Kim Wall Killer Found Guilty; Sentenced to Life

Details

Category: World News - Europe

Published on Wednesday, 25 April 2018 07:32

Written by Janet Walker

Peter Madsen, the Danish submarine inventor on trial for the brutal murder and dismemberment of Journalist Kim Wall, in August 2017 has been found guilty, by a panel of magistrates and sentenced to life in prison.

Judges Statement

On April 25, 2018, Peter Madsen, 47, is sentenced to life in prison, which constitutes in Denmark, to sixteen years and can be extended if necessary. A panel of two magistrates and two jurors found Madsen guilty of the gruesome torture murder of Swedish Journalist Kim Wall.

Madsen has indicated he will appeal and his lawyer is seeking a lighter sentence for dismembering the body, which he has always admitted to committing.

Throughout the trial the prosecutor has stepped further than usual in presenting the unusual violence Ms. Wall suffered in the hull of the Madsen's home made submarine. Not only murder, she was brutally tortured, tied up, stabbed, beaten, sexually assaulted and impaled some type of stake driven through her, and post mortem, dismembered and stabbed at least 16 times near her genitals.

A Timeline

Madsen was arrested on August 11, 2017, shortly after Swedish Journalist Kim Wall, was reported missing by her boyfriend, Ole Stobbe, after she didn't return home from a ride along in Madsen's self-built submarine, UC3 Nautilus, for research on a profile piece on the well-known Danish inventor.

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Kim Wall, 30, a Columbia University educated journalist, was last seen alive with Madsen on the deck of the UC3 Nautilus at sunset cruising on Koge Bay. By chance the red-haired journalist was photographed by a passing passengers on a local boat. It would date stamped the timeline of her murder.

Madsen, who made a distress call in the early morning hours of August 11, 2017 was rescued after he initially claimed the submarine sank. He told authorities he dropped Ms. Wall near where he picked her up.

Madsen was taken into custody later the same day and initially held for 48 hours as Danish authorities began to look for Ms. Wall's remains. Raising the submarine, forensic specialists discovered DNA from the missing journalist.

Two weeks later body parts began to wash ashore which were spotted by a passing bicyclist along the Amager Island shoreline.

Police driver began to retrieve her dismember body from the sea floor. They first found a torso that had been stabbed repeatedly and flattened and weighted down, which Madsen later said he did to keep gases from bloating the body causing it to rise.

Police divers began searching the area and found one garbage bag containing the murder weapon, Ms. Wall's clothing, lower extremities and her severed head. Her other body parts were discovered separately. Dental records positively identified the missing journalists.

Peter Madsen Formally Charged

Madsen, who had been taken into custody less than 24 hours after the murder had repeatedly changed his account of Ms. Wall's death.

After the possibility of a tape surfaced, Madsen told the Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen he buried Wall at sea, as she had died on board. Dismembering the body, was part of the burial rites, as he interpreted them to be.

Madsen was formal charged with the murder of Km Wall, dismembering and indecent handling of a corpse. He was also charged with having sexual relations with Wall of a "particularly dangerous nature."

Throughout the six month Peter Madsen changed his story numerous times. In each account he attributed Kim's death to an accident. He always admitted to dismembering the body and was quoted as saying during the trial, "he didn't understand how it would matter she was already dead."

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After the discovery of her head, his first account that the hatch which weighed 155 pounds slipped and fell on her head killing her instantly was proven to be false. As after forensic analysis indicated her skull did not contain evidence of blunt force trauma.

His second theory that she died, overcome by a noxious gas that contributed to the scuttling of the Nautilus was also proven false through DNA analysis.

He refused to admit to her murder. As his trial approached details of her tortuous death became known which lead prosecutors to search for other victims and a complete search on his hard drive. He was also ordered to undergo a psychological test.

Madsen's psychological profile indicated he was intelligent, a fact no one ever questioned, "with psychopathic tendencies" and typical of serial killers "no empathy or feelings of guilt." The level of intelligence also brings a degree of arrogance which lends itself to a belief of invincibility.

It also become known Madsen was clearly morally corrupt. With a magnetic draw to deviant behaviors, snuff tapes were found on his computer's hard drive and he often vocalized his own desire to create a snuff tape, and to kill for sexual gratification.

The day before he agreed to show off his prized UC3 Nautilus and participate in an interview for an upcoming piece in Wired magazine, which would have included his work on creating spacecrafts able to reach the suborbital level, he spoke with a friend on the realization of his killing fantasy.

During the early morning hours on August 11, 2017, after sailing across Koge Bay on a beautiful summer evening, off the coast of Denmark, he dove the submarine and proceeded to live out his macabre fantasy in his homemade torture chamber.