# How Jemma Lilley's Fascination With Serial Killers Turned Deadly

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 4 Mar 2026, 59 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/6a9a67e4-d0e5-4ea3-946c-b402003ddef2/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

Some women dream of launching a career before 25. Some dream of owning their first home. Jemma Lilley had a different goal: she wanted to kill someone before her 25th birthday, but she knew she couldn't do it alone. Obsessed with serial killers and violent fantasy, Lilley set her sights on turning desire into reality. She found an accomplice in Trudi Lenon, an impressionable single mother whom she gradually drew into her world of fixation and planning. Together, they searched for what they chillingly described as the “perfect victim.” They chose 18-year-old Aaron Pajich-Sweetman, a vulnerable teenager who was a friend of Lenon’s son. It is a case that still shocks those who hear it. A real-life horror story about manipulation, obsession, and the calculated, meticulous planning of two women who conspired to take the life of an innocent young man. CREDITS Guest: Tim Clarke Host: Claire Murphy Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Audio Engineer: Jacob Round GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: It's June twenty sixteen in a nondescript brown house in Perth,
[0:07] Speaker 1: and Jemma Lily and Trudy Lennin have been living together
[0:10] Speaker 1: for just three weeks. From the outside, the twenty five
[0:15] Speaker 1: year old British immigrant and forty four year old mum
[0:17] Speaker 1: of two look normal, ordinary, average, But behind closed doors,
[0:24] Speaker 1: their conversations are full of homicidal fantasies. And now they
[0:29] Speaker 1: have a plan and they're ready to kill. I feel
[0:33] Speaker 1: as though I cannot rest until the blood or flesh
[0:36] Speaker 1: of a screaming victim is gushing out and pulling on
[0:39] Speaker 1: the floor. Rights Jemma to her housemate. It is definitely time,
[0:42] Speaker 1: replies Trudy. I am ready. You are ready for anything
[0:47] Speaker 1: left to do? Find a victim. I'm Claire Murphy. When
[1:00] Speaker 1: you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the
[1:03] Speaker 1: world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who
[1:06] Speaker 1: know the most about them. Aaron Page Sweetman was only
[1:11] Speaker 1: eighteen when he was brutally murdered by Gemma Lily and
[1:14] Speaker 1: Trudy Lenin. Trudy had known Arn for eight years. He'd
[1:18] Speaker 1: been friends with her fourteen year old son. The women
[1:21] Speaker 1: decided he was easy enough to lure. They told him
[1:24] Speaker 1: they needed help with computer software and invited him over.
[1:28] Speaker 1: He was attacked as soon as he entered their home,
[1:30] Speaker 1: his body buried in their backyard. Their crime was described
[1:35] Speaker 1: by the judge who sentenced them as morally repugnant, a
[1:39] Speaker 1: kill carried out purely for the women's pleasure. Usually people
[1:44] Speaker 1: kill for reasons of revenge, jealousy, monetary gain, sexual gratification,
[1:50] Speaker 1: to cure for fun is rare. Female killers are also rare.
[1:56] Speaker 1: To be honest, everything about this story feels usual and
[2:01] Speaker 1: uniquely horrible. Former legal affairs editor at The West Australian
[2:05] Speaker 1: and journalist Tim Clark has covered this case in detail
[2:08] Speaker 1: for multiple publications, providing updates as it unfolded. We invited
[2:13] Speaker 1: him onto the podcast to unpack it. Tim, thank you
[2:20] Speaker 1: so much for joining us on True Crime Conversations. How
[2:24] Speaker 1: did you find working on this case because it is
[2:26] Speaker 1: quite a bizarre one.
[2:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. No, This was a very strange case, a very
[2:32] Speaker 2: disturbing case, and one that really captured the imagination, not
[2:37] Speaker 2: because of anything other than it was really horrible. It
[2:42] Speaker 2: was a young victim, vulnerable, literally snatched off the street,
[2:47] Speaker 2: and then two women it was discovered we're behind it.
[2:52] Speaker 2: So those elements combined to make it a really shocking
[2:57] Speaker 2: case even before we knew the details behind it. They
[3:01] Speaker 2: all came out during the trial of these two women,
[3:04] Speaker 2: and once they started to be revealed by prosecutors, it
[3:08] Speaker 2: was one of those cases that will always stick with
[3:11] Speaker 2: me and I think we'll probably stick with your listeners
[3:14] Speaker 2: and viewers once we've gone through it.
[3:16] Speaker 1: We'll gie you the step us through the court case
[3:18] Speaker 1: in a bit. But you mentioned finding out some of
[3:21] Speaker 1: the background on the women who were involved in this crime,
[3:24] Speaker 1: and one of those in particular, Gemma. Can we talk
[3:30] Speaker 1: a little bit about her childhood. Was there anything within
[3:34] Speaker 1: her upbringing that might have given us some signs about
[3:38] Speaker 1: where life would eventually take her?
[3:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is Jemma Lily. She was sixteen when
[3:46] Speaker 2: she moved to Australia from the UK, but subsequent to
[3:55] Speaker 2: the murder that she was convicted of, it emerged that
[3:59] Speaker 2: she had been very detached as a as a even
[4:03] Speaker 2: as a young child, awkward, lonely, and had interests that
[4:09] Speaker 2: worried her close family and close friends. She she had
[4:14] Speaker 2: always had an interest in the darker side of culture.
[4:20] Speaker 2: She'd grown up in a nuclear family in the UK,
[4:24] Speaker 2: but once she got to those later teenage years, the
[4:28] Speaker 2: issues around her personality and her very close family struggling
[4:33] Speaker 2: to cope with those precipitated her moving to Australia to
[4:37] Speaker 2: live with other family members. Originally and then and then
[4:42] Speaker 2: she moved on. She got a job, she made some
[4:46] Speaker 2: friends here, but her whole persona, even from a young age,
[4:52] Speaker 2: appeared to revolve around horror, I'll put it that way,
[4:57] Speaker 2: the macabre horror fiction, horror culture. She once said in
[5:03] Speaker 2: some of her writings that the character Freddy Krueger, who
[5:08] Speaker 2: I'm sure all your listeners will remember from the Nightmare
[5:10] Speaker 2: on Elm Street Movies, was her a father figure. She
[5:14] Speaker 2: felt like he was a father figure to her growing up.
[5:17] Speaker 2: She was obsessed with that character later in life, and
[5:21] Speaker 2: as these interests hardened within her, she then took to
[5:27] Speaker 2: writing herself. She fancied herself as a as a writer
[5:31] Speaker 2: and novelist, and she started commit to commit these fantasies.
[5:37] Speaker 2: She was having this, this this obsession with darkness and
[5:40] Speaker 2: torture and weapons and and and horror fiction. She started
[5:46] Speaker 2: to commit those thoughts to the page, and they started
[5:49] Speaker 2: out as just sort of notes in a diary, almost scribblings.
[5:54] Speaker 2: But then she concocted this world and this character that
[6:00] Speaker 2: she placed basically at the center of her identity. So
[6:03] Speaker 2: there was some swapping of those or mixing and melding
[6:07] Speaker 2: of those. This character in her head was called SOS,
[6:10] Speaker 2: taken from son of Sam, who was a notorious serial
[6:14] Speaker 2: killer in America in the late twentieth century, and she
[6:19] Speaker 2: took on that persona herself first by writing about it
[6:23] Speaker 2: as the central theme of this book that she was writing,
[6:26] Speaker 2: called play Zone. But then it blared over, if you
[6:31] Speaker 2: pardon the term, it melded over into her. So she
[6:34] Speaker 2: had a tattoo of several tattoos depicting this SOS character
[6:39] Speaker 2: on her body. Even the motorbike that she rode in
[6:42] Speaker 2: Western Australia in Perth, the registration number was one SOS one.
[6:48] Speaker 2: So she obviously as she got thrill out of the
[6:51] Speaker 2: teens and into her early twenties, saw herself as this
[6:55] Speaker 2: SOS character. And this SOS character was a serial killer
[6:59] Speaker 2: who would torture and murder victims himself, but then more
[7:04] Speaker 2: centrally to the story that emerges in real life, he
[7:08] Speaker 2: had followers that would also do his bidding do his
[7:12] Speaker 2: killing for him. She referred to those as maggots in
[7:15] Speaker 2: the book, and so this became her identity, This became
[7:20] Speaker 2: her central identity. So she had tattoos. And then, as
[7:24] Speaker 2: we'll go on to explain, the house that she ended
[7:27] Speaker 2: up living in and ended up killing in was a
[7:30] Speaker 2: shrine to this type of material, including assigned photograph by
[7:36] Speaker 2: the actor that played Freddy Krueger, a Chuckie doll, which
[7:40] Speaker 2: was a central character in another eighties horror film, and obviously,
[7:46] Speaker 2: most disturbingly, her obsession with torture methods which were found
[7:54] Speaker 2: written and detailed in the house, and also a weapons cash,
[8:01] Speaker 2: particularly of knives that anyone who would have seen would
[8:05] Speaker 2: have been shocked and disturbed by. So she was an
[8:10] Speaker 2: individual that almost seemed and I know it seems hard
[8:15] Speaker 2: to say, but almost seemed destined to kill because that's
[8:19] Speaker 2: what she wanted to do, that's what she'd fantasized doing,
[8:23] Speaker 2: that's what she'd written about doing, and ultimately that's what
[8:26] Speaker 2: she ended up doing.
[8:28] Speaker 1: But tim people write horror stories, people watch horror movies,
[8:32] Speaker 1: people make horror movies, recreate awful torturous things on screens
[8:36] Speaker 1: for us to call entertainment and enjoy. What is it
[8:42] Speaker 1: about Jemma's fascination with this genre that makes it become
[8:47] Speaker 1: a reality for her? Was there ever a mention of
[8:49] Speaker 1: her having a mental health issue? Was there ever times
[8:54] Speaker 1: when that behavior did start to stray over into the
[8:57] Speaker 1: real world before the Murder of Our was there behaviors
[9:02] Speaker 1: that were concerning in the real world that people worried
[9:06] Speaker 1: that maybe this horror genre and this fantasy fiction world
[9:09] Speaker 1: she created was bleeding into her real life.
[9:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there certainly were worries amongst a very close
[9:15] Speaker 2: family in the UK. I spoke anonymously, I might add
[9:19] Speaker 2: to one of those people who contacted me during and
[9:23] Speaker 2: after the trial via email to say, look, this were
[9:27] Speaker 2: we warned people, or we tried to warn people in
[9:29] Speaker 2: the UK that this wasn't just a phase. We didn't
[9:32] Speaker 2: think this was just that your normal teenage sort of
[9:37] Speaker 2: hyper fixation on whatever it might have been. We thought
[9:40] Speaker 2: that this went deeper with her, And then when she
[9:43] Speaker 2: got to Western Australia, which was I think it's fair
[9:48] Speaker 2: to say, was designed to be a circuit breaker for her,
[9:51] Speaker 2: try and get her out of her own head or
[9:54] Speaker 2: the environment that she'd grown up in. Or the friends
[9:56] Speaker 2: that she had, or the family situation that she was in,
[9:58] Speaker 2: and try and give us some thing else. When she
[10:01] Speaker 2: got here, I mean she appeared, I mean, from the
[10:06] Speaker 2: outside you would say relatively normal. She she had friends,
[10:11] Speaker 2: she had a job stacking shells at a local supermarket,
[10:16] Speaker 2: and at one point she even did get married, but
[10:19] Speaker 2: that was for convenience because she had visa issues and
[10:23] Speaker 2: would have had to go back to the UK. So
[10:25] Speaker 2: she befriended a man, a gay man, and they got married.
[10:30] Speaker 2: But even then the marriage ceremony which her family did attend,
[10:36] Speaker 2: come to some family did come from the UK to attend.
[10:40] Speaker 2: It was odd, it was it was it was themed,
[10:42] Speaker 2: there was there was Freddy Krueger memorabilia at that wedding.
[10:47] Speaker 2: So as you say, yeah, I'm sure ninety five percent
[10:54] Speaker 2: of the population of at some point, you know, ingested
[10:57] Speaker 2: a Stephen King novel or watched a horror movie or
[11:00] Speaker 2: you know, listen to death metal or whatever it might be,
[11:03] Speaker 2: and you know, and not become us. But with her,
[11:07] Speaker 2: with Jemma, from very early on, people were saying, this
[11:10] Speaker 2: is this is this is becoming her identity, this is
[11:14] Speaker 2: how she feels like she exists in the world. This
[11:18] Speaker 2: is what makes her who she is, and there's obviously
[11:22] Speaker 2: a psychology behind that, and the psychology was explored somewhat
[11:27] Speaker 2: during the trial, but more during the sentencing in terms
[11:31] Speaker 2: of the potentiality of her having some psychopathic traits there.
[11:36] Speaker 2: It was eventually agreed that there was some psychopathy there
[11:40] Speaker 2: because the elements of her that took on that SOS
[11:45] Speaker 2: character then obviously drilled so far deep into her that
[11:49] Speaker 2: she she basically carried through with it, and then after
[11:54] Speaker 2: she'd done it, was referring to herself as SOS and
[11:59] Speaker 2: was having her partner in crime. Truly, Lennon referred to
[12:03] Speaker 2: her as SOS as well. So the traits that eventually
[12:10] Speaker 2: exploded in Western Australia had been there for a long
[12:13] Speaker 2: time and people had been worried about them for a
[12:17] Speaker 2: long time.
[12:18] Speaker 1: You mentioned her marriage, the marriage of convenience. The man
[12:21] Speaker 1: that she married, she ended up giving him a serial
[12:25] Speaker 1: killer nickname.
[12:26] Speaker 2: Right, Yes, strangely so, this was a chap that she'd
[12:31] Speaker 2: met through friends, and she nick named him Gasey, as
[12:37] Speaker 2: in John Wayne Gacy, who's another notorious serial killer from
[12:42] Speaker 2: the US.
[12:44] Speaker 1: He's the clown killer, right.
[12:45] Speaker 2: The clown killer. Correct, yes, not only was Freddy Krueger
[12:49] Speaker 2: her father figure, but these these serial killers, son of
[12:52] Speaker 2: Sam Gaysey and others, she not only had an interest in,
[12:57] Speaker 2: but she obsessed over. I think it's probably to say
[13:00] Speaker 2: she wrote about them, She listed them, she diarized them,
[13:03] Speaker 2: she liked, did sort of books about them, and once
[13:07] Speaker 2: she got to Western Australia and had really sort of
[13:10] Speaker 2: doubled down into her writing, she actually wrote semi serious,
[13:16] Speaker 2: researched articles about serial killers and had them published in
[13:21] Speaker 2: various sort of publications online magazines that centered around this stuff,
[13:26] Speaker 2: including one about the Port Arthur massacre and the individual
[13:30] Speaker 2: that carried out that that horrific crime. So she just
[13:35] Speaker 2: constantly surrounded herself with this stuff. But you know, to
[13:41] Speaker 2: the point, as you say, where she gave the man
[13:44] Speaker 2: that she married and was obviously friends with but not
[13:47] Speaker 2: sexually involved with because he wasn't that way inclined, and
[13:50] Speaker 2: she described actually she described herself as asexual as well.
[13:54] Speaker 2: She gave him the nickname of one of these killers
[13:56] Speaker 2: because she thought a it was funny and b that
[13:59] Speaker 2: he had unphysical traits that reminded of of that particular
[14:04] Speaker 2: that particular murder.
[14:05] Speaker 1: I am Timmy spoke to some of Jemma's work colleagues
[14:09] Speaker 1: who worked with her back in the day. When you
[14:12] Speaker 1: work with people closely, especially you know, when you're stacking
[14:14] Speaker 1: shelves at you know, the supermarket, you get to know
[14:17] Speaker 1: each other pretty well. You're working sometimes, you know, by
[14:20] Speaker 1: sales at night in places. Did they see anything that
[14:24] Speaker 1: made them think that she was capable of doing what
[14:26] Speaker 1: she eventually did?
