CJ SPIRAL: Mica Miller

Come spiral with us as we recap the biggest true-crime documentary right now, "Death of the Pastor's Wife." The takes are hot, the eyes will roll, and Ashley and Brit will be trauma bonding as they reach back into their churchy upbringing to decode some unhinged religious takes. And of course, Ashley is coming with a bunch of information you won't get in the documentary that might help make sense of how Mica Miller ended up at Lumber River State Park in North Carolina on April 27, 2024.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  If you know me, you know I love stories that make me go, wait, what? The kind that stop you in your tracks and send you straight down a rabbit hole. And my friend Delia Diambra tells stories just like that on Park Predators. Every Tuesday, Delia investigates true crime cases that unfold in the world's most beautiful places. From national parks to hiking trails, she reveals the shocking crimes, mysterious disappearances, and unsettling encounters hidden beneath the postcard-perfect scenery. If you're ready to discover what's beyond the trailhead, listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  And I'm Britt.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  And today's episode's gonna be very different. This is a bonus episode because I just need to talk about what I just watched.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Um, so badly that you texted me, Alyssa.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  My sister.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  And Kate.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Who works here.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Who works here. Uh, at like nine o'clock at night, after nine, and said, ahem, nine twenty six. My evangelical gals, all caps. Did the Lord magically sync her phone? OMG, I'll believe in God again if he redirects all his energy out to out dirty pastors. And Alyssa goes, what are you talking about? And then you disregard that question and go straight into JP arrived at the scene. The pastor's wife on Netflix. And she goes, stop, I haven't watched it yet. I also hadn't watched it, but I was like, oh, my God, I know this case. This is the Mica Miller case.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  I, the pastor's wife just dropped on Netflix. I stayed up till like.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  It's like the death of the pastor's wife is like the actual title or something.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  So this is the story of Mica Miller, who is alleged to have taken her own life in April of 2024. Like, I stayed up, binged it till like midnight. It was a school night.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Everyone else is apparently like going to, going to bed.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  But I could not look away. This case is unbelievable, and I know it's what everyone is talking about. So many of the Crime Junkies are talking about it. I wanna just have a discussion about everything that was in this documentary. And also, I couldn't help myself. I, in 24 hours, have just gone on a rampage on the internet and found everything that I think the documentary also left out.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  So I just wanna, I wanna talk to my best friend about this doc.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  Well, especially because like this case feels very close to home because you and I both grew up together in an evangelical, non-denominational church.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  It, trigger warning.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  There was a lot here that was like familiar and terrifying, I think is the best way to describe it.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  So, trigger warning to my evangelical gals. And also spoiler alert to anyone who hasn't watched this. So you can either, trust me, even if you stay here, you're gonna wanna go see this for yourself, or you can go watch it and come back. But let's, enough, I just wanna dive in.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  So Britt, I have to be totally honest. I have been, like, I know Mica Miller's name. I have been kind of following it. One of our reporters had even like reached out to her family and was like, we were gonna cover it, but they couldn't really talk, which is when we kind of put everything on pause. So I was never like deep, deep, deep into this case. I knew, I knew the allegations. I knew she had bought a gun. I knew.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  You had seen like the announcement from the platform of like him, right?

• 3:28Speaker 01

  I'd never even fully watched that. Like, I saw all the news reports that came from that.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Where, where he basically said, you know, my wife, she was mentally ill. She, what, self-induced, like, and, and I knew that she, again, like I said, I knew she had gone to buy a gun. I knew she had called 911 so they would know her location. And, but I also knew that there were a lot of questions.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  But I, I wasn't fully aware of what all of those were. So when I jumped into this doc, I truthfully.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Kinda got in cold.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yes, and didn't even really know, I know Mica Miller's name.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  I, I didn't even really register, like, who is the pastor's husband? So, yes.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  So, so when. When she gets married.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  When I, yes, so, so when I go in and I like, as soon as she starts at this church and I see John Paul, I, you know, I'm like giving myself my own commentary. And as soon as they like brought him on screen, I was like, yep, creep. And then she gets married to someone else and I was like, I, do I have it all wrong?

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Is my radar broken?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  It's not.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  It's not. And then, and then I marked it, it was like, oh, 12 minutes and 30 seconds in, nope, I am correct.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Because Micah gets married really young to a guy she meets at church. They're like, are working in the church together. They get married really young. And she is working at the church and working really closely with John Paul, JP, who is the pastor at the church, who has been her pastor since she was 13 or 14, I think.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Young, very young, yeah. And he put her in, like, very, very close to him, like, she, which I'll get to later when I talk about like kind of some of the stuff I found. It seems to be a little bit of a pattern, like, so not only were they close as a couple, like, he was married to another woman at the time, she's married to her husband. They like go out all the time, even though there's like a big age gap. But like, this is the dynamic that when you and I grew up in a church, like, isn't that weird? I think it would be strange now, thinking about it, as like an 18-year-old and my boyfriend-husband, to be like hanging out with a couple that's 15 years older, but not in youth group, for some reason.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  No, and like, I, when I was watching this, I was like, I also, I also, like, to be clear, was in the church for much longer than you were and was much more heavily involved for much longer than you were.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Cue pictures of you like on a stage, hand in the air.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  When she, when it's like, in the documentary, they talk about her being in like this leadership role at the church when she was 16. I was put in the same leadership role at my church when I was 18. So like, I'm, it seems incredible and unlikely when you're watching it in the doc, but like, I was like, oh, I know exactly how that happens. I know exactly, like, also like what it feels like to be that young and to get that much responsibility in this place that you love and care about so much, and how much of like, an honor and a responsibility that feels like.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  To do anything to keep it.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  To do any, yeah, like to do anything to stay in that role and to like, something that came through the doc, like, I'll probably talk about it a million times, is how much she cared for people. Like, Micah truly loved people, honestly, more than I do, or ever have. And like, she wanted to keep that role so she could keep helping people. Like, that truly was her heart through it all. And knowing, like, not even knowing, but like assuming how much she had to like give up of herself to be in that role and to keep that is, like, I'm gonna start, I'm going to cry in this episode. I'm just gonna tell you guys that.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  But like, it seems, like, it seems wild to watch it, but like, as someone who lived it, it's not unbelievable to me.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  One of the questions, uh, I don't know who asked me this, but they were like, I don't understand how there's so much video. And I was like, they're like, is that normal? And I was like, oh, yeah, for some reason, like, even in the church we grew up in, like, they document everything.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, and like, I think the, like, logistically, the reason is like, so you can either like reference back to it when you do Christmas next year, or to like, be able to distribute it to help other people, right? Like, you record sermons so that you can share sermons. But like, it is something that, like, there is a lot of footage of churches, especially nowadays.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Treasure trove.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Having so much video footage.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  I think, A, what I, okay, first of all, the first thing that I saw that I was like, oh, this one might be hard for me. The banners? Did you see the banners in the back of the church? And I was like, we had that, our God is King one. I was like, do all the banners come from the same place?

• 7:57Speaker 00

  If you, if you like, watch the whole documentary, and like, I've obviously watched it a couple of times now, but like, the banners move in the buildings to different places. And like, towards the end, when they're in like a, like the last location that they show the church meeting in, like, it's a much smaller room, but the banners are still there. And I'm like, we could just have not packed these. I don't know, that's just me.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  The banners, the worship songs, it was like a soundtrack to our youth, like, I.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  There's a lot of songs that I recognize, for sure.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And the sermons. I think, perhaps, if someone comes into this documentary who did not grow up the way that we did, these sermons seem, oh, yeah, and this, by the way, this episode will probably be explicit, so. Uh, I don't think we're gonna have time to bleep, but this, they will seem bat crazy.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Because they are.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  However, I was like, pretty sure I heard that growing up.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Yes, and I will say yes and, they mentioned the documentary, they have like over 500 downloaded sermons of footage of this guy talking. And we saw, I think I counted like four or five, maybe six total actual sermons, not funerals, because we do see footage of funerals that he does. Um, and so like, I think the important thing to remember is like, yes, these are all bat, but these are also selections that are especially bat. There's 1,000% some crazy stuff in the other 500, but like, if you sandwich this sort of like interesting content in between things that seem very benign, it's really easy to not realize what's happening. Does that make sense?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I get what you're saying. At first, I thought you were saying like, oh, it's probably, I was like, wait, girl, no.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Like, like, this is one sermon.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  It's, it's two minutes.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  It's two minutes of one sermon.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  In a 40-minute sermon, in 500, yeah, exactly. And what I find, though, is the, the ones that they show, it's what is so clear as you watch the documentary, is like, he is preaching to, who, to her.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  To her.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, it's less about what the congregation takes away, and I'm sure he wants everyone to think the way that he thinks.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Well, and someone in the documentary even says, like, he said before that like he only teaches on things that he himself is experiencing or is struggling with.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he is trying to, so much of what you see Micah struggling with as they like show her journals and stuff, is this idea of like, uh, he is anointed by God, I want to follow God. And he, anointed by God, on the stage in front of everyone, so it's not like he's just telling me this, he's telling everyone this.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  So it's not just, it's like, it's good, it's, it's something that can help everybody, including me.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Is how it's being presented to her.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  So it starts off, like, we get, we get like little ones first where he's like, oh, you can still be in love with your spouse and still battle lust. And I was like, okay, you're saying that because clearly there's.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Cause that's, cause you are.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Are battling, right. But then it gets like, like, it goes on from there. And like, I don't know if you wanna go like episode by episode, so I like, I won't get too far away, but I have like, I have like selected the couple of sermons where I am like, he said this out loud, and nobody stood up and walked out.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, in episode one, so we get a little bit about like, not a ton of background necessarily on both of them. I think it starts with a little bit or whatever, but what we find out is that like, once this affair happens, so him and, him and Micah have this affair. JP and Micah have this affair, they're both married at the time. It comes out and Micah and her husband get divorced and.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  JP's wife, Ally, is having none of it. Like, she's out.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Amazing on her. And he like cannot handle being left. And we get this moment in the doc. And I think this is the first one where I'm like, what? Hang on, I actually have to play you. So the same way I frantically was texting you.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  I was desperately looking for any of, anyone in my life who was watching this documentary.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  And I was texting like our reporter Mads, Brianna. And Brianna and I at some point.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Brianna in a completely different time zone, so she was still awake.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yes. And so I was like, she started sending me voice notes. I just need to play it for you because she, the first voice note I got was about the same moment where I'm like, what am I watching?

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I'm almost done with episode one. But like, what was that cellphone video of John Paul like on the ground outside of the car? Like crying.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  What was that? That was so weird.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  I.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  It's also like, on like a production level, weird. Like, who's shooting it? When is this? What, what's happening? Who is he talking to? Why is he on the ground?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Who's like, he's like, I think they were saying Mark's coming. Who's Mark? I.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Well, we know, we find out who Mark is. That's like the best man.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Don't even start on Mark.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  We know Mark. But like, the woman across the street has Mark's number. Why does she have Mark's number? Cause he doesn't have it.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Why are we video cheating?

