11-01-2014, 02:54 PM
(10-30-2014, 09:33 PM)Cheyne Wrote: They all sound nuts. It's too bad a beautiful young woman had to die for all this to come out.
It is really sad the Bethany Deaton is dead and that she ended up falling for all of the religious cult bullshit in the first place.
Doesn't look like there will be any trials though -- the prosecutor dropped the murder charge against Micah Moore yesterday and no one else has been charged with any crimes in relation to her death.
I guess it's back to being considered a case of suicide. I don't know why it took authorities two years to determine that Moore's confession was a false statement when he'd recanted so quickly, but he's off the hook now.
Snip:
A Missouri prosecutor has dropped charges against Micah Moore, a former suburban Kansas City man who confessed to killing the wife of his prayer group leader and later recanted.
Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Friday that her office could not ethically pursue a murder charge against 25-year-old Micah Moore, formerly of Grandview, in the October 2012 death of Bethany Deaton because his confession was unreliable.
Deaton's body was found inside her locked minivan at Longview Lake with a loosely tied bag over her head and a suicide note and empty 100-count bottle of acetaminophen nearby.
Moore's attorney Melanie Morgan said Friday that "Micah suffered from what was diagnosed as a reactive psychotic episode triggered by the suicide of his friend, the realization that he was part of a cult and its sudden dismantling by untrained individuals in a religious fervor. Many participants described it as an exorcism. In the course of that episode, Micah made false statements to law enforcement regarding Bethany Deaton's death."
Following news of the charges being dropped Friday, Morgan issued a statement saying, "Not only was Micah's innocence determined through an exhaustive investigation, the investigation revealed Ms. Deaton's tragic suicide was the result of untreated severe depression."
"Micah deeply regrets that his statements, even though retracted quickly and contradicted by the physical evidence, compounded the pain suffered by Ms. Deaton's family," the statement continued.
Moore and Deaton were part of a roughly 20-member prayer group who came to the Kansas City area from Texas to be part of International House of Prayer University, an evangelical Christian organization focused on missions and preparation for the end of time.
Members lived in a communal-type arrangement in Grandview, where Tyler Deaton, Bethany's husband, controlled everything from how members spent their free time to when they were required to worship, Moore's attorneys said.
Ref: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/murder-charg...oup-death/