Tyler Deaton Cult: A Survivor’s Story, Part 1

SPEAKERS: Julie Roys, “Jamie”

Note: This is a rough transcript and may contain some misspellings.

Julie: How did a once vibrant 27-year-old woman end up dead in a van with a plastic bag over her head and a suicide note by her side? Did Bethany Deaton really take her life, or was she murdered? And how did the abusive and perverse cult, her husband led go unnoticed, especially when so many members were active in the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.

And what role, if any, did IHOP leaders play in the murder confession of Micah Moore, a former cult member who later claimed his confession was coerced for 13 years, so many of these questions have gone unanswered, and not one person who was a member of Tyler Deon’s cult at the time of Bethany’s death has ever spoken publicly about what happened until now.

Welcome to the Royce Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Royce, and today I’m releasing an interview I recorded with a woman. I’ll call Jamie. I. At her request. I’m not revealing her real name, but I have confirmed her identity with former leaders at IHOP who knew her.

Jamie was a member of Tyler Deon’s cult from when he was a student at Southwestern University near Austin, Texas. And when the cult moved to Kansas City to be near ihop, Jamie was one of the last students from Southwestern to relocate. Jamie was good friends with Bethany Tyler’s wife, and she’s the first person who was in the cult when Bethany died to speak publicly about what happened.

In this podcast, you’ll hear her describe the abuse and mind control in the Tyler Deon cult Angel Hear her chilling account of how Tyler broke the news of Bethany’s death to cult members. But you’ll also hear an incredibly powerful testimony about how God delivered Jamie and others from the spiritual bondage that held them captive.

“Jamie”: And he was like Father, in Jesus’ name break witchcraft. And Julie when he said that, I have never experienced this ever and have not in any other circumstances even come close to this. The heavens opened. They were ripped open and there was so much light in the room and all of us who were in the cult, we simultaneously all at the exact same time, no one was touching us.

No one was putting oil on us, no one was accused. We all started all at once, simultaneously at the exact same time, started screaming, falling out our chairs. manifesting demons all at once and it was the Lord came. The Lord was in.

I can cry. It was so powerful.

Julie: Unlike most of our podcasts, I didn’t record video of this interview. In fact, what you’re about to hear is audio that I recorded for what I thought was going to be a print story. Yet after we recorded her story, both Jamie and I were blown away by how powerful it was. And so after she discussed it with her husband, they both decided to release this recording to the public.

Jamie contacted me after we aired our podcast with Shelly Hunley, a former leader at the International House of Prayer or ihop, and she was upset about the backlash concerning Shelly’s pastoral care of cult members. Since she witnessed Shelly’s care firsthand, she wanted to set the record straight.

Jamie begins by describing what happened within the cult the day after Bethany died, October 31st, 2012.

“Jamie”: So October 31st, Tyler called us all to go to the girl’s house ’cause there’s four houses. There’s the men’s house that Bethany was in. Then there was a co-ed house because there was a married couple and then a single girl and a single man.

The single people were in different rooms. So there was that house. Then there was the main girl’s house and they had six people living there. No, seven. Okay. Because who had been. She had been like core, a part of it, but she started going to counseling that summer. And she left the group. I don’t remember exactly when she left, but she left the group and she, was totally ostracized and treated very poorly.

I did hug her goodbye. I wasn’t upset. You know how colts there, there are different inner circles. I would say I’m, I was on the outer circle. There was like 20 of us, so it wasn’t like 20 to 25 because there was also a guy who didn’t live in any of the houses that was part of the group. There was a lot of people at different points.

The reason why I’m saying this is ’cause at this main house, he called us and told us all to come.

Julie: Okay, wait, let me, I’m counting three houses. Men’s house, the Bethany, oh, it’s

“Jamie”: the house. My house, the second girl’s house. And there’s like four of us girls that lives in that house. And the, we were called to go to the girl’s house, the main girl’s house.

We, all of us girls were there. We were all chatting, we were having, none of us girls knew what had happened. None of us. And he comes in with all of the guys all at once, and they’re all, they’re not, Tyler, just so you know, is acting perfectly fine as if nothing happened. Okay. The other guys are all not making eye contact with us, and they’re like sheepish and I’m, and it was, we were like.

What is happened. I was like, what is, what’s going on? And then Tyler starts talking and he goes through this elaborate story of Bethany, like how she went to a, she went to a mental health institution, how she came out of one, how she tried to commit suicide with the washer food.

