Transcript of 11) ‘The Devil is a Liar’: What JP Miller’s Emails To Mica Reveal About Their Marriage

There are no witnesses, no fingerprints, and no confession to the 1992 deaths of Tommy Griffin and his sister Connie Branham in East Tennessee. There are, however, 4 alleged and uninvestigated alternate suspects, 6 alibi witnesses, a disgraced medical examiner, a nearly impossible timeline, a bad search warrant, and a man named Gary Sutton sitting on death row. I'm Beth Braden, a writer and investigative journalist, and I'm going to tell you why I believe the death penalty does more harm than good in my new podcast, Time of Death. In February 1992, 28-year-old Gary Sutton, his uncle James Dellinger, and Gary's best friend, Tommy Griffin, went out drinking. The night ended with Tommy laying dead on the riverbank. Tommy's sister, Connie Branham, went looking for her missing brother the following day and was never seen alive again. Gary and James were convicted of murdering Tommy and Connie and sent to death row, where Dellinger died of natural causes in 2023, and Gary Sutton awaits his fate. Follow my investigation to explore this capital case and others as the clock ticks down towards Gary Sutton's December execution. Search for Time of Death wherever you like to get your podcasts.

You know me, I dig until I find the truth, and it turns out That same instinct that drives my investigative journalism? It makes for a different, but pretty amazing, new kind of travel show. Wherever It Leads is Luna Shark's brand new podcast, and it's nothing like the travel content that you've heard before. We go deeper. We talk to locals, reporters, and people who actually live where you want to visit, not just the ones who want your tourist dollars. We cover the food and landmarks, sure, but we also ask the harder questions. What is the real history here? The often sad and traumatic history? What new challenge is this place facing? And how can you show up as a visitor who actually makes things better? My co-host David Moses and I, along with a team of journalists, are hitting destinations around the world to expose the truth, give voice to victims throughout history, and get the story straight. With new destinations and episodes every other week. Wherever It Leads from Luna Shark. Find it wherever you listen to your podcasts or visit whereveritleadspod.com. This is Coerced: The Devotion and Death of Micah Francis Miller, a Luna Shark drop feed.

My name is Mandy Matney. Journalists Liz Farrell, Beth Braden, and I have been reporting on Micah's story for more than 2 years now for the True Sunlight podcast. Coerced is a Luna Shark production made possible by producers Kate Thomas, Grace Hills, and David Moses. Today, we're going to talk about JP Miller and what his own evidence filed with probate court says about him. Evidence that he thought exonerated him and proved that he was a loving husband who deserved to be the PR of Micah's estate. In our last episode, you heard how JP Miller spent the summer of 2024 building a case for the public. The burner accounts, the fake reporter, the 2 AM recording. 3 days before the settlement was announced, JP swore out a 7-page affidavit in Micah's probate case. Attached to more than 65 exhibits— texts, emails, invoices— that he believed proved that he was a loving husband who deserved control of his late wife's estate. He filed this all by himself, on purpose, aggressively not sealed. What JP's own exhibits actually document is the first 6 weeks of his marriage to Micah, a civil ceremony kept secret. A surgery, a psychiatric hospitalization, a diagnosis, and a 3-page email titled Our Life that JP sent his 24-year-old bride 9 days before their church wedding.

Read in 2024, JP thought that these documents would get the public on his side. In reading them now, especially with a federal cyberstalking trial weeks away and Micah's story being the most-watched series on Netflix, They read like something else entirely, a manual written in JP's own hand for how coercive control begins. The next passages are from True Sunlight Podcast Episode 63, published in August 2024. So, the probate documents were sickening and difficult to read, but also so incredibly important When it comes to the core of this story, which is exposing and identifying abuse. This is what we're learning about people accused of being coercive controllers. Their alleged abuse isn't just experienced by their targeted victims. Even just reading these primary documents from JP, reading his own words to Micah, is difficult. The manipulation is relentless. Re-lent-less. And when you're reading it from this helpless position that we're in right now, this position of only knowing about Micah because of her death and knowing that there is nothing that any of us can do to save her, it is only more difficult to bear. Because you are reading JP's words and realizing, Oh my God, this is the burden that Micah had been carrying on her shoulders every single day of her relationship with this man.

You're realizing that what you're reading is sentence after sentence of gaslighting. Micah's story isn't just about what happened between February and April of this past year. It actually starts 15 years earlier, when she was just 15 years old. JP told Micah who she was over and over and over, and he told her how she was supposed to be over and over and over, and he told her when she fell short of those expectations put on her by him and by God. And though JP clearly thinks that this probate evidence exonerates him, that this is his moment of hallelujah, now everyone will see that I am all but a misunderstood hero, he would be very mistaken. Very mistaken. This latest file from probate court references more than 65 exhibits from JP. Remember JP's claim that he had over 350 pieces of evidence showing that he had nothing to do with Micah's death? What's 350 minus 65? Does this mean we can expect 285 more pieces of evidence from JP? God help us if that's the case. 8 of those probate exhibits remain sealed at the request of the Francis family. But the rest, they are aggressively not sealed.

