There have been 50 murders which have remained unsolved in the last 41 years, 15 of them since 2001, The Malta Independent has learned. Police records from 1970 show that the earliest unsolved murder from the period was that of Maria Johnson, who was found tied in Fountain Street in Valletta in 1972.
Among the most prominent cases from the 70s, 80s and 90s are the murders of Karen Grech and Raymond Caruana. Ms Grech was killed when she opened a parcel bomb intended for her father. The case happened during the 1977 doctors’ strike. Her father, Professor Edwin Grech was accused of being a strike breaker.
Raymond Caruana was killed in 1986 in the PN Gudja club when unknown men fired a shot through the wooden door. Peter Paul Busuttil was framed by the police and accused of the murder. The murder weapon, a Sterling sub machinegun was found at his Safi farm. But Mr Busuttil was cleared and the killers never caught.
Other cases include the murder of PN activist Wilfred Cardona, who was found dead in Ta’ Qali in 1984. Mr Cardona had been beaten up under arrest.
Another case that remains unsolved to this day is the murder of Lino Cauchi, whose body was cut into pieces and thrown into a well in Buskett in 1985.
Prominent unsolved cases from the 90s include the murder of Joseph and Anne Briffa in their Tarxien home in 1990 and the assassination of Palestinian jihadist Fathi Shqaqi in front of the Diplomat Hotel in Sliema in 1995.
Fifteen unsolved murders since 2001
Almost a third of unsolved cases from 1972 happened in the last 12 years.
Stephen Said was killed in an explosion in Marsascala on 15 March, 2001. A year later, 78-year-old Maria Attard was found in a water shaft in Xaghra, Gozo.
The murder of Simon Grech, who was found stabbed to death in a Marsa field in 2005, is still listed as unsolved in the list sent to us by the police. However two men have been accused of the crime and the case is in compilation stage.
Another case which baffled police investigators was the discovery of the body of Russian national Larissa Safranova at sea off Qui Si Sana in 2007. Ms Safranova was found with a plastic bag over her head and the cause of death was asphyxiation.
April 2008 saw the mafia style killing of Raymond Agius in the Butterfly Bar in Birkirkara. Mr Agius was shot in the head by a man wearing a motorcycle helmet, who escaped within seconds, never to be seen again. There are two more unsolved murders from 2008; Joseph Grima was killed during a hit-and-run accident in Xewkija in November and Renzo Borg was shot and killed in St Paul’s Bay in December.
One of the most chilling murders in recent years was the Romano case. Unknown assailants shot a number of nails into 20-year-old Gaetano Romano’s head. His body was found partially burnt in a gypsum oven in his father’s Bugibba garage on 2 April, 2009.
On 4 May 2011 Irena Abadzhieva was stabbed 40 times with a pair of scissors in the St Paul’s Bay apartment she shared with her Turkish partner. The man is thought to have escaped soon after committing the crime.
Moroccan mother of two Meryem Bugeja was killed by blows to the head on 25 September, 2012 in Mgarr. She was pregnant with twins. Investigators first thought that Ms Bugeja had accidentally fallen and hit her head. Her estranged husband was interrogated but later released because the police found nothing linking him to the crime.
Three months later, Malta was shocked by two more mafia style hits, in which two individuals who were well known with the police were shot and killed. Joseph Cutajar, known as ‘il-Lion’ was killed in Mosta and Joseph Grech ‘il-Yoyo’ was killed in Bahar ic-Caghaq. Both men had been charged in separate murders.
A few months later, Paul Degabriele, known as ‘is-Suldat’, was shot in Marsa. He was also well known to the police and had been linked to other cases.
A month before, Ronald Galea was was shot dead in front of his Hal Far meat store on 18 February, 2013. And the latest case is the murder of Paul Grech, whose body was found dumped in a crevice in Mellieha on 18 October.
Shooting most common method, stabbing second
In total there have been around 200 murders since 1970. The most common method was by shooting. The second most common method used was stabbing and asphyxiation was third. However there were also eight explosion victims. One of the most gruesome was the murder of Silvia King, who was burnt alive in her car in Rabat. Her killer, Neil Harrington, was jailed for life for killing the woman, who was his estranged wife’s best friend.