An Australian cult member has been jailed for nine years for beating her daughter to death. Ellen Rachel Craig pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges and admitted she killed the two-year-old because she was unhappy about how the child was sweeping a garden path. Enraged, she took plastic tubing and beat the toddler until she lost consciousness. The murder took place in 1987 at the headquarters of the Family or the Community of Eden cult in Australia, but Craig fled to her native New Zealand to avoid law enforcement and lied about the child’s death until she was extradited to Australia in 2021 to face justice.
Sentencing Craig, Justice Natalie Adams said the toddler “died at the hands of someone who was meant to protect her.” The killer had written a letter to the court apologizing for her actions, saying they were “horrible, terrible, horrific.” The Judge acknowledged her remorse and her history of mental health problems and drug addiction. She will be held in protective custody throughout her prison sentence, which she said she welcomed. Craig told her psychiatrist that prison life was suitable for her.
Media reports from Australia explain that on the day of the little girl’s death, her mother called on another cult member for help when she realized the child was not breathing. The two women undressed the girl and left her in a bathtub while they prayed for more than half an hour. They did not seek medical help or call emergency services to help the child. They later put the two-year-old’s body in a metal drum and set her alight before throwing the barrel into a nearby river – it has never been found.
In 1987, she left Australia for New Zealand, where she lived under aliases for 37 years until her arrest. “I will never forgive myself for what I have done,” she said.
The child’s father, Gerard Stanhope, searched for his daughter for years and did not know she had died until Craig finally faced justice in 2021. He told reporters he woke up every day hoping to find his child and went to bed “devastated” that he was unable to do so.
