Transcript of 9) Deny, Attack, Reverse: Why JP Miller Accused Mica of Stealing From The Church + Did JP Steal Mica’s Notary?

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The term DARVO stands for deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Keep DARVO in mind as you listen to this episode. In the months leading up to Micah Miller's death, she was slipping out of JP Miller's reach. She understood, to a painful degree, what JP did to her during their marriage, and she was doing everything that she could to get away from him. Of course, JP Miller allegedly used every tool in his pastor's belt to get Micah back under his control.

And that brings us to February 2024.

When he tried to get the police to arrest Micah for allegedly stealing from the church, and he did this without evidence to back up that claim.

Let's dive in.

Okay, now we want to talk about what we've learned in the criminal allegations that were made against Micah in the lead-up to her death in April. We know these allegations weighed heavily on her and that she had told friends that she believed that JP and the church were going to try to pin any financial anomalies in their books on her. What we need all of you to realize today is this: we went into this knowing that Micah was facing tremendous and relentless pressure in her life. Because of the divorce with JP. We knew that the police reports tell a story of a woman desperate for someone to help her stop her estranged husband's harassment and stalking. But it is even worse than that. It is not just a haphazard thing born out of heightened emotions. I mean, yes, it's that too, but we also believe there's something more sinister afoot here. Something that is just downright cruel. Actions that were designed to push Micah to the brink, that when taken all together would seem incredibly hard for anyone to overcome. Not to mention a woman who was trying to escape a relationship that her legal team has said displayed all of the signs of coercive control.

What I am saying is this: There are things that happen when relationships are falling apart. Mean things that are tit for tat. He does something, I do something. I say something, he says something. But JP wasn't just being an angry or heartbroken husband lashing out at his wife. According to sources, court documents, police reports, and Micah's legal team, JP was making sure Micah knew that she would never win. It wasn't just about letting her know that he was hurt. It was about making her feel like she would never escape him because he has all of the power. It was to take away whatever scrap of agency she was able to gain in the weeks leading up to her death. And that is where the cruelty comes into play— willfully hurting another person and not caring about it. Again, we knew all of this was at play, but we didn't understand that it was even worse than it looked on paper, even worse than what we were imagining when we put ourselves in Micah's shoes. This is part of sharing our experience with you as we take you behind the scenes on what it looks like to report on a true crime podcast in real time.

Our perspectives change as we gather more information. And old pieces of information snap into place better. It's like looking through a telescope and each week learning how to make it come into focus better. So going back to the criminal accusations that were made against Micah, in Micah's list, you might remember the item discussing JP's alleged misuse of law enforcement. Here is David with the exact wording of what was said.

JP called the police on her for no reason. He reported her for a crime she did not commit, making her subject to a police investigation which became unfounded and dropped. The officer allegedly told Micah it was abuse of law and a waste of police time.

By all accounts, Micah took her faith seriously. Some might point to her extramarital affair with JP in 2015, in which she was also betraying her friend Allison Williams, as evidence that she was morally equivocating. But that's until you consider that she was 15 when JP came into her life, that she considered herself as having been groomed by him as a teenager, that she was 21 at the time of the affair. And that he was her pastor, her religious leader, the person she entrusted to guide her in her faith. Because again, by all accounts, Micah strove to be a good person, and she was thoughtful in her approach. She considered the angles before acting, which is why it's really hard for those who knew her well to understand her choice of that swamp where her body was found. I say this because it also makes it hard to believe that Micah would steal from Solid Rock. One, by stealing, she would have been giving JP more ammunition to hurt her and to remain in her life for longer. 2, though she was hurting for money at the time, the amounts the church accused her of stealing weren't enough to risk getting caught over and having to face the consequences for.

3, she had other resources, people who were supportive of her escaping her marriage, who offered financial assistance. And 4, she loved the programs they accused her of stealing from. One of the things we've repeatedly heard throughout this as JP's, quote, evidence of Micah's so-called manic episodes is that she had ideas. That she became excited about those unspecified ideas. Most of us would call that passion, but ideas are attached to one's own sense of self-empowerment, right? If you have ideas, it means you have dreams. If you have dreams, it means you have a belief in yourself to whatever degree. That there's something better, and that thing that's better includes you. If you have ideas, it means that you, again, to whatever degree, believe that you have the ability to make them happen. And that ability, that belief in your own ability, is where a woman begins to show that she understands a world exists in which she can direct change rather than be directed to change. Oh, what a threat that must feel like to men who believe that wives are duty-bound to them and their interpretations of God alone. Micah had ideas, and some of those ideas, by JP's own admission, were related to her work as a missionary.

