The eyewitness testimony that confronted jurors in Jerry Sandusky's child-molestation trial this week was disturbing not only for its graphic descriptions of sex with boys, but for what it said about the people who surrounded and maybe even protected the once-revered Penn State assistant coach.
Eight accusers took the witness stand and described how Sandusky molested them in campus showers, hotel bathrooms, a basement bedroom, a sauna used by the football team - right under the noses of his friends, colleagues, family members and acquaintances.
The Sandusky story, the way authorities have framed it, is one littered with missed chances to stop a rapist who preyed on children for years.
Prosecutors have hinted that top university officials knew far more about Sandusky's alleged proclivities than they have let on, submitting a document Monday that says Penn State's former vice president - himself facing charges related to the scandal - maintained a file on Sandusky a decade ago. A Penn State trustee told The Associated Press he now suspects a cover-up.
Yet evidence and testimony from the trial also show there were plenty of people, not just those at the highest levels of the university, who had ample opportunity to stop a man accused of violating 10 boys over 15 years:
A janitor failed to tell authorities he allegedly caught Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy in a campus shower a dozen years ago.
School district officials were skeptical of abuse claims brought by the young man known in court papers as Victim 1 because, the accuser testified, Sandusky was considered to have a "heart of gold." Victim 1's allegations eventually triggered the state investigation that produced charges.
And, famously, coaching assistant Mike McQueary saw Sandusky having what he believed to be anal sex with a young boy in 2001. But his report to Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz went nowhere. McQueary's dad testified that during a conversation, Schultz said he was suspicious of Sandusky, and NBC reported this week that emails between former university President Graham Spanier and Schultz aiming to keep McQueary's allegation from going further were turned over to the attorney general.
Others also saw Sandusky engaging in behavior that was at least odd, if not criminal. Longtime assistant coach Tom Bradley walked into the shower when one boy was with Sandusky, the accuser testified, and a wrestling coach told jurors he saw Sandusky and a child rolling on the floor.
Keith Masser, a Penn State trustee, said in an interview that he initially thought the scandal was about a failure of administrative oversight of the football program. Now he suspects it goes deeper.
Masser stressed he was speaking for himself and not the board at large, and said he wants to be careful not to draw premature conclusions. But he said it now appears like "top administration officials and top athletic officials were involved in making the decision to not inform the proper authorities."
With prosecutors focused on the sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky, the trial isn't intended to yield evidence of a possible cover-up. That's the job of Louis Freeh, the former FBI director hired by the board of trustees to investigate the scandal. His report could be released in late summer.
Spanier, who has not been charged with any crime, did not respond to email and phone messages. His attorney did not return a phone call.
Masser said the Freeh investigation is helping Penn State get to the bottom of the scandal.
"I hope the truth comes out, and from a board standpoint it was Judge Freeh's investigation that found these emails that relate Spanier, Curley and Schultz to the suspected cover-up," he said.
