Penn State Scandal: Jerry Sandusky Investigation Began in Oddest Way Possible

All great stories have an amazing beginning. It seems awful and sordid ones begin with more bizarre circumstances than anything else. 

Jo Becker of The New York Times tells the tale of the fall of an empire of deception. It seems that a tight-knit community such as the one surrounding Penn State was going to be breached by an off-handed remark in an online chat room. 

The smallest of remarks led to the biggest investigation to rock State College, and here is how it all went down. 

Chat Room 

It seems that by 2010, investigators were suspicious about Jerry Sandusky. That is when they saw a brief mention in an Internet forum on Penn State athletics that "a Penn State football coach, years before, might have seen something ugly, but kept silent."

Investigators determined that the "coach" could be only one of two people, and Mike McQueary was one of them. 

The Meeting

As it states in the report, Penn State is a closed community and anyone meeting with investigators would be flagged immediately. 

The last thing they wanted was to create a stir like the one we saw transpire a little over a week ago. They contacted McQueary and met him in an "out-of-the-way parking lot."

When they finally got to McQueary and asked him about certain allegations, he let it all out. The Penn State receivers coach had apparently had a great deal of guilt pent up and let out every last detail that he could remember. 

McQueary is painted as a Penn State official who did what he could, but never went above an beyond to stop or bring Sandusky to justice. 

It seems that the chance meeting was the catharsis McQueary needed to cleanse his mind of the villainy that he witnessed. More importantly, it was the key meeting that investigators needed to bring a case against the monster of Penn State. 

The bomb that dropped on Happy Valley all started with a brief mention in an obscure sports forum. This bizarre story never ceases to amaze me.