Murder of Lilie James

Lilie James, born in May 2002, was a student and water polo coach from Sans Souci, New South Wales. She was found dead at St Andrew's Cathedral School in the Sydney CBD on the night of 25 October 2023. CCTV footage showed her entering the school gymnasium's toilet block at around 7 p.m. that day with a man following behind her; her body was discovered by police in the toilet block before midnight. Advocacy group Counting Dead Women Australia recorded her as the 46th woman killed in Australia in 2023.

James had graduated from Danebank school in Hurstville in 2020 and had gone on to study sports business at the University of Technology Sydney. Five weeks before her death she had begun a relationship with a coach at St Andrew's who had previously attended the school as a student; the two had ended the relationship days before she was killed. Close friends described her as "the nicest and kindest person." Neither James nor the man had a prior record of domestic violence-related issues or apprehended violence orders.

Police opened an investigation on 26 October 2023 and classified James's death as a homicide, describing the body as that of "a woman in her early twenties" with "serious head injuries." Her identity was confirmed by a family friend that morning. St Andrew's closed for the rest of the week over what it called a "critical incident," brought in counsellors for students and parents, and later restricted access to the gymnasium and converted its library into a counselling space. The gymnasium toilet block was slated for demolition on 3 November 2023.

The man who had followed James into the toilet block could not initially be located and was subsequently named by police as the prime suspect. On the night of 25 October 2023 he travelled to the Vaucluse clifftop area, near Diamond Bay Reserve and The Gap, where he disposed of a hammer in a bin; he called police some hours later to report that a body needed to be investigated at the school. Police established a second scene in Vaucluse on 26 October 2023 and searched the area by helicopter, boat and coastal patrol; that evening they recovered a backpack containing his belongings and the hammer, which they concluded was the weapon used against James. On 27 October 2023, tradesmen working nearby spotted a body on the rocks below Diamond Bay Reserve; police retrieved it and, using fingerprint identification, confirmed it was the man they had named as the prime suspect, who had died by suicide.

A coronial inquest into the deaths of James and the man began on 18 March 2025.

James's family's first public statement, released on 27 October 2023, described her as "vibrant, outgoing, and very much loved by her family and friends." A candlelight vigil was held in her home suburb of Sans Souci on 28 October 2023, and her funeral was held at Danebank, her former school, on 17 November 2023.