Jill Jones, ex-Penn State coach’s former daughter-in-law has obtained a legal order barring Jerry Sandusky’ from seeing three of his grandchildren.
Jill Jones, who was once married to Matt Sandusky, one of the six adopted children of Jerry Sandusky, went to court to stop the accused paedophile from having access to their two daughters, aged 9 and 7, and one son, aged 5, according to documents.
A Grand Jury indictment alleges Jerry Sandusky, 67, sexually abused eight boys, some as young as seven, over a 15-year period and after hearing the horrific charges on November 5 and Jill Jones urged her ex-husband to keep the children away from their grandfather.
Later that day Jerry Sandusky’s wife, Dorothy, sent Jill Jones a text message informing her that Matt had taken the children to her State College, Pennsylvania home, but the former coach was not present.
Dorothy Sandusky also phoned Jill Jones to try to persuade her that the children would be safe around her husband, the documents said, according to The Daily.
Jill Jones, ex-Penn State coach's former daughter-in-law has obtained a legal order barring Jerry Sandusky' from seeing three of his grandchildren
Jill Jones was unwavering, though, and successfully obtained a restraining order forbidding the children from sleeping over at their grandparents’ home and banning Jerry Sandusky from seeing them unsupervised.
Although there is no record that Jill Jones ever accused her ex-father-in-law of abusing her children, there is a “fundamental disagreement over the validity of the charges against Jerry Sandusky and the risk he poses to children,” the court documents said, according to The Daily.
Jerry Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola says his client rejects all the allegations set forth in the 23-page indictment.
The news came as it emerged that Matt Sandusky, one of six now adult children Sandusky family adopted during the course of the lengthy marriage, attempted suicide just four months after first going to live with the couple.
Matt Sandusky, now 33, came into their home through The Second Mile in 1995, after having a troubled childhood in which he had burnt down a barn.
Children and Youth Services placed him with the family at Jerry Sandusky’s request.
The probation officer, Terry Trude, became concerned about Matt Sandusky’s well-being and mental health and together with his biological mother Debra Long, wrote a letter to Centre County Judge David Grine asking for his living situation to be reviewed, the Patriot-News reported.
However, contemporary court records include a letter written by Matt Sandusky in which he implores the judge to allow him to stay with the family.
“I would like to be placed back with the Sanduskys. I feel that they have supported me even when I have messed up. They are a loving caring group of people. I love both my biological family and the Sandusky family,” Matt Sandusky wrote at the time.
Matt Sandusky is not one of the eight victims in the Grand Jury indictment, but he did testify before the investigative panel at the attorney general’s office in the Strawberry Square complex, Harrisburg, the Patriot-News reported.
Debra Long said she also testified to the Grand Jury panel, and told them of her son’s change in behaviour after he went to live with Jerry Sandusky, according to the Patriot-News.
Joe Amendola countered, saying Debra Long “never liked Jerry because she saw Jerry as a person who was involved in removing her child from the home”.
Two of Matt Sandusky’s adopted siblings followed their father into the world of football: Edward Joel, 41, a former Nittany Lions player, and now a football coach at West Chester University and Jon, who is Director of Player Personnel for the Cleveland Browns.
On Monday, Jon Sandusky went on a leave of absence from the NFL club as the scandal involving his father exploded into the public domain. He and his wife, Kia, have an infant son.
Jon Sandusky is Director of Player Personnel for the Cleveland Browns
Over the years the Sanduskys also became the parents to Ray, now 46, a photographer and woodturner living in Brentwood, Tennesee, Kara, 38, a Penn State graduate, and Jeff, 35, a former Marine.
In Jerry Sandusky’s 2000 memoir titled “Touched”, Kara, named Sandusky Werner, wrote in the introduction: “We were always proud of the things he did for kids.”
Edward Joel Sandusky, 41, a former Nittany Lions player, is now a football coach at West Chester University
On his website, Ray Sandusky writes: “I have always been creative and constructive. I can recall painting meaningful images as a child in kindergarten, throwing clay vessels on a wheel in junior high school and performing all manner of assembly and repairs around the house.”
This week has seen people who believed they knew Jerry Sandusky come forward to express their shock at the allegations.
“A lot of people look at him as a monster now,” Kip Richeal, who co-authored Touched, told ESPN.
“I would’ve never, ever thought something like this about him. And how long did it go on? It never happened with me. When I met him, though, I was 18. I wasn’t a little boy.
“If this is all true, and it looks like it’s really stacking up, something took over his personality. Something changed, and it’s not the Jerry I know.”
Meanwhile ex-NFL player Jon Ritchie, who knew Jerry Sandusky since he was a 14-year-old, said on ESPN: “I thought he was the most compassionate, altruistic, selfless man on the face of the planet.
“There were always kids around, Second Mile kids (the charity Sandusky set up and allegedly picked his victims from).
“And these tragedies that are coming out now have brought sports, have brought everyone, to the darkest place. I can’t fathom sports right now. I don’t even care about sports right now. Because this picture of what I thought was good has exploded.”
Jerry Sandusky’s wife, Dorothy, has been absent from the analysis of who knew what about the former Penn State coach alleged sexual abuse of eight boys over a 15-year period.
Now, Dorothy “Dottie” Gross Sandusky does make an appearance in the 23-page Grand Jury indictment which graphically details the charges against her husband.
