Dad of 'murdered' ex-Miss Switzerland finalist 'found her head in a bin bag' after dinner with husband and children
16 September 2024, 10:48
The father of a murdered former Miss Switzerland found her head in a bin bag after having dinner with her husband and children, a family friend has said.
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Kristina Joksimovic, 38, was killed, dismembered and fed into a blender, in February with her husband Marc Rieben, 41, accused of her murder.
Shocking details have since emerged, including that her father went for dinner with Rieben and his grandchildren at the family home near Basel, before discovering his own daughter's decapitated head.
He saw Ms Joksimovic's blonde hair sticking out of the bin bag in the laundry room of the house in Binningen, a family friend said.
"When he opened the black bin bag, he saw her cut off head with the hair still attached," she told MailOnline.
The father only made the chilling find after hours together with his son-in-law and his grandchildren, who are aged three and four.
Rieben claimed not to know where his wife was during the dinner.
The family first became concerned after the children's kindergarten phoned to ask for them to be picked up, as Ms Joksimovic hadn't collected them.
Their grandfather then dropped them off at home, and Rieben said he was unaware of where his wife was and offered him a drink.
The friend said: "For hours, he pretended as if nothing was wrong, chatting to her father and making dinner for everyone before tucking the children into their beds.
"Her father went to pick up her mother and returned to the house.
"Marc kept insisting he didn't know where Kristina was and claimed she would just leave sometimes.
"Her mother wanted to file a missing person report with the police, but they couldn't do anything because she hadn't been missing for more than a day and Marc ended up hanging up the phone."
The father insisted on searching all over the house, and eventually went down to laundry room in the basement.
He opened up the bin bag, found his daughter's severed head and ran out screaming to tell a passer-by to call the police.
The father then ran back inside and confronted Rieben, who was later arrested. The alleged killer is said to have shown no emotion as he was led away by police, even telling the mother: ""Well, you told me you'd only come by briefly."
Rieben claimed he killed his wife in self-defence after she came at him with a knife before dismembering her “in a panic”.
An autopsy found the body was then dismembered with a jigsaw, knife and garden shears before body parts were 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.
An ongoing investigation concluded on Wednesday there were “concrete indications of mental illness” underlying the case.
Just four weeks before she was killed, Kristina shared pictures of a “couple's getaway” on her Instagram account.
Kristina had reportedly switched from modelling to become a catwalk coach, while 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.
