Shavaun Scott on What JP Miller Built, Destroyed, and Did Next

0:00This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dree. Death of a pastor's wife. Maybe you've seen it. It's on Netflix now. If you are not familiar with the JP Miller, John Paul Miller saga and Micah Miller tragedy, it's a great place to start your journey of going down that road. We've been covering it here on the show for the last several years, kind of on and off, but now there's obviously there's federal charges against JP. And the documentary pretty much holds nothing back in a nutshell. JP Miller met Micah when she was just a teen agent. Some accounts have it all the way to the age of 10. At 18, he officiated her first marriage to another man, Jeremy Diaz, only to later make her his personal assistant and then initiated an affair with her and have her as his Danny.

1:00Well, he's married. And then he married her himself. That's the lead up. That's the life before the death of Micah Miller. And we're going to get into that. We're going to get into life after the tragedy and even more today. But we want to kind of work sequentially through this, the coercive control years, if you will, everything that led up to the death of Micah Miller. Here to help us do that. Chavon Scott, psychotherapist and author as well as Robin Drake, retired FBI special agent, chief of the counter intelligence behavioral analysis program. Watch this doc, like I said, if you've not done so yet, news nation also did a great, they even had the man who did the interview on the doc. He did like an hour with JP about a year ago. I remember, I think I was on Banfield that night talking about it. It is, it's a stunning to watch. It's stunning to watch the behavior of JP Miller as he believes how he's he's coming across

2:03as a competent human being. It's just you got to watch it to fully grasp. Let's start with the long game of grooming though, Chavon. The documentary reveals the timeline. JP met Miller as a teenager, officiated her first marriage at 18 eventually inserted himself into her life as her boss, pastor and lover. People on the outside looking in, seeing what happened here going, oh my God, he totally prayed on this woman. Her side looking in at that moment in time, it's a love story. This is someone that she trusts that she's cared about, that it's been through many moments of life with her on. How is it that we're able to have such very different viewpoints depending on how close to the sun we're flying? You know, I thought it was a great documentary. I watched it on my laptop and I really had the urge to wipe the whole laptop down the

3:03pan so I could kind of climb up to work. Of course, throw it out. Oh, yeah, it was just, he is such a slimy person. But yeah, the grooming I think is common, particularly in certain kinds of churches. I certainly saw it in the church I grew up in. But I saw her as a sad teen. You know, her sisters brought out that there had been a divorce in the family. It impacted her tremendously. And she turned to church. She turned to faith. And I think she became obsessed with it and I pretty much did the same thing. But it left her vulnerable. And her faith became her identity and her purpose and her coping mechanism and where she put her emotions. And it was just integrated into her personality in a very, very, very deep way. And that set her up for a guy like this, a predator. You know, there's so many striking things that is Shivan that just the red flag, the red

4:11flags were waving numerous times. I thought, and I'm curious because, and I know editing has a lot to do with this, especially making Netflix special and things like that. But every time they're showing the church congregation and JP preaching, he's got some sexual theme going and submissive sexual theme going. I mean, years ago when we were very church going family and in laws and everything, the way we grew up, I never once heard any of those themes in church once. Yet, it again, editing could have been it, but it sounds like it was a recru… They weren't playing the same clip again and again and again. And so I'm curious, what… Your interpretation was it an intentional, grumid of an entire church? Are these people self-selecting into this? I mean, how come this group of people that were then tithing and giving money to pay him for this messaging yet at the same time, as Amy Dugger King has said on our show,

5:17beautifully from the Duggers in IBLP, that they cherry-pick portions of the Bible they want to use to their own gain. He was totally doing that, but for such a long period of time and sexualizing the entire Bible and the subjugation of women, how does that happen? I was baffled at the fact that his church kept growing. You know, they said it started off with just a handful of people. And this is where we go back to the cult word. I mean, you have this carousel, I thought he was a cook, but apparently a lot of people found him funny, they found him charming. I mean, this is all cluster B stuff, right? It could play the piano. Oh, like Jerry Lee Lewis, right, who also married his 13-year-old cousin. But yeah, it was shocking to see the people. And you know, I always am careful of a church where everybody waves their hands in the air

6:20all the time. That was my church too. There was a lot of that going on. And you know, but these people were into it. And it was like he created this closed system, this kind of us versus them. We've got it. We're the most loving group and how they sucked people in. You know, people talked about, oh, I just went and they made me feel so good. That's classic cult stuff. And then this sexual compulsion, my God, you could do a case study on this guy's sexual behavior, multiple perf. He is, he abused the heck out of her sexually speaking of Micah. And it's allegedly an old man. And brought in homeless. Allegedly, yeah. I mean, all of these are allegations against him. He's never been convicted of anything. He's never been charged with a lot of, there has been some charges. But a lot of these are allegations. I should say that.

7:22Do people in environments like this, is this a group that's susceptible to fall into one of these churches and to see a person like JP on stage? And yes, he's charismatic. He's intense with the way he delivers a message. Is that intensity often mistaken for authenticity with groups like this where it's such a gray line they don't quite have the ability to identify someone's real intent or even the depth of the meaning behind the message that's being given out because the intensity is so engaging. Because some of the things he's talking about, where he's talking about his wife and it's all about submission to him. And if they refuse it, then they're going to find somebody by the end of the day so you better give it up to him when he asks. I mean, it's like holy shit. And then this congregation just like keep going JP.

