HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — NewsNation local affiliate WBTW on Monday spoke with the family of Chris Skinner, a man who drowned in 2021, days after the Horry County Coroner’s Office in South Carolina said it was given new evidence related to his death.
WBTW also learned in a conversation with Skinner’s sister Tamra McDermott that the situation has ties to Myrtle Beach pastor John-Paul Miller, who’s been in the national spotlight since his wife Mica’s suicide last April.
The coroner’s office at the time ruled 40-year-old Skinner’s death accidental. The family never questioned what investigators found. But recent events over the past year have led not only his family but outsiders and press authorities to take another look at the incident.
“When the police were doing their investigations on the scene, they were told certain things. And now there has been some acknowledgment that some of those things are inaccurate,” McDermott said. “And they realize there’s some falsehood to some of the statements.”
Skinner was an Army veteran who was paralyzed from the neck down after a car wreck when he was 20 years old. Soon after that, he became a motivational speaker and author.
On the morning of Sept. 6, 2021, police reports say Skinner went to a community pool in the Market Common area to meet someone for a game of chess.
While strapped in his wheelchair, surveillance video shows he fell into the pool and was there for about 40 minutes before first responders pulled him out. A police report goes on to say the video shows him trying to raise his head up.
Chris’s wife Suzie tried to produce a do not resuscitate order, but the form wasn’t filled out, so he was taken to a local hospital and later pronounced dead, police said in their statement.
Dashcam video obtained by WBTW shows who Chris’ family says is John-Paul Miller and Mica with Suzie at the scene. According to recent court testimony, Suzie said she first met John-Paul in 2019 and is now his girlfriend.
John-Paul Miller is also being investigated by the FBI.
McDermott said Chris attended John-Paul’s former Solid Rock Church — and didn’t have positive feelings toward him.
“About four to five months prior to his passing, he did talk a lot about the pastor at that church. He did stop going to church there. He would talk openly to me, close friends of his and others about … why he was distancing himself from the church.”
It’s not clear why Skinner had developed such feelings toward Solid Rock and its leader, but a 2024 affidavit filed by Miller’s ex-wife Alison Williams said he began a sexual relationship with another woman whose husband later drowned.
The woman’s husband confronted John-Paul two weeks before he died, her affidavit continues. Chris’s funeral was held at Solid Rock.
After Mica died, McDermott said many people started to question the circumstances around Chris’s death.
“That caused frequent speculation all over media, social media, and that caused people to put a lot of phone calls into the Myrtle Beach police, the coroner, on a regular, recurring basis,” McDermott said.
McDermott said many of those inquiries centered around “inconsistent information.” Police reports obtained by WBTW say Chris’s wheelchair was seen moving toward the water and falling in.
But a coroner’s report concluded that he got too close to the pool’s edge, causing him to slip and fall in — further stating an autopsy wasn’t done, statements weren’t taken and nothing was filed under witnesses or from the death scene.
“If the coroner has made a decision to reopen the investigation and, of course, her released statement, I believe that there is means to say that it was going to be potentially something other than an accident,” McDermott said.
WBTW has reached out to the coroner’s office to ask why a few items were not filed and whether that’s typical for accidental drowning cases.