[14:27] Speaker 2: Yees, So we heard. We heard from them during doing
[14:31] Speaker 2: during the trial, and then subsequently I did reach out
[14:33] Speaker 2: to a couple of them after the trial just to
[14:36] Speaker 2: just to try and get a fuller picture, even though
[14:38] Speaker 2: we had a lot of material already. And they struck
[14:43] Speaker 2: me as they I mean, they were just normal West Australians,
[14:48] Speaker 2: right they were, and they were just living their lives,
[14:51] Speaker 2: going to work and you know, having relationships with your
[14:56] Speaker 2: colleagues as you as you normally would. And hindsight's a
[15:02] Speaker 2: wonderful thing, right. I got the impression that before this
[15:06] Speaker 2: this happened, they thought she was They thought she was strange,
[15:09] Speaker 2: they thought she was a little bit off kilter. But
[15:11] Speaker 2: I got the impression I don't think they thought this
[15:15] Speaker 2: woman is destined to kill someone, let alone in the
[15:18] Speaker 2: circumstances that she went on to do. But when it
[15:22] Speaker 2: comes to a trial, so you and then you hear
[15:24] Speaker 2: about the circumstances, and it comes to a trial and
[15:26] Speaker 2: you're proofed, and the prosecutors ask you certain questions, right,
[15:29] Speaker 2: you then get the impression over they always knew, so
[15:31] Speaker 2: why didn't they speak up? But I got the impression that,
[15:34] Speaker 2: as I say, they they they she was. She was.
[15:38] Speaker 2: She was weird. She was she you know, she was
[15:40] Speaker 2: she was always talking about this this darkness, this horror material.
[15:43] Speaker 2: She had the tattoos, she had the hair, the piercings,
[15:48] Speaker 2: she wore dark clothing. But as you said before, like
[15:51] Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of young men and women do that
[15:54] Speaker 2: and don't go on to do what Gemma Lily did.
[15:58] Speaker 2: So impression I got was they thought she was strange,
[16:01] Speaker 2: but they never thought they had a killer in their
[16:04] Speaker 2: break room until it broke and then they realized, gosh,
[16:10] Speaker 2: we were seeing next to this person, working next to
[16:12] Speaker 2: this person, you know, having conversations with this person, not
[16:16] Speaker 2: realizing that all the time, you know, she was planning
[16:22] Speaker 2: or certainly fantasizing about eventually committing one of the crimes.
[16:27] Speaker 2: That really shook Western Australia to its core. This in
[16:31] Speaker 2: the last twenty years at.
[16:33] Speaker 1: The time of Aaron's murder. In the lead up to that,
[16:38] Speaker 1: we're talking about a time where you know, Instagram was
[16:41] Speaker 1: brand new in twenty sixteen. Social media wasn't really a
[16:44] Speaker 1: huge part of our lives yet, but you know, the
[16:46] Speaker 1: Internet still existed and there were opportunities to join, you know,
[16:50] Speaker 1: forums and chat rooms and things. Was she involved in
[16:53] Speaker 1: any communities online that could have given us an idea
[16:57] Speaker 1: of where her motivations.
[16:59] Speaker 2: So this were coming not overly, but from quite early,
[17:05] Speaker 2: from around about twenty eleven. From memory, she was spooking
[17:11] Speaker 2: this this book and this character that that she was,
[17:14] Speaker 2: that she was in the midst of creating, as I say,
[17:18] Speaker 2: the book. The book was called play Zone. It was
[17:21] Speaker 2: written under a pseudonym, and she was very proud of it.
[17:25] Speaker 2: She was very she was very proud of it. She
[17:26] Speaker 2: would tell people about it, she would give people hard
[17:29] Speaker 2: copies of it, anyone who showed any interest. And then
[17:32] Speaker 2: on a she created a Facebook page around the book
[17:36] Speaker 2: for you know, ostensibly for marketing purposes, and she would
[17:40] Speaker 2: post about it. And then slowly, as was we dug
[17:46] Speaker 2: into her social media profile a little more. There was
[17:50] Speaker 2: some very you know, sort of bizarre and disturbing photographs
[17:57] Speaker 2: that she'd shed, that she'd fashioned and taken and obviously
[18:00] Speaker 2: stylized herself that became sort of the book art. There
[18:05] Speaker 2: was one that depicted a young man on his knees
[18:11] Speaker 2: in a sort of dexter like room that was covered
[18:15] Speaker 2: in top all ins and things with with this with
[18:17] Speaker 2: this metal mask, this mask, it turned out, that had
[18:21] Speaker 2: been made for Jemma by her father as a sort
[18:24] Speaker 2: of strange sort of gift or you know, acknowledgment that
[18:30] Speaker 2: you know, yeah, okay, you're you're into this stuff, so
[18:34] Speaker 2: you know, maybe I could you know, share this interest somehow.
[18:37] Speaker 2: But she went on to use this mask in the
[18:39] Speaker 2: in the in the fanner of of of this book,
[18:43] Speaker 2: and those pictures were there, you know, if you've chosen
[18:45] Speaker 2: to see them, or if you were friends with her
[18:47] Speaker 2: on Facebook. She didn't have many, but she did have
[18:49] Speaker 2: some that were there there to see. So again, even
[18:53] Speaker 2: her online personality was enmeshed with this, with this so character,
[19:01] Speaker 2: with her pride and obsession with the book and the
[19:06] Speaker 2: central theme of her life basically, which was killing someone,
[19:11] Speaker 2: how to kill someone, How to torture someone and how
[19:16] Speaker 2: to do that, what weapons to do that with. So
[19:20] Speaker 2: that was again, once we started digging into this story
[19:25] Speaker 2: in this personality a little deeper, that was illuminative as well.
[19:33] Speaker 1: You're listening to true crime conversations with me, Claire Murphy,
[19:36] Speaker 1: I'm speaking with former journalist Tim Clark about the murder
[19:39] Speaker 1: of Aaron Page. Sweetmen. Up next, When did Jemma Lily
[19:44] Speaker 1: develop this strong urge to kill before the age of
[19:47] Speaker 1: twenty five? And how did Trudy Lennin come into the picture?
[19:54] Speaker 1: Do we know when things change from being this obsession
[19:59] Speaker 1: with horror and creating this book in this character to
[20:04] Speaker 1: giving herself that goal that's mentioned throughout the trial of
[20:07] Speaker 1: wanting to kill someone before she turns twenty five? Like,
[20:10] Speaker 1: do we have an understanding of when that became a
[20:12] Speaker 1: thing for her?
[20:13] Speaker 2: Well, personally, having covered the trial, followed the story and
[20:17] Speaker 2: written about it after, I really feel that it was
[20:21] Speaker 2: when she met Truly Lenin, who was her became her
[20:28] Speaker 2: best friend, became her muse, became her confidant, and ultimately
[20:34] Speaker 2: became her accompanies. Truly Lenin was older, much older, in
[20:40] Speaker 2: her forties, divorced, not really enjoying her life. She had
[20:47] Speaker 2: been a participant in the BDSM scene in Perth for
[20:53] Speaker 2: some years as a submissive. So she was someone who
[20:57] Speaker 2: sexually enjoyed being dominated, and through Truly's son, if I
[21:06] Speaker 2: remember correctly, they met. So you've got these two personalities, right,
[21:12] Speaker 2: You've got You've got Gemma, who is even though she's
[21:16] Speaker 2: lonely and she's weird, and she's on the fringes, let's
[21:20] Speaker 2: let's call it, she was also articulate, confident, attractive, and
[21:27] Speaker 2: was had had a had a belief in herself, even
[21:31] Speaker 2: though that was a very sick belief that she was
[21:34] Speaker 2: she was she was going to do this thing right.
[21:38] Speaker 2: But I believe that she felt that she couldn't do
[21:40] Speaker 2: it alone. And that jump, if you jump back to
[21:43] Speaker 2: the central or one of the central themes of her
[21:45] Speaker 2: book was that she needed someone she s s had
[21:49] Speaker 2: these followers, these these you know, these sycophants that would
[21:53] Speaker 2: do his bidding for him and do his killing for
[21:55] Speaker 2: him and and honored him and worshiped him. And in
[22:00] Speaker 2: Truly Lenin, that's what Jemma found. She found someone that
[22:03] Speaker 2: was willing to be dominated because she knew she'd be
[22:08] Speaker 2: dominated sexually previously and that was part of her psychology,
[22:11] Speaker 2: so she could be and was willing to be dominated.
[22:15] Speaker 2: And as we went through the trial and the text
[22:18] Speaker 2: messages between these two women were revealed, that was that
[22:22] Speaker 2: was very much their relationship dom sub and truly Lenin
[22:29] Speaker 2: in finding Jemma, Lily found someone that she could talk to,
[22:33] Speaker 2: that she could hang out with, that she could feel
[22:35] Speaker 2: important with, that she could converse with. But it wasn't
[22:40] Speaker 2: a male right because truly Lenin's persona and life up
[22:44] Speaker 2: until that point has been had been a literal submissive
[22:48] Speaker 2: and not a very happy one in a series of
[22:52] Speaker 2: heterosexual relationships. Now that there was a there was a
[22:56] Speaker 2: subtext that Gemma and Truly were love that was never
[23:01] Speaker 2: really explored because it didn't really have to be in
[23:04] Speaker 2: terms of the crime that they committed, because the relationship,
[23:08] Speaker 2: their relationship, in terms of the physical acts that they
[23:11] Speaker 2: ended up doing together and planning together and then discussing
[23:16] Speaker 2: together afterwards, was it was clear that they were as
[23:20] Speaker 2: close as to people could be, even if they were
[23:23] Speaker 2: sharing a bed. So I I believe, having having gone
[23:28] Speaker 2: through the trial, that that that that the moment that
[23:31] Speaker 2: Gemma found truly and realized that truly will do basically
[23:37] Speaker 2: anything I ask of her, within reason and without reason.
[23:41] Speaker 2: As it came to be. That was when it went
[23:43] Speaker 2: from a fantasy to a rep from from fantasy to
[23:46] Speaker 2: reality for her, because she had a maggot, right, she
[23:49] Speaker 2: had she she dreamed up this this scenario in her
[23:53] Speaker 2: head and then suddenly it was it was playing out
[23:55] Speaker 2: in real life. She had someone living with her, you know,
[23:58] Speaker 2: hanging out with her, doing her bidding, really like read
[24:01] Speaker 2: really reading her book, giving her notes, giving her suggestions,
[24:05] Speaker 2: and all the while it was building this confidence in
[24:08] Speaker 2: the lead that right, I'm ready to do this now.
[24:12] Speaker 2: She'd set herself that timeline. I think that was a
[24:15] Speaker 2: bit of drumatis persona. I think that was just her
[24:18] Speaker 2: building herself up. But whatever it was, it came to be,
[24:23] Speaker 2: and it came to be because they crossed paths and
[24:27] Speaker 2: then they emboldened each other to do it. And really tragically,
[24:34] Speaker 2: it was through truly Lenin and her son that they
[24:40] Speaker 2: came into contact with Aaron, who was then for one
[24:46] Speaker 2: of the better I mean, he was targeted. He was
[24:49] Speaker 2: targeted because of who he was, and that that really
[24:54] Speaker 2: is a piece of his story that is desperately, desperately sad.
[25:01] Speaker 1: Well, speak about Aaron in a moment. But you mentioned
[25:04] Speaker 1: the text messages between Trudy and Gemma, and there were
[25:09] Speaker 1: quite a few of them, and they were quite central
[25:11] Speaker 1: to the court case. Can you talk us through what
[25:13] Speaker 1: these women were saying to each other?
[25:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, so again it revolved around this SOS character, right,
[25:20] Speaker 2: So that's that's how Lenin was addressing Lily Gemma in
[25:26] Speaker 2: these in these text messages and truly was given a
[25:32] Speaker 2: persona as well. They were egging each other on. So yeah,
[25:36] Speaker 2: it's this dominant submissive relationship that was was able to
[25:43] Speaker 2: be illustrated geographically in court literally by with graphics of
[25:48] Speaker 2: the of the text messages. For instance, at one point,
[25:52] Speaker 2: Lenin to Lily texts, I will fear you, but respect you.
[25:57] Speaker 2: I see you as my dominant. That's that. That just
[26:01] Speaker 2: lays it out in less than twenty words, right, Lily
[26:05] Speaker 2: to Lenin, one hundred percent perfect. It would seem you
[26:09] Speaker 2: truly understand my SOS role. And then Lily to Lenin again,
[26:13] Speaker 2: my mind is the darkest being you will ever be
[26:16] Speaker 2: laying your life in the hands off. And if you
[26:21] Speaker 2: read Lily's book, I wouldn't recommend it. It's terrible in
[26:24] Speaker 2: terms of just spelling errors and plot development and characters
[26:29] Speaker 2: and everything. But it's also two hundred odd pages of
[26:36] Speaker 2: literally a window into Lily's mind as we now know
[26:41] Speaker 2: that type of language is, you know, just strewn all
[26:46] Speaker 2: over the pages there. So just those three and there
[26:50] Speaker 2: were there were dozens and dozens of these text messages
[26:53] Speaker 2: back and forth, really just you know, confirming to each
[26:58] Speaker 2: other what their roles were, also emboldened in each other
[27:02] Speaker 2: to build up to the day where they went to
[27:05] Speaker 2: that shopping center and got Aaron into their car. And then,
[27:10] Speaker 2: as we'll probably go on to discuss, there were text
[27:12] Speaker 2: messages after the crime that they committed that showed that
[27:18] Speaker 2: they weren't regretful of what they've done at all. In fact,
[27:22] Speaker 2: Lily was elated at what she'd done because she'd done
[27:28] Speaker 2: what she always wanted to do. Along with the messages
[27:32] Speaker 2: to each other about each other and embolding each other,
[27:35] Speaker 2: they were also quite graphic messages about the act or
[27:42] Speaker 2: the act that they were building up to, or certainly
[27:44] Speaker 2: that Lily wanted them both to build up to. This
[27:48] Speaker 2: message that I'm about to read out was very similar
[27:50] Speaker 2: to some of the passages in the book, but this
[27:52] Speaker 2: was actually written to Lenin. She wrote to her, I
[27:56] Speaker 2: feel as though I cannot rest until the blood or
[27:59] Speaker 2: the flesh of a screaming, pleading victim is gushing out
[28:03] Speaker 2: and pulling on the floor. Now that's horrifying enough. But
[28:10] Speaker 2: as we got into the trial, there was a photograph
[28:14] Speaker 2: that was tendered by the prosecutors after they'd been into
[28:18] Speaker 2: Lily's house where the crime was committed, and echoing that
[28:23] Speaker 2: cover art for the book, there was a room that
[28:26] Speaker 2: had been basically blocked off in the house, a tiled floor,
[28:31] Speaker 2: and it had blue top haul in all the way
[28:35] Speaker 2: around it, floors and ceiling, allah dexter tild floor covered walls,
[28:43] Speaker 2: and two other items. There were photographs which were chilling,
[28:46] Speaker 2: and the photographs online if anyone is interested in seeing it.
[28:50] Speaker 2: In one caller was a toolbox, one of those tall
[28:53] Speaker 2: red toolboxes with draws in and on the other was
[28:58] Speaker 2: a hospital gurney for one of the better words. This
[29:01] Speaker 2: is where ultimately police deduced that Aaron's body was kept
[29:07] Speaker 2: after he was killed, and then it was later moved
[29:11] Speaker 2: and buried in the crudely buried but buried nonetheless in
[29:16] Speaker 2: the backyard of the Lily home, and that that text
[29:23] Speaker 2: message or pleading victim is gushing and pulling on the floor.
[29:27] Speaker 2: You can only read that as a foretaste of what
[29:31] Speaker 2: was to come, unfortunately, because it's so close to the
[29:36] Speaker 2: to the physical evidence that the police later found.
[29:40] Speaker 1: So these two women are living together at this stage, right,
[29:43] Speaker 1: So they are in the same home. They've prepared this
[29:46] Speaker 1: home for their potential victim. Who is Aaron Paige sweet Men.
[29:52] Speaker 1: How does he come into the picture? You mentioned that
[29:54] Speaker 1: they met him through Trudy's son, but how did they
[30:00] Speaker 1: managed to lure him into their home?
[30:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, the physical connection is, as I say, through Truy's son.
[30:08] Speaker 2: Aaron played Sweetman was as his name suggests, a very
[30:12] Speaker 2: sweet young man, but he was also a very vulnerable
[30:14] Speaker 2: young man. He came from let's say, difficult family circumstances.
[30:20] Speaker 2: There was animosity there but between his mom and his
[30:24] Speaker 2: dad and his stepmom. He had learning difficulties. He had
[30:29] Speaker 2: some diagnosed neurodiversience. But he was also interested in technology
[30:38] Speaker 2: and computers and gaming as many many young teenage men are,
[30:44] Speaker 2: and he had friends, He had interests. He was independent
[30:48] Speaker 2: as far as he could be, but it was through
[30:50] Speaker 2: Lenin and through a friendship with Lennon's son, who was
[30:53] Speaker 2: younger than Aaron, but nevertheless they were friends that Truly
[30:58] Speaker 2: knew him and eventually had his contact details. She contacted
[31:04] Speaker 2: Aaron to ask him whether he would come to their
[31:09] Speaker 2: home to download and upload some software, some gaming software,
[31:16] Speaker 2: and Aaron b and Aaron, with the interests he had
[31:19] Speaker 2: and the naivete let's say he had, he agreed to
[31:26] Speaker 2: do this, and so they arranged to meet at a
[31:29] Speaker 2: shopping center quite close to Lily's home. They met there.
[31:35] Speaker 2: CCTV captures the meeting there, and completely innocently, thinking that
[31:41] Speaker 2: all he's doing is doing a favor for a friend's mum,
[31:46] Speaker 2: he gets in Gema's car and they drive. They drive away,
[31:50] Speaker 2: and they end up at Eli's home, where Aaron is
[31:54] Speaker 2: doing exactly what he'd been asked to do. He was
[31:56] Speaker 2: in a chair in a side bedroom uploading and downloading
[32:01] Speaker 2: some software onto Truly's computer. But at that point, Truly
[32:06] Speaker 2: Lennon knew exactly what was going to happen, because it
[32:11] Speaker 2: had been discussed in great detail between her and Lily,
[32:16] Speaker 2: so she stood back, but not far enough that she
[32:19] Speaker 2: couldn't see what was happening. Eema Lily came up behind
[32:23] Speaker 2: Aaron as he sat in the chair with a garrotte,
[32:27] Speaker 2: an old style garrot with thin wire, and choked Aaron
[32:34] Speaker 2: with that quite severely, but not severely enough to actually
[32:38] Speaker 2: end Aaron's life. She did that with a knife, one
[32:42] Speaker 2: of the knives that she collected and proudly displayed it
[32:47] Speaker 2: in her home. She stabbed Aaron multiple times. Aaron fell
[32:51] Speaker 2: forward onto the floor of that room, and they watched
[32:57] Speaker 2: that young man bleed to death in their home. The circumstance,
[33:03] Speaker 2: as we understand it then, was they moved the body
[33:05] Speaker 2: to that room that we spoke about, that hidden room.
[33:08] Speaker 2: They cut the piece of the carpet out underneath the
[33:11] Speaker 2: window where Aaron had bled most and got rid of that.
[33:17] Speaker 2: And then they, for two or three days just went
[33:21] Speaker 2: about their their daily lives, the while, all the while
[33:29] Speaker 2: congratulating each other verbally but also by a text message,
[33:35] Speaker 2: which I found some of the hardest material to hear,
[33:39] Speaker 2: because they've not only ended this young man's life, they
[33:43] Speaker 2: destroyed the asley, destroyed the families of of his you know,
[33:49] Speaker 2: his close relatives, his friends. But then they reveled in it.
[33:52] Speaker 2: They congratulated themselves, They you know, emboldened each other with
[33:57] Speaker 2: you know how good we are and how brilliant we are,
[34:00] Speaker 2: and we got away with it, et cetera, et cetera,
[34:03] Speaker 2: thinking cruelly that because Aaron was living away from home
[34:08] Speaker 2: and vulnerable, and you know that no one would miss him,
[34:11] Speaker 2: which is almost the cruelest part of all, right, that
[34:15] Speaker 2: they'd eraised this young man also, they thought, and the
[34:18] Speaker 2: people would just forget him. But that wasn't the case
[34:21] Speaker 2: at all, as we discussed right at the start, and
[34:24] Speaker 2: Aaron was declared missing by his family almost immediately, maybe
[34:30] Speaker 2: two days less than seventy two hours after his death, anyway,
[34:33] Speaker 2: and police immediately started looking for him. They looked into
[34:38] Speaker 2: his background, they looked into his connections, and they looked
[34:41] Speaker 2: into his phone records, as police obviously do these days.
[34:44] Speaker 2: And the last phone call, one of the last phone
[34:47] Speaker 2: calls that he'd received, was from Trudy Lennon's fine. So
[34:51] Speaker 2: they tracked Lennon down, find out where she was living,
[34:54] Speaker 2: went to that house, and what they found there not
[34:58] Speaker 2: only was the paraffername of murder and horror, but they
[35:03] Speaker 2: also found physical evidence of it, right that one that
[35:07] Speaker 2: piece of carpet cut out. But the most striking thing
[35:12] Speaker 2: that they found when they got to the house was
[35:14] Speaker 2: very recently, very shoddly constructed patio which had obviously been
[35:22] Speaker 2: something had been laid on this grass patch cement, and
[35:28] Speaker 2: then on top of that had been laid some pretty
[35:30] Speaker 2: horrible looking thirty by thirty tiles. So they had a
[35:35] Speaker 2: missing man, young man. They had a phone call to
[35:39] Speaker 2: this woman. They had this house which literally was signed
[35:44] Speaker 2: Elm Street because that's what Lily had put on the
[35:47] Speaker 2: back porch was, you know, Elm Street. And then they
[35:51] Speaker 2: had this weird DIY project. And when they put all
[35:56] Speaker 2: the police put all that together, they came to a
[35:59] Speaker 2: very quick and horrible conclusion. And so they dug this
[36:05] Speaker 2: patio for one of the better word up. They found
[36:09] Speaker 2: concrete underneath. They dug that up, and then they found
[36:13] Speaker 2: disturbed earth. And when they redisturbed that earth, they found
[36:17] Speaker 2: a white sheet and inside that was Aaron Pietry's body.
[36:23] Speaker 2: Was that.
[36:25] Speaker 1: The way they disposed of his whole body? I know
[36:27] Speaker 1: there was some discussion, and there's CCTV footage of these
[36:31] Speaker 1: two women at local hardware stores collecting up lots of
[36:35] Speaker 1: supplies to commit the murder, but also to get rid
[36:39] Speaker 1: of his body. Was it true that they'd tried other
[36:42] Speaker 1: ways to dissolve his body before ending up burying him
[36:45] Speaker 1: in the backyard.
[36:47] Speaker 2: Part of this story and part of their planning was
[36:50] Speaker 2: they went to a Bunning's store in the days before
[36:53] Speaker 2: Aaron went missing. CCTV of it, and in that CCTV
[36:59] Speaker 2: you can see Gemial early at the till and behind
[37:02] Speaker 2: her Trudy Lennon with one of those long flat led trolleys,
[37:07] Speaker 2: and on that trolley was a significant amount of acid
[37:11] Speaker 2: which they purchased. When police later went through that house
[37:18] Speaker 2: forensically in an annex I believe, either behind the house
[37:23] Speaker 2: or attached to the house, they found an old oven
[37:28] Speaker 2: with an old pot, and there was some meat in there.
