A four-year-old boy has died after his Amish mother allegedly threw him in a lake as a sacrifice to God amid a state of ‘spiritual delusion’.
Vincen Miller, four, drowned to death in rural Ohio Saturday after he was tossed into the water at the end of a boat dock at a campground on Atwood Lake.
His mother, whose name has been withheld, is accused of drowning the boy before driving a golf cart carrying her three other kids into the lake, WOIO reports.
The woman, 40, and her husband Marcus Miller believed God was speaking to them and had instructed them to carry out ritualistic tasks to ‘prove their worthiness’, deputies say.
The couple first jumped off the dock around 1am Saturday as part of the alleged test of faith, but later returned to their campsite, believing they failed to complete the task.
Marcus, 45, told his wife he needed return to the lake and is believed to have swum far out into the water on his own. His body was discovered around 6.30am.
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The mother-of-four returned to the dock around 8.30am and drowned Vincen in the lake, later admitting to police that she was trying ‘to give him to God’.
She was hospitalized for mental health treatment and is expected to be formally charged with aggravated murder.
The mother is also accused of forcing her three other children, a 15-year-old daughter and 18-year-old twin sons, into Atwood Lake at different times throughout the weekend.
Police responded to the scene after she recklessly drove a golf cart down the dock around 10.30am, with all three teenagers in tow.
The teenagers have been placed in the care of other family members and are understood to be ‘devastated’ by the tragedy.
The Old Order Amish Church and the extended Miller family issued a statement to WOIO confirming the couple were ‘misinterpreting passages of the Bible’ and that their actions do not reflect the church’s teachings.
‘As a church of Christian faith, we believe that we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ, and the events of this past weekend do not reflect our teachings or beliefs but are instead a result of a mental illness,’ the statement read in part.
‘The ministry and extended family had been walking with them through their challenges, and they had also received professional help in the past.’
The church thanked law enforcement and rescuers for their response and is now focusing on the ‘family directly affected’ by the tragedy.
MSN
