Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I'm here with my Aunt Joy. We are two neurodivergent ladies who obsess about various topics. Joy is autistic and I have ADHD and we are letting our hyperfixations fly. Today we are fixating on the death of Micah Miller.
Speaker: And welcome back to our, I believe, third episode on the death of Micah Miller. We are going to pick up where we left off after they had this explosive fight in November of 2022. I'm going to mention the sources again. I'm just going to drive you guys crazy with sources because you know what? It's really important to me. Nikki was an English major. Yeah, that's true. That's true. ah Citing my sources matters. um So I'll go, I'll go faster this time. Content creators, Robbie Harvey and Tyler Marlowe.
Speaker: myrtle beach new Myrtle Beach online news, JLR investigates, WPDE news, the Daily Mail, and the podcasts True Sunlight, Some Place Underneath, Rabia and Ellen Solve the Case, and Cup of Justice. So we're going to pick back up November 2022. Micah and JP have had this explosive, terrifying, fight that involved, um, Micah's best friend Charlotte and her sister, Sierra. After this, I think this is the first involuntary hospitalization that JP brings Micah to be hospitalized. Micah called, uh, on the day of the hospitalization, I believe November 29th of 2022, Micah called Charlotte from Sierra's phone.
Speaker: Micah's phone had been cut off from her by JP at this point. So anytime she was able to reach out to someone um during this time, it was somebody else's phone. She had been hospitalized. It wasn't her choice. And a guard was even being kept at the door to her room to keep Micah's family away. Okay, I'm a little opinionated. A couple things. so First of all, I think this is the time that she was but she was taken from the Walmart neighborhood or Walmart market. I think that was the February one. Oh, okay. Okay. So that's not, yeah. So we don't, okay. We're not there yet. Sorry. It's okay. It's confusing. And I looked into it a little bit about the hospitalization, the involuntary hospitalization.
Speaker: regulations in South Carolina. I think as we go on, we'll see a pattern. theres There will be more of these involuntary hospitalizations and they're always for two days. When I looked into it, like two days ah of involuntary hospitalization ah When that occurs, it's for 48 hours. During that time, they're assessing the patient. and then yeah so If in that 48 hours, um if they do not find that the patient needs to be institutionalized, ah and again, like the only reasons the reasons for involuntary
Speaker: involuntary admittance is basically if they are a threat to themselves or a threat to others. So if they determine that they are not, then the patient is released and it's actually not even supposed to be notated on their records. It it is yeah removed from any records in the future. So um so so when this keeps happening, I mean, when we're only at first time, but we'll see this pattern. Every time it happens, I mean, she's released in two, like under 40 or 48 hours. so So they're not finding yeah a problem. Right, right. So JP will go on to blame this hospitalization as a result of this fight of Michael leaving and says that it led to a mental breakdown. So he's, he's positioning himself as the hero who she was resisting him so much that she had a full mental breakdown and he swept in and helped her.
Speaker: um So she's released in the 48 hours. JP immediately starts isolating her from people. ah She starts being cut off more and more from her family. JP says that she needed more good influences. So at this point, remember, Charlotte and her family have left the church and Charlotte decides she wanted to meet with the elders. So there are a couple of reasons she didn't at this time. Um, she lived across the street from the church still. She was afraid of what could happen. There's a fear level. Yeah. So, um, yeah, she was, she was concerned with what would happen if she did speak with the elders and truly these elders don't have a lot of authority over JP because he owns the land and the church itself.
Speaker: So an elder, but they're just kind of there in name. Yeah. Yeah. So like my church, we have like six elders. We have a bajillion elders because we don't have a head pastor. And like we've actually, I've been told our church has, has people have approached our church and saying like, they won't give us funding or they won't do things because Evangelical Baptist churches are supposed to have a head pastor and an elder team. But at my church, we do the elder team because they don't want one person elevated above. Like they want it to be a group of people.
