Why They Couldn’t Leave — The Psychology Behind Miller, Ellerup, Richins, and Murdaugh
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why didn’t she just leave? The question gets asked in every domestic violence case, every coercive control prosecution, every murder where the warning signs were visible to everyone except the person inside the relationship. The answer the public settles on almost always blames the victim.
Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott has a different answer — one grounded in neuroscience, clinical experience, and three decades of working with survivors. In this full three-part interview with Tony Brueski, Scott uses the cases of Mica Miller, Asa Ellerup, Eric Richins, and Maggie Murdaugh to dismantle the assumption that awareness is protection and explain what is actually happening inside the brain when a person stays.
Scott recently explored these dynamics on her Substack, Spotlight on Psychology. This conversation brings that research into the true crime cases the audience already knows and turns it toward the women listening who have never heard their own experience described out loud.
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#MicaMiller #MaggieMurdaugh #AsaEllerup #RexHeuermann #EricRichins #KouriRichins #TraumaBonding #DomesticViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske and Robin Dree. |
| 0:08.8 | Interesting conversation ahead of us today, very excited. |
| 0:12.9 | Chivon Scott, psychotherapist and author with us. |
| 0:15.1 | We're going to be talking about three different cases and about the control to which its victims were under by their perpetrators |
| 0:23.1 | and why it wasn't just so easy to walk away. |
| 0:26.6 | That's a big question we get thrown in all these cases. |
| 0:29.4 | Why do they just walk away? |
| 0:30.6 | Well, it's a bit deeper than that. |
| 0:34.6 | And we're going to get into that on three different cases. |
| 0:37.2 | We're going to talk about Micah Miller a little bit, and the alleged coercive control of J.P. Miller. We're going to talk about Maggie Murdo. And yeah, trust me, we're aware. Big news this morning, as if we're doing this, Alec Murdoe going back to trial for what is now called the alleged murder of Maggie and Paul. |
| 0:55.4 | He is no longer a convicted murderer, the Supreme Court of South Carolina. |
| 0:59.5 | This morning has overturned that, five to nothing. |
| 1:02.3 | We got a whole piece on that on its feet. |
| 1:03.7 | If you want to read about it, listen to it. |
| 1:05.5 | It is there. |
| 1:06.7 | Go ahead and dive in. |
| 1:08.1 | We got a lot of diving in to do as we get ready to take. |
| 1:16.1 | Dive number two as we go visit Resort Murdaw for a second time. That'll be interesting. |
| 1:28.0 | But we'll get to what kept Maggie there. Because if you remember in that case, there was a lot of talk about her being unhappy, her living a separate life towards the end, literally her end. |
| 1:29.3 | We're going to get into that. |
| 1:37.8 | And we're also going to be discussing what was going on in the Corey Richens case with Eric Richens and Asa Elrop as well. |
| 1:41.1 | All people falling victim to people controlling them in one way or another. Like I said, |
... |
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