Around Christmas 2010, in the rocket assembly hangar - inevitable known as the HAB - I had a long talk with a leading support group member. Two things I very clearly remember from tat conversation: I was directed towards Hacker News as a serious forum (have been here ever since), and much more to the present point was told "With all his energy and dynamics and creativity, Peter must have a dark side that we know nothing about".

We were not to know that the dark side was a terrifying psychopathic personality, now exposed in all its gore. Danish police is now reopening various old macabre murder cases. I shall be unsurprised if the charming, charismatic Peter Madsen I have met on several occasions turn out to be the craziest serial killer in Danish history.

My rage is barely containable.

[Written on phone in noisy, unconducive environment. Please excuse typos, clumsiness, and errors]

Until about two weeks ago it probably was.

With the corpse cut in pieces, it's hard to reach any other conclusion than that this was a murder. Or just almost in the region of the semi-plausably concievable, an accident followed by a gruesome attempt to cover it up. The repeated change of stories certainly doesn't help his credibility, and the explanation doesn't stand to reason in any way.

The accident theory is being stretched beyond the breaking point by now, I find it hard to come up with even a remotely plausible theory of what kind of accident it would have to be to justify the subsequent events. Such an accident would have to look so suspiciously close to murder that he responded just as if it actually was a murder.

I am not defending PM, as I think his reasoning and action in any case were completely psychotic in itself, but I can imagine a scenario that - with everything we know up until now - has not been disproven ... although I'm of the firm belief that he did kill that poor girl.

Being eccentric is fine, Howard Hughes was an eccentric and so are many writers and film makers. But butchering bodies (the result of an accident or a murder) goes substantially beyond merely being eccentric, it points to having a complete lack of empathy.

Best case scenario was his desperation to protect his reputation given this was the first journalist to visit his submarine who proceeded to die within his care would destroy his reputation. He probably freaked out and made a series of bad choices.

Worst case this was a crime of passion.

A 10yr manslaughter sentence seems like an appropriate punishment here.

I just want to point out that the Danish jury system have very little incommon with the American jury system

Professional jury vs a jury system basically designed to ensure the least qualified people are in the jury

In contrast to Denmark, where in a lot of cases the jury is the three judges preceding over the case, or in cases where there's a real jury, they jurors have some form of law degree

I'm wrong about the jurors usually having a law degree. Maybe. Apparently each jurisdiction has a committee that creates a short list every 4 years of people suited for jury duty. I can find no further info on what "Suited for jury duty" means, so the "has a law degree" thing might be untrue

This is to ensure the facts matter more than how they are represented.

Smaller but serious trials have a limited jury (domsmænd) if the accused claim they are not guilty.

Hm, apologies. I was under the impression they are not laypeople.

Thank you for correcting me. Question: does this imply that Denmark also has a jury duty?

Edit: this later comment makes me doubt again...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15081350

There is a jury duty in the sense that if you are asked to serve as lay judge you can not refuse. However, in practice the system is set up so that only volunteers get asked.

Every 4 years, each municipal council (kommune) provides a list (grundlisten) of candidates for lay judges (nævning). The list must be representative of general demographics. To be eligible for the list, you must be "suitable" for the role (which seems to mean you should not have a criminal background), and you must not be a lawyer, prosecutor, judge, or police officer. The cities can use their own procedures to compile the list, but in practice the way it works is you write to the selection committee giving your name, age, job title, and motivation for why you want to be a lay judge.

The lists are combined, and about 10,000 people are randomly selected from them. If you are selected you have a duty to serve. You serve for a period of 4 years, and will typically sit on 4 to 5 cases per year.

https://www.frederiksberg.dk/politik/kommunalbestyrelsen-og-... http://www.domstol.dk/saadangoerdu/tildigderer/naeavningdoms...

It must be be extremely painful for the partner of the victim who was probably feeling paranoid before she even stepped on the submarine.

I have a hard time believing anyone would commit a murder on a submarine in Denmark. I feel like it's almost impossible to cover that up. But if it was an accident... who mutilates the body like that? If I wanted to cover it up, mutilating the body would be too much for me.

