Pretty sure I've read all of the articles about this case, at one point or another. I keep waiting to stumble on the specific offense that's so heinous as to merit a life sentence and I guess it's the semen thing? I can't see where this clown (nor his wife) truly molested a child or perpetrated any act of obvious violence.

I actually lived pretty close to that part of the country, and there are a lot of molesters per capita there, but there's also a real tendency for McMartin Preschool-style hysteria, viz. the Hosanna Church incident of circa 2005. That was pretty damned sensational at the start but eventually got whittled down into not much of anything.