← Serialously with Annie Elise
Serialously with Annie Elise
349: Deadly Obsession: Lilie James Stalked and Bluggoned to Death
01:00:31
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- [00:00]
A
Okay, it's kind of embarrassing how bad I am at budgeting. Let me see your charges.
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B
Ugh, fine.
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A
You spent over $600 on takeout last month.
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B
I can't cook. You know this.
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A
Yes, I have had your disgusting food, but you're literally paying for a meal subscription on top of that.
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B
Whoa, wait, wait, wait. That.
- [00:17]
A
That can't be right. Look, just get Rocket money. It shows you all of your expenses in one place and even tracks your subscriptions. And if there's a subscription you don't want, which for you, there are a lot you don't need, you can just cancel right in the app with a few taps. So you mean I don't call anyone to cancel? Nope. No hold times or anything. And they'll even try to get you a refund on some of the months of wasted money, which is a lot of money for you. Okay. Okay. And if you thought I was done, I'm not. The app can also help you make a budget that works for your income. Anytime you get close to your spending limits, it alerts you. So you know exactly where your money is going at all times.
- [00:53]
B
All right, Emin, what do I have to do?
- [00:54]
A
Go to RocketMoney.com, cancel or download the app from the Apple or Google Play stores.
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B
A woman has been found bashed to death at a prestigious private school in Sydney's CBD.
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A
The victim has been identified as 22.
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B
Year old Lily James Special. People come into the world and they seem to go out of the world way too soon. And that's how I see Lily. We saw the presence of physical stalking, not someone I would expect to do such a thing. How anybody could do that to another human being is just absolutely unbelievable. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial asleep. Hello, hello, hello. And welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Lessly with me, your host, Annie. E lease, your true crime bestie, and I am here to break down another case for you today. And look, I hope whether you're listening to this on release day on Monday or during the week, or maybe it's months or weeks down the road from when this was released, wherever you are, whenever it is, I just hope that you are in a good mental state to hear this case. It's one that when I first started researching it, I wasn't sure if I was going to cover it because it is very, very sensitive. And unfortunately, I'm sure a lot of you listeners have dealt with certain circumstances in the past that maybe feel a little bit parallel to this, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But then the more I thought about it, the more important I felt like it was to where we needed to talk about it. But with that, I want to just warn you, it is not an easy case to hear. There are a lot of twists and turns, a lot of deeply unsettling text messages beh stalking. It's just, it's very scary and it really does show how quickly people can escalate and how important control is to a lot of people. So I'm gonna kind of shut up here for a minute and I'm just gonna get right into it. But it all started on a seemingly normal weekday. Lily James was caught up on all of her schoolwork. She had a water polo match later that night. She was 21 years old, in college, studying sports medicine. She also had a part time job coaching the water polo team at a private high school nearby. And things were just regular basic that day. In fact, the moment before she left the house, it was a moment that her dad, Jamie said that he will never forget. It was mediocre and unassuming and just again, a, you know, a non event type of moment. Lily was there, smiling, happy, eating her favorite snack, Vegemite toast. Apparently she ate it in a way that her dad thought was kind of odd. And he always teased her a little bit about just, you know, pointing it out in a light hearted way. But it was just a typical day. Them happy spending time together, her getting ready to head off to water polo. So she packed up her bag, said her goodbyes to her family, and she headed to the train station that was going to take her to work. And that was the last normal moment of the day because not long after her dad Jamie's phone buzzed with a text message from Lily. And it was the kind of message that just stops your heart cold. She said, don't ask why or call, Please come to the school now and pick me up. Now, as a parent, that is the exact kind of text message that sends your body straight into panic mode, right? And Jamie felt off immediately. He knew that something was wrong here. So he texted her back saying, are you okay? To which she replied, all good. Just came trouble. But Jamie knew his daughter. This wasn't her. She would never text something that cryptic, something like that without explaining herself. And she definitely would not ignore his phone calls. So he got in his car, he floored it all the way to the school, just calling and texting her the entire way, saying, can you please pick up the phone where are you? I'm here. But nothing. No response, no answer. When he got into the school, he ran inside and he started checking every single hallway. He was calling out her name, listening for anything as he was doing this, trying to hear footsteps, laughing, talking, her voice. But the building, it was quiet. Too quiet. Then he saw it. Lily's gym bag. Also her access pass. They were just sitting there, abandoned. And that made absolutely zero sense because Lily would never just leave her stuff like that. Now back at home, PETA, Lily's mom, was calling and texting everybody that she could possibly think of. Friends, teammates, anybody who might have seen her, but nobody had. Everybody thought that she was at school. She even reached out to Lily's ex boyfriend, who also happened to work at the school, but he didn't respond either. So now both of her parents are full blown panicking. Nobody has seen Lily. Her things are scattered around the school. The text messages don't match anything about who she was as a person. I mean, none of it was adding up. Lily had asked for help. She told her dad to come and get her. He went there. So why wasn't she there at the door waiting for him? Why were her belongings left behind? And the biggest question, the one that became every parent's worst nightmare, was where was Lily? Lily James was born on May 21, 2022, in New South Wales, Australia. She was born to her parents, PETA and Jamie. And