Jealous ex-boyfriend Paul Thijssen, 24, laid a trap forcing 21-year-old Lilie James to use a disabled toilet – a few moments later, he brutally murdered her
Chilling new CCTV images have revealed how a jealous ex-boyfriend tricked a young woman into using a disabled toilet where he brutally murdered her. Lilie James was found dead at St Andrew’s Cathedral School in Sydney, Australia in October 2023.
An inquest this week heard how Paul Thijssen, 24, had planned and “premeditated” how and when he would kill the 21-year-old, including buying a hammer and duct tape from a DIY store. On the day of the murder, PE teacher Ms James encountered Thijssen, who she worked alongside and had a brief relationship with, at the doors of the school’s gym.
She had just returned after waiting for pupils from her water polo class to be collected by their parents, and went to use the gym’s toilet. Unbeknownst to her, Thijssen had laid a deliberate trap designed to lure her to the exact spot where he had practised an attack just hours before.
READ MORE: Shoppers heap praise on £20 gum serum that ‘works wonders’ and helps ‘reduce inflammation’
CCTV footage showed how Thijssen picked up a “cleaning in progress” sign and placed it at the door of one of the toilets, forcing Ms James to use a larger, disabled toilet when she arrived a few moments later. While she used the bathroom, Thijssen walked over to the door with hammer in his right hand and waited outside for two minutes before lunging inside and bludgeoning her to death. Thijssen was then seen leaving the toilet over an hour later.
Investigators tracing through the footage found that Thijssen had acted out the killing several hours earlier. He was seen pacing the corridor outside the gym’s bathroom, and testing the lock of the door to the disabled toilet.
Thijssen also used a school master key to lock automatic doors to gym, so as to stop his attack from being disturbed. Surveillance footage from a DIY shop a few days earlier meanwhile showed him weighing up multiple hammer, though these are not believed by police to have been used in the killing.
On Thursday, a recording of Thijssen’s phonecall to emergency services on the evening reporting Ms James’ death was released by New South Wales Coroner’s Court. In the call, he told operators that he had found a woman’s body, but claimed he didn’t know who it was, and declined to provide his name or location.
He said: “If you go into the school there is a entrance on the left of the reception area, where there is a sports department. And there is a bathroom , on the right hand side, where there is a body.” The operator asked “A body?”, to which he replied “yep”.
Thijssen then gave an exact description of the toilet’s location within the building, but said he didn’t “remember” if he was there at the time of her death. He said “no” when asked if he knew who the victim was, and “I’d rather not disclose” when prompted to give his name.
A few minutes later, Thijssen jumped or fell to his death at Diamond Bay Reserve in Vaucluse, New South Wales. A coroner is assessing whether his death was self-inflicted.
Ms James, 21, had ended her casual two-month relationship with Thijssen only five days before he killed her. The court was told how Thijssen stalked Ms James on at least seven occasions in the days that lead up to her death, and had hired a car to drive around her house multiple times. He had also taken pictures of cars parked outside her home, and was spotted on one occasion lurking at railway station as she made her way home.
A heartbreaking moment at the inquest this week came when Ms James’ devastated mother, Peta, apologised for failing to protect her “sweet pea’ and spoke of her “guilt” at what happened to her. She said: “We sent Lilie to a school that had similar values to ours, which played a major part in creating the woman she later became. These choices made me question whether we did the right thing.”
“Lilie, sweet pea, I am so sorry that we couldn’t protect you from what happened that night. The guilt will stay with us forever.”
