By bobb |
boy's face

Tim Clarke

A YOUNG man with autism was targeted for murder by two woman who lured him to their home, stabbed and garotted him and then buried his body under a concrete slab and floor tiles in the back garden, a court has been told.

Jemma Victoria Lilley, 26, and Trudi Claire Lenon, 43, today went on trial for the murder of 18 year old Aaron Pajich who went missing from Rockingham in June last year.

His body was found beneath a concrete slab of the Orelia house that Ms Lilley was living with Ms Lenon, with prosecutors alleging he was murdered on June 13, the day he went missing.

Jurors at WA's Supreme Court today heard how Ms Lenon knew the vulnerable 18 year-old as they attended the same college, and he was also a close friend of her son. Prosecutors say it was she who called him on the day of his death.

Prosecutor James McTaggart described how after receiving the call Mr Pajich asked a friend to drop him at the Rockingham Shopping Centre which she did - with his last words to her "goodbye and God bless".

Those words, Mr McTaggart said, were the last time he spoke to anyone other than his alleged killers.

The five-week trial is set to hear evidence of how the women drove Mr Pajich to their house, ushered him inside, and murdered him together shortly afterwards. CCTV footage taken from cameras at the house show the three of them entering the house in quick succession on that morning.

In the days that followed, the crude renovations in the backyard - a roughly poured concrete slab overlaid with red tiles - appeared in the backyard, what Mr McTaggart said was an "amateurish attempt" to conceal the body.

A week later, after an extensive search and investigation had led police to the Broughton Way house, Mr Pajich's body was discovered under the slab covered with a tarpaulin, along with his shoes and tablet.

A post mortem showed he had been stabbed in the neck and chest, and showed injuries consistent with a garrotte.

The court was also told that days later, Ms Lilley allegedly boasted of the crime to a work colleague at the Woolworth's store where she worked, firstly saying "I did it, didn't I".

She then showed the colleague a picture of Mr Pajich and told him: "It was harder than I thought it would be ... Trudi had to hold him down. There was blood everywhere."

"She was proud she had done it," Mr McTaggart said. "She wore the murder of Aaron Pajich as some sort of badge of honour."

Prosecutors will also allege that Ms Lilley sent Ms Lenon a text in the early hours of the morning after the murder saying: "I'm seeing things that I haven't seen before, and feeling things I haven't felt before ... It is incredibly empowering."

Both women deny murdering Mr Pajich, but Ms Lenon this morning pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the murder. In interviews with police, Ms Lilley maintained she had ridden her motorbike to Mundaring on the day of the alleged murder, June 13.

The trial continues.

from http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western…