Dad took kids bowling, then drugged and tried to kill them, court told
Father told police he 'may have bit' daughter; posted on Facebook that he planned to 'take my son'
Updated 3pm
A father laced his children’s fast food with sleeping pills and left his 12-year-old son with severe head injuries before texting his estranged wife to say her son was "in heaven,” a court heard on Wednesday.
The 49-year-old, who cannot be named under court order, is alleged to have tried to kill his two children after an evening in which he took them bowling in Paceville, followed by dinner at McDonald’s at the Bay Street Complex.
The chilling timeline was presented by Police Inspector Kurt Colombo Zahra during the compilation of evidence against the man, who allegedly attacked his two children at the abandoned White Rocks complex following a bitter marital breakdown.
His 12-year-old son was found covered in blood and semi-conscious with critical head injuries, leaning over a ledge inside a building at the Pembroke complex. His daughter, 10, was found crying and distraught on the side of the Coast Road by a woman driving by. The girl told the woman who picked her up: “My father killed my brother”.
She later told her mother that the fast food their father gave them tasted bitter. The father later admitted to police that he had slipped sleeping pills into their meals. He claimed he did that to ensure they slept at his house instead of returning to their mother.
Their father had turned on her brother, the child told police. Her father had tried to grab her and had bitten her but she ran away, as she heard her brother yell, “Run before he kills you.”
A cryptic Facebook message
The court heard that hours before that act of violence, the accused posted a cryptic message on Facebook, blaming his estranged wife’s lover and writing "I'll do it. Thanks [wife], I'm taking [son] with me."
As police spoke to the girl and searched for the boy, he called his estranged wife, telling her “Take the girl, the boy is in heaven”. He also called his brother, claiming he had been assaulted, and his flatmate, telling him he had “screwed up.”
After a three-day manhunt, police found the limping man in an area close to the White Rocks crime scene and arrested him. He told officers he had been squatting in an empty caravan.
Notes in a caravan
Under interrogation, he claimed his son’s head injuries were caused when the boy fell while scared and trying to run away from him. He admitted he may have bitten his daughter in a frenzy but insisted nothing he did was premeditated.
Inside the caravan, officers found a notebook containing handwritten notes. One read: “I was not thinking and made a big mistake with my dear son. I tell you sorry dear, I apologise but I was not myself.. it's the fault of the mum and her lover... It did not have to come to this."
The court heard that the man had issues with his wife over access to the children and felt the children were becoming more distanced from him.
He blamed the situation on his wife and her lover – a personal trainer who was giving her free lessons in lieu of payment for work the accused had done at his gym.
Under cross-examination, Police Inspector Christian Xuereb said the accused and his estranged wife had been together for a long time but married recently. Witnesses said the man seemed to have a good relationship with the children.
Inspector Colombo Zahra said there were no prior reports of violence and the man seemed relieved when he was told that his son was alive.
Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit ruled that there was enough evidence for the accused to be indicted once the compilation of evidence is concluded.
The case was adjourned to April 24 and the accused was remanded in custody.
Lawyers for the Attorney General Anthony Vella, Kaylie Bonett and Etienne Savona prosecuted, assisted by police inspectors Kurt Zahra Colombo and Christian Xuereb. Lawyer Giannella De Marco and Charles Mercieca appeared for the accused. Lawyers Maxilene Pace and Charmaine Cherett appeared on the wife's behalf.
As it happened
Case adjourned
2.35pm The court rules that is enough evidence for the accused to be indicted - which means enough evidence for him to stand trial once the compilation of evidence stage is completed.
That's it for today: the magistrate adjourns the case to April 24 at 9.30am, when the girl is expected to testify from the magistrate's chambers.
The accused is remanded in custody.
Thank you for having joined us. We'll have an updated summary of the day's events available at the top of the article soon.
Long relationship, short marriage
2.30pm Under cross-examination, the inspector says the man and his wife had been together for a long time but only married relatively recently. They split after a “third party” entered the picture. Witnesses said he loved his children and looked after them, the inspector says.
Accused's version of events
2.20pm The accused told police that he and his son got into an argument as he was driving to White Rocks, after he gave them sleeping pills. They stopped to pee, and the boy kept telling him, “Leave me”.
