Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - BEST OF 2025: Kim Wall

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Kim Wall dedicated her life to reporting untold stories, until the night she boarded Peter Madsen’s submarine, when she became the story herself. Morgan and Kaelyn follow a haunting trail of evidence, including cryptic messages, hidden snuff-film collections, and gruesome underwater discoveries. What really happened on the Nautilus that night and how did a brilliant journalist’s final interview become her own murder mystery? Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPod If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.  🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House Daily, Crimes Of…, Killer Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on Social YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore  Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding Episode Sponsor:Investors, influencers, and millions of fans are joining the Arkay zero-proof revolution and the Warm Molecule is changing the game. With the holiday season and dry January here, there’s no better time to try Arkay Zero Proof. Your favorite cocktails made non-alcoholic - Arkay available at Walmart, Amazon, or at https://www.arkaybeverages.com. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Dr. Hrini-Bot, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets uncomfortable. Vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, and events that science still can't fully explain. Listen to and follow Hidden History, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Cluminati. We're going to take a couple weeks off to spend some much needed time with friends and family over the holidays. We're going to be back with a new episode on January 7th, Kaylin's due date. Enjoy one of our favorite episodes of Clues and see you next year.

Thanks, guys. This is crime house. Like it goes without saying, but this is so intentional. No signs of a head injury. None. What happened to a submarine for real and where is Kim? Hi guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape

to explore some of the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kaelin Moore, and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files for these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. I am diving into everything I can find online from Reddit forums to old ancient YouTube videos, which will come up today.

We get into it all. At Crimehouse, we value your support. So please share your thoughts on social media. And remember to rate review and follow clues to help others discover the show. And for bonus episodes, early access, and ad-free listening, join our Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. Okay. Today, we are talking about a case that is as tragic as it is bizarre.

It's the murder of Kim Wall. Now, Kim was a Swedish journalist who went to interview an eccentric Danish inventor named Peter Madsen aboard his submarine, and she never came home. Kim was about to move for a new journalism opportunity. She had a loving partner and family. So when Peter said he dropped her off on shore and she didn't come home, alarm bells were ringing. More on the case and the clues that defined it after this quick break. One of this week's partners is Peloton. There's a specific kind of joy and freedom that comes from a truly great workout, that feeling where everything just clicks.

Peloton is helping you unlock that feeling with the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. It's cross-training reimagined. Peloton IQ actually personalizes your journey by planning your workouts, tracking your progress, and even correcting your form in real time to help you unlock new versions of yourself. So let yourself run, lift, fail, try, and go. explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.com. Before we get into today's episode, we've been sitting here talking about magicians. Magicians? Why am I saying that weird? Magicians and mentalists this morning?

Yes. If anyone out there, anyone a part of the Cluminati knows a magician, I need a magician for my wedding in September. You're going to hire a magician? We want like a strolling magician. Oh, that's such a good idea. I love that. I've already got my tarot card reader, so we're

set there, but I need a good magician. And like, I've reached out to three so far that are in Minnesota and just not like getting super positive result. I saw this one on TikTok from the UK who he like pickpockets people and then has like this, what do you call those food things? You know, the silver trays that you pull the cap off? Oh yeah, the serving potters. Yes. So he'll like pick pocket stuff from people like they don't notice and then all of a sudden he'll do this trick where like there's fire on the tray and he pulls it off. And you're like, that's my wallet. Why is it in there? Yeah, and literally, and then he opens it again after the fire's been in there and everyone's watches and stuff is inside.

That's very cool. But he's in the UK. Would you fly him out? I mean. For the right price, maybe. So my sibling was going to hire a magician for their birthday. So cool. Reach out to this woman, I think like in Orange County L.A. area and the woman quoted this like insane price back. And my sibling was like, why is it so much to get a magician? Turns out she was the magician that's featured in the Chapel Rhone music video for Redwine Supernova.

And she even, she wrote this like apparently very nice letter or note back to my sibling being like, hey, so like my price did go up because like I've been getting a lot of people contacting me. But like, yeah, geez. I have a tight budget for my magician. So if you know someone or maybe you are someone, if you are someone, that'd be cool. Send me a trick. And then we'll go from there. What are we thinking right now? read our minds. But without further ado, let's get into today's case. Just a warning before we

begin this one, this case is heavy, you guys. It involves conversations of sexual assault and other very graphic details that could be difficult for some viewers. So please choose to listen or watch with care. And also for those of you that are watching on YouTube, you're going to see some photos that help paint a picture of this case, nothing too gory. But if you are listening, you can find those same photos on our social media, and that's at Clues Podcast on Instagram. The case today starts on August 10th, 2017. Not that long ago. When Danish journalist Kim Wall finally hears back from an elusive inventor that she's been trying to track down for a while now, named Peter Madsen.

Now, Peter is kind of described as this Danish Elon Musk type. Yeah, he gives that energy. He kind of is giving those, like, strange mad inventor vibes. And so he has his own rocket and submarine company. And Kim, being a journalist, has been following this story for a while. And she has been waiting for the day when she can finally interview him because he's like kind of hard to get an interview with. And it turns out August 10th is going to be that day. One day earlier, Peter had postponed the upcoming test launch of his brand new rocket due to some financial difficulties he was having.

But he was really eager to keep up the publicity for this operation. So he did more than just agree to this interview with Kim. He actually invited Kim to take a ride with him on his own personal submarine that he had built. It's called The Nautilus, and they were going to take a ride that night so she could interview him there on the submarine. Now, just a little bit more on Kim and kind of like why this was such a big deal for her. So Kim really wanted to be a reporter from the day she was born in 1987. Her mom, Ingrid, and her father, Joachim, were both journalists who was kind of like in the blood. of the family. And their work became a regular part of Kim's life when she was growing up in Sweden.

And she had gone to all these European countries by the time she was one. So every morning the family would read up to seven daily newspapers together. And anytime the TV was on or the radio was on, it was always tuned to some news channel. They were always talking journalism. And what I love is hearing her parents describe, like, they would really go through these articles and be like, this is a good article because of this. Like it was just like ingrained so early to have that curiosity about these articles. And also the media literacy that comes with that when you're teaching your kids what like good sources are. Yeah.

It's amazing. A lot of people don't get that these days. No. So even at just seven years old, Kim was obsessed with learning everything she possibly could about the world and also sharing that knowledge with others. By the time she graduated from high school, Kim knew that she was going to follow in her parents' footsteps. and specifically she wanted to continue traveling the world, learning about different people, cultures, and their social movements so that she could help tell their stories.

So she goes and she studies international relations at the London School of Economics. And then she gets a master's in journalism from Columbia University in New York in 2013 when she's 26 years old. And even while she was still in school, Kim was just so impressive because she was still writing for all these huge news publications at the time. She went to North Korea while she was still in college. and she wrote an article for the Atlantic about the dictatorships attempt to build a world-class ski resort. She also visited Sri Lanka where she interviewed victims and veterans of the country's

26-year-long civil war. She even hitched her ride on a small cargo ship to a tiny Pacific island nation called Marshall Islands, where the United States tested atomic bombs in the 1950s, just so that she could interview residents about health problems that they suffered from radioactive fallout. Yeah, I don't think we can state this enough. Like, Kim is so smart. Like, so, so, so smart. Also fearless. Fearless. Going to North Korea, going to like a radioactive island to actually talk to the victims. She really, really, really wanted to highlight marginalized communities. And like, she would go to the ends of the earth to do that. Yeah, she was just not afraid of anything. It really seemed like. And everyone she met at this time from her professors to her fellow reporters,

people that she interviewed, they all really admired her passion and her curiosity about the world. So by March of 2017, she's kind of getting ready to enter this new phase of her life. She starts dating this guy, Ull. They are dating for several months and things get pretty serious. And the two of them are sharing an apartment together in this really trendy part of Copenhagen. It's a former industrial area along the Copenhagen Harbor that was converted into artist lofts and creative office spaces. It's like really, really trendy and cool. I've actually been there. Have you really?

