Miss Switzerland finalist husband 'is ticking time bomb', friend says

From the outside, he looked like the perfect father and husband. He came from a wealthy family, had a good job, a big house and even volunteered with a scout's group.

But behind closed doors, he was a 'cold-hearted psychopath' who ended up strangling his ex-model wife to death.

Horrifyingly, he didn't stop there, as he went on to dismember and decapitate the woman he claimed to love before pureeing some of her body parts in a blender and cutting out her womb.

Their fairytale-turned-nightmare relationship started when Marc Rieben, 41, met his future victim, ex-model Kristina Joksimovic, 38, at work and quickly married her in August 2017, before the couple had two daughters in 2020 and 2021.

'She was really in love at the beginning, but I was a bit surprised when she got into a relationship with him as he didn't suit her at all. He came across as really introverted, very critical and sometimes quite arrogant,' one of Kristina's closest friends exclusively told MailOnline.

'Kristina was married to a killer and had no idea. She left that psychopath home alone with the children. He was really derogatory with her, with gestures, words and even his tone... he wanted Kristina to disappear.'

Kristina's friend, who wants to remain anonymous out of fear of 'repercussions' from Marc, said that the business consultant is a 'ticking time bomb'.

She fears 'all of us [will be] dead in the water, especially his children,' if Marc is released from custody, she revealed to MailOnline.

'If he can do something like this to Kristina, who he loved and is the mother of his own two children out of a hatred for her and an inferiority complex, then what will he do to those of us who told the police about their relationship.'

In interviews, which Marc as the suspect was allowed to attend under Swiss law, he was 'so cold and showed no remorse'.

Kristina's friend said after her death, she was devastated, but now she was just angry, especially after more details about the horrifying crime came out in federal court.

She added: 'Kristina often told me that their relationship, especially since their children were born, was going badly.

'He turned in on himself more and didn't let anyone get close. She tried to talk to him and to save the relationship. They attended couple's counselling together, where he always left or refused to attend. She didn't really know what to do as it got worse.

'She told me that she had to get police once, but wouldn't tell me details about this, only that he was violent and threatened her that if she called the police, he would turn it around on her and she would see what would happen to her then.'

Federal court documents have revealed that the police were called to the couple's home on July 14, 2023, with pictures from the incident reportedly showing strangulation marks on Kristina's neck.

Before her death, Kristina had decided that she wanted to divorce Marc - with her friend warning her that she 'needed to be careful', as his 'family is quite influential'.

'But we, her friends, never thought he would do something like this. In front of us, he was never violent. He was verbally disrespectful to her, but never anything physical.

'She told us that he started drinking and consuming drugs and she caught him smoking weed in a storage room in their basement twice.

'She said she wanted to leave him and got advice from a lawyer what she would have to do.'

Her friend claims that Marc always tried to get Kristina out of the house so he could be alone with the children and ultimately killed her so she 'disappeared'.

'What he did to her… He wanted to eliminate her and for her to have never existed. He wanted her to disappear in thin air, with those chemicals, and pretend that she just left because it got too much for her,' she said.

'Kristina told me: "Marc always wants me to leave the house." When we were out and about, she would always check in how the kids were doing and waited to hear from Marc. She really just wanted to be with her daughters, but he wouldn't let her.

'She was the type of person who didn't want to talk badly about her marriage, so for her to even tell me what she did in the last twelve months, showed me that it was really, really bad.

'I should have registered it as a call for help, but I didn't. Me and her other friends will always blame ourselves and we will carry this with us forever.'

The autopsy report shows Kristina, who competed in the Miss Switzerland competition in 2007, was decapitated when her husband dismembered her body with a jigsaw, a knife and garden shears.

He also 'carefully removed' Kristina's womb, which was the only organ cut out of her torso, and this 'deliberate mutilation or ritualised degradation of the body' is believed to indicate that Marc has a mental disorder, according to the court.

'He hates femininity,' Kristina's friend added about Marc removing the mother-of-two's womb.

Some of his wife's body parts were forced into a powerful industrial blender, in which he 'pureed' them, as well as dissolving some in a chemical solution.

Marc admitted that he dismembered her in their laundry room 'in a panic' and 'pureed' her with an industrial blender that he 'coincidentally had in his basement after buying it for a scout's group'.

