The tragic journey of the finalist in the Miss Switzerland election: From a glamorous life to being dismembered by her husband

On the surface, Swiss model and mother of two, Kristina Joksimovic, seemed to have it all.

With a successful career as a runway coach, a polished modeling portfolio and a life that took her from Hawaii's beaches to the ski resorts of her native Switzerland, she admitted there were many aspects of her life that she could be proud of.

But Kristina was undoubtedly most proud of her daughters, who were born in 2020 and 2021, just 17 months apart.

Kristina, a former finalist in the Miss Switzerland pageant, made it clear that her two daughters with striking red hair mean everything to her.

In September 2021, just weeks before the birth of her second child, Kristina posted a black-and-white photo of herself and her eldest daughter on Instagram, showing their backs as they sat by a lake in Basel, Switzerland.

“I am proud of many things in life, but nothing is more beautiful than being a mother,” she wrote.

Two years later, with her two beautiful daughters and husband by her side, she shared another carefully posed photo, this time of the whole family in silhouette on a sandy beach. The caption read simply “my world,” but instead of writing the word, she used a little globe emoji.

Today, these images and words convey a deep sadness and remind us that while a camera can capture a moment, it cannot always tell the whole story.

At the beginning of the year, just six months after this second Instagram post, 38-year-old Kristina Joksimovic was found dead in the basement of the house in the affluent Binningen district of Basel-Landschaft that she lived in with her husband – whose name cannot be mentioned due to Swiss data protection law.

The horrific details of her death, which only came to light this week due to the strict secrecy of criminal investigations in Switzerland, have shocked the nation and beyond.

Autopsy reports revealed that the slim blonde model was strangled and dismembered. Parts of her body were placed in a blender and then dissolved in a chemical solution.