KANSAS CITY (AP) - Authorities allege that a Kansas City man killed a woman and then made it look like she committed suicide to keep her from revealing that several people were sexually assaulting her.
Micah Moore, 23, of Kansas City, was charged Saturday in Jackson County Circuit Court with first-degree murder in the death of Bethany Ann Deaton, 27.
A white bag covered her head when her body was found Oct. 30 inside a van at Longview Lake in the Kansas City area, along with an empty pill bottle and a note.
The note read: "My name is Bethany Deaton. I chose this evil thing. I did it because I wouldn't be a real person and what is the point of living if it is too late for that? I wish I had chosen differently a long time ago. I knew it all and refused to listen. Maybe Jesus will still save me."
Court documents say Moore met with a detective Friday and said, "I killed her."
He said he had feared that Deaton was going to tell her therapist about assaults that had occurred over the previous few months by several people living under one Grandview roof.
Mike Mansur, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said in an email that he didn't know whether Moore had an attorney.
Moore is charged only with murder, though the detective's statement said Moore had admitted the sexual assaults to a pastor, saying they were recorded on his tablet computer along with poems he had written about the assaults.
An online obituary described Deaton as "a lover of books, writing, nature, deep conversations, dance, worship and, most of all, Jesus."
She studied English and Spanish and graduated magna cum laude from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, in 2005, the obituary states.
She moved to Kansas City to be an intern at the International House of Prayer.