Killer Peter Madsen Escapes Prison

A Danish man convicted of killing a journalist aboard his homemade submarine in a case that shocked Scandinavia managed to escape from prison on Tuesday—though he was apprehended soon after. Peter Madsen, serving life in prison for the 2017 murder of Kim Wall, escaped from Herstedvester Prison near Copenhagen but was seized within a few hundred yards of the place, reports Sky News. Photos from the scene in the Albertslung suburb showed Madsen sitting on the ground surrounded by police officers in tactical gear, per the New York Times. Police had pulled him from a white van, a witness told the Ekstra Bladet tabloid.

He was wearing "a belt-like object" and claimed to have a bomb, per the Guardian and Sky News. The tabloid also reported that he had threatened prison guards with a "pistol-like object." Police said they had arrested an escapee before confirming the man was Madsen. He was found to have killed Wall, a Swedish journalist who was writing a story about him, in a brutal, sexually-motivated crime, before dismembering her body and disposing of it at sea. Though his story changed several times, he long claimed Wall had died in an accident aboard the sub. He appeared to admit to murder, however, in recordings revealed last month. (More Peter Madsen stories.)