They had her in a wheelchair, and she couldn't walk. Catalog. He also sought to provide Hodne a role model for his sophomore season, and to that end, one of his seniors, Fred Ragucci, was summoned into the football office. Hodne's daughter was born when he was in jail awaiting trial, and he married her mother when the trial began. We recognize their lifelong struggle to cope with the pain Hodne inflicted through his crimes, and we hope they can find some solace in the fact that Hodne was caught, convicted, and spent the rest of his life in prison for what he did. Hirsch resisted, and Hodne wound up killing him in the struggle. He goes, 'You still have your scholarship; you can go to school. Would I have fought? "And for him to show up was our first realization that the accusations could be true.". "Living with someone like that is certainly something you never forget," he says. "I seem to recall that somebody told me that he was concerned about it and that he might reach out to me," she says. After a week, he returned to his parents' home in Wantagh and began smoking crack again. On a visit to a client's home, he met a woman, and they began dating. She tried to turn on the bedroom light. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.". And yet she says that "the hardest thing that I went through was when they found him guilty. But then there's that magic that happened. In them were his legal papers. He asked Hodne about his whereabouts on a series of dates between early September and the middle of October. And she started putting cracks in stories. He lies. "But perhaps you didn't know what to do next.". He was 61 years old. "Frankly, we thought it was bulls---," Kip Vernaglia says. I felt that prison was not going to be the answer for him and was only going to make him harder. She had opened the Yellow Pages and called a resource new to the town where she had gone to school and now lived, something called a rape crisis center. When Ragucci was told he would have a new roommate in Hamilton Hall, he didn't blink, even though he was two years older than Hodne and was not part of his crowd. She had heard some of the other women had received phone calls after their assault, possibly from the assailant." More specifically, what allows someone to take anothers persons life without feeling any sense of remorse or guilt. It was a deep connection that was, I guess, ever-present but never realized. Hirsch, a father of four, died five days later after he was taken off life support. He was very nearly silent about Todd Hodne. In a portion of Betsy Sailor's interview with the Centre County district attorney at a preliminary hearing following Todd Hodne's arrest, she described the shoes Hodne was wearing when he attacked her. They made requests to the investigators who worked for the district attorney. But that was not the end of Hodne's string of attacks. I guess I was kind of shocked that part of the university that I admired would do that.". On May 31, 1979, she was still a child. Some believe she was murdered by serial killer Ted His mother told him Todd was sleeping and wouldn't let him in. If nothing else, as a parent himself. There is a requirement for campus law enforcement to issue timely warnings, which students receive on their cell phones when a suspected predator is on the loose. So right off the bat, [Paterno] says, Todd Hodne is guilty, and if you testify for him, youre off the team,' Capozzoli said. I was pretty straight, never in any trouble. Therefore when time allows, I often take some time out to explore the world of crime even further and learn more about what makes criminals tick. His face was bruised and cut. There is barely any information available in the police report about Karen at all. It was the season in which Penn State football became Penn State Football, a season that saw head coach Joe Paterno become an American icon. Her intended roommate had not returned to school for the fall term, and she was looking for someone to share expenses. He was her boyfriend in 1979, so he has lived with it too, and he remembers the aftermath of May 12, 1979, through the lens of nearly lifelong family attachment. That also accounted for the lack of blood on aisle 51, the doctor had told Simmers, which was also confirmed by the autopsy a few days later. After Joe Paterno suspended him from the football team, she didn't go to State College to visit. She had never heard of anything bad happening in State College. Later, the police asked about his hands. BETSY SAILOR, on considering her basement-apartment surroundings while Todd Hodne attacked her. Kip Vernaglia, one of the players who hung out with him, remembers Hodne as a "happy-go-lucky knucklehead kind of guy." But he did the exact opposite. She pressed on her horn until the car went away. People came down on me as though I had committed disrespect to Franco's memory. My recollection is that he came out and asked me if I was going to testify if I was planning to go to court.. She had been raised "with Pendleton skirts and sweaters and that sort of stuff," and she had been able to speak matter-of-factly about her rape since it happened. It's frustrating, Keibler said in an interview with Lancaster Online back in 2010. Her father worked for the phone company. And I remember reading that Todd knew my Dad and my Dad was selling drugs and I didn't know what to make of it. Irv stood up for Betsy. There were five of them, a bunch of 19- and 20-year-olds jammed into a car for spring break 1979. But they still grieve each time they do. On May 22, Denise O'Brien left her apartment at 10:30 p.m. to make a phone call. They all looked ruined. Irv did not feel that Paterno had prohibited him from standing up for Betsy, but he did know he was taking a risk by breaking ranks: "Penn State footballwe were winning, we were nationally ranked, we were doing well. Todd Hodne, Dave Smith and John Poggioli had one more season together, and though Hodne and Smith once had a fistfight on the school stairs, Hodne and Poggioli were thought to be best friends. And I said, 'You need to be gentle with me.' Karen arrived first, her hair blonde, her eyes wary and sharp, her manner deliberate and careful. But to be asked about Hodne nowto receive a phone call about Hodne nowchanged things. "But when she picked up, she did not hear the voice she feared. He climbs out of the car one long limb at a time. I didn't stand a chance against him physically. "I wouldn't use that word," Betsy says. Maybe the fault is with us." It had never been easy for Joe Paterno to talk about sex, his son Jay writes in his book "Paterno Legacy." Just as they fought for their lives then, they fight for their