Lilia Valutyte, the nine-year-old girl who was killed while playing in the street with her sister in Boston, Lincolnshire, died from a stab wound to the chest, an inquest has heard.
Deividas Skebas, 22, has been charged with the girl’s murder after she was found stabbed in the street last Thursday.
The acting senior coroner for Lincolnshire, Paul Smith, was told a forensic postmortem examination had been carried out by the pathologist Stuart Hamilton and that the “provisional cause of death has been given as … stab wound to the chest”.
Valutyte was playing with a hula hoop with her sister when the attack happened, metres away from a building where their mother worked.
Lincolnshire coroner’s court heard that the schoolgirl’s death was confirmed at Boston’s Pilgrim hospital and that she was formally identified by her stepfather, Aurelijus Savickas.
DCI Jennifer Lovatt, of Lincolnshire police, told a short hearing on Thursday that the welfare of the victim’s family “continues to be a priority”.
Lovatt said the “devastating incident” meant the force had to commit “a considerable number of resources to the investigation”.
The coroner adjourned the inquest until the conclusion of criminal proceedings.
Skebas was charged on Sunday after police issued an appeal with CCTV images showing a man in the Wormgate and Fountain Lane area of Boston at 6.15pm on Thursday, five minutes before Lilia was found.
Skebas, of Boston, appeared at Lincoln crown court on Monday and spoke only to confirm his name. He has yet to enter a plea to the murder charge.
He was remanded in custody by a judge and will next appear in court on 19 September.