It's absolutely beautiful. There's so many outdoor, like, food halls. And I did this sauna experience where you go in, like, a sauna and then like a hot tub along the harbor. And it's a really, really cool area. No, that sounds really, really awesome. It's actually while Kim is in this very cool neighborhood that she stumbles upon this community that happens to be living there.

And they're all amateur rocket enthusiasts. And they're there operating out of some rented warehouses nearby called Rocket Madsen Space Lab or RMSL. And they're trying to develop this open source crowdfunded Danish space program. And that is really something that like kind of sets off a bell in Kim's head. She's like, oh, that's kind of strange and different and weird. Like I want to know what's going on. I want to like write a story about you guys. So she starts interviewing members of this group.

And that's how she hears about the eccentric inventor kind of at the center of all this, Peter Madsen. And really, that's how the whole meeting that she was about to take on the submarine came to be. But the timing of this interview on August 10th isn't really great for Kim. She and her partner, Oul, were planning to move to Beijing in about a week's time. Kim wanted to relocate there in order to do this in-depth reporting on the people and social movements behind China's power. powerhouse economy. And on the day that Madsen invites her on board the Nautilus, she and Ool were already setting up a going away party in their apartment. But this story is huge access for Kim, and she doesn't want to just let this opportunity go. So she talks to Ool about it, and she

decides that he's going to host the party alone while she goes out on the Nautilus for just a quick ride around the Copenhagen Harbor. And while she's definitely a little bit nervous about going for her first ever submarine ride. Kim figures that she would probably be back before the party was over, and it would be a very cool story to share with everyone that's at the party. So around 7 p.m. on August 10th, she walks over to Madsen's lab where the Nautilus was docked. It's just a few minutes walk from her apartment. And in fact, Wool and some of their guests can literally see Kim and Peter together on the deck of his submarine as it starts sailing out into the harbor. They're kind of like watching it go. Yeah, they're like up top on like that hatch area of the submarine, like waving as people take pictures.

Yeah, yeah. It's like a very cool moment for everyone. Yeah, proper send off. They were going to be the only two people on board the submarine that night. And then just after 8 p.m., Ouell gets a text from Kim indicating that things are going pretty well. The text reads, and it's a little chilling in hindsight, but it does read, quote, I'm still alive by the way, but going down now. I love you with like seven exclamation points. He brought coffee and cookies, though.

That was the last communication that anyone would have with Kim. Hey, before we jump back into the show, let's take a quick break. But not just any break. This is a refreshing break with Snapple. We all know about Snapple's iconic, real facts, so let's take a minute to go over some of my favorites. Snapple Real Fact, 964. It is illegal in the United Kingdom to handle same. in suspicious circumstances. Snapple Real Fact 1013. It is illegal to sing off-key in North Carolina.

Snapple Real Fact 2033. Americans consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th. Snapple Real Fact 705. Every ton of recycled paper saves about 17 trees. So grab a Snapple, take a second, and enjoy the moment. Because let's be honest, this might be the most refreshing part of your day. Snapple. Make your break more interesting. All right, now let's get back to clues. This episode is brought to you by Quince. So lately, I feel like I've wanted to be more intentional about the stuff that I've been wearing every day. I want to lean into pieces that feel effortless and comfortable, but still look put together.

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And I needed a closet refresh. So I've got my quince body suit on, some of the softest, most flattering body suits. I know, I was just rubbing your arm. I love them. I love how soft it was. I also love my linen dress for summer. It's so lightweight, breathable, is cute with everything. I just put in a new order.

I'm so excited. I'm getting the Bella Stretch, Relax, Straight Leg jeans, and also the 100% organic cotton boyfriend crew sweater, which looks so soft and like slouchy. Perfect for recording. Perfect for recording. Refresh your every day with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash clues for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash clues for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash clues. So let's get into a little bit about who this Peter Madsen character is.

Peter was born in 1971, grew up in a small town south of Copenhagen, and as a young boy, he really became fascinated with rocket ships, space travel. Seems like it was kind of a way he bonded with his dad. And he had this dream of designing his own one day. So he joined a few clubs as a teenager and really just started to get into the intricacies of like how these machines worked. And after finishing high school, he went on to study a bunch of different skills that would help him pursue this goal of his. He learned things like welding,

refrigeration, technology, engineering. But he never actually earned a degree or any formal certification in engineering. It really is like the guy from Ocean Gate, because I don't think he had any sort of formal degree in anything that he was pursuing either. So wild to me. In the early 2000s, he built three submarines in his workshop at the port of Copenhagen. One, as we've mentioned is the Nautilus, which was seemingly his most prized possession. It's this 58 long and six feet wide sub, making it the largest privately built submarine in the world at the time, and he actually lived on the Nautilus for a while. And as the word of all of these exploits and success of the submarines are getting out there, Peter decides to return his attention to

another love of his, rocket ships. And at this point, he joins forces with a local architect, fellow space enthusiast named Christian von Bensden. And together they create this independent spaceflight startup called Copenhagen suborbital with the goal of actually sending Peter on a manned mission up to space. But in 2014, when Peter is 43 years old, there's actually a fallout between the two of them. And so with a bunch of his followers at this company, they quit and they start their own spaceflight startup rocket mads and space lab, which as you talked about is who Kim started to meet and then got curious and started interviewing them. Yeah, right.

So Peter sets out on this super ambitious goal of launching his own rocket before Copenhagen suborbital can launch theirs. And so they work on this for years. And they finally schedule an important test launch for late August 2017. Only it falls through. And maybe this is what pushes Peter to finally agree to that interview with Kim, which brings us to August 10th when Kim boards the Nautilus. It's interesting that it feels like a very very,

specific type of personality is drawn to trying to launch your own rocket. Psychopath. So at around 10 p.m. That night, Kim's partner, Ool, starts to get kind of worried. Remember, this whole trip was not supposed to last very long, and now it's been two hours. It's dark out, the parties winding down. He still hasn't heard anything from Kim. She was only, in theory, going to be gone for like an hour, maybe two. And even though he's called her dozens of times, she's not answering her phone. So he walks down to Madsen's workshop to check there, but it's closed up for the night. And he notices, because he can see kind of through the warehouse, he sees that the Nautilus is not back. So they must still be out in the water.

Finally, at around 2.30 in the morning, so hours go by. He calls the police and the Danish Coast Guard. And then he gets on his bike, and really not knowing what else to do, he just starts riding along the coastline to see if he can see the submarine and the Danish coast guard. water himself. So within two hours, the Coast Guard is fully on the case. They're searching up and down the Copenhagen Harbor. They have helicopters out. They're on their boats. By sunrise, there is still no sign of Kim. There's no sign of Peter. There's no sign of this submarine. And the story starts immediately spreading all across Denmark. Ull, as well as Kim's parents, Ingrid and Joachim, are really worried sick about her. I mean, I can't even imagine the places

your imagination just starts going too of like did this sink in the water? Like what could have happened? Yeah, this is like a homemade submarine. Yeah. Anything could happen on this. Personal submersible, they call them. P-subs. Yeah.

Did a lot of digging on this community, which I'll get into. At around 10.30 a.m. after Kim has been missing for about 12 hours, they finally get a little bit of good news, though. They're told that the Nautilus has been found. and rescuers have talked to Madsen on the radio. And as they're talking to him, you know, like they kind of start asking him like, what's going on? Where are you? Do you need help? And Madsen gets on the radio and he's like, we're fine. And he doesn't say anything else beyond that.

He just kind of lets them know that he's okay and he's on his way back to the harbor after being missing for over 12 hours. And then just 30 minutes beyond that, a fishing boat spots the Nautilus and Koogee Bay just south of Copenhagen. And they're watching it kind of rise to the top. Peter gets out. He kind of waves at everyone. And he goes back down into the sub.

And then they're watching it, like kind of expecting it to come ashore so they can start talking to him. But it starts sinking. Like it just starts going back down in the water. And then it kind of goes below the surface and then they don't see it anymore. And after that, Madsen kind of emerges from the hatch on top of the sub again. And this time he leaps into the water. Like he's trying to jump ship. Like he knows it's sinking.

Nobody else gets off the nautilus before it fully sinks below the surface. And Madsen ends up swimming to a fishing boat, which picks him up and brings him to the shore, which is four miles away. As they arrive on the dock, there's already this big crowd of reporters waiting. And they ask how Madsen's doing. They all watched him basically just a jump ship because his submarine was sinking. Yeah. And he gives them a thumbs up. He acts so nonchalant.

Very strange. All good. All good. Yeah. We're going to put a clip in for you guys so you can just see his little thumbs up. Like it is no alarm bells. No red flag. No. No, there's no fire. My ship didn't just sink. Like he gives him a thumbs up. He does admit he's kind of upset that the submarine sank, but that's it. What about the person that was supposed to be on that sub with you? He doesn't say anything about her. He doesn't say anything else. Doesn't even mention that Kim was on the submarine with him. Thumbs up. Guess it's a bummer that it's But as he's there talking to reporters, Kim's loved ones are staring at him off to the side and they're terrified and they're outraged because where is Kim? And why doesn't Peter seem to be worried about her at all? At this point, the press actually hadn't been informed that Kim was on the submarine. So it's only Kim's family and the police that know. But the police have a lot of questions, obviously, for Peter. So they kind of whisk him away from the rescue boat and into police custody where he gets taken. taken down to the police station for questioning. And this is where he starts to tell police a little bit more about what happened. And it doesn't take much for him to start talking either. But he says that there was a mechanical failure once the Nautilus was out to sea. He said that the ballast tanks,

these are tanks that fill with water so the submarine can submerge and then they empty so that it can surface again. He said that those tanks had a pretty serious malfunction. But when he tried to fix it, The Nautilus just started taking on all of this water. He didn't know what to do. It just started sinking. But he mentions here that even though all that happened and he had to jump ship, Kim is fine. And the police are like, what do you mean Kim's fine? He said that once the sub started having problems, he actually dropped her off along the coastline of Ref Saloon and then continued just on his own in the sub.

It sounds a little fishy. This is 2017. modern times, we have cell phones, there was no call for help, no May Day. Like, it's just feeling like a very convenient story for him. No, and this immediately doesn't make any sense to the police because they're like, what do you mean? You dropped her off on the shore. She in theory would have her phone.

People have been trying to contact her the entire night. We have not heard anything from her. She's not resurfaced. She hasn't tried to get in touch with her family. So they send rescuers out into the ocean to try to find the submersible and like look for Kim. And police just start reviewing all of this surveillance footage that was taken from Ref Seleon, where Madsen said he dropped her off. And obviously, I mean, I don't really have to tell you this, but there's no sign of her in any of that footage. Like, it's clear that she was not dropped off where he said she was.

It's one thing I love about European countries, the CCTV footage, you guys are on it. Yeah. They film everything. And so there's no trace of her. And it's like Peter didn't really think about that. And they're actually able to find that the last time Kim used her phone was to send that text message to Ool at 8 p.m. the night before. So kind of in their minds, they're thinking that this is not looking very good, which is why on August 12th, Peter appears before a judge for a private hearing. And again, they ask him kind of the same questions.

What happened to a submarine for real and where is Kim? And in this setting, he starts telling them a completely. different story than the one he told before, just a few hours earlier. This time, according to Peter, he admits, okay, you know, Kim wasn't actually dropped off on the shoreline. That part wasn't true. I will tell you what did happen, he says. She was in an accident on the submarine and she died. This is a huge departure from the last story he told, where she was alive and got off the submarine. Dropped her off safe on shore. And all of a sudden, he's telling the story where something happened. on the seven she died. According to Madsen, he said that she was climbing up a ladder in between

decks inside the submarine when all of a sudden a 150 pound access hatch came loose, swung open, and hit her square in the head. He said that he came back to where she was and just found her lying on the floor of the submarine and a pool of her own blood. And this is where things in his story start to get very strange. He says that when he realized that, she was dead, he panicked, and that caused him to go into a really deep depressive state. So the only thing he could think to do while in that deep depressive state was go to the bedroom on the Nautilus and sleep for several hours. Then he woke up and he starts freaking out again.

He's still not in his right mind. So he says that he brought the Nautilus up to the surface, opened the top hatch, and he pulled Kim's body out and into the ocean so that he could personally bury her at sea. That's not your choice to make. No. Like, bury her at sea? You don't get to just decide what you do with the remains of another person. That goes to her family.

In any situation. No matter how badly you're freaking out. Yeah. Oh, people never ceases to amaze me. People just never call 911 or the emergency services in their location. Like, come on, guys. Well, this story, I mean, when Kim's family hears this story, they're absolutely devastated. I mean, just a few hours ago they thought that maybe their daughter was dropped off on the shore, was totally fine.

And I can't imagine them having to listen to this guy tell this version of the story because, one, he is describing in kind of horrifying detail how their daughter died and how he disposed of her body. And two, I mean, he's clearly a liar. He has already a track record of really not being honest about what happened. So who's to say that what he is saying happened now is even the real version of events? Because lots of parts of his story don't add up. No. If there was an accident on board, like you were saying, why wouldn't he just call for help? We found actually that the Nautilus, first of all, it wasn't in the middle of the ocean.

It was in like just off the shore of Copeland. Hagen. It was still within cell phone range of this major city. And it was in the middle of this popular shipping channel. All he would have had to do, if he was far enough down, he would have been able to radio on the internal, like, radio service that they had. Or he could just surface and call using his cell phone. Yeah. I think like to give you guys a idea of what this looks like to, we'll insert some pictures. But like this harbor is relatively small. It's also very, very busy with tourist boats. So if this would have happened around 8, 9 p.m. when, you know, Kim last texted, there still would have been tourist boats and plenty of activity in the area. He could

have just popped up and asked for help. Like, there's no excuse, whether your phone was dead or whatever. Like, it's in a very busy, popular area. It's not huge. It's not vast. It's, you can see shore to shore. Help would have been on the way immediately. I mean, what did they say? It took like 30 minutes for the Coast Guard to get there once they called and told them what was going on. Like, you could have gotten someone out pretty fast. And instead, he's telling this whole story about how he just knew he had to dispose of her body because she was dead and there was nothing he could do. Yeah. And the police in this investigation are not dumb at all. They are like very with it. They know that this doesn't make any sense. And the police actually end up charging him after he tells this version of events with involuntary manslaughter for causing Kim's death.

This allows them to keep him in custody while they continue to search for more evidence. They know that this is probably not the real version of events, but it's all that they can charge him with for now based on what he is confessed to them. So this now means that they have to get down to the bottom of the bay and retrieve the Nautilus because that's where all of this evidence is going to be. And that is going to be a huge task because it's taken on a lot of water. It is like scrap metal now at the bottom of the ocean. and it takes a couple days to do it. But on August 13th, the police are able to recover this sunken submarine and they tow it to the shore for investigation. Which brings us to our first clue, the Nautilus.

When police get the Nautilus to shore, they empty about 9,000 gallons of water out of it before they can even get inside. Which also, maybe it's worth saying here, like this was not a very small submarine. This wasn't like the tight and submersible where you have to sit and like pee in a bucket. and like only five people can fit. This was like a submarine that he built. Yeah. It's big. It's long.

I was really surprised by the pictures of it because of how people describe it when you listen to them. I'm like for submarines, they use the word midget still to describe it. So this is like a midget submarine. That's the category it's in. And so I'm envisioning just like a smaller sub. Like, you know, maybe two people fit. Right.

No, it is long. I think I said like 58 feet. That's long. That's big. Yeah. So this was no easy task for. investigators, which we do have a new little thing on the botched board here. It's called a Sherlock moment. Thank you to whoever commented that on YouTube. And this might go there. I'll add a little tick,

because they're doing some cop tricks. They're doing some big tricks. They're excavating a submarine from the bottom of an ocean floor. And just, yeah, holding on to Peter because they know they could probably get them on more. Yeah. That was a good tactic for someone who has the resources to potentially flee. Like, I appreciate that. So when they do finally get inside the Nautilus and start looking at what evidence could be there, they start to realize that the seawater has kind of washed away most of it. So they're not really sure what happened to Kim while she was on board. She's not even there, right? Not there. Yeah. But when they do examine the submarine's machinery, they find some very interesting details. There's actually nothing wrong with it. Nothing.

I'm sure our audience could have guessed that. Yeah. So remember back to when the ship that was watching Peter, they finally spotted him and he first was like up top in the hatch like waving and then he goes back down. So based on what investigators see on the Nautilus, they think that Peter actually went down

back in to start letting in water. Yeah, yeah, right. Because it did, it started sinking after he went down for the first time. That's when it first started sinking. So this whole story of like his ballast tanks, malfunctioning, that was all a total lie.

He's like, oh, they just don't understand how submarines work so I can just tell them whatever and they'll just believe it. So he thought. But these investigators are a little smarter. They look at it and they go, no, no, no, this thing sunk because someone wanted it to sink. All of these hatches were open. It lined up with the description of what the rescue team said. And so his story, again, isn't lining up. He deliberately sunk this submarine. So over the next several days, the police keep Peter in custody. And rescuers are searching. for the most important piece of the puzzle, Kim. They were scanning Copenhagen Harbor and Coogee Bay with boats, helicopters. They even used specially trained cadaver dogs that are capable of smelling a body in the water from the deck of a boat. Incredible that they can do that. Another Sherlock moment. Like I had no idea that existed.

Incredible detective work on behalf of a dog. And I think in an interview I read from someone who has worked really closely with the family to do another documentary on this case, this wasn't a thing in Copenhagen at the time. They had to bring those dogs in. But since this, they're now training dogs specifically for Copenhagen. Interesting. So this was a feat to get these dogs there. I wonder where the dogs came from, did they say? Because we do a really good job in the U.S. of training these cadaver dogs. I mean, this is just incredible. From the deck of a boat, I mean, I knew dogs could smell really well, but, like, that is, that's going through water. I remember reading about this one dog who was able to find human remains from D-Day in France over 60 years after it

happened or something like that. It was like parts per trillion that this dog was smelling versus like parts per million or billion, which most cadaver dogs can smell. Just like incredible. My jaw is just dropped. You guys, if you're watching, I'm just sitting here just like, I love dogs so much. Just jaw dropped. But despite the effort from these dogs and all of the people involved, involved in this search, the rescue parties don't find anything. Not until 11 days after Kim went missing, do they get something? Which brings us to our second clue. This episode is brought to you by Instacart. I have a four-month-old at home, which means I don't leave the house unless I absolutely have to. Going to the grocery store is a really big deal for me these days,

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Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes, and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, potential savings will. vary, not available in all states. So on August 21st, a cyclist was riding on a trail that ran along Amar Island's Southern Coastline. This is actually about four miles from where the Nautilus launched.

As he rode, he spotted something pale that had washed up on the beach. He got off his bike, walked closer, trying to figure out what he was looking at exactly, and that's when he realized. It was actually a woman's torso. The torso was nude, missing all of its limbs. its head, and several pieces of metal had been strapped to the torso, seemingly in an attempt to keep it from floating up to the surface. Like it goes without saying, but this is so intentional. It's clear that this is not an accident. It's very deliberate. The remains were collected by officials and brought in for DNA testing, where two days later it was confirmed that the body

belonged to Kim Valle. And an autopsy also found this. Again, viewer listener discretion is advised. She had been stabbed 15 times, mostly in the groin, which makes Peter's story even more difficult to believe. Clearly again, a fucking liar. Yeah. Because Madsen didn't say anything about dismembering Kim's body before he dumped it overboard, he also didn't mention tying metal to her to keep her body from resurfacing. During this burial at sea, he performed.

So when investigators questioned Peter in jail, they grilled him about all these details, only to find he didn't really have any answers for them. On September 5th, Peter appeared at another court hearing where police petitioned to extend his detention for another month while the investigation continued. In this hearing, Peter even stuck to his original story, saying Kim died after being hit in the head by the hatch,

and then he buried her at sea. Still sticking to it. On October 6th, 2017, divers found Kim's head and legs at the bottom of Kooji Bay. south of Copenhagen. These remains had been placed into a pair of plastic bags, along with her clothes, a knife, and pieces of metal similar to what was wrapped on her torso. Police also later discovered a handsaw on the ocean floor not far from where these bags had been discovered. Investigators transported these newly discovered remains to a lab where a forensic pathologist performed another autopsy, and during the examination of Kim's skull, they found no signs of a head injury.

None. And that's what he said was the hatch door hitter in the head, and that's how she died. Yeah. I mean, clearly, like, everything he said has been a lie thus far, but it's just it's even more devastating to get the evidence back that everything was a lie, because now I'm wondering after hearing all of this how she died and how much she had to endure, given, like, the state that her body was found in. can't believe a single word that comes out of this psychopath's mouth.

No. I'm really trying to keep it together for you guys. I know. It's hard to get so angry. Clearly, he cannot be believed, no matter what tail events you're going to get. And also the fact that so many tools were found with her body, the handsaw at the bottom of the ocean, like, intentional. Like, he brought plastic bags. It was planned.

It was planned. It was absolutely planned. So clearly the story about the 150-pound hatch hitting her in the. the head is a lie, and while they can rule out head trauma, police can't determine Kim's actual cause of death. Her remains had spent so long in the water by this point that a lot of that crucial forensic evidence had been destroyed by the elements, but one thing is very clear. She did not die the way that Peter Madsen had claimed. So at this point for all of us, it's very clear. Peter has very questionable, disgusting, repugnant behavior. But while police are

busy looking for Kim's body in the fall of 2017. They're also interviewing Peter's co-workers. Like, as we said, from the start of this investigation, they knew something was up with him. They knew the story was fishy. So immediately, they really started going in and interviewing all of the people connected and close to him, which is when they start interviewing the co-workers from the rocket company. And what they learned begins to paint a very different picture of Madsen than this eccentric, happy-go-lucky guy that he was presenting to the media. You know, thumbs up, everything's good guy. Yeah, everything's good.

The volunteers who signed up to help Madsen in his workshop, because they believed in this mission, start to reconsider some of his questionable behavior, which is kind of our third, cluelish thing in this case. For starters, Madsen seemed to have this bizarre obsession with Nazis, stand-up guy. As a little boy, one of his idols was a former Nazi rocket scientist. And apparently he would give his workers Nazi style nicknames inspired by the characters in the movie Das Boot, which is about a crew of German submarine people in World War II. It's interesting that only after this murder happened, they started reconsidering his obsession with Nazi history and memorabilia. It was like fine before, but now, oh, now that he killed someone, maybe the Nazi's,

stuff was bad. Yeah. It gets kind of worse. You know, again, you kind of like smack your head, like, what SMH, whatever it is. Like, he would even pretend to be a Nazi officer in the workshop asking disturbing questions like, quote, what if I inject battery acid into your veins? Most of his staff wrote this off as his weird sense of humor at work. They were more concerned about his mood swings, which changed really quickly and violently. One of the volunteers told a reporter that if something didn't go his way, he would behave like, quote, a child who lost his toy or dropped his ice cream. And people who worked with him even said that when he was upset, he would start flinging

hammers, screwdrivers, and other tools around the workshop in a rage. I just watched the Titan submersible documentary that Netflix put out. And there's so many similarities between the guy who made that submersible. and this guy who made this submarine. Just in terms of like, anytime anything goes wrong, you kind of fly off the handle. Anytime anyone questions you, they get fired. So now everyone at work is just obsessed with making you happy and just trying to like do a good job so they don't get fired. Yeah.

It's it's baffling. And I get like, you know, people have to have jobs. They have to survive. But. Well, that's like a big part of the Netflix stock is like those people start quitting Ocean Gate. Like they could see the forest for the trees and they knew that it was going to. implode. So they just started quitting. And so, I mean, this is different because these people maybe didn't see issues with like the safety of the stuff he was building. So they decided to not quit.

But like just really horrible, eccentric people that like run these companies. Yeah. And I mean, his violent temper had clearly been an issue for years. Yes. Right. And so this was a big part of when his business partner, Christian von Bengsten and him were working together at the original Rocket Place, Copenhagen suborbitales, this was like the main reason they split up was these violent outbursts. Von Bengsten also went on to say like he was argumentative, uncooperative. And when Madsen tried to force him out of the organization in 2014, a lot of the volunteers actually took Christian's side, which is when then Peter Madsen split did his own rocket company and went his own way. And the coworkers did go on to say that like while they were used to this violent, erratic behavior from him,

he started acting especially strange in the weeks leading up to Kim's death. And a big factor of it is kind of that test flight that got canceled. There was a documentary filmmaker that was interviewing him at the time that said he had this strange energy after the test was canceled. This is where we share one of the most interesting clips I've come across online. Yeah, I can't believe you found this. This interview is very strange. Like, it is so clear how weird his behavior is. And, you know, someone on a subreddit said, like, the interviewer had asked him a question about, like, a psychopath or, like, psychopathic tendencies or something.

But, like, the clip we have, Peter Mattson seemingly unprompted, goes on to discuss psychopaths. And what a psychopath is like. They're charming. They're believable. They're, like, good speakers, he says. Good speakers. I mean, you guys will see some sections of this clip, but like, it is very strange and so much so that he goes, like, at the end, he's like, but I wouldn't know. He who is a psychopath, does he know he's a psychopath? Like, something along those lines and he's pointing to himself. Like, the body language does not lie. This feels like a clear projection. He talks about stalking people and throwing them away and using them. And like, I'm getting the chills just like thinking about this clip. It's really haunting to see, especially because you know, what was it, like, 11 months before? This was 11 months before the murder.

Yeah. So don't take my word for it. Watch it. Let me know what you think in the comments because it's a lot. Psychopathic people are often very charismatic. They are excellent speakers. They're convincing. They are having illusions of self-grander and have no regard for anyone else.

and he will try really to punish those people who have been under his spell. He will try to punish them afterwards by stalking them, by talking badly about all these things. There is the possibility that you've simply come upon a human predator. And I wouldn't know. Because do the psychopath know that he's a... I'm not sure. Okay, so we have that interview. And then we also have this piece of information from another one of these volunteers.

So one of these volunteers actually reported seeing Madsen walking around with a saw sticking out of his backpack on the afternoon of Kim's murder. Allegedly, this is the same saw that was found near the remains on the ocean floor. So after interviewing all of these co-workers and volunteers, they turn to people in his social life to like really get down to the nitty gritty of this guy. And here is where our clue number three kind of takes another twisted. turn. They find out that Peter's social life is a bit unorthodox. When Madsen wasn't designing rockets or subs, he was a regular at a BDSM club and sex parties in Copenhagen. And although he had been married for six years at this point, like apparently they had an open relationship and that was their dynamic. And so he pursued relationships with many women who he met at clubs and in the

Copenhagen art scene. He would even incorporate submarines into his sex life, asking people if they wanted to see his submarine. Not how I thought submarines would have been incorporated into the sex life. I'm glad that it's just that. Yeah, I guess on a couple occasions, he would show up to these sex parties wearing a naval uniform and a hat. And he really played himself up as like this cool guy that made submarines and rockets. And apparently he would let people use his submarines for their sexual experiences as well.

In 2007, he actually loaned two of his submarines to a German adult film company. so they could film scenes inside of the subs. And one witness told police that Madsen had even acted himself in a couple of the porn movies. I'm giving you guys all the tidbits today. So when police... Yeah, we know way too much about this guy. I know too much. And if I have to know it, you have to know it.

My search history really can't do this anymore. Send help. So when police start talking to some of his sexual partners, they find out that his interests went way beyond... consensual bondage fantasies. There was a female volunteer at his workshop that actually told police that he had talked to her on two occasions about his sexualized fascination with death. And there it is. There it is. And, you know, this has come up in a few cases, snuff films. Peter had a love for them, apparently. And for those that don't know what it is, a snuff film is like this violent, pornographic film in which someone is tortured and murdered on camera.

Yeah, we talked about it in the Gilgo case because one of the cops, the head cop on the case was like running around the police department asking other cops where he could find snuff films and going to like sex shops and asking them if they had snuff films. And they were like, no, those are so illegal. We don't carry snuff films. Yeah. Very strange, very, very, very dark. Well, it gets even worse because apparently Peter even told her that he was interested in making a snuff film of his own. So when police then take a look at his laptop, his hard drives, his iPhone, they discover just how deep this interest went. Which brings us to clue number four, Madsen's videos.

Police found that Madsen had downloaded over a hundred snuff films from dark corners of the internet. Videos that showed women being tortured and killed in terrible, terrible ways. And I'm not going to get into like exactly what is in these videos, but we know some of his search terms as well. which include, quote, throat, girl, pain. I do know he had, like, cartel videos. I won't explain what was happening in them, but it was like, like, just think of those, like, ISIS films and, like, the cartel films that kind of, like, make their way around the internet every now and then, like, he had those just, like, all over the hard drive.

Clearly obsessed. And, like, he would search the terms beheading and agony to get there, to find those videos. He was looking for, like, the darkest stuff you could find. The darkest. on the internet, darkest. And so these videos really suggested that he had a lot more violent fantasies than anyone could have guessed. And clearly, he seemed fixated on watching women suffer. And this is something that's really, I don't know, weird.

I think this should be addressed. In Denmark, it's actually not illegal to possess materials like this. It's obviously illegal to make and distribute them. But like just having these videos, hundreds or whatever that he downloaded, like, is it? necessarily illegal. So clearly we have all of these red flags, and of course it gets worse when they really start talking to former sexual partners. It becomes apparent that he was planning to maybe act on some of these fantasies. I know because at this point in the investigation, they have like weird behavior that his coworkers have reported on. And they also now have like evidence that he was

interested in this kind of stuff. So really, like, the next place to look is former girlfriends, just to get a clue as to if this was like a pattern of behavior he had. Yeah. And that's exactly what they do. So they start looking at texts that Peter had exchanged with one of his previous sexual partners. Now, I'm not sure how far into the investigation this was, but at some point, there's a woman that Peter had been sleeping with that actually reached out to police to share her experiences with him. She was an artist who lived near his workshop and had been seeing him regularly in the weeks leading up to Kimval's death. Out of respect for her privacy, the police actually don't reveal her name to the press. So we're just going to call her Shelley here.