The case is pretty bizarre, although I'm pretty sure law enforcement has it mostly cracked already.

The 'perfect crime' doesn't have to leave you above suspicion; but it has to deny sufficient evidence to convict you. You might believe your plan avoided incriminating you to the point that you can plausibly claim that you didn't commit the murder or tried to conceal the evidence.

Basically, a psychopath would think they could cover it up.

You mean "premeditated murder". Because it's too easy to commit a murder or manslaughter anywhere on the heat of the moment (e.g. makes a pass, she refuses, argument, pushes him, pushes her, she falls and dies, etc).

For example in Germany "Mord" ("murder") always requires intent. Unintentional killing is called "Totschlag" (manslaughter), if it was an accident it would be called "fahrlässige Tötung" (reckless killing).

US law seems to make similar distinctions but groups all of them as "murder": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law)

So I'm guessing the strong implication of intent present in e.g. German "Mord" is not present in the English word for most native speakers?

Manslaughter/"Totschlag" also requires intention (because anything without intention is, by definition, accidental or reckless).

Murder/"Mord" additionally requires one of several distinct characteristics. Among them are the attempt to conceal some other crime, a sexual motive, exploiting a victim's particularly weak ability to defend themselves, seeking financial gain, and maybe one or two more I forgot.

Yeah, that list is all over the place, and rather inconsistent. It will be changed any decade now.

If you accidentally hit someone with a car for example (while not drunk etc), few would call it murder when referring to the event. It would be referred to as: he killed the person, or the person died by accident, or legally involuntary manslaughter if you're responsible for the death.

Speaking culturally, typically for people in the US to call something murder, it almost always requires intent or high negligence.

I think in America, this is the difference between murder in the first and second degree.

This distinction is pretty out of place in German criminal law but plans to change them move very slow.

Getting into a fight and unintentionally/recklessly causing lethal injuries, or unintentionally/recklessly causing a lethal accident to happen wouldn't then normally be called "murder" making the distinction unnecessary?

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not picking on coldtea. This isn't the first time I've seen people be corrected when using "murder" to refer to "first-degree murder".

If however, you're on a submarine and then decide to kill someone in a rage, then it's still murder, but it's not planned far in advance.

Below manslaughter, we have negligent homicide, which is when you cause an accident through negligence that kills someone. If you are driving recklessly and kill someone, this warrants the stiffer charge of "vehicular manslaughter" in some juristictions.

Note: IANAL, IANYL.

Take a look at:

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/second-degree-m...

Basically I can't see Madsen straight up stabbing her with the clear intention of murdering her. Unless he is crazy or did something else before that, like rape her.

The mutilating part is just what throws me off. If he didn't kill her intentionally, how could he go that far? I can see him dumping her body in fear or shock or whatever, but he took his sweet time on the body before doing that.

Given that he had no compunction about cutting her up into pieces I have zero trouble seeing him stabbing her. At this point in time 'all bets are off', he's been more than just a little bit erratic and has been doing a pretty good job of appearing quite normal after having just dismembered a body and sinking a submarine. You have to be more than a little bit strange to be able to stand there and pretend to be the victim of an accident while talking to the police knowing all that.

Allegedly doing those things. Although I'm pretty sure his right to a fair trial won't be affected by HN comments…

Fair enough.

> Although I'm pretty sure his right to a fair trial won't be affected by HN comments…

You'd hope not.

The one thing that so far has negatively influenced Madsen's chances at any kind of leniency in his future trial (I'm going on the assumption here that there will be such a trial, though I can see some ways in which he might get out of that) is Madsen's own behavior.

After the deed has been done, even if it was an accident, one can panic and try everything to get away with it.

I actually believe that he told them "everything" at the first hearing (like the admission that she died on board the vessel and was "buried at sea") and as we've seen up until now, the court only releases a part of it once that part no longer has influence on the ongoing investigation. For instance, I think he also admitted to dismembering the body but that part hasn't been disclosed as the police would risk people sailing up and down the coast looking for body parts, and thus risk ruining evidence. The reason why I put 'everything' in quotation earlier, is that I don't personally believe the accident-story until I see evidence that proves it.

