Murdaugh Murders Podcast - TSP #65 - Leaked Medical Records Show Mica Francis’ Confusion Over Her Diagnosis + Bowen Turner Case Heads for First Appeal
Episode Date: September 5, 2024Leaked medical records from Mica Francis’ in-patient and outpatient visits to mental health facilities were leaked to the public over the past week, and investigative journalists Mandy Matney and ...Liz Farrell are diving in. According to the records — some of which were sent directly to Luna Shark Media and others that were posted online by a TikToker sympathetic to JP Miller’s plight — Mica was confused about her diagnosis and its symptoms. At the same time, these records raise questions about how Mica was being treated and where clinicians were getting some of their information about her alleged behavior. In one report, the clinician notes that Mica recognized the need to “listen to her husband when he raises concerns.” Also on the show, one of the two appeals in the Bowen Turner case is set to be heard and it’s a big deal. Next week attorneys representing one of Bowen’s victims — whom he pleaded guilty to assaulting — will argue that the prosecution and defenses deprived her from her constitutional right to be present at Bowen’s plea hearing. How the court rules could have a lasting impact on the future of victims’ rights in South Carolina. We will broadcast the hearing LIVE for Luna Shark Premium members next Tuesday at 10 am ET... So mark your calendars... Episode Resources: Chris Osher Article in The Denver Gazette Rachel Pickrel GoFundMe Listing David Miller’s JMSC Hearing - Nov 8, 2023 Bowen Turner DUI Dash Cam Video Robbie Harvey Interview - 31:45 Timestamp Jan 11, 2018 Email to Mica Francis Stay Tuned, Stay Pesky and Stay in the Sunlight...☀️ Join Luna Shark Premium today at Lunashark.Supercast.com. Premium Members also get access to searchable case files, written articles with documents, case photos, episode videos and exclusive live experiences with our hosts on lunasharkmedia.com all in one place. CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3BdUtOE. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. What We're Buying... Hungry Root - https://hungryroot.com/mandy to get 40% off your first delivery and get your free veggies.. Hungry Root is the easiest way to eat healthy. They send you fresh, high-quality groceries, simple, delicious recipes, and essential supplements. Task Rabbit - Use promo code "mandy" at https://www.taskrabbit.com/ for 15% off your task. Task Rabbit connects you with skilled Taskers to help with cleaning, moving, furniture assembly, home repairs, and more. Here's a link to some of our favorite things: https://amzn.to/4cJ0eVn And a special thank you to our other amazing sponsors: Microdose.com, PELOTON, and VUORI. Use promo code "MANDY" for a special offer! *** ALERT: If you ever notice audio errors in the pod, email info@lunasharkmedia.com and we'll send fun merch to the first listener that finds something that needs to be adjusted! *** For current & accurate updates: TrueSunlight.com facebook.com/TrueSunlightPodcast/ Instagram.com/TrueSunlightPod Twitter.com/mandymatney Twitter.com/elizfarrell youtube.com/@LunaSharkMedia tiktok.com/@lunasharkmedia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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I don't know if we will ever understand the full scope of what Micah Francis endured
in the six years leading up to her death.
But recently leaked medical records reveal more troubling information about her diagnosis,
about her medication, and about her treatment.
And none of it looks good for JP.
My name is Manny Matney. This is True Sunlight, a podcast exposing crime and corruption previously
known as the Murdoch Murders Podcast. True Sunlight is a Lunashark production written
with journalist Liz Farrell. Well, hello from the land of no consequences.
Before we get into other horrific stories involving the South Carolina justice system,
I have to tell y'all, I have been so angry this week for Rachel Pickrell-Hawkins and
what the Colorado justice system did to her and her children.
This gut-wrenching story I am about to tell you comes from phenomenal reporting by Chris
Oscher of the Denver Gazette.
Check the link in the description and be sure to support his work.
Rachel Pickrell Hawkins' ex-husband, former Aurora Police Sergeant Michael Hawkins, was
recently charged with seven felony counts of sexual assault of a child by a person in a position
of trust.
But guess which one of them was recently ordered to spend seven weekends in jail and which
one of them is out on bond?
Recently District Court Judge Daniel McDonald ordered Rachel to force her children to attend
reunification therapy with their father, you
know, the accused rapist, who also has a history of violence against women as a police officer.
Michael Hawkins, the accused child rapist, is seeking custody of his two youngest sons,
and Colorado court officials appear to be helping him with that endeavor. Now Rachel tried to take her children to this court ordered reunification therapy and she
obviously found it deeply disturbing.
And she found it upsetting to her children who have already suffered enough.
So like any good mother would, she objected. Then, Judge Daniel McDonald actually ordered Rachel to
spend seven weekends in jail and made her pay for the reunification therapy.
Of course, our system let an accused child rapist who happens to be a former
cop out on a $50,000 bond. Of course, our system chose to force his children into this brainwashing reunification therapy.
And of course, our system decided to punish the mother with jail time while the father
is out free.
And I say our system because frankly, I am convinced that every state in the US has a
problematic justice system if you look hard enough, especially when it comes to family
courts.
What is happening in Colorado is an American justice problem, and we should all be worried.
How many more stories do we have to hear like this before we start holding these monsters and
their enablers accountable?
The worst part of this story is that our system favors dangerous men over loving mothers at
the expense of children every single day, and we are not doing enough to change it.
What happened to Rachel could happen to anyone with the current system we have.
Anger aside, I am chiefly concerned for the safety of Rachel and her children as all of
us know how dangerous it is to stand up against a man on the verge of losing everything.
They not only need a good lawyer to fight this and get accountability for what was done
to Rachel and her children,
but they need safety and protection.
In the description, we provided a link to donate to Rachel and her family's GoFundMe.
I am proud to say that Lunashark was able to donate to this family through our Merch
with a Mission campaign and I hope y'all can help too.
While this story is incredibly disturbing, I want to tell y'all can help too. While this story is incredibly disturbing,
I want to tell y'all that there is some really good news
in this case aside from the $70,000 already raised
for Rachel.
Unlike in South Carolina where we report jaw-dropping
horror stories of what our system does to women
and how our lawmakers do absolutely nothing about it.
Lawmakers in Colorado are already taking action following the worldwide reaction to Rachel's story in the Denver Gazette this weekend.
On Tuesday, Chris Oscher of the Denver Gazette reported that his story of what the justice system did to Rachel actually prompted lawmakers to take action.
They wrote a petition to send to the Supreme Court
and they organized a rally for Thursday.
The petition says, quote,
too many judges and magistrates continue to place children
in the custody of abusers,
order forced reunification therapy,
ignore credible evidence of abuse,
void protection orders,
and in some cases, send protective parents to jail
while abusers are unaccountable.
