Christian sect members who watched 8-year-old die get lengthy prison sentences
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The parents of an 8-year-old girl who died after they withheld her insulin, encouraged by members of a small Christian sect who believed God would save her, have been sentenced to at least 14 years in prison.
Elizabeth Struhs died in January 2022 on a mattress on the floor of her home in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, days after her father Jason Struhs, 53, declared that she no longer needed medication for Type 1 diabetes.
Her mother, Kerrie Struhs, 49, encouraged Elizabeth’s father to withhold her insulin, as did 12 other members of a Bible-based sect known as “The Saints,” who were last month found guilty of manslaughter in a judge-only trial.
In a sentencing hearing Wednesday, Queensland Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns sentenced sect leader Brendan Stevens, 63, to 13 years in prison, describing him as “a dangerous, highly manipulative individual.”
Eleven other members of the sect, who sang and prayed while Elizabeth died, were sentenced to between six and nine years in prison.
“Elizabeth suffered a slow and painful death and you are all, in one way or another, responsible,” Justice Burns wrote in his sentencing remarks.
It’s not the first time Jason and Kerrie Struhs have been prosecuted for failing to give Elizabeth medical care.
In 2019, Elizabeth, then 6, was hospitalized for a month after becoming gravely ill from undiagnosed and untreated diabetes. At the time, her father rejected the sect’s insistence that God would heal her and eventually took his daughter to hospital.
That time, Jason Struhs pleaded guilty to “failing to provide the necessaries of life to Elizabeth” and was given a suspended sentence after testifying against his wife. Kerrie Struhs pleaded not guilty and was given an 18-month sentence.
What happened next all but sealed Elizabeth’s fate.
While Kerrie Struhs was in prison, her husband’s 17-year opposition to the sect crumbled, the trial heard, and he became “baptized” as its newest member.
Elizabeth died just three weeks after her mother was released from prison on parole, telling her parole officer that she’d withhold her daughter’s treatment again, if given the choice. She also said she wouldn’t intervene if anyone tried to help Elizabeth – but no one did.
The couple at the center of the case had a long and often combative relationship.
Jason Struhs told police that his wife wasn’t very religious during the first few years of their marriage, but that changed when she met sect leader Brendan Stevens and his wife Loretta in 2004.
As Kerrie Struhs grew closer to the Stevens family, she began to reject medical treatment. Jason Struhs remained a staunch non-believer, who insisted that their eight children be vaccinated.
The couple’s conflicting beliefs caused friction in the household, and for a time Jason moved to the garage to “escape the tension.” He worked night shifts and preferred to stay away from the house, either working or playing golf, he told police, according to court documents.
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