Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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.

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