Danish Submarine Inventor Says He Buried Swedish Journalist at Sea | Hacker News Reader

Danish Submarine Inventor Says He Buried Swedish Journalist at Sea

nytimes.com

Even if this was at all believable, to change your answer from 'I dropped her off' to 'she's dead' isn't really going to do you any favors...

The police have found a women body "without arms, head and legs" they said this evening. They have not denied confirmed that it is Kim though.

Is it resonable that the limbs comes off from propellers at random in the sea? Does that happen?

http://ekstrabladet.dk/112/article6787128.ece

Murder, dismemberment and maybe more.

Well, submarine murders are kinda tech related ...

There's an awful lot of sea and a very small number of propellers. Plus if the body is floating, it would not be anywhere near anything but the smallest outboard prop. Also, if you look at the shape of a rotating prop, it could clip you, or mangle you a bit, but for most propellers the leading edge pushes you away so won't act as a cutting device unless you push against it or it's at high speed. I would think it very unlikely a propeller would do what was claimed.

If you cut head and arms in the same level (in a single clean cut) maybe, but is not the common way. Dolphins have similar sizes to a human body and had accidents with propellers all the time; they lose tails or heads, but not tails, heads and arms at the same time.

Not a chance a body would lose all limbs and the head in such a short time.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/how-long-do-d...

That could only be deliberate, so if it is Kim Wall's body then Madsen will have a lot more explaining to do.

I actually came back to make sure this update had been posted...

Generally I try and avoid speculation but this is so freaking crazy that its hard. Did he just lose his mind? did she have a stroke or hit her head and he freaked out? What the hell...

There was a time when, if someone in your traveling party died, you'd dig a hole 6' deep and bury them with some words of tribute. Or at sea, you'd weigh them down with a rock and slip them over the side.

For future reference, if a traveling companion dies far away from any emergency services (which wasn't really the case here), what is one's legal and moral obligation to bring the body back to civilization?

That is almost certainly a very complicated issue which has a lot to do with where the person died, your country of origin and so on. In this case however the guy lied about the timeline and events, which speaks to something other than death of natural causes.

Also worth mentioning is that the police were very quickly charging him with manslaughter - so quick, they probably had indications something was wrong with his statement even before the sub was raised.

Educated guess - there's cell phone coverage in most, if not all of Køge bay; it wouldn't surprise me if she managed to call the emergency services.

> it wouldn't surprise me if she managed to call the emergency services.

Not from within the metal hull of a partially submerged submarine.

I work offshore on occasion; when in areas with excellent coverage, you'll often have (spotty) coverage on decks below the waterline - the signal bounces off any reflective (to RF energy) surface and finds its way into lots of nooks and crannies where you wouldn't expect to have reception.

Sure, but a submerged sub shouldn't have any nooks and crannies that leads to the surface.

True, but a submarine does not necessarily travel submerged.

Typically such zones are small and prone to interference, if you move just a little bit your coverage could disappear and reappear. The same happens in the 'urban canyon' of big cities between the high rises.

Even so, the default is that if you're in a hull you should not expect to be able to get out, and a submarine especially has a nearly cylindrical hull with only a very small hatch up top and this particular one has a few windows.

> Also worth mentioning is that the police were very quickly charging him with manslaughter - so quick, they probably had indications something was wrong with his statement even before the sub was raised.

From the linked article:

> Mr. Madsen’s new account was only disclosed on Monday, with the approval of both the prosecution and the defense, although he had given it in court, behind closed doors, on Aug. 12

Sounds to me that his statement was exactly the reason he was charged with manslaughter.

It's going to vary depending on circumstances. If you are engaging in an activity where this is a realistic possibility, there should be a discussion about it. I recently sailed a boat from Los Angeles to Hawaii, and while the trip isn't especially dangerous you are far from emergency medical care. One of the guys did tell me that he would want to be buried at sea. The alternatives are not great if you are far from shore, how long does unrefrigerated meat last in the tropics? Some hikes and climbs it might be realistic to bring the person back, other times you might need to plan a return trip.

So you take pictures. You document the circumstances. You contact the next of kin. These are all the behaviors of an accidental death at sea.

But - Oops. I forgot. She died for some reason and I threw her overboard I hope doesn't cut the mustard.

Oh, definitely, you'd document it if that was possible. And I'm not saying this guy's story makes any sense. You might do a burial at sea on a 10-day voyage on the open ocean, there's no legitimate reason to do it on an afternoon cruise out of a major city.