Micah was passionate about music and sharing her talents with the church, and she was passionate about a future in Kenya where, according to her friends and family, she was planning to stay for a while after her divorce. To be accused of stealing is one thing. To be accused of stealing from a cause that gave you strength and purpose is one thing. To be accused of taking money from the needy is one thing. But having those accusations of theft be used as a metaphorical manacle is another. When you look at that timeline of these accusations, it's really hard to, A, take them seriously, And B, see them as anything other than a tool of psychological torture. Let's start with the first report, which was made on February 15th, 2024. 3 days after Micah was released from the hospital is when the first report came from the church about her alleged theft. Meaning this report came right when she appears to have decided that she's going to continue on with the divorce. Then got hospitalized against her will, then lost her means of transportation, her money, her modes of communication, her belongings, her social media identities, and then decided to drop her divorce.

So again, was it because she wanted to drop it, or did JP use this as some sort of quid pro quo, such as, you want your things back? Drop the case. It was bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. One thing right after the other for Micah. According to the report, on February 15th, police were told that Micah had taken money out of the mission's account and had also stolen around $1,200. She was referred to as an employee of the church. According to the report, the person who made this call made it to the wrong law enforcement agency and was advised to call Ory County Police Department. After this, it appears that nothing happened for weeks. Now, again, if we're going to think about this report as a weapon, It would be a bomb with a timer on it, right? The wrong cops were called, but cops were called, meaning it could now be said the police have a report on you being a thief. All it takes is for one of us to press charges. It's a threat that, were it actually made, could have been deployed at any time and on any whim. Turns out that whim came on March 13th, 2 days after JP had dropped his divorce filing.

2 days after Micah had filed her first official police report alleging harassment and stalking. 2 days after JP had allegedly begun to believe Micah was seeing another man. Sources say that JP was whipped up pretty bad during this time. So on March 13th, Tricia Ross, who is JP's right-hand woman and is also a pastor at the church and an elder, called police to again report the theft. Let's talk about that call.

Okay, what exactly happened?

Uh, the employee was entrusted with one of our missions accounts, and they took it upon themselves to go and remove the money out of the account and close it and quit, and without any permission from the church.

Okay, and your first name? And the phone number? Okay, so they, they stole money from you, or is it just that they closed your account?

They stole the money as well. They took the money out of the account as cash and put it in their personal account. It's like a breach of trust, I guess.

Okay, and it was an employee, you said?

Yes.

You, uh, one of your employees or one of the banks?

No, one of the church employees.

Oh, one at church. Okay.

And we have documentation with her name on it withdrawing the cash and also bank statements deposited into her private account. And we're also filing a case with the city Because she took in donations that she received door-to-door.

Okay, and when did this happen?

This happened on February 14th of this year.

Okay, is the suspect still in the area?

Yes, sir.

Okay, okay.

Do you need her address?

Well, not yet. So she's in the area, like in within your church area?

Yes, she's within Market Common.

Okay, and are you at that location now?

Yes, we're at the church.

Okay. Is he—

He's not here. She is not here though. She lives within the Market Common, but she's not at the church. Right. Okay.

And, uh, she took money. How much money was involved?

In the county, it was $159.09.

Is it $159 or $159,000?

Yes, $159.09. Okay. Yeah, because the city was over a thousand counties just down.

Okay. Do not disturb anything at the scene and contact your financial institutions to cancel bank credit cards and checks. An officer will be dispatched as soon as possible. Anything changes or any further information, just give us a call back and they'll come Howard Avenue.

Okay, thank you so much.

All right, you're welcome.

They're coming up.

All right, bye.

We'll be seeing you soon.

