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Last month, Horry County deputy coroner Tamara Willard confirmed her office’s investigation into the 2021 drowning death of Chris Skinner remains ongoing.
Skinner, a 41-year-old motivational speaker and quadriplegic, drowned in a neighborhood pool on September 6, 2021. Surveillance footage from the incident showed Skinner circiling the pool in his wheelchair before accelerating rapidly into the water. In the wake of renewed public interest following the suspicious April 2024 death of Mica Francis MIller – whose scandal-ravaged husband later married Skinner’s widow – the video has sparked ongoing speculation.
Was Skinner’s death a suicide? Or were more sinister factors at play, such as someone potentially controlling his wheelchair remotely?
The surveillance video does seem to eliminate one possibility – that Skinner’s death was somehow accidental. Contrary to the available evidence, the initial determination of Skinner’s cause of death in 2021 was accidental drowning – but that was before the overlooked video became a focal point in the reopened investigation.
“It is still open,” Willard explained in an email to FITSNews. “Several months ago I asked the FBI to review and analyze the video from the pool area for several reasons but specifically because it is motion-sensored and the background noises don’t allow us to detect and clarify voices, but that report has not come back yet.”
Willard said she would send out notifications once the case is closed.
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Seven months after reopening the case — despite glaring contradictions and new evidence — Skinner’s cause of death remains listed as accidental.
Skinner’s family has been waiting for this to be changed — as they were promised when Willard contacted them about reopening the investigation in January 2025 after months of public speculation triggered by the death of Mica Francis Miller.
Exclusively reported at the time by FITSNews, Mica Franscis Miller – an aspiring missionary and worship leader – was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head at the approximately 4:23 p.m. EST on the afternoon of April 27, 2024. Her body was found at this secluded location shortly after she called 911 asking the operator to pinpoint her phone’s location – stating she was “going to kill herself” and wanted her family to be able to find her body.
Mica traveled to this park from Myrtle Beach earlier in the day, and her body was found in a swampy area approximately 40 meters from where police recovered spent shell casings and her belongings. She died less than 48 hours after serving divorce papers to her husband, prominent Myrtle Beach pastor John-Paul Miller.
On April 28, 2024 – less than twelve hours after being notified of Mica’s death – John-Paul Miller delivered a sermon that closed with a bizarre announcement of her passing. He told congregants to leave the church quietly and not to discuss her death as they departed.
(Click to view)
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Mica Francis Miller’s death was officially ruled a suicide by North Carolina investigators and medical examiners, but the bizarre manner in which her husband revealed it – and subsequent allegations of harassment and abuse leveled against him in multiple court filings and previous 911 calls – have raised doubts.
An ongoing federal investigation into Miller has also stoked scrutiny…
Many found the circumstances surrounding Skinner’s death suspicious – particularly in light of the relationship between Miller’s husband and Skinner’s wife, Suzie Skinner. A 2024 affidavit filed by Alison Williams, Miller’s ex-wife and the mother of four of his five children, described the relationship in no uncertain terms.
Williams stated the spouses of the now-deceased Chris Skinner and Mica Francis Miller were having an affair – and that Chris Skinner confronted the pastor about it just two weeks prior to his death. Williams described the timing of Skinner’s death as “chilling.”
In June of this year John-Paul Miller and Suzie Skinner tied the knot – a development that has only served to further inflame suspicions surrounding Skinner’s death.
When Willard reportedly contacted Tamra McDermott – Chris Skinner’s sister – in January to share her intent to reopen the investigation, reclassify the death and arrest Susie Skinner for “lying to the police”, McDermott believed her. But no such action followed. Myrtle Beach police closed their investigation quietly after a few interviews — including what some have described as an “unhinged rant” from Suzie Skinner.
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RELATED | A DEATH DISMISSED
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The precise words exchanged during Willard’s call with McDermott have since come to light through a series of YouTube videos produced by McDermott herself. McDermott’s channel is called The Truth Drip.
“Next week is booked for me,” Willard told McDermott on January 10, 2025. “But I can’t let it drag out either because then Suzie’s going to find out and then, you know, it’ll be a lot more difficult. So, I’d rather just take her by surprise to be quite honest. I’d like for her to be the last person interviewed and she doesn’t walk out of the office. She goes straight to the Myrtle Beach jail.”
Yet, the investigation was nothing like Willard described. The police interview with Suzie Skinner could hardly be called an interrogation. Instead of following through with promises made to the family, recordings from police interviews revealed Willard blamed them for reopening the investigation – and for waiting so long to do so.
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SOUTH CAROLINA’S MANDATES FOR VULNERABLE ADULTS
The Omnibus Adult Protection Act of 1993 provided a comprehensive legal framework for protecting vulnerable adults and established mandatory reporting requirements, investigation protocols and penalties for failure to report or protect.
Under South Carolina law, coroners have specific responsibilities when it comes to investigating the deaths of vulnerable adults. The state defines a “vulnerable adult” as “a person eighteen years of age or older who has a physical or mental condition which substantially impairs the person from adequately providing for his or her own care or protection.”
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Coroners are required to investigate and report suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of vulnerable adults. These responsibilities apply regardless of where the vulnerable adult lived – whether in a licensed care facility or a private home. Coroners are considered mandatory reporters under state law and must notify Adult Protective Services or the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED)’s Vulnerable Adults Investigations Unit if a vulnerable adult dies unexpectedly or of unnatural causes. Failure to report can result in misdemeanor charges, carrying penalties of up to one year in jail or a $2,500 fine.
In addition to reporting duties, coroners are expected to conduct “rigorous investigations” in such cases – reviewing medical records, interviewing witnesses and ordering autopsies when the death is unexpected.