But it was like, there was no tears, there was no sadness. Looking back, that’s why I had no idea where he was going with this. You know how a storyteller tells a story and it’s just this like huge elaborate, just dramatic. But he was like, acting perfectly fine. Okay. So that’s why I was like, where are we going with this?

Is she in the hospital? Like where, okay. And when he got to the point and he said that she committed suicide the night before, I immediately wailed out and screaming and dropped to the floor. And when I did that, my eyes were still open. ’cause he was actually sitting like right in front of me.

It literally shocked him, Julie. And he jumped. He was like, what? Like, why are you you could tell his response was like, why are you responding that way to Bethany’s death? Okay? And all of us girls, we just start weeping and crying and then. Almost all of the guys start crying. They’re not like wailing like us, but they’re like crying.

And then the only two people who were perfectly fine and not crying and at even points, even just acting like they were in normal conversations was Tyler and Micah. And at some point, I don’t exactly know who, I think it was Tyler, but I’m not exactly sure who. Someone called Shelly and asked Shelly to come and Shelly came.

And so Shelly, Ellie was there with us while we are Morty. And crying for our friend and she’s pastoring us. And. Do you know who left early? Who left? All of us. Tyler and Micah. They were done and they left while all of the rest of us are crying and mourning the loss of Bethany.

And when, I mean like this elaborate story, Tyler used every single guy and said something how they saw Bethany do this and Bethany was doing that. And it was just like, why are all like when I mean he used every single one of those men to be witnesses of Bethany on her action towards suicide.

And it was just, it was mind boggling. And looking back, I’m like, what in the world? What kind of husband is it an. Absolute crying and breaking down that his wife is dead after only two months of marriage. It’s just and in fact is perfectly fine. I didn’t even know if I ever saw Tyler cry. Like I don’t even think I ever saw him cry.

And so with Shelly, she had, she was there, she gave us her phone number. We were calling her from this point all the way to the funeral. She was there and Alan was. Alan never ministered to us, but we were on having the understanding that Alan had been, was with Tyler. So he was like supposed to be like helping Tyler and, but Shelly was with us and people were calling her like crying and talking to her, and Greet and Shelly was, I think that’s one reason why I get so mad at people

when they ripped to Shred Shelly and Alan because it was like they were the ones that were there for us. They were the ones who held our hands and wept with us when our, when we found out our friend was dead, and. They were the ones, they were at the funeral. They went to my friend’s funeral.

They and I believe Alan and Shelly, I think they even spoke at the funeral. I don’t exactly remember every detail of the funeral, to be honest. I remember Bethany’s, Bethany’s family was there, and was actually there too. And at that point they did know that we were a cult, but they didn’t talk to us until after the funeral.

They let us, they didn’t just throw it down our throats, while we’re like grieving. When you find out your friends that people you care about are in a cult, you don’t. Wait, until a year later to tell them that they’re in a cult.

If these people who are in the wider IHOP community, and I’m gonna put this on record ’cause this is nuts though, on our community, our cult, the Tyler Deton cult, we were never like one of the Ihop Casey’s prayer group, we were never underneath the umbrella of ihop. And Tyler was never a leader in ihop.

And I could get, I can get more into that, but that’s always been nuts though to me. So

Julie: it’s like, where did that come from? Why? Because I heard, people say he was. He was in Shelly’s, like class at IHOP U and was gonna be made a pastor or something? No.

“Jamie”: Okay. Okay. So this is what happened.

There was this man, this is the summer late summer, like before, before Tyler gets married to Bethany, or it even was after Tyler gets married to Bethany. He started having these open forum meetings in a side room in the prayer room on a Saturday where that was open to the whole community to come to, to talk about how we can grow, small groups, and he was like a part of the, like church the forerunner Christian, the church, he was like assigned as like one of the small group people. And so this was an open forum. So Tyler started going to it to give his input of what communities should look like. And Tyler went to these open forum meetings for a month and a half or something like that.

And it was only like Tyler and like maybe three other people who had like consistently come. So then at the end of it, John was like, Hey, why don’t you guys, since you guys are so invested in this, come join my team. And tyler was like, you know what I think I’m gonna do this. And he wasn’t. Tyler wasn’t even on staff at this point and it was like, so he started joining the on-ramp of, on staff and I think was maybe like on staff for two weeks when Bethany died.

So it was like he was not a part of like maybe at IHOP U when we’re all in our classes and we get assigned to a position of leader because the senior seniors, I think at some point were assigned to be leaders of small groups to like the sophomore and freshmen. But it was like an IHOP U assignment.

