An Ohio mother is accused of commanding her husband and 4-year-old son to “jump” into a lake as part of an alleged “spiritual delusion” that killed them both. The woman, an Amish church member, ordered them into the water “because God was speaking to them” and wanted the couple to “prove their worthiness,” according to cops.
“[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 live on NBC affiliate WKYC.
“That led her and her husband to go out and jump in the lake first,” Campbell told me.
Police have identified the victims as Marcus Miller, 45, and Vincen Miller, the couple’s young son. According to Campbell, they are waiting until the woman is formally charged before naming her publicly. She is also accused of crashing a golf cart into Atwood Lake while her three other children were inside.
The female suspect allegedly confessed to investigators. She told them that she commanded Marcus Miller to dive into the lake, where he drowned, as part of a “test” from God. Miller initially thought he had failed the test “because he didn’t have enough faith,” according to Campbell. The woman allegedly demanded that Vincen, who had also drowned in the lake, enter afterward as punishment.
“She believed that she and her husband needed to pass these tests to demonstrate their faith, and when they didn’t, Vincen became the price to pay,” Campbell told reporters, according to WKYC. “What she says is that she and her husband went to this dock and jumped in the water because God was speaking to them and telling them to do certain things in order to prove their worthiness to God and to demonstrate their complete faith. And they didn’t perform well in those.”
According to the sheriff, some of Marcus Miller’s tasks were “bizarre,” with many of them being “swimming exercises.” The woman allegedly told investigators that God once asked her to be “swallowed by a fish,” according to Campbell.
According to police, Marcus Miller’s final test involved swimming to a nearby sandbar. His wife claimed that following the failed tests, they went home to their RV before returning to the lake around 5:30 a.m. to try again.
Campbell stated that Marcus Miller “hasn’t been asleep” following the failed tests.
Marcus Miller was last seen on the Atwood Lake dock around 6:30 a.m., according to witnesses. At around 8 a.m., his wife was allegedly seen driving “very dangerously” with Vincen near 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 relayed to reporters. The woman was then reportedly seen picking up her 15-year-old daughter and twin 18-year-old sons, whom she also forced to perform religious lake tasks.
According to Campbell, the children told cops that she once ordered them to “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.” She allegedly crashed the golf cart with them inside shortly after, Campbell claimed.
“She then heard the voice again telling her to drive into the lake,” Campbell told journalists.
Following the crash, a witness offered assistance, but the woman declined. According to WKYC, Campbell suggested that instead of helping her, she should simply pray. “That was the first statement to imply that this was more than just an accident at that lake. She immediately stated that she had given her son to the Lord.
Police have identified the Millers as Old Order Amish Church members who live in Holmes County. They were reportedly visiting Atwood Lake as part of a weekend trip, which Campbell describes as beginning like any other 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.”
