Swiss prosecutors have formally charged the husband of a former Miss Switzerland contestant with her murder, bringing a grim case that began in early 2024 into its next legal phase.
On Wednesday, December 10, The New York Post reported that the Basel-Landschaft public prosecutor’s office had completed its criminal investigation into the death of Kristina Joksimovic, a 38-year-old former beauty pageant finalist.
Prosecutors filed charges of murder as well as disturbing the peace of the dead against a now 43-year-old Swiss man, her husband, with the case moving to the Basel-Landschaft Criminal Court. A trial date has not yet been announced, and her husband's name has not been released.
According to the prosecutor’s statement, investigators believe Joksimovic was killed on February 13, 2024, inside the home the couple shared in Binningen, a municipality just outside Basel.
Authorities declined to provide further details on the sequence of events, citing the ongoing judicial process. The accused remains in preventive detention, and officials emphasized that the presumption of innocence still applies, per The New York Post.
The case first drew public attention after Swiss media and international outlets reported that a woman had been found dead in Binningen under suspicious circumstances. She had been murdered, dismembered, and her womb had been cut out and pureed in a blender.
While police initially did not identify the victim, People later confirmed that the victim was Kristina Joksimovic, who had competed in the 2007 Miss Switzerland pageant and later built a career mentoring aspiring models and running her own coaching business.
Investigators later revealed that Joksimovic’s husband had given conflicting accounts to authorities in the aftermath of her death. Court documents cited by Swiss outlets indicated that he initially claimed to have discovered her body and acted out of panic.
In March 2024, prosecutors said he admitted responsibility for her death, though he alleged it occurred in self-defense—an explanation authorities have disputed based on forensic findings.
An autopsy determined that Joksimovic’s cause of death was strangulation. Prosecutors have maintained that the evidence does not support claims of self-defense.
Joksimovic and her husband shared two children, who were placed in care immediately following her death, Swiss police said last year.