultz’s written records. Unless he didn’t have any. Which it’s abundantly clear he did not, unless he’s concealing them. No wonder the president fired an administrative officer who’s so sloppy about his duties! Ummm, wait. Never mind.