So, you heard what we heard, right? First, it is hilarious that the dispatcher thought that they were reporting a theft of $159,000 and they had to be like, oh no, actually it's just $159. But also, Trisha. Wasn't on that call alone, was she? No, it sure does seem like she made that call with JP right there beside her, or maybe on the other line. The two seemed to be working together in an effort to get Micah arrested. Plus, given the seeming urgency in JP's voice at the end there, it kind of seems like he wanted this thing to happen, like, now. In addition to the Myrtle Beach Police Department report that was filed that day, Again, the church had been told a month earlier that Horry County PD had jurisdiction. A report was also filed with Horry County. According to the report, an officer went to the church and met with Tricia, who said that Micah had opened the missions account under the church's nonprofit status and that Micah was in charge of managing that account, which strikes us as perhaps unusual. We're not yet familiar with how churches typically manage their books, but it would seem like a church the size of Solid Rock would have a centralized system of financial management rather than accounts Directly managed by individuals.

Over a month ago, screenshots of text messages purportedly between JP and Tricia, purportedly shared by an investigator JP had hired, allegedly to allegedly dig up dirt on reporters and those speaking out against him, show that Tricia appears to have had access to at least one account, as she was able to draw up a check for hundreds of dollars from the church's benevolence fund to allegedly pay the investigator for JP's alleged vendetta. Those screenshots were shared online by YouTuber Robbie Harvey. According to the Ory County report, Tricia told the officer that Micah had collected money for this mission, the Dare to Care missions, and then used that money for herself. Again, it's not exactly clear how Tricia could have known that Micah had deposited the money she had withdrawn from the church's bank account into her own account only a day after this thing allegedly happened. And also, the amount that Tricia says Micah took was $159.09. According to the report, Tricia said that the church had tried to work with Micah to retrieve that money, but that Micah had failed to respond to them. Now, did Tricia offer that up because it was something that happened, or did the officer ask a question to assess whether the church had made an attempt to retrieve the money?

And that's just how Tricia answered. It's not clear. But what we can say is this. Tricia has a criminal history herself and is, like her pal JP was before he was pardoned in 2022, a felon. She was arrested in January 2004 and charged with breach of trust with fraudulent intent for stealing more than $5,000 from her employer, Dollar General. In May of that same year, she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 2 years in prison suspended and 5 years of probation, along with restitution. According to court records, she did not fully pay that restitution, though. In 2006, the court ordered her to pay more than $4,200 to Dollar General and fined her $268 for not satisfying the conditions of her plea deal. She was also ordered to pay nearly $800 to the state parole agency. The same agency that Tricia would later write a letter of support to for JP's pardon application in 2021. By the way, she did not mention her own criminal history in the letter, and it's not really clear why a letter from a felon would have been accepted as a character reference for a man seeking a pardon. Back to the allegations against Micah, though.

During this second bite of the apple, Tricia again told police, the Myrtle Beach police that Micah had stolen almost $1,200 that she had collected by going door to door on the church's behalf, again, for the mission to Kenya. Again, Tricia says that this money was withdrawn from the church's Zelle and Cash Apps and deposited into Micah's account. In this instance, it would make sense that Tricia would have known where the money went because the app would have noted that.

Now, here is where we get a resolution. As we have told you before, a judge refused to sign a warrant in Micah's arrest after looking at the evidence. The investigator discovered that Micah had personally deposited money into this account in January and in February, and she withdrew less than the amount that she had deposited. She also was authorized to close the account. In fact, she is the only person who would have been able to close it. So while Micah was experiencing one of the hardest moments of her life in February, JP and Trisha allegedly started the ball rolling on getting her criminally charged for stealing her own money and for closing an account Only she had the power to close. Then they appear to have sat on it until 2 days after Micah reported JP's alleged harassment and stalking to police for the first time— the first time according to records that we have received so far anyway— And 2 days after she made it so that he would have to appear in front of a judge And account for his alleged behavior. Then they tried to detonate the bomb, but the bomb fizzled. And we will be right back.

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Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash C-O-J. Now, around this same time in February 2024, JP just so happened to know that Micah had emailed the Secretary of State's office to report that her notary seal was stolen, and she believed that her estranged husband was using that stolen seal for his own gain.

We found this out after many rounds of FOIAs with the Horry County Police Department in this case, and they somehow left out a few 911 Calls related to JP and Micah Miller.