Dorothy Sandusky, 68, attempted to call one of the victims in the weeks leading up to his testimony, despite the fact the now 26-year-old had cut off all contact with Jerry Sandusky two years prior.
Jerry Sandusky’s wife left a message on Victim 7’s phone saying the matter was “very important”, but the man, who told the Grand Jury that as a ten-year-old in 1994, coach Sandusky hugged and inappropriately touched him, did not return the call. Jerry Sandusky’s wife, Dorothy, has been absent from the analysis of who knew what about the former Penn State coach alleged sexual abuse of eight boys over a 15-year period.
Part of that alleged abuse took place in the Sandusky family’s State College, Pennsylvania, home, in which Dorothy and her husband raised their six adopted children. Jerry Sandusky claimed he and his wife could not have any of their own.
Over the years the couple became the parents to Ray, now 46, a businessman living in Nashville, EJ, 41, former Nittany Lions player, and now a football coach at West Chester University, Kara, 38, a Penn State graduate, Jeff, 35, a former Marine, and 33-year-olds Matt, a Penn State graduate and Jon, who is Director of Player Personnel for the Cleveland Browns.
Quite how much any of them knew about the sexual abuse, which occurred between 1994 and 2009 with a number of incidents at the family home, is now under scrutiny.
Jerry Sandusky and his lawyer, Joe Amendola, have maintained that he is innocent and publicly denied all allegations.
Neither Dorothy Sandusky nor any of her adopted children have yet made a statement on the scandal.
The Grand Jury indictment states that Jerry Sandusky selected his young victims from the “Second Mile”, a charity he started in 1977 devoted to helping troubled boys in the State College area. Dorothy Sandusky helped out with the running of the programme.
“After we had taken in some foster children, we saw the opportunities that some kids just hadn’t had,” Dorothy Sandusky told Sports Illustrated in 1982.
“But we’d gotten to the point where we couldn’t take in anymore, so Jerry started thinking about starting a group home.”
In his 2000 autobiography, “Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story” the onetime heir apparent to Joe Paterno devotes many pages to his relationships with boys he met through the Second Mile.
Jerry Sandusky also makes reference to his own children during an exchange with some of the boys from the charity.
In his 2000 autobiography, "Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story" the onetime heir apparent to Joe Paterno devotes many pages to his relationships with boys he met through the Second Mile
He wrote that one night he was talking to two Second Mile boys who had rebelled against their foster parents, with one boy telling how his foster father had “grabbed me around the back of my shoulders and he made me do something when I didn’t want to do it.”
“Do you ever grab your kids like that?” the boy asked Jerry Sandusky.
“No, I don’t grab my kids like that,” the coach answered.
“I grab them like this.”
Jerry Sandusky wrote: “With that, I put my hands gently around their throat.”
It was an apparent jest.
“I could tell they were totally confused,” Jerry Sandusky wrote.
“Both boys had a scared look in their eyes.”
The book repeatedly described Jerry Sandusky hugging boys and detailing how he was very close to those he met through the charity. Of the photos that line his office walls, he said: “They are kids that have touched my life and have been a part of me for a long, long time.”
In the book Jerry Sandusky paints himself as someone who would repeatedly take risks in the hunt for what he refers to as “mischief”.
“I believe I live a good part of my life in a make-believe world,” Jerry Sandusky wrote in one of the final chapters. “I enjoyed pretending as a kid, and I love doing the same as an adult with these kids.”
Whether Dorothy Sandusky was worried by any such behaviour is not yet known. What is established is that she has been by Jerry Sandusky’s side since the mid-1960s, when they married.
Originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, she had met Jerry Sandusky in Washington a few years before. He endearingly called his wife “Sarge”, because Dorothy Sandusky was in charge in their home, ESPN News reported.
The shocking Grand Jury indictment makes repeated accusations that victims were abused inside the couple’s home.
Victim 1 spent many nights there sleeping in a basement bedroom. The report states that Jerry Sandusky would come down to the basement to check on him at bedtime.
The report found that Jerry Sandusky “indecently fondled Victim 1 on a number of occasions, performed oral sex on Victim 1 on a number of occasions and had Victim 1 perform oral sex on him on at least one occasion.”
Phone records also confirm that Jerry Sandusky made 61 phone calls from his home phone to Victim 1’s home phone between January 2008 and July 2009 despite Victim 1 expressing a wish that he no longer wanted to see the football coach.
Jerry Sandusky also made 57 calls from his personal cell phone to Victim 1’s home phone.
Jerry Sandusky and his lawyer, Joe Amendola, have maintained that he is innocent and publicly denied all allegations
Despite these actions, there is no suggestion whatsoever in the indictment that Dorothy Sandusky was aware of her husband’s sexual relations with Victim 1 or any of the other seven victims.
Experts have suggested that Dorothy Sandusky and her children could well have been kept in the dark.
“[Abusers are] very good at hiding it from everyone,” clinical social worker Farlie Chastain told WRCB TV.
“Very good at seducing the child and manipulating the child not to tell.”
However, Farlie Chastain, who counsels sexually abused children and teenagers at Parkridge Valley, Tennesee and at Foxus Psychiatric Services in Tennessee Valley, adds: “I’ve seen it both ways, in which the family knows and is in denial.”
Meanwhile State College police have reported that someone threw two cinder blocks through a bedroom window at Jerry Sandusky’s house on Thursday night.
The news came as it emerged that Jerry Sandusky, who is out on bail, lives close to an elementary school and playground.
