Search of “Rocket” Madsen’s space lab finds footage of woman’s decapitation

Enlarge / The UC3 Nautilus in early sea trials in 2008. (credit: Frumperino)

Copenhagen prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen announced in a court hearing Wednesday that “images” of the torture, decapitation, and burning of a woman were found on a computer hard drive at RML Spacelab, the organization devoted to building a manned suborbital rocket led by Danish aerospace engineer Peter Madsen. The BBC reports that the images, “which we presume to be real,” said Buch-Jepsen, were on a computer believed to belong to Madsen—the suspect in the death of journalist Kim Wall in an incident aboard his submarine the UC3 Nautilus.

Madsen, for his part, claimed the video was not his and that the computer the video was on was a computer that everyone in the lab had access to. But other evidence presented in this latest hearing on his case has prompted the judge overseeing the case to order he be held in custody another four months, as Buch-Jepsen told the court of the video and other evidence that have “strengthened” the case against Madsen since his last hearing on September 5.

Wall’s headless, limbless torso was found on the shore on August 21, ten days after Madsen deliberately sank his sub in shallow waters near Copenhagen. The body was identified by DNA, and traces of Wall’s blood were found within the submarine after it was raised. Autopsy results found that Wall had been stabbed in her ribcage and genitals, either at the time of her death or shortly afterward, though no cause of death was determined.