Transcript of 4) Bathhouses and Bible College… The Troubling Past of JP's Felon Father Rev. Wayne Miller

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Welcome back to Coerced: The Death and Devotion of Micah Miller, our remastered Drop Feed series combining all of Mandy and Liz's coverage of Micah's story into one place. I'm Grace. I'm a producer here at Luna Shark. So far in this series, you've heard more about the red flags surrounding Micah's death, the coercive control that defined her marriage, and the November 2022 incident that changed everything. But to really understand John Paul Miller and where he learned to build a church, control a congregation, and his relationship with his wife, You have to understand the man who wrote the playbook first. That's his father, the Reverend Reginald Wayne Miller. Today, Mandy and Liz take you back to the 1970s when Wayne Miller was a rising televangelist star, the charismatic host of Good Morning Jesus, with plans for a 500-acre Christian compound called Gloryland. You'll hear how that empire was shadowed by allegations of sexual advances towards his own Bible college students, and how Wayne was cleared by a credentials committee that, as Mandy and Liz discovered, he appears to have sat on himself. You'll hear about the suspicious fire that leveled Glorylands, the bathhouse arrest, and the federal felonies for exploiting foreign students at his Bible college.

And then you'll hear something that might sound eerily familiar— Wayne and Susan Miller's divorce. A wife painted as crazy, unstable, and vindictive. A church weaponized against her. A pastor pleading poverty from a pulpit he built himself. Written more than 20 years before Micah ever filed for divorce and reading like the first draft of everything that happened to her. Like father, like son isn't just a saying in this story. It's a blueprint. These clips come from True Sunlight episodes 53, 79, and 91. Let's dive in.

Now, let's talk about JP's family history and the role that it plays in all of this. John Paul Miller was born a pastor's son to Susan and Reginald Wayne Miller on May 20th, 1979, in Florence, South Carolina. By the time JP came around, his father's religious star was rising. In 1972, Wayne Miller founded his own church, Florence Tabernacle, and by the mid-1970s, he established Gloryland, a 500-acre property home of Tabernacle Bible Institute. In the '70s, he also began hosting Good Morning Jesus, a TV show that reached 5 states and Canada, which was apparently a big deal at the time. Before JP was born, Miller had big plans for Gloryland. In a 1978 full-page ad or feature— it's hard to tell from the newspapers in the 1970s— Gloryland announced big plans for its future to include a Christian academy, recreational facilities, camping facilities, an orphanage, a home for the aged, Horses, fishing, a petting zoo, a life-size replica of the Old Testament Tabernacle, Gloryland Bible Institute, oh, and Good Morning Jesus Studios. I'm telling you, big plans for Gloryland. If you are picturing the compound from The Righteous Gemstones, you aren't far off according to these newspaper renderings.

Just 2 months after JP was born in 1979, the Associated Press ran a profile on Wayne Miller with the headline, Evangelist Wayne Miller on the Way Up. I want to have David read a clip from this Associated Press story that ran in July 1979.

The 30-year-old Hemingway native might be the future star of the evangelical broadcast circuit. He's got the looks, he's got the charm, and heaven knows he's got the ambition. Host of a daily religious talk show carried on 24 stations throughout the United States, Miller also founded the 7-year-old Florence Tabernacle, Inc. and heads the Gloryland Bible College. But it is the television show that is Miller's baby. The program, Good Morning Jesus, is typical of a new kind of television evangelism. Like Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson, hosts of the better-known PTL Club and 700 Club programs, Miller follows a Johnny Carson-style talk show format. Most of the funds for Miller's program come from viewers responding to requests for donations. Total production costs for the first quarter of 1979 were $104,000, Miller said. Although the show is now produced by a local station, Miller has plans to build his own studio within the next few years. He describes the program as an outreach of our church. In Florence alone, he claims several thousand viewers. The program is also aired by other stations in South Carolina and in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Vermont, and eastern Canada. You can reach thousands of people at one time, Miller says while adding that he would like to see every church have a television Miller says, however, he prefers to see evangelical broadcasters maintain a direct affiliation with a local church, with local church youth volunteers to help with production.

