Family and friends celebrate the life of slain journalist Wall

pulse

March 24, 2018 6:56 AM

Parents and friends of Kim Wall honored her memory in New York Friday on what would have been the slain Swedish journalists 31st birthday.

Wall's remains were discovered in plastic bags over a series of weeks after she vanished while interviewing Danish inventor Peter Madsen aboard his homemade submarine.

Madsen currently is on trial in Copenhagen in the grisly case that sent shockwaves worldwide, with charges including premeditated murder, desecration of a corpse and sexual relations other than intercourse.

Wall's parents, Ingrid and Joachim Wall, along with her brother and some hundred friends -- many who knew Wall during her time at Columbia University's graduate journalism school -- gathered to celebrate the life of the plucky freelance journalist, presenting a scholarship of $5,000 to a Danish woman inspired by Wall.

Wall's family, along with the US International Women's Media Foundation, established the annual award in the late journalist's honor.

The grant's first winner, Anne Hermann, plans to put the funds towards investigating Danish colonialism in Greenland.

"Thank you Kim for being a beacon for generations of journalists to come," Hermann said.

Wall's mother Ingrid called it "comforting" that the fund already boasted $200,000 in donations, saying "we know the fund will live on for a long, long time."

"That gives us some kind of help in this misery."

Wall's parents will soon return to Copenhagen to attend the trial.

Ingrid Wall, herself a former journalist, said the scholarship aims to help "courageous young women who want to get out in the world and make a difference. That's very important to us because that's what Kim did."

"She was really out and talking to people," she said. "When you don't meet people, you miss so much; she wanted to go out in their own environment."

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