Lily was a very proud Gemini. Okay, everybody who knew her said that she never missed a chance to remind you that she was a Gemini or it was Gemini season. She just like was a Gemini through and through. And people described her as being pure, light, vibrant, energetic, smart, beautiful, independent, and fiercely loyal. If Lily was in your corner, you felt it. You knew that you were lucky. When she graduated high school in 2020, at 18 years old, she was really ready for the next chapter in her life. Lily had always been somebody with very big dreams and also the discipline to make those dreams a reality. She stayed close to home, enrolling at the University of Technology in Sydney. And she was already very confident in the direction that she wanted to go with her life, sports, business, and her career choice. I will say it wasn't random. Lily grew up deeply involved in sports. Competitive swimming, dancing, water polo. And while she excelled in literally all of them, water polo quickly became her favorite. She wasn't just an athlete. She loved the strategy of all of it, the teamwork, the entire world around competitive sports. So it made perfect sense that she would build her future involving sports as well. And College. It really suited her. Lily had always had a very strong work ethic. So juggling classes, responsibilities, a social life too, I mean, it all came very naturally for her. And in 2022, she added something new to her plate. A job coaching water polo at the local St. Andrews Cathedral School, one of the oldest and most prestigious private schools in Sydney. Which this job, it fit her perfectly. It blended her passion with her career goals and it was exactly the kind of experience that would set her up for success after graduation, which by the way, was already on the horizon. So Lily was thriving. She was focused, driven and building this life that she had always envisioned. Now, on top of school and work, Lily had a jam packed social life. She was always with friends, always doing something. Downtime just really was not her thing. And according to the people closest to her, she really liked it that way. Now, some believed that there was another reason behind how busy she kept herself and why she purposefully kept herself so busy. And that was her mom's recent cancer diagnosis. Some people shut down when life gets heavy. But others, like Lily, they throw themselves into things. They want to fill every spare moment so that there is no room left to sit with the sadness and the dark thoughts. So by 2023, she was juggling everything. Being a student, a coach, a friend, a daughter, a sister. And somehow Lily, she made it look effortless. And mind you, she was only 21 years old. I mean, that is a stacked calendar for anybody, but especially a 21 year old. When, hell, when I was 21, I was got out drinking at the bars, probably like four nights a week with my friends, certainly sleeping in, calling out sick to work, being irresponsible, watching Lifetime movies in bed until like 3pm, ordering food. I mean, she had her stuff together. And unlike a lot of girls her age, dating really was not a priority for her. She didn't feel the need to be in a relationship. She also wasn't actively looking for one. If something happened naturally one day, okay, great. But she wasn't going to chase it. However, then somebody new crossed her path. His name was Paul Tyson. He was a couple years older than her, somewhere between 23 and 24 years old, and he was originally from the Netherlands, but he and his family had now lived in Australia for a few years after his dad took a job in Sydney. And during that time, Paul attended St. Andrew's Cathedral School, the same school where Lily would later coach. Which, just to be clear, he graduated long before she ever worked there. So there was no overlap. It was just a coincidence. But I talked a little bit about St. Andrews, and St. Andrews is known for its very high academic standards and its competitive environment. And Paul, he really fit that mold pretty easily. He did well in school. He made friends easily. He was involved in sports, you know, cricket, hockey. He even served as the team captain at one point. His family eventually returned to the Netherlands in 2017, but Paul didn't stay away for long. He loved Australia. He also had a solid group of friends there. So he kept coming back on a working holiday visa, which is a program that lets young people live and work in another country for extended periods of time. And that's how Lily and Paul ended up in the same place at the same time, mainly because of his good reputation at St. Andrews. Because of that, Paul was welcomed back and offered a job coaching cricket and hockey, which at this point, Lily was already coaching water polo there. And at first they barely talked, just co workers in the same environment. But then eventually, things shifted a little more conversation, some flirting, exchanging phone numbers, exchanging Snapchats. I mean, nothing dramatic or head over heels. It was just casual talking. And neither one of them seemed to want it to be anything more than that, at least publicly. In fact, Paul told his friends he didn't want Lily to be his girlfriend. And his reasoning, which is kind of odd, was because of her personality, whatever the heck that means. But according to some friends, they just didn't buy it. They thought that he was way more invested than he let on and that he was just trying to play it cool. Kind of not playing hard to get, but, you know, trying to be a cool guy, not act like he's, like, super into this girl. Meanwhile, Lily was kind of telling her friends and family the same thing. She wasn't looking for anything serious with anyone, not just Paul, but anyone. She just simply didn't have the time, the capacity, or the headspace. But there was some sort of connection between Lily and Paul. Undeniably, whether it was going to be serious or casual, it wasn't clear. But they were talking, they were flirting, and something definitely was brewing. Her mom still remembers the phone call where Lily first mentioned Paul in the summer of 2023. Lily said that the two of them had sat down and agreed that there would be no labels, no pressure, absolutely nothing that would interfere with their jobs, that they would go out on some dates, they'd hang out, they would enjoy each other's company, and that whenever it naturally just fizzled out, that would be that. Just casual, no pressure, no strings attached, just flip fun. Or at least that's what it was supposed to be. Now, whatever you want to call their relationship, the important part of it is this. Neither of them was trying to fall in love or jump into something serious. And honestly, that was totally fine. It actually sounded ideal. They were on the same page. They were upfront with what they wanted, what they didn't want. They were very clear about the boundaries and everything that