SK: crazy or cold blooded murderer?

Defence lawyer for Silvio Mangion known as “SK – Serial Killer” told the court on Wednesday that 47 year old Mangion has mental health problems and he does things that make no sense. But the prosecution insisted that Mangion is a cold blooded murderer.

Mangion’s lawyer asked: “Does it makes sense that somebody who stands charged with murder asks the prosecutor whether he should declare himself insane to get off free?”

The court has to decide whether Mangion is in a mental state to face a trail by jury over the murder of a 68 year old woman 26 years ago. The court has to decide whether he was mentally stable when he committed that murder. The police believe that Mangion carried out a cold blooded murder and he knew what he was doing.

68 year old Maria Stella Magrin was murdered on 30 October 1986 when she was stabbed 13 times after she let in the killers who knocked on her door and asked her for money. Mangion was charged with the murder seven years ago. Mangion is already serving prison for two other murders after killing Francesco Saverio Cassar and Rozina Zammit.

Mangion’s lawyer said that for the past 16 years he ahs been in and out of the mental hospital several times and in the last seven years he has been living there as a permanent resident. “I know him well and he has been schizophrenic since 1996. He is only aware of what is going on around him when he is given the treatment he needs.”

The prosecutor said it is abusive to try and let off a cold blooded murderer on the basis of mental health. Mangion raised the issue of mental health only in 2010 when the prosecution was finalising its case. Mangion knows what he is doing now and knew what he was doing when he took part in the murder of Magrin. Together with two accomplices he had planned the murder for a whole week. “Does this show that he had mental health problems?” The prosecutor said that Mangion still remembers the house where the old woman was killed and also the number plate of the car used by the murderers.