Hidden True Crime - Mica Miller: Forensic Criminal Psychologist Dr. John Matthias Reacts

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Warning: This episode discusses topics related to suicide, self-harm, and domestic violence. Please listen with caution. Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and she and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello Hidden Gems. It's Lauren and John and we actually have some

new equipment thanks to a fellow podcaster John Dillin so he was over here this week

and he got some new equipment not all of it is working yet because John and I are still

learning. We're still learning, but we hope that maybe we can sound better and look a little better, and we are a work in progress. So a huge thanks to Mormon stories and to John Dylan. So, yes. Anyway, we have a big show planned for you today, and by big show, I actually mean Dr. John, My partner in crime, my spouse and co-host has a big show planned. So a warning to anyone here that we will be discussing self-harm as well as domestic abuse, domestic violence. And so we want to start with that trigger warning. But we want to talk about it because it is such an important thing to talk about.

And as I mentioned yesterday during the premiere that we did yesterday covering Micah Miller, I said this case in particular has affected John because this is sort of John's background. This is what he knows. And I'll let John share that a little bit more. And he kept saying to me while I was covering the day bail trial, Babe, when you get home, I think it's really important that we cover Micah. And so here we are. And I know that this matters to you, John, and so thank you.

Yeah. So when I started off in this field years ago now, I began by doing forensic evaluations primarily in cases that involved sex crimes and violent crimes. But I also, for my night job, I worked with domestic violence abusers, otherwise referred to sometimes as batterers. And I did groups several times a week for many years. And so I became quite familiar with domestic violence, now sometimes called intimate partner violence. And I have worked over the years to advocate for victims of violence and to work on getting laws change. I've worked in the child protection system to try to advocate for children that are in abusive homes where there's domestic violence and not necessarily child abuse.

Often the two go together. They go hand in hand. But I think that children growing up in homes with violence are deeply affected. And sometimes the system doesn't acknowledge that. So this is an area that's near and dear to my heart. And this particular case is so bizarre and it has so many interesting possibilities that I thought it might be. interesting case to really take a look at and potentially advocate for Micah and for victims of violence or victims of domestic violence that are often overlooked. One interesting elements of this case

is, and I think a lot of people are unaware of this, that a lot of times victims of domestic abuse engage in self-harming behavior, and that's quite often overlooked by the system. I think there's a presumption, not in the UK, by the way, but there's a presumption in the United States that if a victim of interpersonal violence does something that Micah supposedly did, we don't know for sure. I mean, the cause of death at the moment is self-harm, but oftentimes these types of victims are overlooked. They're not looked at seriously by law enforcement in terms of how the judicial system treats them. In the UK, for example, there's cases now that are adjudicated that involve self-harming behavior, and it's clear that there's coercive control involved, and that is considered.

to crime. So in the UK coercive control is, and I mean all of not just England, but Scotland, Ireland, coercive control is a crime. It has, it's illegally enforced. There's significant penalties for engaging in coercive control. So part of, I think, what we want to talk about tonight is not only this particular case, but the idea that there's now, there's some momentum for something now called Micah's Law, which is a law that would, I don't know if they're trying to criminalize it in South Carolina, but it's a law that would involve legal penalties for coercive control. And so I think it's important to bring awareness to this issue and have some discussion about it and what it is, how it happens, how it affects victims.

And this is a perfect case. This is a haunting case in terms of how coercive control works and how it led, I believe, to a tragic outcome. Micah Miller passed away or died April 27th and police have deemed it self-harm. And although some people, because of what is now coming out from her pastor husband, John Paul Miller, what we know is a coercive controlling relationship, as well as a lot of alleged abuse in this relationship. and there are questions, of course, as to if this was or was in self-harm in the end, and that was what grabbed the public's attention. I think that, you know, John will go over that a bit, but we're going to listen to police at this time.

There's a possible FBI investigation into this case. So, yeah, just wanted everyone to kind of know the basics. Why don't we start with Eclipse? To set the stage here, this is John Paul Miller. His acronym is JP, people call him JP. He's making an announcement in front of his congregation of Micah's death for the first time. So this is an interesting moment.

I think this is a moment that we'll introduce this idea of course of control. So if you could go ahead and play that. Okay. But I'm going to make an announcement. And after the announcement, I'm going to ask that you You leave church quietly and don't talk about the announcement here in the building, please, if you can see y'all can stand to your feet. Before I make the announcement, I also want to say that my request to you is that you will continue to come to church and serve and give for the next, you know, a little bit.

I'm taking a little bit of a break and I don't want to have to worry about the church. My break may be a few days, a few weeks, I don't know. I got a call late last night. My wife has passed away. Yeah. It was self-induced, and it was up in North Carolina. And we're going to have a funeral for her next Sunday here at 3 p.m. And so it's all I can, yeah, I'm just kind of going on adrenaline right now.

So y'all pray for me and my kids and everybody. And she was, she wasn't, you all knew that she wasn't well mentally. And then she needed her medicine that was hard to get to her. John Paul's announcement of Micah's death created quite the story. and left many true crime creators and sleuth wondering if okay let's talk about this announcement what an interesting way to announce the death of your spouse the he says and i'm going to quote him here he says quote leave church quietly and don't talk about the announcement in other words don't talk about her death and he says later i hope you continue to come to church and to serve and to give so that's

interesting so he's he's essentially saying I want to shut down all communication around my wife's death I don't want you to talk about it I don't want gossip I don't want any talk of her death right so this is a good introduction to coercive control because essentially what he's doing here is coercive control what he's telling the congregation is I'm commanding you not to talk about this let's act as if nothing happened I don't want any gossip here and I want you to continue to come to church and don't forget to give don't forget to give money in spite of the fact that my wife just died make sure you give

he's got to throw that in he's got to throw the financial piece in which is interesting so so here you have in the very announcement of her death to his congregation here you have coercive control playing itself out right in front of her eyes what a strange place to do it so what is coercive control i'm going to define it broadly speaking course of control is a pattern of behavior with the intent to exert power and control over another person, often through intimidation, manipulation, and violence. So I think the important element in coercive control is that it's a pattern of behavior.

That the legal system is set up, for the most part, in the United States, to look at one-off incidents or incidents of violence, and not patterns of behavior. So I think, in a way, that makes it more difficult for the legal system to assess these types of situations. of situations because the legal system is looking for traumatic events, often single incidents, and they're not really interested in, they can be, but they're not necessarily as interested in patterns of behavior.

And so of course of control is this pattern. It's this pattern of power, exerting power and control. And here you have it in this announcement to his congregation, he's essentially saying, he's trying to control the dialogue, right? He's saying, leave quietly and don't talk about. And so, and not only that, I mean, if that's not bad enough, by the way, like, I mean, first of all, I want to think about a normal way, so if you're announcing the death of your spouse, it seems to me this is a very peculiar way to do it. The first thing I'm going to say if I lose a spouse is how sad I am and how grieved I am, right? And I'm going to talk about I might celebrate her, meaning you, but don't die on me.

So for me, this is going to be, you know, when you make an announcement, I think this is a peculiar way to do it. He's already engaged in this pattern, of course, of control with his congregation. And if that's not bad enough, he also says that everyone in his congregation apparently knows that she's not well mentally. That's his quote. She's not well mentally. So that would suggest a couple of things.