[37:33] Speaker 2: This meat, this raw meat, hadn't been cooked. It had
[37:36] Speaker 2: been submerged in acid. And the logical conclusion, the one
[37:44] Speaker 2: that was put as a theory before the jury, was
[37:49] Speaker 2: that this was those two testing what was possible, what
[37:54] Speaker 2: would happen if you put a piece of raw meat
[37:58] Speaker 2: into this acid into a pot. The remains of it,
[38:03] Speaker 2: the remnants of it were there, and so it hadn't
[38:06] Speaker 2: had worked completely because you can still see what it was,
[38:11] Speaker 2: that some acid and a piece of meat, So you
[38:15] Speaker 2: know presumably these two had done that test thought better
[38:21] Speaker 2: of it, or realized it was harder than they thought
[38:24] Speaker 2: it was going to be and it wasn't as easy
[38:26] Speaker 2: as the movies make it seem, and so they came
[38:30] Speaker 2: up with another plan, which was the one that they
[38:33] Speaker 2: ended up going through with, and was the one that
[38:37] Speaker 2: you know, ultimately was the jury saw and accepted. Was
[38:42] Speaker 2: the way that Aaron's body had been disposed of. The
[38:46] Speaker 2: one thing I didn't mention when they found Aaron in
[38:54] Speaker 2: the sheet, they also found that his face had been
[38:58] Speaker 2: enveloped with plastic cling film for some reason, because the
[39:06] Speaker 2: pathology suggested that the stab wounds that Aaron suffered would
[39:11] Speaker 2: have been fatal. So what that was about, who knows.
[39:16] Speaker 2: But it was a final indignity that was inflicted on
[39:22] Speaker 2: Aaron before before he was so crudely disposed of.
[39:30] Speaker 1: After the break we learned how police discovered Aaron's body.
[39:37] Speaker 1: How cooperative were Gemma and Trudy in the aftermath of
[39:41] Speaker 1: police finding Aaron's body buried in the backyard. Did they
[39:45] Speaker 1: assist police in their investigation, did they try and lead
[39:48] Speaker 1: them astray? What were they like?
[39:51] Speaker 2: This was fascinating. At another fascinating part of this case
[39:57] Speaker 2: because Lily ad Or always wanted to do this right.
[40:01] Speaker 2: She'd written about it. She fanstized about it, she diorized
[40:04] Speaker 2: that she thought about different ways, but when it came
[40:07] Speaker 2: to it, when it came to it, she denied it.
[40:10] Speaker 2: She denied murdering Aaron Piech. She blamed truly Lennon. And
[40:17] Speaker 2: the two interviews or the multiple interviews with the two
[40:20] Speaker 2: women were some amazing police work, I have to say,
[40:26] Speaker 2: because not only did they unpick this relationship pretty quickly,
[40:32] Speaker 2: they then used this relationship to get to the truth.
[40:36] Speaker 2: They knew it was more than likely that Lily had
[40:40] Speaker 2: done that deed because she was gem and Lily and
[40:44] Speaker 2: they and then they had all the material on her.
[40:47] Speaker 2: But they knew that Lennon must have helped her. So
[40:49] Speaker 2: they were really interested to work that. When then when
[40:52] Speaker 2: Lily got into the interview room, she blamed Lenmon and
[40:55] Speaker 2: she said, oh I watched and I couldn't stop, et cetera,
[40:57] Speaker 2: et cetera. They used that non confession or that that
[41:03] Speaker 2: blame that Lily was was heaping on Lenin in Lenin's
[41:07] Speaker 2: interview interviews to break her down because initially she was like, oh,
[41:14] Speaker 2: I didn't know, I didn't know what was happening. I
[41:15] Speaker 2: didn't know it was going to happen. It was completely
[41:18] Speaker 2: shocked to me, et cetera, et cetera. But then slowly
[41:21] Speaker 2: and surely they broke this, this this submissive woman down
[41:26] Speaker 2: to the point where they came to the truth as
[41:30] Speaker 2: the facts and the evidence would would would had it
[41:33] Speaker 2: have it been, And ultimately Lennon said, no, I didn't
[41:38] Speaker 2: actually kill Aaron. It was truly and so irony of ironies.
[41:43] Speaker 2: We get to a court case and we have what's
[41:47] Speaker 2: colloquially known in legal terms as a cutthroat defense, which
[41:52] Speaker 2: is they're blaming each other to try and absorb blame
[41:56] Speaker 2: from each other. And that's that's how that's how it
[42:02] Speaker 2: played out. The whole trial was that they denied, they downplayed,
[42:08] Speaker 2: they denuded their own roles while you know, pointing out
[42:14] Speaker 2: or amplifying or you know, not exaggerating, but certainly emphasizing
[42:18] Speaker 2: the role of the other person. So were they cooperative?
[42:22] Speaker 2: You could say yes they were, because ultimately that all that,
[42:27] Speaker 2: all that cross pollinating evidence and testimony led the jury
[42:32] Speaker 2: to the to the verdicts that they got to. But
[42:36] Speaker 2: they didn't ultimately confess they had to be found guilty.
[42:41] Speaker 2: They had to put Aaron's family and the state and
[42:45] Speaker 2: the lawyers and the judge and the witnesses through that
[42:48] Speaker 2: ordeal of a trial. And it was an ordeal. It
[42:51] Speaker 2: was a long trial, it was a graphic trial. It
[42:53] Speaker 2: was an emotional trial. Aaron's family had to give evidence,
[42:57] Speaker 2: that Lily's friends had to give evidence, pathologies, some police
[43:00] Speaker 2: had to give evidence, and that's you know, that's that's
[43:04] Speaker 2: a big thing to do when a young man is
[43:07] Speaker 2: dead and in such graphic ways. So yeah, it was
[43:13] Speaker 2: the psychology of that was and the psychology of it
[43:17] Speaker 2: was interesting. But the way that the police, the detectives
[43:21] Speaker 2: came at this case was also really really fascinating and ultimately,
[43:27] Speaker 2: I mean, you have to praise the work that they
[43:30] Speaker 2: did and the interviews that they did because they got
[43:32] Speaker 2: to the truth in the end.
[43:34] Speaker 1: Tim, How did Jemma's family handle this, because they've obviously
[43:37] Speaker 1: at one stage tried their best to help her by
[43:40] Speaker 1: sending her out to Australia, hoping to interrupt these dark
[43:44] Speaker 1: thoughts and fantasies and life that she was living. I
[43:47] Speaker 1: understand that Jimma spoke to her dad about it, denied
[43:51] Speaker 1: that she did it. So she continued to deny evento
[43:53] Speaker 1: those closest to her, But how did her family handle
[43:58] Speaker 1: her being accused of murder?
[44:00] Speaker 2: The family in the UK and those closer in the UK,
[44:04] Speaker 2: certainly the ones that I communicated with, Some of them said, well,
[44:08] Speaker 2: this is just this was just always going to happen.
[44:11] Speaker 2: Richard Lilly, who was Jama's father, who is Jem's father,
[44:15] Speaker 2: categorically one said she didn't do it. He came to
[44:21] Speaker 2: the UK. I came from the UK, sorry to Australia,
[44:24] Speaker 2: was attended the trial, spoke to us at a certain level.
[44:28] Speaker 2: I mean, the media who were covering this trial was
[44:31] Speaker 2: obviously didn't like the way the trial was panning out
[44:35] Speaker 2: in terms of evidence, but also coverage. I certainly got
[44:39] Speaker 2: the impression he was he felt that we were unfairly,
[44:43] Speaker 2: you know, casting his daughters as this monster. And he's
[44:48] Speaker 2: stuck to that and he has stuck to that. He
[44:50] Speaker 2: did interviews following the conviction where he again said she
[44:56] Speaker 2: just couldn't have done this, This isn't her. But I
[45:00] Speaker 2: after the trial, I tracked down a chap called Roland Hulker,
[45:04] Speaker 2: who was a very close friend of Richard Lilly, back
[45:08] Speaker 2: in the UK, who ultimately Jemma stayed with when she
[45:12] Speaker 2: first moved here. So that's how close Richard and Roland were.
