A coroner has broken down in tears after hearing from the sister of a little girl who died after her insulin was withheld by her religious fundamentalist parents.
Jayde Struhs gave an emotional statement on the final day of the inquest into her sister Elizabeth’s death in Brisbane on Thursday.
Elizabeth was aged eight when she died on January 7, 2022, at her family's home near Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.
Her parents, brother and 11 other members of an extremist church group, who called themselves "the Saints", gathered to pray around her as she lay dying.
Her father Jason Struhs had days earlier agreed to stop providing insulin for her type-1 diabetes in line with the Saints' ban on modern medicine, leading to ketoacidosis poisoning Elizabeth's blood and attacking her organs.
Jayde had many years earlier fled her parents' home, aged 16.
She said the first time she saw Elizabeth was when she was about four months old, sleeping soundly despite the noise of a birthday party happening around her.
The last time was when she stood over her coffin.
"Sadly we aren't able to pull from a lifetime of memories with Elizabeth - that is the brutal reality of family estrangement," she told coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard.
"Having Elizabeth in our lives was something we would have loved."
Jayde said that had Elizabeth lived to adulthood, she would have had the opportunity to reconnect with her and other memories of her family.
"She would have had the love and support of her aunties, uncles, cousins and both sets of grandparents," she said.
"She would have had everyone helping her manage her diabetes, her health and her learning."
Jayde spoke of a little girl who never got to experience things ordinary people enjoy.
"She would have learned about Christmas, and the joy of being spoiled rotten," she said.
"She would have gained independence in finding her voice as she grew into a headstrong teenager.
"And she would have learned to navigate the world she knew nothing about."
Ms Kirkegaard was left visibly and audibly emotional by the end of the statement.
Through tears, she thanked Jayde for her intimate memories of Elizabeth.
"I think everyone would agree that what you have done this morning is perhaps the hardest job of anyone in this room in the last two weeks," she said.
"It's an opportunity for us all to reflect that Elizabeth was and remains infinitely more than the events that have brought us here."
Elizabeth's parents are serving 14-year jail terms after they, along with Saints leader Brendan Stevens and 11 others, were found guilty of manslaughter in 2025.
The inquest heard from 30 witnesses over eight days of hearings.
Ms Kirkegaard heard there had been multiple earlier opportunities for officials to intervene, with Jayde triggering the family’s first contact with child protection services in 2013.
Jayde fled the family home a year later but remained in contact with her younger sister.
Elizabeth’s mother Kerrie Struhs was jailed in 2019 for child neglect when her daughter’s then undiagnosed diabetes left her “minutes from death”.
After her release on December 16, 2021, she told police, parole officers and child safety workers that she would do the same thing again, so convinced was she that God would heal her child.
Twenty-two days later, Elizabeth was dead.
The inquest has been adjourned to a date to be fixed for the delivery of the coroner's findings.
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