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Jury Hears Mother’s Account as Trial Weighs Defendant’s Culpability in 9-Year-Old’s Stabbing

Jurors are deciding if Deividas Skebas’s schizophrenia means manslaughter by diminished responsibility rather than murder.

Overview

  • Prosecutors read Lina Savickiene’s statement describing how she found her daughter Lilia covered in blood with a hula hoop and collapsing in her arms.
  • Lilia, 9, was stabbed in the heart on July 28, 2022, while playing outside her mother’s embroidery shop in Boston, Lincolnshire.
  • Deividas Skebas, 26, admits killing Lilia and pleads manslaughter by diminished responsibility but denies murder, leaving the jury to assess his state of mind.
  • The defence highlights a schizophrenia diagnosis and delusional statements — including a claim he could resurrect Lilia via a NASA “controller” — and says clinicians doubt he will recover.
  • An off-duty police officer initially pursued the attacker before returning to render aid, Lilia was pronounced dead around 7:11 pm, Skebas was arrested on July 30, and he was moved from prison to Rampton Hospital in December 2022 after being found unfit to be tried.