Speaker: deciding things for the church, not one person. They they don't want this power structure. Can we talk about what elders are? Now, I am not, I i don't attend church on a regular basis. i I grew up Catholic. I don't even know if Catholicism has elders, but no, they're definitely not structured similarly. Okay. But I like, are these elders, the elderly people in the church? No, they are so and members for a long time. How do we determine when elders? So I can only say it in the context of my church. In my church, the elders could all be seen as the head pastor, basically. oh um So elders of the church are like, they are generally on staff, so they get paid to be a church leader. It's the leaders of the church, I think, basically. um They are the people who make decisions for the church, who decide how money is spent. Yeah, it's basically,
Speaker: but Like I said, my church is kind of weird because we don't have a head pastor who like the elders report to at my church. It's like all the elders are could also be called like head pastor, but that would be weird. So kind of like the like the board of directors exactly exactly of the okay. Yep, exactly. But more so than that, they are also, I mean, employees of the church. so You know, at at my church, each elder kind of has their own almost like specialty. Like one is the head of like the worship team. One is one of our pastors ah works globally with other churches. Like that is what he does. He travels all over the world. That's his job. There's one pastor who like focuses on our city and making connections. So yeah, so that the elders are basically staff.
Speaker: their church is different, that JP is ah above the elders. And I think they're supposed to be, elders are supposed to be kind of an accountability group as well, which is one of the reasons my church is structured the way it is. They were like, we for this reason, exactly. Like, we can't hold somebody accountable who's above us. It doesn't work. It's like... Especially if they own the land, own the church. Right, right. It just, it lends itself to a corrupting power to that person that sit that, that head person. And obviously that's kind of what happened is, is yeah this elder team, I'm guessing, felt like they had some authority over.
Speaker: their head pastor, but they truly don't. Like he's got all the power. So, um, however, because these elders have this authority in name at this church, Charlotte wanted to meet with them to discuss JP and and what she knows and show them her evidence. So at this point she doesn't, she and her husband are talking about it. They, they want to, and she doesn't know what I think. I mixed up hospitalizations. I don't think I mixed up hospitalizations. I think I separated the same hospitalization. Oh, we go back to the hospitalization. So I think I screwed up. I think I separated two hospitalizations that happened at the same time. I think what I, and I'll get to it, but I think what I messed up is, um, I think once Micah was hospitalized,
Speaker: JP had some power back as the spouse. And so that was when, like when she was hospitalized after this this, that we'll walk through, was when he put, had somebody quote guarding her door. I was gonna say, yeah, like, i yeah, I wanted to make a comment about the guarding the door. So, yeah. So, let's hop back. November 28th, 2022, Micah's, another one of Micah's sisters, Anna, Um, and Micah arrive at the Wakama mental health center. Interesting thing from mental health center. Yeah. Micah wanted to be hospitalized, I think at this point, or at least was seeking help. And Anna was bringing her to support her. it Anna says that Micah's family thought that JP had been drugging her.
Speaker: She was really out of it when Anna decided that she should bring her to the hospital. So like I said, I don't think this was like seeking hospitalization. I think this was seeking help. Okay. And this was not involuntary. No, this was Micah. I think this was Micah recognizing like something was wrong and and they needed help. So and during this process, there's a 911 call from the center that a woman, and again, like everything has been, the name is redacted and it's coded weirdly. It's like person 1A, like there's weird things in this report that are changed that make it confusing, but we can kind of infer that Micah had likely somehow locked herself into a bathroom. What happened was JP showed up at the mental health center when
Speaker: when Anna and Micah were trying to get Micah admitted or seen or whatever. Just going back to Micah's family, they thought JP had drugged her. Yeah. Right? I mean, so that's part of the reason. That's part of the, okay. so um And I just, again, pharmacist to me, I have heard that the medications she was on were lithium and Seroquel. And ah again, I don't know a ton about lithium and how that affects, but Seroquel will make you really drowsy and yeah out of it if you are over medicated. Now it would wear off, yeah you know, with, you know, in a whatever in a day or so she she would go back to normal, just, you know, theoretically, but
Speaker: Um, definitely if he was controlling her medication, that may have had something to do. So they may have been right, um, in that she was. Yeah. And if she wasn't bipolar at all, any bit of Seroquel would probably be over medicated. Yeah. And Seroquel's, um, I don't know if the word is strong, but it's, a ah um, yeah. And it it really does like, it kind of takes your personality away. Yeah, my my father was diagnosed with bipolar, and he was on Seroquel. And Seroquel was always like, Oh, my my dad's gonna fall asleep for a while. yeah And in nursing homes, they actually really have to, they um they use it a lot in patients. And, you know, they're regulated so that they don't overuse it so that they're not just yeah basically drugging the patients. So they don't have to
Speaker: They're just out of it. right so They don't have to deal with them. So that is, yes. So that would, I am like positive that's, she was, he was giving her Sarah Quill. So JP showed up at the center and I'm guessing that's when the situation with her locking herself into the bathroom happened. And he tried to take her. He tried to leave with her. He tried to say she didn't need to be there. I will add, this is not what he said publicly in his sermons about this incident. He was saying the opposite that he was trying to get her. put there. But is this when she had the guards outside? So what I think is because eventually we'll get to that. Like it was deemed that Micah didn't need to be there. She needed to be seen presumably because she was being drugged. But I think once she was admitted or seen or she stayed there for however long, I think that's when like some of JP's power came back.