[45:17] Speaker 2: And I went to Roland's house and he was hugely
[45:21] Speaker 2: hospitable and we had a cup of tea and had
[45:23] Speaker 2: a long chat and he said two things. He said
[45:27] Speaker 2: one Gemma was it wasn't too bad when she first
[45:31] Speaker 2: got to Australia in terms of her dark obsessions, but
[45:34] Speaker 2: then he could see her slipping back into that. She
[45:38] Speaker 2: was getting you know, darker clothing, darker music, more tattoos
[45:43] Speaker 2: and etc. And eventually he wasn't comfortable with her living
[45:48] Speaker 2: with him, so he moved She moved out into the house.
[45:51] Speaker 2: Eventually with she was arrested. But he also said that Richard,
[45:56] Speaker 2: in his eyes as a close friend, was always a
[46:00] Speaker 2: overprotective and maybe not realistic in his assessment of Gemma's
[46:07] Speaker 2: mental health, mental state, interests, etc. So he said it
[46:12] Speaker 2: to me. I had conversations with Richard about Gemma while
[46:16] Speaker 2: she was here. I said, I'm worried about her. I
[46:18] Speaker 2: don't think she's well. I think you need to do
[46:20] Speaker 2: something or come here, and do you know, I'm just
[46:22] Speaker 2: informing you and Richie went up, She's fine. I truly
[46:27] Speaker 2: believe she's fine. So again, an interesting dynamic, a split
[46:31] Speaker 2: if you like, between her father, who was always hugely supportive,
[46:36] Speaker 2: and then other members of the family and other people
[46:38] Speaker 2: close to Gemma said, yeah, now that this has happened,
[46:43] Speaker 2: I can understand or I.
[46:45] Speaker 1: Can see why did it take the jury long to
[46:48] Speaker 1: make a decision after being shown all that evidence, the
[46:50] Speaker 1: text messages, the testimony they've given, or the interviews that
[46:54] Speaker 1: they'd given, blaming each other, and all of those experts
[46:57] Speaker 1: that stepped up. What did the jury think of all
[46:59] Speaker 1: of that?
[47:00] Speaker 2: Two and a half hours was how long the jury
[47:03] Speaker 2: were out, which, in a when you're deliberating over not one,
[47:08] Speaker 2: just but two people on a murder charge, that's not
[47:12] Speaker 2: long at all. As graphic as it was, it was
[47:14] Speaker 2: also as obvious as it came to be right as
[47:18] Speaker 2: what had happened. And again, I will go back to
[47:21] Speaker 2: the detective work, the police work in this case. I
[47:24] Speaker 2: worked quite closely with one of the detectives that worked
[47:29] Speaker 2: on this case in other cases, and he was one
[47:32] Speaker 2: of the interviewing officers actually, and I know how much
[47:36] Speaker 2: this case affected the Serious Crimes squad in Western Australian
[47:40] Speaker 2: Police because just because of everything right, the victim, the
[47:46] Speaker 2: family circumstances, the way he was killed, the way he
[47:48] Speaker 2: was disposed of the way these two then conducted themselves
[47:51] Speaker 2: in court. This was a trial in more than one
[47:55] Speaker 2: sense of the word. But you know, it didn't take
[47:58] Speaker 2: the jury long for good reason and for the right reasons.
[48:02] Speaker 2: And they you know, I can say this now I'm
[48:05] Speaker 2: not a court reporter anymore. It was the right decision.
[48:08] Speaker 2: It was obviously the right decision because that's that's that,
[48:11] Speaker 2: that was the truth of what happened. But I will
[48:14] Speaker 2: also give some insight into the effects that these trials
[48:19] Speaker 2: can have. So what I knew both the lawyers who
[48:24] Speaker 2: were tasked with defending truly Lennon and and Gemal Lily,
[48:30] Speaker 2: And certainly I know the lawyer that defended Gemal Lily
[48:36] Speaker 2: was deeply, deeply affected by this trial. There's a misnomer
[48:40] Speaker 2: out there, right, the defense lawyers and they just rock
[48:42] Speaker 2: up and take the money and you know, a life
[48:45] Speaker 2: for a living and all this type of thing. But
[48:47] Speaker 2: you know, without them, the justice system wouldn't work because
[48:50] Speaker 2: every defendant it needs a defense lawyer, right, and when
[48:54] Speaker 2: you're on such a serious chargers murder, you need a
[48:57] Speaker 2: very experienced defense lawyer, and Gemal Lily had one of
[49:00] Speaker 2: the most experienced in Perth at that time and I've
[49:05] Speaker 2: spoken to him since about this trial and he it
[49:10] Speaker 2: was it's deeply deeply affected him as well, just because
[49:14] Speaker 2: of not only the material that he had to deal with,
[49:17] Speaker 2: but the person he was having to deal with as well,
[49:18] Speaker 2: and having to defend and having to try and advise
[49:23] Speaker 2: in a legal sense. So yeah, it's it's it's it's
[49:28] Speaker 2: one of those cases when you when you when you
[49:30] Speaker 2: wrap it all up, that is just so it's so
[49:33] Speaker 2: bizarre that this, this could, this could happen in Perth.
[49:37] Speaker 2: And we say it, We've said it a lot about
[49:39] Speaker 2: crimes in Perth and sometimes Perth can seem a different
[49:44] Speaker 2: world and a different country to the rest of Australia.
[49:46] Speaker 2: And in some ways it is because every so often
[49:51] Speaker 2: a criminal case will pop up that is so you know, notorious.
[49:55] Speaker 2: You think, how the hell could that happen? And then
[49:58] Speaker 2: on top of that, how could the help, how the
[49:59] Speaker 2: health that happened in Perth, because you know, we're the
[50:03] Speaker 2: big side sort of paradise that everyone comes to to
[50:06] Speaker 2: have fun and come away with their talent, right, But
[50:10] Speaker 2: there's some dark there's some dark undercurrents in this city
[50:14] Speaker 2: that sometimes comes to the service and.
[50:15] Speaker 1: This was one of them, I understand. Tou aside from
[50:18] Speaker 1: the jury not taking a hell of a long time
[50:20] Speaker 1: to make the decision, that the judge handed down quite
[50:22] Speaker 1: a significant sentence too.
[50:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the most significant sense you can ever hand
[50:27] Speaker 2: down his life and life is mandatory for murder in
[50:30] Speaker 2: Western Australia, so that's what these two women got, and
[50:33] Speaker 2: that's what these two women are serving. But in our system,
[50:36] Speaker 2: as in others in Australia and around the world, a
[50:39] Speaker 2: judge also has to set a minimum term for the
[50:43] Speaker 2: minimum amount of time that a murderer has to serve
[50:47] Speaker 2: before they can be eligible for parole. In this case,
[50:50] Speaker 2: it was twenty eight years each for Lily and Lennon.
[50:54] Speaker 2: So the judge ruled that they were equally culpable of
[50:59] Speaker 2: this crime and they should serve the same So twenty
[51:03] Speaker 2: eight years, which at the time that they were sentenced,
[51:05] Speaker 2: was one of the longest minimum terms ever set for
[51:10] Speaker 2: any murder in Western Australia, but particularly for female killers.
[51:15] Speaker 2: We've had at least one notorious one of those in
[51:19] Speaker 2: Western Australia as well, but two of them working together,
[51:23] Speaker 2: living together, in a relationship together. They are extremely rare,
[51:27] Speaker 2: as was this case, and it warranted an extremely rare sentence,
[51:31] Speaker 2: which is what they've got.
[51:33] Speaker 1: It's now been ten years since Aaron Page Sweetman's murder
[51:38] Speaker 1: and there was a great outpouring of grief in the
[51:40] Speaker 1: community after his death, something that Trudy and Jemmy didn't
[51:45] Speaker 1: count on because they figured he would just be invisible,
[51:48] Speaker 1: seeing that he was on the spectrum. Do we know
[51:52] Speaker 1: what life has been like for Trudy and for Gemma
[51:58] Speaker 1: whilst behind bars they treated in prison?
