All language subtitles for Undercurrent.The.Disappearance.of.Kim.Wall.S01E01.WEBRip.x264-ION10

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)

(BUBBLING)

(WAVES)

♪ ("WHITE FIRE"
BY ANGEL OLSEN PLAYING) ♪

REPORTER 1: A bizarre story
unfolding in Denmark
this evening.

It involves an amateur-built
submarine and a journalist.

♪ Everything is tragic ♪

♪ It all just falls apart ♪

REPORTER 2: It's a case
that is both deeply shocking

and mysterious.

♪ But when I look
Into your eyes ♪

♪ It pieces up my heart ♪

♪ So I turned on
A picture show ♪

♪ I disappeared the lines ♪

♪ As memories came flooding in ♪

♪ The tears blew out my eyes ♪

REPORTER 3: A freelance
journalist whose work has been
published internationally

hasn't been heard from since.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(WATER LAPPING)

(BIRD SQUAWKING)

(SIREN WAILING)

TRINE MARIA ILSØE:
I've covered a lot of horrific,

terrifying criminal cases
in my reporting.

I can't see a police car

without wondering
where it's going.

Some of the stories are insane.

There are brutal details.

There might be
something about the motive

beyond anything
that we could imagine.

We have seen a lot of stuff
in court cases.

We have seen dead bodies.

But still, there was something
about this case that just...

messed up my head.

REPORTER: It's been a case
which has gripped a nation.

One that could have stepped
from the pages

of even the most imaginative
Danish crime thriller.

FRANK HVILSOM: It's true
there is a Nordic noir element

to this story.

You have these very rational,

soft, democratic,

Scandinavian welfare countries

where the world is almost,
almost perfect.

And then something
terrible, horrible happens

that tells you, "Yeah,
but it's not that perfect."

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

HVILSOM:
I was at the news desk...

and suddenly we got this message

about this submarine
was missing.

REPORTER: A Danish inventor,
who built the world's

largest privately made
submarine,

disappeared after a trip
on board his vessel.

For me, I didn't know we had
any private-owned submarines

in Denmark at that point.

So that was a story
that was already big

in the morning.

If you went on social media,

and you could see, there was
all this fuss about it,

and where is it?

How long
can you survive underwater

if something was wrong
down there?

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

HVILSOM: Shortly after,
we learned there was

a second person, Kim Wall,
who was missing.

And that certainly
draw the attention...

"What?"

ANNOUNCER: Listener-supported
WNYC Studios.

RADIO HOST: Kim Wall in
for the Guardian joins us now.

Welcome to our show.

KIM WALL: Thank you.
Thank you for having us.

SANDY PADWE:
Journalism's a funny animal.

Some love the adventure
of the hunt, so to speak.

Others truly see it
as a calling.

You want to enlighten
the public.

You want to tell stories

that will make people's lives
richer and better and easier,

and bring the truth
of what's going on.

And to me, that was
the epitome of Kim Wall.

-♪ (INDISTINCT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(BOAT MOTOR HUMMING)

PADWE: She knew
what journalism was about.

It's not just doing good,
but it's love of the words,

love of the presentation
of the words,

it's love of
getting your facts right...

so that in the end,

you're telling people
what stories are all about,

seen through
the lens of a journalist.

WALL: When you come
to Runit Island,

which is pretty tiny,

you walk through the bushes
and there it is.

And no warning signs,

nothing that indicates
what's inside.

And it looks so surreal.
It's like a UFO

or like a buried baseball
in the sand.

PADWE: It was that commitment
to doing journalism

and doing it well

that I said to myself, you know,

"Wow, there's something there."

TIM MCDONNELL:
Kim was naturally inclined

for journalism, I think,
because she is very tenacious.

She clearly has
no patience for bullshit.

She is, um, you know, kind of
has a dose of skepticism.

And I could see from
the work that she had done...

that she was very
deeply motivated

to pursue substantive stories

about people living on
the front lines

of different kind of crises.