they wanted. There were no mixed signals. There was nobody secretly hoping for more but just trying to play it cool. Just two young adults, but acting more like grown adults, communicating their boundaries and what they wanted, which everybody in Lily's life saw that as extremely mature, very level headed. Lily's friends also said they didn't mind Paul at all. He was friendly, he was talkative, very easy to be around, and Lily just loved people who could match her energy. So the two of them did exactly what they agreed to do. They went on dates, they hung out outside of work. Then they would go back to their own private personal lives. No pressure, no commitments, no expectations. At least that's how Lily saw it. Because pretty early on into whatever this was, Paul's behavior started to shift. And not in a cute, you know, well, maybe we like each other way more than we thought kind of way. He flat out started acting weird toward her. Have you ever logged into your bank account and you find yourself asking, like, where did all my money go? What happened? 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- [16:31]
A
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- [17:32]
C
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B
At first, Paul's behavior just came across as kind of nosy, especially for somebody who wasn't her boyfriend. I mean, he would make little comments about her taking too long to text back or ask where she was the night before. Nothing overly explosive or, you know, shady or alarming, but like these sly little jabs to kind of just like that feel weird in the moment. However, over the next five weeks, all of that, it escalated fast. Paul got needier and more controlling by the day, which made absolutely no sense considering that he was the one who insisted he didn't want a girlfriend. Yet he hated whenever Lily would talk to other guys, whether it was at work or out socially with her friends, he always wanted to know where she was, who she was with, if she had spoken to any men while she was out. And then came the moment that everything shifted Paul went on a trip to Bali. And I have to say, Bali is very close to Australia in the sense of a vacation destination. I remember when I actually visited Bali years and years ago, they said that they treat Australia similarly to how we in California treat Hawaii. Or maybe not Vegas. Maybe that's too close. But like, Hawaii, where it's, like, it's a quick little flight, and it's, you know, a place where people go frequently. So Paul went on this trip to Bali, and while he was gone, Lily hung out with another guy, which she didn't lie about it. She told Paul about this because she didn't want to hurt his feelings. Plus, they were up front. They were being honest. There was no pressure. There was no commitment. Commitment. They weren't exclusive either. So really, she had no reason to hide anything. But Paul, he did not exactly take this well. Instead of being casual about it, like she had expected, he got angry, lecturing her that she had done something wrong. Almost like she belonged to him now. That was obviously a huge red flag. And it also was the final straw for Lily at this point. She felt super suffocated. This wasn't a real relationship. And she also didn't want it to become a real relationship. So she was like, this is too much. Pump the brakes. I don't want any part of this. You're getting way too serious, way too caught up. We're gonna end this. So she ended things. She told friends and family that it was mutual, that it really was not a big deal at all. They had only been seeing each other for five weeks at that point. Most of her friends had, yes, met Paul maybe once, but that's the extent of it. And at that age, I have to say, too, at 21 years old, even his age, 23 or whatever, it's like these almost relationships. And I say almost because it's not a real relationship, in my opinion. It's like they come and go. You meet people. It fizzles out. You meet somebody new. That's the beauty of being young and dating. So nobody thought twice about it. But Paul, he did. The breakup was on Friday, October 20, 2023. And over the next four days, his behavior completely started to spiral. He begged Lily to stay in his life. He even offered her a friends with benefits type of situation, which I don't know why he thought that that would be interesting or, you know, what Lily wanted. And sure enough, she turned him down immediately. She's like, no, I don't want anything romantic. I don't want anything sexual. I don't want anything at all. I just want to, like, be friends, like, back off, you know? She just wanted him to go back to being a co worker, nothing more. But that was not enough for Paul. So he tried a different approach. One day, Lily opened Snapchat and she noticed a username that she didn't recognize. It was Maddie 1999 XX. However, here's the thing, and I'm not super familiar with Snapchat. Call me a boomer, whatever you want. But I did do some research, and Snapchat has this feature where if you have somebody's phone number saved, the app will connect that phone number to any account that is registered with it. So she sees this username, Maddie 1999. But there it was. Suggested contact Paul. Except remember the username. It wasn't Paul. It was Maddie. So why would Paul have a Snapchat account under a girl's name? But for Lily, it clicked instantly. Had Paul really made this fake account, all so that he could watch her stories and keep tabs on her without being able to block him? I mean, it sure looked like that. Which, not only young kids, but even kids my age, too. I don't use Snapchat. But like Instagram, you follow people who you don't personally know. Not everybody, but some people do that. Whether it's an acquaintance, a friend by extension, somebody you've met once. There's a million different reasons where people are following people that they don't personally know. So in Lily's case, when she saw Maddie on this, she could have just thought, oh, this is a girl I met in passing. Maybe it was somebody from a different water polo team. Maybe it's somebody who's a friend of a friend. But then that suggested contact Paul came up, and she's like, this makes no sense. So she confronted him at work, straight up, asking why there was this account under his phone number with a girl's name on it. But he was ready, and he had the excuses ready to go. First, he said that he had a stalker. He said that Maddie was a girl that he had been talking to in the past who was extremely insecure about Lily. So she created this account so that she could lurk on Lily's page to see what she looked like. That this really was Maddie. It wasn't Paul. It was this super stalker ex of his, which none of that made any sense. But Maddie was a real person. She later told people that she had no idea who Lily even was. So Paul was obviously lying. And Lily knew that. She knew that this was A fake