Cult Member Sentenced To 9 Years For Killing 2-Year-Old Daughter
2 years ago 2 min read
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Ellen Rachel Craig, a 62-year-old former cult member, has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for the manslaughter of her 2-year-old daughter, Tillie, on July 7, 1987.
According to reports, Craig was a member of a cult in Australia and brutally beat her daughter to death with a plastic pipe as punishment for not completing her chores.
Tillie had been sweeping when her mother, Craig, who was 25 at the time, said she was “unhappy” with the quality of the work and beat her to death.
The court heard she laid Tillie in a bathtub and waited for the cult leader – known as Alexander Wilon or “Papa” – to return, at which point he prayed for the resurrection of the girl.
The cult leader, allegedly cremated Tillie’s remains and scattered her ashes at the commune in regional New South Wales (NSW).
Craig was expelled from the cult by November 1987, and lived under several aliases in New Zealand until her arrest and extradition in 2021.
During her sentencing, Craig apologized for her crime, stating that her actions were “horrible, terrible, horrific” and that she would never forgive herself.
Tillie’s father, Gerard Stanhope, spent years searching for his daughter, only to discover decades later that she had been killed.
In a victim impact statement, Stanhope expressed his devastation and heartbreak, saying, “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.”
While delivering the judgement on Wednesday, Justice Natalie Adams accepted that Craig had not intended to cause serious harm to Tillie, but said calling her death a tragedy would be “a gross understatement”.
“She died at the hands of someone whose role it was to protect her,” the judge said.
Craig will be eligible for parole after six years in custody, in November 2027.
Wilon was also charged with being an accessory to murder – and later over separate sexual assault allegations – but he has since been declared unfit to stand trial.
