Stabbing victim speaks to police

The police have briefly questioned the young woman stabbed 28 times in a horrific domestic fight in Cospicua last Friday in which her mother was killed.

Sources said Mary Grace Vella, 24, was slowly recovering in the intensive care unit and managed to talk to the police for a short while.

However, they said investigators were still unable to question her badly-wounded former boyfriend, Clive Farrugia, 24, whom the police believe stabbed the two women. He is recovering in the same unit after a violent confrontation with Mary Grace's brother Joseph, who was awakened by the commotion.

Mr Farrugia, the father of Mary Grace's son, is believed to have broken into a house in St Lazarus Street, Cospicua and, wielding a military knife, attacked both her and her 61-year-old mother Maria Theresa after he was told their relationship was over.

On hearing the commotion, Joseph, a police sergeant at the Special Assignments Group who happened to be sleeping upstairs, ran downstairs and beat Mr Farrugia to a pulp, according to police sources.

Maria Theresa died despite paramedics' desperate attempts to resuscitate her. An autopsy on Saturday established that her lungs were punctured by the knife.

kbugeja@timesofmalta.com