Glamorous new photos have emerged of the Ukrainian model who was hacked to death inside an upscale apartment in Thailand, revealing that she styled herself as a pin-up model and was apparently inspired by Marilyn Monroe.
Alona Savchenko, 24, was found brutally stabbed and mutilated with a saw at the Key Sathorn-Charoenraj condominium building in Bangkok’s Bang Kho Laem district Monday, leading to the arrest of her Polish businessman boyfriend, Jan Jerzy Lagoda-Filippow.
Lagoda-Filippow, 25, was apprehended just hours later trying to cross the border into Cambodia, after he allegedly used Google Translate to ask a taxi driver to help him dispose of his girlfriend’s body, reported ViralPress.
Lagoda-Filippow owns an advertising firm registered in London, and Savchenko reportedly had done photoshoots for his company and others.
Photos of Savchenko taken in the months leading up to her grisly death show the young woman posing up in a variety of picturesque locales in London, Rome, Valencia and Istanbul.
In her many sultry selfies, the fresh-faced model puts on display her wavy blonde locks and hourglass figure.
One of the photos shows Savchenko dressed in a plunging lilac gown, standing in front of a wall of pink roses.
In another, she wears a strapless top and has a dreamy expression on her face framed by soft curls reminiscent of her movie star idol, Marilyn Monroe.
According to Savchenko’s LinkedIn page, when she was not appearing in photoshoots and jet-setting around the globe, she made a living as a marketing specialist for an Estonian firm.
She graduated last year from Zaporizhzhia National University in Ukraine with a Bachelor’s degree in English language and literature, and had completed a three-month course in international business at Guangdong University of Finance in China.
Savchenko previously worked as an English tutor and a social media content creator.
Thai authorities have not revealed a possible motive behind the model’s brutal killing.
They said that Savchenko and her boyfriend had checked into the high-end condominium in Bangkok on April 29, and surveillance video showed the duo smiling and chatting in the hallway as recently as last Friday.
On Monday afternoon, Lagoda-Filippow was seen on CCTV video leaving the building with a suitcase without Savchenko.
Later, building workers and police acting on a tip from a taxi driver who had been hired by Lagoda-Filippow entered the couple’s apartment on the 32nd floor and found the 24-year-old Savchenko slaughtered on a bed beneath a blanket.
The woman, whose face was coated with blood, reportedly had been stabbed in the chest and nearly decapitated. Her hand also had been hacked off at the wrist.
Police recovered a blood-stained saw near the victim’s body.
Detectives interviewed Lagoda-Filippow’s cabbie, Surachai Sabaibang, who told them that the Polish national asked him to take him to a casino, and then used the Google Translate function on his phone to ask him to help cut up his girlfriend’s body in exchange for $44.
The driver dropped his passenger off at a hotel in Sathorn district and called the authorities.
Later that night, officers with a ranger force were at Rong Klua market in the Aranyaprathet district on the Cambodia border, located some 135 miles from Bangkok, when one of their dogs, a Labrador puppy named Judy, ran up to sniff a foreigner sitting on a stone table next to a travel agency.
Police Capt. Thavorn Boonpeng said his men recognized the Caucasian man from a photo that was issued by immigration officials as part of the manhunt for Lagoda-Filippow.
They said he had visa forms on hand and was about to board a minivan bound for neighboring Cambodia when he was detained.
The rangers escorted Lagoda-Filippow to their camp for questioning, but he refused to speak to them. They then searched his luggage and allegedly found a passport belonging to Savchenko.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Pongpun Phonharn described the suspect as being “very calm” at the time of his late-night arrest.
“He drank coffee as normal in his cell and started exercising, like it was his normal morning routine. He did not say anything,” he said.