Wow, where were all of the South Carolina lawmakers
demanding accountability for the elected officials
involved in the Murdoch case?
What about the Bowen
Turner case? Or J.P. Miller? How come our listeners in the UK and Australia are more
aware of the gross injustices happening every day in South Carolina than our own lawmakers?
The silence and inaction from our elected officials on the miscarriages of justice that we have exposed on this podcast alone
speaks volumes. And it is evidence of why South Carolina just might have the worst justice
system in the United States. Our layers of accountability are tainted entirely by corruption
and our lawmakers have done nothing to fix that.
In Colorado, lawmakers reacted to one horrifying story of injustice and they immediately did
something about it.
In South Carolina, most of our lawmakers directly benefit from an injustice and corruption or
they are too scared to speak out in fear of losing their positions.
As Senator Katrina Shealy so brilliantly and blatantly told us on Cup of Justice, episode 95.
In Colorado, judges are appointed by the governor, not legislators, which means there is less
politicking happening when it comes to lawmakers and judges. That means there are less lawmakers who are biased towards certain judges because they
helped with their appointment and they want to save face.
That paves the way for accountability in Colorado.
Instead of sweeping justice under the rug or hiding it there to come back later and
make a buck.
Time and time again, we see the South Carolina good ol' boys successfully gaslighting
the press so that they all pretend that the rigged system is just fine and all of them
cling to the hope that those pesky and independent podcasters telling people the ugly truth of
the South Carolina justice system will just go away.
Well, let me just say this, we won't go away until we see accountability and real
change.
And we will keep screaming the truth from the rooftops until someone in power does something
to end the cycle of crime, corruption, and lack of accountability.
We hope y'all keep screaming along with us and bugging your lawmakers until they cannot
ignore us anymore.
Speaking of the endless cycle of corruption in South Carolina, we've got to talk about
Bowen Turner.
Now, before we dive back into Micah's story and the baffling quote unquote evidence
presented by her husband, J.P. Miller,
and people apparently advocating for him,
we have two very important updates
in the Bowen Turner case.
The first update, victims were informed Wednesday morning
by SEDC that thrice accused rapist Bowen Turner
is set to be released from prison
on October 31, 2024.
And the second update that is separate but I'll explain.
The SC Court of Appeals will hear the victim's argument in Bowen Turner's original case
that he got a sweetheart deal for back in 2022.
The hearing could be a very big deal for victims' rights and we will talk
about that in a minute. But as a reminder, we will broadcast that hearing live for Lunashark
Premium members next Tuesday at 10am. Mark your calendars. Now, to explain these updates,
a much needed refresher on this case. Turner is the thrice accused rapist who got a shocking good old boy deal in 2022 thanks
to his lawyer, lawmaker, attorney Brad Hutto.
Turner screwed up that deal almost immediately and was thrown in prison under the Useful
Offenders Act for violating his parole.
He served over a year in prison before he was released last November,
and by March, he was already back behind bars
for a DUI crash in Florence County, South Carolina.
Essentially, Turner is the poster boy,
good old boys of South Carolina,
and how their version of protecting their own
ends up endangering the rest of us.
This system has given Turner chance after chance
after chance, and here they are again,
letting him off easy.
We need everyone in South Carolina
to remember Turner's face,
remember everything that he is accused of,
remember his alleged victims
and what happened to their lives
after they were allegedly assaulted,
and most importantly, we need y'all to remember the names of the public officials who let this man off easy.
Bowen Turner is accused of raping three girls between 2018 and 2019 when he was in high school.
Chloe Bess and Dallas Stoller both told a similar story of being violently raped in the woods by Bowen
while they were at a party.
They were both bullied horrifically in Orangeburg after they reported Bowen.
Sadly, Dallas Stoller took her own life in 2021.
Chloe moved out of the state.
The third victim in the case remains anonymous.
We can't and won't ever talk about Bowen Turner
without reminding you of what his victims went through.
So charges were filed in Dallas and Chloe's cases in 2019,
and Bowen eventually was released
on house arrest with ankle monitoring.
Years passed, and Bowen was caught violating the terms
of his bond conditions more than 60 times.
Most people would have been thrown in jail at that point, but not Bowen.
Bowen's family paid for a defense attorney who happens to moonlight as a state senator and his name is Brad Huddo,
a man who claims to be a champion for women and who is up for re-election this year.
Senator Huddo managed to turn this hearing for Turner's bond violations into a plea
deal hearing for the rape cases.
He somehow got Judge Markley Dennis and Prosecutor David Miller to agree to a sweetheart deal
for Bowen where he was able to plead down to just one count of assault and
he was given probation under the Useful Offenders Act.
At the hearing, the court refused to allow survivor Chloe Bess' statement to be considered
before giving Turner's light sentence, which is primarily what the appeal hearing next
week will be about.
More on that in one moment. We never got answers about how exactly
that sweetheart deal went down,
but think about it.
Chances are high that prosecutor David Miller,
who has been trying to be a judge for years now,
and thankfully was denied again this year.
Chances are high that he likely wanted to impress
Senator Brad Hutto, who was one of
the most powerful lawmakers in our state. Hutto carries major weight in the decision
of who gets to become a judge here in South Carolina. Is it possible or even likely that
Miller gave accused rapist Bowen Turner a sweetheart deal so that Hutto would advocate for his judgeship?
Definitely.
Because the alternative would be that all of these men just simply failed to hold a
thrice accused rapist accountable because maybe they didn't care enough about women.
In a surprise to literally no one, it didn't take long after Bowen screwed up the sweetheart
deal he was given.
He violated his parole in less than a month and was back in jail for public disorderly
conduct.
And he reportedly threatened to bite a deputy during his arrest.
Bowen was sent back to prison for over a year for that May 2022 incident and was released
in November 2023.
During that time that he was in prison, we continued to cover this story and listeners
from all over the world wrote to solicitor Bill Weeks to ask him to prosecute Dallas'
rape case which he has kept open for all of this time.
Well Bill Weeks refused to try Dallas' case and told her family that it wasn't worth
the effort because they couldn't win it.
He blamed Dallas' death for this, saying that there was no rape case without a victim
to testify.
Which, by the way, makes me wonder about Bill's stance on trying murder cases.
Weeks is also running for re-election this year, by the way,
because the good old boys are essentially whack-a-mole's
who never go away no matter how foolish they look.
Now, in our opinion, David Miller, Bill Weeks,
Brad Huddo, and Mark Lee Dennis all have blood on their hands
for whatever Bowen Turner might do next. And we say that because remember the last time Bowen was released from prison not that long ago.
