July Soundbites –

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Hello and welcome to Luna Shark’s Soundbites. I’m Beth Braden, Luna Shark journalist and researcher for the True Sunlight Podcast hosted by Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell. It’s been another intense month as we continued to cover the Mica Francis case  and learned a LOT about coercive control.  We also saw South Carolina state senator and Alex Murdaugh defense attorney Dick Harpootlian lose a primary election to South Carolina State Representative Russell Ott. 

Here are 5 things you need to know about what happened in June.

Number One – Out of respect, Mica Miller will now be known as Mica Francis

In May, we began reporting on the Mica Miller case, which is the story of a Myrtle Beach pastor’s wife found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in Lumber River State Park in North Carolina. Mica was married to JP Miller, the pastor of Solid Rock at Market Common church in Myrtle Beach.  It’s a complicated story with years of reported domestic abuse and alleged generational misbehavior mixed in with the patriarchal structures of JP’s church and his upbringing as the son of a wannabe televangelist, Reginald Wayne Miller. 

As we began reading the divorce documents in this case, we recognized from divorce filings that Mica wanted to drop her husband’s last name — Miller—  and return to her maiden name of Mica Francis. We can’t change what happened to Mica, but we can honor her request, so we will. Here’s Liz from True Sunlight Episode 54.

In her filing, Sierra also asked the court to grant Mica a posthumous name change. Mica sought to have her name restored to Mica Acacia Francis when she filed her own divorce papers. This is a big deal and even though we understand that this case is known nationally as the Mica Miller case, we’re going to start referring to her as Mica Francis as much as possible. Mica shouldn’t have to carry around the last name of a man who did so much damage to her. So in the court of True Sunlight, we’re restoring Mica to her pre-JP identity. It’s the very least anyone can do for her.

Liz Farrell, True Sunlight Episode 54

Number Two – JP Miller Keeps Popping up on TikTok Claiming He Has Proof that Mica Was Mentally Ill 

Since Mica’s death, JP has occasionally appeared on social media claiming that he can prove everything he’s saying regarding Mica’s mental health, but he has yet to produce any evidence beyond his own word..  

In a TikTok video posted by the True Crime Ri account in early June, JP claimed that he had 350 pieces of evidence showing what Mica “really thinks” of the people who are fighting for her —  including her family and her best friend Charlotte Korn. Charlotte spoke to Mandy in a lengthy interview for True Sunlight Episode 51 

What we do have as far as evidence in this situation includes video of  JP speaking poorly about Mica from the pulpit, trying to prevent her from seeking support in November 2022, accusing her of stealing from the church, and repeatedly tracking her vehicle around town.

Number Three – We got a closer look at just how bad the divorce laws are for women in SC

In South Carolina, divorces are classified in one of two ways – no fault divorce or a fault divorce. A fault divorce, one that cites adultery, for example, is much faster than a no-fault divorce. A no-fault divorce is essentially irreconcilable, and they take at least a year to become finalized .A year is a lot of time if you have a woman who lacks financial freedom and support to leave a marriage. Here’s Liz with some details from Cup of Justice Episode 82:

because I think it’s important for people out there to know that how South Carolina does divorce. It’s in as your resident expert in the I’m the only one of the three of us who has had a divorce in South Carolina. Congratulations. Thank you very much. We are going to talk about this. So the first thing is that you cannot physically live together for a year and a no fault divorce, which means you have a choice. Your first choice is you and you think when you’re at that point, you’re like, I’m gonna go for a fault divorce and there’s three grounds you can get a fault divorce, if there’s abuse, physical or what have you abuse, an affair or there’s addiction, habitual drunkenness, right, habitual drunkenness, where some sort of drug or drug addiction, but here’s what it is. So that a no fault divorce means that you can get it on the fast track, which is basically six months versus a year, right? It means that you need a lawyer. Okay, so a retainer for a divorce lawyer. When I was doing this was about $2,500. 

Eric Bland  39:00

So it’s about $5,000. About $5,000 t0 $10,000.

Liz Farrell  39:02

Where does that come from? Because in addition to that, you physically cannot be in the home. So looking at the apartment, when I got an apartment, it was much less but a one bedroom apartment in where Mica was living was about $1,400. I looked this up. So she would not only have to have first and last month or whatever the deposit is, she would have to have a car in her name. Even though I was lucky in that I was financially able to do everything very neatly. In my divorce when I decided to leave my husband, I had put my name on a waiting list for an apartment. I had the money, it was fine. I could get the house, the apartment furnished whatever I was very, very lucky. So with Mica and with me even with those circumstances, when I decided to tell my husband I told him in a public place so that there would not be any sort of outbursts. And one of the first things he said to me Was what car are you going to drive because you don’t own any cars, the cars were in his name. So, you know, it’s not something you think about because you’re just like, Oh my God, that’s when I drive. So he and he didn’t, you know, to his credit, he did not follow through that I got to drive. Okay, I got to keep driving the car, even though it wasn’t the same. But that was where he went because he was feeling defensive. It was the only power he held over me in that moment. And he cashed in on it instead. So when you look at Mica, you know, we saw that she had two cars registered to her will need to it appears that she was driving, neither of them looks like she was driving a car that belonged to her and her roommate, in fact, when she was found dead in North Carolina. So that’s that’s a pattern you can see through the police reports just how those cars were something that was leveraged leverage to you know, he took the car when she went into the hospital when he involuntarily had her had her committed involuntarily.

Liz Farrell, Cup of Justice Episode 82

Soak Up the Sun members can learn more about fault/no-fault divorce by listening to the Weekend Update with EB on June 29, 2024.

Number Four – We learned a LOT about coercive control abuse and saw Mica Francis’s family begin championing Mica’s Law

Laura Richards appearance on Cup of Justice 86 taught us all al ot about a form of domestic abuse  called coercive control in which one party uses a variety of tactics to completely control the other. Laura. Who is an internationally known behavioral crime analyst, had this to say about Mica’s situation:

Yes, I mean, there were many red flags that I saw from the start, even with his announcement, that mica had died, and that her death was self induced, which, which is what he said, which was a very strange thing that he announced her death at the end of her sermon, as sort of a postscript which struck me as very odd straight away when I saw that, but the fact that he then said that she had mental health struggles, those two things self-induced That she died and that she had struggled with suicide, she had mental health struggles, immediate red flags for me. Why would you put that out there on the Sunday, when you’ve just found out that your partner, your wife has died? That’s before I knew anything of what had gone on. And then as I started to dig into it, and I think you and I were both digging into it at the same time, because we saw that being said, and it was an immediate red flag, and him telling his congregation not to discuss it made me feel very uncomfortable.

Laura Richards, Cup of Justice Episode 86

Mica’s family is also fighting back with the help of attorney Regina Ward, who held a press conference on June 6 to discuss Mica’s Law, which would criminalize coercive control abuse in South Carolina.  Here’s another clip of Liz from True Sunlight 54: 

Perhaps the most important part of the press conference was the announcement that Regina and the Francis family were working toward creating Mica’s Law … a law that would criminalize “coercive control” in South Carolina. A bill was introduced in the House and Senate in 2020 that would criminalize “the act or pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation, manipulation, and intimidation or other abuse, including emotional abuse, that is used to harm, punish, or frighten the victim by fraudulent representations.” It basically expands the idea that domestic violence is always a physical act of abuse. That bill failed. Regina said that had it passed in 2020, JP would have been arrested because the police would have had a law to follow. They wouldn’t have been able to just throw up their hands and act like there was nothing they could do about — which, we still think there were things law enforcement could’ve done to help Mica. Regina said that as part of their pursuit of a coercive control law they want to include a “misuse of legal documents” clause that would criminalize the use of the legal system for purposes of intimidation and control.

Liz Farrell, True Sunlight Episode 54

Regina Ward also distributed copies of what has been dubbed Mica’s List with more details about the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of JP Miller. You can see a copy of Mica’s list at lunasharkmedia.com.

Number Five – Dick Harpootlian lost his seat in the South Carolina Senate

After a lengthy political career including time as fifth circuit solicitor, it appears that South Carolina Senator and Alex Murdaugh defense attorney Dick Harpootlian is done. 

Dick Harpootlian faced State Representative Rusell Ott  in a primary election ending with Ott eking out a narrow victory with 51 percent of the vote. Ott will face the republican nominee to determine who will fill the state senate district 26 seat. 

As membership grows we are working hard to bring our premium members more exclusive content. Soak up the Sun members can check out Luna Shark Producer Sam Berlin’s bonus episode about trusts, captive insurance, and a theory on where Alex Murdaugh’s missing money may be.