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That's QUI and CE.com/coj. This is Coersed, the devotion and death of Micah Francis Miller, a lunar shark drop feed. My name is Mandy Matney, journalist Liz Farrell Beth Raiden and I have been reporting on Micah's story for more than two years now for the true sunlight podcast. Coersed is a lunar shark production made possible by producers Kate Thomas, Grace Hills,
and David Moses. Over the last two episodes, you heard JP Miller's version of Micah's medical story. The affidavit, the "Our Life" manifesto. The emails calling her desire to come off medication ungodly and selfish. This episode, we turn to the records themselves.
The stack of Micah's alleged medical files that surfaced after her death. But is missing exactly one thing. December 2017, the month that everything else is built on. The month, a 23-year-old with no history of depression or maniac, walked in with a post-surgical infection, and allegedly came out with a bipolar diagnosis.
Two months before her death, three days out of an involuntary hospitalization, Micah did what journalists on this show do. She filed her own FOIA request. She was building her own case. What Orie County date back to her?
Tells you everything about the systems this series has been documenting. As JP Miller awaits, his federal cyber stocking trial this October, a case built on records, metadata, and paper trails.
“Remember that Micah was trying to reclaim her own paper trail while she was still alive.”
JP denies that he ever abused Micah, and, it's important to note, he has never been charged
with abusing Micah. Let's dive in. Reading through Micah's medical files is rough, it's painful, and we didn't even know Micah. It's a desperate feeling because there's nothing we can do.
There's nothing any of us can do to save Micah's life, but we can fight hard to save the next woman's life by exposing the realities of Micah's relationship and discussing the struggle she encountered, while helping to forge a new path forward. The next woman will now have the language to better identify what might be going on in her or in her friends relationships, and she will know how to seek help.
The next woman will be able to see the signs before she gets too far down the old path. The next woman will have an army of people around her who understand what she is saying when she calls 911, and better yet the next little girls will demand better of the next little boys.
“And maybe that's how Micah, a case of Francis, will save the world.”
We couldn't save her, but maybe she can save us.
That's why it's so critical for us to not shy away from talking about how messy truth can
be. Also, I want to note that I'm saying women and girls, but it applies to anyone who finds themselves in relationships that include potential course of control, or a power differential that is harmful. JP denies that he ever abused Micah in any way shape or form, he's also never been charged
with abusing her. From what we're seeing right now, the mental health care Micah received possibly provided confirmation bias for JP.
It's a check in a next scenario though, right, did JP feed information to the...
that influenced how they viewed Micah or did the medical staff overworked, dismissive,
“quit to judge, give information to JP, that changed how he viewed Micah.”
In our opinion, after looking through all these records, it was both.
Micah's mental health care and JP were basically engaged in a symbiotic dance together
and obviously we can't know JP's internal motivations for certain, but in our opinion, it looks to us like it was a dance that he took great interest in, maybe, because it gave information to be controlling with Micah. As you know from episode 63 is 64 and 65, December 2017 was pivotal. It's when we believe Micah contracted a very serious infection after her breast augmentation
surgery and it's when Micah was quickly and suddenly diagnosed as having bipolar disorder despite having had no history with depression or manic episodes up until that point. Notably, the stack of medical records we got from true crime re, does not include any from December 2017, and that's a big deal because all the other records are predicated on whatever
“happened during that first hospital stay.”
Again, we believe there are signs here that Micah was misdiagnosed from the start.
Not only are there indications in the medical records that Micah believed this, herself, her friend Angela Clark told YouTuber Robby Harvey that Micah believed it and said she had been told so by a doctor. Also, according to a source of ours in the mental health field, the fact that Micah did not have health insurance is significant here, which side note why didn't they have insurance
through the church? It's telling that JP's budget had enough in it for life-sized spider-man dolls, costumes, superhero art, guns, tattoos, piano bars, and bougie pick-up trucks, the general Lee. Literally, he apparently used to drive a replica of the general Lee, but no money for adequate health care, this father of five, Micah was receiving mental health care from
state funded facilities, which we're not going to dump on them because we're actually quite impressed that South Carolina has a department of mental health that includes programs and facilities throughout the state. That said, there are realities we need to acknowledge here. One of which is that these facilities tend to be overwhelmed by patients and understaffed.
Also, institutionalization can be a lens, and that lens might have affected how Micah was being seen, especially given JP's input. But also, especially given her a parent, original diagnosis. According to our source, a state-run facility might be more likely to view that as written in stone.