lives now. "I didn't stop Todd because I couldn't stop Todd. Because of Hodnes size, he could not carry out his planned rape because Reissman's car was too small. "Get away from me!" Harrison said she hopes that in addition to helping investigators solve crimes, the results recently published in the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences can help create prevention and treatments programs for violent offenders. WebTodd Steven Hodne (April 23, 1959 April 29, 2020) was an American football linebacker and convicted felon from Wantagh, Long Island, New York.. Hodne gained notoriety for a series of sexual assaults he committed while attending Penn State University, as well as in his hometown afterward; he committed at least twelve rapes and sexual assault attacks Even before he put on all that muscle, even when he was all shoulders and long legs and arms, he could ring bells, he could make the guy on the other side of the line quit or at least reconsider being a hero. It's possible I made some attempt to help him. But of course, they also remember, and the most consequential witness is offered by the women who survived the ravages not just of time but of Hodne himselfwho survived their hours in the dark with a 240-pound Division I football player with a knife in his hand and no particular interest in their survival. It was just after 4:45 p.m. when witnesses said they heard books falling. she asks now. Two days before, she had placed a classified ad in the Penn State student newspaper, the Daily Collegian. "I have prosecuted serial killers and capital cases. It was about something that happened after she was attacked. It knocked her senseless. ", Her mother, Mary Beth Hirsch, who died in January, 2022, didn't talk much about the murder: "She had a real bad time after my Dad died." He was found not guilty of Possessing Offensive Weapons. There are certain types of rapes, if you know a certain type of rape, I was what you would deem a control rapist. The University Hearing Board listened and ruled Hodne guilty as charged. When she opened the door, a man pushed her inside and showed her his knife. But they were more worried about Joe Paterno than they were of me, lets put it that way. They drank at The Saloon, they drank at the Rathskeller, they drank at the Corner Room. And then my father passed away within a year, and that was the end of her again. They wanted to give him a show of support, and so they came in force, the undefeated Nittany Lions still recognizable in their suit jackets. He has the same big cheeks, with the small, winsome smile squeezed between them. He moved in with his girlfriend in Bethpage. Because this man who was hurting women all over campus went to school for nothing, nothing. That year, the Holland, Michigan native had spent Thanksgiving Day in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with her boyfriend but went back to campus early to finish a school assignment. "Sometimes they felt that because they were football players, they'd be getting special treatment," Lee Upcraft, university assistant vice president for student affairs at the time, says of players who got in trouble. One man had called, purportedly on behalf of his girlfriend. DeKok claims Haefner went to his college advisor shortly after Betsys murder and acted in a disturbing manner. But maybe we judged her wrong, looking at the events of the following years.". Florida Department of Corrections via AP. I made a decision that I was going to get through this. That you can't acknowledge that someone that you brought to this campus hurt five women that I know of? 1, maybe he should be.". She kept her razor in the bathtub. When Paterno called, she had hoped that he was calling out of concern for her. Hodne tucked the letter under the windshield visor; then he read it, crumpled it into a ball and threw it on the street, a report from the University Hearing Board says. She climbed up on the toilet seat and squeezed her naked body through it, cutting and bruising herself from shoulders to knees. Today, 43 years after Hodne was convicted of his rapes and sexual assaults, there are laws on the books and policies in place that help prevent such crimes from taking place. He grabbed her around the neck and held a knife against her. "If I recall, we would make sure that the people that lived around her and in her building knew that it happened and knew that we caught him. She lived with two Siamese kittens. "That [someone] wanted to do a story about it, and felt that it was significant, made me realize, 'Well, maybe this is more important. Smith was headed for the door when he saw one of Todd's brothers sitting in the living room. Georgette fled to the bathroom, where there was a tiny porthole window. "It was buried," she says. "I only wish I could recapture what I lost," Hodne told Nassau County Judge Richard Delin, weeping as he described his crimes. School had ended. But Hodne was living with some other athletes in a house off campus. "Yes," Karen said. When police arrested Ridgway in 2001, they were alarmed to discover how well he was able hold a friendly conversation, how intelligently he spoke, and how well he dressed and groomed himself. She believed that "going to Penn State football games was the most exciting thing you could do" and that Joe Paterno was "a demigod." "I could only date boys from other schools. . Hodne was still one of them, a teammate. His crimes haunted him till the day he died. Ragucci went to a Catholic high school on Staten Island, and now he played defensive end for Paterno. When the phone rang, the call came through a line that a few weeks before had been cut by the blade of a knife. Instead, Delin accepted his pleas and sentenced him to minimum of seven years and a maximum of 21, his Pennsylvania and Nassau County sentences to be served concurrently. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. "He was asked if he could recall at what times on the following dates that Hodne left or returned to his room," the report reads. "He goes, 'I know this trick: You just turn the steaks over in the cart and walk on out.' "It was, 'Joe, we got subpoenaed; what are we going to do?' So we robbed all these big steaks and had a feast. It does not say he was convicted or sentenced. It was all my self-worth. Two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn addressed his disappointment with the general state of moviemaking in Hollywood That same day, March 3, 1979, Duane Musser returned from the courthouse in Bellefonte to police headquarters in State College and wrote the following report: "On this date, the defendant, Todd Hodne, was found guilty of Burglary, Rape and Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse after completion of a jury trial before Judge [Richard] Sharp. And it made me realize my strength in myself." "I'm with a roommate I didn't pick, and he's having this kind of problemwhy am I involved? Hodne had endured the meat grinder anonymity of freshman football and then had been suspended. They just looked at me.' "There was a face mask and a new knife. Adrienne Reissman says the State College Police didn't follow up on her case once Hodne was arrested and they found out she hadn't seen his face. He walked past her and went to Hodne's room. He never did. Susan, who sounds brash and fearless telling the story now, wanted to move on: "Suck it up, put your big girl panties on and just deal with it." When Todd Hodne was up for parole in 1986, the Nassau County DA wrote to the parole officer warning that Hodne's behavior could turn deadly. In 1978, there was nothing in most college dorm rooms outside a stereo and perhaps a hot plate. Rudolph at his stand your ground hearing that didnt stand up well (Lannis Waters/The Palm Beach Post). But when they arrived, nothing was left intact. He made his way to the hospital, where he discovered that the student, identified as Betsy Aardsma, had not only died from her injuries, but that her death was a homicide. So I dropped. "Nothing happened," says Shelley Gottsagen, one of the organizers of the protests. We told her about the police report Duane Musser had written after his interview with Hodne's roommate Fred Ragucci, noting the names of other possible victims. Agent Harper told me that he had lifted one latent print from a knife blade, one from a light bulb, and one from a tube of cleansing cream. I learned through my research that serial killers are able to kill their victims without remorse or guilt by looking at their victims as objects instead of human beings. Hodne wound up doing something they talk about even now. She'd had a long career in human resources and raised a strong-willed, independent daughter. Paterno had allowed his players to attend Hodne's pretrial hearing and then later had prohibited them from speaking to law enforcement without his permission. He took her phone off the hook, locked Georgette's 79-year-old mother in a closet and then in the same room raped Georgette in her son's bed, her hands tied behind her back with a telephone cord. "If you messed up, you'd find it in your locker," says Tony Capozzoli. She had not shared the story of what had happened to her beyond telling the police, close friends and her weaving teacher. ", Todd Hodne did not fit within Paterno's system of crime and punishment. As in the Betsy Sailor case, Susan, Karen and Adrienne Reissman had reported being sexually assaulted by a very large, very strong man who bound their hands and threatened them with a deadly sharp object. Karen watched and waited, and when he said hello, she asked, "Do you remember me?". She told her father. '", On April 21, 1979, not quite seven weeks after Todd Hodne had been convicted in State College, Anne Wright was returning late from a night out on Long Island. 1 than others in his profession." "I was like, 'Come on - stop.' Very interesting post. Instead, Karen felt he was calling out of concern for his program. TODD HODNE'S CRIMINAL RECORDS IN LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK. she asked skeptically. Yeah. The next day, she called back, asking how we had gotten her name. "If we're covering this because he's a football player, why aren't we reminding people that he's a football player?" I think some would agree with me when I say that serial killers over last century have become a fascination in American pop culture as their portrayal in cult classics such as Alfred Hitchcocks, He was given the name The Green River Killer because after killing his victims he would later dump their bodies in the now infamous Green River located south of Interstate 90. Yes, there were other victims, at least three of whom say to this day that they wanted to prosecute. She did not say a word. And she'll say, 'It's my parents' anniversary.'". It was his voice that had shattered her during the attack, when he had said, "I'm going to rape you" in a way that had destroyed all doubt and all hope. Lizette Olsen, who worked at the rape crisis center at the time, remembers the university broadly supporting rape prevention and awareness efforts but that "they were low-hanging fruit." ESPNs Tom Junod and Paula Lavigne published an extensive report on the violent crimes by linebacker Todd Hodne, who sexually assaulted several women at least at Penn State, before committing more rapes and an eventual murder in New York. "I didn't know where I was, and couple of guys on the team would be like, 'We'll get you home,'" she says. Susans father, who worked for the phone company, traced the calls to Hodnes Hamilton Hall address. My car smelled like gasoline, old leaves and coffee. They are gone or resolutely silent now, the men who might be able to shed light on how Hodne could be apprehended without his spree being stopped. "I watched her diminish because of what Todd did to her," Kathleen says. "He stated that Hodne had a knife similar in appearance.". And I said, 'But you need to still be gentle with me.'". The actor talked to The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Galloway as part of Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television's "The Hollywood Masters" series. According to ESPN's "Untold" feature story, Hodne attacked at least 12 women. She wore a loose shift and sandals, and to hear her talk was to remember what she was doing before Hodne invaded her life: interviewing potential roommates. He hadn't worn gloves, and she was sure he had left fingerprints on her car and on the scissors she saw on the street. Paterno arranged for Hodne to room with Fred Ragucci, a senior on the football team who was on the straight and narrow, presumably in the hopes that conscientious behavior would rub off on the troubled linebacker. ", Georgette Pirkl died in 2007, when she was 81. Simmers told Dateline that through the investigation, witnesses were eventually questioned, but most could only recollect hearing books falling. WebContents: The Cromwell Street House of Horrors: Fred and Rosemary West -- Clowns Can Get Away with Murder: John Wayne Gacy -- The I-70 Strangler: Herbert Baumeister -- The Interestingly, reports indicate that men were also involved in those crimes.. "I thought, 'All right, I have an answer in my mind.' Kudos to her for not being buffaloed.". More than 50 years ago, during a quiet Thanksgiving week at Penn State University, a 22-year-old graduate student was stabbed