Mum’s bombshell months before child’s death
Published By admin with Comments 0
A mum charged over the death of her diabetic daughter planned to leave her then-unbelieving husband in the months before her daughter was allegedly killed by her home-based church group, a court has heard.
Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs revealed the marital bombshell during a recorded police interview days after her eight-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, died in their family home in early 2022.
Ms Struhs, 49, and her 52-year-old husband Jason are currently on trial charged with the child’s manslaughter and murder, respectively.
In the days after her daughter’s death, Ms Struhs was arrested and interviewed by police at Toowoomba Police Station.
In the recorded interview she tells the officer she initially did not want to continue her 25-year marriage to Mr Struhs.
The court was told Mr Struhs did not share his wife’s faith-healing beliefs until August 2021 when he was baptised into the religious sect, known as The Saints.
Ms Struhs described her husband as a “very angry man” who gave herself and the family “a lot of grief” prior to his baptism.
“It wasn’t until I was sent to prison that he was at an all-time low,” Ms Struhs says in the interview.
“He asked my son to pray for him … (then) all anger left, he was at peace for the first time in his life.”
The Crown contends members of The Saints withheld Elizabeth’s insulin medication for several days, in line with their belief in the healing power of God over medicine.
Elizabeth’s condition worsened until she died from diabetic ketoacidosis between January 6-7, 2022 at her family’s Rangeville home.
Content retrieved from: https://au.news.yahoo.com/dad-36-hour-wait-girl-025131882.html.
