You're listening to a MoMA mea podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was recorded on HI True Crime Conversations Listeners. Today, I want to share a powerful episode from Mamma MIA's news podcast, The Quickie with You. It's hosted by Claire Murphy.
It was released last month to mark the one year anniversary of the tragic death of twenty one year old Lily James. She was a waterpolo coach who was murdered at her workplace by her ex boyfriend just days after their breakup. And in this episode, Claire takes us through who Lily was, her relationship with Paul, and the devastating events of the night she was killed. Cases like this are so important for us to revisit to ensure that
the stories of victims like Lily aren't forgotten. Tragically, Lily is one of fifty eight women who lost their lives to domestic violence in twenty twenty three. If you or someone you know need support, please reach out to one eight hundred Respect on one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two for expert help. Let us know what you think of the episode and I'll be back next week with another true crime conversation.
Just a heads up. Today's episode of The Quickie discusses domestic violence and does describe some traumatic violent situation, so please take care when listening. Hi. I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mumma Mes twice daily news podcast The Quickie. On Sunday night, Tara Brown sat down with the parents of Lily James, the young woman who was brutally murdered by her ex boyfriend just days after they'd called an end to their brief casual relationship.
And then, yeah, so that was her, But I had to come home, tell Peter Max play those moments every day every day.
Her death shocked the country and made international headlines with the amount of pre planning undertaken and seemingly unbridled rage her murderer experienced. Today, we remember Lily James a year on from her death and find out if we've learned anything from her life, or if we've even started to get a handle on the level of domestic violence here in Australia. In October last year, twenty one year old Sidney woman Lily James woke up on a normal Wednesday.
She got up got dressed and went down to the kitchen in her family home, which she shared with her mum, Peter, dad Jamie and brother Max. She was heading off to face another day filled with friends, study and part time jobs. The young woman cramming as much as she could into every day, determined to make something of her life, her parents saying she managed to balance it all fuelled my chocolate and ice cream.
I'm looking at the clock because the train's going to come come shortly. She's off in her own little world. But she didn't seem agitated, she didn't seem frightened. Nothing. It was just a lor normal Wednesday.
That's Lily's parents, Peter and Jamie, speaking to Channel nine sixty minutes program. She'd been working as a swim and dance teacher as well as coaching netbull, but in twenty twenty two she managed to snag a part time position at the prestigious s and Andrew's Cathedral School in Sydney as a water polo coach. It was there she met Paul Tyson. He'd moved from the Netherlands to Australia, where
he was a student at the school himself. Between twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen, he went back to the Netherlands to study and then took on a role as a cricket and hockey coach back at Saint Andrew's in Sydney. In twenty twenty, he was in the process of studying a master's in teaching, hoping to become a full time pe teacher. In around September twenty twenty three, Lillian Paul
started a romantic relationship. It wasn't anything too serious. The pair reportedly having a conversation about the fact that then working together might become an issue should they ever break up, and so chose to keep the relationship casual.
I had a conversation with her and I said, so you're going out and she said yeah, she said and I said, so, is it anything that you think will be something serious? And she said, mum, she goes. We both sat down at the start as a relationship and decided that neither of us wanted anything serious. We just wanted some fun and once it had run its course, we would go our separate ways. There was never meant to be any hard feelings.
Lily's friends explained that they met Paul when Lily brought him to a night at one of their houses, telling reporter Tara Brown that nothing he did or said on the night raised any red flags.
He was just a very chatty guy.
She always liked people who talked a lot, because she talks a lot. Just very nice.
He was always very helpful.
They'd work together and they'd help each other out.