Speaker: that he was like the next of kin and could okay place like say, well, now that she's admitted, I'm her husband and I can say, nobody gets to see her but me. And I don't know the legalities of all that, but but i that's kind of what I think. So I think the word guardian at the door was probably um Yeah, I don't overuse you know a little little dramatic. I don't know who was at the door I don't know if it was like just somebody from my guess isn't there weren't like ah originally I pictured like armed guards, outside you right? I don't think that's what it was. No, I think there's probably somebody from the church that was Told like make sure Micah's family doesn't get in here. Yeah Okay, so at 5 a .m. I think this is back to the 29th I
Speaker: ah camera I can't figure the timeline exactly out, but at some point Sierra had texted Charlotte November of 2022. Right. End of November. ah Sierra texted Charlotte that JP was going through Micah's phone and that JP wanted her institutionalized. that he was doing everything he could to get her put away, but on his terms. So. Okay. Cause the family to to some extent agreed, but. Yeah. So I think what we should keep in mind, the difference is JP wanted her put away institutionalized to control her for bipolar that she probably didn't have. I think this incident that Anna finds Micah drugged, I think they're going to have Micah checked out.
Speaker: to make sure she's okay, that she's not having a mental break because Anna doesn't know necessarily that she's being drugged. So that's what I think is going on. As far as JP going through the but through the phone, i just I think whenever you want to find something, you'll find out to say you want to say a person is you know unstable. and so through anyone's phone and find something. Yeah. You know, and I wonder if before this huge blow up, her, Micah's family maybe didn't know how bad things actually were. Yeah. They probably knew things were bad, but, but a lot of abuse victims hide the extent to their loved ones. um So I wonder if, if
Speaker: this is kind of the point that Mike's family recognized how bad it really was. And just to just to review, like really this whole section on the gun and the ah police and the that all started on November 16th, 2022. And yeah, no now we're at the what we're less than two November. Yeah. So I mean, that was, a yeah you know, just that was a short time period. We talked a lot. Yeah, that was a really short time period. A lot happened. Yeah. So in the text exchange with Sierra and Charlotte, ah Sierra says that Anna found Micah, she seemed quote, out of her mind. Micah kept saying she needed JP's permission for anything. So Anna would be like, well, let's go get in the car. And Micah would be like, I have to check with JP. She told her family about JP's guns. And, you know, I, I think if she's drugged
Speaker: and having a conversation and she brings up the guns that this is a really scary thing and if that stands out in her mind while she's in the state. And the family finds out that how abusive he had been being that he wasn't letting her he was controlling her food. um He was trying to keep her away from her family and she he was not letting her sleep. That's bad. That's which is a such a weird thing. It's such like it's a cult tactic to control sleep. Like it is It is a ah course of control. Yeah, isn't that yeah it's like, at and and even torture. ah My, my father and Nikki's grandfather had Alzheimer's and this, you know, toward, we're getting toward the end before he, he had to go to a nursing home, but he would, with my mom, he would, he wanted her to get up, get up in the morning. So he would like pull all the blankets off the bed.
Speaker: And, um, yeah, I mean, and and again, this was an advanced dementia. Um, but yes, this wasn't like a control course of intentional control thing. It was just like, can you imagine though? He would turn the lights on puller. So some point, like I left the building and somehow ended up in JP's truck. Um, and he locked the door so like nobody could get to her. And but it said that he had locked her inside the car. Oh yeah. I guess I was thinking, how do you lock a person in? But I guess if yeah, if you're locking them away, from I was thinking she couldn't get out. But I guess if it was other people trying to get it, that makes sense now. And she could be, I mean, it's probably scared to get out. Yeah.
