A former girlfriend of Paul Thijssen, who beat Lilie James, 21, to death in a Sydney school a year ago, said he acted in a ‘deranged’ way when she broke up with him years earlier.
The young woman spoke out about Thijssen on 60 Minutes, where Ms James’ heartbroken parents, Peta and Jamie, also revealed another cruel blow the family has suffered – Peta has cancer.
When Thijssen murdered his ex-girlfriend Ms James, many of his friends said they were shocked, that there had been no red flags to indicate he was capable of that.
But a former girlfriend, speaking out for the first time, said had seen what was behind his well-mannered façade years earlier.
The young woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, had dated Thijssen for a few months and said it was a ‘pretty normal’ relationship.
But he had ‘a lot of need for attention’ and always wanted to know where she was and to be included in her social media pictures.
As Thijssen’s obsession grew, she tried to break up with him, but he would beg her to take him back, to the point where she finally insisted ‘no’ to him, and he ‘got very upset’ and punched a nearby tree.
‘I was like, ”Why did you just punch the tree?” And he said, because I can’t punch the one thing I want to,’ the woman said, adding she felt scared and immediately ran home.
Her fear was compounded when Thijssen appeared outside her family’s home at dawn two mornings in a row.
‘I look up out of the kitchen window, and through the slats in our fence, I see Paul’s face staring at me,’ she said.
‘Then I scream and my dad comes running downstairs and grabs a cricket bat and he fully chases him down the street.’
The woman said Thijssen looked ‘deranged’ and as if ‘something was not right with him’.
Then years later, as the police hunt for Lilie James’ killer took place, she instantly thought of Thijssen.
‘As soon as I saw the headline, it didn’t name who the person was, but I just knew it was Paul,’ she said.
‘Every time someone brings this up, I just think, that should have been me. It should not have been Lilie … it should have been me, if it was gonna be anyone.’
Ms James’ father Jamie can’t bring himself to say his daughter’s murderer’s name, he just refers to him as ‘the monster’.
When asked if a text message from Lilie asking him to come to St Andrew’s Cathedral School where both she and Thijssen were sports coaches was really from her, he said ‘no, it was from the monster …
‘That message shows the character that the person is just an evil, evil monster to hurt, to wound, to do as much damage (as possible).’
The James family revealed that Peta is battling cancer, which was diagnosed just before their daughter’s death.
‘I have melanoma in both lungs and maybe a lymph node or two depending on who you ask,’ Peta said.
She is getting immunotherapy once a month now. ‘(I) just take care of my health day by day and see where we end up,’ she said.
Her husband and son Max give her the strength to keep going.
‘I just don’t want to make this situation any worse than what it is. I just think that if I was to fall apart, that would just make it so much worse for them.’
Lilie had been a champion swimmer who won an under 17s tournament in 2019.
Her parents’ social media pages were covered in photos of her achievements, which ranged from dancing trophies in primary school to the day she got her learner license in 2018.
A 16-year-old Lilie could be seen standing out the front of her family car in Kogarah, proudly holding a yellow L-plate.
‘Let the fun begin,’ her mother captioned the photo.
Another photo showed Lilie in her school uniform, donning a graduation hat and flowers in 2020 when she finished Year 12 at Danebank Anglican School For Girls.
Having gone to the school after getting the text from Thijssen pretending to be Lilie, Mr James returned home in the early hours of the morning to tell his wife and son that she was dead.
‘I’ll never forget it,’ Peta said.
‘I’ll never forget that one moment in time, (that) realisation that she’ll never walk through that door again will haunt me for the rest of my life.’
But a forensic psychologist told 60 Minutes, that Thijssen probably had a narcissistic personality disorder, and could not cope with the rejection of the break-up with Lilie.
‘He felt degraded, humiliated and with that came a flood of intense angry and heated emotion, which boiled into his rage,’ he said.
Lilie’s parents and friend called for change in ‘s domestic violence scourge.
‘We need to do more,’ her dad said. ‘To me it just needs to stop.’
One of Lilie’s friends said: ‘If we want to leave (a relationship), we should be able to leave.’
Thijssen took his own life by jumping off a cliff, hours after he had murdered Ms James.
Lilie’s mother said she didn’t see how she would ever be able to forgive Thijssen.
He ‘can rot in hell,’ her dad said.
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