Image copyright Peter Thompson/AFP/Getty Images Image caption Kim Wall was last seen in the conning tower of Peter Madsen's submarine on the evening of 10 August

Kim Wall was an established, freelance journalist who had travelled the world from her home in Sweden.

She had been chasing an interview with Danish inventor Peter Madsen for several months and had little hesitation in taking up his invitation for a trip on his homemade submarine off Copenhagen on a sunny evening last summer.

It was 19:00 on 10 August when she boarded the UC3 Nautilus and in the final photos taken from a passing ship some 90 minutes later she was smiling and looked relaxed in the sub's conning tower.

She was about to move to Beijing in China with her Danish partner, Ole, and this was to be her final story before leaving. The 40-tonne submarine that the inventor had built in 2008 was, after all, not far from Ole's flat in Refshaleoen, a harbour area of the capital.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Kim Wall's death - what we know so far

Peter Madsen was a "semi-celebrity" in Denmark. And it was not his submarine that Ms Wall was interested in, but his ambition to build a rocket to launch into space.

Kim Wall, 30, had previously reported from North Korea, the South Pacific, Uganda and Haiti, writing for the New York Times, the Guardian, Vice and the South China Morning Post. This would be a relatively straightforward piece, even if it did mean missing the couple's going-away party.

"I'm still alive btw," she texted her partner. "But I'm going down now. I love you! He brought coffee and cookies tho."

It was the last message she sent from the vessel. Ole repeatedly texted back and raised the alarm after midnight.

Her mutilated torso was discovered on a beach by a passing cyclist on 21 August. Her head, legs and clothing were found by police divers on 6 October.

What happened to Kim Wall?

What happened that night in the Oresund strait between Denmark and Sweden became an international cause celebre, with Peter Madsen ultimately going on trial and being convicted of premeditated murder and aggravated sexual assault.

Although his sub was sighted by a merchant ship to the north-west of the Oresund bridge at about midnight, it had no satellite tracking and authorities were unable to contact Peter Madsen until the morning.

It was finally spotted from a lighthouse at 10:30 on 11 August. A rescue helicopter radioed Madsen and then looked on as the submarine sank within 30 seconds. Madsen was pulled to safety by four people out fishing and taken to the port of Dragor, where he was met by a group of reporters and described the final moments of the sub, blaming its sinking on the ballast tank.

Police would later say "the sinking of the submarine was allegedly a consequence of a deliberate act".

There was no sign of Kim Wall. It took almost a fortnight for the journalist's death to be confirmed.

Police said a torso found by a cyclist on the shore of Klydesoen to the south of Copenhagen was hers and that her arms, legs and head had been "removed as a result of deliberate cutting".

Several weeks later, police divers found the rest of her remains about 1km (0.6 miles) from where her torso had been discovered, in Koge Bay. Police said they were in bags that had been weighed down with car pipes and metal pieces.

What did Peter Madsen say about that night?

It was on 11 August that Peter Madsen gave his first of three versions of what happened to her. It was these shifting and unconvincing explanations that helped convict him.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mr Madsen was filmed by a Danish TV crew as he was escorted by police after his rescue

Madsen said he had dropped her off at about 22:30 the night before near the Halvandet restaurant on the northern tip of Refshaleoen and had not seen her since. Restaurant owner Bo Petersen said the area was well covered by CCTV and he handed the video footage to police.

After a judicial hearing on 12 August, police revealed Peter Madsen had given them a new account of events, which finally emerged on 21 August. Madsen had told them there had been a "terrible accident" on board. Ms Wall had been accidentally hit on the head by the submarine's 70kg (150lb) hatch. He had then dumped her body somewhere in Koge Bay, about 50km (30 miles) south of Copenhagen.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Ms Wall's blood was found in the submarine

Peter Madsen has been in police custody ever since 12 August. His lawyer Betina Hald Engmark said at the time that her client was relieved to have been able to shed more light on what had happened but it was not an admission of wrongdoing.

Then, on 30 October, police said the inventor had changed his story and told them she died on board of carbon monoxide poisoning while he was up on deck. He also admitted dismembering her body, which he had previously denied.