Speaker: Also, I mean, I'm always scared to like set off the alarm. like Yeah, I'm always afraid of that. Don't think that's what we're talking about here. But so the police are there at this point. JP kept interrupting her and not letting her speak for herself. To be fair. Every boy in my house, husband, two boys are, they do let us speak, but they interrupt constantly. My daughter and I just So maybe it's just a man thing. I mean, granted, this is a crazy dude, but. Yeah. Um, you know, I think it's a bit more nefarious here. Yeah, I think so. That my, my family's just annoying.
Speaker: So the police, the police even recognized that she seemed extremely weak and and looked under the influence of something. Finally, an officer is able to separate Micah from JP and he determines that she needed to stay there. Like if she seemed under the influence, like she needed to stay. She got put onto a stretcher and brought back into the building for a mental health evaluation. During all of this, like the officer is ah speaking with Micah, JP called somebody named Lieutenant Wilson. And in during this phone call, he says to the officer, you'll be getting a call.
Speaker: So are we assuming this is somebody he is familiar with and maybe a superior to the officer that's there on site? That's my understanding. This was like, I'm going above your head. I'm going to call my friend on the force. I've heard some things. I think this, I'm speaking off the cuff here. I don't have notes on this, but, um, from some of the things I've seen, uh, Lieutenant Wilson is a woman and she, sorry, that was bad. I think I just said he, like oh, no, it's bad assumption. Okay. No, no. And I wasn't even corrected that I didn't hear you say that. She has gotten a lot of like kind of backlash online from her name being involved in this and something I saw, maybe it was Kyler Marlowe.
Speaker: she posted that like actually, yes, Lieutenant Wilson may have been kind of in the same spell that JP's congregation was and and was believing him that you know Micah needed the help, but since then has kind of backtracked and has been working more with Micah's family. So yeah i just I just do want to say that because I don't want anybody to think that this person was doing harm intentionally to someone. And I mean, JP is pretty charismatic. I could, you know, when he wants to be, I could see how he, um, would have the ability to draw someone in. and Yeah. so umm So I don't, i like I said, i I didn't take notes on that part, but that's, I, I read that somewhere that, um, now Lieutenant Wilson is, is shouldn't, we should, everyone leave her alone. A couple of days later, December 1st, Sierra texted Charlotte again.
Speaker: and said that a woman from the church contacted someone in Micah's family to tell them that they were not allowed on church property. So even more, Micah's family is being cut out from Micah's life. I have a suspicion who this woman is, which we'll get into a couple in a few episodes. It's stuff is just kind of starting to come up about who this possibly could be. um So I'm kind of waiting until I see more information, but I think I know who this person is. But this is a little weird. I mean, our our mica's family like are around the church? I guess just at this time maybe? Sierra had gone to this church for before and was attending a church in the area okay all right because we'll we'll learn that that Sierra was ah aware of a lot of the sermons and the things being preached about Micah.
Speaker: okay So now we will get to officially 2023. Charlotte and her family move away. And this is the point that Charlotte felt confident that she could meet with some of the elders of the church and give evidence of JP's behavior. Um, when she saw nothing coming of it, that was when she made the decision that she's no longer able to stop these things from happening, but she can be a protective presence for Micah, which just feels like I've been, it I've been in a position that I've had to kind of throw out my hands for a friend and say, I'm, I'm no longer fighting with you about the person you're seeing.
Speaker: I'm just going to be here to support you in this process. And they got there eventually, but it's so hard. Yeah. I mean, at this point, I don't know what else she could have done. So yeah, I think she made the right decision. Yeah. Yeah. It should be noted. Micah was just loved at the church and we mentioned it earlier, but everybody loved her and JP used this to keep her with him. Have you seen her? singing. Yeah. She's got a beautiful, beautiful voice. I mean, I could just see how she's just, how she could be loved and she was talented and embracing it. Yeah. so but But I was shocked at how beautiful voice. Yeah, absolutely. he He said that her leaving would split the church, that that people would go if she did. And um I think that the
Speaker: suggestion is also like those people who left the church would lose their faith and it'd be her fault. i mean i can see And I can see that happening. Yeah. Yeah. It wouldn't be her fault, but I can see people being like, you right yeah our pastor got divorced. So this, this is, you know, what should I believe? Um, interestingly, that's probably what's happening now. So this is also the point that JP starts like sprinkling his sermons and interactions with church members with kind of a narrative about Micah's mental health. That isn't true.
Speaker: So he keeps, you know, a few times in his sermons, he'll say things like, if you want to know what I'm preaching about, it's my life. And, and then, you know, things start popping up more and more and toward the, toward the end, it gets very overt. But at this point he's, he's being subtle about planting the seeds that something is going on with Micah. That's not about him. That's about her mental health. So yeah, yeah it's not always true and extremely inappropriate. Right. Right. And it was just like actually during his sermons, was it? Yeah. Yeah. So ah around this time, Maika takes a trip to Africa. Um, this ended up ah just a bit of a side note. This is like her, this was ended up being her dream. She wanted to move to Africa and she wanted to like serve in Africa. She, she wanted to start a school. She, she just wanted to be in Africa. So, however, at this time there was a video.
Speaker: of Micah in Kenya giving some sort of talk or speech or something. And she told this story about a time she attempted to end her own life, but her gun jammed. Here's what I think about this. I think she perhaps was having some sort of depressive episode and it was having maybe some suicidal ideation, which is very different than having a plan. And i I wonder, this is speculation, but I wonder if she was having perhaps intrusive thoughts or things like that that were that somehow turned into a story about this suicide attempt, a failed suicide attempt that by the grace of God happened because it's a really good testimony to share with people about how God intervened.
Speaker: And I'm not sure. Yeah. And I don't know if it was, was this announced to to a group or was it just one person? Is it just hearsay? It was, it was, there was a video of this, like she gave, she was on a microphone, but it was in Kenya and she was speaking to a group. And also I heard her father has um expressed that um she is very proficient with using firearms. Oh yeah. and In a proper way. And she had been trained. No, I don't know much about guns, but, um, ah like if one jams I feel like if if you were really ah determined to take your own life unjammed and or yeah there could have yes so that's kind of my thought Micah had actually told her sisters that like she would never end her own life but also at the same time she did feel like she was being drugged and maybe if she's being drugged she's not in her right mind and that could be a that would be the only scenario that something like that would happen
Speaker: And if you're being drugged, you don't know you're being drugged, right? like right thinking She thinks this is just what's internally happening happening to her, right I would presume. And just to give some credence to that, i you know my speculation about this story, she didn't have the code to JP's gun safe. She didn't have a way to get his guns. They were his guns. So before this trip, Charlotte said she actually filed for divorce. She cited JP's multiple affairs, but also, and this is disgusting, um I mean, having multiple affairs is great, but he had and she alleged that he sent nude photos of her to friends at church. When she left, she was happy to be filing for divorce. She was she was looking forward to the next things.
Speaker: However, when she returned from this trip, she stopped responding to Charlotte. Charlotte learned that church members that had gone on this missions trip with her had convinced her that she hadn't done enough to try to save her marriage before filing for divorce, and that she needed to do more to try to make the marriage work before deciding it was ultimately time to end the marriage. This is Avian, like even more sad that she was at such a good place in her life. She had this motivation and to building this school and a life in Kenya. and Yeah. So she withdrew that when she got home from this trip at the, I think this was beginning of 2023. And at that time, Charlotte actually said that she told Micah that JP had told her he'd kill Micah if she left.
Speaker: And still she felt like she had to withdraw the divorce petition. There's not much we know for the rest of 2023, October, 2023. However, there's some sort of citation or ticket or something of JP driving erratically. It's, he was driving through a grass median. changing lanes multiple times, like quickly changing lanes and going up to 70 in a 55 mile per hour zone. I only even say this, I don't even know what credence it has or or the importance to the events of everything, but it does show that he's not stable. If this was if he's driving this erratically,
Speaker: If, I don't know if it's out of his control, I don't know if he's angry and this is how he's driving and he's making a choice. I don't know, but it just suggests that, that he isn't completely in control of himself. And I think we're going to see other, well, other episodes like this. Um, and they could be, they could be, um, he's bipolar. It could be, uh, manic could be going through a manic phase, um, or it could be drug induced. I don't necessarily. I think prescription and drugs, but yeah possibly. So this brings up beginning of October, October 8th and 9th, 2023. I'm not sure which date I've seen listed as both, but Micah officially, again, files for divorce from JP Miller. And this is according to the southern the South Carolina Judicial Branch. There's documentation of this.
