Despite a medical examiner's ruling that South Carolina pastor's wife Mica Miller killed herself late last month, the beloved woman's friends said the finding "doesn't add up."
Mica, 30, died April 27 from a fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Her body was found that same day at Lumber River State Park in Orrum, North Carolina, with a handgun nearby, according to the Robeson County Sheriff's Office.
Before she pulled the trigger, Mica called 911 and let dispatch know she was going to end her life.
"It doesn't add up to me. Not from everything she said and not from who she was," Mica's unidentified church friend said, according to PEOPLE.
"She was always giving out as much as she could for the church and for the people," her friend's husband reiterated. "You'd see bags underneath her eyes because she was just always giving so much of her time and herself just pretty much to everyone else."
Mica was heavily involved in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, church, where her estranged husband, John-Paul Miller, pastored.
But despite their shared dedication to their faith, John-Paul's alleged narcissism and "very twisted mind" prompted Mica to file for divorce following seven years of marriage, her friends said.
"She was scared," the friend's husband said, "You could tell she was just scared about everything. She looked us in the eye and she said, 'I'm scared. I want to live.'"
Still, the couple said there were no signs Mica intended to kill herself, and in the midst of her crumbling marriage, she was surrounded by a solid support system of family and friends.
"She was being encouraged and loved and supported... she had people that were there for her for whatever she needed, and she really turned a page," the wife explained.
Mica even spoke of future plans and starting over.
During a get-together at the beach just two days before she died, the wife told Mica, "'I'm so proud of you. You have come so far,'" she remembered of one of their last conversations. "'I know you're still hurting, and I know it's hard still, but you really have come far. You see him for who he is. You are moving past him. You are making plans.' I told her, ' I am so proud of you.'"
"She said, 'You know what? I'm proud of myself too,'" the wife recalled. "'I think I'm mentally okay.' She said, 'Some days are hard, but I have times where I get to see my friends and it's better.'"
During the investigation, authorities said they ruled out Mica's estranged husband and a woman he is believed to be romantically involved with from being involved in her death.
"Investigators were able to confirm that both individuals were not in North Carolina on the night before and the day of" Mica's death and that Miller was at an athletic event when his wife died, authorities said.
Speculation surrounding Mica's passing first became apparent after Miller announced to churchgoers during a Sunday sermon that she was dead.
"Yeah, it was self induced," he told the crowd.
"I'm just kind of going on adrenaline, right now. So, y'all pray for me and my kids and everybody," said Miller. "And she wasn't well, mentally. She needed medicine that was hard to get to her. And so I'm sure there'll be more details to come. But just keep our family in your prayers."
