Death of a Pastor’s Wife: Discuss
The Netflix documentary “Death of a Pastor’s Wife” looks at the serial infidelity and coercive control of pastor John-Paul (JP) Miller that resulted in the death of his wife Mica. It hits all the chump themes, with a twist of J*sus cheater spiritual abuse. Let’s discuss.
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If you haven’t watched the Netflix documentary “Death of a Pastor’s Wife” yet, skip today for the spoilers. Maybe you were going to take a pass on it because the world is depressing enough without reading about one more FW on a crime spree. I encourage you to watch it anyway.
It’s a global warning about the perils of winning the pick me dance.
Mica Miller began her relationship with her church pastor John-Paul (JP) Miller as a vulnerable teenager. I hesitate to call her the Other Woman, because she was 13 years old when she met him. He groomed her, she became his affair partner in her late teens, and then after Miller’s first wife divorces him (LUCKY ESCAPE), Mica becomes the second wife.
And it un-alives her.
The docuseries explores how JP abuses her and won’t let her leave their marriage. He stalks her, allegedly tracks her movements, bombards her with messages, hacks her accounts, and commits acts of revenge p*rn.
JP Miller is currently facing federal charges of cyberstalking Mica, as well as lying to federal authorities during their investigation.
That’s the recap, now here are my reactions to Death of a Pastor’s Wife in no particular order.
Solid Rock Church is creepy AF.
Look, I’m not a fan of happy-clappy, non-denominational, strip mall Christianity. Before we got hip deep into the spiritual abuse of this place, I’m judging it for the shiplap siding on the altar. The gel in JP Miller’s hair and his fitted shirts. The amateur rock opera lighting.
It looks like the unholy union of Jesus Christ and HGTV. No one here is singing Wesleyan hymns or organizing food pantries. I wonder why anyone would choose this place to worship at, with its weird pastor and his misogynistic sermons about his seggs life. (MEN HAVE NEEDS! JESUS ABHORS A VACUUM.)
But then after three episodes, I’m agog this guy still has a church after scandal #1 (his wife leaves him for his affair with a very young and very married Mica). And then I’m agog again as that congregation APPLAUDS JP Miller and his creepy sermons. Stands by him. Leans into every sad sausage account of his suffering. And conspires at every turn in the abuse of JP’s two wives, members of their community.
Why does this FW have this kind of hold on them? Netflix explains he can play the piano. Yeah, so? Anyway, I found the congregation completely revolting.
Jeremy and Allison made lucky escapes.
Pastor’s wife #1, Allison, had four children with JP Miller and we don’t hear much about her, except that she divorced him and took the kids. (Cue the sad sausage hysterics, as JP sobs into the lawn.) I thought about her often. Did she compare herself to Mica? Was she sad she lost the pick me dance? Does she miss her old church? Did anyone befriend her?
And of course, I wondered if the same abuse that Mica bravely details later, if Allison didn’t suffer first. I say it here often — you do NOT want to win the pick me dance. The prize is a FW. In this case, the prize was fatal. Mica literally took the bullet for Allison. Not intentionally, of course, but that’s how it played out.
Mica also left a chump, her first husband Jeremy. Again, not much said about that guy except he’s some sad collateral damage. I’m sure he must be thinking, well Mica, if you’d stayed with me, you’d still be alive. And also, please note how I let you divorce me without tracking your car.
Suzie Skinner. WTF?
If you ever wondered how your FW could just replace you and move on to the next spousal appliance — I present Suzie Skinner, JP Miller’s third wife. Who must believe that God gave her the supernatural gift of exceptionalism.
She also has a chump who winds up un-alived face down in a swimming pool. Which seemed like a big coincidence.
But Suzie doesn’t spend a lot of time grieving. Instead she’s publicly holding hands with the still-very married JP Miller.
Suzie! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? Did the fates of wife #1 and wife #2 not register with you? Do you realize there is documented evidence that while you were in Twu Wuv with JP, he was pursuing Mica relentlessly? Did you think your pick me dance was so powerful that you could lasso that wandering dick?
In prayer all things are possible, Tracy.
I cannot with Suzie Skinner. She’s a grown-ass woman. She gets the Other Woman label. Maybe it will be easier to divorce JP when he’s in jail, Suzie. Or are you going to run that sad, cinder block basement fellowship yourself?
Regina Ward is a hero.
Every chump deserves a lawyer like Regina Ward, who was absolutely ferocious in her defense of Mica. Who gets her a restraining order and immediately clocks the coercive control.
In fact, every older woman in this documentary seemed immune to JP’s bullish*t. The spiritual counselor lady, the fill-in pastor, the kind former parishioner who shelters Mica during her separation. They all have her back. I suspect they’ve all seen some FWs in their time.
