Police not excluding victim’s wife as suspect in double-murder investigation

Police investigators are not ruling out Claire Zammit Xuereb, the wife of the New Year's Day double-murder victim Duncan Zammit, as a potential suspect in the ongoing investigations.

In a fresh appeal for any information from the public, the police addressed a crime conference for the first time since the tragedy that happened in the Zammits' penthouse in Falcon House, Sliema on the first day of 2012.

They said that Claire Zammit Xuereb, who witnessed the stabbing to death of her husband by Gera, was interrogated three times already.

Assistant Commissioner Pierre Calleja said police believe there is no connection between murder victims Duncan Zammit, 32, and Nicholas Gera, 26.

In an analysis of the traffic, but not the content, of 35,000 SMS messages and phone calls in the past nine months by the Zammits and Gera, police said they found no connection between the two parties. Their personal computers were also analysed, and no connection was found there either.

The police are sure that Gera, who clocked off work after midnight from Shiva's Indian restaurant in Paceville, visited Muddy Waters bar in St Julian's twice, as well as another St Julian's bar and one in Sliema before making his way to Falcon House. He was driving his mother's vehicle.

Calleja said investigators have established that on New Year's Day, Gera made his way onto the Falcon House rooftop from another adjacent rooftop, and then entered the Zammits' penthouse from the terrace. He said Gera had entered the penthouse from the door leading to the roof but found no evidence of forced entry and the door may not have been locked.

From then on, no evidence of rummaging was found, indicating that Gera might have know the place when he fetched a knife from the kitchen. The alleged assault then started in the Zammits' bedroom, ending fatally with both Zammit and his aggressor Nicholas Gera dead in the corridor by the bedroom.

Calleja said that Claire Zammit Xuereb called her father, entrepreneur Anglu Xuereb before calling emergency services 30 seconds later. She was on the line with the emergency services for seven minutes. He also explained that nobody arrived on the crime scene before police arrived.

Toxicology results on the two murder victims' bodies have been sent abroad for analysis, while the forensic results are still being analysed by court experts.

Travel patterns of Gera and the Zammit family were also studied but no connections were found. However investigations continue and police investigators are exploring all possibilities. However, Calleja said that police have not yet esteblished the reason why Gera broke in the Zammit residence. 

The bodies of 32-year-old Duncan Zammit land 26-year-old, Bosnian-born Nicholas Gera, were found in a pool of blood after an alleged assault by Gera that left both him and Zammit dead. The tragedy is believed to have unfolded in the Zammits' bedroom, with their three-month-old twins Millie and Jack asleep next to them.

Zammit Xuereb is believed to have told her interrogators that Gera, whom she said she had never known, was allegedly armed with two knives, whereupon she froze as she took in the scene of her husband struggling to fend off the attack as he bled from the initial strike.

The struggle may have taken not more than a minute, with the two men entangled in the quilt which was found to be riddled with holes and stained with blood.