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Showing posts from November, 2011

Showers of doubt and shame

In 1998, a boy came home from school one day with wet hair. His sharp-eyed mother noticed. A conversation was had. And Jerry Sansdusky first fell into the sightlines of the law. You can find this described in the state of Pennsylvania's grand jury presentment about the Sandusky criminal investigation. This is the story of Victim 6. In 1998, Sandusky was still coaching for the Penn State Nittany Lions. In 1998, Sandusky was a highly respected, very successful man who devoted a great deal of free time to The Second Mile, a charity he founded to help "at-risk" youth.  In the case of Victim 6, there was a lengthy investigation by University Police. But the case was closed "after then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar [who vanished without a trace in 2005] decided there would be no criminal charges." However, the mother of Victim 6 decided to have a couple of conversations with Sandusky, conversations that local detectives had eavesdropped on. Ac

On the McQueariness of our Morality

When he was 28 years old, Mike McQueary walked into the Penn State locker room one evening and saw a man raping a ten year old boy. It wasn't just any man. It was McQueary's former coach, Jerry Sandusky. And it wasn't just any victim; it was a naked, young boy. Now McQueary is a big man. A former Penn State quarterback. A man who had played at Penn State during Sandusky's tenure as a Penn State football coach. So on this night, McQueary sees his old coach ( who had "retired" three years earlier, a year after a janitor reported seeing Sandusky performing oral sex on a child ) naked in the showers raping a child. Here's what the grand jury report says about this incident: