Mystery surrounding journalist Kim Wall unravels as submarine inventor is charged in connection with her death
IT reads like the script of a grim Scandi-noir TV thriller – but the horrific death of Kim Wall is shockingly real.
The 30-year-old’s dismembered torso, which washed up on a beach on Monday, had been weighted down and dumped in the Oresund strait between Denmark and Sweden.
That will be a setting familiar to fans of the hit TV crime drama The Bridge about a fictional murder. There are also chilling echoes of an unsolved case 31 years ago, when a woman’s headless body was found in the same area.
Swedish journalist Kim vanished two weeks ago after boarding a homemade submarine called the Nautilus to interview its eccentric Danish creator, Peter Madsen.
They were the only people on board the Nautilus as it sailed under the Oresund Bridge which links the two countries.
Madsen is now being held in Copenhagen in connection with Kim’s death.
He is charged with manslaughter but yesterday it was reported Danish prosecutors plan to change the charge to murder.
Today, The Sun can give a fascinating insight into the life of 46-year-old inventor Peter “Rocket” Madsen, who is next due in court on September 5.
Seen as a celebrity in Denmark, Madsen has long been an enigmatic figure. Just like his beloved submarines, it appears there is a lot hidden beneath the surface.
One friend said: “Peter has never owned much other than a bag of clothes and a shelf of books about rocket fuel, the Second World War and the Apollo project.
“He’s never lived in a ‘normal’ house or apartment for long, but has lived most of his life in his workplaces or the Nautilus.”
Another friend said Madsen was a fetish enthusiast, claiming that “sexual experimentation is an important part of his life”.
The friend said: “He invited a Swedish stripper to his workplace and they were together in the watertanks used to test the engines for his sub.” It is believed Madsen is married, but it is thought to be an open relationship.
His biographer Thomas Djursing, who wrote the book Rocket Madsen, Denmark’s Do-it-Yourself Astronaut, said: “He is surrounded by many women but he has been married for many years.
“I know they love each other even if they live in an open relationship.”
Madsen has also been notoriously difficult to interview for journalists, although in one chat the inventor revealed a disturbing fantasy. He said: “I would like to secretly build a huge hydrogen balloon and fly over Copenhagen, while a sea of police cars chases me down on earth.”
Madsen’s parents separated when he was four. He went to live with his conservative father and grew up fascinated by his dad’s tales of World War Two and spacecraft.
By his teens he was making fuelled rockets while also looking after his ageing father, who died when Madsen was 17. That loss sparked his “quest for personal freedom”, says Djursing. Madsen took up engineering and welding courses, but dropped out when he knew enough to build a rocket and a submarine.
He would work tirelessly on a project — once describing how he would do 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
His latest project, the UC3 Nautilus, was Madsen’s third submarine. It is 55ft long, weighs 33 tonnes and was partly paid for by crowd-funding.
Madsen said of it: “It’s a great vessel. It is also a political message of freedom.
“You can dive down for weeks and you’re just away from the outside world. No safe way to track subs has been found yet. You can move freely and unnoticed.”
On August 10, reporter Kim Wall arrived at the Nautilus at around 7pm. A last photo of her descending into the sub was taken by a passing ship at 8.30pm. What happened after that is unknown.
Kim’s boyfriend reported her missing at 2.30am the next day, but as the Nautilus was not equipped with satellite tracking, rescue boats searched for hours to find it. It took until 10.30am to locate the sub in the
Oresund strait and within half an hour the Danish Navy reported that the Nautilus had sunk.
Before it went down, a fishing boat that had joined in the search had rescued Madsen. He told the four fishermen he had been trying to fix a valve on the ballast tank.
Three days later, investigators said there was evidence it had been sunk deliberately.
Madsen initially said he had dropped Kim off at around 10.30pm outside the Halvandet restaurant, on the northern tip of Refshaleoen, close to where they had first met.
Days later, he changed his story to say there had been an accident, Kim had died on board and he had buried her at sea at Koge Bay, 30 miles south of Copenhagen.
On Monday of this week at 3.41pm a cyclist discovered a headless, limbless torso at the water’s edge on a beach in south-western Amager.
Blood from the body, along with that found inside the retrieved submarine, matched DNA taken from Kim’s toothbrush and hairbrush.
Madsen’s lawyer Betina Hald Engmark said: “The DNA match does not change my client’s explanation that there was an accident.”
Detective Jens Moller Jensen said: “With regard to the autopsy, I can add that there are some injuries to the torso that appear to have been caused deliberately in an attempt to ensure that air leaves the body to prevent it from floating or leaving the sea bed.
“Similarly, metal was attached to the body, ostensibly to make sure that it sank to the bottom.”
Police are still looking for the rest of Kim’s body as well as the shoes, black and white floral skirt and orange blouse she was wearing when she boarded.
Kim, from Malmo, studied international relations at the London School of Economics before working in
Australia, India, Hong Kong, New York and Beijing. Described as a “good hugger” who loved karaoke and dumplings, she covered hard- hitting stories including earthquakes, tiger poaching and minefields.
Her death has echoes of an unsolved murder from 1986. The body of Japanese tourist Kazuko Toyonaga, 22, was found hacked to pieces and dumped in plastic bags in Copenhagen bay and Christianshavn canal.