In March 2024, Bowen was in a DUI crash, which was not only scary in the fact that he was already endangering the lives of others just a few months after his release, but it was horrifying to see what he did when he
was arrested and how he treated the female officer who arrested him.
He verbally abused her.
He called her a bitch and other words in between temper tantrums about how he's a white boy
and shouldn't go to jail. I have to play this clip just to remind y'all how bad it was.
Please ma'am. Ma'am, I promise you I ask you please ma'am. No ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, please.
They are dealing, they're digging into my wrist ma'am Please, ma'am. Ma'am, please. Ma'am, please.
Ma'am. Ma'am. Ma'am, please.
Ma'am, please, ma'am.
Ma'am, they're digging into my wrist, ma'am.
Ma'am, please, ma'am.
Ma'am, please. Ma'am.
Ma'am, what are you punishing me for? God damn, ma'am!
I'm asking you, ma'am, what are you punishing me for? God damn, ma'am! I'm asking you, ma'am.
Ma'am, please ma'am. Ma'am, look at my wrist.
Well, no ma'am, I'm trying to...
Call my mama. Call my mama, please.
No, you haven't called her when I'm in the car. Call her when I'm in the car.
Yeah, because you know you wrong.
Don't worry, I got your back, so we go get right.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Ma'am, please, ma'am.
Ma'am, please, ma'am.
Bowen was charged with DUI, public disorderly conduct,
open container, not wearing a seatbelt,
and resisting arrest.
But of course, the system let him off easy again.
About three weeks after this terrifying incident
where every single person
in the South Carolina justice system
should have been thanking their lucky stars
that Bowen didn't hurt or kill anyone,
Timmonsville Magistrate Judge Adon DeKam Hudson
allowed Bowen to quietly plead guilty to
four of those charges, including the DUI. And he sentenced Bowen to time served when the time that
he had served in jail following his arrest wasn't technically even serving for the charges that he
was pleading to. We also found it odd that we couldn't get a clear answer on who his attorney was in that case. We found it
odd that that particular magistrate judge was located 30 miles away from
where Bowen crashed his truck in Florence. So why that judge? All of this
was highly suspicious and highly frustrating.
One charge remains pending for Bowen, resisting arrest,
and a court date has not been set for that charge, according to online records.
However, Bowen was sent back to prison for violating his parole,
and apparently that sentence will end on October 31, 2024.
And we mean it when we say that we urge everyone, especially those
around Orangeburg, Florence, and Columbia, to watch this man closely. While we for sure
will be watching him closely. Now, for the hopeful news in this maddening tragedy,
next week, the SC Court of Appeals will hear from victims' attorneys, Sarah Ford,
who y'all have heard many times on this podcast,
and Malia Bowers-Jefferson, who specializes in appellate work.
Back in 2022, Ford filed an appeal
on behalf of the victims in Turner's case
who were denied their right to be heard at sentencing,
which Ford and Bowers-Jefferson are arguing is a violation of the victim's bill of rights.
Specifically, Chloe Bess, the survivor who Turner pleaded guilty to assaulting at a party,
wanted to speak and was not allowed.
Sarah Ford told Lunashark reporter Beth Braden on Tuesday, quote, We are arguing against the state and defense
who both allege we have no right to appeal.
We survived the state's motion to dismiss.
The court denied that motion and scheduled us for argument.
So this is a big deal.
Y'all hear that?
This is a big deal.
And Tuesday's hearing could be a big step for victims' rights in South Carolina.
On Tuesday, Ford and her team will be appealing the plea court's denial of her motion to enforce victims' rights,
her rule to show cause against Ellery Bale Bonding Company,
the company that allowed Turner to violate his bond more than 60 times,
and her petition
for a writ of mandamus.
So, we will be watching closely and we hope y'all join us at 10am Tuesday.
Links will be sent via email and on your premium feed.
Today we have part 3 of our look into what J.P. Miller's evidence in the probate
case tells us about his marriage to Micah Francis and the story he wants everyone to
believe about the weeks and months leading up to her death.
But today is going to look a little different because instead of talking about the evidence
that was in the probate file, we're actually going to be talking about the evidence that
wasn't in it, at least not the part that we can see. Namely, we're going to be talking
about Micah's medical records, some of which were sent to us and some of which were posted
online by other people. It's not clear whether these medical records were ever part of the
probate filing because several exhibits do remain sealed. Also, I should mention that
these all appear to be screenshots that have
been cropped in various ways, so we're not always getting the full picture from each document.
Anyway, you guys, these screenshots are illuminating and definitely not the way the
people posting them and maybe even JP Miller himself would have hoped. Which brings me to
the obvious question,
is JP behind these medical records getting posted? Unclear. But last week we told you briefly about
how a TikTok user was posting seemingly random pages from Micah's medical file. It didn't stop
with just a few. This TikTok user is someone who appears to have some sort of emotional connection
to JP Miller, as well as personal experience with family members who suffer from mental illnesses. It definitely seems
like this TikToker is intent on showing the world that JP is a misunderstood and grieving husband who
suffered because he was married to a mentally ill woman. However, the more we look into
this case, the farther we get from understanding how anyone also looking at all of this could
possibly see anything other than the bigger picture of the alleged abuse and why it's
being alleged in the first place. In addition, a source, someone who contends that they're not JP or holding water
for JP despite it seeming pretty obvious that they are, reached out to Lunashark Media and gave us
three more random screenshots of Micah's alleged medical records with the instructions not to post
them on social media. Oddly, these documents were already posted on the page
of the TikTok user I just mentioned a little bit ago. So the JP public relations machine
is running a little uneven. Anyway, because of HIPAA laws, it's impossible to verify
whether these documents are authentic. However, given the context and what we know is going on in
Micah's life at the time that some of these clinician notes were written, they do appear
to be real. For this episode, even though we believe the records to be authentic, we're going
to sometimes refer to them as alleged records of Micah's because, like I said, we can't verify them.
And it's weird. Usually when someone posts something like this,
or sends something like this to the media, it's evidence that is vindicating to the person in
question. Meaning, we totally would have expected these documents to be like, wow, okay, so JP was
telling the truth all along. We've all been miss reading the situation. The world owes
him an apology. But no, the records don't do that. And yet it appears JP and his defenders think
these are mic drop moments for them. Maybe they're not picking the right medical records to show us.
So today we're going to talk about what the alleged records say, but keep in mind
that if JP or someone on his team condoned these being released, and we don't know that
they did, then it likely means he thinks that they're very helpful to him, which makes
sense because they're just like everything else he released.
They are shreds of evidence and also don't say what he seems to think they do. Which by the way, since our last
episode we have had even more mental health professionals reach out to us to weigh in on
what they're hearing in our episodes. Details that don't seem to corroborate JP's repeated
assertions that Micah was psychotic and suicidal. And a lot of people are doubting Micah
had bipolar disorder at all
based on what JP is showing us all.