SRIYA COOMER:
Whatever she did was different,

and the stories she,
you know, sought out

were not mainstream.

Kim liked to travel
around the world,

and I really think that
it was because of the fact

that she was curious
about the world.

You know, this ever-questioning,
ever-curious person.

And you can't be that

if you're just restricted
to one part of the world.

MCDONNELL: She was a student
of human character.

And I think she just was
motivated by

the weirdness of the world.

Working in the undercurrents
of rebellion.

Weird little corners that,
you know,

hopefully broaden
people's minds.

And I think that
she made choices

in her life and career,

giving herself maximum ability
to pursue those stories.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MCDONNELL: Seeing Kim's approach
to freelancing

was very inspiring for me.

You come into freelancing,

you're having to figure
everything out for yourself,

from how to do the reporting
to how to place the stories

to how to actually
turn this into

a viable independent business.

It's definitely a hustle,

whether you're gonna be able to
pay your bills

based on whether
you sell this story or not.

And Kim was really
diving into it

with so much confidence
and tenacity.

And the fact that
something catastrophic

would have happened to her
on a reporting trip,

it's impossible to imagine
that something like that

could happen
to someone like her.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

DITTE DYREBORG:
I'm Ditte Dyreborg,

and I'm a commander
in the Danish Navy.

And I was the submarine
chief engineering officer

who was called to the assistance

the day that a submarine
called Nautilus,

a privately built submarine,
Nautilus was missing.

My commanding officer
said to me,

"You need to go support

the search and rescue
operation."

"Okay," I said.

The last time I heard about

or know about
a privately built submarine,

there was this Peter Madsen.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

REPORTER:
Peter Madsen is an inventor,

an eccentric,
a minor celebrity in Denmark.

I'm a maker of
extreme machines, I'd say.

HVILSOM: Peter Madsen is
someone that you,

at least here in Denmark,
has known for several years.

He's a kind of crazy inventor

that builds submarines
and rockets

and, uh,
was just funny to follow.

I mean, why build a submarine?
Why build a rocket? But he did.

I discovered that
with the skills I had gained,

I could build a submarine.

DYREBORG:
I had known him before, in 2002.

I had asked him,
"Do you have any drawings?

Do you have any information
about this submarine?"

♪ (INQUISITIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

We were not, as submariners,
interested

in having other people
building submarines.

It was dangerous.

And to me it looked too heavy
for submerged operation.

(WATER SPLASHES)

If he would be submerged
to around ten meters

or sink ten meters,

he wouldn't be able
to get out of the boat.

So, immediately when I heard
that the submarine was missing,

and I said,
"Now it has finally happened."

I didn't know at that time
anything about Kim.

We only knew
that she was a journalist

doing her job.

JULIE THOMSEN: When Kim Wall
went on the submarine

with Peter Madsen,
she was apparently doing it for

this article
for a magazine called Wired.

Peter Madsen fit well
into the type of stories

she was interested in,

because he was different.
He was out of the norm.

MCDONNELL:
He is this wacky genius,
eccentric designer.

He builds rockets and submarines

and we're gonna go tour around
on one and write about it.

So you can see why his story
would have appealed to Kim,

and this would have
been something

she would see
as relatively low-hanging fruit

in terms of
a reporting assignment.

THOMSEN: She had seen
the submarine before

and got in contact
with Peter Madsen.

And on the day of the 10th,
she went by his workshop

and did the pre-interview

before going out
on the submarine.

Later on, she was supposed to
have this going-away party

for her and her boyfriend
with some friends,

which she then asked
if she could maybe leave

to go on the submarine
with Peter,

because he asked if she'd be
able to go that same night.

And she did.
And as they went out,

she waved goodbye
from the submarine.

She texts her boyfriend,
just letting him know

where she is
and how she's doing.

She sounds like she's excited
to be going down

on the submarine
and interview him.

We don't know exactly when,

um, but at some point,
they went under.

And this is when
it all just started

to get very weird.

