Wiġi Abela was preparing bread at his Dingli home at 3.15am when a sudden and loud noise drew his attention outside.

Little did the 62-year-old man know that by walking out of the house, where he also had a baker’s oven, he had just walked straight to his death.

Three robbers were hiding in an olive tree and the noise was the sound of an onion hitting the bakery which was meant to draw Mr Abela’s attention, according to the victim’s descendent Clive Sammut.

Outside in pitch dark and with no one around, the baker was shot dead. The robbers made off with some five shillings, the money Mr Abela had made from the sale of a donkey, Mr Sammut said.

This murder happened 125 years ago to the day in the sleepy rural village of Dingli where some of Mr Abela’s descendants – including Mr Sammut – still live.

The murder victim was the great-grandfather of Mr Sammut’s late grandfather.

At the time the police corps did not have a specialised investigative team

“My grandfather used to recount this story to me and since I am interested in genealogy, I wanted to trace it back,” Mr Sammut said when contacted about his initiative to place an In Memoriam in the newspaper.

“Few in the family know of this incident and I felt it was important to remember my relative,” Mr Sammut added.

Mr Abela’s predecessors were also bakers and the tradition was also passed on to one of his sons. He remarried after losing his first wife.

His family nickname was Tat-Tur, although this did not survive in the generations that followed.

Part of the death certificate of Wiġi Abela [using the Italianised version Luigi] indicating his death at 3.15am on August 26, 1891.

Mr Sammut referred to the victim by the English name Aloisio and added “dei Baroni Inguanez” to the surname, something that does not appear in official documents.

“My research down the family tree revealed that Wiġi was a descendent of the Inguanez family who lived at Djar il-Bniet in Dingli and according to a genealogy expert he would have been entitled to include the title ‘dei Baroni Inguanez’ with his surname.”

According to police historian Eddie Attard, the murder was perpetrated by three men from Dingli: Pawlu Attard, Salvu Vella, and Nikol Mifsud.

Mr Attard said at the time the police corps did not have a specialised investigative team to handle serious crimes and often relied on pardons to encourage accomplices to speak.

“This case was almost forgotten and had it not been for a pardon granted to Nikol Mifsud, an accomplice, nobody would have been charged in court,” he said.

Mr Mifsud spilt the beans on his accomplices on January 8, 1894, almost two and a half years after the baker was killed. Mr Attard and Mr Vella underwent a trial by jury and were found guilty of murder by seven votes to two. The judge handed down a life sentence with hard work.