8:23But he's delivering with intensity and that carousel that those preachers have. Oh my gosh, this is the word of the Lord. Tithing time. I mean, it seems like the more intense some of these people can be, the more people eat this shit up, whether it's good or not. It's just like the spigot is on and they're just, they can't fill up their pictures quick enough. Yeah, they bought into it and I had the same thought is who would be bamboozled by this? Who could sit and listen to this, right? And then I go back to me at 13 when I was listening to weirdo pastors. Maybe at 13, I would have been fooled by the intensity, but boy, I would have sure grown out of it pretty fast. But this focus on sexuality in his sermons and this thing about wife's cannot say no. And so basically this powerful guilt for any woman that would be listening to that and

9:28feel like, well, you know, this is just what God wants. And so confusing this obedience thing that women are the help me and are there to serve the husband and the husband is the power in the family and the control. It creates a lot of self doubt in the women and I'm sure there were men who thought, hey, this is pretty good. I like this, you know. But again, there's apparently a lot of people who just don't have insight and it would be interesting to have some interviews with people who may be wondered in and got creeped out and say, yeah, this was just over the top. I really wonder, you kind of like with IBLP and the Dougers where they, it attracts predators. And I really, again, innocent, proven guilty, just conjecture, thought experiments, all those things. I'm really curious about how he grew his congregation. Was it because men were dragging their women to this or was it vice versa because he's

10:31putting out a message that's great for predators. Exactly. People that, or, or, or, people that want to take advantage and subjugate people in their lives like their women, their wives, because that's, again, it blows mind. He was so consistent on kept preaching this subjugation and cherry picking out of the Bible. What he wanted to. Yes. Does he, do people like that even know? Do you think he knew that, you know, when he's, he's writing out his sermons or picking out the direction he's going to go with it? I mean, is there the active thought process there in JP's mind, you know, and unconjecture here? Like, all right, I got a, I really need to make this one land this week because of what's going on in my life with Mike at home or wherever. And if I, if I tell to the congregation that this is how wives should act and see everybody's to see everybody's doing this. Mike, you should do this too. Like, is that, is even aware that he's doing it? I guess it's a question or is it just for someone like this, this is just the modality they have and their modality is manipulation.

11:31And manipulation is a manipulation to them. It's just a way of life. Yeah. I'm going to guess this was conscious on his part to some degree, but it was all self-serving. It was his defense mechanism, the way the guy moves through the world. And the other thing I wanted to mention, you know, what my term for most of these folks cluster B, right? Because you see this overlapping with narcissism and the psychopathy, the manipulation, the lack of a conscience, the, you know, hidden rage that he would take out on Micah. All cluster B, but the big one that really hit me over the head that we don't always see is the histrionic personality. Yeah. This guy loved an audience. Talk about doing big, dramatic emotions. And a histrionic person wants the eyes on them all the time and they're not happy when they're not in front of an audience. And yeah, he really was. You put him on that piano and he lit up and he was, he was on fire internally when he

12:36was preaching. You could just tell how satisfying this was to him. So I think this is just his way of moving through the world, highly manipulative. And people like this do they have insight into what they're doing to some degree, but sometimes it's just the way they think. Yeah, Jenzee's put a lot of great comments in for us this morning. I thought this one was really good because I think it begs kind of a question and an interpretation here as well. He thought it was okay. Do you think it's, it's not just he thought it was okay, but to me he's also saying, hey, I'm a little unsure whether this is okay or not. So I'm going to, I'm going to put it out there for the world to validate it is okay. So is that part of it also? Could be. Yeah, certainly he wanted validation and he got the validation, which is the crazy part. And the other thing that struck me was when he's busted, right, with the affair with

13:38Micah from his first, you know, first wife, Ali. And this came out from Ali finding texts on his phone and then Micah confessed everything. The, the rationalizing of the group that well God forgives everybody. And this is part of their theology and their belief system. But the histrionic again, the scene, so many scenes that just really I have my notes again from the scene that just jumped out at me when he was rolling on the grass sobbing. Oh my God. Weird little boy. Oh my God, yes, I know. I think he knows what he's doing and that's something that's worked for him. Well, he does something horrible. It's exposed. And then he cries. And you know, that, that is so manipulative because he works his way back into the, the fold worked his way back into being the pastor. And that should have been for savvy people, a sign of we've got a guy with a character

14:43logical problem here who is not suited for leading any group of people. You know, and I know, I know this topic has come up a lot, you know, covering a Lindsey Clancy case and people have been arguing about performative and not performative. We've used other cases as examples of what performance in a courtroom looks like and doesn't look like that is performative. When you saw him bawling on the ground like a two year old, that is performative. Very much. Very. Talking like this for the same reason. Oh my God. I mean, I just want to put him out as misery. Well, yeah. I mean, history on it. Let's talk about that for a little bit to help people understand a little bit more. I mean, that's an interesting thing because like when it's, when it's, it's, it's presenting itself in relationships without a camera. And it's, it's just interpersonal. I mean, it can be very destructive. And a lot of times, at least in my experience with folks like that, they, they seem rather clueless as to the destruction path that they're, they're leaving in their wake. It's just, it seems to be their modality.