She's supposed to be
on the submarine

for a couple of hours,

so her boyfriend starts to worry
when she hasn't come back

when it's ten o'clock
in the evening.

He calls the Coast Guard
around 2:30,

and around 3:30,

police start searching
for the submarine.

They send out an alert
that there has been

a possible accident at sea.

PETER MADSEN:
Sailing a submarine
is a very unique experience.

It compares to nothing

that I can imagine
people have tried.

You are very far from home.

You are very much alone.

The technology is a bridge
to other worlds,

to other universes.

It's a spaceship.

ANNOUNCER:
Thirty seconds and counting.

Astronauts report it feels good.
T-minus 25 seconds.

Ignition sequence start.

(ENGINE RUMBLING)

Liftoff! We have a liftoff!

Thirty-two minutes
past the hour.

THOMAS DJURSING:
There is one subject
that has always been

very interesting to me,
and that's space.

I mean, I was sitting in my room
as an eight-year-old,

building the Apollo aircraft
with Legos.

It's a childhood
fascination of space

that's just kept on with me.
So now--

At that time it was--
it was the space shuttle,

now it's Elon Musk.

And then there was also
Peter Madsen.

(CREW MEMBER SPEAKING DANISH)

DJURSING: The most important
thing to understand about Peter

was that he was a storyteller.

He was a great storyteller,

and he had the ability
to make people dream.

What if you got the crazy idea

that you wanted to leave
planet Earth?

What if you got the idea
that you wanted to go to space?

(ENGINES FIRING)

DJURSING: He represented a dream
that I think lies deep in myself

and many others,

that was that
you can do anything

with the two hands
and your own head,

and that you're not limited
by the laws

of the society
or any boundaries.

You can do whatever you want.
And the proofs are right here,

here is my submarine,
here are my rockets,

and I'm going to
sit inside them.

♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JEV OLSEN:
We had a great time, you know,

sailing in the submarine
and diving.

What hit me the most is
the silence you experience

as you go down.

And suddenly you'll go from
having wind and waves,

and suddenly there's nothing.

Just silence below the sea.
It's quite magical.

He built three subs in all.

The first was the Freya,
a little submarine,

I think it was like six meters.

You could barely fit
two persons in it.

And then he built Kraka,

and you could fit
around three people in it.

It looked beautiful.
It looked like, you know,

a German submarine
from the Second World War.

Then some years later,
he built Nautilus,

his masterpiece.

DJURSING: When Peter had
his first dive with Nautilus,

he is asked, what could be
his next project from here?

And he says something like,

"I think I'm going to do
something else.

And now I look up at the stars,"
he says.

Something like that.
Very poetic.

Not long after,
he started his rocket project,

Copenhagen Suborbitals.

Planning on building a rocket
that can fly him into space.

(ROCKET FIRES)

It just touched the nerve about

you can actually build
your own rocket,

and you don't need
any government funding,

and you can do it with things

that you can buy
in the local warehouse.

And it seemed that
it could actually be done.

And that was why
I choose to write the book.

Those years were great years.

I mean, we felt we were standing
in the middle

of a small Danish space age

with amateur rocket builders.

OLSEN:
It wasn't money who drove us.

It wasn't like we had to
build something

and then sell the project.

It was doing it
for the love of it.

We try to fix the problem
and do it again.

OLSEN: He was able to
inspire people to get together

to do something
bigger than themself.

(MADSEN TALKING INDISTINCTLY)

This is a rocket engine.
It can explode.

Thinking about, you know, "Hey,
I'm gonna build a rocket

and send myself into space."

That sounds insane.

But then he could
convince other people

that yeah,
it's kind of possible.

Okay, we're in safe position for
connecting the cable.

I'm connecting.

DJURSING: He was appealing to
the childish dream in all of us.

(EXPLOSION)

Just look at the name.
Rocket-Madsen.

It was the name I gave him,

because it represented
who I thought he was,

as a cartoonist figure.

