Kansas City Children's Theater Director Found Dead Days After Being Accused Of Sexual Abuse
Dec. 27 2022, Published 9:00 p.m. ET
A Kansas City children's theater director was found dead at his home on December 24, just days after he was publicly accused of child sexual abuse over the course of his 30-year career, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Jeff Church was at the center of a child abuse scandal that led him to resign from his position as art director for The Coterie Theater just hours before police discovered his body.
During his three-decades-long career at the theater, the 63-year-old directed and produced numerous plays and musicals that featured children from the Kansas City area.
Several of the former young male actors under Church's direction came forward with accusations of abuse on December 20.
Among the alleged victims, who posted their stories to social media, was former theater performer Dashawn Young.
Young alleged that when he was 22 years old in 2017, Church sexually assaulted him at a pool party.
Young made his statement in a since-deleted video, claiming that he and Church had gone on two dates but were not together before the alleged incident.
The former actor alleged that when he went into a bedroom to change out of his swimsuit, the theater director entered the room and attempted to have intercourse with him.
After Young told his story to The Pitch, more than a dozen former Coterie Theater employees confirmed that the alleged behavior from Church was the "theater's worst kept secret."
Many sources chose to keep their identities anonymous due to fear of retaliation.
One source claimed that Church "uses the promise of career advancement, in combination with social, professional, and physical pressure, to enact predatory behavior on young male actors."
Local radio personality, Mark Manning, claimed that in 1991 when he was 27 years old, Church assaulted him. Manning also claimed that he was aware of several other victims — three of which he claimed reached out to him after he posted his accusation on Facebook.
Manning wanted to help Young and other alleged victims who experienced the same horror.
"It’s been going on for over 30 years," Manning told the Kansas City Star. "Most of these people were young theater artists trying to find their way through their theatrical career and a person in a very great authority position of directing them and deciding who gets paid and who gets the job [was] interfering in people’s lives."
Following the social media posts, Church was placed on "administrative leave" by the theater before he submitted his resignation hours before his death.
The medical examiner has not yet released a cause of death at this time.
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