Two bereaved parents and 12 fellow members of the edge of the Australian religious community charged with killing an 8-year-old girl by denying a diabetes medicinal drug on Wednesday for murder.
Elizabeth Rose Struhs died on January 7, 2022. At the house of her family in Toowoomba, Queensland, after six days without prescribed insulin shots for type 1 diabetes.
The Congregation prayed and sang for the girl whose health worsened as she lay on the mattress in her home, BBC reported.
Her father, Jason Richard Struhs, 53, and leader of a family religious group called “Saints”, Brendan Luke Stevens, 63, has been charged with a more serious crime of murder, but the justice of the Supreme Court in Queensland, Martin Burns, has declared her murder.
Burns also found 12 more members of the Congregation, including the mother of the victim, Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, and the victim of the annoyance of Zachary Alan Struhs, 22, guilt for the murder. No one accused the refugee conviction.
All 14 remained in custody that he appeared in court for a penalty on February 11th. Each faces a potential maximum punishment of life in prison.
The adult sister of the victims, Jayde Struhs, told reporters outside the court that she had greeted the verdicts.
“Although we had a good outcome today, I have to admit that the system did not protect Elizabeth at all,” Jayde Struhs said.
Russell Freeman / AP
“We are here today just because it is no longer done before we protect it or remove it from a credible uncertain situation in our own home,” she added.
Revealing that the father and religious leader were not guilty of murder, Burns said that the prosecution failed to prove that they had shown reckless indifference to life.
“There was a reasonable opportunity to be in the closed atmosphere of the church that wrapped electricity … that he (father) never came to complete knowledge, Elizabeth will probably die,” Burns said.
But the judge found that the parents of the victim had shown a “awful deviation from the standard of care” with the support and encouragement of other defendants.
“It cannot be suspected that Elizabeth has been lovingly worried in almost every way,” the judge said, according to the BBC. “However, because of the unique belief in the healing power of God … she was deprived of the only things that would definitely keep her alive.”
Speaking on behalf of all accused in the introductory statements of the trial, Stevens claimed that they were reasonable to be a belief that God would cure a child. The defendants all represented themselves and each spoke on their own behalf during the final statements.
Burns urged them to get lawyers before being convicted.
Saints are not associated with a established church in Australia and have about two dozen members from three families, According to the BBC.
Toowoomba has long had a “colorful series of sectasic Christian groups and independent churches of various species,” said Bernard Doherty, who studies new religious movements for the BBC.
“The saints seem to be one of these small independent churches that form about a few families,” he told the BBC, adding that little community is known about the community.
