Mom in ‘spiritual delusion’ killed toddler, drove teens into lake, Ohio cops say
.png "The Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office released new details surrounding the death of a 4-year-old and his dad at Atwood Lake in Ohio.")
New details have been released in connection with a 4-year-old boy and his father, who both died at a lake in Ohio.
Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell spoke at a news conference streamed by WKYC on Aug. 25 and detailed the “bizarre” string of events that took place at the lake.
It started when an Amish family from Holmes County visited Atwood Lake for the weekend, according to an Aug. 23 Facebook post from the Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office.
Campbell said the wife and mother of four was having a mental crisis and “it just simply manifested itself into ... a spiritual delusion.”
Someone called 911 the morning of Saturday, Aug. 23, reporting that a golf cart had gone into the lake with a woman and three kids on board, Campbell said.
Three teens, a 15-year-old and twin 18-year-olds, got out of the submerged cart on their own. Their 40-year-old mother, who was driving, was helped out by witnesses, Campbell said. However, once authorities arrived, the mother began to make statements “that were not rational,” he said.
Campbell said the mom never lied to them about what happened, but at times it was difficult to understand what she meant. He broke down the timeline of what she said happened that day.
1:15 a.m. Saturday
The woman told authorities that around 1:15 a.m, she and her husband went to a dock at the lake, Campbell said.
The woman said, “God was speaking to them and telling them to do things. Things to prove their worthiness to God, to show their faith as complete,” Campbell said.
Campbell went on to say, “Some of them were bizarre, some were just swimming exercises, the most bizarre was that God told her to allow herself to be swallowed by a fish.”
5:30 a.m. Saturday
The couple got out of the water and walked back to the RV they were staying in. She said her husband felt disappointed in himself because he didn’t do very well in his tasks because he didn’t have enough faith, Campbell said. So, he immediately said he was going back to the lake to swim to the sandbar, according to the sheriff.
Around 6:30 a.m., a witness saw the man at the dock by himself, Campbell said. The mother said she never saw him again.
8 a.m. Saturday
The woman was seen by witnesses putting her 4-year-old son in a golf cart and “taking off very erratically,” Campbell said. At one point, she flipped the cart and was also seen driving it on two wheels, according to the sheriff.
“She began to express more that she had thrown the child in the water to give that child to God,” Campbell said.
The woman then drove back to the RV without the toddler to get her 15-year-old daughter, drove her to the dock and made her get in the lake, she told authorities, according to Campbell.
She went back to the RV again, got her twin sons, drove them to the dock and made them get into the lake to do “tasks,” Campbell said.
When they got of the lake, she made the teens lie down with their hands in the water and pray for the toddler and father because “they had gone to heaven,” Campbell said.
At one point, just before the golf cart crash, the mother was seen with the kids in a huddle, heads touching, praying very intently, according to Campbell. He said it scared some of the witnesses.
10:39 a.m. Saturday
Witnesses called 911 after seeing the woman drive the golf cart into the lake with her three teenage kids, Campbell said.
Some of the witnesses were chasing the golf cart, yelling at the woman because they thought it was out of control, according to Campbell. However, after the woman crashed in the lake, people tried to help her, but she told them she did not need help, just to pray for her, authorities said.
“It was evident that the crash into the water was intentional by the mother,” the sheriff’s office said the Facebook post.
Investigators spoke with the children, but Campbell said it was difficult to get information because “their mindset was, whatever their mother and father said is the way it is.”
“You don’t question anything, so when they were told to jump in the lake, they jumped in the lake,” he said. “It was tough to get the information from them because much of what they were giving us, they were only told by their mother. So they took it as truth.”
After learning what the woman said happened to the 4-year-old and her husband, rescue teams began searching for the two.
Around 6 p.m., divers found the child about 10 feet off the dock at the bottom of the lake, Campbell said. The next day, around 8:30 a.m. the father was found 53 yards off the dock, at the bottom of the lake, he said.
Authorities do not believe the father had anything to do with the toddler’s death and had no knowledge that it would happen, Campbell said.
Investigators spoke with fellow church members and learned the family was apart of the Old Order Amish Church, but said family members “recognized these thoughts as irrational, not making any sense and they were not in line with them at all,” Campbell said.
The woman is being held in a mental health facility and has not been charged, but Campbell said they expect the prosecutor’s office to issue a charge of aggravated murder. Her name will not be released until charges are formerly filed, he said.
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Mom in ‘spiritual delusion’ killed toddler, drove teens into lake, Ohio cops say."