15:43Here's me had a camera that followed it around. But the, the desire for the attention, the desire for the chaos seems to be like unquenchable in, in so many cases with these people, which is why interpersonal and without a camera, it's just like, what are you doing? Like why are you continuing this sort of behavior that just is utterly chaotic and just leads to, to problems here? I mean, he's, he's, he's getting the feedback from society of like what you're doing is not right. Like this is messed up. This is weird. This is wrong. But the attention is there. The attention gets more intense. The crazier shit he does. Does that, does that just feed a historic person like this when you're in that sort of a position of power with a preacher, preacher hood or whatever you call it, past around what it's technically called, but, but having a congregation that listens to you, does that just feed that sort of madness, the toxicness of a historic personality? Because it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. The feedback is there, the feedback exists and the energy is being put back at your madness

16:48and that just feeds it. It doesn't matter what it's good or bad out of them. Yeah, it, it really doesn't matter as long as the eyes in the room are on them and it's, it's a compulsive drive. Look at me, look at me, look at me. And everything I saw with him from, from as I say, his playing the piano to his preaching, to his, his attempt at humor, which none of it I found funny, but in the congregation laughed. And folks like that, this is so much a part of who they are, you know, when we talk about who can be treated and who can change and what are the odds of that. Folks with historic personality, they never get it. They don't have insight. They don't want to change. And so this is a very poor prognosis for somebody changing or improving. I know. The other thing that it's so shocking about this is as they noted, you know, in our chat and also when you watch a doc, he's honest third wife. Each one of these wives came from his own congregation that has seen this entire show

17:50from the inside. So it's not like he's, he's going out in the public and grabbing one that has no idea of history, no idea of anything that's going on. And yet, and in any, his church, his church even talked about, at least Micah did about how divorce is against, as against the church is against God's will and yet he's doing it. So are these, it's hard to imagine that you have an entire congregation of people that are completely unhealthy. It's just not realistic. But at the same time, you're seeing people inside his church agreeing with him, going along with him and then saying, it's okay to marry him. Are they all, so Shavon, are you, you've seen these things from the inside? Are they all, are they all unhealthy people, healthy people that are wrapped up? How does that happen to a group that is largely, I imagine, composed with people that don't have malformations of brain, don't have chemical imbalances, are they all broken or they just sucked in by something else? The word that pops into my head is naive and people that have a very strong emotional

18:58need to be led. And they can, I mean, I think a lot of really broken and people who are dependent, you know, and you may not be a mentally ill person, but you can still be a highly dependent person. And so when you include the fact that they're naive and he's very persuasive, I mean, not to us, but to, apparently, to a lot of people in the congregation, he could use scripture and of course they can't question scripture because that's part of the whole thing and the way, you know, from what I've seen in my own experience in these churches. However, the pastor interprets scripture, people buy into that because that's just part of, you know, part of the system. But it does have a cult like quality. And I think people who are essentially healthy people, they don't have personality disorders, but they're needy, they're vulnerable, and they're prone to following charismatic cult leaders.

19:59And I think this was on the edge of something like that. Yeah. Now, I mean, without a doubt, it's, it's shocking to watch. And obviously we can't diagnose him. So we don't know if he's truly an iconop, but that's our conjecture and opinion based on the observations that we've seen. Yeah, we can say we can, we can't give a DSM diagnosis, but we can certainly say observable behavior. A observable behavior. We do. We call them a nutter. Yeah, he's officially a nutterer or just a slime ball, either slime ball, nutter, slime ball. All of the above, all of the above. Your thoughts in the comments section on substack in YouTube as we continue our conversation about death of a pastor's wife, the story of pastor. And I put it in here, of course, because it's like you're not a pastor. Pastor JP Miller, John Paul Miller and the death of Micah Miller. Let's continue on in the weeks before her death, Micah Miller called 911 several times

21:03regarding GPS trackers on her car and stolen belongings 14 times. Meanwhile, JP filed a mental health pickup order telling police she was bipolar and offer medications. JP really proactively told police that Micah was bipolar, schizophrenic and having an episode to explain away her cries for help. Now it's not to say that there could have been actual mental health problems going on there. That could have existed. But when you look at the environment, she was engee. I wonder what was exacerbating that. How common is it for a narcissist or a sociopath, abusers like this to intentionally terrorize a victim in private, only to use that trauma, that trauma response when they're out there. Hey, everybody, this isn't right or they're reacting to label them as crazy or unstable to authorities or friends or family or anybody looking in to make sure that nobody truly

22:06sees what's going on. And disturbingly, how successful are they typically in telling that tale? I think there's a lot of this. It's probably under reported, but this, you know, it would be, I was watching this, of course, thinking, boy, I'd love to look at all her medical records and what they documented in the hospital. You know, because you wonder bipolar disorder is a pretty serious diagnosis. And one of the videos that apparently he had recorded, she did sound psychotic in what she was saying, but can trauma drive a person into a state like this when it's ongoing trauma they feel trapped? I think there's evidence that that can happen and it may look psychotic and may look like bipolar disorder. But it can certainly be, you know, severe anxiety, depression, feeling trapped, hypervigilance, and you know, for her to not submit to him meant that she was refusing to follow God or

23:14to love God. And so that's quite a double bind to be in and could that exacerbate maybe somebody who had existing vulnerabilities? And I think she had vulnerabilities. So there could have been, you know, an underlying mood disorder bipolar condition and the stress of this marriage triggered it and manifested. Shivon, could it also because what's another interesting facet of this, not just her medical history, mental health history, which again, we've been covering so much of and learning so much about because of Lindsey Clancy on tragically, but he was really telling her so much because like part of what I picked up also was every time he's having an interaction with someone including the congregation, he's always focused on his actions. It's like a bad 911 call when the perpetrator calls it in. You can always tell because they're not worried about the victim. They're worried about what their role was and what they were doing. So they're creating their own alibi. He did that a lot throughout this. But part of that narrative, he kept preaching everyone else.

