Consumed by passion

A crime of passion triggered in the heat of the moment saw a Slovakian model sentenced to 15 years for the murder of British jeweller Andrew Bush. 

Mayka Kukucova, 26, was found guilty of the millionaire’s murder on May 27 by a Malaga jury which heard she was obsessed with the victim and devastated following their break up. 

They unanimously concluded that on April 5, 2014 she had broken into Rose’s Estepona home and laid in wait in her pyjamas until the 48-year-old returned with his new Russian girlfriend. She then shot him three times with an Amadeo Rossi .38 calibre revolver, with the final head shot described as the ‘coup de grace’ in the police report. 

On Tuesday May 31 judge Ernesto Manzano handed down the 15-year sentence noting that it was mitigated by her warped state of mind at the time and her ‘heartbroken apology’ in her final address to the courtroom. 

Two years spent awaiting trial in the Alhaurin de la Torre prison will be deducted from the sentence and Kukucova was ordered to pay substantial compensation to Mr Bush’s daughter and sister. 

Her defence team maintains that the model, who fled to Slovakia after the shooting, acted in self-defence, fired the shots accidently in a condition of ‘insurmountable fear.’ They will now appeal the judgement. 

Portrayed as obsessive and consumed with jealousy in the courtroom, Kukucova’s appearance elicited powerful emotions from Rose’s family, with his daughter Ellie visiting his grave in Spain to say they’d finally got justice for him. 

“She was sobbing the whole time, she has actually started to believe her own lies. She has lost everything and I pity her,” she told the press after the trial.

Ellie had previously described Kukucova as psychotic and exhibiting disturbingly obsessive behaviour towards her father, who had taken out a restraining order against his ex shortly before his death.