This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

I was sitting right there. That's where I usually sat.

She kind of tapped out this last blog post and she told me I'll be I'll be back right after this appointment and when I'm back you can use the car and

It was a few minutes after that that I heard this really loud blast

There are crooks everywhere you look now.

The situation is desperate.

Daphne Carwana Galicia typed those words at 2.35 p.m. on October 16th, 2017, and pressed

publish.

Minutes later, she said goodbye to her eldest son, Matthew, climbed into her car

and set off for the bank to address her frozen accounts, the latest act of retribution imposed

by Malta's political class who had slapped the investigative journalist with yet another

libel lawsuit. Seconds later, an explosion shook the windows of the house.

Matthew already knew what had happened before he even opened the door.

And I knew it was a car bomb straight away.

I saw the logo of Peugeot, and at that moment I thought,

shit, there was a huge ball of fire. It looks like, I don't know, the fire of hell.

Matthew rent barefoot toward the fireball, roughly 100 meters down the road from their home

in Benilla.

Shards of metal and plastic littered the asphalt, leading to his mother's still burning car,

which had been hurled into a nearby field.

I started looking for his stick, and my idea was to use a stick to open the door, he later recalled.

...