127 • The Reverend’s Boyfriend

January 28, 2025·28 min·1 clip

Lee Standifer had a Special Olympics gold medal, her own apartment, and a new boyfriend she trusted completely—she had no idea who David Earl Miller really was.

Hello out there, from Orlando. The host starts with shaky sound levels, Disney World noise, and the boxed-in mood of a family vacation he did not exactly choose. Then the case walks into a wet, bloody house. Reverend Thomas finds blood splattered and tracked through the home, carpet wrecked, and water everywhere after David Earl Miller apparently tried to clean the place with a garden hose. Miller's story is thin enough to make the room colder. He says he drank too much, got in a fight, broke his nose, and made a mess that somehow needed a hose. Thomas decides Miller has to go. According to the reverend and his boyfriend, the plan is simple enough: sleep, then drive Miller back toward the highway in the morning. Morning does not help much. Miller gets dropped at an I-40 exit, handed 25 bucks, and sent off. The reverend later tells investigators he thought Miller was headed for Houston. The host is not sold on that. Miller actually hitched back to Ohio, and the episode leaves a nasty little question hanging: did the reverend cover for his boyfriend, or did he just believe the wrong thing at the wrong time? The ad break lands hard. After the case, the host drifts back to Disney World, gratitude, and the weird cost of making family joy happen inside a theme park. The ending turns soft for a minute. He talks about knowing his child's smile anywhere, at baseball practice, on a hill, or in the expensive vacation listeners helped make possible. Then the smirk returns. He thanks the audience, says a cold hill and a garbage bag might suit him better, and signs off still paranoid.

As heard by us

A grim true crime episode with a shaky start, then a blunt account of blood, cleanup, and a roadside send-off.

A grim true crime episode with a rough start: the opening sound is uneven, then settles down once the story gets going. From there, it stays locked on Reverend Thomas and David Earl Miller, a blood-splattered home, a ruined carpet, and the strange choice to send Miller back onto…

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Why you'd press play

You want a grim, unpolished true-crime story with a nasty domestic turn.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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