Eleanor Mangion Walker’s suspected murderer ‘needed tranquilisers to sleep’

The former employer of Andrew Mangion has told the court that the accused's greatest worry was losing his daughter because his marriage was falling apart.

Mangion is being charged with the murder of his wife, Eleanor Mangion Walker.

The 33-year-old mother's body was discovered in a Qormi warehouse on 3 July this year, wrapped in plastic and hidden underneath wooden pallets. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be head injuries caused by a hard object.

Mangion's former boss, Julian Grech took to the witness stand today. Mangion had been working for Grech's family businesses for the past 30 years, he said. The witness himself had worked with the accused for just over 10.

“He had full access to company's properties. He had the keys to the garages and warehouses in Qormi, the van,” Grech said. Asked if accused was the only person who had access to the garage, he said Mangion was effectively the only person who had access. “He was the storekeeper.”

“There was, possibly, a spare set of keys in the office. You have to understand that for the past three years we had not been using the garages for the company.”

The two garages had been rented by his wife's company, he said. One garage was used to store his cousin's windsurfing gear, the other for leftover stock. The van was exclusively used by the accused, the witness said.

“Andrew's only issue has been his marriage in the last 10 years. Ever since he's been married it's been a problem. He was upset because the marriage had broken down and I had advised him to separate,” explained the witness, adding that he had put him in touch with a family lawyer “three to five years ago.”

“His main worry was his daughter. That’s what he always told me...his greatest worry was losing his daughter. That is my understanding.“ There were money problems “but not major ones”  the witness said.

“He was over her”

Grech was not aware of any simmering anger towards the victim on Mangion's part, he said. “He was over her. My understanding of it was that he really didn't care what she did as long as she didn't hurt his daughter and vice versa.”

“He had told me that he wasn't sleeping well. As far as I know I understand he was taking some kind of tranquilisers. I've known him for a very long time and he would go through periods when he was messed up. I thought this was just one of those periods.”

Cross-examined by Giglio Grech was asked what the man's problems were.

“The problems were he felt his wife didn't love him and this had progressed to her being unfaithful to him.

This happened a few months after they had got married. He was still in love with her and was very depressed about it. As time went on, he seemed to have accepted that this is what life was going to be and he had to get on with it.”

In the space of a year, the accused seemed to have resigned himself to the fact that his marriage was not going to be a “conventional marriage that would work in a conventional way.”

“I'm not sure if he accepted it because of his daughter. If one person doesn't want to make the marriage work, it’s not going to work.”

The accused would work during the night to make up for time off he would take to take care of the daughter.

Asked if he knew the victim, he said he did not know her at all, having only met her once at her wedding and once at an office party.

Giglio suggested that the accused had wanted this situation to stay “as is” because he could not help his daughter with academia, unlike his academically gifted wife. Grech replied that it would have been very embarrassing for him to admit, “but it would have been possible.”

Mangion had never shown signs of hatred or anger towards his wife, the witness said.  “The only sign he showed was that he was disgusted with her.”

“The reports I saw in the newspapers were that Andrew had told me that he was going to beat up his wife and I had told him not to. This is not true.”

“I had told him that if you do touch your wife it would be the worst thing he could do. He never approached me to say he intended to beat up his wife.”

Between the night of Sunday 3 July and the next morning, Grech had been interviewed by the inquiring magistrate and had evacuated his family from the house as a precaution, he said.

At around 5:00pm on Tuesday, whilst the witness was cleaning his boat, he heard Mangion calling him from the quay's locked gate. “I opened it and told him that now he was here, I would have to take him to the police.”

“He was in a very bad state, shaking and making rapid eye movements. He looked very dehydrated. He was literally semi-conscious. He started to cry because of his daughter. I told him that unfortunately he was going to have undergo due process.”

Uncle testifies after change of heart

Grezzju Micallef, the accused's uncle, also testified this morning, having previously asked to be excused from taking the witness stand.

He told the court that he had been working a night shift on Friday and had gone to his field in San Gwann after work, as he normally would. He had spoken with the accused about transporting some pallets, but the accused had said he was busy. “Andrew had called me up when he was on the way on Saturday morning around noon. He arrived in his white work van and we picked u the pallets then went straight to the field.” Two trips were required to transport all the pallets. “We finished the second trip and then he took me home, saying he had to go  because he had things to do. On Sunday morning he called my wife and she told me he was coming over to the field and to get the pallets ready. He didn't come to the field by the time my wife had made lunch.”

The men unloaded the pallets and Mangion went home.

Later that evening the accused had gone to the field with his daughter in tow. “He told me he had screwed up and I told him to have a beer with me sometime and we would talk about it. He said he had a problem but I wouldn't speak to him about it.”

While in the van, which the accused was driving, he revealed that it “wasn't pallets that we were going to be loading, but Eleanor.” “'X'pallets il-Madonna, ha nghabbi 'l Eleanor,' he said.”

“In the space of a few seconds he said 'they will either shoot me or I will kill myself or shoot myself in the head.' He told me about his problems with Eleanor and then got out of the van.”

“I tried to take the keys out of the ignition...he got out of the van and ran off, leaving me locked inside. 15 minutes later, he returned and unlocked the van, but when he saw me still locked inside the van he ran away again. I went to my father-in-law to call the police. This was around 9, 9:30pm.”

The father's doorbell wasn't working, said the witness, so he rang all the doorbells until a neighbour emerged and allowed him to use a mobile to call the police. “I told them that Andrew said they were going to kill him or kill himself.”

“I said I don't know what's happening, I was here for some pallets and there could be a murder or suicide.”

He knew what warehouses the accused had access to, so he took the police to Qormi.

Pressed by Inspector Borg, he said the accused's words had made him suspect that “something bad had happened.”

Although the accused was like a son to him, Mangion had never opened up about his family problems to him, Micallef said, before protesting that he had been interrogated six times and had only agreed to testify this morning in order to be permitted to visit the accused.

Grezzju Micallef's wife, Marlene also testified, giving a similar version of events to her husband's. “We had gone to our field with my parents to eat there. At 8:30pm, Andrew called on Grezzju's mobile. He asked where we were and said he was coming there. Andrew and his daughter arrived around 15 minutes later. He told Grezzju he had some pallets to show him and everyone apart from them drove to Nanna with Grezzju's car. Andrew and Grezzju went off in the same car.”

“Out of the window I saw Andrew walking towards Grezzju's window. I thought it odd at first. When he did it again I went to speak to him.”

“He said you're not going to see me again... I asked him why and he said Grezzju was going to report him. Andrew's grandma heard me shouting and because he had reversed his van thought he had run me over. She heard me shouting and fainted.”

Asked what she interpreted the message as meaning she said she thought he was going to kill himself. “It was around 9:30pm. I didn't see Andrew again after that.”

The compilation of evidence will continue in the coming weeks.

Police Inspectors Kylie Borg and Keith Arnaud are prosecuting. Lawyer Joe Giglio is defence counsel. Lawyers Michael Sciriha and Lucio Sciriha appreared as parte civile for the family of the deceased. Magistrate Doreen Clarke presided.