FIANCÉE ON
THE FIANCÉE of a British millionaire jeweller shot dead by his exlover today claims a business rival may have ordered his killing.
Maria Korotaeva speaks for the first time of the terrifying night Bristol businessman Andy Bush was murdered in his Spanish villa seven years ago.
She tells how he had proposed to her at dinner before driving them home in his £60,000 gold-plated Humvee 4x4.
But they did not realise his ex-girlfriend, Slovakian swimwear model Mayka Kukucova, was lying in wait for him inside, armed with a .38 revolver.
Kukucova shot 48-year-old Bush three times – twice in the head – before making her escape in his car. She was later caught in her home country 2,000 miles away and is now in jail.
In a Malaga court, the crime was put down to the revenge of a jealous lover… but Russian businesswoman Maria, 27 – who believes her own life may be at risk – has published allegations that the killing was a “hit” in a new tell-all book.
THREATENING
Her biggest revelation is that Bush had received death threats in the weeks leading up to his murder over plans to establish a jewellery business in London.
Maria says: “A couple of weeks before his murder, Andy was in Germany at a jewellers conference.
“He came back really upset, saying that someone – a rival entrepreneur, I think – was threatening him because of his plans. We think Mayka was told if she did the murder she would get three or four years.
“I’m now worried she may come find me when she gets out. God knows what she is thinking. What is in her head?”
Maria says Bush never reported the sinister threats to police because at the time “they didn’t take them seriously”.
Bush started dating Kukucova in 2012 after she got a job at his Gold Trader shop in Bristol. They were together for two years.
Months after their split he met Maria, who was in the UK studying for a business and human resources degree.
In April 2014, they flew to his five-bedroom villa in Estepona, 18 miles down the coast from Marbella, for a romantic weekend.
On the night of the murder, the couple had been out for dinner – where Bush popped the question.
“Twenty minutes before he was killed, he proposed to me,” says Maria.
But the couple never got to tell their families about their happy news.
“I remember we were sitting in Andy’s Hummer outside the house,” says Maria. “I went in first and as I entered, I saw that dirty dishes were lying on the table and I knew that they weren’t mine.
“I knew someone was in so I went to the second floor and I saw Mayka in her pyjamas. It was the first time I had ever seen her. She looked at me with no emotion whatsoever.
“I got scared and I just screamed. I ran
Andy was really upset. He said he was being threatened by someone MARIA ON HIS FEARS TWO WEEKS BEFORE KILLING
outside and back to the car.” Maria stayed in the Humvee while Andy went inside the house to speak to Kukucova.
She says she was unable to call the police because her mobile phone battery had died.
Then, after 10 minutes, she heard bangs inside the villa. Maria says: “I’ve never heard gunshots so I didn’t know what it was.
“I thought it was just something heavy dropping, like a suitcase down the stairs.
“Mayka came out fully dressed, with her hair in a ponytail and carrying a suitcase. She told me that Andy had said she could take the car.”
As Kukucova drove away into the night, a frantic Maria found herself locked out of the villa. It took three hours to gain access after she finally managed