Everything We Know About Kim Wall, Peter Madsen And Journalist’s Submarine Murder

It’s been almost two months since 30-year-old journalist Kim Wall went missing after she departed to write a story about 46-year-old Danish inventor Peter Madsen and his submarine. Her torso was found a week after she vanished, but police have been working since then to find the rest of her remains.

Investigators have finally recovered the rest of Wall’s body, but much of the details surrounding her murder remain shrouded in mystery. Here is everything we know so far about Wall’s disappearance and death and the man charged with killing her:

• Wall was working on a story about Danish inventor Peter Madsen aboard his homemade submarine when she disappeared August 10.
• Shortly after Wall was reported missing, the Nautilus submarine on which she and Madsen were aboard sunk. Madsen was rescued and initially told police he had deposited Wall safely back on land. The inventor alleged that the submarine sank as a result of a technical malfunction, while authorities said they believed Madsen deliberately sank the craft in the wake of Wall’s death. Traces of Wall’s blood were found inside the submarine.
• Madsen later changed his story and said Wall died in an accident aboard the craft and that he had dumped her body at sea. The inventor alleged that he slipped, causing the submarine’s 15-pound hatch to slam shut and hit Wall in the head. Madsen said when he looked down, he saw Wall “bleeding violently” from her head and that she died despite his efforts to administer first aid. “If I hadn’t slipped, then the hatch would not have fallen,” Madsen said, according to Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet. “We would have Kim alive and I would not have been sat here today.”

• Madsen told investigators that after realizing Wall was dead, he continued chartering the craft out to the Baltic Sea, where he slept with her body on board the submarine. While attempting to dump her body overboard, her “shoe and tights fell off.”
• Wall was killed sometime between Aug. 10 and 11, prosecutors said in a preliminary hearing.
• Police in Copenhagen found Wall’s torso in the water off the coast of Denmark. Her head and limbs had been deliberately cut off and her torso was weighted down with metal to make it sink, police said.
• Wall’s DNA was found on Madsen’s body, including in scrapes on his face and neck.
• Investigators had not yet revealed Wall’s cause of death. Prosecutors, however, said Madsen killed Wall, dismembered her body and attached a pipe to it in order to make it sink. Wall’s body was also found to have “several” stab wounds and sititches sewn onto her body.
• Madsen was charged with manslaughter and abuse of a corpse. Madsen pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter charges. His lawyer, Betina Hald Engmark, maintained Wall’s death was an accident.
• Madsen’s biographer alleged the inventor was involved in sexual experimenting. Thomas Djursing told the New York Post Madsen was fond of “sexual experimenting in fetish groups” despite living with “a partner he loves.”
• In a preliminary court hearing last week, prosecutors said they found videos on Madsen’s computer depicting real women being tortured. “We think it’s video recordings of true killing of women,” said special prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen, noting that some of the videos appeared to depict “decapitation and burning.” Madsen, appearing at the hearing via video conference, said the computer was used by other people in addition to him.
• Wall’s severed head and legs were found in a bag along with her clothes and a knife in Koge Bay, south of Copenhagen, authorities announced Saturday. Investigators said the bag was weighted down with metal pieces to make it sink. “Yesterday morning, we found a bag in which we found Kim Wall’s clothes, underwear, stockings and shoes. In the same bag laid a knife, and there were some car pipes to weigh the bag down,” said police investigator Jens Moller Jensen.
• Wall’s skull revealed no sign of fracture of any evidence of blunt violence, a postmortem examination found.
• A judge ruled Madsen would remain behind bars as the investigation continued.