In April 2016, a few instances of nearby schools failing to report child abuse caught the attention of the investigations team at The Indianapolis Star. The journalists wondered how often it happened, and why.

As one of the reporters, Marisa Kwiatkowski, looked into it, a source tipped her off to a lawsuit accusing U.S.A. Gymnastics, which is based in Indianapolis, of the same behavior. Later that day, The Star put her on an airplane to Effingham County, Ga., fearful that the records would soon be sealed.

She returned with almost 1,000 pages of documents. She and two other reporters, Mark Alesia and Tim Evans, dug in.

Image Tim Evans, another investigative reporter for The Star who chased allegations against Lawrence G. Nassar. “You hear people talking about it like it’s something new,” he said. “You want to say: ‘Heck, we were writing about this two years ago and it didn’t get much traction.’” Credit... IndyStar

The decision of the newspaper to spend on airfare to follow a lead, then throw themselves behind an investigative project that has now continued for nearly two years, led to the arrest and sentencing of Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor for the national gymnastics team who was accused of molesting Olympic athletes and more than 100 other girls under the guise of medical treatment. He was sentenced on Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison.