WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT: Ruth R Miller, 40, has been charged with aggravated murder following the death of her four-year-old son Vincen Miller, who drowned in Atwood Lake in Ohio
A mum has been charged with murder after allegedly hurling her four year old son into a lake “as an offering to God”.
Ruth R Miller, 40, is also up against two counts of domestic violence and one of child endangerment, reportedly in connection with driving a golf cart carrying three of her older children into the same lake.
Miller’s husband, Marcus J Miller, 45, had tragically drowned hours earlier in the same lake, seemingly trying to swim to a sandbar in another act of faith.
The incident unfolded on Saturday, August 23 at Atwood Lake in Ohio, prompting emergency services to rush to the scene upon reports of several people in distress. However, Miller’s older children; twin sons aged 18 and a 15 year old daughter, escaped serious injury.
Police have now confirmed that Miller told them she was on a religious mission. Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell revealed at a press conference that the defendant confessed to officers she tossed her youngest child – little Vincen – into the lake as an “offering to God”.
Miller is set to appear in court to face the charges. It remains unclear whether the mum has entered a plea or secured legal representation, reports the Mirror.
Sheriff Campbell previously stated that the defendant, a member of an Amish church, was “supposedly hearing voices that she believed were God”. He added: “That led her and her husband to go out and jump in the lake first.
“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. She says she and her husband went to this dock and jumped in the water because God was speaking to them, telling them to do things to prove their worthiness to God, to show their faith is complete. And they didn’t do very well in those.”
The sheriff described some of the so-called tests as “bizarre,” mainly involving swimming exercises. In one chilling claim, the woman told investigators that God once instructed her to be “swallowed by a fish.”
According to police, Marcus Miller’s final test was swimming to a nearby sandbar.
His wife informed officers that after several failed tests, they had returned home to their caravan, only to return at 5:30am to continue trying. “She states that she went to the dock and that she threw the four-year-old in because that’s what she needed to do as an offering to God,” Campbell informed reporters
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