Editor’s note: Special credit goes to Mark Pendergrast’s forensic masterpiece The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment, from which some of the material in this article came.
I wrote an article about Matthew Sandusky. It was not flattering. A Few Words on the Despicable Matt Sandusky
There is worse to follow.
Born Matthew James Heichel on December 26, 1978, he was the oldest child of Debra and Matthew Martin Heichel.
They had two more children, Ronald, born a year later, and Stephanie.
The couple divorced when Matt was six.
The mother and her three little children lived in a trailer. Matt was seven when he became involved in the Second Mile, a charity Jerry Sandusky founded to help underprivileged children.
Sandusky took pity on the timid and awkward child and invited him to visit his home, as he did with many troubled kids.
Sandusky, who could not father biological kids, had adopted five children and been a foster parent for several others.
Matt was constantly in trouble for disciplinary problems and poor grades in school. Sandusky proposed Matt could study, work out, and spend time with his family. To incentivize the boy, Jerry said if he succeeded in his studies, Jerry would contribute money for his college education.
Sandusky did this with other Second Mile kids, including the vicious Brett Swisher-Houtz ($7.25 million), who betrayed him.
After Matt disclosed to Jerry that his mother and her boyfriend had fights, which often ended with her boyfriend kicking the crap out of her, she (and her boyfriend) refused to let Matt visit the Sandusky home anymore.
In December 1994, Matt, 16, and his cousin set fire to a barn. Matt was taken from his mother and sent to a juvenile detention center.
Matt remembered the man who was kind to him and contacted Jerry.
Children and Youth Services recommended the placement:
Jerry and Dottie are intent on making a difference in Matt’s life. They have had three foster children already, one of whom they adopted, in addition to four others [whom they had adopted]. They understand the philosophical nature and goals of foster parenting, and I believe they have realistic expectations in regard to Matt’s placement. They can offer him a stable, loving home environment which will give him maximum opportunity for growth.
At the time the Sanduskys took in Matt, only two of their five adopted children were still at home. (Kara and Jon.) After taking Matt in, they took in 17-year-old Robyn, who had become pregnant the year before and wanted to enroll in college.
Robyn moved into their home with her infant son so she could attend Penn State.
“This family was unlike any I’d ever witnessed,” Robyn recalled. “Church every Sunday, nightly family meals at the table, game nights. I now know that this should be the norm, but I wasn’t familiar with all this togetherness and structure.”
With Dottie’s help, Robyn got a job and enrolled at Penn State.
However, Matt and Robyn began a secret sexual relationship that continued for months.
When they discovered the affair, Jerry and Dottie Sandusky, who opposed premarital sex, confronted the pair, demanding they stop immediately.
Matt persuaded Robyn that they should end their lives in a suicide pact.
While Robyn took the overdose of aspirins Matt provided, Matt swallowed only a few and pretended to swallow the rest. Robyn passed out and woke up in the hospital. Matt lost his headache.
Robyn was transferred to a psychiatric unit for a few weeks. Matt was placed in an institution.
Robyn wanted to return to her home state. Jerry and Dottie helped her find a Methodist group home in her home state to take her and her son.
A psychiatrist diagnosed Matt as bipolar, put him on Prozac, and though the County thought he should remain in an institution, the psychiatrist recommended Matt return to the Sanduskys’ care. Matt vowed he would be better, and Jerry and Dottie agreed, as did the judge.
This was the second time Sandusky saved Matt from being institutionalized.
This time, Jerry redoubled his efforts to turn Matt’s life around. He got tutors, and Matt began to do well in school.
Matt asked to be officially adopted when he was eighteen since he would be eligible for a 75% Penn State tuition discount as Sandusky’s son. In 1997, at 18, he became Matt Sandusky.
Two years later, twenty-year-old Matt told a reporter for Sports Illustrated:
My life changed when I came to live here (in the Sandusky household). There were rules, there was discipline, there was caring. Dad put me on a workout program. He gave me someone to talk to, a father figure I never had. I have no idea where I’d be without him and Mom. I don’t even want to think about it. And they’ve helped so many kids besides me.
But soon, the real Matt shone through, again. He stole from his adoptive parents, charging items on their credit cards without permission many times.
Matt also introduced his younger biological brother, Ronald, to crime, teaching him how to steal and commit acts of fraud.
Matt taught him you can get out of everything using LCD – lie, cry, and deny.
One of Matt’s first practical lessons for Ronald was to show him how easy it was to open a charge account fraudulently in the Sanduskys’ name and have a ball.
Matt’s tutoring of Ron went well until they were caught stealing computers from Penn State. Both used LCD and avoided jail, but Matt dropped out of Penn State, found a young woman, Jill Jones, and married her in 2003.
He started a family, having three kids with Jill. But Matt had financial problems. His landlord was evicting him for not paying rent. He was also behind on his payment for his car, which was about to be repossessed.
