Former girlfriend of Lilie James’ killer breaks her silence with chilling revelation – as her shattered parents are dealt another blow

A former girlfriend of Paul Thijssen, who beat Lilie James, 21, to death at a Sydney school a year ago, said he acted “disturbed” when she broke up with him years earlier.

The young woman spoke about Thijssen on 60 Minutes, where Mrs James’ heartbroken parents, Peta and Jamie, also revealed another cruel blow the family has suffered: Peta has cancer.

When Thijssen killed his ex-girlfriend Mrs. James, many of his friends said they were shocked, that there had been no warning signs that he was capable of doing it.

But a former girlfriend, speaking out for the first time, said she saw what lay behind his well-mannered facade years earlier.

The young woman, who wants to remain anonymous, had been in a relationship with Thijssen for a few months and called it a ‘fairly normal’ relationship.

But he “needed a lot of attention” and always wanted to know where she was and be in her social media photos.

As Thijssen’s obsession grew, she tried to break up with him, but he begged her to take him back, to the point where she finally insisted “no” to him, and he “became very upset” and punched a nearby tree.

“I was like, ‘Why did you just hit the tree?’ And he said, because I can’t hit the only thing I want,” the woman said, adding that she felt scared and immediately ran home.

Her fear was compounded when Thijssen appeared outside her family’s home at dawn two mornings in a row.

“I look up out the kitchen window and through the slats of our fence I see Paul’s face staring back at me,” she said.

‘Then I shout and my father comes running down, grabs a cricket bat and chases him full-on into the street.’

The woman said Thijssen looked ‘disturbed’ and as if ‘something was wrong’.

Years later, when the police started hunting for Lilie James’ killer, they immediately thought of Thijssen.

“As soon as I saw the headline it didn’t say who the person was, but I just knew it was Paul,” she said.

“Every time someone brings this up, I think: That should have been me. It shouldn’t have been Lilie… it should have been me, if it was anyone.’

Mrs. James’ father, Jamie, cannot bring himself to say the name of his daughter’s killer; he just calls him ‘the monster’.

When asked if Lilie’s text message asking to come to St Andrew’s Cathedral School, where both she and Thijssen were sports coaches, was really from her, he said ‘no, it was from the monster…’

“That message shows the character that the person is just an evil, evil monster out to hurt, to injure, to do as much damage as possible.”

The James family revealed that Peta was battling cancer, which was the case diagnosed just before their daughter’s death.

“I have melanoma in both lungs and maybe one or two lymph nodes, depending on who you ask,” Peta said.

She now receives immunotherapy once a month. “(I) just take care of my health every day and see where we end up,” she said.

Her husband and son Max give her the strength to continue.

‘I just don’t want to make the situation worse than it is. I just think if I fell apart it would just make things worse for them.”

Lilie was a champion swimmer who won an under-17 tournament in 2019.

Her parents’ social media pages featured photos of her achievements, ranging from dance trophies in elementary school to the day she earned her learner’s license in 2018.

In Kogarah, a 16-year-old Lilie could be seen standing in front of her family car, proudly holding a yellow L sign.

“Let the fun begin,” her mother captioned the photo.

Another photo showed Lilie in her school uniform, wearing a graduation hat and flowers in 2020 as she completed Year 12 at Danebank Anglican School For Girls.

After going to school after receiving the text message from Thijssen posing as Lilie, Mr James returned home in the early hours of the morning to tell his wife and son she was dead.

“I’ll never forget it,” Peta said.

“I will never forget that one moment, the realization that she will never walk through that door again will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

But a forensic psychologist told 60 Minutes that Thijssen likely had a narcissistic personality disorder and could not cope with the rejection of the breakup with Lilie.

“He felt humiliated and humiliated, and with that came a flood of intense, angry and heated emotions, which led to rage,” he said.

Lilie’s parents and girlfriend called for change in Australia’s scourge of domestic violence.

“We have to do more,” her father said. ‘For me it just has to stop.’

A friend of Lilie said: ‘If we want to leave (a relationship), we have to be able to leave.’

Thijssen took his own life by jumping off a cliff, hours after killing Mrs James.

Lilie’s mother said she didn’t see how she could ever forgive Thijssen.

He “can rot in hell,” her father said.

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