Law&Crime Sidebar - Truth About Pastor’s Wife: Mica Miller Case Reignites

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

A new Netflix documentary has thrust the tragic death of Mica Miller back into the national spotlight, detailing the troubling circumstances surrounding her life and marriage to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina pastor John Paul Miller. While her death at a North Carolina state park was ruled a suicide, new details and a federal cyberstalking indictment against her estranged husband have sparked renewed outrage and questions from her loved ones. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks down the shocking revelations exposed in the docuseries alongside Mica Miller’s attorney, Regina King.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson, Heather Berzak & 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/lawandcrimeTwitter: 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.

Making sure that my heart doesn't have any own forgiveness, bitterness, resentment, just forgiveness and hope for the future and peace. You can't put a price on peace. A young woman committed to helping spread the Christian gospel takes her own life and park far from loved ones. This was a loss that sent shockwaves throughout the community. And it turned a critical eye on her husband, Pastor John Paul. Miller. And now, with a new Netflix documentary dominating the streaming charts, we are examining

these shocking allegations from family and friends right now. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. The death of Micah Miller, a young pastor's wife, is back in the national spotlight, and that is thanks to a brand new Netflix documentary called death of the pastor's wife. This quickly shot to number one on the streaming platform. This is a three-episode series that examines how she met her husband, John Paul Miller, J.P. Miller, what she apparently revealed to friends and confinants, and what allegedly happened in the days leading up to her apparent decision to take her own life. We have been following this case very closely here on Sidebar since this happened in 2024, as her family has voiced concerns

about whether Micah's death was truly self-inflicted about the suspicious circumstances surrounding her tragic situation, although to be clear, and we will get into this, no one has been criminally charged in connection with Micah's death and the official findings are that she did do this to herself. But today, I want to take a look at the new revelations or the shocking revelations from this documentary, as well as the details that maybe have been left out, okay? But first, I got to give you background. Oh, and I have to also tell you something, too.

This has been a very big case for us here on Sidebar. We've been covering a lot of big cases, too. And what we've done is something different. Since we can't show you every line from every document or every piece of footage, we have the case file section on the Law and Crime Plus app, okay? This is where we open up the evidence vault so you can inspect the raw body cam footage, the 911 calls, the crime scene photos, the full trial tapes all firsthand. Plus, you get ad-free streaming of all your favorite law and crime and court TV shows.

You can see the full picture for an entire month free, by the way. Head on over to longcrimeplus.com, enter promo code sidebar, and you can start exploring all that today. Okay, background. April 2024, 30-year-old Micah Miller calls 911 from Lumber River State Park in North Carolina. This is across the state line from her home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She tells the dispatcher that she plans to end her own life and wanted first responders to be able to find her body to alert her family.

Robinson County 911. What's the address of your emergency? Hi, are you able to trace the location of my phone? You don't know where you're at? And National Park. Tell me what's happened. I'm about to myself and I just want my family to know where to find me. Now, Micah's body was found by a kayaker. It was determined she had a gunshot wound to the head.

unshot wound to the head. So that was on a Saturday. And despite receiving such horrific news, her husband, okay, J.P. Miller, decided he still wanted to preach on Sunday. And according to a video of the service that was played in the documentary, he seemingly acted totally normal throughout until he decided to announce at the very end that his wife, Micah Miller, a beloved member of the Solid Rock Church was dead. I got a call late last night. My wife has passed away. Yeah.

It was self-induced, and it was up in North Carolina. Yon knew that she wasn't well mentally, and that she needed her medicine that was hard to get to her. So, as you can imagine, the congregation and community were left stunned. And now the question became, what had been going on? What had been going on in Micah's life that she would think her only way out was self-harm? It's the question at the center of this docu-series. So I want to dive into what we learned from the documentary.