At any rate, one of the biggest things we've learned from these files is that, like we said, the alleged coercive control started even earlier, which isn't a big surprise. Obviously, Micah herself put it on the record that she believed JP had been grooming her since 2010, when she was about 15 years old. And he was about 30. Real quick, I know JP denies that he ever groomed Micah. He doesn't see it that way. But here's how we see it. Without even knowing what her relationship with JP looked like from ages 15 to 18, we know that Micah says she worked for the church starting at age 15. We know that when she was 18, JP was the officiant in her marriage to her high school sweetheart. We know that from ages 18 to around 21, Micah was a fixture at JP's house. She was a nanny to his kids and sought counsel from his wife. We know that around age 21, possibly earlier, Micah began a sexual relationship with JP while both were still married. We know that around age 21, her affair with JP was discovered by the church. And we know that 2 years later, at around age 23, she married JP.

Think about that. It's a mudslide right into his arms, right? The generous view would be that they were so inexplicably drawn to each other that they ran toward their destiny together. But we already know the ending to that, and it is no fairy tale. So did he groom her? We don't know, but it does not look good from where we're sitting. We are highly suspicious of any married man in a position of power who befriends, as he put it, a 15-year-old child who idolized him. So we think this is important context to everything you're about to hear, especially when you take in what the early days of their marriage look like. According to sources, Micah was set to have breast augmentation surgery in late 2017. We're told that JP insisted that he be the one to take care of Micah post-op, and that to do that, they would need to get secretly married before her surgery so that they wouldn't be living in sin when she moved in with him. Micah's family has said that JP pushed her into getting this surgery. JP contends that Micah was the one who wanted the surgery and that he didn't want her to have it, which—

Sure, Jan.

Now, why is this important? Because there are a few ways to look at it. The first way is that JP cared so much about Micah that he wanted to open his home to her and begin their lives as a couple ASAP. And as part of his new husbandly duty, care for his wife post-op. Which, by the way, post-op care for breast implants is typically just a few days. Most patients are able to return to work Within 5 days after their surgeries. Meaning it's a little extreme to suggest getting secretly married as a remedy to a recuperation like that. It's not like she was going to need months of care. Except that's what happened, isn't it? This simple recovery became a complicated one, and it morphed into something else altogether. That said, the second way of looking at this is like this. JP had just come out of what could be considered the lowest point of his life. Over the course of the previous 2 years, he had, according to court records and police records, gotten caught having an affair with Micah, allegedly admitted to molesting teen girls at church, and allegedly using sex workers while married to his first wife.

His first wife filed for divorce, and the court found him in contempt for not paying child support and alimony. He hounded his first wife repeatedly to get back together. He fell out of a tree, allegedly up there carving his ex-wife's initials into it. He had the police called on him several times for allegedly harassing and stalking his first wife and over custody disputes. He was found crying and squeaking like Minnie Mouse, lying curled up in the fetal position in the grass by his first wife's house, saying he wanted to go be with Jesus. Something he says was a result of mixing his medications. And he had lost the vast majority of his congregation, i.e., most of his revenue stream. Sources have told us that in 2015 and '16, JP seemed stunned that his first wife had actually left him this time, that she'd finally had enough. And he was greatly affected by this. Let's not forget that police reports show that he moved into a house across the way from his first wife and would surveil her home from there, allegedly. Even allegedly shining a green laser into her windows. Even allegedly trying to poison a tree that blocked his full view of her house.

And yet this man's word continued to be trusted. It is enough to make you want to rip paper into confetti with your bare hands. Okay, let's put ourselves in JP's mindset in 2017. He had just built his church back up and the new congregation loved Micah. Is it possible that he entered into this marriage with Micah with a fear that he could lose everything again? Is it possible that he knew his behavior as a husband was probably going to be egregious? That he'd struggled to be faithful to a wife? Did he feel pressured to marry Micah because it would legitimize him in front of his flock? And did he go into the second marriage in abject fear that she could leave him at any time and possibly would, that she wouldn't put up with his antics? These are all speculative questions, obviously, but they're important ones to consider because A pathologically insecure man who is afraid to lose a woman who is too good for him tends to try and trap her, right? We have plenty of stories of that happening throughout history. I mean, good Lord, the foundation of the women's rights movement is really about freedom to live, right?

Freedom to earn and spend money, freedom to pursue any career, freedom to buy property, freedom to divorce. It's fundamentally about having agency and Not having to rely on a man or be trapped by one, ever. Oh, and how about our entire legal system? There are so many examples of laws that seem to have been created by Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater. You know him, right? Had a wife and couldn't keep her. He put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well. So, did J.P. Miller try to put Micah in a pumpkin shell? Did he use what should have been, and likely was, a transient health scare in late 2017 to handcuff her? Did he exaggerate her behavior to fit a narrative? Did he fill her head with ideas that she was sicker than she thought and then use that to reel her in whenever he felt like she had stepped outside his tight emotional boundaries? Let's take a look at what his own filings have to say about this.

Remember, JP once claimed that he had 350 pieces of evidence proving that he had nothing to do with Micah's death. What we found when we actually read the first batch of JP's evidence was proving the opposite of what he intended. And that pattern matters beyond this podcast. This fall, a federal jury will be asked to weigh in on JP's own statements against the record. Prosecutors have already alleged that he lied to investigators once. So let's do what the jury will do. Next, Liz and I look at JP's affidavit paragraph by paragraph, starting with his very first claim about who Micah was. We are going to allow JP to serve as our guide here. In the first paragraph of his affidavit, which he swore on July 26th, just 3 days before his settlement with the Francis family was announced, he says this, quote, Micah grew up in an unstable home with about 10 stepparents total. She lived with people unrelated to her for many years of her life before turning 18 due to problems with her mother. As evidence of this, he provided a screenshot of a single text message from Micah and his response to it.

