Elizabeth Struhs death: Religious fanatics face sentencing over manslaughter
The deputy director of public prosecutions has called for a 15-year prison sentence for Jason and Kerrie Struhs after they were found guilty of their eight-year-old daughter’s manslaughter.
Police & Courts
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The crown prosecutor is seeking a 15-year prison sentence for the parents of Elizabeth Struhs after they were found guilty of the 8-year-old’s manslaughter.
Elizabeth Rose Struhs, 8, died at her Toowoomba home in November 2022 after her parents, Jason and Kerrie Struhs withdrew the lifesaving medication that had been used to treat her type 1 diabetes.
They and 12 other members of a hard line home-based church known as the Saints were found guilty of her manslaughter last month in Brisbane’s Supreme Court.
They are the group’s leader Brendan Stevens, 63, his wife Loretta, 67, and their children – Therese 37, Sebastian, 24, Camellia, 29, Andrea, 35, Alexander 26, and Acaci, 32, – married couple Samantha, 26, and Lachlan Schoenfisch, 34, and Keita Martin, 24, who lived with the Stevens family.
Elizabeth’s older brother Zachary, 22, was also found guilty of manslaughter.
Sentencing will be carried out by Justice Martin Burns who presided over the judge-alone trial where the 14 offenders were all self represented.
The sentence won’t be handed today Justice Burns said.
Deputy DPP Caroline Marco will today make submissions on the varying degrees of culpability among the offenders. The process is expected to be lengthy.
If this occurred Jason, Kerrie and Brendan would be made to serve 80 per cent of the sentence because a serious violent offence would be automatically triggered.
Ms Marco has singled out Kerrie and Jason as warranting the strongest penalty given they were Elizabeth’s parents, subject to orders at the time of the offence and had committed the same breach of duty previously.
She said in order of seriousness Brendan was next on the list.
“He’s not far behind,” Justice Burns interjected but acknowledged he didn’t hold a parental duty to care for Elizabeth.
Ms Marco said Brendan was the head of the congregation, the primary promulgator of the belief that god healed and pivotal in Jason’s decision to cease insulin for Elizabeth.
The rest of the offenders were roughly similar when it came to criminal responsibility with perhaps Brendan’s wife Loretta more culpable due to her role, the court heard.
The court heard a number of the Saints had been involved in several incidents since they had been taken into custody.
“Seeking to recruit other members has made them targets,” Ms Marco said.
However there had been no incidents since March 2023 the court heard.
An emotional Jayde Struhs has stared down the people who “shattered my family into a million pieces”.
“I’m not afraid to speak up anymore. I have a voice because I found my truth. I say this, I see you, and I see what you are, what you have done and what you have caused,” she said in victim impact statement that she read from the witness box.
“Your religious narrative cannot hide the unforgivable and irreversible impact you have made on my family. You took Elizabeth’s life. You had no right, and on judgment day, God will see you for what you truly are.
“Elizabeth Rose Struhs was an innocent child. She was my sister, and now she’s dead. She’s never coming back. She didn’t have an accident. It didn’t just happen. There was no great plan or destiny for her to die. She died because the people that were supposed to take care of her didn’t.
“She died because the people that loved her were indoctrinated and led astray.
“She didn’t have to die, and today, I want to see justice placed on those who are responsible for her death.
“And to my parents, you have a lot to answer for and a lot of accountability to take on. You were led astray off the righteous path.”
Jayde said her goal was keeping “Elizabeth’s memory alive” and appreciated the gift “of having the opportunity to save the rest of my siblings from the unsafe and dangerous community”
“That was for you Elizabeth,” she said.
Elizabeth’s aunty and uncle, Melissa and Adam Struhs, asked why the eight-year-old had to be “sacrificed”.
“Why couldn’t it have been one of the 14 people who were so determined to prove a point?” they said in a victim impact statement read to court by crown prosecutor Samuel Sherrie.
“How can any parent put their own self interest above the health and well being of their precious child?
“There is never going to be a reason good enough, an answer that will satisfy us, a sentence or punishment severe or long enough, and it certainly will never make up for Elizabeth’s unnecessary and preventable death.”
They said they saw the Saints as the cowards they are.
“We see them for who they are. We see them for what they have caused. We see them for what they have done. We don’t forgive them. We won’t forget what they have done. We don’t wish them peace. We see them for the cowards they are,” they said.
“We will never understand how they are at peace with themselves, knowing that they have taken the life of a child
“There will be nobody who will be there when they realise that they are wrong and they are only left with endless torment and guilt for the rest of their miserable lives.
“They can no longer hide between the religious narrative that killed Elizabeth.”
“The alternative for them isn’t very pleasant, because the moment they stop believing what they’ve been professing now for a long time, is the moment they realise what they actually did,” he said.
“In terms of personal deterrence, that operates on some level, but we have people here who obstinately refuse to accept there’s even a prospect that they might have been wrong, but general deterrence is a very prominent sentencing objective here, along with denunciation and community protection.”
Ms Marco said community protection also meant protecting members of the public, noting the Schoenfischs were drafted into the religious group.
She said the fact that some of the offenders first admitted encouraging Jason to withdraw insulin but then later denied “was not just deplorable, but in fact it hypocritical”.
Justice Burns said this denying of responsibility in the offenders’ closing addresses to the court may have been “part of the overall church narrative”.