In one of those calls, while waiting for police to arrive at his house because Micah and her father were there to pick up her things— because according to the report, JP had told Micah to come and get her car, so he appears to have pulled a fast one on her— JP told the dispatcher that Micah had emailed the South Carolina Secretary of State Mark Hammond to report their patrol officers. JP's 911 call was made on February 25th. At this point, Micah had called the police at least 4 times trying to get her things back from JP. Every single time, JP had the upper hand because his church now owned their house, muddying the waters enough for law enforcement to declare this a civil issue for the courts. Also, they just, you know, believed whatever he said.

I mean, I want her to come back and I want to have a happy marriage, but she has to take her lithium, right? Because she could kill one of my kids in the middle of the night. Like, she thought the dog was— she tried to kill the dog one time because she thought it was baby Jesus. She said she had to drown it in oil.

That must have been scary.

She, she just emailed, um, Mark Hammond, the Secretary of State, Last week, I have the email where she sent him an email saying to investigate the 2 police officers that came here a few days before and kicked her out of the house. Like, she does these things when she's mentally ill that aren't normal. I have all the paperwork from the police officers that were here last week and the week before. I have all the notes and everything.

The reason Micah was emailing the Secretary of State is because JP allegedly would not give Micah her newly issued notary embosser. The Secretary of State's office is in charge of certifying notary publics in South Carolina, and Micah had just been certified in January so that she could earn commissions. So Micah was reporting the loss of her embosser. She was understandably at her wit's end at this point. She had filed for divorce in October and was reconciling with JP when she decided enough was enough. As a result of that and the buildup of stress that she was experiencing, in early February she got hospitalized against her will. Then she was discharged from the hospital to find that JP had evicted her from their home and was holding on to her car, her phone, her laptop, wallet, and other items. She had already reported JP for impersonating her through social media, emails, and text messages. Micah worried that JP was going to use her notary embosser to forge her name on documents. Anyway, reporter Beth Braden FOIA'd for emails sent to the Secretary of State that mentioned Micah Miller, and thank you to Mark Hammond and staff because that FOIA came back quickly and without any nonsense, which was really refreshing.

We discovered that on February 17th, 2024, Micah had filled out a contact form on the Secretary of State's office website. The address that she listed as hers is actually her sister Sierra's. As for the topic of the message, she wrote, John Paul Miller, my husband, will not tell me the location of my seal. And by seal, she means the embosser. In the message, she tells the Secretary of State about what happened to her embosser and why. And she says that she had tried to report it as stolen and had asked police to escort her to the marital property to retrieve it, to no avail.

Here's Grace reading Micah's email from February 2024.

My soon-to-be ex-husband has been trying to force me into signing a postnup that, after 6 years of marriage and 15 years of being an employee at Solid Rock Ministries Incorporated, He's trying to leave me with nothing, and he won't sign divorce papers until I agree to these terms. Because of this, I have reason to believe he may try to use my seal for his gain. I also started a charity called Dare to Care Missions and collected donations under the watch of Solid Rock Ministries, Inc.'s tax-exempt and 501. And after searching for my charity in the public records, I found out that Solid Rock Ministries never filed the charity and made it official. And they are sending threats to my family saying they will arrest me because they are claiming I stole $4,000 from my own charity, which I have proof that the only money that has been deposited into the charity account was my own funds, and it was only $159 in total. The church is also trying to make some large purchases that I believe to be illegitimate and would require a notarization. I am asking that you please put a hold on any document with my seal because I have Never used it since the date I received it, and investigate the 2 officers that escorted me into my home since I feared for my life around my husband due to past documented gun violence, intimidation, and domestic violence.

And they would not even allow me to ask my husband for the location of my notary seal, and they began shouting at me to leave my home and said they would arrest me and kick me out forcefully if I didn't leave immediately. Even though I was in my own house, which is marital property.

She signed off with her name and the words God bless. So this adds a whole lot of context to what was going on in February. Again, when Micah was in the hospital, JP used that as an opportunity to kick her out of their house, and then he kept her from her stuff. We've talked so many times about that one February 21st report when JP told the police that he and Micah were not separated, that her car was marital property when it was in her name only, and that basically Micah was a crazy person. And the officer just believed him.

We keep getting more and more evidence of JP seeming to be able to use the police force like it was his own personal security, and also more and more evidence of JP not letting go of the emotional leash He had looped around Micah's neck, not just not letting go, tightening it and yanking it.

