Maria Lourdes Agius murder: accused ‘psychotic’, claimed father controlled his actions and could hear God

Jurors were shown a video of Michael Emmanuel’s interrogation this morning as the man’s trial by jury continues before the courts.

The video, which lasted some three hours, was preceded by evidence given by Inspector James Grech.

Emmanuel stands accused of the murder of his partner Maria Lourdes Agius, who was found strangled inside their apartment in September last year.

The jury is to decide on whether or not the accused was legally insane at the time of the murder on 15 September 2018.

READ MORE: Maria Lourdes Agius murder: prosecution asks whether accused’s psychosis came before or after murder

During his first interrogation, Emmanuel repeatedly said “I don’t know” when asked about the incident.

When it was pointed out that there were marks around the victim’s neck, the man once again insisted, “I don’t have anything to say… they do me fingerprints”, to prove his innocence. He said he could not have strangled the woman because of a painful injury to his knuckles.

Around two and a half hours after his first statement, Emmanuel gave inspectors what he claimed was the true version of events. “Yesterday Lourdes begged me to sleep with her,” he told police. “She said ‘today I will tell you everything. But not now. Now I am tired’,” the woman allegedly told him, just hours before her death.

READ MORE: Maria Lourdes Agius murder: jury to decide on Michael Emanuel’s insanity plea

At around 2am on 14 September, Agius woke up and handed him a small crucifix, telling him “Your father gave you a woman.” Putting the cross upon her neck, she allegedly him “press a little”. The man said he knelt down beside her and “pressed really soft” on the cross. “She did not wake up,” insisting he had done as she had asked. “I was scared. She started saying something and covered her face with the blanket. She struggled a little bit. Then she was dead. Her hand down by her side,” the accused said, pointing out that he had no scratches which would have suggested a struggle.

Challenged with the evidence that the victim had a bruised neck, the man insisted he “hadn’t pressed a lot.”

“Lourdes really loved me,” he told the interrogator, saying Agius confessed that her two-month old child had been fathered by another man.

Emmanuel started his relationship with Agius, a prostitute, after using her services a few times. He later raised a child from another man as if his own. Two other children were born after that, the last one born months before the murder.

The relationship however changed, with Emmanuel claiming she showed no interest in his work and life, nagging him to go out and earn money. Emmanuel said he was not happy with the way his partner was raising the children.

Night of the murder

On 13 September, two days before the alleged murder, the umpteenth violent row broke out at the couple’s home, escalating to the point that Agius’s mother had to step in, throwing a knife at the man who was then allegedly punching and kicking her daughter.

Later, the elderly lady told the police she did not want to strike Emmanuel but simply make him stop. Emmanuel has denied having punched her in the head.

After that incident, Emmanuel ordered Agius and her mother out of the flat. They later returned home after being treated for their injuries at hospital, and later changed the lock under police instructions.

Still, Agius allegedly let Emmanuel back in when he turned up at the apartment the next day, kicking the front door and demanding to see his children. She also let him sleep there, the court heard.

At around 2am, Agius’s mother said she heard a loud row inside the couple’s bedroom which then suddenly stopped. Afterwards, she heard Emmanuel going up and down from the roof. When she encountered him the next morning, he told her: “Lourdes is not here. She went out,” causing the woman to become suspicious.

Insanity plea

Two consultant psychiatrists who examined Emmanuel after his arrest have testified that he suffered from delusions, saying he saw signs in pigeon formations and other mundane objects, and that he had heard the news on TV stating the government was going to reunite him with his children.

The evidence of Dr Joseph Spiteri and Dr Clare Axiaq was given as ordinary medical professionals not appointed by court, but who examined the accused at a date closer to when the alleged incident took place.

Defence lawyer Dustin Camilleri later addressed jurors, insisting his client was mentally disordered.

“We as persons, function in the real world. We function with rules and reality. The prosecutor said persons with delusions can function in the real world because these delusions are qualified. What are his delusions? Speaking to God, God speaking to him. Interpreting life with this faith. Put yourselves in the shoes of the accused and try to reason as he does, every normal thing. Is it normal? No: he is delusional.”

Camilleri said Emmanuel’s false reality prevented him from reasoning properly, leading him down the road of delusion. “Circumstantial evidence points to his state of mind. All the evidence has to be interpreted through his state of mind. That is what is important, because all of these will point to one outcome, that Michael Emmanuel is legally insane…. He has done nothing wrong in his head. Everything he said is in line with what others said. Make the law go hand in hand with justice.”

Emmanuel was admitted under the care of consultant psychiatrist Joseph Spiteri on 24 September 2018, referred by the prison doctor for aggressive behaviour. “The prisoner was deemed to be very dangerous and was accompanied with many prison officers. I found a young man who was had been in a state of psychosis. He had delusions of grandeur and a psychosis. He was prescribed antipsychotic medication on a moderate dose at the beginning.”

Later on 19 June 2019, he saw him for the last time. Spiteri said Emmanuel had been telling him that he was in constant contact with God and heard God’s voice clearly, and  that he claimed his partner had killed herself. “He said he saw things which he could interpret in a special way. He also said he spoke to his dead father who controlled his actions,” which the psychiatrist described as a “Schneiderian first rank symptom” – a tool used by psychiatrists to identify symptoms.

“What made me believe he was having a psychotic episode was because his emotions were congruent with his delusional features. What he was seeing was perceived to be real.”

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Clare Axiaq said that on 26 September 2018, Emmanuel said he had been suspicious that his partner was taking children to places he didn’t know, by a sign from pigeons flying in circles and detritus from construction drilling that came out in the shape of a star. These were signals to the accused, she said.

But Axiaq also said Emmanuel claimed his partner had killed herself through the control of his dead father, and later that he killed Agius by suffocating her with a cross, because she wanted him to do it – and that he was convinced she was receiving shocks from the cross, and he could see the future.

On 8 October 2018 he was assessed for suicidality, saying he was not depressed, believing that what he did was right, and claiming that the government had announced on TV that he could see his children.

The trial continues.

Lawyers Charles Mercieca and Matthew Xuereb are prosecuting.

Lawyers Marc Sant and Dustin Camilleri are defence counsel.