Severed head of Swedish journalist found near Copenhagen

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The investigation into the sensational murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who planned to make China her home, is revealing gruesome details that appear straight out of a Nordic Noir thriller. Wall was studying Mandarin and thought of China as the place where she would ultimately settle down, a friend of the murdered journalist told CGTN Digital.

Danish police on Saturday said they had recovered Wall’s severed head and legs from the sea near Copenhagen, two months after she disappeared on August 10 under mysterious circumstances from maverick Danish inventor Peter Madsen’s self-built 40-tonne submarine, UC3 Nautilus.

Copenhagen Police chief investigator Jens Moeller at a news conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 7, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Divers found the bags containing her head, legs and clothes in Koge Bay, south of Copenhagen, chief investigator Jens Moller Jensen said. "Last night our forensic dentist confirmed that it was Kim Wall's head," he said. The latest recovery wasn’t far from the area in Koge Bay where Wall’s headless torso was found floating on August 21, 11 days after she went missing.

Photo said to show Kim Wall standing next to Peter Madsen, who is accused of killing her on the private submarine UC3 Nautilus on August 10, 2017 in Copenhagen Harbor. /AFP Photo

Madsen, 46, is under custody since August 11 for murdering Wall, 30, and thereafter dismembering her body and throwing it into the sea. The self-proclaimed inventor has denied the primary charges while maintaining that Wall died after a 70-kilogram hatch door fell on her head. However, he has admitted to throwing her body overboard in panic.

Madsen claimed Wall’s body was intact when he threw it, but the condition of the decapitated head contradicted his version of events. There is "no sign of fracture on the skull and there isn't any sign of other blunt violence to the skull," Jensen said, citing an autopsy carried out overnight.

'Wall was fascinated by China'

Kim Wall was studying Mandarin and kept returning to China over the past five years. /Photo Remembering Kim Wall website

Wall worked as a freelance journalist based in New York City and Beijing. She reportedly planned to move full-time to Beijing with her boyfriend in August, the same month when the tragic incident cut her life short.

“Kim was studying Mandarin and kept returning to China over the past five years. She was fascinated by the sweeping changes unfolding there, and she thought of it as the place where she would ultimately settle down,” Mansi Choksi, a close friend of Wall, told CGTN Digital, responding through email.

Choksi studied with Wall at the Columbia Journalism School, New York. “She and I later worked together in Uganda and Sri Lanka. Our first project was about China's involvement in Africa, a story told through an emerging Chinatown in Kampala for VICE magazine,” she said.

“As a Chinese-American, I was always impressed by her breadth of knowledge when it came to China. She was someone who set the standard in terms of reporting not only on China but also on social justice,” Justin Chan, a former classmate told the Columbia Journalism Review.

Wall's flatmate in Beijing, Jonny, described her as "a bundle of joy, energy and eagerness" in his tribute on the Remembering Kim Wall website. "Every time Kim would come back from one of her trips to stay on someone's sofa, she would regale us with the most incredible stories of the adventures she’d had. These were told with no ego or to impress, but a desire to share the narratives of the people that she'd met," he wrote.

"They always came across in a way like Kim couldn’t quite understand why everyone wasn’t doing these things, as running away from Sri Lankan police or getting stuck up a mountain in South West China were perfectly normal activities. It was this outgoing, judgmental and curious attitude that made her a wonderful friend and an absolute powerhouse of a journalist," he added.

Kim Wall had previously worked in Australia as a reporter for the Swedish Embassy, for a European Union delegation in India, and as a young journalist at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. /Photo Kim Wall Memorial Fund

Wall had previous worked in Australia as a reporter for the Swedish Embassy, for a European Union delegation in India, and as a young journalist at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Her works were published in many international publications including the New York Times, South China Morning Post, Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, the BBC, Vice, Foreign Policy and Time.

“Last winter, we traveled through Sri Lanka's north to report on the failed promises of a feminist utopia, seen through the eyes of ordinary women who joined the fight for a sovereign Tamil homeland,” Choksi recalled.

