International House of Prayer denies alleged murderer connected officially with organization

Man says prayer group leader told him to kill wife

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.

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Moore, 23, lived with Deaton and her husband, Tyler, in a communal home shared by male members of their prayer group. He told police that several members had sexually assaulted Bethany Deaton and that 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.

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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 had met as freshmen at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, in 2005, and two years later Tyler started a prayer group, a former longtime member of the group told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was afraid of retaliation from Tyler Deaton.

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, 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.”