Number one, he's clearly talked about this with his congregation before. That's abusive. And why is he throwing his spouse under the bus in front of his congregation? And the answer is because he's trying to control her. He's trying to get his congregation to side with him against her. So he's painting this picture of her not being mentally well or having mental health problems. And we'll learn later, by the way. So he has her committed.

He has her committed for mental health issues later. And there's this purpose. There's a reason he does that. But I think he's talking about our mental health because he's going to use it against her. And he's going to use it to get her committed. and he's trying to get the congregation on his side. So here we have, we're seeing, in the most unusual circumstances, we're seeing this guy, JP, engaging in coercive control

at a really strange place in time to do it. And then he's throwing his wife under the bus saying she's mentally ill, essentially blaming her for all the problems in the marriage, let's say, blaming her for not being a good enough wife, whatever it is. Right. And blaming her for her. death. Yeah. And again, what a what a peculiar statement, what a peculiar announcement to make to your congregation when you tell them about this tragic event. So right away, I think he's kind

of telling us, he's showing us what coercive control is, and he's also telling us a lot about himself. He does seem a little bit sad, maybe a little bit of grieve, but not tremendously. And the issue about this last request to continue to serve and give, that's not the time and place to ask your congregation for money. No, and as Victoria says, he also had preached a whole sermon, like take the morning off. Let someone else preach. So I thought this is a really interesting clip of JP, and I think it's a good way into this case, because it tells us so much about him, it tells us so much about. his perception of the world.

And that's another thing, by the way, it's important to keep in mind that domestic violence, getting back to this idea about defining domestic violence as incidents as opposed to patterns of behavior, domestic violence is often a mindset. It's a perception of the world. It's a way that an abuser makes sense of the world. It's a way the abuser interacts with people. So it's much larger than simply, oftentimes I think, people think of domestic violence,

violence as a husband, say, hitting or physically assaulting a spouse, something like that. One time maybe, sometimes people think of it as crimes of passion, which I think is a bit of a myth. They think that, you know, one of the things I heard all the time in my groups was she pushed my buttons. I can't tell you, I wish I had a tower for every time I heard that. Or how about a button for every time? Yeah, I wish I had a butt for every time I heard that. You know, you and I would be retired because there's a lot of buttons. being pushed among domestic abusers, let me tell you.

But the implication is that when batterers or abusers say that, what they're saying essentially is that, you know, it's like a light switch. You push the button or hit the switch and all of a sudden they become enraged and of course they can't control themselves, they can't stop it. So they attack their wives. And of course, what else did you expect them to do? They push my button. So I think a lot of times domestic violence is seen as a crime of power.

And in that sense, I think there's also very much this sense of masculine entitlement and the sense that men think that if you push their buttons, that somehow attacking you is okay if you're female, or even in same-sex relationships, that somehow, that this is okay. And the courts, by the way, have largely agreed with this perception that button pushing is seen as less problematic than premeditation. So button pushing is, for the most part, seen as as a spur of the moment kind of impulsive behavior that results in harm, and the courts are quite forgiving of that.

My experience, by the way, is it's the complete opposite. There's very little button pushing going on, and in fact, almost all domestic violence, almost all coercive control, because domestic and violence almost certainly most of it involves coercive control. Yes, there's a small percentage that is more impulsive, but it's small.

I'd say less than five percent. And so it's important to recognize that almost all of these crimes are premeditated and planned. Even if they appear to be a result of button pushing or passion or whatever you want to call it, they're still planned because the abusers will think about these crimes well in advance. The abusers have fantasies. They have revenge fantasies of harming their victims. It could be pushing someone. Could be something like pushing someone or could be murdering someone.

Right? There's clearly a whole spectrum. But it's important to recognize that this is a myth. This whole crime of passion approach to domestic violence is a myth. And this idea of somehow getting away with abuse because someone has mental health issues, that is also a version of button pushing. And so here you see it with JP arguing that if any of you, you know, I think he's trying to do some damage control here, by the way.

Absolutely. If any of you hear about other issues in our marriage or if you hear about things that make me look bad or may make me look abusive, I just want you to know it's not my fault because she's mentally unwell. She's mentally ill. So she pushes my buttons a lot because she's mentally ill. She has bipolar, according to him, according to JP. She doesn't take her medication.

So if I'm abusive, I just want you to know why. That's why. And as attorney, by the way, put out a statement to the, you know, making a statement to the, you know, a similar argument that J.P.'s' attorney's narrative was she was mentally ill, she needed help, she was off her meds, and so she resorted to self-harming behavior. There's no mention whatsoever, of course, of control or power and control. Back when I was leading my groups, by the way, there was this, we used this diagram called the power and control wheel, so any mental health people out there might remember this. It's still in use, by the way, but it was a

developed by a domestic violent pioneer and advocate her name's Ellen Pence. I actually had a chance to get to know Ellen Pence because I went to some trainings in January, January in Duluth, Minnesota, which Duluth, Minnesota is really, really far up north. And Duluth, Minnesota in January is really, really cold. So I will never forget Ellen. I don't know why Ellen always had her trainings in January in Duluth, but she did. But anyway, Ellen, she developed this in her organization developed the power and control wheel many, many years ago, 30 years ago. And it became kind of a staple of treatment for domestic abusers, which, by the way, I want to read, Ellen always said that the one way you can tell if there's a pattern of abuse

rather than, say, someone who's impulsive is you can ask three questions. And I'm going to read Ellen's questions. The first is, and so these pertain to domestic abusers and relationships. The first question she would ask to determine whether a relationship involved course of control was, number one, are these behaviors a part of a pattern? So that's important. So she understood quite well that most domestic abuse is not a one-off type situation. Number two, her second question was, is the pattern making someone change their daily routines

or choices. So that's a great question. Is the pattern of abuse making someone change their daily routines or choices? So in other words, when you start restricting someone's freedom, you're resorting to coercion. And in this case, in many of many cases of domestic abuse, I think that's a really critical issue, is that a lot of victims, they feel restrained, they feel constricted, they feel like they can't live their lives because there's so much many limits placed on them. Could be financial, could be emotional, could be physical, that sometimes abusers will lock their victims in or their spouses into the home and they won't let them out.

Or they'll track them like he tracked Micah. They'll put tracking devices on their cars. They'll have them followed. They'll stalk them. So this is a really important part of course of control is that the person loses, the victim loses autonomy. Part of this pattern is really reining in the ability of someone to live their life the way they normally would. And I think that's a really critical issue here with Micah Miller.

And the final question that Ellen would ask in terms of defining coercive control and abusive relationships was, is someone fearful as a result of these patterns? Fear is also a big part of this because when you induce fear, you also induce control. fear leads to control to a large degree. If you get someone afraid enough, they may not leave their home. They may not do what they normally would do, right? You can really start restricting their behavior by inducing fear. So those are the three questions, I think, that are pertinent to a lot of these types of cases.

And, of course, all of those apply here to Micah's case. Yes, thank you. As Canadian Girl says, you stop trusting your own judgment. You are told up is down so often. Yes. Right. And that's where gaslighting comes in. Victims of abuse, their perceptions of reality are often undermined, constantly.

