A mother’s chilling confession, captured on bodycam video at Atwood Lake, reveals the unthinkable: she drowned her 4-year-old son, believing she was offering him to God. Ruth R. Miller, a 40-year-old Amish woman from Millersburg, Ohio, faces life in prison after admitting to the act during a family camping trip. The Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office released footage showing Miller calmly speaking to deputies, saying,
“I threw him in the lake and I gave him to God… He’s sweet, and I love him,”
about her son, Vincen Miller.
The video also captures her explaining her husband Marcus Miller’s fate, stating,
“He never did come back… God told me he in the lake and a fish swallowed him… You are supposed to look at the bottom of the lake and you’ll find that fish and you’ll find my husband.”
The family of six, part of the Old Order Amish community, arrived at Atwood Lake on August 23 for a weekend getaway.
But by early August 24, tragedy struck at Atwood Lake. Around 1 a.m., Ruth and Marcus, 45, jumped into the lake from a dock, believing God demanded faith-proving tasks, such as being swallowed by a fish, inspired by biblical stories. They returned to their RV, but Marcus, reportedly upset over his “performance,” went back alone around 6:30 a.m., left his clothes, and drowned while swimming toward a sandbar.
After 8 a.m., Ruth loaded Vincen into a golf cart, drove erratically, and threw him off the dock, saying,
“I gave him to God.”
She also made her 15-year-old daughter and twin 18-year-old sons enter the lake for similar rituals, though they were unharmed.
Around 10:30 a.m., she drove the golf cart into the water with the teens aboard, flipping it off a stone wall. Witnesses rescued Miller after the children escaped, and a 911 call brought first responders. Hiding in a bush, she told officers,
“People are going to tell me I’m crazy, but he is real and he loves you. He really does.”
She urged divers to find her husband, saying,
“You are supposed to look at the bottom of the lake and you’ll find that fish and you’ll find my husband,”
and requested the “best scuba diver” for a “miracle from God.” Throughout, she repeated,
“Prepare your hearts. The end is close and I’m for sure supposed to tell you that he does love you.”
Dive teams found Vincen’s body that afternoon and Marcus’s the next day, both on the lake bottom, showing no signs of surfacing. Neither parent could swim, amplifying the risks at Atwood Lake.
The surviving children are now with relatives, and Amish leaders emphasize this stemmed from mental illness, not their faith. The family had previously sought professional help for unspecified issues. On September 4, a grand jury indicted Miller on seven counts: aggravated murder and murder for Vincen’s death, felonious assault, child endangering for her daughter, and three counts of domestic violence for all three teens. She’s held in Tuscarawas County Jail after a hospital evaluation, with an arraignment set for September 8 before Judge Michael J. Ernest. A conviction on aggravated murder could mean life without parole.
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