Pastor's shameless claims about new widow lover… after his wife Mica Miller's mysterious suicide shocked America

The pastor husband of a woman whose suicide sent shockwaves through America  has now made extraordinary claims about how she led him to his new girlfriend. 

Mica Miller, 30, seemed to live an idyllic southern life, married to community leader John Paul Miller. When she was found dead from a single gunshot wound in April 2024, it stunned their congregation. 

Secretly, her family and friends had been concerned for years. They are convinced John Paul, known as JP, led her to desperation. 

Her death was ruled a suicide and the case was largely closed, but JP has not been able to outrun suspicion.  

Now, he’s facing a new scandal.

Not only is he haunted by questions about his own spouse’s death, but his new girlfriend’s past is also under scrutiny. 

JP is now dating family friend Suzie Skinner, 50, whose husband Chris died mysteriously in 2021, three years before Mica. 

A quadriplegic, Chris drowned in his wheelchair after falling into a neighborhood pool.

According to those closest to the family, JP and Suzie were already having an affair. Chris is said to have confronted JP about the alleged infidelity two weeks before he died. 

Now, in a scorched earth blog post on his friend’s website, JP – who has repeatedly denied Daily Mail’s requests for comment – is attempting to set the record straight. 

He insisted he was neither cheating on Mica nor targeting Suzie, and rejected suggestions the alleged affair drove Skinner to suicide.

In fact, he maintains they were all such good friends that it was Mica who insisted Suzie join them on a family ski trip.  

‘It was Mica who asked if we should invite Suzie and her twins to go on a ski vacation, and we did so in December of 2022,’ he said.

Miller also claimed Skinner’s sister Tamra McDermott was attention-seeking and unstable and that the siblings fell out in the months before Skinner’s death.

‘Chris was such a wise man that he never allowed Tammy to be around his family,’ he claimed.

Now McDermott has hit back with proof that she and her brother were close, and even planned a family gathering for the day he died.

‘He and I were not estranged, and I am disgusted that a pastor would spew such unkindness and hatred towards another person, let alone someone who hasn’t just lost one brother, but both, of their brothers,’ she told DailyMail.com

Text messages seen by DailyMail.com showed McDermott had a warm relationship with her brother, and even a cordial one with Suzie.

On May 7, 2021, Skinner texted to invite her to lunch that Saturday with his family, adding, ‘Love u and hope you have a wonderful day!!’

Then on September 3, three days before Skinner’s death, McDermott and Suzie discussed having a cookout at Skinner’s home for Labor Day.

‘That would be fun!’ Suzie wrote, saying she could make dessert and suggested an apple crisp. ‘Sounds great!! Thank you!’ she added.

The next day Skinner texted his sister: ‘Hey sister, please give me a phone call when you get an opportunity! Thank you and I love you.’

Miller made his claims in a lengthy statement to his friend James Seidel, who was last year convicted of defrauding the government out of Covid relief money and put on probation for five years and fined $200,000.

‘Over the past year, I have seen and read hundreds of lies about myself,’ he said.

‘People say I should defend myself online and prove that what’s being said is a lie and show proof that what I say is truth, and I can. 

‘But I believe that would only fuel their evil, ungodly gossip and strife that are in the world.’

Miller rejected McDermott’s claim that her brother stopped going to Solid Rock Ministries in the last few months of his life, and was angry with Miller, its pastor.

‘He was just as happy and fun and outgoing as he always was. Chris only had wonderful things to say to me,’ he said.

‘Tammy doesn’t like that Chris was a strong, faithful man of God who was able to accomplish more as a quadriplegic than Tammy could ever imagine.

‘It seems to equally disturb Tammy… that Chris’s wife was able to care for him, raise twins, work full time, and serve Jesus as well.’

McDermott accused Miller of ‘an orchestrated campaign of harassment, intimidation, and defamation’ against her for questioning how her brother died.

‘I met Mr Miller one time and it was at the funeral for my brother in which he barely spoke to me or my family,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘Mr Miller has falsely impugned my character, credibility, and ethics, and appear to be deliberately intended to retaliate against me for supporting the reopening of my brother’s case. 

‘These comments were not only false, but I believe constitutes a clear attempt to intimidate, harass, and silence me.’

McDermott also claimed Suzie banned Skinner’s twin 17-year-old son and daughter from contacting his side of the family after she and her mother cut off communication with Suzie.

Skinner’s death was ruled an accidental drowning at the time, but Horry County Chief Deputy Coroner Tamara Willard reopened the case last month after mysterious ‘new evidence regarding the manner of death’ came to light.

McDermott, said the facts of the case now made it possible her brother’s death was a suicide.

‘It would be fair to say that the coroner has reopened the case because there’s been evidence come forward that it could potentially not be an accident,’ she earlier told DailyMail.com.

McDermott pointed to conflicting descriptions in the police and coroner’s reports about how Skinner went into the pool, despite viewing the same CCTV footage.

