Police find head of murdered Swedish journalist Kim Wall

Danish police investigating the murder of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall have found body parts, including her decapitated head.

The freelance journalist was last seen alive on 10 August when she went to interview the inventor Peter Madsen, who has been charged with her murder. Wall’s dismembered torso washed ashore 12 days after she boarded Madsen’s homemade submarine for the interview.

The police investigator Jens Moeller Jensen said divers had found Wall’s head and legs, as well as her clothes and a knife, in plastic bags with “heavy metal pieces” to make them sink.

The bags were found on Friday near where her naked torso was found on 22 August, near the coast of Copenhagen. Wall’s arms are still missing.

A police spokesman told reporters there were no fractures on Wall’s cranium. The cause of death has yet to be established.

Madsen, 46, maintains that Wall died after being accidentally hit by a heavy hatch in the submarine, but a Copenhagen court heard there were 15 stab wounds on her body.

A fund set up in memory of the award-winning journalist has raised more than $85,000 of its $100,000 target since being launched by her friends and family. It would used to provide grants to female reporters to pursue subculture stories, according to the Remembering Kim Wall website.

Wall, who had written for the Guardian and New York Times, was reported missing by her boyfriend in the early hours of 11 August when she failed to return from her interview.

When the submarine was located, Madsen was rescued just before the vessel sank, and later arrested. He will appear in court again on 31 October.