Ronald Roe Messner is an American building contractor who has built more than 1,700 churches, including several megachurches.
Having divorced his first wife, he married televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in 1993 after her divorce from her husband and PTL Club founder Jim Bakker.
Messner divorced his first wife in 1993. At about the same time, Tammy Faye divorced Bakker. Messner and Tammy Faye were married and lived in Rancho Mirage, California.
In 1996, Roe was convicted of bankruptcy fraud, having claimed to owe nearly $30 million to over 300 creditors in 1990. As he faced sentencing in 1996, he said he could not afford to treat his prostate cancer because he lacked health insurance. He was sentenced to and served 27 months in prison.
Messner and Tammy Faye moved to the gated community of Loch Lloyd, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City, in 2007. Tammy Faye died from cancer on July 20 that year; her last public appearance was a taped interview on CNN from their home the day before. Her ashes were interred in the Messner family plot in Waldron, immediately next to Messner’s mother.
Roe Messner gained fame with the construction of Heritage USA in 1978 at the behest of Jim Bakker. In 1987, he and his first wife, Ruth Ann, wrote a book titled Building for the Master.
He reportedly played a behind-the-scenes role in the downfall of the PTL Club. He was reportedly the person who produced the money for the $265,000 payment to Jessica Hahn to cover up a sexual assault. Messner later billed PTL for work never completed on the Jerusalem Amphitheater at Heritage USA.
Roe Messner himself is known to have received a diagnosis of prostate cancer in the past, though he told Larry King that his doctors had told him that he would not die from the disease.