This was similar to the account he gave his trial in March 2018.

The air pressure on board the submarine had suddenly plummeted while he was on the deck, he explained, and Kim Wall was in the engine room. The sub had filled with exhaust fumes and he had been unable to get back in.

"When I finally manage to open the hatch, a warm cloud hits my face. I find her lifeless on the floor, and I squat next to her and try to wake her up, slapping her cheeks," he said.

After trying for almost an hour to push her body out of the submarine, he said he mutilated her.

Image copyright AFP/Ritzau Scanpix Image caption Peter Madsen, drawn here in a court sketch, has maintained that Kim Wall died in an accident on board the submarine

Peter Madsen always denied murder and aggravated sexual assault, but admitted dismembering Kim Wall's body and disposing of it at sea. He told his trial he had hidden the truth out of respect for the victim's family.

What do prosecutors say happened?

Prosecutors rejected Peter Madsen's account, describing it as a lie aimed at saving his skin. His defence lawyer argued their story was not backed up by real evidence.

Image copyright PETER THOMPSON Image caption This is the last known picture of the sub taken before Kim Wall's disappearance at 20:30 on 10 August

The prosecution painted a picture of a man who enjoyed watching videos of women being killed or tortured which were found on his workshop computer. Peter Madsen had watched a beheading video shortly before he had taken Kim Wall out in the submarine, they said. It had been found by police on a back-up profile of his iPhone.

During the trial, prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen said it was unclear how Kim Wall had died, but it was clearly intentional and with a sexual motive. Madsen had already asked other women to join him on the sub that week but no-one else had come, it was said.

The prosecution argued that a screwdriver, a saw, and metal piping were taken on board the submarine by Madsen for the first time on 10 August as part of a premeditated murder plan to stab his victim, mutilate her and then dispose of her body.

A scientist from the Danish Technological Institute told the court that Peter Madsen's argument that Kim Wall died of exhaust fumes was possible, but only if the temperature on board had risen very high.

A police witness told the court there had been no sign of exhaust fumes.

Madsen was given a life sentence and told by the judge that Kim Wall's murder was cynical and planned.</s>Copenhagen Police confirmed Wednesday morning that a torso washed up near Copenhagen is that of missing Swedish journalist Kim Wall.

“DNA match between torso and Kim Wall,” police wrote early on Wednesday in a tweet confirming the DNA match.

Lead investigator Jens Møller Jensen said at a press briefing at Copenhagen’s Politigården police headquarters on Wednesday morning that DNA from muscle taken from the torso and blood found in the submarine had been matched to samples from some of Kim Wall’s belongings.

“There’s a connection that tells us it is one and the same person… we have an identical DNA match from a hair brush and a toothbrush belonging to Kim Wall, from blood in the submarine, and from the torso on which we conducted autopsy yesterday,” he said.

The lead inspector also told media that it appeared Wall's body had been tampered with to make it sink.

“With regard to the autopsy, I can add that there are some injuries to the torso that appear to have been caused deliberately in an attempt to ensure that air leaves the body to prevent it from floating or leaving the sea bed.”

“Similarly, metal was attached to the body, ostensibly to make sure that it sank to the bottom,” Jensen said.

The inspector added that he considered the DNA match to be a “relatively big breakthrough” in the investigation of Wall’s death.

The discovery of the torso and Wall’s disappearance could now be treated as one and the same case, he said.

The torso was found near the shore on the island of Amager on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday, police said that the body’s arms, legs and head had been ‘deliberately’ removed.

“Current status is that there is a torso whereby the arms, legs and head have been removed by means of deliberate cutting,” lead investigator Jens Møller Jensen said in a video statement released to press via Twitter on Tuesday.

Freelance journalist Wall went missing after having boarded the 18-metre UC3 Nautilus sub on the evening of August 10th, apparently as part of her work on a feature story about its owner, inventor and entrepreneur Peter Madsen.

Madsen was brought back alone to a harbour on Copenhagen on Friday after the vessel sank in waters near Køge Bay.