• 12:54Speaker 00

  There's ants in his eyes. There is a lot going on in this video. And like, they never explain it.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  I know. I told her, I was like, I needed a three part documentary on.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  On that clip.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  On this clip. We don't like go into it. Was he like intoxicated? Did he fall out of his car? Like, but I think, what I think it shows that we will get later and later is like, his extreme way that he will like be the victim.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Right? Like, this is about him. Like, he had the affair. But he'll do anything to get his family back. Spoiler alert, he does not get his family back.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Now, one of the things that is said in the documentary is that apparently JP was like, now that they're getting divorced, there are, you know, a lot of people like loved his wife. They're hemorrhaging members. And so what you see happen is him and Micah end up getting together. I don't know the ins and outs of their relationship. But you can, what you can see happening, so I like, I don't know who said what or whose idea, whatever. But like, I think at one point she's like, I want something good to come of this. And I wonder how much, like, once we know later, how much control.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  And how much coercion and manipulation he was using in their lives. How much he was saying.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  We have to.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  We could turn this into something good.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what he ends up using later is like, is if she does anything, the whole church will fall apart because of her. So is there a moment when he's like, oh, we, we have to stay together?

• 14:21Speaker 00

  It's the only way to stop this bad thing from happening.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  This affair is what is breaking apart the church. Only the marriage can bring it back together. So they end up getting together and it is the perfect example of how everything seems picture perfect online.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Like the proposal on the beach with the banner and she's over the moon. And like, they seem incredibly happy.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  But I think even from day one, things were not what they seemed.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  No, like in my opinion, they almost couldn't be.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  We get a little bit more in episode one as well of like his, his sermons, right? And about the way that he's talking about himself. One of my favorites was he was like, God's seen everything you've done, everything you're going to do. And he's already forgiven you. Wild foreshadowing. Spoiler alert.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  It's like, it's fine. God has forgiven him. And then he has this other one that like, I like, I feel like most of my moments were just like listening to him preach. I'm being like jaw on the floor. Cause he has this other moment where he says that when you commit adultery on God, he keeps pursuing you and loving you every single day. And he liken salvation to marriage. And this is at the point, I think, when Micah, and I don't know how early she realized, but at some point is realizing, oh, he is running around on her, just like he did before.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Like, to quote Euphoria, is this play about us?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. And so, but again, he's like using his, his pulpit to just spew this stuff. Okay. So the moment that everything, I think, changes and takes this very dramatic turn into where we will end up a couple of years from now, is apparently she has this breast augmentation, which her family thinks maybe she got just because of him. I have no idea why she chose to do that. But there's this, I was going to say insinuation, but it's pretty blatant in the doc where they, they say, or someone is saying that.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, they basically, I was going to say imply, but you're right. They say that.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  The anesthesia.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  There was a reaction to the anesthesia and she like began having like psychotic episodes. She was going in and out of psychosis from the anesthesia.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Which I have like 400 questions about.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Because we really, to like prove this, we really get one video that he is taking of her where she, she isn't making sense.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  No.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  But it's strange because like there is another moment in that first episode where you can tell she is taking a video. And it's like, by the way, this is something that like I've seen people do in really toxic relationships is they'll like record themselves video, audio to like playback later.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  To prove to themselves what's happening.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because the other person will like make them feel crazy.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. Gaslight them.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Right. And so like the first time we see this like moment, she's not recording. She's just.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Kind of talking to him and.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  And sounding off.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  And like, you can't even really tell if she knows she's being recorded in that moment. Like the phone's kind of like off, the shot's kind of like off to the side. And like, she's not acknowledging.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Like that she's being filmed at all. But the second time that you're talking about when she's filming herself, she does acknowledge like, hey, yeah, go ahead. Double film me like if that's what you want to do.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Which I think is interesting that we don't have like her.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Her point of view.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Her version, we have his, which is the like encapsulation of.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Everything.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Entire case and like the entire last few years of her life. We have his version.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Because of him.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Like, that's very, very obvious.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  So at some point, like this is 1856. And this is like what I couldn't believe in the documentary. He has her involuntarily committed.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Which I know you can do.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  And we see some of the medical documents that do state that she's like seemingly delusional. She's having like hyper religious speak. Like there are things that indicate she has seemingly had some break with reality.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  How she got there, why she got there. I have a, like I said, 400 questions about. But she gets out of there. They get married.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Six days after she gets out.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Which is like, but because he had a time plan. That was the other thing they said, like what, once they like decided they were going to be together, apparently he gave her some kind of like.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  He was like, we're going to get engaged at this point. We're going to be engaged for this long and then we'll get married. And like her being.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  I wonder if like, I'm going to have you committed was like in there.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say her being institutionalized like could have thrown off his schedule and that was not going to be okay.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Not today. The vows I thought were interesting. Did you clock those?

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Uh, she's, they, one, they, she said that they had gone in with a plan to give each other five promises. And she could only come up with one. And her promise was to give a hundred percent of everything she does, a hundred percent of herself, a hundred percent of her encouragement. This is like a kind of broad quote to him.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Everything I am, I give to you. His was like different.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  And I don't even know if we heard all of his.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  I don't know if we heard all of it, but I did take notes.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  I see that.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I'll strive to continuously lead you to Jesus. So she needs to be led. I promise to always support your enthusiastic personality.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  Which is like, timing wise, interesting because he just had her committed for like, kind of that.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  And it's not even like, like, I love it. It's like, I'll support your enthusiastic personality. He'll remain faithful, loyal, encouraging. Spoiler alert, no. And he's going to strive to love you the way Christ loved the church. He'll try.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  That was like his best thing. She's like, I, whatever, I just couldn't.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  I agree. I also will say that like, in hindsight, those are all like really vows.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  But in the moment, in that environment, those vows are super normal. Those vows are super normal.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  I know.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Like I, I like want to be like really clear that we are watching a documentary and we are looking at it like a decade or more out of the church.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  I don't think those vows would have given me any red flags.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Not at the time. But her fam- I mean, her family-

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Her family was not thrilled.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Because they had more background, but and this is where, yeah, no. The vows by themselves don't, and to your point of the same thing with the sermons. It's like when you're in it and you're living it. I think this is what can be so hard to like spot abuse in someone else. Is like you from the outside get these like tiny moments where like-

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Something feels off.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Smushed in between everything else. You're like, well, everything else is like, what, that's a must just be like a weird them thing.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  And maybe the vows aren't even that, because like I agree with you. In the church, that wouldn't have registered. But like, this is when after they get married, I think their friends start to get those weird moments. Like the-

• 21:17Speaker 00

  Well, and her, she, and I told a couple of other people this after I watched it. Like, I am so proud of her for how much she talked to her friends.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Because, I mean, you and I see it all the time in episodes where like abuse and coercion and manipulation is happening. And the person experiencing it never says a thing.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  And you find out from their diaries or you find out from their recordings. And you don't, you don't find out any of that until it's, it's too late. And like she, she was already doing that, but I can tell you from experience, saying those things in that environment.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  About your, of the pastor.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  About your husband, the pastor.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Impossible.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Incredibly brave for her to say the things that she said to anyone. Let alone, we have like three of her friends at least, plus her, plus her family. Like, she was saying things that like, I know are really, really scary to say in any environment from the work that we do. But like in that environment is honestly almost unheard of.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  I know. And I don't know how, how long it took her to get to that point, but like she does start to drop these little things. Like right at one point, she's like, I'm not allowed to like get out of bed before him in the morning. And again, her friends are like, well, that's-

• 22:31Speaker 00

  That's kind of weird, but like your relationship, you guys do you.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then it starts getting more concerning where she's like, we have sex every single day, sometimes multiple times a day.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  And if it doesn't happen, he finds it somewhere else.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Every day?

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Which is like, all of her friends were like, girl, you okay? Like, it's wild.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  And I think that like, I think he must have known that she was starting to share because, or, or this, I mean, we see this in so many abusive relationships. But like this idea that we get in the documentary where he, she talks about, one of her friends talks about how she's not allowed to like hang out for more than like two hours. Or three hours. And he starts, because he'll start calling and calling and calling. And I think, I was thinking about like what that is, is like, I don't think it's that they want to be with them. It's like, in, in an hour, everyone's catching up, right? Everyone's talking, but like the more time you give them to share and share.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  It's a comfortable level. It's like when my dad would like let us rough house and he's like, okay, but after 15 minutes, like you're going to hurt yourself because you're going to get too comfortable. Like, you're going to like push the limits because you're in this place of like, you're in the zone.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  And you will push yourself and push yourself until someone gets hurt. And like, that's essentially the same thing, but emotionally, like he, she's going to be so comfortable that she's going to open it up and it's going to expose him.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Or she's going to, also she's like, the longer you're out of the bubble and you-

• 23:49Speaker 00

  The more you realize that what your, your life is weird.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that like, oh, wait.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  That's not okay.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  You and your husband, your husband doesn't make you have sex with them every single day? Oh, your husband doesn't make you like, oh my God, maybe there is something. Like, I feel like it's wrong, but I'm being told it's not.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  The affirmation that like-

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  This is-

• 24:06Speaker 01

  It's so much of why someone in a relation, they'll give you whatever excuse they want to keep you away from people.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  It's isolation.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  But yeah, isolation is for a reason. Put the excuses aside, go out, go beyond the bubble is what I would suggest to people. Spend more time outside and I think you realize what's happening inside is not right. And I think more and more that was starting to happen for her. Now, at some point, the relationship, like it had to have looked good from the outside, right? Like they're getting married, people are happy for them, her family's showing up to the wedding.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  The church seems to be doing like well.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it starts like really deteriorating. And it seems like that began to happen, at least the way they position it in the documentary. Because he starts pushing her more and more. Whatever was happening before in their marriage, he gets to this point where he's pushing her sexually. And like, it feels like this breaking point was when he was like asking her like, you know, if you had to kiss any of your friends. And like the way he does this made me want to crawl out of my skin because she's like, what? I know, no, I don't, I don't, I don't. But he pushes and pushes.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  And finally, she says a name of like a very close friend of hers and then he flips.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  The way he put her and him in a group chat with that friend was psychotic. And it's like, the way he tried to like control the story of like, okay, I'm going to put you in this friend and I'm going to talk about how you're crazy and you're leaving. And she's like, I just wanted to go see my sister.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Like, what are you talking about? You're acting crazy and it's like you, again, and it's all about God, like you're not being godly and no man would stand for this. It was unbelievable. And she's starting to move more and more away. And this is when we get like the first, I don't know how much violence she was experiencing. But the first thing we see in the documentary is like, there's a point where he threatens to come to her sister's-

• 26:06Speaker 00

  With a gun.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I think what he says is, I'm armed and ready. In the documentary, I think they show an image of a gun, so I'm making, I'm making the inference. And there is talk in affidavits later about him purchasing guns to go and shooting. So anyways, unbelievable. And so this is where we get that violence that's being threatened.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Right, because up until now, it's like psychological, emotional.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  That's all we know about.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  That's all that we've seen in the documentary at least.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  So we really end episode one at that point.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  I was hooked.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  So episode two, we open with, you know, this like beautiful sermon where he is talking about, obey those who have authority over you because no authority exists without God's permission. And again, this is a theme throughout. God has anointed him, God must have given him authority. And this is the thing that I'm like, I don't know why people believe. Because like also in the Bible, it's like beware of false prophets. And so like, I want to make sure that comes through.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  This, I watched this documentary the first time with your sister, which was-

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Oh, did you really?