Micah Miller and her five siblings moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with her mom and stepdad when she was in her teens. They started attending the Solid Rock Church. And that is where she met John Paul Miller, also known as JP, a man twice her age who served as a pastor. Micah's sisters told the documentary crew that out of all of them, it was Micah who seemed the most connected to her faith, that she knew from a young age that she wanted to be involved in the minnesota. ministry, that she loved to sing, that she was chosen to be Solid Rock's worship leader at just 16 years of age. And at the time, Micah was dating another member of the church, Jeremy, the two got engaged when she was 18. John Paul officiated the wedding ceremony himself at Solid

Rock. And around the same time, Micah was apparently brought on as J.P.'s assistant at the church. She even started nannying for his family. J.P. was married to a woman named Allison. They had multiple children together. And according to friends of her, family, Jeremy, Micah, J.P. and Allison would spend a lot of time together. They even went on double dates. But not long after, a life-changing secret came to light. John Paul and Micah had apparently been having an affair. And so they both chose to divorce their partners. Micah, JP, officially started dating. Family members said in the documentary that J.P.'s alleged obsession with sex started to come out right when J.P. proposed. They claimed that Mika had never discussed having a breast

augmentation before, but suddenly decided to have surgery. According to what J.P. allegedly told her family, she had a bad reaction to the anesthesia, had some kind of mental break. So she was institutionalized, diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That's all from the documentary. Now, Micah's family claims that J.P. used that diagnosis, as well as religious doctrine, to allegedly exert even more control over his new wife, who he apparently married just days after she was released from the hospital. And the documentary showed portions of sermons that JP had apparently given to the solid rock congregation over the years. And you can arguably spot kind of a theme in his preachings that a wife should always submit to her husband, no matter what, to be considered

a good and godly spouse. And the documentary also, included these entries from some of Micah's own journals where she chronicled her struggles with John Paul what she apparently considered to be her own moral failing so for example Micah made note of several Bible quotes from the book of Ephesians Ephesians 522 submit the authority of husband Ephesians 533 the wife should always honor and respect her husband Ephesians 531 leave family cling to spouse submission to spouse reflects your love for God and according to Micah's friends she revealed that she and J.P. would have sex four or five times a day. That if she resisted or turned J.P. down, he would allegedly go out of his way to essentially

terrorize her, doing things like not allowing her to sleep, sending barrages of text messages. And the documentary also revealed allegations that J.P. forced Micah to take testosterone injections in an effort to help her keep up with his sex drive. The testosterone apparently changed. her voice made it difficult for Micah to lead worship like she had in the past. Again, that's according to those who knew her. J.P. sermons at Solid Rock featured in the docu-series often revolved around kind of this sin of lust. I mean, according to J.P.'s preachings, if a wife didn't submit sexually to her husband, then it was basically guaranteed that he was going to go looking for sex outside of his marriage.

I read your quote here from one of his sermons, quote, Ladies, Wives, if you don't meet your husband's sexual needs, Satan will put 20 different options before his before the day's over with. And it turned out, JP himself was apparently straying. Because according to the docu-series, it was revealed that he was allegedly having an affair with another married woman in the congregation, Susie Skinner, although there seems to be kind of a pushback on whether this was happening after Micah died or not, but there was an allegation that he was having an affair with her.

When Micah apparently discovered what was going on, she vowed to divorce him and moved in with an older woman from the church who she trusted. During that time, J.P. allegedly talked about his wife and her mental health struggles during his sermons. At one point during his sermon played in the documentary, he apparently asked the congregation to pray that Micah would hit rock bottom so she could finally start to heal. Now, meantime, Micah was reportedly working to get a restraining order against her husband. And a handwritten affidavit seemingly exposes some of these horrific allegations, these things that Michael, reportedly was going through. So in addition to the alleged injections of testosterone, Micah also claimed that JP had shown nude photos of her to members of the church,

that he had paid homeless people to join them for threesomes and perform sex acts on Micah. That was a stunning allegation. In her journal, Micah reportedly wrote, quote, I was 13 years old when I met John Paul Miller as my pastor. Since the day we became husband and wife, I have been abused in every. every way I can think of, emotionally, sexually, spiritually, financially, and physically. And Micah often posted photos and videos to social media and posted this update during this what appeared to be tumultuous time between her and JP, her leaving JP and when she died. Look at this message.

Hey, everybody. I just want to let you know that I'm alive and well. And life's been kind of crazy. a couple past weeks, months, years. But I've kind of had to keep my circle really small for the past couple weeks, just because I'm going through a lot and it's hard. And it's my cross to bear. It's the thing that God has put in my life to deal with. and I don't want to bring a lot of people into it.

Now again, I have to say it. It is important to note. John Paul Miller has never been criminally charged or even officially accused in connection with Micah's death. This was officially ruled a suicide by the medical examiner. John Paul was reportedly miles away in Charleston when Micah died. By the way, this conclusion that Micah intentionally took her own life, this comes from a May 7th, 24 statement from local authorities, the local sheriff's department. It says, quote, based on surveillance.

footage, interviews, physical evidence, and the examination of the North Carolina medical examiner's office. However, despite that, supporters calling for justice for Micah claim that J.P.'s treatment of Micah practically guaranteed this heartbreaking ending, that he was responsible. Now, here's the thing. JP has not been criminally charged in connection with Micah's death. However, he is currently facing federal charges, something. the docu series mentioned at the very end, and I want to get into that. So one of the big revelations

in the documentary was that when the FBI obtained a search warrant for J.P.'s home, they used Micah's biblical counselor, this woman she had reportedly confided in, to lure him away from the house. According to the documentary, JP had allegedly reached out to her before trying to get his hands on notes that she had taken during her sessions with Micah, and the counselor had refused. But now she claimed she had some info she could give to him. And when he left home, that's when the FBI swooped in, collecting computers and electronic devices. And in December of 2025, John Paul Miller was indicted on two charges, cyberstalking and making a false statement to police. And in the indictment, we believe that Micah is referred to as victim one.

Count one, cyberstalking. Here's what the filing says. The grand jury charges that beginning on or around November 16, 2022, and continuing through on or about April 27, 2024 in the district of South Carolina and elsewhere, the defendant, John Paul Miller, with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, victim one, used interactive computer services to engage in a course of conduct that placed victim one in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury and caused attempted to cause, and the course of conduct would be reasonably expected to cause victim one substantial emotional distress to Witt John Paul Miller sent or caused to be sent unwanted and harassing electronic communications

to victim one. Used or threatened to use nude videos and photographs of victim one to harass victim one. Posted a nude photograph of victim one online without victim one's consent. Placed or caused to be placed tracking devices on vehicles used by victim one. Placed victim one or caused victim one to be placed under surveillance with the intent to harass and intimidate victim one. Damaged victim one's vehicle. Interfired. with victim one's finances and banking and interfered with victim one's daily activities. Then you got count two, making a false statement to law enforcement. Quote, the grand jury further charges.

He falsely claimed victim one had been calling him more than he called victim one on March 11, 2024 when in fact the defendant, John Paul Miller called victim one at least 50 times more than she called him. He falsely claimed police had never told him to stop contacting victim one, when in fact the defendant, John Paul Miller, was told on March. 11, 24 by a police officer with Horry County Police Department to stop contacting victim one. He falsely claimed he did not damage victim one's tires or caused to be damaged when in fact the defendant John Paul Miller used or caused to be used a tire deflation device in victim one's tires.

So after the indictment, John Paul Miller wasn't arrested. He was issued a summons to report to the courthouse. And since that time, his court appearances have been pushed back again and again and again with the latest update being this pretrial conference scheduled for October, although look, could potentially be continued as well. We'll keep a careful eye on that. But now I want to talk about this. So to talk more about what Micah was going through at the end of her life, as well as the reaction to this new documentary, I want to bring back on Regina Ward, who had represented Micah for a period of time, particularly with her situation with John Paul. Good to see you, Thank you so much for taking the time.

So you were featured in this documentary. What was that like? What has the reaction been like to this new series? Talk to us about it. Yeah, so I was obviously dishonored to even have been asked to do that. But I think that it was important because obviously I was her, you know, I'm a divorce attorney. And that's what she retained me for. So I had the evidence that she left with the world.

So it was a great honor to be able to speak on Micah's behalf and to share that information. And it was just something that we had to sit on for a long time because it was in the makings and trying to keep that quiet. But it really was something special. It was extremely emotional as well. And so far the feedback, I've had people, you know, sending me different things saying that I did a great job. They were very happy about how I handled John Paul Miller on the phone call. So that seemed to be a big hit with everybody. Can you expand upon that?