Speaker: Um, so I think in terms of like, make a story, we should stop it there. But I want to talk about divorce in South Carolina. So I kinda, I got a lot of information from, uh, the cup of justice podcast. Uh, one of the hosts of that podcast, they, they live in South Carolina and she went through a divorce and she went through a good divorce. And she, it was like a best case scenario divorce in South Carolina. So this is a lot of what's coming from her. um experiences, but it is difficult to get a divorce in South Carolina. um So not only is Micah facing all of this external pressure to try to save her marriage, she has this crazy uphill battle with the legal system of just filing for divorce. So a quote from this podcast is that I think sums it up really well is that family court is not built for speed, which
Speaker: I understand and in some situations I could see how that could be. yeah Sure. Kids are involved and you want to give the marriage as much chance as possible. Yes. The problem with that comes from the state deciding that. The state saying, well, well did you do enough? um So this is incredibly damaging for You know, at first I was going to say the stay at home parent or the stay at home wife, assuming that it was a woman, but this is damaging for a stay at home spouse. You know, I've been a stay at home mother. I had no income and had a really great marriage. So thankfully, like, you know, there was never, you know, my husband's money wasn't my husband's money, but there is even in the best cases, a power imbalance built into that in that I didn't have any money of my own.
Speaker: I didn't have, you know, there's a lot of trust in becoming a stay at home spouse, stay at home parent. I had to have absolute 100 % faith that my husband wasn't going to, you know, abuse me financially, cut me off, kick me out, do any of those things. And of course, like that was agreed upon when we got married, that that was what was going to happen. and There are ways to fight that, but the ways to fight it are going through court and hiring an attorney, which just traps you. Right. So there's a huge power imbalance when one spouse isn't working, um whether that spouse has chosen it or not. And it's certainly not built for abusive situations.
Speaker: Coupled out with biblical standards that are put on wives, there's there's quite an expectation of how a, quote, godly wife should behave. um And that that combination is just makes leaving an abusive situation incredibly difficult. And I think this could be set across the board in every state in the United States, but South Carolina is particularly difficult, one of the ah more difficult ones. so I, I've never known much about like divorce and divorce terminology and things like that. So I took a bit of a dive to try to learn. And in Micah's, in Micah's case specifically, I mean, they met when she was 14. He pretty much, uh, she's never worked anywhere but the church and yeahp don't know if he was paying her, but she's had no work experience. And, uh, you know, from there it would be hard for her to even start a career.
Speaker: Right. Right. Exactly. So let's talk about South Carolina divorce law. So there's two kinds of divorce. ah There's fault divorce and no fault divorce. Both in South Carolina have a requirement for a separation period. Fault divorce means that the reason that one party is filing divorce is because of either abuse and a fair or addiction. Any of those threes have to be proven. In that case, there's only a requirement of a six month legal separation. A requirement. A requirement. Legal requirement. There are many tricky things about this. So if you, in this six month period, meet somebody new, start dating, and you have sex with a new partner, that is considered an affair. So
Speaker: that so that but makes things difficult. And let us remember, JD is having an affair at this point. Yep. But that has to be proven. Yeah. And that has to be proven by the very least a third party witness willing to testify. Or a private private private investigator who you have no money to pay. Correct. So, uh, the podcast hosts use the term for fault divorce inclination and opportunity have to be proven. I'm not super clear about what that means, but you know, big words that need to be proven. But then the difficult thing is allegations then become public record. So Micah could have filed a fault divorce, but then that threatens her ability to have an income because she's
Speaker: She's the stay -at -home spouse, has no income of her own. She's divorcing her abusive pastor husband whose income is dependent on his church attendance. So now it's a public it's in the public record that he's having affairs or he's abusive. All of these things that will threaten his own employment, which then threatens her means of any sort of alimony.
Speaker: So it's, it's insane. Fault divorce gets the, or I'm sorry, no fault divorce is also difficult. Um, so no fault divorce, meaning be something like, uh, just we decided the marriage doesn't work anymore. We mutually agreed or, you know, things like that. Irreconcilable differences would be no fault for a no fault divorce that requires legally one full year of separation. The divorcing parties. cannot have any sexual contact with one another. So when you're working on rebuilding a marriage and like you go out for dinner to talk to your, you know, the the spouse you're separated from and you get along great and maybe something happens, but then you realize me um but that was not ah the best idea. I still want to go forward with the divorce. The year long separation clock starts again.