It wasn’t a, like you are on staff leading small groups. Does that make sense? It. Tyler didn’t even have the time to do that. ’cause we were literally meeting like every day of the week. Like we literally met, I think there like even the days that were not mandatory for us to meet like we were meeting.

So that’s what I mean, like this whole concept and belief that Tyler was this like high level leader and his community group was like known by ihop. They knew about us before all this stuff happened. No, I’m sorry. We never had a leader come to our small group. Not once. Like I could literally name you the people who actually ever visited our cult.

And so it’s mind boggling to me. And then it, so people take this. On ramp he got, because he went to the community open forum and the guy was like, Hey, come join. Like, why don’t you guys just come join us? Be, and just being on staff into this whole, and he li I think it was like on a one of the handouts that they had of just like new staff, like a name like once, and it got exploded to be like, I literally read someone just write this down on Facebook like three days ago that they’re like, Tyler Deaton was high up there in the IOP leadership and they don’t wanna tell you.

And they’re all covering it up and it’s no, to Tyler Dean, do you know how a person, they just, they wanna be super duper important and they wish that they were part of the leadership team, but they were not part of the leadership and they’re dopey and upset about it. That was Tyler Deon and it was like this was his like moment of glory to be able to be on this leader, this now leadership team for small groups.

That was his on trying to be his on-ramp and he was like super giddy about it. So the lies that are out there of what of everything is crazy. Something that I do want to add though is even though IHOP leadership did not know like the depth of what was all happening within the cult, what happened was, and this is a story of just showing some of the abusive.

Behavior within the cult. There was this girl who wasn’t like participating fully with everyone in the cult. She was an introvert, so she would go and be alone a lot, and what we accused her of was like hiding in her Bible and hiding in her room instead of facing her issues of being with people.

All the women got together and we had a meeting. We were all talking about what we should do about this one. Girl, I will confess this, like I was the one, it’s so sad. I was the one that I was just like, why don’t we just take her door off? If we’re so concerned about her going and evading in a room, let’s take her door off.

I don’t know who said take her Bible away, but we voted and I think it was a majority vote of Yes, let’s take her door off and take her Bible away. And we did it. And so I because she was someone who lived with me I, and I was the one who physically removed the door. And then I think I even was the one, ’cause I think her Bible was like next to her bed.

I think I was the one who grabbed her Bible too. And

Julie: so she was in trouble with the cult for reading her Bible in her room too much.

“Jamie”: Yes. Just an example of how screwed up we were.

Julie: Did that come from Tyler or was it just he set down the rules, the values and this was one of the ways they were lived out?

“Jamie”: Yes. It was the principal that, like something that could be said was like an introvert. They could potentially pull themselves away and go into a room and it was this culture of, we would, as that mob mentality, we would go after people. It’s just the insanity. Just take someone’s Bible. As a Christian, I look back and I’m just like, what in the world?

You know what I mean? She, because she was at school, she was in IHOP and she had an assignment and she went to her teacher. Who I believe was Stuart Grief and told him, Hey, like I can’t do the assignment. I’m like, I’m in trouble. And my Bible was taken and he was like, what? So I hopped leadership. Ed Hackett and Stewart GREs were in these meetings.

And then I know that it was the leaders in the cult that went to these meetings because they were like, we need to meet with your leaders. So Tyler went, and other people went. Since I was not in the meeting, I don’t know exactly what was actually said or communicated, but I do know that when they left and they came back.

They were like praising Tyler. ’cause they were like Tyler, like argue and defended and da. But we did, I know we did put her door back on and we did give her back her Bible. And I was told that ed Hackett was going to come to some of our group prayer meetings and he never came. The leadership never came.

Nothing else happened else. They made it seem that it was just like, oh, you guys are young. Y’all made a mistake like that. You’re not to do that. And then they went on and the leadership never followed up with us.

Julie: They didn’t follow up.

“Jamie”: They didn’t follow up.

Julie: And this was again in the spring of 2012.

Yeah. And Bethany’s death was in October of 2012. So months apart had they followed up? Hindsight is 2020.

“Jamie”: Yeah. But oh no. If they had followed up, I think if anybody had actually come and ’cause we, I mean we had people did it like visiting happened. If they had actually like we’re going to go investigate these, this group and make sure that they’re not just like totally messed up.