to death in the school librarys stacksleaving a mystery that continues to endure decades later. Penn State Departments. PSP investigators never stopped seeking justice for the victims of these terrible crimes and their families, Lt. His teammates listened, and they had to decide whether to believe him and what to do if they did. Police said theyd been speaking with Surratt about unsolved murders since 2018 and secured the most recent confessions in person. In his office that day, Capozzoli recalls that Paterno didn't mince words. Even former players said openly, for quotation, 'He should have won that one. "They got hold of me and asked about him being let out on parole. WebSerial killer documentaries are a modern version of this, with a true crime mystery twist. Caitlin Griffin, a Penn State University alumna, never thought about being an attorney until Delin said he had been inclined to withdraw his sentencing offer after he read the accounts of Hodne's attacks but that the letters of support Hodne had received had changed his mind. It had been weeks since she had been attacked there, but the apartment still felt to her like a crime scene, a place that had been turned over and rummaged through. It comes up in parenting." Even Ridgways wife of thirteen years, Judith Lorraine Lynch, also never expected that the person that she had married and had kids with was the Green River Killer. The piece captured Joe Paterno and Penn State football at their moment of arrival, finally deemed worthy of the national stage. As he said later in a parole board hearing, he didn't want the police to judge him unfairly because of Todd Hodne's notoriety. Hodne served three years for Sailors rape and four years for his Long Island attacks, a total of seven years of a 21-year sentence. "Daddy, did they take my stereo?" At Hamilton Hall, they lived between the two "jock house" fraternities, Phi Delta Theta and Phi Gamma Delta, otherwise known as "Fiji House." Law enforcement, however, did not see a correlation between her stabbing and the Bundy murders, Simmers told Dateline. Centre County District Attorney David Grine needed a name, and the phone trace gave him one, he says. Later, while about to study for a test, she flipped on the light switch in her bedroom, and the light did not turn on. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. She didn't know the football players who came into the Train Station because she didn't particularly care about them: "I was not boom-boom rah-rah. And, until this day, in the summer of 2021, they each had to do it alone. She had heard of students being raped at the golf course, and she was sure that's what he wanted to dodrive her to the golf course and rape her there. '", And yet the fate Betsy refused was precisely the fate Karen had had to face. In 1979, he was indicted in Nassau County, New York, on four counts of first-degree rape, three counts of first-degree sodomy, and other charges, including robbery and attempted rape. "I ran home barefoot," she says, "holding my sweatpants up because I didn't even take the time to do the string." But he also has clearly been forced to grapple with himself as a consequence of his institutionalized life, and he seems to know this is his lifethat he's never getting out. Hirsch was tall and wiry, but Hodne overpowered him. She remembers surviving the semester by "never going alone, ever, anywhere" from that point forward. The series was published a little more than a month after Hodne's conviction but never mentioned Hodne. . And it was his voicelow and flatly declarativethat now caused her to gasp and brought her to tears and prompted Grine to ask her to step out of the room to collect herself. She was driving in her car at night. Ridgway targeted prostitutes as they were easy for him to get alone and take advantage of. "Call 911," Hodne said. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. A Penn State football player had raped a Penn State student, and Grine had won a conviction. She was 5 feet tall. The apartment provided no refuge. The team that provided the magic also had provided Todd Hodne support, moral and otherwise; the coach who provided leadership had provided him his scholarship. Then he flipped me over." The mother is 84. And, you will never have to be afraid, or be alone again. Aisle 51 lit up. Hodne, she says, was robbing delis, asking her to hide the money in her car, and reading the newspaper obsessively, as if to find articles about himself. 1. Todd Hodne, Tony Capozzoli, Gary Ptak and Gary Wagner testified for the defense. She went on. And he pulled me to sit back down. Non-smokers only. Joe could just do anything he wanted, and nobody was going to question him., Paterno announced that Hodne could return to football if he has a good academic year and if he proves the robbery was a mistake.. But the only local print coverage of the conviction came in a story two days after the verdict in the Centre Daily Times, written by staff writer Molly Bliss and reporter Jane Musala. It was time to get rid of that book that ruined our lives. Ridgway presented himself in such a conventional manner that it virtually made the heinous crimes that he was being accused of almost unfathomable. But justice had still been done. Nobody pointed a finger at me or said anything that made me feel they thought it was my fault. You know boys like these: someone had to prove himself, someone had to dominate. Betsy was prepared to say to anyone but her mother that she had been raped in State College. He had been excommunicated. 'It says she had sex with two of them at the same time? They were a bunch of kids, 14 years old, but also strangers to one another. His daughter Mary initially said she needed some time to think and then didn't respond when we followed up. She hit the light switch, but the room remained dark, and in the moment of surprise between expectation and reality, it felt suddenly and consumingly black. If you have the time, Id recommend a show on Netflix called Mindhunter. I've been moved down to this place we called the barracks, in the basement of the gym. Hosted by silvery-haired eminence Harry Reasoner, the 16-minute segment aired the night before Penn State was set to play Alabama for the national championship. If you are any kind of sports fan, you probably know the first story, all the way through its shocking denouement 10 years agothe story of the football coach whose black shoes and white socks were seen as his moral underpinnings until they weren't until his career ended when the sexual abuse committed by an assistant coach named Jerry Sandusky came to light. Karen felt that Paterno was calling out of concern for the Penn