He and the boy got into a scuffle. He told police that his daughter then started kicking him, telling him to leave the boy alone. He pushed the girl and may have bitten her, while holding the boy close.
The inspector tells the court that in bodycam footage, the girl can be heard telling officers: “He choked my brother and tried to choke me”. She was crying and saying her brother was dead, and told officers she kept running until she met the woman who picked her up.
The accused told police that he did not touch the girl and that his son lost his balance and hit his head. He may have fallen because he was scared and trying to get away from him, he said.
The man categorically denied that anything that happened was premeditated.
His own sleeping pills
2.15pm The accused told police that his wife made it hard for him to see his children, who seemed to be slowly changing: they used to text him heart emojis but no longer did, he said.
The sleeping pills he used when spiking their meals that night were his own, he told police: he used them to sleep.
A previous suicide attempt
2.05pm The accused had a history of self-harm, it seems: his brother told police officers that several years ago, he had stopped his brother from hanging himself, lifting him up and rescuing him.
Good Samaritan suspected an ambush
2pm The woman who found the sobbing girl by the side of the Coast Road was initially suspicious and thought it might be an ambush, she later told police.
After checking the girl’s bag, she let her into the car and told her, “You’re in safe hands.”
The girl then told her: “My father killed my brother, my father killed my brother.”
Boy 'was in danger of dying'
1.45pm Police Inspector Christian Xuereb was also present when officers found the boy. He was shivering, his head was coated in blood and his eyes were closed and swollen, the inspector says.
The child was in danger of dying and spent several days in the hospital’s Intensive Treatment Unit, battling for his life.
Mother was in car when boy was found
1.25pm PC Anabelle Cauchi was with PC Borg when they found the boy. His blood-stained clothes had an Air Jordan logo, she said, and she recalled the mother saying he was wearing a Jordan jacket.
She held the boy, and felt him stiffen. They gave him time to settle down, helped him out of the room and waited for medics to arrive. The entire exchange was recorded on her bodycam.
PC Cauchi said the mother had also come to White Rocks with officers, but was instructed to wait in the car. The girl was kept at the police station until child protection services arrived.
Under cross-examination, the constable says the boy was found "leaning over" a makeshift 'window' that linked one abandoned room to another.
Boy was unresponsive
12.55pm PC Matthew Borg was stationed at St Julian’s police station that night, when a couple had brought in a crying and scared 10-year-old girl.
The girl’s mother came to the police station. She took officers to an area where they would sometimes have family barbecues, then towards Qawra when the accused called her to tell her he was near the “horses’ curve” and finally towards the White Rocks complex.
In an abandoned room there, they found the boy. His face and clothes were covered in blood and it was hard to tell if his clothes matched the description given by his mother.
“We called him by his name, but he was semi-conscious, drooling and did not know what was happening,” the constable testifies.
Officer found accused near Splash and Fun
12.45pm The hearing resumes.
Police Sergeant Garry Scerri was the officer who found the accused, days into the manhunt.
Scerri tells the court he approached the man in the area near the Splash and Fun park and asked him if he was [accused’s name]. The man said “yes”.
Scerri cautioned him, took him to the Naxxar police station to register the arrest and then to hospital for treatment, because he was injured.
The following day, the man took police to the caravan he was hiding out in, and showed them another caravan he had stolen clothes from while they were hung out to dry.
30-minute break
11.50am The magistrate orders a 30-minute break.
Instructor-turned-lover
11.45am The inspector confirms that the wife's lover was a gym instructor and personal trainer.
The accused had done some work at that gym, and the instructor had taken on the accused's wife as a client in lieu of payment for that work.
Witnesses confirmed that she sometimes insulted the accused in front of his friends, the court is told.
He appeared relieved when he was told that his son was alive and asked to see him, the inspector says.
Cross-examination
11.30am Defence lawyers are now cross-examining Inspector Colombo Zahra. The accused had issues with his wife over access to the children, he says. He also spent some time out of work after going through a rough time due to the ongoing separation.
There were no reports of violence with the children in the past and several people said he had a good relationship with them. Even his wife said she would have never imagined he’d do something like this, the inspector acknowledges.