24:16He was also preaching her. So how, how can that also affect her own mental health? If he's telling her, she's bipolar and she's suggestible and he's the pastor. So I have to listen to him. I mean, he's telling her what she has to submit to sexually. Was it five times a day? This was a creepy shit. It's not insane. Yeah. And so could that also play into her, I mean, can someone basically become bipolar or at least exasperated if someone continually tells you you are because he was doing that as well? I would call it more a chronic PTSD response. And that is where how we've been talking a lot about mental hospitals and how good of a job do these programs do. I think if she was in a really good program where they spent enough time assessing her and really got into what is your lifestyle like and what are these symptoms like and how is this all correlated that that could have been picked up?

25:18That you know what, there's really more of a trauma response going on here than bipolar. But it's really hard to know and it's hard to know what the quality of care that she got was unfortunately. It'd be really interesting to see when it goes a trial because again, I know he's not being charged with the death or anything. But I'll be interesting to see what kind of searches they do on his computers and Google searches and things like that. It'd be really interesting because of all these things that it looks like he was doing intentionally. Did he research him? Was he thinking about them? I mean, I would be very curious on all these different aspects because he seemed to be doing things pretty intuitively that would have taken that normal human beings wouldn't think of or even think of how to doing it. He seemed to be pretty fluid with it. Yeah, somebody mentioned gas lighting off the chart. Off the chart, gas lighting here. Manipulating. No, another good definition. Yeah. There's a person who's doing this level of gas lighting in bullshit. Because he actually did he want her back truly or did he want to destroy her? What was the ultimate goal at the end of the day? Exactly what happened.

26:19I'm going to make life so hellish for her with the GPS trackers on the car posting the the new photos of her online tracking her in real time telling everybody she's got this and that and oh my gosh, it's just such a sad, horrible story is the ultimate goal. I'm going to drive her so mad she's going to go to the woods and do this. The lower is it I'm going to get to her so much that she's only going to turn back to me because I provide such a lovely home to live with and such a great partnership that she clearly will come back. I mean, is it a little above? I mean, do they even know? Do you think he even knows what the hell the goal is at the end of the day? I've been he's just flailing in his his psionic way of look at me and here's what I want. Me me me me me but never really quite understanding where the next, you know, Lily Patties jumping to is. Yeah, I think it can go both ways. Good good question. There's obviously a need for power and control and entitlement.

27:22He wanted to own her. I mean, she had his name tattooed on her body early on. She belonged to him in her wedding vows. She said something like I wrote it down. 100% of what I am I give to you. And then in his his sermons were a wife must no respect and honor. And so I think he liked, you know, apparently for quite some time. He succeeded in feeling like he owned her. And I think he kind of got a high from that. And so he I'm just guessing, but I think he had a strong attachment to her and wanted her back. But if he couldn't make it work as it was not working near the end, then I think it really was about I'm just going to go after her and try to do what I can to destroy. Yeah, I wrote down their wedding vow when they said it. She said she will give 100% to him in all areas even to make his dreams come true. His response, I won't try to best that.

28:28So so Shavon say he's unchecked and this continues. He continues. He's on a he's an art. He's on an arc. He's got a life arc on this. Where does it go if he's unchecked? Because all I can and I'm asking is this guy like this then eventually say, you know what? This whole one wife thing just really is ensued me. I need more. I mean, does someone like this escalate into trying to get into FLDS or something like that? Because I mean, in other words, would he ever be satiated in any way? I think, you know, we see a pattern, right? In future behavior, we can guess is based on past behavior. He really wants to be a preacher. He loves being in front of people. Apparently, even after what is it? Solid rock. Yeah, solid rock. Yeah, solid rock. Sort of went defonked. He started a new one again and he's got another wife. But we know he's so sexually compulsive.

29:29He's not going to be faithful to her and this weird behavior is going to keep coming out. So my guess is he's just going to keep repeating, repeating, repeating. He likes having a woman under his thumb. And yeah, that's my best guess. This is just pure conjecture. But the new wife, Susie, I believe, Susie Skinner, I think, take, I mean, take Micah out of the equation to a certain extent. I mean, just just observing John Paul's behavior in general. I mean, who the hell is looking at this man going, I got to get me some of him. Like he seems like quite the catch. I mean, it's just just the life arc. I mean, just, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't understand what on earth is going through anyone's mind, a rational thinking human being's mind to be like, this is my partner. I should stay with him. And maybe that's the answer. It's not a rational thought.

30:30It's not rational. Look at Sam Bateman. Sam Bateman got all those wives. What the hell? I know. He got to get me. Well, I mean, that was under a, you know, I can understand Bateman even more because it's more of a cult dynamic and these people don't really know a world outside of, you know, that closed off community. These are people who live in the rest of the world and see the rest of the world. This is, it's not like Susie hasn't had another life. I mean, her, you know, quadriplegic husband dies in the pool under weird circumstances. I mean, I don't know. The whole damn thing is weird. And you're in your pastor steals your wife. Everybody looks at this like, oh, it's love. I mean, or that's what they expect people to think. I mean, is it really Shivan when you look at someone like Susie and people that are still going to what's left of his church? Are these people who are just, they're way too close to the sun. They can't see it. I mean, what, I mean, at some point, are you just kind of kind of go, well, you know,

