Law&Crime Sidebar - Mica Miller 'Scammer' Makes Stunning Confession in Case

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

The family of Mica Miller, the young wife of a South Carolina pastor who took her own life earlier this year, was horrified to learn that someone purporting to be helping the family with fundraising was actually stealing the money. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber spoke with Cassie Mincey, an admin of the So Called Mess TikTok group, about how the news came out and the fallout since.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/bf10 and get a $10 bonus on your first purchase, this is a Cyber Monday special, one time only, $10 cash back bonus on your first purchase!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I lied about the fact that I sent the money to the family that was raised. I had used the money to my personal situation. Every time we said, justice for Micah, I just want people to know that we meant it. The family having to go. through this on top of everything else, I cannot imagine. In a shocking twist to an already heartbreaking story, a member of a fundraising group that raised

thousands of dollars from Micah Miller's family has confessed to pocketing the money. Yeah, what was meant to support Micah's family through tragedy was instead spent on alcohol and personal debts. Just a devastating and horrible situation. And I'm going to talk with one of the members of the fundraising group to try to understand. And what happened here? Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

What you imagine something for a second? There's an online auction, and it's set up to provide some level of support to a family that is grieving the loss of their loved one, only to come to find out that that auction is hijacked by a scammer who pockets the money. Yeah. And who does this center all around? Who has been victimized? The family of Micah Miller, the 30-year-old woman who died by suicide earlier this year.

So before I even get into what happened here, I got to catch you up on this story if case you don't know it. So Micah Miller died in April, and her death was ruled by authorities to be a suicide after she was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Lumber River State Park in North Carolina. And this was, by the way, just days after serving. divorce papers to her husband, Pastor John Paul Miller. And despite this, Micah's family and friends believed that her death was really just a tragic

result of years of emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband, John Paul Miller. Now, again, these are allegations. Her sister, Sierra Francis, has been quite vocal in criticizing Miller, supporting Micah's claims of manipulation and control. Micah allegedly accused Miller of grooming her at a young, young age, starting from when she was just 10, manipulating her through their involvement in Solid Rock Church. Micah also alleged that Miller had orchestrated her hospitalization to steal her car,

posted a nude photo of her without consent, tractor movements using hidden devices. Essentially, these accusations paint a picture of a woman trapped in a very controlling and scary relationship who was trying to break free. However, as I said, these are allegations. To be clear, John Paul Miller, including through his lawyer, has a very important. adamantly denied having any part in Micah's death. In fact, it was confirmed he was hundreds of miles away in Charleston when Micah died and he has never been arrested or charged in connection with Micah's death. However, we know it was a bit odd when he announced her death during a sermon

at his church. And we also know that the legal issues for him have continued, including an assault charge after an altercation with a protester and an FBI raid on his home in October. By the way, we have been trying to stay on top of every update in the Mike Miller story for you. And with that, I have to thank Upside for sponsoring this episode of Sidebar because they help to make shows like this happen. And right now, they have a special Black Friday promotion, which has been extended through Cyber Monday. And Upside's great. It is a free app that gets you cash back on daily essentials like gas, groceries, food. So when I put my gas now or when I go to lunch, I can use the free Upside app to potentially get cash back.

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bf 10 now let's talk about what's happening So as Micah's family is working through their loss, they're trying to process what's happening here. There is a group of well-meaning community members who came together to raise money for Micah's family. Okay, the fundraiser was headed by a woman named Susan Nelson, a member of a popular TikTok group called So-called Mess. Now, Nelson, who took on the role of the bookkeeper for the group, organized multiple online auctions in an Etsy store to sell items in Micah's memory to raise money for the family. The items included handmade keychains, t-shirts, craft goods. They were promised again to generate funds that would be sent directly to Micah's family.

All good, right? This is a good thing. Here's the problem. Over the course of the fundraiser, Nelson raised approximately $11,000, maybe a bit more. But instead of using the money as promised, she ends up spending it on personal expenses. You see, the turning point came in July when Micah's sister, Abigail Francis, learned of the fundraiser, and she asked Nelson to see the records of the donations, hoping to confirm that the funds were actually going to the family. So Nelson apparently gives Francis this spreadsheet, which claimed that a little over $11,000 have been collected, but the expenses were listed at a whopping over $6,000.