The submarine owner initially claimed that he had brought Wall back to land at around 10.30pm on the night of her disappearance.

On Monday August 14th, police said that they believed the Nautilus to have been sunk deliberately, after the vessel was raised and brought to land for forensic examination.

Copenhagen Police confirmed on Monday morning that Madsen told Copenhagen City Court on August 12th that he had buried Wall at sea after she died on board due to an “accident”.

That information was kept behind closed doors by the court until Monday.

Madsen’s lawyer Betina Hald Engmark told the BT tabloid on Wednesday morning that the DNA match does not change the explanation given by her client for Wall’s death.

“The DNA match does not change my client’s explanation that there was an accident,” Engmark told the newspaper.

“We consider it to be a positive thing that she [Wall, ed.] has now been found,” she added.

Police will continue searching in waters off Copenhagen for the remaining parts of the body, Jensen confirmed on Wednesday.

A call by police for any witnesses who may have seen the submarine on the night of Wall’s disappearance or following morning still stands, he added.

The investigation will proceed with further forensic testing as well as ongoing collection of witness statements.

READ ALSO: Kim Wall died in accident on board submarine: Peter Madsen</s>A headless torso found on a beach along the Copenhagen shoreline has been identified as part of the remains of the Swedish journalist who went missing two weeks ago. This grisly discovery of a torso without a head, arms, or legs, was traced to Kim Wall, 30, through the use of DNA matching.

Wall had left port on August 10, in a 17-foot homemade submarine, with its inventor, Peter Madsen. This was the last time she was seen alive. Madsen was plucked from the waters off Copenhagen after the homemade submarine sunk. The 54-year-old inventor gave conflicting stories on the whereabouts of Wall, which created suspicion for authorities.

The headless torso was found in shallow water along the beach by a passing cyclist. The torso had a piece of metal attached to it in what appears to be an attempt to sink the remains.

According to Fox News on the air today, the submarine, which was raised by maritime authorities and investigated, was found to have blood inside. They also said that it appeared as if all the air in the torso that was discovered had been deliberately pressed out of the remains, which was also another detail NPR News reported below.

The medical examiner did an autopsy on the torso and Copenhagen police revealed the rather gruesome findings in a press release. According to the medical examiner, “the body bears the mark of having, most likely, been inflicted deliberate damage with the purpose of ensuring that gasses can pass out of the body — possibly in an attempt to avoid that a body rises from the seabed,” writes NPR.

When Madsen was rescued after his sub had gone down, he told police a few different stories on what happened to Wall. He said Wall was not with him on the sub when it sank. Police took him into custody and charged him in connection with Wall’s death because of the conflicting stories he gave. He was in custody when Wall’s torso was found.

First, Madsen said he had dropped Wall off in port before heading back out where the sub ran into trouble and sunk to the bottom of the sea. He later changed his story to say that Wall had died in an unspecified accident on board the vessel and he buried her at sea, somewhere in the Bay of Koge.

Wall, who is a freelance journalist with past stories featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, and other popular publications, was shadowing Madsen while she did a story on the homemade sub this inventor had created. Often called “Rocket Madsen,” this inventor had dreams of sending a rocket into space. He is famous for his invention of three personal submarines, which have made him headline news in the past.

When the two shipped out on board that sub, the Nautilus, on August 10, the last known photo of the missing, now dead journalist, was taken on board the sub as it left port. That photo can be seen below in the embedded Twitter post.

According to Fox News on Wednesday afternoon, police have evidence suggesting that Madsen deliberately sank the sub after Wall was dead. When investigators had the sub raised, there were no remains found in the sub, but blood was discovered. That blood also matched Wall’s DNA.

The police report that the head, arms, and legs had been deliberately cut off the torso, but Madsen’s lawyer said that her client continues to claim he is innocent and that Wall died in an accident on board that sub, according to BBC News. Betina Hald Engmark, Madsen’s lawyer, said that the fact that the torso was found does not change her client’s plea. She said that her client was “very relieved” the torso had been found and identified.

According to NPR, the lead investigator on this case is Jens Møller Jensen. He said in a statement released on Tuesday, “Naturally, the DNA match is a relatively large break through in the investigation which will now continue until we have built all possible information in the case.”

Kim Wall’s worked out of Brooklyn, New York, but she was in her own backyard while doing a story on Madsen. She was born and raised in the area where the sub went down, a point her mother made when she first went missing.

According to the BBC, when a case such as this one comes into play, police revisit cold cases to see if any of the factors resemble ones in other unsolved cases. One of the cases the police are looking into today occurred back in 1986. A torso was found floating in the Copenhagen Harbor, which sounds similar to the Kim Wall case. The torso belonged to a missing Japanese woman and this is a case that has never been solved.</s>Danish police have identified the journalist Kim Wall as the woman whose body was found on the Copenhagen waterfront. A wealthy inventor claims that he "buried" her at sea after she died in an accident on his sub....
• In the last 3 hours
• Danish police say body found near Copenhagen was Kim Wall's DW World (Today) - Danish police have identified the journalist Kim Wall as the woman whose body was found...
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• Body found in search for missing USS John S. McCain sailors DW World (Yesterday) - The remains of some missing Navy sailors have been found in a compartment of the...
• Danish police say body found near Copenhagen was Kim Wall's</s>The headless body identified as that of missing journalist Kim Wall was intentionally weighed down with a piece of metal before it washed up on a Copenhagen beach, officials said Wednesday.

The body of the 30-year-old journalist, who disappeared earlier this month after the home-built submarine she was on with another person foundered, was discovered Monday attached to a piece of metal, "likely with the purpose to make it sink", Copenhagen police chief Jens Moeller Jensen told reporters. Copenhagen police said Tuesday that Wall's head, arms and legs had "deliberately been cut off" her body.

Wall's body "washed ashore after having been at sea for a while," Moeller Jensen said, adding police also found marks on the torso, indicating someone tried to press air out of the body so that it wouldn't float.

In addition to the the grim discovery on the beach, authorities found dried blood belonging to Wall inside the submarine.

"On Aug. 12, we secured a hair brush and a toothbrush (in Sweden) to ensure her DNA. We also found blood in the submarine and there is a match," Moeller Jensen said.

While DNA tests confirmed Wednesday the torso is Wall's, the cause of the journalist's death is not yet known, police said, adding they were still looking for the rest of her body.

Wall was last seen alive on Aug. 10 on Danish inventor Peter Madsen's submarine, which police believe he intentionally sank off Denmark's eastern coast the following day.

Madsen, 46, who has been arrested on preliminary manslaughter charges, denies having anything to do with Wall's death.

The inventor initially told investigators Wall disembarked from the submarine to a northern Copenhagen island several hours into their trip and that he didn't know what happened to her afterward. But he later told authorities "an accident occurred on board that led to her death" and he "buried" her at sea.

Madsen also told a local television station last week the sub sank due to technical issues.

“I was toying with various things on the submarine and then an error occurred,” he told TV2 immediately after the sub sank.

Madsen's defense lawyer said Wednesday her client still maintains he didn't kill Wall, and the discovery of her torso doesn't mean he's guilty.

"It doesn't change my client's explanation that an accident happened," Betina Hald Engmark told Danish BT tabloid, adding "no matter what, we find it very positive that she has been found now."

What is likely the last picture taken of Wall showed the freelance journalist, smiling, aboard the sub and standing alongside Madsen, whose back is turned, just before the Nautilus departed on its ill-fated voyage.

Wall, who was based in Brooklyn, N.Y., had been writing about Madsen and the Nautilus at the time of the incident. Wall freelanced for publications such as the New York Times, The Guardian and Vice magazine, and had studied at the Sorbonne university in Paris and the London School of Economics. She also received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York in 2013.

Her family had told The Associated Press she was working on a piece on Madsen, adding that she had worked in many dangerous places as a journalist, and it was unimaginable "something could happen...just a few miles from the childhood home."

In an email to the AP, the family said it received the confirmation of her death "with boundless sadness and dismay," adding "the tragedy has hit not only us and other families, but friends and colleagues all over the world."

