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A former executive whose public allegations of sexual abuse rocked the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has died at the age of 47.

Jennifer Lyell passed away on June 7, just days before the SBC’s 2025 Annual Meeting in Dallas. Her friend and fellow advocate Rachael Denhollander announced on social media that Lyell had suffered catastrophic strokes earlier in the week and was found in her home days later.

According to a report on PBS News, her death cast a shadow over the two-day convention, which opened Tuesday with worship and reports of rising baptisms but was marked by an atmosphere of mourning and reflection. Outside of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, two individuals held a vigil, displaying photos of Lyell and another survivor, Gareld Duane Rollins, who died earlier this year after accusing longtime SBC leader Paul Pressler of abuse.

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AL.com shared that Lyell had been a prominent voice in the denomination’s reckoning with sexual abuse. In 2019, she publicly alleged that she was sexually abused by seminary professor David Sills, beginning on a 2004 mission trip and continuing for years. Sills later filed a defamation lawsuit in Alabama in 2022 against Lyell and several SBC entities, claiming the allegations were false and part of an institutional effort to rehabilitate the denomination’s image in the wake of mounting scandals.

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