Paul Thijssen’s ‘template’ for bloody murder

Killer Paul Thijssen was a young man who never shared too much – but a coronial inquest into the murder of Lilie James revealed the dangerous ways his mind worked.

Paul Thijssen at the St Andrew’s school in Sydney just before he killed Lilie James. Picture: Supplied

Paul Thijssen was a man who never shared too much.

If he did not want to volunteer information, he would simply stay silent until the conversation moved on.

“He is the type of person who doesn’t really say much,” one of his friends recalled this week as part of an inquest into the murder-suicide of Thijssen and his ex-girlfriend, Lilie James. “He says very general statements.” 

But, while he may not have often spoken up, evidence given at the coronial inquest showed cogs were turning on the inside.

A forensic psychologist said Thijssen’s secretive nature was a facade to hide his “brittle narcissism”. He was a young man who feared being embarrassed and, when rejected, was capable of committing monstrosities.

Over the three-day inquest this week, counsel assisting, Jennifer Single SC, and a raft of witnesses unmasked a terrifying picture of Thijssen, and the events leading to the moment he stepped into the St Andrew’s Cathedral School bathroom, claw hammer in hand, and bludgeoned James to death.

The ex

Thijssen, a sports coach at St Andrew’s, was said to have enjoyed the self-esteem boost that came out of close friendships with young women, often maintaining relationships with the girls he had trained.

One such former student was a girl three years his junior who had been under his tutelage since she was a young teen. They began dating in 2021. The Australian has anonymised her in this story.

“Early on in their relationship, Paul wanted (her) to share her iPhone location with him. She was unwilling to do this, but agreed,” Ms Single told the inquest. “She occasionally turned it off, and she says Paul would ‘blow up’ at her about this.

“(The girl’s) parents became concerned about Paul’s behaviour, in particular that he would check up on (her) and would become upset if she did not answer her phone straight away. On one occasion, Paul stayed outside her work for a couple of hours, waiting for her to finish.”

As with James, Thijssen would ultimately stalk this girl, flying halfway across the world and turning up to her church unannounced, before waiting outside her house into the early hours of the morning.

Forensic psychiatrist Danny Sullivan argued it formed a “template” Thijssen would deploy when he later menaced James, and would follow her to a train station or her home.

Years after their relationship disintegrated, Thijssen held on to a memento of the girl’s affection – a set of “vouchers” she made to celebrate their four-month anniversary.

They were one of the few items recovered from the site of Thijssen’s suicide.

The ‘stalker’

Thijssen’s complex relationship with women stretched beyond his romantic partners, the inquest heard.

In early 2023, he began coaching the UNSW hockey club and met another young woman he flirted with all through his relationship with James.

“(She) invited Paul out to the Bay … but Paul declined. He was making plans to watch the football finals with Lilie,” Ms Single said.

“Some of Paul’s messages or actions could be interpreted as flirty.”

When Thijssen moved house, the woman took out the family ute to help him move. He bought her flowers to say thanks for the eight hours of work she put in.

“Sadly, sleeping alone,” the inquest heard he told her as he sorted out a mattress for the new share house.

By all indications, Thijssen never told this girl about James, instead keeping her as an apparent “back-up”.

When Thijssen created a fake Snapchat account seemingly to keep tabs on James, he made it in the girl’s name. When James discovered this act of impersonation, he decided it should not be him, but rather the girl, who took the fall for it.

“I can’t believe (she) would do that,” he is alleged to have said. “I have a stalker.”

Lilie James. Picture: Facebook

Lilie James

When James and Thijssen first got together, she made it clear she was not looking for a serious relationship. Thijssen told his friends he had no issues with that.

“Paul always said he would sleep with Lilie but wouldn’t want her as his girlfriend,” a friend told the inquest.

“Paul said Lilie’s personality wasn’t something he would want in a girlfriend.

“Paul did say that he and Lilie had amazing sexual chemistry, and when talking about her he was shocked how good the sex was and in awe he was with her.”

But James was “annoying”, Thijssen claimed. When they broke up it was “mutual” and the “ball was in (her) court”.

“He used manipulative tactics, derogatory language, and degraded her,” NSW domestic violence death review team manager Anna Butler said.

“When she pushed back against his control, he physically escalated his abusive behaviour.

“He partook in behaviours that denied her autonomy and agency in attempting to leave. He utilised manipulative and emotionally abusive tactics to erase her sense of self. He gaslit her and used derogatory language as she attempted to push back against his control.”

In an act of “image-based sexual abuse”, Thijssen at one stage shared a private photo of James with his friends. Ms Butler said this was an attempt to reclaim control.

Thijssen was threatened by other men in James’s life. This provoked much of his possessiveness.

If she were to speak with her ex-boyfriend or take less interest in Thijssen, he responded by denigrating her personality or telling her about his own supposed sexual exploits, the inquest heard.

No intervention

Compared to many other perpetrators of murder-suicide, there was no “leakage” of Thijssen’s psyche, experts giving evidence at the inquest said.

He bore no criminal record, went unsuspected in his preparations, and confessed none of his intentions before killing James. No witness could point to a time someone close to Thijssen could realistically have intervened in his developing plot to murder James.

Family violence expert Kate Fitz-Gibbon during the final day of the inquest. Picture: NewsWire / Simon Bullard.

But Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre director Kate Fitz-Gibbon said the murder-suicide could not be treated as the rogue conduct of one bad apple. Instead, she said, his actions were the product of ingrained entitlement.

“We understand these as one-off shock events (but) the evidence suggests that this was not,” Professor Fitz-Gibbon said.

“This was not a loss of control that occurred suddenly or was not planned. The out-of-character shock narrative suggests a different understanding of the event (than what) occurs in a significant number of intimate-partner homicides.”

Movember men’s health researcher Zac Seidler said there was a void of specialised services to counter-program ideals of the “manosphere” that were bleeding into young relationships.

“We cannot continue to throw campaign after campaign at them that says this is what unhealthy looks like,” Dr Seidler said.

“It doesn’t gel with their lived experience or what they are seeking, and we can find ways to really build in messaging that is instrumental and instructive for them about how to connect with women in heterosexual relationships in a really healthy way.

“We have to realise that, and that’s what this type of inquest offers. Men come in so many shapes and sizes … the way in which they cause harm looks very different depending on the man.”