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, we watched it together because like you came, like you had texted us the night before. We came into work the next day and you were like, we should, we're going to talk about this. You guys should watch it. And we're like, well, why not? So we watched it together.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  And that was something that we both like paused and we're like, so this is kind of like an auroboros, a snake that eats its own tail, right? It's like, you're anointed by God because God told you you're anointed. So you're anointed by God because you're like, it, it was really hard. And I think this might be like a good time to like, talk a little bit about what a non-denominational church is. Like-

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  Like, to a certain extent, in this non-denominational church, that's all he needs, right? Like, is the belief that he is anointed by God to do this. In a lot of non-denominational churches, there isn't necessarily an like governing body that like specifically ordains or teaches and trains through a program. Like, there are a lot of churches that are non-denominational that like are kind of just started by people and stop.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Well, and that's-

• 28:19Speaker 00

  And like that, I don't, I don't know JP Miller's like theological seminary educational history, but like-

• 28:29Speaker 01

  I got some too. It's coming your way.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Which is why I didn't Google. But like, I know that like, we both kind of sat there and we're like, you know, like he's saying this and he's, because he's saying it, he's proving it. And that's really the only proof we have. And in this sort of culture, that is a lot of times all there is and enough.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  I, yeah, so like we, and we'll get to this a little bit later because we, we, it kind of gets revealed, I think in episode two or three, that like the structure of their church is just like-

• 28:58Speaker 00

  Oh, I have that written down already.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Bro, it's a business. Like you own a business.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, because we're going to get ahead of ourselves, but yes, essentially. And I can talk more a little bit to that as well.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  But I, but yeah, so it's not like there's this like, this body of people who have decided that you are, God has told them. No, God told no one but you that you-

• 29:19Speaker 00

  And like, maybe there are people in your life who have supported that like feel of calling.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  That would have been his father.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Which we can talk about later.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Which I will get to in the documents.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  But like there, there are likely like people affirming that like feel of calling on his life. But like, as far as like, were there like things he, boxes he had to tick to get there? I would guess not really.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  So obey those who have authority, God only gives authority, a wife should always honor and respect her husbands. And he basically is like, and it's not just honor or respect, because what all these become about is-

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Sex.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Sex. If you're not fulfilling your husband, someone else is going to. I don't know when it is that he, I think it's in this one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you like don't meet the needs of your husband, Satan's going to come and give him 20-

• 30:04Speaker 00

  20 other options.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  By the end of the day. And I'm like, wait, does Satan not come normally? Or it's like, and I think later he basically is like, but then you don't have the self-control to like turn Satan away. And I'm like, bro, that's, you're a grown ass man.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  But also like, like putting, putting the mindset in like, but you're a child of God, so shouldn't you? Like, by your own, by your own teaching, you actually should have that power.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Well, not if your wife doesn't have sex with you that day. So, I just like, this is what he is telling. And again, we didn't grow up in a world where this was like that crazy to hear.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  No, and again, like coming back to, this is a tiny little grain of sand that is horrible amongst a thing, a bunch of stuff that is completely like,

• 30:51Speaker 00

  good is like a stretch, but like benign, right? Like not imminently harmful.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  And the other stuff, yeah, the other stuff is like, oh, that kind of makes sense. So like this, he wouldn't just slip in some weird shit.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  He's a pastor. And like episode two really becomes about what he's like forcing her to do to meet his sexual needs. Because I think the whole episode is titled Help Me, which I had never heard before.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Oh, it's-

• 31:17Speaker 01

  What?

• 31:18Speaker 00

  It's like, it could be a translation for like, literally Genesis and Adam and Eve. Like, in like, the helpmate or helpmeet is like, what, like, in some translations is what Eve is to Adam. Like, it goes back to like, the very core of like, humanity and like, how like, biblical...

• 31:36Speaker 00

  People in church, I don't want to say biblical scholars, because there's like, a lot of debate about it. But like, it is in translations as like, the wife is a helpmate, or a helpmeet. And like, that is the core of humanity, and what partnership is. In a lot of translations, and in a lot of denominations, and non-denominational churches, is like, that is the wording, and that is the thought process, and that is all the way back to the very first book of the Bible.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Uh, I was a pastor's wife for a long time, guys.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, do people know that?

• 32:07Speaker 00

  I feel like maybe this is a good time to drop that.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  I guess I didn't, I'm like, I, obviously, I've known you for 38 years.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Wait, you want to give like, a quick, quick history?

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Sure. Um, Ashley and I grew up in the same church. The church that we grew up in, my dad had been going to since he was 16, so I like, grew up, my dad grew up in that church.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  My dad was an associate pastor, which like, again, we're, this was like, what I would consider a mega church.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Especially in like, the 80s and 90s.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they had the televangelists, they were in other countries, they were like...

• 32:39Speaker 00

  There was a television network, there, our church sat like, over 2,000 people.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so, yeah, your parents were deep in it, my dad worked there, I like, lived on the property of the church. Yeah, naturally.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Um, my mom was the worship leader my entire childhood, my dad was like, head usher. I started on a worship team when I was 11. And then, was on a worship team, essentially until I left the church, when I was like, in my late twenties. Um, I met my husband there, Justin grew up with us as well, his family started going there when he was like, two, so we all grew up together. Um, we were on a worship team together.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  I thankfully cannot sing, so you'll never get a picture of me on stage.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Let's get pictures of you guys working together, I was like, oh, no.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  She wasn't there.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I like, you still have like, the little bit of the snobby worship team in you, where you're like, no, no, no, no.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  No, she's not on the team. But, we, our church went through a lot of turmoil around our high school years. I, there were church splits, there were pastors leaving, there was different versions of like, the church we grew up in. I dabbled in a little bit of all of them, I, um...

• 33:47Speaker 01

  I was gone.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  You were gone.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  I was out.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Justin and I got married also really young, and we started going to a different church. We stayed there until I was like, 29, I think, 28 or 29. Left for a lot of different reasons, but while we were there, I was also a worship pastor there. He became ordained, and he, um, was an associate pastor there for, I think, four or five years. And so, for four or five years, he was a pastor, I was a worship leader, I was a pastor's wife.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  We like Justin, you guys, Justin's cool.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Justin's really cool. We're good now, we're all good.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  We're safe.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  But like, I, so I, as recently as legitimately 10 years ago, like, was, I could close, I can like, close my eyes and put myself in solid rock church. Because I went to a church that was like, based on like, the videos and pictures that I've seen, like, not...

• 34:42Speaker 01

  That far off.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Not far off, like, this, honestly, like, the stage looked really similar, it's the one that I was on most recently, like, the size of the church looked really similar.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  The comparisons, especially as I get into like, the structure and like, what happened, is kind of wild, so it's not like, I, I... I think what I was seeing in there, and why I felt so like, oh my god, I like, I was in this church, it's...

• 35:06Speaker 00

  Because of things that happened, that you don't even know about, yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  It's a one for one, just even the structure and like, the, I mean, kind of unbelievable. Oh, also, speaking of, this is back to the like, you're your own authority, you were the one who just told me. So, the like, head of our church, like, founder of our church, was a like, doctor, whatever, whatever.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, honorary doctor, yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you were like, you know he wasn't like, he didn't actually have like, a PhD or anything, and I was like, wait, what? You're like...

• 35:31Speaker 00

  It was like, a couple of years ago, she's like, so doctor wasn't a, because like, we also called him doctor, like, all the time. Um, and you're like, so doctor wasn't a doctor? And I was like, girl, where do you, where do you think he went?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he made his own Bible college, and made himself a doctor, and I was like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. Wait, how did we...

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Because I went off on like, a tangent about Bible translations, and then had to tell people that I...

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Help me.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  So, in this episode, the, the next wild part that we got, so all this is like, very much focused on like, her meeting his sexual needs.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Do you want to talk about the testosterone?

• 36:09Speaker 00

  This pissed me off on so many levels, including like, as a vocalist and worship leader, like, she's like, onstage, she's struggling, she's losing her voice. Her hair is falling out, and everyone's like, oh, she's just like, going through it.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Well, because also, it's like, I'm on, you know, I'm on some meds, and we, we know, he has been very open about like, oh, she has these mental health struggles, I'm sure she was too, and... You know, we, we all know she had been committed by him before, and so, you kind of think, and I think they do this strategically in the documentary. You like, think you're like, oh, it must be, had to do with all that, I don't know what, I don't know what medication she was on.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  At some point in time, like, some of the medications, like, she's concerned about weight gain, and like, she's feeling self-conscious because of some of the medications she's on, you're like, oh, okay. And then you see her lose her voice, and then, someone that was on the team with her, and one of her close friends was like, all of a sudden, like, her range was gone. Like, when her voice came back, it was like, she had a completely different voice. And I was like, like, I, I know like, when I'm sick, like, my voice can change, and I can lose like, especially when I was singing a lot. Like, I could lose like, a couple of like, high notes or low notes, whatever. Um, no, she lost her range because she was taking testosterone, and her voice was like, physically lowering from taking testosterone, because...

• 37:20Speaker 01

  He wanted her to take testosterone, so she could keep up with him sexually.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Him, I like, I, this is the point where I was like, I mean, I hated him throughout, but I was like, you gotta be, like, the abuse. She, she at some point is like, I am physically, sexually, emotionally, financially, like, all this type of abuse. And I, I, I think it gets lumped into physically, but the medical abuse.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  The way that the medical system was used, they talk about him like, withholding her meds.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  I was just about to say, like, he was, it's, it's mentioned early when they talk about her initial diagnosis, but like, he like, writes to her, and you see like, a snippet of that... Like, email or letter or whatever, where he's like, you know, this is a lot for me to bear too, you know, like, I am now responsible...

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Oh, it's his burden for the next 50 to 60 years.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  I'm responsible for like, making sure you take your meds, and like...

• 38:18Speaker 01

  I didn't ask you.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Didn't ask you to do that, but, seems like you're making that your job.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  And like, in making that him, his job, he also uses it as another tool of manipulation and coercion.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  And the fact that it's like...

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Like, if it's going to be his job, he's going to make it work for him too.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Ugh. So she could do it every day, how, how many years was she with him?

• 38:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  So now he's injecting her with hormones. And this is the point, I, we skipped this early on, because they like, make a, make a light mention of it. So not only is he forcing her to do this, when he makes a parody song about her losing her voice...

• 39:00Speaker 00

  I mean, all the parodies were honestly like, incredibly cringe, but that one was especially horrific.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Especially when you like, realize that it's not like she's doing it, like, it's not like she wanted to do, like, you forced her to do this thing that she doesn't want to do, to do sexual acts she doesn't, probably doesn't want to do.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  To do things that she doesn't want to do, and then makes her sing about something she doesn't want to do.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  And, yeah, and then you have to like, joke about it, because she can't, like, I, that whole parody song thing was so weird, and don't worry, it comes back again.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  Good, good, good, awesome.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  So this brings me to text message gate, which is...

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Which is where, which is where I got dropped in initially, at 9:26 PM with a text message from you.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Which I have extra stories about, so, there is this woman who is a pastor at their church as well. She got brought in when the first affair happened, like, with Micah, right? He like, brings in this other pastor.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Camus.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, the church needs stability, they need somebody who's just like...

