Jerry Sandusky Witness Tells of Staring at Coach in the Showers With a Boy
The man known as Victim 1 brings some jurors to tears with vivid testimony.
BELLEFONTE, Pa. June 12, 2012— -- Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary, a key prosecution witness in the trial of fellow football coach Jerry Sandusky, today yelled at a defense attorney when repeatedly pressed about his claim that he saw Sandusky raping a young boy in the team's showers.
McQueary's confrontation with defense lawyer came after he again described finding Sandusky and a boy locked in what he indicated was anal sex, and how he left after making a loud noise and looking at Sandusky, but not speaking to him.
The boy in the showers has never been identified and McQueary's subsequent statements are at the heart of the university's dismissal of school president Graham Spanier, legendary football coach Joe Paterno and criminal charges against two other school officials for not alerting police.
McQueary's testimony is a centerpiece of the state's case against Sandusky and is the first eyewitness account of molestation in the trial. McQueary's eventual statement to investigators, in addition to the alleged victims' own claims, led to Sandusky's arrest on 52 charges of child sex abuse.
McQueary followed to the stand a teenager being identified by ABC News only as Victim 1 whose wrenching story had jurors wiping tears from their eyes. Victim 1's story paralleled the story of Victim 4 who testified Monday that he was abused by Sandusky for years.
McQueary confidently gave the court a detailed description today of hearing "skin-on-skin slapping sounds" when he walked into the shower room of the Penn State football building on a Friday night in 2001 and seeing Sandusky pressed against a young boy in the shower.
He said he saw Sandusky and the boy, about 10 to 12 years old, in the shower with the boy pressed up against the shower wall and Sandusky behind with his arms wrapped around him "in closest proximity I think you can be."
"I see in the mirror Coach Sandusky standing behind boy propped up against the shower, with the showers running, right up against his back with his front, the boy's hands up against the wall," he said. "When I saw them with my own eyes, there was not hard or fast movement. There was subtle movement on defendant's part (in his) mid section."
McQueary said he stepped closer to look directly at the shower, instead of in the mirror, and that Sandusky and the boy separated and looked right at him. He then slammed his locker door shut loudly.
"We looked directly in each other's eye and at that time I left the locker room," McQueary said. "I made the loud noise in an attempt, I think, to say ok someone's here, break it up, please. Again I wasn't thinking quite 100 percent right. I'm used to pressure situations that was more than my brain could handle."
McQueary's statements about what he saw in the shower that night came under scrutiny after the prosecutor's office changed the date of the alleged event from 2002 to 2001, and McQueary's statements to his father, father's friend, and Penn State officials seemed to vary, according to grand jury testimony.
On cross-examination, Sandusky's defense attorney Karl Rominger questioned a tense McQueary about those inconsistencies.
McQueary said that although he described in "vague" terms to his father, his father's friend, and then his Penn State superiors what he saw, he was sure that they knew it was sexual.
"I can tell you that he knew it was extremely sexual in nature, with Jerry involved, and a young boy involved," McQueary said. "I even said, 'Dad, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on.'"
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