31:30the ones who got out, got out. These are the ones who, they're, they're two injured mentally to ever really see the light here. And unless someone intervenes, they're going to be another victim of his. Or they're just going to find the next charismatic cook that comes along. Yeah, those are the, the women that I think, you know, when you look at who could, you make an impact here with some kind of therapy. Those are the women that I think you could work with. It's like, because my guess is there's something in their past that has really impaired their judgment when it comes to what is love, what, what is a healthy relationship. And they don't know, they don't know. And they're going to, you know, and being with a man like this, certainly, which we saw with Micah, you start to lose your mind after a while. You become anxious, depressed, hyper vigilant. You get trauma symptoms. His sexual behavior alone would cause some unhealthy responses in a partner. And so those are the folks I would like to sit down with and really explore what is the

32:35attraction here and what is in your background that would make you feel like you're worthy of someone like this because there's something there. You know, there are a course of control laws in certain states and hopefully that expands further as time goes on. The, a lot of people are looking at this doc. There's some insinuation in there of like, well, it's weird where the gun landed and we can give them that a little bit. At the end of the day, this, and I've examined this case for years, it truly, I mean, it does not look like he actually killed her, like bang, bang with the gun or anything like that. By all accounts, I mean, she's on to, I mean, it's pretty well documented. It looks like she offed herself. I think that's an established fact in this case. It still doesn't make it any better. It's how she got there though. I mean, not physically, she's, the appears to have driven herself. She's on camera. But mentally, how, how she got there. We've seen cases where a teen has suggested to another teen who wanted to end their life,

33:41go ahead and do it. They've been charged, you know, I believe it's an accessory to the murder or something of that nature. When you don't necessarily have exactly that, you don't necessarily have, I mean, as far as we know in the record, him saying, yeah, go do this to yourself. But just the torturous behavior that leads someone there of like, I have no choice. I'm better off dead, which seems to be kind of what she was thinking at the moment. How do we, is that something we can ever truly go after because it seems this sort of torturous behavior that people do to each other? I mean, this is what we see on camera. This is what's documented. But I think a lot of us throughout our lives could, could look at people we've known or known and go, yeah, they've done that to people or they've been a victim of that. And it's just, it seems to be how life works for a lot of people. Should there be, should there be something that is looked at closer? Should there be penalties for really, really horrible behavior that leads people down some of these paths? I sure vote. I sure vote for that.

34:41How can we, and I know that there are lots of gray areas with how do you define coercive control? I mean, I call it a longstanding pattern of deceit, entitlement, exploitation, lack of empathy. And certainly this case fit all of those things. You've got the monitoring devices, the razor blades and the tires, the threats, the 50 phone calls in a day, trying to harass her. We need better ways to intervene in that because that kind of thing, I think, for a vulnerable person who's been told she's not mentally well and to what degree was that this treatment that she was getting or, you know, was there an underlying mental health condition? We can't be sure. But we need to do a better job of, you know, I think police officers, they're not social workers. And can we embed more social worker?

35:42I mean, this is just my random idea. I don't know if it's anybody would think it was possible. But who, when there's this kind of complaint going on, can a social worker who's affiliated with the police department go out and spend time with the victim and really try to way through what is the evidence here? What are your options and then get the law enforcement system to intervene sooner and to do more? And you know, if he had spent a bit of time in jail for some of this behavior, it might have put a stop to it. And that's a big problem here because Micah made over a dozen, nine, one, one calls begging for help. Yes. But police frequently, I mean, they're operating by the law here. I'm not trying to fault the police here. But police frequently treated the stolen property and the complaints and that as a civil matter because they were married. It's almost like if they weren't married, if they were strangers and he was doing this to her, there's more they could have done.

36:43But because she said I do, it was almost a free ticket to, you know, this insanity and to abuse essentially. I mean, how often do is this a factor in these cases where because they're married, there's less the law can do about it? I think traditionally it's been a factor and it probably varies from place to place, from police department to police department, from city to county. How tuned in are they to this stuff? And certainly they need more training. But even if you train police officers well, I think most of them are well-meaning when they go out on these cases, but they're limited by what the law says they can do. And I still think you need a mental health person to come out and spend time with the person who's making the reports of the stocking. We've got to take stocking behavior seriously, that kind of monitoring because it can lead them to a lethal outcome. And the most dangerous time in a coercive controlling relationship like this, which we can just say

37:47an abusive relationship, is when the victim is trying to leave. And that's when it escalates and that's when it can get crazy. And we need to do a better job of protecting victims. Yeah, they definitely weren't doing that when she put in for the protective order and there was a lay on that, I believe. And so Tony, what's the case? I kind of slipped on my mind because we've been so focused on this one. We covered it the other day where the death of Tupac. Yeah. So that charge was, he didn't pull the trigger, but since he's in the car, he's able to be charged with murder. What was the statute he was actually charged under that? Because I wonder if there's any parallel you could do, the receipt is part of it, but not part of it. Oh, that's part of a conspiracy charge. I mean, this wouldn't be technically conspiracy because the, yeah, I mean, it's totally different. I know, I know it is, but I'm so with you because there should be some sort of a culpability for this, this mental torture, this again, which is essentially what the federal,

38:47I mean, the federal charges seem to be reaching as far as they can reach because for whatever reason, it doesn't appear that any local authorities have exercised their reach of what they can do to him. So the fact that it's been stalking and stalking, yeah, I mean, essentially, it's a stalking charge. It's just to kind of, it's what it can be bigger. Yeah. I mean, that's where it's at right now. Not to say it couldn't get bigger, but a lot of times charges start somewhere and then kind of escalate from there in terms of investigation. I'm sure they're looking at all, I'd be very curious. We're talking earlier about the digital footprint. What exactly is he Google? Yeah. You know, like what, because that'll tell so much like what is his end goal? Is it like drive someone to end themselves or what are they, what is he searching for? And then following that, that, that playbook. So what'll be interesting on that one too is, is not just on the digital pattern, but also the purchase pattern. So he bought the tracking devices put on her car. Yeah. What's the likelihood that's the only car he's ever tracked? You know, slimmed a nail. Right.

