A Fictional Missive, Nontheless It Should Ring True

Dear Mrs. Sandusky ... “I know you are dumbfounded by what your husband did to me; he spent his life being perfect in your eyes.  You probably don’t remember a day without him in your life, having been together since college.  You are 68 years old and your mind cannot comprehend his malevolence. 

Why compound my pain by denying Truth?  How can you know what was really going on in the basement? While he was molesting me in the basement, you were upstairs with the other children rollicking joyfully in the house.  This was part of his deviousness, keeping you busy with other kids, while molesting me and others in the privacy of your basement. 

I cried for help and you did not answer.  You might have been too busy, but maybe you just did not even want to hear.  Surely, you, like Joe Paterno heard the whispers. You must have heard at least some of them and just turned away. 

I do not blame you for your husband’s sickness; I bear you no ill will. You must have pangs of guilt because, in the deep recesses of your mind, you realize you sheltered a monster and cloaked him in the safety of your sweetness.  Somewhere, some place, in your consciousness, a part of you screams in horror at what you have done – or, rather what you have not done. It must be terrifying to realize you have been sleeping next to, and loving, a sick bastard; it must be almost impossible to live with this knowledge. 

But, your self-immolation has to stop. I do not deserve you trying to protect your husband by calling me a liar; you don’t know what happened! You don’t know what happened to me in your basement, you don’t know what happened to me in the shower at Penn State, you don’t know what happened on the trips.  Standing up for your husband only demeans you. 

I did not ask to be a victim of your husband’s sexual deviance. After years grooming me, he offered to take me on trips and buy me tennis shoes.  I did not know that the price of this was a caress on the butt.  I did not know that the price of the ballgame he took me to was to pull over on the side of the road and touch my thigh and make me touch his penis.  Jerry Sandusky was my hero, an icon, what could I say about him? 

Does it bother you that he preferred to rob young boys of their innocence to your embraces? It should; this is a clue of how twisted he is.  You lived a lie for more than 40 years, you do not deserve this.  However, I do not deserve you spitting on Truth because of your sense of obligation to your husband.  

Someone had to drag his blackness into the light.  Maybe you are not courageous enough to do so, but I am. Every night, I wake up in a sweat, reliving your husband’s stomach churning unctuousness, probing fingers, and disgusting sexual organ.  I spent years fighting depression, survived addiction, and have never been able to let someone get close to me emotionally.  I may never, ever enjoy the peace bliss of intimacy, all because of your husband ... And, you call me a liar??? 

I have gotten over my self-pity.  I hope he continues to delude himself.  I welcome the opportunity to point out your husband as a sexual predator in court; this will bring me closure and allow me to truly move on with my life.  I know that you are on the other side of middle-age and probably terrified about your future.  I share that fear for different reasons.  We are, in the end, both your husband’s victims.  

However, I am no longer a victim, I am now a survivor.  Please choose to be a survivor too and stop embarrassing yourself in public.”  A fictional missive, nonetheless, it should ring true.

Local attorney Jim Rockefeller owns the Rockefeller Law Center and is a former Houston Co. Chief Assistant District Attorney, and a former Miami Prosecutor.