A Pastor’s Wife’s Death Captured TikTok. There’s More to the Story

On April 27, 2024, 30-year-old Mica Miller dialed 9-1-1. When dispatchers answered, the pastor’s wife asked if they could track her phone. Then, she said she was going to kill herself.

Police found Mica’s body in North Carolina’s Lumber River State Park, face down in the water. The death was ruled a suicide and attributed to Mica’s history with mental health issues, but as Mica’s family and friends began to speak up, investigators unraveled a mountain of abuse and harassment allegations against Mica’s estranged husband, John-Paul “JP” Miller. (Miller has denied these allegations and has not been charged in connection to Mica’s death.) So began a winding story that captured the internet’s true crime communities.

Now, Netflix ’s new three-part docuseries, Death of the Pastor’s Wife, builds the timeline of Mica and JP’s contentious marriage using first-person interviews with Mica’s family and friends, as well as never-before-seen footage and personal passages from Mica’s journals. Directed by Mike Gasparro ( American Murder: Gabby Petito ) and Julia Willoughby Nason ( LuLaRich , Fyre Fraud ), Death of the Pastor’s Wife builds a picture of Mica that goes further than her online legacy and explores the religious expectations that keep women in church settings from asking for help.

“What stayed with us about Mica’s story was how hard she seemed to be fighting to be heard,” Nason and Gasparro told Tudum . “We felt it was important to look closely at what she was experiencing and give the people who loved her the space to tell the story of the woman they knew. We made this series to ask difficult questions, listen closely to Mica’s own voice, and make sure that what she was trying to say is not forgotten.”

In 2007, Mica and her family began attending services at Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They quickly became regulars, with Mica and her sisters joining the worship team. By the time she was 16-years-old, almost all of Mica’s life revolved around church, a devotion exacerbated by her parents’ divorce. She was promoted to worship leader, a job typically held by an older member of the church. She met her high-school sweetheart Jeremy at the church, and were married by 19. Miller officiated the ceremony. Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

As a pastor at Solid Rock, Miller and his then-wife Ali operated as spiritual mentors and friends to Mica and Jeremy. But only two years later, Miller took the pulpit one Sunday to reveal he’d had “a moral failing” in his marriage. The church quickly found out that he and Mica had been having an affair. He was 36. She was 21. The two divorced their spouses and began a public relationship.

Mica’s family was stunned by the news and let her know they did not approve of the relationship. One of her sisters, Sierra Francis, was especially horrified by Miller’s possessive nature. A few weeks after the pair went public, Mica’s sisters discovered she had gotten Miller’s signature tattooed on her side.