Peter Madsen has claimed Swedish journalist Kim Wall was blown up by a landmine in a new documentary in which he also admits to killing her for the first time.
The 49-year-old Danish inventor gave a confusing account of the day that Wall, who had gone to interview him on board his home-made submarine in 2017, died in a series of phone interviews with a journalist.
At one point Madsen admits to killing Wall after she ‘pushed his buttons’, having previously claimed that she died in an accident.
But at another point, he says she touched a landmine which exploded, killing her.
Forensic examiners at Madsen’s trial said she died of strangulation or having her throat cut, and did not mention any injuries consistent with a blast.
Peter Madsen (pictured), who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall aboard his homemade submarine, has admitted to the crime for the first time
Kim Wall’s (pictured) dismembered body parts were found submerged in the water off Copenhagen after she interviewed Madsen on his submarine on August 10, 2017
Kurt Kragh, a former police investigator who listened to the interview with Madsen for Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, said he is still trying to pin blame on his victim, which is a ‘classic’ characteristic of murderous psychopaths.
‘They never take responsibility for their actions, regardless of how serious they are,’ he said. ‘He’s trying to justify what he’s done.’
Madsen was interviewed by Danish journalist Kristian Linnemann, who collected 20 hours of tapes in which the killer speaks about the day Wall died.
Linnemann said he initially reached out to Madsen about speaking via letter, before the killer wrote back saying he was ready to ‘put the cards on the table.’
While speaking to Madsen, Linnemann he was focused on getting a confession out of him, in order to give the family closure.
At one point, he gets Madsen to say: ‘It’s my fault she died. And it’s my fault because I committed the crime. It’s all my fault.’
Linnemann added: ‘My biggest hope is that Kim Wall’s family can use that confession for something. That it gives them a kind of ending.’
During his trial Madsen (pictured) had insisted that Wall’s death was an accident on his submarine, but he admitted to chopping up her corpse and throwing her body parts into the sea
Miss Wall’s dismembered body parts were found submerged in the water off Copenhagen after she interviewed Madsen on his submarine on August 10, 2017.
The series was produced by Discovery Networks Denmark with the Danish title ‘De hemmelige optagelser med Peter Madsen’, or The Secret Recordings with Peter Madsen, and was released on Wednesday morning.
During his trial Madsen had insisted that Wall’s death was an accident on his submarine, but he admitted to chopping up her corpse and throwing her body parts into the sea.
Wall, an award-winning reporter, had boarded the submarine to interview the eccentric and self-taught engineer for an article she was writing.
‘Apart from August 10, 2017, I’ve never done anything to anyone,’ Madsen said in the documentary series entitled ‘Secret Recordings with Peter Madsen’.
Only the first episode has aired so far.
The series is based on more than 20 hours of phone calls recorded between a journalist and Madsen without his knowledge, according to Discovery Networks Denmark.
Madsen later authorised the journalist to use the recordings for the documentary.
One of the last photos taken of Miss Wall shows her standing in the tower of the private submarine with Madsen on August 10
An autopsy report presented during the trial concluded that Wall probably died from suffocation or having her throat slit, but the decomposed state of her body meant examiners could not determine the exact cause of death.
Madsen was convicted of murder and sexual assault in April 2018 and sentenced to life in prison.
He later appealed against the sentence, arguing that life behind bars was ‘disproportionate’ and that her death was an accident. The appeal was unsuccessful and the court upheld his life sentence.
WHO IS PETER MADSEN? THE SELF-TAUGHT ENGINEER WHO BECAME A BRUTAL MURDERER
Peter Madsen on May 31, 2017, in Copenhagen
Peter Madsen was well-known in Denmark before his arrest as an inventor who dreamt of exploring worlds beyond.
The 47-year-old grew up in the small town of Saeby, 60 miles west of Copenhagen.
His parents divorced when he was six and Madsen went to live with his father, whom he has described as authoritarian and violent.
‘When I think about my father, I think how children in Germany must have felt if their dad was a commandant in a concentration camp,’ Madsen said in a 2014 biography.
At 15, he started his first company, Danish Space Academy, to buy spare parts to build a rocket.
He studied engineering, but quit once he thought he knew enough to build submarines and rockets.
‘My passion is finding ways to travel to worlds beyond the well-known,’ Madsen wrote on the website of his now-defunct Rocket Madsen Space Lab.
In 2008, he launched the Nautilus, the biggest privately made submarine whose ownership was later transferred to him after a row with former colleagues.
Around the same time, he developed his idea for private space travel.
In June 2011, he successfully launched a rocket from a floating platform on the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm.
Submarine UC3 Nautilus with Madsen and a team member in the tower on May 31, 2017
Madsen reportedly had an open marriage. Some of his ex-girlfriends have told the media he was into sado-masochism and erotic asphyxiation.
His half-brother Benny Langkjaer Egeso told AFP in August that Madsen is ‘very strange’, but also ‘very open and likeable’.
But others describe him as an erratic person who had spats with former colleagues and an interest in violent pornography.
‘His sexual fantasies slowly got out of hand,’ an associate, who had worked in Madsen’s laboratory, told the Copenhagen court, adding that the inventor called himself a ‘psychopath, but a loving one.’
The associate said Madsen toyed with the idea of making a pornographic film showing acts of torture and was ‘interested in snuff films,’ or movies where a person is really killed or kills themself.
Madsen has denied searching for or downloading such films but admitted to watching them ‘to be able to feel emotions and to cry’ about the women’s suffering.
But another apprentice engineer who had worked with him told the court the inventor was a ‘kind, empathic, passionate man who was ready to listen’.