“By the time the addresses were delivered, there seemed to be this general narrative about what we ever did was encourage Jason to believe in God. I’ve described that in the judgment … as fiction,” he said.
“Well whoever started that church narrative...” Ms Marco started
“Well that’s not hard to work out,” Justice Burns interrupted.
Elizabeth was a “vibrant happy child” whose mother Kerrie happened to be a member of a cult like group that believed in the healing power of god to the exclusion of all other medical remedies for illness.
In 2019 aged six Elizabeth became grossly unwell and was belatedly rushed to hospital minutes from death by her father Jason, who was not a member of the Saints or indeed in any way religious.
It was revealed at hospital that Elizabeth was a type 1 diabetic who needed insulin for life to prevent potentially fatal diabetic ketoacidosis which was the reason for her grave illness.
Both parents were prosecuted over their failure to provide Elizabeth timely medical treatment over that incident and Kerrie would later serve a number of months in jail for it in 2021.
Jason, 53, had avoided jail by giving evidence against Kerrie who he was mad at for apparently downplaying Elizabeth’s sickness at the time and he became fastidious in making sure his daughter received her daily insulin injections and monitored her blood sugar levels.
His dedication to ensuring Elizabeth was medicated lasted more than two years until Kerrie, 49, was sent to prison.
At this point after 17 years of staunch opposition to the Saints and his wife’s irregular religious beliefs Jason suddenly converted and was baptised by Brendan, a former Queensland cop, in late 2021. At the time his marriage had been on the rocks with Kerrie in prison and he was worried about losing his family.
Despite becoming a member of the Saints Jason initially held out stopping Elizabeth’s insulin, despite the group’s central belief in using the healing power of god rather than modern medicine.
Over the following months his wife and the other Saints pressured and encouraged him to test his faith in god and withdraw his daughter’s insulin.
Jason eventually succumbed to the pressure and completely stopped providing Elizabeth insulin on January 3 2022 just weeks after Kerrie was released on parole.
Over the following days little Elizabeth withered away while surrounded by the offenders until her body gave in and she died either on January 6 or7 due to diabetic ketoacidosis from lack of insulin.
The offenders continued to pray and sing over her body in an unhinged attempt to have their god make her rise from death. This continued until Jason finally called for an ambulance some 36 hours after Elizabeth had perished.
The offenders refused to enter pleas during the trial which they viewed as religious persecution and instead had pleas of guilty entered on their behalf.
Justice Burns found Jason and Brendan not guilty of murder. They were the only defendants charged with that offence at trial.
He found Elizabeth’s parents guilty of manslaughter on the basis they breached their legal duty to provide their daughter medical care and treatment necessary for her life and this failure amounted to criminal negligence. Justice Burns said their conduct involved “grave moral guilt and disregard for human life”.
Justice Burns found Brendan guilty of manslaughter on the basis he both procured and aided the killing of Elizabeth by intentionally and successfully persuading Jason to cease providing insulin as well as medical care and treatment to her and by intentionally encouraging and supporting him to continue to do so.
The remaining offenders were found guilty of manslaughter by intentionally encouraging Jason to cease providing insulin as well as medical care and treatment to Elizabeth and by intentionally supporting his choice to continue to do so.
The maximum sentence for manslaughter in Queensland is life imprisonment.
The offenders have again shunned legal representation, despite the importance of obtaining it being impressed upon them, and it’s unclear if they will make submissions as to their own sentences.
Ms Marco said the moral culpability of the Saints should not be reduced because of their honestly held religious beliefs because “they slowly watched her die”.
Ms Marco listed the reasons why Justice Burns wouldn’t find their moral culpability reduced as sentencing of the 14 offenders began.
They include she had been gravely ill in 2019, they saw similarities in her symptoms then and her illness in January 2022, that they knew doctors diagnosed her with diabetes and doctors believed she required insulin to live. Ms Marco said they knew she’d been taking insulin since diagnosed, they knew she had not fallen ill other than when insulin was withdrawn, they saw her unwell but didn’t get medical assistant and “they slowly watched her die … some even said they appreciated she might die”.
The offenders are all dressed casually in civilian clothes and have been placed in individual docks separated by glass. Jason was seen sitting with his arms and legs crossed.
Ms Marco will be making applications that each of the offenders be made subject to offender reporting orders under child protection legislation and that Justice Burns find each committed manslaughter with a circumstance of aggravation that it was a domestic violence offence.
She said Jason committed manslaughter while subject to a suspended sentence imposed for failing to provide Elizabeth the necessaries of life back in 2019.
Ms Marco asked Justice Burns to resentence him to six months jail which had been wholly suspended in 2021 after he gave evidence against his wife for the same offence. This is separate to the charge of manslaughter.
She asked it be imposed cumulatively to any sentence for manslaughter.
Ms Marco said it was the breach of the exact same duty that he had to care for Elizabeth.
“And a more grave breach … eight months into the order,” she said.
Kerrie committed the manslaughter while on parole for also failing to provide Elizabeth the necessaries which she received an 18 month sentence for.
Ms Marco asked that she be made to serve the remainder of the sentence, which according to law will have to be served cumulatively.
They are the only offenders who have criminal histories in Queensland and both have served 1130 days in pre sentence custody.
The rest have served 955 days so far.
Justice Burns has adjourned the hearing and is expected to hand down his sentences in the week beginning February 24
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