Today, we're going to talk about what we're seeing in Micah's records from early 2018.
The first few months of her marriage and the first few months she had to deal with this
speedy diagnosis. Specifically, of the reports we were given, we're going to talk about the time period between January 10th, 2018, when Micah was first assessed as an outpatient. And March 8th, 2018, which is her last apparent visit to the doctor before her first alleged suicide attempt two weeks later.
According to these new records, Micah first began showing signs of bipolar disorder on December 11th, 2017, which would have been 10 days post-op. We believe she wasn't brought to the ER though until December 15th or 16th. JP says that the plastic surgeon met them at the ER and commented that Micah appeared to be having a schizophrenic episode.
We truly think that JP took that comment and ran with it, especially when he found that some of the drugs Micah was prescribed afterward. We're drugs that were also used to treat schizophrenia. There's no documentation we've seen so far that confirms any schizophrenia diagnosis.
“That's important because it seems to be an example of JP exaggerating Micah's illness.”
According to Micah's initial clinical assessment on January 10th, 2018, she was hospitalized for 10 days in December, which means she likely didn't get out until Christmas day or the day after, and that her church wedding was held mere days after her discharge. Here is what else we learned from that initial assessment. One, Micah's symptoms, the ones that led to her hospitalization, were listed as, "could
not slow her speech down," very rapid thought process, "manic." Literally, speedy thoughts and speedy speech.
That's it.
Two, we learned that Micah's primary concern from the start seemed to be how this diagnosed
“this risk was going to affect her ability to work.”
This comes up repeatedly, including in the December 15th, 2017 text she sent to an associative JP. The text that JP seems to think is indisputable proof of her mania. A good bit of that text is actually Micah talking about work. To us, it looks like 23-year-old Micah had ambitions.
In her assessment, she even lists a desire to go to college. At the time, Micah was working part time at the Honda dealership in town as a salesperson. In her assessment, she was asked how she felt about her job, and she appears to have written, "I am not so sure how I feel about my job, and not sure if I want to change it."
And the words "not so sure," and "not sure," were written in all caps.
And that's a possible red flag for us that might point to relationship's strife. Because Micah being pressured to not work outside of the home or church at this time, was she experiencing turmoil over wanting to earn money while also wanting to be a good past-trust wife. Okay, three.
“The assessment confirms that Micah had no history of mental illness, no suicidal ideation,”
no thoughts of wanting to be dead, no obsessions, no hallucinations, no thoughts of hurting others. Also, no significant trauma from her past. She seems to contradict JP's contention that she had a rough childhood that included molestation. And four.
Micah said that she was satisfied with her relationship with JP, and that she had her family support in seeking treatment. The clinician also noted that Micah's husband and her father were supportive. Incidentally, the day after this assessment is when JP sent the email we told you about in Episode 64.
The long one, where he listed more than a dozen different, so-called facts about what Micah was like when she wasn't taking her medication. Which again, the assessment says there was no history of being medicated for mental illness prior to December 15th or 16th. She was then in the hospital for 10 days, then she got church married on December 31st.
So, when exactly was JP gathering all this knowledge about what she was like on and off her meds when everything was normal before December 1st. How is he able to say when off your medication you can't function in the area of your calling, singing, leading worship? When there were only two Sundays between Micah was released from the hospital, and this
email. And one of those Sundays was the day of her wedding. How was he able to say what she was like on her meds, in such a short time while also containing that she wasn't taking her meds. None of that makes much sense, does it?
It especially doesn't make sense when the clinician who filled out this January 10th, 2018 form. Twice noted that Micah was motivated to get better, and go back to work, and twice noted that Micah wanted to get her medication regulated so that she could function. The clinician also noted, under the question, how much improvement can be expected of
the patient given information above, "Her husband reports she does not like the medication, and is looking for a woo poll to stop it?" Now, when it comes to Micah's diagnosis, we've raised a question about how the doctor decided to diagnose her as having bipolar disorder back in December 2017, when she had no history of mania or depression.
Again, we're told by multiple sources that it typically takes months of assessment before Dr. Lans on a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. The doctors need to see the peaks, and they need to see the valleys. With this new stack of records, we now know that Micah was experiencing depression around the same time too, but only after her diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
So was Micah depressed because she had bipolar disorder, or was she depressed because of
“the medications she was taking for a disease that maybe she didn't have?”
Was she depressed because of the stress we believe she was experiencing back then? Okay, so let's talk about what was going on in January, February of 2018, and the lead
up to March, which is purportedly in Micah's first attempt at suicide.