If they had comment throughout everything, I think it would’ve been very clear. I things would’ve been different. Yes. I just wanted to say that. ’cause I realized there’s this big thing of IHOP knows like all the depths of who they are and I was just like, they did become aware of us. But they did not know the depth of what was happening.

So I did wanna share that

Julie: he did attend IHOP U and graduate from it. Is that correct?

“Jamie”: Yes.

Julie: Okay. And do you know when he graduated?

“Jamie”: I wanna say he graduated the year that 2012. That may. ’cause he was he was aimless. He had ’cause this is a thing that he didn’t work ’cause he was considered like a prophet from God, but he didn’t work.

Like they had a a community. I was not a part of it, but a community like account, like a bank account that they other people worked and put the money into and then Tyler could then focus on his biblical studies and continued to. Lead the group. But after school, I think he, there was a bit of aimlessness and that’s why he, when he found out about those meanings about building community life, he decided to start going to them because he felt aimless, at some level.

Yeah.

Julie: So let’s go back. So October 31st, you have that meeting where Tyler’s so weird. And then after that meeting you called Ally over that day, is that correct? She was

“Jamie”: called like, the moment we started wailing.

Julie: So during the meeting? Yeah. Okay. Like

“Jamie”: during it, it wasn’t the next day, it was during it that she was called because, and I, it, I think it was Tyler. But I, because I. I’m not exactly sure. I’m not exactly sure who called her, but she was called and then she literally was there for us, from that day pastoring, us leading up to, the funeral. I think the funeral was on a Tuesday.

And I honestly cannot tell you. And just to be frank with you, I cannot tell you if it was like a Monday or a Tuesday, but it’s I remember these meetings, but it was such a, emotional time. I can’t be like, oh yeah, that was like exactly this date at exactly this time. I know it happened.

You know what I mean? And then it’s

Julie: A fog, it sounds like. ’cause it’s so emotional.

“Jamie”: It was so emotional. But I know these things happen. I just timeline of stuff and I know these things happened in this order, but I’m not sure, like I. Was that a Monday or was that a Tuesday? Do you know what I mean?

Like I’m not exactly sure on that. So we had the funeral and, that was weird because just so you know Micah was like attached to Tyler’s hip ever since Bethany’s death, just so you know, like they would drive in the car cars alone with each other. They would like going to the funeral, like Micah and Tyler drove together, leaving the funeral, like their relationship changed after Bethany’s death.

There was a real connection. And just so you know, and a lot of people don’t know this, Micah was Tyler’s right hand man. So when everyone is being like, oh, Micah’s this innocent man who like, just absolutely loved Bethany. It’s y no, like Bethany, Bethany before she got married was a happy, joyful, gleeful girl.

Like she’s, personality wise, she’s like a Melo. Melican. Melancholic, yeah. Yeah. So she’s like very, she seems, she’s an introvert, but when she came back from her honeymoon, something was wrong. When she came back, when someone like something has happened to them and. They are their eyes are a little bit more shifty and they’re a lot more quiet and their eyes are, might be a little bit bigger.

And they’re I don’t know who I can trust feeling. And it was like and all of us were like, what? No, I can’t even say all of us. I was like, what? And she, so we had this, we had, within the cult, we had like little different teams. There was like a financial team, there was a survival team, there was a dream team.

There was a, another team I was part of the dream team. And Bethany was part of it too. And we were meeting downstairs in the men’s house in the, because Tyler lived in the. The downstairs room and he had a king bed. And looking back, I’m like I know this is another little side tangent, but we like knew like the guys would like sometimes like sleep in the bed with Tyler was actually like a consistent person who was in Tyler’s room for a very long time.

And then when Micah got there, it was like Micah was in the room with Tyler. So when Bethany moved in, then Micah moved out. So we were in, technically at that point, Bethany and Tyler’s bedroom. And there was a couch in there and Bethany was sitting there and I was there and you, and there was two other people were on the dream team.

And but left. And then Bethany Beatton was like, said to me, she goes, can I ask you something? And I, and she was like nervous, like I could tell she was really nervous and a little scared. And she asked me, she was like, can I ask you a question about sex? And I was like, unfortunately Julie, and oh my God, I wish I had just let her ask me.

And the reason why she asked me was because I had previously, before I had gotten saved, I was sexually active for five years. And I think I was the only person in the group that was knowingly known to have been sexually active at some point in their lives. And I was like oh Bethany, I’m probably not the best person to ask.

I was like, you should probably ask. ’cause there was this married couple that was not. Our group, it was like these two older people and I was like, you should maybe talk to them. You shouldn’t talk to me about it. Because in, and I guess in my head it was because mine was, like sexual sin, sex.

