WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Killer Paul Thijssen may have believed ‘if I can’t have you, nobody can’ before he murdered Lilie James when she ended their short romance, because he was ‘very wounded and humiliated’, psychiatrists told the inquest into their deaths.
Thijssen, 24, had narcissistic traits and was ‘very calculated and very cold’ in the way he planned the murder of Ms James’, 21, but did not have a psychological condition or a personality disorder.
Ms James’s parents, Peta and Jamie, were seen weeping outside the court after sitting through the most harrowing details surrounding their daughter’s brutal murder on Wednesday as the inquest into the deaths of Ms James and Thissjen continued.
Police discovered Ms James’ ‘unrecognisable’ body inside a gym bathroom at St Andrew’s Catholic School on the evening of October 25, 2023. She had suffered serious head injuries after being repeatedly bludgeoned with a hammer.
Forensic psychiatrist Danny Sullivan and forensic psychologist Katie Sedler said Thissjen had carefully constructed his personal image and Ms James’ desire to end their relationships sparked ‘fear’ that this façade was about to crumble.
They said Thissjen’s actions could not be blamed on any mental health disorder.
‘The lie he was living… lying at work, suggests he was controlled, had constructed a narrative and wanted to convey a particular impression to the world and there were threats to that narrative that he was not the person he purported to be,’ Dr Sullivan said.
‘The loss of control of the relationship was a very significant issue.’
Dr Sullivan said in the final days of Thijssen’s life there was some degree of ‘last resort thinking’ when his thinking became ‘very absolute.’
‘It might be “I’ve got nothing left to lose, that’s it. I’m finished”. He had developed both homicidal and suicidal ideation in the days before he killed,’ Dr Sullivan said.
‘The murder was a gender-based domestic violence crime because ‘he used physical violence against a woman who spurned his advances’.
Dr Sullivan said that Thijssen displayed ‘frantic measures to avoid abandonment’ and had ‘degrees of absorption and enmeshment in a relationship’.
There was some evidence of coercive control in Thijssen’s relationship with Ms James, but because she was in control of her life he couldn’t cope with it.
‘As crass as it sounds, the murder stopped her from speaking, telling her friends she was ending the relationship,’ Ms Seidler said.
Dr Sullivan said despite pretending to friends that he was ‘nonchalant’ about the end of the relationship, it was ‘a blow to his ego.
‘He was very wounded and humiliated deep inside,’ he said.
Dr Sullivan said that Thijssen ‘had formed a hatred of Ms James based on fact she had rejected him and he punished her by killing her’.
He added there were no options for intervention to prevent the murder because Thijssen kept his ‘cards very close to his chest.
‘There was no hint on social media, no throwaway line… no leakage’.
Ms Seidler said of Thijssen: ‘This was a man who couldn’t cope with how he was feeling and he neutralised that threat by murdering someone’.
She described Thijssen as a ‘brittle narcissist’.
Earlier on Wednesday, the inquest was told Ms James was bludgeoned by Thijssen in the head and neck more than 25 times with a hammer.
Warning the court that the evidence would be distressing, counsel assisting the New South Wales coroner, Jennifer Single SC, said Ms James wasn’t initially identified due to the ‘extensive injuries to face, fake tan and blood in her hair, dark almost black hair and Asian appearance’.
Told that she was a blonde and Caucasian female, attending officers believed the dead woman in the bathroom wasn’t Ms James, and that she could still be in Thijssen’s company, given he had her iPhone.
Ms James sustained blunt force injuries to her head and neck which were circular, semi-circular or v-shaped, consistent with the shape of a hammer. She also had defensive injuries on her arms and hands, showing that she fought back.
Ms Single said ‘drip stain analysis’ showed Ms James was initially in a upright or semi-upright position moving towards the bathroom shower and a basin.
The blood stain cast-off pattern showed the assault continued as she lay on her back, and although the attack was short it was ‘overkill and went far beyond what was necessary to cause death’.
As Ms James’ body was discovered, police descended on Diamond Bay Reserve in Vaucluse, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, just three minutes after Thijssen called triple-zero to report a ‘female’ body in the school.
Speaking quietly during the call, a ‘calm’ and ‘almost emotionless’ Thijssen told the emergency operator: ‘I’d like to report a body at St Andrew’s Cathedral school’ before giving details on how to find it.
