In Australia, Ellen Rachel Craig has been sentenced to nine years in prison for the manslaughter of her two-year-old daughter, Tillie Craig.
The child’s death occurred in 1987 on a Ministry of God farm in New South Wales, where Tillie was killed by her mother using a plastic pipe after being deemed to have inadequately completed her chores.
The case remained unsolved for decades until a police tip-off in 2022 led to Craig’s arrest.
During her sentencing on Wednesday, Justice Natalie Adams noted that while Craig did not intend to inflict serious harm, describing Tillie’s death as a tragedy was “a gross understatement.”
The court was informed that children at the commune were forced to perform chores and faced harsh discipline with a black pipe. On July 7, 1987, Craig, then 25, beat Tillie to death and later reported that her daughter had stopped breathing.
Craig placed Tillie’s body in a bathtub and awaited the return of the sect leader, Alexander Wilon, also known as “Papa,” who prayed for Tillie’s resurrection.
Wilon is accused of cremating Tillie’s remains and scattering the ashes while forbidding cult members from discussing the incident.
He faced charges as an accessory to the murder and separate sexual assault allegations but has since been deemed unfit for trial due to illness.
After being expelled from the cult in late 1987, Craig relocated to New Zealand, living under various aliases until her extradition in 2021.
In a letter read in court, Craig expressed remorse, stating, “My actions were horrible, terrible, horrific,” and expressing a desire for justice for her daughter.
Tillie’s father, Gerard Stanhope, who had been searching for his daughter for years, learned of her death only after Craig’s arrest.
He said in a victim impact statement, “I spent years… waking up every day with the hope in my heart that I would find her, and going to bed devastated that I was unable to do so. I didn’t find out until more than 30 years later that my daughter was already gone.”
Craig will be eligible for parole in November 2027, after serving six years of her sentence.
Source-BBC
