Legal scrutiny fell on a Casper man after multiple young women said he’d molested them in their prepubescent years – and after the man started confessing his “inappropriate” acts to fellow members of his church, court documents say.
John Byrum Dierenfeldt, 60, pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor earlier this month, after establishing a plea agreement to dismiss two more severe counts of first-degree and second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, according to an order filed last week in the Natrona County District Court.
Each of the third-degree charges is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Natrona County District Court Judge Joshua Eames at a later sentencing date can choose an appropriate sentence for Dierenfeldt that is within the legal maximum for those charges, if the judge accepts the plea agreement.
The prosecutor and defender have agreed for each of the two penalties to run concurrently, meaning simultaneously, says the order.
The Case From Three Years Ago
Casper Police Department Detective Tiffany Elhart started investigating Dierenfeldt in January 2022, says an evidentiary affidavit filed in Casper Circuit Court on May 6 of this year.
The affidavit is heavily redacted, not revealing the names of victims or other witnesses, or the name of the church in which Dierenfeldt was involved. The document indicates that Elhart’s investigation happened in 2022.
The Natrona County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment citing the case’s still-pending status.
Uncomfortable
Elhart on Feb. 3, 2022, met with a woman who was then in her early 20s at the Casper Police Department.
The woman characterized Dierenfeldt as a longtime family friend who stepped in as a father figure during a period of family turmoil.
When she was about 8 years old, Diernfeldt would place the girl on his lap and put his hands on her hips, she told Elhart.
It made her feel uncomfortable, the woman recalled, but she didn’t want to be disrespectful and didn’t understand how to tell him she was not comfortable with that.
The girl also often suffered from migraines.
Knowing this, Dierenfeldt offered to rub her shoulders during a painful migraine the girl suffered in the spring of 2009, she said, according to the document.
Dierenfeldt suggested they go into the bedroom. He placed her on the bed stomach-down, in a way that she recalled as awkward since the lower half of her body was in the floor almost in a kneeling position, the affidavit relates.
“Why am I not farther up on the bed?” the woman recalled thinking at the time.
She listed in detail what the bedding looked like, what sort of top and bra she was wearing, and her dark-colored basketball shorts, in Elhart’s account of that interview.
She wore a bra because she’d developed early, the woman added.
Freezing
When Dierenfeldt allegedly unclipped her bra, the girl “froze, physically and mentally,” relates the affidavit.
The document says that in a follow-up interview given after later visits to a mental health therapist, the woman spoke with Elhart again and said Dierenfeldt had penetrated her with his fingers.
Dierenfeldt would do other things to the girl throughout her childhood, like kiss her neck or jawline, “sometimes even in public,” and touch her body as he passed by her, the affidavit says.
At some point, she developed non-epileptic seizures, which prompted her to see a therapist, then to tell her parents about the incidents, says the document.
The woman also told her church pastor because she and Dierenfeldt shared a church, and she was afraid he may be victimizing other children, the document says.
The woman had also noticed how friendly he was with children, Elhart related from that interview.
Church Attire
Elhart on Feb. 3, 2022, met with another woman, who said Dierenfeldt once had her lie face-down on the bed in his room on a night “many years ago” — when his wife was home and in another room — the affidavit says.
He unclasped her bra under her “church attire,” and she fled the room, she said.
Eleven days later, the first alleged victim who had described the massage situation agreed to call Dierenfeldt while Elhart sat next to her with her body camera recording the call.
Dierenfeldt asked for the woman’s forgiveness, and he described his own childhood as being horrible and having endured abuse himself. He said he was bitter when his mother died in 2006, and his father remained alive, the affidavit says.
The woman asked Dierenfeldt pointed questions, including “who else he had touched,” Elhart related.
Dierenfeldt avoided answering the direct questions and brought the conversation back to his abusive childhood, his faith and conversion journey, and his hope for forgiveness, the document says.
He mentioned he’d also been in talks with two other families from the church, Elhart added.
Later, an alleged victim’s father called Dierenfeldt and recorded the call.
That recording captures essentially the same themes: Dierenfeldt’s tough upbringing, his remorse and his quest for forgiveness, according to the detective’s account.
Another Massage
At the Casper Police Department on March 16, 2022, Elhart met with another woman, who would have been 19 or 20 during the interview.
The woman said when she was 8 years old, Dierenfeldt picked her up “by the crotch” a few times. He also massaged her under her shirt and touched her buttocks, the affidavit alleges.
In this case as well, Dierenfeldt had approached this girl’s father to apologize and explain about the abuse he himself had suffered, the detective related.
Elhart interviewed the father that same day.
He said they all attended the same church, and that his family had known Dierenfeldt for two decades.
He also said the church excluded Dierenfeldt from activities once the alleged abuse came to light, “outside of attending services,” Elhart wrote.
With this father, Elhart arranged a recorded phone call on May 19, 2022.
Dierenfeldt on that call described touching the girl “years ago” around the Fourth of July, on her vaginal area through her clothes, the document relates from that phone call.
His “goal and desire” at the time was to touch the girl’s genitalia, but he stayed outside her clothing, the affidavit adds.
In another interview with another person whose name is redacted and whose identity is difficult to ascertain from the context, Elhart learned that Dierenfeldt’s acts “were becoming more common knowledge at the church as (he) was openly talking with people” about them and “had been asking people for forgiveness on a regular basis.”
Lastly, the affidavit says, Elhart spoke with Dierenfeldt on Oct. 10, 2022, to arrange an interview.
On Oct. 11, 2022, Dierenfeldt’s attorney called the detective and said Dierenfeldt would not be meeting with her after all, the document says.
Dierenfeldt did not respond by publication time to a Monday voicemail request for comment.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
