That's because just about everyone in this former logging town, now a tourist satellite of Mendocino, believes the molestation story Vargas has told relatives from his jail cell. The only people who want him to do hard time, it seems, are the detectives working the case and the district attorney. Even the victim's widow is calling for leniency.

Popular sympathy only grew as 12 other men came forward over the past year to say they, too, were molested as youngsters by McNeill, a onetime Boy Scout leader and Big Brother. Relatives of another man who committed suicide say McNeill molested him as well.

Vargas, defense lawyers, prosecutors and police are barred from speaking about the case by a gag order that a county judge imposed last summer. But their legal intentions are clear.