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Like a seasoned pastor who's going to like, help them weather the storm.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Usher them through these trying times. And so it seems like she's, she's there for a while.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  She one day is at home, but it sounds like she has like a work phone, a church phone.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  And out of nowhere, it sounds like this was not a normal thing. The work phone starts blowing up. And she realizes she is seeing a text chain between JP and his best friend.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  Mark.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Mark Kaufman, right?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Now, she's like JP is in bed with Micah at the time. He's like, I mean.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  Based on, based on like.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Based on the messages. While he's instructing.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Mark.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Mark to go like pick up this other young woman from the airport because apparently she is coming to see him. Which first introduce, what is Mark's role? Like, I mean, we know he's his best friend. He was his best man in the wedding.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  But I have a lot of questions about Mark, his loyalty to JP, what he's willing, why he's willing to do this. He's someone I'm very interested in. But this is when the, the other pastor realizes like, oh my God, this thing.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  This thing that I thought had stopped, the reason I came in, because it had stopped to fix things, has never stopped.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Which I, this is where I texted you. I was like, I will believe in God again if like all of his energy can be directed into like exposing dirty pastors because this is not the first time I've seen something weird like this happen. So there are two other stories, one of them personal, and I don't know if you've ever heard the story. So there is this episode of, and you know, I'm obsessed with the podcast Betrayal Weekly.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  So there is, oh shoot, hang on, I gotta find her name. There is an episode that I'm obsessed with. I've listened to it like three times. Oh, Tracy is the episode from September of 2025. And her whole betrayal story is about this church in the South in like the 90s. And Tracy's a fake name. You don't get the real names. But it's, I call it the Angel Nathan story because her story has to do with basically like she finds out her husband, who is the pastor, was like having this affair because this anonymous Angel Nathan starts sending people in the congregation like letters. And he starts out with the pastor and is like, you need to admit to this, like come clean to your congregation and like, we're good.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Otherwise, I've got recordings of you and this other woman that I'm gonna release. And Angel Nathan does? So like, it's another one of these like, how did we get this? This next one is less exposing pastors.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have so many thoughts on that.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Less exposing pastors. And so when my dad worked in a church in South Carolina.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Brief time in our life, we lived in South Carolina. My, there was like this like freak thing where someone in the church was like talking a bunch of shit about my dad. But like the, the.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  The phone lines got crossed or something?

• 43:05Speaker 01

  The machine, the voicemail machine started recording and like it recorded the whole thing. So I don't know what like magical stuff is going on, but there is someone.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  It's like the opposite.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Someone up there.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  It's like the opposite of you messing everything tech up.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  God is here to like actually make tech work weirdly.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  He's like, not in my house. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I am like all for this. But so this is when she, this is when the other pastor finds out like, oh, you are full of shit. Like you've done a great job at putting on this show, making people think that you are sincere. And none of it has been real. She can like see through the mess. And I don't know, what's unclear is like how many affairs he's had over the years. Cause it's not just one or two based on.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Every implication in the entire documentary.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Yes. And keep touching my little, my cute little papers back here.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  They're starting to scare me.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  It seems like there is a lot happening. And this is just, this is like, it's not, like at first, I think it's easy to believe like, oh, he's got these two lives that are conflicting, right? He's, he's, as he says, struggling with lust or whatever. And what you I think see as you get into episode two and then episode three is it really feels like this entire church, it's not a guy, a guy who's conflicted. The church and the organization, all of that feels like it is made to allow him to just be a deviant person.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, because this is the part that like I had made some notes on because the pastor who like gets this magical mystical spiritual sink.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  She does what I think anybody in that position would do. And she calls the elders of the church, which like. The elders would be like, in theory, not necessarily a governing body, but like a, a body of, of people in the church who are like.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Represent the people of the church.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Yes. And I think she says like, they are the, they are representing the congregation. Like they are the ones who like in, in churches that I've been in, like they've been the ones who have been like called to like, hey, like we think this pastor should step, step down. We're gonna have like a congregational vote about it or whatever. And like, they're the ones who kind of act in a way as a governing body. Different churches are set up different ways. Denominations specifically have like boards and actual governing bodies, non-denominational, again, kind of a free for all. But like.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  I know. I, I was like, wait, it's not just one guy. Like I thought.

• 45:44Speaker 00

  We, like.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  My version of church didn't have a governing.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Well, I mean. One of our churches had like a board, but it was all.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Wink.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  It was like all people colluding with each other to a certain extent until they stopped. Anyway.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  But this one, like these elders, while they were like representatives of the congregation, were not a governing body in that they had zero power. They were just like.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  Essentially, like, like, like not even to support the pastor, just to make it look like he had a governing body almost.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Right. It's to like, it's to make, it's why it's like, it's bananas to me. And now we're getting into like financials and stuff, but like, uh, like when I started Season of Justice. So like the nonprofit has to submit its financials like every year to be a nonprofit. Like you have to know where your money is coming from, exactly where it's going to. Like, like, how are you using your funds? How much, how much of the funds are just sitting there? Who's getting paid what?

• 46:36Speaker 00

  What are your expenses?

• 46:36Speaker 01

  All of that is known. It is wild to me. That is not necessary for churches. As a congregant who is tithing, I assume, like giving time, the way they use volunteers, I would want to know. And I, I don't know why more people don't kind of demand this of their churches, especially these mega churches. Where's it going?

• 47:00Speaker 00

  I would like to, as vaguely as possible, remind you that the first time our church went through something major, it was because people didn't want those things to come to light.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, I didn't realize that. Really?

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, like people were.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  A governing body was saying that the church essentially was not functional at the size that it was for like the space that it was in and like the staff that it had, which like obviously affects you quite a lot.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Or would have affected you quite a lot. And when they asked like, okay, like what does that number need to be? Like, can we have like a financial campaign where we can tell the members where we are? And like let them know that this is the state that the church is in. That was not something that everyone was comfortable. No, being, being publicized.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  There was a lot of other things that went into that. But like, that was like, uh, something that contributed to like why the pastor that we had at the time no longer was at the church.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  And like, we can talk about that more with like actual names and stuff, but like not on mic.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  I mean, I knew it was about money and stuff, but like I thought it was a, yeah, okay. Follow up, follow up conversations.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. So like off mic, but, uh, that's kind of like what was, I was like so surprised and frustrated and not surprised at all about when she did go to the elders and was like, hey, this guy's going off, fix it.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  And they're like, we can't do anything.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Hands are tied.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sorry. Too bad. So sad. Now, then we, so we get into this idea that like, okay, she's like, well, I'm out.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Church is still his, still yours. What is he doing with this church? What is he, what is he doing as far as like affairs go? Now, I don't know, we have no idea who this young woman was who was coming into town to meet him. Because she's coming from the airport, I assume it is not.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  She's not from around here.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Susie Skinner, who we will talk about next. So Susie Skinner is his next alleged affair. Susie, of course, married.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  And in the congregation.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  And in the congregation, she starts going to the church. It doesn't sound like her husband was really going to the church.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  I don't know how much.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  Autonomy her husband had.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Right, so they they met because she was like his, like, he was in physical therapy and she met him.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  He had had like an accident.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Where he had lost a lot of mobility.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Wheelchair bound?

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Wheelchair bound. He hired her, or like, they met in physical therapy, or she was like, helping him in some way, and they hit it off and got married.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Yes. So, she decides to start going to this church. And again, it might be one of those things where he like comes sometimes, whatever, but it seemed like she was really, really involved.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  She was really involved, yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  And this is the affair, like, Micah clearly finds out about this and gives JP multiple ultimatums, multiple chances to end it, which she's telling people he does not. And I don't think they were being secretive about it because, right, like, uh, Micah's brother ends up catching them, he says in the documentary where they're like, holding hands, and he's like, oh, blah, blah, blah. Like, he like confronts them. And because they're not being secretive, somehow it gets back to Susie Skinner's husband, Chris.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  And he also like, again, they're not being secretive. What what he says, I think she, in the documentary, is that she thinks that the pastor has a crush on her. So I don't know how, what she's framing, I don't know what he has experienced.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  But at the same time, Chris's sister is in the documentary, and she's like, he's feeling like his care is like...

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Is like lacking in his time.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  He's not getting showered as much, like, Susie is clearly distracted by something at that time. And so he makes it a point to go to the church one Sunday, confront the pastor, basically like, leave my wife alone. And I don't know, it doesn't say exactly how long, but like, weeks, a month.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  And we also don't know what happened when he went to the church.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  We get nothing about that.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  We just know that he, his plan was to go to the church and confront JP.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Which I have a feeling the only people who would...

• 51:20Speaker 00

  In that room, or them.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  JP, him, if they allowed their wives, Micah's no longer here to talk about it. And Susie isn't going to talk about it, for reasons we'll get to.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Anyway, so, we know that Chris at least has intentions to go confront JP. And at some point in time, after he states that intention, whether he makes it to the church, talks to him, whether, what that conversation is, regardless, after that point, he dies.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  How does he die? He drowns at the bottom of his apartment complex, or like, community swimming pool. He's in his wheelchair, and it goes in by some accident, by some intention.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Their foul play is not suspected, in his case. But this was the second text message I sent you.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  This is the second text message you sent us.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Well, I said, JP was first at the scene, the first people to show up.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  The first people that Susie called.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  JP and Micah, together.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  But they show up before Chris's family has any idea that he's died.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Which I, I get, like, it's the pastor of your church, that's, I mean...

• 52:34Speaker 00

  And that's like, that's the thing that I like, kind of butted up against once I watched it, reading your text, was like,

• 52:42Speaker 00

  I don't not get it, in that environment, where like, I would a thousand percent still call my family, but I think my family's pastor, someone of comfort, someone of like, outside the circle, but close enough for like guidance, but I don't know if...

• 52:57Speaker 01

  The one, but like, the, the pastor that your husband just confronted, because...

• 53:00Speaker 00

  See, that's where I get hung up on it, because that's different.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is where, when, um, Mads first was like, hey, I think maybe we should cover this case, because I'll give every, everyone I think already knows that, spoiler alert in episode three, Susie Skinner and JP get married.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Um, I was like, so you're telling me that her husband dies, and his wife die, and now they're married, and, and...

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Everyone's okay with it.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 53:29Speaker 00

  And Mads is like, yes.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  You got it, girl.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  It's like, okay, okay. So, we kind of get, they touch on it so briefly. And I, I had been reading some articles and stuff, like, that dug into his death a little bit, and it was like, I guess he had been like, supposedly, allegedly, making complaints to the community about, like, there not being, like, proper access for, um, people like in wheelchairs to be able to get to the pool. Why the pool, why that way? Was it an accident? Was it intentional because he's not being taken care of? He feels like the one thing he has is, like, no one knows. As far as I know, it's not like, I don't believe he left a note or told anyone.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  So we're left to just, it's just another strange thing, in a case full of strange things.

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• 56:43Speaker 01

  The strangest thing of all, though, was the, like, service about him, which I don't know if it happened before or after he died.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Right, so it's, it's kind of confusing, the documentary, because they cut it really close to the funeral service for Chris.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  Like, it's not part of it, this, the stage is completely different, he's wearing a different outfit, but...

• 57:04Speaker 01

  I think it was a different service, and I don't know if it's, again, tripwire before, after.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  But we don't know when it was.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, you want to say, you want to say what he says?

• 57:10Speaker 00

  I don't have the direct quote, but I'm sure you do. I just have hot mama quote on my notebook.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, if this guy can get this hot mama in a wheelchair, you have no excuse. I literally wrote, what?

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Like...

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Like, I think that's the moment, when me and Alyssa, I literally just like paused, and I was like, let's just sit with that for a minute.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  What? Maybe that was the moment, that he was like, I think this guy might be coming for my wife, like...

