A man who murdered a nine-year-old while she played in the street has been jailed for life, with a minimum term of 25 years.
Deividas Skebas, 26, stabbed Lilia Valutyte in the heart in the town centre of Boston, Lincolnshire, on 28 July 2022. She had been playing with a hula hoop outside her mother’s embroidery shop at the time.
A trial at Lincoln Crown Court heard there was no dispute that Skebas, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, killed Lilia.
However, a jury was asked to decide what his state of mind was at the time of the attack. The Lithuanian national told police that he was being controlled by Nasa.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but was convicted of murder by a jury on 5 February.
Skebas, formerly of Thorold Street in Boston, appeared by video-link from high-security facility Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire wearing a navy blue zip-up jumper.
He stared ahead without reacting as his sentence was read out by Mr Justice Choudhury on Wednesday.
In his sentencing remarks, the judge said Lilia was a “happy, lively girl as carefree as any nine-year-old should be”, adding that Skebas committed a “shocking and horrific act of violence” on her.
He added: “She should have been safe. She was playing in a pedestrianised area and just yards away from her mum.”
Mr Justice Choudhury said Skebas had been a user of drugs, including cannabis and amphetamines, which would “likely worsen” his schizophrenia.
Skebas had initially been deemed unfit to stand trial but it was later argued that, while his deteriorating mental health was genuine, he did indeed know what he was doing, had tried to avoid detection and intended to flee the country.
Opening the Crown’s case against Skebas in January, Christopher Donnellan KC told jurors: “This deliberate murder was clearly a wicked act. He knew his conduct was wrong. He knew he was killing a child.”
Mr Donnellan told the court on Wednesday: “This was a particularly vulnerable victim, a young girl aged nine. The offence took place with a degree of planning or premeditation.”
Jurors had heard that Skebas had prowled around the area until it was quiet before he stabbed the child with a Sabatier paring knife he had bought from a Wilko shop two days before.
In the days after the attack, Skebas shaved his beard, tucked the knife behind a radiator, and made efforts to leave the country on a bus to Lithuania.
Lilia’s mother, Lina Savickiene, who found the girl “covered in blood and with the hoop around her” after the stabbing, said in an impact statement read by her husband, Aurelijus Savickas, on the day Skebas was convicted: “This is not something you recover from.
“Sometimes terrifying thoughts overwhelm the mind, and during this trial, there have been many, many more. Why her? Why us? The questions remain unanswered.”
The court heard that Skebas was arrested two days after the attack, but his mental health was “declining” so he was transferred to a hospital.
He told detectives that he had eaten a piece of rice which he believed was actually a microchip, and that he had “the power to resurrect” Lilia if the police contacted “his controller in Nasa”.
In mitigation, defence barrister Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC said Skebas remains dangerous “not merely to himself but in the absence of medication … a danger to others”.