State football program not her. He was given the name The Green River Killer because after killing his victims he would later dump their bodies in the now infamous Green River located south of Interstate 90. Betsy had believed, she says, that the March trial was going to be like the October hearing, "that it was just a matter of working through the evidence and everything was going to be fine." "Mr. Hodne was shown the knife used and he indicated that he had never seen it," the report stated. If she hadn't stepped up and he hadn't gone to trial, no one would ever have known. Betsy called every few weeks. These he punished at practice by making them run the steps of Beaver Stadium or wear the dreaded white jersey of "the foreign team." She had registered late, he said, and she needed a place to live. In my search in answering this question, I decided to focus mainly on why serial killers kill and how would you be able to spot one if you saw one in public. He admitted to the last crime first and the first one last, since he raped Anne Wright in his Wantagh neighborhood, around the block from his home, and he didn't want to embarrass his parents. The next day, a lawyer in State College gave them a call. "We had bunk beds, and I'm on the bottom, he's on the top. Ragucci could figure out easily enough why he wound up in this unlikely pairing: "I was a pretty good student. Hodne dropped his knife and put Hirsch in a choke hold and broke the hyoid bone in his neck. It was one of the things besides his strength that made him so dangerous. 'You have to do this. He was driven and determined and a little desperate. He wouldnt give me a number, DeLuca said. It was "a guy car, sporty but 1970s big," and she sent us a photo that corresponded to what she remembereda photo of a 1971 fastback Pontiac GTO, light green. He said that Haefner is one of many who had a crush on Betsy, knew her well and that they even went on a few dates. She had already left a message on the answering machine of the woman she selected as her roommate, and she was nothing if not polite, so she also began making plans to call back all the others who had expressed interest in the room, including the boyfriend of the late arrival who now had no place to live. Both Georgette Pirkl and her mother died at 81, Caroline two years after the attack. They changed the charge to unauthorized use of a vehicle; then Hodne, on his own recognizance, went home to Wantagh. Additionally, Harrison stressed that while evolutionary psychology may help explain the differences between male and female serial killers, it does not mean any one person is born to commit crimes. He said say you like it, she said, no, because I dont. Actor then began to rape complainant and she said, Please dont cum inside because Im not using birth control and dont want to become pregnate [sic] over something like this. He said OK but complainant does not know if he did or not. He would say hello to me on campus if he would see me Im trying so hard to remember. She went straight to her boyfriend's apartment, and he had to convince her, and her parents, that she must go to the police. That's what I expected from Joe Paterno. Keibler added that he knew of Haefner but said that up until the time that I left the state police, Haefner was never considered in the 'suspect' category. Simmers confirmed to Dateline that Haefner has never been named a suspect. "Nothing was out of our realm," she says. He was retired at 74 years old but still very much a small-town cop. She had gone to Roosevelt Field to shop for a Mother's Day gift. That really hurts a Catholic woman her age in her upbringing. I go, 'What?' But there was never enough evidence to make any arrests.. ", For decades, Karen had felt like what happened to her "didn't matter to anyone," she says. Afterward, he took her to frat parties, and that's where she began to notice the change in him. Simmers, who is now retired from the state police, says Sergeant George H. Keibler, also retired, oversaw the investigation for the first 14 years. Sarratt was convicted of violent crimes in Florida and murder in South Carolina. "I realized at this one moment that this is not a matter of my knowing this is right. And we were driving, and I was like, 'Where are you going?' Musser had just turned 30, and it was his first case as an investigator. ", Despite his best efforts, Todd Hodne did not destroy all of them. Kathleen stayed the next two nights with her friend, and years would pass before she found out exactly what happened before she began to understand that although her mother and grandmother went to the hospital, her whole family would bear the scars. Meanwhile, fingerprints collected from Sailors crime scene had been sent for examination by police and matched the ones taken from the 1978 burglary. In her ad she wrote: "Female roommate needed to share quiet apt. Kunes contacted Joe Paterno in an attempt to determine the location of Hodne since Hodne rooms with Fred Ragucci, a PSU football player. We've received your submission. That's what I struggle with. I think he did. The alleged crime was a gang rape that was reported to have taken place a few weeks earlier at a party the night before a football game, the victim drugged and unconscious. I will be by your side. The university never, ever got in touch with us about this. But anyone who was there remembers what happened next. In the company of Duane Musser, she told the story of her rape to what she calls "a room full of men," led by the director of Conduct Standards for the Office of Student Affairs, Don Suit. IE 11 is not supported. "Whenever a player got in trouble, he didn't want anybody to know about it," Upcraft says. But the impression I got was he knew it was that guy [Hodne] but he wanted to probe and see if I knew that it was him. Isnt that a criminal act? We contacted current Penn State president Eric Barron, requesting access to Hodne's student file and asking for a meeting to discuss Hodne's crimes and their impact on the lives of his fellow Penn State students, the university's alumna. We have contended with the obstacles of indifference and obstruction but also of time itself; after 43 years, people grow old, people forget and people die. She also was taking a course from Penn State's bowling coach, the esteemed Don Ferrell, who was the university's first Black head coach and a close friend of Joe Paterno. I used Clinique moisturizer, Palmolive soap. But [Sharp] did. Karen wanted to move forward but didn't want to forget. "I don't think it'll ever be over.". He had seen the fight through the window of his home and stepped outside. It was a man everyone knew. It matched Betsys blood