• 57:40Speaker 00

  Especially if, again, we don't know when that happened in time, especially if that happened prior to Chris's death.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  So, also, like, you don't want people to be self-deprecating, but like, you're being a super...

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  A super... I can't, I, I, so...

• 58:01Speaker 01

  I don't think he's hiding anything, like, again, if you're looking for it, I think that it's...

• 58:06Speaker 00

  Or Isaac, that can see.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  I think it's pretty obvious what's going on. And so this is when Micah gives him yet another ultimatum. But she doesn't leave, she does this contract, which I find heartbreaking. Because this happens all the time, I've seen this happen. And I don't really understand, I think, like, I, so she basically says, like, makes this list, where it's like, hey, if any of this stuff happens...

• 58:36Speaker 00

  I'm out.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  I'm out. I know she told him that before. If you do it again, I'm out.

• 58:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  It's, the line gets crossed, the line gets crossed.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  Well, uh, I mean, honestly, the expectation is if you are in a committed relationship with someone...

• 58:48Speaker 01

  That's your promise.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  And you have like, shared goals and outcomes for the relationship, none of that needs to be set.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  That's just the expectation, and like, the social contract between two people who love each other.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  But it's like, this list of five things, that's like, if any of this happens, again, like, the first thing is like, you know, she gets the house, um, he promises to go on marriage retreats, they're gonna do counseling weekly, he's gonna honor her in any way, with anything, anytime. It says he'd even be willing to adopt a kid if that's what she wants, smiley face.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  I saw that.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  The, the thing I, the thing I can appreciate about what she was probably trying to do is, one of the ways she was being controlled was financially. If she left as a pastor's wife who had been in the church since she was 18, who had no career outside of the church, she was financially destroyed, she had nothing. So this point number one, where it's like, I want something written down, I mean, this document wouldn't have counted, but like, I think she felt this was some kind of protection for her, and so like, I am sympathetic to that. Because I, I think part of me at first, when I was like, what, like, what's a piece of paper? He doesn't care about your piece of paper marriage certificate, he doesn't care about any of that, why do this?

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  I think it's really easy to be that, but I'm like, she's trying, I think she knows it's gonna happen again. And I think what she's trying to do...

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Is build herself any sort of life raft she can.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Yes, for afterwards, because she knows...

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  She knows it's gonna happen again.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  She knows it's gonna be hard. And I think everything she was like scared of and anticipated is, ended up, like, coming to fruition.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Oh, um, this is the moment too where you get that like weird video of them in the car where he's like speaking in third person and he's like-

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  In and out of third person, by the way. I like, I, Alyssa was like, why was he speaking in third person? When we watched it together and I was like, huh, yeah. And then when I watched it again, I was like, not all the time?

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Cause he's like, somebody, the first lady of the church and she's like, who's the first lady? And he's like, you're the first lady. And I was like, she, and he's like, she loves the pastor. I was like, what is happening right now?

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  It was really bizarre.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  I don't even know what that was. To me, that was a little bit like the crying on the grass video, where I was like-

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  Actually, can we talk about that more?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was like, I need, I would love if someone could post the whole video.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  And give us some context of like, when this happened, why, like-

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  Anyway.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  I don't know. And I don't know if it's in that video or somewhere else, but like, we get this idea. And again, this is him being the victim. And I think he, he became an expert at manipulating the people around him, but like, only in that bubble, like the congregation, the people who like, had his same worldview, a worldview that he built, but he-

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Or helped sustain.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Makes himself the victim because, you know, why would you do this? Like, you have everything. And he's like, I was scared you were gonna leave me. Somehow, it's like, her fault that he continues to do these things.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  To make her want to leave, yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  And I like, I only reiterate it because I think this is such a common tactic with abusers, is to make themselves the victim over, and I actually think they do see themselves as the victim.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, uh, maybe not carte blanche, maybe not everybody, but like, I think a large part, percent of them, for sure.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I, I don't-

• 1:02:11Speaker 00

  I think there are people who are just blatantly bullies and they know it, but I think there are other people who, I, like, the best way I can describe it is like, lie so much, they start, they start losing the truth. Like, they no longer see the reality of like, who is and is not the victim.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Their reality is completely broken by like, the lies that they have not only told other people, but they've told them so many times that they've begun to believe the lies of themselves.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  In that video, she's like, what would you do to like, get me back or keep, keep me? And I thought his answer was so interesting. He says that I would put myself in a psych ward until they release me. And I was like, oh, to you, that's the worst possible punishment.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  The thing that you've already done to her.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yet that is the thing. And I was like, how telling. The thing that you keep doing is the thing that you say is like, I would do, I would do anything to get you back. I would even put myself in a psych ward because, my God, can you imagine?

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  So, the rest of the episode really is, again, we're diving into like, his insatiable sexual appetite.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  And I would like to point out that we also hear a lot of these stories from Micah's friends, which again, like, I would like to stress, this is huge, especially the stories that she, that like, they tell towards the end of this episode, which are harrowing, i- in a way that I was not expecting.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  I was not prepared for it. But like, we get a lot more of his like preaching in this too. I have a quote, he says, "There's incredible danger in unmet needs. A fantastic marriage is simply this. My needs are being met today." Everything is about like, his needs being met. When your husband wants sex, God does not send an angel from heaven to take care of that. Like, basically, it's like, it's your freaking job. And he says, "The sin that has most, the sin that has the most horrifying results in your life is sexual immorality." And he says, "Denying sex leads to sexual immorality." So like, denying sex is, leads to one of the greatest sins. Oh, and this is where he was like, uh, don't deny sex and then Satan won't be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  And then, oh, he's like, "A man doesn't want to be rejected more than once, unless you repent for it. His heart gets hard." And I was like, boo, your hard heart is not the hard thing of you that I'm worried about right now. Like, what is happening?

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  No, totally.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  And then, my last quote from this, like, these like sermons is when he was like, oh, what'd he say?

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  For now, at least.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  For now. "The only reason a man would not want to touch or hold a woman is that man-

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  -'cause he doesn't like her. The only reason he doesn't like her-

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  Her mouth.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Is because of her mouth?

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. Girl, we talk for a living.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Get it?

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  I was shocked. Like, I, I think that up until this point, when we talk about the sexual abuse, I was thinking, the abuse of him demanding four times a day, five times a day is sometimes what they talked about every single day. And if not with her, then someone, and I, that's terrible abuse.

• 1:05:25Speaker 00

  But what is described next is that he basically forces her into encounters with

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  random people, that he pays those people, whether that's touching her, one of her friends describes like, him paying someone to finish on her. And like, the, like, the way she said that Micah described it was like, she didn't have enough like soap in the world. There was nothing she could do to make herself feel clean after that.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  In the documentary, they show her like journal writings and one time she says, "At one point, he picked up a couple of unhoused people for a threesome." It's like, this was about degrading her, controlling her.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  I was just about to say, like, I, when I was watching with Alyssa, I was like, this is not inherently sexual for him anymore. This is him exerting his control and his power and showing her how much he can do to her. And she has, she can do nothing about it.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  And a lot of, we, we move into episode three and then we get this like, a little bit of backstory that leaves so many questions to be answered.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  That pile, right?

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  We'll come back to the pile, but there's this allegation that like, maybe JP was abused by his father. And that is what, again, when it comes to like, him being a victim, like, that is what has caused him to be the way that he is. And so, we, we hear that like, his father, who was also a pastor, had gotten into some trouble maybe in the past, but it was like, very, very glossed over. Like, it was a quick, like, snippet in the show and then they kind of moved on. So it's one, one of the things that I like dug into more later. But really, episode three is about her leaving, which we know is the most-

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Dangerous time in a person who's being abused's life.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  We get a little bit of the timeline, like, this finally brings us up to the actual like, day. And by this point, she has moved out. Now, what I found out is that she had apparently threatened divorce before, or maybe even filed, but then like, he convinced her to undo it, which is interesting because of some of like, the asset stuff and what was happening. Convinced her to undo it. Then, he goes through this other period where the, the stalking, the harassment doesn't stop. I mean, this is, we're finding out that he is putting tracking devices on her, he's following her-

• 1:07:52Speaker 00

  Slashing her tires.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  Slashing her tires. And again, like the, you know, there's like, I think 53 calls at one point. I mean, it is non-stop. She ends up moving out, she's going to live with somebody else. He has her committed again. And at this time, they're kind of vague and they're like, they reference like, oh, he's like, taking her stuff, like, maybe he's, oh, he's posting as her on social media to make it seem like hundreds of pictures, they say.

• 1:08:18Speaker 00

  Of them together.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Making everything seem like beautiful and wonderful and like, creating this image. And they don't really talk about the other stuff, like, what was he doing with her stuff? Why did he take her stuff? Like, in the documentary, as I was watching, I was like, oh, this is just about control.

• 1:08:33Speaker 00

  Control.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  I think it was about something else that I'll get to. But he has her committed, she gets out again. Um, cause it sounds like the doctors even realize like, I, this is more of like a marital dis- Which I, that's what I, again, when I go back to like, what is this 1856? Like, back in the day when you're like, oh, my wife's hysterical, just like, lock her away. How?

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  And like, you might talk about this later, but like, in the documentary, they do confirm that she does get a diagnosis of a form of bipolar, correct?

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  This is what I was like, a little, I think so.

• 1:09:08Speaker 00

  Because I want to say there is at least one medical document that they show in the documentary that states that.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  But what I don't know-

• 1:09:14Speaker 00

  I don't know like, how, what that document is. There we go.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  I know. That's where I was, that's where I, I am always so cautious, especially in something like this, of like, oh, we saw one shot. So many times, you can, if someone gives you a medical history to say this person has bipolar, and, and, and that is not verified. Now, she's in these facilities, which should be verifying.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  And I mean, on the flip side, like, I'm adopted, my kids are adopted. Medical forms are a lot of fun for us because like, I'm sure there are things in my medical history that I simply do not know about that can never be verified. And I just had to fill the form out as best as I know. And like, that's how it is for my kids too. And on the flip side, like, you can also write that there are issues when no issues exist.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  And that's where I like, I, without digging into her medical records, the way that her family spoke on the documentary, it seemed like they believed there was something.

• 1:10:02Speaker 00

  They also supported some sort of diagnosis.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but they're, I mean, they're very open in that like, what led her to that? And like, what are the contributing factors that if she had like, these diagnoses, like, yeah, led to it, you get it. So, this brings us to, she filed, she dismissed, she is now done, done, super done. And this is where we meet my new hero.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Uh, Regina Ward?

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Regina Ward.

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  I also loved her. I'm so glad she's here.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  I think everyone loves Regina Ward. Because she is her lawyer, and we get her and she's like, uh-uh, I don't like anyone that tries to take advantage of, I think she said, the weak, the meek, the poor. And I was like, mm, mm, mm. She's her divorce attorney, and she's not putting up with anything. And what she says-

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  Regina Ward, heart, heart.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Heart, heart. I said, she made the hero wall. So she, on behalf of Micah, files, and JP gets served on April 25th. Two days later is when Micah dies. And the timeline, this is, this is the crux of the case. It's like, everyone, did she do it? Her family alleges in the documentary, like, they don't think that someone else wasn't involved. Like, they, they cannot let that go. But everyone, the police have ruled it a suicide. The sheriff's office put out this, like, nifty-

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  Proof point?

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Proof PowerPoint that, that has been shared with everyone, that, in their eyes, explains everything. So what we have is that day, she's supposed to go to work.

