March 23, 2025 • 10 mins
Last week, a coronial inquest heard evidence relating to the murder of 21-year-old Lilie James. James was killed in October 2023 by Paul Thijssen, a colleague with whom she had a short relationship. In today’s podcast, we’ll explain what we now understand happened on the day of her murder, and the events leading up to it.
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Hosts: Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A quick warning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This podcast contains distressing themes, including domestic violence. If you
or anyone you know needs help, you can reach out
to one eight hundred respect on one eight hundred seven
three seven seven three to two.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Already and this is this is the DAILYA.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday,
the twenty fourth of March.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Last week, a coronial inquest heard evidence relating to the
killing of twenty one year old Lily James.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Lily was killed in October.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Of twenty twenty three by Paul Tyson, with whom she
had ended a short relationship less than a week earlier.
In today's podcast, we'll explain what we now understand happened
on the day of her murder and the events leading.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Up to it. Zara, this is a really distressing story,
and I remember it really clearly when it broke and
the kind of days and weeks after the actual incident itself.
For anyone though, who might not have seen this in
the headlines back in twenty twenty three, can you talk
me through what exactly happened here?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, So, on October twenty fifth, twenty twenty three, the
body of twenty one year old Lily James was discovered
by police in the bathroom of Saint Andrew's Cathedral School
in Sydney's CBD. At the time, police said that Lily,
who was a part time water polo coach at the school,
was working on the night of her death. According to police,
(01:36):
she suffered serious head injuries. Shortly after Lily's body was found,
police ruled her death a homicide and named a prime suspect,
Paul Tyson. He had made a call to emergency services
shortly after the murder telling them the location of her body.
After a wide scale police investigation, a few days later,
police found the body of Tyson in the water in
(01:58):
Diamond Bay.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Voulka, I'm ten to understand a little bit more about
the events that led up to the murder of Lily,
But before we get into those details, why don't you
tell me a little bit about who Lily James was.
Who this twenty one year old was.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I think it's a really important place to start
this podcast, because she's being described as this really vibrant,
outgoing and beloved young person by basically everyone that knew her.
She was born in Sydney South and she had one sibling,
a brother called Max. Lily graduated from school in twenty twenty.
She was studying sports business at uts Or Sports Management
(02:35):
and she was due to graduate in twenty twenty three.
As I said, she was working part time at s Andrew's,
and the school described her as full of vitality, energy,
enthusiasm and a natural fit in the school community. Her
colleague said that she was a smart, compassionate young lady
who impacted the lives of many at the school. And
(02:57):
it was working in that job at s andrew that
she met Paul Tyson, the man responsible ultimately for her murder.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And you said earlier that in the early stages of
this investigation it was Paul Tyson who is identified by
police as a prime suspect. Talk me through what we
know about him.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
What I think is important to know about him is
that he and Lily were known to each other, so
they dated very briefly before he murdered her. And as
we've learned during the course of the coronial inquest, he
demonstrated extreme levels of coercive control during that very brief period.
It was a matter of weeks that they were seeing
(03:36):
each other, alongside multiple examples of physical stalking in the
weeks leading up to her death. The court was told
that Tyson used a range of emotionally abusive and manipulation
tactics to erode Lily's sense of self. So he did
things like used Snapchat to monitor her location. He became
(03:56):
agitated when he found out that she was attending a
party with her ex partners for example. These are some
of the behaviors that the court heard about in the
lead up to her death.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Can you just describe coercive control for yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, So, coercive control is a form of domestic violence
where a person denies a victim autonomy and independence over time.
So it's being criminalized in states across the country. And
we've spoken about that before. It really came, i guess
into the popular vernacular following the very brutal murder of
Hannah Clark in Queensland. Findings from a national review of
(04:29):
domestic and family violence found that over eighty percent of
men who killed a current or previous female partner had
exhibited nonviolent behaviors like coercive control against their partners that
they then went on to kill.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And we understand that he was exhibiting these sorts of
behaviors in the lead up to Lily James's murder itself.
And the reason we're talking about it today is because
of this colonial inquest last week. What did we learn
from the coronial inquest?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, so I do just want to clarify quickly. I
said that Tyson was found dead shortly after the murder,
and so what that means is that no trial, no
formal trial can be held in this situation. Instead, as
I said, there's this coronial inquest, and a coronial inquest
is just a court hearing where the coroner considers evidence
(05:17):
to determine the identity of the deceased and the date, place, manner,
and cause of death of the decease. So it's what
they can do with what they have available.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
And what you'll often find with a coronial inquest is
they often look at at a death and try and
figure out what were the bigger themes here and what
can we be doing better as a society to prevent
similar deaths in the future. So it might be a
way that the hospital system could be working better. And
we're not at that stage of the inquest yet. The
coroner then takes some time to review the evidence and
will come back to us in weeks or months with recommendations. Essentially,
(05:50):
there were three days of hearings last week. What was
kind of talked about there?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, so I guess the key takeaway from all of
these hearings is that the murder of Lily James was premeditated.