He says, without a local church, you have to pay salaries.

Wow, what a pedestal that guy was on. And of course, his career didn't slow down after his firstborn son. It only got better because, well, men. Wayne Miller received an honorary doctorate degree from Indiana Christian University, and he immediately began putting doctor in front of his name. He expanded Gloryland College to international locations in places like Jamaica and Costa Rica, but it's hard to tell if the plans for the actual Gloryland in Florence like the orphanage and petting zoo ever came to fruition. In the 1980s, Wayne Miller was named to the executive committee of Washington for Jesus, joining the ranks of Oral Roberts and other religious superstars around the country. Oh, and he also had a little side gig in the 1980s when he led the Florence Citizens Against Pornography group. And I just have to have David read a few paragraphs from this Florence Morning News story because, wow.

A leader of the Citizens Against Pornography wonders if the anti-censorship group, which has grown in opposition to the anti-obscenity drive, knows what it is protesting. Wayne Miller, pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, said the Citizens Against Censorship would have a legitimate protest if the anti-obscenity group had proposed a city ordinance stronger than the state ordinance. Miller is also discouraged by the amount of newspaper and television coverage given to the anti-censorship group. When he spoke before the city council on first and second reading approval of the ordinance, Miller said his descriptions of videotapes showing sperm dripping from the mouths of young men end quote, was not reported. When people think about obscenity, they think about Playboy, but I walked into a mini-mart the other day and saw a Hustler magazine where any 6-year-old could see sex acts, end quote. Miller said in his counseling sessions, he has seen a 5-year-old boy sodomized by a 7-year-old who said, quote, Daddy brings home these videos. End quote.

Ew.

And not just ew for now, but ew back then too. Subsequent records noted how overly descriptive Wayne Miller had been in his testimony to counsel. How was that example he gave not a red flag to anyone? Because just wait until you hear what happens later in his career. It puts all of that in perspective. Anyway, he dabbled a lot in the 1980s as his career rose.

He wrote 2 books.

He hosted seminars like this one Mandy found an ad for called You Aren't a Failure in 1985. In small print at the bottom, the ad said that Miller had polio that paralyzed him from the waist down as a child and that he had been healed by the ministries of Oral Roberts. Fun fact. Papers across the state viewed Wayne Miller as a leading voice for evangelicals. In 1987, he was quoted in a plethora of newspapers calling on 17,000 preachers to unseat Jerry Falwell on the board of Pentecostal charismatic leaders. JP's father wasn't just a simple preacher. He was a somebody in the church world. But something happened in 1987 that seemed to change everything for Wayne Miller and his legacy. But that incident would be kept quiet, at least until it was outed in 1989. That year, WPDE broadcast a 5-part series on Wayne Miller with, quote, blurred faces, and disguised voices recounting inappropriate advances Miller allegedly made on students at his Bible college. This, according to JP's own mother Susan in divorce filings, would be the first domino to fall in the Miller dynasty. According to The Sun News, in 1987, the wives of 2 Bible college students accused Wayne Miller of, quote, making sexual advances on their husbands.

After WPDE made these allegations public in 1989, Miller defended himself immediately and said he was already cleared of sexual immorality. By who, you ask? Well, an obscure group of 3 clergymen from the National Leadership Conference got together in 1987. One of those men was the Reverend Jamie Buckingham of Florida. We're gonna have David read this part of the Florence Morning News article about it.

Buckingham said his group, interested in keeping the controversy in-house, agreed to mediate and that Miller agreed to participate. Late in December, Miller and the 3 other individuals met in Spartanburg with the subcommittee to air the situation. The recommendation by the committee that Miller undergo at least 6 months' rehabilitation, which would involve counseling, in Bradenton, Florida, which the Florida ministers said Miller agreed to. However, he reportedly left before the 6 months had elapsed.