story, but that was just the start. That same night, the night of their breakup, there was this huge 21st birthday party that a lot of their mutual friends were going to. Paul, unfortunately, was not invited, but Lily was, and she was very excited to go. And even though they had just ended things, Paul had already agreed to drive her and a friend of hers to this party. So he insisted. Like, look, I know we're broken up. The plans don't need to change. I still will drive. You guys have a great time. I don't want you to worry. However, from the moment that they got into the car, the energy was just off. He was irritated that Lily was going to this party. And as he dropped them off, he even had the audacity to tell Lily's friend, hey, don't let Lily talk to her ex boyfriend who's gonna be there. As though he has any say or any right to say that. Which wrong girl to say that to. Lily's friend was not about to take orders from this guy. And you can't even say he's Lily's ex. They were never in a relationship. So they get dropped off at the party and they go inside. And after dropping them off, Paul went out with his friends to go grab some pizza. But they started noticing that his behavior was off. He barely spoke, and he was just glued to his Snapchat the entire time. And here's where it gets pretty concerning. Snapchat also has this location sharing feature which Instagram recently adopted. And I have to say, it is, in my opinion, the most dangerous feature that any app can have. A lot of young people will leave it on without even knowing that it's on, or without even thinking twice about the fact that anybody on their friends list can see exactly where they're at in real time. Like I said, Instagram adopted it too. And if it's, like, automatically, I believe when they put it on the app, it was enabled. It wasn't like something you had to manually turn on so you could go. And your whole list of people who you're following, you could see exactly where they are in real time on a map. And this isn't like Find My Friends on the iPhone, where you have to approve it, you have to share your location. It's just embedded in these apps, and you have to manually turn it off. So there. Paul was glued to Snapchat the entire time, because Paul was watching constantly. This wasn't just a breakup. This wasn't just hurt feelings. It was the beginning of very dangerous behavior. And Lily, she Had no idea that this was happening. No idea that he was watching her every move, tracking her, following her. And Lily had no idea just how far this was about to go. Paul's friends said that during their dinner he had Lily's Snapchat location pulled up the entire time, literally watching where she was going minute by minute, every move that she made. He wasn't checking in and checking out of concern to make sure she still at the party and that if she needed a ride home or whatever his reasoning could have been he was making sure that she didn't go anywhere that he didn't approve of. He even admitted to his friends that he was worried about Lily's ex boyfriend being at that party. And here's where things get frustrating. While his friends, yes, thought that it was weird that he just kept staring at his phone, they didn't see it as controlling. They kind of interpreted it as like desperado. Like, wow, Paul must really like this girl. Why is he so obsessed, like let it go guy. Like, not that it's concerning, but more like damn, he's really going through it. So in his friend's minds, he was just nervous that her ex boyfriend might show up. Which mental note really quick for all of us and for any parent listening, we have to teach our kids the difference between caring and control. When is that boundary crossed between truly caring about somebody's well being, wanting to make sure they're okay, to then controlling, to being possessive, to needing to know their every move. Now, during all of this, and in my opinion, part of the reason why maybe the friends interpreted this as not only not something super dangerous, but more so something like, wow, he really likes her, he really cares about her. Is because Paul told them something else. He said Lily was still thinking about whether or not she wanted to end things, that she was going to give him her final answer on Monday. Which that wasn't true. That wasn't even close to being true. She had already ended things with him. She was done. She was over it. But he wasn't obviously willing to believe it or accept it, or he was too embarrassed to tell his friends that that saying, no, she's still thinking on it. She'll decide Monday. Now, as all this was going down, Paul was so wound up about the idea of her ex being at that party that he drove back to the house and he waited outside of the party. Then when the party ended, he offered to drive Lily and her friend back home. But this wasn't just a kind gesture. Clearly he had ulterior motives. Here and sure enough, the second that they got into the car, he started grilling them, asking if her ex was there, had she talked to him, did they hang out? And Lily, being honest, said, yeah, he was there. Yeah, I did talk to him. Like, what's the problem here? Now, the one detail that she did not share and the one thing that Paul did not know is what the conversation was actually about that Lily and her ex had. Because Lily had confided in her ex that she just did not feel safe around Paul anymore. He was genuinely starting to scare her. And this wasn't her being dramatic. This wasn't her overreaching. She was recognizing the pattern for what it was. Obsessive, unpredictable, controlling and dangerous. Now, even though he didn't know the context of what that conversation was, when Paul heard that she had spoken to her ex, when she confirmed that with him, he just completely unraveled. And from that point on, his behavior went from unsettling to full blown spiraling. Shopping for a new mattress does not have to be overwhelming. You don't have to go like test all of these ones where you're like laying on all these gross mattresses that a million people have laid on before. Because Helix makes it easy for you with their Helix sleep quiz. I've talked to you about my Helix mattress before. I have not only my Helix mattress in my bed that I've had Since I believe 2020 now, but I have one in our guest room as well because everybody who ever sat on my bed was like, wait, this is so comfortable. So now it's a nice little treat for anybody who spends the night. 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- [31:30]
A
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- [32:29]
C
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B
