August 5, 2022 9.59 am This story is over 19 months old

Family friends pay tribute to Lilia Valutyte, 9, killed in Boston stabbing

The local community wants a permanent memorial for Lilia

Family friends and dance teachers have paid tribute to nine-year-old Lilia Valutyte, who tragically died after being stabbed in the chest in Boston.

Lilia was found with a stab wound outside an embroidery shop in Fountain Lane Boston on Thursday, July 28.

Lithuanian national Deividas Skebas, 22, of Thorold Street, Boston, has previously appeared in court charged with Lilia’s murder and is due back in court on September 19.

An inquest was opened into her death on Thursday, while £700 has so far been raised on a fundraising page to go towards a memorial for Lilia, potentially a sculpture of an angel.

The fundraiser was set up by Dmitrij Kondratcik, who has known Lilia’s mum for 12 years and their children are great friends.

He told BBC Look North: “She loved to draw and dance, she’d been attending all these clubs with the dancing, and even when they visited our house I got videos when they are playing in the kitchen and games on the TV when you dance and sing.”

Jurate Matulionene organises events for the Lithuanian community in Boston and runs a Lithuanian school which Lilia attended between the ages of four and seven.

She said: “We even still can’t understand that it’s reality that we’ll never have this girl in events. She had lots of dreams, beautiful dreams what children have to sing, to dance, to be with their family.”

Mantas Grauzinis who runs a street dance school which Lilia attended for four years said: “I feel like I lost my child.”