Religion, medicine and the case of Elizabeth Struhs: are 14 people responsible for an 8-year-old’s death? | Queensland

The camera was turned on about 36 hours after Elizabeth Struhs, 8, was found dead.

The resulting video, played in court this week, shows Therese Stevens standing outside an ordinary Toowoomba house on 8 January 2022, while the child’s body was inside, still on top of a mattress.

It shows her telling Sen Const James Dolley, one of the first Queensland police officers on the scene, about her religious beliefs.

“We are Christians so we believe that God raises people from the dead,” she says.

“No one said ‘She’s dead’. It was more like ‘She sleeps now’, because we believe that it is only sleep.

“And at some point God will rise her again in this lifetime because that’s a promise.”

This week, the police footage from body-worn cameras was shown in the supreme court in Brisbane. The court heard that there was singing in the background, and that a guitar was also heard as about 20 people gathered.

The prosecution argues a Toowoomba religious group, known as the Saints, chose to pray for the young girl as she slowly died of diabetic ketoacidosis over the course of about six days, rather than giving her insulin for her type 1 diabetes.

Wearing a drab olive prison uniform and with a long beard, Brendan Stevens, the leader of the religious sect, told Queensland supreme court this week that “the Bible is filled with Jesus Christ working miracles, including raising the dead”.

“We are within our rights to believe in the word of God completely as we do.”

On Friday, he told the court the case wasn’t really about the murder of a child but about religious persecution.

All 14 adult members of the group are on trial. Two, Stevens, and Elizabeth’s father, Jason Struhs, are accused of her murder by reckless indifference. The others, including her brother Zachary, are charged with manslaughter.

The group has turned down offers of legal representationand refused to enter a plea on the first day of the trial. However a plea of not guilty was entered, on the orders of Justice Martin Burns.

Stevens had told the court the group had “no intention of fighting” the case using law, as “it is reasonable to believe in God. The prosecution has suggested it is not reasonable”. That is why they had refused legal representation and had not applied for bail, the court heard.

“We don’t have any particular care amongst ourselves what the judgment is, we don’t come to fight the charge,” he told the court.

‘Extreme’ beliefs

In the first week of the trial, crown prosecutor Caroline Marco laid out a timeline of the events leading up to Elizabeth’s death, and outlined what she said were the “extreme” religious beliefs of the Saints that caused them to reject medicine, and even the wearing of eye glasses.

Marco said the family ought to have known Elizabeth would probably die without treatment, partly because she was previously severely ill in 2019.

At that time, her father, Jason Struhs, carried her body into the emergency room at Toowoomba hospital and staff initially thought she was dead, the court heard.

She was discharged from hospital a month later and put on a treatment plan, which Jason helped her carry out. The girl received an average of five to eight doses of insulin a day, but never complained, the court heard.

But Marco said Jason was “manipulated”, first to join the church, and then to reject medicine entirely.

He was initially resistant, the court heard. Marco said his wife threatened to divorce him and others urged him to change his mind.

He was baptised in a ceremony where he spoke in tongues. But in November 2021 he sent a message to wife Kerrie to say that insulin was “my biggest hurdle”.

“Just don’t think about it, just expect … expect the right thing to happen,” she responded, the court heard.

Kerrie, who had been jailed over the 2019 incident, was released from prison on 15 December 2021. The court heard that she told government officials she wouldn’t act differently than she did in 2019, but that her husband would. “She’ll continue to receive what you believe she needs [insulin],” she allegedly said.

Kerrie was to due to report to parole the week Elizabeth died, but rescheduled it, claiming she was unwell, Marco said.

“I thought there was a possibility that God could take things to the extreme, meaning to death but I didn’t dwell on this for too long because I believed that God would heal her,” Kerrie later told police, according to Marco.

“I thought maybe this is what God planned so everyone gets to see his power.”

‘God’s plan’

The court heard Elizabeth was taken off part of her insulin on 1 January 2022, with the medication withdrawn entirely two days later.

Marco told the court the girl spent her final days in pain. She initially started vomiting after meals and was lethargic. Then she fell into a state of altered consciousness. She was put on a mattress so members of the church could help her to the toilet.

As her condition deteriorated, Jason allegedly told others he was struggling with the situation.

“We’ve got to see this victory,” one member said in a message, the court heard.

Marco said that on 6 January, Elizabeth stopped vomiting and talking, and she spent most of that day unconscious.

She was dead by the following morning.

The court heard her father woke that morning at 5.30am to the sound of happy and loud praying, and initially thought she had miraculously recovered.

But the next day, he called triple zero. Even though God will raise her again, “we couldn’t leave a corpse in the house”, he allegedly said, the court heard.

Marco said Brendan Stevens later told police: “It is better to allow God’s plan to come to fruition than to intervene even if the consequence of not intervening is death”.

Murder charges

On Friday, the court was shown photos taken around the house by forensic police officer Rachel Doljanin.

A whiteboard read: “She is only sleeping”.

Another photo depicted three full containers of NovoRapid Penfill, used to treat diabetes. They were stored in a fridge metres from where Elizabeth died.

One photograph showed an A4 sheet of paper bearing several slogans, including “I am healed of diabetes” and “I trust God”.

Another photo depicted her dead body lying face up on a mattress. She was wearing a striped black and white shirt pulled up to show her darkened skin, and black short pants.

Jason Richard Struhs and Brendan Luke Stevens have been charged with murder, with Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, Zachary Alan Struhs, Loretta Mary Stevens, Therese Maria Stevens, Andrea Louise Stevens, Acacia Naree Stevens, Camellia Claire Stevens, Alexander Francis Stevens, Sebastian James Stevens, Keita Courtney Martin, Lachlan Stuart Shoenfisch and Samantha Emily Schoenfish charged with manslaughter.

The trial continues.