Peter Madsen is a maniac. Danish crazy inventor dismembered a journalist on a makeshift submarine

The case of Danish millionaire Peter Madsen could be the most intriguing serial murder investigation in the world. The name of the “second Elon Musk”, who decided to fly into space on his own rocket, first hit the news bulletin in connection with the disappearance of his Nautilus submarine and a Swedish journalist, and now the police suspect that the sunken submarine was a floating torture chamber for a crazy maniac. Life decided to look into the investigation, which has long resembled a typical Scandinavian detective series.

The Nautilus is almost 18 meters long, the width of the hull is two meters, and the displacement is 40 tons. The first homemade submarine in Europe has become a real symbol of the 46-year-old businessman Peter Madsen, who can rightly be considered the world's first crowdfunding millionaire. He really collected his fortune from the world by a thread. When he announced that he was going to conquer space, they only laughed at him. Then he began to build submarines - because he was sure that "missiles and submarines have a lot in common: they take a person away from zero, that is, from the surface of the Earth."

Photo © The local se/Mads Claus Rasmussen

In 2008, he collected 200 thousand dollars on the Internet and, with the help of volunteers, created the same Nautilus, and then two more submarines that were sold to private clients.

They believed in Madsen, and he founded the company Copenhagen Suborbitals, which in 2011 successfully launched Peter Madsen's first space rocket HEAT 1X from a floating platform in the Baltic Sea, named "Tycho Brahe" - in honor of the great Danish astronomer. The money was again raised through crowdfunding.

And not so long ago, Madsen became the hero of all of Denmark - he announced that the Rocket Madsen Space Lab company he created was starting to raise money to create a new rocket, which in 2019 would send the first Danish cosmonauts into orbit, recruited again from donors for the project.

However, now all these plans are in the past - and through the fault of Madsen himself. The Danes still cannot come to their senses and realize how it happened that their hero of the nation suddenly turned out to be the main and only suspect in a brutal sexual murder?

Kim Wall

It all started with the fact that journalist Kim Wall, a 30-year-old native of the Swedish city of Malmö, who lives in the USA and works for the popular American portal Vice, invited Madsen to meet for a big interview. He agreed and in turn offered to take a boat trip on the Nautilus.

On the night of August 11, boyfriend Kim Wall became worried - the girl did not return home, and her phone did not answer. He contacted the police and the rescue service. Since the Nautilus did not respond to radio requests, a search operation was launched.

A rescue helicopter found the Nautilus at 10 am in the sea, 50 kilometers south of Copenhagen. Soon, Peter Madsen himself got in touch and said that the submarine had technical problems and was returning to port. The submarine sank an hour later.

Search participant Christian Isbak, who discovered the submarine, recalled that at the moment when he sailed on a boat to the Nautilus, which was on the surface, he saw Madsen standing in an open wheelhouse. Then Madsen went downstairs, and the air seemed to come out of the boat and it began to sink rapidly. Madsen jumped out into the wheelhouse and, putting on a life jacket, threw himself into the sea and swam to Ibsak's boat.

After the rescue, he told the police that the boat sank due to problems with the ballast tank. When asked where the journalist Kim Wall was, he shrugged his shoulders: they say that last night he dropped her off in the same place where he took on board - that is, at the Halvandet restaurant in Refhaleöen.

The police arrested Madsen on charges of intentional or unintentional murder of a Swedish journalist. It turned out that the Halvandet restaurant closed at 22:00 and there are no witnesses who could confirm or deny the businessman's words that he delivered the journalist Wall to Copenhagen. However, outdoor surveillance cameras did not capture Kim Wall where she was supposed to be passing.

Photo © TV 2

In court, Madsen said that Kim Wall died "negligently" after being hit on the head by a 70-kilogram manhole cover. Say, at that moment, Madsen was standing on the wheelhouse of the Nautilus and invited the journalist to follow him up. He held the hatch, but slipped, and the metal structure collapsed on the girl.

I immediately saw that her skull was fractured and that she could no longer be saved, ”he said during interrogation by the police. Her agony lasted about twenty seconds. Then she died.

He also stated that he left the body of Kim Wall in one of the cabins, and after that he lay down to take a nap in another cabin. The next morning, he decided to commit suicide by sinking himself along with the submarine, "to end everything." But I got scared at the last moment.

Madsen's lawyer, Betina Hald, said her client agreed with the arrest and the charge of "negligent homicide."

Divers who examined the sunken submarine said that Kim Wall's body was not there.

By evening, Peter Madsen suddenly changed his testimony: he did not leave the body of Kim Wall in the submarine, but threw it overboard into the open sea.

Photo © Scanpix Denmark/Bax Lindhardt/via REUTERS

The Danish and Swedish maritime rescue services are involved in the search for the body of Kim Wall, the Copenhagen police called for help in the search for all yachtsmen who go to sea.

The operation to raise the sunken submarine begins - the police need to carefully examine the crime scene.

A cyclist on the Danish island of Amager spotted the body of a woman washed up on the beach. Soon, the police clarified the information: they found only part of a dismembered female body - without a head, arms and legs. A heavy metal pipe was tied to the body with wire - a load so that the body would not float to the surface. But the storm still threw the body ashore.

After DNA analysis, the police made an official statement: the body parts found belong to Kim Wall.

An autopsy showed that the journalist had been hit a number of times - apparently, she was beaten with heavy metal objects. Also, 15 stab wounds were made with a knife or a sharp scalpel, including in the chest and genitals. The wounds were inflicted in order to access sea water to the internal organs. However, the examination cannot establish exactly whether these blows were inflicted before or after death.

Peter Madsen was charged with premeditated murder. Peter Madsen himself denies everything: he assures that he buried Wall's body in the sea safe and sound.

Wall's blood and pieces of hair were found aboard the submarine. Also, traces of Kim Wall's DNA were found on the body of Peter Madsen. There were searches at Madsen's home and office.

Judge Jacob Butch-Jepsen announced that BDSM pornographic films were found on the hard drive of a computer seized from Madsen's office. Moreover, in a number of films shot somewhere in Eastern Europe, scenes of rape and murder of women, whose heads were cut off on camera, are very realistically shown. The police assume that the records are reliable and they really capture the murders.

These films do not at all prove Madsen's involvement in the journalist's murder, the police say. - But these films show us that he is interested in fetish, torture and violent murder scenes.

Madsen denies everything and says that he has nothing to do with porn films, that several people have access to his office computer and some employee of the company, offended by his boss, could record pornographic films.

Lawyers still insist on Madsen's release on bail: there is no direct evidence that Kim Wall was the victim of a murder and not an accident.

Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen holds a press briefing after Copenhagen City Court ruled that submarine owner Peter Madsen will remain in custody. Photo © Shutterstock Inc.

Yes, Peter Madsen is confused in his testimony, but he does this because he is experiencing what happened. In addition, he suffers from serious depression, he needs treatment, not isolation from society.

Well, it's not just words. The police really need to find hard evidence confirming Madsen's guilt, otherwise he will really get away from punishment.

Fetish Fun

The discovery of these brutal videos was a real blow to journalist Thomas Jursing, author of a biographical book about Madsen.

Peter never hid his passion for various sex experiments, says the journalist. - Despite the fact that he married five years ago, he preferred to live in an open relationship and never hid that he was a member of fetish groups. But he always preferred something more refined, like role-playing or dressing up, never showing any sexual interest in violence or torture.

However, Peter himself admitted in an interview that he was always drawn to new experiments.

I hope that someday I will be able to get a criminal experience. No, I'm not planning to rob a bank at all. Sometimes I want to build a huge airship and fly over Copenhagen - so that all the police cities are chasing me. And may they finally catch me...

The whole of Denmark is sometimes drawn to harsh experiments - remember that a few years ago it was Danish zoos that became famous all over the world for their attitude towards animals. So, in Copenhagen, zoo employees not only killed a young giraffe named Marius, but also publicly dismembered his carcass - for the amusement of the audience. Let the kids see what the giraffe has inside.

Then everyone could throw pieces of meat to the lions. By the way, lions - two elderly and two young males - were also put under the knife. All for the enjoyment of the public.

Is it any wonder after that that one of the adults decided to experiment with people?

Depressed Millionaire

Others, as always, believe that it's all about education. Peter Madsen grew up in the small town of Sabie, a hundred kilometers from the Danish capital. His father was 36 years older than his mother, he supported an authoritarian regime in the family and treated his wife and son cruelly.

When Madsen was six years old, his parents divorced. The child stayed with his father.

“When I think about my father,” he said in his biography, “I often think of the children of the Nazis in Germany. I think I can well imagine what it’s like when your father is a commandant in a concentration camp ...”

Photo © Scanpix Denmark/Ida Marie Odgaard/via REUTERS

At the same time, Madsen emphasized that it was from his father that he adopted the love for both the sea and space rockets, which eventually led him into the space business.

However, Danish journalists, pondering why the most popular millionaire in Denmark suddenly ruined his own and other people's lives, suddenly discovered that there was no such wealth behind Madsen's soul at all.

All his savings earned from the sale of submarines were eaten up by a lawsuit with the last buyer, who demanded compensation for imperfections - the volunteers recruited at the shipyard worked very badly. They even talked about selling the Nautilus, which Madsen categorically did not want to allow. He even sold his apartment and moved all his belongings to a cabin on a submarine, not wanting to show his colleagues in the office that he had lost his home.

However, they wanted to take away the Nautilus and its sponsors from him, confident that the boat built with crowdfunding funds belongs to all investors. Only in 2015, after six years of litigation, the court transferred ownership of the Nautilus to him.

I have never met a man so obsessed with his idea - says Robert Fox, who worked at the Nautilus shipyard. - From the very moment Peter decided to build a boat, he could no longer talk about anything else. It was a real madness.

It was because of his obsession that he quarreled with another founder of Copenhagen Suborbitals, former NASA designer Christian von Bengtson, a former member of the Mars One project. As a result, Madsen was forced to leave a profitable business and fell into a real depression.

The knot will tie...

Meanwhile, the Danish police suspect that journalist Kim Wall was far from the only victim of a maniac killed on board the Nautilus. Now the police are conducting additional research aboard the submarine, trying to find traces of other victims - it seems that one of the cabins was used as a real torture chamber, and burying corpses in the sea at great depths has become a reliable way to get rid of all the evidence. After all, if it were not for the storm that broke out on the night of August 21, then the police would still be looking for the body of the unfortunate Kim.

Photo © REUTERS/Peter Thompson

The other day, the police announced the name of another alleged victim of Madsen - this is 22-year-old Japanese student Kazuki Toyanaga, whose corpse was found in the sea off Copenhagen in the fall of 1986. She was also dismembered and flooded in parts. Moreover, the knots with which the killers of the student tied the load to the arms and legs of their victim are almost identical to those knots that were found on the torso of Kim Wall.

Peter Madsen at that time was only 16 years old and, as his biographers wrote, after school he learned to sail with his father and knit marine knots.

So the dive into the dark waters of the Scandinavian soul is just beginning.

Peter Madsen convicted of murdering a journalist Kim Wall, according to the BBC.

As stated Judge Annette Burko, Madsen's explanations regarding the death of a woman did not inspire confidence in her and the jury.

The judge's verdict deprives the convicted person of the right to pardon, but Madsen and his lawyers have already announced their intention to appeal.

"Madsen-rocket" and a curious journalist

This story last summer shocked Denmark and Sweden: the deceased journalist was a native of the southern Swedish province of Skåne.

Peter Madsen was the darling of the Danish press. The famous inventor headed Rocket Madsen Space Lab. It united space flight enthusiasts. The goal was declared to be the implementation in 2019 of a flight to near-Earth space on a ship assembled by amateurs, not professionals. Dozens, if not hundreds of articles were written about the “Danish Elon Musk”, “Madsen-Rocket”, countless TV spots were filmed.

One of Madsen's hobbies was submarines. In 2008, he completed the construction of his third submarine, called the Nautilus. With a length of 18 meters and a weight of 33 tons, the submarine is considered one of the largest ever built by amateurs.

In the spring of 2017, Madsen completed the overhaul of the Nautilus and again went to sea on it.

Thirty-year-old Kim Wall studied at the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics and Columbia University in New York, and worked in New York and Beijing. The reporter's materials were published by such publications as The Guardian, New York Times, The South China Morning Post and others. Kim chose the profession following the example of her parents: both her father and mother also worked as journalists. In the summer of 2017, Kim Wall was living in Copenhagen and decided to make a report about the Danish miracle inventor.

Last voyage

Madsen agreed to give an interview, inviting the journalist to take a short voyage aboard the Nautilus.

Around 19:00 on August 10, 2017, the Nautilus sailed from the pier in the Refhaleøen area of Copenhagen. Madsen and Wall were seen standing together in the cabin of the submarine, they were even photographed. Kim was absolutely calm and smiling.

The exit to the sea was supposed to be short, but the journalist did not return home. Her boyfriend sounded the alarm: the girl's phone was stubbornly silent. Knowing that Kim went on a boat trip, he feared that a disaster had occurred.

The Nautilus was discovered on the morning of August 11 in Køge Bay, 50 kilometers south of Copenhagen. Peter Madsen, having got in touch, said that the boat had technical problems and it was going to the port.

The Nautilus did not reach the port, sinking along the way. Madsen swam to the people who came to the rescue, but Kim Wall was not with him.

The inventor stated that he did not know where she was. According to him, a couple of hours after the start of the walk, he landed the journalist ashore in Refhaleoen, not far from one of the restaurants. After that, Madsen again went to sea, serious problems began on the boat, then it sank.