It wasn’t a married couple sex. Do you know what I mean? And I wasn’t. And I think I was, I just didn’t, I didn’t understand things. You’re young and you’re dumb. And I wish I had let her ask me. And she had asked me that and I had said that, and then Tyler came into the room and she like got scared and she like sat up and got real quiet with her eyes a little bigger. And looking back, I’m like, oh my God. I was like, I don’t know if a lot of what Micah Moore was saying in his, if this confession was real, if this confession was false, I do, I can go in all of my opinion on that matter, but I was just like, I look back and I’m like, you know what?

I bet you Tyler was doing something really weird sexually to Bethany, because who in the world would be asking someone like that question, after being married? ’cause sex isn’t complicated. Do you know what I mean? In between a husband and a wife, yeah. It shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t be.

You know what I mean? It’s just like it, and, but she looked. Concerned. And then you get into is it all the weird stuff? This is based off of Tyler. It’s also based off of, to be honest with you, I was told by the Prisoners of Hope team that was at that deliverance session that many of them did confess that they were having sex with Tyler, and that one guy wasn’t, and he said, but Tyler was like grooming him and getting him to convince him, so I’m just like, what kinda, messed up thing were you doing to Bethany that made her that concerned and frightened when you walked into the room? I’m not exactly sure why I went off on that tangent.

Oh, it’s ’cause of Micah. Micah and Tyler and seeing them at the funeral together, that’s what happened. So we’re at the funeral and then it was like, I’m not sure if it was the next day or maybe it was another day, like maybe there was a day in between, like they had the funeral and then we had a day.

But, and during that day they asked us if we would please come to Shiloh. It was the Shiloh building. It is an IHOP KC building property building. It’s like in this like forest D area that you had to drive up this like rocky mud hill to get to. There’s a farm that has like a horse or something like, ’cause you would see it like running.

Every once in a while they asked us to come there and we were like, okay. Like we had no idea what they were coming to talk to us about. And I do wanna preface this. We had been called a cult at Southwestern. Everyone at Southwestern literally called the Tyler Deatons Group a cult. And and they gave every type of excuse possible, just like ihop.

You can look at a lot of the dysfunction dysfunctions at IHOP and you can relate it to the Tyler Dean cult, but imagine it not as spread out. And all of it was compacted into a tinier group. So they asked us to come and we had no idea what we were getting into, but we sat down and we were just like, why?

Because again, the, it had been split up because some people could come in the morning and then some people could come in the afternoon. And you

Julie: came to the afternoon or the morning.

“Jamie”: I believe I came to the afternoon because I had, yes, I did, because the first meeting was during classes at IHOP U so I couldn’t go.

So all the IHOP people who were currently still in IHOP U we were, went to the afternoon one, and that is when they told us, we were cold. I don’t remember every I honestly cannot say every single thing that was said to us. It, that was a blur. What were they doing? Just like carrying us apart?

Yes and no. No. And because I think their hearts were, in their mind, I should say that it’s like what they are trying to do, because they used, they were talking scripture to us, like they were like. This and this and this, and, and what they were trying to do was like, they thought they were, had to I don’t know the right word, but I hate to say it like this, but it’s like the IHOP people who are still at ihop who are, believing that all of everything that is being said is false.

And it’s like you’re someone who’s sitting in front of him trying to convince them that, no, this is like a cult. This is bad. That is how they were like trying to convince us because they thought we wouldn’t believe them. Does that make sense? But the problem was we actually all believed them.

Like we, it had gotten, the reason why is because from liter it literally was when. After Bethany and Tyler got married and when left, she was one of the inner circles. So like when she left I think she was like one of the top five now that I remember it, of like leader people. Like when she left the ty like our cult.

And I think it’s because, and I’m almost positive it’s because she believed we were a cult. ’cause she started going to a counselor and the counselor told me and when she left and after Tyler got married, it was like claws were digging in. It was like everything got a lot more controlled.

You could really feel. I will say this, I’m a feeler. I’m, that’s how it, so a lot of times if I say I’m feeling it’s because I can, I felt things, and it was like you could feel this like tension of everything’s getting tighter. Everything’s getting squeezed. Like we are, and there’s a whole bunch of like mental control.

