Danish submarine mystery takes gruesome, bizzare turns
Woman's torso floats ashore as Peter Madsen maintains innocence in Kim Wall's death.
On Monday, a Copenhagen Police spokesperson released new information regarding the investigation into the disappearance of Kim Wall, a Swedish journalist who had been last seen aboard the UC3 Nautilus—the crowd-funded, amateur-built diesel-electric submarine designed and piloted by Peter Madsen. Madsen now confirms that Wall died aboard the submarine, and that he dumped her body overboard. But he claimed to police and prosecutors that her death was accidental.
Details of the investigation had been sealed (protected under the "closed doors" provisions of Danish law), as the criminal investigation is still underway. But after a request from both prosecutors and Madsen's defense attorney, the court allowed the police department to release the following statement:
Quote:
The defendant has explained to the police and the Court, that there was an accident on board which caused Kim Wall’s death and that he consequently buried her at sea at a non-defined location in the Bay of Køge. Copenhagen Police may additionally disclose that the preliminary charge of manslaughter is upheld. As the investigation of the case is still covered by "closed doors," no further information can be given.
Madsen continues to be held on charges of involuntary manslaughter, as the investigation continues.
Danish and Swedish maritime authorities reconstructed the Nautilus' track on the evening of August 10 and the morning of August 11. A search along that course, using both divers and bottom-scanning sonar, had turned up no traces of Wall's body.
But on Monday a woman's headless, limbless torso was found washed ashore south of Copenhagen, the New York Times reported. Jens Moller, the chief homicide investigator of the Copenhagen police, told the Times, "It’s way, way too early to say if it’s Kim Wall. We don’t know if it’s her."