There is no date attached to these messages, but it looks like Micah wrote, I am very, very, very lucky to have found a female that I'm okay with considering my issues with women, basically being molested by my own mother. So yes, we both have deep issues with the same sex. I was willing to compromise and go without you. You've given no compromise. So one, We have no idea what Micah meant by molestation there, especially because she qualified it with the word basically. We have found no records that Micah's mother was ever charged with anything resembling this accusation from JP. We know from sources that Micah had issues with her mother throughout her life, but according to multiple posts on social media over the years, it appears that they had periods where there was not estrangement. That said, this is not evidence of his assertion that Micah grew up in chaos, but it is evidence of JP trying to exert control over Micah because it appears Micah is telling JP that she's trying to see a male doctor and he's been making that difficult on her. She's making a point to say, listen, I was lucky to have found one female doctor and I'm trying to work with you here.

I want to see the male doctor, and you can come with me, but you're not making this easy. In text, JP responds to Micah, find your man. Go talk to him, and if you like him, I'll come along and listen, even though it brings me anxiety, stress, pain, and— Then he redacted several words there. He goes on, but I'm going to do it because you fought so hard to have that, even when I told you what the result would be. If you really wanted a man and were not okay with a woman, we could come up with other options, but the only reason you want a man— end quote. Then he redacted the rest. It is not clear when these texts were sent because there is no date attached, but the takeaway is this: did you notice the manipulation? In our opinions, the subtext is this: Yes, you can do the thing you want to do, but just know that you're hurting me when you do it, and I'm allowing you to do this thing even though I've already told you so on how it's going to end, so you should plan on me throwing that in your face later on.

Also, I'm gonna gaslight you by saying that you are not being honest about your motivations here.

Did you notice the phrasing of find your man? Isn't it wild how manipulation can be contained in so few syllables? JP doesn't say, go and find a male doctor. He makes it personal and attaches meaning to it by saying your man. He says it to escalate things. And for our listeners in Ireland, I promise you, find your man means something very different in this case. Especially when it's a husband saying it to a wife who appears to be doing something that does not please him. It's a tripwire where there didn't need to be one. It's another eggshell for Micah to tiptoe around. So this was JP's big proof that Micah came from a chaotic upbringing. A single text with a vague reference absent any context, but that's actually about his own insecurities in Micah seeking a male doctor. Right out of the gate, JP seems to be serving us a big old backfire. It's so sad that he doesn't seem to know that women can go see whatever doctor they want to go see without the permission of their husbands, and that a supportive partner doesn't make that hard on them. A supportive partner says, great, do you want me to come as moral support?

Not, you wanting to see this doctor causes me anxiety, stress, and pain.

I mean, Grow up.

In paragraph 2 of his affidavit, JP goes on to say that Micah and he married at the end of 2017. Like we said, their first marriage was on November 17th in a civil ceremony. Their church ceremony was on December 31st, which— We'll both post links to their wedding videos on social media so that you can see it through this new lens with this new information. If you had seen the videos before, you might have noticed a few red flags in terms of the vows and How Micah and JP appeared to relate to each other in the reception. There seemed to be a tension there that we originally ascribed to the fact that they were paramours now getting married in the church that their affair nearly destroyed. But when we watched them again with the context of everything that was going on at that time—

Whew.

In his affidavit, JP says that on December 1st, 2017, Micah decided to have an elective surgery. In the exhibits, he's provided an invoice for a plastic surgeon's office. But to be more accurate, and again, according to JB's own evidence, the decision on the surgery occurred back in September before they were married. The surgery cost around $5,300. A deposit was made on September 29th, and the balance was paid on November 29th. The surgery was scheduled for December 1st. On November 29th, Micah signed her surgical release form. Micah Francis. Not Micah Miller. JP goes on to say, when she awoke, the doctors informed me that she was having a psychotic episode. Micah began writing undecipherable emails on December 15th, 2017. I know that was a whiplash pairing of 2 sentences. Does JP provide evidence that doctors told him she was having a psychotic episode? Uh, no. Instead, we have one so-called indecipherable email, which we'll get to. I just first want to reiterate that Micah's family says that this surgery changed Micah, and this is when JP began telling them that she was mentally ill. It appears that Micah was suffering from post-anesthetic psychosis, according to JP.

Again, he's provided no actual evidence of this, and this is something that can last hours or days but usually disappears. This is when JP says doctors diagnosed her as bipolar and schizophrenic, by the way. Again, to this day, he has not provided any concrete evidence that she was diagnosed as schizophrenic in December 2017. Additionally, there are multiple inconsistencies in his own recounting of that December 1st through December 31st timeline when you put all the pieces together. In his July 15th interview with TikTok user Flow Daddy, JP said that 2 things happened after this augmentation surgery that he Totally didn't push Micah into getting. One is what we talked about, the post-anesthetic psychosis he says that she had. JP says in the interview that Micah began speaking in tongues. 2 is that a few weeks after the surgery, one of Micah's breasts hardened. JP says that he wanted to sue the doctor, but that this doctor's practice had shut down from lawsuits immediately before he could do anything.