So a few days before the deadly journey aboard the Nautilus, Shelly was texting Peter. She was trying to get this design project done ahead of a deadline, but was having a hard time focusing. And so she sent a text to Peter asking him to send her a playful threat, one that would motivate her to finish her work. Yeah, what would that be? Like, oh, Oh, you have to clean the dishes if, like, what would, I'm just trying to think of what I would expect Matt to say to me if I was like, oh, like, what's a threat if I don't finish my work today? It would be like, you have to take out the dog or like, you have to take the trash out. Yeah. You have to vacuum. Just like one thing I don't want to do. You have to squeege you the shower. Yeah. Like that is not what Peter said. No. No. Peter responded by threatening to take her out on his submarine. and kill her if she didn't get her work done on time. Just so extreme. Shelly plays along with a joke telling him that wasn't a scary enough of a threat.

So Peter kept sending her more details about how exactly he would kill her on his submarine. He talked about how he would invite her aboard for a friendly ride, but once they were out at sea beneath the water where nobody could save her, he would attack her. He then goes on to say in these text messages that he would start by using a utility knife to sever her jugular vein, that he would impale her on a roasting spit, and then to cover his tracks, he promised to cut up her body and throw the pieces into the ocean. That is so specific. That is someone who has spent time thinking about this and planning. Yeah. And at the time, Shelley didn't think anything. of what he said was serious. They both apparently had a dark sense of humor. Yeah, and plenty of people have dark humor. Like if you're watching this and that is the type of humor you have with your spouse,

it's because you know them and you know that they're normal. I think like in hindsight, now that we know everything about Peter, clearly that was like not a joke and he was planning. But it is interesting that she was like, yeah, I just thought he had dark humor. It's very odd for me to rationalize it as that. But the more of the more. Shelley read about Kim's death, like she realized that these circumstances he had described to her sound exactly like what happened to Kim. And police go even further. Like they get this report from Shelley and then they go and talk to four other different women who Madsen had invited to travel on the Nautilus with him in the weeks before Kim was killed. One woman told investigators that he had first

invited her out on his submarine in May of 2017. At that time, she refused. And he called her again out of the blue to invite her on the Nautilus just two days before his voyage with Kim. Police are gathering all these clues talking to all of these people. They're building their case against Peter and he is still sitting behind bars. And eventually they are able to charge him with three main crimes. They charge him with murder with aggravated sexual assault and desecration of a corpse. And his trial officially begins the following year on March 8th, 2018. Though we'll make a note here criminal trials in Denmark work a little bit differently than they do in the United States. And in the Danish legal system, when a case is highly emotional or very media fueled, a defendant can actually request a smaller jury panel than usual to ensure that the jurors remain impartial. I mean, think about here in the United States how long it takes to get juries sometimes, like the ditty trial. Like it can take months and months and months. Yeah. In Denmark, they're like, we'll just have two people. Like we'll just, instead of finding 12, we'll find two. Interesting. Very interesting. So Peter gets permission to have just two jurors and one judge here is case. So that's three people that are going to decide his fate. And the goal here for Madsen and his defense team was to prove to them that Kim's death was not a premeditated murder. Oh my God, you have the text messages of exactly how you're going to do it. How is it not premeditated?

To other women. Yeah. And so he's saying that no, it actually happened the exact way that I said it. it did. And interestingly enough, I think this just kind of like speaks to Peter's sense of grandeur and like just his personality as a whole. But he takes the stand in his own defense and he offers his own version of what happened that day. He's like, if I just get in front of these people and tell them exactly what happened, how I saw it, like, they'll believe me. Yeah. And I think that goes back to the, you know, the clip of him talking about psychopaths and how they're, they're charismatic and they can convince people when they talk. Like, he thought he could do that.

But he also says they have a sense of grandeur. And that's exactly what it is. Like he's saying all these things like, they're good at talking. No, you're not. Every time you talk, everyone knows you're lying. But they have this like inflated sense of self. So he thinks he's really good at everything. When Peter gets up to tell his side of the story, he does seem like he's almost excited to do so.

There was more than a hundred reporters in the gallery watching this trial. I mean, also remember, Kim is a reporter. Like there's her friends, her coworkers, colleagues, like everyone turned out for this because when a reporter gets murdered, it's a huge deal within the community. And remember, so he initially claimed that Kim died after that heavy latch fell on her head and cracked her skull. And then, as a result, he dumped her body overboard in this state of depression and despair. But now, on the stand, he offers up a third different version of what happened. that night on the Nautilus. And this is what he said happened this time. So he said when the Nautilus was still above the surface of the water, he briefly exited the submarine to check on something

that was happening on the outer deck. When he got out of the sub, he says that he closed the hatch behind him to prevent any of the ocean water from getting down into the sub. And while he was out on the deck, one of the engines inside the Nautilus began malfunctioning and emitting all of these toxic fumes. And he claims that while Kim was a lot of the water, alone in the totally sealed sub, she was overcome by the fumes and she actually died of carbon monoxide poisoning. And when Madsen re-entered the submarine, that's when he found her dead on the floor. And at this point in the trial, too, he starts describing the problems that the Nautilus was having and what he did to fix it. And we kind of talked about this earlier, right?

Like, he has in his mind like, oh, if I just explain how a submarine works because no one understands it, they'll just take my word as truth. Like, you know, these people are too dumb to understand submarines like me, so they'll just believe whatever I say. So he starts, like, really going into very specific detail how submarines work in this moment to the point where the judge repeatedly interrupts him and just asks him to stick to the basic facts of the case. They're like, we're not here to get into the inner workings of submarines. Yeah. I also find it interesting this change of story because you can tell carbon monoxide poisoning in an autopsy. and even if that were the case, like, why did you still stab 15 times and dismember her? Yeah, if it was carbon monoxide. How did the carbon monoxide do that? He actually does have an answer for that, though, when he's like telling everyone the story. Of course he does.

He said that when he saw her lying on the floor, he started slapping her cheeks to get her to wake up. And in his words, he describes this as trying to reboot her. And that's something that happened a lot during this trial is he would talk. about people and himself as if they were machines. And it's this weird thing he does that kind of separates the humanity from anyone involved in the situation. And maybe it's just the way his brain works. But he keeps also like comparing himself to the Terminator, which is very strange to, a very strange thing to do. He's talking about himself in the third person. Like everything is so detached. It's like he's not a human as he's like going through this trial. Yeah, I will just say you guys. This might be one to watch on YouTube because my face, this episode. Yeah.

I hate this guy. People described that he maybe had a hard time distinguishing between people and machines, but I think he probably just had a hard time seeing people as human beings. He saw everything as just like a machine. He said that eventually in this situation when he was down inside the submarine, he came to terms with the fact that Kim was dead. And that's when he, again, got so depressed, he had to go sleep it off for several hours. And he wakes up, he sleeps on it, wakes up and decides the only thing to do is bury her at sea.

He sticks to the burying at sea story. But now he has a way to explain like the state that she was found in. He said that he spent half an hour trying to carry her body up the ladder out of the hatch, but he wasn't able to do it by himself. So instead he took her body to the bathroom and that's when he dismembered her so that she would be easier to throw overboard. But he, as he's describing this, it's very logical. It's very like this analytical decision he made. This quote is upsetting to hear and it is taken directly from him during court. He says, what do you do when you have a big problem? You divide it up into something smaller.

