Cult mum who beat her own two-year-old daughter to death WELCOMES being jailed 37 years later – and says she will never forgive herself

A cult member who beat her two-year-old daughter to death 37 years ago is happy to finally be in prison.

Ellen Rachel Craig, 62, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting she killed her daughter Tillie Craig on July 7, 1987, on a property near Oberon in central New South Wales.

Not being happy with the way the child was sweeping the path, she grabbed a plastic tube and hit the girl with it on her arms, legs and body until she could no longer move.

Mother and child lived at the time on an estate at Porters Retreat, which served as the headquarters of the sect The Family or the Community of Eden.

After leader Alexander Wilon was notified of the death, Tillie’s body was cremated in a 45-gallon barrel. Her ashes were scattered on the property and the barrel was thrown into a nearby river, but was never recovered, according to court documents.

Craig moved back to her native New Zealand in November 1987, where she changed her name to Jowelle Tenzing Smith.

She continued to lie about the toddler’s death until she was arrested and extradited to Australia, where she was to stand trial in November 2021.

While Craig was under the influence of Mr Wilon, who had previously punished Tillie, her attack on her daughter was much more extreme, Judge Natalie Adams said on Wednesday.

Ellen Rachel Craig, 62, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and admitted killing her daughter (pictured together)

“To say the circumstances surrounding Tillie’s death are tragic would be an understatement,” the judge said.

“She died at the hands of someone who should have protected her.”

According to the agreed facts, Mr. Wilon exercised strict control over the lives of the residents of the building, for example, beating them if they did not obey him and forcing them to have sex with him in “Daddy’s room.”

He told his followers that their egos had to be “completely destroyed” if they wanted to stay with him.

Craig was given a maximum prison sentence of nine years for her daughter’s death, with a six-year non-parole period.

Judge Adams ruled that the 62-year-old had shown remorse for her actions, both to her daughter and to Tillie’s father Gerard Stanhope, who had searched in vain for the toddler for decades.

“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 terrible, horrible, atrocious.”

Craig is seen with her face covered in a police photo

While Craig was under the influence of Alexander Wilon (above), who had previously punished Tillie, her attack on her daughter was much more extreme, Judge Natalie Adams said on Wednesday

Craig said she was now ready for her prison sentence and wanted justice for her daughter.

“I know, understand and am at peace with the purpose of my captivity.”

In a victim impact statement, Mr Stanhope described the indescribable pain he felt when he discovered what had happened to his child.

He said he is still haunted by the memory of the time he walked his struggling, crying and terrified daughter to a van where Craig was waiting to take her back to The Family estate in January 1987.

That was the last time he saw the two-year-old.

“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 ruled that the 62-year-old had shown remorse for her actions, both to her daughter and to Tillie’s father Gerard Stanhope (pictured with Tillie)

Judge Adams took into account Craig’s physical health issues, her struggles with mental health, drug and gambling problems, and the harsher conditions in prison, where she remains in protective custody.

Craig told her psychiatrist that she liked the simple life in prison because she believed it could provide her with the kind of monastic life she was looking for.

The 62-year-old woman kept her head down for most of her sentence as she watched via audio-video link from the women’s prison in Dillwynia.

The maximum sentence for manslaughter is 25 years.