Watching Lily on Snapchat wasn't enough for Paul anymore. Sure, Paul could see where she was, but that didn't guarantee that she wasn't with other people. And he had. Now, at this point, after that party, he had learned the hard way that she was with other people. She was with her ex. She was talking to other people. He couldn't track everybody's location. Or more specifically, he couldn't track her ex's location. But he could track Lily in real time, see who she was with. So he took to real life stalking. Not just on Snapchat. On Saturday, October 21, which was the day after Lily had ended things with him and also the day after the party, that's when Paul really took things up a notch. Paul wasn't calming down over this breakup or starting to just, like, mellow out a little bit. Instead, he was escalating. He rented a silver Yaris from a local car share business called Go get, clearly wanting to avoid being seen in his own car while doing whatever he was planning to do next. And he drove straight to Lily's house. But it wasn't like some simple drive by where he was going to just drive by the front of her house, see if any other cars were in the driveway, and then be on his way. The GPS showed that between 9:55 and 10:55pm that night, Paul circled her neighborhood for a full hour, looping around her house over and over and over again. And he wasn't just watching her, he was documenting it. He was taking photos of her home from multiple angles. He was also making notes in his phone. Notes like outside house with brother's car, brother's car, car one on other side. Which to me, looking at that, looking at the photos and the notes, it seems like he's trying to clearly figure out who was at the house, making sure that every car belonged to a family member that it wasn't. If it was an unknown car, who did it belong to? It belonged to another guy or her ex. I mean, he needed control. He needed to know. And it didn't stop there. Over the next four days, Paul returned seven times, doing the exact same thing. Circling, taking pictures, checking who was home, documenting it in his notes. His obsession was just continuing to escalate and spiral. Then came Wednesday, October 25, just days after Lily had ended things. And that day changed everything. Because this was the night that Lily's father, Jamie, got that very strange text message from Lily saying, come pick me up from the school. He had no idea why she didn't want him to call her or text her or ask questions. But he got in the car and he went. He knew that something was wrong and he wanted to protect his daughter. So that's how he ended up wandering the halls of St. Andrews, searching for his daughter. And then chaos hit. Before Jamie could even decide where to look next. Police officers and paramedics suddenly just burst and stormed into the school. They brushed directly past him without any explanation, which only made his panic skyrocket. Right? Imagine that you're in this empty, quiet school after hours. You're looking for your daughter. You're hoping to hear even just a pin drop. Then all of a sudden, paramedics and police Officers storm the school hallways, rushing past you. Your fear, your panic, it would explode. And that's what happened with Jamie. He started showing them a photo of Lily on his phone, asking if they had seen her, if this emergency that they were rushing to had anything to do with her. But nobody would give him a straight answer. They just gently pushed him aside and kept going toward where they were directed to go. And just let's pause there for a second. I know I already set the stage of what that would feel like with them brushing past you and you not knowing what's going on. But then add in the fact that fact that you're taking your phone, showing them pictures of your child, asking, hey, why are you guys here? Does it have anything to do with a young girl? Could it be somebody named Lily? Look, this is my daughter. I'm trying to find her. And they're not giving you any answers. They're just silent. It's horrifying to think about. Eventually, someone did approach Jamie, and they told him that he needed to come with them to the police station. So now, sitting in that station, everything felt unreal. Was he going to file a missing persons report? Were they going to ask him questions? What was happening here? But then the detectives finally told him the truth. They had found Lily, and she wasn't alive. Jamie's entire world, in that moment, just collapsed. How could his healthy, joyful 21 year old daughter, the same daughter that he had just seen that day, now be gone? How could the girl who had just texted him for help be dead? But then came the details. Details that no parent should ever have to hear. Lily had been found inside the school bathroom with fatal head injuries. She had been brutally beaten with a blunt object. And this next detail, while likely not shared with her parents immediately or ever. It was reported by multiple sources. Apparently, there was so much blood covering Lily's head and hair that the first responders didn't even recognize her. At first, her blonde hair looked jet black. That is how blood soaked it was. When the autopsy came back, the true extent of her injuries also became much more clear. She had sustained 25 blows to her head and neck. And Lily, she had fought desperately. She had defensive wounds and broken bones all over her hands and arms. She fought back until the very end. Now, in most cases, somebody finds a body, calls 911, and then the investigators start piecing everything together, right? Well, in Lily's case, things took a very different turn. Because before Jamie even realized that his daughter was missing, somebody else had already called Emergency Services. Triple 0, which is basically like 911 in the states. But here's the strange part. The person who made that emergency call, they didn't sound panicked, they didn't sound traumatized, they didn't sound like a student who walked in on something horrifying and perhaps found a dead body. In fact this caller, they didn't sound shaken at all.
- [39:32]
D
Police emergency. This is Katrina. Hi Katrina, I would like to report a body in Samantha Strategic School in Sydney cbe. Sorry, you'd like to report. Sorry, I can't hear what you're saying. So there is a body that in Saint Andrews Cathedral School. Saint Andrew's Cathedral School? Yep. What's the address there? 474 10th Street. 474 Kent street in Sydney. What's the closest corner street there to St. Andrews Cathedral School? 474 Kent Street. Sydney. Cos of Bathurst Street. Yes. All right, so St. Andrew's Cathedral School, 474 Kent Street. Sydney, cross of Bathurst Street. Now you're not there at the moment. I am not nearly. Okay, what's going on there? If you go into the school, there is an entrance on the left of the reception area. There's a sports department. There's a bathroom on the right hand side where there is a body. A body? Yeah. Okay. There is a body in a bathroom on the right hand side of watch when you go into the sports area, which is when you enter the school through reception on the left and there are bathrooms on the right in the sports area. It's the first door and so it's inside.
