It took Jason Struhs 36 hours to call the ambulance after the death of his daughter Elizabeth.
When the police followed shortly afterwards, they heard singing. The Saints, a religious sect in Queensland, that has been likened to a cult, were praying for the eight-year-old to be resurrected.
“I’m not jumping up and down in joy, but I’m at peace …” Jason told a police officer that day. “I gave my little girl what she wanted. And I expect God to look after her.”
Justice Martin Burns on Wednesday found Jason Struhs, and religious leader Brendan Stevens, along with Elizabeth’s mother, Kerrie, brother Zachary, and 10 other members of the group, guilty of her manslaughter.
Elizabeth Struhs died at her family home in Rangeville, Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, on 6 or 7 January 2022, of diabetic ketoacidosis.
Jason told police: “There were no feelings of oh well, that didn’t work.”
“I have to be patient. I have to keep praying. I didn’t sit there and think that I had killed my daughter, I was thinking that she was in a better place now,” he said.
‘These are the end days’
Throughout the nine-week trial last year, the court heard hours of interviews with the Saints filmed by police, at the scene and in the days afterwards.
Recently released to the media, they give an insight into their beliefs.
Elizabeth’s mother, Kerrie Struhs, believed so strongly in the Saints’ faith she had been previously jailed for not providing her daughter the necessaries of life in 2019, when Elizabeth became sick for the first time.
Jason took her to the hospital in a coma over Kerrie’s objections. She told the police she wasn’t grateful to the medical staff for saving her life.
“What do you think might have happened if she wasn’t taken to hospital the first time?” she 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 Elizabeth was returned to the family with no lasting medical problems, she took it as proof of a miracle. She never attended hospital to see her daughter’s treatment.
A month after Kerrie was released from jail, Elizabeth was taken off her insulin after two-and-a-half healthy years and became sick again – but her mother told police she never had any doubts.
She told them she was surprised God was taking the situation “to the extreme … as in, to death”, but saw it as part of his plan for the “last days”.
If Elizabeth had died and was brought back in front of paramedics, more people would see the miracle, she said.
“These are end days. I see this as simply God is needing to show people, give people a chance to see that God is still here. And we are the ones that will declare it faithfully,” she told police.
“Given Elizabeth’s age, do you think that as a parent of Elizabeth, it is a part of your responsibility to make a decision to keep her alive?” police asked, days later.
“God is the one that brings life and death,” she responded. “So why should I get in his way of whatever happens next?”
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‘There was never any doubt’
For 17 years, his wife and many of his children attended the small home-based church service multiple times a week, but Jason Struhs didn’t believe in God at all.
For years he helped her administer insulin four times a day, take her to doctors, prepare specific meals and check her sugar levels.
It caused tension in the household, he told police – which only got worse when Kerrie was jailed after he testified against her.
“I wasn’t in a good place, it was really hard. I was lonely,” he said in his recorded police statement.
“And I struggled to deal with it all and no one to help and no one to talk to because I was the only one in the family who had not turned to God.”
After a verbal fight with his son Zachary and counselling by the other Saints, Jason converted in August 2021.
“The next four months after turning to God had been the best four months of my life, because I had peace. I now had family who loved me,” he said in his police statement.
“I had a wife who loved me even though she was in jail. She had really loved me for the first time in 25 years.”
“I have no doubt Mr Struhs joined the Church out of fear he would lose his family if he did not,” justice Burns found.
On 1 January, Jason started to take Elizabeth off her medication. It was what she wanted, he told police.
On Monday 3 January, she was entirely off her medication. She stopped eating, and then she couldn’t take herself to the toilet. By Thursday she had stopped talking.
By Friday 7 January, she was dead.
The Saints prayed and sang as a group. Finally, on 8 January, Jason called the paramedics.
“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 8 January, Jason 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.”
Burns will sentence all 14 on 11 February.
Article by:Source: Andrew Messenger