Wayne Miller claimed that in 1988, the Credentials Committee of the Apostolic Christian Church, Inc. ruled that there had been no findings of sexual immorality in his case. However, the paper does not show any proof of this beyond Miller's statement. I want to point this out because men in religion, unfortunately, have a history of handling sexual allegations internally. See, for example, the Catholic Church. And it's hard to trust the outcome of any investigation conducted by parties who are more interested in the protection of the institution than they are in actually holding church leaders to account. I have no idea what happened in 1987, but it is important to note that Wayne Miller sued WPDE for $5 million in February 1989, just weeks after the series ran. That appeared to be a scare tactic. Perhaps, maybe, like the cease and desist letter JP Miller's lawyer sent the media a few weeks ago. Because just a few months after filing the lawsuit, Wayne Miller withdrew his libel lawsuit, and the station called it a victory for responsible journalists. The station stood by its reporting and said that they fact-checked everything for weeks. Despite what Wayne Miller said, the series inevitably cast a cloud over Gloryland that Miller could not ever shake.

Apparently. His wife, Susan Miller, later claimed the series forced them to sell their home in Florence and move to Myrtle Beach. And they did that in 1993, according to an ad that ran in the Sun-Times announcing Cathedral Bible College and Grand Strand Cathedral Church moving to a temporary location in Myrtle Beach. The ad boasted, 30 churches and several Bible colleges have been started. And it claimed to have a grant from Wayne Miller's former church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, to purchase and develop property in Myrtle Beach. A grant from his own church.

Hmm.

Over the next few years, Wayne Miller and his supporters would fight for the land and chapel building at the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. The land where Solid Rock at Market Common sits on to this day. Miller won the bid for 2 buildings in 1996 at a discount rate, and when he was denied getting more land, he was quoted in the paper saying that the Air Force Base Authority is doing the devil's work. He claimed that the land that he wanted was the Lord's. But what about Gloryland and all its glory? Well, according to everything I can find, it sat vacant throughout the '90s while Miller waited for the quote-unquote right buyers. Then, on March 30th, 1999, the 20,000-square-foot cross-shaped building that held Tabernacle Baptist and Gloryland Bible College burnt to the ground in one of the largest fires in the area at the time. Officials immediately called the fire suspicious, and the chief of police was quoted in the Florence Morning News saying that they had eliminated all accidental ignition as the cause. In that same Florence Morning News article, Wayne Miller was quoted saying that the property was just as valuable without the building and that, specifically, insurance would not cover the building because it was abandoned.

Huh, isn't that something? Florence County Sheriff's Office and Fire Department opened an investigation into the Gloryland Fire, but it doesn't appear like it was ever followed up on. We are going to look more into that and file more FOIAs about that fire because I have questions. However, the Gloryland Fire would not be the last time that Wayne Miller's name would be mentioned in the newspaper followed by a story that makes you go, hmm.

We'll be right back.

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In 2006, Miller pleaded guilty to indecent exposure when he was accused of following an undercover officer into a bathhouse and taking off his pants à la Donald Duck before asking the male officer what he was into. The reverend was allowed to complete pretrial intervention, and the charge was later expunged. Now, a reverend with a history of sex abuse allegations who already moved once because of that scandal, Gets arrested in a homosexual bathhouse encounter. What do you think that does to a church? Think of it as a business losing customers. But never fear, Daddy's boy was there. That same year the Reverend Miller was arrested, J.P. Miller started Solid Rock Ministries in a library, according to his website, where his congregation was made up of his family, friends, and, quote, several drug acquaintances. The next year, Susan Miller, who's JP's mother, filed for divorce against Wayne Miller, and she spilled some family tea in her divorce filings. The kind of tea that I'm sure made JP, the young pastor, fearful of what divorce could do to a man who has skeletons in his closet. That divorce seemed to be the next big domino to fall on Wayne Miller's legacy.

