Alleged Murderer Shot Her Millionaire Ex and Escaped in Gold Hummer

Let this be a warning for rich men who have a penchant for younger women—they can be quite jealous. When Andrew Bush, a 48-year-old multi-millionaire gold trader from Bristol in the United Kingdom, arrived at his love nest on the Spanish Costa del Sol on April 5 with his new 20-year-old Russian girlfriend, he had a surprise visitor waiting for him: his 24-year-old ex with a shotgun.

Bush had taken his new lover to the lavish villa for a romantic weekend when his former girlfriend Mayka Marica Kukucuva, a 24-year-old Slovakian model who often graces the swimsuit ads for the H&M retail chain, allegedly blasted him twice in the head. She was arrested in Slovakia on Tuesday after a Europe-wide mankiller hunt that at first focused on Italy and Portugal.

According to the Spanish press, Kukucuva had been lying in wait in the Spanish villa’s master bedroom. Bush and his new girlfriend, Maria Korotaeva, had spent some time downstairs sipping champagne to celebrate their five-month dating anniversary, and when Korotaeva went up to the bedroom around midnight, there was Kukuvuca, at which point Korotaeva reportedly told Bush, “I can’t deal with this,” and went outside to sit in Bush’s custom-painted gold Humvee 4X4.

Some of the details were filled in later by Bush’s ex-wife, Sam Mason, a radio presenter in her mid-40s who was famously let go by the BBC in 2008 for allegedly racist on-air remarks. On news of the shooting, she rushed to Spain with the couple’s 19-year-old daughter and was briefed on the killing.

According to Spanish press reports, Korotaeva told police that she hid on the floor of the car when she heard screaming and gunshots. Then Kukucuva reportedly opened the Hummer door and ordered Korotaeva to “get the f**• out of the car” and jumped in and sped away.

Korotaeva could not get back in the house because she didn’t know the security code to open the locked doors or grated windows. Adding to an inarguably bad day, her phone battery was dead so she had to hunt around the area until she found an outdoor outlet on the grounds to charge the phone. When she finally called the authorities, she didn’t know the exact address where they were. Two hours later, police arrived and broke into the house. By then Bush was quite dead.

According to press reports from Slovakia, Kukucuva left a rented Audi on the estate and drove the Hummer to her hometown of Nova Bosaca, Slovakia. The drive from the Costa del Sol is more about 2,000 miles and would take about 30 hours with no stops. No details of where she may have been hiding along the way have emerged, but a gold Hummer on European roads filled with little gas-sippers should be pretty easy to spot.

An international arrest warrant was issued after forensic tests on the gun matched Kukucuva’s fingerprints found on items belonging to her that she left on the premises. Slovakian press reports indicate that she sent text messages to her family while she was on the lam confessing that she killed Bush in “self defense” in sharp contrast with Korotaeva’s story that Bush’s ex had set up an ambush to kill the man who scorned her.

Some press reports from Spain allude to the presence of a male accomplice, but no further arrests have been made and no European arrest warrants have been issued. Pictures of Spanish police towing away the a Ferrari and Porsche that were apparently licensed to Bush away for forensic testing made headline news after the murder.

Apparently Kukucuva had been obsessing about the break-up for some time. She posted YouTube videos in December 2012 when the couple parted ways to try to win him back. In one six minute tribute to their relationship Kukucuva used text overlays to lament the breakup atop photos of the couple kissing and having what would appear to be a good time together. Kukucuva posted a second video a week later that includes screen shots of a number of text messages Bush apparently sent her calling her his “princess” and asking her to send suggestive selfies to him as the song “I’m Your Lady” plays in the background.

Spanish police told local journalists that neighbors had seen Kukucuva around Bush’s villa several days before the murder, often late at night, but because they recognized her and Bush didn’t live there permanently, her presence did not raise suspicion. It’s not clear where she had been staying before gaining access to the house, or whether Bush had just carelessly not changed his security codes since their breakup, which allowed her easy access.

According to the Bristol Post Bush and his new girlfriend Korotaeva met at the Costa Coffee shop in Bristol and the two were planning to move to London after she finished her final exams. “Obviously I am glad I am not dead but I feel like a train has been running up and down my body ripping me to bits,” she told the Bristol Post. “There’s no way of putting into words how you feel when somebody you love is killed. I feel dreadful right now. We had so many plans for the future and now there’s nothing.”