Featured Image Credit: ABC 15/ YouTube/JustinOnTikTok
Topics: Social Media, US News
Emily Brown
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing
Pastor John-Paul Miller has spoken out after internet sleuths noticed a strange detail in an interview he conducted after announcing his wife's death.
Miller shocked members of his congregation at Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when he described getting a call the night before to say his wife, 30-year-old Mica Miller, had passed away.
Advert
Miller told the congregation her death was 'self-induced' and took place in North Carolina, where she was found in Lumber River State Park in Robeson County.
Miller and Mica were in the process of separating when she died, but the pastor still described his wife as 'beautiful' to his congregation, and spoke further about her in interviews conducted in the following days.
In one interview, Miller could be seen wearing a silver necklace with a large, circular diamond on it.
Miller didn't draw attention to the necklace during his conversation with ABC15, but internet users became curious as they noticed that Mica appeared to have been wearing the same necklace in CCTV footage released from the day of her death.
True crime content creator JustinOnTikTok was among those who noticed Miller wearing what seemed to be Mica's necklace, and invited the pastor on to his show to talk about it.
During the interview, Justin noted that people had been 'asking questions' about the necklace, and how Miller had ended up with it when Mica had been wearing it on the day she died.
He asked Miller: "Was that actually hers or did you just have a similar one?"
Miller didn't shy away from the truth, as he responded to Justin to say the necklace he'd been wearing was 'definitely hers'.
"I got it - so um she passed away on the Saturday, and then Sunday when I went and saw her, um, they handed me some stuff - and that was one of the things that handed me," he explained.
Miller went on to say Mica had 'heard about these lab diamonds' and wanted to swap the stone in her engagement ring for one which had been made in a lab.
"Even though she loved her wedding engagement band, um, she wanted the diamond - the real diamond - taken out," Miller claimed.
"She wanted a lab diamond put in but she didn't want to get rid of that diamond. So, she wanted to put it inside of a necklace."
Miller said a nurse had given him the necklace after Mica's death, and he had it on 'before [he] even left the hospital'.
"I just had not taken it off and actually I forgotten it was on on the next day or two- or whenever the interview was," he said, adding: "I just wanted to feel close to her."
Mica's death was ruled as suicide after the North Carolina Medical Examiner looked at surveillance footage and conducted an examination.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741