Headless torso is missing woman journalist who ‘died on submarine’
A headless torso found on a beach off Copenhagen has been identified as that of missing Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who is believed to have died on an amateur-built submarine earlier this month, Danish police said yesterday.
Wall, 30, was last seen alive on 10 August on Danish inventor Peter Madsen’s submarine, which police believe he intentionally sank off Denmark’s east coast the following day.
Madsen, 46, who was then arrested on preliminary manslaughter charges, denies having anything to do with Wall’s disappearance. Her family says that the freelance journalist was working on a story about Madsen.
The torso was found on Monday on a beach by a member of the public who was cycling on Copenhagen’s southern Amager island, near where she was believed to have died. Copenhagen police said on Tuesday that her head, arms and legs had “deliberately been cut off” her body. DNA tests confirmed the torso is Wall’s, Copenhagen police investigator Jens Moeller Jensen told reporters yesterday. He said it was attached to a piece of metal “likely with the purpose to make it sink”.
The body “washed ashore after having been at sea for a while,” he said. He added police found marks on the torso indicating someone tried to press air out of the body so that it wouldn’t float.
Dried blood belonging to Wall was also found inside the submarine, he said.
“On August 12, we secured a hair brush and a toothbrush [in Sweden] to ensure her DNA. We also found blood in the submarine and there is a match,” Moeller Jensen said.
The cause of the journalist’s death is not yet known, police said, adding they were still looking for the rest of her body.
Madsen, who remains in custody, initially told investigators she disembarked from the submarine at a Copenhagen island several hours into their trip and that he didn’t know what happened to her afterward. He later told authorities “an accident occurred onboard that led to her death” and he “buried” her at sea.
Madsen’s defence lawyer said her client still maintains that he didn’t kill Wall, and that the discovery of her torso doesn’t mean he’s guilty.
“It doesn’t change my client’s explanation that an accident happened,” Betina Hald Engmark said, adding: “No matter what, we find it very positive that she has been found now.”
The journalist’s boyfriend alerted authorities on 11 August that the 40-ton sub, named the UC3 Nautilus, hadn’t returned from a test run.