Police have charged a Danish inventor with murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his private submarine.
Peter Madsen was formally charged on Tuesday with killing the journalist, who had boarded his homemade submarine in August with plans to write a story on the inventor.
The 46-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to the indecent handling of Wall's body but had denied killing her. Wall's dismembered body parts washed up on shore 11 days after she met Madsen, causing the police to look into the circumstances of her death.
Now, prosecutors say they believe Madsen either cut Wall's throat or strangled her before dismembering her body and throwing her body parts into the sea.
Prosecutor Jakob Buch Jepsen said the case was "very unusual and extremely disturbing," the Associated Press reports.
Wall, 30, was last seen in August boarding Madsen's self-built submarine in Copenhagen. Soon after, however, her boyfriend reported her missing when she did not return as expected from the trip.
When questioned about Wall's whereabouts, the inventor had initially said he had dropped the journalist off on an island.
However, when police refused to believe his statement and arrested him, he changed his story, alleging that Wall had been in a "terrible accident" on board the submarine.
He said the submarine's hatch had struck the journalist's head, killing her. He later admitted he had thrown her body parts into the sea, before trying to purposely sink the submarine in a "suicide attempt."
The inventor's often changing account of what happened fell apart, however, when Wall's dismembered, naked torso was found on a southern Copenhagen coast in late August. Her legs and clothes were discovered in October, hidden and weighed down in bags at sea.
Read more: What really happened to Kim Wall? Danish inventor offers new information
An examination of Wall's body showed she had not suffered any trauma to her skull that would corroborate the story of her head being hit by a submarine hatch.
Instead, they found 15 stab wounds, mostly to her genitals, which led authorities to believe there was a "sexual motive" in the case.
Police also discovered videos of women being tortured on Madsen's computer in his lab. They said the images were presumed to be real and included footage of women being strangled and decapitated. Madsen has maintained that the images were not his.
The inventor has been charged with murder, dismemberment, indecent handling of a corpse and having sexual relations of a "particularly dangerous nature," according to the AP. His trial begins on March 8, with a verdict expected on April 25.
Wall was a celebrated freelance journalist who had studied at the Paris-Sorbonne University, the London School of Economics and Columbia University. Her work had featured in The New York Times, Vice and The Guardian.
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