The International Women's Media Foundation said it was "deeply saddened" to receive confirmation Wall had died.

"She was dogged in her pursuit of important and sometimes quirky stories," the organization said in a statement. "She was adored by those who knew her."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Danish police say body found near Copenhagen was Kim Wall's

Danish police have identified the journalist Kim Wall as the woman whose body was found on the Copenhagen waterfront. A wealthy inventor claims that he "buried" her at sea after she died in an accident on his sub....
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• Body found in search for missing USS John S. McCain sailors DW World (Yesterday) - The remains of some missing Navy sailors have been found in a compartment of the...
• Danish police say body found near Copenhagen was Kim Wall's</s>A headless and limbless corpse found in waters off Denmark was deliberately mutilated, say Copenhagen police.

But they say it is still too early to say whether it is the remains of Swedish journalist Kim Wall.

She was last seen alive on 10 August as she departed on a trip with submarine inventor Peter Madsen.

He initially said he had dropped her off safely near Copenhagen, but has since said she died in an accident and that he had "buried" her at sea.

The body has been sent for DNA analysis, but the results will not be available until Thursday morning.

Divers continue to search the waters near where the torso was discovered, but, despite some reported sightings, other remains have not been found.

"The current situation is that there is a torso in which arms, legs and head have been removed off as a result of deliberate cutting," said Jens Moller Jensen of the Copenhagen police.

"There is nothing about the length of the torso to indicate that it is not Kim Wall, but we do not yet know."
• Kim Wall: What we know and what we don't

Ms Wall, 30, was a freelance journalist who had graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She was based between New York and Beijing and had written for The Guardian and The New York Times.

She was reported missing by her boyfriend after she failed to return from what should have been a short trip to research a feature about Mr Madsen and his submarine, the Nautilus.

The submarine sank hours after the search for the journalist began, and Mr Madsen was charged with negligent manslaughter. Danish police believe the 40-tonne vessel was deliberately sunk by Mr Madsen, who was rescued before being arrested.

The torso was found on Monday in shallows off the densely populated Danish island of Amager, on which the Danish capital of Copenhagen is partly situated.

Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning</s>Police in Denmark have confirmed that a body that was found washed up on shores near Copenhagen on Monday had its arms, legs and head "deliberately" removed.

In a video statement released to press via Twitter, lead investigator Jens Møller Jensen stressed that it is still uncertain whether the body is that of missing Swedish journalist Kim Wall.

The torso was found near the shore on the island of Amager yesterday afternoon.

“Current status is that there is a torso whereby the arms, legs and head have been removed by means of deliberate cutting,” Jensen said.

“The length of the torso means that there is nothing to suggest that it is not Kim Wall, but we do not yet know,” he said.

Samples taken for DNA testing would provide further information in the identification of the body by Wednesday morning, the investigator added.

“Material has been taken for DNA analysis. We will not have the results until tomorrow, and it must then be matched against DNA material from Kim Wall,” he said.

At a press briefing on Monday evening, Jensen confirmed that the female torso, without arms, legs or head, had been found in water off the island of Amager.

“We have recovered the body in the proper manner. It is the torso of a woman… The torso has been taken to the Department of Forensic Medicine [at the University of Copenhagen, ed.] where an inquest will be conducted,” he said.

“Clearly, the police, like the media and everyone else, are speculating as to whether [the body] is Kim Wall. It far, far too early to say anything about that. We simply do not know,” the lead investigator added.

READ ALSO: Kim Wall died in accident on board submarine: Peter Madsen

Jensen also said during the Monday briefing that the body bore clear signs of having been submerged in the water for some time, with Jensen saying that the body had “certainly not fallen in the water today.”

Freelance journalist Wall went missing after having boarded the 18-metre UC3 Nautilus sub on the evening of August 10th, apparently as part of her work on a feature story about its owner, inventor and entrepreneur Peter Madsen.

Madsen was brought back alone to a harbour on Copenhagen on Friday after the vessel sank in waters near Køge Bay.

