- Nine-year-old girl fatally stabbed while playing with a hula hoop
- Assailant ordered to remain hospitalized indefinitely due to mental unfitness
- Trial of the facts concludes defendant physically murdered the girl
Lilia received a solitary stab wound to the chest while playing with a hula hoop in Boston, Lincolnshire.
A man who fatally stabbed a nine-year-old girl in the heart as she played in the street has been ordered to remain hospitalized indefinitely.
Deividas Skebas was unanimously found to have physically murdered Lilia Valutyte, despite a court’s determination that he was mentally unfit to confess or face a conventional trial.
On the afternoon of 28 July last year in Boston, Lincolnshire, Lilia was stabbed once in the torso.
At the time, she was playing with a hula hoop.
In 15 minutes, Lincoln Crown Court jurors found 23-year-old Skebas guilty of assaulting the girl after a two-day trial.
Skebas, a Lithuanian, re-entered the UK on July 20, 2017, the court heard. Six days later, he was seen purchasing a Sabatier paring knife from Wilko in Boston’s town center.
CCTV footage captured him strolling around Boston before he ran towards Lilia at approximately 6:15 p.m. as she played with a hula hoop in front of the Fountain Lane store where her mother worked.
After stabbing the girl, he raced past an off-duty police officer who stopped after hearing her cries.
At 7:11 p.m., Lilia was pronounced deceased at Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital.
Skebas stated in a police interview, “I grabbed the knife and stabbed her.”
She told the jury, “It’s been an unusually short case, and you’ve dealt with issues that would have taken a couple of weeks in a typical trial.”
“You have dealt with some very unpleasant material, and I’m afraid that is what juries do.”
Skebas, who is accused of murder, could face a conventional trial if his mental health improves.
In a trial of the facts, a defendant cannot be criminally convicted unless the jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she physically committed the act, without regard to intent or mental state.
