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A cult leader was given a nine-year sentence in jail for beating her two-year-old daughter to death because she failed to properly complete her tasks in Australia.
Tillie Craig disappeared from the Ministry of God plantation in 1987, sparking a decades-long research by her father, who was told she’d been adopted.
In fact, Tillie had been killed with a polymer tube. The sect’s leader allegedly burned her remains before being scattered at the village in regional New South Wales ( NSW).
Ellen Rachel Craig, 62, was charged with her daughter’s murder in 2022 after a tip-off to authorities. She eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser cost of murder.
Justice Natalie Adams acknowledged that Craig had not intended to harm Tillie when sentencing him on Wednesday, but that calling her death a tragedy had be” a total insult.”
She told the NSW Supreme Court,” She died at the hands of someone whose part it was to shield her.”
According to the agreement read in court, all kids at the village were slapped with black hose for doing errands, regardless of their age.
On 7 July, 1987, Tillie had been sweeping when her mommy- “unhappy” with the quality of the work- beat her to suicide.
Craig, who was 25 at the time, later brought her daughter inside and said,” She’s stopped breathing” and” Oh no, no she’s gone”.
The cult head, known as Alexander Wilon or” Papa,” allegedly laid Tillie in a shower while the court was informed that she had waited for his return. At this point, he prayed for the girl’s resurrection.
The religion members are then accused of interfering with Tillie’s burial before scattering her remains, and of prohibiting their communication.
He was accused of equipment to murder and afterwards of sexual assault, but the chronically sick man has since been found unfit to go on trial.
By November 1987, Craig had left the worship and traveled to her native state of New Zealand, where she had previously lived under various pseudonyms until her imprisonment and extradition in 2021.
Craig apologized for her murder in a section of a letter that was read to the court, claiming” things happened” to her as a family at the plantation.
” My deeds were terrible, terrible, horrific”.
” I will never forgive myself for what I have done”, she wrote, adding that she wanted” justice” for her daughter and was “at peace” with her imprisonment.
Tillie’s parents, Gerard Stanhope, who frequently visited the religion while searching for his daughter in vain, did not realize she had passed away until his ex-partner was detained.
In a victim impact statement read to the jury, Stanhope said,” I spent times… waking up every day with the desire in my heart that I would find her, and going to bed devastated that I could not do so.”
” I did n’t realize that my daughter was already gone until more than 30 years later.”
After six years in captivity, in November 2027, Craig may be eligible for parole.