Sandusky autobiography provided clues

Published Apr. 2, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Jerry Sandusky unwittingly provided a trail to at least four of his alleged sexual-abuse victims when investigators picked up his own autobiography, "Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story," a new book on the scandal claims.

Pennsylvania state trooper Joe Leiter picked up the "clues" by just reading the names and looking at the photos of young boys that the former Penn State assistant coach mentioned in his tome.

"In essence, Jerry Sandusky's own book had provided the investigator with a road map back to himself," journalists Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchack wrote in their upcoming book "Game Over: Jerry Sandusky, Penn State, and the Culture of Silence."

Other chapters in the book listed the first names of about a dozen young participants in The Second Mile -- a charity Sandusky founded for underprivileged youth, where he met some of his victims -- "and Sandusky had seen fit to publish photos of himself surrounded by some of the boys with whom he had forged close relationships," according to the new book.

"With this information, Leiter had a place to start," it added.

Leiter, who retired in January 2012, was the first investigator who was not affiliated with Penn State University to probe Sandusky's behavior in 2008.

His initial lead came by asking the first victim, who came forward from Central Mountain High School, if he knew or recognized any of the first names of the young boys mentioned or photographed in Sandusky's book, which was published in January 2001 by Sports Publishing LLC.

That led him to someone who was written about in the book but who told Leiter he was not personally abused. Still, he was able to identify at least four other alleged victims who Sandusky wrote about in his autobiography.

Sandusky was rubbing the leg of one of those alleged victims in the front seat of a car while driving several children from Second Mile to an Eagles game in Philadelphia, he told Leiter.

Leiter "was able to match from what he read in the book and what he heard from the young man, he got some last names, and as an investigator he was able to find addresses, contacts."

At one point, Dvorchack said, Leiter knocked on a young man's door, identified himself, and "the kid's first reaction was 'How did you find me?' He kept the secret for so long."

Because of the book, Leiter was "convinced early on that this was a seriously sexual predator," Dvorchack said.

"Game Over," a comprehensive account of the Penn State scandal from HarperCollins' William Morrow imprint, hits bookshelves April 17. HarperCollins is owned by News Corp., the parent company of NewsCore.