DID A YOUNG WIFE COMMIT SUICIDE TO BE FREE FROM A SHAM MARRIAGE, OR DID SOMEONE IN HER HUSBAND'S ALLEGED RELIGIOUS CULT WANT HER DEAD?

"48 HOURS: FALL FROM GRACE" - FEB. 21, 2015

Bethany Deaton was a young wife and a successful nurse with a seemingly bright future. That future came to an end in October 2012 when law enforcement in Grandview, Mo., found her lifeless body in the backseat of a minivan. She had a plastic bag on her head, nearby was a suicide note and an empty bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills.

What would make Bethany kill herself or did someone have a hand in her death were questions that haunted her family. "She didn't die of natural causes," Deaton's mother, Carol Leidlein, tells 48 HOURS. She believes it was murder. But who did it?

Troy Roberts and 48 HOURS investigate the death of Bethany Deaton in "Fall from Grace," to be broadcast Saturday, Feb. 21 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. The story behind Deaton's death includes a fundamental Christian religious group some likened to a cult, a dream marriage to the group's leader that quickly turned into a nightmare, and the quest by a family to find out exactly why their daughter was gone.

The broadcast includes Tyler Deaton's first-ever in-depth television interview about the case, in which he maintains his wife was not murdered.

Bethany and Tyler Deaton were married in August 2012. They met years earlier as students at Southwestern University near Austin, Texas. They were devoted to their religion. She was drawn to his passion.

"My gift, and something that is also a curse, is that I am charismatic," Tyler Deaton tells Roberts. "I've owned that from the beginning and I'll own that to the end. I can be electric and magnetic - it can affect people."

He used those skills to become the leader of a group they called "The Community" while in college. The group of men and women then moved to Kansas City, where they became affiliated with the International House of Prayer. They settled in two houses, separated by gender and controlled by Deaton. He told members what to wear, when to eat and even controlled their romantic relationships, according to Boze Herrington, a friend of the couple and former member of "The Community." Herrington says the group as run by Tyler Deaton "became a full-blown cult and a very dangerous cult."

"A cult? No," Deaton tells 48 HOURS. "And nobody has used that language who's actually qualified to use it."

Bethany's marriage to Tyler Deaton was supposed to be everything she ever dreamed of, says her mother. Turns out the dream marriage wasn't so perfect, and Bethany fell into a deep depression. There were questions about Tyler's own sexuality - along with allegations of his strong bonds with other male members of "The Community" - that made Bethany uncomfortable.

"Bethany and I's relationship was definitely strained," says Tyler Deaton. "But just because it was strained doesn't mean it was murderous." Indeed, he argues that the "foundational facts do not point to a murder."

However, something went wrong with the marriage - wrong enough for police to find her body in a parking lot. Did something go wrong within "The Community" to cause her to kill herself? Or did someone kill her as a way to protect the group?

Police didn't believe Bethany killed herself because the way she was found didn't fit the pattern of someone taking their own life. Then, just a day after the medical examiner ruled it a suicide, the entire investigation took a turn no one expected when another member of "The Community" walked into a police station and told them what he knew. Police thought they might have had the case solved right there. He later recanted his story, however, turning the case upside-down again.

Roberts and 48 HOURS piece together Bethany Deaton's life and death through interviews with Tyler Deaton, Bethany's parents, friends of the couple and detectives investigating the case. 48 HOURS: "Fall From Grace" is produced by Chris O'Connell, Lindsey Gutterman and Dena Goldstein. Al Briganti is the executive editor. Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer.

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