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EXCLUSIVE
When Lilie James arrived to see her old school friend Kristina in a clifftop house with her new boyfriend, Paul Thijssen, they looked like any other young couple.
Just three weeks after this visit, Thijssen murdered the beautiful 23-year-old water polo instructor, before ending his life not far from Kristina’s house, in Vaucluse, east of Sydney.
Ms James and Thijssen had met at St Andrew’s Cathedral School and had been dating for around five weeks.
Kristina’s father told Daily Mail Australia there were no signs of trouble when they stopped by to see his daughter for what he described as a “ten minute chat”.
This home sits on the street above the Diamond Bay Preserve and has incredible views of the Pacific.
Lilie James will say goodbye at a special celebration of her life attended by family, friends, students and others to remember “our precious and beloved Lilie.”
View from the family home where Thijssen came with Lilie to the top of a cliff with multi-million dollar homes and panoramic ocean views, which may have given Thijssen the idea to return there in his final hours
Yet in a frightening turn of events, CCTV cameras in the same house filmed the Dutch-born hockey coach walking past the house again three weeks after his first visit as he sought to get rid of the ‘armed. he used to murder Mrs. James.
That footage shows him arriving on the street in a borrowed white Lexus at 8:47 p.m., an hour after Ms James was killed and thrown into the indoor gym with significant head injuries. Thijssen walks to the end of the street and, at 9:04 p.m., can be seen walking back up the street before throwing away the hammer he used to kill her.
Thijssen then returned to his car and sat there for two hours, calling triple 0 just before midnight to report his crimes.
But at 5 a.m. on Oct. 25, Kristina’s father said they could never have suspected that the helicopters above their house or the sirens in the street were there to do it. Thijssen.
Thijssen walking past Kristina’s family home the night he murdered Lilie, threw the gun away and then died.
But now, a few weeks later, Kristina’s family believes that little stop at their home on a picturesque, windswept cliff with panoramic views of the ocean gave Thijssen the idea to return there after committing his heinous crime.
Emergency services arrived outside the house as that’s where he called triple 0 just before midnight to say Lilie’s body was in the school gymnasium.
After discovering his body, the phone call was traced, but Thijssen was missing.
The police air wing returned at dawn to search the sea by helicopter, the Diamond Bay reserve and the rocks below.
Filmed by CCTV from the driveway of the family home, Thijssen walks past at 8:47 p.m. before throwing away the murder weapon and committing suicide.
After Ms James was found with serious head injuries on Wednesday evening, police looked at CCTV footage filmed from inside St Andrew’s School.
In the footage, Thijssen could be seen following Ms James into the bathroom of the school gymnasium on Wednesday around 7 p.m.
The footage then shows Thijssen leaving the scene more than an hour later, while Ms James never leaves the toilet.
Thijssen alerted the police about four hours later. When police arrived on scene, they found the Lexus, a backpack, some of his belongings and the suspected murder weapon.
A day-long search in Vaucluse failed to locate Thijssen, who the police still wanted to speak to about Ms James.
Then, early Friday morning, craftsmen working on the boardwalk under construction at the edge of the cliffs above Diamond Bay spotted an object stuck in the rocks below, pounded by waves.
Paul Thijssen, above with his father Stef, was cremated two weeks after murdering Lilie and falling from a cliff in Vaucluse.
Lilie James (left, school graduate) came to see her friend Kristina (right) while in the company of Paul Thijssen about three weeks before Thijssen murdered her and was captured on CCTV from the Kristina’s house.
It was Thijssen’s body. Police and rescue services attempted to recover the remains by jet ski and boat, eventually recovering the body and transporting it down a path to road level.
The remains were taken to the morgue and later identified as those of Thijssen via medical records from the Netherlands, where he was born and lived before moving to Australia in 2015 and attending St Andrew’s school for years 10 to 12.
Thijssen’s parents, Esther and Stef, reportedly made the decision not to repatriate their only son’s remains to Europe and Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed that he was cremated on November 8.
It is unclear if anyone, including his parents, attended the service. Thijssen’s ashes were not collected this week from memorial gardens in the eastern suburbs.
Mrs. James will say goodbye at a special celebration of her life attended by family, friends, students and others to remember “our precious and beloved Lilie James, whose joy was palpable, the contagious smile and the service rendered to his remarkable community.”
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