The autopsy found that Kristina's cause of death was strangulation, with her neck showing a 'reddish throttle mark'.

Her body showed signs of blunt force trauma suffered prior to her death, with Kristina having cuts on her cheek, under her eyebrow and nose as well as several bruises on her right lower leg, foot, shoulder blades and on the back of her head.

A closer examination of Kristina's head revealed wounds indicating that some of her hair was ripped out.

The experts who analysed the dismemberment of her body said Marc used a jigsaw, a knife and a pair of garden shears to dismember Kristina, before either throwing 'various body parts' into an industrial blender or dissolving them in a chemical solution.

Investigators found 'a large number' of skin flaps, 'some with attached muscles' as well as 'a large number of pieces of muscle, some with attached pieces of bone'.

The autopsy revealed that before Marc dismembered her, he broke Kristina's hip joints out of their sockets and went on to disarticulation - which is the removal of a bone from its joint, like an amputation - with her left upper arm, forearms and right lower leg.

He then 'roughly severed' Kristina's upper spine to decapitate her and further split her torso in half above her pelvis.

While dismembering the body, he was playing YouTube videos on his phone, investigators said.

'It doesn't surprise me that he watched YouTube videos while he [dismembered her], as even on the kids' birthday parties he always had his headphones in his ears and was listening to something,' Kristina's friend told MailOnline.

Kristina's remains were discovered by her horrified father on February 13, with a family friend telling MailOnline that he found a black bin bag with blonde hair sticking out in the laundry room of the large house on the 'gold hill' of Binningen, near Basel.

'When he opened the black bin bag, he saw her cut off head with the hair still attached,' the woman, who said she has known Kristina's parents and other relatives for years, said.

Kristina's father reportedly made the disturbing find after being at the house for hours, having dinner with his two granddaughters, aged three and four, and talking to Marc, who repeatedly feigned ignorance about where the former model was.

When Kristina's father went down to the 'isolated bunker with thick concrete walls' in the basement, where the couple's laundry room is located, he saw a big black bin bag with strands of hair poking out.

'When he opened it and found her chopped off head inside, he ran out of the garage [door] screaming and told a passer-by to call the police, before returning to the house to confront his son-in-law, who was gobsmacked as he probably didn't think someone would find her,' Kristina's friend said.

The friend even claimed Marc heartlessly blamed Kristina's parents for overstaying their welcome on the day they found her remains, saying they would not have stumbled across them if they'd 'only come by briefly' as he was led away in handcuffs.

She added: 'He showed no remorse. How deranged do you have to be to not show a single emotion.'

As Kristina's long-time friend, the woman was present for the couple's milestones and often saw how Marc treated his wife - and their children.

'He developed obsessive and compulsive tendencies when it came to the children. They were his perfect project and Kristina was in the way,' she said.

On his LinkedIn profile, Marc, who started his own business consulting firm in 2022, wrote that he is a 'proud father of two baby girls'.

Kristina's friend said: 'He always thought he was something better, which also came across on the children's birthdays, where he separated their families and friends to have his and her side over separately.

'He was never aggressive with the kids or anything like that, but he was decisive.'

Kristina reportedly said that Marc never wanted their daughters to wear 'feminine clothing' and was 'very particular' and 'really compulsive' when it came to the children. 'She thought he was a helicopter parent,' her friend added.

'Bed times had to be strictly adhered to, they were not allowed any screen time or to watch any comics. They were only allowed to listen to selected audio books, especially in French, since it was important to him that they grow up multilingual.'

But neither friends nor family ever had any inkling that Marc, who grew up bilingually speaking both French and German, was capable of strangling and dismembering his wife, which he admitted to in court.

The friend said: 'He can pretend very well. We – no matter if neighbours, colleagues, friends or relatives – never thought he would be capable to do something like this.

'He strangled her, cut her up, pureed her and chemically dissolved her. He took out her womb. You know these facts but when you have him in front of you, you'd think this doesn't add up. It just doesn't fit that he is capable of this.

The woman continued: 'We couldn't say that we ever noticed anything, he was just a normal father. Back at their wedding, this separation of his and her family and friends wasn't there. This only came later.

'In the beginning, he worshipped the ground she walked on. He loved her more than anything and treated her like a queen. Never in a million years would you have thought he would ever do something like this.'

