by Aaron Fisher
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
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
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction • Conviction • Aaron
Part I The Crime 1 What I Wish I’d Known Then • Dawn
2 Meeting the Monster • Aaron
3 Killers of the Soul • Mike
4 The Taking of Innocence • Aaron
5 It Doesn’t Matter Who He Is • Dawn
6 Crying for Help • Aaron
7 Too Little, Too Late • Dawn
8 No One Believes Me • Aaron
9 How Do You Mend a Broken Boy? • Mike
10 Trying to Trust • Aaron
11 The Writing on the Wall • Mike
Part II Building the Case 12 Chains of Command • Mike
13 All the State’s Men and Women • Mike
14 Defense Tactics • Mike
15 Nightmares • Aaron
16 Everything Changes • Mike and Aaron
17 The First Grand Jury • Aaron and Mike
18 Wiretap • Mike
19 Conspiracy Theories • Mike
20 Conversion Syndrome • Mike
21 Hitting a Tree • Aaron and Dawn
22 The Boy in the Shower • Mike
23 Round Three • Mike and Aaron
24 Going the Distance • Mike
25 The Arrest • Aaron, Dawn, and Mike
26 The Walls Come Down • Mike and Aaron
27 Enter Joe McGettigan • Mike
Part III Justice 28 Getting Ready to Go • Aaron and Mike
29 Testimony • Aaron, Dawn, and Mike
30 The Verdict • Mike
Epilogue • Mike and Aaron
Afterword • Mike
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Introduction
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.
1
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 Sand
usky 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.
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.