That was a lot of what it was. And it was through the, there was like, one of the, one of the bullets was like saying that she thought she was reprobate. She was a, she asked someone if she was reprobate. Oh, that’s totally because of the psychological manipulation. Tyler implemented because he would use like the Myers-Brigg and use the prophetic, so like Myers-Brigg, meaning like people’s personality traits.

But then it would say all the positives, but it would also say all the negatives. And then we would all know what everyone’s personality like. I can’t today tell you, but back then I could tell you each one of those persons Myers Briggs thing and I could tell you what their weaknesses were. And then if they ever were weak, we, it was like this, like you would be like punished by like social pressure outcast.

Like I know this isn’t a good example, but you know how there’s been those studies where. It just shows how the mob mentality can control people, and their decision making and stuff like that. I have a hard time describing it, but it was just this like twisted web. So her getting to her state of thinking that she’s reprobate, I totally believe that.

Not because of like she’s mentally ill, but because we as a culture made it to where if you are not being the perfect aspects of who you are, than you are really messed up and twisted. And so One question, sorry.

Julie: Oh, the retro base, that part, I know I’ve read that in articles. Yeah. Did you hear her say that, hear it from other people, or you got it from like the 48 hours documentary or just where did you hear that?

“Jamie”: So Tyler actually said it. So this is also what happened to both where if they think that you no longer following the Lord or you know that you are choosing your sin over godly attributes that you could become no longer saved. Like Tyler. Just so you know, I remember this and I didn’t understand it.

I still don’t understand it to this day, what he was saying. I was so confused by it. He twisted the Jesus being on the cross and him taking our sins. He twisted it somehow, because I remember this time, ’cause I did not,

just so you know, I did not worship Tyler’s feet the way that majority of the people in the group did. And a lot of the people in the group believed him to be a prophet of God. And the things that he would say is like the voice of God speaking. So whatever Tyler would say, it’s the voice of God speaking.

So if he believes that you are, acting sinful or doing whatever, everyone believed it and it you would be ostracized, you would be treated poorly. And mind you, that didn’t that happen to Bethany? I can’t imagine though, what it was like in the men’s house with all of them doing it constantly to her.

I cannot imagine. So Tyler, just so you know, he said that in his long monologue, Cindy, that day that he the day after she died and he was telling us the long story leading up to her death, he said that, she said that, and then I have read that it was also said, mentioned in other places and stuff like that, but Tyler might not have murdered her, put the pills in her or put the bag over her head, but he sure did lead her to suicide.

I can tell you that because of how messed up we really were. And how messed up our, our culture was, I think one of the most painful things. And I don’t think, I think this is and this is something that really obsessed me about people. Always talking about Tyler Dean Cult and what they think and stuff.

They always talk about. They talk about Micah Moore and they talk about IHOP leaders. Don’t talk about how much Tyler abused us and how much Tyler was a cult leader. Tyler was our cult leader. Not IHOP kc. Not Micah Moore. Tyler. Tyler. Man, if we like the, they worshiped, eSFJ personality because Tyler was an ESFJ personality.

And if you were not an ESFJ personality it was somehow made that you were not the best. I’m not good with remembering like exact words that were spoken, but I can tell you what was communicated and what was the feeling behind it. And some things I can say oh yeah, this is exactly what they say.

’cause it was like, something that, strikes you, to your heart, but when there was just this ugly, just ugly undertone. Not even an undertone. It was like blatant in your face with ihop. They talk about how, it was in the culture, it’s this like whispery feeling, which is true.

There was this like, if you did not succeed as being in the house of prayer, like you are not as good of a Christian as you think you are. But that was real that was something I even struggled with it when I left ihop. It was like this swirl and I’m I got out and the Lord has restored me and is restoring me.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I am this like perfect IHOP made it. You know what I mean? That’s ridiculous. But like the IHOP thing, it’s like this, in the air kind of thing. Tyler Deton was like in your face. It was not that secretive or in the air, it was spoken and it was I actually confronted Tyler.

So when I got saved my senior year of college I’m totally on a whole other tangent, but when I got saved at Southwestern, my, it was my senior year, Tyler was not there. So I never personally knew Tyler in a friendship. Like I saw him two, three times, but I didn’t get to know him until I went to ihop.

And it was like the first week I was part of the cult out there. ’cause when I was at Southwestern, it was none of the core people. It was like. Very much the outskirts people and they loved Jesus and nothing was mandatory. It was just, you just come to the prayer group. If you can’t come, that’s okay. Like not a big deal, but when Tyler moved his cult to Kansas City, if you did not go to these things, you were kicked out of the group. And I was like, what? And I’m like, a baby Christian. And I’m like, I don’t understand things. But I was there and I was just, I was watching them and they were just like worshiping Tyler.

