BELLEFONTE - She forced her son to spend the night at Jerry Sandusky's home over the boy's complaints. She never asked questions, never wondered why some days he just didn't "feel like it." Years later, she still doesn't know the pain her son says Mr. Sandusky caused.
The mother of the accuser known as Victim 9 said Monday she feels responsible for trusting her son to a man prosecutors have described as a "serial pedophile" who preyed on boys from broken homes, enticed them with gifts and forced them to perform sexual acts.
The woman, the last prosecution witness and only mother to testify in Mr. Sandusky's child sex abuse case, cried as lead prosecutor Joseph E. McGettigan asked if her son ever told her what the boy said Mr. Sandusky did to him in 2004 and 2005, when he was 12 and 13.
"I didn't really want to hear what happened to him," the woman said. "It's not that I didn't want to hear, I just knew it would be tough for him to tell me."
Even when she picked her son up late one night from Mr. Sandusky's State College-area home - one of his last times there - the mother said she took the boy at his word.
"My kid was waiting for me outside and he didn't have any shoes on," the woman recalled. "I asked him if he was all right and he said he was sick and wanted to go to bed. I didn't ask him any questions after that."
The prosecution rested after the mother's testimony.
Mr. Sandusky's attorneys followed with a half-dozen character witnesses, including former Penn State assistant coaches Dick Anderson and Booker T. Brooks.
Victim 9, in testimony last week, said he called his mother because, "(Mr. Sandusky) was trying to be physical with me and I had enough of it."
Mr. Sandusky, he said, had attempted to rape him multiple times in the two years since they met at a summer camp operated by the former coach's Second Mile charity for troubled youth. Victim 9 said the attacks occurred in Mr. Sandusky's basement, which the accuser believed was soundproof.
Asked if he ever told her about the abuse, Victim 9 said: "How are you supposed to tell your mom something like that?"
The Times-Tribune does not identify victims of sexual abuse.
Victim 9, now 18, said he would sometimes scream out for Mr. Sandusky's wife, Dottie, who he said always stayed upstairs. She never came to help.
When he finally got a cellphone, he said, he called his mom and plotted his escape.
The mother's recollections of the same night were telling about missed signs of abuse, Widener law professor Wesley M. Oliver said. That portion of testimony, though, helped the mother regain credibility after an earlier, seemingly rehearsed response, he said.
"If you're sick or well, it's entirely unusual to wait for your mom outside someone's house, particularly without shoes on at 11 o'clock at night," Mr. Oliver said. "I think he was scared to death. That's what people will remember when they think about her testimony."
Victim 9's mother said Monday she figured her son called her late at night because of the "stomach problems" he had experienced throughout his relationship with Mr. Sandusky.
"His stomach always hurt him, and he told me he couldn't use the bathroom right," the mother testified.
A doctor told them the boy had acid reflux disease, she said.
At the same time, she said, her son "had behavior issues. His sleep patterns were very different. His school work was very difficult."
And, for all she knew, the mother said, Mr. Sandusky and her son were only going to church, playing racquetball and going swimming. Sometimes, she said, her son would say they played games in Mr. Sandusky's basement.
Victim 9 used his "stomach problems" to hide Mr. Sandusky's alleged abuse, his mother said. He said Thursday he discarded physical evidence of the rapes too, telling jurors: "I just dealt with it. I have a different way of coping with things."
"I always wondered why he never had any underwear in the laundry, the mother said. "There was never any underwear. He told me he had an accident and threw them out."
Mr. Sandusky gave Victim 9 gifts, including clothes, the mother said before shifting into territory that Mr. Oliver said compromised her credibility.
"I just wish he could give him underwear to replace the underwear that I could never find in my laundry," she said.
The answer, in response to one of Mr. McGettigan's last questions, contradicted the mother's claim that she never spoke to her son about his alleged ordeal and never watched or read news accounts of the Sandusky investigation.
"When she jumped in and had that answer, it made her seem entirely insincere," Mr. Oliver said. "If she were trying to concoct a story, that's exactly how you would do it. You'd have this thing that you wanted to tell that supported her son's story and she was ready with that answer. It didn't flow organically at all."
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