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  At like noon.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  That's what Diana says in the documentary. Diana's the woman she's living with. What I would love is, like, verification of that. What time did her shift start? Because what I find so interesting is that, why put on your uniform?

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  If you're not going to, and like, she immediately does not go to work. She leaves at the time, and you can-

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  11:38.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  I said, you can correct me at any point in time. She leaves at a time where it's like, oh, depending on how far away her work is, like, that's an appropriate time to show up for a 12 o'clock shift.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  So-

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  In her uniform.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  11:38.

• 1:12:23Speaker 00

  On like, a doorbell cam.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Leaves her apartment. 12:12, she pulls into the pawn shop. This pawn shop is where the gun is purchased. Now, what I think is interesting is I mapped her apartment to the pawn shop. It's a nine to 10 minute drive, but it's 34 minutes before she pulls in. So I don't, I don't know where she was. Why, like, was there another stop? Was it-

• 1:12:47Speaker 00

  Did you map where she worked?

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  I didn't do that. Was, yeah, did she-

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  Did she go to work first, and then?

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  But it's weird. So, but she gets, she pulls in, she's at the counter, I mean, she knew exactly what she was going in for. She's at the counter at 12:13. 12:34, she's leaving the lot. Now, again, I don't know, did it take time, I assume they have to look at her, I hope they had to look at her ID to buy this gun, but like, at 12:34, she has to leave the lot. At 1:06, we pick her car up on a flock camera, and she's like, driving in the direction of where she'll ultimately be found. So it's 40 minutes from Dix to where the flock camera is. 1:27, she's at a gas station. And that, like, all kind of lines up. And then it's like 39 to 44 minutes from the gas station to the park.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  So I was like, trying to do the math of, like, when she leaves the gas station, like-

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  Does she go directly to the park?

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it, it, she should arrive if she goes right away. And this is like, per the other calculation, she's driving a little bit faster, but if she goes exactly like the speed limit, she should be getting to the park. And it takes a five minute walk from where her car was to the, like, the coordinates where she was found. She should be at the coordinates where she's found at 2:21. The 911 call comes in at 2:54.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  There's time.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Now, there is a witness who has come forward, or came forward later, that was like, I heard crying before I heard a shot. But we know the shot comes after she calls 911. So like, I just, again, there's like, missing time. Is this, I'm sitting in my car, I'm building up the courage-

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  Contemplating, yeah.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Sitting with what I'm about to do, or is it something else? Her family has wondered, it's what they, like, say in the documentary, like, was she lured there? Because also, why go?

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  It seems like, I think something that they say in the documentary is like, why here? Like, why would you go all the way out here, so far that you have to call 911 to make sure people know where you are?

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  I thought, what I thought was interesting was, it was like, right over the state line, like, it's a north, she's in North Carolina, which causes maybe jurisdictional issues, but I like, if what you want is for your family to find you and for this to be easy, why there?

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  Because she does take the steps to help her family find her. Like, she calls 911, so that her coordinates are like, tracked.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  You hear her voice on the 911 call. She sounds calm.

• 1:15:22Speaker 00

  Episode one opens with it.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Starts with it. I looked, the most, the call that I could find, the most amount, was like, 2 minutes and 30 seconds. So it also isn't just like, hey, here I am, about to do this, hang up. It's, it's two minutes of her trying to figure out where she was, and at the very end, she says what she's about to do, and apparently hangs up before they can, like, they don't hear a shot or anything like that. Now, they bring up some stuff in the doc that I thought was interesting, which is like, they find her body away from the shell casings. They also mentioned two spent shell casings, which I can't find a ton of stuff about, but I'm like, the, the witness hears one shot. She has one shot, like, she didn't shoot herself twice.

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Where did this other one come from?

• 1:16:09Speaker 00

  And is it, like, obviously, then you have all the questions, like, are they casings from the same type of ammunition? Like, do they belong to the same gun? Like, there's nothing-

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  That is not in-

• 1:16:19Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Is not in the police's PDF. The other thing, what is in here, I actually wanted to show you, is

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  a picture of the inside of her car, and there was something that stood out to me. The same thing with like, why are you putting on your work uniform if this is your plan for the day?

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  She also packed her lunch.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  It's a sandwich, in a Ziploc, like, that's a fresh sandwich in a Ziploc bag. Isn't that weird?

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  That's really weird.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  These are the things that her family, it's not making sense to them. So naturally, when this happens, her family is immediately suspicious, because her sister, one of her sisters says that, Micah said, if I am found with a bullet in my head, I didn't do it, JP did. She is found with a bullet in her head. That, that is, like, why say that and then do that, too? So they have a ton of questions, knowing that she, the two days before, had filed for divorce. The church was going to break apart. Everyone said if the church broke apart again, everything that he had built, it was, it was done, done.

• 1:17:32Speaker 00

  This is like, a very un-crime junkie question, but they didn't address it in the doc, that JP alibi. Like, I'm sure this is like, somewhere in like, the PowerPoint, but like, they don't touch on that-

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  At all.

• 1:17:45Speaker 00

  At all in the documentary, which I found really strange. And like, it took everything in my being not to Google, because I knew you were already working on this.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  So they don't talk about it at all, except for when the reporter from News Nation has like, the one sit-down with him. And he's like, I was at, like, the soccer game, the sporting thing, like, every, 100 people saw me there that, that Saturday. Well, in this, his timeline that we get from the police PowerPoint, evidence PowerPoint, is from Friday, the 26th, to Saturday, the 27th. So Friday, he goes to Charleston, South Carolina for this sporting event. They say this is supported by eyewitnesses, so his claim that a bunch of people are there-

• 1:18:27Speaker 00

  Checks out.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  On Friday, though.

• 1:18:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  A bunch of people are there. And on Saturday, so this is the day that she buys the gun and goes up to the park, what they have, the only thing that they've included, is that they have him driving back to Myrtle Beach, where they live. And they have flock cameras of his truck. Now, if you look at those, like, pictures, the windows are like, blacked. I cannot see anything. Now, did I meticulously map the coordinates and the time for every single flock camera thing? I did.

• 1:19:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  I figured you would.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  And where-

• 1:19:04Speaker 00

  You didn't sleep last night, did you?

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  Where this truck was is nowhere, like, it, it wasn't near the park. Like, he couldn't have gotten, the last flock sighting of the truck was at 2:22, and it's too far away to get to the park.

• 1:19:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  So the truck is not there. What I find strange is that if they're saying he has such a solid alibi, what they're not including for Saturday, the actual day that matters is any phone data? Any, like, was anyone with him on that Saturday in that truck? When did he get home? Who saw him after? Like, to me, this is all really important stuff. And, and even beyond him, the other people connected to him.

• 1:19:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Like, like, he is the only person talked about in this document, which I'll find interesting.

• 1:19:58Speaker 00

  We've, we've mentioned him a few times and had questions, but like, where is Mark?

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  And I do think that, like, Mark, not Mark, whatever, there were other people who Micah felt like she was being followed by. Like, it wasn't just JP. So I think this is meant to tell everyone, like, there's nothing to see here. But to me, this, like, I have a lot more questions. It also doesn't include is like Micah's stuff. Because what it shows is, oh, she, you know, like, looked how to get to the pawn shop. She looked up national parks near me. But it doesn't say what time those searches happened. It doesn't say what other things happened around there, like, what calls she was making, who she was in communication with.

• 1:20:44Speaker 00

  Or even like, did she, like, sit in her parking lot, in the parking lot at her apart, like, where she was staying?

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Right, where was she for those?

• 1:20:50Speaker 00

  Or work when she Googled the pawn shop? Was she still at the pawn shop when she Googled parks? Like, was she at the gas station when she did that? Like, there's, we know that she's in these different places, but are these searches happening at those different places? Or was this like a long plotted out thing?

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  And I think, again, I think people would say, well, you know, we're just worried about it. All the evidence proves it only being her. Why are we even talking about this? Well, then my question is, why was he trying to collect, like, all her immediately?

• 1:21:21Speaker 00

  The woman she was living with, I loved because she seemed so sweet.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:26Speaker 00

  And when, as soon as JP called, was like, I'm just gonna come pick up her stuff. She's like, um, I'm not sure if I'll be home, essentially. And then called her siblings and was like, get here now.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  And get it. Because she's like, I want her Bible, I want her writings, her journals, like. And that, I could, you, you can write that off as like, oh, that's her husband, he just wants her things. It's when he calls the counselor she had been seeing, was like, um, do you have some, do you have any notes? Can I get, I was like, that's not, that's not a thing you collect.

• 1:21:55Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, Alyssa, like, paused, she was like, he can't do that because HIPAA. And I was like, I bet you anything that she's a biblical counselor.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  She is, she said it.

• 1:22:01Speaker 00

  Which is what it said. And I was like, I was like, she could hand them over. And then she's like, well, because I'm a biblical counselor, I don't need notes. And I was like, you know? You know, that works too.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  But that's when I was like, oh, boo, you're trying, and the way.

• 1:22:15Speaker 00

  And then he called, well, and then we get some of our best quotes from our new hero, while inductee, when he calls her.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Wait, we gotta talk about the sermon first.

• 1:22:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Because the second she dies.

• 1:22:26Speaker 00

  But I want to talk about Regina.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  She, he's notified on a Saturday, and on Sunday.

• 1:22:32Speaker 00

  He's like, I'm still gonna preach.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  And not only did he preach.

• 1:22:35Speaker 00

  He preaches the whole sermon.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 1:22:37Speaker 00

  As usual.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  I didn't realize he didn't tell them till the end.

• 1:22:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  And he is acting.

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  Totally normal.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Totally fine. He's on the piano, having the time of his life. They, don't worry, do their entire parody song about, oh, what was it? Like, not finding something till the middle of your life? Or like, oh, in the middle of my life, I finally found what I was searching for. And I was like, what was that? And then at the very end.

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  He's like, we're not gonna have an altar call. We're not going to pray with you guys at the end. Instead, I'm going to announce that my wife, Micah, has died. It was self-induced. I don't want you guys to.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  No questions, please.

• 1:23:19Speaker 00

  Ask questions. I want you to leave quietly, not talk to each other here on the property, and like, just know that this happened. And like, this is, this is the point, and Justin graciously reminded me that he was the one who was like, have you seen the sermon when this case initially happened? This is when I remember seeing this case pop up, was like, what is he doing? Because like, again, like, I've, I've been in these services, like, when there's something to say, like, you, you do have to, like, time it well, but this is bonkers. The fact that he was on the stage doing music that morning, the fact that he was onstage teaching that morning. I think this also talks a lot, like, speaks a lot to, like, the structure of the church. Like, no one was going to tell him he couldn't do this.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:02Speaker 00

  And so he got up and did the entire thing.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  Because he, he had to get out, he got out his narrative. And then he proceeded to do that with everyone. The text messages he was sending people were, I mean, you, like, the, people talk about all the time, catch a liar when they're like over explaining, where he's like, she is past, I've been telling her for months, like, oh, her family got involved. I'm like, ooh, no one asked.

• 1:24:24Speaker 00

  And also, there's a moment where, like, you see him, you see some of the text messages that he's sending to, like, her friends or like people in their circle. And it's the same, like, he's copy pasting because he can't keep telling different, like, that's the only way he can keep his lies straight, right? Like.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  It was, it was just like so calculated. So he is used to manipulating everyone in his circle. Like, he can play the victim, he has them down, but not her. He cannot do that with this.

