“We organized search parties immediately,” Lawson recalls. “We searched the woods surrounding the property, dragged Killbuck Creek thinking maybe there’d been an accident. We checked with relatives in other Amish communities across Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania. Nothing.”
The search involved over 200 volunteers from both Amish and non-Amish communities. They combed through forests, checked abandoned buildings, searched riverbanks. Helicopters with thermal imaging equipment swept the area. Search dogs tracked scents that led nowhere.
“The dogs were the strangest part,” says Mark Thompson, who trained the search dogs used in the investigation. “They’d pick up the family’s scent from clothes in the house, then track to the road at the end of the property, and that’s where the trail ended. Just stopped, like they’d gotten into a vehicle. But the Amish don’t use cars.”
The investigation faced unique challenges. The Amish community, while cooperative, had limited interaction with modern technology that typically aids missing persons cases. The Millers had no phone records to check, no credit card transactions to trace, no social media presence, no electronic trail whatsoever.
“It was like investigating a disappearance from the 1800s,” says FBI Special Agent Diane Morrison, who was called in to assist. “We had none of the tools we typically use. No surveillance cameras, no ATM footage, no cell phone pings. Just witness testimony and physical evidence.”
And there was precious little of either.
Lawson’s team interviewed over 150 people. Most confirmed the same thing: the Millers were a normal, devout family with no enemies, no debts that anyone knew of, no conflicts. They kept to themselves, worked hard, attended church regularly, and caused no trouble.
“Dead end after dead end,” Lawson says, shaking his head at the memory. “Every lead went nowhere. Every theory collapsed under scrutiny.”
Theories abounded in the wider community:
The religious persecution theory: Some speculated that the family had been targeted by outsiders with anti-Amish bias. Holmes County had experienced occasional tensions between Amish and non-Amish residents over road usage and property disputes. Perhaps the Millers had been victims of violence.
But there was no evidence of forced entry, no signs of struggle, and no similar incidents in the area.
The voluntary departure theory: Others suggested the family had chosen to leave the Amish faith and disappeared to avoid shunning. Some Amish do leave the community, though typically young adults, not entire families.
But the Millers left behind everything—their farm, their animals, their possessions, even money in a drawer. People planning to leave don’t abandon resources they’d need to start over.
The accident theory: Perhaps the family had been traveling together somehow and met with an accident—fallen into water, been caught in a sudden storm, encountered a vehicle accident on a remote road.
But the roads were dry that July, there were no storms, and no reports of accidents involving Amish families anywhere in the region.