Okay, back to the affidavit and the undecipherable December 15th email that JP says that Micah sent, which JP included in his exhibits. So the email is actually from someone else. JP refers to this person as a friend. The sender's name is redacted. We don't know for sure, but we have been told that it appears to be from Tricia Ross, who was JP's right-hand woman at Solid Rock. Now, mind you, in December 2017, 23-year-old Micah Francis— 23 years old— is about to marry a 38-year-old pastor in her second marriage. She is planning her wedding, and it's going to be at a church that he runs, in the church that fell apart when news of their affair came out 2 years earlier. That is a lot for a 23-year-old woman to be dealing with. On top of that, turns out she married an alleged coercive controller. Add to that, she just had major plastic surgery and, according to JP's own words, 2 weeks later, which would be December 15th, the same day of this strange email JP is referring to in the affidavit, one of her breasts hardened to resemble a bowling ball. Which means that Micah appears to have had a very serious infection.

Post-surgical infections can result in fevers, and high fevers can cause hallucinations. This isn't even accounting for the pain medication she was likely on. In the email, JP's friend, likely Trisha, tells him that we really have to help Micah. I told her before, you two can work on things. She has to get well by seeing a psychiatrist. She says Micah needs help ASAP and, I would consider this a manic episode. I am worried about her because if her mind, thoughts, and energy continues like this, she is going to crash so hard. I thought listening would help her, but the mania is at a point it cannot be controlled. I am praying. So we know from sources that Trisha had met with Micah around this time and told people that Micah went on for hours and was making no sense. Again, it is not 100% clear that this is an email from Trisha, but it does track with other reporting that we've done. Did you notice the part where the person said, quote, before you two can work on things? Work on things? They're newlyweds. They haven't even had their actual wedding ceremony yet. But whoa, it's not only a sign that there were problems from the get-go, It shows that JP was involving other people in their 5-week marriage and in Micah's private health issues with a person who was not family, by the way.

In our opinions, this is just more evidence of how JP catastrophizes things when it comes to Micah. A single undated text about Micah trying to see a doctor of her own choosing That was JP's proof of her chaotic upbringing. Keep that instinct in mind because it runs straight into the next set of exhibits: JP's text about Micah's medication. And we'll be right back.

Was ein britischer Aristokrat so erbt?

Einen Familiennamen.

Einen Landsitz, ein Vermögen. Und wenn man der Duke of Halstead ist, ein Cannabis-Imperium unter dem Anwesen gleich mit.

Doch Erben war gestern.

Jetzt soll das Imperium wachsen. Bis nach Italien. Es gibt nur einen Haken: italienische Mafiabosse als Geschäftspartner, die äußerst ungern teilen.

The Gentlemen Staffel 2 jetzt ansehen.

Nur auf Netflix.

I spend most of my life following paper trails, so believe me when I say that I have done the math on my closet. And the pieces that I actually wear on repeat? They are all from Quince. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials from premium materials: Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and washable silk. And here's the part I really respect: they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. You're paying for quality, not markup. It's not just apparel either. They bring the same approach to hotel-quality bedding, bath, and kitchen essentials. This fall, like last fall, my go-to will be my cashmere crewneck. I've reached for it basically every cool morning since it showed up, and nobody believes what I paid for it. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com/coj. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's quince.com/coj. You're about to hear JP casually discussing Micah's lithium dosage with a man named Derek, not a man that you'll find on any medical license that we could match. 2 things to hold onto while you listen: First, these texts are from December 2022, weeks after the big blowup incident, and inside the exact window when federal prosecutors now allege that JP's campaign against Micah began.

And second, Micah's list accused JP of medical abuse, of declaring her bipolar, of forcing his own lithium prescription on her. JP filed those texts to prove that he was managing his wife's care. Listen to what they actually show.

In the affidavit, JP goes on to say that after the December 15th email, the doctor— he doesn't give a name— put Micah in a mental hospital. He provides no exhibit to prove this. Then he says that Micah was discharged and then readmitted because her sisters allegedly convinced her not to take her prescribed medication. Again, he provides no exhibit, no admission or discharge forms, no prescription history, no text between Micah and her sisters. Then he says, quote, the doctors then prescribed lithium, olanzapine, lamotrigine, Seroquel, and other medications over the years, but lithium has been the best and most consistent. He cites 3 pieces of evidence to support this. One of them has been sealed. One of the exhibits is a string of texts with a guy named Derek, with no explanation as to who Derek is. On December 20th, 2022, Derek texted JP and said he had just gotten off the phone with someone named Dr. Lynn, and she recommended starting Micah on 300 milligrams of lithium twice per day with a follow-up office visit in 2 weeks. So this is after Micah was hospitalized at Waccamaw in November 2022. Reminder, JP had to be stopped by the police because Micah's sister, you know, sister who didn't care about Micah's health according to JP, had brought Micah to the hospital, and that's not what JP apparently wanted.

The hospital and EMT said Micah appeared to be drugged, and JP was trying to drive away with Micah before police stopped him. On the day she was discharged, Micah appears to have signed a healthcare power of attorney giving JP decision-making power over her medical care. So this is a few weeks after that. Derek ends his text to JP by saying that they can come pick up a lab order after JP and Micah get back from, quote, the trip. JP then texts Derek back with a picture of a blister pack of norethindrone, which is birth control. Under it, he writes, that seems like a lot of lithium. Derek responds by saying, That is the starting dosage. JP, ever the mental health expert, writes back, in other words, start with a lot, then taper off? And Derek writes back that this dosage of lithium they're prescribing for Micah is the lowest treatment dose, and it might need to be increased depending on her lithium levels. According to these texts, Micah was also on Zyprexa, which is a drug used to treat bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And Micah had been taking 450 milligrams of lithium once a day for the past 5 years.

