In 2008, just as the 21-year-old Wall was settling in to her international relations studies at the London School of Economics, Madsen, then 37, was already completing work on the Nautilus, his third submarine.

“I mean, making space rockets and sailing around in homemade submarines is not normal behavior, but I’ve never seen him lay a hand on anyone,” photographer Bo Tornvig told a Swedish daily. One Danish photographer called him “a crazy person.” Footage posted online shows a control room studded with an array of dials, a crudely fashioned periscope, and a warren of rooms, one with a small cot covered with a wolf-gray blanket.Īccording to Swedish press reports, Madsen had contempt for some reporters who he felt had belittled his accomplishments in the past. But only a few people at a time could squeeze in the claustrophobic interior, with its curved, light green walls. “We guarantee a fun, inspirational experience that will be remembered,” promised Madsen on a crowdfunding site where he said he could accommodate groups of up to 200 people for two-hour tours. It’s unclear why he broke the rules with Wall aboard. Danish law prevented him from taking passengers out to sea. Madsen was trying to raise money to refurbish his 9-year-old creation, and frequently gave tours of the 60-foot-long vessel while it was docked near Copenhagen. He was a creative genius who treasured his freedom, which sometimes included “sexual experimenting in fetish groups” even though he was married and “lives with a partner he loves,” his biographer, Thomas Djursing, told The Post.īut his first love was his submarine. Madsen, 46, is now suspected of killing his interviewer, but what precisely happened on board the vessel remains as murky as the waters he explored.Īt least initially, there seemed little for the young freelancer to fear.Įven though he had a reputation for volatility, Madsen was a local celebrity, well known, and oft-interviewed by Danish journalists. There will never be peace on Nautilus as long as I exist.” “There is a curse on Nautilus,” he wrote, according to his website. Two years ago, in a dispute with volunteers who helped him build his UC3 Nautilus, Madsen sent an odd text message. Soon, she descended a ladder into Peter Madsen’s submarine, and never made it out alive. 10, the petite redhead dressed smartly in an orange fleece and black-and-white skirt waited on a dock on Refshaleøen, an island on the outskirts of Copenhagen. In August, when a gunman opened fire outside the Empire State Building, Wall rushed to the scene, recalled another Columbia professor.Ī story about a charismatic amateur scientist who fancied himself a real-life Captain Nemo as he trolled Danish waters in his DIY vessel seemed tame by comparison to her other assignments - but it was still too good to pass up. She had done this even before beginning journalism school in New York in September 2012. “She really was that kind of person who threw herself into the fray with every enthusiasm.” “She had an uncommon enthusiasm and happiness,” said Howard French, one of Wall’s journalism professors at Columbia University. She once even managed to slip into North Korea.

It was precisely the type of intrepid pursuit that marked her budding career.Īt just 30 years old, Wall had already written about voodoo in Haiti, explored Idi Amin’s torture chambers in Uganda, and covered the effects of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.

The Nordic jaunt - a stopover en route to the new life she was planning in China - would include a visit with family, and then a fun interview with an eccentric Danish inventor who built his own submarine. It was meant to be only a “brief trip to Scandinavia,” Swedish journalist Kim Wall assured one of her New York editors. Inside slain journalist’s fateful submarine ride Submarine killer Peter Madsen reportedly escapes from prison with bomb threatĭanish convicted submarine killer admits to murdering journalist Kim Wallĭanish submariner who killed journalist won't appeal murder convictionĭanish inventor sentenced to life in prison for killing journalist Submarine killer Peter Madsen gets 21 months for prison escape

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