And so I think there's this sense that they lose trust in their ability to make good decisions. They lose trust in themselves. Their sense of self, their self-esteem becomes precarious. And it becomes much, it becomes weakened. And so I think that's part of this strategy is to really, one way you can gain control of someone is to really undermine their sense of self and their ability to make sound decisions and to really create this dependency where the victim becomes reliant upon the abuser for survival or for decisions or for just leading their normal lives. So now that I've defined that,

let's get into a part of this case, I think, that really has been overlooked. And I'm not sure why. Okay. But one of the things that really bugs me about this case, and maybe this is why people, you know, I think people were responding so strongly to this, number one, because it's not clear that this was self-armie behavior. And the family has made it clear that, you know, Michael, the father, who on Father's Day, by the way, my heart goes out to you, Michael. Family and friends are raising a lot of questions about whether Michael would do this, and so I think there's a lot of legitimate questions about whether this was self-army behavior,

and we'll get into that a little bit later. And I think that what's really interesting here is if you look at some of these behaviors from JP and you look at his history a little bit and you look at what Allison Williams has said, that's his first wife. The ex-wife to JP, yes. Right, ex-wife, first wife of JP. When you look at what some of these people are saying in affidavits under oath, by the way, or Sierra, the sister, Sierra Francis, there's a lot of crimes or potential crimes or

alleged crimes that are out there already that have not been addressed. They haven't been talked about. And I think there's some intuition here that this has to be more because that has to be more than self-harmine behavior because JP tends to be a little slippery. He tends to be, you know, that his history is so questionable and problematic in some ways that I think there's, that people think there has to be more to this. he certainly doesn't come off as someone who's trustworthy. Definitely not. Yeah.

So let's start with, let me go through some of these components of his behaviors that I think are really important that people aren't really talking about. So let's start with the stalking. Yeah, okay. So stalking is, the research on stalking shows that stocking is a huge risk factor and predictor of eventual domestic homicide. So intimate partner homicides, stalking is one of the biggest risk factors. So if somebody's stalking you, you need to take that really seriously.

Even if that's an ex-spouse or a current spouse, anybody's stalking you, that's a bad sign. It's a really bad sign, and it's very serious. So you have all kinds of stalking here. You have at least three trackers, put on her car, right? You have her tires were slashed multiple times. You have him apparently hiring people. I guess it's not entirely clear who this is, but he apparently hired people, maybe one or more people to follow her. Yeah. And to report back to him. He openly apparently

acknowledged, according to Sierra, he acknowledged that he hired people to follow her in a sermon in front of the congregation. So I don't have proof of that, but that's what Sierra claims. So you also have, when they were having a dispute, when Micah and JP were having a dispute, JP showed up at Sierra's home. So Micah went over to Sears Home to get away from JP, and JP showed up with a firearm. Yes. And he stayed outside of the door, and he said that he was armed and ready. He was armed and ready, and he was waiting for her, and he wouldn't leave until she came out or addressed him.

stalking. This is all stalking. Stalking, threatening. And this, by the way, this is the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure that, I'm sure there's stalking behaviors here that we have no idea about. And I'm sure they probably existed way before, you know, way before these behaviors were mentioned. So, number one, this is really concerning, obviously, because this is a risk factor for intimate partner homicide, number one. And number two, this is a crime. stalking's a crime.

So whoever's following her, that person, I don't know if it's JP, I don't know if JP did some of that, whoever's putting those tracking devices on her car, they're engaging in illegal activity. J.P. going to, going to Sierra's home and saying, with his firearm that he's not supposed to have, by the way, because he's a convicted felon from 1999. We'll talk about that in a minute.

But why isn't anybody doing anything about the stalking? Right, that's, that's, you're right. Why aren't they? What's going on in South Carolina or North Carolina? Oh, and I'm just warming up. I'm just warming up. This is, so the reason I mentioned stalking first is because this is a crime. It's clear that Micah's being stalked, seriously stalked. She's been tracked. She's being followed. She's being harassed. Her tires are being slashed. And nobody seems to care.

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Well, as Garnett, gal says, the South Carolina good old voice system is a alive and well. They didn't believe his former wife either. Right. I don't disagree with that, but I'm trying to go through a few of these potential or probable or likely crimes and figure out how we got here without any consequences. What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. Ecorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't

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That was, Cherish Every wrote a Facebook post about that. Cherish Every says quite emphatically that when she was 14, she engaged in a relationship with JP when he was 19. That's a crime. That's a crime. She said it didn't last very long. I don't care. It's still, it's a crime. Why wasn't anyone doing anything about that?

But that's just scratching the surface. Allison Williams points out that there were multiple. multiple minors in the church congregation and maybe outside of the church congregation who engaged in sexual relationships with jp so this is coming from his first wife she approached a number of those victims and said you guys you guys really need to come forward this is serious this is a crime and they all said no we're not coming forward because we're afraid right this was in this was in the ex-wife's affidavit aphidavit because sharing this story. We know that Micah met J.P. When she was 14 or 15, we know that he expressed interest in her at that time. It's not clear if they were involved in a relationship, but it's the same pattern. So there appears to be a pattern here not only of infidelity, but certainly possibly sexual

abuse against miters that, and we're not talking about one minor, we're talking about multiple. Again, so this is crime number two, sexual abuse. Why isn't anyone doing anything about this? And for those of you out there who were abused by this guy, I'm not sure about South Carolina, but in many states there's no statutes. There's no statutes on sexual abuse. So you can still come forward if you have the courage.

I would never presume to tell a victim what to do because they know what they went through and they know what they need to do to be safe. Same thing with a victim of domestic violence. And I certainly understand why, a lot of these victims wouldn't come forward. I hope they do now. Yeah.

If some of them are considering it and if they're listening. That's number two. So we got stalking, we got sexual abuse. Number three is straight up violence. So in 1999, JP was convicted of assault and battery. You and I are trying to get the police report. I don't have the details because we haven't located it yet, but he hit a woman, apparently the broad strokes,

he hit a woman with his car, and he dragged it twice, and he dragged her down the street. assault and battery and he was charged then with assault and battery right he was charged he was convicted he became a convicted felon i want to see the details of that by the way i haven't seen that but so if somebody says does j p has a history of violence yes the answer is yes he does he's a convicted felon with a history of violence which as i'm sure a lot of our listeners would surmise is a risk factor. It's a risk factor for all types of domestic abuse in the future. Yeah, and with this car, somebody asked, yes.

Yeah, with his car. Yeah, with his car. So on this issue, by the way, I mean, I don't know how, like, again, we're trying to get the police report on this. But it seems to me like dragging someone down the street with your car might be more like attempted murder. But I don't know the details. So, you know, who am I to judge here? I don't know the details of this crime. At the very least, this is aggression, and at the very least, this is violence. And this is one situation where he was convicted. Number four, what about he was engaged in a relationship with, I don't know if I can mention her name, but he was engaged in a relationship with his mistress and her husband, who was in a wheelchair, fell into a pool and died.

Accidential drowning of his mistress's husband. So what's important about that incident is that two days before, and so this is described by Allison Williams in her affidavit where she's trying to get custody of the children. She was granted custody, by the way. But two days before, the husband of the mistress confronted JP, and he asked him essentially, he told JP, leave my family alone. Right. I know you're seeing my wife.

I know you're having an affair with my wife. Leave her alone. Two days later, he's accidentally drowned in a pool. Also, peculiar to that incident, he calls, J.P. calls Allison. After the event, he calls Allison on the day that the husband dies. Again, Allison is his ex-wife. And he asked Allison to pray for him. Because his mistress's husband has just passed away.

Called the next wife because his mistress's husband has passed away. It's so bizarre. But why would he ask her to pray? I don't know. Why? You tell us. Guilty conscience? I don't know.