So since 2017, which— let's talk about that. A drug that can be used to treat both bipolar and schizophrenia. Is it possible that JP saw the drug's applications and glommed onto the word schizophrenia? Is it possible that he then cultivated that word and used it with new doctors and New hospitals telling them that this was part of Micah's diagnosis? And then it just sort of stuck? Not sure, but those are questions worth asking. Again, we have no idea who Derek is. There is a family practitioner in Myrtle Beach whose first name is Derek, but we don't know if that's him. So if you have any ideas about who JP was texting, please feel free to email us. The 3rd piece of evidence he's given is an email from allegedly Micah. I say allegedly Micah because this email includes the word so with 5 O's, which might seem familiar if you remember Micah's obituary where it said that Micah was so close to her family. That so adding a bit of sarcasm. And obviously it is believed that JP wrote that obit. Anyway, this email was written in February 2018 and the name of the recipient has been redacted, but the subject line says, Hello, doctor.

Please read with an old school frowny face emoji. Allegedly, Micah tells the doctor that she read their review on bipolar medication, that she was recently diagnosed with bipolar 1, which let's talk about that real quick. Bipolar 1 means that a person has had at least one manic episode in their life. A manic episode being a disruptive period in which someone is experiencing an elevated or irritable mood and high energy. It's usually associated with out-of-character behavior. With this comes depression. Notice how Micah didn't use the word schizophrenia when she was talking about her diagnosis, even though JP says she was diagnosed with schizophrenia directly after her breast augmentation surgery. According to several sources online, people with bipolar 1 can live normal lives, and you likely know someone who has it because About 3 out of every 100 people have this diagnosis. Allegedly, Micah tells this unknown doctor that she had a manic episode and was hospitalized, where she had been put on 600 mg of lithium, but because her body wasn't metabolizing it properly, they had reduced her dose to 300 mg. Lately, she says, I am so depressed and they can't figure out what to do.

Any advice?

She asks.

I'm crying as I write this email as I have no clue how to help myself because I am so depressed and feel like there is no hope for a normal life. Please comment back with anything that can help my situation. So again, this is less than 3 months after her initial issue. According to her family, Micah was normal and healthy before her December 1st, 2017 surgery, and in 3 months' time she was already— if we're to believe she wrote this email— Feeling desperate. In his affidavit, JP goes on to say that Micah has been diagnosed, quote, many times, and that the most consistent diagnoses were schizophrenia and bipolar 2 with severe psychosis. As evidence of this, he included 3 exhibits. One remains sealed. The other 2 are a collection of bills. One exhibit includes 3 bills from South Strand Medical Center for unspecified services. The other is from Grand Strand Behavioral Health, again for unspecified services. The bills are dated January 1st, 2023, January 16th, 2023, January 19th, 2023, and March 10th, 2024, and they total up to more than $5,000. Now again, where did schizophrenia and bipolar 2 with severe psychosis come from? Is it contained in one of the sealed pieces of evidence?

Because these bills tell us absolutely nothing except that Micah was an American woman with medical debt. JP then goes on to say that Micah's medical records reside at 4 different hospitals, which JP was fighting for control of Micah's estate and fighting the public perception that he contributed to her death. And at the time, he was facing a potential wrongful death suit. Did he not subpoena for those records? It seems like something he would have wanted to have on hand. Don't get us wrong. We don't doubt that Micah struggled with her mental health. We both can relate. But we don't believe the picture that JP has been trying to paint here, because it feels like the things he considered to be signs of Micah's mental illness were actually signs that Micah was not acting according to his rules and his expectations.

Who was Derek? Well, 2 years later, we still don't know, and that's the point. Micah's healthcare ran through channels that JP controlled, on timelines that JP set, documented in texts that JP kept. But nothing in those files shows you the machinery of control like what comes next, 21 days after Micah's surgery. 9 days before their church wedding. Days after a bipolar diagnosis that her family says came out of nowhere. At 8:33 PM on December 22nd, 2017, JP sent his new wife a 3-page email titled Our Life. A content note before we play this: this is manipulation in its purest form. And it might be triggering for anyone who has experienced abuse. Okay, let's talk about what else happened in December 2017, in the days between Micah's surgery and her church wedding. So just 21 days after her surgery and soon after this alleged mental health incident, and just 9 days before their church wedding, JP decided to quote unquote help Micah. He wrote in his affidavit that on this day in December, while Micah was back in the mental institute, I gathered from professionals on how to take care of her. I emailed her about the details of the event because she wasn't in her right mind.

Think about this. She had, according to JP's own evidence, just been diagnosed with Bipolar I. Bipolar is a disorder that can often be managed with medication and/or therapy. According to accounts from her family, Micah had been a healthy young woman before this surgery, and yet JP appears to have decided that this was his own personal Chernobyl. It was an opportunity for him to hammer Micah and an opportunity for him to assert himself as the ultimate authority over her life. According to the exhibit, JP sent this email titled Our Life to Micah at 8:33 PM on December 22nd, 2017. The email is 3 pages long and divided into 5 sections: 1, Our Future; 2, The Past 10 Days; 3, Help; 4, The Real World; and 5, The Truth. To us, this email reads like a manifesto to Micah. Who he is already legally married to. To convince her that she is bipolar and that this is dire. To put on the record that he is a loving and supporting husband. To gently remind her how little control she has over her own life right now and that she should get used to all of this because this is how her life is going to be like now.

That is how it reads to us, but we're going to go through this letter and y'all can decide for yourselves. Context is key here. Again, a reminder, this is triggering content for anyone who has ever experienced abuse. Here is David reading as JP.

