Burial at sea on a 3 hour tour? A 3 hour tour!
Private sub captain changes story, now says reporter died, was 'buried at sea' – torso found
The story of a Danish inventor and a missing Swedish journalist has taken a bizarre turn, as Peter Madsen now claims he buried Kim Wall at sea. Madsen, being held on manslaughter charges, told a Copenhagen court Monday that the reporter perished when the 26-foot-long UC3 Nautilus submarine, one of the only privately funded …
COMMENTS
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 13:10 GMT Brangdon
I doubt it is the same woman. Without face, teeth or fingerprints the torso will need to be identified from DNA, which will take time and hasn't happened yet. It could be some other crime. I doubt submarine guy would have had time or inclination to dismember, and it kinda blows away his "buried at sea" story. I mean, why use a story that will be disproved as soon as the body is found?
-
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 10:15 GMT smudge
Re: Generous police
If only there was a quick way of washing the entire submarine, inside and out...
I knew someone would say that. IANA forensic scientist, but I'd be surprised if a short sinking would remove all traces from him and from the sub - even if the sub had completely filled with water.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 19:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Generous police
Quick back of the envelope swag. Given a 2 meter diameter sub at 17 meters long is about 50 cubic meters let's say half of that is usable on the interior so on sinking it takes on board 25 cubic meters of seawater and lets say an adult human holds about 5 liters of blood. If all the blood was entirely inside the sub and if filled with water on sinking makes dilution on the order of 1 part in 5000 which would leave somewhere on the order of 1 ml left to find after it was drained.
Is anyone else bothered that the size of the sub seems to change with each story? I'll stick with Wikipedias numbers of 17.76 meters long with 2 meter beam.
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 10:01 GMT Jon 37
Re: Generous police
Manslaughter is enough to keep him in prison while they investigate. He's admitted she died in an "accident" on board. The "burial at sea", sinking, and lying / change-of-story are certainly suspicious and at minimum the police can say they suspect the accident was his fault. That's enough to charge him with manslaughter and hold him for a bit (perhaps until trial), and it'd be very hard for him to contest that given what he's already said.
If/when they get evidence of other crimes then they can charge him with those, but there's no rush. (E.g. they might suspect him of murder, hiding a body, and attempting to frustrate the investigation by deliberately sinking his submarine).
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 22:58 GMT usbac
Re: Personally
I've been in several private submarines. Atlantis Submarines operate tours in several tropical areas. Granted they are corporate owned, but they are not "publicly", as in government owned.
I highly recommend taking a tour in one. I can't dive due to some medical reasons, so it makes for a very fun way to see the underwater world.
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 05:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
You can't change your story like that
If anything screams "GUILTY!" to me it is a guy who first says he dropped the reporter off and then changes his story to say that the reporter died (somehow?) and so he did what literally no one would do in that circumstance and buried him at sea and lied about it.
He's going to need one hell of a defense lawyer to avoid spending the rest of his life in jail.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 10:36 GMT Swiss Anton
Re: You can't change your story like that
I doubt that he would serve more than ten years in jail, even if found guilty of murder. Its Denmark, not the USA(*). And as for needing "a hell of a defense lawyer", nope, all a lawyer needs to do is make the case that the suspect was not of sound mind at the time of the incident. Dismembering a body and throwing it into the sea doesn't sound like the actions of a sane person.
* I'm guessing you might be an American given your spelling of defence.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 10:55 GMT fajensen
Re: You can't change your story like that
all a lawyer needs to do is make the case that the suspect was not of sound mind at the time of the incident.
... The risk here being that the prosecution may take the same tack to prove that the suspect is not of a sound mind at the best of times and in fact has a dangerous personality disorder, in which case he gets "Detention until cured": Minimum 5 years, psychiatric evaluation every 2 years, no parole possible.
This sentence may be longer than the usual 10-16 years in the slammer for a "normal murderer".
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 10:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: You can't change your story like that
It's Denmark, one really have to go to excesses to get more than about 16 years here.
He might pull a "forvaringsdom", where the court decides, "not crazy but not exactly normal either and a persistent danger to others", that means incarceration until the person is deemed to no longer be a risk to others. *That* can be a long time.
I think about two people got actual "life". Palle Sorensen who shot 4 unarmed police officers, was released after 33 years and a cancer diagnosis, Naum Conevski. who neck-shot two teenagers is still inside where he belongs (33 years, still waiting for the cancer to work on the problem).
http://www.fyens.dk/indland/Klumme-Livstid-kan-godt-betyde-livstid-i-Danmark-heldigvis/artikel/3148934
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 08:51 GMT Loyal Commenter
Occam's Razor
The simplest explanation here doesn't involve some bizarre accident, 'burial at sea' somehow while the sub was already crippled, and then a changing story.
The simplest explanation I can think of involves the age-old bad things that can happen when a man gets a woman alone in a place she can't escape from, and a fracas ensues, followed by a panicked disposal of a body and deliberate scuttling of the sub.
Not that I'm saying that's what actually happened, its just the simplest sequence of events I can think of that fits the known facts. His (current) story may indeed by true, although if this is the case, he has done nothing to help himself by initially lying.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 11:36 GMT Hollerithevo
Re: Occam's Razor
Something that happens pretty much every day somewhere in the world. The only thing different here is the submarine.
Commentards have joked and said their puns are only harmless fun and stop virtue signalling. So if the dead person was a ten year old boy? Would it be as funny? I agree with loyal commentator that the simplest explanation is that a woman was trapped, knew the fear of death, was finally murdered, and her body butchered, and perhaps my virtue is so achingly sensitive that I am not amused, but I'm not.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 13:10 GMT John Mangan
Re: Occam's Razor
I'm going to risk the wrath of the commentards by replying to this.
