Page 161 - Malcolm Gladwell - Talking to Strangers

Chapter Five: Case Study: The Boy in the Shower

The source of the following material is Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Graham Basil Spanier
vol. 1 (March 21, 2017): McQueary transcript through “P: Stomach to back? McQueary: Yes,” pp.
105–8; McQueary’s father’s testimony, pp. 141–42; McQueary transcript through “just kind of went
sad,” pp. 115–16; prosecution’s closing statement, pp. 86–87; Dranov questioning by defense
counsel, pp. 155, 163–65; Wendell Courtney testimony, pp. 174–75, 189; Tim Curley and John
Raykovitz quotes (in footnote), pp. 381, 203; Gary Schultz testimony, p. 442.
Sandusky interview with Costas: “Sandusky addresses sex abuse allegations in 2011 interview,”
NBC News, June 21, 2012, https://www.nbcnews.com/video/sandusky-addresses-sex-abuse-
allegations-in-2011-interview-44570179907, accessed March 12, 2019.
“Dad would get every single kid…could not keep track of them all”: Malcolm Gladwell, “In
Plain View,” The New Yorker, September 24, 2012,
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/24/in-plain-view.
“They took in so many…part of his persona”: Joe Posnanski, Paterno (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2012), p. 251.
“Wherever I went…part of me”: Jerry Sandusky, Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story
(Champaign, Ill.: Sports Publishing Inc., 2000), pp. 33, 210.
“If Sandusky…canonize him”: Jack McCallum, “Last Call: Jerry Sandusky, the Dean of
Linebacker U, is leaving Penn State after 32 years to devote himself to a different kind of
coaching,” Sports Illustrated, December 20, 1999,
https://www.si.com/vault/1999/12/20/271564/last-call-jerry-sandusky-the-dean-of-linebacker-u-is-
leaving-penn-state-after-32-years-to-devote-himself-to-a-different-kind-of-coaching.
“In more than one motel hallway…done without public notice”: Bill Lyon, “Penn State
defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is the Pied Piper of his time,” Philadelphia Inquirer,
December 27, 1999.
This was not unusual for Sandusky (in footnote): Commonwealth v. Gerald A. Sandusky, June 11,
2012, p. 53; Brett Swisher Houtz testimony, June 11, 2012, p. 70; Dorothy Sandusky testimony,
June 19, 2012, p. 257.
The mother told her son’s psychologist…“luckiest boy in the world”: According to one of the
numerous postmortems on the case, “The boy said that he did not want to get Sandusky in ‘trouble’
and that Sandusky must not have meant anything by his actions. The boy did not want anyone to
talk to Sandusky because he might not invite him to any more games.” Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan,
LLP, Report of the Special Investigative Counsel Regarding the Actions of the Pennsylvania State
University Related to the Child Sexual Abuse Committed by Gerald A. Sandusky, July 12, 2012,
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/396512/report-final-071212.pdf, p. 42; “wasn’t
anything sexual about it” and “Honest to God, nothing happened,” pp. 43–46.
Aaron Fisher biographical info and felt uneasy about some of Sandusky’s behavior: Aaron
Fisher, Michael Gillum, and Dawn Daniels, Silent No More: Victim 1’s Fight for Justice Against
Jerry Sandusky (New York: Ballantine Books, 2012).
Fisher met with his therapist repeatedly: Mark Pendergrast, The Most Hated Man in America:
Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment (Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Sunbury Press, 2017), pp. 90, 52,
55; Fisher changes story, p. 59; “Myers said…get some money,” quoted from Pennsylvania State
Police interview with Allan Myers, September 2011, p. 147; footnote regarding the prosecution’s
report on Allan Myers is from Anthony Sassano, Supplemental Report on Allan Myers, April 11,
2012, Penn State Police, quoted on p. 168 of Pendergrast’s book. The full passage in The Most
Hated Man in America reads as follows:
“Corricelli indicated that Attorney Shubin advised him that Myers had related to him incidents of
oral, anal, and digital penetration by Sandusky,” Sassano wrote in his report. “Shubin showed
Corricelli a three page document purported to be Myers’s recollection of his sexual contact with