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Danish engineer and co-founder of Copenhagen Suborbitals Peter Madsen has admitted to dismembering journalist Kim Wall, but denies murdering her:
Danish police say that inventor Peter Madsen has admitted to dismembering Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who was researching a story in August on board a submarine he built. He denies killing her and maintains that her death was an accident, authorities say.
Madsen was alone when he was rescued from the sinking UC3 Nautilus, which police believe he sunk deliberately. As NPR's Colin Dwyer has reported, he initially claimed that he dropped Wall off safely the same day they set out — then he changed his story, saying he "buried her at sea" after a heavy hatch fell on her head.
Divers later found Wall's severed head in Denmark's Køge Bay. As NPR's Amy Held reported, police said there were "no signs of fracture or blunt force trauma to the skull," casting doubt on Madsen's claims. The head was in a bag weighted down with metal, authorities said.
Now, according to a Copenhagen police statement, Madsen has changed his story once again. He says that Wall died from carbon monoxide poisoning inside the submarine while he was sitting on the submarine's deck. During an interrogation on Oct. 14, police say, Madsen said that after Wall died, he dismembered her body and threw the remains in the bay. "This explanation (by Madsen) naturally will lead the police into gathering additional statements from the coroner and the armed forces' submarine experts," Copenhagen police investigator Jens Møller Jensen said, according to an Associated Press translation.
Also at Ars Technica, The Register, BBC, and NYT.
Previously: Submarine Builder Charged With Manslaughter After Burying Journalist at Sea
Search of "Rocket" Madsen's Space Lab Finds Footage of Woman's Decapitation
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @09:20AM (1 child)
The whole "don't talk to the police" thing is a US concept, and while the Reiser case was in the US, the Peter Madsen case is in Denmark. Danish police aren't paid or promoted depending on number of convictions, and they are usually most interested in finding out the truth, rather than convicting *somebody*.
If you are accused of something you didn't do in Denmark, it is in your best interest to cooperate with the police. While we do have the right to remain silent, it WILL count against you. For example if it's later found out that you are not guilty, you probably won't get any compensation for the time you spent in jail during the case if it can be argued that you caused the case to take longer by not cooperating.
Even if you are guilty, depending on the crime, it can be better to cooperate, for the same reason. If you spend two years in jail before getting a one year sentence - and thus being released due to time served - it will still be considered your own fault that you spent an extra year in jail because you didn't cooperate.
In the case of Peter Madsen, it probably won't make any difference. The crime is so severe that time served won't matter, and they have enough evidence to get a conviction no matter what he said or didn't say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:56AM
Danish rules may be different, but I can assure you that Peter Madsen is not helping his case by failing to shut the fuck up. In fact quite the opposite. If he had only shut the fuck up from the start, he would be in a much better position today.