It shouldn't make any difference if the victim was a ten year old boy or a sixty year old man but it probably would. I think (hope) that most commentards do not find the details of what seems most likely to have occurred in any way amusing but humans do seem to try to dissociate from the horror of a thing by playing around the edges. And punning is probably the least aggressive of these approaches.
I can understand people finding this to be harmless fun and I can understand those who think it isn't. I doubt that anyone would make the same jokes if it had been an acquaintance of theirs that suffered this appalling fate but in that case the tragedy is too close to disarm in this way.
The untimely end of a human life, probably in conditions of fear and isolation, is not funny but language does help push the monster back into the cupboard.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 13:23 GMT Lord Elpuss
Re: Occam's Razor
"So if the dead person was a ten year old boy? Would it be as funny?"
Funny or not, I suspect it might generate the same level of punnery. People write puns because the context invites it (e.g. 'bizarre'), not because it's socially appropriate. Therefore within certain extreme boundaries, pretty much anything will get punned.
Humour also helps people process unpalatable news; hence why people often recount amusing recollections during a funeral eulogy.
Oh, and you put some thought into it, but still - #virtuesignalling.
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 09:23 GMT Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese
Re: FFS!
I suspect that the intended meaning is "only funded privately", i.e. there are a number of craft which have been funded exclusively by private funds, and this is one of them.
So...yes, this reads badly - a decent writer should have been able to arrange some words to make the phrase more meaningful.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 24th August 2017 00:48 GMT barbara.hudson
Re: FFS!
And "one of the only" is what happens when people think "well, spell-check didn't flag it, so it must be okay."
break - brake, rein - rain - reign, they're - there - their, these regularly turn up in professionally edited articles. I noticed the trend start in newspapers in the mid-80s. People began trusting their tools too much almost immediately, "because computer."
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 16:20 GMT Jonathon Desmond
Re: FFS!
My brain itch comes from people using 'crafts' as the plural of 'craft' in this context.
The plural of craft (as in a transportation device such as a sailing vessel or aeroplane) is also craft - there is no 's'
e.g.: 'On a Sunday, the busy waters of the Solent are packed with many craft such as pleasure vessels and sightseeing boats'
Conversely, the plural of craft (when referring to handicraft or ability) *is* crafts.
e.g.: 'He is skilled in the crafts of knitting and embroidery'
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 09:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Something worth remembering
Being dumped in the water for several days can dismember a body. It's odd for it to have successfully removed all the limbs, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility. I'm personally aware of one headless body being found who had died from natural causes and fallen into a stream. Incidentally, don't ever drink from mountain streams, you don't know what's polluting it half a mile upstream.
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 11:12 GMT PNGuinn
Re: Something worth remembering
"My old college lecturer used to like reminding us how this happened to him, he saw people drinking from a stream, half hour walk up the stream, and there was a pile of dead rotting sheep in it..."
For a fast running mountain stream, 1/2 mile of well oxygenated water, probably perfectly ok as far as the pile of dead sheep go. Maybe not so for liver flukes nor human sewage from the nearest tributary aka the local farmer's septic tank.
Never drink from one of those lovely little streams which issue from a Cornish* cliff. Now you know the likely source.
* Cliffs are available elsewhere - you don't need to go all the way to the south west to get sick.
You can find a sorts of nasties under a bridge. So I'm told. >>
-
-
-
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 19:37 GMT TheElder
Re: Something worth remembering
We have something here known as beaver fever (Giardiasis). They are nearly invisible parasites that inhabit what looks like perfectly clean water in lakes and streams. I always use a Zeolite water filter. Giardiasis can make you very ill.
When symptoms occur they may include diarrhea, abdominal pain, and weight loss. Vomiting, blood in the stool, and fever are less common.
-
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 10:10 GMT Eguro
Just a note. According to the courts he originally told the courts that she had died and he had buried her at sea, but due to closed doors that information was not revealed.
About a week later it was decided to release this information partly to end any discussions of searching for her, and what could have happened.
So he might initially (when he was pulled from the boat) have given one story, but - as far as I know - he has maintained the now-revealed version of events from the very first day in court - that is last Saturday.
http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/retskorrespondent-peter-madsens-forklaring-skal-afmystificere-ubaadssagen (second to last section of this article)
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 11:20 GMT Dan 55
Newsnight report that goes overboard* on the Scandi noir camerawork.
* fill in own inappropriate joke here.
-
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 15:50 GMT JaitcH
What Sailor Has Ever Heard of ...
burying a person at sea on what is essentially a day cruise?
Were there even sleeping quarters on this rustbucket? Was the 'submarine' in international waters?
Likely she had discovered something untoward with the 'financials' and had asked too many of the wrong questions.
-
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 18:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Starting to make sense.
The Beeb is now saying that the body was deliberately mutilated and the submarine is believed to have been deliberately scuttled.
So he faked an accident and killed her, reasons to come later. His only mistake was underestimating our ability to recover corpses from the ocean.
-
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 14:55 GMT Shez
Re: Starting to make sense.
Not only deliberately mutilated, with the arms, legs and head removed, but also in a way which appears to have been an attempt to prevent the buildup of decomposition gases, the torso was also attached to some metal as ballast.
It's sounding less like the honourable "sea burial" that was first implied, he clearly didn't want the torso to be found.
-
-
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 19:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
A guess
He started dismembering the body as he was unable to lift it whole through the various hatches. However she died he wanted rid of the body quickly, that is not a good sign IMO.
As as an old twisted bitter git with a sick sense of humour can I just say some of these comments that concern a recently deceased individual are terrible, I know this is the internet but seriously could you not give it a couple of months before naff joking about her death?