‘If you go into the school, there is an entrance on the left. There is a bathroom on the right hand side where there is a body… where you go into the sports area, the bathroom is there on the right. It’s the first door on the right,’ he said.
Thijssen was asked if the body was male or female, and he answered ‘female’.
The operator then asked him ‘Do you know who it is?’ and he replied ‘No’.
Asked what his name was, he said ‘I’d rather not say’. Thijssen then added: ‘I think someone should just go in there before people arrive in the morning.’
But by the time police arrived, Thijssen had already jumped or fallen off a cliff edge in the reserve. His body was found floating in the ocean below the cliff two days later.
The revelations came after CCTV showed the moment a smiling Ms James walked into a school bathroom followed by Thijssen, who waited for two minutes holding a hammer and listening before he attacked.
The video, taken inside St Andrew’s Cathedral School, shows Ms James entering the bathroom at 7.12pm on October 25, 2023.
Thijssen was then seen approaching the bathroom door wearing his backpack and holding a hammer in his right hand. At 7.14pm, Thijssen pushed the door open with his left hand and entered the bathroom.
Immediately after playing the CCTV, Ms Single became tearful saying, ‘Lilie was smiling and interacting with Paul, there was no indication what he was going to do’.
Her voice breaking, Ms Single added: ‘No matter how many times you view that footage, it is not easy to watch.’
The video of Ms James’ final moments was played in court after other footage showed an agitated Thijssen making his preparations to kill her in the 30 minutes before her murder.
Thijssen walked purposefully towards the bathroom and could also be seen running as he worked to cut off all access to the eventual murder site.
He spoke with a night cleaner and waved to a security guard as he walked ‘with pace’ and then ran, using a master key to lock access doors to the school’s disabled bathroom where he planned to carry out the murder.
The court heard that as Thijssen put the finishing touches on his sinister plan, Ms James was returning from water polo practice on a school bus with students.
The pupils would later recall that they had been talking about their favourite music with Ms James, who then told them, ‘I’ve got to go, I have to get to a game’.
At 7.11pm, Ms James made a two second call to Thijssen’s mobile and he walked down to the school’s main foyer and let Ms James into the building. They then walked to the gym area near the bathroom.
Seventeen seconds later Ms James was seen exiting the school staffroom wearing school shorts, a jacket and white runners, and carrying a green swimsuit.
Thijssen then exited the staffroom with his backpack over his right arm.
After a half hour break during court proceedings, Ms James’ parents returned to the court room and were told by the Coroner: ‘I just want to acknowledge how difficult this is and my heart goes out to you.’
Ms Single said it’s believed Thijssen told Ms James which bathroom to use.
Before she entered, Ms James could be seen glancing at the ‘cleaning in progress’ sign Thijssen had purposely placed outside the other bathroom.
Ms Single said the bathroom door opened slightly from the inside before he entered.
‘It was at that point Lilie was attacked and killed. After entering the bathroom he attacked and killed Lilie with the hammer in the bathroom,’ Ms Single said.
‘It would have resulted in Lilie becoming incapacitated quickly and it was not protracted.’
Ms Single said at least twelve people were inside the school at the time.
Thijssen, who had taken Ms James’s bag and removed her phone from it, stayed in bathroom for one hour and 12 minutes following the murder.
At 8.23pm, a message was sent via her phone to her father, Jamie James, saying ‘don’t ask why or call, please come to the school now and pick me up’.
Mr James replied: ‘Are you okay?’
Thijssen then left the murder scene and picked up the cleaning sign he had placed outside Bathroom Three and put it outside the bathroom where Ms James’s body lay inside.
He then appeared to place a small knife in his backpack.
Mr James again tried calling Ms James and then received another message sent by Thijssen saying ‘All Good just came trouble’.
Mr James frantically texted, ‘can you call please’. (The inference was that the message was saying ‘just come’ and ‘came’ was a typo.)
At 8.22pm, Thijssen walked calmly through the school foyer, and exited the school. He then walked to the car park and drove off at 8.33pm.
Thijssen drove from the school to the reserve in Vaucluse without stopping.
At 9.49pm he drove further along the road in Vaucluse, and closer to the cliff edge.
At 9.52 and 9.53pm he made an electronic $9,100 transfer to each of his flatmates with the message ‘six months rent’.
At 11.15pm, he exited the car and walked into the reserve. His body was found floating in the ocean below cliffs two days later.