Jerry lent him money, which saved him and his family from eviction. He caught up on his car payments and did not lose the car. Matt never paid Jerry back.
On August 23, 2009, Matt’s brother Ron Heichel, whom Matt had ushered into a life of crime, accepted Miranda Boob’s employment to murder her husband, whom he dispatched with a shotgun in a premeditated killing. Ronald Heichel was sentenced to life in prison for the murder.
In 2009, the odious Aaron Fisher ($7.5 million) was the sole alleged accuser of Jerry Sandusky – and only made his ever-changing and reluctant accusations under intense therapy for repressed memory recovery under the years-long guidance of quack therapist Michael Gillum and the ceaseless encouragement of his grasping, penniless mother, Dawn Renee Hennessey.
The Pennsylvania State Police had no case without more accusers. So they went on a quest to interview hundreds of Second Mile alums in search of Sandusky victims.
Matt told police his adoptive father “did not ever touch him inappropriately.”
On May 26, 2010, although they had three young children, Jill filed for divorce from Matt.
Now in his thirties, Matt returned to live with Jerry and Dottie Sandusky.
As the relentless false probe of Jerry Sandusky continued, Matt testified in front of the grand jury that his adoptive father had never abused him – in 2011.
“They tried to get me to say stuff, they tried to break me, but they couldn’t do it,” he told his siblings afterward.
Matt was angry about the bullying he experienced at the Attorney General’s office. He wanted to take legal action against them.
In the meantime, Matt began to date an older woman, Kim, who had a good job and a nice car. Matt wisely didn’t tell Kim about his brother’s murder conviction.
He soon moved into her townhouse. They married in December 2011, a few days after Jerry Sandusky was charged with abusing two alleged victims, the grotesque liar Sabastain Paden ($20 million) and the criminal Ryan Rittmeyer ($5.5 million).
In 2012, when Matt’s pregnant wife, Kim, threw him out of her apartment, he returned to the Sandusky home.
Matt asked to borrow Jerry’s car for a week when his car broke down. The week turned into two months. Then Matt was arrested for not paying child support owed to his first wife, Jill, and his three children.
He spent the night in jail. Jerry and Dottie bailed him out.
On Monday, June 11, 2012, the first day of the Sandusky trial, the prosecution called the despicable Brett Swisher-Houtz ($7.25 million), who told a well-rehearsed and fictitious story of Sandusky’s assaults in the Penn State shower.
Matt sat in the courtroom next to Dottie and behind Jerry. Matt scoffed at Houtz’s testimony at the Sandusky home that evening, saying, “This is ridiculous! Anyone can make accusations without evidence and get paid. I could, you could, anyone could . . . but I actually have morals!”
The next day, Matt got to thinking about morals. Was it moral that all these other Second Mile alums Jerry helped when they were boys would get millions by betraying him?
Why should they get millions for their made-up stories when he was broke?
Why Ryan Rittmyer ($5.5 million) never even met Jerry. None of them could get their stories straight.
All of their stories kept changing based on the advice of their attorneys.
These other liars lied about how often they met Jerry, and nobody doubted their words. Everyone knew Penn State was going to pay. These liars were going to be rich. He, on the other hand, was dead broke.
He calculated morals. If you lose a father, it is always possible to get another, but there was only one Penn State payout where the trustees led by Ira Lubert would pay any amount of money if you had the right attorney and your story was good enough.
Two days later, on Wednesday afternoon, June 13, Matt told Dottie he had a job painting a porch, took Jerry’s car he had borrowed two months ago, and went to see Andrew Shubin, the sex abuse lawyer who advertised for Sandusky victims.
It was odd because he was dressed in his best clothes despite his claim of a painting job.
The clever lawyer suggested that a psychotherapist might help Matt remember what Jerry had done to him, explaining that he, like other alleged victims, might have repressed memories.
Matt returned to the Sandusky home, returned Jerry his car, and moved out.
With Shubin’s help, Matt went to the police. He told them that Jerry had abused him.
The interview was tape-recorded.
Matt said that when putting him to bed at night, Jerry would blow on his stomach, then move his hand down his body and rub against his genitals, and Matt would ball up into a fetal position to avoid contact. “It just became very uncomfortable, you know, just with everything that was going on,” Matt said.
The police detective asked what he meant.
“With like the showering, with the hugging, with the rubbing, with the just talking to me. The way he spoke. And just, the whole interaction with him alone.”
Matt told the police that he was working with a therapist and that “memories of his abuse are just now coming back.”
The police asked whether Sandusky had sodomized him or forced him into oral sex.
Matt answered: “As of this time, I don’t recall that.”
But he was working on expanding his “memories” with the help of Shubin and his therapist.
Someone leaked the police tape to NBC News, which ran excerpts of Matt’s meeting with the police.
