The South Carolina pastor whose wife shot herself dead after slapping him with divorce papers had allegedly admitted just weeks earlier to posting a topless photo of her online.
John Paul Miller, 44, had allegedly sent the email to his 30-year-old wife, Mica Miller, apologizing for the photo saga in the weeks before her April 27 death, News Nation reported, citing a copy of the note.
“I’m sorry for putting a picture of you on the internet. It was for less than one hour and immediately taken down,” the pastor’s missive apparently said.
“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.”
Further details on the email weren’t immediately available. The Post reached out to Miller’s attorney but didn’t hear back immediately.
Mica’s death was ruled a suicide by the Robeson County Medical Examiner after she was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in North Carolina’s Lumber River State Park.
Despite the ruling, her family has since pleaded for cops to “deeply” investigate her demise amid allegations the pastor had abused his wife — claims he denies.
Mica had contacted police several times in the lead-up to her suicide to level allegations against her husband — including that he had “groomed” her when she was a teen before they got married in 2017.
Several days after Miller — a pastor at Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — allegedly fired off the email copping to the nude photo, Mica sent an affidavit to her attorney claiming she’d been “abused in every way I can think of” since they tied the knot.
“Emotionally, sexually, spiritually, financially, and physically. He has harassed me physically and electronically with letters, phone calls, emails, and texts, hacking my emails, hacking my personal Facebook, and impersonating me,” she is alleged to have said.
“Using my stolen phone to send texts and emails out to church members pretending to be me, texting friends and family saying that I am sleeping with teenagers from our church, and showing up in person at places around town … To having installed 3 different tracking devices on my vehicle.”
The pastor, on his part, has strenuously denied any allegations of grooming and abuse.
He has also previously said his wife suffered from mental illness, had made previous attempts to take her own life and was hospitalized on multiple occasions.
“Following the untimely death of Mica Miller, unfounded rumors and false accusations began circulating on social media and in various media outlets, suggesting Pastor Miller’s involvement in her demise,” Miller’s lawyer Russell Long, said.
“This created a buzz, causing local and national media outlets to be proliferating these falsehoods, on a mammoth proportion. Our client refutes any report that suggests he ever abused his wife.”
As rumors began to swirl about Mica’s death, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office also released extensive details regarding their probe to back findings that Miller had no involvement in his wife’s demise.
Among the details was a 911 call Mica made the day she died during which she made sure authorities could trace her phone to the wooded area where her body would later be found.
“I’m about to kill myself and I just want my family to know where to find me,” Miller said in the audio recording.
It comes after the Solid Rock Church posted video on Saturday of Mica’s May 5 memorial service where her husband delivered an emotional 20-minute eulogy recalling how he’d made several trips to the morgue in the week after her death in the hopes that she would “wake up.”
“Each time it still didn’t hit me, I thought she was going to wake up — I even tried to raise her from the dead one time this week,” the pastor said in the clip.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.