What can you say about a 33-year-old girl who was brutally murdered? Love stories turn sour. Sometimes they end fatally – tragically – and from time immemorial have been the subject of gossip and the inspiration of great literature. They are psychologically compelling and morally challenging. They offer a disturbing glimpse into the darker places of our humanity.

I’m referring, of course, to the young mother wrapped in a bag and left for dead in a Qormi warehouse. What are we to make of this latest visceral and appalling violence? An ostensibly quiet, even nice young man I’ve been told, has murdered the woman he loved and married, who was the mother of his child.

And yet, despite the young man’s confession, my years of legal training urge restraint. I won’t resort to cumbersome legalese like ‘alleged crime I’ll just remind everyone that, in the eyes of the law, he’s still innocent. That presumption, of course, doesn’t count for much in the court of public opinion, and certainly not on Facebook, where discussion rages wildly in a virtual, desensitised world unfamiliar with discretion or restraint. Little surprise then that the young man has become, in certain quarters, a goner who deserves the death penalty. Such passionate reactions are, I suppose, understandable when the murder itself was, I daresay, a passionate reaction. But still, I don’t endorse them.

Let me make myself clear. My immediate reaction to anything like this, even before the facts are known, is unconditional sympathy for the victim and her family, plus profound disbelief that a man could do such a thing.

The disbelief usually prevails, my judgement is suspended. I just don’t believe there can be anything more hellish than having to live with blood on your hands. So a man, to my mind at least, sends out two wholly contradictory signals: he’s either a ruthless and calculating killer or a man whose one moment of insanity will haunt him for the rest of his days. In this case we have had the usual dismissive reactions about crimes of passion, with many arguing that a person who chooses to hide a body can’t avail himself of the ‘moment of insanity’ card. I beg to differ. The ‘insanity’ lingers, and guilt, panic and denial cover up the crime. This is something we all recognise: the human ‘knee-jerk’ always covers up one misdeed with another.

Social media has changed the way we receive news and communicate

So perhaps I do sympathise – yes, unnaturally – with those people who find themselves in a situation where a gun to the temple looks like the best option. And I feel the way I do because I am always left wondering what sort of life a murderer can expect after he has done away with his wife and his daughter’s mother. But granted, it’s still more of a life than wrapped in a body bag, six feet under.

But I’m not going there. This article is about two things actually: social media and marital breakdown. Both occurred to me when I was trawling through Facebook, reading between the lines and delving beneath the surface.

Social media has changed the way we receive news and communicate. So I don’t think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to realise that there’s an inescapable link between the victim’s romantic Facebook posting (where she declared publicly that she was dining out ‘with her love’) and her murder the following day.

Which is not to say that the victim herself is to blame. The blame lies squarely with the perpetrator and the ‘green-eyed monster’ of his jealousy. But if we agree that passionate murders are often provoked (directly or indirectly), I would bet my hat that our local social media triggered a rage – a public humiliation? – that sent this man to a dark and ugly place to do an ugly thing he might not have done in the sober light of day. Perhaps one day soon we’ll hear of a new concept – a textbook Facebook murder.

But please don’t run away with the idea that I’m blaming Facebook and not the murderous instinct. Yet you must bear in mind that the victim’s posts were public; that her estranged husband was her Facebook friend and privy to those posts; that this was a new romance (possibly the victim’s first after separation, or the first she made public); and finally that, until the end of April, her estranged husband was ‘liking’ her posts which, if nothing else, suggests some kind of attachment. And even if you don’t have unresolved feelings for your ex-wife – but much more if you do – that sort of information can send you over the edge.

That said, another serious problem is that of the separated couple still living under the same roof. This is not unusual, and it’s one I’m afraid the legal profession enables and encourages. Few people are deaf to legal advice, so they are unlikely to abandon the matrimonial home during the separation process. Also, because ownership of the matrimonial home is irrelevant (in the present case it is reported that the Swieqi home belonged to the victim’s mother), the other party still has a right to live there pending the end of litigation. He can of course be turfed out by the court, but judges are loathe to do this if there is no compelling evidence of physical danger. But the separation process is drawn out and expensive. And by the time the decree materialises, months, even years, have gone by.

Those years are lost to Eleanor Mangion Walker. It’s a terrible waste. And the long years without a mother are a terrible life sentence for her daughter. The fate of her husband is now subject to legal process. We have no window into his soul.

Was it written in the stars? Or did she write her own death sentence on Facebook? There are things we can’t know – and will never know. However, we do need to acknowledge our human frailties. Facebook users and the Courts, please take note.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com