by Aaron Fisher
Don’t get me wrong, because I liked Jonelle. But this process was taking way too long, not to mention the two grand juries and the false promises piling up. I couldn’t help but feel that she was putting me off, that she was talking out of both sides of her mouth. She had a situation on her hands, hands that were very much tied, and my gut said that Corbett was ultimately the one holding this up. Jonelle wasn’t giving me a lot of detail or any solid answers, even when I asked her directly why the arrest was being delayed. All she said was that I had to understand that this case could be as big if not bigger than the Michael Jackson sex abuse case, and that the attorney general’s office could really be scrutinized.
Two more months went by. In May, Jonelle said there was more evidence. But there still was no date set for an arrest. When I pressed her for the nature of the evidence, she conceded that there were other victims. So, isn’t that what we’d been waiting for? Didn’t that make this case ironclad? No, she said, it didn’t. The attorney general wanted to be sure there was no room for error and no public inquiry that could derail the integrity of the attorney general’s office.
By the time June 2010 came around, I spoke to Jonelle and called her out. Actually, I showed up at her office in Harrisburg because she wasn’t returning my calls again and I happened to be in the area for a psychological association meeting.
I just charged in there. And I had done some research. Until I did my digging, I really didn’t know any facts about Corbett and his relationship with the Second Mile and Penn State. I was now far better schooled in the Penn State culture and Corbett’s affiliations. Corbett was a former member of the Penn State board of trustees, and I firmly believed that as he waged his campaign for governor he was afraid to alienate Penn State fans and alumni—all of whom were his voters, constituents, and campaign donors. I was convinced that Corbett felt that arresting Sandusky would interfere with his chances of being elected; it seemed to me that justice for a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky was being put on a back burner. I even wrote a memo to Jessica Dershem and Mike Angelelli stating that it was my feeling that the attorney general’s office was deliberately delaying Sandusky’s arrest.
Jonelle had little to say when I called her out and voiced my opinion. But much like what she said in March, she admitted that her hands were tied. She protested that if her boss wanted to prolong the investigation, there was no way that she could stop him.
That day in her office, and after a lot of back-and-forth, Jonelle made another promise. She said that for sure they would make the arrest over the summer, and wouldn’t that be even better for Aaron? School isn’t in session and it would be an easier time for him and his family to go into hiding for a while and less disruptive to his life and that of his siblings. She also pointed out that Penn State is not in session during the summer (except for a small group of summer students), so that would also take the heat off in terms of publicity.
When I picture what that summer looked like, I see an open calendar with the pages turning in the wind one by one. June, July, and then August comes … Even though I had been calling Jonelle all summer after that newest promise of an arrest, once again she didn’t take my calls.
It’s in my notes that on August 12, 2010, I had a session with Aaron, who was really getting depressed. It wasn’t just anxiety that tormented him now, but true reactive depression because nothing was happening in the case. Aaron was now suffering from panic attacks as well as conversion disorder, a syndrome emanating from inordinate psychological stress, trauma, or conflict that presents with neurological symptoms. From a psychological point of view, the symptoms are thought to be the mind’s attempt to resolve the conflict or trauma. Aaron was having such physical pains that he actually ended up in the hospital. He could barely breathe through the panic attacks. When they called me from the emergency room at Dawn’s request, since Aaron’s abdominal pain was excruciating and yet the doctors couldn’t find anything medically wrong with him, I said to give him a little Ativan. I simply understood that his pain manifested itself physically but came from his mind. Ativan did the trick, but Ativan wasn’t the answer. It was like putting a Band-Aid on something that required surgery. This case was dragging on and on with no end in sight. He was also starting to have suicidal ideation, because he felt that he couldn’t take the stress anymore. He was so disillusioned that I feared he was truly beginning to come apart. I was sick of all the false promises, too, but my job was to keep Aaron’s head above water.
I called Jonelle after that session on August 12 with Aaron, hoping to stress the urgency of the situation not only from the point of view of justice but with regard to Aaron’s state of mind. After the first message, I heard nothing back. Finally, after I left several messages that were downright nasty, she called and said again that her hands remained tied. I said that Aaron was having panic attacks and suffering from conversion disorder, and actually ending up in the hospital because he was in such physical pain. Eventually I said that if we didn’t have an answer about an arrest, we would be going to the FBI. Sandusky had transported a child over state lines when he took Aaron to Maryland. That meant this case was appropriate for the bureau. Jonelle asked me to give her twenty-four hours to get back to me. She called the next day but nothing had changed. They had no arrest date. It was still up to Corbett.
Because I was subpoenaed to the grand jury and under the legal restrictions by which neither Aaron nor I could talk about the case, I could not be the one to call the FBI. As for Aaron, even if he wasn’t under subpoena, asking him to call the FBI was out of the question. The only one who could call was Dawn, since she wasn’t under subpoena. My guess is that Jonelle thought we were just bluffing when it came to calling the FBI, and she even reminded me that I wasn’t permitted to do so under the grand jury’s restrictions. But she underestimated Dawn, who called the FBI office in Philadelphia. Dawn and I went over the script of sorts; she was to give the name of the victim and the name of the perpetrator. Even though she was understandably nervous, she told the story to an FBI agent and went as far as to say that she was convinced that the attorney general was dragging his feet because he happened to be running for governor. They listened, but at the end of the call they said they couldn’t be of any assistance. As long as this was an open case and investigation, they couldn’t intervene. They said if the case ended up closed without an arrest, we should call them back.