“Kim reported on counter-narratives and about mis- or underrepresented places and people, with a particular focus on what subcultures can teach us about the bigger picture. Her stories combined rigorous shoe-leather reporting with a foreign policy lens. Her work reflected her own sensibility – she was brilliant, nuanced, and funny. Her stories shook up cliches, stereotypes and Western-centric narratives about empowerment and development,” she added.

Memorial fund raises 95,000 USD

The Kim Wall Memorial Fund has been set up in memory of the award-winning journalist by her family and friends. /Photo Kim Wall Memorial Fund

To honor the award-wining journalist’s spirit and legacy, her family and friends have founded the Kim Wall Memorial Fund, which has already raised more than 95,000 US dollars of its target of 100,000 US dollars.

“The fund will annually fund a female reporter to cover subculture, broadly defined, and what Kim liked to call ‘the undercurrents of rebellion’. Kim wanted more women to be out in the world, brushing up against life, and we would like to help bend the world in her vision,” said Choksi, who is actively involved with the fund.

“In the weeks after Kim was reported missing, we were at times dismayed by how her life and death was being reported,” Choksi said.

“The questions that were being asked were sometimes facile and other times blatantly sexist – why was she with him alone? Why did she get on that submarine? Did she know and trust him? These questions betray an understanding of how reporting works, but they also betray a certain paternalistic view on how women journalists should do their jobs. We wanted to reclaim the narrative and send more women out to do the work Kim would have done,” she elucidated.

A memorial service for Kim Wall was held in Beijing on September 6, 2017. /Photo: Kim Wall Memorial Fund

A memorial service for Wall was held in Beijing on September 6, which was attended by around 35 friends and colleagues. They recalled their favorite memory of Wall, and each lit a candle as the group sang "Stand By Me." The event raised a total of 7,643 yuan (around 1,140 US dollars) for the Kim Wall Memorial Fund

“Kim was an extraordinary friend, daughter, colleague. As a journalist, her work reflected her own sensibility – a resolutely post-colonialist and feminist outlook that shook up clichés and Western-centric narratives about development and empowerment. We will honor her legacy by supporting the kind of work she would have done,” read a message from Wall’s family, posted by her mother Ingrid Wall on her Facebook page on Saturday.

In a short video linked to the Facebook post, Ingrid Wall promised that “we will let her soul and spirit live on and we'll do that through Kim Wall Memorial Fund that will help other journalists to keep up the good work in Kim's spirit. That we owe her."

Columbia University has announced a memorial event in Kim Wall’s honor on October 11. The event described as “A celebration of Kim’s life” will be held at the university’s Pulitzer Hall between 19:00-21:00 local time.

Mad scientist with strange fetish?

Danish submarine owner and inventor Peter Madsen in Dragor Harbor south of Copenhagen, Denmark, on August 11, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Meanwhile, Danish police are hoping that further examination of Wall’s head could throw more light on the cause of her death, which the autopsy on the torso was not able to establish. The previous examination, however, showed multiple injuries to the genitals, giving rise to the theory of a sexual fantasy gone wrong.

The theory of a mad scientist with strange fetish gained further steam last Tuesday as a prosecutor revealed the existence of a hard disk found in Madsen's workshop that contained fetish films which showed women being tortured, decapitated and burned.

Members of the Danish Emergency Management Agency assist police at Kalvebod Faelled in search of missing body parts of Swedish journalist Kim Wall in Copenhagen on August 23, 2017. /AFP Photo

Madsen has denied that the hard drive belonged to him, while also swearing that he didn’t have a sexual relationship with Wall. His detention was extended for four weeks while investigations into the case continue. Madsen will appear again on October 31.

Wall’s grisly murder has also re-opened an unresolved case dating back to 1986 when a desecrated body of a 22-year-old Japanese tourist Kazuko Toyonaga was found floating in Copenhagen’s Islands Brygge harbor.

The similarities of both the deaths have compelled the Danish police to re-investigate Toyonaga’s case for possible links with Wall’s murder.

(With input from agencies)