In a closed-door hearing, Thomas Gotthard had that morning told the court how he had planned the murder of 43-year-old Maria From Jakobsen and how, once she was unconscious, he had smothered her nose and mouth with his hands for several minutes until she was dead.

He said he had decided to murder her because of problems in his marriage and his fear that a divorce would have caused problems with his children and his existing ex-wife. He had also started a relationship with another woman who has was “wildly in love with”. 

“It’s terrible to say, but it became a sort of hobby for him,” said Prosecutor Anne-Mette Seerup as she read out the explanation Gotthard had given in court. “This is not an unhappy love story about a man who could not get the love of his life. Or the third love of his life. On the contrary, this is a man who saw his wife as a block and chain around his leg.” 

Influenced by an episode of Breaking Bad he had seen, Gotthard decided to dissolve the body in acid, buying a 208-litre feed barrel for the purpose.

After keeping the body in a locked shed in the barrel for one night, then moved it to an abandoned country estate, where he drenched the body in 45 liters of hydrochloric acid and more than six kilograms of caustic soda, hoping to dissolve the corpse.

The barrel was too heavy to move, however, so he split the contents into two smaller barrels, which he then buried, only to dig them up again, cut the remaining parts of the body into smaller pieces, burn them, then bury the remaining bones. 

READ ALSO: Danish Lutheran priest expected to confess to murdering wife

Jakobsen disappeared on the morning of October 26 last year and was reported missing by her sister the next day. Gotthard then told police last year that she had left the couple’s house in a depressed state, leaving her phone and bank cards behind.

But he was taken into custody three weeks later after police found caustic soda and hydrochloric acid in the couple’s house, and discovered that he had searched for terms like “sea depth,” “oil barrels,” “suicide,” “disappeared” and “cleaning” on the family computer.

Once he was in police custody, Jakobsen was suspended from his position as a parish priest.

Police also discovered that Gotthard had cleaned his car on October 26th, the day of his wife’s disappearance, and found CCTV footage showing him disposing of a big blue plastic barrel at the recycling centre in Frederikssund on November 6th.