And what made him so scary is how he correctly was able to gauge what would be the bigger scandal in a small town LDS community. He could manipulate her parents because he knew on some level that the ingrained sexism/homophobia will trump any horror people had at what he did. And he was right! She got shunned from their church for having an affair with another man, he got to do some BS counseling and was forgiven for kidnapping and marrying a child. He knew that her dad would be more scared of the handjob story, even if it meant endangering his daughter again.

Reminds me a little of Andrew Cunanan counting on the fact that the murders of gay men would be taken less seriously by the police.