‘Took off like a jet plane’: Moment dad embraced cult-like faith before daughter’s death revealed in prison letters
The moment a father accused of murdering his diabetic daughter fully embraced his wife’s cult-like faith has been detailed in court.
A man on trial for the murder of his diabetic daughter “took off like a jet plane” after adopting the beliefs of his wife’s cult-like home church group, months before his child died.
The shocking detail, revealed in a letter sent to Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs on August 30, 2021, while she was in prison, was read out at Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday as the 14-man trial over the death of Elizabeth Struhs, 8, entered its 15th day.
The young girl was found dead at her family’s Rangeville home in Toowoomba in early 2022.
Ms Struhs and 11 others, including her eldest son Zachary Alan Struhs, 21, are charged with Elizabeth’s murder.
Elizabeth’s father Jason Richard Struhs and the leader of The Saints, Brendan Luke Stevens, 62, are charged with murder.
On Tuesday, a letter dated August 30, 2021, was shown to Brisbane Supreme Court where one of Mr Stevens’s children, Therese Maria Stevens, tells Ms Struhs how her husband received the “Holy Spirit” at their family home.
The court has already heard evidence Ms Struhs spent five months in jail for failing to supply her daughter with the necessaries of life back in 2019.
Jason had only been baptised into the group that same month.
In the letter, Ms Stevens describes the moment Ms Struhs’s husband began “sobbing and praying and laughing and shaking” and “taking off like a jet plane”.
“I thought it was a truck outside or something,” Ms Stevens says in her letter.
“But then those of us in the lounge room realised it must be Jason speaking in tongues.”
In her letter, Ms Stevens tells Ms Struhs: “We all just kept encouraging him (Jason) to pray and not give up. But we’re just hoping all the time he didn’t get despondent and give up after coming so far.”
The Crown contends Elizabeth’s parents and members of the group withheld her lifesaving insulin for several days in order for Jason to prove his new faith in God.
The girl’s condition worsened until she died between January 6-7, 2022 as a result of diabetic ketoacidosis.
Over the course of the mammoth trial the court has heard evidence of The Saints’ hard-line beliefs in the healing power of God over conventional medicine and medical intervention.
In other letters shown to the court on Tuesday, members of the Stevens family encourage Ms Struhs during her time in prison and speak of Jason’s baptism into The Saints.
Earlier in the trial, the court was told Loretta Mary Stevens – the wife of Brendan Stevens – and Therese attended Ms Struhs’s trial at Toowoomba District Court in 2021.
In one letter, Therese describes Ms Struhs’s trial as a “great pleasure to watch” while everyone was “working at home and praying”.
“And then, all of a sudden, off you go – and mum (Loretta) and I walked home by ourselves,” Therese’s letter reads.
“I look forward to seeing the healing of Elizabeth manifest … through Jason’s faith so that our God may be glorified greatly.
“After all, it is for that faith that you are in prison.”
Ms Struhs’s recorded interview with police was also played to the court on Monday. She describes being in the “last days”due to Covid-19 being put out by God for people to “turn to him”.
She explains she believes people are “so distracted by medical systems and other things in this world”.
“God is putting it (Covid-19) out there so people have that final opportunity to call out to God,” she tells officers in the recording.
“Because he wants everyone to turn back to him.”
Ms Struhs also delves into her 2021 conviction for failing to supply Elizabeth with the necessaries of life, after her child almost died back in 2019.
An officer is heard asking her to explain what that means “in her own words”.
“Well, apparently I failed to give her what the world says is the necessaries for a child,” Ms Struhs replies.
“Apparently you’ve got to take your child to the hospital when they’re sick – that’s what I get out of it.
“The necessaries a child needs in their life is love, comfort, good food and God.”
She goes on to say she believed she was providing Elizabeth with those necessities and she did not agree “at all” with what the court was saying.
The judge-alone trial continues.