Kim Wall: what happened to Swedish journalist on submarine, who is Peter Madsen, when is Sky documentary out?

HBO documentary Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall revisits the shocking 2017 murder of a Swedish journalist on a submarine.

The two-part documentary was released in the US in March and is now coming to Sky.

Undercurrent pieces together the events of the harrowing night on which Wall was killed, and follows the subsequent investigation and murder trial.

Who was Kim Wall?

Kim Wall was an independent Swedish journalist who had worked on major news stories across the world.

She had previously lived in New York and China where she wrote for a number of titles.

She was 30 years old when she was killed in 2017 by a man she had arranged to interview - Peter Madsen.

She organised an interview with the Danish inventor and entrepreneur and he invited her to have the interview on board his submarine, Nautilus, which he had built himself.

What happened to Kim Wall on board the submarine?

Wall joined Madsen on Nautilus off the coast of Copenhagen on 10 August 2017, but when the submarine did not return to the harbour that night, Wall’s boyfriend reported her missing.

Madsen was rescued from Nautilus on 11 August when the submarine sank, and was arrested when it was discovered that Wall was not on the vessel with him.

In the days and months after Wall’s disappearance, parts of her body washed ashore.

Madsen originally claimed that Wall had left his submarine in the middle of the night, but later said that she had died accidentally when she hit her head on the hatch of the vessel.

He later changed his story again and said that Wall had died as a result of inhaling toxic fumes.

In October, two months after her death, divers found pieces of Wall’s body in rubbish bags attached to pieces of metal.

An autopsy revealed that Wall had been bound and stabbed 14 times around the genitals, and also found evidence of strangulation.

Where is Peter Madsen now?

Madsen was charged with murder, indecent handling of a corpse and sexual assault in January 2018 - he pleaded not guilty to Wall’s murder.

In March 2018, Madsen was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment, the strictest punishment available in Denmark.

Madsen appealed the sentence but not the guilty verdict - his sentence was upheld.

Madsen will have to serve 12 years before he can apply for parole, but parole will not be granted if it is considered likely that he will recidivate once he is released.

He changed his account of the circumstances surrounding Wall’s death several times, but in 2020 he admitted that he had killed her for the first time.

In October 2020, Madsen escaped from prison but was quickly rearrested in a nearby residential area.

He was found holding a pistol-like weapon and with a belt that looked like it could contain explosives, so Madsen was surrounded until bomb disposal experts determined that the belt was a decoy.

He was handed a 21-month sentence for his short-lived escape - this will not be added to his life sentence but will factor into future decisions on any probation requests that may be made.

When is Undercurrent released on Sky?

The first episode in the two-part documentary will be released on Sky Crime on 22 May at 9pm.

Episode one, The Crime, revisits the murder of Kim Wall, while the second episode, The Punishment, follows the sentencing of Madsen and explores the killer’s minsdet.

The second episode will be released on Sky Crime at 9pm on 29 May.