Murder of Lilia Valutyte

On 28 July 2022, at around 6:20 p.m., nine-year-old Lilia Valutyte was stabbed outside an embroidery shop on Fountain Lane in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, while playing with hula hoops with her younger sister. She was taken to Boston Pilgrim Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. Valutyte, of Lithuanian origin, had been born at the same hospital in February 2013 and attended Carlton Road Primary School. Her mother was nearby at the time of the attack and heard screaming before finding her daughter fatally injured; an off-duty police officer and paramedics attempted to save her.

A manhunt followed, and two days later, on 30 July 2022, a 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder; two other people arrested in connection with the case were released without further action. On 31 July 2022, Deividas Skebas, a Lithuanian national who had entered the UK three weeks before the killing and worked as a fruit picker, was charged with murder. He first appeared at Lincoln Crown Court on 1 August 2022 and was remanded into custody. During his time in custody, Skebas was attacked by other prisoners at HM Prison Wakefield in August 2022 and airlifted to hospital.

Court proceedings were repeatedly adjourned over 2022 and 2023 to allow psychiatric assessments, as Skebas suffered from schizophrenia and a history of mental illness. On 17 April 2023, he was ruled unfit to enter a plea or stand a conventional trial, leading to a "trial of the facts" rather than a criminal trial. That trial, held at Lincoln Crown Court in July 2023, heard evidence including CCTV footage, a knife purchased two days before the killing found at Skebas's residence, a bloodstained T-shirt matching Valutyte's DNA, and an admission Skebas made in police interview: "I grabbed the knife and I stabbed her." On 11 July 2023, a jury found that Skebas had committed the act of stabbing Valutyte, and he was made subject to an indefinite hospital order at Rampton secure hospital.

In October 2025, Skebas appeared via videolink and pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. The prosecution elected to proceed with the murder charge, arguing Skebas had planned the killing by purchasing the knife in advance and that a psychiatric examination after his arrest found no evidence of psychosis; the defence maintained he had been in a state of psychosis due to schizophrenia. Skebas was found guilty of murder on 5 February 2026 and sentenced on 25 February 2026 to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years, becoming eligible to apply for parole in February 2051.

Following the killing, then-Home Secretary Priti Patel and local MP Matt Warman publicly commented on the case. Valutyte's funeral was held at St Botolph's Church, Boston, in September 2022, and community memorials, including a planned sculpture and a mosaic, were later established in her memory. Her mother, Lina Savickiene, was subsequently elected as a Boston councillor in May 2023.