An Amish woman who drowned her 4-year-old son in a lake last year has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Ruth Miller waived her right to a jury trial last month, leaving her fate in the hands of Tuscawaras County Common Please Court Judge Michael Ernest, WOIO reported.
Ernest based his decision on three mental health evaluations and two police reports. All three of the psychiatric evaluations reached the same conclusion.
“They all concluded that you suffered from some form of mental disease that prevented you from knowing the wrongfulness of your conduct,” the judge said.
Police were called to the scene August 24 when Ruth Miller allegedly drove a golf cart carrying her three other children — a 15-year-old girl and twin 18-year-0ld boys — into the lake, as CrimeOnline reported. Those children were not physically harmed and walked out of the water themselves.
Miller was ultimately charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, endangering children, and domestic violence. All the charges related to her children; she was not charged in connection with the death of her husband, Marcus Miller, who also drowned at the lake.
Police said the saga began at about 1 a.m. on August 23, when 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.
When they returned to their campsite, Ruth Miller 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., Ruth Miller told investigators.
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 boy, Vincen, into a golf cart. She told investigators that she threw the boy into the lake to “give him to God.”
After speaking with Ruth Miller after the golf cart crash involving the teens, investigators began looking for the missing boy and his father. The boy’s body was found at about 6 p.m. on August 23.
Divers had to stop searching for Marcus Miller in the darkness but located his body about 50 yards off a dock at about 8:30 a.m. the next morning.
Miller will be sent to a psychiatric facility at a placement hearing on March 13, WOIO said. Her defense attorneys said they hope she’ll be able to return to her family at some point; she will be evaluated every three years.
Miller’s family and church issued a statement saying the family were members of the Old Order Amish Church.
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[Featured image: Ruth Miller/Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office]