He sees himself as the guy
who can build rockets

and submarines
and write operas

and do the biggest novel ever.

So all the people
that believed in him

gave him a chance,

knowing that he was
obviously crazy.

But then this happened.

Peter went out sailing
with a journalist,

as he has often done before,

and the problem was,
he didn't come back.

LARS MØLLER PEDERSON:

(IN DANISH)

DJURSING: (IN ENGLISH)
I was called in the morning,
that Peter was disappeared,

and I received several calls
that morning,

because people thought
that I was the journalist

down in the submarine.

So everybody was so glad that
I was not inside the submarine

because all they knew
was that Peter had taken off

with some kind of journalist.

And my immediate thought
was that

he had gone on
his own adventure

to Bornholm,
an island in the Baltic Sea.

But it was still strange

because Peter never really
sails very far in his submarine.

So everything was strange
that day.

REPORTER 1:
Kim Wall and Peter Madsen,

looking out from the home-built
Nautilus on Thursday evening

as it leaves Copenhagen.

REPORTER 2:
She has not been seen since,

and was reported missing
by her boyfriend,

with divers, helicopters,
and boats out looking for her.

MCDONNELL: I remember
when I first heard

about Kim being missing,

before I even knew
what had really happened.

I just remember feeling
so confused,

because very little was known.

It was very unclear
if she was just missing,

was it an accident?
Like, we didn't know anything.

(IN DANISH)

MCDONNELL: (IN ENGLISH)
I remember she had
these white Keds sneakers

that were always like
immaculately clean,

and somehow just really popped.

Like, I don't know why
those shoes stand out
in my head so much.

I'm not the type of person
who normally remembers
people's shoes.

But the shoes
being in the police report,

I mean, that's how I knew
that it was really her.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

PEDERSON:

(IN DANISH)

THOMSEN: (IN ENGLISH) At 10:30,
Peter Madsen makes radio contact

from the submarine.

He's in Køge Bay,
south of Copenhagen,

and he says on the radio

that everyone
on the boat is fine.

DYREBORG: He has been seen
on the surface

in the bay of Køge,

and he is steaming
towards Copenhagen.

(IN DANISH)

DYREBORG: (IN ENGLISH)
Then he said, "We all released.

We pack up everything you have,
and go home."

Uh... "Okay, fine."

They were both fine, was one of
the messages that came out.

And then we said,
"Okay, this is nothing."

DYREBORG: Suddenly, two,
three minutes after,

there's a new phone call.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

DYREBORG: Now he is sinking.

Now he is just standing
in the tower.

Now he jumps into the water.
Now it's-- the boat is gone.

PEDERSON:

I said, "No, no, no, no,
no, no, no.

A submarine
doesn't sink like that.

He could have saved it.

So there's
something wrong here."

And there was still
one person missing.

(WATER BUBBLING)

OLSEN: I found it very strange

because the way the sub sank

is the way it looks
when it dives.

So I didn't see anything wrong.

I didn't see an accident.
I just saw a normal dive.

He had sunk it,
uh, intentionally.

And that was the only thing
I thought, at that time.

"I think it's a good idea
if somebody tell the police."

-(INDISTINCT VOICE SPEAKING)
-(IN DANISH)

(IN ENGLISH) I went
to the police and said,
"I'm from the Navy,

and in my opinion,
there's something wrong here

that you need to find out.

So I think you should
arrest him."

They said to me,

"We can't just arrest somebody
without due cause.

We need to be absolutely sure,

and you need to be sure
about this."

And I say, "I'm quite sure."
(CHUCKLES)

Things don't go wrong
in so many places,

and he didn't close the hatch.
He kept it open.

You only do things like that

if there's something
you need to cover up.

And she's still missing,
isn't she?

ONLOOKER:

HVILSOM: I clearly remember
when he came to the harbor.

(IN DANISH)

ONLOOKER:

HVILSOM: (IN ENGLISH)
The scene was dramatic.

Two persons sail out
in a submarine.

The submarine goes down.
One person comes back.