- [41:30]
B
Yep.
- [41:30]
D
So there was a pre reception. When were you there? I don't remember. What do you mean you don't remember when you were there? I don't remember that time. So how long ago were you there? A couple of hours. Is it male or female or female? Sorry, Female. Female. Do you know who it is? No. What's your name? Okay, so are you in a house or on the street? No, I think someone should just go in there before people arrive in the morning. Thank you.
- [42:30]
B
Now I don't know about you, but that triple zero call, it has red flags all over it. I mean the biggest thing being that the caller was way too calm. I mean first responders later said that this scene was so horrific that even seasoned professionals were struggling with what they walked into. Yet this caller, steady voice, no panic, no shock, nothing. And then there's also how vague this caller was. They wouldn't give a name, they wouldn't say who the victim was, they wouldn't even clearly say when they found her which most people who are calling in a discovery like that, they're frantic. They're over explaining, they're trying to piece together and reconcile in their own mind what they're seeing, right? But this person did the complete opposite. They withheld information. So the detectives immediately wondered, was this caller actually the killer? And to answer that question, they went straight to the most reliable witness they CCTV footage. And thank God St Andrews had cameras everywhere. Remember? Super fancy, very prestigious private school. And when the investigators started reviewing the footage, two people kept showing up on that footage over and over and over again. Lily and Paul. Now, at first, everything looked normal. They were seen chatting, smiling, laughing together, nothing alarming. But then the footage shifted. Lily walked into the bathroom, the same one where she would later be found. And for a moment, the hallway was completely empty. But then Paul appeared back on camera and he stood right outside of the bathroom door and he was holding a hammer. He didn't rush in, he didn't burst into the bathroom trying to catch Lily off guard. He just stood there for nearly two minutes, frozen. Almost like he was working up the nerve to do exactly what he had been planning to do. And then suddenly he moved. He broke out of whatever trance he was in and he stormed into the bathroom. And that was the last thing that this camera captured before Lily's murder. There were no cameras inside the bathroom, so the exact details will never be known. But what we do know is this. Paul followed Lily into the bathroom, knowing that she was alone, and then he beat her to death with a hammer. Now, what's even more chilling in all of this is that an hour before the murder, Paul was once again caught on CCTV camera rehearsing this attack. He literally practiced barging through the bathroom door, the same door that he later would storm to kill Lily, and practiced the whole thing, which, seeing that footage, is haunting. And it tells you everything you need to know about his intentions, which I highly doubt that he just went in there, you know, to talk with Lily. In my opinion, there was no conversation, no. No confrontation, no moment where Lily even had the chance to ask him why he was there, no less why he was holding a hammer. He went in there ready to attack, ready to kill. He walked in and immediately started beating her over and over until ultimately she was gone. Now, knowing that the weapon was a hammer, it suddenly made all of Lily's injuries make sense. It was like the puzzle pieces finally came together and it clicked. The broken bones, the abrasions on her hands and her arms, the defensive wounds she was desperately Trying to protect herself, raising her arms over her face and her head in pure instinct. But also imagine being pinned underneath somebody who is swinging a hammer repeatedly. There's only so long that you can fight until your body gives out, until they hit the right spot to make you jolt and go weak. And again, this is only my own assumption, but after a certain point, I think Lily was likely unconscious or already gone. Because 25 blows to the head and the neck, that is rage, that is overkill, that is personal. And we've talked about this a lot. In cases in which a knife is involved, right, that call it 10 stab wounds. Maybe that's not overkill. Maybe it is, depending on the circumstance. But it's not just 10 motions, it's 20. It's always double that because you have the up and the down motion that you have to take into consideration. So 25 blows, that is 50 motions of your arm going up and down. And I don't know if you've ever tried to do something like simulate what that would look like or how tiring that would be, but if you have a pillow nearby or if you're in your car, even, I mean, don't freak out the person who's driving next to you. But if you just do that with your arm and count 50 times, even if it's just basic and you're not using a lot of force, but now do it where you, like, have a closed fist, you're pushing really strong, almost like you have a fist and you're pushing down with force 50 times. That takes an incredible amount of strength, adrenaline and rage. Right? And that is why so many times, that kind of amount of injuries is indicative of overkill. Now, for an hour after the attack, nobody entered or left the bathroom, which this wasn't a high traffic area. It was one of two bathrooms in a private staff room, a space that most people in the building never even used. But Paul chose it for a reason. He knew that there wouldn't be a lot of people going in and out of it, so he planned all of this. He even staged the whole setup. Before Lily walked into the staff room, Paul hung a sign on the other bathroom door saying that it was being cleaned, forcing her to then use the bathroom that he had chosen for the attack, the one that he had also remember already rehearsed breaking into. And by the time Paul finally walked out of that bathroom and was seen on CCTV footage again, it was about an hour later. Lily was already dead by that point. And here's where it gets crazy, because that's when Jamie, Lily's dad's, phone, started buzzing with a text message from Lily's phone number, which we now know Lily never sent it. She couldn't have. Paul had her phone. He sent those messages to her dad, making it seem like she was still alive, trying to explain away his movements afterward, which, it's a very bizarre strategy when you really break it down and think about it. Because if he wanted to buy more time, why would he message her dad, the one person who is guaranteed to come looking for her