Police collect CCTV tapes in painstaking retracing of Sliema ‘vendetta’ hit-men

Police are combing dozens of recordings elevated from CCTV cameras installed across the Tigné streetscape, where Chris Pandolfino and Ivor Maciejowski were murdered in cold blood in their Locker Street home.

The painstaking process could be rewarding, a police source says. Sliema’s affluent residences could provide the trail left by the fleeing murderers thanks to the CCTV cameras installed at so many of the doorways of houses there. But as the days pass, the more there is a chance of that nondescript white car that left the scene on Tuesday 18 August of being found ablaze.

The shocking murder of the two “gentle giants” left family and neighbours shaken at the brutal and efficient manner in which it was carried out, suspiciously without any motive for some prize loot: the two men were contemporary art collectors, and Pandolfino, 58, a doctor who graduated in 1984, was renowned for his financial acumen and successful investments.

It took just a few minutes. On Tuesday night, Pandolfino was out having dinner with his sister and nephews in Sliema. Just after 10pm, as the group separated – him returning home where his partner Maciejowski had stayed, his sister going for ice-cream with the children – the murderers struck.

Over the next few minutes, Pandolfino was shot three times on the ground-floor landing of his stunning Tigné home. Another two shots were fired, one supposedly having grazed the multitude of gold chains Pandolfino was known to wear: a sight to behold, according to sources who knew him as a regular at the MedAsia Playa beach club in Sliema. “He lived only by his rules, not caring for social norms or social etiquette, wearing a ton of gold chains to go for breakfast, and bermudas to a wedding,” his sister Daniela Pandolfino wrote on Facebook.

Then the three men who had just sped up the external staircase into 22, Locker Street, turned to Maciejowski, shot him, and ran out into a white getaway car, reportedly a VolksWagen make that had been reported stolen two years earlier, with a licence-plate recently removed from a car that had been parked in St Julian’s.

In these crucial days, the police have been busy retrieving all kinds of CCTV footage from the neighbourhood, tracing the direction in which the murderers would have left, possibly speeding down the Tigné seafront, or turning towards Tower Road.

22, Locker Street, Sliema

As the circumstances of the murder show, with clear indications that Pandolfino was being watched as he returned home from dinner with his family, his murderers appeared uninterested in his wealth and art collection – suggesting that the hit was commissioned for revenge, with possibly a financial motive at heart.

Friends of Pandolfino’s confidants say the doctor was spoken about his “great financial acumen”, whose advice in matters of wealth and finance was greatly respected. One Nazzjon report briefly suggested that the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit had red-flagged either one of the victims, although little substance was attached to this allegation. An MFSA source was confident that Pandolfino never came up on their radar.

Maciejowski, with whom Pandolfino was living for the past four years, was a contemporary art dealer. The pair were known to keep a large amount of fine art in their home.

One police source who was at the scene of the crime told MaltaToday that the clinical manner in which the double-murder was carried out was a strong indicator of a vendetta. “We’re analysing business relationships, but the last days were crucial in mapping out the movements of the killers. We’re combing through all the CCTV footage that has been collected.”

On Facebook, family relatives stunned by the tragedy had to face up to the cruel reality that had befallen the two men so unexpectedly, described as “gentle giants” and “the two nicest people you could ever meet”.

The heartbreak of Pandolfino’s younger sister Daniela was palpable in her emotional post on Facebook, having lost a younger child 16 years earlier.

“My brother adored me from the minute I was born, him being five years older. He loved me like few brothers did and ours was not the normal sibling bond, it was so much more. He was my best friend, my mentor, my saviour, my entertainer, my overgrown child… Rest in peace, my dear Bambi, I will miss you calling me Celine and part of me has died with you. If some sort of heaven exists, I know that you are there, happy with my darling Nina, who you adored so much.”