In 2012, he sold the Air Force property to JP's church, Solid Rock. And moved his ministries to Marion, South Carolina. And then in 2014, Miller pleaded guilty to 4 federal felony charges and 2 misdemeanors, having 16 foreign students who came to South Carolina to attend his Bible college work for him for little to no money while holding their visas over their heads and threatening to go into the system to mess with their immigration status, as we told you in episode 50. But don't worry, that wasn't rock bottom for him because, of course, the feds let him off easy on those charges that he could have gotten 41 years behind bars for. He spent nearly 4 months in prison, 14 months awaiting sentencing, 12 months of house arrest, gave 500 hours of community service, and check out the wording on this next part, quote, arranged for $70,000 to be paid according to the court decree. This is all according to a letter that Wayne Miller wrote to the judge trying to get his sentence shortened. He also got 1 year of probation and 1 year of supervised release, and the judge said, no, I'm not shortening anything.

After that whole ordeal, Wayne Miller's mission work continued under the All Nations Bible College Faith First Academy under the name Reg W. Miller, which is not surprising considering he is a convicted felon. Wayne's, quote, mission work focuses a lot on Pakistan, and I cannot wait to find out more about that.

So that's Wayne Miller on paper. The televangelist rise, the Gloryland fire that officials called suspicious, the bathhouse arrest, the federal felony allegations. But there's one chapter of his story that took real digging to uncover. The 1989 5-part WPDE exposé about sexual abuse allegations at his Bible college. Footage the station told our team no longer exists. But Mandy and Liz didn't take no for an answer. What they found, including the so-called credentials committee that supposedly cleared Wayne of sexual immorality and who was actually sitting on it, is one of the most jaw-dropping discoveries in this entire investigation. Here's a clip from True Sunlight Podcast, episode 91.

Early on in the J.P. Miller story, we always knew that there would come a point where we would want that 1989 5-part investigative news report on WPDE about J.P.'s father, Wayne Miller, and the accusations of sexual abuse made against him. We looked into broadcast associations that were around in 1989 to see if WPDE had won anything in the dim hopes that they had kept old entries. We asked a TV reporter we're friends with if she had any ideas for us in terms of how to ask for this information. We thought about who might have gotten the videos in discovery in connection with lawsuits. Or who might have recorded it just for funsies. We looked up the defamation case Wayne had filed against the station to see if any lawyer names were listed. We watched news videos from 1989 on WPDE's YouTube channel and Reread old newspaper articles to get names of employees from that time. And then Beth set out to find those old employees. I don't want to go too deep into where Beth turned for the information because I don't want to give away sources, obviously. But this is all just to say, we were told no, and yet there we were watching part 1 of the exposé on Wayne Miller in 1989.

Now, we'd love to show you the 4-minute segment, or even play the audio for you, but that would cost us up to $16,000 or more, apparently. And that's some silly math. And really funny when you think about it, WPDE does not actually have the video in their possession, but they still hold the copyright for it. And that's just how it goes. We do think we have a good case here to employ the fair use doctrine, which allows media companies like Luna Shark to use clips from the copyrighted material, but a limited way without the copyright holder's permission to report on or offer commentary on. But that use cannot interfere with the copyright holder's ability to earn money from their copyrighted product. And that's where things get sticky when it comes to YouTube views, TikTok, etc. So WPDE, if you are listening, please consider posting these videos so the public can see them. I realize you don't have them to publish, so just give us a call. In the meantime, we're going to tell this story in our own way. Until we watched the video, we knew that Wayne was accused of sexual abuse, but that's basically it.

The horror of what he was accused of doing was removed from that simple accusation, right? We know it's bad. We know it's evil. But until you hear the accusations on this video from the victims, you don't get that visceral feeling of seeing that this man, this alleged man of God, Has lived most of his life dodging accountability and blaming others and seems to have not one moment of hesitation when it comes to going back to the scenes of his alleged crimes. We want to once again remind people that we are going to be talking about the details of alleged sexual violence by a man in a position of power and trust. So please consider whether that's the best thing for you to listen to further. If you do listen further, Please go easy on yourself for the rest of the day. So, as you all know, Wayne Miller and his family were run out of Florence, South Carolina, in the aftermath of these news reports airing in late January and early February of 1989. We say run out, but we also know they didn't leave Florence right away. We also have the thought that Wayne might have chosen Myrtle Beach very deliberately because of the free federal land that was about to be available to the public at the time.

