Silent No More Victim 1's Fight for Justice Against Jerry

Sandusky

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 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 Sandusky 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.