Ruth Miller with police; Ruth Miller mug shot.Credit : Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office (2)

To celebrate turning 40 on Aug. 22 of last year, Ruth Miller, along with her husband Marcus, 45, considered a trip with their four children from rural Holmes County—the heart of Ohio’s Amish country—to the state’s capital, Columbus.

In the end, though, they pivoted to Atwood Lake—a popular resort on a reservoir some 30 miles from their home that offered boating and fishing, access to a pontoon and R.V. rental. According to a family member who had worried about the couple’s recent struggles with anxiety and doomsday religious beliefs, the getaway seemed like a good opportunity to lighten their moods.

But alarming calls on the day after Ruth’s birthday shattered that hope. Marcus and the couple’s 4-year-old son, Vincen, were missing, and Ruth was telling a fantastical tale: “I gave my son to God,” she told law enforcement. Ruth reportedly said that, in a test of faith, she had placed the child in the reservoir at God’s direction and that her missing husband was safe in the belly of a fish.

Ruth Miller in sheriff’s department bodycam footage.Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Department

By the following morning both bodies had been recovered. After startled onlookers also saw Ruth steer a golf cart into the water with her three older children aboard – acting on what Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvil Campbell later called a “spiritual delusion” – Ruth now stands accused of assault and murder. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. “This is not a whodunnit,” prosecutor Ryan Styer said in court, where a judge ruled Ruth competent to stand trial.

Ruth’s defense attorney lan Friedman agrees. “She did do it,” he says. “But that’s just one part of it. The big question in this case is the why.”

News of the tragedy “devastated” the family’s community of Winesburg, Ohio, says Marion Miller, a neighbor who is not related. “That’s not who I knew the family to be, who I knew Ruth to be,” he says. “The parents, they adored their kids.”

Holmes County anchors one of the largest concentrations of Amish in North America. There, Ruth ran the family home, aided by daughter Amber, 15. Marcus worked for Twin Oaks Barns, building sheds, chicken coops and outdoor furniture alongside the couple’s 18-year-old twin sons, Joel and Ethan, who like to hunt and fish.

“They were a very close, very loving family,” says Marion Miller.

Ruth Miller in a mug shot.Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office

But over the prior six months, a turn in Ruth’s spiritual life had raised red flags. “She had, according to family, come to the conclusion the world was coming to an end sooner rather than later,” Sheriff Campbell told PEOPLE.

Ruth reportedly obsessed over Biblical references to the number 40 – like the 40-day-and-night flood for which Noah created the Ark to survive – that aligned with her upcoming birthday, and felt an urgency to get right with God, the sheriff said.

Family members urged her to seek professional mental health counseling, which is currently experiencing a wider embrace among the Amish, says James A. Cates, a clinical psychologist and author of Serving the Amish.

“She never once talked about harming anybody, or that they were going to die together,” Sheriff Campbell tells PEOPLE.

But amid concerns that Marcus was buying into Ruth’s vision, a church leader and Robert Miller, Marcus’s brother, met with the couple the day before the lake trip and told them they were misreading biblical verse, the sheriff said during a Sept 29, 2025, evidentiary hearing at the Tuscarawas County Common. Pleas court in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

“They kind of calmed down and lost that ‘wild-eyed’ look— that was [Robert’s] terminology,” the sheriff said. “He felt like maybe he’d bought some time, like maybe they’d realized the way they were thinking was not correct.”

On the first night of their lake trip, the family fished well past sunset. Then, around midnight, as Ruth later claimed to a detective, God woke up both her and Marcus. With Bible in hand, they returned to the dock and followed God’s direction to attempt a walk on water and for Marcus to swim to a sandbar in the reservoir.

Soaked and frustrated, they blamed their failure to complete the tasks they had been given on weak faith.

Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Office via AP

On the walk back to the R.V. they were staying in, “they convinced themselves the things there were doing were crazy,” Det. Capt. Adam Fisher said in court. “They were laughing.” But their mood soon changed, and Marcus took off alone to try once more.

When he didn’t return, Ruth took their 4-year-old with her to search for her husband. At the dock, she said she heard God’s voice recalling a pledge that she’d be willing to surrender her husband and children “and she was directed to throw Vincen in the water,” said Fisher.

When the boy bobbed back up, “God spoke to her, questioning why she was still looking for Vincen after she had given him to God,” Fisher said in court. “At that point she turned and walked away.”

Ruth returned to the R.V. for Amber, telling her to run off the dock and also “give herself to God.” The boys and Ruth all did the same. After each one stumbled back to shore, witnesses saw them huddle and pray-and then Ruth allegedly drove the golf cart with all of them over a wall and into the water again.

When law enforcement officers arrived at the scene, they can be heard on body cam footage asking about the Millers’ missing son. “You gave him to God?,” one officer asks. “Yes,” Ruth replies on the footage. “I doubted him so many times, but I have to tell you he is coming very soon. Prepare your hearts. The end is close.”

Of Marcus, she said calmly, “a fish swallowed him, and you’re actually supposed to go look for him in the bottom of the lake, and you will find the fish, and you will find my husband, and then you will believe.”

In a later conversation with a detective, Amber reportedly said through tears, “She’s a good mom. She didn’t mean to do it.”

In a statement praising “the loving and caring family they were always known to be,” the Millers’ Old Order Amish Church in Holmes Co. said the events “do not reflect our teachings or beliefs but are instead a result of a mental illness. The ministry and extended family had been walking with them through their challenges, and they had also received professional help in the past.”

“She’s a human being that is hurting over the losses,” says Friedman, Ruth’s lawyer. “She was unable to appreciate the drowning of her own child. That says everything anyone should want to know about how she was suffering.”

Belief in the voice of a higher power mandating tests of faith is “a relatively common delusion across all religious beliefs,” says Cates, the clinical psychologist. “Tragic consequences sometimes ensue. It is not within the Amish belief system to test God in that way of putting children, or anyone, in harm’s way.”

“The community has forgiven her,” says Marion Miller, the neighbor. “The family has forgiven her. But actions have consequences. In this case, the consequences are, she’s in jail, and whatever the justice system decides, then that is the outcome it will be.”

If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.