Willard said the case was never referred to the SLED because Skinner “did not live in a nursing facility,” stating that SLED’s Vulnerable Adults Investigative Unit only investigates such deaths in those settings.
“Chris died at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, which is our local trauma center,” Willard said. “So if the doctors treating him for approximately four hours saw abuse, they certainly would have told the detectives there investigating his being pulled from the pool.”
No autopsy was ordered. No medical report was submitted from attending physicians. Willard failed to look beyond conflicting accounts of Skinner’s death in police reports — the only source cited in her initial determination.
“This morning he appears to have gotten too close to the pool edge causing the wheel to slip and he fell into the pool,” said Willard in the notes from the initial determination. “A short time later several people arrived at the pool, discovered him and called EMS. He was pulled from the pool, revived and transported to GSRMC where he was pronounced dead several hours later.”
However, the description stands in contradiction to the surveillance video of the incident – which shows Skinner’s wheelchair being driven intentionally toward the pool.
Regardless of whether Skinner’s cause of death was classified as accidental or something else, the situation would seem to meet the statutory definition of an “unexpected death.” Additionally, Skinner had been repeatedly hospitalized for conditions commonly associated with neglect. Yet the mandatory protocols were not followed. No independent investigation was conducted.
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RELATED | DESPAIR-INDUCED SUICIDE? OR SINISTER SUBMERSION?
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THE PETITION
A petition now circulating online calls for Willard’s removal from office and criticizes her failure to adhere to basic investigative standards in the Skinner case and others.
It states:
“Willard’s conduct in this matter – her refusal to correct a flawed ruling, her lack of investigative rigor, her misrepresentation of events, and her failure to protect the dignity of a grieving family – reflects a profound breach of professional, moral, and ethical standards expected of a public official entrusted with the authority to speak for the dead,” the petition noted.
Posted on Change.org, the petition also references the case of Scott Spivey, a North Carolina insurance adjuster who was killed in a roadside shooting in September 2023. A civil case filed by Spivey’s family against his two self-confessed shooters, Charles Weldon Boyd and Kenneth Bradley Williams (who are claiming they acted out of self defense), has drawn nationwide attention as a controversial Stand Your Ground case. The Horry County Police Department (HCPD) is under investigation by SLED due to the handling of the investigation and the deputy coroner has come under criticism for the handling of the body.
Willard authorized the transport of Spivey in his truck to the Horry County police impound yard due to “weather concerns.” His body remained in the truck for about six hours before it was removed for an autopsy.
“This highly irregular handling raises critical questions about scene preservation, chain of custody, and compliance with professional death scene protocols,” the petition states.
The petition calls on the South Carolina governor’s office to initiate a formal investigation into Willard’s conduct, impose an administrative suspension during the inquiry, and pursue permanent removal from office if findings confirm misconduct, negligence, or incompetence. It further calls for a broader audit of all cases handled by Willard, particularly those involving child fatalities, suspicious deaths ruled accidental, and incidents where bodies were handled outside standard chain of custody protocols.
For both of these grieving families — the Skinner family and the Spivey family — the fight for truth has become a test of whether public officials can be trusted to correct their own mistakes. With mounting public pressure and a petition now demanding action, the question facing South Carolina officials is no longer whether something went wrong but whether anyone will be held responsible for it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Callie Lyons is a relentless investigative journalist, researcher, and author known for exposing hard truths with heart and precision. As a journalist for FITSNews, she dives into high-profile and murky cases—like that of Mica Francis Miller— with fearless resolve and a sharp eye for detail, whether it’s tracking white-collar crime, uncovering religious abuse, or examining the often-bizarre behavior of those who believe they’re above the law.
Callie made waves with her groundbreaking 2007 book Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof and Lethal, the first to reveal the dangers of forever chemicals, a story that helped inspire the film Dark Waters and influenced global scientific dialogue. Her work has appeared in numerous documentaries, including Toxic Soup, National Geographic’s Parched: Toxic Waters, and more recently Citizen Sleuth, which examines the complexities of true crime podcasting.
Whether she’s navigating environmental disasters or the darker corners of society, Lyons operates with one guiding belief: “Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
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1 comment
While I understand the desire to “get to the bottom” of Chris Skinner’s death, the facts and video supports the official ruling that Skinner either intentionally or accidentally killed himself. No amount of investigation will change that conclusion (unless a video of the “DIQ” JP Miller, operating a secret remote control, while watching a video monitor of Skinner as he maneuvers the wheelchair into the water – and that just didn’t happen).
We will never get beyond the “conclusion” and in to “case closed” in this case because:
– the chair has since been destroyed (the chair he was in that day was not the Trac Fab chair, it was a conventional wheeled power chair so the “remote control killer crowd” aren’t playing with a full deck)
– there was no autopsy
– the video shows he was alone and “video mental condition interpreters” opinions aside, he clearly stops and then after a moment, powers directly ahead into the deepest part of the pool.
My “video mental condition” interpretation of that segment of the video is he intentionally maneuvered to a twisty part of the pool, that just happens to be at the deepest part, aligned himself, contemplated what he was doing and then powered intentionally into the water. Did his morally questionable wife cause the despair that drove him to that action? Maybe, there have been plenty of allegations about her lack of care around that time. Was the DIQ a proximate cause of her lack of attention to her husband? Maybe, again plenty of allegations. What does all of that add up to? A big fat non-prosecutable maybe.
What do we know for a fact? The DIQ has been married 3 times now and is clearly not qualified to serve as a minister of the Christian faith. One of his wives is dead from another interesting suicide. His first wife has multiple claims against him. There are now multiple allegations of “abuse in office”. How he still has followers is beyond me. (followers = sycophants maybe?)