Believe it when I say I tried with all my might not to entertain a conspiracy theory, but the problem was that it was staring me right in the face. Even the FBI was powerless to intercede. I did more digging. Reports said that Corbett had accepted $640,000 in campaign donations from trustees of the Second Mile.
Now it was September 2010. The summer had come and gone, with promises of an arrest broken over and over again. Aaron was back in school. In the meantime, behind the scenes, an eager cub reporter named Sara Ganim, who worked the crime beat for a local paper in State College, had somehow gotten wind of the fact that a young boy had made some serious sexual allegations against Jerry Sandusky. A Penn State graduate and a Penn State football fan, Ganim knew exactly who Sandusky was and she also knew her way around the message boards at the university. Little did we all know at the time that there were rumors floating around those message boards and people were even posting blogs, and then others were commenting on the blogs. Most of the comments were from people who didn’t believe for one second that Sandusky was guilty. Ultimately this would be a breaking story but right now it still remained dormant, merely steeped in rumor. Later we learned that Ganim even contacted Graham Spanier, the president of Penn State, to ask if he had any knowledge of an investigation of Sandusky for criminal activity while he was a Penn State employee. There was a definite leak somewhere.
One good thing happened in September 2010: Jerry Sandusky officially retired from the Second Mile, giving the explanation that he wanted to spend more time with his family and tend to personal matters. His statement made the
news, but it wasn’t earth-shattering—except to those of us who knew the real reason why.
Aaron’s depression, anxiety, anger, and post-traumatic stress were coming to a boiling point. He was not a happy guy. And then in late October, he drove his car straight into a tree.
21
Hitting a Tree
Aaron
MY CAR ACCIDENT HAPPENED ON OCTOBER 21, 2010. I WAS SIXTEEN and in my sophomore year of high school. I had my license now, so there were no more school buses for me and it was pretty cool to be driving. That morning, Mom said that I really ought to check the air in one of my tires. She said it looked low, but I was running kind of late and had to pick up two of my friends. I picked up the first guy and even though there was an air pump at his house, and I thought about checking the tire, I still had to pick up another friend. I just let it go. I didn’t want to be late for school. The three of us were finally on our way and I decided to take all the back roads so I could avoid all the stoplights. I often took the back roads because they lead you right to the main road that goes into the school.
I don’t remember too much from that morning. I just remember that as I went around the turn, I heard a loud boom and the car whipped back and forth; I put both my hands on the steering wheel and tried to control the car that was spinning like crazy. I went to hit the brake, and I guess that I must have hit the accelerator by accident. That’s when I stop remembering. I went about sixty miles per hour into a tree. No one ever did find out whether it was a blowout that started the whole thing. I know that the car was just wrapped around that tree in a V. There were no airbags. It was an old car. My one friend in the front broke his foot and my other friend, who was sitting in the middle of the bench seat in the back, flew up and hit the dashboard. I know it was the dashboard because he had a big mark shaped like a dashboard around his head.
My friend with the head injury and I were airlifted to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, where they have a big trauma unit. My other friend was taken to Lock Haven. I broke my hip and had a skull fracture and my face was all messed up. We weren’t wearing seat belts, either. I never felt safe wearing a seat belt. After the accident, EMS said that if I had been wearing a seat belt, I probably would have died because of the way it would have jerked me. They said it would have caved in my ribs. My body hit the roof of the car, the windshield, and the steering wheel. There were a series of hairpin turns on that road—to the right and then to the left and then a straightaway and then another left. And then I lost control of the car.
As scary as the accident was, it was even scarier when the state police wanted to check out my car because they were worried about tampering. They were trying to determine how an Oldsmobile station wagon with more than three hundred thousand miles on it, which barely makes it up any hill even without the extra weight of two passengers, could accelerate so suddenly. They said it just didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense to me, either, since usually when I tried to go up a hill, the car stalled out. I think I just lost control. There were wet leaves on the road and I think that it was just an accident. But it still bugged me that the car went sixty miles per hour right up an embankment. The state police were worried that either the car was purposely compromised or that there was another car that drove me off that road. I couldn’t remember anything and neither could my friends. Mom and Mike were pretty concerned, though. In my gut, I just thought I’d wrecked my car. I was in the hospital for over a week.
Before the accident, I’d been doing a lot of running and not just for school. Running helped me to deal with all the stress and anger and depression. After the accident and after I got out of the hospital, I was so limited, and then I got even more frustrated and upset. They had me in a wheelchair and I couldn’t stand it. I was a star distance runner and I thought there was no way that I should be confined in a wheelchair. So I tried walking around a little. But it really hurt, so then I’d take the wheelchair with me when I went out. I’d walk for a while and then use the chair if I had to, but I really tried to walk through the pain. It got to the point where I couldn’t take being confined like that anymore. I needed to get out and do something physical.
