A former Miss Switzerland finalist was allegedly strangled and dismembered with a jigsaw and garden shears before being pureed in a blender by her husband.
The body of 38-year-old model Kristina Joksimovic was found in February in Binningen, near Basel in Switzerland.
Her husband, who was only named by pseudonym Thomas in local media, 41, had an appeal for release from custody rejected today by the Federal Court in Lausanne after admitting to having killed his wife.
An ongoing investigation concluded today there were ‘concrete indications of mental illness’ underlying the case.
Kristina’s husband is reported to have claimed he killed her in self-defence after she came at him with a knife. He then reportedly said he dismembered the ex-model – with whom he has two children – ‘in a panic’.
The verdict states the suspect confessed to strangling his wife.
An autopsy concluded that the body was then dismembered in the laundry room with a jigsaw, knife and garden shears.
Body parts were then chopped up with a hand blender, ‘pureed’ and dissolved in a chemical solution, local outlet Blick reported.
A medical-forensic report also ‘contradicts his description of self-defence’, according to Swiss outlet FM1 Today.
Thomas, who is a Swiss national, was reportedly arrested a day after her remains were found by a ‘third party’.
Friends expressed their shock at the news. One told Blick as the news broke: ‘To me, they seemed like the perfect family.’
The couple, who got married in 2017, lived overlooking scenic views from a ‘spacious semi-detached house’ in an affluent area of Basel, 20 Minuten reported.
Another said the relationship had been ‘in crisis for months’, with police allegedly called out beforehand over reports of physical violence.
Just four weeks before she was killed, Kristina had posted pictures of a ‘couple’s getaway’ on her Instagram account, showing the snowy landscape from the window of a luxurious hotel above Lake Lucerne.
Investigators have said Thomas, a businessman, showed a ‘conspicuously high level of criminal energy’ in their assessment.
They cited a ‘lack of empathy and cold-bloodedness after killing his wife’, and his efforts to cover up her death, adding that the defendant had ‘sadistic-sociopathic traits’.
Kristina, a Binningen native with Serbian roots, had reportedly switched from modelling to become a catwalk coach, inspiring the next generation.
Among other things, she trained Miss Switzerland candidates to follow in her footsteps. She also trained businesswomen for walking confidently in their professional or private lives.
She had won the Miss Northwest Switzerland pageant in 2003 and went on to be a finalist in the 2008 Miss Switzerland competition.
The same year, she founded a coaching and consulting agency for aspiring models while still working full-time in IT recruitment.