Where's the other person?

MADSEN: (IN DANISH)

(IN ENGLISH) When Peter Madsen
was first asked about

where Kim Wall was,
he said that she was fine.

He had dropped her off
the night before,

very close to where she lived.

OFFICER: (IN DANISH)

HVILSOM: (IN ENGLISH) I think
he was hoping to go home,

but you see the police was
a little hesitant,

and, uh, you could see
one policeman talking

on his mobile phone

and then he said,
"No, you have to come with us."

And the reporter was shouting
at him,

"What did happen,
Peter Madsen?"

(IN DANISH)

-REPORTER:
-MADSEN: (CHUCKLING)

HVILSOM: (IN ENGLISH)
You can feel when
something is not right.

And you can feel that there's
something in the attitude,

something in the atmosphere
that is... (CHUCKLES)

...that is not right.

(IN DANISH)

(IN ENGLISH)
I would imagine Peter saying,

"I'm so sad that the crown jewel
of my work

has now gone down
to the bottom of the sea,

but this is the real way

it should be done,
with glory..."

And he would use
those kind of big words.

He would be a poet.

He would say it in a poetry way.

And he doesn't, at all.
And that strikes me.

You can see that
he's really tired,

and he's worn out in some way.

It's like he's trying to avoid
some things.

REPORTER: (IN DANISH)

REPORTER:

DJURSING: (IN ENGLISH)
It's confusion
from that moment on.

It really is confusion.

REPORTER: Miss Wall
was the only passenger.

That much is clear.
What happened next, is not.

Mr. Madsen was arrested
when he returned to shore.

PEDERSON:

POLICE SPOKESPERSON:
(IN DANISH)

THOMSEN: (IN ENGLISH)
At this point,
people just thought

something had happened to her
after she had gone ashore.

But just during that day,
people started to suspect

that there was something
Peter Madsen

wasn't telling the police.

It seemed really odd
that she was just missing,

and there was like no clue.

It became a waiting game,
asking what's going on.

JUSTIN CHAN: The first thought
I had in my head was,
"What?"

Like, "What do you mean,
she's missing?"

This is Kim we're talking about.
This is someone who

has been to North Korea.
She's been to some shady places.

So for Kim to "go missing"
after interviewing this guy

is a little bit weird.

HVILSOM: We were joking about it
in the first place, actually,

I'm ashamed to say,

that maybe he killed her.

But that was just
a news desk joke, you know?

Nobody could imagine
what really was happening,

or was about to be revealed.

♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MATTIAS SIGFRIDSSON:
On an international perspective,
Sweden, Scandinavia,

and of course Malmö is a very,
very safe place to live in.

The risk of getting murdered
in Malmö is very, very low.

But I go to work every day

to make sure
that doesn't happen.

No case is similar to the other,

but this case, of course,
is extraordinary.

We had a Swedish citizen
and a Danish citizen,

so we have jurisdiction

both in Sweden and Denmark
to do the investigation.

At first, it started with
the call of a missing person

came to the command center.

We had a Swedish citizen missing
from the submarine.

At that point,
we tried to triangulate

and locate her phone.

We still had hope
to find her alive.

REPORTER: Peter Madsen claims
to have dropped off Kim Wall

at about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday.

But helpfully for the police,
a local bar owner here

claims to have the whole area
covered with CCTV.

SIGFRIDSSON: That story
we could tell was a lie
pretty fast,

because with cameras,
we could see that

nobody came off that harbor.

-Okay.
-OFFICER:
Did you see the submarine?

-No. No.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER
OVER POLICE RADIO)

I didn't see any submarine.

We saw the submarine over here,
like, the days before.

So that was a lie.

REPORTER: A police spokesman
has said that Mr. Madsen

has now given a different
explanation of what happened

during the voyage he made
with the journalist.

The spokesman
wouldn't elaborate.

Meanwhile, the search
for Miss Wall continues.

SIGFRIDSSON: At that point,
we tried to look in the waters

and to search the submarine.

