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31-10-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
SYDNEY: On Thursday, as Australia woke to the news a body had been found inside the bathroom of an elite Sydney private school, horror rippled around the country.
Police had turned up at St Andrew’s Cathedral School just before midnight, after a chilling triple-zero emergency call.
There they encountered a “confronting scene”, 21-year-old water polo coach Lilie James, dead, with extensive head injuries.
Detectives believe she was murdered allegedly with a hammer hours earlier, according to local media who have cited anonymous sources.
CCTV had reportedly captured her colleague, 24-year-old hockey coach Paul Thijssen, entering the bathroom after her. Thijssen, who also made the call to authorities, later emerged alone.
Though police have made no public comments about a potential motive, local media have reported Ms James had recently ended a relationship with Thijssen. They had been seeing each other for only five weeks.
Thijssen had vanished after calling in the tip-off from Vaucluse, and police launched a major manhunt focused on the Cliffside suburb.
There they found items “associated with the homicide” allegedly the murder weapon in a bin, and on Friday morning, a body which was later confirmed to be Thijssen.
As friends and family reckoned with the death of James, they remembered her as kind friend and an avid sportswoman.
Along with water polo, she loved dancing and swimming, doing both competitively as a teenager and she had been studying a sports business degree at university, working at the school on the side.
“She was vibrant, outgoing, and very much loved by her family and friends”, James’s family said in a statement.
“We are devastated and heartbroken.”
James was “stolen from us”, family friend Daniel Makovec wrote in a fundraising appeal for the family.
“We will be grieving this loss forever,” he said.
In a note to parents, the head of St Andrew’s Cathedral School said she was deeply concerned for all involved.
“The horrors of evil do not, and will not, define our community, that is my oath,” Julie McGonigle said.