Control? Same of asking everyone in the congregation to stand up when he announces Mike's death. It's weird. Yeah. But there'd be no reason for him to call. Yeah. Yeah. And so the question I have here, again, I'm kind of listing possible crimes.

So is this a potential homicide that's overlooked? It doesn't necessarily have to be murder one. It could be second-degree murder. could be manslaughter? I don't know. What happened? Why was this not investigated? That call he's making to Allison is bizarre.

Does he have an alibi? Where was he? Now I'm not accusing the guy, I'm not accusing JP of murder here. I'm just raising questions. When you look at this history of potential criminal behavior, and that's my job is to look at criminal behavior, I'm raising the question. Is this a possible murder?

I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. I mean, clearly law enforcement, didn't think it was. So there was never an investigation. But looking at his behaviors and looking at his pattern of potential, and I'm saying potential

because I'm not accusing him of anything, this is another peculiar little fact in his past. Number five. Number five seems to me really straightforward. It's theft. So when Micah was forced, essentially, apparently she didn't give consent because apparently J.P. had power of attorney

over her medical care, is bizarre. I don't know what that means, but when he had her committed to a mental health facility, many of her possessions, including her keys and her wallet, all disappeared. According to Allison, again, he was taking money. He was from her. He was rearranging assets in his name. So in other words, to put it simply, he was stealing from her. Just because they're married doesn't mean that he has a right to steal her possessions or take her possessions or take her money, her keys. Those are all possessions. Sierra, by the way, sister Sierra said Francis said the same thing. So here, this is theft. You know, that may not be, may or may not be a felony depending on what was stolen. I don't

know how much the value of it. I don't know what it was that was taken, but here we go. Here's why wasn't anything ever done about that? Why were no charges? I mean, if I go steal some stuff, I'm probably, you know, if people know about it, I'm probably going to get charged. Right. Not here. So we've got. stalking, we've got sexual abuse, we have a history of violence, we have what looks like maybe, again I don't know alleged homicide, we've got theft. Number six, number six is what's in the legal system is sometimes called substance use coercion. Micah in one of her videos essentially says that JP forced her to take drugs,

illegal drugs by the way against her will. That's illegal. You can't drug people without their consent that's a felony why would he do that to control her of course if you roofy someone they have no they have no control of their behavior and you know you and i have talked about this before with day bell lorry valo day bell had a she had a pension for drugging people all the time without them knowing about it so here here it's not clear to me that this was done in a clandestine way This seems like it was more openly done that it was forced. Correct. So when you force someone to use illegal drugs,

and I don't know what they were, I don't know the details, Micah says it in her video, that's criminal behavior. Why wasn't anything done about that? So there's so many of these I'm losing track. How about let's the next part of that. If he's giving her illegal drugs, who's getting them? Is he getting them? So by getting, by getting and giving someone illegal drugs,

you're involved in the possession and distribution. You essentially become a drug dealer. Wow. Yeah. Right. You're involved in the possession and distribution of illegal drugs, which in almost every state is a felony, depending on the drugs. So he's doing that. Number seven, possession and distribution of illegal drugs. JP.

Where's he getting the drugs from? Great question. Why doesn't anybody pay attention to this, right? Like how many crimes do you? And again, okay, alleged crimes. How many alleged crimes? How many alleged crimes do you have to commit before somebody pays attention? Right?

Like, yeah, look at this. Look at this pattern. Put this together with coercive control. And then you get several dead bodies showing up. Oh, yeah. Of course people are going to be suspicious. How could they not be suspicious? If I read you, if I read you all of, if I said, hey, look, this is potential criminal behavior.

I'm going to read you eight things. You'd be like, wow, that guy's a sociopath. You might say that guy's a psychopath, right? I don't know, without even knowing him. And by the way, I'm not, no diagnosis here. I'm not saying that JP is a psychopath or a sociopath. We're going to talk a little bit later about potential issues in that area. But right now, I'm just saying that this list would be highly concerning to a lot of people,

except apparently for South Carolina law enforcement. They don't care. let's just blow out our tire, stalker, put tracking devices on her car, let's have her followed, let's intimidate her, no problem. But according to his ex-wife Allison, even though he was a convicted felon, law enforcement found a way to make sure he could be able to buy guns again. I mean, it's the opposite. Yeah.

Sorry. Oh, it's better than that. Okay. No, it's better than that. So again, this is an Allison, Allison Williams, half a day. David, he was able to, he started getting obsessed with guns, but he couldn't have guns because he was convicted of violence. He's a felon. Thelons can't own firearms in most states. Not to worry, the sheriff's office said, hey, you want guns, you can have guns. You know what we're going to do here?

We're going to expunge your record. We're going to get rid of all those felony charges. We're just going to throw them out. And by the way, when we do that, you can have a police, you can have an official police badge. Can you believe it? So they gave him an official police badge that says, pastor. You know why they did that? So if he's pulled over and questioned, he can avoid arrest because he has an official police badge. So not only did they get rid of the felony apparently by expunging it from, I don't know what databases, national databases, maybe that's why you and I can't find the crimes. Yeah. But they went further than that. They gave him an official police badge and said pastor, which apparently is a free pass to speed, to engage in reckless driving.

I don't know, whatever. I mean, so, so that's, that's, I'm sure that's part of this story. I mean, I know. People are talking about being a dangerous manipulator, but how manipulated do police need to be to say, hey, we're just going to expunge this from your record and give you a badge? Yeah, they gave him that special pastor badge. Right. And so, yeah, so the obvious question is how did that happen?

I mean, his father, Dr. Wayne Miller, who we haven't even gotten to Dr. Wayne Miller, but Dr. Wayne Miller apparently was arrested. We haven't seen that. He was allegedly arrested for soliciting gay sex in a state park. And according to Allison, Dr. Wayne Miller also sexually abused JP as a child for many years. He was also Dr. Wayne Miller, apparently father of JP, was engaged in multiple sexual relationships with congregation members. And as long as we're talking about this, by the way, why is it? I just want to know.

So he meets Michael when he's in his 20s. She's 14, 15. When teachers engage in relationships with their students, they're felons. When mental health professionals like myself, when we have relationships with our clients, that's a felony. It's a very serious felony. But pastors, do pastors have like a free reign? Apparently there's no laws. Yeah, that's what people are saying.

Someone actually said, Johnny Shepard just wrote, you guys don't understand. When you are a pastor and a prominent church in South Carolina and North Carolina, the cops will not go after you. Yeah, no, we understand it. We're just perplexed by it. We're definitely understanding it. Yeah.

Thank you, Johnny. Yeah, we understand it. I'm just, I'm infuriated. by it actually. I'm perplexed and infuriated by it because, you know, in my profession, not only what I never think about engaging in a relationship with a client, but it would be extremely detrimental to them. And here you have a pastor who's in a position of power, especially as Johnny points out, like in the South in particular where pastors are accorded a lot of respect. Pastors are in a position of power. Anyone, any adult is in a position

over power over a minor, but pastors, leading a church and a congregation have especially large amounts of power. No different than a teacher and students, no different than a mental health professional and clients, no different than a doctor and his patient, his or her patients, right? So this is another outrage. Yeah. So it's perfectly fine.

