With coverage of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal being dominated by the fate of football coach Joe Paterno, perhaps not enough attention has been paid to either the alleged perpetrator of the heinous crimes outlined in the 23-page grand jury report, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, or to the young boys who the report indicates were his victims.
On Friday morning, ABC turned the attention back toward those who have been allegedly been terrorized by the longtime assistant coach at Penn State. The mother of one of the victims appeared on "Good Morning America" for an interview with George Stephanopoulos and addressed the abuse sufferd by her son. The victim's mother first suspected the abuse when her son began acting out. Her fears grew when he queried her about researching "sex weirdos" on the Internet.
I asked him who he was looking up and he wanted to see if Jerry was on there and I said, well, why would you look him up? And he said, I don't know. He's a weirdo. And I preceded to ask him if there was something he needed to tell me. And at that point, he didn't indicate anything. I called the school and expressed my concerns. I told them to pull my son down to the guidance office and talk to him. and they did. at that point, they called me and said it was very important that I get there immediately. at that point, i already had suspicions. I kind of knew what it was about.
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According to the victim's mother, her son's response to questions about why he didn't speak up earlier was, "I didn't know what to do. I just didn't know what to do. And you just can't tell Jerry 'no.'"
The son of the woman who appeared on GMA is identified as "Victim 1" in the grand jury report. According to the report, Victim 1 was 11 or 12 years old when he met Sandusky through the accused's Second Mile charity in 2005 or 2006. Also according to the report, Victim 1 "came to Sandusky's attention during his second year in the program, when the boy attended The Second
Mile's camp on the Penn State University Park campus." The report states that Victim 1 was later forced to perform sex acts with Sandusky in a finished basement in the former coach's home.
Discussing her son's current feelings about Penn State, she revealed that he still supports the football team. As far as her feelings toward Sandusky, she did not mince words:
"I want justice. I want him to be locked up. There is no help for somebody that does this, not like this. He needs to be put away. He needs to be put away for a long time."