instantly? Well, Lily's family believes that that was all part of his sick and twisted plan, that he wanted Jamie, Lily's dad, to be the one to find her. Can you even imagine how evil that is? He took her phone, tried to toy with her dad, saying, help me, help me. Come get me, while she was already dead. Also, that he would come to the school and he would be the one to discover his daughter bludgeoned to death. It is sick and it is a different kind of evil. Now, thank God Jamie was not the one to find her, because that is trauma that no parent survives. And sure enough, by the time that Jamie had arrived at the school, Paul had also already made that emergency phone call. And remember how strange that call was. No details, no location, no emotion. He didn't want to reveal who he was or where he was calling from. So the police, they started searching for Paul immediately. And word spread very fast. Something had happened at the school, a death. And parents were, of course, panicking. And even though it was late at night, not during school hours, it still was a school. So people wanted answers. Was a student involved? Was somebody targeting children? Was there another danger here? All anyone knew was that St. Andrews had been taped off, that somebody had been killed inside, and that the police were looking for a male suspect. Officials were very quiet, likely to avoid chaos or misinformation. But the silence, it only made the community that much more terrified. Everybody wanted answers and the truth. It was worse than anybody could have imagined.
- [50:58]
A
From her injuries, it was apparent that she was a victim of a homicide.
- [51:02]
B
We believe that the female is an employer of the school and they're going to be confronted by this when they turn up.
- [51:11]
A
We're currently working with a school to.
- [51:13]
B
Ensure the welfare of these students. Pretty much immediately after the search for Paul began, the investigators started fearing the worst. They had officers on the ground looking for him, but they also had analysts who were digging into his digital footprint, trying to see what was going on with his phone activity, social media activity, banking information, and what they found was alarming. Right after placing that Triple Zero phone call, Paul transferred $9,100 to his roommates with it. There was a little memo note attached that said six months rent. Now, maybe he didn't want them stuck covering his share while he fled and evaded the police. But more realistically, it looked like he was trying to tie up loose ends. And then things got even more concerning. When the investigators traced the location of where that emergency call took place, it led them to a cliffside area called Diamond Bay. So they rushed there immediately. But when they arrived, Paul was nowhere in sight. Now, what they didn't know at the time was that they missed him by three minutes. And that was the last time that he ever appeared on cctv. All the investigators found at the scene was some clothing, a backpack with a phone inside. But that phone ended up kind of being a mystery of its own. It wasn't Paul's. It also wasn't Lily's. Neither of their personal phones have ever been recovered. And inside the backpack was a handmade gift from an ex girlfriend. Now, given the location, the timing, and Paul's sudden disappearance, the investigators quickly believed that he had jumped off of this cliffside, either to take his own life, to injure himself, or maybe to, like, I don't know, jump and flee. Who the heck really knows? But the area was shut down and a massive search began. And it took two full days of searching until finally they recovered Paul's body at the bottom of the cliffs. He was naked and he was very badly damaged from the fall. So just like that, both Lily and her killer were gone. Which. What's so unreal is that even by the time Paul's body was found, so much of the investigation was still incomplete. Everything had unfolded so quickly that the detectives were still trying to play catch up. And people wanted answers, too, during all of this, why did he kill her? Was this spontaneous rage? Was it planned? What could have happened in just five weeks to provoke something so brutal? The community was completely stunned. This wasn't the kind of crime that anybody ever expected in their quiet little corner of Sydney. But slowly and surely, the detectives gathered every piece of evidence, every message, every timeline detail, and a clearer picture finally began to take shape. Because what they found was not only that this was not an isolated incident, but that this had very carefully been crafted and planned. 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The first thing that the investigators discovered was that Lily's murder had, without a doubt, been planned. Now, the exact moment where Paul ultimately decided to kill her is up for debate. Was it the moment that Lily ended things? Was it when he discovered that she had talked with an ex? Which, it's unclear, to be honest. It could have been a little bit of both. But on the morning of Lily's murder, Paul was seen on CCTV at a hardware store near his apartment. And what do you buy at a hardware store? A hammer. He walked up and down the aisles, picking up all of the different hammers, testing the weight, even mimicking a striking motion with the hammer, literally rehearsing a kill. He ended up buying one that he liked. But that hammer wasn't used in the murder. Different sources say that the actual weapon came either from the school or from his roommate's toolbox. But everybody agrees the store bought hammer apparently was not the murder weapon, which, I don't know. Maybe he realized that he was being filmed, maybe he panicked. Either way, it's clear that the intent was certainly already there. And his planning didn't just stop with the weapon. Paul had made sure that Lily went into the exact bathroom that he wanted, the one that he had practiced himself forcing his way into. And he did this by placing that cleaning sign on the other door, just funneling her straight into his trap. And as the investigators dug deeper, they realized that Paul wasn't at all who he presented himself to be. His obsessive behavior with Lily, it wasn't new. It wasn't isolated. I mean, back in the gap between graduating high school and moving back to Australia, Paul had been in a very short relationship with another woman. She's kept her identity private, but she did come forward to talk about what she went through. And just like with Lily, the relationship was only a few months long. But Paul did not handle the breakup well at all. She, too, ended things with him