‘He appears to have gotten too close to the pool edge causing the wheel to slip and he fell into the pool,’ Willard wrote in the coroner’s report.

By contrast, the police report stated Skinner ‘stops at a curve in the pool and then suddenly moves quickly forward and goes into the water’.

McDermott said she watched the entire security footage kept by investigators, and her brother was definitely alone when he went into the pool.

Additionally, Miller’s first ex-wife Alison Williams filed a petition for sole custody of their children last June that included shocking claims about his sex life – including some involving Skinner’s wife.

Williams wrote in the affidavit that her husband began an affair with Suzie in 2021 by using their son, who played soccer with Suzie’s son, to facilitate their liaisons. 

She claimed her children were ‘well-aware’ of the affair, which their friends also gossiped about – causing them ‘a tremendous amount of embarrassment’.

‘When I learned [John-Paul] was exposing our children to yet another one of his adulterous affairs, I confronted JP and Suzie and told them not to let it happen again,’ she wrote. 

Williams divorced Miller in 2015 after discovering he was having an affair with Mica, whom he married in 2018. It’s not known if his alleged 2021 affair with Suzie ended before Mica’s death.

‘JP called me the day Suzie’s husband died in an alleged drowning accident extremely upset and asking me to pray, which was incredibly bizarre,’ Williams continued.

‘Based on information and belief, just two weeks prior to [Skinner’s death], Suzie’s husband had confronted JP and asked him to leave his wife and children alone. 

‘It is chilling to know that the spouses of both Suzie and JP are now dead, from tragic events.’

McDermott said her brother fell out with Miller’s church, Solid Rock Ministries, and with Miller himself, about four or five months before his death, after having worshipped there without issue since 2018.

‘Chris definitely voiced that he did not like the pastor of that church and he did stop going to church there,’ she said.

‘He was in some emotional pain, and he was having a hard time… he was pulling away and distancing himself.’

This period of time is understood to be a focus of the re-investigation. 

McDermott said the reopening of the investigation into her brother’s death was partly prompted by new witnesses giving contradictory evidence to what Suzie and others told police at the time. 

‘When looking at the police reports and coroner reports, it is clear there was some inconsistency. Also, it was acknowledged that some of what was said at (the) scene may be inaccurate,’ she told DailyMail.com.

The portion of the CCTV released by authorities showed Suzie being interviewed by police at the scene after her husband was extracted from the pool, and in other dashcam footage being joined by Miller after she called him to the scene.

Suzie is understood to have been re-interviewed by police as part of the renewed investigation, but it was not known if Miller was questioned in 2021 or would be again.

Police reports showed Suzie told detectives ‘that nothing was unusual this morning and that he wasn’t suicidal’. 

McDermott said police were incorrectly told at the time that Skinner had no family in Myrtle Beach who could corroborate ‘the stories that were told [to police] that day at the pool’.

Despite both Skinner’s parents and McDermott living in the town, they were never interviewed by investigators.

‘Essentially the police took the word for the people that were on the scene at the time,’ McDermott said.

Other sources close to the investigation told DailyMail.com that detectives were trying to establish if the alleged affair Williams described in her affidavit occurred, and what effect it had on Skinner’s mental health leading up to his death.

Other avenues of inquiry include how truthful witnesses statements in 2021 were, and if police were incorrectly led to believe Skinner was not suicidal.

Skinner had an active life insurance policy at the time of his death, multiple sources claimed.

Skinner, an army veteran, was paralyzed from the neck down in a car crash involving a drunk driver when he was just 20, and later became a motivational speaker.

His memoir detailed how McDermott, aged 18, ‘dropped everything, including a job, a boyfriend, and a life’ to move into his college dorm to help him through his first semester after the accident.

‘I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have returned to school and be where I am today if it weren’t for the sacrifice my younger sister, Tammy made that Christmas holiday,’ he wrote. 

He went to the pool on the day of his death to meet someone for a game of chess, and had his neighbor Eric Tarto open the gate for him, according to the police report.

Skinner was recorded on security cameras entering the pool area at 7.52am with his dog and moving to the chess tables in his powered wheelchair.

A few minutes later he began rolling around the edge of the pool, and fell into the pool at 7.56am strapped to the chair. With no one around to save him, he drowned.  

Skinner was ‘seen attempting to pull his head up a few times… but is unable to do so’ before the motion-activated camera stopped recording, police wrote.

No one saw Skinner in the pool until 40 minutes later when neighbors arrived and ‘noticed an object in the pool which they thought was a float or toy left in the pool by one of the kids or community members the night before’.

When they looked closer, they realized it was Skinner and called 911.

Firefighters arrived and dived into the pool at 8.56am, but were far too late to save him, and he was declared dead on arrival in hospital.

Miller conducted Skinner’s funeral at his church days later.

McDermott said her brother’s case being reopened was a ‘direct result’ of its association with Miller and his continued relationship with Suzie, due to huge public interest in Mica’s death.

