Edward William Johnston used multiple social media profiles to harass his victim, Nicolette Ghirxi, and boasted to her about being involved in a previous bomb threat in Glasgow, her family members have told Times of Malta.

Details are beginning to emerge aboout the Irish man who police shot dead on Monday morning after he is suspected of stabbing his ex partner to death in her Birkirkara home. 

Family members say he had told her he was the same man who was jailed over a restaurant bomb threat in Glasgow in 2012 and was almost shot by police in Liverpool a week earlier after pointing a replica gun at them. In both cases he challenged police to shoot him.

Times of Malta understands authorities are still trying to confirm at this stage if the man they shot while he pointed a fake weapon at them is the same person. 

'Ricardo Raspini'

Family members told Times of Malta how Johnston ran social media accounts posing as Ricardo Raspini and Lisa Campo to target his former partner, at one point making accusations about her sex life.

He even attempted to have her removed from her job at HSBC Malta, where she held a senior position as Head of Mortgages (Home Loans).

The harassment began several months after she and Johnston ended their relationship in December.

Times of Malta has obtained screenshots of Facebook and Instagram posts made under the Ricardo Raspini and Lisa Campo profiles, both of which displayed Ghirxi’s profile picture. 

One of these posts made claims abour Ghirxi's sex life. It even provided her home address, inviting social media users to visit her.

Tragically, Ghirxi was found dead on Monday at 2am in her apartment on Mro Giuseppe Busuttil Street in Swatar, the same address mentioned in the post.

A family member told Times of Malta that Ghirxi had reported the posts to the police, who did not consider them life-threatening.  

“We don’t know what they could have done, to be honest," the family member, who asked not to be named, said.

The family confirmed that Ghirxi and Johnston had broken up last December after dating for a year and a half. She began to report the harassment in April. 

According to them, “Nicolette had asked him to move in with her.  Then, one fine day, she returned home from work only to find that he had moved out and returned to Ireland.”

A few months later, Johnston, who told the Ghirxi family that he was from Dublin, contacted his ex partner, asking to get back together, but she refused.

“It was then that something triggered in him and the social media harassment began but when Nicolette contacted the police, they told her they could not trace him in Malta and was probably abroad”, they said.

“Nicolete made sure to change the locks to her apartment because her former partner had the keys but she couldn’t just change the ones to the common door.”

The fake social media profiles were taken down last week.

Family sources said Johnston had never been physically violent with Ghirxi, noting that while she never felt physically threatened, she was disturbed by his recent slanderous behaviour.

Ghirxi was so unsettled by the situation that she shared her Facebook account credentials with a family member "just in case something happened to her."

Last Thursday Ghirxi noticed from Tinder that Edward Johnston had returned to Malta as the dating-app kept showing that he was just a few kilometres away.  

She was killed in her apartment on Monday morning.

The family is now grappling with the shock of her death, describing it as a nightmare they never anticipated.

A work colleague revealed that while Ghirxi was discreet about the harassment, everyone at work was aware of it due to the public nature of the posts.

However, she never discussed it openly.

When asked about Johnston, family members described him as having "mysterious ways."

He rarely spoke about his past, though they knew he had a son in Scotland.

Times of Malta has seen media reports from 2012 stating that a 38-year-old man named Edward Johnston had admitted in court telling a waiter he had a bomb while at the Amarone restaurant in Nelson Mandela Place.

Armed police and bomb disposal officers had cordoned off the Italian restaurant for almost eight hours.  

Johnston was then sentenced to 28 months in jail and the court had ordered his supervision for a year after release from prison.

In May 2013, the same man was jailed after pointing a replica machine pistol at armed police in Liverpool city centre, a week before the Glasgow incident..

According to court reports, he was drinking heavily after hearing a work colleague had cancer before going out with the realistic-looking replica machine gun strapped to his leg.

In both cases he challenged police to shoot him.

The family of Nicolette Ghirxi are not one hundred per cent certain whether he is the same man mentioned in the report.

“We don’t know what to believe about him anymore.  It’s all so surreal," they said.

"Nicolette always saw the good in people," one close family member added.

According to the Irish media, Johston had not lived in Ireland for a number of years and has no previous convictions in Ireland.

YouTube videos 

In addition to the fake social media accounts he used to harass Ghirxi, Johnston managed an Instagram account under the name ‘Edwardo Sambora,’ where he claimed to trade on the New York Stock Exchange and teach students how to trade.

Johnston, using the name Edwardo Sambora, ran a YouTube channel, frequently posting to his over 4,000 subscribers. The videos, ostensibly about financial trading, frequently veered into other territory, from tirades against cancel culture to tours of his apartment.

In one posted two years ago, he claimed to have made his first million euro. 

Some months ago, Johnston seemingly announced that he would be moving to the Sicilian town of Palermo, posting a video of several sights around the city.

In his most recent video, posted three weeks ago, Johnston praised several individuals who he described as “trying to be honest with the world” and were “being taken out”, including Andrew Tate, Russell Brand and Donald Trump.

Interviewed by a popular trading YouTube channel, Johnston said he became a full-time trader in 2020 after working the distribution and logistics business for almost two decades.

After stumbling upon retail trading, he eventually quit his job, saying “his eyes had been opened”. He described himself as having OCD and an addictive personality.

The victim's family say he had also claimed to have had a military background.

The Irish Defence Forces has said it has no record of anyone matching Johnston’s details serving in the organisation.