Australian religious group members convicted over death of girl with diabetes
The eight-year-old’s father, mother and brother were also convicted over the girl’s death in Queensland.
Two bereaved parents and 12 fellow members of an Australian religious congregation have been found guilty of the manslaughter of an eight-year-old girl by withholding her diabetes medication.
Elizabeth Rose Struhs died on January 7 2022 at her family’s home in Toowoomba, Queensland state, after six days without her prescribed insulin jabs for type-1 diabetes.
Her father, Jason Richard Struhs, 53, and the leader of the family’s religious group The Saints, Brendan Luke Stevens, 63, had initially been charged with murder, but Queensland Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns found both guilty of Elizabeth’s manslaughter.
Justice Burns also found another 12 members of the congregation – including the victim’s mother, Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, and the girl’s brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 22 – guilty of manslaughter. No-one who was charged in connection with the death escaped conviction.
All 14 were remanded in custody to appear in court for sentencing on February 11. Each faces a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.
The victim’s adult sister, Jayde Struhs, told reporters outside the court that she welcomed the verdicts.
She said: “Although we had a good outcome today, I have to acknowledge the system failed to protect Elizabeth in the first place.
“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.”
In finding the father and religious leader not guilty of murder, Justice 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 realisation Elizabeth would probably die,” the judge said.
But he found the victim’s parents had shown an “egregious departure from the standard of care”, with the support and encouragement of the other defendants.
At the start of the trial last year, Stevens argued they held a reasonable belief that God would heal the child.