‘This exposure has… led to a significant number of witnesses coming forward’ with ‘invaluable’ new information, she said.

Foul play has never been suspected in Skinner’s death and the case being reopened doesn’t suggest that will change.

McDermott said she had no idea Miller and Suzie were in a relationship until she saw DailyMail.com’s photos of the two of them out together, and nothing of the alleged affair until Williams filed her affidavit.

She said she hoped the renewed investigation would uncover the full truth surrounding Skinner’s death.

‘I just want the truth because truth brings healing and then it results in peace, and I would like to feel peaceful when I think about my brother’s passing,’ she said.

‘Chris, honestly, is one of the most resilient people I’ve ever known. He’s just pushed through everything.’

Miller repeatedly denied he was in a relationship with Suzie in the weeks and months after Mica’s death, despite people around them insisting they were.

Suzie finally admitted their relationship this month as part of one of the several legal dramas Miller is embroiled with.

Miller was accused in a lawsuit this month of raping a 15-year-old girl in 1998 while working at his father’s church in Myrtle Beach when he was 19.

The accuser – anonymized as ‘Jane Doe’ – claimed Miller sexually assaulted her again more than two decades later in 2023 by forcibly grabbing her genitals in public without her consent.

The woman claimed the most recent alleged attack ‘triggered repressed memories’ of the incident from 1998, of which she previously had ‘no conscious recollection’.

Miller strongly denied the allegations and launched a counter-suit for defamation against the woman, claiming she also posted the allegations on social media, causing him ‘irreparable harm, damage and injury’.

Days later a second woman, known as ‘Jane Doe #2’, sued him and his father Reginald Miller for sexual abuse between 1999 and 2001 starting when she was 14.

The lawsuit detailed sexual and psychological abuse she claimed to have suffered at Miller’s church and at Cathedral Hall Academy, a school he ran at the time.

Things could get worse for Miller yet still, as the attorney for Mica’s family, Regina Ward, told DailyMail.com she has been in communication with multiple other women who are considering filing similar civil claims against Miller alleging abuse.

Mica contacted police several times in the months preceding her suicide to level allegations against her husband, including claims he ‘groomed’ her when she was a teenager.

Miller has vehemently denied any allegations of grooming and abuse. He has also previously suggested Mica suffered from mental illness and had attempted suicide on more than one occasion.

The circumstances of Mica’s death are being investigated by the FBI, which raided Miller’s home in November but wouldn’t reveal why.

Mica and Miller initially split on September 20, 2023, before the divorce was dismissed on February 13.

Later that same month Miller filed against his wife for separate support and maintenance in a motion withdrawn March 11.

But on April 15, just 12 days before she was found dead, Mica filed for divorce once more and sought a no contact order against her husband. They split for the second time on February 6.

Autopsy results, including a muzzle imprint and gunpowder residue on her head, later confirmed she took her own life, and found no drugs or alcohol in her blood.

However, Miller is accused in court documents of grooming Mica for years before they wed, committing her to hospital to steal her car, and cheating on his first wife with underage churchgoers.

DailyMail.com previously revealed how she accused him of posting a nude photograph of her on Facebook just weeks before her death.

Miller has since admitted to the malicious act and even claimed he tried to make amends – telling NewsNation the act was ‘evil’.

Later on March 14 and March 26 Mica reported that she had found a tracking device on her car, after discovering it attached by magnets under the chassis.

Another police report over the alleged theft of her silver Honda Accord shows the breakdown of their marriage dating back to February 2023.

‘When the complainant was discharged from the hospital, hospital staff informed her that her husband picked up her purse and her keys,’ the report states.

‘The complainant believed that her husband fraudulently initiated her involuntary hospitalization and ‘stole’ her care while she was in the hospital.’

Later on March 14 and March 26 Mica reported that she had found a tracking device on her car, after discovering it attached by magnets under the chassis.

Another police report over the alleged theft of her silver Honda Accord shows the breakdown of their marriage dating back to February 2023.

‘When the complainant was discharged from the hospital, hospital staff informed her that her husband picked up her purse and her keys,’ the report stated.

‘The complainant believed that her husband fraudulently initiated her involuntary hospitalization and “stole” her car while she was in the hospital.’

The most salacious claim in Mica’s police reports was that Miller, who is 14 years older than her, ‘groomed’ her since she was 10, before they married in 2017.

‘The complainant stated that she has known her husband since she was ten-years-old and that he ‘groomed’ her while she worked for him at Solid Rock Church until they were married,’ the report added.

Miller’s lawyer Russel Long said this ‘couldn’t be farther from the truth. She moved to Myrtle Beach at the age of 15, was married to another man at the age of 18 and divorced at the age of 21’.

‘It has come to light that Mica Miller struggled with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, which, when not properly managed, led to paranoid episodes and self-destructive behavior,’ he said.