When Good Christians Go Bad: Timothy Byars

Welcome back to another installment of a little feature we like to call “When Good Christians Go Bad.”

Today’s Christian in the spotlight is Timothy Byars of Dyersburg, Tenn. Byars is a youth minister and minister of music at the Springhill Baptist Church he has attended for the past 14 years, a married father of seven, and a volunteer cross-country coach at the local high school.

But, according to local police, is Byars also accused of WHAT?

A. Raping a 14-year-old female student/cross-country runner just hours before a track meet — while his own daughters slept nearby
B. Plotting to blow up a Nashville gay bar with 23 pounds of dynamite stolen from nearby Fort Campbell army base
C. Masterminding a crystal meth production and distribution ring that reaches as far north as Pittsburgh and as far west as Las Vegas
D. Being married to three other Tennessee women, the youngest of who is 17, and the eldest of who has six OTHER children by him


ANSWER
A: The youth-minister part of this one should have given it away — Byars is accused of raping a 14-year-old girl that he had driven to a state cross-country meet. Byars is also accused of sexually assaulting the girl’s 19-year-old sister on the same trip — a trip that two of Byars’ own daughters were also on.