Woman jailed for life over killing

A woman from Stamford who had an “obsession” with serial killers has been jailed for life for garroting, stabbing and burying the body of an autistic teenager in Western Australia.

Jemma Lilley, who used to live in the Lincolnshire town, murdered 18-yearold Aaron Pajich at her home in Perth, burying him in a shallow grave in her garden and covering it with concrete and tiles.

The 26-year-old was convicted alongside 43-year-old housemate Trudi Lenon at the Supreme Court of Western Australia in November.

On Wednesday, the pair were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years.

Lilley said she wanted to kill someone before she turned 25, and once she had ticked off murder from her “bucket list” she was so “full of herself and euphoric” that she could not help boasting to a work colleague, prosecutor James McTaggart told the court during a four-week trial last year.

She had previously written a book about a serial killer called SOS and went on to assume the identity of the character, the jury heard.

Speaking to The Times after the conviction, Lilley’s stepmother, Nina Lilley (48) said: “The book was a big problem with me. At the beginning I was, ‘fair enough you want to write a horror story’, but I didn’t like the contents of it.

“She had always had an obsession with serial killers but she said it was a way of venting her frustration of what happened when she was a child.”

The victim - described by his mother as a “precious little boy” - was lured to his death on June 13, 2016, with both defendants blaming each other for the killing.