Police have made a gruesome discovery in the case of a journalist who disappeared after going to sea with an inventor.
Danish police announced today they’ve found the head and legs of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who died mysteriously on an inventor’s submarine.
The discovery of the body parts was made on Friday and there were no fractures in Wall’s cranium, a police spokesman told reporters in Copenhagen.
The naked remains of the 30-year-old freelance journalist’s body washed up in August, headless and limbless, after she went to sea to research a story, reports the Guardian.
Police have charged Danish inventor Peter Madsen with killing Ms Wall, after his submarine sank and he was rescued.
Madsen is awaiting trial and faces five years to life in prison – Ms Wall’s head and legs were discovered by police divers on Friday.
Jens Møller Jensen, Deputy Police Officer at Copenhagen Police, told a press conference this morning:
We found a leg. An hour after another leg and shortly after, a head also lay in a bag that was weighed down by several pieces of metal.
The body parts were confirmed as Ms Wall’s by autopsy last night after being found in plastic bags weighed down with ‘heavy metal pieces’ alongside a knife.
Ms Wall was stabbed in her ribcage and groin ‘around or shortly after her death’, the postmortem found, according to prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen.
He also revealed Ms Wall’s DNA was found in Madsen’s fingernails, face and neck but the cause of death has not been established, Copenhagen City Court heard.
46-year-old Madsen faces preliminary charges of manslaughter and indecent handling of a corpse – he claims Ms Wall died after being accidentally hit by a 155lb hatch.
Ms Wall’s torso washed up 12 days after going to sea aboard the submarine to interview the inventor.
A fund set up in her memory has raised more than $86,000 of a $100,000 target since it was launched in early September – the fund will give grants to female reporters looking to cover subculture stories, the Remembering Kim Wall website states.
Kim was reported missing on August 11 by her boyfriend when she failed to return from her interview.
Madsen initially claimed he’d ‘dropped her off safely in Copenhagen’ but changed his story later on.
The investigation continues.
Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.