Eight-year-old Elizabeth Rose Struhs died on January 7, 2022 at her family's home near Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, after her parents, brother and 11 other members of "the Saints" church group gathered to pray around her. The tragedy has prompted uncomfortable questions about institutional decision-making and how authorities weigh risk when families hold extreme religious beliefs.
Her father, Jason Richard Struhs, had stopped administering insulin shots for her type-1 diabetes. What makes this case particularly troubling is the sequence of events: The Struhs family and their religious beliefs that forbid all modern medical treatments had been known to child protection authorities since 2013. In other words, the system was already aware of the risk.
In July 2019, Elizabeth had come to the attention of authorities in a crisis situation. The stage was set for Elizabeth's tragic fate when she was rushed to hospital "minutes from death" by her father in 2019, with her then-undiagnosed diabetes. At that point, the warning signs should have been unmistakable. Yet within months, both parents were back in the community with no meaningful change to their supervision.
The critical failure came later. After Jason Richard Struhs and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs were sentenced to six months and 18 months in jail respectively for that incident. Jason, who expressed remorse, served no actual time behind bars. Kerrie was released after only five months but remained on parole. When her mother returned home in December 2021, the trajectory was set for tragedy. His wife returned home on 16 December, 2021 and he stopped giving Elizabeth her rapid-acting insulin on New Year's Day, later ceasing her remaining slow-release doses. She died six days later while lying on a mattress in the Toowoomba family home's living room.
What is most damaging to public confidence in the system is this: authorities were not blindsided. "The decision to return Elizabeth to the family home was in the face of strongly expressed opposition from the child protection and forensic medical service," according to counsel assisting the coroner. A medical expert had emailed at the time: "Elizabeth cannot be safely cared for in a home where her mother resides due to the strong beliefs that she has expressed." Those were not equivocal warnings. They were clear and specific.
The case presents a genuine tension in child protection policy. Authorities must balance family preservation with child safety. They must respect religious freedom while also protecting vulnerable people. These principles sometimes conflict. But in Elizabeth's case, the conflict appears to have been resolved in favour of a parent's freedom to return home, even when experts had explicitly warned against it.
The inquest will look at the adequacy and appropriateness of decisions by multiple Queensland government agencies in their handling of Elizabeth and her parents. What the inquiry will need to establish is whether the decision-making followed proper protocols, whether the warnings from medical experts were given appropriate weight, and whether the system had the safeguards needed to prevent this outcome.
After more than three years, her father Jason Richard Struhs, 53, and mother Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, received 14-year jail terms at Brisbane Supreme Court. They were sentenced for manslaughter along with 12 other group members, including Saints leader Brendan Stevens, 63, who received 13 years. The criminal system has responded. The institutional accountability question remains open.