On Monday, police in Copenhagen released a statement claiming inventor Peter Madsen admitted to dismembering Swedish journalist Kim Wall, 30, in August.
Madsen, 46, asserts that he did not kill Wall and that her death was an accident. He was alone when he was rescued from the UC3 Nautilus, which police believe he sank. NPR’s Colin Dwyer reported that Madsen initially claimed Wall had been set ashore at the tip of Refshaloeoen before the sub left the dock, but later claimed he had “buried her at sea” after a heavy hatch fell on her head.
On August 2, a headless female torso washed ashore, according to police; it was identified as Wall two days later by its DNA. Wall’s head was found by divers in Denmark’s Køge Bay in early October; police said there were “no signs of fracture or blunt force trauma to the skull.” The head was in a bag that had metal in it weighing it down.
But now Madsen has a third story to tell, claiming Wall died from carbon monoxide poisoning inside the submarine while he reclined on the submarine’s deck. On October 14, police say that Madsen confessed that after he found her body, he dismembered it and tossed the rest into the bay.
Police have added a charge of sexual assault without intercourse because of roughly 14 stab wounds in and around Wall’s genitals.
Madsen built the first private Danish submarine, called UC1 Freya, in 2001; he later built the UC2 Kraka and finally the midget submarine UC3 Nautilus.
Wall wrote for The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine and The Atlantic.