DALLAS -
Police believe the death of a North Texas woman was staged to look like a suicide. A man has since confessed to killing her to help cover up sex crimes in a religious group.
According to court documents, the body of 27-year-old Bethany Deaton of Arlington was found inside the passenger seat of a minivan parked at a Kansas City area lake last month.
Investigators originally thought she killed herself because there was a note and an empty pill bottle nearby. She also had a white plastic bag over her head.
But a few days ago 23-year-old Micah Moore confessed that he'd killed her to keep her quiet.
He said he and several other men in a religious community had been sexually assaulting Deaton for several months. They were afraid she'd tell her therapist.
Moore allegedly gave police video evidence of the sexual assaults and poetry that described the abuse.
Police said Deaton moved to Kansas City to intern at a church called the International House of Prayer or IHOP. Her husband was the spiritual leader of a group of people who attended the church.
They believe she was drugged before the attacks and before the murder.
