Crime Junkie
Crime Junkie

CJ SPIRAL: Mica Miller

August 29, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

On April 27, 2024, 30-year-old Mica Miller was found dead in a North Carolina state park from a gunshot wound. The local sheriff’s office quickly ruled it a suicide. But Mica’s family had a different reaction: they remembered she had told her sister, “If I end up with a bullet in my head, it was not by me. It was JP.” That “JP” is John Paul Miller, Mica’s husband and the pastor of a South Carolina megachurch. The case has become a flashpoint, and a new Netflix documentary, The Pastor’s Wife, has brought it to a national audience. In this bonus episode, Crime Junkie hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat—both of whom grew up in the same kind of evangelical, non-denominational church environment—walk through the documentary’s revelations, the evidence that was left out, and the disturbing patterns they recognize from their own pasts.

The architecture of control inside the church

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:52) **Introduction & Personal Connection** - Ashley and Brit explain why they're doing a bonus episode to discuss the Netflix documentary "The Pastor's Wife" about the Mica Miller case, which hit close to home because of their shared evangelical upbringing.
  • 2 (03:17) **Mica's Early Life & The Affair** - The documentary shows how Mica, a devoted church volunteer since age 13, became entangled with her pastor John Paul (JP) Miller, leading to an affair that destroyed both of their marriages.
  • 3 (15:18) **Sermons, Control, and the Psych Ward** - JP used his pulpit to preach about sexual submission and God's forgiveness, while simultaneously having Mica involuntarily committed after a reaction to breast augmentation anesthesia, then marrying her just six days after her release.
  • 4 (21:41) **Mica's Brave Confessions to Friends** - Mica began confiding in friends about the extreme control and sexual coercion in her marriage, including daily sex, isolation from friends, and JP's threats of finding sex elsewhere.
  • 5 (25:12) **Escalation, Violence, and Text Message Gate** - The abuse escalates when JP pressures Mica into a threesome with a friend, threatens her with a gun, and his ongoing infidelity is exposed through a "miraculous" text message chain sent to another pastor's phone.
  • 6 (43:57) **The Church as a Business** - The documentary reveals the church's structure was designed to give JP total control, with "elders" who had no real power, no financial transparency, and a culture that enabled abuse.
  • 7 (49:28) **Susie Skinner and Chris's Mysterious Death** - JP's next affair was with Susie Skinner, a married woman in the congregation; after her wheelchair-bound husband Chris confronted JP, Chris was found dead at the bottom of a swimming pool.

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Guests on this episode

Ashley Flowers

Show Notes

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. 

Mica’s Law 

National Domestic Violence Hotline

  • If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.

Support with Religious Trauma

  • If you or someone you know needs support in dealing with religious trauma, Reclamation Collective can help. You can find out more about resources on their website, www.reclamationcollective.com. 

Head over to our Crime Junkie YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH4Ew0wcnSQ 

Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit:  https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/cj-spiral-mica-miller 

 

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