Lilia Valutyte: Mother relives moment of stabbed daughter's death

Lilia Valutyte was just nine when she was stabbed to death on a quiet street in the Lincolnshire town of Boston. Her killing and the subsequent manhunt caused national headlines. However, as the initial shock faded, a family and community were left facing a future without a young girl whose death left an indelible mark which survived beyond her passing.

BBC News spoke to those closest to the "beautiful girl" as her attacker Deividas Skebas was handed an indefinite hospital order.

Thursday 28 July 2022 was a warm summer's day.

Lilia Valutyte and a friend had been happily playing with a hula hoop in the evening sun just outside her mother's shop in Fountain Lane as they often did.

But, shortly after 18.20 BST, the pair were approached by Skebas who, seemingly without reason, reached out and fatally stabbed Lilia once in the chest.

Her mother, Lina Savicke, remembers hearing Lilia call her name before she rushed into the street to see her daughter still clutching the hoop and, moments later, collapsing into her arms.

"I just heard 'Mum!', she recalls.

"I went outside. I saw there was blood and she was with a hula hoop and the hula hoop was bent. I straight away said, 'Lilia what has happened?' I took the hula hoop and she was still standing. She fell into my hands. I started to shout for..."

As she speaks, her face creases and she cups it in her hands.

"I started to shout for help," she sobs.

For a brief moment, she slips into the present tense, as if transported back to the scene. "Ambulance, police are coming," she says. "They take me inside and I realise that she has gone, and they are not rushing or anything."

Lilia was a talented dancer, according to her teacher

Lilia's young friend witnessed the attack, something Ms Savicke is all too painfully aware of.

"We say that he [Skebas] is a bad guy and he is in jail. Lilia is in heaven. She will not come back. If you miss her, we can go to the cemetery to light a candle."

What the other youngster witnessed weighs heavy on Ms Savicke's mind.

She adds: "Hopefully, she will be fine after all that has happened."

The Big Cases: The Killing in the Lane

BBC Look North reporter, Jessica Lane travels to Lithuania to learn more about the man whom a jury determined killed nine-year-old Lilia Valutyte in a trial of the facts.

Watch now on BBC iPlayer (UK only)

Ms Savicke moved to Boston from her native Lithuania in February 2009. Lilia was born in the UK. Keen to work and get on, Ms Savicke opened first a café and then the embroidery shop. She thought her family would be safe.

"I knew someone, they just said 'come here, find a job' and that's how I stayed here. It's a nice, pretty place to live in," she says of the town which became a hub for migrant workers from Eastern Europe settling in the UK during the early 2000s.

Dmitrij, a family friend who does not want his surname published, remembers Lilia as "a happy child", adding: "She had everything she would want."

He casts his mind back to Lilia and his own children singing and dancing along to a music video.

Lilia Valutyte's mother Lina Savicke tells the BBC of her heartbreak

Lilia attended Boston Pioneers Academy. Outside school, she took dance lessons. She was "a beautiful person and dancer" according to dance teacher Mantas Grauzinis.

"She was doing really good," he says. "All of our students really loved her. Everyone knew her. A big, big dreamer."

After her death, Ms Savicke asked members of the public to attend a service of reflection and prayer at the imposing St Botolph's Church, known locally as Boston Stump, ahead of a private burial.

Mourners gathered to watch the sight of Lilia's small white coffin, adorned with butterflies, arrive in a horse-drawn carriage.

Lilia Valutyte was stabbed as she played with her sister outside their mother's shop

Inquiries revealed Skebas moved to Boston, most likely for work, but then returned home to Lithuania before the Covid pandemic.

Close friends had no idea he had travelled back to England until they heard the news he had been arrested.

Skebas grew up in the Lithuanian village of Leliunai, which has a population of about 400.

Childhood friends remember him as being a well-behaved child who "would not have even broken a window", though others saw him differently.

One friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC: "He was one of my best friends. We spent a lot of time together. We had a very strong connection.

"But sometimes I used to see things from him that would be hard to explain. One day he would be normal and the next day he would not be himself."

Deividas Skebas has been given an indefinite hospital order

Ms Savicke recognises she may never know why her daughter was taken from her.

She cannot even bring herself to call Lilia's killer by his name.

She says: "He ruined his life, he ruined his family's lives. He ruined my life. He ruined Lilia's life. Nine years old."

Lina Savicke's tribute to her daughter

Ms Savicke says she plans to decorate a wall near the scene of the tragedy with a butterfly mosaic she has made and it is hoped Lilia's memory will also live on in a statue in the town.

In truth, it is hard to imagine Boston will ever forget the name Lilia Valutyte.