PEDERSON:

(DIVERS SPEAKING IN DANISH)

PEDERSON: (IN ENGLISH)

INTERVIEWER:
When did you think it could be
a homicide situation?

♪ (NEWS THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(IN DANISH)

ILSØE: (IN ENGLISH) That night,
they got this press release

that he was charged with murder.

REPORTER: (IN DANISH)

ILSØE: (IN ENGLISH)
And the next morning,
I woke up.

He got in in front of a judge,
got the charge read out loud,

and he says that
he's not guilty.

Then they close the doors.

REPORTER: Prosecutors said
it was needed

to shield relatives
from emerging details.

ILSØE: While we were
waiting outside,

one of his friends
came up to me,

and he said, "You know what?
He's-- he's a bit crazy.

But I know one thing for sure.
He's not a killer."

DJURSING: I remember
the evening they said

that Peter was
charged of a crime.

It was cold and gray
and filled with confusion,

and I didn't know what to think.

I didn't really understand it.

It was like--
It was a blur to me.

Here was a man that
I thought I knew pretty good.

I had been writing
a book about him.

I'm the journalist that by far
has written the most about him.

I see him as a...
as a very... (SIGHS)

...nice and loving person
with very sound core values.

There were nobody of us
who believed that he could be

a cruel and vicious person.

And it took a long time
before it occurred to me

that there was a crime going on.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

PEDERSEN:

DYREBORG:
The submarine itself was around

17 and a half meter long.

But nobody knew about
the condition of the boat.

It could have broken.

But they got it up on the side
and did--

like I said, don't lift it
too much out of the water.

And then we sailed
towards Copenhagen

and got it on a container crane.

PEDERSEN:

(IMITATES CRACKING)

REPORTER: Investigators have
begun scouring the Nautilus.

They're looking for clues
to help solve the mystery

about what might have happened
aboard on Thursday night.

When it was finally empty,
when I had to go down the boat,

I had to... I had to...
because I'm quite round,

so I had to force myself
down into the boat.

First I went into
the engine room.

There was no person there.

Kim Wall was not in the boat.

But it was a big mess, the boat.
It was...

Everything was washed around.

I saw something that looked like
a piece of flesh.

And then I had some...
(CLEARS THROAT)

My legs, the legs
of the blue suit, got wet.

And so when I came up,
I just did like this

and then smelled it,
and it smelled like metal.

Just the way that blood smells,
and, uh...

Many people, they say,
"How do you know
about how blood smells?"

I said,
"Because I know about it."

When it leaves the body
at high pressure

and it dries out and gets wet,

then you have
this particular smell.

And this was from
an accident once, so...

The way blood smells,
you never forget that.

And it smelled like that.

There was a lot of blood.

It was not
a very pleasant experience.

It turned out there was also
a lot of other proof

that something
had been going on.

A lot of her clothes were there.
Her jacket.

There were some tickets
in the pocket.

Why would anyone leave that?

If she had been set ashore,

she would have
taken all her things with her.

♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(SEAGULL CALLING)

THOMSEN: As the case moved on,

the news just got
worse and worse and worse.

This is when we found out

that Peter Madsen
had changed his story.

He now said that an accident
had happened on the submarine.

And he said that she had died
from the injury.

I was utterly shocked.
I had no idea how this happened.

And there were all these
contradictory things

that were being said by the man.

HVILSOM: You want to believe
that this was an accident.

You want to believe
that this is simple,

but at the same time,

you have this feeling that
this is not the explanation.

This is not simple.

When you go home,
when you lie in bed at night,

you think, "No, this is worse."

ILSØE: We got this flash
that they found something.

Um, at that point,
we didn't know what it was.

And I got a call.
And it was, um,

there's gonna be
a press conference.

And my first reaction was...

"Oh, that's a good thing.
They...

Now they have discovered
the body."

(CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING)

(GREETING IN DANISH)

(IN DANISH)

ILSØE: (IN ENGLISH) They found
a torso without legs,

without head, without arms.