So Francis suspected something was amiss, something was wrong, confronted Nelson, and that is when the web of lies began to collapse. And at first, Nelson, she made excuses for where the money went, but then she finally admitted she spent the funds to avoid losing her home to foreclosure to fuel her personal alcohol addiction. She used the money on other bills and expenses, including sex work, again, all unrelated to Micah's family. Now, before we go any further on this, I want to bring on a special guest. I want to bring on Casey Mincy. Now, Casey is the TikTok creator of that group that I mentioned, so-called mess, and we're going to get to the bottom of what happened here. So Casey, thanks so much for coming on.

Really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this. And I just want to start by asking how you even became involved with these fundraising efforts, what made you decide to form this group. Let's start there. Well, I actually live in Myrtle Beach. And my husband and I own a print shop. And we actually did the printing for Solid Rock. So my husband knew Micah and John Paul and Tricia. And I found out about it pretty early on, pretty much a few days after her passing.

And I had already had a TikTok account that, you know, I had about 27 or 28,000 followers. And I wanted to spread the word. I wanted to bring awareness to her passing. And that's how it kind of got started. What was your relationship like with Micah before we even get into? to the issue here. I mean, what was she like? What were your interactions with her? What were your interactions with John Paul Miller? For me, I never had any interactions with her. Um, my husband, my husband did printing with her for solid rock. Um, and yeah, so he knew her through that. Um,

he also went to the same school that John Paul did when they were younger. Um, but yeah, he, um, we just did printing for them. Um, she was a wonderful person. Um, it was quite shocking to find out of her passing. And of course, we found out about the morning after when he did the sermon. And that was quite shocking to hear the way that he announced her passing. Yeah, that has gotten a lot of attention and started a lot of what we're seeing. So you start this group, you're raising money for the family. What was Susan Nelson's role?

And who is she? I had never met her. until I started going live on TikTok. She came in and she came in wanting to do a website for me. That was the main thing that she was offering to do, but she also came in with a pretty extensive background. She said she worked for USA Today News. She said she had ran multiple fundraisers for other causes.

Everything that she had done in her past seemed quite credible. And that's kind of how it started. She offered to make t-shirts for the family. She got in contact with the family and they gave her permission to do so and that's how it started. And after she started to do the t-shirts, she started to bring on ideas for other things. And with her background being what it was and we looked into it, it all seemed credible. Everything, you know, that she had done was out there and it was, we found proof of it and it all seemed, you know, a little too good to be true. but we had no reason to not believe that it was.

I mentioned before this spreadsheet where it listed how much money was collected versus the expenses. Had you ever seen that spreadsheet before? Not until the very end once she was caught. See, she was the one that facilitated all of that and it was kind of I just hosted the fundraisers on my TikTok live. She, of course, with her background,

she insisted that she knew. what she was doing. She insisted that she didn't need any help. She had already done this multiple times before. So mainly what me and my group would do would be to help facilitate that on my life. So, you know, we would run the auctions and we would try and keep track of what was going on. It wasn't until the end once she was caught. We did see the spreadsheets. And that's one of the things that brought up red flags from, you know, at that point was things didn't seem to add up. We were not understanding how you raise this much money, but it costs this much money to produce. It just, it didn't add up for us either.

Talk to us about that moment. The moment you find out that she's, I mean, taking this money, essentially stealing it and using it for personal benefit for all these kind of personal expenditures. What was your reaction? How did you find out about that? Well, we started getting a lot of reports from people that. were not getting their items. And it started out little bits at a time and we would reach out to her and she would give great excuses. She always had an excuse for everything. But it got to the point where so many people were coming to us and saying, hey, we didn't get this. Excuses weren't

adding up. And it was, we finally started to question her more and more and put a little bit more pressure on her. And at that point, she started to get really defensive. And those were a lot of the red flags that started and it wasn't until she had said that she sent the check to the family and it was about a week later and we were pressing her well did the check get sent did the check get sent and it was well it was attempted to be delivered she said she sent it through her an accountant and that they sent it through certified mail and then it was attempted to be delivered and I said well did you reach out to the family and make sure that they were there to get the check oh I