Mica Miller never got to gain a life.
The heartbreaking arc of this story is that Mica understood at the end that JP was never a prize and that abuse isn’t love. She spread the message on her videos. She rejected the spiritual minds*ckery she was subjected to. By all accounts she was looking forward to a new, improved JP-free life.
But she didn’t live to see it.
You can blame JP Miller (did he un-alive her? Did she un-alive herself?) You can blame the state of South Carolina for making it difficult to divorce. You can blame that Solid Rock Stupid congregation for buying the narrative that Mica was crazy and divorce is a sin (unless your pastor does it.)
I wish she were still here, instead of a cautionary tale on Netflix.
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A lot of head-spinning awfulness in this story, and for some reason Suzie Skinner is getting my focus. How!?!? Just how do you bring two small children into this sadist’s orbit!? How do you justify that to yourself?
That’s putting aside the real suspicion that you un-alived your paraplegic spouse by remote-controlling his wheelchair into a pool. (Yep. That’s the theory. Suzie and JP just happened to be first on the scene of his death.)
:: sigh :: I don’t understand people.
And it does happen, so I think your suspicions are valid because I share them and it’s happened before!
There was a case above in the North of Ireland, two married people met at a church, all Holy Joe with themselves , then started cheating with each other and then both of them murdered their spouses so they could be together because apparently, according to the man, it was “what God wanted”! How warped is that?
Two nations were outraged and scandalised, Britain as well as Ireland!
Their names are Colin Howell and Hazel Stuart. There was a drama series made about it called “The Secret” and it’s on Netflix Ireland and UK if you can find a way to watch it!
“…remote-controlling his wheelchair into a pool” – wow, really? I was completely unaware of this case before I read Chump Lady’s post today. That sounds like something from a bad movie or a police procedural TV show. But…there’s nothing crazier than what happens in the real world.
Case in point: The Convicted Felon got elected to a second term.
Oh good hairy grief! It actually gets worse!
Its horrifying what these kinds of people do in the name of Christianity. As a Christian myself I often wonder how congregations can even manage to EXIST when they spring up around abusers and sex pests. Then I remember that the Children of God cult existed. Something insidious happens in human brains when they’re slowly cooked like a boiling frog into justifying the most insane and disgusting and irredeemable things.
The raised Christian supernaturalist in me wants to say, “its demons! Infiltrating the faith by posessing evil people with charisma!” but I think human beings are screwed up enough on their own. Demons just gotta chill and eat popcorn while we destroy ourselves perfectly efficiently on our own.
It always makes me think of that quote from Good Omens:
“ Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn’t have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadn’t he…”Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Don’t forget Neil Gaiman! That show’s script was top drawer. And as with so much fiction written by very smart and observant people, such a mirror of the world we live in.
Personally I try to forget Neil Gaiman after he sexually assaulted his young, homeless nanny among others. I’ve read both authors, and the smart but compassionate view of humanity is all Pratchett’s. Gaiman is darker, which tracks.
Don’t need one bit of help..Demons probably sit back and say…Dang they are good!!!
So heartbreaking. I’ve been thinking of her since I found out about her many weeks ago.
Domestic abuse. “Sexual slavery” abuse (in her marriage). Psychological abuse / Gaslighting and stalking. Coercive control. Spiritual abuse. Stop the marriage torture and religious torture of women. Make all these high punishable crimes!
So horrifying, and whether it is church cult affiliated (Jesus has no part in this), or a random cheater, it is happening as we speak to someone else.
Cheaters are not always murderers, but murderers are always cheaters. Save a minute number of exceptions.
Jesus would speak out and condemn this as he did so many other abuses. He treated all women with dignity and respect more so than any man in that time of history..And He and his Father will hold these cheaters accountable before the universe. Tracy talks about a front seat in Hell. I agree.
Exactly! I think this monster and his like are the sort of people whom Our Lord will tell to go away because He never knew them!
The idea of intelligent justice coincides with intelligent design.. I am not the final word ..but there will be.
Yes, I watched it and cried. That well could have been me. My ex preached part-time. He was from a family of preachers and missionaries. At home, he was very difficult. He had a long-term pill problem and documented mental health issues (borderline). There was an old girlfriend who periodically popped up that he idolized. I felt very uncomfortable about that. The first time we separated (his choice), he tried to unalive himself. Of course, I forgave it all and invited him home instead of insisting on a mental health halfway house where he could prove himself (or not).