What you mean by the phone calls? Yeah, absolutely. So he, on Monday, after Micah had passed on that Monday, he started calling my office before we even opened and left messages on my voicemail. So my receptionist picked those up and she said he's left some messages and I'm like, just put him in the system, I'm not going to return his call.

Well, and true John Paul Miller fashion, he was incessant, continue to call and call and call. It's driving, you know, my staff crazy. And so every time he would call, I would say, no, not now. And so then got to a place where they're like, are you ever going to take, what do you want to tell the guy? And I said, well, when he calls next time, I'll take the call. And then the other thing was he was asking if he could have a refund of whatever trust account money that she may have had, which was just absolutely, you know, just showed where his priorities were. And then he blurted out, you know, that he felt that I, you know, was not, I guess, talking to him in a fashion.

He thought that I should be talked to him. He got the very clear message that I didn't buy his narrative, wasn't going to buy his narrative. And he said something to the effect. Mike and I had a wonderful marriage. And I said, that's a lie. You know, that's just a lie. And so when you're dealing with somebody like that that's trying to spin a narrative, which which I was never going to buy.

And in fact, he had actually called my office before Micah trying to retain my services. And I didn't take his case and didn't even meet with him. And in fact, didn't even know that he had called in until later on some things happened and said, you know he tried to call in here. It's like no. So anyway, I feel like that he knows my stance against coercive control, abuse and abuse in general. And in that phone calling him, calling constantly, it was really the undertone was really that he wanted to get to me to see if he can manipulate me into believing his narrative.

So I just shut him down right away and just let him know that that just wasn't going to happen. Did you learn anything about him, about Micah, about the story from the documentary that maybe you didn't know before? That's a really good question. And I don't think so. There may have been a little bit more detail on maybe some of the farther back history of Micah, but most everything there, I didn't, I don't recall seeing any. And I was like, oh, I didn't know that. Mm-hmm.

I thought, you know, for a lot of viewers who are not familiar with the story, one of the things that's come out, and I just was hoping you could expand upon a little bit more, and it's making the headlines, is this allegation from Micah's siblings, and it was made in this documentary that John Paul Miller had involuntarily hospitalized her on at least one occasion. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that allegation? Yeah, absolutely. allegation is true and he did it more than once.

I can't remember the exact number of times. And I think that the documentary kind of showed a little bit of that, but he did that more than once. And it's a classic coercive control tactic is to, you know, weaponize the legal system against the victim and to weaponize medical care against the victim too. So anytime that she was trying to, it looked like she was getting strong enough to walk away from him, then that's when you would want to turn around and slap her in the hospital.

just so he can let her know that he's got control of her and that, you know, and that he can do that. And he did it more than once. And by the way, our understanding is you turned over piles of information documentation to the FBI when they were investigating J.P. Miller. Did you see any direct correlations between what you handed over and the charges that he now faces? Because as I mentioned before, those federal charges came up at the end of the documentary, too. Yes, and absolutely. I felt like the factual allegations in the indictment actually didn't track everything I gave them, but everything that was in the indictment was supported by something that come from my office. By the way, do you know what he's been up to in the months since he was federally charged now that this documentary is coming up? Do you have any knowledge about his whereabouts, his activities? Because it's our understanding that the Solid Rock Church building was sold.

I'm not sure if he's leading another service. Do you know anything about what he's up to? Yeah, from what I understand, and you know, people report things to me all the time from the community. He had developed another church, a very small church and like a little strip mall type of thing. So, and he renamed it, and we're not going to give him a plug on that. But he has a really small church that he's been having services at, him and Susie, you know, his new wife. They've been doing that together. They still are seen around in the local community in Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach area. So it's just been going along with his life, you know, but of course the conditions of his bond is there's an ankle monitor.

So he can't leave the state of South Carolina. And he also, you know, had to surrender his passport, so his travels are shut down. But he's just, you know, it's kind of just blows the mind. I mean, a normal person would go into hiding or move somewhere. not stay in the same town where all of this stuff, you know, occurred. But not him. He sticks around. But now that the documentary is out, I'm curious to see what's going to happen at that point. Because it's one thing to have the whole local community on you and the local news and some, you know, folks on the internet and stuff.