He wanted a big piece of it to use for his church, Bible college, and kindergarten through 12 school and daycare. And we told you how scorched earth he was willing to go to get what he wanted, including threatening the decision makers with payback from God. Before we get into what was in the first part of the news segment, we want to give you some of the background because this is a pattern with the Miller boys. You start out with one set of facts from the aftermath of whatever it is they're denying doing. And then you start to peel back the layers until you're smack dab in the middle of what they're denying that they did. And like we said, whoa. Right after the news segments began running in early 1989, the Florence Morning News ran a story about the segments with the headline, Glory Lance Miller Says He Was Cleared of Earlier Allegations. Wayne told the paper through a prepared statement delivered by his attorney, Chip Purvis, that the accusations were made by, quote, disgruntled associates of his in 1987. Wayne denied any acts of, quote, sexual immorality. Let's take a second to talk about Chip Purvis, shall we?

Wayne's attorney at the time. In December 2001, Chip, whose real name is Olin L. Purvis III, because of course, was disbarred by the South Carolina Supreme Court on 16 counts of unethical behavior against 16 different clients. In comparison, good old girl Kim Smith had 4 matters in her disbarment decision. Chips is way too detailed to go into, so let's just summarize it by saying that he appears to have a talent for taking money in exchange for work he said he would do but didn't. Cool attorney, Wayne. Back to the news story. Wayne, through his amazing attorney, told the paper that in December 1988, he had sat in front of a 3-person panel in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with the National Leadership Conference, which the paper described as, quote, a loose affiliation. of ministers, laypeople, and pastors that meets to consider mutual concerns. Here's David with what went down according to the Florence Morning News.

The Reverend Jamie Buckingham of Melbourne, Florida, said in December the leadership conference was asked by those making allegations against Miller to resolve the matter. Buckingham said his group, interested in keeping the controversy, quote, in-house, agreed to mediate and that Miller agreed to participate.

Can you believe that this minister felt so protected by the world that he lived in back in the 1980s that he literally said to the paper that they tried to sweep accusations of sexual violence under the rug? I want you to never lose sight of why churches like this want to sweep serious and persistent Allegations of criminal behavior under the rug because they don't want to lose your business. They don't want to lose your trust and your money. They see the income as more important than anything else, including child victims of sexual violence. They choose to protect their reputation over children's safety time and time again. So here's the even more insulting thing about the National Leadership Conference back then. They had no connection to Gloryland. Wayne Miller was not affiliated with any religious governing body. He made the rules for himself and the church and mostly himself, right? And in fact, around that time, he appears to have been trying to create his own denomination of charismatic Christianity. Nevertheless, Wayne agreed to sit before the panel. Why? He says that he was threatened, or rather, chose to sit before the panel, quote, under a thinly veiled threat that the story would be leaked to the Christian media unless he appeared.

Miller said, quote, it is no coincidence that the station chose to promote this item and run their story on the first day of a new ratings period. He's basically saying that the leadership conference blackmailed him. So how did the news end up at WPDE if Wayne did the thing that they asked of him, right? After Wayne sat for the panel, it was recommended that Wayne undergo at least 6 months of rehabilitation at Christian Retreat, both capitalized, in Bradenton, Florida, which we will talk about. The panel said that Wayne agreed to do it, but Wayne reportedly left before the 6 months were up. Obviously, because this story was written just 5 weeks into the new year and the panel decision was in the first week of January. By the way, we are not saying that the leadership conference leaked this news to WPDE. I'm just telling you why Wayne might have thought that this was retribution, even though it sounds like it's something called accountability. A foreign concept to the Miller men. In that Florence news story, Wayne said that he had the full confidence of his board of trustees at Gloryland and that in 1987, after hearing the allegations, he underwent a period of extreme emotional distress and sought counseling, whatever that means.

