Bethany Deaton Death: Micah Moore, Missouri man, says prayer group leader told him to kill wife

(CBS/AP) KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Less than three months after he stood as a groomsman in the wedding of two friends he had known since college in Texas, Micah Moore walked into a suburban Kansas City police department and unloaded a dark secret: He had taken the woman's life at the request of her new husband, a charismatic prayer group leader.

Police said 27-year-old Bethany Deaton's death initially appeared to be a suicide when officers found her body with a note and an empty bottle of over-the-counter pain medication in a minivan parked by a lake on Oct. 30.

That changed when Moore, 23, confessed to police on Nov. 9. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on a first-degree murder charge Wednesday.

Moore lived with Deaton and her husband, Tyler, in a communal home shared by male members their prayer group. He told police that several members had sexually assaulted Bethany Deaton, and they were worried she would tell someone. Moore said that's when Tyler Deaton ordered him to kill Bethany Deaton, according to a criminal complaint.

Tyler Deaton was not charged in his wife's death. Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Deaton was under investigation but declined to elaborate.

Tyler and Bethany Deaton moved to Kansas City in 2009 from Texas to attend a six-month internship at the non-accredited International House of Prayer University. The two met as freshmen in 2005 at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and two years later Tyler started a prayer group, a former longtime group member told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Tyler Deaton was listed at one point as a division coordinator for IHOPU's "friendship groups," but the school said that was a mistake. It issued a statement distancing itself from Tyler Deaton after Moore, who is also a student at IHOPU, was arrested.

"Since Bethany's death it has come to light that over five years ago, both she and Mr. Moore joined an independent, close-knit, religious group in Georgetown, Texas," the school said in a statement. "This religious group of fewer than 20 people was led by Tyler Deaton. They relocated to Kansas City over the last few years and operated under a veil of secrecy."

IHOPU is the educational arm of International House of Prayer of Kansas City, an evangelical Christian group focused on missions and preparation for the end of time.

The Deatons' prayer group had at least two houses, with women living in one and men in another. Bethany Deaton moved into the men's house with Tyler Deaton after they married in August. Moore stood as a groomsman in the wedding.

According to the criminal complaint, Moore told police that men in the house began drugging Bethany Deaton and sexually assaulting her soon after she moved in. He said she was seeing a therapist and group members became concerned she would tell the therapist about the assaults.

Moore and other men who lived in the house told police that several group members were also having sexual relations with Tyler Deaton, unbeknownst to his wife. One man, whose name was blacked out of the criminal complaint, told police that Tyler Deaton said after Bethany Deaton died that he had had a dream he killed his wife by suffocating her.

Moore told detectives Tyler Deaton instructed him to kill Bethany Deaton because he knew Moore had it in him to do it, and that Moore reported back to Tyler Deaton after she was dead. Moore told police that he had placed a bag over Bethany Deaton's head and held it there until her body shook.