Religious sect members accused of child’s death by prayer to learn fate

A verdict will today be delivered for 14 charged over the death of Elizabeth Struhs, aged just 8, who died after being deprived of insulin, while her parents and their friends prayed over her body.

Elizabeth Rose Struhs

In a brick home on a leafy Toowoomba street a bizarre ritual was playing out.

A young girl lay dead on a mattress starved for days of the life saving insulin her withered body so badly needed.

Surrounding her were her parents and their friends – all members of a fringe Christian sect that believed in divine or miraculous healing – that is the power of god to mend physical illness and incurable disease.

COMING TODAY: We will have live coverage as the judge delivers his verdict in the Elizabeth Struhs murder trial, expected to start around 11.30am. The explosive documentary Failing Elizabeth: Her Heartbreaking Last Days will be released the moment a verdict is handed down. Watch it here in the player above.

They were praying and singing for eight year old Elizabeth’s Struhs literal resurrection.

About 36 hours after Elizabeth predictably failed to rise her father Jason Struhs called triple-zero to report his daughter had died in her sleep.

Police outside the home where Elizabeth Struhs was found dead.

“I just want to confirm she is definitely beyond any help, is that right?” the puzzled operator asked.

“No, there is no helping her,” Mr Struhs responded.

But the Crown argues Elizabeth could and should have been helped.

To believe in a god who heals the sick and raises the dead is one thing.

To put that belief into practice at the expense of an eight year old’s life is criminal according to Crown prosecutors who have spent more than two years prosecuting 14 members of the so called Saints religious group. Their trial began on July 10.

Jason, 52, and the religious group’s alleged leader Brendan Luke Stevens, 62, are accused of murder by reckless indifference. The trial was the first in Queensland to involve murder by this mental element.

Elizabeth’s parents, Jason Richard Struhs and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs.

Elizabeth’s mother Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, and brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 21, are charged with manslaughter along with 10 others from the Stevens and Schoenfisch families.

They are Brenden’s wife Loretta Mary Stevens, 67, and their six children Therese Maria Stevens, 36, Andrea Louise Stevens, 34, Acacia Naree Stevens, 31, Camellia Claire Stevens, 28, Alexander Francis Stevens, 25, Sebastian James Stevens, 23, and married couple Lachlan Stuart Schoenfisch, 33, and Samantha Emily Schoenfisch, 25. Keita Courtney Martin, 22, considered an “adopted” member of the Stevens’ family is also charged with manslaughter.

The Crown alleged Elizabeth Rose Struhs, a sufferer of incurable diabetes type 1, died in her family’s Toowoomba home in January 2022 after her parents, Jason and Kerrie Struhs, allegedly took her off lifesaving insulin used to treat her diabetes, in an attempt to “prove their faith” in God’s healing powers.

It alleged Jason, who after 17 years of staunch opposition to the Saints and his wife’s participation in the group finally joined them in August 2021, was “manipulated” and pressured by Kerrie and other congregation members.

“Mr Jason Struh’s resistance is why each of the other defendants united in a mission to persuade him to adhere to all aspects of their faith, including the fundamental tenet that god heals and by the sustained pressure that they’ve placed upon him to conform they succeeded in managing to convince him not to administer or require Elizabeth Struhs to take insulin and not to obtain medical care or treatment for her consistent with the extreme beliefs of their faith,” Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco alleged in her opening statement.

Elizabeth Rose Struhs died aged just eight-years-old.

For the defendants, who each day arrived in Brisbane’s Supreme Court in their prison tracksuits in high spirits- often chatting, giggling, waving and giving the thumbs up – this case was about religious persecution.

In his opening statement Brendan, who had a short stint as a Queensland police officer, said the bible was filled with Jesus working miracles, including raising people from the dead.

“The perspective we would like to present is that this isn’t really a trial about the murder of a child at all, it is religious persecution,” he said.

“We are happy to suffer the persecution that comes to us … we don’t fight that.”

As he spoke other members of the Saints smiled and nodded and the occasional “hmmm” was heard in agreement.

None of the defendants, who were self-represented, pleaded when arraigned so Justice Martin Burns, who presided over the judge-alone trial, entered pleas of not guilty on their behalf

Cross-examination of witnesses by the defendants was sparing and often strayed into esoteric theological areas when it did occur.

“So you’ve never spoken in tongues,” Lachlan Schoenfisch queried of Jason’s old boss Brendan O’Donnell, a witness, during the trial.

“Yes I have,” Mr O’Donnell replied.

