‘Journalist died when hatch hit her on my submarine’
PETER MADSEN, the Danish artist and inventor, has told a court that he disposed of the body of journalist Kim Wall in a state of “suicidal psychosis”, after a heavy hatch in his home-built submarine UC3 Nautilus dropped on to her head and killed her.
In his first public statement since Wall’s torso was discovered last month, Madsen denied cutting off the 30-yearold’s head, arms and legs, but admitted to tying weights around her waist. Asked why he had not contacted the authorities earlier, he said: “I’m in a suicidal psychosis and I’m not planning to do anything else in this world other than to go down and sink the Nautilus.”
The prosecution at Copenhagen district court hinted yesterday at the possibility that Wall died in a sex crime, citing witnesses who claimed Madsen watched beheading videos, practised asphyxiation sex and was fascinated by death and sex.
Madsen, who is married, insisted there was no sexual relationship between him and Wall, and said their contacts had been purely professional. The self-taught engineer told the court he and his wife have an open marriage.
Jacob Buch-jepsen, the prosecutor, said that there were inconsistencies in Madsen’s story, telling the court that police had found blood and a pair of tights at the spot where Madsen said Wall had fallen, hair and blood in the lavatory of the submarine and a pair of knickers in the engine room. Madsen claimed that after Wall’s head had been hit by the 70kg hatch, she had fallen down the shaft leading to the command tower of his home-built submarine and died less than a minute afterwards.
Wall’s torso was discovered floating off the coast of a Copenhagen suburb on Aug 21, 10 days after the Swedish journalist, who was researching a magazine feature on Madsen, had set off with him in his submarine.
Rescuers found the inventor standing in the tower of the sunken Nautilus. Madsen at first claimed to have dropped the journalist off on an island in Copenhagen’s harbour, but later told police that he had “buried Wall at sea”.
He initially claimed that his submarine had suffered a problem with a ballast tank but forensic investigation showed it had been scuttled. Madsen told the court he had lied about Wall’s disappearance in order to buy time to say goodbye to his wife.
Judge Anette Burko changed the grounds for his detention from suspected negligent manslaughter to suspected murder, ordered a psychiatric evaluation and ruled he could continue to be held in custody for four weeks.
“I find there is reasonable suspicion that the detainee is guilty of murder,” the judge said. “The body disappeared, the submarine was sunk, and there are changing accounts of what happened.”