However, it puzzles me that the prosecutor is still going for the indictment with involuntary manslaughter. I think they know something that the public doesn't - perhaps something that in fact supports the accident-story.

Now we are in full fledged crazy butcher and/or killer territory. I think that pretty much covers evasiveness and unwillingness.

And I agree, regardless of what actually happened he has turned out to be a psychopath. Dismembering a body, puncturing potential air/gas pockets then "wrapping" it in chains and finally throwing it overboard.

No, if it is an accident getting rid of the body and sinking the sub is also getting rid of evidence and would have been material in determining whether or not it really was an accident in the first place.

So either way it is destruction of evidence.

Expect the Hollywood version in 2024.

It is just another possible explanation.

Worst marine accidents happen when person falls aboard and gets sucked into propulsion system.

Not guilty until proven....

As you suggest, it's all speculation, but the police are saying it does look like deliberate mutilation. Trying to imagine the scenario where all 4 limbs and a head get cut off by a prop, and it's quite a stretch. There's also blood in the submarine, and the accused's statement that he "buried her" at sea.

It's still not proof that he's innocent, but that would raise lots of doubts.

https://www.google.hu/maps/@55.6958462,12.609141,3a,75y,197....

"He initially said he had dropped her off safely near Copenhagen, but has since said she died in an accident and that he had "buried" her at sea."

https://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=https%3A... (google translate)

I'm an engineer and knowing that kind of forensic tools are available now to police, there is no way I'd ever think to commit such a crime (and also because WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!). Unless the police are very incompetent or you are able to conceal it very well, you will be caught. [0]

I can tell you I never had a class during my B.Eng about how to kill someone and destroy DNA evidence. I'm not sure what being an engineer has to do with sinking a dead body and removing DNA evidence, since these are not at all related to Engineering...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pickton

Of course, high profile crimes get disproportionate resources. In this case, they turned around a DNA test in a few days or less. The people involved, plus the submarine, assured this one gets attention.

As murders go this one has a lot of circumstances that facilitate solution in spite of all the attempts at muddying the waters.

I was more addressing the idea that you can't away with murder. Perhaps not in this case, but it obviously happens, and quite often.

If he was smart he would have driven his submarine to Russia and never come back.

And lack of clearance does not mean lack of guilt, more likely if there is no clearance it means that there is no case and most likely not murder.

You can use this as a proxy for the police 'solving' crimes but it would be much better to use the actual rate at which murderers are convicted because the police do not always get it right and do not always manage to establish guilt of the defendant beyond reasonable doubt.

I believe the UK is higher.

Assuming the allegations against him are true. (I freely acknowledge that I can't even come up with an explanation that absolves him at this point - but I'd rather not convict based on news articles and a couple of police statements)

Really, this is getting annoying. Just the other day someone came up with the absolutely brilliant theory that she must have been stealing submarine secrets for the Chinese or something to that effect and now this.

Did you notice that (1) he lied about having dropped her off, (2) he sank his sub on purpose claiming it was accidental and (3) he said she died in an accident and (4) he claimed he buried her at sea?

So far only (4) seems to be somewhat truthful, he forgot to mention he butchered her first.

The police have, rightly so, only given somewhat sparse information through the press. PM is currently, to my knowledge, allowed to read newspapers, and there is little reason to give a suspect a chance at information. It is highly likely they have way more information than what they are divulging.

The information they do give is to de-mystify a case which is already so crazy bonkers that even a good novelist couldn't have cooked it up. It is simply too implausible.

Everything points to murder. And I don't think there will be less stuff pointing to murder over the next couple of days or weeks.

That was not what I told at all. I am clearly saying maybe she was onto something and that could be the reason she is dead. (If the murder is related to her job)

It was one line.

> I am clearly saying maybe she was onto something and that could be the reason she is dead.

Yes, that is the bit that I object to. She is most likely dead because something Madsen did or tried to do to her before she got done in entirely, and it has nothing to do with the last story she worked on. So forget about bringing the Mafia, the Russians and Cartels into it.

You meant to write 'fraud'. Fraught is a synonym for 'to be full of' or 'distressed'.

Here there is very little room for such creativity, the amount of contorting one would have to do in order not to conclude that Madsen killed Kim Wall is speaking volumes about those attempting it.

