A man who stabbed a nine-year-old girl to death as she played with a hula hoop in a Lincolnshire street has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years. Deividas Skebas, 26, attacked Lilia Valutyte outside her mother's embroidery shop in Boston town centre on 28 July 2022.
Skebas, a Lithuanian national who had been in the UK for just three weeks and was working as a fruit picker, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility but was convicted of murder by a jury at Lincoln Crown Court on 5 February. The court heard there was no dispute that Skebas killed Lilia, but the jury had to determine his state of mind at the time.
During the trial, prosecutor Christopher Donnellan KC described the murder as 'clearly a wicked act', stating Skebas knew his conduct was wrong and that he was killing a child. The defendant, who told police he was being controlled by Nasa, appeared via video link from Rampton Hospital, a high-security psychiatric unit in Nottinghamshire, and showed no reaction as Mr Justice Choudhury passed sentence.
In a victim impact statement read by her husband, Lilia's mother, Lina Savickiene, who found her daughter after the attack and cradled her body, said the grief was 'not something you recover from'. She added: 'Sometimes terrifying thoughts overwhelm the mind... Why her? Why us? The questions remain unanswered.'
Skebas's defence barrister, Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC, argued his client was 'quite obviously deluded' and that clinicians doubted he would recover. After the killing, Skebas believed he had 'the power to resurrect' Lilia but could only do so if police contacted 'his controller in Nasa'.