Remember how he was accused of responding to people as Micah, including allegedly to his own young daughter? According to court documents, about a week or so after that 911 call, he had a full-on conversation with his daughter as Micah on Micah's birthday.

It's sick.

Remember also how he was monitoring her emails and social media at this time? Well, as JP told the dispatcher, he knew that Micah had sent this email a week earlier. How did he know that?

Well, gee, because just like Micah had been telling the police over and over, JP had her laptop and he had her phone. So in a way, JP is telling on himself in that 1911 call.

If he saw the message to the Secretary of State's office, it's because he was going into Micah's Gmail account. And had seen the Secretary of State's office's response.

Kataria Watkins, the director of notaries, had written back and let Micah know that they had made a note in their records about her stolen embosser so that she wouldn't be held accountable for any potentially fraudulent activity involving her notary supplies.

And Kataria ended her email by saying that she strongly encouraged Micah to consult with police and an attorney regarding the other matters.

Guess what JP did? Guess what the guy who continues to say he didn't do anything wrong did?

The guy who says he wasn't abusive toward Micah.

The guy who was clearly monitoring Micah's emails. Within minutes—

minutes— of Katarya Watkins' response to Micah, JP forwarded her email to his own account and then sent his own email to the Secretary of State's office on February 20th.

Here's David with the full email.

Greetings, Kataria. My name is JP Miller. I'm Micah Miller's husband. I have also included our bishop, Charles Randall, on this email. I saw the email that you sent to my wife and just want to assure you that she is in no danger and all is well. She recently left the mental hospital here in MB at South Strand. And since getting out, she has not come home and is still suffering from bipolar and schizophrenia. We are doing all we can to help her, and her seal that she is so worried about is perfectly safe. Thank you, JP.

I mean, the chills I got when I first read that email and the Pit that forms in my stomach every time I reread it. It really seems like Micah spent the last few months of her life with JP around every corner.

It seems like he was hiding in every shadow, every gigabyte.

Seems like he was lurking, ready to start trouble. And in the weeks leading up to Micah's death, it really does seem like his sole focus was on making her life as miserable, as confusing, and as hopeless as possible. JP Miller had a metaphorical boot on Micah's throat while yelling at her to get up and at the very same time telling everyone else in her life, her friends, her family, and every person she sought help from, that Micah was mentally ill. And that is why she was on the ground struggling.

It was her mental illness, not the metaphorical boot on her throat.

The very next day, after he found out that Micah had messaged the Secretary of State's office, And had seen what she had written and intervened with his own email. JP Miller went to the Waccamaw Center for Mental Health and began the process of getting the state of South Carolina to declare Micah mentally unsound, to have her institutionalized. That very next day, he was once again weaponizing Micah's mental health and using it to retaliate against her. Leveraging her hospital stays as evidence that her own narrative could never be trusted, when in truth, he's the one who seemed out of control. He's the one who seemed like he shouldn't have been trusted.

Now we need to tell you about the email that Micah sent to the Secretary of State's office and why it's important.

This is from True Sunlight, episode 83.

It is important to note that she sent this email from a different address ending in D2CM, which was different from all of her other emails to the Secretary of State's office, likely because she believed that JP had control of her email at that time. How do I know that for sure? Because of what happened next. So why did this email that we have shared in the past come up again in our FOIA with Horry County Police? And why do we think that this email could be a crucial piece of evidence in this case? Because of what was happening in February 2024. Remember, early February is when JP ramped up his quest to get Micah admitted to the mental hospital against her will. Specifically, on February 6th at 6:46 PM, JP called Horry County 911 and told them that a Sergeant Wilson told him to call about the mental health pickup order for Micah. JP said that Micah's location was showing that she was at Beach Church in Myrtle Beach. The officer eventually talked to Micah by phone and she said that she was going to Gaffney to her sister Sierra's house and was not going to go back to Horry County.

Nearly 6 hours after that phone call, at 3:52 AM on February 7th, Micah called 911 from Buc-ee's gas station in Florence, South Carolina. Remember, this is the call that we got from a random TikTok account, not any of our FOIAs, and we ended up matching that with another report to confirm that it took place on February 7th. Remember when Micah freaked out because she thought someone named Officer Wilson answered the phone? Well, we didn't have the CAD report at the time, but this week we figured out that a dispatcher with the name of Wilson is actually the person who took the call.

