A cult member who beat her own two-year-old daughter to death 37 years ago is glad to have finally been jailed.
Ellen Rachel Craig, 62, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting killing her daughter Tillie Craig at a property near Oberon in central New South Wales on July 7, 1987.
After becoming unhappy with the way the girl was sweeping the road, she grabbed a plastic irrigation pipe and beat the girl on the arms, legs and body until she could no longer move.
At the time, both mother and child were living on a rural property at Porters Retreat, which served as the headquarters of the Eden Family or Community cult.
Upon informing leader Alexander Wilon of the death, Tillie’s body was cremated in a 44-gallon drum, her ashes were scattered around the property and the drum was dumped in a nearby river never to be found, according to agreed facts presented in court.
Craig returned to his native New Zealand in November 1987, where he changed his name to Jowelle Tenzing Smith.
She continued to lie about the boy’s death until she was arrested and extradited to Australia to face trial in November 2021.
While Craig was under the influence of Mr. Wilon, who had previously disciplined Tillie, his assault on his daughter was far more extreme, Judge Natalie Adams said Wednesday.
Tillie Craig died at a property near Oberon in central New South Wales on 7 July 1987.
Ellen Rachel Craig, 62, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and admitted killing her daughter (pictured together)
“To say the circumstances of Tillie’s death were tragic would be an understatement,” the judge said.
‘She died at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect her.’
According to the agreed facts, Mr. Wilon strictly controlled the lives of those who lived on the property, including beating them when they did not obey him and forcing them to have sex with him in “Daddy’s room.”
He told his followers that their egos “must be completely destroyed” if they wanted to remain with him.
Craig was sentenced to a maximum prison term of nine years for his daughter’s death, with a non-parole period of six years.
Judge Adams found the 62-year-old had expressed remorse for her actions towards both her daughter and Tillie’s father, Gerard Stanhope, who had searched for the girl for decades without success.
“I took away her potential. I took away her right to a happy life,” Craig wrote in a letter to the court.
‘My actions were horrible, terrible, horrific.’
Craig is seen with his face covered in a police image.
While Craig was under the influence of Alexander Wilon (above), who had previously disciplined Tillie, his assault on his daughter was far more extreme, Judge Natalie Adams said Wednesday.
Craig said he now welcomed his prison sentence and wanted justice for his daughter.
‘I know, understand and am at peace with the purpose of my imprisonment.’
In a victim impact statement, Mr Stanhope described the indescribable pain of discovering what had happened to his son.
He said he was haunted by the memory of carrying his struggling, crying and terrified daughter to a van where Craig was waiting to take her back to the family property in January 1987.
That was the last time he saw the two-year-old boy.
“To this day, I feel guilty for not listening to what she was trying to tell me in the only way she could,” he wrote.
Judge Adams found the 62-year-old had expressed remorse for her actions towards both her daughter and Tillie’s father, Gerard Stanhope (pictured with Tillie).
Judge Adams took into account Craig’s physical health issues, his struggles with mental health, drugs and gambling, and the more onerous conditions at the jail where he remains in protective custody.
Craig told his psychiatrist that he enjoyed the simple prison life because he believed it could provide him with the kind of monastic life he had been seeking.
The 62-year-old kept her head bowed for most of the sentence as she watched via audio and video link from Dillwynia Women’s Prison.
The maximum sentence for homicide is 25 years.
