In fact, as Deadspin points out, we're continuing to discover more and more questions that need answering.
According to Deadspin, Luke Dittrich of the magazine Esquire will soon be releasing a story in which he — despite treading "very, very carefully" — casts doubt over Paterno's version of a sequence of events from 1998.
In his final interview before his death, Paterno told Sally Jenkins of The Wasington Post that he knew nothing about the 1998 police investigation into Sandusky, who was then an assistant at Penn State under Coach Paterno. Dittrich's article, however, shows that it isn't that simple.
Here is Dittrich's summary of the backstory via Deadspin:
"According to the grand-jury indictment, the first time Jerry Sandusky was investigated on suspicions of sexual abuse was back in 1998. On May 13 and 19 of that year, detectives from the Penn State and municipal police departments hid in the home of the mother of an alleged victim and listened in on conversations she had with Sandusky, conversations in which Sandusky admitted that his genitals might have touched her son, and that he felt terrible about it, saying "I wish I were dead." Then, on June 1, they interviewed Sandusky in person. Shortly afterward, for unclear reasons, the case was dropped."
Dittrich reportedly did a lot of research at the Paterno Library, located on Penn State's campus, and he soon discovered some trends in Paterno's schedule during that time period.
Paterno was reportedly a very busy man who did something whenever he said he was going to do it — cancellations were a rarity. Therefore, the absences that Dittrich points out are a bit alarming.
"The first cancellation is on May 15, two days after police listen in on Sandusky's half-confession to the mother of a young boy," Dittrich reports. "That evening, Paterno cuts short a fundraising trip to Valley Forge, then cancels a four-day-long personal vacation he had been planning to take from May 16 to 19, to his summer home in Avalon, New Jersey. He resumes his scheduled fundraising trips in June, about a week after the investigation against Sandusky is dropped. He doesn't miss any more events for the remainder of the year.
"The following season, Sandusky abruptly and unexpectedly announces his retirement."
As Deadspin points out, a March article published in Philadelphia magazine drew similar inferences after speaking with a longtime friend of Tim Curley, the on-leave Penn State athletic director now charged with perjury in connection with the Sandusky case.
According to that article in Philadelphia, "many Paterno watchers" found the plea of ignorance on the head coach's part "laughable." Sandusky retired at the height of his football career, and apparently Paterno had told Sandusky that he would never be his successor.
"But just why Paterno told him that is an open question," the Philadelphia article says. "When Sandusky left, the friend who's been close to Tim Curley for more than 40 years told the A.D. he was surprised the coach was gone."
Curley reportedly told the friend that Sandusky's exit was for a very good reason, although Curley never commented.
See, told you more and more questions are surfacing.
