DNA of headless torso found at sea matches missing Swedish journalist: Danish police

Published August 23, 2017
30-year-old Kim Wall had failed to return from an interview with Peter Madsen aboard the 60-foot Nautilus on August 10. — File/AFP
30-year-old Kim Wall had failed to return from an interview with Peter Madsen aboard the 60-foot Nautilus on August 10. — File/AFP

Danish police said on Wednesday that a DNA test from a headless torso found in the Baltic Sea matches with missing Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who is believed to have died on an amateur-built submarine that sank.

Wall, 30, was last seen alive on August 10 on Danish inventor Peter Madsen's submarine, which sank off Denmark's eastern coast the day after.

Madsen, who was arrested on preliminary manslaughter charges, denies having anything to do with Wall's disappearance.

He initially told police that she disembarked from the submarine to a Copenhagen island several hours into their trip and that he did not know what happened to her afterward, but later told authorities “an accident occurred onboard that led to her death” and he “buried” her at sea.

The headless torso was found by a member of the public on August 21 near where she was believed to have died.

Copenhagen police said on August 22 that the arms and legs had been “deliberately been cut off” the body.

In a brief statement on Wednesday, police said tests found the torso matched with Wall, and a news conference was scheduled for later in the day.

Wall, a Sweden-born freelance journalist, studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris, the London School of Economics and at Columbia University in New York, where she graduated with a master's degree in journalism in 2013.

She lived in New York and Beijing, her family said, and had written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The South China Morning Post and Vice Magazine, among other publications.

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