So thank you so much to all our listeners
in the mental health field for helping us tell this story.
Please feel free to contact us
if there's anything you hear today
that you wanna shed light on.
Today, we're going to talk about the first half
of the records we have so far. And we're going to talk about the first half of the records we have so far,
and we're going to talk about them in date order,
right after this short break.
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The first record we have from this new stash of evidence that doesn't appear to have been in the probate file is from February 19th, 2019.
This is 14 months after Micah's mysterious December 2017 hospital stay, the one that occurred mid-December,
according to information provided by JP in the probate file.
Remember, this is when JP says that Micah was first diagnosed with bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. In the meantime, the evidence seems to point to her having had
post-op complications, including some form of anesthesia-induced psychosis which typically
resolves within hours of a patient waking up. As we told you in the past few episodes,
Micah had a breast augmentation on December 1st, 2017.
And according to an interview that JP did
with a TikToker earlier this summer,
Micah had some complications from that surgery.
One of her implants had hardened,
which is a sign that she could have had
a major infection from that surgery.
It was around the same time that JP says Micah began acting manic.
The single piece of evidence JP has provided to show Micah's so-called mania is a bizarre text message that Micah appears to have sent
to an associate of JP's in which she seems to be railing against having to keep their marriage secret while
also preaching on the unseen powers of God and her fulfillment of the prophecies.
Now we have a lot of questions about the December 2017 hospitalization and what became of it.
Like we said, this is Micah's mental health origin story as told by JP. And it's the point when Micah's family says Micah's behavior health origin story, as told by JP.
And it's the point when Micah's family says
Micah's behavior began to change
and they began to suspect that JP was behind it.
Allegedly, Micah was prescribed lithium
and elansapine at the same time.
We don't know if these drugs were prescribed
to help stabilize her mood while she was in the hospital
or as a result of an actual bipolar disorder diagnosis
at that time.
And the reason we say this is because mental health professionals have told us that the most suspicious thing about JP's version of
Micah's mental health origin story is that she was diagnosed so quickly or appears to have been according to his account.
Not only does it take months and even years for a clinician to know whether a patient has bipolar
disorder because time shows how the patient's highest and lowest moods manifest, there is yet
to be any actual evidence that Myka had bouts of severe depression, which is the yin to mania's
yang when it comes to bipolar disorder. It is a necessary symptom for the diagnosis.
The question is this, did a Myrtle Beach doctor do Micah dirty by haphazardly diagnosing her as
bipolar during that first hospital stay? If so, did that doctor base the diagnosis off
information from Micah's pastor husband, the man of God? Or did JP see that the mood stabilizers that Micah had been prescribed for the post-op
manic episode that was potentially related to a fever, severe infection, or reaction
to pain medications were also medications that could be used to treat bipolar disorder
and schizophrenia and just decided that's what she had?
Did he then pass that on to her new
therapist and did that then get perpetuated by medical professionals with no one ever
going back to the beginning? We'll talk a little bit more about this, but Michael was
receiving outpatient care and some inpatient care from overburdened facilities funded by
the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. Facilities where the caregivers might not have had the time
to fully investigate or track her medical history.
In the TikTok interview,
JP says that Micah's plastic surgeon met them at the ER
and that this doctor said that Micah seemed like
she was having a schizophrenic episode.
Was that reckless comment enough for JP?
Did he take that and run with it?
We don't know the answer, but it's all worth asking and really, these are the questions
to keep in mind as we continue to examine all the so-called evidence.
What we do know is that we have seen zero evidence of Micah showing any signs of bipolar
disorder or schizophrenia before she was married to JP or before her breast augmentation surgery.
Beyond that, there still haven't been any friends or anyone other than JP who have come forward to
say that they witnessed Micah's illegitimate behavior in real life, her high highs or her
low lows. But we have a lot of evidence of JP saying she was sick and we have a lot of notes
to self about the patterns we are seeing.
So from what we've been able to piece together, it looks like Micah might have gone to the
ER on or around December 15, 2017, and was discharged sometime before December 22, 2017.
But it's hard to tell the timeline because the information and evidence JP has provided so far seems to willfully fuzz it all up.
By December 22nd, 2017 though, we do know that JP was already dooming Micah to a lifetime
of institutionalization and breaks from reality.
They had their church wedding 9 days after JP sent her a five-part email
in which he catastrophized her health and made himself out to be the victim of it.
For a recap of that email, go back to episode 63 because where JP sees evidence that exonerates
him as a bad husband, the rest of us are seeing a carefully crafted missive meant to overwhelm
an emotionally handcuffed Micah. If JP is guilty of coercive control, then this would be the earliest written instance
of that on the public record.
11 days after their church wedding, JP wrote another email chastising Micah for going off
her meds.
For a recap of that, relisten to episode 64 from last week.
The conclusion to both of those episodes is this in our opinions.
23-year-old Micah had a horrible start to her second marriage and instead of nursing
Micah back to health, JP burdened her with his emotional fragility and insecurities and
immediately labeled her as being an ungodly wife who wasn't living up to his standards. We know that JP wanted Micah to take lithium at that time, and that Micah was resistant
to that.
We also know that JP gave Micah false information that he claimed to be for medical providers
about what her life would be like living with bipolar disorder and that it meant she would
be heavily dependent on him forever.
Again, it all seems like signs of potential coercive control.
And from where we sit, we are starting to question whether JP had motivations in terms of painting Micah as an ill woman,
was he terrified she was going to leave him, and was this an attempt to chain her to him? That said, we don't know much about what the next year looked like in Micah's marriage after that January 11th 2018
email that we told you about last week. So this February 19th 2019 medical record
helps shed some light on that. The record was from an outpatient visit that Micah
had at the Community Mental Health Center in Myrtle Beach. I'm going to have
David read a few passages from it, but I want to note a few things first.
One is that Micah's chief complaint is listed as, I've been doing real good.
The clinician noted that Micah was in good spirits, that her mood was stable, and that
she wasn't showing any signs of being manic.
Two is that this alleged record mentions that she is there for bipolar disorder.
Here's David with what the clinician wrote.
If you detect any judgy tone from David, that's because of how this report reads.
Also, David is going to read these reports as if they were written in easily understandable
English.
So, we've spelled out all the abbreviations, but we did not correct the grammatical errors. We discussed symptoms and warning signs in order to prevent further decompensation again.
But she said she never knew.
This shows how poor concentration and attention span she has since I review it with her every
appointment due to how severe and extreme her symptoms were.
