Wives! Can't Live With 'Em, Can Kill 'Em, According to Charismatic 'Ex'-Gay Christian-Orgy Cult Leader

Tyler Deaton is a handsome young man. He met his wife, Bethany, in prayer group at college. He was so charismatic that by his senior year, he'd convinced a bunch of hot dudes to leave the school-sanctioned Christian fellowship at Southwestern in Texas, and join him in Kansas City instead, so they could be close to the International House of Prayer, which had a kickin' youth fellowship, mega-awesome Christian jamz, and the kind of "gays-are-demons" stancesthat appeal to young "ex"-gays. Once in Kansas City, they started meeting for Wednesday night prayer meetings and (ALLEGED) hot gay "spiritual" sex parties and (ALLEGED) Bethany-drugging, -raping, and -beating.

“He believed God could fix things,” a student said.

That included, Deaton told people, fixing himself.

One of his group’s stark positions on Scripture was that homosexuality was wrong. Deaton’s stance against it weighed heavily because members said he had “struggled with being gay.”

“He struggled with it, but he overcame it,” a member of his group at Southwestern said. “It was a victory.”

Her husband having overcome his homosexuality (except for the part where being ex-gay means you can't bone dudes), in October, Bethany unaccountably killed herself. Or did she? (Hint: She probably did not?)

Three days after her funeral, a 23-year-old man came forward to say he had murdered the 27-year-old Bethany, placing a plastic bag over her head, at her husband, Tyler's, request.

Witnesses told of a clan of young adults making sex part of their religious experience, of men in the group sexually assaulting Bethany over months, and of Deaton’s role as their “spiritual leader.”

But Moore’s darkest admission, according to court records, was that Deaton feared Bethany was about to reveal the group’s secrets.

Moore confessed that he had murdered Bethany and tried to make it look like suicide, and, according to court documents, he said Deaton told him to do it.

Moore alone has been charged, with first-degree murder. Deaton and others in the group are under investigation, prosecutors said.

[...]

Bethany was sexually assaulted over a period of months while drugged with someone else’s prescription anti-psychotic, witnesses in the house told authorities. This was happening, the witnesses alleged, in a period of time that male members in the house were involved in sexual relationships with Deaton, one saying it was part of a “religious experience.”

The statements unfolded with Moore allegedly saying that people in the group feared Bethany was about to tell her therapist about the assaults, and that he killed her with the plastic bag over her head at Longview Lake.

He did it, his statement to detectives said, because Deaton told him he knew Moore “had it in him to do it.”

That is the kind of supportiveness you should always look for in a cult leader, one who helps you be everything God wants you to be: a drugging, raping, beating, other-guy's-wife murderer. ("ALLEGEDLY.") The megachurchy International House of Prayer is all nuh uh, never heard of him, really. 

[ KansasCityStar , via EdgeontheNet ]