Remembering King, The Maltese Bowling Champion Who Was Burned Alive Three Decades Ago
On this day 30 years ago, Malta woke up to one of the nation’s most gruesome killings: the spine-chilling murder of a young woman, Sylvia King.
Three decades after the grim murder, we look back at the case that imprints Maltese history as one of the most gruesome.
Sylvia King was a 36-year-old bowling champion, owner of a Marsaskala bar and social worker.
King worked in an organisation that helped people in need. It was there that she met Joseph Harrington’s wife, a domestic violence victim who was going through a separation and feared her husband.
On the eve of April 3rd 1993, King was followed by Joseph Harrington and Tony Baldacchino as she left her bar, the Lemon and Lime Bar.
The pair pulled her out of her driving seat near the Sant Antin waste recycling plant, gagged her, shoved her in the back and drove away.
Harrington wanted King to tell him where his wife was.
Investigators later found that the initial plan was to kill King and dump her body in a dump in Għaxaq. However, the plan was scrapped after children were seen playing in the area and they drove to Kunċizzjoni, in the countryside on the outskirts of Rabat.
It was there that King was struck on the head and left to burn alive in a car.
Anthony Abela Medici, a forensics expert who had pulled out King’s burnt body out of the car said it was “one of the worst cases Malta ever had”.
It was a bra strap that led experts to know it was a woman, which was found together with a pendant of a bowling pin.
King’s identity was confirmed after DNA tests, through dental records that were obtained from Northern Ireland, where she previously lived.
Just months before, King had become a national bowling champion.
Shortly after, a bag with two pistols and belongings of King was found under a car in Żejtun, leading police to heroin addict Tony Baldacchino.
Baldacchino told police that he was involved in the murder with Harrington, and both were arrested.
Harrington was convicted of the gruesome murder and sentenced to life in prison. He would later die in Mater Dei in 2014, 21 years after the killing.
Baldacchino on the other hand, was released from prison in 2002, and was found dead in his Bugibba flat the following year. He died of a suspected heroin overdose.
RIP King
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