About two weeks after that catch up with friends, Lily and James broke it off, Lily telling her mates that it was a very mutual decision. Then, on October twenty twenty three, the day Lily woke up and joined her family for breakfast just like any other Wednesday, Paul Tyson rented a car. He then traveled to a nearby hardware store and bought a hammer before driving that same car
to the Saint Andrew's campus. Later that night, at approximately seven pm, CCTV cameras capture Lily entering the toilet inside the school gymnasium, where she would get changed after water polo practice. A few moments later, Tyson can be seen also entering the toilet. An hour later, those same cameras catch Tyson leaving the toilet, but Lily did not walk
out behind him. A text message was sent from Lily's phone to her father's at eight thirty pm, an hour and a half after Lily had entered the toilet block.
It read don't ask why or call, Please come to the school now and pick me up.
Jamie wrote back immediately asking if she was okay. The message back was short.
All good, just come trouble.
But when Jamie arrived at Saint Andrews, he found other staff members but not his daughter. He searched for her at her desk, he found her bag still sitting there. He searched the gymnasium, but didn't go into the toilets, not knowing that his daughter's body was lying just a few meters from where he stood. In a panic, Peter James, Lily's mum, texted Lily's friends asking if they'd seen her. They all responded with no. She even texted Paul Tyson,
thinking maybe one of her colleagues would know. Those texts went unanswered. At eleven pm, police received an anonymous call telling them where to find Lily. Jamie says he knew that when police and ambulance arrived at the school and he was taken to the station, that the news wasn't going.
To be good.
The actual soon itself was quite confronting for the police who turned up very sad tom for everybody, not only of the families, the student saucer who were turning up today to be confronted by this.
That's Superintendent Martin Foleman from New South Wales Police. When asked whether they think Lily sent those texts to her dad, her parents say no. Her time of death was suspected to be more than an hour before they were sent, but they have a theory as to why they were sent and it points to a disturbing story of a man who wanted to harm a family as much as possible.
I think, for me, I really think that he was hoping that Jamie.
Would find her.
In an addressed to students on the Monday that the school reopened, Sir Andrew's head of school, doctor Julie McGonagall, told those gathered that they were left with grief, shock and utter confusion because they knew both parties, our beautiful miss James, she said, and mister Tyson, whose actions were
completely incongruent with who they knew. After tracing the anonymous Triple O call, police would establish a second crime scene on October twenty sixth, eleven kilometers from where Lily was killed, Investigators cordoned off an area of Diamond Bay where they located a backpack belonging to Tyson. Inside was the hammer that he'd bought on the morning of October twenty fifth. Police would also find more CCTV footage from that night, showing a car pulling up on the street and then
a man walking along the footpath. The man would be identified as Paul Tyson by the owner of the cameras. How would they know him because he'd walked outside the home of Lily's friend, the one who'd welcomed Pauline as Lily's then boyfriend just weeks earlier. He then sat in that rented car, where he then called police. His body would be found two days after Lily's murder by tradees who spotted a body in the surf offered the notorious suicide spot the gap where they'd been working on a
nearby construction site. Lily's murder came at a time when the country was reeling from a string of domestic violence related debts. She was the fourth woman in ten days to be killed allegedly by the men known to them and the forty third woman at that point of the year to have been killed in a domestic violence related situation. So a year after her death, as her parents speak out for the first time on how they're coping with the senseless loss of their daughter, has anything changed well.
According to the Australian Femicide Map, seventy women have been lost to violence at this stage in twenty twenty four. Phi Lily's family, twelve months may have passed, but their pain is as raw as it was on that very normal Wednesday.
Do you think the anger will ever go away? No?
I don't think so. I think I wanted to put some more good use. You will never go away, Hello, letters should go away.
And I think if he knew what he did that night, I think you'd understand why why we can't forgive what he did. It's pretty brutal though doesn't make me a bad person. I don't know, but at this stage I don't care.
Thanks for taking the time to feed your mind with us today. If you're in a situation experiencing domestic or family violence and you need help, there are services standing by right now like one eight hundred Respect who you can reach on the phone at one eight hundred seven three seven seven three two. You can also text them zero four five eight seven three seven seven three two, or chat via their website one eight hundred respect dot
org dot au. The quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy and our Executive producer Tayle Estrato, with audio production by Jacob Brown,