Another family friend added: 'He was a really nice guy. Every relative is saying that he was so nice. There was nothing that appeared off about him.'

Last week, Marc had an appeal for release from custody rejected by the Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne - after already having his request denied at the lower court - since an ongoing investigation found there were 'concrete indications of mental illness' underlying the case.

Her friend told MailOnline: 'The last week in particular was really hard for us, her friends, after these awful details came out in court. Since she died, we have just been functioning and we have moments were all we can do is cry.

'These are scars, deep scars, that will stay for the rest of our lives. I hope he is being kept behind bars, because everything else is a ticking time bomb for me.

'With the Swiss system, he could get three years for killing her and a maximum of 20 if it was murder.

'But will also pretend in prison, he will deceive everyone, that's what the does. Then he would have good behaviour – as we know how well he can play pretend - so he would only have to do a third of whichever sentence he gets.

'In a few years, he will be back out and will have a new relationship and the same thing that happened to Kristina will happen to the new girlfriend. He is the kind of guy that needs to be in preventative detention, you can't let him lose on people.'

His behaviour on the day of Kristina's killing indicates that Marc is 'extremely violent, particularly towards his respective life partners, sometimes with sadistic-sociopathic traits', according to the court documents.

It also revealed 'a low level of frustration tolerance and poor impulse control' and an 'increasing escalation of violence', according to the court.

The court heard how Marc's former partner told the prosecutor that he 'used massive violence against her on several occasions' until April 2016, just a little over a year before he married Kristina.

She said that he drove over her foot with his car during one his 'frequent fits of rage' after the couple visited her parents and also threatened to throw her out of the vehicle on the drive home.

Another time during a car ride, she said he slammed on the breaks, causing her to smash her head on the dashboard.

Marc, who lived in Bern at the time, also allegedly grabbed his then partner by the neck and pushed her against the wall. She said he sometimes 'lost control' during arguments, which caused him to 'hit or strangle' her.

The woman also claims that she knew that there had been 'problems' like 'violence or sexual matters' in his previous relationships.

Shortly before Kristina was killed, she spoke to her friend, who now tearfully told MailOnline: 'We've been friends for years and she was a kind-hearted person, who always wanted to help and motivate other people to believe in themselves.

'She always had new ideas and was full of energy. She was always there for you and you could call her any time, she would always listen.

'She needed the catwalk stuff to be confident in herself. She was a bit insecure until she put her high heels on, which gave her confidence when she was otherwise shy.'

'She was a really loving mother,' the friend added.

Kristina's young daughters, aged two and four, were treated by child psychologists, who explained to them at her funeral that their 'mama is sleeping' and 'isn't around anymore', according a family friend.

'There were a lot of people at the funeral, including family who travelled here from abroad. It was heartbreaking and surreal. Even though we knew it was Kristina's funeral, it didn't feel real. It was unbelievable for everyone,' her friend added.

'There were people who are involved with the Miss Switzerland organisation, family, friends and lots of others.'

Now, eight months after the gruesome killing, numerous flower tributes are still being placed outside Kristina's house and on her grave.

Also on her grave is a heartbreaking piece of art her daughters made, with writing in Serbian saying: 'We love you.'

The heinous attack came just weeks after Kristina posted images of an idyllic 'couple's getaway' they'd shared to Lake Lucerne on social media.

Online, it looked like a couple in love took some out for themselves, but the reality was different, according to Kristina's friend.

'On the way there, he told her that he can't wait for them to start fighting so he can go home to the kids.

'At dinner, he insulted other couples there and when she told him to stop and that he was embarrassing, he got up and said she would not forbid him to speak. Then he just left her there in that hotel, alone.'

Her friend now said that she wanted to share what Kristina and Marc's relationship was like to 'give her a voice again'.

'I want people know what he did to her and that it can happen out of a perfect relationship, with a lot of money and no worries,' she explained. 'Even if it just starts with insults in the marriage or relationship, you have to be vigilant.

'If you realise that the other is starting to hate you, no matter if woman or man, then it is better to go than try and make it work. She always wanted to empower women and I want to make sure she can still do this in a way after her death.

'I want to convey the message that even if a relationship looks perfect on the outside, it isn't always like that on the inside.'

If you are worried that a friend, neighbour or loved one is a victim of domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline for free and confidential advice, 24 hours a day on 0808 2000 247 .