Australian prayer cult killed a little girl by relying on magic instead of medicine
Using prayer before medical intervention should lead to child removal in Canada
Fourteen members of a Christian cult will be sentenced next week after they were found guilty of manslaughter for watching an eight-year-old girl with Type 1 diabetes die because they stopped giving her insulin.
Instead of seeking treatment for the little girl, they prayed. They did nothing.
“All things are possible,” members of the group could be heard singing in a recording from police body cameras as members of the family were interviewed more than 36 hours after young Elizabeth Struhs died of diabetic ketoacidosis at her family home in Rangeville, Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, on Jan. 7 2022.
It took her father Jason Struhs so long to call for the ambulance because the small religious sect calling themselves The Saints were praying for her to be resurrected.
It didn't happen.
“I’m not jumping up and down in joy, but I’m at peace” Jason told a police officer that day, as reported in The Guardian. “I gave my little girl what she wanted. And I expect God to look after her.”
On Jan. 29, 2025, a judge found Jason Struhs, mother Kerrie Struhs, religious leader Brendan Stevens and 11 other members of the group, including Elizabeth's brother Zachary, guilty of manslaughter.
Through a nine-week trial that the Saints didn't participate in, the court heard hours of interviews with the prayer cultists who do not believe in medicine.
Elizabeth was hospitalized in 2019 before her father Jason started believing in the cult's nonsense. She was in a coma and Jason brought her to the hospital against Kerrie's wishes.
Kerrie was jailed for that. When the girl returned to the family she had no lasting medical problems, therefore, Kerrie took it as proof of a miracle.
‘These are the end days’
“What do you think might have happened if she wasn’t taken to hospital the first time?” Kerrie was asked by police, days after Elizabeth’s death.
“I believe she would have got better and didn’t need any medical assistance at all,” she replied.
When Kerrie was released from jail, after two-and-a-half healthy years on insulin, Elizabeth was taken off the life-saving drug again. The little girl got sick again.
Kerrie said she was surprised God took the situation “to the extreme … as in, to death.” But no mind, it's all part of his plan for the “last days.”
Police asked Kerrie if she thought it was part of her responsibility, given Elizabeth’s age, to make a decision to keep her alive.
“God is the one that brings life and death,” she responded. “So why should I get in his way of whatever happens next?”
On Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022, Jason started to take Elizabeth off the medication, which he said was what the eight-year-old girl wanted. Two days later on Monday, she was entirely off her medication, she had stopped eating and couldn’t take herself to the bathroom. By Thursday, she stopped talking. By Friday she was dead.
The cult then did nothing for more than a day. They sang and prayed and waited for her resurrection, which they knew was going to come, and still is, apparently. Approximately 36 hours later, Jason called the ambulance but not for medical help, just for housekeeping.
“I said to everyone that even though God will raise Elizabeth, we couldn’t leave a corpse in the house, we couldn’t leave her body sitting there forever,” Jason said.
On Jan. 8, he told police his faith was stronger than ever.
“I am fully at peace at heart. I don’t feel sorry, I feel happy because now she’s at peace and so am I … she’s not dependent on me for her life now. I’m not trapped by diabetes as well.”
All 14 members of the cult will be sentenced on Feb. 11, 2025.
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Paul J. Henderson
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