DENMARK : The background story of Kim Wall’s tragic death
Kim Wall’s death: What happened to the journalist whose murder is portrayed in The Investigation
The background story of Kim Wall’s tragic death
The circumstances surrounding the tragic murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall are to be explored in a new BBC drama series called The Investigation.
Oscar-nominated writer and director Tobias Lindholm wrote and directed the gritty six-part series, which proved to be a huge hit in Denmark in 2020.
Who was Kim Wall?
Before her untimely death, the 30-year-old was an award-winning reporter from Sweden.
Her work had appeared in the Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vice and TIME, and she had reported from Cuba, Kenya, Uganda, the Marshall Islands and the United States.
She received her undergraduate degree from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a dual masters degree in journalism and international relations at New York’s Columbia University.
At the time of her death, Ms Walls lived with her Danish boyfriend Ole Stobbe in Copenhagen. The couple were due to move to Beijing less than a week after her murder.
Who was Peter Madsen?
Peter Madsen is a former engineer and entrepreneur who built three submarines and was convicted of Ms Walls’s murder.
Ms Walls had contacted him earlier in 2017 to see if she could interview him. Madsen then texted Ms Walls to confirm she could visit him on the submarine to interview him.
Her boyfriend, Stobbe, said that Ms Walls “was afraid to go on the trip in a submarine”, but that she was “fascinated by people dedicated to something”.
What happened on the submarine?
Ms Wall agreed to meet with Madsen and boarded the submarine Nautilus around 7pm on 10 August. The submarine never returned to harbour and Stobbe called the police at 1.43am the next morning to report Ms Wall missing.
When was Ms Walls’s body discovered?
On 21 August, a cyclist discovered Ms Walls’s torso washed up on a beach in the southwest of Amager.
A post-mortem examination found multiple stab wounds, mostly in the groin.
Police divers and dogs found plastic bags containing further body parts of Ms Walls in the subsequent months.
What happened to Madsen?
Madsen was arrested after being rescued from Køge Bay on 11 August 2017 after Nautilus foundered and was charged with negligent manslaughter.
Police suspected that he had scuttled – or intentionally sunk – the submarine. Initially, Madsen claimed that he dropped Ms Wall off on land, but then admitted to dumping her body on sea after what he said was an accident on board.
Prosecutors in the subsequent court case said that police had found videos on Madsen’s computer showing women being murdered and that witnesses had said they had seen Madsen watching videos of decapitation and asphyxiation sex.
He was sentenced to life in jail in 2018 after a court dismissed his claim that Ms Walls’s death was accidental.
In September 2018, Madsen lost an appeal against his life sentence with judges saying that the case was characterised by “unusual brutality”.
Madsen later confessed that he killed Ms Walls to a journalist who secretly recorded more than 20 hours of phone conversations with him in jail for a documentary.
Kim Walls’s legacy
Kim’s mother, Ingrid Wall, said in 2020 that she did not want her daughter to be remembered as “the victim”. She and her husband Joachim co-wrote a book about Kim, saying in a Guardian interview: “We must, we will tell who Kim was as a human being, as a friend, as a journalist, as a daughter, a fiancee and sister.”
Ingrid added that she chose to “concentrate on the good things”, rather than thinking about Madsen. “It’s very easy to feel hatred and thoughts of revenge, but in that case we will be the only losers, because the man who is sitting in jail won’t care at all,” she said.
Of his late girlfriend, Stobbe said: “She was an incredibly ambitious journalist and an amazingly curious person, who found beauty in all places and couldn’t stop herself from travelling, experiencing, discovering and sharing with others.”
The Kim Wall Memorial Fund was established by the International Women’s Media Foundation in partnership with Kim’s family and friends, to award an annual $5,000 grant to help other women with Kim’s adventurous spirit chase down “important, underreported stories”.
Her alma mater Columbia University created a scholarship in Kim’s name and the Overseas Press Club of America also established an award in her name to honour the best story or series of stories on international affairs using creative and dynamic digital storytelling techniques.
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