Speaker: oh gosh I believe I also heard that um ah yeah even in addition to be able to proving the fault divorce, I believe Micah was insistent on a it being a no fault divver divorce, I think, to protect i' yeah you know to protect their reputation. yeah because ah Yeah, and I believe even even if they had a fault divorce or it's easier to prove that, I believe that Micah insisted um on a no fault divorce to protect maybe even both of their reputations and and ah especially within the church. Yeah, yeah. um the The other thing that is uncomfortable about a no fault divorce is a third party has to testify.
Speaker: that the divorcing parties have not had any sexual contact. How do you prove something that didn't happen?
Speaker: How do you do that? Oh, wow. So that's legally what Mike was facing. That is without an attorney. Also, attorney, there's like a 2 ,500 to 10 ,000 retainer for an attorney.
Speaker: On top of that is housing. Micah's apartment complex rent for one bedroom. I will say she was living in a two bedroom. She had a roommate, but the host look up this apartment. It's $1 ,400 per month for rent. And that's before like first and last month security deposit, things like that. She had two cars in her name. but because they were married, they were considered marital assets. So JP could keep them from her. So he was, financially this was a nightmare. Her hands were tied. He was doing everything he could to prevent her from having any power to move forward. Her hands were tied. So historically in South Carolina, these divorce rules have been created by men. Imagine that.
Speaker: and You can see the impact that religious institutions of these lawmakers have had on these government procedures. And it makes it just incredibly difficult for women specifically who in religious settings are the ones who are at home to leave. It's nearly impossible for a stay at home spouse to leave in South Carolina. So even serving JP divorce papers took a month of Micah's saving money. Benefit I will give to JP was there was no evidence of physical abuse against Micah. There was evidence of physical abuse against past partners of his, so I wouldn't doubt that there was physical abuse, but there's no evidence at this point. Yeah, but maybe she just didn't report it, go to the hospital. Right.
Speaker: Um, that will make proving abuse difficult because legally, I don't know if mental abuse counts. So mental abuse can be a lot more insidious. And the, um, one of the, this podcast used the phrase to describe Micah situation as she was being, uh, it was mental destruction. He was just dismantling her in any way he could. And what Megan could have believed because JP kept saying it was that not only was she divorcing him, but she was divorcing her church and she was betraying God if she leaves her church and if she leaves him. And she is a woman of faith, of strong faith. Yeah. She wants to be there for the people who love her at the church and the people she loves and she loves God. And she, she just didn't want, that's just such pressure.
Speaker: You know, having said that, there could be, it seems like there could be some claims in civil courts for Micah's family against JP, but also possibly the church as well, if if evidence comes out that they knew about these things and encouraged her to stay and didn't do anything. But that's at this point, right? um Yeah. It's something that's now but yeah that she's gone. ah yeah Yeah, it's, it's, it's not going to help Micah. Yeah. and And then kind of one other point I want to add to this like pile of what Micah was facing um before we end is Charlotte said that at the time of Micah's death, the police were sharing information with JP because he is the default next of kin. So we'll find when we get into, you know, the day Micah died, her death happened in North Carolina. They live in South Carolina.
Speaker: So they didn't have, the North Carolina police didn't have immediate access to the protection orders, the divorce filings, the police calls, the records, all of those things. They saw that a woman called 911 and said she was going to end her life. They found a woman who had died seemingly by suicide and that was what they went with. They didn't pry for more information in the moment. So they told JP a lot of things and they took JP's word out of a lot of things instead of treating him with any sort of suspicion because he was the default next of kin. He's the husband. I also again don't think it hurt that he
Speaker: was charismatic and he was able to be a good comute communicator through his you know experience. And I think that goes a long way. Absolutely. You know, yeah when it comes to getting people and authorities on your side and to believe you, I mean, they you know, that's Like you said, they don't have any reason not to leave him, not to jump there. Right. Uh, so I think we should end it there. We'll, I think next episode get into what 2024 was for Micah. And then we're going to talk a bit about the, well, we're going to talk extensively about, uh, the day of her death. This is where more weird stuff starts popping up. We'll get a little more into, uh, Joy's, uh, specialty of trying to figure some things out. My theories. Yes.
Speaker: But yeah, I think we should end it there and we will get into more next time. We'll have more hot takes. Thank you all for joining us. Bye.
