NYT: 'Critical Break' in Penn St. Scandal Came From a Comment Posted on the Internet

This may be hard to believe, but the New York Times is reporting that a "critical" break in the Penn State University child rape scandal involving former coach Jerry Sandusky  came when someone posted a comment on a message board. There, someone mentioned that a coach might have seen something "ugly" but kept quiet. The Times explains what happened next:

Investigators with the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office had by 2010 already come to the conclusion that Sandusky, the longtime defensive coordinator for Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions, was a serial molester, according to two people with knowledge of the case. But what had started with a complaint of sexual assault from a high school freshman had grown to include another matter altogether: whether Penn State had acted to cover up Sandusky’s behavior, even crimes.

Working off the brief mention on an Internet forum where people chatted about Penn State athletics, according to the two people with knowledge of the case, investigators narrowed their list of coaches likely to have seen something to Mike McQueary, then an assistant coach and the football program’s recruiting coordinator.

State College is a close-knit community. Word would get around that a Penn State coach had met with investigators. So investigators set up a meeting in an out-of-the-way parking lot, according to those with knowledge of the case.

There, one day a little over a year ago, McQueary unburdened himself, the two people said. He needed little prompting.

McQueary then unloaded:

He told of a horrific scene he had stumbled upon as a graduate assistant one Friday night in March 2002: a naked boy, about 10, hands pressed against the locker room wall of the Lasch Football Building, being raped by Sandusky. McQueary was explicit and unequivocal, the people said. He had told Paterno, the team’s longtime and widely beloved head coach, about the incident the next day, but he was filled with regret that nothing had happened.

“This had been weighing on him for a very long time, and our guys felt he was relieved to get it off his chest,” one law enforcement official said. “When he had the opportunity to make it right, he told the truth.”

McQueary has come under fire for not stopping the incident immediately. However, he has now come out and said he did, and also that he told authorities -- besides Paterno -- what happened. Still, the local police has said they cannot locate an official police report.

Read the entire NYT article here.

(H/T: Business Insider)