Wayne also told the paper that he had an emotional breakdown in 1988 and he, quote, voluntarily removed himself from church work. And he said that in October 1988, a, quote, credentials committee of the Apostolic Christian Church Incorporated had ruled that there was, quote, no finding of sexual immorality on Wayne's part. That's weird, right? We'll have more on those churchy business committees that allegedly Cleared! Wayne in a minute. My job is stressful and super taxing, so brain function is not optional for me. That's why in my daily routine, Aqua Omega and their revolutionary omega-3s are the one thing that never gets missed. Aqua Omega was built because most fish oils either cut corners on quality or charge luxury prices, and they believe you shouldn't have to choose. Every Aqua Omega batch is tested for purity, potency, and freshness. And this is my favorite part: every bottle sold removes £1 of plastic and debris from our ocean and coastlines. It's been super easy to add to my mornings, and it's one of the few things in my routine that I never have to think twice about. For your daily dose of omega-3s, go to myaquomega.com/MANDY and use code MANDY for 20% off.

That's myaquomega.com/MANDY and use code MANDY for 20% off. Also available on Amazon. Thanks to Aqua Omega for sponsoring this episode. We expose the truth wherever it leads, give voice to victims, and get the story straight. My name is Mandy Matney. Together with journalist Liz Farrell, we continue this mission with our newest evolution, True Sunlight. Luna Shark's True Sunlight podcast values accuracy over access journalism. We're out. Hey, hey, back up. Welding, back up. Camp Swamp Road, and somebody just unloaded, shot through his windshield, and shot this guy. True sunlight is shed with empathy, not exploitation.

I don't really trust the media too much because they're just looking for a story. And instead of helping with Stephen's story, they're actually hurting it.

True Sunlight is the intersection of journalism, true crime, and systemic corruption.

I was in the shadows last night. I weren't there, but I was in the shadows.

We continue to shed light on Stephen Smith's case and Alex Murdaugh's co-conspirators, but also We like to take deep dives into other cases around the country. Robeson County 911.

And she actually said the FBI was looking into it. And he said, call the cops, I don't care. I'm armed and ready.

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So let's talk about those 2 entities, the National Leadership Conference and the so-called Credentials Committee of the Apostolic Christian Church Incorporated. The National Leadership Conference seems to have been a loosey-goosey group of charismatic ministers. I would say it was a loose-knit group of people who were all A news write-up in 1979 said that the NLC was started in Bradenton, Florida. Ah, the same place where Christian Retreat was. Interesting. According to the report, NLC was started by a, quote, group of men united in the common interest in the workings of the Holy Spirit. But it's not clear what their mission was beyond that, or beyond keeping investigations into claims of sexual assaults by charismatic preachers Quote, in-house. And they weren't kidding about that in-house part because we see a lot of the same names pop up between the National Leadership Conference, Gloryland, and Christian Retreat. We're going to talk more about this in a bit, but I want you to remember the words we used to describe Wayne's and JP's churches. We call them churchy businesses for a reason. So did NLC exist, in part anyway, to keep a lid on any potential threat to their collective Mission of raising money through donations.

It's worth a thought. But hold on to that thought for when we talk more about Christian Retreat, the place that the NLC fake sentenced Wayne to in Bradenton. Now for the really, really, really good part. After reading about this Credentials Committee of the Apostolic Christian Church Incorporated that cleared Wayne in October 1988, Supposedly, we had Beth Braden do a little research into it, and you are not going to believe what she found. In South Carolina, there is only one entity that is registered with the South Carolina Secretary of State's office that uses those 3 words, Apostolic Christian Church, in its name, and that's a business called the Apostolic Christian Churches International Incorporated. Now remember, Wayne says he first heard of these sexual assault accusations in 1987. That said, this organization was registered with the Secretary of State's office in February 1988, and its registered agent is listed as Headquarters, but it's spelled H-D-Q-R-T-R-S. That's it. Just H-D-Q-R-T-R-S. No name. Now get this. Its registered address is 206 North Dunbarton Drive in Florence, South Carolina. To some of you, that address might sound familiar, as it did for Beth. So she checked out our master spreadsheet where she's been tracking every address associated with every aspect of the Miller story, and there it was— 206 North Dunbarton Drive in Florence, South Carolina.

The very same address as Wayne Miller's Tabernacle Baptist Church and Gloryland. I'll give you a second to give your brain a little shake because—

what?

