Let the Jerry Sandusky case serve as a cautionary tale to parents of young children.

Don’t ever believe that sexual predators such as the former Penn State defensive coordinator don’t exist in your town.

Some of them are teachers. Some of them are youth coaches. Some of them are volunteers who hang around kids’ games. Some of them live next door.

Sandusky was a man to be revered around the storied Penn State football program. He established a foundation designed to help young kids from broken homes learn life lessons.

They didn’t need the kind of help Sandusky forced on them.

No one suspected anything amiss over 15 years? Incredulous. Not one? Certainly his now-33-year-old adopted son, Matt, did. He was prepared to testify against Sandusky if Sandusky had opted to testify on his own behalf. Matt Sandusky was prepared to testify under oath that he was another victim. How many others were abused and never told anyone?

Sandusky was on suicide watch as he prepared to spend his first night behind bars after a jury found him guilty on 45 counts of felony sexual abuse involving 10 young boys.

Let’s pray the guards in charge of the 68-year-old Sandusky do not give him an opportunity to commit suicide. That would be letting him off way too easy. Letting him off without him feeling some permanent pain he inflicted on his accusers.

They were innocent young boys, looking for a father figure in their lives. Someone they could trust. Instead they found a monster, a monster that must, by all means, never spend another free day in his life.

There is no punishment horrific enough to even the score for the irreparable harm Sandusky inflicted on unsuspecting kids, those who thought Sandusky was above reproach.

In his way, Jerry Sandusky was as sick as Ted Bundy, as demented as Charles Manson, as cowardly as Wayne Williams, the Atlanta child killer.

He deserves nothing but the worst. Put the convicted felon in the general population of the harshest facility in the state and let Sandusky see prison justice up close.

Even the most hard-core criminals detest child molesters. A convicted pedophile priest, John Geoghan, was stabbed to death in a Massachusetts jail in 2003. His attacker was a neo-Nazi inmate who had been sexually abused as a kid.

Don’t tell me Sandusky’s wife didn’t hear the cries emerging from the Sandusky basement. Don’t tell me all this went on under her nose and she knew nothing?

Don’t tell me there were not people in the Penn State athletics department that didn’t at least have suspicions, suspicions they failed to act on, hoping it would all go away.

It’s why former Athletics Director Tim Curley and ex-Penn State Vice-President Gary Schultz are awaiting trial in civil cases. There will be a number of other civil cases against Sandusky and the university. The legal marathon could go on for years.

Sandusky had a deer in the headlights look as law enforcement officers led him from the courthouse to a car waiting to take him to jail.

Sandusky will be sentenced in approximately three months. We can only hope he has nightmares every night, just as those kids have experienced for all these years.

The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies. But forgiving a sexual predator who preyed on helpless young boys deserves no forgiveness.

Contact Sports Columnist Joe Biddle at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .