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Danish submarine owner Peter Madsen admits to dismembering body of Swedish journalist
Peter Madsen, the Danish inventor, has confessed to sawing off the head and limbs of Swedish journalist Kim Wall and also changed his story about how she died on board his submarine, Copenhagen police said on Monday.
Mr Madsen, 46, now maintains that Wall died from carbon monoxide released into the deck of the submarine while he steered unawares from the conning tower, investigators said in a statement.
He continues to deny murdering her.
"He's claiming that there wasn't enough oxygen in the submarine and that she suffocated, and that he was upstairs and didn't notice and found her when he came back," said Steen Hansen, a press officer at Copenhagen police.
Madsen gave his changed account on October 14 at an interview arranged by his defence lawyer Betina Hald Engmar, after police presented DNA evidence found on his clothes.
"We worked hard to find evidence on his clothes that he had dismembered the body, and now we have found the evidence, he has changed his story," Hansen said.
"Now we have to talk to people who know the submarine to see if it's a possibility."
On September 5, Mr Madsen told a court that the 30-year-old had been killed when a metal hatch crashed onto her head, fracturing her skull.
But when her head was found in Køge Bay, south of Copenhagen, on October 6, it showed no sign of such a fracture.
The journalist set off with Mr Madsen in his self-built submarine on the evening of August 10 and was reported missing by her boyfriend later that night.
After Mr Madsen was rescued from his submarine as it was sinking the following morning, he initially claimed to have dropped her off at a restaurant on the island where his rocket workshop is based.
He later told police he had “buried her at sea” after she died on board.
Wall’s torso was discovered with its head, arms and legs removed, floating off the coast of a Copenhagen suburb on August 21.
Her head and legs were found floating in Køge Bay on October 6, together with a bag containing a saw.
Earlier on Monday, a statement from Mr Madsen’s lawyer Betina Hald Engmark said that Mr Madsen was volunteering to extend his pre-trial custody until November 15, obviating the need for the hearing planned for Monday.
In the statement, police also announced that eight days in March and April have now been set aside for Mr Madsen’s trial.
The journalist was from Trelleborg in nearby southern Sweden but had recently been living in New York.
She had been planning to write a magazine feature on Madsen, who was hoping to build a rocket capable of sending a man into suborbital space.