Four murders characterised the year 2024, while the discovery of a body in a suitcase in the sea in December also stunned the nation, although for now there is not enough evidence for it to be treated as murder.
The year 2024 had a grim start as the first homicide of the year was recorded on 1 January as most families were still sitting around a table to celebrate the start of the New Year.
Two women were among those who were murdered in 2024, joining the list of women in Malta who have been killed by men.
Four were also sentenced to prison for their involvement in murders that occurred in previous years.
Eric Borg
Just over thirteen hours into the New Year, 27-year-old taxi driver Eric Borg was shot dead outside his hometown in Rabat.
This murder marked the third time in 224 years that a murder occurred on New Year's Day.
39-year-old Rabat resident Noel Azzopardi was arrested and charged with murder, as well as possession of a firearm while committing a crime, firing a firearm while he was less than 200 metres away from a village, and improper possession of a firearm.
He pleaded not guilty to the murder of Borg, and proceedings are ongoing.
In court, the prosecution explained that on the first day of 2024, police received a report of two shots fired in Triq Fidloqqom in the Nigret area in Rabat, and that a man was lying on the ground in the same street.
It was also explained that at around 5:15pm, Azzopardi walked into the Rabat police station with some of his family members and said that he had shot Borg.
The court has also heard about Azzopardi's past psychiatric treatment history, which spans from 2016 to 2023.
Sandra Ramirez
43-year-old Colombian woman Sandra Milena Ramirez Prieto was stabbed to death in a Sliema apartment in Triq Gorg Borg on Saturday, 13 January, making it the second homicide of the year.
A man, Colombian 43-year-old Fabian Eliuth Garcia Parada, turned himself in to the police after the murder.
Officers went to the victim's apartment, finding Ramirez's lifeless body in the bedroom, covered with a sheet.
A court was later told that Ramirez had been stabbed 26 times with a knife that is believed to have been purchased from a supermarket a day beforehand.
The two had been in a relationship, but friends of Ramirez said that the couple had separated. Ramirez had allowed Garcia to continue living in the apartment until he found alternative housing.
Garcia is pleading not guilty to the murder of Ramirez in Court, and he remains in custody, while proceedings are ongoing. He was also charged with possession of a weapon.
Jesmond Gatt
54-year-old Jesmond Gatt was the third victim of the year. Gatt died on the morning of 1 August, 19 days after he had been discovered on the ground with head injuries, in a pool of blood at Mount Carmel Hospital.
Gatt was being detained at Mount Carmel's forensic ward, in a room he shared with two other inmates, while awaiting release on bail.
At the time, the Prison Director, Christopher Siegersma, had said that the Correctional Services Agency had been informed that Gatt had slipped and hit his head, and that he had a long medical history that made him vulnerable.
The tragic incident initially shrouded in uncertainty was only confirmed as a murder months later, in October, adding a new layer of shock to the case.
A 22-year-old man from Serbia was charged on Tuesday, 22 October with the murder of his roommate.
During court proceedings, the prosecution had said that police had received a call from prison authorities informing them that the accused, Vuk Milic, who lived in Msida, had spoken to a medical officer and confessed that he had been involved in the wilful homicide of Gatt.
Milic pleaded not guilty to the murder, and twice waived his right to a lawyer. The defence requested that the Court appoints a psychiatrist to examine the accused. Proceedings are ongoing.
Gatt, from Hamrun, was awaiting bail after being charged with arson, after he had allegedly set fire to the main door of a Hamrun house while an elderly man was inside.
Nicolette Ghirxi
Malta was shaken by the murder of 48-year-old Nicolette Ghirxi, who was found dead in her Swatar residence, limits of Birkirkara, on 12 August.
Her alleged aggressor, 50-year-old Irishman Edward William Johnston, escaped to St Julian's where he was then found by police officers, after staff at a hotel reported that a man was threatening them with a gun.
Once police approached him, the alleged aggressor jumped into the sea in a bid to create distance between him and the officers.
Members of the Rapid Intervention Unit as well as other members of the police force, a total of 21 officials, began negotiations with the man for him to get out of the sea, and warned him to put down his firearm.
After a three-hour standoff with the police, Johnston then got out of the sea, and pointed the firearm, later found to be a replica, at the officers who were circling him on site.
The police fired at the man and he was taken to Mater Dei Hospital, where he was certified dead.
Ghirxi's body was found with stab wounds after the police broke into an apartment block in Triq Maestro Giuseppe Busuttil.
She was certified dead on site, and police also found two potential murder weapons next to her, two knives.
An independent inquiry into Ghirxi's murder was called by her family through their lawyer Joseph Borda, as revelations showed that Ghirxi had reported multiple instances of harassment to the police by her former partner in the months leading up to her death.
Despite being offered a risk assessment after her initial report in April, she had declined, stating that she did not feel at imminent risk at the time.
Her second report in May described more emails as harassing but they were not deemed to be immediately threatening, and Johnston was believed by the police to be in Ireland at that point.
However, a few days before her murder, Ghirxi had informed the authorities that she suspected that Johnston was in Malta.
Women's organisations and activists have criticised the lack of a follow-up in her case, and reports revealed that Ghirxi had agreed to take a risk assessment for domestic violence but told a friend and her lawyer that she was "talked out of it" by professionals when her case was evaluated, an allegation the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) denied.
An independent Police Complaints Board concluded that it did not appear that the police failed to take measures within the scope of their powers that could have saved Ghirxi's life.
In the meantime, there is currently an ongoing magisterial inquiry, as well as an inquiry launched by the Social Policy Minister.
Body in suitcase
A dismembered body of a man, who was later identified in court as Raoul Eduardo Rei, was found in a suitcase at sea off the Sliema promenade on 9 December this year.
Discovered after reports of a suspicious luggage floating in the sea, the body was lifted out of the water by the police.
The man's naked body, save for an adult nappy, was dismembered, with his hands and feet cut off and placed into plastic bags, and an autopsy revealed that he had more than 100 cocaine tablets in his body.
It also showed that the victim probably died of asphyxiation around 12 hours before his body parts were dumped at sea.
An axe is believed to have been used to dismember the body, and police believe that the middle-aged victim was likely used as a drug mule.
Three days after the incident, a 43-year-old Colombian man was arrested in a property in Msida. A 39-year-old Portuguese man at the same property was also arrested, and evidence related to drug trafficking was found.
The police have, as of now, not pressed homicide charges against Andres Leonardo Gamboa Duran, but he was charged with promoting a criminal organisation, trafficking drugs, criminal association, money laundering, hiding a body and trying to cover up a crime.
Four convictions
This year, the country has also seen the conviction of individuals responsible for murders which took place in previous years.
In February of this year, a judge jailed Jesper Kristiansen for 40 years, after he pleaded guilty to the double murder of Christian Pandolfino and Ivor Maciejowski in Sliema in 2020. He was one of three men accused with murdering the couple in their own house.
In March, Jeremie Camilleri was sentenced to 40 years in prison, after pleading guilty to the murder of 34-year-old Turkish woman Pelin Kaya in January 2023. Kaya was run over by a car driven by Camilleri as she walked on a pavement in Gzira late at night.
Also in March, Elliot Paul Busuttil was sentenced to 42 years in prison, after he admitted to the brutal murder of 62-year-old Mario Farrugia in 2022, known as the Qormi Valley murder, as well as the attempted murder of another man in 2020. In December, the prison term was reduced to 35 years.
Lawrence Abina was sentenced to life in prison in March of this year, after being convicted in a trial by jury of strangling his partner Rita Ellul, a mother of three, to death while she slept. In December, an appeals court confirmed his life sentence.