Two bereaved parents and 12 fellow members of a fringe Australian religious congregation accused of killing an 8-year-old girl by withholding her diabetes medication were found guilty on Wednesday of manslaughter.
Elizabeth Rose Struhs died on Jan. 7, 2022 at her family’s home in Toowoomba in Queensland state after six days without her prescribed insulin shots for type-1 diabetes.
The congregation had prayed and sung for the girl, whose health deteriorated as she lay on a mattress at her home, the BBC reported.
Her father, Jason Richard Struhs, 53, and the leader of the family’s religious group called “The Saints,” Brendan Luke Stevens, 63, had been charged with the more serious crime of murder, but Queensland Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns found both guilty of her manslaughter.
Burns also found another 12 members of the congregation, including the victim’s mother, Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, and the victim’s bother Zachary Alan Struhs, 22, guilty of manslaughter. No one charged escaped conviction.
All 14 were remanded in custody to appear in court for sentencing on Feb. 11. Each faces a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.
The victim’s adult sister, Jayde Struhs, told reporters outside court that she welcomed the verdicts.
“Although we had a good outcome today, I have to acknowledge the system failed to protect Elizabeth in the first place,” Jayde Struhs said.
Russell Freeman / AP
“We are only here today because more wasn’t done sooner to protect her or remove her from a credibly unsafe situation in her own home,” she added.
In finding the father and religious leader not guilty of murder, Burns said the prosecution had failed to prove they had shown reckless indifference to life.
“There remained a reasonable possibility that, in the cloistered atmosphere of the church which enveloped Struhs … that he (the father) never came to the full realization Elizabeth would probably die,” Burns said.
But the judge found the victim’s parents had shown an “egregious departure from the standard of care” with the support and encouragement of the other defendants.
“It cannot be doubted that Elizabeth was lovingly cared for in almost every way,” the judge said, according to the BBC. “However, due to a singular belief in the healing power of God… she was deprived of the one thing that would most definitely have kept her alive.”
Speaking on behalf of all defendants at the trial’s opening statements, Stevens argued they held a reasonable belief that God would heal the child. The defendants all represented themselves and each spoke on their own behalf during the closing statements.
Burns urged them all to get lawyers before they are sentenced.
The Saints are not affiliated with an established church in Australia and have roughly two dozen members from three families, according to the BBC.
Toowoomba has long had a “colorful array of sectarian Christian groups and independent churches of various kinds”, Bernard Doherty, who studies new religious movements, told the BBC.
“The Saints appear to be one of these small independent churches which form around a few families,” he told the BBC, adding that little is known about the congregation.