She recognized that she had a lot of delusional thoughts when she gets manic, and she needs
to listen to her husband when he raises concerns.
Every time she comes with strange ideas for diets that she hears or read about in the internet. This time, she asked about starting a five days fasting
once a month.
We discussed how this could interfere
with her lithium level and how dangerous it could be
as she can become toxic.
On the other hand, it could dilute the lithium
and she can decompensate due to increased fluid intake.
So, interesting, right? I don't know if it's typical for clinician notes to sound snobby
and judgmental, but it doesn't sound very clinical, right? It doesn't sound objective
in the way you might expect a therapist's notes to read.
And from what a therapist's source told us, the way this report was worded does have some
red flags.
For instance, the use of the personal pronoun I. That sticks out.
The other thing is this.
Micah was receiving her mental health care through state and county-funded facilities. Those hospitals and clinics tend to be overwhelmed with the number of patients they have.
So some of the anomalies that we are seeing could be attributed to that.
But note, Micah's confusion about her own diagnosis and its supposed symptoms, and stick
a pin in that because it comes up again. This clinician
obviously saw Micah's comment that she never knew about the things the clinician was now telling her
were actually signs of decompensation, which by the way is the word used when a person's
diagnosed mental health condition worsens over time. But one, Micah was 25. Two, so what if she didn't remember?
It's not clear when her last appointment was,
so we don't know how frequently
she was going to a therapist.
Was it every week?
Was it every two weeks?
Or was it every month for a med check?
We also don't know how Micah viewed these sessions.
Later she told a therapist
she was only coming to see
her because it was a requirement for getting the medication.
So here is the big question. Was Micah having trouble retaining information about signs
of decompensation because she was being told one thing by her therapist and another thing
by her husband? Was she being told that behaviors not being listed
by her therapist were actually signs that she was worsening?
Because you heard that part about Micah recognizing
that she needs to listen to her husband
when he raises concerns, right?
It is a chilling line.
Which brings us to this. I wanna make sure we're all on the same page here because we've had a few angry men
speak out and dismiss our coverage of this case as man-hating propaganda, which would
be hilarious if it weren't so predictable.
When we break down the evidence and offer our interpretations of what we're seeing
in this case, we are doing so through two lenses that have been provided for us. One is that JP has been accused of
coercively controlling Micah in their marriage. We're not trying to make that
part of the conversation. It is the conversation. The second is that Micah
believed and according to a recent interview by YouTuber Robbie Harvey
with a friend of
Micah's who spent the day before her death with her, at least one doctor told Micah that
she had been misdiagnosed.
And that's no small thing.
Micah's diagnosis is the cornerstone to believing that she killed herself because she had gone
off her medication medication and not because
of what was going on in her marriage.
Okay, back to the listen to your husband when he raises concerns line.
In a healthy marriage and in a case where there's no question that a person had bipolar
disorder, that line wouldn't cause automatic pause.
But guess what?
Big pause. But guess what? Big pause. In all his evidence so
far, JP has demonstrated that he had a lot of ideas about what Micah would be
like in the future, about what her diagnosis meant for her, and how it would
present in their marriage. While she was still in the hospital in December 2017,
he was already planning for a scenario in which she wouldn't believe what he was
telling her about her behavior.
He was preparing her for a future where she'd challenge him and he was preparing her to
view his narrative about her as the right one and her narrative about herself as the
wrong one.
But let's do this.
Let's remove Micah and JP from all of this for a second.
And let's talk about what life might look like for a woman who has a bipolar disorder diagnosis
and a coercively controlling husband. The diagnosis becomes a tool of leverage, right?
It's something a husband who has coercive control issues could pull out at any time
and use to course correct his wife's behavior.
Behavior that is not pleasing to him and his fragile ego, such as his wife having moments
of independent thought, or questioning her husband's rationale for certain decisions,
or questioning his behavior or his treatment
of her, or spending time with friends and family, etc.
Also, a husband who is coercively controlling might not like to see his wife derive joy
from anything other than him and the things that he finds interesting.
Her joy with and her joy about others, a joy that might
manifest as curiosity about the world around her or give her a drive to learn
more, are threats to a husband like that and as a result that joy can read as
out-of-control behavior to the husband, something akin to mania maybe. In a marriage like the one I'm describing,
again removing Micah and JP from this, a diagnosis like that then becomes the whip, right?
You're showing signs of your mental illness. I know you think you're not, but remember when I
told you about how this disease is going to make you think that I'm the crazy one and not telling
you the truth? Well now is one of of those times you're acting very manic.
Your bipolar disorder is getting worse.
You might have to be hospitalized again.
So again, back to the clinicians' notes from February 2019.
Was Micah getting mixed messages about what bipolar disorder looked like?
And was she labeling her behavior as manic because
that's what she was being told about it? Also, was the therapist learning about Mica's dietary
concerns directly from Mica or was she learning about them from Mica's husband? Because why would
she think this is strange? Name me one 25-year-old woman out there who doesn't talk about strange
dieting ideas and things like detoxing. Seriously. One. Name one. Not only are we a nation of
disordered eating, Micah, based on the accusations against JP contained in the Micah's Law List,
was in what seems like a marriage with a hyper-sexualized
man. A man who, though he claimed not to care about Micah's medication-related weight
gain, repeatedly showed signs that he very much did care. Such as, in his January 2018
email when he suggested her weight gain issue was fixable if only she exercised discipline
and snacked on better foods like oatmeal.
And such as in Micah's list where he was accused of telling Micah that if she didn't
perform for him sexually in the way he wanted, then it was in his right to seek that kind
of sex outside of the marriage.
In other words, at least from where we sit, it looks like Micah's appearance and maintaining
it were critical to her self-esteem in this new marriage.
And it looks like she could have felt some sort of implied pressure there.
Okay, this record ends by noting that Micah was taking 300 milligrams of lithium three times a day around this time, which
remember the screenshots of text JP included in his probate filing between him and a guy named Derek.
They were from December 2022 after her hospital stay then. And in them, JP demonstrated just
how little he seemed to know about lithium. He seemed shocked that Micah was on 300 milligrams
twice a day. And he was like, Whoa, that's a lot. And at least twice, this Derek person had to tell him, uh, no, that's actually just
the starting dosage, JP.
Three years earlier, it appears that JP's wife was on even more lithium than the dose
that shocked him later.
In addition, JP had told Derek that Micah was on 450 milligrams of lithium once a day for the past five years,
which does not appear to be true, according to these alleged medical records anyway.
So why did JP seem so certain that she was on 455 milligrams for five years?
It's an important question to ask when there are accusations that he was drugging her.
At any rate, the record is cropped and it doesn't show the second medication
Micah was on in February 2019,
but in a subsequent record from months later,
it appears she was also on 300 milligrams of Seroquel
and she was supposed to take half a tab of that at night.