“But you don’t consider that to be an actual part of essential to salvation,” Lachlan asked.

“No” the witness confirmed.

“Right,” Lachlan said.

Much of what we know about the Saints and what happened to Elizabeth has come from police interviews with the defendants, recorded prison phone calls when Kerrie was incarcerated in July 2021 and text messages revealed in court over several weeks.

It’s alleged Jason, who was generally in charge of Elizabeth’s medication regime, stopped administering her insulin all together on January 3 2022.

The home where Elizabeth’s body was found.

Over the coming days each of the defendants came and went from the Struhs household.

No one sought medical attention for the girl.

Elizabeth vomited after each meal on January 4, which continued the following day as she descended into a state of altered consciousness, slurring her words and needing help to go to the toilet, the court heard.

By January 6 she stopped talking and was unconscious for most of the day, Ms Marco told the court.

In her father’s words she was “slowly slipping away”.

That night the dying girl was left in the care of Acacia, Camellia and Sebastian Stevens when her parents went to bed, the court was told.

Around 5.30am on January 7 Jason woke to those three allegedly “praying happily and loudly”.

“Mr Struhs ran downstairs as he thought it was a sign that his daughter had been healed and started praying with them,” Ms Marco said.

The reality was Elizabeth was dead.

Starved of sufficient insulin to convert glucose into energy her little body was forced to look for other sources leading to complications in a process called diabetic ketoacidosis, the court heard.

Jason told police everyone continued to pray for Elizabeth to rise again until he called triple 0 about 5pm the following day as “we couldn’t leave her body sitting there forever.”

On arrival emergency services personnel told the court of hearing singing emanating from the Struhs’ home. Alexander Stevens would later tell the court that to suggest this signalled indifference or happiness at Elizabeth’s passing was “offensive and insensitive in the extreme”.

Inside the home a hanging whiteboard message read: “Elizabeth is healed, amen, she is only sleeping.”

On the trial’s last day on September 9 Jason repeated the message claiming his daughter was “only sleeping” and he would see her again.

Such a statement of faith would have shocked those who knew the golf loving baker before his embrace of the hard line Christianity preached by the Saints.

An irreligious man until his baptism in a backyard tub by Brendan Stevens some four months before Elizabeth’s death, Jason’s conversion was quick, total and the result of sustained pressure by his co-accused according to the Crown. Judging by his closing comments at the trial he remains committed to the Saints’ belief.

After almost two decades of resisting his wife’s religious ways, and harbouring a hatred for the Stevens’ family, Jason’s conversion came in the crucible of a disintegrating family unit including Kerrie’s incarceration for failing to provide the necessaries of life in 2019 after Elizabeth became grossly unwell.

The house where Jason Richard Struhs and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs practiced their faith.

His embrace of the Saints devout branch of Christianity meant adopting the group’s fundamental tenets which included rejecting medicine in favour of God’s healing power, according to the Crown.

But while he had started speaking in tongues Jason was at first resistant to taking Elizabeth of insulin.

This was in part due to everything the family had been through the last time Elizabeth’s health had been placed in the hands of God by Kerrie.

In July 2019 the six year old became progressively sicker until Jason, against the wishes of his wife, rushed her to hospital “minutes from death”, the court heard.

It was there at Toowoomba base hospital that the child was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes which having gone untreated had caused diabetic ketoacidosis – a tragic foreshadowing of what would play out in January 2022.

Elizabeth recovered thanks to a now daily usage of insulin – a fact seemingly overlooked by the Saints who believed the normal resumption of her health was thanks to the healing power of god.

Kerrie ultimately spent five months in jail after she was found guilty at a trial of failing to provide the necessaries of life to her daughter and was released on parole just weeks before Elizabeth’s death.

Even after finding religion Jason recalled the cursed past years the family had been through when the issue of taking Elizabeth off insulin came up.

But some months later Jason announced to the Saints hat he was going to take Elizabeth off the medication, the court heard.

The Crown allege this was after pressure from his co accused. They also allege that when Jason had doubts in the days after taking Elizabeth off insulin the Saints rallied around him to reinforce the decision.

The defendants vigorously denied this stating they only encouraged Jason to believe in god.

And although many of the defendants have said they would not do anything differently, including not getting medical help, they did not believe they had been involved in the alleged murder or manslaughter of Elizabeth.

Brendan said they instead had left Elizabeth’s fate in god’s hands.

The fate of the accused now rests in the temporal authority of Justice Burns who today is delivering his verdict.