ON THE evening of 10 August 2017, Swedish journalist Kim Wall disappeared while interviewing Peter Madsen on board his homemade submarine, UC3 Nautilus – a vessel that had turned him into a minor celebrity in his native Denmark.
Kim (30) was writing a piece about the eccentric, media-friendly inventor for Wired magazine, as he was now attempting to become the world’s first amateur astronaut by building his own space rocket.
When she hadn’t come home or been in contact by 1.45am, her boyfriend called the police. By 10.30am that day, the submarine was located by the Danish navy. Shortly afterwards, it sank.
After being rescued – alone – Madsen (51) at first maintained that he had delivered Kim to dry land the previous night. He was immediately charged with her murder and quickly changed his story: she had died on board in a mishap, he claimed, when he accidentally dropped the submarine hatch on her head, and he had buried her at sea, as was the maritime tradition.
Eleven days later, Kim’s torso was found by a cyclist, washed up on a beach in Køge Bay, south of Copenhagen, close to where Madsen and the Nautilus had been rescued. It had been stabbed 15 times and weighted down with metal to ensure it sank. Soon afterwards, Madsen’s computer hard drive was discovered containing graphic videos of women being tortured and decapitated.
Two months later, in early October, police divers recovered a bag containing Kim’s shirt, skirt, socks and shoes, then, shortly afterwards, one leg, then another leg. They next found her head, lying at the bottom of the sea in a bag that had again been weighed down
