Law student Mihaela Berak warned her friends repeatedly that a police officer she dated briefly was "possessive, deranged and manipulative" before she was shot dead in Croatia.
Killed with the officer's service weapon in his apartment, the 20-year-old's death has triggered a firestorm in the Balkan nation just as it prepares to adopt legislation on femicide.
"He is (...) insane," Berak reportedly told a friend in a text that was published by local media after her killing in September.
Police initially chalked her death up to the "reckless handling of a weapon", but prosecutors have launched an investigation and the officer is presently the sole suspect.
The police have denied any wrongdoing and batted away accusations that they tried to cover up a crime by a fellow officer, saying their actions were "professional and impartial".
But critics insist Croatia's conservative, patriarchal culture and inadequate sanctions for violence planted the seeds for the killing long before the trigger was pulled.
"How is it possible for a man -- who a young girl concluded was manipulative and obsessive after knowing him for just a few days -- was able to pass a psychological test and get a weapons permit?" asked Sanja Kastratovic from the Adela women rights group.
After Berak's death, protests demanding justice were held in over a dozen Croatian cities on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Last year, 2,300 women were killed in Europe by an intimate partner or family members, according to European Union data. There were 12 such killings in Croatia.
- Legislative demands -
"The penal code should specify that femicide is an aggravating circumstance, which calls for particularly severe sanctions and long prison sentences," said Dorotea Susak, head of advocacy group Centre for Women's Studies.
Activists also want any new legislation to classify violence against women as felonies rather than misdemeanours, as well as a ban on police officers carrying weapons while off duty.
Shortly before Berak's killing, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced a new bill designed to tackle violence against women and children.
As part of the new measure, femicide will be introduced into the criminal code as a distinct crime, punishable by 10-40 years in prison.
In the EU, only Cyprus and Malta have similar laws recognising femicide as a crime in its own right, according to the European Parliament.
But the Croatian bill has not been welcomed by all.
A group of justices on Croatia's Supreme Court have suggested the inclusion of femicide in the bill would be discriminatory to men.
"By distinguishing between the murder of a woman and a man, it would appear that the life of a woman is worth more than that of a man," read a commentary by the group published online.
For human rights groups, the judges failed to recognise the regular discrimination women face in Croatia.
To drive the point home, Susak said more than 90 percent of crimes against women were committed by men.
- 'Sea of sadness' -
The president of the Supreme Court, Radovan Dobronic, also disagreed with his fellow justices.
He referred them to the Istanbul Convention on the Protection of Women, which Croatia ratified in 2018.
This international agreement is the first legally-binding instrument aimed at protecting women from domestic violence, marital rape and genital mutilation.
Under the convention, "special measures necessary to prevent and protect women against gender-based violence will not be considered as discrimination", Dobronic noted.
Legal experts who spoke to AFP nonetheless acknowledged that new laws can only achieve so much, when violence against women in Croatia is the norm for many.
"The penal code is the ultimate tool -– but does not solve the problem," said Suncana Roksandic, a professor at the Zagreb University Faculty of Law.
Kastratovic from the Adela rights group agreed.
"Changing the law is the easy part... We are still a patriarchal, conservative society," Kastratovic told AFP.
For Berak's family, her death has left a permanent void in their lives.
"We are condemned to a lifelong sea of sadness," Mihaela's mother Jadranka Berak said through tears. "We are broken."