But now when you put it in front of 90 million plus subscribers of Netflix, that's got a whole new spin on it. What do you hope comes from this documentary? Number one for me is for people to learn what coercive control abuse looks like. Whenever I offer, you know, a definition of it, I always feel like it just kind of lands flat or people go, mm-hmm, that sounds horrible. Well, when you watch the documentary, I'm hoping that people walk away, and I've gotten this feedback, but people are walking away going, dang, gum, you know, that is horrific. And I'm like, yeah, but what you don't understand is this was condensed into,

three, you know, 40, 45 minute episodes, when Micah underwent the same type of relentless behavior for years, her entire 20s and all the way up, you know, until she was married to him and so forth. So specifically, of course, I want the law passed in the state of South Carolina. And at this point, I'm hoping with this kind of coverage that, my goodness, maybe we'll get a law in every state in the United States that criminalizes this behavior as it should be. What kind of gap in the law is there just to be just to be clear? What gap is missing? Well, so the biggest thing is whenever you're married,

and if when you're married and the property that you own, even if it's like, oh, the husband always drives this car, the wife always drives that car, and they tend to look at it as my car and their car. But when you're married in the state of South Carolina is considered marital property. So if you want to damage your own property as what the law looks at, You know, if you want to put razor blades in your tires and you want to, you know, slash up seats and drop dumbbells and key your car, you're welcome to damage your car or you want to. So it's not recognized that that you take it outside of it's not a marital property. It is a form of harassment and stalking and, you know, those types of things.

And the law is not, it needs to catch up in South Carolina. It's still archaic that, you know, violence leaves marks. Coercive control doesn't leave marks on the body, at least an indelible scar, lifetime, traumatic scar on the brain, on the psyche, and on the self-confidence of a person that's a victim to it. Before we wrap things up, I just want to go back to something. The way the documentary starts is, I mean, it talks about the death of Micah. When you go back and you think about your last conversations, whether the last time you saw her, and then you hear the news about what happened to her. What do you look back on? Do you say, you know, I saw something like this coming.

It came out of nowhere. Were you shocked? I'm sure just watching that is really difficult for you. But I'm just curious when you go back to that moment in time, you know, what was your feeling? Yeah. So whenever I found out about it, of course, I 100% did not believe it. I was shocked and just wouldn't register for me because when Micah was in my office, I was. And remember, I've been a divorce attorney for over 20 years. I've seen all kinds of things, you know, and people in different places. And I can usually tell if a client comes in and they're contemplating, leaving, or they really feel like they want to, but they're really not all the way in it,

because they're still uncertain because most people want to continue to try to save their marriage. But Micah had reached that final place, and it was very obvious to me that she was confident in the decision. It was exactly what she wanted. She had already removed herself from him. She wasn't living with him. She was in another place. She had gotten a car that was, you know, he had nothing to do with that he couldn't interfere with. She also had gotten another job.

So he wasn't manipulating, controlling her pay as working in the church like he liked to do all the time. So she was really gaining herself confidence back and standing in my conference. And I'll never forget as long as I lived, her being so excited about her own future because she'd already found, you know, her long time calling from the Lord, as she put it, was to go into mission work. And she was so happy to go and try to build a school in Africa. And so for someone to appear healthy and to appear emotionally stable to me, outside of sadness that's commonly associated with the end of a marriage, I just didn't see her as someone that would have happened to, that she would have been contemplated.

That was just surprising to me. And plus, you know, she was making plans, you know, and it just doesn't make sense. Still doesn't make sense to me to this day. I know that we don't have her anymore, but I still just can't believe that she would have done that to herself. Regina Ward, thank you for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you. And I always want to say, I just appreciate your show so much. I feel like that you and your staff, when y'all get together, you all really get the story right.

And I'm very appreciative of that and keep doing the great job that you're doing. Thank you for saying that we definitely try. This is a big update. This is a big event in Micah's story. and we wanted to definitely have you on to talk about it. So thank you so much, Regina. Thank you. You have a great day. I appreciate it. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X Instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. I'll see you next time, everybody.