This is the same attempt by the way that she referenced in that video that got posted by somebody and J.P.'s camp shortly after her death as proof that Micah had history of suicidal ideation. J.P. has said in multiple interviews that Micah had six or seven suicide attempts in her history. To this day, the only documented instances of these alleged attempts would be what happened
in March 2018, months after marrying J.P. and in April of 2024, days after serving J.P. with divorce papers.
We're going to talk more on that after a quick break.
Of course, the two of us are going to be friends. And where do we get to go now? Of course, in Europe, Sarium, Sarge, with the greatest
solution in the world. Many thousand friends were waiting for them to be with the brothers and brothers, the lead, the lead, the lead. New kind of travel show, wherever it leads, is Luna Shark's brand new podcast. And it's nothing like the travel content that you've heard before. We go deeper. We talk to locals, reporters, and people who actually live where you want to visit.
Not just the ones who want your tourist dollars. We cover the food and landmarks, sure, but we also ask the harder questions.
What is the real history here?
The often sad and traumatic history.
“What new challenge is this place facing and how can you show up as a visitor who actually makes things better?”
My co-host David Moses and I, along with a team of journalists, are hitting destinations around the world. To expose the truth, give voice to victims throughout history and get the story straight. With new destinations and episodes every other week, wherever it leads from Luna Shark. Find it wherever you listen to your podcast or visit wherever it leads, pa.com. Let's start at the beginning.
On the 18th of January, 2018, Nika had her very first appointment with the therapist. There it is noted that the goal of treatment was from Nika to explore her values and beliefs. And learn more about who she was. That Mika would learn how to practice mindfulness and assertiveness. Mika said that she didn't like how her initial assessment went the week before, but the report doesn't know what she didn't like.
The therapist did note that Mika had never been to therapy before and was asking questions about how it worked.
At one point, Mika told the therapist that she didn't know what she wanted her to say or if she was doing this right. And the therapist wrote that she considered this proof of Mika's co-dependency. The therapist didn't give any reasons for that assessment, but she did note that JPE didn't attend this session. And that she and Mika had agreed that they needed to have individual sessions first, and then maybe later they could explore sessions, including JPE.
“So, did Mika try to get JPE to sit in on that session?”
Did the therapist not allow that? Did JPE try to sit in? And the therapist not allow it? It's interesting because this was Mika's first. And her last therapist visit before her alleged suicide attempt in March. And it appears to be the only appointment that JPE didn't attend in this time period. The therapist also noted that Mika was concerned about her diagnosis and the hospital stay.
But again, the therapist didn't note what those concerns were. Another note that the therapist made was that Mika had expressed how important music was to her. The therapist noted that she had encouraged Mika to consider songs that really spoke to her because they might be a way for Mika to put words to, quote, "emotions and experiences that have brought her to this place."
“To us, that line seems to indicate Mika was sitting on the mountain of feelings and was struggling to express herself.”
And again, that makes total sense given the stress she was under at that time. But here's where it gets really interesting. "Client spoke of her faith throughout the session as being both a support and a place of pain, indicating she is not sure where she stands with her faith and spiritual view. This will be a further explored in session.
Like we said, there was no further sessions, at least not according to the records we were given. But, Mika spoke of her faith as a source of pain for her. And even though we don't know in what way Mika meant that, we think it's significant. Now, on the same day, Mika had a med check appointment with Dr. Shady Decayn. JP was there for that one.
This report has a much different, almost harsher tone to it. Dr. Decayn noted that Mika had no mental health problems until a month ago, quote, "when she became manic to the point of being delusional."
She was talking extremely fast, loud, and grandiose themes, like saving the w...
She approached her boss in an aggressive way with a commercial idea, and when he ignored her, she slammed her fist on the desk. She spent nights without sleep prior to hospitalization. She admitted to racing thoughts, increased energy and motivation, spending money, and poor judgment. She denies depression or anxiety symptoms.
Mika also denied feeling suicidal, but, there it is in writing, as of January 18th, Mika still had not had an episode with depression, the valley to Manny's peak.
The necessary second element to a bipolar disorder diagnosis.
But also, can we talk about the part where Mika allegedly signed her fist on the boss's desk because he ignored her ideas about a commercial? Is that a sign Mika was mentally ill or a sign
“that she was passionate about her job and felt like she was being discounted or patronized?”
Dr. Decayn's note then continued, quote, "She was so out of control that husband feared for his life and called members of the congregation to help out." JP feared for his life? Really? It's frustrating that this was stated as a fact without an example of why he feared for his life. What did Mika do that made him frightened? Because without an example of why a person legitimately
feared for his life, this doctor ends up confusing matters. It almost seems like she's
trained JP like he is her patient. Also, not for nothing, but now one time did JP intimate in any of his communications with Mika in the probate files. The ones we shared with you in episode 63 and 64, that Mika tried to hurt him. Not one item in his list of why she needed to stay on her meds included because you made me fear for my life. There were a few more telling notes in the
“report. One is that Mika told the doctor she couldn't remember any of the events leading”
to her psychiatric hospitalization. There was another note that JP and Mika were paying at a pocket and could not afford the medication that Dr. Dukain recommended. So, in the appointment that JP
didn't attend, Mika brought up concerns about her diagnosis and hospitalization and the
therapist saw signs of code dependency. In the appointment that included JP, however, the report seemed to be at least in part written from JP's perspective thereby creating an official record of his narrative of Mika's so-called break with reality. And if the doctor really was taking her cues from JP's perspective, one wouldn't be wrong to assume that he would have given her the worst picture of how things went down. So, we have speedy thoughts, speedy language, wanting to save the world,
being in her tiny fist on a desk to get her bosses attention, and JP fearing for his life
“for no explicit reason. That's what we have so far. Two weeks later, Mika and JP were back in”
Dr. Dukain's office. Mika reported having problems with her medication. She told the doctor that she was considering stopping her meds last week and did so for one or two days. Dr. Dukain noted, quote, "She was despondent and she sat there showing no emotions." For the most part, husband answered questions. She said she cannot work like this or participate at church singing. So again, we see JP answering for Mika and we see Mika's concerns about work. Work mattered to her.
Mika asked to be taken off with him. Instead, they decided to do a trial with Invega and taper her Zipraxa. The doctor noted that Mika's attitude was guarded, and the her judgment and insight were poor. The most interesting note, though, is at the bottom. "Patient believes she is not bipolar, that she only had a nervous breakdown." So, that on its own doesn't mean much, but consider the context. We keep saying it over and over,
but when we outline what Mika was going through in December 2017, all we can think about is how much stress she must have been under. Between her surgery, her secret marriage to JP, the drama of their past, suddenly becoming a stepmom to five kids, the pressure of not doing anything that would cause further harm to the financial prosperity of the church, all of it. It was a lot. It does not seem like a stretch to characterize Mika's behavior than as a nervous breakdown.
It's easy to see that there was an external cause playing a role here. Again, the only instance of Mika in Mika's history provided by JP at that point appears to have done that strange text she sent to JP's associate on December 15.
So, that's the foundation, a diagnosis, with no December 2017 records to supp...
in a patient, her own doctor kept describing as stable and eager to work, but in early 2018,
the records start documenting something new, side effects, and then for the first time, depression.
And after the alleged diagnosis, after the medications, here's more from true sunlight podcast episode 67. On February 12, 2018, Mika reported that she was experiencing severe acophysia, which is a feeling of restlessness, where you feel the build-up of energy in your body,
“often your lens, and the only way to relieve it is to move or literally shake it off.”
It's the side effect to some of the drug shoes on. Interestingly, in her reports, this is when Dr. Duking began sometimes referring to Mika as "they", and this was a pattern throughout the records that we saw. It's as if she was seeing JP and Mika as a singular unit. She noted that when Mika was experiencing the intense acophysia that she had told them, to go to the ER for a shot of Cojunton, because it would work longer term, but that they
refused due to lack of insurance. Again, we see repeated instances where their lack of insurance seems to be affecting the quality of Mika's care at that time. The doctor noted that Mika asked when she could go back to work. Again, work. And she noted that there were no signs of
“Mania or depression. 15 days later, though, things took a turn. On February 27, 2018, Mika called”
her doctor and said she was feeling very depressed for no reason. This is a very first documented
instance of Mika's depression that we have. Again, it's after her diagnosis of bipolar disorder which is a diagnosis that includes depression as a symptom. It's after she was prescribed medication. It was after her prescription was changed at least twice. And it was after a report that she had missed a few days of taking her meds, one of which the Ziprexa lists depression and suicidal ideation as a potential side effect to the drug. And it's a drug that has very harsh withdrawal
symptoms when suddenly stopped and not tapered off of. After her phone call, the doctor decreased Mika's Ziprexa dosage and noted that they'd have an online appointment in a week.
“It's not clear if that appointment happened, though. If it did, we were not given the record for it.”
Also, Dr. Dukain didn't know whether she had asked Mika about feelings of suicidality at that point, or if she did, how Mika answered that question, which seems odd to us since this question seems to be regularly asked of Mika up until this point. We do know that the day after this call Mika, or allegedly Mika, sent an email to a doctor. The name on the email was redacted, presumably by J.P. or someone on his team. This is the email where Mika spelled "so" with five
owes akin to that weird part in her obituary where it's said Mika loved her family so much, something that we read as sarcasm from J.P. In this email, Mika said she was so depressed and that they can't figure out what to do without putting her on an antidepressant. She allegedly wrote, "I feel like there is no hope to live a normal life." Which again, it's something that J.P. appeared to be telling Mika at the time. He was catastrophizing it, making it seem like she was going to be
like this forever and she could be institutionalized at any moment. That's a lot to bear. Also, we're saying allegedly because of the multiple accusations that J.P. impersonated Mika regularly, but this is interesting, right? The medical records we have don't know that Mika's doctor wanted to put her on an antidepressant at any point. I know where in the records, at this point, does the doctor note any personal resistance to antidepressants, but clearly a conversation was
being had. On March 8th, 2018, the day after Mika turned 24, Mika was back for an appointment. This is where things got very interesting. So, we told you about how true crime re also gave us handwritten notes with these records. There are also reductions. And the reductions here were made with a black marker. Beth Braiden zoomed in on the reductions and discovered that the pen didn't cover them. Meaning we can see what again presumably J.P. did not want us to see.
So, on March 8th, 2018, Mika was back in the office. For words into the report, we have our first
husband said. Again, J.P. was present and again, the clinician was relying on his narrative.
Mika's chief complaint for this visit on the day after her birthday was
unjust so sad. The clinician noted that J.P. said, and I quote, "They stopped side Praxa because he thought it is making her depressed." Again,
there's that day and also J.P. stopped Mika's meds. What? Here's what the report from March 8th says.
Patient came in the office, bawling and complaining of depression symptoms. Said she lays in bed all day crying and worrying about what she should be doing to provide for her family.
“Now, by family, did Mika mean her parents and siblings, half of whom were younger than she was?”
Or did she mean J.P. and her five-step children? Either way, there it is, right? There's what's lying behind her repeated mentions of wanting to work and wanting to be better at her job. Again, was Mika facing a hobby in choice here? She could keep working and make her husband unhappy
or stop working and lose autonomy over her finances and the degree to which she could help her
loved ones if they needed her, too. The clinician noted that Mika wasn't sleeping or showering that she was afraid to leave the house and that she had passive suicidal ideation with no intentions, but a plan to quote, "Get a gun to kill herself because I don't want to fail and survive
“and be worse than now." Husband was present and reported that she had these thoughts for several”
days on and off. The clinician noted that Mika was disheveled and had a blank stare and a flat affect. The clinician then noted that she had suggested Mika be hospitalized, but that "lay"
again, there's that "day" refused. "Husband reports he is with her all the time. I don't let her
out of my sight. I told him to keep the meds with him at all times and monitor how she takes them. To bring her here or to the ER if things changed and she becomes actively suicidal. She agrees to this plan and said she could not do it anyway. It's just the thought of feeling like this for the rest of my life." Now again, we have documented evidence that J. P. believed Mika was going to be unwell for the rest of her life. He even went so far to tell her that medical professionals
had told him he would only see the woman he married a few times a year. Within days of her diagnosis he was catastrophizing it in a way that made her out to be a ticking time bomb, unless she took her meds. Oh yes, the meds and the reductions let's talk about those last few lines of this report. The clinician wrote, "I stress that the better outcome is when patients follow all the recommendations, like therapy compliance with meds and here she wrote in all caps as prescribed. So therapy,
which Mika only went to once, it was the only appointment so far that J. P. appears not to have been a part of, and Ned's quote as prescribed, understandable, right? At the beginning of the report she wrote that J. P. said he had taken like awful one of her meds on his own, so that makes sense. Then it goes on. In parentheses, patient and husband redacted, redacted, or redacted,
“redacted. David, you want to zoom in and read that again to us without the redactions?”
Patient and husband, stop meds on their own, or share each other's meds. So yeah, J. P. or presumably J. P. according to his pal true crime read anyway, didn't want us to know that part. J. P. didn't want us to know that he was sharing his meds with her, which confirms one of the accusations in Mika's list. That one little redaction contains a very large truth behind it, and it now raises several questions. Primary among them is this. How
much a Mika's illness and behavior was influenced by off the books medications? What is real? And what is it? We now have an unusually abrupt diagnosis, absent depression, one of the key components of that illness. We have an immediate catastrophization of that diagnosis by J. P. We have several instances of gaslighting. Of J. P. telling Mika, she has broken an ill person who is selfish, ungodly, and abnormal. We have him accusing her of not being compliant with her medications.
Then we have repeated refusals to take her to a hospital, an inability to pay for the medication
That was recommended, an admission that he independently decided to take Mika...
and a redaction that covered up the fact that he was sharing medications with her. And right
“around the time he was playing pharmacist, we have Mika falling into a pit of depression with suicidal”
ideation for the first time in her life. Someone didn't want us to see that part of the report
because they knew what it meant, that it was at least partly to blame for Mika's state of mind. At the end of this visit, a doctor prescribed Sylexa, quote unquote, because it's more affordable, along with Adevan for the anxiety and sleep. The doctor noted that she told Mika that the Adevan is only to be used when absolutely needed and warned her that she could call her at any time and order her to bring the pill bottle for a pill count at any time. She also noted that quote,
"they," again, with the quote, "they," agreed with us, and that J.P. would take Mika to the ER,
as she became suicidal again. Now, the number one question here is why didn't the doctor have
Mika involuntarily hospitalized at this juncture? Not only was the suicidal ideation a concern here, but that doctor was letting at the stress Mika leave the hospital with a man who just admitted to taking his wife off the meds, this doctor said that she needed and who admitted to giving his wife medications of his own, and why doesn't the doctor ask whether there are guns in the home,
“whether Mika had access to guns. How big does a red flag need to be before someone sees it?”
Or does the flag not seem so red when it is being held by a pastor? And will be right back. Where are the animals from Athens and where are they going to get them back? Of course, in Europe, Rosario said that with the greatest threat of the world, many thousands of Athens were on them, with the fear of the blood and the heat of the death. The VV Rosario D.E.
God thinks he is more than a man, and believes that he is the only one living in his life. Who is a child, who is also a child?
“That is what it is, the many good communities of the years,”
on the 3rd September now in China. Black marker reductions that Beth could read straight through. E-mails from Allegedly Mika, which tells that do not match how Mika wrote, by now you have noticed that one name keeps appearing at the bottom of those reports. Dr. Shady Dushein, the psychiatrist who is note sometimes read less like
clinical observations in more like J.P.'s narrative with a signature line. Listeners, including several licensed therapists, kept asking us the same question. What is up with this doctor? It turns out that before Dr. Dushein was treating Mika at a state-funded clinic in South Carolina, she lost her license to practice in Pennsylvania. Here's that story, from Dr. Sunlight podcast episode 68.
The next thing we need to talk about in the Mika Francis case is Dr. Shady Dushein. We have fielded a lot of questions from listeners, including many licensed therapists and psychologists. About this doctor and whether she had any personal connection to J.P.
Basically, they want to know what is up with her because her reports tend to strongly rely
on J.P.'s narrative even when she's also noting behaviors that would lead the average person to question his credibility. We totally get why his narrative matters, by the way. We understand why Dr. Dushein would include his take on things to a certain degree. It makes sense that one spouse's narrative would be relevant when the other spouse is in crisis,
There's a difference between accounting for the existence of that spouse's na...
and seeming to side with it in a way that could be considered less than professional.
“And there are times in Dr. Dushein's reports that seem "judgy" and sometimes even scolding.”
Throughout the reports, she sometimes refers to Micah, as they, indicating that she might have subconsciously viewed J.P. and Micah as a single unit. In one report, she outright says that Micah became argumentative about therapy and blood tests and said, quote, "This is because she doesn't like hearing anything contrary to what she wants to do, which feels awfully close to an emotional reaction to Micah's concerns." So what's up, with Dr. Dushein? Right? We mentioned in previous episodes
that despite J.P.'s apparent hefty budget for big boy toys, he didn't have health insurance for him and Micah, according to the records. That meant that Micah was cared for by state-funded facilities, and it meant, as Dr. Dushein repeatedly noted, that sometimes they could it and wouldn't follow through with her care as prescribed. Such as, when Micah wasn't able to get a shot,
“that would have helped her deal with the side effect from one of her drugs,”
and such as, when Micah came into the office, expressing suicidal ideation, and Dr. Dushein, only recommended she be hospitalized. Dr. Dushein, as it turns out, has a bit of a checkered
past when it comes to her ability to practice medicine. This is something that was first reported
by YouTuber Robby Harvey. According to news reports from the time, Dr. Dushein, who is also listed as an addiction specialist, had her license to practice medicine in Pennsylvania suspended. In October of 2009, a notice in the daily item in Sunday, Pennsylvania said her license was suspended for not less than three years. On January 3, 2010, the press enterprise in Bloomsford, Pennsylvania, wrote that Dr. Dushein had been convicted of not keeping records of prescribing oxycodone,
between 2007 and 2008, which it is very unclear why a psychiatrist, who is an addiction specialist,
“would be prescribing oxycodone, one of the most abused medications there is out there,”
and not keeping records of doing so. Other than, oh, shady. The paper wrote those particular prescriptions aroused suspicions because they were all written for neveo Crespo, but filled at several different pharmacies, sometimes within days or hours of each other. The paper noted that Dr. Dushein was a psychiatrist at a Pennsylvania state hospital, and that she was also once the medical director for an addiction treatment center. In addition to losing her medical
license for at least three years according to the paper, she was put on probation for five years through the criminal court system. Now, let's talk about Dr. Dushein and South Carolina. According to a Freedom of Information Act response we got, there have been two complaints filed with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health related to Dr. Dushein, both were made
in 2020. The first complaint was made in January 2020, and appears to have been unfounded,
based on the notes. A patient had accused Dr. Dushein of not filling her prescriptions properly and not seeing her in a timely manner. When they went to investigate the claim, they found that the complaint's number was working, and there was no record of her being a patient of Dr. Dushein. The second complaint was made in May 2020. In it, a patient accused her therapist of interfering with her disability claim by telling social security and administration officials
that the patient was coming to the mental health center just to get disability. It's a little confusing up. The Department of Mental Health redacted the name of the counselor, but then refers to Dr. Dukene by name later in the report, and uses her name in the January report. So, it's possible that this complaint was originally about another clinician. It's also possible that this was just sloppy reduction. The complaint accused the clinician of telling the board that she was not mentally
ill, and the clinician denied this to investigator saying she did not speak to the social security administration. The investigator who looked into the case reviewed the records that were sent to the disability board and noted that though the board had requested her medical records, only to psychiatric medical assessment notes for four of her appointments had been sent. In one of those assessments, Dr. Dukene had written in the patient's notes, quote,
"It seems at times that she is seeking treatment to obtain disability, but has no intentions to get on meds." The investigator told the patient who had no income
and was living with her daughter that ultimately the decision was up to the social security
administration and that she should meet with her counselor to discuss resources. The patient
Asked to switch therapists.
Either way, no wrongdoing was found on Dr. Dukene's part, at least not noted in this report.
“It does however bring into question what we talked about a little bit about, right?”
Dr. Dukene's notes seems more glib, more casual than it should. Rather than just state that the patient is refusing to take meds and maybe noting that she explored the reasons why the patient didn't want to take her meds, she projects a potential motivation, potential, as in, she's kind of guessing here. When let's face it, a lot of people don't want to be prescribed psychiatric drugs, especially if they have no money. That said, the temporary loss
of Dr. Dukene's medical license is a big grain of salt. According to news reports, she was 49
years old at the time she lost her license, which means she was a full-fledged, professional adult,
and new batter. It means that she engaged in behaviors that were unethical and illegal. It's something we need to consider, like I said, it's a big grain of salt. As we continue to share Micah's medical reports with you. We don't have any reason at this point to suspect that Dr. Dukene did anything wrong in Micah's case, but we certainly have reasons to ask questions about the tone and tanner of her reports, and the authority should give to JP and his
accounts, despite him admitting to her that he had shared prescriptions with Micah. Right at a time, when Micah was experiencing serious suicidal ideation. A doctor with a suspended license history,
a patient with no insurance in overloaded state system, in a husband whose narrative kept finding
its way into the file. That was the machinery producing Micah's official record.
“And here's the thing, Micah knew it, in February 2024, in the middle of fighting a commitment hearing”
JP had set in motion. Micah started requesting public records on her own behalf, the same tool that we have used throughout this case, Micah was using to defend herself. What Ori County sent back, and what they withheld, is one of the most damning systemic failures in this entire story. Here's more from True Sunlight podcast episode 69 from August 2024. Okay, we FOIA'd for the Ori County Police Department and Murdoch Police Department FOIA logs.
This is something we used to do when we worked at the paper. We would check the FOIA logs to see what people were asking for. Not only because it would help us identify potential stories, but specifically in the Murdoch case, it told us which lawyers were sniffing around and what they were looking for. In Micah's case, we were interested in a few things. One was the volume of FOIA's. There were a lot. Two was again, we wanted to see who was asking for Micah-related information
what they were asking for and when. Why? Because we're sick of getting partial returns on our FOIA requests. Over and over, we found where Ori County Police Department in particular holds back reports that should have been responsive to earlier requests. And sadly, they did the same thing to Micah. Yes, to Micah. The FOIA logs showed us that on February 15th, just two months before her death and three days after she was released from being
involuntarily hospitalized. And right smack in the middle of her trying to get the police to help her. Micah FOIA'd for security footage from the lobby of Ori County probate court from February 6th between 1 and 2 p.m. No footage was provided to her because apparently there was none. But this is interesting, right? February 6th is the day JPE got the order signed by a therapist to have Micah involuntarily hospitalized. A form where the therapist mispelled multiple words and had checked
just about every box indicating why Micah needed to be picked up and taken to a hospital right away, including having homicidal thoughts. So what was Micah looking for? Which she trying to see who is
“with JPE when he filed the form with the court? Did something happen in the lobby? Was Micah there?”
It's so telling though that Micah emerged from the hospital knowing that she needed to get her ducks in order that she had the presence of mine to think about information that she could FOIA to help make a case against JPE and to possibly prove her allegations that he was mentally abusing her and was using her health as a weapon against her. And this wasn't the only FOIA for Micah. On February 26th, Micah requested any police reports with her name on them from the past three
years as well as any police report filed for JPE. She included their address and she noted that she had a court date on March 5th. That court date was her commitment hearing where JPE was trying to get the state of South Carolina to declare her mentally unstable and in need of institutionalization as you know the court disagreed with JPE's assessment. Now, what did Ori County return to Micah?
A single report, the one filed around the time of her November 2022 hospitali...
which she should have gotten was at least eight reports, including one from December 8th, 2023,
“when police were called to JPE's house because his brother-in-law reported that JPE wouldn't”
give him his baby back in a custody dispute with JPE's sister. One from February 7th, when Micah called 911 from Bucky's and Florence, when she was trying to get away from JPE and his goons who were trying to put her in a hospital for what she described at the time was a panic attack. One from February 9th, when Micah called 911 from her hospital, to ask cops to get stuff from her house,
including her notary public stamp. One from February 14th, when the church first reported her
for allegedly stealing money, one from February 15th, when she called 911 to report that JPE
“was manic and had put his hands on her the previous week, one from February 22nd, when the fire department”
responded to JPE's house about his burn pit, and one from February 25th, when JPE called 911, to report that Micah and her father were allegedly trying to break into the house. They gave Micah one report. Why? Well, who knows? Is it incompetence or is a corruption? JPE has repeatedly
bragged about his law enforcement connections. Is that why? Or do they simply not care about being
thorough and responsive and communicating according to the FOIA law? Because no matter what, they should have told her what existed and why they weren't giving them to her. And at the end of
“the day, even if they can't give her the report because it's an open investigation, they can”
certainly give her the initial incident report per the law. At the very least, they should have done that. Micah asked Ori County for every police report with her name on it, told them she had a hearing on March 5th, where her state would decide whether to institutionalize her, and they gave her one report out of at least 8. Whether that was incompetence or something worse, the effect was the same. Micah walked into the fight of her life with almost none of her own
evidence. It's why Ms. Use of Law Enforcement is written into Micah's list, and why the co-worse of control bill heading back to the S.E. State House in January 2027 matters beyond one case. The paper trail Micah started building and February 2024 is in a real sense. The same one, federal prosecutors will carry into a courtroom, hopefully this October. Next time on co-worst, a death that has haunted this story from its edges. Chris Skinner was a solid rock member,
an author, a veteran, and the late husband of the woman who is now married to JP Miller. Best Boyer work brought us to the 911 call in the footage no other outlet had. Next episode, we will take a hard look at how Chris died and at the two-day investigation that closed his case. Until next time, stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight. [MUSIC]
Coerced, the devotion and death of Micah Francis Miller, is a lunar shark production, with reporting from journalists, many Mattney, Liz Farrell, and Beth Brayden, made possible by producers Kate Thomas, Grace Hills, and David Moses. Learn more about our mission in membership at lunasherkmedia.com. [MUSIC]
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