Matt’s betrayal during the middle of the trial caused Jerry’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, to decide not to risk calling Jerry to the stand, which “took the heart out of our defense,” he said, “because our defense was going to be Mr. Sandusky testifying.” Also, “Matt Sandusky had been a part of our defense and told us he would testify for his dad.”
Amendola had also planned to call three other Sandusky sons to testify, but he couldn’t do that now since that, too, could trigger Matt’s appearance.
(Jerry Sandusky’s five other children insisted that their father never molested them.)
Everyone praised Matt Sandusky for how brave he was to come forward and reveal his abuse and bury his father.
Matt was not called to testify.
After the trial, Shubin helped Matt collect $325,000 from Penn State. The amount was smaller than the other liars received because Matt’s story was way beyond the statute of limitations, and there was no court of law where he could have collected a dime even if his story had been true.
But Ira Lubert knew the lawyers and wanted to wash their faces with Penn State money, for you never could tell when those lawyers could do him a good turn – like later when he needed support to bring gambling into Penn State since college students are a good market for gambling since their parents often fund their college stays.
Now that Matt had money, his wife took him back. They started the Peaceful Hearts Foundation with a website explaining, “We believe every child and survivor of childhood sexual abuse should feel safe and supported.”
The not-for-profit floundered. Based on a lie and a very unappealing “victim,” it got no traction.
Though the ugly one tried.
During his 2014 interview with Oprah Winfrey, the gullible Winfrey asked the little liar, “So you move in [to the Sandusky home] at 16, and you think this is going to save you from going to a detention home or a military camp or wherever because he’s convinced you that this is your saving grace in that moment. By that time you had tried to commit suicide. Did the abuse subside after the suicide attempt?”
Yes, Matt answered (now blaming his fake suicide attempt with Robyn on Sandusky’s abuse).
When Robyn heard this bullshit, she said that “Matt never mentioned sexual abuse to me,” she wrote. “…Aside from that,” she wrote, “I just can’t understand a person being abused for so many years and then choosing to be adopted at the age of eighteen. He’d be free to move out—why would he stay? That makes no sense to me.”
Oprah praised Matt: “It takes a lot of courage to step up and to speak your own truth.”
Matt told Oprah how he had recently unearthed memories of abuse through therapy. Until then, he said, “I didn’t have these memories of the sexual abuse.”
Though he told the police he did not remember oral sex, by the time he got to Oprah, he remembered.
“For him to have done those things to me,” Matt said, “for him to have performed oral sex on me, forced me to do the same to him, for him to kiss me on the mouth—”
Winfrey interrupted him to ask, “So here’s the tough question. Did he ever try to anally penetrate you?”
Matt answered, “Yes. I mean, he did digitally with his fingers, and he did try, but I was never anally penetrated.”
“So based upon what you’re telling me,” Winfrey said, “you actually repressed a lot of it.”
Matt replied, “Uh-huh, absolutely. The physical part is the part that, you know, you can erase.”
He explained, “My child self had protected my adult self.
“My child self was holding onto what had happened to me—and taken that from me—so I, I didn’t have the memory of—I didn’t have these memories of the sexual abuse—or with him doing all of the things that he did.”
He explained that as he listened to the liar Swisher-Houtz and other fake victims, he felt somehow that “they were telling my story.”
“They were telling—you know, all of these things start coming back to you.”
Two years later, Matt Sandusky wrote Undaunted: Breaking My Silence to Overcome the Trauma of Child Sexual Abuse, in which he offered a new, improved version of his life story.
He presented his phony suicide attempt, where he almost killed Robyn as the result of Jerry’s alleged abuse.
“It would never have been thought that I took my life because a man that the entire world worshiped, it seemed, was sexually abusing me.”
Unlike in his 2012 police interview or 2014 conversation with Oprah Winfrey, in his book, Matt did not use the term “repressed memories”—he preferred “dissociation.”
He wrote poetically, “I had kept my child self locked up in the prison of my pain and my silence, where he couldn’t grow up.”
About his alleged abuse by Jerry Sandusky, Matt wrote that his “mental escape mechanisms” allowed him to take his mind away. “This mental dissociation is common in rape victims. They flee the only way they can—with their minds and hearts.”
He wrote, “I felt like my mind had been a swollen wound full of infection and pus, and I had lanced it and all the poisonous junk had flowed out.”
Matt blew through all his Penn State money. His not-for-profit was a flop. At last report, his wife booted him out.
Jerry Sandusky, thanks in part to the liar Matt Sandusky, is in prison, now in his 11th year.
Matt Sandusky’s mind and indeed his whole life had been a swollen wound full of infection and pus, and he had lanced it out for $325,000 and all the poisonous junk had flowed out on a good and innocent man who tried to help him and other pus-filled minds.
The criminals are free, and the innocent are in prison. With any luck, that will be reversed.
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