Authorities in Ohio are investigating the deaths an Amish man and his 4-year-old son, who were found dead after the boy’s mother, apparently suffering from a “spiritual delusion,” intentionally drove her three other children into a lake, police said.
The mother, who has not been identified, is expected to be charged Tuesday, days after the bodies of her husband, 45-year-old Marcus Miller, and their son, 4-year-old Vincen Miller were recovered from Atwood Lake over the weekend, WOIO reported.
Deputies were called to the water on Saturday to investigate reports of a golf cart crash around 10:30 a.m., according to a statement Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office’s. By the time they arrived on the scene, all three people on the vehicle — the mother, her 15-year-old daughter and twin 18-year-old sons — had already managed to make it safely back to shore.
“It was evident that the crash into the water was intentional by the mother,” the sheriff’s office continued, further noting that comments made by the woman made them “concerned for the safety” of her husband and 4-year-old son, who were nowhere to be found.
“There was a pretty immediate statement made that she had given her son to the Lord,” Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell told WKYC.
“Keep in mind, she’s there with a 15-year-old daughter and two 18-year-old sons, and nobody knows what son she’s talking about,” he continued. “There’s no other child there, and they tried to discern and tried to comfort her. She actually attempted to flee for a minute. She was not rational.”
Her claims triggered a desperate search effort culminating in the discovery of Vicen’s body hours later, around 6 p.m. They found his father’s body in the same area on Sunday, just after 8 a.m., police said. Their causes of death have not been released, but they are both slated to undergo autopsies.
Per a preliminary investigation, both Miller and his wife believed they were being spoken to by God. Around 1 a.m. Saturday, they both went to the dock and jumped in the water, as part of a bid to prove their faith, according to authorities. They returned a short time later, but Miller went back to the water to again try to “prove his faith” by swimming to a sandbar, WTRF reported.
He never returned.
Then around 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Campbell said the mother placed her 4-year-old on the golf cart and began to drive recklessly. She told investigators she drowned him when they reached the docks.
An investigation into the matter is ongoing.
