Peter Madsen says Kim Wall was struck by falling hatch cover in a ‘terrible accident’ on board his self-built vessel

A Danish inventor faces a charge of murder over the death of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall, whose headless body was found last month floating in the waters off Copenhagen.

Peter Madsen, 46, who denies killing Wall, told a pre-trial custody hearing in the Danish capital on Tuesday that the journalist, who had boarded his self-built submarine for an interview, died when a heavy hatch cover fell on her.

He said he had climbed out ahead of Wall and was standing on top of the surfaced submarine holding the 70kg hatch cover open, but lost his footing and it hit her head. He said he heard a thud as she fell to the floor bleeding from a fractured skull.

“It was a terrible accident, a disaster, no doctor could have done anything,” he told the court. “Kim was severely injured. There was a pool of blood where she landed. I touched her neck, but she had no pulse.”

After hearing defence and prosecution arguments, the judge Anette Burkø ordered Madsen to be detained for four more weeks. “I find there is reasonable suspicion that the detainee is guilty of murder,” the judge said.

Madsen, who has been in custody since 12 August on the lesser charge of negligent manslaughter, will appeal against the decision and has declined to submit to a voluntary psychiatric examination, his lawyer said.

The court heard statements about Madsen’s alleged taste for violent pornography and sadomasochistic sex, including claims that he had had sex with several women on board the submarine.

Madsen told the court he felt “suicidal” after Wall’s death. He said he had wanted to bury her at sea, attaching a metal weight around her waist so her body would sink, and planned to sink his submarine, taking his own life.

“In my shock I thought it was the right thing to do,” he said. “I didn’t want a dead body in my submarine. I put a rope around her feet to drag her out. I thought a fitting end for Peter Madsen would be on board the Nautilus. I decided I couldn’t continue the life I had been living.”

He had no explanation for Wall’s severed head and limbs, saying she was “in one piece” when he last saw her body. Asked by the prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen whether he had ever carried a saw on the vessel, he said he had, but there was none on board on the day he took Wall for their short sea voyage.

Wall, 30, a respected freelance journalist based in New York and China who had written for the Guardian, the New York Times and others, was last seen alive on the Nautilus on 10 August. Her boyfriend reported her missing that evening.

Police and coastguard located the 60ft (18 metre) UC3 Nautilus – the largest self-built submarine ever made when it was launched in 2008 – in Køge Bay, about 30 miles south of Copenhagen, the following morning.

Madsen, a self-taught engineer with cult status in Denmark, was rescued by a private boat soon afterwards, just before the submarine sank. He initially told his rescuers he had got into difficulties trying to repair a problem with the ballast tank.

Investigators have said traces of Wall’s blood, DNA-matched against her hairbrush and toothbrush, were found inside the refloated submarine. Buch-Jepsen told the court a pair of women’s underpants and tights were found in the engine room.



After first telling police he had dropped Wall off on dry land on the city outskirts once the interview was over, Madsen said 24 hours later she had died in an accident. He told the court her clothing had come off when he threw her body overboard.



The charge against him was extended on 21 August to include “improper interference with a corpse” after Wall’s torso – identified by further DNA tests – was found washed up on the coast of Copenhagen’s Amager island.

Police have said the body had been stabbed multiple times, apparently in an attempt to ensure a buildup of air would not lead to it floating to the surface, and that metal piping had been attached to it to make it sink.

An entrepreneur, artist, submarine builder and aerospace engineer, Madsen has also successfully launched rockets in the hope of developing private space travel.

In 2015 he sent a text message to two volunteer members of his team saying there was a curse on Nautilus. “That curse is me,” the message said. “There will never be peace on Nautilus as long as I exist.”