We're going to just let JP hit on 15-year-olds, even though there's an immense power differential because, you know, because he's, you know, he's a man of God. He's a pastor. He's a leader. He's, yes. As today and Forevermore writes, I grew up in a church in a youth group and it was always a girl's dream to marry a solid Christian man. I'm sure she was in the same mindset and couldn't see the forest from the trees, not just a solid Christian man, but the pastor. And I guess we'll get to this a little bit later, but I guess a big part of this equation is the fact that JP, the JP apparently has no problem with this, that he's not capable.

A normal pastor would recognize the issue and the power differential and have no desire whatsoever. Right, to coerce and manipulate a minor. But JP apparently thinks it's fine. No problem. I mean, I'm sure, by the way, if it's true that he was sexually abused by his father, I'm sure that plays a big role here. We'll talk about that later. But still, it doesn't excuse sexual abuse.

Never. Never. So let's get, and so as long as we're continuing with my criminal list, let's get to what I think is the most appalling one. Okay. And that is, I'm saving the best for last. Number nine. wait how many were there did i hit eight is this number eight emily said she loves that you've numbered

them so yes let's yeah we believe we're in number nine emily do you know a number dr john's on she's on she's gonna there's so many of them i lost track i think i'm in number eight so after possession and distribution of the illegal drugs any of these by the way would get people in prison for multiple years sexual abuse potentially gets someone sexual abuse with the minor we're talking at least in South Carolina, probably minimum of 20 years. Yeah. If you string all these together, holy cow. I don't even know how many years.

Oh, number nine. There's so many of them, even our listeners have lost track. So let's go with, I think it might be eight, but I'm going to say nine. I don't know. Well, as Mary Bear says, lay it out for us, Dr. John. There we go. So let's save the best for last. Here we go.

You're ready for this? So the term that you used, Lauren. So the term for this, the crime here, is called non-consensual pornography. The slang term is revenge pee. So you called it revenge P. The legal term would be non-consensual P. So after the divorce, this was big. This was shocking.

Yes. After the divorce, after Micah filed for divorce on April 25th, two days before she was deceased, JP posts, I'm not sure how many pictures, but he posted at least one, maybe multiple pictures. nude pictures of Micah without her consent. On the internet. On the internet for everyone to see. Horrible. That's a crime.

It is a crime. It's a serious crime. That's the type of crime that can get you listed on a sex offender registry. It's also a form of sexual harassment. It's a form of cyber bullying. It's a crime, by the way, that I've assessed a lot. And my work is a forensic psychologist. So when I heard and saw that, again, my first thought

is why didn't anybody show up at his house and put handcuffs on him? Right. And he admitted to it in the email door. He admitted to it. And the reason I did is because I wanted to hurt you. So why does someone do that? So we're still talking about course control. What's the psychological motivation behind non-consensual P?

Control, obviously, extortion, shame, punishment. It's intended to frighten. trap victims, and it's also clearly a form of sexual abuse. So again, this is the ninth, eighth or ninth I lost trap. This is the ninth crime that he's committed. This is a serious crime. He said, well, you know, I only posted it for an hour, so it's no big deal. Don't worry about it.

Nobody got hurt. Yeah, they did get hurt. And posting it for an hour is irrelevant. If you posted for two minutes, it's still a crime. It is. This is what JP said in his email to Micah later. He said, quote, it was evil of me to do that. So that's interesting.

At least the guy's admitting he's evil. Apparently, I was no problem admitting he's evil. That's interesting. And the other thing he said is, I just wanted to try and hurt you. Quote, I just wanted to try and hurt you. Yes. Right. Boom.

His wife. Thank you for giving us your right. real motives. Yeah. He wanted to hurt his wife. Right. So as Mrs. Smith points out, it's a form of punishment and humiliation. Absolutely. It's revenge. He's getting her back for leaving. He's getting her back for a lot of things. Arguably, he's getting her back for some of his childhood wounds too, but we're not, we'll get into that later. But getting back to my point, if I did that, I'd be right. I'd say, you know what? Yeah, arrest me. Like I shouldn't have done that that's a crime I know better this guy did it with no consequences how many crimes do you have to

commit I mean and so one of the problems here is that when you engage in this type of criminal behavior repeatedly with no consequences yeah you're going to have a really big sense of entitlement yeah this is a guy so here's where become here's where the pastor issue becomes really big I think let's start talking about the why a little bit why is he doing this the pastor part I think there's a big sense of entitlement, clearly. He's getting away with all these crimes, all these, you could say some of them are petty. I don't think so. I think they're all pretty serious.

But he's developing the sense of entitlement because apparently he can do whatever he wants in this community with impunity and have no consequences, including non-consensual P. Which anywhere else I'm aware, I don't, you know, maybe I'm not that familiar with the South. So maybe you can just like post that type of stuff left and right without any consequence. lenses, I don't know, but not in Nevada. You can't. But I think some of this, some of this has to do with what I would call moral superiority. But I think this is a guy who feels like there might be a line, but it's not clear where that line is. And as long as he can keep pushing that line out and he can stand behind how he's a pastor and he's a man of God and he's got all this moral superiority, I think that allows him to keep pushing the boundaries further and further.

Right. And so a lot of this, I think, is happening in this role as a pastor. And it's really kind of a part of this whole presentation of how morally is. For the normal person, you might say, well, wait a minute, what he's doing is the complete opposite of moral. And yes, of course, that's because he has no insight into his behaviors. He has no self-knowledge. He has no self-awareness. Because of moral superiority? No, because he doesn't know where the line is. Gotcha. So arguably you could say either he lacks a conscience, I don't know if that's true, or he knows that what he's doing is wrong to some degree, but he just wants to keep pushing the envelope because he's a pastor, he's got God on his side, he's got this sense of moral superiority.

So even if he's harming kids, somehow he's rationalizing that to himself. And he's saying, well, really, I'm just helping, I don't know what he's saying. You know, if he was in one of my sex offender groups, I would imagine somebody like, I'm making this up. I would imagine someone like that saying in one of my groups, well, you know, I was really trying to help those kids because I was trying to teach them about being an adult and I was trying to get them prepared for relationships

and, you know, why not, why shouldn't I lead the way? Right, that's the type of thing I would hear all the time. I am a teacher. I'm here to help them. Even though I'm sexually abusing them, you know, I'm showing them away into adulthood. I'm gonna make this easier for them when they get in their first significant relationship.

So that's kind of BS I would hear all the time in my group. And of course, a big part of my job was to challenge that. Those types of beliefs weren't going to go, they weren't going to go without some type of challenge. So let's, let's, now that we've covered kind of the, those areas and how shocking it is to me, that someone like this can just do all this without consequence. Let's start delving a little more into the psychological elements. This is JP giving a sermon and a sermon and eulogy for Micah. So this is after she's deceased and he's celebrating her life, supposedly celebrating her life.

I've been speaking for many years and for the first time. I don't really know exactly, you know, how to open or how to clucks or any of that. I'm just, you know, everyone knew how beautiful she was on the outside, you know, but only, I think a spouse knows how beautiful that person is on the inside. side. I want to take a few minutes to just kind of tell some stories and just share some things about Micah that he may have, that may, I don't know, shock you or help you get to know the more intimate side of her. It was beautiful on the outside. She had won so many beauty pageants, you know, when she was young and I won her trophies here where she won Saucas the idol. Let me tell you,

just to talk about how pretty she was on the outside. And when she went to one school, she won the, you know, Miss, whatever the school was, beauty pageant. And then her family moved, and she went to another school. And she won the Miss Beauty Pageant for that school, too. It was the first time in that county's history that someone won, you know, both the pageants. But it really hadn't hit me. You know, I've gotten to spend, as Christians, of course, we know she's not here and in heaven, and she's, you know, worshiping and enjoying.

and I hadn't even had time to look down here yet. But I got this blade next to her body and spent down with her body about four times this week. And each time it still didn't hit me. I thought she was going to wake up. I even tried to raise her from the dead one time this week. And that morning, actually, I went to the mall later. She had bought me this dog tag and the chain broke. So I went to the mall to get it fixed.

