Aaron Pajich murder trial: Teen allegedly killed during ‘bondage role play’

A WOMAN on trial for murder in Perth has claimed she didn’t know her housemate was going to act out her “overwhelming desire” to murder.

Two women accused of murdering Aaron Pajich are on trial at the WA Supreme Court.

A WOMAN who was a submissive participant in bondage role playing has admitted to a Perth court she saw her murder-obsessed housemate killing an autistic teenager.

Trudi Clare Lenon, 43, has admitted being an accessory to the murder of 18-year-old Aaron Pajich.

He was found buried in a shallow grave covered with newly laid concrete and indoor tiles at the rear of Jemma Victoria Lilley’s Orelia property in June last year.

Lenon has pleaded not guilty to murder, but defence counsel Helen Prince has told the WA Supreme Court her client witnessed Mr Pajich being stabbed and garrotted by 26-year-old Lilley.

Lenon admitted trying to cover up the crime by cleaning and lying to police.

Both women are on trial accused of his murder.

Ms Prince said a series of text messages between the pair that the prosecution depicted as sounding sinister were in fact role playing — with Lenon using the name of her old bondage, submission and sadomasochism character.

Lilley, on the other hand, had written a graphic book about serial killers that she hoped would be developed into a game and had the name of a murderous character, SOS, tattooed onto one of her arms.

Ms Prince said Lenon didn’t know Lilley was going to act out her “overwhelming desire” to murder.

“This was fantasy,” Ms Prince said.

“This wasn’t real.

“No one believed she was actually going to go out and kill somebody. Ms Lilley was in fact deadly serious.”

Prosecutor James MacTaggart told the court one of the messages, written by Lilley the day after the murder, said: “I’m feeling things I haven’t felt before ... it’s incredibly empowering.” “Lilley wanted to experience what it was like to kill somebody ... for the euphoria and exhilaration of it,” Mr MacTaggart said.

He said Lenon, whose 13-year-old son was close friends with Mr Pajich, “for some warped, misguided reason” lured him to the house.

The murder trial has been set down for five weeks.

Ms Prince argued Lenon “had to do what she was told” because she feared for her sons, the youngest aged 10, who lived at the property.

The court also heard the 13-year-old helped to lay cement and tiles on top of the grave.

When police went to the house, they had to force their way into a locked, tarpaulin-covered room where the window was covered in black plastic and human hair was found caught between the wheels of a flattened-out shopping trolley, which had a board on it.

“That room provided a convenient place to put Aaron Pajich’s body for a couple of days without the children knowing about it,” Mr MacTaggart said. He said Lilley, a supermarket night shift supervisor, “joked and gloated” about the killing to colleagues “as if wearing it as a badge of honour”.

Adrienne Reid, who rented a room in her Waikiki house to Mr Pajich, told the WA Supreme Court on Tuesday that she would feed him, drive him to various places including the TAFE where he studied, and went to church with him.

“He was just like one of our kids,” she said.

Ms Reid said she was eating breakfast with him on the morning of his death when a woman called his mobile phone and asked to meet him.

She said she could only overhear some of what the woman was saying and waved her hands as if to say “no” when she thought she heard her suggest picking him up from the house.

“I think I started asking questions [like] ‘who was that?’ Ms Reid said. “I believe it was Trudi.” She dropped him off at Rockingham shopping centre, where CCTV footage captured Lilley and Lenon walking around together, and Mr Pajich walking around separately, and said their last words to each other were “God bless you”.

The court was also shown CCTV footage of the rear veranda of Lilley’s house just a few hours before the accused allegedly led Mr Pajich inside.

The trial is set down for five weeks and will hear from more than 60 witnesses.