You see what we're seeing, right? It looks like in 1988, after finding out about these sexual assault allegations against him, someone started an organization called Apostolic Christian Churches International, Inc., and registered it to Wayne's church address. And then a year later, Wayne claimed in the newspaper That this apparently same organization, the one registered at the same address as his church, cleared him of the sexual assault charges. Did Wayne Miller or someone affiliated with him create a Christian business entity, a churchy business, if you will, amidst this very serious and potentially criminal situation to exonerate him in the eyes of the public? Help us understand this and What is a credentials committee? Who was getting credentialed through this organization? And is Wayne in essence saying that he is credentialed through this organization that was created in the middle of these allegations and registered to his church? If this is what it looks like, then that would be one of the most corrupt and diabolical things we've seen a good old boy do to escape accountability. This would be like Alex Murdaugh registering a business in September 2021 called Flat Tires and Roadside Shootings in the Head.

Incorporated, and then citing them as having cleared him of all allegations of faking it. Quick question: I know 1989 was a much different landscape for news reporters in terms of access to information, but how about asking for a contact name and number for this alleged credentials committee of the Apostolic Christian Church Incorporated? How about a call over to the Secretary of State's office? How about letting the reader know what you did and didn't do to verify Wayne's claims? Instead of just stating them as is. How about a phone call to the law enforcement agencies in whatever town or county these sexual attacks by Wayne are alleged to have occurred? Any plans to charge him here? Because this story isn't just misleading. The paper has blood on its hands. Maybe with just a little bit of legwork, Wayne's kingdom would have crumbled in a more permanent way in the late 1980s. Maybe he wouldn't have been able to reestablish his churchy business in a town an hour and a half away. One phone call, one fact check, and maybe the Jane Does would have been protected from these alleged predators. One fact check. Here, we'll prove it.

Beth requested the incorporation documents for this Apostolic Christian Churches organization from the Secretary of State's office, and, uh, well, it is pretty much exactly how it looks. According to the nonprofit charter for the Apostolic Christian Churches International Inc., The actual registered agent for this group is the Reverend Lonnie B. Curl Jr., a known associate of Wayne's. And yes, the address is the same as Gloryland, and there is a board of trustees, which according to the group's charter is also known as the Credentials Committee. Remember what the story said? Wayne said he was cleared by the Credentials Committee of this group. It's right there in black and white. Want to know who is on the Credentials Committee that appears to have exonerated Wayne? The first name that is listed on the credentialing committee is Dr. R. Wayne Miller of Florence. Wayne effing Miller, y'all, on the committee that cleared Wayne effing Miller of all wrongdoing in the sexual assault allegations against him. The second name on the credentials committee is the Reverend Lonnie B. Curl Jr. of Florence, the registered agent for the group. According to newspaper clippings, Lonnie is a graduate of Wayne's Tabernacle Bible School.

In 1978, Susan Miller co-hosted a bridesmaid luncheon for Lonnie's soon-to-be wife. In 1989— hmm, huh, the same year of Wayne's public outing on WPDE— Lonnie started a church called Lamb's Chapel Christian Center in Florence, where he remains the lead pastor. We're told it's a popular church. Lonnie B. Curl Jr. is Also a name that appears as a signature on several mortgages with Wayne Miller. Interesting. And the 3rd name on the credentials committee, we're not going to say it here because it is the same name as the young pastor that Susan Miller says she caught Wayne Miller in bed with in the late 1980s, right before the accusations against him became public. So The bed guy, Lonnie Carl Jr., the mortgage signer, and Wayne Miller himself cleared Wayne Miller of, quote, sexual immorality. Might have been nice to know that sooner, right? Might have been nice if Lonnie Carl Jr. and the bed guy had said, no, Wayne, this isn't okay.

