Published Thursday, 04 February 2010
The 52-year-old father of one appeared at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin as victim impact statements were handed in to Judge Barry White.
A statement from the couple's teenage daughter, who cannot be named, will be read by the judge in private before sentence is passed on Friday.
Lillis, who was charged with murdering Ms Cawley at their home in Howth, north Dublin, in December 2008, was convicted of manslaughter after the jury found the State failed to prove intent.
In an emotional statement read to the court, Ms Cawley's grief- stricken sister, Suzanna, said it was next to impossible to put in to writing what had happened in the family's lives since December 2008.
"The good-humoured, roguishness, fun, compassionate, caring sister is entirely deleted from my mind and replaced with the horror of blood and head-shaven dead body," she wrote.
Suzanna said the image of her sister's 18 facial wounds and slipping on the blood and frost and the fight for her life was all she could think of.
She criticised how her sister was deprived of dying with dignity, unlike their mother, who died in the comfort of a hospice, and how Ms Cawley's funeral became a media circus.
The family also hit out at Lillis, who they said had shown no remorse and made no attempt to apologise for his actions, particularly to their elderly father.
A successful media executive, 46-year-old Ms Cawley was killed at the back of her home in the exclusive Howth area of north Dublin 10 days before Christmas 2008.
When Lillis was questioned by gardai, he concocted a story that a burglar was in the home when he came back from walking the family dog.
Lillis, who was having an affair with a masseuse at the time, later retracted the statement, claiming it had been made to protect his teenage daughter from a violent row he had with his wife.
After three days of deliberations, a jury found Lillis guilty of manslaughter last week.
The judge said he did not want to prolong the agony for either the Cawley family or the accused, but wanted to read the various victim impact statements and testimonies that had been handed in.
Lillis was remanded in custody until sentencing.