Freehlance Investigations Opens PA Office

Well slap my pullitzer and call me Nancy Drew, I have solved the Case of the Puppetmaster!  It's Joe Paterno.  I know it's bad form to start with a conclusion, but you may not have time to read the whole story and I'm sure you want to know whodunnit.  So feel free to just take my word for it.  I'm awesome.  And really smart. And important.  And I make a lot of money.

So I figured the best place to find a smoking gun was in 1998.  Why else would the NCAA have vacated wins since then, right?  There it is, the crucial evidence. In emails dated May 6th and 13th Curley mentioned that Coach, probably Joe, wanted to know what was going on. Aha!  See, that's what's so brilliant about Joe; he pretended not to know what was happening and got Curley to mention him in these emails so as to divert attention away from himself as the puppet master.  He had to keep a low profile, not involve himself in the process, not get in on the conversation, basically be unaware of the investigation in order to hide the fact that he was secretly...

Oh crap.

Apparently there were a bunch of local and state cops and social workers who investigated the allegations against Sandusky but decided there wasn't enough evidence to make any sort of charge.  But Louis Freeh said those people were overworked and not equipped to understand what they were dealing with, so it's not their fault.  Joe Paterno, on the other hand, had an Ivy League education, and had spent 48 years coaching football, so he should know better than...

Oh crap.

Yeah but there's more.  Apparently, during all of this, Sandusky was negotiating his retirement.  That's the key my friends.  It seems that scoundrel Paterno thought giving Sandusky's Second Mile kids unrestricted access to athletic facilities would open the school up to liability.  Obviously this had to be about molestation because no way could a football coach think personal injury liability.  How ridiculous.  If that were the case, then sports facilities all over the place would require people to sign waivers and...

Crap again.

But then this got me thinking that maybe Joe Paterno was psychic.  Couldn't that explain how he was able to win 409 football games?  Or was it 308?  Can't remember.  But that would explain the importance of the year 1998 wouldn't it?  But then I figured those geeky kids on Paranormal State would have surely uncovered that by now.  Maybe this whole paragraph didn't need to be included here since it isn't really related to the case, and I hope it doesn't stop you from reading further because your eyes are tired or anything like that because I would hate for you to miss the really important things at the end of this because you have other things to do.  I decided to go ahead and include it in the name of thoroughness.  Is that a word?  Not sure, but it's easier to pronounce than obfuscation.

Where was I?  1998, 1999, somewhere in there.  So the puppet master asked for Sandusky's access to be limited, and since he ran that place it was and...

Crap.

Ok, but wait, it seems our Mr. Paterno made only a token appearance at Sandusky's retirement party.  A famous and popular man like Joe Paterno would have to lead a very active social life and leaving that party early proves he knew Sandusky was a monster.  I googled "Joe Paterno party animal shocking photos" and didn't find anything.  Called the Enquirer.  Nada.  Obviously Joe got to them ahead of me.  I did find some stories about him meeting with wealthy alums to solicit money for new academic buildings on campus, but they made it sound like he flew in for the meeting and went home to his wife.  Guess he got to them ahead of me too.

Still confused about the 1998 thing, but I am a professional, so I decided to dig deeper.  And there it is, in print and on every television channel in at least this country: Joe did not report the 2001 incident to the police.

Oh crap again.

At this point, the only direct evidence I had left of Joe's complicity was his public confession.  Remember when he said he should have done more, didn't do enough, however it was summarized or paraphrased, it was a confession.  I found the full statement.

Crap

No problem, the answer is not in the details but in the overall culture at Penn State.  I need to look for proof that Joe and his football team ran the place. There were those janitors, the ones who reported it and were fired by Joe because everyone bowed to...

Crap.

And Triponey said Joe ran the place.  She is a brave woman who came forward before Joe's body was cold and opened the door for her oppressed brothers and sisters at the University to join her.  The floodgates opened and...

Crap.

As you can imagine, by this point I was all crapped out.  I couldn't really explain how I knew Joe was the puppetmaster, so I fell back on the one answer that works in all situations.  Because I say so.