Born-Again Christian to Be Arraigned Over Slaying : Crime: A Moorpark man says the suspect told sheriff’s deputies in Thousand Oaks that the body was in a Kern County mine shaft. The alleged killing occurred seven years ago.

A born-again Christian who allegedly told Ventura County sheriff’s investigators that he was involved in a slaying seven years ago was scheduled to be arraigned today in San Bernardino County Municipal Court in Barstow.

Andrew Scott Lyche, 29, of the high desert hamlet of Red Mountain in northwestern San Bernardino County, was booked on suspicion of murder by the sheriff on Saturday.

“He said this is something I’ve been living with for seven years,” said a friend, Patrick Chaney, 45, of Moorpark. “He said I can’t go on feeling the way I do.”

According to Chaney, who was with the suspect while he was being questioned by sheriff’s investigators, Lyche said the victim’s body was in an abandoned mine shaft near Ridgecrest in Kern County.

A brief release on Saturday by the sheriff said Lyche had described the victim as a 28-year-old male and that “investigators determined the crime actually occurred in San Bernardino County, but the person was reported missing to the Ridgecrest office of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department.”

Chaney said Lyche “implied that he had something to do with the body that was thrown in the mine shaft. He said it was somebody he had met at a party in the desert.”

Lyche, who briefly attended Moorpark College about eight years ago, had drug and alcohol problems for many years, according to both Chaney and Lyche’s aunt, Joy Lyche of Thousand Oaks.

Lyche was questioned for about three hours on Saturday before he was booked by the sheriff. He was transferred to a San Bernardino County jail the next day.

“He seemed sincere,” said Sgt. Pat Buckley, a Ventura County sheriff’s investigator who participated in the questioning of Lyche.

The person who Lyche identified was found to be a bona fide missing person in the national law enforcement data information bank, Buckley said.

The name of the victim could not be released until relatives were notified, he said.

Sgt. Bryan English, a major crimes investigator for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said no remains had yet been found in the mine shaft. He declined to say where the mine was located, except to confirm that it was near Ridgecrest.

“We have a lot of work to do,” English said.

J. Robert Lyche, the suspect’s father, declined to comment on his son’s arrest when reached at his Red Mountain home.

Chaney, 45, who said he was a handyman who also had a history of problems with drugs and alcohol, recalled that he met the suspect through his church in Thousand Oaks, the Conejo Koinonia, which he described as a Christian fellowship.

Lyche’s aunt and uncle, David Lyche, are in the church, Chaney said. He said the uncle had mentioned his nephew’s problems to church members.

“I had such a problem up until three years ago, and I felt empathy,” Chaney said.

Consequently, he said, the church group began praying for Lyche although they had never met him.

“I wanted to tell him in my prayers what Jesus Christ had done with my life,” he said. “My whole life has been turned around since I became a born-again Christian.”

Joy Lyche said her nephew lived in her home about eight years ago while attending Moorpark College for a short time.

“He’s a very loving person,” she said, “but his personality changed when he started taking drugs.” She did not elaborate.

On Sunday, Sept. 6, Lyche, at his uncle’s invitation, showed up at a church service on the Cal Lutheran University campus.

“He was kind of introspective,” Chaney said.

Chaney said he told Lyche that he had been an engineer in Northern California’s Silicon Valley until his life was sidetracked by drugs and alcohol about 20 years ago. By 1986, Chaney had moved to the Conejo Valley and, he said, “was out on the streets living in a tent near Moorpark like a homeless person.”

Three years later, Chaney said he was arrested by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department on suspicion of dealing drugs. He said he told Lyche that it was while he was in jail that “I realized something was missing in my life. That’s when I started seeking God.”

Chaney said he still works with jail inmates through the church fellowship, attempting to bring God into their lives.

As for Lyche, Chaney said he told his friend as they walked through the Cal Lutheran campus a week ago that “I had been praying for you. He looked a little bit surprised.

“It seemed like he was seeking the peace I had in my life. He wanted to be rid of the turmoil.”

Then, Chaney said, “I asked him if he wanted to accept Christ in his life. He said, ‘Yes,’ and we prayed.”

Having made that commitment, Lyche stayed last week at the Thousand Oaks residence of a church member, Chaney said.

On Saturday, while Lyche was having lunch at Chaney’s residence, Lyche said there was something he needed to get off his chest, Chaney said.

“He told me there was something he had never told anyone before,” Chaney said. “He said, ‘I’ve been living with it for seven years. I can’t go on feeling the way I do. Maybe, we ought to take a drive.’ ”

The two got into Chaney’s pickup truck and Lyche asked to be taken to the Thousand Oaks sheriff’s station without telling his friend what he was about to divulge.

Once there, Chaney said Lyche spoke of “a missing person out in the desert near Ridgecrest. He told them there was a body in the mine shaft.”

After three hours of questioning and confirmation that there was a missing person, Lyche was booked on suspicion of murder.

Chaney said that when he left his friend in the sheriff’s interrogation room there were tears in Lyche’s eyes.

“Here is a guy who showed up out of the blue and he wanted to turn his life around,” he said. “This was his decision alone to talk to the police to make things right a week after he committed himself to Christ.

“It took a lot of courage to do what he did.

“He called me a couple of hours later from Victorville (where he was initially incarcerated). I told him everyone loved him and we’re praying for him. He said thank you, and that he loved us too.

“It’s a sad story. But it will have a good ending. Now is the beginning of his life. I know that this is going to have a good ending.

“I know that God has a special purpose for Andy.”