Peter Madsen, the man known for killing and dismembering a Swedish journalist while aboard his homemade submarine, briefly escaped a prison where he is serving a life sentence.
Madsen, 49, escaped from Herstedvester Prison, located near Copenhagen, Denmark, on Tuesday morning. He was able to escape by using a fake explosive belt and a fake gun, according to the New York Times. His freedom was short-lived, and Madsen found himself surrounded by police officers a half-mile away from the prison just five minutes after the getaway.
Mogens Lauridsen, the chief superintendent of the Western Copenhagen police, said a “gunlike object” was used in the commission of his escape and that he tossed it as he ran from authorities.
“We don’t think it was a gun, but it looked like one,” Lauridsen explained, noting that because of the mock explosive belt, it took authorities several hours to bring him back to the prison given safety precautions. Officials don’t think that Madsen had any assistance from beyond the prison but remain in the investigative stage.
Madsen is reviled in Sweden and Denmark for the 2017 killing of 30-year-old journalist Kim Wall. Just a month before his attempted jailbreak, the Danish inventor admitted to her murder after maintaining his innocence even after his conviction. As he was detained on Tuesday, bystanders hurled insults at him.
“Drown yourself!” and “You should be dismembered!” people reportedly shouted at him.
Madsen had taken up Wall on her request to interview him aboard his submarine, the UC3 Nautilus, back in August 2017. She never returned from the interview, and after dismembered body parts began to be discovered, he was charged with her murder.
He initially maintained that her death was accidental, although, in a new documentary series Secret Recordings with Peter Madsen, he reportedly confessed his guilt to another journalist.
“There is only one who is guilty, and that is me,” Madsen said in the documentary after responding “yes” to a question about if he was the one who killed Wall.
“It was nobody else’s fault. It’s my fault she died. And it’s my fault because I committed the crime. It’s all my fault,” the convicted murderer added.
Madsen is facing life in prison, a rare sentence in Denmark. It is unclear if he will face additional charges for his attempted escape.
