New Zealand mother Ellen Craig sentenced for killing toddler in 1987 Australian cult

The father of a murdered toddler told a court: “I am standing here today 35 years after this unthinkable event.”

“My daughter was taken away by her mother in the most horrific and senseless way.”

It took Gerard Stanhope 30 years to believe his daughter Tilly Craig was still alive and he became desperate to find her after her mother took her to live with a cult in rural Sydney.

He last saw Tilly a few months before she died, but Tilly’s New Zealand mother Ellen Craig told him she was alive and well.

“The fact is that Tilly was brutally murdered by the person she should have trusted most and who could have protected her the most,” Stanhope said.

“It’s a wound that will never fully heal.”

Today, Alan Craig was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment by the NSW Supreme Court for the manslaughter of his two-year-old daughter on July 7, 1987.

Craig, who was born in New Zealand, was arrested in Palmerston North in 2021 and extradited to Australia in 2022. She had lived there since escaping the cult in the late 1980s.

After being extradited, Craig Pleaded not guilty to murder chargeHowever, she was offered a deal earlier this year and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Alexander Veron, the leader of the cult she joined in the late 1980s, also faced charges for helping Craig dispose of the bodies of the toddlers, burning them in barrels and dumping them in a creek. However, he was declared mentally unfit to stand trial earlier this year.

It took nearly 35 years after Craig’s arrest and another three years in custody before he was finally sentenced.

But for Stanhope, it all took just a few minutes.

He told the court: “I only got a few hours of sleep last night … my mind was replaying the last few minutes of her (Tilly’s) life and that experience.”

“… She must have felt pain and fear before she died.

“As I say this, I would like to ask you to imagine the last few minutes of her life and maybe imagine that it was your own child.”

Judge Natalie Adams said being influenced by a cult may partly explain Craig’s behaviour, but the whole incident could not be simply attributed to brainwashing.

She said: “Although Ms Craig’s beating of Tilly was intended to punish cult members rather than an act of gratuitous cruelty, it was still a serious case of manslaughter.”

“To say the situation is tragic is a gross understatement.

“After killing her daughter, she did not seek any medical attention and continued to conceal her guilt for 35 years.”

Judge Adams said that while the children were regularly beaten by the cult leader, Craig’s aggression went far beyond what Willon had done to Tilly.

Craig’s prison sentence begins in November 2021 and she will be eligible for parole in 2027.

Manslaughter

According to the summary of facts, the cult’s leader, then named Alfio Nicolosi, founded what he called the “Ministry of God,” “Eden Community” or “The Family” on a country estate in the Blue Mountains in the mid-to-late 1980s.

He would instruct his followers to address him as “Master Weilong” or “Dad,” and commanded his followers to meditate for up to four hours a day.

It was summarized that when “family members” disobeyed him, he would beat them with his fists or a plastic pipe.

It is alleged that Willon also had sexual relations with female members of the cult, sometimes taking several female members at a time into the “daddy’s room” where sexual activities took place.

He also wrote a manifesto called “The Eden Community,” which outlined the consequences of not following the rules, such as expulsion from the community and corporal punishment. The manifesto also discouraged mourning or funerals, advocating cremation instead.

Community members were also encouraged to physically punish children.

Willon would discipline Tilly himself, dragging her to the bathroom almost every day and beating her with a long wooden brush.

Children of all ages are required to do chores here, and on the morning of July 7, 1987, Tilly was sweeping the path between the cottages.

Craig, unhappy with Tilly’s cleaning behavior, began yelling at her and hitting her with a black plastic irrigation pipe.

Another member of the “family” saw Craig beating Tilly as she lay face down on the floor, before Craig walked into the house and said: “She’s not breathing.”

Craig picked Tilly up and said to the other woman, “Oh no, she’s gone,” before trying to resuscitate her, but Tilly was not moving or breathing.

Craig and the other woman then took Tilly inside and placed her in the bathtub while they waited for Willon to return. Rather than calling for help or seeking medical assistance, they prayed and meditated until he returned.

Veron allegedly burned the bodies in keeping with his manifesto, fueling the flames for hours with motor oil, firewood and old clothes.

Another member of the cult said that Willen’s statement that “God’s laws, not the laws of man” applied to the cult family and that he was protecting Craig because he was a child of God.

According to the summary, when the ashes cooled, Willon sifted them through a sieve to make sure nothing was left unburned, then scattered them and threw the drum into the river.

After Tilly’s death, Willon forbade his followers to talk about it, saying that if anyone asked about Tilly, they would be told she had been put up for adoption.

Extradition

Craig fled back to New Zealand shortly after killing her daughter, changed her name, and told Stanhope different stories about Tilly’s whereabouts; at one point she said she gave Tilly to a South African couple she met at the resort; at another point she simply said Tilly was safe and asked him not to worry.

Throughout 1988, Stanhope searched for his daughter, appealing to newspapers and even to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which made a documentary about the family.

In court, Stanhope said it would not be until around 2020 that he discovered his years of searching had been in vain.

“I wake up every day with hope in my heart but go to bed with despair,” he said, reading out his victim impact statement.

“It took me over 30 years to know Tilly was gone.”

It wasn’t until 2021 that, based on intelligence, Australian and New Zealand police simultaneously raided the cult’s locations, Porters Retreat, where Willon still lives, and State Parliament House in Palmerston North, where Craig lives.

After her arrest, Craig told police she was naive and had been influenced by the retreat.

“I feel like something happened… I don’t know. But I was, something happened, I didn’t, I completely lost myself, lost my character… I completely, I didn’t know what I was doing,” her interview notes read.

When asked to talk about Tilly, she said: “I guess I can’t right now. I want to say all these things… but I just… I don’t know…” When asked again what happened to Tilly, Craig said: “I can’t, I don’t know, I can’t, I, I… I don’t know what happened. I can’t tell you… what happened.”

Since that interview, Craig has spent nearly three years in an Australian prison, where she was allegedly attacked by another inmate while awaiting trial.

In a letter to the court, Craig said she often thinks about the day Tilly died.

“I have thought about her death and how horrible it must have been for her and how terrible and horrible my behavior was,” the letter read.

“She would be 40 this year, but I can only imagine what she looked like as a baby and a 2-year-old.”

Craig wrote that she particularly regretted letting Tilly’s father believe his daughter was alive for more than 30 years.

“It must have been very painful for him to go looking for her in hope when she was already gone,” she wrote.

“I had the ability to mitigate the situation, but I never did.

“I will never forgive myself for what I did.”

– This article was originally published on New Zealand Herald.