How a horrific murder committed in 1991 turned out to be a psychological effect of sexual abuse in Church institution
Karl Stagno-Navarra New evidence relating to years of sexual abuse, beatings and deprivation at the hands of priests who ran the notorious St Joseph orphanage in Santa Venera during the 1980s, has shed new light on the unexplained motive behind a horrific murder committed in 1991.
Convicted murderer Gaetano Scerri, 46 of Hamrun has added his name to a list of men who have come forward in a bid to seek justice for their suffering during their stay at the orphanage.
Sister-paper ‘Illum’ last Sunday revealed how Scerri – aka ‘il-Uomo’, who has just served a 20-year prison sentence for murdering Albert Vella with a hammer in April of 1991, and then cutting the body to pieces using a broken bottle – may in in fact have been reacting in a folly over flashbacks of a tormented childhood riddled with abuse.
A trial by jury had found Gaetano Scerri and his accomplice Reno Mercieca guilty of the homophobically motivated crime, and were both sentenced to serve time. However, neitherr court nor investigators had ever come close to understand what actually had triggered such brutality.
Gaetano Scerri admits that he is not “all there” and has spent time at Mount Carmel Hospital receiving treatment for mental illness.
Comforted by the friends he had when he was young and still under the care of priests at St Joseph’s orphanage – the same men who today are fronting a campaign for justice for the abuse they suffered – Gaetano Scerri recounts his days at the hands of the clergy as an orphan.
“I was regularly beaten with sticks, punished over nothing, stripped naked and abused, left to sleep naked on my bed with no sheets…”
He insists that his fate was to be an orphan and meant to be taken care of, but not to suffer as much as he did, perhaps more than his friends because he was not liked by the priests who were responsible to raise him.
“I have lost a wisdom tooth through a beating I received from a priest inside the orphanage,” Gaetano Scerri said while showing the visible gap inside his mouth.
Without alluding directly to the murder he himself committed, Scerri nonetheless stresses that it was committed shortly after he left the orphanage after coming of age.
“I was already suffering the effect of years of abuse, and honestly when I look back, I don’t know what ever came over me…” is all he now says about the murder.
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