Two Facebook posts
11.11am Inspector Colombo Zahra tells the court that at 5.12pm on the day of the crime, less than an hour before the accused picked up his children, he posted on Facebook: “Chi mette guerra nelle famiglie non deve mai trovare pace" [He who causes war within families should never find peace].
Then at 8.57pm, as the children were at McDonald's, he posted again: "Today I was threatened to death by [wife's lover]. I can't take it anymore... I'll do it. Thanks [wife], I'm taking [son] with me."
'I wasn't myself'
11.10am The accused told police he felt “very sorry” about what had happened. Officers told him his version of events did not match the injuries the boy sustained – the boy had sustained multiple blows to the head. He insisted the boy ran away and fell.
He also admitted he may have bitten his daughter. He was shown bodycam footage of what his daughter told officers.
“I wasn’t myself,” he told officers, insisting everything he did was involuntary.
Man spiked children's burgers
11.05am That evening, he took the children bowling in Paceville. His wife called, asking why the children were not answering when she called. He told her perhaps phone reception was bad, and sent her a video of them playing arcade games.
Then they went to McDonald’s, and his wife called again. He showed her that they were waiting for food.
The man admitted to police that he slipped sleeping pills into the children’s food: he wanted them to fall asleep so he could take them to sleep at his house, he said. After leaving McDonald’s, he decided to drive around while they fell asleep.
He drove to the White Rocks area because it was dark and they’d sleep, he said. Then there was an “altercation” there, he told officers. He and the boy fell to the ground. The girl ran away and the boy ran into a room, fell and hurt his head, the accused told police.
He told police he left the room, assuming the boy was dead, and headed to the van, tied a noose on the rope and tried to kill himself. He did not manage, so he went towards the sea and jumped. After around three hours in the water, he returned to shore, found some dry clothes and the vacant caravan.
Interrogated by police
10.55am The accused was interrogated – with a lawyer present – for two-and-a-half hours on March 11.
He said he was going through a messy separation and had issues with his wife regarding spending time with the children. He claimed that on Saturday, March 7 he was on his way to pick up the children when a man he did not know stopped him in traffic and told him to stop posting to Facebook and leave Malta.
He told police he could not recall exactly where that happened, but it could have been near the Floriana football ground. He was unable to give a description of the man or say whether the man was driving a car or motorcycle.
He told police he had been threatened once before, after an argument with his wife. Data extracted from his phone showed no evidence of threats, the inspector says.
Notes while squatting in a caravan
10.45am The accused declined to have a lawyer present during interrogation and said he wanted to cooperate with the police. He told officers he had changed out of his wet clothes, dumping them and stealing clothes from caravans parked in the area.
He found a vacant caravan and squatted in there, writing notes in a notebook inside it.
Among other things, he wrote that “my life changed in a few days, thanks to my wife... I love you. I took a rash decision... I love her and will not give up. We were at peace, a united family, but she wanted to destroy it.”
Another note read: "Saturday.. I call my wife to go out with the children... the same day I am threatened and told to leave Malta... XX sent him but XX was not there.. then the wife called every 10 minutes... I was not thinking and made a big mistake with my dear son. I tell you sorry dear, I apologise but I was not myself.. it's the fault of the mum and her lover XX. It did not have to come to this."
[We have swapped names for XX due to the court-imposed ban]
Spotted by a kiosk
10.40am The search for the accused continued through the night and throughout Sunday.
Then, at 11.30pm on Sunday night, one of the accused’s brothers received a call from the man’s phone. When a police superintendent rang the number, someone picked up. But it turned out to be a false alarm: somebody with no connection to the case had just found the mobile phone.
The search continued until Tuesday evening , when a police sergeant saw the accused near an ice cream kiosk. The man was limping and did not try to deny his identity. He was read his rights and taken to Mater Dei for treatment.
He told officers he had tried to end his life by jumping from a height, but only managed to injure himself. The area where he had jumped was the same area where his phone was found.
A woman in the area
10.35am Police combing through CCTV footage spotted a woman walking in the White Rocks area. It turned out she was the accused’s mother-in-law.
She told officers that the accused had called her and told her he had done something bad. When she asked him if the kids were OK, he hung up on her. She then spoke to the children’s mother and went out to look for him.