So many reporters over the years who have covered Wayne Miller are completely guilty of overlooking his proven bad behavior and the accusations of even worse behavior, including the New York Post, who published a story in May 2024 with the headline, quote, Essie Pastor's father calls Micah Miller a very, very sick woman. and bashes claims that Son drove her to suicide. In this New York Post story written by Ronnie Reyes, where he was basically just rewriting a better story by the Daily Mail, Ronnie left out some extremely important context about Micah Miller's pastor father-in-law. The story reads like Wayne is just your average father-in-law who should be believed when he says that Micah was crazy and suicidal just because His son is a pastor, and he also puts the word pastor in front of his name. Ronnie left out context, like the fact that, for starters, Wayne Miller has no business saying that anyone is sick in the head, and any person with eyes and a brain could reach that conclusion with just one scroll through his little Wayne Miller and Friends Facebook group. For starters, Ronnie left out the fact that Wayne is a convicted felon for essentially enslaving foreign workers at his Bible college in 2014.

Oh, and Ronnie left out the fact that Wayne pleaded guilty to indecent exposure in 2006 for allegedly following an undercover police officer into a public bathhouse at Myrtle Beach State Park and asking that undercover officer What he was into. I reread the only story that we could find on that incident at the time, and while we're on the topic of male reporters leaving out important context and giving good ol' boys a pass, I have to talk about this story in The Sun News written by reporter David Wren in December 2006, which was literally just a couple months after Wayne Miller married one of his wives. The headline says, Pastor joins pretrial program, like Wayne Miller was doing some kind of good deed. And the subhead says, Leader charged with prostitution and lewdness at park. I would think that those 2 things would be switched. In the 2006 story, David Wren gave entirely too much ink for Wayne Miller to confuse and subdue the story. He wrote that Wayne claimed that someone trying to screw with his sketchy land deal you know, where the Solid Rock building is today, leaked the police report to the newspaper all to destroy him and his mission.

But like, David wrote the story and he knows where the police report came from. Why would he let Wayne take control of the narrative like that? And it doesn't matter who leaked the police report. What matters is what is in it. Again, it was stunning. A detective named Danny Furr was running a specific operation to crack down on the increasing problem of male indecent exposure in Myrtle Beach parks. Yes, this was a thing, specifically in bathhouses and trails. And while undercover, Furr said that he was in a stall urinal when Miller walked up behind him with no pants on and tried to look at his genitals. The police report Said Miller then walked into the changing station and nodded to join him while he wasn't wearing any pants, all Winnie the Pooh style. So that's crazy, right? But the crazy thing is that David Wren of the Myrtle Beach Sun News let Wayne Miller explain himself in this story. And Miller's explanation was that Furr asked him, What he liked to do in this bathhouse. And then Wayne asked if he was a police officer, and Fur said no. And Wayne got nervous and started to get dressed, and then Fur arrested him.

That's his big explanation. A good reporter would have emphasized the context that this explanation is absurd because it does not explain why Wayne was walking around with no pants. Like Winnie the Pooh in a public bathroom that was known for these types of encounters.

That's Wayne Miller, the televangelist who was on the way up in 1979, and the man who spent the decades since dodging accountability at every turn. Allegations kept in-house. A credentials committee that cleared him with his own name at the top of it. A suspicious fire nobody followed up on. Vaguel felonies that earned him barely 4 months behind bars. Through all of it, a young John Paul Miller was watching and probably learning. But the pulpit is only half of Wayne's story. In the next episode of Cursed, we're going home with the Millers. Because in 2001, JP's mother Susan filed for divorce. And what's in those filings will sound familiar. Until next time, 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. We expose the truth wherever it leads, give voice to victims, and get the story straight. My name is Mandy Matney. Together with journalist Liz Farrell, we continue this mission with our newest evolution, True Sunlight. Luna Shark's True Sunlight podcast values accuracy over access journalism. We're out.

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Welding back up. He just unloaded, shot through his windshield, and shot this guy. True sunlight is shed with empathy, not exploitation.

I don't really trust the media too much because they're just looking for a story, and instead of helping with Stephen's story, they're actually hurting it.

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I was in the shadows last night. I weren't there, but I was in the shadows.

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Robeson County 911. And she actually said the FBI was looking into it. And he said, call the cops, I don't care. I'm armed and ready.

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