And I saw a female about that. 20, 30 feet in front of me, and she was wearing one of Micah's dresses, and she had the same tattoo that Micah has on her arm. Let's be honest. Buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy, or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door.

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But I can't wait to see her again one day. She would make me turn my cell phone off. And so I turned the cell phone off. And we would talk for hours and hours about, let me phrase it. She would talk for hours and hours and sometimes I would kind of not listen. I thought, oh, no, is she going to ask me a question? I'd get back in my mind to what we're talking about. And she would change subjects.

She'd go from one thing to the next. Imagine. Imagine being married to that. I don't know where to start talking about that. It's pretty wild. Let's start with, so this is a eulogy. Let's start with the fact that he says he's going to share stories about how wonderful she was on the inside, and then his story is that she won multiple beauty pageants because she was so beautiful.

Yeah. So he never talks about it. anything and that has to do with how she is on the inside. He just wants to talk about how beautiful she is, which presumably benefits him being a pastor. That's about his social status. Yes. He inadvertently mentions the term trophy, not referring to her, but the fact that she won multiple trophies and beauty pageants, which you and I talk about slips all the time. He sees her as a trophy. That's another part of, I think that's another part of what what's going on here. The problem that JCP has or the struggle he has is that Micah is

always threatening to leave him. He's overly controlling because he wants her to stay. He wants to feel safe. He wants to control her. So as part of this pattern of coercive control, he essentially wants her to stay. And he wants her to stay because to him, she represents social status. She's won all these trophies for being a beauty queen. She makes him look good. The problem with that is that's about him and not her, that he does see her as a trophy. He objectifies her. Correct. He's only interested in how she enhances his image. The real risk and problem here is that Micah constantly, or at least frequently, at least enough, wants to leave. She wants to reject him. She wants to gain back some of her autonomy. But he won't let that

happen. Because if he loses her, he's going to lose face, meaning self-esteem, and he's going to lose status in the community. The dude running around with the pastor badge that can speed without any consequence, he's going to lose status. And he doesn't want that. Right. But you can see here that he says he wants to talk about how beautiful she's inside, but he's incapable of that. Now in fairness, this is highly edited. There may have been moments we missed where he does talk about her inside, the beauty on her inside. But to start off your speech, your eulogy, and to say you're going to talk about the inside and then you don't, you talk about the outside and how superficial she is, I mean, he is, and how her image matters more than anything.

It's not a good start. He's starting the eulogy about him and not her. In fact, so he reinforces that. At the very end, he's kind of crying. It's a weird cry, by the way, too. very weird cry it's it's like a really shallow almost kind of inauthentic type crying i can't it's when i heard him crying i'm like what is that he's is he acting that's such a strange cry maybe that's just the way he cries maybe he felt like almost like a laugh too yeah so i don't know maybe he just maybe he's a shallow crier seems to me like if you lose a spouse that you truly truly love. And people express sadness differently, so I'll give them that. But it seems to me like you'd probably engage in kind of the deeper, wallowing, you know, chest heaving type crying rather

than kind of this hyena-like crying. It's really strange. I'm glad you don't cry like that. I'll just say. The last thing he says, then? What? The last thing he says? So this, this is how this is relevant to the beauty queen part of this the last thing he said just blew me away he says quote imagine being married to that yeah what imagine what so that what does that mean an object an object right imagine being married to that so this has nothing to do with her no he's only concerned about how she looks how people perceive her and how that benefits him. Imagine being married to that.

She can sing. It's like his eulogy is about her resume, or about her social standing or how she benefits him. It's crazy. I've never heard anyone in any eulogy I've ever attended saying, imagine being married to that. Crazy. So the last part of that I want to talk about is

he visited the morgue four times. Let's think about that for a second. Why is he visiting the morgue? That is so weird. Why are you visiting the morgue four times? And then he cremates her. Then he cremates her right away. Why is he visiting the morgue?

So Micah's family pointed out, by the way, and I don't know if they took pictures. I think Micah's dad said that he did have pictures, but he claims that Micah has defensive wounds on her hands and on her arms. You would not, obviously, you're not going to, in this type of behavior and something, harm you're not going to expect offensive wounds that would be highly unusual so why is he at the morgue four times right why in the world and he makes an excuse for it i went to the morgue because i just wanted to raise her from the dead well that that's the next part right he said he tried he tried one time to raise her from the dead what okay god right like look i'm not gonna say I can't diagnose this guy as a narcissist.

That would be unethical with me. But I mean, I don't know anyone who thinks they can go to the morgue and raise people from the dead that doesn't have some narcissistic features. This is Lazarus moment. Right. I can't say that he's, I don't know if he has a personality disorder or not, but I will say this. When you think you can raise someone from the dead,

you have some narcissistic features, no doubt about it. And that's his excuse for going to the morgue four times, because I'm pretty sure that's not what he was trying to do, in my opinion. But he says it is. Right. I think if you ask Micah's family, they'd say that he went to the morgue four times

to see the extent of her injuries. If she did have injuries, he was probably trying to assess for cremation. I would imagine, I could be wrong, but I would imagine that in his church, it's probably atypical to be cremated. Yeah. And a lot of churches in the South, my understanding is that you want the body to be buried

so that the deceased has a place to rest and write a grave. I mean, you can do that with ashes, but just to rush to cremation and visit the morgue four times, that's peculiar. Very. And that the morgue would let them in four times. It's just not a place you necessarily go to see your loved one over and over and over again. They did have a viewing. We could wait.

So at the very least, this is to think you're going to, you know, and there's no sense here, by the way, that he's joking about this. He's obviously being very serious. So there's clearly an element of grandiosity in thinking that you're going to raise someone from the dad. Yeah. And, you know, it's also very infantile in the sense that I think there's almost like this magical thinking that, and this probably.

has to do with all the criminal behaviors I pointed out earlier. There's almost this magical kind of childish thinking about like living in fantasy, thinking you can get away with stuff, thinking that you somehow, your mind can somehow, that your thoughts can somehow change or control the world. So you kind of have that here too. I think this is someone who probably lives in fantasy quite a bit and has probably some fairly childish qualities. And that by the way would go with, That would go, that would potentially go with the idea that he himself, JP, is according to Allison Williams, a victim of sexual abuse himself as a child. I want to talk about a few other things, interesting elements of statements from family, his ex-spouse. He said, he said in the obituary he wrote, he said that she would praise her husband, telling him he was the best preacher in the world.

So think about that. She, I guess, after sermons apparently, she had to tell him how great he was and that he was the best preacher in the world. I mean, talk about a fragile ego. So imagine your spouse telling you how great you were after every sermon and you become more and more abusive or whatever, you know, that he becomes more abusive or more controlling and she starts pulling away from that. He can't handle that, right? if she starts distancing herself from that type of praise, he's going to really struggle with that. So I think you have some of that too, that the more she starts dissing herself, the more he's struggling with that and the more controlling he's going to become because he wants all of that back.

