Background: The boat dock at Atwood Lake in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, where a woman allegedly drowned her 4-year-old son after causing her husband’s death, cops say (WKYC/YouTube). Inset: Remnants of the golf cart that Ohio authorities found after Vincen Miller’s mother allegedly crashed it with her three teenage children on board following Vincen’s drowning death, cops say (Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office).
An Ohio mother is accused of commanding her husband and 4-year-old son to “jump” in a lake as part of an alleged “spiritual delusion” that left them both dead. The woman — who is a member of an Amish church — ordered them into the water “because God was speaking to them” and wanted the pair to “prove their worthiness,” cops say.
“[The woman] was supposedly hearing voices that she believed were God,” Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell said at a press conference Monday, which was streamed by NBC affiliate WKYC.
“That led her and her husband to go out and jump in the lake first,” Campbell said.
Police officials have identified the victims as Marcus Miller, 45, and Vincen Miller, who is the couple’s young son. They are waiting to publicly name the woman until after she’s formally charged, according to Campbell. She is also accused of crashing a golf cart into Atwood Lake with her three other children inside.
The female suspect has allegedly confessed to investigators. She told them she commanded Marcus Miller to get into the lake — where he drowned — as part of a “test” from God. Miller initially believed he had failed the test “because he didn’t have enough faith,” per Campbell. The woman allegedly demanded that Vincen, who also drowned in the lake, go in afterward as punishment.
“She believed that she and her husband had to pass these tests to show their faith, and when they didn’t, then Vincen became the price to pay for that,” Campbell told reporters, according to WKYC. “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, things to prove their worthiness to God, to show their faith is complete. And they didn’t do very well in those.”
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According to the sheriff, some of the tasks Marcus Miller was given were “bizarre,” with many of them being “swimming exercises.” The woman allegedly told investigators that God asked her at one point to be “swallowed by a fish,” per Campbell.
Marcus Miller’s final test was swimming to a nearby sandbar, according to police. His wife claimed that they had gone home to their RV after the failed tests before returning to the lake at around 5:30 a.m. to keep trying.
Campbell said Marcus Miller “hasn’t been asleep” after the failed tests.
Marcus Miller was last seen at the Atwood Lake dock at around 6:30 a.m., according to witnesses. His wife was allegedly spotted at around 8 a.m. driving “very dangerously” with Vincen in the area of the dock.
“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,” Campbell told reporters. The woman was then allegedly seen picking up her 15-year-old daughter and twin 18-year-old sons, whom she also made perform religious lake tasks.
The children told cops that at one point, she made 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,” according to Campbell. She allegedly crashed the golf cart with them inside shortly after, Campbell said.
“She then heard the voice again telling her to drive into the lake,” Campbell told reporters.
After the crash, a witness offered help, but the woman refused. “She suggested … not to help her, to just pray,” Campbell explained, according to WKYC. “That was the first statement that suggested this was more than an accident at that lake. There was a pretty immediate statement made that she had given her son to the Lord.”
Police have described the Millers as members of the Old Order Amish Church and living in Holmes County. They were reportedly visiting Atwood Lake as part of a weekend trip, which Campbell says began like any vacation.
“I do not think it was a plan,” the sheriff concluded. “I believe that based off detailed conversations with the family, that they were just going to the lake.”