39:47So I think they're going to really discover a lot about the pattern in his life. And so you have one stalking charge. You might wind up getting more. I think you'd find probably a lot of people. That's my, that's my, that's my control control control. Does does one of the big, I guess, one ups that the JP knew that he had on every buddy. And a lot of people exercise this, whether they're a pastor or not, is, is the Jesus card. The fact that he was a pastor. John Paul is his name. JP. You know, I, I see it in business a lot, especially here in the south where I live, you'll see crucifixes like worked into like signs, like, Timmy's plumbing and it's a crucifix for the tea or some shit like that. Those are usually the businesses I stay away from because I feel like when you're, you're overtly using the cross as part of your marketing scheme, it seems to kind of go against most of what I think, you know, Jesus properly taught him. It wasn't like, use my, use what I died on as part of your marketing scheme to get more

40:51money. Like this doesn't seem like it's part of the Bible. Tony has a negative confirmation bias. I do have a negative confirmation bias because every person in every business I've ever worked with that does that has been slimy as shit and has, has, like, really been some of the worst human beings I've ever worked with. And I'm sure there's probably lovely ones out there, but that's my negative confirmation bias. But feels like people like that really use that to an extreme and they get a pass. They get a pass from so many people who are just like, well, he's a pastor. Yeah. It's kind of cross. It's just like, don't question that because they're afraid what that might reflect on them if they, if they question the pastor. I'm thinking J.P. use that to his advantage a lot here. Oh, a lot. Oh, a lot. It's so manipulative. And the issue about is, is church a safe place? Are you safe? You know, on so many levels with somebody who's broadcasting their Christianity. And I think there are, so I know we have a lot of viewers who are Christians.

41:51Yeah. I get emails from folks. And I think there are healthy ways to be a Christian. And it can be a wonderful source of comfort for people. I don't want to knock it. Yeah. People, it works very well for them. But there are toxic ways and a toxic person can take and pervert something into something that's scary and abusive. You know, one of the things I'm always thinking about when I talk with my clients and they're very religious, is their faith helping them? Or is their faith diminishing them? In building shame within them? Is it building blind obedience? Is it causing problems? Is it causing anxiety and depression? And then they're in this bind because they start not being able to feel their feelings because that means they're disobeying God.

42:52If they acknowledge that maybe the pastor has done some bad things, but I can't criticize the pastor. I can't criticize the plumber with the bumper stickers all over his car. But there's a huge manipulative factor in that. If you're afraid to do something because of fear, that's what you should get away from. Yes. What is this? It's pretty simple. Fear should not be the moment. It's recognizing the signs and having a fear of speaking about it. It's like being on an airplane and seeing someone with a knife and they're acting a little but I don't want to disturb anybody. I don't want to disturb the stewardess or the captain or say, hey, this is over here. This is going to be a fine flight. It'll be good. I'm not going to say anything because everybody's on the plane. We're all trying to get where we're going, right? The guy with the knife over here is not. It's like saying, I'm not going to, I don't like American Airlines. Why? Because of 9-11. Well, the 9-11 hijackers were not employees of American Airlines. They hijacked the airplanes. That's the thing. It's being able to recognize the people who are trying to hijack something that is good,

43:57that has a purpose, that does good things and using it for their own twisted reasons. We need to be able to identify that sort of shit and not just go along with it because we want to enjoy the flight. Well, sometimes some people don't and they need to be called out for it. Your thoughts in the comments section on Substack in YouTube as we continue to break down death of a pastor's wife on Netflix right now, the story of John Paul Miller and Micah Miller. Micah was found dead from a gunshot, who in just 48 hours after serving JP with divorce papers, instead of interesting coincidence, the day after her death, JP held a bizarre church service. A year later, he married Susie Skinner, a woman from his church whose previous husband died in a tragic pool accident, a quadriplegic that somehow wheeled his way into the pool. If that was on purpose, or an accident, well, it's been deemed an accident. That's where it sits right now, as of right now. No one's been charged and it has a murder, but again, a little weird, just a little.

45:01Shavon, the thing that I think strikes so many people, this man who apparently had this fervent, I don't know what it called, love, obsession with Micah and all the horrible things he was doing to her leading up to her death. But also, he cares about her so deeply. He goes to such lengths prior to her death and then she's dead and he's able to just start a church service. He's joking at the beginning. He does a parody song to Billy Joel's in the middle of the night, the River of Dreams. He yucks it up on stage with one of the congregants. Does a whole sermon, doesn't mention anything about Micah until the very end and then suddenly the lights go down and by the way, she's dead. Don't talk about it as you leave. Have a nice day.

46:02It's like, what kind of compartmentalization is going on here? I mean, I think the first thing anybody thinks of is, you know, you can take a breath if your ex-wife or your wife dies at circumstances like this. You know, I think everyone understand if somebody else took the reins that morning and did the show and did the church service. That wasn't what happened here. He was able to be very composed on stage there at the church and deliver really, I guess one would consider a normal service until the very end and even that was not, I would say, I don't know what normal is when you're describing something like that. But it didn't seem, I guess, cohesive to reality. What the hell was going on there? How would you describe what you saw in that? Completely bizarre. That was, you know, when we were watching on YouTube, the different clips about this story when it first happened. That was the weirdest thing.