And I remember, that was really
something we didn't expect.

REPORTER: They're trying to
figure out if that is
the missing journalist.

The problem is, authorities say
it wasn't even an entire body.

OLSEN: Even though the police
still had to do DNA testing,

a torso is not something that

often shows up
on the Danish beach.

That doesn't happen by accident.

So I was sure, yeah, that's her.

DJURSING: That was really
a nightmare when that happened.

That changed everything.

And it all became negative,
and it all became a monster.

And Nautilus became
a black, evil machine.

Then I knew that this can
only have a bad end.

ILSØE: A few weeks after,
we had the next court hearing,

and we got the judge
to keep the door open.

We all thought
we were just gonna be in there
for like two minutes,

and then it took like
three hours or something.

And that's when we get his whole
explanation about what happened.

His explanation
about the "accident."

THOMSEN: He now said that
the hatch on the submarine,

which is
a really big, heavy hatch,

had hit Kim Wall in the head
and knocked her dead.

HVILSOM: It made him
go into panic,

and it was so horrible and awful
that he had to give her

"a funeral at sea,"
as he expressed it.

ILSØE: He had
thrown her body overboard.

THOMSEN: But he doesn't comment
on the fact that

she's dismembered.

So at that point, we don't know
why she hadn't been left whole.

ILSØE: At one point, he was
standing up and explaining

where he was and she was
and what happened

and how did he go
from one place to another,

and I think that
a lot of people thought,

"Okay, if you can explain
something that detailed,

then it must be true."

Okay, he might be right.

There could be
a plausible explanation,

that she got
a fracture in the head.

This might sound really morbid,
but for me,

the most interesting part
was if they found her head.

If they find the head
without a fracture in,

then Peter's explanation
cannot hold through.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

SIGFRIDSSON: At that point,

then it was
a murder investigation,

and if we, the authorities,
can't say how she died,

then we can't build
a murder case.

PEDERSEN:

♪ (TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

SIGFRIDSSON: It's all
the movement of the water,

the movement of
the body parts underwater.

So we learned
during the investigation

to calculate where to put
the divers in the water.

PEDERSEN:

TORBEN VANG:
My name is Torben Vang.

I'm an oceanographer
from Aarhus University.

And I have an understanding of

how things is transported
in water.

If you navigate this room here,
what we are in,

and you have only
five meters of view,

then the room is huge.

So if you scale it
to this room here,

you can see one centimeter,
or a few millimeters away.

And that's how
you should look at that,

looking for a small piece
of evidence in an ocean.

PEDERSEN:

SIGFRIDSSON:
With the calculation
of the water movement,

then you could find
the right spot

for the divers to work on.

VANG: The next day,
they started to look

where I recommended them
to look.

They had the first hit.

PEDERSEN:

There was this roar
aboard the boat.

(CHUCKLING) I think it could be
heard in Sweden as well.

Of, "Wow! Now we got something."

INTERVIEWER:
How difficult was it to know

that what you were searching for

was a human being,
her head, her limbs?

INTERVIEWER: But isn't, like,
a young girl different
than a gun?

PEDERSEN:

HVILSOM: The police, in the end,
find her head.

And there is no evidence or sign
that she could get

a 50-kilo heavy hatch
in her head.

(IN DANISH)

(IN ENGLISH) At that point,
Peter Madsen's explanation
couldn't be true.

It's not an accident.

(IN DANISH)

(IN ENGLISH) In the end
he was charged with murder,

first degree,

um, sexual assault.

THOMSEN: We find out
that she had been
dismembered intentionally,

and that just made
the whole thing much worse.

There was a man killing a woman

in the most brutal way ever.

(SEAGULLS CALLING)

She was taken from the world
by an act of violence, by a man,

and it happened in one of the
safest countries in the world,

that we like to designate
as a "safe country."