Hey baby, this has probably been the most difficult time of my life. I don't know what I'm emailing you for other than to help explain in words what has happened and how I feel and how much I love you. Our future. Let me say first that many doctors and nurses and caseworkers and friends with experience in being in relationship with someone who is bipolar have all been preparing me for what could be the worst-case scenario. One of your nurses even told me, quote, you may only see the wife who you married once every several months. Her personality disorder could regularly become someone who you don't even know. They have warned me about making sure you take your medicine. They warned me about your water intake and helping you get proper sleep and how I may have to watch you and take care of you the rest of your life. Several professionals have talked to me about getting a counselor who I can go to on a regular basis about my emotional needs and my stress and and fears, all in dealing with all of this. What they mean is that it is difficult to love someone who doesn't love you back in the same way that they did before they had the psychotic episode.

They tell me that there's a chance that I would have to hold back secrets and intimate things that I would normally share with you. In fear that you could repeat it in irrational settings or in public. They told me about cases where people have ran outside naked, or where the bipolar patient thinks that their spouse is crazy. There have been so many different scenarios that I have been warned about. I honestly can't even begin to express the weight of all that we both may have to bear in our future because of this vicious attack From the enemy. The Devil is a liar.

Okay, we need to pause, because as hard as it is to stomach this man's words, it is also important that we look at what he is doing here to manipulate Micah so that we can identify similar patterns of abuse in our own lives. Notice how important It is for him to communicate to Micah how her mental illness affects his life and how ultimately she needs to know that she is the burden in this relationship. This is the controlling part of coercive control. In order for an abuser to gain control over their partner, they have to ensure that the power dynamics of the relationship are unequal. Laura Richards is a world-renowned expert on coercive control who you can hear on episodes 62 and 86 of Cup of Justice, defines controlling behaviors as a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance, and escape, and regulating their everyday behavior.

Yes, well, I'm so glad you're spotlighting coercive control, Mandy, with Micah's case. And unfortunately, it's too late for Micah and many women across the world because we know that coercive control does correlate significantly with suicide, with homicide, and with familicide. And when I first started to realize that actually there was something much more insidious than what we understand when we use the term domestic abuse. I was reviewing lots of murders of women and some suicides as well, and murders of children. And I was understanding that actually often women become entrapped. It's not just about a physical act that happens. It's about the psychological and the emotional entrapment, but also wider society that keeps her entrapped. This the gender inequality. And it was when I was working at New Scotland Yard that I became aware of it from reviewing lots of the murders and realizing it was much more like this spider's web that kept a woman entrapped. And that she— people would say, well, she kept going back, Laura. She kept going back to him. And I would look at the reasons for why she would go back. And I would see that on average, it would be about 7 times that she would love that individual, but she wanted the abuse to stop.

But it was all the other things that kept her entrapped. I.e., that the abuse got worse when she left, and that people would tell her to go back, that she wouldn't have her own financial independence, that the children would also keep her entrapped. So, actually, I started to realize there was something far more insidious at play.

We will be right back. If you're listening to Coerced, you already know that Micah Francis Miller's story runs so much deeper than what the world saw on Netflix. This week on True Sunlight, Liz Farrell and I are breaking down what Death of the Pastor's Wife left out. And trust me, it is a lot. Like JP's felon father, Reginald Wayne Miller, and how JP inherited the playbook from him. The manipulation, the lawsuit, The just keep preaching arrogance, straight from his daddy. Plus, we talk about the 2 Jane Doe lawsuits that Netflix barely touched, and we tell you a whole lot about JP's ex-wife that Netflix left out. Remember, Justice for Micah is a movement, not a moment, and the full story matters. So follow True Sunlight wherever you're listening right now, and check out episode 167 What Netflix Left Out of the Micah Francis Miller Story. Stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight. Keep in mind, as we are listening to JP's own words to Micah at the very beginning of their marriage, Laura Richards defines coercive behavior as a continuing act or the pattern of acts of assault, Threats, humiliation, and intimidation, or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten the victim.

Continuing patterns of acts used to humiliate, intimidate, and frighten the victim. Remember that in this part of the letter, JP is saying things that I'm sure terrified Micah. He is saying, 1, you are going to have to depend on me. for the rest of your life. 2. If you question me ever, your opinion doesn't matter because you are now bipolar. 3. You will always be the burden and you will always owe me due to the suffering that your illness has caused me. In the next paragraph, he continues to drive fear into Micah when he says, Or if things got so tough that if you were in a place to where I could only visit you 1 hour a week for the rest of our life, which is what one of the nurses said could possibly happen. Laura Richards defines coercive control as a strategic pattern of behavior designed to exploit, control, and create dependency and dominate. I want you to also keep that in mind while you are listening to the rest of this letter. some of which we will paraphrase to keep y'all from puking. The next few paragraphs of Section 1 show what Laura Richards calls love bombing, an effective tactic of coercive control used by the abuser to entrap their partner through fake charm.

He says, I want you to know I will always be true to you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you. No matter how hard it gets. No matter how much it costs, no matter how much counseling I need, no matter what you want or what you think or what you are, I will always love you. I will always fight my very best to honor you for the rest of my life. Now, the next section is titled The Last 10 Days, which takes us back to December 12th. Micah had breast augmentation surgery December 1st, so December 12th would be around the time that JP claims Micah had her post-surgery infection. which could have caused her a fever and/or hallucinations. Here is David reading as JP.