Horrible. But it's that same thing of like just not saying people as people, like seeing a person as a problem. And he is being all analytical on like, how do I solve this? Absolutely insane. When prosecutors questioned Madsen on the stand, he really did not have any good explanations for all these holes in his story. When asked why he'd initially told police

that Kim was killed by the hatch, he claimed he was embarrassed, that it was humiliating that a flaw in his submarine's design had allowed the carbon monoxide fumes to leak inside. He also claimed to have lied about her cause of death because he wanted to protect her family's feelings. It's not up to you. You just killed her.

Yeah, and all, yeah, of course, that. Like, fuck yourself, dude. He said he thought that it would be easier for them if they believed their daughter had died instantly. In his words, quote, A dead body does not deserve any special respect. The prosecution also called in some expert witnesses to pick apart Peter's claim that Kim had died

because of a gas leak. First, they talked to a submarine expert from the Danish Navy. On the witness stand, she testified that she'd run tests on the interior of the Nautilus, and they showed no trace of carbon monoxide. They also had a coroner testify about her examination of Kim Vahl's lungs. She said there were no signs of heat damage or gas residue, which would be normally found in someone who died by carbon monoxide poisoning. So once Peter's story had been thoroughly dismissed, prosecutors presented the results of a psychiatric assessment that they had performed on him

while he was awaiting trial. They found that Madsen showed no signs of remorse for Kim Val's death and no compassion for her family. Based on their conversations with him, they determined that he was a pathological liar, a narcissist, and incapable of empathy. They diagnosed him with, quote, psychopathic traits, which again goes back to, you know, everything we've talked about, his questionable behavior, that interview clip. everything. The mental health specialist concluded their report by recommending that Peter be held in safe custody because he was a danger to others. And then the prosecution got to work trying to prove

that Peter had carefully planned this murder for a while. They called those volunteers that worked with him to the stand. They called Shelley to the stand. They had those four other women who he had tried to get on board the Nautilus come to the stand. The prosecutors also called the snuff film evidence and all of the search terms into question, which Peter did have a response for. He tried to defend watching and engaging with these things by claiming watching these videos made him feel more empathy for women. No, no. He claimed they were no more suspicious or incriminating than violent Hollywood films like Kill Bill or Seven. They literally are.

And actually, one of the saddest parts about this trial is, They played those videos for the jury. Yeah, and I heard one video was so graphic they couldn't play the video. They only played the sound. Yeah, the worst one. They could only play the audio and it just really rattled the jury. And so obviously anyone who has to even look at this material, even on a jury, knows that it's not the same as Kill Bill or Seven.

Well, Peter's lawyers had hope that maybe after this trial is kind of seemingly going south, maybe his saving grace would be his wife, who they thought was going to testify and talk about how kind and compassionate he was. But shortly before, she was due to appear in court, she pulled out. She said, nope, bye. She provided a note from a doctor excusing her from testifying due to emotional distress. And so before the trial ended, Peter was given an opportunity to make one final closing statement. And all he said was, quote, I'm very, very sorry for what has happened. And after that, it was up to the judge and those two jurors to decide his fate.

And on April 25th of 2018, the judge announced the verdict. She said that Peter Madsen had, quote, failed to give trustworthy explanations for what happened aboard the Nautilus on August 10th, 2017. And based on the evidence that she had seen, the judge found Peter guilty of premeditated murder, aggravated sexual assault, and desecrating a corpse. and she sentenced him to life in prison. Throughout the trial, Peter seemed very unbothered by what was going on. There's all these, like, pictures and videos of him just, like, looking around the courtroom. He's very bored with it all. I think in his mind, he was like, when can I just go home?

Like, clearly I'm going to be found innocent. Just let me leave. But when he heard his sentence, his whole demeanor suddenly changed. He sat at the defense table for over a minute with his eyes closed and his head bowed. This is clearly not what he was expecting. And he got maybe a little taste of the way that other people saw him. Because he really saw himself as this like super genius who was going to go to space and he's too smart for everyone. He can kill whoever he wants and he'll never be caught.

And his stupid little responses to questions are good enough for the police. But after he hears the verdict, he knows that he didn't fool anyone this entire time. Nope. He got got got. So now he will spend the rest of his life in a cell in jail. And I hope it's actually for life in death. Denmark. I know other countries say for life and it's like it ends up being nine years. Like I hope he rots in there. Rots. I'm looking at up. Jails in Denmark do look like IKEA's. That's like the thing in the Netherlands, right, is there's like a episode of Atlanta about it where like the jails are very nice and they're kind of like cozy and roomy. They don't have the electric chair over there. Here this little blip says Denmark's prison system is characterized by a focus on rehabilitating.

and reintegration, neither of which I believe he can do. No. Both with open and closed prisons. Open prisons offer more freedom and resemble a normal life while closed prisons are more secure and restrictive. A key feature of the system is the low prison population rate and the relatively short sentences with many prisoners released on probation before they complete their full sentence. So hopefully that is not the case here.

Yeah. And I will say even though there was only one suspect in this case, there's still a lot of loose sentence. still so many questions that just don't have answers in this case. One of the big ones is how did Kim actually die? And I think it's up to Kim's family on if they actually want that answer or not or if they're able to find peace and closure without knowing exactly what happened to her that night. The prosecution, they don't really know for sure even to this day. A lot of the evidence had just been kind of washed away by the water. And so all we have really is like the murder plan he texted to other

women. And so we can kind of assume that's what happened. But we don't know for sure. But only one person really knows what happened and we'll never get a straight answer on anything out of him. No. Peter Madsen is a psychopathic liar. Like, and so many people online question like, what exactly was he thinking? I don't even know how you would understand the mind of someone like that. We'll never get there. We will never get there. And like, at the end of the day, like, it doesn't matter. Like, fuck him. Like, the person that matters at this story is Kim Vault. And, like, the life she would have had making such a huge difference out there. I know. Just like with how fearless she was in her reporting, like, she would have just had such a cool career. Just to hear her family talk about her is just like, it makes you, you just.

just like knew you would have loved her. You knew you would have loved being friends with her. You would have done everything to be friends with her. Like she was so curious, so caring, so empathetic. And there's a video I think we'll link in the description of this episode that her family kind of does a tribute and talks about her. And there is now a book that has come out about Kim. And it's just clear how remarkable she was. Well, you were talking about there, because I'm going to talk about the book in a second because it's actually interesting. It kind of offers like a little bit of a different perspective on stuff than we had before. But you were saying that, there's a fiction show that Kim's family consulted on.

Yeah. So there is this TV series that Kim's family really consulted on. I think I saw that like they saw the scripts. They saw every cut of it. And in this, they don't ever directly mention Peter. I'm so curious to watch the show. It's it's not English language. It wasn't made in the U.S. I don't think so. I imagine it's a Danish show. I didn't get a chance to watch. it and all my research for this. I'm very curious, but family is really, really involved and still speaking about this and, you know, Kim's legacy to this day. And a final note that I'm going to add to this episode is just one development that happened with Peter after he was put in

jail. And that's that on October 20th, 2020, just over two years behind bars, Peter escaped from prison in the Copenhagen suburbs where he was being held. Apparently, he had access to the prison's wood shop. Again, a wood shop. This man doesn't deserve. They're making birdhouses in Danish prison. Oh my God, he does not deserve to make a chakutery board in prison. No. He was able to craft a fake gun out of wood while in jail. And he used that fake gun to hold a prison psychiatrist hostage and escape from the main building. Feels like a huge oversight in that prison. Thankfully, he made it less than a mile from the prison when police finally caught him. He was trying to hide in a van. But when officers approached him, he lifted up his

shirt and he had a suicide bomb on him. So the police retreated. And instead, they surrounded him in kind of this arm standoff. There's actually a picture of it. He's just kind of like sitting in the grass. In the grass by the road. And like there's like a canine and one of the police officers there like kind of unsure of what to do because no one's going to approach him. So they waited for an hour until this bomb disposal robot arrived. And it got close enough to Peter to realize that his bomb was also just made from wood that he was able to make in the wood shop. So police took him back into custody and the courts added another 21 months onto his already life sentence. Which 21 months for escaping, holding a psychiatrist

at Wood gunpoint and threatening a bunch of people and officers with bomb seems a little short. Not even two years. No. And reportedly they've also restricted his access to the prison workshop. Thank God. Oh my gosh. Okay, good. Hopefully he won't be able to pull a stunt like that again. Fingers crossed. So throughout the long ordeal of the search for Kim and the trial, Kim's parents kind of struggled to preserve her memory in the way that they wanted her to be remembered as an accomplished award-winning journalist, not as a victim. And shortly after Kim's death, her parents formed the Kim Val Memorial Fund to honor her legacy and support future generations. of female and non-binary journalists.