And it's ironic
that she travelled the world

and went to so-called
"dangerous places," um...

and yet she was brave
and confident

and she didn't want to be,
you know, tied to chains

just because, you know,
of danger to women

or what society defines
as danger to women,

even though it's a real danger,

but she chose to break out
of those chains

and to do her job
and to live her life.

And I think that's incredible.

And yet, she did that
all over the world,

and yet, almost in
her own backyard...

um...

that she had to face
that violence.

And I think that she would be
the first person

who would point this out,
honestly.

Critically.

I think it brings to focus

issues around
what all women face.

You know,
questions of empowerment

and female independence,

and the right to be able to
do our jobs free from violence.

And she would have,
of course, I feel,

wanted that to be the story.

♪ (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MCDONNELL: She could have
been a character

in one of her own stories.

I mean, if you want to talk
about undercurrents
of rebellion,

a female freelance journalist
is absolutely

a person in that undercurrent,

fighting uphill
against forces in the media,

and more broadly
in society as a woman.

She was on the right path.
She was moving up.

She was doing everything right.

She was on the trajectory

to be able to tell
so many incredible stories,

have so many adventures,
have a really fulfilling life

and achieve all the goals
that she set out for herself.

ILSØE:
She was like a rising star.

She had dreams.

She was about to move
to another country.

REPORTER: Last August,
she was about to move to China
with her Danish boyfriend,

but first, she had
one last story to finish.

MCDONNELL: She was
robbed of that opportunity

in the most
horrible way imaginable.

It's incredibly tragic.

I feel just as sad today
as I did

when I found out about it
for the first time.

(BIRDS TWITTERING)

OLSEN: I think we all share
the feeling that

how could this happen?

How didn't we see this coming?

Who is Peter?
Did I know Peter at all?

Yeah, he had a temper.
Yeah, he was eccentric.

Many people are.
But does that make them

psychopath that's driven
to murder?

DJURSING: I spent
quite some time trying to see,

could we see this coming?

Obviously the answer to that
is no.

But in the hindsight,

I can start telling you
a lot of things

that would lead me to say,
"I could have seen this."

(SPEAKING DANISH)

DJURSING: (IN ENGLISH)
I knew he was manipulative.

I knew he was narcissistic.

And he was so many things

that we allowed him to be

because he had
this great vision.

(SPEAKING DANISH)

DJURSING: (IN ENGLISH)
But that's not the whole story.

We know that now.

(SPEAKING DANISH)

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(IN ENGLISH) The surroundings of
this court case was a circus.

Outside the courtrooms,
in the morning,

when the prosecutor came,

when the defense attorney came,

there were cameras everywhere,
journalists everywhere.

REPORTER:

THOMSEN: I was very nervous,

but I was also
ready to get started,

and I had been waiting
for the trial to begin

for a long time.

We had heard that he might
come on the stand

to tell his side of the story.

And I really had
started to doubt,

will he get convicted or not?

Peter could talk
about technique.

And he could explain
how the submarine worked.

And he were allowed to be

in control of this explanation

because he had built
the submarine,

because he could always change
the explanation to his benefit.

And if there was
a plausible explanation,

then there was a shred of doubt,
and therefore he'd walk free.

THOMSEN: He still maintained
that it was an accident,

but now he said
that Kim had died

from carbon monoxide poisoning,

down in the submarine
while he was on top.

That the hatch had gotten stuck
so he couldn't open it,

and because the engines were
still running on the submarine,

the carbon monoxide
was getting inside,

Kim couldn't get out,
and then she died

within about ten minutes.

You know, some people, they...

they think that they are
smarter than everyone else.

I was called by the police

every time
he changed his explanation.

"Can this be true?
Can this be true?"

HVILSOM:
It's very difficult to navigate

these kind of explanations,

because he was also talking
very technical

about his submarine,

almost engineer-like
about the submarine,

but you couldn't know
if that was

kind of constructed explanation
or that was real.

We're slowly taking the path
through a psychopathic brain,

and that's not easy.

PEDERSEN:

♪ (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