Ohio authorities say they expect to charge an Amish mother with murder in the death of her 4-year-old son, who was found dead in a Tuscarawas County lake over the weekend.
The woman’s husband, identified as Marcus Miller, was also found dead in Atwood Lake, but authorities say he died in a separate incident not connected with the death of 4-year-old Vincen Miller., WOIO reported.
As CrimeOnline reported, the incident began at about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, when deputies were called to Atwood Marina West, where the mother had driven a golf cart into the lake with two other children — a 15-year-old girl and twin 18-year-0ld boys — into the lake. The children got out of the water on their own, while the mother was brought out by first responders.
Almost immediately, she began making statements about “conversing with God,” including saying that she had put her son into the water to give him to God,” Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell said at a news conference on Monday.
The family was camping at the lake, Campbell said, and sat about 1 a.m. on Saturday, the husband and wife went to a dock and jumped into the lake, believing that God was talking to them and giving them tasks to carry out to prove their faith.
“What she says is that she and her husband went to this dock, and they jumped in the water because God was speaking to them and telling them to do things,” Campbell said, according to WKYC. “Things to prove their worthiness to God, to show their faith is complete. And they didn’t do very well in those. Some of them were bizarre, some of them were just swimming exercises. The most bizarre was that God told her to allow herself to be swallowed by a fish, as bizarre as that sounds.”
“I tell you that statement not to make fun, but I tell you that statement so you can have a picture of how difficult it was to communicate with her,” the sheriff said.
When they returned to their campsite, she told detectives, her husband said that he was disappointed in himself for failing the tests “because he didn’t have enough faith.” He said he was going back to the lake to swim to a sandbar a lengthy distance from the dock. He left at about 5:30 a.m., the mother said.
“For the longest time, we weren’t sure if that was true. We didn’t know if we could believe her statement,” said Campbell.
But a witness corroborated her statements, saying they saw the husband at the dock around an hour later. At about 8 a.m., witnesses say they saw the mother put the 4-year-old into a golf cart.
“Everybody that will comment or any witness that you encounter that saw her driving will tell you she was driving very dangerously,” Campbell said. “The children saw her leave with the 4-year-old, and then a while later she came back. She states that she went to the dock and that she threw the 4-year-old in because that’s what she needed to do as an offering to God.”
A short time later, she took the teenage children to the dock and had them do “ritualistic tasks.”
“They climb out of the lake and at one point, according to the children, she makes them all lay down on the dock with their hands in the water to pray for their little brother and father because they were gone and had gone to heaven,” Campbell said.
Next, she put the teens in the golf cart and drove it off a stone wall into the lake.
“Then at some point, she decided that she had to drive them into the lake, and honestly, she flipped the golf cart in the lake, but it wasn’t deep enough,” the sheriff said. “The kids immediately got up.”
After speaking with the mother, investigators began looking for the missing boy and his father. The boy’s body was found at about 6 p.m. on Saturday. Divers had to stop searching for the father in the darkness, but located his body about 50 yards off a dock a about 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
The mother has been hospitalized for a mental health evaluation. The sheriff said that the couple’s family told them that both the mother and father struggled with mental health issues, particularly the mother.
“But there were never any discussions of harming anyone,” Campbell said. “They had some some, you know, religious beliefs. What we recognize is this. She was clearly in a mental crisis, no doubt about it. You talk to every witness or every first responder, she was in mental crisis, and it just simply manifests itself in what we call a spiritual delusion.”
The family issued a statement in conjunction with their church.
“The church and family want to thank the law enforcement and rescue personnel for all that was done during this tragic weekend,” the statement said. “The family involved are members of the Old Order Amish Church. As a church of Christian faith, we believe that we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9), and the events of this past weekend do not reflect our teachings or beliefs but are instead a result of a mental illness.”
Campbell said that charges are expected to be filed on Tuesday.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Atwood Lake West Marina/Facebook]