Since 2018, the Kim Ball Memorial Fund has awarded grants to journalists who's reporting embodies Kim's devotion to lifting up marginalized people and telling untold stories from all over the world. And to learn more about the Kimball Memorial Fund, if you're interested at all, you can visit gofundme.com slash remembering Kimball. Yeah, I would say another place to look if you really want to understand. and how amazing Kim was is the remembering kimvaal.com website. It has all of her articles there. It has a bunch of tributes from family and friends. You can watch her service where people really talk about her and how amazing she was. And something else that I listened to is her parents actually did an interview.

Kind of highlighting this book that came out. It is called A Silenced Voice, The Life of Journalist Kim Val. and they just really go into detail about her, this book, the Memorial Fund, you know, Kim's experience of being a woman in journalism, how they really discouraged her from going into the media job. But like her and her brother became journalist despite the parents being like, don't do it. And they really just talked about how she was fearless and so curious and went above and beyond to write these stories on such important topics like marginalized community and climate change. And so it's only about an hour and it's really, really just an amazing thing,

you know, hearing her parents talk about her and hearing how impactful this new fund is to get women, non-binary people, money they need to continue to pursue stories. And her family has said, like, this is, you know, if there's this that comes out of this tragedy, like at least it's something. It looks like they've already raised over 400,000. $1,000 and the most recent donation was four days ago. Like, people are still actively donating to this. Yeah, it is incredible. And, you know, they talk about Kim and how she did face adversity in a very male-dominated field.

And there were editors that kind of stifled her career and how she banded together with other female journalists to, like, kind of help each other, even though they were competitors. Like, it is a really, really cool interview. And I think if you're a journalist out there and trying to get a break, like, you're a break, like, this might be something to apply for, this grant by her fund. So definitely look into it. And all of these things we're talking about will be linked in the description. There's also an article that her parents do that I think is really interesting because they both are journalists as well. And it's called when we faced him. Our daughter, the journalist, Kim Val, was taken from us far too soon. When the trial came, her murderer had to look us in the eye. And it's this whole article just going

through their experience of, you know, this tragedy, this loss and the trial. And so that is a really interesting read as well. Yeah, thank you for finding that. I went off my rocker on this episode. Apologies, everyone for being a little unhinged, a little too vocal. And it's hard to remain neutral on this one when, I mean, you just, all of these cases can hit really hard. But like, God, this woman was just, she was on the brink of just having this insane career. and making change, and it's just very frustrating. She was around our age, too, was going to work for the day. I know.

So much of it really hits home, so. But with that note, it is time to close this case file on Kim Valle. Her murder is obviously a senseless tragedy. But if you want to regain your faith in humanity, we recommend you read some of her writings. Her articles are fascinating, colorful, these insightful portraits of people, places, and cultures that are under-explored.

And I think something that's so important to kind of contrast the monster behind this that looked at people as machines is Kim saw humans. She wanted to share humans and kindness and empathy and all these colorful experiences with the world. So again, you can find all of her writings on her memorial site at remembering kimvall.com slash writing. But I want to share a little clip of it here with you guys. Kim wrote in one of her articles, quote, I want to know how the world works.

and I hope that maybe one day I can learn enough to make a difference. So let's all take that sentiment with us on the rest of our day, our week, our month, our year, and let's all try to live our lives with Kim's open-minded curiosity, her hunger for empathy and understanding the world. And maybe, just maybe, we can all make a little, little bit of a difference in this world. And here's how we're going to try to do that with our missing person of the week. Yes. So for this week's missing person of the week, we're taking a little bit of a different approach. Because this is someone who's been in the news recently. And I hope to God, by the time this episode comes out that they've actually found this person. Because it is someone who's currently on the run. And it is very important that this person be found as soon as possible. And that is Travis Decker. So on May 30th of 2025, after a custody visit, Travis Decker disappeared with his.

his three daughters, Peyton, who was nine, Evelyn, who was eight, and Olivia, who is five, in Winatchie, Washington. On June 2nd, authorities did discover the girls' bodies at Rock Island campground, and they were near Decker's abandoned truck. Evidence did link their deaths to Decker, his fingerprint matched blood that was found on the truck. And Decker is currently wanted for first-degree murder and kidnapping. I have a little bit of information on the investigation that's currently taking place. So authorities launched an expansive search across rugged terrain. Helicopters, drones, cadaver dogs, swift water rescue team swept Washington's cascades and nearby waterways, didn't find anything. Investigators also reviewed Decker's internet searches, which showed that he

looked into moving to Canada, suggesting that's maybe where he escaped to. And despite his military training and wilderness survival skills, officials consider that he may have been injured. He may have like gotten an infection or drowned or died from other causes, that is something that is a possibility in this. He's maybe no longer on the run. There's been a couple sightings that have ultimately not led anywhere. On June 10th, hikers reported seeing a man matching Decker's description near an alpine lake, but that trail didn't lead anywhere. And from July 5th to 9th, there's been multiple credible sightings in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest, which is over 500 miles away from where this took place, and it spurred this huge, massive, multi-agency sweep. And a man who resembled Travis,

he had a ponytail, he had tattoos, he had this beard, was interviewed, but he was found to not be Decker. And I did read recently that they canceled the search in Idaho from this point forward. Travis is described as 32, almost 33 years old. He's white, he has black hair and brown eyes. He is five foot eight and weighs around 190 pounds. Tattoos and scars are unknown here, though I have seen reports of him having tattoos. And it's been said that he may be using the alias of Caleb. If you see Travis, the United States Marshal Service is offering a reward of $20,000 for information leading directly to Travis Decker's arrest. He is considered to be armed and dangerous. So if you see Travis Decker, please call 911.

anyone immediately do not attempt to contact or approach him. Anyone with information is urged to contact the nearest U.S. Marshal's office, or you can call the U.S. Marshals Service Communication Center at 1-800-336-0102 or the U.S.MS Tips at www. at www.usmartials.gov slash tips. And hopefully, like I said, by the time this episode airs, he has been found. Yeah, Justice should be served. And so that's all we have on this episode of Clues. We want to hear from you guys.

We always do. Your thoughts, your theories, your feedback, all of that is what makes this community so special. Yeah, and be sure to check out those links we share on Kim, her writing. I think all of it is just so impactful and important to also consume when you consume this case. At Crime House, we really value your support. So again, share all your thoughts. And remember to rate, review, and follow clues to help others discover our show. And if you're hungry for even more content, we've got you covered.

For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access, and ad-free listening, join our Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. We will be back next week with another case for us to unravel. And until then, keep searching. And we will see you next time on clues. Bye guys. Capture your favorite summer feeling with Pandora jewelry. Discover a collection inspired by the sunshine, freedom, and moments that make the season unforgettable.

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