Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia · 2025

Elizabeth Struhs: 'The Saints' leader convicted of manslaughter for directing an 8-year-old's parents to stop her insulin

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

self-appointed leader of a home-based Christian sect ('The Saints') with authority over the victim's parents and household

Organization

The Saints

Spiritual nexus

Stevens led 'The Saints,' a home-based sect built around belief in the healing power of God and rejection of conventional medicine, which some members described as 'witchcraft.' The sentencing judge expressly found that Stevens' authority over the group — not merely Jason Struhs' authority as a parent — was the operative means of Elizabeth's death: Stevens 'procured and aided' the killing by directing and encouraging the father to withhold insulin, and the court held the leader and congregation members criminally liable alongside the parents rather than treating the church context as incidental.

  • Spiritual healing or treatment
  • Threatened spiritual consequence
  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2025-01-29 · trial — convicted (judge-only trial)

    Supreme Court of Queensland. Justice Martin Burns found Brendan Luke Stevens — leader of the home-based Christian group 'The Saints' — and the child's father Jason Struhs guilty of manslaughter, along with 12 other congregation members including the child's mother and brother, in the January 2022 death of 8-year-old Elizabeth Struhs from six days without prescribed insulin for type-1 diabetes. All 14 defendants were convicted; Stevens and Jason Struhs were acquitted of the more serious charge of murder.

  2. 2025-02-26 · sentencing

    Supreme Court of Queensland. Justice Burns sentenced Stevens to 13 years' imprisonment, describing him as 'a dangerous, highly manipulative individual' who 'procured and aided' the killing by encouraging Jason Struhs to stop providing his daughter's insulin. Other members received lengthy custodial sentences.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • doctrinal refusal of medical care
  • leader's direct instruction to a parent to withhold prescribed treatment

Primary record

Sources

national press news report "14 religious sect members convicted over diabetic girl's death in Australia," CBS News, January 29, 2025.

Reports the judge-only trial verdict convicting all 14 defendants, including leader Brendan Stevens, of manslaughter.

national press news report "Australian sect members who believed God would save dying 8-year-old sentenced," CNN, February 26, 2025.

Reports Stevens' 13-year sentence and the sentencing judge's finding that he 'procured and aided' the killing by directing the father to withhold insulin.

Related record

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