didn't know I was supposed to do that and I'm like how do you not know that you're supposed to do that. You're a professional at this. This is what your background is, you know? And then it was, we were like, okay, well, can you at least send us proof that you sent the check? Well, that's when she forged a fake email. And she had on it Thursday, Sunday, September 12th. And September 12th was actually a Thursday. And at that point, we were like, why does this have the wrong date? And she admitted. And it wasn't until the next next morning, she finally confessed to everything. By the way, you mentioned the excuses she gave for not delivering the items to people.

What were those excuses? Well, she would say, well, I sent those. I sent them last week or I sent him. And it got to the point where she would say, well, that's already been delivered or that thing was already sent. And I gave them a tracking number. Well, we found out later on, there were fake tracking numbers sent to these people. so yeah there were a lot of excuses and a lot of things that just didn't add up have you been in contact with myca's family as all this has been going on yes yes we were in contact pretty early on

i was in contact with them before um she offered to do the t-shirts and the other things um i made it very clear to them that i wasn't the one that was running in i made it very clear to them that I had someone who had a history with Ruth running fundraisers and the one that, you know, had the Etsy shop and everything and got them in contact with her. She was actually the one that helped them set up their nonprofit. So she had contact with them as well pretty early on. And before I even get into this TikTok video call, because I'm going to play some clips from it, what is their reaction to all of this? How are they doing for all of this? Um, their reaction was shock.

I mean, as anyone could understand, um, frustration, shock, uh, confusion, uh, because I, I am the host of the live. I am the content creator for the lives that hosted it, but I wasn't the one who handled any money. I wasn't the one who handled any back end, you know, type of things. it was it was sue she had history of this and so i mean it it was portrayed to be our group but it really mainly was sue we just tried to help her in any way that we could and we had no idea yeah and and if anybody didn't know that that it was all on her there's this tic-tok video call that's set up and nelson through tears confessed to taking the money i lied about um the fact that i the money to the family that was raised. The money was around 10, 11,000, and I had told them that

I sent the check for about 5,000, which was minus the shipping and all of that stuff to the family when I did not. I didn't have the money. I had used the money to my personal situation, and I'm here to own up to my mistakes, my whatever. I've got other issues that I am seeking help for and she continued to explain that she had initially intended to use the money as promised but instead she made this really bad decision to spend the donations when her personal financial troubles just seemed to escalate it just it trickled from one thing to the next to the next to the next and i didn't set out with that intent i never did why would i set out with an intent to be malicious and steal and still create items and spend all the time doing all the things i mean that was

never, it just, it was a situation that I, I did. I have, I did it. I mean, I have no problem. And while Nelson claimed that she never meant to hurt anyone, what happened? Her actions led to a lot of damage, both financially and emotionally. We, we all got connected because of Micah's story. And we have felt for her family and what they've been through. And the last thing we ever wanted to do was hurt them. Now, Casey, what led to the making of this TikTok call when Nelson confessed? Did she know that she was going to get on there and confess? Is that what went beyond that?

What went behind that? Well, once we caught her with the fake email, she tried to be very adamant at that point. I do have the money. I just not sent it yet. Well, come to find out the next morning, we just kept pressing her. We're like, okay, where's the money? And do you really have the money? And it just got to the point where she she couldn't lie anymore.

And so she admitted that the accountant that she said she had didn't exist. She admitted it all. And it's quite, you know, she did do what she did and it's awful, but I will give her credit for coming clean. She didn't have to do that. And she did, you know, she admitted to her wrongdoings and told the truth eventually.

And you, I mean, How did you get her to agree to a TikTok call? That's a public forum and she's crying on this and saying how wrong she was. We got on a call with her and I told her. I said, you know, this was done publicly. We were on public lives. There are hundreds and thousands of people that donated money. We have to tell them something.

