Marc Rieben (43), accused of the brutal murder of his wife Kristina Joksimović, whom he beheaded after the crime and then blended body parts in an industrial blender, has been sentenced to life imprisonment!
Kristina’s father, who found his daughter’s head in the trash, cried inconsolably in the courtroom after the sentence was handed down to his executioner son-in-law. As a reminder, the couple had two daughters during their marriage.
The murder occurred in Switzerland in February 2024, and some details of the case are so disturbing that the public was not allowed to attend court hearings, and journalists reporting on the case had to sit in a separate room.
Passing the sentence on Rieben for the crime, Judge Daniel Schmid said that “there are cases that turn fiction into reality. This case has changed our reality.”
The case, which deeply disturbed the public in Serbia as well, filled the headlines of world media for days. Before today’s sentencing, more than 50 people gathered in front of the court, and security measures were increased to prevent unrest.
In addition to serving a life sentence, Marc Rieben will have to pay 100,000 Swiss francs in damages to the two daughters he had with Kristina, who are five and six years old, as well as 120,000 francs to her father, 100,000 to her mother, and 60,000 to her sister.
“Marc’s behavior after the crime was almost unbelievable in its cruelty and absurdity. The man acted systematically and with a plan. His behavior showed the full measure of his hatred toward the victim,” the prosecutors stated during their closing remarks.
At the opening of the trial, Rieben claimed that Kristina’s death was an “accident,” saying: “I have caused my family immense suffering. Why? Why did I fail? Why couldn’t I prevent it? Why couldn’t I prevent her from dying by my hand? I loved my wife with all my heart and believed in a future together. It haunts me day and night. What I did is absolutely inexcusable, and I take full responsibility. I deeply regret it and I apologize,” Rieben said.
Grisly crime shocked all of Europe
As a reminder, Kristina was killed in her home in February 2024, and the crime was allegedly preceded by an argument between the spouses and her request for a divorce.
Although they appeared to the wider public as an idyllic couple, the truth is that Kristina had endured horrific verbal and physical abuse for years, which she had complained about to her loved ones. She allegedly postponed the divorce from Marc fearing she would lose the children, as he constantly threatened to take her daughters away.
When Kristina’s remains were found, many could not believe what had happened. Kristina was once Miss Switzerland and taught aspiring models. Marc is the son of a successful lawyer, had a good job, they lived in a large house, and Marc was considered a devoted husband and father.
Kristina regularly posted photos on social media where she was smiling with her husband and their two daughters. Just a month before she was killed, Kristina shared photos on social media of an “escape with her husband,” ethereal snowy scenes from a luxury hotel above the lake in Lucerne. From the outside, it was a picture of success and stability—but then the unthinkable happened…
In February 2024, Marc Rieben killed his wife Kristina Joksimović in a fit of rage before dismembering her body and putting parts of the body in a blender—”pureeing them,” as described in the autopsy findings.
According to the indictment, the violence followed an argument over the divorce. Allegedly, on February 13, the couple discussed the terms of the upcoming divorce during lunch. Marc refused to accept the divorce, wanted full custody of the children, and withheld financial support from his wife.
An escalation of the conflict followed, and then Rieben grabbed his wife Kristina by the throat and pressed her against the wall. He then wrapped a “tape-like object” around her neck and strangled her, before mutilating and destroying her body in a blender.
The autopsy showed that Kristina’s body displayed signs of blunt force trauma, including cuts on her face and bruises on her leg, foot, shoulder blades, and the back of her head. Part of her hair had been torn out.
After death, Rieben dismembered her body using a jigsaw, a knife, and garden shears.
Investigators say he “carefully removed” her uterus, in what experts described as “deliberate mutilation or ritualized degradation of the body” which may indicate a mental disorder.
Some body parts were placed in an industrial blender, while others were dissolved in a chemical solution.
Investigators also discovered that he played YouTube videos on his phone while carrying out the dismemberment.
Inside the laundry room in the basement of the family home, described as an “isolated bunker with thick concrete walls,” investigators later discovered “a large number of skin flaps, some with muscle attached,” along with pieces of muscle and bone.
