MISSISSIPPI
Clarion-Ledger
Written by
Ruth Ingram
Amy Smith wanted to know who knew what and when in Clinton about decades-old molestation accusations in Texas against John Langworthy, a music minister at Morrison Heights Baptist Church and choir teacher in the Clinton school district.
Langworthy had been a seminary student and youth music minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas, where Smith, then 20, worked as a college intern. Although ministers at Prestonwood fired Langworthy in 1989 when at least one teen told church leaders Langworthy molested him, they never reported the allegation to police.
When Langworthy returned to Mississippi, he worked briefly in non-church positions. In 1990, he was working as a music minister at Morrison Heights. He later became a choir teacher, first at Clinton Junior High and then Clinton High.
The father of an alleged victim in Texas said he discovered not long after Langworthy left Prestonwood that he was teaching in Clinton. The father said he called the district and the Mississippi Baptist Convention to talk of Langworthy’s past.
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