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  "path": "/2026/02/25/man-stabbed-girl-9-death-played-street-jailed-25-years-27104986/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-25T11:55:53.000Z",
  "site": "https://metro.co.uk",
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  "textContent": "To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video\n\nUp Next\n\nPrevious Page\n\nNext Page\n\n**A schizophrenic man who stabbed a nine-year-old girl in the heart in a ‘wicked’ unprovoked attack has been jailed for at least 25 years.**\n\nLilia Valutyte was killed by Deividas Skebas, 26, in July 2022 while she was playing with a hula hoop in the street outside her mum’s embroidery shop in Boston, Lincolnshire.\n\nSkebas denied murdering Lilia but admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, citing a history of illnesses including schizophrenia.\n\nHe was convicted of murder by a jury at Lincoln Crown Court, who were told by prosecutor Christopher Donnellan KC: ‘This deliberate murder was clearly a wicked act. He knew his conduct was wrong. He knew he was killing a child.’\n\nToday, he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years.\n\n##  Sign up for all of the latest stories\n\nStart your day informed with Metro's **News Updates** newsletter or get **Breaking News **alerts the moment it happens.\n\nDuring the trial, Mr Donnellan told jurors Lilia was playing outside the shop, yards from where her mother Lina Savickiene was working.\n\nTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video\n\nUp Next\n\nPrevious Page\n\nNext Page\n\nLilia Valutyte was killed by Deividas Skebas, 26, in July 2022 while she was playing with a hula hoop in the street (Picture: PA)\n\nHe said Lilia had been ‘in and out’ of the shop and her mum checked her ‘quite often’, before she heard her child call out for help.\n\nMr Donnellan said: ‘The street, not accessible to through-traffic, was empty. Barely anyone was about, it was quiet. Lilia was playing with a hula hoop around her.\n\n‘The defendant, Deividas Skebas, was waiting. He waited while other pedestrians moved out of the way. When they left the immediate area and had gone… he approached from the Wormgate end of Fountain Lane.’\n\nDeividas Skebas, 26, was jailed for life today for Lilia’s murder (Picture: Lincolnshire Police/PA Wire)\n\nTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video\n\nUp Next\n\nPrevious Page\n\nNext Page\n\nMr Donnellan said Skebas’s pace ‘quickened’ before he took a knife out from his back pocket.\n\nThe prosecutor continued: ‘He put the knife straight into the middle of Lilia and the force of it appears to have knocked her back towards some shutters on the adjoining shop.\n\n‘That stab wound went straight through her heart and she fell there in the street. He ran off.’\n\nIn a statement, Mrs Savickiene said she found the girl ‘covered in blood and with the hoop around her’ after the stabbing.\n\nHe added: ‘She was getting pale. She collapsed in my hands. I saw the wounds, started to cover them.\n\n‘I just got scared, started to shout for somebody to help me.’\n\nJurors heard Lilia was declared dead within an hour of the attack.\n\nLilia Valutyte died within an hour of sustaining a single stab wound to the chest (Picture: PA)\n\nSkebas had bought a Sabatier paring knife from a Wilko shop in the town two days before he killed Lilia, the jury was told.\n\nIn 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.\n\nThe court heard that Skebas was arrested on July 30 but his mental health was ‘declining’ so he was transferred to hospital.\n\nAfter he was arrested, he said there was a ‘form of control over him and his actions’, referring to Nasa and a microchip.\n\nDefending, Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC told the jury Skebas was ‘quite obviously deluded’.\n\nHe said clinicians treating the killer doubted he will recover.\n\n******Get in touch with our news team by emailing us atwebnews@metro.co.uk.******\n\n**For more stories like this,****check our news page**.\n\nComment now Comments  Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google Add as preferred source ",
  "title": "Man who stabbed girl, 9, to death while she played in street jailed for 25 years"
}