Oct 19, 2012 10:08 AM EDT
Sandusky 'Victim 1' Reveals Identity, Horror of Child Sex Abuse in Tell All Book 'Silent No More'

The public knows him as "Victim 1" in the most infamous child sex abuse scandal of the last two decades. Today, that all changes. "Victim 1" is no longer a victim. His name is Aaron Fisher, and he's ready to tell his side of the story.

While his tell-all book, "Silent No More: Victim 1's Fight for Justice Against Jerry Sandusky" won't be out until Oct. 23, Fisher will make his first TV appearance this evening on ABC's "20/20."

Fisher was 11 when he first met ex-Penn State University football coach Jerry Sandusky in the summer of 2005. He was selected to attend a summer camp run by Sandusky's charity organization for disadvantaged children, The Second Mile, on Penn State's campus.

Sandusky immediately took a special interest in Fisher. He encouraged Fisher's interest in sports, taking him to both college and pro sports events.

"We sat in box seats," said Fisher. "He was just kind of like a giant stuffed teddy bear. He seemed like the all-natural father figure -- something that most kids wished their dads did."

Fisher's mother, Dawn Daniels, recalled the times Sandusky took the boy away for the weekend to give her a break.

"Everybody knew who he was," said Daniels, "He's a great guy. Everybody, even my own father, said he does great things for kids."

By the time Fisher was 12, Sandusky was sexually abusing him. According to Fisher, fear, shame and confusion prevented him from seeking help and telling anyone about his tormentor.

"There were so many emotions and thoughts running through my head," he said. "Being a kid, you never know what to do, and you don't know who to tell because you don't know who you can trust."

Fisher said Sandusky began seeking him out at his own high school, Central Mountain High School in Lock Haven, Pa. Sandusky was a volunteer football coach there and would pull him out of class, with school officials' blessing.

Eventually, Fisher was overwhelmed by it all; he just couldn't take it anymore. He said he tried to do everything in his power to stay away from Sandusky, sometimes hiding in school bathrooms rather to avoid meeting with Sandusky. But it made no difference. Sandusky was a determined predator.

"He once followed my bus home from school," he said. "I took off running but he drove on the opposite side of the street, onto oncoming traffic to catch up with me. I ran up an alley and he went to my house and parked out front."

Daniels said she was alarmed by the hundreds of phone calls Sandusky made to the house. By the time Fisher was 15, he reached a breaking point and finally told his mother and the school's principal, Karen Probst, that Sandusky was sexually abusing him.

"Aaron was melting down in the office," Daniels said. "I immediately told them we need to call the police."

The principal's response shocked them. 

"They said that Jerry has a heart of gold and that he wouldn't do those type of things," Daniels said "They tell me to go home and think about it."

Clinton County CYS psychologist Michael Gillum was one of the first to handle Fisher's case.

"It was obvious to me immediately that he was upset, that something had, in fact, happened to him," Gillum told "20/20."

Gillum said he was shocked by the claim that Central Mountain's principal, Probst, had told Fisher and Daniels to go home.

Sandusky was interviewed by CYS but he laughed off the allegations, painting Fisher as a troubled kid, Gillum said.

Over three years authorities made Fisher retell his story four times, forcing him to go before two grand juries. Yet still, the attorney general prosecuting the case said authorities needed more victims to charge Sandusky.

Fisher said every delay in the case caused him to grow increasingly desperate and drove him to contemplate suicide.

"I thought maybe it would be easier to take myself out of the equation," he said. "Let somebody else deal with it."

A break in the case finally came in 2011 when Penn State coach Mike McQueary came forward saying he had witnessed Sandusky molesting a boy in a university locker room years earlier.

On Nov. 5, 2011, just before Fisher's 18th birthday, Jerry Sandusky was arrested following an indictment by a grand jury on more than 40 counts of child sexual abuse. In June 2012, Sandusky was tried and convicted on 45 of 48 counts. He was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, which is essentially a life sentence; Sandusky is 68-years-old.

"I wasn't expecting it," Fisher said, "I was kind of thinking that he'd get off scot free with this."

While Sandusky may finally answer for his crimes, Fisher still has questions for the teachers and administrators at his high school.

"It's a fact that I lost a good portion of my childhood," he said. "I endured heartaches and numerous amounts of people who didn't believe me and walked away from me."

"Silent No More" written by Fisher with his psychologist, Gillum, and his mother, Daniels, is available Oct. 23 from Random House.

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