because she was scared of him. He demanded her full attention. He got angry when she didn't give it. He insisted on being front and center in her social media, which in today's world is basically kind of like a way of claiming ownership. A lot of people will call it a hard launch, but then a lot of people in toxic relationships, it's like, you have to always have me front and center on your socials so people know you're taken. It's just very toxic. And every time she tried to break up with him, he pressured her into staying. At one point, she blocked him, and she stopped sharing her location with him. But when she did that, he literally flew from Australia back to the Netherlands just so that he could confront her about it. Being able to track her was something that he was fixated on. Eventually, she just reached her breaking point, and she told him that it was over, which, at that point, he snapped. He punched a tree that was right next to her head, saying that he hit the tree because he couldn't hit what he really wanted to. Now, thankfully, she took that as a very dangerous warning and took it for what it was like, this is a threat. And she held firm and didn't let him manipulate his way back into her life. But even then, he didn't stop. For the next two days, she kept seeing him standing outside her family's home, staring through the fence slats into the kitchen window while she was inside. Like, straight up horror movie behavior, stalker behavior. Her dad finally caught him on the second day and chased him off with, like, a cricket bat. But that was the only thing that made him leave her alone. And the parallels between what he did to her and what he did to Lily, I mean, they're undeniable. The neediness, the stalking, the anger, the escalation. And it didn't even stop with just relationships. As the investigators kept peeling back these layers of who Paul was, they realized that Paul had been lying to practically everyone in his life. Remember that work visa that he had? I mentioned it at the beginning of this episode. Those visas can typically only be used three times unless you meet very specific qualifications, which Paul didn't. So after he used his three, he started lying on his applications, embellishing his role at St. Andrews to make it look like he was more qualified for a fourth visa than he actually really was. He also was lying to his family and his friends back in the Netherlands, telling them that he was a student at the University of Sydney, that he was working toward a master's degree in teaching, which the truth was, he wasn't enrolled anywhere. Everything that he had been telling people was a complete facade, a Persona that he built and stuck to, which, I have to say, the biggest takeaway in this case is honestly pretty simple. And it's something that Lily's parents have been very direct about. They don't want any of these details to be softened or swept under the rug. They want people to understand the reality, of course, control of violence, of domestic disputes, how quickly it escalates and how it can end a life in what feels like an instant. Sometimes it doesn't look like this years long, dramatic marriage or abusive situation. Sometimes it's five weeks with someone that you assumed was safe because you worked with them and they seemed normal. Lily's mom also said something that really stuck with me, and I want to read it for you. She said, quote, for Lily and her friends, we're bringing up women who are strong, educated, know what they want, and will go after it. But are we teaching our kids how to handle rejection in relationships? I don't know that we're teaching our kids that everything's not going to go their way. And I think that that is such an important statement and so powerful. You're trying to give your kids the tools that they need to be great people and to, you know, be driven and motivated. But are we teaching them what happens when things don't work out the way they hoped or the way they planned? The entitlement of it all. I just think it's a really good reminder. Of course, Lily's death is still very painfully fresh for her family. Their worlds will never be the same. But what they want and what they have made clear in all of this is that Lily is remembered not just for how she died, but for who she was. Bright, driven, kind, loved, and deeply missed. Special people come into the world, and they seem to go out of the world way too soon. And that's how I see Lily. Her kindness, her loyalty to people and just the gentlest person, very gentle. But murder and the way he murdered her is horrific. Now, another main reason that I wanted to talk about Lily's case today is because her story really highlights that domestic issues, they can come in all shapes and sizes. There isn't one single typical victim. It can happen to people who have been married for 50 years or people who have been dating for a single week. So if you or a loved one is experiencing any form of domestic danger, please know you are not alone and help is available. Thank you guys so much for tuning in and listening to Lily's story today. I really appreciate it and I want to hear from you. What do you think the motive was in all this? I mean, I think we know it was. If I can't have you, no one can. But then for him to jump off the cliff, take his own life, was it because he couldn't live without Lily or was it because the guilt consumed him? How eerie was that CCTV footage of him walking up and down the aisle of the hardware store testing the weight of the hammers. I mean, it's again, a tale as old as time, right? Like the audacity of these people to think that they are entitled to someone's affection and if it's not reciprocated, they're entitled to take their life. And at such a young age too, for somebody that young to be thinking that that is the answer, it's very unnerving. So our thoughts are with Lily's family and hopefully even though he took his own life, I mean, I'm just hopeful that by her story, living on it will help other people who find themselves in similar situations. So again, thank you so much for listening. Please share this episode with a friend, a family member on your social media because you never know who is suffering in silence and this really could be helpful for them to hear and see. Thanks again guys. And until the next one, be nice. Don't kill people. Don't share your location on Snapchat or Instagram or anywhere else unless it's your family and people that you trust, which I hate saying it, but even then it's like you never really know. And just please always watch your back. Okay, bye.
- [64:33]
C
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