This has been hell. It's almost impossible to explain to you in a way where you would understand the pain, because the sickness that is attacking you is in the area of your mental consciousness. I hope you can follow this, because you weren't able to rationalize what is rational. No amount of rationalism would help. What I mean is, all of the pain, fear, difficulty, exhaustion, dealing with your family, doctors, nurses, caseworkers, your boss, lawyers, etc., is something that you may never understand, and I want to share everything with you. The triumphs and the tragedies. My hope is that you can look back and say, I can't believe I showed the nurses and doctor and security guard my boobs. I can't believe I would sing Everything Is Opposite When You Believe in God every 5 minutes. I can't believe I was more concerned with my makeup than I was getting out of that facility. And many, many, many more things that the old Micah would have understood. I want you to see that this was the scariest thing of our entire lives.

Again, JP is reminding Micah how much of a burden she is to him, and he is subtly Reminding her that she owes him for the inconvenience that she has caused him. He really wants her to know how much this cost him. Again, this email is just a tiny digital footprint of their relationship that JP believes shows that he was a great husband. Imagine what their day-to-day, off-the-record communications were like. If this is how he spoke to his wife on the record in the newlywed phase. Back to the December 2017 email. JP hints that Micah might have gaps in her memory from this time, and he makes sure to remind her of some of the embarrassing things he did. And then it gets weirder.

After 5 minutes at the ER in Conway, the psychiatric doctor committed you against my wishes. He then promised me that I would get to drive you or ride with you in an ambulance to a hospital that would take care of you and allow me to be with you every single day and night. After waiting for hours, a black sheriff pulled up in a van, and they had me escort you into a metal box all alone. I watched this van drive off with my wife. And all I could do was sit in the ER waiting room and cry for 2 hours. They then told me that I could only see you for 2 hours every Saturday. This has all been documented in group texts with your family.

Uh, what is he talking about? Why did they go to an ER in Conway when they live much closer to Grand Strand, a bigger and better-known hospital? And why did he say black sheriff like that? Like an African-American deputy?

What?

Why is that relevant? They had him escort Micah into a metal box all alone. What? Does he mean an ambulance? Why are there no records of this incident? And why is he mentioning that this is documented in group texts with her family? Does that mean that Micah was already doubting his accounts of reality? The bigger question is, did any of this actually happen to Micah? And if it did, if she did have this very serious mental health incident involving police, then how on earth was she able to buy a gun a few years later? Okay, guys, we're still on section 2, believe it or not, and it's still getting weirder. He goes on to shame her even more.

I called lawyers, doctors, friends, etc., and the more I try to get you back to normal, The happier you were at that facility. The pain of hearing you say that you enjoyed where you were and you wanted to stay there for months rather than come home was the most painful thing I've ever heard. Can you fathom that pain? I'm not telling you this for you to feel bad. Not at all. I'm telling you this because I want to share everything with you. I want so badly for you to look back and say, wow, that was crazy. I want us to laugh of this one day. Financially, I was working with redacted name to get all of this taken care of, but you informed her about how much money you make, how the church pays our house, etc., when sending her our 2016 financials and November 2017 is all she needs. I guess I'm just saying I hate feeling like we aren't on the same team. I want to be on your team, and I want you on my team. I want you next to me in everything I do. I love you, Micah Miller.

Can you fathom that pain? Uh, yeah, I'm sure Micah could, and Sadly, she will never be able to laugh about this because what happened to her in December 2017 was the first domino to fall in a series of events that led to her death. Lastly, in this never-ending section of this never-ending email, JP tells Micah that he had been working with a person, name redacted, on finances, perhaps taxes, and that Micah had told this person too much information. about how the church pays for our house. And he's saying this because he, quote, wants them to be on the same team. It sounds like, and who knows, maybe I'm stretching here, but it sounds like JP is telling Micah that she is already spilling too many secrets when it comes to their finances, and that means she's crazy and needs to be medicated ASAP for the sake of their marriage. Section 3 is titled Help. And thank goodness it is much shorter. He tells Micah that they need a, quote, help team in their lives and then suggests a couple whose names are redacted because they have experience with someone in their family with bipolar disorder.

Notice the last few sentences of this paragraph.

Item 3, help. I don't want to be the one who always corrects you. I don't want to spend the rest of our life telling you if something sounds irrational or unhealthy. So, I would like for us to use redacted couple name. They have someone in their family who suffers from bipolar. In fact, redacted name had to spend most of his childhood making sure that his mother took her medicine or else she would do very, very embarrassing things.

Ah, yes, embarrassing things, maybe like crying in a Minnie Mouse voice on your neighbor's lawn. Or is that only embarrassing when women have mental health crises? He says the word embarrassing multiple times in this letter, like he wanted to make sure that she felt deep shame for what she didn't remember. The next section of this letter, which again is an exhibit that JP included in an attempt to show the court and/or maybe show the world that he was a good husband, this next section is titled The Real World. where he mansplains the movie A Beautiful Mind to Micah and basically says, your mind doesn't work now, so you have to listen to me. And by the way, it is the devil who is doing this to you, and as the man, I'll make the devil pay for this. Here is just a part of that so y'all get the gist.

Item 4: The Real World. I can't imagine thinking the sky is blue and having everyone around me tell me it is pink. To me, that's a fair analogy to describe your pain and confusion. Everything in you, and all you feel and know and fathom, is telling you that the sky is blue. And then you have myself and these strangers who are called doctors telling you the sky is pink. I am so sorry for all of this. I am so sorry that you have had to go through this. Of all the sicknesses or issues that the enemy could attack us with, this is more severe than I would have concocted on my scariest day. To attack your mind is not something I take lightly. The devil will pay for this. I will not allow him to win in any way.