• 1:24:53Speaker 00

  Who, as an attorney, tapes the call.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, I love her so much.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  And the call is so good. He calls and is like, hey, you were her, I think you were her lawyer, so. And before he could even continue with his bizarre request, she goes, mm-mm, let's stop right there. You probably have the exact quote.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 1:25:14Speaker 00

  I'm gonna paraphrase, but she's like, you don't think she hired me. You know she hired me because you got served force papers two days ago. So let's just start off with the truth.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and that, that's when I was like, she is my new, I want to be her when I grow up. She is my new hero.

• 1:25:31Speaker 00

  And he's like, yeah, you know what?

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do recall.

• 1:25:36Speaker 00

  I think I did see her name.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  And then he's like, I, oh, he says, clearly, by the way, you've been talking to me, you've gotten one side of the story. So this is when he's like, I, I'm gonna get her on my side. That does not happen. And so when that doesn't work, he goes into the tears. It's like the same tears that we got on the ground. Which distinctly, I had this moment where I was like, oh, I, I, I've seen this before. And I wanna let, I wanna play you a clip because I, I made myself chuckle. Okay, so this is him to her.

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  It's not a killer, so, and many times, really years before, and, um, and I was able to stop her and get her then, get her to live here and get her, get her to her. He just goes, he laughs, and told everybody, I have a time check.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  So it's like the.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Um, have you seen Win or Lose?

• 1:26:33Speaker 00

  No, but you've talked about this show so many times.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  It's a kid show on Disney that I think is one of the best kid shows it's made in forever. And we get this moment.

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  I did, just one second. See, you're, you're just a lineup idea. What was that doing?

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  As soon as I, I heard that, I was like.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  So he tries the tears, the tears don't work, he turns those off.

• 1:27:01Speaker 00

  To be, to be clear, like, coming back to, like, why he's calling Regina Ward, Micah's divorce attorney, is because he's like, I really need every single thing that she ever gave you supporting why she wants to divorce me.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:15Speaker 00

  Like, he's like, just get, just, why don't you just hand me her file? And she's like.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  Which is an insane thing to think would happen.

• 1:27:21Speaker 00

  Like.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:27:24Speaker 00

  Attorney-client privilege much?

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  But, I, yeah, I think he still thought he had a lot of authority because they were still married before she died, which actually did give him a lot of authority. There's been a ton of legal stuff since. Now luckily, she didn't turn her file over to him, she turned it over to the FBI.

• 1:27:45Speaker 00

  Along with, I mean, she downloaded like hundreds.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  511 sermons. And that is when I was like, you, I love you.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  And that's how, I mean, that's how we get this, like, treasure trove in the documentary and get such, like, real pictures of who Micah was in life, who JP is, like, what he talks about in his sermons. So that, it, it is a little bit how the documentary leaves off, is that there is some kind of FBI investigation. We hear from people, yes, I've been talked to. I do know the FBI got, I don't know why for sure, but jurisdiction, because we're talking about two separate cases, like, it's not surprising to me. And.

• 1:28:27Speaker 00

  And he has now.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Federal charges.

• 1:28:29Speaker 00

  Federal charges. And those are for?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  For lying to them during the course of their investigation. And then for cyber stalking. And those are still ongoing.

• 1:28:39Speaker 00

  Because he was just arrested in, like, December 2025 for that.

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  And they search, they did a search of his home. So again, all, like, computers, phones, like, all of the things that I'm, I'm wanting, I feel.

• 1:28:51Speaker 00

  Exists somewhere in evidence.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, is there anything else that you want to talk about before I get to, like, my fun things?

• 1:28:59Speaker 00

  I don't know if you want to talk about the News Nation sit-down, where he brings out the binder.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  His, of his evidence?

• 1:29:06Speaker 00

  Of evidence, which like, evidence for what, sir? There's that weirdness, but.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't like, hey, I kept all her medical records. It was like, this is my evidence.

• 1:29:14Speaker 00

  And also, like, putting those things in those plastic sheet protectors is a pain in the ass. He put work into that.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  I didn't even notice that, they were in sheet protectors?

• 1:29:21Speaker 00

  They're in like those plastic slips?

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  For me, it was the moment. Uh, he does the same thing, right? Where he like tries to cry, but then, I love this guy because he's like, what's going on? Like, he's like, I'm not gonna like call it off just because you're crying. Like, we're gonna like.

• 1:29:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, the guy interviewing him is like, there's something like, your face is doing something, essentially.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  So, but then when he's like, when he asks.

• 1:29:42Speaker 00

  Is there anything you would have done differently?

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  His reaction is so wild.

• 1:29:45Speaker 00

  That's a really good question, that's a really good question. That's a really good question!

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  It's anger.

• 1:29:49Speaker 00

  And then he goes, I would never involve her family in any of her mental health problems.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:29:59Speaker 00

  Out of all the things you could have done, I mean,

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  and knowing what you did to her.

• 1:30:07Speaker 00

  Like, the blanket statement of, I was like, I wish I could have been a safe place for her. I wish I could, like, you could have done any sort of, like, blanket, generic statement, and like, no one would have batted an eye, but you come out with that? Yeah, I mean, I could, there's like a million more things I want to talk about, but what I want to talk about more is that stack of paperwork you just picked up.

• 1:30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to, so, this stuff is known, it's not like I uncovered this, but for length purposes, or legal purpose, I don't know why, Netflix didn't include what I think is a handful of things that I found really interesting.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  So, one of the biggest things that I, as I was watching this, I kept waiting for, right? Like, I'm like, you get these sit downs of people, and I'm like, when are we getting his first wife? When are we getting Ally? Like, we get nothing. I understand not having anything about his kids in the documentary, like, they have nothing.

• 1:31:06Speaker 00

  A thousand percent.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  But I'm like, she is like, very silent in this. So, I was like, I mean, either she's, you know, without knowing anything, I was like, is she still, like, deep in this world, is she, like, scared? I'm like, a man like this couldn't have been an ideal husband one moment, and then a completely different person the next.

• 1:31:26Speaker 00

  And probably isn't like a joy to co-parent with.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, she has filed an affidavit back in 2024. So, this is when I think they were working out some, like, custody arrangements.

• 1:31:41Speaker 00

  When in 2024, because that's also the year that Micah died.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  This is May, so this is, she's basically saying, this is like right after Micah dies, she's like, I don't feel safe, and, and some of it is a little bit like, hey, he's getting all these threats, too.

• 1:31:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Um, I don't want my, my kids around that, but in doing so, she has to talk about all the concerns that she had. Um, one of the things I found really interesting is that she started in 2015 as his assistant to pastoral duties, which is the same kind of role that he placed Micah in.

• 1:32:15Speaker 00

  Were they already married at the time?

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  I don't know the year that they got married, it's not in this document, I would have to look it up. So, in this, she alleges, it says, um, it's number seven in the affidavit, JP told me that in addition to his affair with Micah, he had employed prostitutes and been sexually inappropriate with several underage female members of our church. He blamed his immoral sexual behaviors on the sexual abuse that he experienced for years by his father, Wayne Miller. She says that when she found out about this, like, this, these minors, she actually went to the police, and she's, they're basically like, nobody's going to believe you, because these minors don't want to come forward. You're, like, you're divorced from this guy, you're talking about custody, like, that's not going to, like, hold up, so she's like, I, I couldn't do anything, but I did try to report it.

• 1:33:01Speaker 00

  I want to pause for like a second and be like, minors coming forward with abuse is already incredibly difficult. I feel like I've said this a lot, like, everything is very difficult. In this circle, where your value is placed on your purity, where your value is placed on your body, and how much you are untouched, coming forward is...

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  It's how they, it's how they keep you quiet.

• 1:33:24Speaker 00

  A thousand percent, like, as...

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  Because it doesn't matter that you didn't want it.

• 1:33:28Speaker 00

  Right, as difficult as this is in general in any circle, in these circles, it is marking yourself...

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Unclean.

• 1:33:36Speaker 00

  Unclean, it's marking yourself dirty.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Even if you were assaulted, and you kicked and screamed, like, you know, whatever they perceive as no, you are still less than.

• 1:33:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, whether it's said in those words or not, it is heavily implied, and so, like, that's devastating.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  She talks about, um, an occasion when she was picking up one of their kids, that there were holes in their walls, there were hinges off the doors, and pieces of paper taped to the wall with negative affirmations about Micah. Now, he had, like, sent her texts that were like, oh, I, just so you know, Micah punched those holes in the walls, I'm not like, losing it or anything, but I'm like, oh, did she also write those, like, terrible things about herself? Doubt it. And she also has in here, um, when I talk about guns and stuff, and knowing that, like, he was at least using them, there's a point in here where she says that he informed me that he was getting into buying guns and shooting. Then I read something that I thought was interesting. As a convicted felon, he is not allowed to have weapons.

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  However, allegedly, he managed to get a police chief from the church to assist with expunging his record. Further, he was given a special police badge that says pastor...

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Is that a badge type? To utilize if he ever gets pulled over. This is deeply concerning when we want to talk about, like, a relation he has to authorities.

• 1:34:58Speaker 00

  Let's back up. He's a convicted felon.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  Uh, yes.

• 1:35:04Speaker 00

  For?

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  So, in 1998, he ran over a woman twice, while she was like, she had like sand, was doing something with sandbags or whatever, and so, he got in trouble for that, and he, he has like other charges, like, when I look at his, um, like, report online, there are like...

• 1:35:24Speaker 00

  Like, background check or whatever, yeah.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are like other things, too, but like, that's the big one, which I was like, I've, we did not even touch on in the documentary, I did not realize that this is that man's history. The other thing I did not realize is, he was married to Ally, but, and they had their kids. He had another relationship, I don't know if they were married, I don't think so, with a woman before that, and had another kid, who was like a grown man at the time that all of this went down, and in...

• 1:35:56Speaker 00

  Right, because like, just, like, I want to say, they mention it in the documentary, when Micah and JP got together, I don't know if they, it was when they got married or not, but like, the age split was like 21 and 36.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, 15, yeah, 15 years.

• 1:36:10Speaker 00

  He's like 15 years older than her.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, he has a grown son, which I can get to more, but like, his son has a domestic violence, like, there, I found a news article that he was arrested in like January of '24 for domestic violence. So, also an interesting person that, like, we don't even, not even mentioned anywhere.

• 1:36:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Might not have anything to do with anything, but not, I was surprised to learn it. One of the last things that Allison said that I thought was interesting is she says, I was married to JP for 16 years. Although my story and what I lived through with JP is different in some ways, many of the details shared with me by Micah, because Micah had been like confiding in her, and asking for help, are so similar to my own experiences with JP, that I know she was being truthful. So, I'm sure there's someone out there who's like, oh, you know, is she making up these stories? Or was she, as she was trying to get divorced, or whatever, and you have, you have Allison, who is saying...

• 1:37:07Speaker 00

  Who experienced the same thing years and years before.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, because what you're describing didn't come out of the blue, been there, done that.

• 1:37:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  So...

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  She talks about his father, Wayne. Wayne is super interesting, and this goes to like the creation of the church, where I told you I saw all, like, the similarities. So, he starts this church in South Carolina. The church ends up going on to have, like, a television network. It has a Bible college, it has a ministry overseas, which is just like one for one for one.

• 1:37:46Speaker 00

  When the church was founded, and maybe you don't know this, was it connected to a denomination?

