Kim Dalli takes another look at a new book about the murder of Maltese women and highlights more of these heinous crimes from history: a teenager shot dead by a child, a prostitute who had her throat slit and a rape victim strangled and thrown down a well.

It was 1867 and Mosta dome had just been built. Sixteen-year-old Vittorja Vella was playing beads with another girl her age in the streets of the town when an argument erupted over the game.

The incident was witnessed by Ġużeppi Sammut, 13, the brother of Vittorja’s playmate.

On seeing his sister being beaten up, Ġużeppi ran as fast as he could to his father’s farm, grabbed a shotgun and returned to shoot Vittorja.

The girl is the youngest victim in crime historian Eddie Attard’s newly published book, Il-Femiċidju: Qtil ta’ Nisa f’Malta (from BDL), which documents all the femicides of the last two centuries.

Despite the boy himself being even younger, he underwent a trial by jury, was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison with hard labour.

Thirty-five years earlier, Malta witnessed the first killing of a prostitute that century: Grazzja Grech, known as Zol-in-Zol, was found dead in her Senglea home in April 1832.

Prostitution was not illegal at the time, although over the years certain restrictions had been introduced dictating where prostitutes could live. They were forbidden from occupying the ground floor but allowed to live in maisonettes on the first floor.

Grazzja’s absence had aroused the suspicions of her neighbours. After their knocks at her door went unanswered, one of them peeked through a window to see her lying on the floor in a pool of blood that oozed from her slit throat.

Grazzja was known to host a number of men at her home and many hailed from localities outside Senglea. Among these men, there were two youths in particular who were often seen in her company.

The night before the victim was found dead, the pair had been spotted buying bread, cheese and a bottle of rum from a Senglea shop.

Their appearance was described to the police, who identified the two as 18-year-old Giovanni Fedele from Sliema and 21-year-old Pawlu Laus from Valletta.

Both goldsmiths, they had known the victim for a while. Grazzja was rumoured to have declared the two as her favourite clients, and they had even presented her with a gold ring they had forged themselves.

It was this ring which was found to have sparked the crime of passion, because the youths had got to know that Grazzja had given it to a fishmonger.

It was this ring which was found to have sparked the crime of passion, because the youths had got to know that Grazzja had given it to a fishmonger

On the day of the crime, Giovanni and Pawlu, armed with a penknife, paid a visit to Grazzja. As Pawlu held her down, Giovanni slit her throat.

A month later they were sentenced to death in a trial by jury. Despite a plea by governor Sir Patrick Ponsomby to mitigate the sentence, they were hanged. Giovanni was the youngest man in Malta to receive the death penalty.

Yet the tragedy continued to unfold.

Giovanni’s mother, who knew of her son’s waywardness, had often warned him that he would one day end up on the gallows. Pawlu’s father, who kept hoping until the end that the sentence would be changed, committed suicide.

The final victim in this case appears to have been the fishmonger, who received a savage beating and later died of his injuries.

Another murder involving sex was that of 18-year-old Duminka Galea, dubbed Malta’s Maria Goretti, after the 11-year-old saint who was stabbed to death after resisting rape.

Duminka was working in her father’s fields in Naxxar in 1869, together with her siblings.

As her brothers and sisters were about to leave, she asked them for a sip of water, but their jug was empty.

They suggested she draw some water from the well in the nearby fields belonging to the Schembri family.

That evening, Duminka failed to turn up for dinner. Her frantic family visited the Schembri farm and asked after her but to no avail. Ċikku Schembri, 24, denied having set eyes on her.

The next day, one of the victim’s siblings suggested searching the well, fearing his sister might have fallen in. There they ran into Ċikku again, who seemed very evasive and would not answer their questions.

The family filed a police report and a search of the Schembri farm yielded clothes smeared with blood.

Duminka’s body was found in a well. An autopsy revealed that she had been raped and then strangled.

Although most of the evidence was circumstantial, Ċikku was found guilty by a count of 6-3. As a result he could not be handed the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.