And I was like, oh my God. I was like, this is a cult. You know what I mean? But me, I don’t, I didn’t understand what a cult leader was. And so I confronted Tyler and I was like, Tyler, this is a cult. I was like thinking, oh, he’s a Christian. He’ll repent. Instead. He used to prophetic, like this is an example of how he twisted things about your personality and your weaknesses to make you question your own thoughts, your own voice.

I was like, this is a cult. He was like, no. He was like, this isn’t a cult. What is happening right now is that you have a history of pain with groups of people and you are projecting that pain on our group and forming this to be a cult so that you don’t have to deal with your emotional trauma. And so he used, he actually used witchcraft in that moment.

He actually used witchcraft to see about me and then he twisted it and it made me question everything. ’cause what he said was true. I had a lot of pain in group settings in my past and it has been a very was a very painful thing. And for him to say that to me, it just made me, and I just questioned everything.

That’s what I mean, like how he would say things about people that were very personal. I. He would twist it and manipulate it. So it would be a hard thing to navigate. ’cause you would be like, that’s true. But then it would be this thing and it ended up being just this huge unhealthy cult dynamic that was just controlling because you would just be totally exposed but not understand that it was, controlling.

I don’t know why, where we got all on this tangent. I know we were talking about that. Oh, we were talking about the, those meetings and how they were like trying to convince us that we were cold. But right at that point, many of us actually suspected it because it had gotten so bad and so we were like.

We believe y’all. We believe you guys. And every single person, Julie, that was in the cult except for Tyler. After those two morning meetings, then they invited us saying, Hey, we want you guys to come those morning and afternoon. Meaning they were saying, this is more an of an informative, we want you guys to have time to breathe, to process.

We would like for you guys to come back. I can’t, I cannot tell you if it was that night, those meetings were on a Wednesday, or if those two meetings were on the Thursday. I don’t remember. I just know that we came back, I think it was literally that night. So I think this all happened on that Thursday, but we had breaks, we ate and they were like, we want you guys to come back at 7:00 PM to Shiloh.

There’ll be leaders in front and we just, we wanna talk to you guys so you guys can process the knowledge that you guys have been in a cult. That is what they told us. You know what? I believe it to this day. I do, I believe it. And so we left, again, I don’t remember if it was that night, but I’m pretty sure it was because I don’t remember sleeping like it being like 24 hours until that next time.

So I’m pretty sure this was all within that same day. But we had a huge break. They wanted us all to be there in the morning time so that we would have even a longer break. But then there was only a couple of us. It literally was only six of us at the afternoon. One, like the earlier one had 15.

But, I’m pretty sure it was that night. We all show up at Shiloh. I remember we all drove our independent cars. We were no longer driving together as a community. I remember my friend showing up with McDonald’s. I remember Micah walking in too. We all we, none of us were really talking to each other.

We, but we were, people were talking, that’s an over-exaggeration, but we weren’t like how we were before, how that we would like intentionally more talk to each other. And so we walk in and if you’re in the building of Shiloh. There actually are multiple rooms because it’s a house. Just so you know, the Shiloh building was a house that they like renovated.

So there were like these two huge rooms and in the middle was the bathroom and the room on the right is the one with the fireplace. And then the one on the left, it was just like a big square room. And then there is a kitchen kind of in the back, in the middle. And then in the room with the fireplace there is also like another room back there.

And then there are offices and I think it’s only two offices and they’re like tiny. My point of saying this though is that this place is not that big. It’s not this huge building where. People were taken into secret hiding rooms and done awful, horrible stuff too. No. But we went into that, into the left room that had no fireplace, and they had a row of chairs in the front that’s where all those leaders that I spoke to you about were sitting.

And then they had us sit in a semicircle of chairs and we were all in chairs. And the atmosphere was we’re sad, still about our friend in the reality that we are, a cult. The leadership I’ll say this, I did not hear Margie Sirki say a word or that man next to her, Katie Ney did speak.

Some, but the main two people who did talk to us was Alan and Shelly, which was appropriate because they had been walking with us for the past week and a half to two weeks, actually. Two weeks mourning the death of our friend. Like these aren’t just random people, leaders that were just assigned to us that night.

These were the people who’ve literally been laying down their lives for us for the past two weeks, taking our calls and being there for us. And they were just saying things mean, they’re harsh to her. They were kind. They were kind, their words were kind. And just to give you context, it, this was actually that night, Thursday night Rachel and Allen, that was their anniversary.