The version of Peter Madsen did not inspire confidence among the police officers. Firstly, Kim never showed up, and secondly, there was not a single witness who would have seen the girl on the shore after the alleged landing.

There was another oddity: the participants in the operation to search for the Nautilus said that the submarine sank unexpectedly, literally before their eyes. Madsen stood in the wheelhouse, then went down, after which the Nautilus began to sink. After standing for some time on his invention going under water, the man nevertheless jumped into the water and swam to one of the boats that were looking for him.

Madsen was detained, which caused outrage among his fans, who believed that the "Danish Elon Musk" had nothing to do with the disappearance of a woman.

But, when the Nautilus was raised to the surface, the experts, having examined the ship, came to the conclusion that there were no technical problems that could lead to flooding. It turned out that Madsen himself deliberately flooded the boat. At the same time, the bodies of Kim Wall on board could not be found.

"I buried her at sea"

For ten days, Peter Madsen insisted on the original version, but then said: the journalist died on board the Nautilus as a result of an accident, and he "buried her at sea."

“My client has confessed to nothing. My client claims to be innocent. But my client also gave his explanation to the police and the investigation ... He explained, in particular, that there was an accident on board the Nautilus, ”Hald Engmark, Madsen’s lawyer Betina, told the Danish television channel TV2.

On August 22, a cyclist riding along the seashore near Copenhagen drew attention to a strange object that was brought to the shore by the waves. Upon closer examination, it turned out that these were human remains.

Arriving police officers removed a terrible find from the water and recorded: a corpse was found, which is a female torso, devoid of limbs and a head. Forensic experts categorically stated that the legs, arms and head were deliberately separated from the body.

On August 23, it became known that the found remains belong to Kim Wall. This was followed by another police report: traces of the missing journalist's blood were found on board the Nautilus.

After examining the remains, experts came to the conclusion that Madsen tried to do everything so that the body did not float to the surface. For example, through certain manipulations, he tried to remove gases from the body of the deceased, which push the corpse to the surface. Also, a load was originally tied to the body, which, however, did not help keep the secret.

"It's an extremely violent story"

Madsen's comrades-in-arms in the space project announced its closure: “The dream of each of us has been destroyed, our plans have faded against the backdrop of the senseless death of a person. We no longer have any desire to continue.”

In October and November 2017, other body parts were found at sea.

Madsen assured investigators that Kim Wall most likely got poisoned in the submarine with carbon monoxide while he was on deck. Seeing the dead journalist, the inventor panicked and decided to get rid of the body. He dismembered the corpse, throwing it piece by piece overboard.

On January 16, 2018, prosecutors charged Peter Madsen with murder, indecent treatment of a corpse, and sexual assault.

Prosecutor Jacob Boek-Jepsen told reporters: "This is a very unusual and extremely violent story that has tragic consequences for Kim Wall and her family."

He prepared ahead of time

The investigation concluded that Madsen was preparing for the murder in advance. On board his submarine, he took a knife, a saw, a screwdriver and metal objects. Before Kim Wall's death, the inventor inflicted cuts on her, continuing to do so even after the journalist stopped showing signs of life.

The prosecution, acknowledging that the exact cause of death was not determined, considered asphyxiation or slitting of the throat as the most likely options. Videos of women being beheaded were found on Madsen's computer. The inventor, however, categorically denied that he was inspired by such images.

The trial against Madsen began on March 8, 2018. He and his lawyers insisted that there was no murder, but an accident.

12 court sessions ended with a verdict on April 25. Madsen still assured that Kim Wall had nothing to do with the death and was ready to admit only desecration of the corpse. The punishment for such a crime in Denmark is only six months in prison.

The version of the “Danish Elon Musk” did not seem convincing to the court, and now he is waiting not for experiments with rockets, but for a prison cell without the right to release. Genius and villainy are two incompatible things, as the Russian classic wrote.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Life imprisonment in Denmark, as a rule, means in practice that the convicted person spends 15-17 years in prison without the right to parole

Danish inventor Peter Madsen, sentenced to life in prison for killing Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his submarine, is asking the court to reduce his sentence.

At the same time, according to prosecutors, he is not contesting the verdict of the court itself, but only the verdict, but this cannot be interpreted as if the inventor admitted his guilt.

In April, Madsen, 47, was found guilty of killing Wall and dismembering her body.

According to Danish law, those convicted under the article "murder" face from five years in prison to life imprisonment.

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Wall's dismembered body was found at sea on August 21, 2017, 11 days after she interviewed the inventor about his makeshift submarine. Knife wounds were found on the body of the journalist in the groin and chest, which, according to experts, were inflicted at the time of death or immediately after it.

Madsen was accused of having planned his crime in advance, deciding to strangle Vall or slit her throat.

The inventor admits that he dismembered the body, but claims he did not intentionally kill her.

Image copyright Ritzau Foto Image caption Peter Madsen and Kim Wall aboard his submarine in August 2017

The 30-year-old woman was last seen on the evening of August 10 when she boarded the 40-ton Nautilus submarine. The journalist was going to prepare a material about Madsen's invention.

Wall's partner raised the alarm when she did not return home the next day.

Madsen was rescued on the high seas after his submarine sank. Police believe he sank the ship on purpose.

On August 21, a cyclist noticed a mutilated torso without a head and limbs in coastal waters.

The woman's head, legs and clothes were not found until October 6th. They were packed in bags with cargo tied to them.

Madsen himself changed his testimony several times.

At first he said that he brought Kim Wall to Copenhagen alive and unharmed, but then he said that a "terrible accident" had occurred on the submarine, after which he buried the journalist at sea and planned to commit suicide by sinking the submarine.

What does a life sentence mean in Denmark?

Theoretically, this could mean imprisonment for the rest of his life, but in practice, those who receive such a sentence spend an average of about 16 years in prison.

However, there are exceptions. Palle Sorensen, who killed police officer, spent 32 years in prison until he was granted parole in 1998. Nahum Koniewski, convicted in 1984 of killing two young men, is still in prison. Sorensen died at large earlier this year.

Between 1997 and 2013 the number of people sentenced to life imprisonment in Denmark increased from 10 to 25 people.

According to a 2015 study, one in five or six people found guilty of murder were sentenced to life in prison.

What is known about Kim Wall and Peter Madsen?

Kim Wall was 30 years old and worked as a freelance journalist in New York City, writing for the New York Times, the Guardian and Vice magazine, covering North Korea, Uganda and Haiti among others.

At the time of her disappearance, the journalist was working on a story about Peter Madsen and his submarine Nautilus.

Image copyright Tom Wall Image caption Swedish journalist Kim Wall went to Peter Madsen's submarine to record an interview with him.

Kim Wall was last seen alive on the evening of August 10, when she went on a boat trip by a Danish engineer.

Danish inventor Peter Madsen is a 46-year-old engineer who was considered the creator of the world's largest private submarine.

The length of "UC3 Nautilus" was 18 meters, weight - 40 tons, the submarine was built in 2008. Madsen raised money for its construction with the help of crowdfunding.

Image copyright EVN Image caption Submarine "UC3 Nautilus" at the time of its creation in 2008 was considered the largest private submarine in the world Image copyright EPA Image caption The length of the submarine was 18 meters, weight - 40 tons

What do we know about the events of August 10?

On the evening of August 10, Kim Wall celebrated with her boyfriend the upcoming move to Beijing. At some point, the journalist had to leave for an interview with the inventor Madsen, the material about which she was preparing.

The girl left her boyfriend and went to the submarine of a Swedish engineer.

She was the only passenger on board the Nautilus.

Vall's trip on the Nautilus was supposed to be short enough, but the night passed and the journalist never returned.

As it became known later, around the same time, the submarine sank, eventually sinking in Køge Bay in the south of Copenhagen.

Madsen was rescued, but Wall was not with him.

The inventor claimed that before his boat crashed, he landed Kim Wall on one of the islands in the vicinity of Copenhagen.

The search for the journalist continued for more than a week, but it was not possible to find her alive.

The engineer refused to plead guilty to Wall's murder.

In the case of a Danish journalist who was killed and dismembered at sea, an end has been put. The hero of her latest report, the inventor of the world's largest submarine, Peter Madsen, was found guilty of a crime. He will go to jail for life. The process lasted almost a year, and the scientist until the last refused to confess to the murder. He changed his testimony five times, inventing new versions of the journalist's death.

Latest report by Kim Wall

On August 12, 2017, the parents of the Danish journalist Kim Wall turned to law enforcement agencies: their daughter had not been in touch for two days. Thirty-year-old Kim has worked as a freelance journalist, writing for publications including The New York Times and The Guardian. On August 10, on an editorial assignment, she went to collect information about the world's largest submarine Nautilus and its creator, 46-year-old inventor Peter Madsen.

It was planned that, together with the man, the journalist would plunge into the sea, sail on a submarine and return to the harbor in the morning. Soon it became known that Madsen was already on the shore, but Wall was not with him. The submarine sank.

The police and rescuers started looking for the journalist.

Photo source: YouTube

Suspicion fell on the inventor of the submarine, since it was he who saw Wall last. The investigation stated that the incident could not be an accident.

Then to the police that Wall really died on his submarine. The inventor insisted: it happened by accident. Allegedly, after the dive, he decided to show the journalist the command bridge, which was located behind a hatch weighing 70 kilograms. The inventor went first and held the heavy barrier, but stumbled and released the manhole cover, which fell on the girl and killed her. Madsen told human rights activists that he was ready to commit suicide out of desperation, because "his crazy experiments were to blame for the death of another person." However, in the end, he did not dare to commit suicide, but allegedly preferred to flood the submarine, thus burying the girl.

But there was no corpse on the submarine raised from the seabed. Then Madsen changed his testimony and said that Wall was buried at sea.

On August 21, a man came to the Danish police and said that he saw a disfigured woman in the coastal waters near the island of Amager. The corpse was missing its head, arms and legs. Specialists left on a call and proceeded to inspect the find right on the spot. The head of the investigation team, Jens Meller, suggested that this was the torso of Kim Wall. Examination of his hunch.

At this time, rescuers combed the coastline. The limbs were soon found. The arms, legs and head were sealed in separate plastic bags, each containing several pieces of metal. Examination that they also belonged to the previously discovered body. There were no injuries on the girl's head, although a heavy hatch should have crushed her skull.

Blame Hollywood

Among Madsen's possessions, investigators found a hard drive containing several videos of women's heads being beheaded. Among them was over Vall. On the recording, the girl was tortured, and as a result, she was beheaded and set on fire. The authenticity of the video has been proven.

Despite new evidence in the case, Madsen denied involvement in the murder. According to him, anyone in his lab could have access to the hard drive.

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

At the end of October, Madsen decided to make another statement. He dismembered the journalist, but said that he was not to blame for her death. According to the new version, Wall died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and this gas clouded his consciousness, so he dismembered the journalist, not giving an account of his actions. On the same day, it became known that numerous stab wounds were found on the genitals of the deceased. Prosecutors said Madsen tortured her to fulfill his sexual fantasies, after which he dismembered and mutilated her body.

Subsequently, the owner of the submarine. He told the investigation that, being in a "state of psychosis", he decided to pierce the body of the deceased journalist with a screwdriver in several places, "so that gases would not accumulate there." According to Madsen, there was no sadistic intention in his actions.

At a hearing in March, the man, answering the judge's question about the motives for the massacre of the journalist, said that he had seen enough of the cruel Hollywood films, which often show the process of dismemberment.

The Danish prosecutor's office demanded a sentence of life imprisonment for the inventor. On April 25, 2018, the court granted the prosecution's motion. The court concluded that Peter Madsen did not provide a "credible" explanation for what happened. Soon, the accused himself admitted that he had planned the murder of Kim Wall in advance, tied her up and tortured her before finally cracking down.

Who is Peter Madsen

Photo source: Wikipedia

Engineer-inventor Peter Madsen designed three submarines - UC1 Freya, UC2 Kraka and UC3 Nautilus. He launched the fatal Nautilus on May 3, 2008. It took the man three years and one and a half million Danish kroner to develop the idea and build the world's largest submarine (18 meters long and weighing 40 tons), which is a little more than one and a half million rubles. Madsen raised money for the construction using a crowdfunding service.

In June 2014, Peter Madsen took over the creation of the Rocket Madsen Space Lab. The organization was engaged in the development and construction of manned spacecraft.

Since 2016, Madsen has been building the Nano launch vehicle with money raised from venture capital investments.

The case of "Danish Elon Musk" is closed: for the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, the Copenhagen court sentenced Danish inventor Peter Madsen to life imprisonment. Life recalls the details of the story, which, no doubt, will become the basis for the Scandinavian detective television series about the dark sides of modern society.

Not so long ago, millionaire Peter Madsen was considered a national hero of Denmark - the name of the "Danish Elon Musk" and the first crowdfunding millionaire in the world who built his own Nautilus submarine and then decided to fly into space on his own rocket did not leave the pages of the entire Scandinavian press.

"Nautilus" really resembles a miracle: almost 18 meters in length, hull width of two meters, displacement of 40 tons. The first homemade submarine in Europe has become the hallmark of 46-year-old businessman Peter Madsen, who amassed his fortune thanks to a professional open smile and the ability to talk about his dreams. He did not have start-up capital, but thanks to the Internet, in 2008 he raised 200 thousand dollars from the world for the construction of the Nautilus. And he built it - with the help of a team of volunteer assistants.

Then he assembled two more submarines by order of private clients - however, Madsen preferred not to talk about these projects on the Web.

But the proceeds were enough to create the first Danish private space company Copenhagen Suborbitals, which in 2011 successfully launched Peter Madsen's first space rocket HEAT 1X from a floating platform in the Baltic Sea, named "Tycho Brahe" - in honor of the great Danish astronomer. The money for the rocket was again raised through crowdfunding.

And not so long ago, Madsen even announced the recruitment of the first cosmonaut detachment in Denmark. He created a new company, Rocket Madsen Space Lab, which began raising funds for the first manned Danish spacecraft. The flight was scheduled for 2019, if, of course, the Danes are so generous that they fork out for a project of national importance.

So it is not surprising that 30-year-old journalist Kim Vall, a Swede from the city of Malmö, who works for the popular American portal Vice, invited Madsen to meet and do a big interview.

One way walk

Peter Madsen called Kim Wall back and offered to make a short voyage on his "Nautilus" for the sake of a spectacular interview - they say, so the journalist will be imbued with the necessary impressions.

When? Yes, even tonight - "Nautilus" is ready to go to sea at any moment.

But Kim never returned home.

"She drowned"

After midnight, boyfriend Kim Wall became worried - the girl's phone did not answer, although she had to return home for a long time. The young man contacted the police and the rescue service. Since the Nautilus did not respond to radio requests, a search operation was launched at dawn.

Around 10 am on August 11, 2017, a rescue helicopter found the Nautilus - at sea, 50 kilometers south of Copenhagen. Soon, Peter Madsen himself got in touch and said that the submarine had technical problems and was returning to port.

However, Madsen was lying. As soon as he noticed the rescue helicopter, he descended into the wheelhouse, opened the kingstones that ensured the submersion of the boat under water, and left the hatch in the wheelhouse open. Within an hour the submarine sank.

Search participant Christian Isbak, who discovered the submarine, recalled that at the moment when he sailed on a boat to the Nautilus, which was on the surface, he saw Madsen standing in an open wheelhouse. The boat then began to sink rapidly. Madsen, wearing a life jacket, threw himself into the sea and swam to Ibsak's boat.

After the rescue, he told the police that the boat sank due to problems with the ballast tank. When asked where the journalist Kim Wall was, he shrugged his shoulders: they say that last night he dropped her off in the same place where he took him on board - that is, at the Halvandet restaurant in Refhaleöen.

Murder "by negligence"

The police checked Madsen's statement and found that no street camera in the Halvandet restaurant area recorded Kim Wall's return.

And the judge issued an arrest warrant for Madsen - on charges of intentional or unintentional murder of a Swedish journalist.

Already at the first interrogation, Madsen confessed that he had lied to the police, and Kim Wall was really dead. True, he swore that he did not kill the girl. Madsen assured that Kim Wall died "through negligence", having received a blow to the head with a 70-kilogram manhole cover. Say, at that moment, Madsen was standing on the wheelhouse of the Nautilus and invited the journalist to follow him up. He held the hatch, but slipped, and the metal structure collapsed on the girl.

I immediately saw that her skull was fractured and that she could no longer be saved, ”he said during interrogation by the police. Her agony lasted about twenty seconds. Then she died.

He left the body in one of the cabins, after which he lay down to take a nap in another cabin. The next morning, he decided to commit suicide by sinking himself along with the submarine - "to end it all at once." But at the very last moment, he got scared and rushed to the rescue boat.

And, as the lawyer of the millionaire Betina Hald stated, Peter Madsen agrees to a deal with the investigation, but only with the charge of "negligent homicide."

Rise of the Nautilus

The very next day, divers examined the sunken submarine, but no body was found there.

And Peter Madsen immediately changed his testimony: he "remembered" that he did not leave Kim Wall's body in the submarine, but threw it overboard into the open sea. Say, he was in shock, did not understand what he was doing.

Since Madsen swore that he threw the journalist's body overboard without any cargo, the Danish and Swedish maritime rescue services were involved in the search, the Copenhagen police called for help in the search for all yachtsmen who go to sea.

The operation to raise the sunken submarine also began - the police needed to carefully examine the crime scene.

However, everything was to no avail.

Scary finds

On August 21, 2017, news came from the Danish island of Amger. A local cyclist found the body of a woman on the shore while walking. Soon, the police clarified the information: they found only part of a dismembered female body - without a head, arms and legs. A heavy metal pipe was tied to the body with wire - a load so that the body would not float to the surface. But the storm still threw the body ashore.

A month later, Swedish divers found the victim's legs and head, and a month later, the girl's hands wrapped in a plastic bag.

Naturally, a DNA test was immediately carried out. And the police made an official statement: the body parts found belong to Kim Wall.

An autopsy also showed that Kim Wall died a painful death: apparently, she was beaten for a long time with heavy metal objects. Also, 15 stab wounds were made with a knife or a sharp scalpel, including in the chest and genitals.

After examining the premises of the Nautilus (by that time the submarine had already been lifted out of the water), forensics came to the conclusion that the murder took place in the captain's cabin - Kim's blood was found on the walls. Also, traces of Kim Wall's DNA were found on the body of Peter Madsen.

Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen holds a press briefing after Copenhagen City Court ruled that submarine owner Peter Madsen will remain in custody. Photo © Jens Dresling / Ritzau via AP

After that, the house of the Danish millionaire was also searched. The police found on the hard drive of Madsen's home computer a whole collection of pornographic films in the style of sadomaso. Moreover, in a number of films shot somewhere in Eastern Europe, scenes of rape and murder of women, whose heads were cut off on camera, are very realistically shown. The police assume that the records are reliable and they really capture the murders.

These films do not at all prove Madsen's involvement in the journalist's murder, the police say. - But these films show us that he is interested in fetish, torture and violent murder scenes.

As a result, Peter Madsen was charged with premeditated murder. Peter Madsen himself denies everything: he assures that he buried Wall's body in the sea safe and sound.

Experiments at depth

The discovery of sex tapes of the murders was a real blow to journalist Thomas Jursing, author of a biographical book about Madsen.

Peter never hid his passion for various sex experiments, says the journalist. - Despite the fact that he married five years ago, he preferred to live in an open relationship and never hid that he was a member of fetish groups. But he always preferred something more refined, like role playing or dressing up, never showing any sexual interest in violence or torture.

However, Peter himself admitted in an interview that he was always drawn to new experiments.

I hope that one day I can get a criminal experience. No, I'm not planning to rob a bank at all. Sometimes I want to build a huge airship and fly over Copenhagen - so that all the police cities are chasing me. And may they finally catch me...

What happened on the boat?

At the trial, Madsen said that Wall died due to the accumulation of exhaust gases on the submarine. He himself, according to him, fell into a psychopathic state under their influence and decided to get rid of the body.

The millionaire said that he pierced the body of the deceased several times with a sharp screwdriver, "so that gases do not accumulate there." According to Madsen, there was no erotic or sexual overtones in his actions. He also denies that he kept the underwear of the deceased as a trophy.

However, according to investigators, the millionaire prepared for the crime in advance: it was established that he took a knife, a saw and other tools for dismembering the body on board his submarine. And a video camera - Madsen filmed the murder on video.

The examination found that Madsen first raped the victim, and then tortured the girl for a long time, using syringe needles, a saw, a knife and a Phillips screwdriver.

A few hours later, he strangled Kim. Then he slit her throat. And he inflicted ten blows with a knife in the torso - as he himself explained, to facilitate the access of water to the internal organs.

Also during the trial, it became known that a forensic psychiatric examination characterized Madsen as "a perverse polymorph with psychopathic character traits", nevertheless he was declared sane, but taking into account certain sexual and psychopathic deviations.

However, such traits are also observed in all of Denmark - remember that a few years ago it was Danish zoos that became famous throughout the world for their attitude towards animals. So, in Copenhagen, zoo employees not only killed a young giraffe named Marius, but also publicly dismembered his carcass - for the amusement of the audience. Let the kids see what the giraffe has inside.

Then everyone could throw pieces of meat to the lions. By the way, lions - two elderly and two young males - were also put under the knife. All for the enjoyment of the public.

Knots for memory

The prosecutor called Madsen's crime "so disgusting and repulsive" that he simply has no words. He also noted that on the day of the crime, the Dane wrote to three more girls and offered them a ride on his submarine, but they all refused.

And now the Danish police suspect that journalist Kim Wall was far from the only victim of a maniac killed on board the Nautilus. Now the police are conducting additional research aboard the submarine, trying to find traces of other victims. It seems that one of the cabins was used as a real torture chamber, and the burial of corpses in the sea at great depths became a reliable way to get rid of all the evidence. After all, if it were not for the storm that broke out on the night of August 21, the police would still be looking for the body of the unfortunate Kim.

Now the police have remembered the name of another alleged victim of Madsen - this is 22-year-old Japanese student Kazuki Toyanaga, whose corpse was found in the sea off Copenhagen in the fall of 1986. She was also dismembered and flooded in parts. Moreover, the knots with which the killers of the student tied the load to the arms and legs of their victim are almost identical to those knots that were found on the torso of Kim Wall.

Peter Madsen was only 16 at the time. As his biographers wrote, after school he learned to sail with his father in the sea and knit marine knots.