47:04I mean, there have been so many weird things about this, but that flies in the face of everything we know about how people process emotions. Yeah. Now just get up and give a sermon. If he had genuinely had any kind of loving attachment with her, it makes no sense at all. And again, you would think the congregation would go, well, this was a little weird, but these folks apparently didn't. It's completely strange. And again, with the kind of histrionic personality, they can, when they do the big emotions, like, oh, how much I love her and I want her back and I'm trying so hard to get her back, it's about this deep, you know, it's not real. None of that caring about her was real. She was an object to him. And this, you know, yeah. I don't even know how to describe it other than it's one of the weirdest things I've ever

48:05seen and witnessed. And it seems he really had to tell the narrative that she was crazy. I mean, that seems to be the underlying thing. That was the theme. The whole time. Anytime he talked about it, like, well, you know, she's mentally ill. It's not, I mean, I think like a healthy person who has someone like that in their life that is trying to care for them and try to help them. When you're talking about them, that's not necessarily the thing you bring up into everybody. It's like, yeah, they're doing good. You know, like, and their bad shit fucking crazy. You know, I'm not listening to me. That was the reason. They're not listening to me. I mean, it got real like the pathology, everything, like he was really, he was getting into her pathology with anybody and anyone who would listen. How important was that for somebody like that to basically, she's crazy. So anything that comes out of her mouth that's going to talk about me and my crazy, it just, it was a giant veil for covering up his shit. It seems like, and I mean, how much fear is going on there when she serves the divorce papers that I'm going to be exposed.

49:07I mean, the divorce papers get issued two days later, she's dead. I'm not saying he did it, but the narcissistic injury that I'm sure that caused was pretty deep and how he lashed out again, I'm not saying he did it, but how he then presented all of this out there was very much, you know, it's not about me at all. He's the second one. Let's talk about that. Yeah, always. That was his agenda and he brought it up over and over and over and you know, she's on meds, she's not taking her meds, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we have no way of knowing the truth about any of that and where any of the meds appropriate would have been needed if she was not with him, which I think, I think is a really strong possibility. But yeah, it's all self-serving, it's the story he's telling to make himself look like, look, I'm such a wonderful guy and she was crazy. And if that's not gaslighting, I don't know what is because he's playing a game on everybody

50:10and trying to manipulate and control the narrative to make himself look good. Yeah, I tell you, it was really, I mean, it was skillful manipulation because he's not, we've seen controlling narratives before with these controlling freaks. And he was definitely attempted to control the narrative, but his ability to do that so far in advance by laying the groundwork of her being crazy and him saying, please take the meds, he's laying up that, in other words, he can actually always preempt all of her actions or after the fact respond to her actions no matter what they are because he set it up months and years ahead of time with, well, she must be off her meds, I told her to take her meds and so no matter what she does, he's got the narrative under control. Even though he probably couldn't predict the future, no matter what, so he intuitively, it looks like control set narrative preemptively with the people that he wants to bring into a circle. He gains these levers of control over them.

51:11Yeah. It was just, I mean, it's, you could write a book on how to be a narcissist. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, how, talk about this for a little bit, like how frequently in practice do you see this sort of thing where you have a couple and they need some help, they need some direction and they're coming to you and it's this sort of a dynamic, not to the extreme where somebody is getting murdered, but where one is going to control the whole narrative of what's going on here. She's crazy or he's crazy and here's why when it really is the other way around, but it's being presented in such a way and they really think they can sell it to everybody. I mean, is this, you know, how does, talk to that of your experience? Yeah, it definitely does happen and that's when we can go back to the good old acronym that's so popular, Darvod, deny attack, reverse victim and offender and a guy that comes in like that will always present himself as a victim. And that's why my style with couples is to see them individually before I see them together

52:19because I want to hear really from their point of view what's going on and you pick up on a lot of this stuff that way and then see them together and interestingly enough, a guy like this often, it's right out there and they start immediately telling the therapist, well, this is what's wrong with her and that's what's wrong with her and none of it fits the person that I met individually. And then I've even had them call me on the phone, which is quite interesting and leave a long voicemail about, let me tell you what I think about her and what you need to do with her. And it's always way off base, but it's this, you know, people like this really believe they can manipulate the therapist too. And it's, yeah, prognosis is not good. These are the ones, what is treatment goal here? Help her see she needs to get away from him, you know? And sometimes it can go the other way with gender, you know? But when people come to marital counseling or couples counseling often they come in with

53:23the agenda, we just want to make this a good marriage. We want to transform this. And when you have this kind of abuse going on, they just need to get away from each other. And that's one of the reasons at this point in my long career, I prefer not to do a lot of couples just because I end up so much of the time saying you just need to get away from them. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody wants that. They're coming in for help and you're like, fuck it, run for your life. And sometimes they just need the validation. And those are the people that come back to me 20 years later. Sure. And say I just want to thank you so much for helping me see that I needed to get away. It's always a typically do in those situations, Shavon, because I mean, I'm sitting here thinking myself, I've always thought of, I would have liked to have done that going into counseling. I didn't have the 50 pound brain like you do for her. But thinking I'd love to go in there and help be a resource for people moving forward with healthy relationships when you face complete nutters that are so entrenched, like one

54:24like this. I have such good healthy relationships in my life now because I see people's red flags so far in the distance that I just, I can say so far away. But in this case, it's right in your face. And so do you, I mean, what do you do? Do you just say go away or do you encourage them to or do you take them on and try to fix them? Or do you just say, dude, you two just need to get away from each other? Well, I try to, I try to be a little less direct than you need to get away from each other. Probably not in the beginning what they want to hear. But I do, I'm confused a lot. And I'll say, okay, John, you say you love Mary, but X, Y, and Z happened. And just in front of me, you just said these really incredibly mean criticisms. How is that love? Can you explain how that's loved to me?

