Updated 2.45pm with DNA results
Court experts have confirmed through DNA results that the victim of the Santa Luċija murder is Victor McKeon.
DNA swabs were taken from the man’s relatives and these matched the DNA samples taken from the corpse found in the bathroom of the Santa Luċija ground floor apartment in Misraħ Durell on Tuesday.
62-year-old Victor McKeon lived in the apartment with someone else who is still on the run. The police are searching for him but he has not yet been found, the police have confirmed. He is not being treated as a suspect as yet but he is wanted for police questioning.
The body was found lying on the bathroom floor covered head to toe in garbage bags. The victim had a deep laceration on his head probably caused by a sharp and pointed instrument and he possibly died from suffocation.
Sources told Times of Malta that the body was badly decomposed as he had been dead for between three and four days. The police received a call at the Luqa station at around 2pm on Tuesday that McKeon had not been seen for a week and that a strange smell was coming out of his house.
A bloody apartment
Once the police entered the house, they saw a blood-stained blanket and blood in various places. The dead man was lying on the bathroom floor near a blood-stained towel.
McKeon had already been targeted inside his own home in August 2017 when two men entered his apartment and stabbed him when he was in bed, leaving him with life-threatening injuries.
It was his flatmate who found him injured when he returned home at around 4am. McKeon told police that two men had entered his apartment and they had attacked him. No one was ever charged with this crime.
L-Imnieħru murders revisted
Until a few years ago, McKeon shared his apartment with Ronald Urry, a man who is facing criminal proceedings over his involvement in the murder of drug lord Mario Camilleri, known as l-Imnieħru, and his son Mario Jnr.
It is the second murder in three days after a stabbing at a Qawra apartment on Saturday night. The suspect was arraigned on Tuesday.