Danish Inventor Finally Admits To Killing Swedish Journalist Last Seen On His Submarine In 2017

A Danish inventor serving a life sentence for the murder of a journalist who died after getting on his submarine has admitted to the killing, three years after the crime.

Peter Madsen, 49, was convicted in 2018 for the murder of Kim Wall, a 30-year-old Swedish writer who died the year prior. However, he had always maintained that Wall died by accident — until now. Madsen made his shocking admission in a new Discovery Networks Denmark documentary, "The Secret Recordings with Peter Madsen," the Copenhagen Post reports. 

“It was nobody else’s fault. It’s my fault she died. And it’s my fault because I committed the crime. It’s all my fault,” he reportedly said during the documentary.

Wall, a freelance writer, was last seen climbing aboard Madsen's self-built submarine in August 2017, the Associated Press reports. She was there to interview Madsen, a self-taught engineer, but the submarine, named the UC3 Nautilus, sunk the following day, with authorities later concluding that it had been sunk on purpose.

Madsen initially claimed that he'd dropped Wall off on land before the submarine failed, but he later changed his story and alleged that Wall had had a fatal accident, hitting her head on the hatch, and so he'd disposed of her body at sea, according to the Associated Press. When Wall's torso was found in the water less than two weeks later — followed by her head and her limbs, which were discovered in bags filled with heavy metals — Madsen then alleged that Wall had actually died from carbon monoxide poisoning, which would explain the lack of injuries to her skull.

Prosecutors, however, claimed that Madsen had viciously murdered Wall as part of a violent sexual fantasy.

Investigators found graphic footage of women being brutally murdered on Madsen's computer, but Madsen claimed in court that the computer in question did not actually belong to him and had been used by others, according to the Ekstra Bledet, a Danish outlet.

Madsen was convicted in April 2018 on charges of murder, sexual assault, and defilement of a body, and was sentenced to life in prison, according to the Associated Press. He appealed his sentence — but not the guilty verdict — in September 2018, but the request was denied that same month, the outlet reports.

It remains unclear exactly how Wall died. The Discovery Denmark documentary pulls from 20 hours of phone interviews with Madsen, but Madsen was vague when describing the circumstances surrounding Wall's death, according to the Copenhagen Post.

Wall "hit some things," Madsen reportedly said. When the interviewer asked if he then killed her, Madsen said yes.