The court was shown quite a lot of CCTV footage
of Tyson. One of those clips was him standing in
a Mito ten store looking at different types of hammers
and basically assessing their weight. The inquest was also told
(06:14):
of Tyson putting a cleaning sign in front of one
bathroom door so that Lily would go to a different bathroom,
the larger disabled bathroom, which is where the attack took place.
The court also heard that Tyson practiced his attack in
the hours before it occurred. And again there was this
CCTV footage that was then released publicly with the consent
(06:35):
of Lily's family that showed him basically practicing bursting into
the bathroom, practicing how this attack would eventually take place.
All of these things coming together to really paint a
picture of someone that had planned out every step.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Of this attack. It was really disturbing footage to watch,
and there is something about seeing these moments play out
in the grainy CCTV footage that really brings this story
to another level in the way that we think about it.
You said at the beginning that straight after the attack,
Tyson called emergency services.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right, yeah, So the inquest was played an audio of
him calling Triple zero and in the recording, he basically
tells the operator that there is a body at the school,
and he specifies exactly how police should go and find it.
He doesn't disclose his name, but we now understand that
moments after that phone call ends, he died.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And Zara, you mentioned Lily's parents just before and then
consenting to a lot of this footage and audio being released.
They also appeared at the inquest. What did they say?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, I mean, as you can imagine, their devastation was palpable.
It was palpable. In this statement, I've watched a bunch
of interviews they sat down with sixty minutes, a really
moving interview. There they said they would love their daughter forever,
that they would never forget her. They said she was beautiful, independent, intelligent,
and loyal, and that she could light up a room.
(08:08):
But then they also spoke of this fear that they
had around educating young men. They said in the statement,
if we are not teaching boys how to accept and
value a woman's opinions and choices and accept rejection, we
may be setting them up for failure or in our case,
a moment of time that we will never recover from.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's a really harrowing story and I can't help but
think about the fact that this coronial inquest was playing
out the same week that Adolescence, a series on Netflix,
was also dominating a lot of kind of topics of conversation,
not just in Australia but all over the world. I
heard a statement from the UK Prime Minister in Parliament
(08:50):
talking about almost word for word, the exact sentiment of
the sentence that you just read out from Lily's parents,
And it seems that when the coroner passes down their findings,
that the role of education, especially for young boys, could
very well be a theme in those recommendations.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, so from here, as you said, we will wait
to hear from the coroner with those findings and recommendations.
But I do just want to end this podcast again
with a reminder that there is always help available.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
If you or.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Anyone you know needs some of that help, you can
reach out to one eight hundred respect As I said
at the top on one eight hundred seven three seven
seven three to two, take care of yourself today and
we'll be back again later with the day's headlines.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Kalkotin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
A quick warning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This podcast contains distressing themes, including domestic violence. If you
or anyone you know needs help, you can reach out
to one eight hundred respect on one eight hundred seven
three seven seven three to two.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Already and this is this is the DAILYA.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday,
the twenty fourth of March.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Last week, a coronial inquest heard evidence relating to the
killing of twenty one year old Lily James.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Lily was killed in October.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Of twenty twenty three by Paul Tyson, with whom she
had ended a short relationship less than a week earlier.
In today's podcast, we'll explain what we now understand happened
on the day of her murder and the events leading.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Up to it. Zara, this is a really distressing story,
and I remember it really clearly when it broke and
the kind of days and weeks after the actual incident itself.
For anyone though, who might not have seen this in
the headlines back in twenty twenty three, can you talk
me through what exactly happened here?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, So, on October twenty fifth, twenty twenty three, the
body of twenty one year old Lily James was discovered
by police in the bathroom of Saint Andrew's Cathedral School
in Sydney's CBD. At the time, police said that Lily,
who was a part time water polo coach at the school,
was working on the night of her death. According to police,
(01:36):
she suffered serious head injuries. Shortly after Lily's body was found,
police ruled her death a homicide and named a prime suspect,
Paul Tyson. He had made a call to emergency services
shortly after the murder telling them the location of her body.
After a wide scale police investigation, a few days later,
police found the body of Tyson in the water in
(01:58):
Diamond Bay.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Voulka, I'm ten to understand a little bit more about
the events that led up to the murder of Lily,
But before we get into those details, why don't you
tell me a little bit about who Lily James was.
Who this twenty one year old was.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I think it's a really important place to start
this podcast, because she's being described as this really vibrant,
outgoing and beloved young person by basically everyone that knew her.
She was born in Sydney South and she had one sibling,
a brother called Max. Lily graduated from school in twenty twenty.
She was studying sports business at uts Or Sports Management
(02:35):
and she was due to graduate in twenty twenty three.
As I said, she was working part time at s Andrew's,
and the school described her as full of vitality, energy,
enthusiasm and a natural fit in the school community. Her
colleague said that she was a smart, compassionate young lady
who impacted the lives of many at the school. And
(02:57):
it was working in that job at s andrew that
she met Paul Tyson, the man responsible ultimately for her murder.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And you said earlier that in the early stages of
this investigation it was Paul Tyson who is identified by
police as a prime suspect. Talk me through what we
know about him.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
What I think is important to know about him is
that he and Lily were known to each other, so
they dated very briefly before he murdered her. And as
we've learned during the course of the coronial inquest, he
demonstrated extreme levels of coercive control during that very brief period.
