Aaron Fisher, also known as Jerry Sandusky’s victim 1, spoke out for the first time during an interview on ABC News, Good Morning America, and 20/20. The victim said that he no longer wants to remain anonymous.
“Victim means, people feel sympathy for you, I don’t want that. I would rather be somebody who did something good, like a hero or something,” Fisher said in the interview.
Fisher has also written a book about his experience called, Silent No More: Victim 1′s Fight for Justice Against Jerry Sandusky. It is scheduled to be released on October 23.
“Saying sexual abuse happened was hard, but I wanted to help people see that it is better to come forward and tell somebody than to be silent,” Fisher told Good Morning America. He said that Sandusky was at first an “all-natural father figure” but became a controlling predator.
In 2005, he met Sandusky when he was 11-years-old in 2005 at a camp that Sandusky ran on the Penn State campus. Sandusky invited the 12-year-old to come with him to sporting events, and then invited him to spend weekends at his house. Fisher said that the abuse began in Sandusky’s basement.
Fisher said that it continued through High School and sometimes the former Penn State coach would come and take him from class and once he said that Sandusky chased him in his car while he was on his way to school.
“He once followed my bus home from school. He told me to get in the car. I took off running. He drove on the opposite of the street, onto oncoming traffic to catch up with me, and then I ran up an alley, he went to my house and parked out front. Yeah, it was that bad,” Fisher said.
Fisher’s mother was shocked by the number of phone calls Sandusky made to her son and estimated it to be in the hundreds. When Fisher was 15-years-old he finally told his mother that Sandusky was abusing him sexually.
Former Penn State University football coach, Joe Paterno was also caught up in the Sandusky scandal and was fired in 2011; he died earlier this year.