The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage stopped demolition work at a house in Palm Street, Victoria, last week because parts of a Roman wall and pottery were found. Suspicions were raised that workers had discovered the bones of a missing girl believed murdered more than a century ago. Photo: Paul Spiteri Lucas

When she was last seen, Modestina Cefai was wearing a pink dress, gold earrings and a faldetta, a traditional women’s head dress that has long gone out of fashion.

According to the original police report of her disappearance she was three feet and seven inches tall, had curled brown hair, dark eyes and a “fresh complexion”.

She was just six when she vanished into thin air at around noon on August 27, 1911, leaving behind an anguished family and a mystery that gripped generations of Gozitans.

So when last week demolition work was halted at a townhouse in Victoria, Gozo, long rumoured to be the burial place of the girl, the gossip mill went into overdrive: the poor child’s remains had finally been found and someone was trying to cover it all up.

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