He's got this need for perpetual validation, I think. When John and I finish our shows, by the way, we're going to end and I'm going to be like, babe, you're the best psychologist in the entire world. And then he's going to go, babe, you're the best reporter in the whole world. And I'm going to be like, no, you're the best. And then he's going to say, no, you're the best. Just kidding. We're not going to do that.

We're actually going to say, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and let's go get our child. Right. It's not typical behavior to tell your pastor, husband, that he's the best preacher that ever lived in the entire universe, right? I mean, peculiar. But again, that would speak to this grandiosity. that would speak to some of these potential narcissistic features in JP. Some other interesting elements of JP. On one visit, Alison Williams observed that, quote,

there were holes in their walls, the hinges were off the doors, and pieces of paper, check this out. Pieces of paper were taped to the wall with negative affirmations about Micah. So J.P. So she's telling him how great he is and how he's the greatest preacher that ever lived. and would ever live and even better than what was the name of the guy the baker what was the preacher that Tammy fay and something baker remember those guys oh yeah yeah yeah i can't i can't imagine he was a better preacher than that guy but but i guess she told him that you know that he

was so but think about this so she's she's praising him endlessly about what you know you know Jim Baker, thank you. Imagine him being a better preacher than Jim Baker, hard to believe. She's praising him endlessly, feeding him all this BS. And what does he do? He tapes negative affirmations about her on the walls. I would love to know what some of those say. I mean, you know, one of the interesting things here

is that the people that are, Allison Williams in particular, that she's claiming all this abuse, but she can't reveal it. I think she probably provided it to the judge, but she couldn't list it publicly. So we don't really know we don't know the details of the abuse my guess is it's probably pretty horrific But that's a you you really have to go out of your way so talk about like belittling someone talk about demeaning someone like

Yeah posting taping strips putting strips of tape all over your walls with negative comments about someone it's just unimaginable. I mean So cruel the level right so cruel the level right so cruel the level of coercive control there is... Well, even her, even his sermons had to do with controlling her and letting her know that she was mentally ill or that he was in control.

A lot of his sermons, there's been a lot of reporting on how every sermon each week was really kind of pointed at her to control her. The other interesting element here is that Allison Williams also said that JP would tell her that he had serious mental health issues. Yeah. Right? And so you have this, this isn't, this is quite common in these types of situations,

but you have this projection where he's the one with the mental health issues and he's saying she is. So he's projecting all of his insecurities and all of these unwanted qualities in himself onto her. So projection is a very primitive defense mechanism. It's a way to kind of disown parts of ourselves that we don't like. And it's primitive because it's very impulsive and it's very ingrained and it lacks any type of self-reflection or self-oferlection or self-oferral. awareness. And so you see that here. It's a way for JP to disavow any mental health problems for himself, to put those on her and to blame her for all of his problems. So clearly, if she's bipolar according to him or she has serious mental health problems, then that's why they have problems.

That's why he has to try to control her. That's why he has to stalk her. That's explaining everything. He's trying to dump all of that on her as a way to kind of get out of owning, you know, taking responsibility for his own issues. There's a psychologist, his name is Theodore Milan. He's well known. He's written books. He's responsible for the Milan personality inventory. And Milan talked about a type of narcissism.

And again, I'm not diagnosing narcissism here. I'm just talking about Milan's research. But Milan talked about something called compensatory narcissism. And it's pretty much what it suggests. The word compensatory means that we compensate for something. So what that is, what Milan describes that as, is when we suffer. for early wounds and betrayals in our childhood, we then seek to compensate for those wounds by seeking status and recognition and assurances of absolute loyalty and fidelity.

I think you have some version of that here, that this is someone who presumably, again, according to Allison Williams, detailed affidavit, that somebody who was abused, sexually abused as a child, and he's trying to overcome those wounds by becoming a pastor, which in his community he perceives as a high status position. There's a lot of communities where that wouldn't necessarily be true, but in his community it's true. And it works for him, by the way, because his father was a pastor,

so naturally he could inherit that position. It would give him a lot of credibility without really having to develop any skills. Pastors in general, I think, are, you know, I guess pastors have to have, they have to be good public speakers, right? There is a certain skill set. They have to know the Bible, presumably.

There is a certain skill set, but it's not necessarily one that takes a hearing. huge amount of education and experience to master, I think. But in the South, as people pointed out, it's a role he's able to find for himself that gives him a lot of status. And in that sense, I think it really gives him the vehicle to try to compensate for some of these

childhood injuries and childhood betrayals. And that's the theme. That's JP's theme is he's interested in how the community perceives him. He's interested in social status. And he wants to feel safe. At bottom, I think, JP is seeking, I mentioned this last week when we talked about the Madeline Soto case, but there's a similar element here. I think really his goal is to feel unconditional love.

He's just trying to find that in an extremely unhealthy manner. You know, and there's always a paradox in these situations because the more control you exert, try to exert over someone, the worse it usually gets. You're going to often have, you're going to often get the opposite effect. instead of letting someone grow and kind of find their own voice and their own path, when you try to control that person, you're just going to generate a lot of anger

and a lot of resentment, typically. There's an element of spiritual abuse here too. Obviously, you and I talked about a lot of that with Daybell, but this is someone who's trying to impose his beliefs about religion and God and spirituality onto the younger Micah Miller. That in many ways, I think, the reason someone like this can develop this relationship or at least persuade someone like

Micah to be with him is because of his belief system and because he's offering or something that she wants much like Debel much like Chad DeBell is offering Lori Valo DeBell you know quite literally the keys to the New Jerusalem or you know the post-apocalyptic world here I think you're you have a similar dynamic and that that JP not only has power or over his congregation and minors in his congregation, who Micah was when he met her. And I don't know the details of his beliefs, but he's able to take some of those beliefs and convince her that those are the beliefs she wants and that she needs to abide by. And therefore, he's able to really sell her on that and develop some dependency and really

get her to kind of idealize him, to see him as the perfect mate or the person that she's been looking for. And that, by the way, is extremely manipulative. Just like with Daybell, here it's extraordinarily manipulative. And I should say that's another part of course of control. I think those are kind of my main points. Okay. Excellent.

For tonight. Okay. Thank you. We have some questions. I know we don't have too much time tonight because you've been, thank you for all you shared. This is all just answered this one for Kristen. Where did Allison speak about the holes in the walls and negative affirmations?

That is in her most recent affidavit. Survivor saying that you should start a channel teaching women how to discern quality men. Well, that by the way is why Lauren and I watch Love is Blind and The Bachelorette and The Bachelorette. Right. That's what we talk about. We keep talking about for Patreon members. We keep talking about doing some episodes where we do some analysis of those types of dating shows. But thank you. Yeah.

Sometimes we'll have a favorite woman and we see that she's choosing the guy that is not good for her. We're like, no. Yeah. I will say that there's just a quick dating crash course here. I know we don't have a lot of time. but let's hear it yeah so if somebody if any of our listeners are going on dates and they're you want to try to discern whether the person is worth dating again my two main areas to look for would be number one does the person blame other people for all their relationship problems so

if you can ask about past relationships and see if the person automatically blames everything on someone else. If they do, get the check, have the person get the check, and leave right away, because that's a really bad sign. So blaming someone else for all your problems and taking no responsibility is unrealistic, and it's a red flag. And my second one is, does the person ask anything about you?

