Crime Time

Bethany Deaton: Man who admitted killing her changes his story

The man who confessed to killing a former Arlington woman near Kansas City now says he didn't do it.

Micah Moore’s confession in the death of Bethany Ann Deaton, the new wife of his spiritual leader Tyler Deaton, was a fiction born from a fragile mental state, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Ten days after her body was found in late October, Moore, 23, walked into Grandview police headquarters and told officers that he had killed the 27-year-old woman at the order of Tyler Deaton, according to court documents.

 

 

Moore said then that he and other men who were members of Tyler Deaton’s religious community and who shared the Deatons’ home had drugged and sexually assaulted Bethany Deaton over several months. She was killed because they feared she was going to tell her therapist, Moore said.

 

But Moore's lawyer said Wednesday that he "told a fictional account that was bizarre, nonsensical and most importantly, untrue."

“The facts suggest Bethany Deaton’s death was an unfortunate suicide and Micah Moore had nothing to do with that suicide."

Read more in this update by Glenn E. Rice of The Kansas City Star.

Also, see this article for background on Tyler Deaton.

 

 

Bethany Deaton's husband also a suspect in her murder; Tyler Deaton believed to be 'spiritual leader' of religious group

Bethany Leidlein Deaton's husband, Tyler Deaton, was the spiritual leader of a group that allegedly used sex as part of its religious mission, according to court documents.

Prosecutors in Missouri on Tuesday acknowledged that he is under investigation in his wife’s death. The body of the woman from Arlington was found Oct. 30 in a van parked at a lake near Kansas City. 

According to court documents, a member of the group, Micah Moore, told police that he and other members of the group had engaged in a series of sexual assaults on Bethany Deaton.

He later told detectives that Tyler Deaton told him to kill Bethany, according to the court documents.

Read more here.

Tyler Deaton and Moore were students at the International House of Prayer University near Kansas City. The president of the Bible school issued a statement declaring Tyler Deaton conducted his group apart from the school and "under a veil of secrecy."

According to the statement, "This group has always operated independently of the university, and it is important to all of us that this group’s secrecy and disturbing religious practices are fully exposed."

Read the full statement here.