The submarine owner initially claimed that he had brought Wall back to land at around 10.30pm on the night of her disappearance.

On Monday August 14th, police said that they believed the Nautilus to have been sunk deliberately, after the vessel was raised and brought to land for forensic examination.

Copenhagen Police confirmed on Monday morning that Madsen told Copenhagen City Court on August 12th that he had "buried Wall at sea" after she died on board due to an “accident”.

That information was kept behind closed doors by the court until yesterday.

Jensen also said in the press message released on Tuesday that police were continuing to search in the water near where the torso was discovered in an effort to find other remains.



 Police divers on the shore of Amager on Tuesday. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Scanpix</s>A headless torso found in waters off Denmark has been identified as missing Swedish journalist Kim Wall, Danish police say.

There was a "DNA match between [the] torso and Kim Wall", Copenhagen police said early on Wednesday.

Ms Wall was last seen alive on 10 August as she departed on a submarine trip with inventor Peter Madsen.

The submarine sank hours after the search for Ms Wall began. Mr Madsen was charged with negligent manslaughter.

He initially said he had dropped her off safely near Copenhagen, but has since said she died in an accident and that he had "buried" her at sea.

Danish police believe the 40-tonne submarine was deliberately sunk by Mr Madsen. He denies any wrongdoing.

Lead investigator Jens Moller Jensen said that DNA had been taken from Kim Wall's hairbrush and toothbrush at her home in Sweden and it matched the remains found on a beach south of Copenhagen on Monday. There was metal attached to the headless torso to ensure it sank, he added.

Blood found on the submarine itself had also been identified as belonging to the Swedish journalist. He would not comment on the cause of death but said a post mortem examination was being carried out and police were still looking for the rest of her body.
• What we know

Ms Wall, 30, was reported missing by her boyfriend in the early hours of 11 August, after she failed to return from a trip on Peter Madsen's homemade submarine, the Nautilus.

A freelance journalist who had written for the Guardian, New York Times and South China Morning Post, she was researching a feature about the inventor and the Nautilus, which he built in 2008 with crowdfunding.

Emergency services scoured the area of sea to the east of Copenhagen and the submarine was eventually spotted from a lighthouse south of the Oresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Within 30 minutes the vessel had sunk and Mr Madsen was rescued.

For 10 days, the search for the journalist continued. A torso was found by a passing cyclist on a beach near Koge Bay on Monday.

Police said the next day that the arms, legs and head had been deliberately cut off. They finally confirmed it was Kim Wall in a tweet early on Wednesday.

Mr Madsen's lawyer, Betina Hald Engmark, says her client has not confessed to anything. He pleaded not guilty in a closed-door judicial hearing earlier this month.</s>Copenhagen: Danish police have identified a headless female torso found in the Copenhagen waterside as that of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who police believe was killed on a home-made submarine.

"DNA match between torso and Kim Wall," the police said on Twitter on Wednesday, declining to comment further until a press briefing in the morning.

Danish inventor Peter Madsen, charged with killing Wall on his submarine, told the court she had died in an accident and that he "buried" her at sea, changing his previous statement that he dropped her off alive in Copenhagen.

The body was found on Monday by a passing cyclist and police said then it was too early to identify the body which was missing its head, legs and arms.

The case has been followed closely by Danish and Swedish media and has drawn interest from around the world.

Madsen has been charged with manslaughter of Wall who has been missing since he took her out to sea in his 17-metre submarine on August 10. He denies the charge.

He was rescued a day after his UC3 Nautilus sank. Police found nobody else on the vessel.

Danish and Swedish maritime authorities used divers, sonar and helicopters in the search for the body in Koge Bay, south of the city, and in the Oresund Strait between the two countries.

Madsen, an entrepreneur, artist, submarine builder and aerospace engineer, appeared before a judge on August 12 for preliminary questioning. The case is not open to the public to protect further investigations, police said.
A headless dismembered torso found washed ashore in Copenhagen two days ago is identified as Kim Wall. According to a police spokesperson, the body was deliberately mutilated and had metal attached to it so that it would not float.