Do they show any genuine, authentic interest in you? So when you're having dinner, if you're on a date, a day and you're having dinner, does the person talk endlessly about themselves and how great they are and how they're the greatest pastor in the world? Or do they take a minute to say, how is your day? How are you doing? What is it that you're really interested? In other words, do they show empathy? So blaming is a primitive type of projection and asking about you and your needs and your interest, that's empathy. So quick crash course on dating in response to that question. look for someone to take responsibility for their lives and relationships and look for someone with empathy.

So empathy would have to do with kindness and the first one would have to do with self-awareness or self-knowledge. And yes, as some people are pointing out, there are absolutely some contradictions in people that are a little bit more manipulative. And that's not always the case. Sometimes the mask stays on a little bit longer and they know to fill you with, compliments and listen to stories about you. But if that changes in a few weeks, trust that the change is who they really were. Yeah, I'm not particularly worried about any psychopaths listening to this advice and adjusting their behavior accordingly, although I guess it's possible.

Right, right. Well, people are bringing up coverts and how they're really good at fainting. empathy anyway no yeah I agree but eventually the facade cracks they can't people that are capable of of real genuine empathy will they'll be able to sustain it whereas people that can't eventually they'll show their true colors so just keep at it that's why we have that's why most people date multiple times before committing all and I'll throw in my two two cents my Angela When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

I had to learn that the hard way because I wanted to believe that you want to believe that the person you fell in love with is who they are. But you know what? When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time when someone's mask slips, that's who they are. That's who they are. All right. I have a list here of these are. So Donald Mikeenbaum is a well-known psychologist. He was instrumental in kind of developing cognitive behavioral therapy with Aaron Beck and some other people.

But more recently, he's done research on violence. And he's actually the research director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment at the University of Miami. And he has a list, a very, very useful list of predictive, I'm sorry, predictive risk factors for domestic violence. And I think maybe I should read some of these. Please. So here's risk factors. So I would suggest that maybe our listeners dating or trying to find serious relationships, pay attention to these.

So here's the risk factors for interpersonal violence. According to Mike and Bob, who's done quite a bit of research in this area the last several years. Serious problems with impulse control. Aggressive and disruptive behaviors. Poor frustration tolerance. a strong sense of entitlement, concrete and rigid cognitive processes, problems with affect regulation, including a strong tendency towards anxiety and depression and easily irritable, a tendency to externalize and ruminate, feeling easily threatened and hurt, so in other words, low eagle strength,

feeling insecure and argumentative, again, poor ego strength, poor communication skills, struggling with a strong sense of inadequacy, again, poor ego's strength. They have rigid suspiciousness about the motivations of other people, in other words, paranoia. And finally, they show a tendency to develop dependent attachment patterns. So somebody who falls in love with you in the first five minutes, that would be a very dependent attachment pattern. So I know there's a lot of, those are a lot of risk factors.

It's interesting to note that I think a lot of those apply to the current situation we're talking about. So I don't know if that would help. But those are some of the risk factors I also look at in assessing recidivism for violence and specifically domestic violence in the future. Brian is asking if you can elaborate what rigid cognitive function means. So, yeah. So rigid cognitive processes are someone basically who's close-minded, someone who has a very narrow mirror of the world and they're unwilling to change it.

So close-mindedness, rigidity and thinking, seeing the world in a particular way. So this might apply to people that are very ideological or over-religious like JP. Yeah, so that's what that is. And obviously, a concrete cognitive process is someone who's extremely literal about the world. So someone who thinks concretely, for example, they might say that the Earth is flat because clearly that's all you can only see. You can only see, right, you can't see that the earth is rounded. You can only see that the earth extends in a way that appears to be flat.

That would someone whose cognitive processes would be very concrete. For those that are asking, there is a domestic abuse hotline [phone] safe, which is also 7-233. There's also a way you can text as well. I just wanted to share that. So in other words, someone is saying no dating flat earthers noted. It's one way to look at it. Well, keep in mind that concrete thinking is only one of the risk factors. So if they have none of the other risk factors, then maybe a flat earther.

It might be peculiar to date a flat earther, but I wouldn't totally rule it out. Give them a chance. Yes. Maybe. Maybe. Ivana, I agree this should be a two-part podcast in my humble opinion as well. So we will probably conclude. But what do you think about Micah driving an hour away and calling 911 before things happened? People are crying if you want to say to be continued for another time or if you'd like to say. Yeah, why don't we say that? I think I should point out that we're just at the very beginning of this case. I think there's a lot we're going to learn. If any family or friends want to reach out to us, we'd love to talk to them.

You know, we really want to make a difference on this case and we want to do a deep dive as much as possible in the same way we did with Daveau or some of our other cases we really invest in. And ultimately, I think we'd like to advocate for changes in the law like Micah's Law. We'd like to get behind that. And we'd like to have course of control become more widely acknowledged within the judicial system. And I think, by the way, Micah's law, so Micah's law is about enforcing course of control, but I'd like to see stalking. I'd like to see some other issues that are equally problematic.

And stalking I mentioned is one of the highest risk factors for intimate partner homicides. So I think the enforcements for stocking and protection orders and all of that can be enhanced in almost every state. All right, everyone. I say we conclude now. And thank you everyone for being here. Dr. John, do you have anything else you want to say before we conclude? Not particularly. Did you have any final thoughts? Maybe I'll leave you with, since you did the video. Oh, just, I don't know, I guess my final thought would be Micah's post from March 22nd saying that if you haven't seen Lauren's introduction to the case, please go watch it because Micah posted a video on Facebook that's very moving where she essentially

says abuse is abuse and it's not acceptable under any circumstances and then she lays out all the types of abuse that she apparently was subjected to so I think I agree with Micah abuse is abuse and it's it's never acceptable and you know I guess I wish we could live in a world where that was more widely acknowledged and enforced yes that That's what we need to remember. The abuse is abuse. I would like to just end by saying, Happy Father's Day to you.

Thank you. You are the father of our little guy. And although I did request to John that we celebrate next week, I said, it's just a Hallmark holiday. Can we just celebrate next week? And you obliged. And then you somehow saw what I bought you. And why I wanted to wait.

I thought I had delivered. deleted it from the email, but you got the notification that I bought you a hidden true crime hat because you've been wanting one for about four years. True. Every week I talk about getting a hidden true crime hat and I never get one. Yeah. Yeah. So Lauren finally took it upon herself to buy Hidden True Crime hats. So I'm excited about that.

So I can, I run around in a lot of hats. I wear hats all the time, but I don't know why I'm not, I want to wear our hat. So thank you for doing that. Yeah. Thank you, Paula Marie. Be kind, folks. Watch out for one another and help people who are struggling. All right, everyone.

Have a great evening. Happy Father's Day. And, yeah, justice for Micah. Yep. And we'll continue. We'll keep, we'll, we'll keep. digging deeper into this case, and there's a lot we have to learn, and I'm sure a lot of information will be coming out, and we'll weigh in a little bit more, obviously, on whether

we think that was self-harming behavior or not. Yes. And yeah, I want to also say thank you to the citizen journalists when it comes to this case, because citizen journalists, I think that this shows this case has shown the positive side of the true crime community and what they have uncovered in this case when law enforcement perhaps wasn't doing enough. But now, you know, there is a possible investigation going on by the FBI. So thank you, everyone. And until next week, we'll see you. Good night. All right. Good night. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about

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