The tragic last moments of a spinster from Cospicua were exposed yesterday as jurors were shown graphic pictures of her slain body, covered in blood, on the floor of her squalid home.
The brutal images were so strong that jurors and others in the court room turned their faces as picture after picture showed the suffering that 68-year-old victim Maria Stella Magrin endured.
She was found lying face up in a pool of blood beneath a wooden altar after being stabbed in the back multiple times.
She had a very serious head wound and such was the violence used that her dentures had fallen out of her mouth.
The vicious murder took place on October 29, 1986, as she wrestled with three men who robbed the equivalent of €14,000 in cash.
Only one of the accused, Saviour Mangion, 47, from Żejtun, is alive today. Another, Oswaldo Spiteri, committed suicide shortly after being arrested over the murder while his uncle Leli Spiteri died during the case.
Mr Mangion is pleading not guilty to killing Ms Magrin. He is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of Rosina Zammit, 54, in Safi in 1984 and was jailed for 21 years for the murder of Francis Caruana in 1998. He stabbed both his victims repeatedly.
The police had no leads in the investigation until Mr Mangion and Oswaldo Spiteri were arrested in 2005. Mr Mangion confessed, giving so many details it stunned the investigators, who confirmed them when they checked evidence gathered from the scene.
That evidence included photos showing the squalid conditions in which Ms Magrin lived: paint peeling off the walls, dirty floors, no electricity and garbage and clothes piled everywhere around antique furniture.
Taking the witness stand, President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, a neighbour of Ms Magrin, said that on the night in question he got home from a political activity when he was approached by other neighbours, who said they had heard her wailing in pain.
They had knocked on the door but she failed to open it and they wanted to know what to do. He tried to call her himself but when she did not answer he called the police.
The former president described her as a very religious person from a good family. She used to live with her two sisters and brother Lorenzo, known as tal-kappell because he was always smart and wearing a hat, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.
Police Inspector Chris Pullicino said Mr Mangion coldly and without emotion gave the police a detailed account of how he and his friend Oswald stabbed Ms Magrin to death.
The case continues.