The record ends by noting that Micah
was taking her medications as prescribed
and that she denied having any side effects from them.
She also denied having symptoms of depression and anxiety. She denied feeling suicidal or
homicidal and she denied having hallucinations. Also, the clinician noted that her concentration
and appetite were at normal levels, which is a little odd, right? When in her notes,
she made such a big deal out of Micah not remembering the signs
of decompensation and she literally wrote that this was a sign of Micah's poor concentration levels.
But then in the same report she's also noting normal concentration.
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The next report is from 4 months later in June 2019. Now, again, we only have a few select reports and we were only given pieces of these alleged
records so we are not sure about what has been left out and we also aren't sure about
whoever provided these to JP's defenders, so we're not sure
about what's been left out and why it was left out.
But on June 11, 2019, Micah went for another follow-up visit.
This one was again at the publicly funded Community Mental Health Center, and the same
two clinicians from February are listed on this alleged record as well.
Shadi Duchesne, who was a psychiatrist and Suzanne Haro, who was a psychiatric nurse.
So, Micah's chief complaint during this 2019 visit was and I quote, I am doing very well.
The appointment was listed as a med check and a follow-up on her bipolar
disorder. It again notes that she was in good spirit and that her mood was stable and that
she wasn't showing any symptoms of manic behavior. The clinician notes that they again
went over the symptoms and warning signs, quote, in order to prevent further decompensation,
end quote. And then she writes, quote, this time she seems further decompensation, end quote.
And then she writes, quote, this time she seems to be more
in tune with her symptoms of bipolar disorder
and asked appropriate questions.
So does that mean that Micah hadn't had an appointment
for four months?
It's hard to say.
But note the use of the phrase further compensation again.
Was this a sign that her alleged disorder
had been worsening? And if so, was this something that the clinician actually observed? Or,
and I'm going to go back to the listen to your husband part of the other report, was
the clinician being told things by JP? Or, here's where the allegations of coercive control come into play, was the clinician
being told negative things about Micah's behavior by Micah.
Again, had Micah been conditioned to believe what she might have been told about her conditions,
actions, and personality?
Listen, a lot of us, maybe most of us, have had friends in relationships that they haven't
yet identified or accepted as bad or abusive.
And so they regard any criticism lobbed at them by their partner as profound wisdom meant
to build them up, which is how it's all being sold to them, as opposed to being a conscious
effort to break them down and make them more
malleable. They then adopt that criticism as their own objective view of themselves.
Remember, Micah was 15 years younger than JP. With that age gap often comes a power dynamic
in which the older partner feels like their perspective carries more weight.
So was Micah really exhibiting worsening symptoms of bipolar disorder?
Or was that something being told and she passed it on to her clinician?
Or was this just a part of the protocol to go over the signs?
It's that word further that has tripped us up here.
Again, I have to ask that question because listen to this.
Here is David with the clinicians' notes about Micah.
She asked if she was bipolar 1 or 2 and what are delusions of grandeur?
She wanted to know the difference between her bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms
and schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
This time she was not so focused on diets and weight gain.
She is maintaining her weight.
She said she is dealing with initial weight gain and inability to lose the weight by buying bigger size clothes.
Well, gee, I wonder why she was asking what delusions of grandeur were.
Was someone telling her that her normal 25-year-old ebullience and expression of hopes and dreams
were delusions of grandeur?
And it's sort of curious that she didn't know which form of bipolar
disorder she had. This is about 18 months after her alleged initial diagnosis. So is
this a sign of that poor concentration that the clinician noted from the last medical
record? Or is it a sign that she wasn't getting this information directly from the
physician? Is it a sign that she didn't feel free to ask these types of questions
whenever she was allegedly diagnosed? Additionally, notice how she was asking about schizophrenia and
the difference between it and bipolar disorder. This is the only time we see this word in the
alleged medical records that were provided to us or otherwise published online. At no point in any of the clinician notes does the therapist
or physician write that Myka is being treated for schizophrenia as JP has repeatedly claimed.
And here we see that Myka is asking about the difference between the bipolar diagnosis she
allegedly had and this other disorder, a disorder that is treated with some of the same types of
medication that Myka had been prescribed.
Was Micah asking because she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, counter to what the alleged
records seem to be showing?
Did she think she might have schizophrenia?
Or was she being told she had it by someone not in the medical field?
This report notes that Micah is still on 300 mg of lithium carbonate three times a day
and half of a 300
milligram tablet of Seroquel at night. The clinician writes that Micah is
sleeping well and is not experiencing any drug-induced movement or any
involuntary facial movements, both of which are side effects to the
medications. She also notes that Micah doesn't have any suicidal or homicidal
ideations and she has no plans for carrying out either. In fact, that part is written twice in these records. The clinician
notes that Micah was taking her meds as prescribed and wasn't experiencing side effects or symptoms
of depression or anxiety, nor any mania, nor was she having hallucinations. She was perfectly
normal. And we imagine this is something JP would
want out there. Evidence that when she was on her medication, Micah was happy
and healthy. Okay, now we're going to fast forward to November 28th, 2022, the
day Micah checked herself into Waccamaw Center for Mental Health. In episode 52,
we told you about everything that went down on November 16th, 2022, when
Micah left JP and drove four hours to stay with her sister Sierra in Gaffney, South Carolina.
We've also had Charlotte Korn, one of Micah's best friends on the show, to tell you about
what was going on around that time in Micah's life.
And we shared texts from that time up between
JP and Micah that he cc'd Charlotte on to quote hold him accountable whatever that word meant to
him. According to Charlotte and other sources Micah and JP had had a big blow up around this time and
with hindsight we can now see that this was the moment when everything seemed to officially
shift in their marriage. While both of us would readily argue that Micah's marriage had serious
problems from the very start, in November 2022, she was 11 months away from filing for divorce.
Again, the big blowup, according to Charlotte and other sources, happened on November 15, 2022. A day when Micah and Charlotte went and did a cold plunge together, something Micah was using
to help with her mental health. Later that night, JP had asked Micah a very stupid hypothetical
question. If she had to hook up with a woman, who would it be? Micah apparently said no one,
up with a woman, who would it be? Micah apparently said no one, but JP continued to press the issue. He wanted an answer, and so Micah finally gave in and said it would probably be Charlotte because
she knew Charlotte would never tell anyone. That, according to Charlotte and other sources,
is when JP went to a whole new level with his insecurities.
He became angry about Micah's friendship with Charlotte
and began falsely accusing her of it being something more.
Now, in November, 2022, JP allegedly was engaged in
or had been engaged in at least one extramarital affair,
according to court records.