    US jury system does it again

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) * <[email protected]> on Monday April 28, 2008 @07:34PM (#23231238)

    No evidence? No body? No murder weapon? Who cares! The 
    prosecutor used Power Point in his closing.. The 
    defendant is "weird".

    Oh well, maybe Hans will confess and reveal where he      
    stashed the body now."

Edit: even sorted by "insightful", this thread is a nightmare:

by garcia ( 6573 )

    While I could definitely see why he would kill that   
    thieving bitch of a ex-wife of his, I don't think they 
    proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he definitely 
    killed her.

    typical jury is a group of 12 people hand-picked by the
    lawyers to be the most easily emotionally manipulated 
    people possible. You were expecting them to come to a 
    conclusion based on logic?

by OMNIpotusCOM

    I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. 
    Last I knew you had to prove that he planned to kill 
    someone with a first degree murder charge. If you can't
    prove she's dead, and nobody saw her die, and there's no
    evidence that she's anywhere other than where he says,
    you can't convict a person of first degree murder.

    Can you imagine what would happen if this guy was black?

    No kidding. I would really like to see a poll of the 
    jury members, and if they would change their votes if 
    they had been told that Hans's ex-friend (the wife's new
    dude) had confessed to killing 8 people.

    Some facts are prejudicial.

    Some facts are prejudicial for a very good reason.

    I'd like to see numbers on how that would have changed things.

He eventually did. It would have saved a lot of time and grief if he had done it earlier.

Way too many parallels with this case.

Let me feed your curiosity. The anwer is: Nothing. This is a interesting problem to eval from a purely intellectual point of view.

In a early phase of the analysis ALL ideas are important. This is similar in many aspects to trying to catch a bug in a program that starts to do unusual things. You could work serially just picking the simpler explanation and stop here, or you could instead make a list of all possibilities and check it against the facts, discarding some and keeping other until the real cause is revealed. There is nothing wrong with it.

The difference is that when debugging a program nobody things "this variable is ugly and evil, so the other variables linked with it must be passing good values". You need to check it. The problem can be (and often is) in the interaction between two functions.

Updating the case, we have a obvious murder. We have a dismembered corpse that explain the "need to sink the submarine", we know were, and probably who. We have a fair good picture of the problem, but we don't know still why. We need to understand the interaction.

Of course there must be a reason and I bet that will be very obvious when revealed... most lose ends are now in the post-murder phase. How the corpse arrived to that beach for example.

It was me in fact. Please notice that you are wrong. I never said 'must have been', I said 'may have been' or 'could have been'. There is a planetary distance among both statements.

"The man loves with passion other thing; His work. Maybe she did something that was seen as a menace against the other love of his life, his submarine. Maybe she poke around and tried to sneak/photograph/open/discover some parts of the engine with the purpose to earn some bucks selling the submarine secrets when returning to China. I'm speculating of course, but unless he was drunk or drugged (unprobable while driving a sub), or both where flirting for months by e-mail and he feels cheated, there should be a solid reason for she being 'punished' with death. This is not a random act IMAO."[1]

> Please notice that you are wrong. I never said 'must have been', I said 'may have been' or 'could have been'.

You can hide behind weasel words all you want but the fact of the matter is that you were positing all kinds of ridiculous explanations for a situation where a simple one would suffice. That's about as clear an example of conspiracy nuttiness as I've seen since the Reiser trial referenced elsewhere in this thread.

What 'may have been' or 'could have been' still has to be remotely plausible to be considered and it really wasn't.

So if you feel that your use of the word 'maybe' gives you license to throw up all kinds of flak feel free, in the meantime realize that it does nothing to establish credibility and in fact probably achieves the opposite.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068088

A proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, can be asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis)

Speculation:

The contemplation or consideration of some subject. Conjectural consideration of a matter; conjecture or surmise

I could see an escalating scenario where she, as a reporter would, started questioning around that topic. She hits the right buttons, and he loses it and injures her badly enough that he now has to make a decision.

Is a murder, pretty obviously, but the reason of the murder is unclosed still. All possibilities are open.