Who is John-Paul Miller? FBI raids pastor’s Myrtle Beach home after ‘he drove wife Mica to suicide’

As feds raid the South Carolina home of pastor John-Paul Miller of the Solid Rock Church, their investigation is yet another turn into the ongoing turmoil following his wife’s suicide. 

The massive operation began at the 45-year-old pastor’s Myrtle Beach Home on Friday morning, at the behest of the federal government.

Agents from the the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) were seen carrying items from the home well into the afternoon, including several boxes, a computer screen, and what appeared to be an external hard-drive.

A total of 25 FBI agents took part of a so-called ‘court-authorized law enforcement’ action, months after Miller’s 30-year-old bride, Mica Miller, was found dead at a North Carolina state park.

The discovery was made on April 27, after which cops said the cause of death was suicide. Claims, however, continue to swirl – that the minister drove her to to the point where she was willing to take her own life. 

Who is John-Paul Miller?

Miller, a father-of-five, is a pastor at Solid Rock Church in South Carolina. 

He has been a pastor there for the past eight years, holding the post since 2016.

He maintains he was not with his wife the day she shot herself in the head at Lumbee River State Park, saying he was in Charleston ‘with about 100 people from [his] kids’ school.’

In total, he has five children with another woman – sons Logan, Zachary, Eli, Asher and Selah.

At a May memorial, he claimed he has tried to raise her from the dead to no avail, telling those at his congregation: ‘I’ve been down to the body about four times this week and each time it still didn’t hit me [that she was gone].

‘I thought she was gonna wake up,’ he added, days after DailyMail.com photographed him on an apparent date with another woman four days after Mica’s death.

‘I even tried to raise her from the dead one time this week,’ he added, in what amounted to a strange spiel.

Miller has not been charged with a crime, but several have since painted him as both abusive and manipulative.

In a 2017 affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com, Miller’s first wife Alison accused him of engaging in sex acts with minors younger than 16 and having a penchant for prostitutes.  

The mother of Miller’s children went on to allege Miller had been caught in an affair with Mica back in 2015, when the deceased was working as their babysitter and had been married to his then-best friend Jeremy Deas. 

What happened to John-Paul Miller’s wife?

Prior to her death, Mica had been in the middle of divorce proceedings with Miller, amid claims from her family that she had been subject to an ‘abuse and violence’ campaign by him.

He followed her and hired others to keep tabs on wherever she went, sister Sierra Francis claimed in an affidavit filing to be the special administrator of Mica’s estate less than a week after her passing.

The filing also came four days before the Robeson County Medical Examiner deemed Mica’s cause of death a suicide, and after surveillance footage showed her buying a gun the day of her death.

Days earlier, she hit him with divorce papers alleging a tumultuous relationship, leading to the now-swirling speculation.

Miller was later seen wearing the same necklace Mica had been in the surveillance footage – as cops seemingly cleared him of any involvement with her death.

She was found at Lumber River State Park on April 27 – spurring another strange sermon a day later.

In it, he told churchgoers that he was ‘taking a little bit of a break’ and that he did not ‘want to have to worry about the church.’

He went on to announce his wife’s death, saying only ‘[his] break may be a few days, a few weeks, I don’t know.’

He returned to work within weeks, during which time reports began to surface about the abuse that some say led to Mica’s suicide. 

Among them were statements found in a February complaint about a stolen car after being discharged from an involuntary hospital stay, where Miller wrote she had been ‘groomed’ while working for Miller at Solid Rock before their marriage six years ago.

She said ‘that she has known her husband since she was 10 years old’ and that Miller had seized her car.

What has John-Paul Miller said of the allegations?

The suicide went on to capture national attention – especially after Miller delivered the sermon to announce Mica’s death.

After about two months, Miller insisted to ABC 11 he was not to blame. 

Addressing those who believe different, he said: ‘They’re the biggest idiots on planet Earth.

‘I am the only one that tried to help keep her alive,” he went on to insist, denying any instances of abuse.

‘I took better care of her than any man could have possibly taken care of her in every way,’ her claimed further – weeks after appearing in another interview with what he would later concede was the same pendant his wife had been wearing the day before her suicide.

In an emailed letter obtained by NewsNation weeks later, Miller admitted to posting a topless photo of Mica online just before her death. 

‘I’m sorry for putting a picture of you on the internet,’ he wrote. ‘It was for less than one hour and immediately taken down. 

‘I was hurt that you are telling everyone horrible intimate details of my past sin, and I just wanted to try and hurt you. Please forgive me. It was evil of me to do that.’

It remains unclear what the current FBI investigation has to do with Miller, as investigators continue to keep mum on the nature of it. 

Legal battle between Miller and Mica’s family

As this was all happening, Mica’s family called for a more robust investigation into Miller and the allegations she had been abused.

A lawsuit was filed in June, alleging in part that Miller and his church had colluded to undervalue the couple’s home during divorce proceedings as an ‘attempt to defraud and deprive his wife … from her fair share of the marital asset.’ 

The terms of a subsequent settlement, including who will administrate Mica’s estate, were kept confidential, after the complaint was filed by Mica’s sister.=

Both parties have agreed to end litigation and not file any lawsuits against one another in the future, spurring a triumphant statement from Miller’s lawyer

‘This is over,’ Russell Long said in late July – almost two months into the since settled suit. ‘This global agreement is Mica’s justice. The next step is the legislative goal. We only ask that you remember Mica as the wonderful, beautiful person she was.’

Regina Ward, a local attorney who represented Mica’s family and hung a giant ‘JUSTICE FOR MICA’ banner in front of her offices, issued a statement pointing to the the confusion some of her supporters might be feeling. 

‘I know that some of you are going to be disappointed. Whenever you’re involved in litigation of this magnitude and this many things to cover, it could take years to go through a court system,’ Ward told WBTW at the time.

‘We are ready to go to the next chapter,’ she said. ‘The next chapter is to go and convince our general assembly to take a look at the coercive control law bill. We need that on the agenda ASAP.’

She added that she doesn’t ‘want to talk about Mr. Miller’ anymore and is going to start fundraising on behalf of such a bill, the last of which was stalled in the South Carolina legislature in 2021.

Long, similarly, asked protesters to now leave churchgoers at Market Common alone.

‘The Francis family just asked them, through their attorney, to focus their energy on something else. She asked them to focus their energy toward the passing of this coercive control act,’ he said. 

‘I would ask that they leave churchgoers alone. These poor people are just trying to go to church on Sundays, and they’re being harassed and being put in fear.’

More than three months later, scrutiny into the case has resumed – thanks to the now widely seen operation that took over the pastor’s front lawn.

When asked, agents on the scene told WBTW they are ‘conducting court authorized law enforcement activity’ at the lavish property, but refused to comment further. 

Their investigation remains underway.