A woman who formed a close friendship with speedboat killer Jack Shepherd said he “cried his eyes out” when he told her about the death crash.
Maiko Tchanturidze, 24, said he made an emotional video call to her about the death of Charlotte Brown days before he surrendered to police in Georgia.
She told the Sun: “He was struggling to get his words out, but he said he’d been involved in a boat accident where a girl had died, and that he was wanted by Interpol.
He said he was going to hand himself in because he ‘didn’t want to be hunted down like an animal’.
“I was beyond shocked and, by the end, he was also crying his eyes out. It was very frightening to hear his story.” Shepherd, 31, claimed the crash was not his fault.
Charlotte, of Clacton, Essex, drowned in the Thames in December 2015 on her first date with Shepherd. He fled the country but his Old Bailey manslaughter trial convicted him in his absence and sentenced him to six years in jail.
He spent 10 months on the run before surrendering to police in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi on Wednesday.
Shepherd caused outrage by appealing against his conviction while a fugitive with the help of legal aid. He has received more than £93,000 for his Old Bailey trial and is reportedly paying his legal team in Georgia £15,000.
Last week Graham Brown, Ms Brown’s father, said: “At last we are getting closer to justice for my daughter.”