The final section of this December 22nd, 2017 email is mostly full of the same fluff, and ironically, The truth is, I am scared.

I feel all alone. I feel like I'm fighting a battle in which I'm the only soldier and my co-captain has left me. I am worried about the future. I am worried about my kids. I am worried about our finances. I am worried and concerned deeply about us. I have prayed like never before. I have cried like never before. I want to say I've stood strong in the faith, but the truth is I don't know if you are going to be okay. I don't know if I'm going to have my real wife back. I don't know how to even explain to you all my concerns. I feel like somehow I deserve this. I can't help but think that this is my lot in life. And I will have to live for the next 50 to 60 years with the burden of making sure you take your medicine or don't do anything that you would regret when you are in a sane mood or mindset. These fears have consumed me lately.

There's that word again, burden. He is crystal clear with her. Micah is the burden in this relationship. JP is the hero, and Micah should be very afraid about what is going to happen to her. However, he goes on to say, but good news, I'm not going to leave you. He said he is going to make her life great and will spend the rest of his life fighting for her. He ends the letter saying, I am your husband and your best friend, and I will always be that for you. For better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, I give you this promise. Your husband, JP. More on that after a quick commercial break. We will be right back. So, even though their legal marriage occurred a month earlier, Just a few days after JP sent this email, Micah and JP were publicly married in a formal ceremony in front of friends and family at Solid Rock. Listen carefully to their vows.

I will ask you to state your vows to Micah. Can she go first?

Sure.

Well, we said we were gonna do 5 promises, but I just have one. That I'll be yours 100%. 100% of my encouragement, 100% of my efforts to make your dreams come true, 100% of everything that I am, I give to you. I'm gonna try to beat that.

I'm just kidding. Okay.

Um, okay, so I promise to always strive to continuously lead you to Jesus. I promise to always support your enthusiastic personality.

Yes.

I promise to remain faithful, loyal, and encouraging to you. And I promise to strive to love you the way Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

Unfortunately, as evidenced in JP's own emails and text messages provided in probate documents, many of these vows would soon be broken. The first couple of Solid Rock began their marriage on shaky grounds. As picture-perfect as JP and Micah looked in black and white celebrating their relationship in front of their loved ones on December 31st, 2017, Very few people would know that Micah had recently undergone surgery, suffered serious complications from that surgery, and was struggling with a very recent bipolar diagnosis and the medication her husband so badly wanted her to be on. Now, that explosive email that we just shared from December 2017 was only the 10th of approximately 65 pieces of evidence JP shared in a shocking affidavit. And it gets worse. So much worse. Just a few days after their ceremony, JP wrote Micah a shocking and scathing email where he point-blank says to Micah, It actually angers me at how selfish and ungodly the desire for you to come off your medication actually is. That is followed by an entire essay of JP pleading with Micah to take lithium. The medicine that she was just prescribed, according to his own timeline, just a month before.

These pieces of evidence that JP dumped in the probate file tell us more about what actually went on between Micah and JP in the years leading up to her death. JP even included an email that he suspiciously sent Micah within the hour that police say that she died on April 27th, 2024. Which we will talk about next week. A dark, detailed, and insidious picture of Micah's marriage to JP is emerging from these documents, and we will not look away until we see accountability. On the day of her wedding to JP, Micah's fate had already been sealed. Every step Micah took toward the altar was a step closer to her own grave. Every day of her marriage meant another shovel full of dirt coming her way. And every time Micah managed to dig her way out and started to see the light again, there was JP standing and waiting for her. Ironically, the evidence JP provided in the probate file, the evidence that he thought would exonerate him, could actually end up helping the FBI in its investigation. Which, according to our sources, is still very much active and includes a wide scope well beyond Solid Rock's church financials.

We see you, JP, clearer than we have ever seen you before, and we believe that the FBI sees you too. Our life. That is what JP titled it. But go back through those 3 pages and count how many sentences are actually about Micah's life, her health, her fears, her future. It is a letter about his burden, his emotional needs, his warnings from unnamed professionals sent to a 24-year-old 3 weeks post-surgery. Newly diagnosed and secretly married to her pastor, who she met when she was a teenager. That email was Exhibit Number 10 of 65, and JP filed it believing that it made him look good. That's what makes these probate documents so important and so chilling. Coercive control usually leaves no record because the abuser controls the record. JP is the rare alleged abuser who entered his own paper trail into evidence, the very thing he told interviewers Micah only talked about when she was having an episode. We have so much more to cover on this case. We have more from the probate documents, believe it or not, like the email where JP calls Micah's desire to come off her medication selfish and ungodly. And then we have the emails and records at the center of the medical abuse allegations.

Who was prescribing, who was monitoring, and who Dr. Shady is. Then we will get to the death of Chris Kenner and more on what led up to Micah's alleged suicide attempt. Then the knock on JP Miller's door. And the FBI suddenly enters the chat. Until then, stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight. Coerced: The Devotion and Death of Micah Francis Miller. Is a Luna Shark production with reporting from journalists Mandy Matney, Liz Farrell, and Beth Braden. Made possible by producers Kate Thomas, Grace Hills, and David Moses. Learn more about our mission and membership at lunasharkmedia.com.