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On Friday, police found the body of a water polo coach, Lilie James, in the gymnasium bathrooms at an elite Sydney private school.

Just before midnight, the police followed through after a chilling triple-zero only to find a “confronting scene” at St Andrew’s Cathedral School, where the 21-year-old was found dead with extensive head injuries.

It is widely reported that she was allegedly bludgeoned to death by her ex-boyfriend. The suspected killer, Paul Thijssen, is believed to have beaten her to death with a hammer after she ended their secret five-week relationship.

Image: Facebook

BBC reported that CCTV captured the 24-year-old hockey coach entering the bathroom after her. Thijssen, who also made the call to authorities, later emerged alone.

Thijssen promptly drove to Vaucluse in Sydney’s east, phoned police to confess, and threw himself off the cliffs at Diamond Bay. His body was found on Friday along with items “associated with the homicide” – allegedly the murder weapon – in a bin.

Image: Facebook

Lilie’s friends and family are racked with grief as they remember their brief time with her:

“She was vibrant, outgoing, and very much loved by her family and friends,” Ms James’s family said in a statement.
“We are devastated and heartbroken.”

Ms 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.

While the head of St Andrew’s Cathedral School Julie McGonigle made an oath that “The horrors of evil do not, and will not, define our community”, the murder has sparked conversation about how Australia has long struggled to move the needle on what is often called an “epidemic” of domestic violence in the country.

Gendered violence reform campaigner Tarang Chawla – whose sister was murdered by her partner in 2015 – said Ms James’s death is a “tragic reminder of the dark, insidious reality of men’s violence against women”.

“I look at the photos of Lilie and I remember my own 23-year-old sister Niki and how I felt after she was murdered,” he wrote on Instagram.

“Lilie, I’m sorry we failed you.”

Tragically, Lilie is the 41st Australian woman this year to die allegedly as a result of gendered violence, according to the Counting Dead Women project.

Image: Facebook

In the past 10 days alone, three women – South Australian Krystal Marshall, an unnamed Canberra woman and Ms James – have all allegedly been killed by men they knew, all inside their own homes or workplace.

There is grief, but there is also the urgent reckoning with the questions of how to keep women safe from the hand of abusive men.

[source:bbc]