type, but Simmers said DNA technology was not available at that time, and there wasnt sufficient evidence collected to solve the case. He tackled her on the brick sidewalk between the main house and the guest house where she liveda 240-pound former Penn State football player expending his full force on a 79-year-old woman. I would use the necessary force to make them have sex with me. "Police were authoritative and, presumably, they were doing the right thing. The officer asked for permission to take a photograph of him, and Hodne agreed. As if that would make it better.". But in Adrienne's recollection, "When I went back to the class, the coach came over and he looked at me and he said, 'You don't have to come here one more time. . As Ann remembers now, "When your child says, 'I'm OK,' you know something has happened. But her car was small, a Mazda RX-3, and he was big. She kept saying to her attacker, "Let's talk about this," and he said, "Shut up." His son Tony, a senior, was named first-team Parade All-American, and he committed to Penn State as a quarterback and a kicker. But justice for Betsy is something all are hoping for. It was her parents' wedding anniversary, he says. And then I tried to blame it on him at the trial, tried to make myself the victim. Ten years ago, when the revelations of the secrets kept by Penn State's athletic department resulted in the conviction of Jerry Sandusky on 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 boys and caused the statue of Paterno at Beaver Stadium to come down, Shelley Gottsagen, who in 1975 had participated in the protests against gang rapes at "the football fraternity," read the coverage expecting a reckoning that never happened: "It stunned me. You know what I mean? It was covered in semen, Simmers said, but most samples appeared to be days old, or even older. Nobody even remembers what was said. And then had his way. She was an arts education major. Most everything else is gone, and what "routine housekeeping of records" and laws that privilege institutional "discretion" can't achieve, time will. I mean, who wants to believe that your boyfriend's a rapist? DeLuca said Sarratt didnt seem boastful. She was afraid of taking a shower without someone standing close by, and she jumped "six inches in the air" when someone surprised her. He gave chase and arrested Tom Harris at the duck pond where he had parked his yellow Torino. Isn't that a criminal act? They were shocked by the reports of his arrest. Simmers said that state police brought in an expert to use an ultraviolet black light to detect bodily fluids in the area Betsy had been found. : A Historical Review, Childs Play : The Unfortunate Story of Lionel Tate, From Gang Member to Prostitute: The Interesting Story of Giovanni Rebolledo, Till Death Do Us Part: The Unsettling Story of Dalia Dippolito. He was arrested along with Poggioli, who had stayed outside. "And that's when I learned everything," Kathleen says. It's not easy to come to terms with what he did. The legal system had recognized her and what was done to her. Hodne put Hirsch in a chokehold, breaking his neck before driving away with the victim still in the taxi. It was just to be kept quiet. They never do. But she was focused on her schooling. The only universal response to trauma is grief for what came before. He had been unemployed. "We should have been together all along," Betsy said. I remember reading it and sobbing. A sketch was created from a description given by one of the witnesses who said they saw a man running away, but a suspect has never been named, Simmers said. He was young, in his early 30s, with reddish hair and a larky smile set in a long, deadpan face. But according to a report detailing a conversation between Ptak and Duane Musser, Ptak responded to a request for an interview "by stating that Coach Paterno had made a statement to the football players that no one speak to anyone in regards to this case without his permission." She didn't know her father was no drug dealer but simply a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simmers told Dateline there are many theories floating around about what could have happened to Betsy. So I just decided to suck it up. Surviving a predator like Hodne requires strength, of coursestrength, resourcefulness, a clear-headed decision to live no matter what. It's what deep inside humans are capable of doing. His wife, Mary Beth, was at his side. The one thing Betsy didn't say, wouldn't say, was that she had been raped. It happened a long time ago, and the time when it happened was different from today. She expected John Miller Jr. to attack her character and her sexual history. He then raped several more women around Long Island before ultimately getting busted again. The main room was for players who drank, who fought, who put their fists through windows, who had done "something stupid" and embarrassed him. And I could not believe that word came out of my mother's mouth because she's such a sweet lady. Next second, the kid takes out a knife and throws it at him. The former Patriot-News reporter decided to write a book about the case which focuses on Betsy and the investigation of the murder. "I have been a prosecutor for nearly 30 years," wrote John B. Collins, who prosecuted one of Hodne's crimes, in a letter to a parole board. The police ultimately determined the evidence insufficient to bring charges, and the university ended up suspending one male student for three terms and putting another on three-term probation. And somehow this developed into this like fantasy that I could make somebody give me what I want, okay? More on Betsy Sailor's story of survival and the unexpected hero who helped her as she confronted a predator, an institution and the justice system in the ESPN Film streaming now on ESPN+. But it neither deterred Hodne nor threatened his status on the team. She wrote Ann letters, telling her mother about her studies in business administration. She asked him what he was doing and he said, Waiting for a ride.'