After that, what JP demanded of Mica resembled my story, but I began pushing back. I realized that he was objectifying me, big time, and getting jollies from the level of control he was demanding. My now-ex called down God’s judgment on me. And he shamed me with comparisons to the old girlfriend, as in, “Why can’t you be like her?” We had been married for several decades.
He went on a solo vacation that became a long-distance separation. What a blessing that was. My STBX continued to call down the wrath of God on me and said that “if” he cheated, it would 100% be my fault. So how does that work long-distance? How do your pants get unzipped?
At the one-year mark, I refused to reconcile. I did not consult with our church or my therapist. I owned it. He tried to convince me otherwise and called down God’s judgment on me. His version of reconcilation involved giving up my phone and computer so I could be solely focused on him. Gigantic, sky-high red flag!
He initiated the divorce, and eventually it settled. My ex had all kinds of religious justifications for being the initiator. Personally, I owned that it had to end, period. I hit meh when I saw that the judge had signed off.
Our long-term church seemed to get it, but I realized later that they had exonerated me because my ex had left and filed for divorce. They continued to see me as a victim, lacking male leadership. NO, I OWN IT! They questioned why I had bought a house without consulting them, saying that single women shouldn’t do such a thing. They didn’t like that I am alone at times with one adult kid who uses my place as “base camp” for their business travels. And I noticed that the rhetoric from the pulpit was increasingly “no divorce ever” and “God can fix anything.” Through the grapevine, I heard that other marriages were in trouble, so I wasn’t necessarily targeted. But still, ugly.
I found a church that is not patriarchal and controlling. They recognize that some marriages need to end and have never treated me differently because I’m divorced.
It’s good to be alive and in a better chapter!
I am standing with you. I am so so grateful for still being here and enjoying my last years untethered from a very disturbed man who pretended to love me and I believed him. I am beyond thankful for a few years of healing and freedom. Cheater HAD TO BE as awful as he was for me to see, to UNDERSTAND his darkness and capacity to do great harm. I thank God for being saved I the Nick of time. And you too
Your church thought you shouldn’t buy a house without consulting them? WTF? Did they consult YOU about their major financial decisions???
As a longtime atheist and secular humanist, I guess I’m not understanding how this landed with you. And not properly sympathizing. Sorry.
Thanks. Frankly, it never occurred to me to consult them. I knew my finances through and through and had been involved in over a dozen real estate transactions across various contexts. When I engaged a realtor, I had scads of questions and gave her a list of my priorities. The whole transaction went flawlessly.
But I think the church leadership questioning that after it was done was part of the “broken and inept” mindset, aka, Elsie can’t and shouldn’t do these sorts of things post-divorce.
Over-and-done with people like that.
Theology of the insecure patriarchy: “Single women shouldn’t own a house.”
Elsie and Ariel: “Hold my beer.”
So funny. Truly, we are so capable of so much more than they think.
I had way more legal and financial experience than my ex and knew exactly how to shop for an attorney. An acquaintance called the one I picked “grandpa with an iron rod.” I would say that he kept the upper hand 90% of the time, all while being a Southern gentleman.
Then I made some somewhat risky investment choices post-divorce that did very well some years later. And I expanded a side business that took off. So a few years after that, it didn’t make sense to rent anymore, so I bought a house.
My old church couldn’t handle it. I think they continued to see me as broken and inept without a man. Not my people. Yes, hold my beer.
You saved yourself as I did. The church could not. I’m happy you kept alive to tell us your story
Yes, the church thought they had it, as did my ex. Nope.
I’m glad you made it to the other side as well!
Well lI am not surprised, any country that can elect the President you did has a screw loose somewhere, this paster has followers so that says it all, there is something very wrong in America on many levels and you better figure out what it is fast, or your country will rot from the inside out. The world is watching. Humans are the only living creatures that will follow a weak leader, no other animal in the kingdom does that. He’s leading you over a cliff.
“I” didn’t vote for him! He was elected by the Electoral College, that is, enough people in the right states voted for him to elect him. And the Electoral College was put in the Constitution to save us from electing a demagogue!
I have to agree with you though. We have quite a few screws loose here.
Yeah, America has pretty much been colonized from within by religious and white supremacist extremism. That has enabled a cult to actually run the country.
That being said, human nature is the same worldwide. There are cheaters, grifters, thieves, liars, exploiters worldwide. A fatal flaw is to have the attitude that “It can’t happen here, it’s those people who have problems.” So whatever country you are from be thankful that it is not happening to you, but know that with the right alignment of circumstances it absolutely could at some time in the future.
Yeah. We KNOW. Many, many, many of us did not vote for him and live each day in increasing horror over what is happening here.
Many of us did not elect him and are doing what little we can to stop the rot.