Hello?

Oregon County Dispatch, Wilson.

Hey, Officer Wilson.

How can I help you?

I'd like to do a wellness check, Officer Wilson.

Okay, what's the address?

It's Coldwater Circle.

What city?

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

What's your name? What's the callback number for you?

And what's the first initial of your name, just so that whenever I call back I get the right Officer Wilson?

I'm not a police officer. You can just ask for anybody. Uh, what was the address one more time, please?

Coldwater Circle, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 29588.

Okay, can you tell me exactly what happened?

Yeah, there's a laptop there that's got naked pictures of me on it, and, uh, there's some people staying at my house that I didn't invite into my house, and I'm out of town, so I was just hoping there would be a wellness check and make sure there's no cars parked at my house that I don't recognize the license plate of, or if you just take down those license plate numbers for me to review later, just to do a wellness check and also maybe even pursue the property that I'm saying has naked pictures of me on it.

Okay, I can have an officer give you a call. Um, I don't know exactly what they can do. So where are you located at right now?

Buc-ee's gas station. In Florence.

Florence.

Okay. Okay. You'll probably have to make a—

Yeah, I just want to make sure that that laptop just doesn't end up in the wrong hands.

This is confusing, but also it's one of those things we need to correct.

On that phone call, it wasn't Sergeant Wilson, the one who was allegedly head of Solid Rock Security.

And why does a small churchy business Need a head of security anyways, by the way. But Micah's voice changed, and she clearly went into panic mode when she heard a name sounding similar to Wilson answer the phone at the police department that she feared was helping the husband that she was so terrified of. It would be like if I called SLED during the Murdaugh investigation and it sounded like someone named Murdaugh answered the phone. It would be chilling and probably would have sent me into a spiral thinking all calls are coming from the inside and all of this is hopeless. Anyways, that mix-up paired with the fact that JP already had Faith Green sign an order of detention that was clocked that day and sent to the police, which labeled her as a 1096, aka mental patient, all of that probably made Micah sound unstable on the phone. When in reality, her reaction was completely understandable. And she was right to worry about her husband's interactions with an Officer Wilson because of what we are going to share from those emails.

Hang on to that thought.

So just 7 hours later, after she begged for police to help her and they didn't, Micah was picked up at the Myrtle Beach Walmart by police and admitted to the hospital. where she stayed for the next 5 days, and during that time, JP allegedly gained control of Micah's cell phone, car, social media accounts, and emails.

When Micah was let out of the hospital on February 12th, 2024, JP took immediate action and filed a police report accusing her of theft. Micah had already called the police on February 15th to report that JP was impersonating her identity, Had possession of her purse and wallet, and she told them she was in danger. And what did they do? Myrtle Beach police labeled her a 1096, which is code for mental subject, and they did nothing to follow up. So when Micah was emailing the Secretary of State office on February 17th, she was running out of options. The local police had proven to her time and time again that they believed her husband over her. No matter what. Knowing that her husband was in control of her email address, Micah used a different email address when writing to the Secretary of State's office. The problem was that when Kataria Watkins, the director of notaries, wrote her back, the new email kicked back to her when she replied that she was taking the matter seriously and she told Micah to go to police. So on February 20th, Kataria Watkins did what any person would do. She emailed Micah's previous email address to let her know that they had made a note in the records about her stolen embosser so that she wouldn't be held accountable for any potential fraudulent activity involving her notary supplies.

Kataria ended her email by saying she strongly encouraged Micah to consult with police and an attorney regarding the other matters. She sent this email to micahmiller777@gmail.com, Which JP was clearly in possession of at 11:14 AM that day. Because at 11:19 AM, just 5 minutes later, that email was forwarded to JP Miller's address and his wingwoman Tricia Ross's email address. By 11:40, JP Miller, being JP Miller, in full panic mode, did what he always does— blame the mess he made. On Micah and her alleged mental illness. JP emailed the Secretary of State's office and Charles Randall to tell them that Micah is in no danger and that she's been at the mental hospital and hasn't come home, and that her seal is perfectly safe.

More on that after a quick commercial break.