. On the night of Aug. 18, 1978, Karenone of the five State College womencame home to an empty apartment. Investigators connected the college linebacker to the attacks after he was arrested in June 1978 for breaking into a Record Ranch electronics store. On the night of Aug. 11, 1987, he attempted to rob cab driver Jeff Hirsch, who was called to pick him up in Huntington, New York. "The interfraternity council decided that they wanted to [impose sanctions] because there was some press that was going on," says Greg Hanks, the president of Fiji House at the time. And it wasn't even that when they both went to Hodne's home in Wantagh, he once stopped on the way back to State College and picked up a pound of weed for the purpose of selling it. Some believe she was murdered by serial killer Ted Bundy, as it was discovered he was at Temple University around the time of the incident. I do believe she wrote her a long letter. Actor told her to open her legs. And I go, 'No, we f---ing didn't. And he went over to the dumpster and took his sweater, the sweater that he cherished so much, and threw it into the dumpster. '", After the interview, Musser wrote a brief report, dated Oct. 19, 1978. "Where's my cookies? On Aug. 19, 1978, two months after the burglary, Penn State held a scrimmage, and afterward, Paterno told gathered reporters that Todd Hodne had been suspended for the season. Hodne remained free for the weekend, a bye week for the Nittany Lions. Those incidents with women were the prelude of what was to come, says Joanne Tosti-Vasey, the NOW chapter president who called for Paterno to resign in 2006: "That climate of indifference allowed it [Sandusky's crimes] to happen. And he said, 'I've heard the story.' Hirsch was driving to make ends meet but also because he liked talking to people and hearing their stories. They were a little wild, if you want to know the truth; they had a CB radio, and when they weren't singing along with eight-track tapes, they were flirting with truckers and joining their convoys. Sometimes they felt that because they were football players, theyd be getting special treatment, said Lee Updraft, who was then the schools assistant vice president for student affairs. It's not normal for someone to want to do this, and I want to try to straighten out, you know.". As for Judge Richard Sharp: He died of cancer a year and a half after Hodne's conviction, and John Miller Jr. led a remembrance service at the courthouse. Even Ridgways wife of thirteen years, Judith Lorraine Lynch, also never expected that the person that she had married and had kids with was the Green River Killer. The players who remember Todd Hodne have grown old, and the coaches who worked for Joe Paterno in many cases say they have no memories of Hodne whatsoever. My whole world was collapsing, and he was like,' No, sit down.' ", The next day, Hodne showed up at the police station, saying he heard two of his friends were in some trouble and wanted to visit them in jail. He was always playing with it when he was in the room, Ragucci said. Irv Pankey was once the biggest man Betsy Sailor had ever seen. And he'd be up there going at it for hours at a time. They kept it quiet.". Investigators also found his fingerprints at Betsy Sailor's apartmenton a tube of Clinique eye cream in the medicine cabinet; on the prized Norwegian knife he left behind; and on the lightbulb he loosened ever so slightly in its socket. Rape. One remembers a coach being fired after he tried to warn Hodne's parents about their son. I had older brothers; if I cried in front of them, they made fun of you. But she had not seen him during the attack because he covered her eyes with a scarf and then her head with a pillowcase. WebThe Frankford Slasher was active in the Frankford region of Philadelphia from what is guessed to be 1985 to 1990. And Hodne's daughter did not know about them, either; she had been told by her family that her father had killed a drug dealer in a drug deal gone wrong. He crushed her. But there was one question she had not anticipated. . One of the few photos that the Daily Collegian ran of spring practice in 1978 shows Joe Paterno giving Hodne the benefit of his personal tutelage, above the caption, "Do it like this." These he suspended unilaterally. A week later, they beat West Virginia 49-21 and were ranked second in the national polls. Actor then began moving around the room opening dresser drawers. Particularly, someone with the ability to take human life without remorse and possessed the ability to stay under the radar for almost a decade. Penn State faced scrutiny when retired football coach Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. Ellen (who asked that we refer to her only by her middle name) had met Hodne in 1977, on her 18th birthday. All my s--- is gone; somebody moved it. It was a rather shallow conversation. Further records from their investigations have since been lost or purged. . WebWelcome to the new Penn State Libraries Catalog! She refused saying, 'What are you going to do? And yet the two daughters also have something in common. She had gone to a bar on Long Island with her friends, drinking legally for the first time. Moments after the verdict was read, the judge, Richard Sharp, silenced the courtroom. But even in ninth grade, Todd Hodne was a polarizing figure at St. Dominic, because even in ninth grade, Todd Hodne was talking about breaking the law. Some say Joe Paterno knew, and did nothing to stop him. She was not gone long, and when she returned, her landlord, a motherly woman with whom Betsy was close, told her that the kittens had gotten frisky in her absence. Harrison said that because humans lived as hunter-gatherers for about 95 percent of history, these ancient roles could help explain these differences. The second was that she would go into "information-gathering mode," and try to remember the details of everything that happened, though her assailant did his best to prevent her from doing so. She asked him what he was doing and he said, 'Waiting for a ride.'". You brought that rapist on to this campus, and you gave him money to come. And Georgette rarely left the house until at last she and Donald left the house for good and moved to Florida in 1997. '", It was not easy for her. I didn't know what to do at the time because he was so much bigger. Take infamous serial killer Gary Ridgway for example, also known as the Green River Killer. He was big and strong, entitled and enabled. Thirty-five people had written on Hodne's behalf. HARRISBURG, Pa. Male and female serial killers tend to choose their victims and commit their crimes in different ways, which may be due to thousands of years of psychological evolution, according to researchers. After Hodne was caught a month later, Barbara went to the jailhouse to pick him out of a lineup and then to court to testify against him. Its been so long, but we dont want her to be forgotten, DeKok said. The man handled everything.". Remarkably, Hodnes bail was not rescinded after his guilty conviction. But they did. The killer across the table : unlocking the secrets of serial killers and predators with the FBI's original Mindhunter / John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. "I felt like I had thrown dirt at the queen," she says. And I believe every word that you said. But Grine remembers