It was a matter of weeks that they were seeing
(03:36):
each other, alongside multiple examples of physical stalking in the
weeks leading up to her death. The court was told
that Tyson used a range of emotionally abusive and manipulation
tactics to erode Lily's sense of self. So he did
things like used Snapchat to monitor her location. He became
(03:56):
agitated when he found out that she was attending a
party with her ex partners for example. These are some
of the behaviors that the court heard about in the
lead up to her death.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Can you just describe coercive control for yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, So, coercive control is a form of domestic violence
where a person denies a victim autonomy and independence over time.
So it's being criminalized in states across the country. And
we've spoken about that before. It really came, i guess
into the popular vernacular following the very brutal murder of
Hannah Clark in Queensland. Findings from a national review of
(04:29):
domestic and family violence found that over eighty percent of
men who killed a current or previous female partner had
exhibited nonviolent behaviors like coercive control against their partners that
they then went on to kill.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And we understand that he was exhibiting these sorts of
behaviors in the lead up to Lily James's murder itself.
And the reason we're talking about it today is because
of this colonial inquest last week. What did we learn
from the coronial inquest?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, so I do just want to clarify quickly. I
said that Tyson was found dead shortly after the murder,
and so what that means is that no trial, no
formal trial can be held in this situation. Instead, as
I said, there's this coronial inquest, and a coronial inquest
is just a court hearing where the coroner considers evidence
(05:17):
to determine the identity of the deceased and the date, place, manner,
and cause of death of the decease. So it's what
they can do with what they have available.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
And what you'll often find with a coronial inquest is
they often look at at a death and try and
figure out what were the bigger themes here and what
can we be doing better as a society to prevent
similar deaths in the future. So it might be a
way that the hospital system could be working better. And
we're not at that stage of the inquest yet. The
coroner then takes some time to review the evidence and
will come back to us in weeks or months with recommendations. Essentially,
(05:50):
there were three days of hearings last week. What was
kind of talked about there?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, so I guess the key takeaway from all of
these hearings is that the murder of Lily James was premeditated.
The court was shown quite a lot of CCTV footage
of Tyson. One of those clips was him standing in
a Mito ten store looking at different types of hammers
and basically assessing their weight. The inquest was also told
(06:14):
of Tyson putting a cleaning sign in front of one
bathroom door so that Lily would go to a different bathroom,
the larger disabled bathroom, which is where the attack took place.
The court also heard that Tyson practiced his attack in
the hours before it occurred. And again there was this
CCTV footage that was then released publicly with the consent
(06:35):
of Lily's family that showed him basically practicing bursting into
the bathroom, practicing how this attack would eventually take place.
All of these things coming together to really paint a
picture of someone that had planned out every step.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Of this attack. It was really disturbing footage to watch,
and there is something about seeing these moments play out
in the grainy CCTV footage that really brings this story
to another level in the way that we think about it.
You said at the beginning that straight after the attack,
Tyson called emergency services.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right, yeah, So the inquest was played an audio of
him calling Triple zero and in the recording, he basically
tells the operator that there is a body at the school,
and he specifies exactly how police should go and find it.
He doesn't disclose his name, but we now understand that
moments after that phone call ends, he died.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And Zara, you mentioned Lily's parents just before and then
consenting to a lot of this footage and audio being released.
They also appeared at the inquest. What did they say?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, I mean, as you can imagine, their devastation was palpable.
It was palpable. In this statement, I've watched a bunch
of interviews they sat down with sixty minutes, a really
moving interview. There they said they would love their daughter forever,
that they would never forget her. They said she was beautiful, independent, intelligent,
and loyal, and that she could light up a room.
(08:08):
But then they also spoke of this fear that they
had around educating young men. They said in the statement,
if we are not teaching boys how to accept and
value a woman's opinions and choices and accept rejection, we
may be setting them up for failure or in our case,
a moment of time that we will never recover from.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's a really harrowing story and I can't help but
think about the fact that this coronial inquest was playing
out the same week that Adolescence, a series on Netflix,
was also dominating a lot of kind of topics of conversation,
not just in Australia but all over the world. I
heard a statement from the UK Prime Minister in Parliament
(08:50):
talking about almost word for word, the exact sentiment of
the sentence that you just read out from Lily's parents,
And it seems that when the coroner passes down their findings,
that the role of education, especially for young boys, could
very well be a theme in those recommendations.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, so from here, as you said, we will wait
to hear from the coroner with those findings and recommendations.
But I do just want to end this podcast again
with a reminder that there is always help available.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
If you or.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Anyone you know needs some of that help, you can
reach out to one eight hundred respect As I said
at the top on one eight hundred seven three seven
seven three to two, take care of yourself today and
we'll be back again later with the day's headlines.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Kalkotin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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