If we start putting people away merely because an individual fits a statistical sample, we will have left the very concept of justice behind, and ventured out onto dangerously thin ice.
The article does mention some ‘facts’.
The daughter claims she ‘told no one’ until she wrote the essay. Nobody!
The mom claims she didn’t know until she read the essay.
There is no mention of DNA evidence.
The stepdad did not testify.
Looks like we have a miscarriage of justice here.
There "could be" all kinds of other evidence, such as photos and trophies kept by the purported rapist. Since I've been unable to find any discussion of such evidence, it seems unlikely there is any.
These are really, really tough cases.
Child molestation does occur. So do false accusations of child molestation.
So how do we determine the truth in situations where it is usually, though not always, "he said, she said?"
Sadly, in today's world the answer is that it depends on who tells the most convincing story in court. The problem with this is that some people are really, really good liars. Others aren't believable under stress even when telling the truth.
The whole issue has become politicized, with the presumption being that the female involved is telling the truth. Many conservatives jumped to this conclusion in the discussion about H. Clinton's defense of an accused child rapist in Arkansas.
We saw similar politicization of a similar issue during the "Satanic rape child care" moral panic of the 80s. A good many innocent people went to jail, some I believe only recently released, because activists demanded we, "Believe the children!"
Why? Children make things up all the time. They can be remarkably easy to trick into believing something happened when it didn't.
Should children (or women) be automatically disbelieved? Nope.
Should they be automatically believed? Nope.
Is there any real way to determine "evidence beyond a reasonable doubt" when the case is based entirely on one person's testimony versus that of another? Not really. Particularly when testimony impugning the "perpetrator's" character is allowed, and testimony casting doubt on the "victim's" veracity is often not allowed.
Note: The scare quotes in the preceding sentence are there simply to point out that the whole reason to hold a trial is to determine whether there is a "perpetrator" and a "victim." Using the terms as representing facts prejudges the accused as being guilty.
Please also note that I'd be fine with capital punishment in cases of genuine rape and particularly child rape. The problem is that individuals should not be assumed guilty and punished accordingly based primarily on past and present crimes committed by members of a group they happen to belong to, in this case males.