Email Shows Gunn's Role In Abuse Case

       Months before Hinds county prosecutors got involved in the sex abuse against a former Clinton music minister, Philip Gunn and other spiritual leaders at the church where the minister used to work, we conducting their own private “investigation.”

     Republican Philip Gunn represents Clinton in the state legislature and wants to be the next Speaker of the House.

     He says he supports a law that requires the reporting of child abuse.

     Yet Gunn would not allow prosecutors to question church leaders about what they know about John Langworthy's case.

     Langworthy was a minister of music at Morrison Heights Baptist Church for 22 years.

      He is accused of sexually abusing boys at two different Jackson churches in the 1980s.

     According to an email, Gunn tried to take steps to keep abuse allegations against Langworthy silent.  

       In May of this year, Gunn wrote in an email to abuse victims advocate Amy Smith that he wanted “to discuss a resolution” to the case.

      What did you take that to mean?

    “Seems to me like he was asking to offer me something to go away to be quiet and that was not acceptable to me, that's not protecting children and I simply said no," Smith told us in a Tuesday by phone from Dallas.

     But Gunn didn't give up just because Smith refused his offer to discuss resolving the case.

     He also contacted sherry LeFils,

     She’s a former Dallas, TX probation officer who says she spent 10 years working with thousands of sex offenders.

      LeFils tells us she had three phone conversations with Gunn regarding Langworthy's case.

       She says one phone call caught her as quite odd.

    "My take was what we can do to make this right, to make this go away," LeFils said.

      Both women believe church leaders’ refusal to speak with prosecutors forces victims at Morrison Heights to remain silent.

    "It generally takes six to 15 years to come out," added LeFils.

     Church leaders tell us they have discovered no children were victimized by Langworthy at the church in Clinton.

    We contacted Gunn to get his take on what the women have to say. We haven't yet heard back from him.