A court this morning continued to hear the compilation of evidence against Erin Tanti, who stands accused of the murder of his former drama student Lisa Marie Zahra,15, and encouraging her to commit suicide at Dingli Cliffs in March last year.

Criminologist Saviour Formosa exhibited a 3D model of the Dingli Cliffs area where the body of Lisa Marie was found - 42 metres away from where her teacher Erin Tanti was found alive.

This was the first time such a model was presented in court as evidence.

Dr Formosa exhibited the model, together with a digital model and other documents.

Dr Formosa said he was nominated as a court expert during the inquiry to carry out a spatial analysis of the area. He studied the location where Ms Zahra and Mr Tanti were found, including distances and geographical elements. This was based on photos of the location given to him by police and site visits he carried out when he took other photos.

He then created the model using, specialised spacial mapping technology, indicating where Mr Tanti and Ms Zahra were found and analysed the trajectories of the fall.

On the model he marked the assumed drop point of Ms Zahra based on established mathematical calculations.

According to calculations there was a 32-metre fall from Ms Zahra's drop point and the distance between the two bodies was of 42 metres.

Glen Zarb and Brendon Cutajar said that on March 19, at about 10am, they met up with a group of friends in Dingli for a barbecue. They set up their bbq in a cave and, at about 4pm, started heading back.

That was when they heard someone shout from afar and noticed that a person was in trouble and called "hey or help". The person seemed to be about 100 metres away, lying in the grass and unable to move in an area they could not access.

Mr Zarb said that, at one point, it sounded like the person was asking for water. Mr Cutajar said he saw the man on what seemed to be a large rock that was inaccessible. After they called emergency services for help they met the medical team near the radar since it was difficult to explain where they were.

The case continues

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.