Father found Kristina’s head in a trash bag
The parts of Kristina’s dismembered body were initially discovered not by the police, but by her father. After she failed to pick up her daughters from kindergarten, her parents became worried. When Kristina’s father went to her house, Marc first claimed he did not know where Kristina was. For hours, Marc acted as if nothing had happened. He cooked dinner and spoke normally with his father-in-law, and then he got the children ready for bed.
“Marc insisted that he didn’t know where Kristina was and claimed that she had a habit of ‘just leaving sometimes,'” Kristina’s friend told the media.
While Marc was talking to Kristina’s mother over the phone, her father began searching the house, room by room. In the basement, Kristina’s father saw a black trash bag from which strands of blonde hair were protruding.
“When he opened the trash bag, he saw Kristina’s severed head inside,” a friend told the Daily Mail.
Kristina’s father ran out of the house screaming, stopped the first passerby and yelled to call the police immediately, and then he ran back into the house to confront his son-in-law.
According to the investigation, Marc Rieben, who apparently did not expect the body to be found so quickly, showed no emotion or distress during his arrest. During the hearing, he admitted to dismembering his wife’s body, stating that he killed her in self-defense and that he “mutilated the body in a panic.”
Describing what happened before the murder, Marc Rieben said that he had a “positive” conversation with Kristina before she “suddenly attacked him with a knife.”
After the crime, testimonies from friends emerged, detailing a completely different private reality marked by violence and abuse before her murder. One of Kristina’s closest friends claimed that Marc Rieben wanted to keep Kristina under control and they became increasingly withdrawn.
“She was really in love at the beginning, but I was a bit surprised when she started a relationship with him because he didn’t suit her at all. He seemed very introverted, very critical, and sometimes quite arrogant,” the friend said earlier.
“He was really derogatory toward her, in gestures, words, and even tone… he wanted Kristina to disappear,” she said, adding that Kristina and Marc’s relationship deteriorated after the birth of the children.
“Kristina would often complain that their relationship, especially after the birth of the children, had gone wrong. He closed himself off even more and allowed no one to approach him. She tried to talk to him, to save the marriage. They even went to therapy with a psychologist, but he would always leave the session or simply not show up. She didn’t know what else to do, and the situation was getting worse,” the friend claims.
Kristina’s friend also points out that her friend once complained to her that she had to call the police, although Kristina did not want to reveal what had happened.
“She didn’t want to tell me the details, only that he was violent and that he threatened her that if she called the police, he would turn everything around and accuse her, and then ‘she would see what would happen to her,'” the friend said.
Kristina’s long-time friend described Marc Rieben as increasingly obsessive, especially regarding their children.
“They were his perfect project, and Kristina was in his way,” she said.
She added that he controlled many aspects of their upbringing, from strict bedtimes to banning screen time and limiting what they could listen to.
He reportedly insisted they avoid “feminine clothing” and placed importance on them growing up multilingual.
“He hates femininity,” she added, referring to the removal of Kristina’s uterus.
The prosecution previously stated that Rieben had a history of violence and that he had strangled his wife in the past, which investigators were able to prove based on old photographs of the victim. Other allegations include that he grabbed a previous partner by the neck, hit her, and pushed her against a wall.
According to the indictment, Rieben committed the murder in a calculated and intentional manner, with full awareness, and out of a “selfish attitude and mentality characterized by a need for control, hurt feelings, revenge, and intense rage.”
A forensic psychologist diagnosed him with narcissistic and obsessive-compulsive traits, describing him as a “highly rational thinker with a pronounced cognitive-technical perspective.” Investigators stated that Rieben showed a “lack of empathy and cold-bloodedness after killing his wife” and displayed “sadistic-sociopathic traits.”
It was determined that his risk characteristics include “increased rigidity,” a heightened need for control, egocentricity, rage-driven reactivity, and a tendency toward manipulation. A psychiatrist challenged the claim of self-defense, stating that victims of sudden, life-threatening attacks usually contact the police immediately to report trauma without hesitation or “filtering” details.
In addition, the expert said that his behavior after the incident consisted of a series of “rapid, purposeful, and methodically carried out actions,” which contradicts Rieben’s claim of “panic.”
His actions make psychological sense only if his interest was “removing as many traces as possible, including the body, to cover up what actually happened,” the expert added in comments reported by Tages-Anzeiger.
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Source: Telegraf; Photo: Printscreen