55:24And then he'll go into his self-justification. And then I'll say, okay, that sort of sounds like control. And can you see things from her point of view he never can? And so there's a lot of questioning and confusion. And then somewhere near the end of the visit, and this is often in one visit, I'll say, you know, it sounds like you're very happy with who you are. And the only thing you see here is that you want Mary to be submissive and to, you know, agree with everything you want. Are you happy with how you are? Do you have any goals to work on yourself other than come in and sit here and point the finger at Mary? And he doesn't. And he'll say, no, I think I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine. And then I look at Mary and say, Mary, are you hearing this? He is fine the way he is. And often I get this surprise look.

56:25And that can be the place where you intervene and where you see a shift. So it doesn't know either that way, but that's my very own goal. And you call an Uber for one of them so you don't hear like about. And then they drove directly into an 18-wheeler on the way home. You know, because I would be honest, I've been with an ex. I've been in a session before where it was just like, you know, things were brought to light where it was uncomfortable for her of like, and then, and unfortunately, we drove together and she was driving us and trust me. I was gripping the like plea, like if I have to go and grab the real wheel really quick because I think she might be a little uncomfortable with what was revealed about her psyche here today. One more thing on this, just over a year later, JP married Susie. Skinner, we talked about that a little bit. Shockingly, Susie's previous husband died in a mysterious pool accident. And JP had officiated their wedding too.

57:26What is with this guy officiating people's weddings and then sleeping with the bride? And then, I mean, this is like, what are the odds here on this? I mean, statistically, I can't imagine there's a lot of people who have officiated two weddings for people, eventually married them and then have like two rather shocking deaths connected to said person or person's partner shortly thereafter. I mean, that to me, red flag. Like, legal England is what it is. I mean, I guess what I mean, I don't know what the question is, but what do you make of that pattern that we're seeing here with JP? Another bizarre thing. Another bizarre thing. He does one weird thing after another. And you almost get the sense it's, it's look what I can get away with, look what I can do. And he's attracted to that sense of power. It's, yeah, there's just every which way with this guy, it signs of toxicity, narcissism,

58:31histrionics, mock-yophilism, he's manipulative. Yeah. And it's a full old country buffet of cluster B. Like, what do you want? I'll go to the cluster B bar over here. It's right next to the salad. Yeah. Looks delicious. It's got this little dirty over here. So one more, if we have a second. So we haven't really talked about what makes someone like this yet. No, because we talk about those arcs. I love talking about those arcs because they're so predictive, you know, passes prologues with these sorts of things. And it's easy to talk about psychopathy because that's a lot of malformations brains. And then some, you know, part of how he grew up as well that might, you know, throw some cares, you know, but someone like JP, what kind of, is there a typical upbringing that someone has or a typical background that they have that creates this sort of super uber-controlling nutter that wants to sexually abuse people? Again, all conjecture. Yeah. But from what we saw from the special, what makes that nut? We love to have the exact template, right?

59:34The first guess is, you know, we know a lot of personality traits are inherited. We understand that far more than we used to. He had a dad who was apparently very sexually compulsive, very manipulative, very similar, also a pastor who did terrible things. So my guess is there's a genetic component to the personality. And then he was raised by someone that he modeled after. And if we got enough into his childhood, what kind of kid was he? He was probably weird in elementary school and a lot of this stuff was going on. So. Well, that would be interesting. That would be a, that's the sitcom, right? They're dark sitcom, JP in elementary. As a child, yeah. As a child. I can only imagine the horror stories. The piano prodigy turns into complete nutter creep. If I had an extra day of the week, I'd be like trying to find like the yearbook and reaching out to the classmates that went to school with them.

1:00:36That would be a very interesting. Huh. You might find it was only three of them that they were in a classroom or a room together in someone's house coistered. It's true. That might be what we find. You're exactly, yeah, I'm going to dig. I'm going to dig a little bit. Hard to imagine him in public school and making it through, but maybe I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he's on the playground like doing like preaching as a child or something. It's got a little cult started in third grade. All right. Your thoughts in the comments section, sub stack and YouTube. We'd love for you to weigh in. We're of course going to keep following this as it continues to go forward. There's so much more to this case. I'm so happy Netflix finally brought it out into the ether beyond just the handful of us who've been reporting on it. And then John Paul attacking everyone who does in a very coercive controlling sort of way. Sorry, John. It's out for Netflix now. The world's coming for you.

1:01:37Have fun, JP. All right. Your thoughts in the comments section until next time. For Shivan, whose latest book is right here in Nightbird. Got it right here. Check it out wherever you get books. Robbins got master class. Robbins. Yes, become the person that everyone trusts. That's a great theme for everything we do every life. And yeah, and you get it on masterclass.com. Backslash Robin Dreek, my name. That's it. Good times together. Well, links in the description as well. Go and check that out. Until next time for Robbins, Shivan and Todd Mtony. We'll talk again real soon. Want more on this case and others? Then press subscribe now. Don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Brusky and the Hidden Killers podcast.