Ukrainian model Alona Savchenko was killed by her boyfriend, who then dismembered her body with a chainsaw. It all happened in a luxury hotel in Thailand.
He allegedly tried to figure out how to dismember the body using Google Translate.
The crime was discovered yesterday and it all started on April 29, when Alona Savchenko (24 years old) checked into a hotel in Bangkok with her partner Jane Jerzi Lagoda-Filipov (25 years old).
The Pole had an advertising agency in London and Savchenkova had previously done photo shoots for him and several other advertising agencies.
She was also paid by brands to advertise their products on social media.
Hotel staff said the couple looked happy as they entered the hotel together, and surveillance footage from the hallway showed them smiling as they made their way to their room.
But something became suspicious for the security guards on the morning of May 15, when a Polish tourist left the hotel building, alone and in a hurry. He was dragging his suitcases behind him and looked very nervous.
Surveillance cameras leaving the hotel show him shaking as he exits the elevator with his luggage.
Lagoda-Filipov hailed a taxi, and the driver later called the hotel to inform them of the disturbing behavior of the passenger he was transporting.
After the taxi driver called, hotel staff went to check the room on the 32nd floor, where they found Alona Savchenko's body in bed. Her face was covered in blood and her left hand was cut at the wrist.
Her head was partially severed with a deep cut from her neck to her left shoulder and she also had a stab wound to her chest.
A saw with blood was found near the body. Investigators believe she had died about a day before the body was found.
Savchenko studied in China and traveled to Valencia, Warsaw, Istanbul, London and Rome, all in the months before arriving in Bangkok at the end of April.
Thai police said her boyfriend may have been trying to cross the border into Cambodia when he escaped.
The police also talked to the taxi driver who transported the killer after he left the hotel.
"I picked up a suspicious passenger who, with the help of Google Translate, told me he wanted to go to a casino. When he couldn't find a suitable place, he asked me, also with the help of Google Translate, to help him find a way to dismember his girlfriend's body by offering me 1,500 baht ($44),” said the taxi driver.
Terrified by such an offer, the taxi driver dropped the Polish tourist off at a hotel in Bangkok's Satorn district and then called the hotel where he had previously stayed.
Lagoda-Filipov was captured at the Aranjapratet border crossing in Sa Kaeo province. Police officers did not arrest him at first, but the police dog ran to a tourist agency near the border where it detected an unusual smell.
Labrador Judy started wagging her tail when she smelled the suspect sitting outside that agency with a ticket to Cambodia.
He had filled out the visa forms and was only minutes away from boarding the van. Armed policemen then arrested him.
Police officers said he was very calm during the arrest. He drank his coffee in his cell and began to exercise, as if it were his normal morning routine.
The investigation is ongoing and the Polish embassy has been contacted.