I don't wanna go too far down the rabbit hole
with you today, but it's worth mentioning that a year before this, the quadriplegic husband of
JP's alleged mistress had died alone under mysterious circumstances that resemble a potential
suicide. He was found at the bottom of his neighborhood pole strapped in his wheelchair.
The death was rolled accidental,
one implication being that this wheelchair malfunctioned in some way. But to this day,
no civil action has been filed to that end. The statute of limitations actually runs out on Friday.
According to court records, JP was openly cheating on Micah with this woman, and two
weeks before this man's death, he had confronted JP to tell him to stay away from his wife.
We're told that JP's alleged affair with this woman is one of the reasons Micah filed
for divorce in October 2023.
Also happening around this same time.
In early 2022, JP had petitioned the state to pardon him for a 1998 incident in which
he pleaded guilty to high and aggravated assault of a woman who accused him of intentionally hitting her with his truck and driving with her on his hood before
he hit the brakes so that she would fly off.
JP wanted his right to own and carry guns back.
And sure enough, the good old boys on the pardon panel asked very few questions and
took his weepy, non-apologetic words in which he minimized his crime and acted like it was so
harmless that he had forgotten about it as fact and allowed him to have his full rights restored.
Also, around this time, according to JP's ex-wife Allison, JP began giving sermons that were hostile
to Micah. Sermons that mentioned her mental health and, according to her children, JP started posting post-it notes around their house
with disparaging comments about Micah on them.
According to court records,
JP would tell his kids that Micah was crazy,
but then he would turn around and then tell them,
no, no, she's fine,
creating confusion and fear with the children.
So that is the atmosphere Micah was living in around the
same time. When she escaped JP and drove to Gaffney, JP began threatening her, her sister
and her sister's family, to include her young nephew. He said he was driving there
quote armed and ready, and that he did not care who he woke up in that house.
In episode 52, we played the very rational, very calm 911
calls that Micah and her sister made to police that night. JP's threats had scared them
and they asked to have officers on the scene in case JP, who kept saying he was getting
close, arrived. According to text messages from that night, Micah begged JP to stop terrorizing her and her family.
And he, well, he wife-shamed her. Just so we can all remember what happened,
here's David with a mashup of JP's messages from that night. anything for you. I'm only asking for the same respect. You can't treat someone like shit and
then leave. You're supposed to work it out. Stay and do whatever it takes. Please don't be selfish
this one time. I'm literally begging you to do the right thing. The godly thing, the only thing that will work. I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart.
I need you. I want you.
And I don't want to sleep alone, ever.
But if you choose this, I will not beg you to come back.
I won't put up with this again.
This is literally your last chance to make things right.
I'm too old, too hurt.
And you have put me through too much to continue letting you treat me like shit.
While I pay all your bills and do whatever you want,
I need you to act like a godly wife this one time
and prioritize your marriage over your family, friends, and feelings.
Charlotte is in this text so she can hold me accountable for this.
What you've done in our marriage this time is totally unacceptable and no man would put
up with it.
But I'm will to give you one more change.
I'm asking one, that you repent.
Two, hear my heart and pretend like you understand why I'm hurt.
Three, come home now.
If you don't do these things that will help me feel loved, safe, and prioritized, then
our marriage is officially over and I cannot allow my
heart to be put through this ever again. I love you. I'm willing to do whatever it
takes, but I will not be treated this way and defamed so horribly anymore. We used
to be the best of friends and I'm shocked that you would throw all of that away. Maybe it's because you want to live with Charlotte.
Why don't you tell her why you want to live with her?
Or should I tell her?
Go ahead, Charlotte.
Ask Micah why she would want to badly stay with you.
Please ask her.
I'd love to hear how honest she is
Since she threw me under the bus today with my elders
After everything else you've done
By 9 a.m. There will be nothing left inside this house that has anything to do with you
Notice that there is no mention of Micah's alleged bipolar disorder. No concern for her allegedly fragile mental health.
Notice there is no sign of the 2017-2018 JP who is like, I will take care of you forever.
I'm going to support groups to learn more about your disorder."
In JP's rage, he seems to have forgotten the party line,
that Micah was a very sick woman,
and that he was the only one who was trying to save her.
Instead, it seems pretty clear that he regarded her
as a huge disappointment to him,
and that wasn't above punishing or threatening her for disobeying his wishes.
He was not above flexing his economic or spiritual power over her.
In addition to that drama, Micah was apparently spooked by JP's increasingly bizarre behavior,
something his ex-wife also noticed according to court records.
While Micah was in Gaffney and when she realized JP wasn't on his way there, she called police
in Myrtle Beach to do a welfare check on JP because he was allegedly making threats of
ending his own life.
So 12 days after all of that is when Micah was admitted to the hospital and there is a police report for that as well.
Because of course there is.
In the grand tradition of J.P. Miller's so-called evidence further confusing matters,
when comparing the clinician notes to what we knew from sources and the corresponding police report, there are discrepancies and very frustrating
characterizations about what was actually happening back in November 2022.
So again, in episode 52, we told you about what went down outside of the hospital. The police
were called because Micah had locked herself in the bathroom of the lobby and wouldn't come out. Mica was reportedly weak and, according to the hospital staff, appeared to be under the
influence of something.
When police got there, Mica was seated in JP's Ram truck and he was attempting to leave the
scene with her.
According to the police report, Mica and her sister had driven to the hospital separately
without JP.
Our original understanding was that Micah's sister Anna had taken her there.
According to the alleged medical records, Micah drove herself, which is again hard to
believe given the state that she was in.
Police wrote that Micah's sister told them that JP wouldn't allow Micah to get the help
that she needed from the hospital, that he was trying to stop Micah from getting admitted, that JP had brought
Micah out to his truck and wouldn't release her.
Police noted in their report that whenever they tried to ask Micah a question, JP would
interrupt her and answer for her.
So they separated her from JP to get to the bottom of what was going on and what she wanted.
Micah's sister told the police that this was an ongoing issue with JP and Micah and
that Micah had tried to escape JP by driving to Gaffney.
She told the police that while Micah was gone, JP had a mental breakdown and began threatening
to kill himself. And she told the police that JP had been mentally abusing Micah for an extended period by, and
take note of what I'm about to say, not letting her sleep, not letting her eat, and not letting
her contact her family.
When police separated JP from Micah, he became irate, according to the report, and began calling Lt. Heather
Wilson with the Horry County Police Department. J.P. threatened the officers on the scene
that they were going to be getting a call from her. Without J.P. and her immediate proximity,
Micah told EMT workers that she wanted to be admitted for a mental health evaluation.
Okay, so that sets the scene. Now, we're
going to hear about the incident from the alleged medical record.
