The parents of an 8-year-old girl, her adult brother and 11 other members of a small, tongues-talking Pentecostal sect in Toowoomba, Australia, were convicted of manslaughter Wednesday for causing her death by withholding lifesaving insulin needed to treat her Type 1 diabetes because of their religious beliefs.
In a nearly 500-page verdict, Queensland Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns convicted 8-year-old Elizabeth Rose Struhs’ father, Jason Richard Struhs, 53; her mother, Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49; and her brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 22; of manslaughter for her Jan. 7, 2022, death.
Also convicted of manslaughter are Loretta Stevens, Therese Stevens, Andrea Stevens, Camelia Stevens, Acacia Stevens, Alexander Stevens, Sebastian Stevens, Keita Martin, Lachlan Schoenfisch and Samantha Schoenfisch.
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Elizabeth’s family members and the other convicts are all members of a group, which sometimes referred to themselves as “the Church” or “the Saints,” according to court documents.
Court records show that instead of treating Elizabeth with insulin when she got ill as a result of her diabetes, the group prayed. And when she died, they prayed for her resurrection for another 24 hours before calling local authorities for help.
Jason and Kerrie Struhs, who have been married since 1996, have eight children, but only two of them are adults. Along with Zachary Struhs, the couple has an estranged adult daughter, Jayde Struhs, who left the family at age 16. Although the Saints are not affiliated with any particular religious denomination, Jayde Struhs said the family attended the Revival Centres International church in Brisbane before the sect launched. They broke away from the charismatic denomination after the current leader of the group, Brendan Luke Stevens, failed to become a pastor in the church, BBC reports.
“The members of the Church did not ascribe to any religious denomination, simply regarding themselves as Christians who followed God’s Word — that is to say, the Bible — entirely. They believed that, through prayer and baptism by full immersion in water, a person could receive the Holy Spirit and, when received, this would be evidenced by the person’s ability to speak in tongues, which they regarded as a ‘language only God can understand,’” Burns wrote.
Despite evidence showing that all 14 convicts appeared to hold a sincere belief that they should not get medical care for sickness and trust solely in God for healing, each of them is facing a potential life sentence for Elizabeth’s death. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 11.
“Until her death, Elizabeth Rose Struhs was a vibrant, happy child with, of course, her whole life ahead of her. She left a lasting impression on many with whom she came into contact on the outside, whether through her schooling or during the treatment and control of a medical condition she was first diagnosed with in 2019 — Type 1 diabetes,” Burns wrote.
“It cannot be doubted that she was lovingly cared for in almost every way by her parents, Jason, and Kerrie Struhs, or that she was adored by every member of the Church including all other accused. However, due to a singular belief in the healing power of God which, to the minds of her parents and the other members of the Church left no room for recourse to any form of medical care or treatment, she was deprived of the one thing that would most definitely have kept her alive — insulin.”
While celebrating the convictions Wednesday, Jayde Struhs told reporters that her sister should not have died and the local child welfare system failed her.
“Although we had a good outcome today, I have to acknowledge the system failed to protect Elizabeth in the first place,” she said after the verdict, according to CBS News. “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.”
Court documents show that on July 17, 2019, when Elizabeth was just a 6-year-old, she almost died from diabetes complications because of the religious beliefs of the sect to which her mother zealously adhered. At the time she got sick, her father was not yet a part of the sect, so he was the one who took her to a hospital, where she was diagnosed and treated despite her mother’s objections.
Health officials say when Elizabeth was brought to the hospital, she weighed just under 29 pounds when the average weight of a child her age is around 46 pounds.
In his witness statement to police, Jason Struhs said for the entire time that Elizabeth was hospitalized, her mother never once visited.
“Kerrie never came to visit Elizabeth during that four-week period, despite me asking her to. Kerrie also never got involved in any of the diabetic training or information sessions on how to care for Elizabeth in the future, despite requests from myself, the hospital, and Child Safety,” Jason Struhs wrote. “This is also despite me telling Kerrie on countless occasions that the training is necessary, and that if Elizabeth doesn’t get the insulin she requires, she will die.”
Court documents show that after the 8-year-old recovered with the help of doctors, the sect appeared to attribute her recovery “solely to God.”
Both Jason Struhs and his wife were subsequently prosecuted. Jason Struhs was sentenced to six months imprisonment for failing to provide the necessaries of life for his daughter. The sentence was suspended for an operational period of 12 months because he testified against his wife. Kerrie Struhs was found guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life to Elizabeth on July 15, 2021, and sentenced to 18 months in prison. She was offered parole, set for Dec. 15, 2021.
While Kerrie Struhs was imprisoned, the verdict states that Jason Struhs came under intense pressure from his family and the Church, including his son Zachary, who blamed his unbelief for the family’s struggles and his mother’s imprisonment. As he tried caring for his daughter, his wife at one point decided while she was in prison that she would divorce him after her release.
“My husband couldn’t cope without me there because he felt like he had lost everything because I was the one that mainly looked after the children. I was communicating with Jason whilst I was in jail. The first couple of communications with Jason were by letter and these were quite blunt, he couldn’t understand why I had gone to the lengths I had gone to. I decided that when I was released from prison, I was not going to continue my marriage to Jason, I had had enough,” Kerrie Struhs wrote in a police witness statement in February 2022.
The desperate father reportedly spoke to a colleague about his family issues, and it was suggested that perhaps he could make things better by joining the church.
“Mr Struhs took that advice. He later told police he returned home and asked Zachary to help him and that Zachary said the only way to help him was to pray to God. They prayed together and Jason Struhs asked God for help. This seems to have been on 18 August 2021. The next morning, he said he awoke with a ‘calmness in [his] heart,’ and maintained God had ‘taken away [his] anger,’” Burns wrote.
On Aug. 21, 2021, Jason Struhs was baptized by Brendan Stevens in a tub in the presence of several members of the Church. Just over a week later, on Aug. 30, 2021, he received the Holy Spirit and spoke with tongues.
Once his wife was released on parole, the entire family became absorbed in the life of the Church.
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