Denmark police: Man admits journalist died on submarine
An inventor charged with killing a journalist on his personal submarine said she died on board “and that he consequently buried her at sea” off the coast of Copenhagen, Denmark, police said Monday.
Peter Madsen, 46, is being held by police and says reporter Kim Wall died in an “accident” before he threw her into the water, according to the statement that offered few details for those transfixed by Denmark’s nautical mystery.
Wall was last seen on the evening of Aug. 10 leaving the Copenhagen harbor with Madsen in his UC3 Nautilus — described on its website as “one of the world’s largest home-built submarines.”
Wall, from Sweden originally, was working on a story about the engineer, according to her family.
Exactly what happened on the Nautilus two weeks ago is still a mystery. All that’s certain is the submarine sank, Madsen was rescued from the waters of Koge Bay and Wall has not been seen since.
Before his story changed, Madsen told police he dropped off Wall from the vessel late Thursday and barely survived after the ballast tank malfunctioned and the Nautilus sank in less than a minute.
A witness contradicted this, saying he saw Madsen emerge from the belly of the vessel and stay in the submarine’s tower until water began pouring into it.
Only then did Madsen swim to a nearby boat, the witness said. “There was no panic at all,” he said.
Copenhagen police arrested Madsen on a charge of involuntary manslaughter after the sinking, according to a police news release, and accused him of deliberately wrecking the submarine, which was later lifted from the bottom of the bay.