According to the record, which appears to have been written by psychiatric nurse Suzanne
Haru, who is one of the two clinicians listed on both of the 2019 records we shared with
you earlier, Micah came to
the hospital sometime before noon for crisis intervention services.
Haru notes that Micah was there with JP and her sister, who she incorrectly identifies
as Ashley.
According to the alleged record, Micah had a flat affect and disorganized thoughts.
It noted that Micah hadn't had any changes in her medical condition or substance use and that Micah reported that she hadn't had
any suicidal thoughts nor was she planning on killing herself. The report
also notes that Micah hadn't eaten or slept for several days but again that
she had driven herself to the hospital followed by Anna and JP. According to the
alleged record, Micah wasn't able to walk into the hospital
and was carried in by JP. So that's weird, right? Did the clinician witness this? Because it does
not jibe with the police report or the accusation that JP was trying to keep Micah from getting
help. It doesn't seem to jibe with police officers'
interpretation of JP's behavior at all.
The clinician noted that Micah had then locked herself
in a bathroom and would not come out.
That JP pounded on the bathroom door,
and when Micah finally opened it,
the clinician found Micah sitting on the floor staring.
The clinician, now referring to herself as quote,
writer and not with a
personal pronoun I like in earlier records, noted that Micah did not recognize her. The
record or at least the part that we have doesn't note anything about what was going on outside.
Here's David with what it does say.
Husband said she hasn't been taking medication
on a regular basis.
He also reported she had not slept in four to five days.
Sister reported to writer that patient had driven
to Gaffney, South Carolina on 11-16-22
to see her other sister.
And they called police due to some concerning behavior that
had been going on at her husband's residence.
Police report was filed there, according to sister who lives in Gaffney, South Carolina.
Husband wanted to transfer her to the hospital, but police said it was safer for ambulance
to transfer. Patient was able to get out of her husband's car
and onto the stretcher after she spoke with this writer.
Patient with ambulance and EMTs.
Still confused and unable to respond to questions.
Disoriented.
The clinician noted that 911 had been called, but that's it.
She also noted that Micah was called, but that's it.
She also noted that Micah was exhibiting signs of mania, but also, quote, wasn't well physically
due to not eating or sleeping for several days.
Which, duh, not eating and not sleeping for days sure would present as manic.
So what was happening there, right?
Did the clinician not know about the situation between JP and the police?
Did she not know that JP was trying to take Micah away because he didn't want her to
go to the hospital?
She must have, right?
She wrote that she had spoken to Micah when Micah was in the truck and that Micah got
out of the truck after speaking with her.
If she saw that, then she likely would have seen police
arguing with JP because he was interrupting Micah
and trying to answer for her
when they were asking her questions.
If the clinician was there when Micah got out of the truck,
then she likely would have seen them
having to separate JP from Micah, right?
How does what she wrote make any sense at all?
Was this whitewashing the situation?
Or is the police report not an accurate depiction of what happened?
JP was angry, according to police.
He had twice called his friend, a member of the command staff, to try to stop police from
intervening.
And let's not forget about what happened while she was in the hospital.
He went to a lawyer to have a healthcare power of attorney drawn up for Micah on the day
that she was released.
She allegedly signed it and handed over all of her medical-related decisions to JP.
He clearly wanted a way to ensure he wouldn't be told what to do next time when it came
to Micah.
So we can absolutely see for ourselves that the clinician's report isn't fully reliable,
like every single piece of information that we get in this case.
It would seem really pertinent that this patient in distress just had an
extremely stressful event happen right there in the parking lot involving two key members
of her support system.
And that is the tough part about this story. The more evidence we see, the more difficult
it is to understand what actually happened to Micah.
So what do these medical records,
that again, were not included in JP's evidence,
actually tell us?
We know now that there are medical records
signed by actual doctors listing Micah as bipolar,
but we still don't know who initially diagnosed her and why they diagnosed her so
quickly before she even exhibited the full spectrum of symptoms. We know that doctors did
prescribe mica lithium for bipolar disorder in 2019 and 2022. But again, we don't know what
doctor prescribed her lithium initially.
We don't know how they chose lithium of all bipolar medication and why JP was so demanding
that she take her lithium instead of trying more modern medications with less side effects.
We know from these records that JP was heavily involved in Micah's mental health appointments.
And we know that her clinicians appeared to trust him, perhaps more than they trusted
Micah.
But we don't know if that was just because he was a man who happened to be a preacher
or if he specifically picked Micah's clinicians for control.
We know that there are no records of Micah exhibiting symptoms of bipolar before she was married to JP.
And maybe that is the most important fact of all of this.
Micah's mental illness, according to JP, began with their marriage.
Remember Micah's list, That long list of accusations that
attorney Regina Ward compiled to depict what coercive control
actually looks like and what Micah alleged JP did to her while
they were married? A couple of those accusations really stuck
out to me as we were writing this episode. The first,
depriving her of basic needs. It's said that JP would not let Mika sleep,
keeping her up at night and pulling the covers off of her every time she dozed off.
The second item is expressing her worthlessness. JP allegedly told Mika that she was lazy and
mentally ill, that her breasts were too small, her family was ignorant, and that she wasn't a Christian woman as she questioned him or didn't submit to his dark secrets.
And lastly, we have to remember this one, medical abuse.
Micah's list alleges that JP quote unquote declared Micah bipolar, that he forced her
to take lithium, a prescription of his own, it says, that he monitored whether
she complied with taking the pills and he would forcefully give her steroid and testosterone
shots in her arms, thighs, and buttocks.
It also alleges that JP would make her swallow pills and if he thought that she didn't
take them, he would cut them up and put them in her food.
Think about that for a minute.
Even if a fraction of what Micah's list alleged was actually true, think about the mental
toll that kind of abuse would have on a person, even without bipolar disorder.
Think about how frustrating it was for Micah to wake up one day after her surgery with her new husband,
telling her she was bipolar now
and that she will forever depend on him and on lithium.
Think about the perfect storm that swirled around Micah.
And again, how many people failed her?
How many doctors didn't see what she saw?
How many police officers dismissed her complaints while taking everything
JP said seriously. Again, how many people chose to believe JP over Micah while she was alive.
So no, I don't believe that Micah's alleged bipolar disorder sentenced her to death on April 27th, 2024.
More on that next week.
While we were finishing up this episode, we received dozens of new records related to
Micah that we are still vetting, but also we noticed they provide a whole different
layer of complexity to this story.
Buckle up, because this story is about to get even weirder. Stay
tuned, stay pesky, and co-hosted by journalist
Liz Farrell.
Learn more about our mission and membership at lunasharkmedia.com and eruptions provided
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