I imagine it'll be heavily context dependent. If you're a day out from contact at sea, bringing it back is viable, whereas if you're half-way up K2 that's a far different proposition.

I think whether or not you are placing your own life in risk (or believe to the best of your knowledge this to be the case) by recovering the body is the determining factor.

Well, the moral obligations are simple: if you can bring someone back you probably should. And if you can't the fall back position is that you carefully mark where you left the body behind so it can be retrieved at a later date and that you make it your priority to notify the next-of-kin and the authorities truthfully about what happened.

And if you're within radioing/cell phone distance of help that you ask for that help.

If you're 3 hours away from the shore and you're most likely purposefully that far out just because you want to dump the body of someone you killed in deep water then of course none of the above applies to you.

Whatever Madsen did trying to cover it up is definitely not going to help when sentencing time rolls around. What a fool. It also doesn't help because no matter what will come out next there will always be a feeling that he's still holding something back.

It takes a special kind of warp to claim that you tossed someone overboard because of an accident and then expect to be believed if you already have admitted to lying about dropping her off on shore in the first place. Not to mention that additional grief caused to boyfriend and family by first giving them hope knowing full well that she is dead and then to snatch that hope away again. Asshole.

The most logical explanation that fits all the details is that he killed her and is simply fighting a rearguard action on having to admit that not realizing that his confession is going to end up in the 'optional' bin and that whatever he says will be discounted. Expect to see the book being thrown at Madsen, he's lucky if he gets out in the next decade.

We can only speculate about what happened here. Whatever it was, it happened in some mixed cloud of panic, fear, anger, shame, &c &c. I think the whole project of trying to evaluate the rationality of Madsen's response is poorly formed.

Something terrible happened on the sub. We don't know what, yet. Maybe we will some day. In the interim, I think there's room for compassion towards all involved.

> I think there's room for compassion towards all involved

Compassion? Seriously? I can only assume you are a close friend.

He is putting the family of Kim Wall through hell by giving them hopes she is still alive. He sinks the submarine on purpose so they never find out what really happened.

Her body is found with no head, arms or legs.

He deserves no compassion at all. A fair trial yes. But no compassion whatsoever.

There is this thing that I keep noticing. Some kind of 'faux balance', where two things that are totally not at all on the same level are given equal billing. Nazi's and counter protesters, killers and their victims, Intelligent Design and science.

Highly annoying development, as if if there are two sides to some story they both automatically deserve equal weighing.

If Madsen did all this - and there is no evidence so far that the did not - then he definitely does not deserve compassion. To coldly claim he dropped the woman off knowing full well that she was dead is utterly despicable.

There are basically two options.

1. She suffered an accident on board and Madsen panicked. Knowing that his reputation would be fucked if someone died on board he threw her overboard and claimed she was let go.

2. A sexual request went wrong. Madsen is known to be very forward. He is also in an open relationship with his wife. Wall might have freaked out leading Madsen to do something even more stupid than proposition her for sex.

If 1 happened, the police would know, since they surfaced the boat.

How? Surely there are accidents that would leave little or no evidence after pulling the sub off the bottom. Blunt force trauma to the head or something similar where there was no blood loss, but severe internal injuries.

The fact that he deliberately sunk the boat strongly suggests there was evidence.

It also strongly suggests that the evidence was of something a lot more serious than a mere accident.

Casual sex is not enough to explain this. In occident women decline this kind of proposals all the time. The european men know that this is normal and not a drama. Is deeply engraved in the culture. In 99,99% of the cases we'll need a stronger emotion for explain a murder than "my weekeend plan for casual sex with a complete stranger failed".

I don't think that the man is just a crippled psycho in disguise. Smart people can't avoid thinking logically, even if their acts seem irrational. There is always a subjacent current of logic... And here comes the third option

3. The women did something that was taken as a menace to his current ego/status and elicit a strong 'defensive' reaction.

The journalist can't be a menace for his wife or family (It seems they are publicly in an open relation). So probably is not sexual.

The man loves with passion other thing; His work. Maybe she did something that was seen as a menace against the other love of his life, his submarine. Maybe she poke around and tried to sneak/photograph/open/discover some parts of the engine with the purpose to earn some bucks selling the submarine secrets when returning to China. I'm speculating of course, but unless he was drunk or drugged (unprobable while driving a sub), or both where flirting for months by e-mail and he feels cheated, there should be a solid reason for she being 'punished' with death. This is not a random act IMAO.

> Maybe she poke around and tried to sneak/photograph/open/discover some parts of the engine with the purpose to earn some bucks selling the submarine secrets when returning to China.

