Investigator says murder suspect ‘never showed any remorse’

Updated at 18:15

A convicted murderer who is standing trial for the brutal murder of an elderly woman in 1986, never showed any remorse or any particular emotion during the course of his interrogations, a court heard a retired police investigator say this morning.

Retired Assistant Police Commissioner Manuel Cassar was testifying in the trial of Saviour Mangion, known as 'Kalanċ', 47 of Żejtun who is  charged with robbing and murdering 68-year-old Maria Stella Magrin on October 29, 1986. He is also charged with illegal possession of a knife, stealing €14,000 in cash, and holding her against her will

Mangion was arrested for the crime in 2005 after he had allegedly boasted of the murder 20 years later.

According to the bill of indictment, Mangion had stabbed Magrin 13 times, to the extent that the  impact of the blows were so strong that the knife's handle actually left marks on the woman's body.

Evidence read out to jurors from a statement made by former constable Anthony Camilleri, who was the first officer to enter Magrin's home after recieving a report from neighbours who said that they had heard screams, said that the scene was one "quite similar to a horror movie."

Camilleri had said that while looking through pitch darkess, as the house had no electricity, he found the elderly woman dead at the foot of a makeshift altar she had made in one of the rooms.

"She was faced-up and in a large pool of blood," the former constable had told another court.

Former President Ugo Mifsud Bonnici also took the witness stand this morning, explaining that he lived a few doors away from the victim's house in Cospicua.

Mifsud Bonnici said that on the day of the incident, he had arrived home from a political activity when neighbours told him that they had heard the victim scream. Despite them knocking on her door various times, nobody opened.

He said that while the neighbours had asked him what to do, his advice was to call the police, who later found the woman in a pool of blood.

Mifsud Bonnici described Magrin as a very religious woman, who lived alone.

Evidence

Jurors were shown a number of photographs taken on the scene of the crime by investigators, which showed the woman laying in a pool of blood at the foot of an altar she had set up in a hall way.

While some officers explained that there were walls splattered with blood, former forensics photographer Charles Marsh said it was difficult to enter some rooms because of the amount of boxes and clutter which obstructed.

The former head of the Police Forensics Unit Anthony Abela Medici explained that from a detailed analysis on the victim and from a reconstruction on the scene of the crime, it was evident that the woman was violently knifed to death.

"She was stabbed in one place and followed to another where she recieved the fatal blows," he said.

The expert claimed that his findings showed that one knife was used by a sole aggressor, who was "quite strong and violent" to the extent that the stabs were deep, to the point that the knife handle sank in to touch each wound.

Boasted

Prosecutor Nadine Sant told the  jurors that Mangion was investigated and subsequently arrested after someone had reported him for 'boasting' that he had killed Mangion.

Mangion was 21 when the murder was committed, and used to be in the company of two other suspects, Leli Spiteri and his nephew Oswald Spiteri, who are both dead. All three knew the victim.

The accused and Oswald Spiteri had both admitted their involvement in the murder when arrested some 20 years after.

Leli Spiteri died in 2004 while Oswald Spiteri committed suicide in the police lock-up during the investigations on the case.

'Serial killer'

The accused is already serving a life sentence for the murder of Rosina Zammit, 54, in Safi in 1984, and was also jailed for 21 years for the murder of Francis Caruana in 1998. Both were killed by stabbing.

Two years ago, Judge Joseph Galea Debono had described Mangion as "Malta's serial killer.'

Lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace is appearing for Mangion.

The trial is adjourned to Wednesday morning.