‘Don’t let Satan win:” Details of John-Paul Miller’s final email to wife among trove of new court records

CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — “Don’t let Satan win.”

As Robeson County authorities were searching for Mica Miller in Lumber River State Park on April 27, her estranged husband John-Paul sent what would be the final email to his wife at 4:51 p.m., pleading with her to not to “do the wrong thing” and to instead commit fully to God.

Thirty minutes earlier, a kayaker told dispatchers he discovered a body in the river that authorities confirmed was 30-year-old Mica.

John-Paul’s email is among a trove of information included in a July 26 affidavit filed in Horry County Probate Court days before he was given control of Mica’s estate as part of a global settlement between himself and Mica’s family — ending months of acrimony and legal disputes.

John-Paul is founder of Solid Rock Ministries and senior pastor at its Howard Avenue church in Market Common.

Shortly after Mica’s death, her sister, Sierra Francis, filed a petition to become special administrator of her estate, but that request was withdrawn on July 29.

Miller’s affidavit and more than 90 pages supporting documents were unsealed by a judge on Aug. 5., bringing into clearer focus details of the troubled marriage that began in 2017.

News13 began investigating circumstances around Mica’s death shortly after her suicide as claims of domestic abuse surfaced — including John-Paul’s admissions of placing several GPS trackers on her vehicles and leaking an explicit photo of her online.

John-Paul has not been charged with any crime.

Among John-Paul’s claims:

• During a ministry trip to Africa in December 2023, Mica said God saved her from killing herself a few years earlier
• On Jan. 30, Mica asked John-Paul to be her “life coach” and then purchased a Bible with both their names engraved on it
• On Feb. 6, Mica was hospitalized at Waccamaw Mental Health, with intake forms saying she was “homicidal, suicidal, hallucinating, delusional, and much more.”
• On Feb. 15, Mica showed up at Solid Rock Church in a “manic state.”
• On Feb. 21, John-Paul filed probate papers at Waccamaw Mental Health
• On March 19, Mica and John-Paul spoke for four hours where she said she wanted to get back on her medication but feared being disowned by her family.

“That was the last time I was going to have a conversation with my wife, my best friend,” John-Paul said in his affidavit, which doesn’t include the date of April 25, when Mica served him with divorce papers.

During divorce proceedings, Mica Miller said she was abused “emotionally, sexually, spiritually, financially and physically” in “every way I can think of,” according to a letter in court documents obtained by NewsNation.

In those documents, she laid out why she was leaving John-Paul.

More than a month before she died, police reports obtained by News13 show four different instances in which GPS tracking devices were reported to have been found on vehicles linked to her.

Authorities confirmed that John-Paul was hundreds of miles away in Charleston at the time of Mica’s death. But he said in his affidavit that he “felt in my spirit to email her and encourage her not to let her mental health ruin her life.”

“Thousands in Mb and Africa were blessed by your Godliness. Don’t lose all of that just because of some mental unhealth Or because some people are speaking deceitful things into your ears,” John-Paul wrote on April 27. “Recognize who the enemy is.”

After Mica died, John-Paul said he asked officials to conduct an autopsy and run a toxicology panel. She was cremated May 2 at Burroughs Funeral Home in Murrells Inlet.

A preliminary summary released in late June by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner — which isn’t based on an autopsy — said a post-mortem blood test performed the day after her death did not show any drugs or alcohol in her system. There were also no signs of a “physical struggle” near where Mica took her own life.

The report also said medical records showed that Mica was hospitalized twice between 2022 and 2024 — the first from Nov. 29 through Dec. 5, 2022, on “suicidal precautions for bipolar 1” and “recurrent manic episode” along with THC dependency and a “dependent personality disorder.”

John-Paul concluded his affidavit blaming Mica’s family for withholding medication that he said would have “kept her alive.”

“I’m the only one who took care of Mica and worked hard to keep her alive. They (Mica’s family) used all their energy to keep Mica from me and her medicine and they got the very thing they spent 7 years trying to accomplish, because no I can no longer be with the woman I love,” he said.

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