Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen was charged with the murder of Swedish reporter Kim Wall on Tuesday.
Prosecutors in Copenhagen announced that his charges include “indecent handling of a corpse, and other sexual relations than intercourse” with Wall, NPR reported.
“This is a very unusual and extremely brutal case which has had tragic consequences for Kim Wall and her relatives,” Special Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen said.
In October, Madsen confessed to dismembering Wall’s body but denied murdering her, saying her death was an accident.
Wall was first reported missing by her boyfriend on Aug. 11, and her headless torso was found in Koge Bay off the east coast of Denmark 10 days later. Her head, legs and clothes were found in bags weighed with metal on Oct. 7, with the autopsy finding no signs of head trauma and disproving Madsen’s submarine hatch claim. Police also said they found dried blood in the sunken submarine that matched Wall’s DNA taken from her personal items.
Madsen previously told police that Wall had died when a submarine hatch fell on her head and denied dismembering her, but has changed his story and now claims Wall died of carbon monoxide poisoning on his submarine. Madsen intentionally sank his submarine after Wall was reported missing, with police taking him into custody on preliminary manslaughter charges shortly afterwards.
Wall has worked as a reporter for several outlets, including The New York Times, the Guardian and Vice. She was a graduate of Columbia University and London School of Economics, and based between Beijing and New York.
Madsen is a Danish inventor who crowdfunded the construction of the submarine, Nautilus, in 2008. When the submarine sank, Madsen blamed the incident on “a minor problem with a ballast tank” that “turned into a major issue.”
While the cause of death is still unknown, prosecutors believe that Madsen either cut Wall’s throat or strangled her after she had come aboard the sub.
He is scheduled to be tried by jury beginning in March and prosecutors are seeking life in prison. There is no capitol punishment in Denmark.