And they were gonna go celebrate and they had planned this whole weekend, guess, but they agreed that it would be good for us to be there

to help us.

And they

really upset me with people hound on Alan and Shelly to tell them to repent us. It’s ridiculous.

Another reason why they’ve been quiet, which no one has thought about. About all the stuff that happened is to protect us. They didn’t wanna expose us. They were covering our sin.

They didn’t want to give everyone to, for the fire liar. They did what Jesus did. They laid down their lives for us.

And I’m not saying they were perfect. I think that would be very ignorant to say, I don’t know, ignorant might not be the best word, but like I could, I, but I’m like. All these people who are supposedly advocating, and that’s with my little apostrophe fingers. For me, I have never felt advocated by majority of the people who are speaking.

I feel this is how I feel. I feel like they have ang, they’re angry with ihop and they have their own pain, which is valid. You’re like their pain, how they have felt is valid. Stop using my life, my friend death, my friend potentially being murdered.

For you to use it for your own anger.

You don’t, it’s like they don’t, you don’t need to know what happened. It’s not your business. And I’m on here because I’m done with it. I’m done with all the people who just think they know what happened.

And so Alan and Shelly are up there and they’re talking with us kindly. They’re not yelling at us. They’re not telling us we’re these wicked, simple people. They’re literally there for us. And Alan, literally, he opened up in prayer, which I’m thankful for. And then he opened it up for us to ask questions and to talk, and we did that.

I think that happened. I think there wasn’t, there’s not a clock in the room, so I can’t tell you exactly, minute by minute, like how long that conversation went. But it went, there was one thing that it still breaks my heart. One thing that Alan asked in the midst of the whole conversation was when you guys hear the voice of God, how many of you hear Tyler’s voice?

And all of them, except for me and one other person, they raise their hands. It broke my heart to know that they literally think of Tyler as the voice of God. That’s literally the voice in their head. They hear Tyler’s voice and more conversation was, had more, was spoken of a lot of people, there was crying, there was, and and then a girl she said something, I don’t remember what it was, but Alan goes, that, that was witchcraft.

He said witchcraft, when someone uses the prophetic and uses truth, but there’s a twist to it. There’s the air doesn’t feel right around it. And earlier when I was telling you how, when I told him, told Tyler that this was a cult, and he twisted the word, I felt that in the room. And I actually said it to Tyler, I was like, something’s not right.

And I was like, I could feel that in the air. And then Alan was like, said he said something and then he was like, we need to break witchcraft off of y’all or something. He said something like that. He, and we were like, yeah. And oh, Julie, Alan stood up and if if you ever heard Alan preach on a pulpit.

This is exactly what he did. He stands up and he has, he does his thing with his arm where, in his hand, where it’s it’s flat and he’s moving it up and down. And he was like, father in Jesus’ name, Greek witchcraft. And Julie, when he said that, I have never experienced this ever, and have not, and any other circumstances even come close to this, that heavens opened.

They were ripped open and there was so much light in the room and all of us.

We simultaneously all at the exact same time, no one was touching us, no one was

putting oil on us,

no one was accused. We all started all at once, simultaneously at the exact same time, started screaming, falling outta our

all at once

and.

The Lord was in that room. He lied. I can just cry. It was so powerful.

Julie: That is one of the most moving accounts of spiritual deliverance I’ve ever heard, but it’s just part of it, and you’re not going to wanna miss part two of my interview with Jamie where she describes the rest of what happened that night. She also talks about her shock at finding out that one of her friends in the cult had confessed to Bethany’s murder.

“Jamie”: My fickle actually came out who he said to us, you’re stopping the service. This is about to come out in the news. Michael Moore has confessed to murdering Bethany Dean. And so that’s how I find out. That was a awful way to find that out.

Julie: In addition to what you just heard, Jamie also talks about her journey to healing and some of the incredibly powerful ways that God revealed himself to her.

We’ll have part two out very soon, so you’ll wanna be watching for that. In the meantime, I’d really appreciate it if you consider giving a gift to support our work at the Roy’s report. Again, we don’t have any big grants or advertisers. We simply have you the people who care about truth and justice and restoration.

So if you’re able, would you please go to Julie Roy, spelled ROY s.com/donate. That’s julie roys.com/donate. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Roy’s report on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review, and then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content.

Again, thanks so much for joining me today and God bless.