I think that one only needs to watch the trailer to conclude that, yet again, we have proof that monsters live amongst us.
And let’s not forget that Mica’s life wasn’t the only one destroyed in this story.
LFTT
Oh, this movie. I watched it last week and it broke my heart. And of course identified with Mica. The theory that he murdered her….yes, he did. I don’t know if he pulled the trigger, but even if he didn’t, he still killed her. His constant abuse–and he abused her in every way a man can abuse a woman–wore her down until there was nothing left of her.
Watching the home videos you see this bright, radiant, God-loving woman have her spirit crushed, slowly, intentionally and viciously by an evil and depraved man, and an indifferent system. The police did not take her seriously enough. Had they acted against JP at the first violation, my guess is that Mica would be here today.
If I could make one immediate change to the judicial system, it would be that the first time the subject of a restraining order violated the order…in any way…that there would be immediate and severe consequences. So many lives would be saved if that were the case.But I think it will take the deaths of many, many more women before this changes.
I salute her family for ensuring that this information has gone public. They are saving lives and I can think of no better way to honor the spirit of this courageous woman.
I should have been clear that rigorous enforcement of restraining orders would save the lives of many men as well (and the innocent children that all too often are in the blast zone.) I meant the violent of either sex and don’t downplay the seriousness of men who are being abused.
We need this lesson to comprehend the glue that occurs when a deranged creep uses God and his church as added prison bars for his multiple victims.
This is NOT an isolated story and could be multiplied by the thousands. Pastors wives are so imprisoned by what they believe God requires of them. I’m not sure what is even worse. Celebate church men preying on all woman, kids and teens or promiscuous preditor pastors doing the same.
Also, many many chumps unalive themselves or develop life ending diseases— the cancer spreads or the mental health collapses under the strain of a cheater. Those numbers are buried underneath the ruble of sanctuaries, cathedrals, hospitals, political offices,board rooms and all places of coercive power. A few to name- Wife of RFK Jr, Wife of John Edwards..the list is endless. Even in India Sunanda Pushkar. Let this be a lesson. For those not murdered, please don’t harm yourself. There is NO ONE LESS WORTH IT than a cheater. No matter what you lose.
And your friends and family need YOU! Run!
The popularity of sick religious cults make me want to resign from the human race.
I will add that I think all organized religion has cultish aspects to it, but as long as they keep it within reason and don’t harm people, I can live and let live with organized religion. However, the extreme end of the spectrum is terrifying. It’s sickening to know that freak shows like this get tax exempt status too.
As an ex-Catholic, I still believe religious freedom is important. However, in my view that shouldn’t translate to “Freedom to oppress anyone around you, including your own spouse and your kids.”
I hadn’t heard about this case or the Netflix show. I canceled Netflix a while back because I realized I wasn’t watching it.
I hope Miller is convicted and receives the maximum sentence.
I actually just now finished the last episode.
He is so CLEARLY a fuckwit. WHY CANT ANYONE IN THAT PHONY ASS CONGREGATION SEE IT????
I was YELLING at my TV the whole time, “JP you are SUCH a fucking LIAR!!!”
And the bit where he is laying in the grass overwrought with grief because his first wife left and took the kids… WTAF… you are a GROWN ASS MAN!!! Pathetic as hell.
And people follow this charlatan???
I do not get it.
I just know that had I stumbled across this “church” I’d have been holllering “FALSE PROPHET!!” “LIAR!!” “IMPOSTER” “FRAUD” within 5 minutes of his opening his mouth.
And his creepy CREEPY sermons on sex??? My GOD, what is WRONG with the people who sit through that lying slop???
I feel like I need a shower after that. Yuk.
I binge-watched this yesterday and bloody Hell!
He is a monster, a foul, odious creature! I’m not very shockable but his depravity did genuinely shock me! He’s also ugly on the outside as well, he has a nose like a pig’s snout but then , he is a pig really, isn’t he!
Poor Mica, she was so pretty and full of life and he was a leech on her. I have no doubt he started the grooming process on her a long time before he pounced, maybe even as far back as when she first went to that “church” when she was only 13 years of age!
If there was any justice , he’d be in prison and on the sex offenders list!
Yikes! I watched most of this last night and woke up this morning with an emotional hangover. I’m better tonight and might watch the rest but GEEZ!!!!! I’m telling myself, “Hair of the dog, Chump. Hair of the dog.” Thank you for recommending, CL. Not easy, but I’m glad to see this common Pred-FW behavior covered so well!
I’ve not watched it yet is this show sympathetic to the chump or glossing over the FW? Sounds like it shows him as a monster, I really hope more pop culture stuff starts to expose serial cheating as abuse!