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Here is where it gets weird. JP forwarded Micah's email that accused him of stealing her notary seal, and he forwarded the Secretary of State's office's response to Officer Brian Wilson, who JP apparently thinks is his good old boy buddy boy, just 1 hour later at 12:40 AM, February 20th. Why would he forward that email to local police? The same officer who was an elder at Solid Rock and was allegedly his chief of security. The same officer who JP oddly emailed his separation agreement documents to just a few months before. The same officer who Micah feared on a 911 call was helping JP in his quest to take down Micah and hours later she was picked up by police and admitted to the hospital. The very next day after JP found out that Micah had messaged the Secretary of State's office and saw what she had written and intervened with his own email, JP Miller went back to Whack-A-Mole Center for Mental Health and began the process of getting the state of South Carolina to formally institutionalize Micah. On that day, February 21st, Micah called the police again to report that her Honda was stolen. And that's when JP told the police that he and Micah were not separated, that her car was actually marital property when it was in her name only, and that basically Micah was crazy.

And the officer, of course, just went with it and believed him. This is what we're talking about, by the way, when we say that we believe there is proof showing that local police contributed to Micah's feeling of hopelessness. That led to her death on April 27th, 2024. At every single opportunity, both Myrtle Beach and Horry County Police Department took JP's side. And by the way, this could be important. The next day, February 22nd, the fire department was called to JP's house for a smoldering burn pit, which is merely interesting considering the fact that we got from these emails On February 20th, JP appeared to be in full panic mode when he realized that Micah alerted the Secretary of State's office of his alleged misdeeds. And it wasn't just a small fire, but it was enough to get authorities called. What was he burning on that specific day? That's an odd thing to do when your wife accused you of stealing her notary And also alerted the Secretary of State's office that you were raising money through a charity that wasn't registered, right? And a really odd thing to do after you felt concerned enough about the accusation to email your alleged police buddy, right?

So these emails, they fill in very important gaps in this timeline, a timeline that leads us to say this JP Miller made a number of extreme moves in the months leading up to Micah's death to close her world and remind her how few options she had to get away. And police helped JP in this endeavor to make Micah feel hopeless and utterly alone, whether they meant to or not. The police emails Could simply show how comfortable JP felt with local police, forwarding multiple emails to officers that don't appear to have anything to do with local police matters. He sent police email attachments with no accompanying note, as if the meaning of the attachments were already made clear over the phone. Maybe Brian Wilson did nothing with those emails. We didn't receive any emails where he responded, Or maybe he was smart enough to not respond over his work email. We know from the emails and all of the calls between JP, Micah, and Horry County Police that they absolutely treated JP with a level of deference that could have saved Micah's life if they actually listened to her. In that February 7th call to Horry County Police, when Micah was trying to tell Officer Wilson that her husband had naked photos of her on her laptop and she was worried about that laptop getting into the wrong hands, which is why she asked Officer Wilson what his first initial was.

She was concerned that the wrong police officer could have used evidence on that laptop somehow against her. And when she said naked photos, at the time I first read that, I imagined something a lot more innocent than what I fear could be going on here. Because again, remember the accusations in Micah's List. Remember how Micah's List accused JP of forcing her to submit to humiliating sexual acts that disgusted her and hurt her. Remember how Micah's List said that JP allegedly forced Her to perform sexual acts against her will and demanded that she watch him in sexual acts with others and forced her to sit still so others could touch her body against her will. Remember how we reported that according to Micah and other sources, JP had possession of sexually explicit photos and videos of Micah? And this was something that really, really worried her. What if she was talking to that officer about more than naked photos? What if it was so much worse? Stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight.

Coerced: The Devotion and Death of Micah Frances Miller is a Luna Shark production with reporting from journalists Manny 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. Hey, back up. Welding, back up. Camp Swamp Road, and somebody just unloaded, shot through his windshield, and, 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 Steven's story, they're actually hurting it.

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, I'm, um— Armed and ready.

True Sunlight empowers listeners to understand their legal and judicial systems with our unique brand of pesky journalism. Listen to True Sunlight wherever you get your podcasts, or visit truesunlight.com to learn more, or join Luna Shark Premium for early episodes, video episodes, live or virtual events, bonus episodes, and so much more.