Police Confirm Woman’s Torso Identified as Journalist Killed on Homemade Submarine

The DNA from a headless and limbless torso found washed along the shores of a Copenhagen island in Denmark are reportedly those of missing Swedish journalist, Kim Wall.

Copenhagen police confirmed on Wednesday that Wall is believed to have died on an amateur-built submarine that sank by eccentric inventor, Peter Madsen.

The Guardian reports that Madsen is charged with murder, but will be jailed on preliminary charges of manslaughter, under particularly aggravating circumstances.

Wall was last seen alive Aug. 10 on the submarine, UC3 Nautilus, which sank off the east coast of Denmark the following day. It has not yet been investigated how the 30-year-old freelance journalist died, nor how or why her body was left dismembered.

In a statement on Facebook, Wall’s mother, Ingrid, wrote: “It is with boundless sadness and shock that we received news that the remains of our daughter and sister Kim Wall have been found. We cannot yet grasp the extent of this catastrophe and there are many questions that must be answered.”

A cyclist who found the headless torso floating in the ocean discovered Wall’s remains on Monday near the area where the submarine sank on Aug. 11. Danish tabloid, BT, reported the next day that Copenhagen police said her arms and legs had been “deliberately been cut off” the body.

Madsen initially told investigators that Wall was writing about the submarine and later dropped her off in a remote section of the port in Copenhagen. However, he later changed his story, telling investigators Wall died accidentally on the submarine, which sank and that he buried her at sea.

In an investigation by the New York Times, chief homicide investigator for the Copenhagen police, Jens Moller, said at a news conference that “metal had been attached to the torso to weigh it down.

“We consider this a breakthrough in the investigation,” Moller said, “But we continue to search for the missing body parts.”

Moller adds that they found “coagulated blood” inside Madsen’s submarine, which was recovered from a depth of about 22 feet. Police have said that they believe the submarine was deliberately sunk.

Wall was a graduate of Columbia University and London School of Economics, based between Beijing and New York. Her work appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian and TIME among others.

Photo credit: Twitter / @MarjaKangasvaar