Once I was able to walk, and even though it hurt because I was so banged up and broken, I started to run, despite what the doctors told me. My distance coach always told me that you had to run through pain and I was real good at that. Of course, he was probably talking about leg cramps or a stitch in your ribs and not the kind of pain that comes from a car accident. But I just kept running until I couldn’t go anymore, and then I’d call a friend and someone would come and pick me up. I didn’t follow anyone’s directions or restrictions. Once the doctor said I could run again, not knowing that I had been doing that already, I really pulled out the stops and ran the way I always had. It did me a world of good.
But after the car accident and even after I started running, I started having nightmares again. This time they were all about the car accident. In all the dreams, there was Jerry and he was running my car off the road.
Aaron after the car accident
Dawn
THE STATE POLICE WERE FULLY AWARE OF AARON’S ACCIDENT. NOT only did they make sure it was truly an accident, but also, once they were assured that it was, they set up a whole security team at Geisinger. Aaron was even given a secret code name. We didn’t want anyone snooping around and I sure didn’t want him harmed. I also wasn’t convinced that it was an accident at all. That car didn’t have that kind of power.
Aaron hardly recalls anything after his car plowed into that tree. For one thing, he had a head injury. For another, the medical team put him in a drug-induced coma for the first few days. Until the doctors got back the results from all the tests and scans, they were concerned that there could be possible brain damage. There wasn’t, but it was a serious concern. I know they erred on the side of caution, but I can’t even begin to explain how I felt for those first few days as he just lay there.
After the coma was lifted, Aaron drifted in and out of consciousness. There were several times he appeared to stop breathing. One time, a nurse gave him CPR as I was yelling his name and he responded and started breathing again. Logically, I know it was more the CPR that revived him, but a part of me thinks that it was really my voice that got him going again. With a child, there’s something about hearing a mother’s voice, and mine was so desperate as I called for him to breathe.
It was touch-and-go for those eight days that he was in the hospital, and I was absolutely terrified. I was there every day. I never left his side. I sent Katie and Bubby to my parents as soon as I heard about the accident, and that’s where they stayed until Aaron came home.
Aaron was in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, in a private room. There was a bench with a hard leather back that was built into the wall, with a little nightstand that cornered around. The staff gave me a pillow and a blanket and I slept on that bench every night with my feet resting on the wooden stand. Really, I hardly slept at all. I’d just close my eyes and then wake up with a start and check on Aaron to make sure he was breathing.
The nurses brought me hospital food, and sometimes my parents or friends would bring something in for me when they came to visit. If I needed to step outside for a smoke, I always made sure that a nurse was in the room with Aaron while I was gone. It wasn’t until the last couple of days, when I knew he was out of the woods, that it was okay for me to leave. It was really because he wanted a chocolate milk shake, so I drove over to Wendy’s.
I was extremely anxious and frightened, not only because of the severity of Aaron’s injuries, but also because I couldn’t stop wondering if this was really an accident or if someone had deliberately sabotaged his car. I feared for Aaron and my other children. I was in constant touch with Trooper Rossman, Tony Sassano, and Mike Gillum. I just needed to make sure that there was nothing new that I had to be aware of for both Aaron’s sake and the rest of my family.
When Aaron came home, I was of course relieved but I di
dn’t want him out of my sight. All of Aaron’s fears about Sandusky were now more believable to me than ever before.
22
The Boy in the Shower
Mike
AARON HAD A ROUGH TIME AFTER THE ACCIDENT, BUT TO HIS credit, he recovered relatively quickly. Never mind that this kid was an athlete and a runner and suddenly he had to rely on a wheelchair and stay put; as he recovered he still had to look at an empty horizon in terms of Sandusky’s arrest. He was getting angrier by the day at the attorney general’s office, and I couldn’t blame him—or dissuade him. All of us—Aaron, Dawn, and I—just felt we were being placated and strung along. We figured we’d just be drop-kicked at the end of it all and that would be it.
After Aaron’s accident, I was trying to keep him in a news blackout. I didn’t want him reading those stories that were popping up in the local paper and really stirring up the Internet. There was also new talk about the Ray Gricar case. All kinds of stories were circulating on blogs about Ray Gricar, and speculation about his ties to the mob and his relationship to Sandusky. My earlier suspicions that Sandusky’s abuse went even deeper now seemed plausible.
It was no wonder that the state police didn’t take Aaron’s car accident lightly. Even after they vetted the Oldsmobile, I had a feeling they remained concerned that Aaron could be in some kind of danger. When Aaron was in the hospital, phone operators reported to Aaron’s security team that a man identifying himself as “Matthew” called at least twenty times trying to locate Aaron by name. At one point, the man entered the hospital and made it to the third floor, where he asked for Aaron but was simply asked to leave. Hospital security did not detain him or ask for ID. We never did find out who he was. I figured he was probably a reporter, or was working with one, since the Internet was posting all the stuff about Sandusky and abuse, and that Aaron’s name must have been leaked—but by whom? If the reporter was Ganim, who was her source and where was the leak?