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Mm-mm.

• 1:37:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  So, one of the things that they bring up, when, when we talk about the structure earlier, is this comes up in one of the lawsuit, that is, I know, my all my papers, one of the lawsuits that is filed in 2025, is, they're like, you'll hear these different entities reference, these like three different church names, they're like, they're all the same thing. They're all owned and controlled by Wayne Williams, his dad.

• 1:38:16Speaker 00

  I can think of three different names, but that's okay.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  And John Paul. And so, a lot of the name changes came out of scandal.

• 1:38:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Because, so, he had his first church, and there were this, this big expose, where there were these, like, sexual abuse allegations with young people. And when that happens, this is like the 80s, it's really easy, there's no internet.

• 1:38:43Speaker 00

  To just...

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  So, they pack up, they move to Myrtle Beach, they call it a different church, they started, they have a, some congregation comes, some, the new people, and they start over, and then, there is another incident in which Wayne exposes himself to an undercover officer.

• 1:38:58Speaker 00

  And that's the one that we probably see the article about in, in the documentary?

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  I don't know which one they showed in the documentary, but then...

• 1:39:05Speaker 00

  Because there's like a news article where like, he is named as like...

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  The other one was in the news, too, because it was like this five-part investigative series that was done.

• 1:39:12Speaker 00

  This one seemed like a little bit more like a sting, so that sounds like more like this incident.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  So, he gets in trouble for that, and then, I don't know when, like, solid rock becomes a thing, it's a little bit fuzzy to me, but then that's when JP, which I also think is interesting, when they were talking about in the documentary JP becoming a pastor, was like, oh, he just wanted to, like, he's the pastor's son, who, oh, they also had a school, which has someone who went to the school owned by my church, I was like, what in the heck? And the school, they were like, isn't, wasn't super, like, accredited, it was, we'll get into that in a second, but his dad has faced, even in like recent years, charges for, um, I think it was like a Homeland Security...

• 1:39:54Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Dude, I, I can't make this stuff up, hang on just a second.

• 1:40:01Speaker 00

  You have like invoices and emails and court docs. This is insane.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Yes. The Department of

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  United States for the District of the South Carolina Florence Division, NICE of America. Either way, he ends up pleading guilty to fraud in foreign labor contracting. So basically.

• 1:40:21Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  He was bringing over people from other countries and promising them work within the church and just basically like not providing them even minimum wage. They were getting like 25 bucks a day. They didn't have proper like housing and he would basically, even like the food was expired, which like, don't get me started on that. I know that sounds crazy to people. Do you know much expired food we had in the church? That was just like, because it was free?

• 1:40:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  But don't share the financials to know how much we're making because we apparently need expired food.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  And he would threaten them that if they.

• 1:40:55Speaker 00

  Deportation.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So he is like, he is a hot mess in and of himself. There is this 2007 affidavit from his wife that I am dying to find where it is like referenced in different places where she talks about his control.

• 1:41:12Speaker 00

  So this would be JP's mom?

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And she was like with him for a very long time, but she talks about his control over the family and over the congregation. And I would like love her perspective. So I get a lot of information about the churches that and how it is structured because in 2025, two Jane Does came forward alleging sexual abuse that was allowed by JP and his dad, Wayne, basically in the church. So.

• 1:41:47Speaker 00

  So Wayne and JP weren't the abusers?

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:41:56Speaker 00

  They were.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:41:57Speaker 00

  Or they, or like someone.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  JP. Okay. But like the, the.

• 1:42:01Speaker 00

  They brought this to the church to be handled.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  And JP and Wayne owned the church. I mean, that's the whole problem. And so, but they sued the church too, because they're like board members. There, there's no safety checks. You're not doing background checks.

• 1:42:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:42:13Speaker 00

  There's nothing to like prevent this from happening or to deal with it once this happens.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  History, yet you're just allowing him.

• 1:42:19Speaker 00

  Access to.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Better access to people. Yeah. And not putting anything in place.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  So basically in the Jane Doe number one case, she alleges that she has this encounter with him when she's older with John Paul, where he like sees her, like hugs her, like puts his hand down her pants. And she like confront, like she like pulls him aside after and she's like, I mean, she's embarrassed, she doesn't want it. And she's like, what was that? And he's like, oh, you know, oh, God, the quote. He brings in God again. He's like, ah, God knows, like we sin or some.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:42:54Speaker 00

  I'll take that paraphrase.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Thank you. And so she says that it like brings back the, this repressed memory that she had from when she was 15 at the church and JP was 19. And he got her alone and she alleges he raped her in his truck. But to your point of how that would be viewed by the church, she said she didn't know if anyone would believe her. She was mortified. She was, and eventually completely repressed the memory until it came back. So.

• 1:43:25Speaker 00

  Until it came back when she's assaulted again.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  Correct. So she files that one first and then Jane Doe number two files.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  So this young woman says that JP was 19 or 20 in 1999 and he was a teacher at the school that the church ran. And this is, this is where it talks about how literally they say there were people literally taken off the street and passed off as teachers. Like they didn't have to have, according to this, like accreditation or anything like that. And so JP at 19 is a teacher in this school.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  So in the fall of 1999, plaintiff was just 14 years old when her parents like put her in.

• 1:44:13Speaker 00

  The school.

• 1:44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cathedral Hall Academy. It's not a school, it's a trap. Many of the staff were simply members of the church or colleagues with no credentials. And she has this interaction with JP where he's like playing the piano. He asks if, if she wants to. She declines. And as she's turning to leave, he pulls her into a hug and she didn't have time to react before his hands moved down her back, past her waist, under her clothing and touch her bare butt. She's like unsure of what to do. She told the teacher. Instead of receiving help, she was sent to Wayne's office. And when she arrived, JP's already there.

• 1:44:52Speaker 00

  So just to be clear, like if she tells a teacher, the teacher is not only colleagues with the person that did this, but is also their boss. Right? Like a teacher is employed by the church, by the school that is owned by the person who assaulted her and his father.

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think, you know, he's still the pastor's son at that point, but yeah, it's all in the family.

• 1:45:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  So she gets pulled into the office where Wayne says, quote, "You will not lie about my son." And she was forced to write the words, "I will not lie about John Paul Miller 5,000 times." And then this gets out and she is essentially bullied by everybody.

• 1:45:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Now, she, you know, she is a slut, she is this, she is that. And her life is a living hell. She says, "The horrors of Cathedral Hall Academy were not just physical and sexual, they were psychological." Then this, this will hit extra close to home. One example she gives is when plaintiff brought a Harry Potter book to school, RWM and JPM dragged her into the office. They berated her, called her a servant of Satan and told her that if she continued down this path, she would be ripped by demons. Then right in front of her, they set the book on fire. RWM, that's Wayne, then beat her with a Bible and poured water over her head. She was 16 years old. And again, these are allegations. And people wonder why I haven't seen Harry Potter.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  So he makes a counterclaim to that.

• 1:46:22Speaker 00

  To Jane Doe number two?

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  And Jane Doe number one.

• 1:46:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  He basically has a response and has filed a counterclaim saying that these are lies. There were apparently social media videos. He wanted the judge to like have those be taken down, bar anyone from talking about it. As far as I can see, these are still pending.

• 1:46:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Now, one of the last things that I, I want to get to, I mentioned was like this idea of why did he take all of her stuff? And yes, we know where JP was, but is JP the only person we should be looking at? So one of Micah's sisters filed an affidavit and in here, she says, "Micah told me that there were people following her, keeping track of where she went. She thought that Mr. Miller had hired people to follow her. Mr. Miller later confirmed this during a sermon I watched." Now, they had kind of like briefly touched on this in the documentary?

• 1:47:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, because there's like a moment where they find a tracker on her car and they're like at the police and they see a car pull in and then like whip around and leave.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, which might have been him, but this idea that it was people, this doesn't say John Paul and that he was hiring people too. To me says, I don't, sure, I'm glad we know where his truck was, but like who were these other people that were involved? Who else was in his orbit? And did police thoroughly look at them too? Did the FBI, if we're going to talk about cyber stalking, even if that's the only thing we're talking about, like who else touched that case?

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  Now, when she had filed for divorce the first time, I don't know, I don't know what his mindset was. Maybe he, his narcissistic brain did, really did want her back, but it also seems very calculated because he convinces her to not do it that first time. And then according to her sister's affidavit, she is told by Micah that he starts moving assets. So if she files for divorce and it stays, like right now, she's.

• 1:48:29Speaker 00

  She's going to get things.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  While they're still married, he starts moving assets in his name, such as the vehicle. He changed the deed to their house to the church, transferring interest in, and he also transferred interest in Crocodile Rocks to one of his sons, which I think is like this restaurant or bar or something. So he's making moves.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  Now, the other thing she says is that prior to her admission to Wachemaw, which I think is the, it was the mental health institution where she got institutionalized, when she got committed. So prior to her admission, Micah was gathering and sorting the evidence she had to bring an attorney for filing for divorce to support her claims against Mr. Miller and as to his abuse character, his paramours and associates he paid off or blackmailed. While at, while at the facility, those documents, emails, files, et cetera, were removed from her phone, personal laptop, vehicle and purse and never recovered. Further, Micah was unable to access her iCloud account, email or Facebook profile.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Mr. Miller continued using at least one of Micah's accounts, causing any recipient to believe that it was Micah's communications. So.

• 1:49:44Speaker 00

  And that's like in the documentary to reference like where we are in time. That's when she's calling, she calls like 911 and is like, hey, my estranged or like we're separated. My husband is, I was in the hospital. He's taken all of my stuff. I need like, can I report the stuff stolen?

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  Right. And so to me, that was just like, oh, he took your stuff. It sounds like she was building a case for her divorce.

• 1:50:07Speaker 00

  Against him.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  But maybe, but again, I don't know what this paying off and blackmail, like there, she was collecting evidence that then disappears because she gets institutionalized.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  The other thing her sister says is that Micah was intending to participate in additional missions, because she did missions trips. She was even planning to live part-time in Kenya. Micah recently shipped some of her personal items to Kenya in preparation for her stay there. I understand why the family is so taken aback by this.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  This is the document where she says that she was fearful that she wouldn't make it to the divorce. And she, according to her sister, said, "If I end up with a bullet in my head, it was not by me, it was JP." She's making plans. She says this, she's building this evidence against him. That evidence goes missing. Once she dies, he's trying to collect anything else that might remain.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  It's, I get.

• 1:51:08Speaker 00

  I get the questions.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  I get the questions.

• 1:51:11Speaker 00

  I've had questions since I heard about this case, but I feel like the more that I've learned about it, the list of questions has only grown.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  What now? I don't know. His hearing for cyber stalking, making false statements to an investigator, that is set, I think, right now for October. And I think, I think a lot of people are going to be watching. I know we talked about a ton of like very tough topics. So for anyone who is listening or watching, we're going to put a bunch of resources in the show notes, including something on religious trauma.

• 1:51:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  Which maybe I should take advantage of. And there's also going to be some information about Micah's law. One of the things that her family is trying to change is how the state of South Carolina views allegations of abuse or harassment, like within a married couple, because there was a lot of stuff that they felt like police couldn't respond to because of the fact that JP and Micah were married. So if you want more information on that, you can check out that in the show notes as well and see how you can support. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 1:52:33Speaker 04

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker. Every stranger carries a secret and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather around, listen close and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.