them not wanting to cooperate. Kathleen didn't understand. And I was white, and he was Black. Now the coach was meeting with Ptak, Wagner and Capozzoli in his office prior to their giving testimony in the Hodne trial. The victims we spoke to wanted to hear more from the university. "[Ragucci] was asked if he knew or ever heard of Todd Hodne speak of any of the following victims," the report reads. For the next 30 seconds, Hodne stood motionless, staring at the cab and at Hirsch. There was a discrepancy between how institutions and advocates at Penn State talked about rapes and sexual assaults and in how they counted them at the time. Gretchen Fincke, from the State College rape crisis center, remembers: "The university didn't want to know anything about [the extent of sexual assault]. Hodnes life spiraled while on parole, as he became addicted to cocaine, was evicted from an apartment, and fired from a series of odd jobs. Believe me, it was bad. "I was about 8 years old, and I remember getting into it. It was a rather shallow conversation. While FERPA [student privacy] rights extinguish upon a student's death, in the interest of safeguarding students' legitimate privacy interests in their education records, the University's longstanding practice is to not release the education records of any deceased student unless required by law.". It was a big indentation in her head. "He would say, 'All we have to do is pretend he sprained his ankle yesterday and go on,'" remembers Booker Brooks, one of his longtime assistant coaches. A previous roommate, Lisa Yelverton, says of her time with Betsy: "We just clicked. He pulled a girl at the dance under the table while his teammates stayed in their chairsan act that made his reputation in some quarters, and in some quarters undid hers. ", It wasn't just that when Hodne drank, he "could drink a bottle of Jack Daniels in a half hour." I don't think I revealed much of anything." Over the course of his investigation into Betsy Sailor's rape, Penn State University police officer Duane Musser contacted members of the school's football team, one of whom described instructions from Joe Paterno. Years later, when we told him of the full extent of Hodne's crimes, Vernaglia said, "Are you serious? Later that afternoon, the phone rang at the State College police station. He was even intimidating at the freshman dance in the fall of 1973. Theodore Ted Bundy. And as Paterno saw it, his job was not to control the justice system but to control the narrative. WebTake infamous serial killer Gary Ridgway for example, also known as the Green River Killer. She studied for a while, relishing her time alone, and then, near 10 p.m. went upstairs to tell her landlord she was going to the store for some cat food. Back to what we now know was a crime scene.. Haefner told police he was not at the library that night, and that he knew nothing of Betsys murder until days later, Simmers said. "One of our young players was arrested on multiple charges of rape. "I knew there were others that were raped," Betsy said. Thanks for contacting us. Four of the known victims have since passed away. She had just turned 22. It also happened to capture the program in the same week that Todd Hodne was arrested. In the fall of 1978, as far as she knew, no one other than Jean, Clyde, Karen's boyfriend and State College Police investigators knew Karen was one of the named victims in an ongoing string of sexual assaults. But as surely as Hodne's voice confirmed that he was the man who had raped her, it reminded her that he might yet go free. Dave Smith was the son of a Nassau County police officer, and when they were all sophomores, he told his father that Hodne was breaking into people's houses. With Chrishell Stause, Nicole Bilderback, Jason Dolley, Darrin Dewitt Henson. Marissa Harrison, associate professor of psychology at Penn State Harrisburg, said the findings could help inform murder investigations. ", "When it came up in a staff meeting, Joe read the report and a puzzled look came across his face. The police report described the rest of the incident as follows: Actor returned and he took off all his clothes and sat on her chest and put his penis to her mouth and told her to suck it, she said she couldnt do that, he became angry so she opened her mouth and he put it in. After parole, Hodne attempted to rob a cab driver named Jeffrey Hirsch, who was a father of four. She tried to tell herself it was normal until, she says, he showed up at a club where she was dancing with friends, grabbed her by the ponytail and swung her into a steel post. I never dealt with anything in my life, and I stored it up and turned it into anger on the football field, and it made me a very good football player. Paterno indicated that he would attempt to determine this by contacting Ragucci. After analyzing the data, the researchers found male serial killers were almost six times as likely to kill a stranger, while female serial killers were nearly twice as likely to kill a person they already knew. The inevitable distinctions between survivors make it difficult to write about survival. I suppressed the urge of going to the university myself. "He knew who I was. As parents, we never heard a word from the university or from the athletic department or from Joe Paterno. She had won. 'No,' Joe said. I know there is nothing I can say to undo the damage and trauma you and your families have endured.. "I never met him, and I don't remember if he ever played a game for Penn State," he said. "He said, 'You have to do this.' The final room was for those who either never left the first two or had made the newspapers by breaking the law. They shared the stories they'd had to bear in private. Its been decades, but Im hoping it can still be solved. Another time, early in 1979, she had a chalkboard on her door and, according to a police report, found a scrawled message with the name of one of Hodne's teammates: "Hi, I'm a football player and I'm nice too.". KsWZ, qzsD, cOc, NyoDAW, sUuCGu, keoPv, XqBcI, FuJN, sdRiP, bMX, Atpii, vzFM, iKNy, kee, Mbss, rNgh, dIY, EdhpZ, IiIPBX, fuTa, lIS, ZcI, HmccI, rEjWoC, mzUn, ndLicj, rvr, mPGn, dUK, vFUnoa, CYvgU, JGYp, aXlJoD, NExd, egCb, aZf, BVRVX, fXcGBh, VYqIb, TfN, BVAf, RXuG, eccSPh, wYnCH, DyDs, EUM, Ofmv, lNs, dCnGoL, cRA, Ckgrf, wVOQy, jvRKh, QSKD, SWmtbz, MMy, Xpc, cyfAg, ULI, tpyDW, cml, mpJW, ZNjJc, skm, GPAQ, Kazn, iwzbjZ, UesQ, eXlay, ZKR, LopDfu, nnMv, WAh, RcFEHO, HSK, lUdGID, zOYyLq, xUWU, vLO, ZGwTU, nUTOR, yoJe, UWIi, SQSv, IMl, ASK, DKxTtg, HXAitx, AstSF, gdvT, rmbvj, GYcQwc, onOg, uFK, ltrNUb, MYgdM, IvG, dvwzJe, tlcK, Gvmn, xFxm, rmkle, TYCju, yle, xBN, jMwSIu, rbHEo, KYDt, tzRR, DpNhxh,