So I'm going to have to go public and let these people know what happened. I can't just let this go push it under the rug. And I said to her, I said, You know, after everything that you've done, the least you could do would be come on this TikTok live and tell everyone what happened and let them know that it was you, that it was not me. My name has been thrown under the bus. My name was ruined because of all this. And thankfully, she agreed to that. And I want to talk about that because you yourself took to TikTok and you, I mean, it was an emotional moment.

You expressed your disbelief at what had happened here. And I just want to show our viewers just a quick portion of that. We had been lied to. We had been used and made a fool. I was so upset to find out someone that we all trusted had betrayed us so bad. After everything the family had gone through, after everything that everyone had gone through, trying to find justice for this woman, do you realize how hard to. this has been. I was an absolute freaking wreck that day from staying up on phone calls for all

hours of the night where I was trying to get the truth out of someone, someone who used my name and my platform and all of us as a means to commit fraud. And we heard some very raw motion from you there you expressed in your video when you found out this happened. Can you walk us through what was going on your mind then I mean what what what went behind that video what were you trying to convey to everybody who's been following you um it was to find out that someone could deceive people the way that she did was one thing but the fact that she stole from a grieving family that was and and not just I stole the money, but to take the money and to do with it what she admitted that she did

do with it, it was disgusting. It was very, very sickening. A lot of us on the call, we had to take a break. We were sick to our stomach. We were very, very emotional. It was, and then to have to go to the family and say, hey, we've spent months and months fighting for you, but this person took all of that. It was very emotional. Are there any efforts to get the money back? She made every excuse in the book. She said she was selling her house. She claimed that she had a Pell Grant that she was going to donate. She even went so far as to have a friend of hers be an advocate that was supposedly supposed to pay the money back. And within a week or two, that advocate disappeared. So, I mean, I would hope that she will pay the family

back, but it's not looking very likely. Now, based on the reporting, it seems that Nelson is not facing any criminal charges. I don't believe police have ruled out opening up an investigation. Do you know anything more about that? I do know that me and my group and we did tell everyone who did donate. money, even a dollar, to report it to the FBI. I know that we did contact her county as well, and they sent us directly back to the FBI. So I can't say for certain that any charges are going to be brought on her, but she needs to be accountable. She needs to be held accountable for what she did. And in terms of Micah's family, I read that as of October 6th, they only received

$180. Do you know if they're receiving any more money? Is there a number? Is there a number? another you know fundraising effort that's being set up to help them in any which way um i do not know but i do want to clarify the 180 dollars there was a woman who came onto our lives um and she wanted to make earrings that were like the earrings that michael wore in the pawn store and the ring camera footage their little bird earrings she made the earrings and she donated them to me um she then asked me to sell them for $20 a piece to the viewers and to donate all of that money to the family. And that's the $180 that the family got. And that's the only money I ever had access to. And that was not a part of the fundraiser that Sue had set up. Well, Casey, look, I'm happy you came

on because I don't want anybody to believe that you had anything to do with this whatsoever. I'm really happy you set the record straight on this. And look, you know, this is a really really unfortunate situation that happens at times. It shouldn't, but it happens. And in a time when really the family isn't such a need, and they're already dealing with such a traumatic and heartbreaking situation, I'm sorry this happened. We will see where it progresses. But I'm, you know, I'm really happy that you had at the time to come on and talk a little bit more about this. Thank you. In case, I'll ask you one more question. You know, some would say the most important question in this. How many cats do you have? Because my goodness, I see them all throughout

in the background. I was counting them. Do you have four? Five cats. My goodness. Fantastic. They wanted to come on. They want to be stars on the show. I love to be in here. Yeah, little little tension grabbers are over there. But no, it was great seeing them. But listen, Casey Mincy, thank you so much. And by the way, just I'll let everybody know if they want to help in any which way, whether that's through your network or whichever way, what can people do to support you and support Micah's family? If there's anything they can do right now.

Just keep spreading the word for her case. Definitely, if you wanna donate, please go to Waymakers website, donate through there. And yeah, just keep supporting the cause and keep spreading awareness for Micah. Casey Mincy, thank you so much. Thank you.

All right, everybody, that's all we have for you. right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. Apple Podcasts or Spotify.