Really, this is the best you could come up with?

This is a hobby sub, not something that is top secret and run by the US navy. Madsen's sub has no secrets worth a dime.

A hobby can mean still serious bussiness if you find the right buyer (Think in minecraft for example).

Casually China has the strongest and biggest (ever-expanding) aquaculture sector in the entire planet. Militar technology is totally out of reach for they, too big, and uncloneable, but I bet that a lot of chinese (or norwegian) seafarming companies could find good uses for a toy like this.

> A hobby can mean still serious bussiness if you find the right buyer (Think in minecraft for example).

Building a submarine is not that kind of a hobby.

> Casually China has the strongest and biggest (ever-expanding) aquaculture sector in the entire planet.

Yes, so they don't have much to learn from your average hobbyist sub builder.

> Militar technology is totally out of reach for they, too big, and uncloneable, but I bet that a lot of companies with fresh money to burn could find good uses for a toy like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_093_submarine

How is that for a toy? That's a nuclear powered sub the Chinese have a bunch of them, this one displaces 7000 tonnes submerged compared to the 40 tons of the Nautilus, has a crush depth orders of magnitude deeper than the Nautilus and carries a bunch of cruise missiles.

Do you honestly believe the Chinese could learn even a single useful thing from Madsen's toy?

The only people with a direct interest in running private submarines are the drug cartels and some salvage companies, and neither of those would lead to Madsen killing a journalist.

a toy like this = referred to the madsen submarine

> Do you honestly believe the Chinese could learn even a single useful thing from Madsen's toy?

I honestly believe that 99% of people in China don't know how to build a submarine or have free access to militar technology so, yes I do.

But lets explore your idea. If the reason is neither the passengers, nor the submarine, must be in the cargo. "Somebody found a shipload of something illegal, thus must be 'silenced'". Is a perfectly valid hypothesis. The problem is that: 1) No drugs where found and 2) would the guy be so dumb as to invite a journalist to enter in a relatively small submarine if there was a shipload of something illegal inside? It seems unlikely to me.

You have a very rich imagination.

There are far simpler explanations which do not involve foreign powers, secrets, drugs and so on.

If Peter Madsen turns out to be a drug smuggler on top of a murderer I guess it shouldn't surprise me but I'd put the seduction gone wrong entry a lot higher on the list of likely possibilities.

As for the 99% of the people in China, that's a nice attempt at reverse Chinese math, we're still looking at 10 million people then who know how to build a submarine? I'd be highly surprised if it was even 1% of that. The regular people in China need a submarine about as much as you or I do, which is not at all, which is one of the reasons why Madsens' efforts were notable in the first place.

Ad. 1: If there really was an accident then such concerns would never overrule the feelings of the family and spouse/boyfriend to know what happened to their child / loved one unless one has zero empathy.

So no, it was no accident because only then does Madsen have sufficient reason to lie about it and risk being found out.

Copenhagen Police just announced on Twitter that they got reports of a female body in the waters southwest of the city this afternoon

https://twitter.com/kobenhavnpoliti/status/89967522825052979...

They're also holding a press conference tonight at 2030 local time.

https://twitter.com/KobenhavnPoliti/status/89968767838346035...

I understand this is a juicy story -- but forgive me, how is this not considered off-topic given the HN guideline:

  Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

shrug Apparently the peculiarity and the fact that the accused is well known in certain tech/engineering sectors has passed the 'things hackers are interested in' bar.

From the same guidelines you quote:

  Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site.
  If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link.

For context/history, here's the discussion from last week when the events were first reported (and his story was that he'd dropped her off at shore, still alive): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998270

It's unfortunate to see this & negative press on Copenhagen Suborbitals. Hopefully it doesn't shut down the program.

He is no longer associated with them and hasn't been for some time. They are going to launch a rocket a couple weeks from now, weather permitting.

Thanks! I hadn't actually followed that. I remembered about an argument between him and Kristian von Bengtson (which led to vB's departure), but thought he was still with the group.

Looking forward to the upcoming launch!

Nevermind someone died. The most important thing is the reputation of an organization. Holy Moly are you ever compassionate?! She was a well known reporter and talented, show some respect would you?

While I agree with your basic sentiment, I have to wonder - would this be any less of a tragedy if she wasn't a talented and well-known reporter?

> would this be any less of a tragedy if she wasn't a talented and well-known reporter?

I believe so yes. But I'm more honest than most people.

Why woukd he kill the poor journalist while also sinking his sub? I'm very curious how this turns out.

