On the evening of August 23, 1960, a panicked man approached a police officer walking through the streets of Valletta, Malta. Sobbing so hard he could barely speak, he gasped out that a young boy had fallen and might be dead. The officer rushed to the apartment block and climbed the winding staircase. Inside the Camilleri family’s small kitchen, he found a sight that would haunt everyone who saw it: eight-year-old Anthony “Twanny” Aquilina lay curled in a fetal position on the floor, his arms wrapped protectively around his head, surrounded by a thick pool of his own blood.

His throat had been cut so deeply that his head was attached to his body only by narrow shreds of flesh and sinew. His body was cold. He had been dead for some time. The boy’s mother, Giuseppa Camilleri, known as Giga, and her husband, Leli, appeared at the door moments later, crying and screaming in distress.

But as dawn broke and word of the murder spread across the island, the peaceful Maltese community was gripped by outrage and fear. The murder of an innocent child in a close-knit neighborhood was unthinkable. Because Malta was still part of the British Empire, Scotland Yard detectives were summoned to assist the local police. Their investigation naturally began with the family.

Both Giga and Leli denied any involvement. Leli claimed he had been out running an errand, and Giga insisted she had been playing Tombola with her daughters down the road. But public pressure to solve the case was immense, and the focus never left the parents. On November 1, 1960, as the sun set over Valletta, residents were shattered by the news that Giga and Leli Camilleri had been arrested and charged with the murder of Twanny Aquilina.

The trial opened on February 25, 1961, and caused a sensation. Over one hundred witnesses were called by the prosecution, and a horrifying picture of Twanny’s short life began to emerge. Far from the loving, grieving mother she appeared to be, Giga was revealed to have subjected her son to a relentless pattern of abuse, with Leli as an active participant rather than a helpless bystander. While Giga stayed home, Twanny was put to work scrubbing floors, hand-washing laundry, and cleaning, all under the constant threat of a brutal beating.

He did not need to do anything wrong to be punished. One story told during the trial illustrated the cruelty he endured. Twanny had stolen some change and used it to buy himself a treat. When he confessed to his teacher, she was not angry.

She used it as a lesson about truth and repentance, and asked his parents not to beat him, believing he had learned his lesson. Instead, they tied him to a bed, beat him with a stick, and burned his skin with cigarettes. Not satisfied, they then tied him to a balcony railing and continued extinguishing cigarettes on his skin until he passed out. A neighbor had to beg Leli to stop before Twanny was released.

Teachers testified about the burns and bruises they saw on the boy’s skin. He would try to hide them with his clothes and deny their existence when questioned. His lunch was often moldy or missing entirely. He was described as frail, slight, and quiet, a bright boy who excelled in his classwork and was always quick to answer difficult questions correctly.

Medical examination of Twanny’s body established that he had been killed between 5:30 and 6:30 p. m. , yet help had not been sought for over an hour afterward. A second autopsy revealed deep lacerations to the back of his skull, evidently caused by door bolts used to beat him in the hours before his throat was slit.

Doctors were able to determine that the chambers of his heart had emptied, meaning he was still alive when his throat was cut. Handprints and pieces of his brain were found around the apartment, in the hallway, and on the stairs. Neighbors’ testimony helped investigators piece together the events of that day. A young girl who lived next door had heard Twanny crying and sneaked out to see what was happening.

She watched him fall down a few stairs before her mother grabbed her and left the building. She vividly recalled stepping over Twanny’s body at the bottom of the stairs. Her mother, however, claimed she had been out that day, though her statement had changed on several occasions. A fourteen-year-old neighbor said that when he returned home, he saw Giga carrying Twanny, who was not moving.

Later, he noticed the Camilleri apartment door slightly open, peeked in, and saw Twanny lying motionless on the kitchen floor. He entered, touched the boy’s lifeless body, tried to rouse him, failed, washed his hands, and left. He chose not to tell the police officer he encountered moments later for fear of getting into trouble. But the most damning testimony came from Carmen Aquilina, Twanny’s eight-year-old sister.

She had watched the events unfold from underneath a bench in the kitchen. She remembered that Twanny had been put to work washing the floor. He found his father’s tool set and grabbed one of the tools to repair his shoes. Giga noticed him slacking off, snatched the tools away, and flew into a rage.

She beat Twanny with a leather strap. Twanny fled the apartment to escape, but Carmen recalled her mother returning shortly afterward with Twanny hanging limply in her arms, laying him on a bed. Carmen was sent to fetch her stepfather from a friend’s house. When Leli returned, Giga told him she had found Twanny dead.

Giga then grabbed a bread knife, and Leli moved Twanny’s body from the bed to the floor. Carmen later saw her parents change clothes, placing their bloodstained garments into the washing machine along with a bedspread. Forensic evidence found traces of what could have been blood in the washing machine drain. Both Giga and Leli maintained their innocence.

Giga stuck to her claim that she had been away all afternoon, only returning when Carmen, sent to check on Twanny, could not find him. She said she entered the kitchen, found Twanny full of blood, and ran out screaming, “My son is finished. He’s soaked in blood. ” Leli claimed he heard her yelling from the street, ran in, and found Twanny in a pool of blood.

When he moved the boy’s head to check if he was alive, he said, “It came off and I realized his neck was cut. ”

In the end, it was Carmen’s eye-witness account that convinced the jury. After a seventeen-day trial, the longest in Maltese history at the time, both Leli and Giga were unanimously convicted of the capital murder of Anthony Twanny Aquilina. Leli was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.

Giga was sentenced to death. Two weeks later, Giga’s lawyer successfully appealed her conviction, and her sentence was commuted to life in prison. To the shock of the Maltese people, she served just ten years. The circumstances of her release were never revealed.

Thirty-three years after being freed, Giga gave an interview to a church newspaper. She continued to maintain her innocence, asking, “How can a mother kill her son? ” She called Twanny a martyr and a saint, saying, “If I know who killed my son, I am ready to forgive him. ” At the time of the interview, her home was adorned with pictures of Twanny, including one of him in his white communion suit.

That image became synonymous with the case and is still recognized by those who lived through the events. Years later, in a mysterious twist, Carmen stated in a magazine interview that everything she had testified to in court was a lie. She pointed the finger at the fourteen-year-old neighbor who had found Twanny on the kitchen floor and said nothing to police. To this day, no other family has ever occupied the Camilleri house.

Both Giga and Leli were found guilty of one of the most horrific crimes in Maltese history. Yet more than sixty years later, questions remain about whether they were truly responsible for the death of eight-year-old Twanny Aquilina on the 23rd of August, 1960.