Calls to his flatmate
10.30am The accused’s flatmate told police that the man seemed normal when he left the house with the children. At around 10.20pm, he received a call from the accused’s brother: the accused had just called him via videocall and claimed someone assaulted him, the brother told the flatmate. He seemed to have red spots on his face.
The flatmate tried to call the accused, who didn’t pick up. But a short while later the accused called back: "I screwed up," he told him.
Some time later, the accused called his flatmate again. He told him there was money in the apartment, which he should use for his (the accused’s) funeral.
'You do not control them'
10.26am The mother told police that she had tried to call the children that evening, but could not get through. She had then asked the accused why they weren’t answering.
At around 7.45pm, he texted her: ‘You do not control them’.
Bowling, burgers, then violence
10.23am The inspector recounts what police have been told about that night:
The children had spent the day with their mother. Their father had picked them up at 6pm, as she had to work a shift that day starting at 7pm.
He first took them to his place in Żebbuġ and then to St Julian’s where they went bowling and played arcade games before going to McDonald’s at the Bay Street Complex.
The girl told the father that the food “tastes bitter.”
“If you love me, eat all your food,” the accused allegedly told the child.
He was due to return the children to their mother at 10pm. He stopped the van at White Rocks, saying he needed to urinate. The boy went with him.
Then the father came back, asking for water. When the girl fetched the water, the accused turned violent, tried to grab her and bit her. As she ran, she heard her brother shouting: “Run, or he will kill you.”
A noose and a pink mobile phone
10.15am The accused’s phone was tracked as being in the area. Nobody answered when they tried ringing it. Police alerted airport officials, in case he tried to make a getaway, and checked to see if he had booked a taxi. Everything came back negative.
Nearby, they found a van registered in his name. On its roof rack was a rope with what appeared to be a noose, dangling down the driver’s side. There appeared to be a smudge of blood next to it.
Officers found a pink mobile phone outside the van and another two phones inside the vehicle. One had its torch on and the other was near the steering wheel but had no SIM. They also found a jacket in the van, the inspector says.
A family BBQ spot
10.10am Police officers went to the area where the girl said her father had taken them. The family used to have BBQs there in the past. The girl’s mother accompanied officers there.
Close by, in one of the White Rocks complex rooms, they found the boy, semi-conscious and covered in blood.
Meanwhile, the accused called his wife, who was with the officers. “The girl is with you, he is in heaven” he told her.
At that point, the manhunt for the suspect began.
First witness summoned
10.05am After a legal to-and-fro over the girl's testimony - defence lawyers say that the longer it takes for her to testify, the more disadvantaged their client is - the prosecution summons their first witness: Inspector Kurt Colombo Zahra.
Inspector Zahra runs the court through the chronology of events on the night of the incident.
It was March 7, just after 10pm.
A woman entered the St Julian's police station, accompanied by a girl. The woman said she was driving along the Coast Road when she spotted a child crying and disoriented.
She stopped the car to help the girl, who told her that her father had killed her brother but she had run away.
The woman contacted the girl's mother, who was working at the time. Police immediately called medical staff and child protection officers, the inspector testifies.
Court confirms name ban
9.52am Magistrate Stafrace Zammit confirms a decision made by her colleague Elaine Rizzo during the accused's arraignment: nobody involved in the case can be named by the press.
Will the girl testify today?
9.45am The magistrate wanted the accused's daughter to testify today. But it appears that won't happen, because prosecutors want some key documents in hand before she takes the stand.
The magistrate is clearly unhappy that prosecutors have not summoned the child as a witness today and verbalises a note to that effect.
Prosecutors tell the court they're doing their utmost to get the girl on the stand as soon as possible, but that they need to be in a position to refer to certain documents during her testimony.
Defence lawyer Giannella de Marco says she's worried that the longer it takes, the greater the risk of witness tampering. The child is living with her mother, the lawyer notes.
Hearing begins
9.40am The accused takes his place in the dock. Documents from the magisterial inquiry into the incident are presented in court. Lawyers from both sides are whispering to each other.
The compilation of evidence against the accused begins.
Welcome
9.25am Good morning and welcome to this live blog. We're in the Valletta law courts, where Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit will begin hearing the compilation of evidence against the accused.
We can't name the man or his children, following a court-ordered ban issued when he was arraigned.
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 9.30am.