Pure conjecture - the sub was sunk in an attempt to destroy evidence; after all, exposing a crime scene to sea water probably doesn't make it simpler for a forensic investigator to figure out what happened.

The murder itself? Try to cover for another crime? Again, (obviously) just conjecture.

I don't get it. If you're seriously going to go with the story "I dropped her off ashore, something else must have happened to her" then you don't want to attract attention to yourself, so you definitely don't sink the sub.

Conversely, if you feel you need to sink the sub to destroy evidence, then you don't say you dropped her off, you say she died in the same "accident" that caused the sinking.

Criminal cover-ups are often impulsive and full of logic failures in retrospect. Like other plans made hastily under high stress, really.

Most likely for the same reasons almost all crimes of this sort happen. He made a pass on her that wasn't well received, things got out of hand, emotions took over and at some point he either injured or killed her in the heat of the moment, then panicked and tried to cover up the situation.

Violent crime is rarely based on rational, well reasoned acts. I wouldn't try to read too much logic into it.

Do you have any data to support the claim that most crimes of passion involve "him making a pass at her"? This seems like an obvious narrative for a TV show but this is merely one of hundreds of possibilities that could result in her accidental death.

My "most" claim was more generic, in that they are situational, triggered by emotions (and lack of emotional control), and most often between people that know each other. Him making a pass at her is merely my conjecture of how that might have happened in this particular case, based on the circumstances that have been reported.

What does Madsen say about:

  * What happened while the two were at the submarine?
  * What did he do after he supposedly left her at a restaurante?
  * Why did he changed his story?
  * How did she die?

Did the journalist had any special information/characteristics/secret agenda that could have caused Madsen to kill her and destroy his own life in that way?

What was happening in the life of this Madsen recently that could indicate that he was going to do something like that?

This seems like an ill-advised thing to admit?

better admitting accident and ill advised burial than rape, murder and cover-up.

But not better than first misleading authorities with a lie and then to have the truth come out anyway. That tends to make things considerably worse for the defendant.

This guy does not seem smart.

He is smart. There are many competing forces in a human being. Smartness doesn't always win out. You might even notice this in yourself some day.

Hans Reiser comes to mind. Very strong engineer, comically inept at defending himself in court.

He was on certain levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Madsen_(inventor)

Smart is not a number. You can be smart and dumb all at the same time.

It's sadly common for people to be brilliant at one thing and hopelessly inept at others.

I have worked with a lot of people that were technically competent in a narrow field, but surprisingly clueless in most aspects of life.

It was sometimes a bit frustrating, since they could occasionally spend a lot of time on problems that had a simple solution for someone with some common sense.

I don't feel smart myself but generally get the big picture so I find it fascinating that smartness is multidimensional like that.

Hans Reiser[1] didn't do too well with the murder thing either, despite being (apparently) pretty damn smart w/r/t file-system internals.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser

Who goes alone in a home-made submarine with a strange mad scientist?

tons of people, regularly, over the last few years. this guy was very active and his sub has been in service for the better half of a decade.

So he was apparently a nice normal guy, with no signs of madness?

Oh no, he was very clearly mad. Just not the sort of madness that gave the slightest indication that he'd deliberately cause harm to anyone (accidentally causing harm by talking people into things, on the other hand...).

ahahah, sorry, that was an unexpected response.

So maybe that's what happened? He talked the journalist into something and later saw that she had died because of that, probably also causing harm to the submarine?, then panic'ed and told lies to the police.

Madsen, not madness.

I met him at a conference where he talked. Very charismatic person with a strong passion for his projects. Very friendly and openminded about ideas from anybody, but obviously also eccentric.

I would definitely have gone on a tour of that submarine with him.

Many people including other journalists before her. I honestly don't think anyone before this incident would think it involves any danger at all. A subway dive with a well educated, white middle aged man who is regularly in the media is not your typical crime scene.

> not your typical crime scene.

Not a scene of crimes typically investigated, prosecuted, etc. We'll never really know what crimes would get on the books if the criminal justice system decided (against their better judgement) to go after the powerful as hard as they go after the weak.

Why I've had 4 downvotes here?

Because it is the dumbest example of victim blaming seen in a long time here?

Why dumb?

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments?

Hey, I was called "dumb" like that and everything is ok, but asking why my question was dumb is discouraged like that? I was asking it sincerely.

You're linking "mental illness" to "violence", and saying there's a strong link.

There isn't. Mental illness is only a very weak predictor of violence.

While this is not the best of posts, I do think some of the responses deserve better than to be buried with it.

I gave it an up vote in order to unbury the rest of the discussion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com