Maiko Tchanturidze, 24, said he made an emotional video call to her just days before he surrendered to police in Georgia.
She recalled: “He said he had something to tell me. He seemed upset, his face was red.
“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.”
Self-pitying Shepherd, 31, persuaded her the death of Charlotte Brown, 24, had not been his fault. Maiko said: “I had questions, but he answered them all and cleared even tiny doubts I had.”
Charlotte, of Clacton, Essex, drowned in the Thames in December 2015 on her first date with Shepherd.
She had gone for a ride in his aging speedboat after returning from a boozy meal to his houseboat in West London.
Web developer Shepherd fled the country but his Old Bailey manslaughter trial convicted him in his absence and sentenced him to six years in jail.
He spent ten months on the run before surrendering to police in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi on Wednesday.
In that time he was allowed to claim nearly £100,000 in legal aid to fight an appeal. He is paying three lawyers out of his own pocket to fight extradition.
Maiko, below, now working in customer service for a German company, said the pair met in a park when he petted her dog Lucy.
She said: “We bumped into each other a few more times. We became close so I introduced him to my sister and friends, and we started going out to bars and restaurants.
“It developed into a very close friendship. But it never went any further.
“I don’t know if Jack had feelings for me but as far as I was concerned, we were just good friends.”
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