[52:02] Speaker 2: Well, firstly, there was i have to say, sort of
[52:05] Speaker 2: revulsion at what they've done and the way they've done
[52:09] Speaker 2: it and how they conducted themselves. During the trial, it
[52:12] Speaker 2: made headlines back in the UK for certain there were
[52:17] Speaker 2: sort of TV interviews with Aaron's mum and dad, but
[52:22] Speaker 2: also with Lily's father as well. Since then, life hasn't
[52:29] Speaker 2: been that easy for truly Lenin, at least when whilst
[52:34] Speaker 2: she's in custody. She's been attacked twice, once very seriously
[52:39] Speaker 2: by another prisoner who poured boiling water over her while
[52:46] Speaker 2: they were waiting in a queue for medication. She suffered
[52:51] Speaker 2: third degree burns to her head, the back of her neck,
[52:54] Speaker 2: her shoulders are back the battocks, and that person who
[53:01] Speaker 2: committed that crime was very open as to why they'd
[53:05] Speaker 2: done it. They didn't like, in fact detested, what Lenin
[53:10] Speaker 2: had done, and they wanted her to pay an extra price. Now,
[53:15] Speaker 2: obviously vigilanteism in prison is frowned upon very seriously by
[53:19] Speaker 2: the authorities, as it should be. Justice had been served,
[53:22] Speaker 2: she had been sentenced, and she didn't deserve to be attacked.
[53:26] Speaker 2: The person who did the attack got nearly five years
[53:28] Speaker 2: I think for that attack. But again, the public when
[53:36] Speaker 2: I wrote that story and followed that trial and followed
[53:38] Speaker 2: that sentencing, that the overwhelming messages I got were not
[53:42] Speaker 2: sympathetic towards Judie Lennar. So that goes to show the
[53:46] Speaker 2: level of as I say, revulsion that still exists in
[53:52] Speaker 2: the public domain for her. They come to Lily, She's
[53:57] Speaker 2: a slightly more interesting life in prison so far. A
[54:02] Speaker 2: former colleague of mine, Kate Campbell, had impeccable still does
[54:06] Speaker 2: impeccable prison contacts, and she was reliably informed and then
[54:13] Speaker 2: in fact corroborated that generally had been placed in a
[54:18] Speaker 2: prison away from the main prison population, unlike len And
[54:22] Speaker 2: because she was on another level, or the prison authorities,
[54:26] Speaker 2: i should say, felt she was on another level again
[54:29] Speaker 2: in terms of her risk of being of what her
[54:35] Speaker 2: fate might might have been in prison, and so they
[54:37] Speaker 2: placed her in a special unit. Also housed in that
[54:41] Speaker 2: unit was a lady called Melanie Atwood, who again was
[54:46] Speaker 2: another one of my former trials and cases. Melanie Atwood
[54:51] Speaker 2: was a lady who had far right leanings let's let's
[54:54] Speaker 2: so we say, and fell into a relationship with a
[54:58] Speaker 2: neo Nazi. That neo Nazi felt so strongly that Melanie
[55:03] Speaker 2: Atwood should be with him and not her current partner,
[55:06] Speaker 2: that she murdered Melanie Atwood's partner with Melanie Autwards knowledge.
[55:11] Speaker 2: In fact, Melanie Atwoods was quite happy for her partner
[55:14] Speaker 2: to die so she could be with this neo Nazi
[55:17] Speaker 2: chap in prison. Melanie Atwood, it would appear, and Jemma
[55:21] Speaker 2: Lily had struck up a relationship. They were sell mates first,
[55:24] Speaker 2: then they became intimate and it made it no secret
[55:29] Speaker 2: at all in the prison system that they were a
[55:31] Speaker 2: couple until it became public knowledge through Kate's reporting, and
[55:38] Speaker 2: Jemal Lily was then moved away from Melanie Atwood's orbit.
[55:43] Speaker 2: I haven't heard much from Jemal Lily since then, I
[55:47] Speaker 2: would assume because she's trying to keep her head down.
[55:49] Speaker 2: I hope she's trying to keep her head down. I
[55:52] Speaker 2: hope she's reflecting on the life she's lived up to now,
[55:55] Speaker 2: because she's still a young woman, and the possibility that
[56:00] Speaker 2: she might get parole in some distant future and she
[56:04] Speaker 2: might do something with it if she was ever granted it.
[56:06] Speaker 2: But that will ultimately be up to the prison system
[56:09] Speaker 2: and then ultimately up to our Attorney General here in
[56:12] Speaker 2: Western Australia, who has to sign off on any parole
[56:15] Speaker 2: applications for serious criminals like Lily. And it'll be an
[56:20] Speaker 2: interesting day when that piece of paper comes across whomever
[56:25] Speaker 2: attorney General might be sitting in that position in twenty
[56:28] Speaker 2: odd years or so.
[56:30] Speaker 1: Tim, thank you so much for taking us through this case,
[56:33] Speaker 1: as wildly unhinged as it is, and for keeping us
[56:40] Speaker 1: up to date on where it stands.
[56:42] Speaker 2: Pleasure. Just one last thing. I had a lot of
[56:46] Speaker 2: significant contact with Aaron's family during the trial and during
[56:51] Speaker 2: actually appeals as well, that did eventuate but obviously fail.
[56:57] Speaker 2: They were amazing people still are. Aaron's father, in particular,
[57:01] Speaker 2: was an absolute tower of strength. He was dealing with
[57:04] Speaker 2: the loss of his son, he was dealing with health
[57:06] Speaker 2: issues for his wife, and also the fallout of inevitable
[57:11] Speaker 2: emotional fallout of this that happens in any family. But
[57:15] Speaker 2: anytime we asked to speak to them, they were gentle,
[57:19] Speaker 2: They answered our questions and I often well, particularly this
[57:23] Speaker 2: week when he contacted me and asked me to talk
[57:24] Speaker 2: about this case, and going back and reading about it,
[57:27] Speaker 2: I had and have nothing but admiration for Aaron's family
[57:31] Speaker 2: and so I hope this podcast doesn't bring up anything
[57:36] Speaker 2: too traumatic for them, But if they are listening, and
[57:39] Speaker 2: if it does, it just please take that you were
[57:44] Speaker 2: absolutely amazing doing the trial. You endured something that no
[57:48] Speaker 2: family should, and myself and I'm sure every West Australian
[57:53] Speaker 2: remembers this case will also remember your kindness and endurance
[57:58] Speaker 2: and yeah, we think of you.
[58:05] Speaker 1: Tim told us after this interview that he spoke to
[58:08] Speaker 1: the detective who worked this case many years later. He
[58:11] Speaker 1: told him that he was so relieved that they'd managed
[58:14] Speaker 1: to get these two behind bars after they so callously
[58:17] Speaker 1: took Aaron's life because he was absolutely sure if they
[58:22] Speaker 1: hadn't caught them, they would have done it again. Thank
[58:26] Speaker 1: you to Tim for helping us tell this story. If
[58:28] Speaker 1: you want to see photos and videos from this case,
[58:30] Speaker 1: head over to our Instagram page at true Crime Conversations.
[58:33] Speaker 1: Oh I've posted some of them for in depth case explainers.
[58:37] Speaker 1: Follow us on TikTok under the same handle. True Crime
[58:40] Speaker 1: Conversations is hosted by me Claire Murphy. Our senior producer
[58:44] Speaker 1: is Charlie Blackman. The group executive producer is a Larier Brophy,
[58:47] Speaker 1: and there's been audio designed by Jacob Brownt. Thanks so
[58:50] Speaker 1: much for listening, Jemma Bath. We'll be back next week
[58:53] Speaker 1: with another True Crime Conversation. True Crime Conversations acknowledges the
[59:05] Speaker 1: traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was
[59:08] Speaker 1: recorded on

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