Words
Amelia Wade
Editor
Alanah Eriksen
Design
Paul Slater

November 20, 2018

Grace Emmie Rose Millane, 21, arrives in New Zealand after spending six weeks in South America, where she travelled around Chile, Patagonia and Peru.

She was in the middle of a year-long backpacking adventure after graduating from the University of Lincoln with an advertising and marketing degree. Her family said she wanted to see the world and was looking forward to exploring New Zealand in particular.

She spends the first stint of her time here travelling around the North Island, including up to Cape Reinga. Throughout her travels, Grace bombards her parents and two brothers with photos and messages about her adventures.

“We heard from Grace virtually every day ... she enjoyed sharing her adventures with us,” her father later said in a statement during the trial for her death.

November 30

Grace travels back to Auckland and checks into Base Backpackers in the central city and stays in a four-bedroom dorm with three others. She matches with the accused on the dating app Tinder.

Grace also messages and meets up with another man whom she has been messaging on Facebook. They go back to his apartment in downtown Auckland to watch a film and they end up spending the night together.

December 1

The accused sees he has matched with Grace on Tinder and sends her a message. They start chatting through the app about how they are and how their days are going. The man asks Grace what her plans are for the day. She doesn’t have any so he asks her to meet for a drink at SkyCity. She agrees.

5.37pm: Much of the pair’s date is captured on CCTV. The first sighting of Grace is when she leaves Base Backpackers and heads along Federal St.

5.45pm: Grace arrives at the courtyard outside SkyCity, dressed in a black dress and white sneakers. She takes a picture of the large Christmas tree and sends it to her family. This is the last message they get from her.

The man turns up and they greet each other with a hug before heading up the escalator to Andy’s Burger Bar. They order drinks and chat.

7.14pm: The pair leave SkyCity to head to Mexican Cafe across the road. Grace orders a sangria with mint and they sit in a corner and the accused says they talked about the people around them, imagining their lives.

There are signs of affection, including Grace touching the small of the accused's back.

Throughout the evening, Grace messages her friend Ameena Ashcroft and gives her updates about how their date is going. She writes: "I'm on a date with a guy who is a manager of an oil company."

The man later denies giving Grace this impression.

Grace also messages her friend: "Cocktails all round" and "He was like 'it's [my] birthday tomorrow, we are getting smashed'."

Her last messages were: "I click with him so well" and "I will let you know what happens tomorrow".

But a message from Grace the next day never came.

8.27pm: The man settles their tab, paying for three jugs - two of margarita and one of sangria. Grace chats cheerfully with the hostess before they both leave.

8.30pm: The pair go to The Bluestone Room on Durham Lane and get a small table at the front of the busy pub. They chat, laugh and start kissing 15 minutes later. The man puts his arm around Grace and they lean in for a more passionate kiss.

9.01pm: The man brings shots of tequila back to the table. The pair clink glasses and shoot the drinks.

9.20pm: Grace leaves the table, possibly to use the bathroom. In her absence, the man picks up her handbag and rifles through it then puts it back on her seat. They leave shortly after.

9.29pm: The man leaves a comment on Grace's Facebook profile photo, saying: "Beautiful. Very radiant."

9.40pm: The pair arrive at CityLife Auckland, a complex containing a hotel and serviced apartments, where the man lives. His arm is around her shoulder and she holds his hand.

They get into the lift and catch it alone to the third floor then disappear down the hallway, away from the indisputable evidence of the CCTV cameras. This is the last time she’s seen alive.

Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey explains during the trial about what's happening in the CCTV footage.

From here, only Grace and the man charged with her murder know what happened.

And as Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey would later say during the trial: "Grace can’t tell us".

The man later tells police in a second interview with them that when they got back to his room, the cocktails and beers had kicked in.

"We were kissing, we were talking and kissing more."

A music channel was playing on the television in the background and at one point Grace asked him to turn it off. The man says she then began to talk about Fifty Shades of Grey.

"She told me that there's a few things she likes doing and that she'd done with her ex-partner. We started having sex, at first it was just normal. It was very placid."

The man says Grace then brought up the topic of bondage.

"And she started biting and she asked me to bite her so I did."

"I stopped at first and said, 'Is this something you really want to do?'"

He says Grace replied: "We're in the moment, let's just go with it."

The pair then talk for a while before having sex again.

"Holding my arms above my head and just biting and then she hit my butt ... and then she held me around my neck and pushed down.

"We started having more, I guess, violent sex."

The man says they then ended up on the floor and stopped to take intimate photos of each other.

"And then she told me to hold her throat and go harder."

Afterwards, the man says, he then went to the bathroom - but fell asleep in the shower.

He remembered waking up when it was still dark and crawled back into bed.

"I thought Grace had left.”

The defence will later say that Grace's death was an accident that happened during consensual sex and how the man acted afterwards is evidence of fear and panic.

Auckland Crown solicitor Brian said at the trial: "You can't consent to your own murder... She would have had to consent to someone holding her neck for five to 10 minutes until she passes out... That's just silly."

December 2 — Grace’s birthday

The next piece of indisputable evidence is the man’s Google search history and the timestamps on photos he took of Grace.

1.29am: The man searches for "Waitākere Ranges" in Google Maps. The Crown allege later that he is "trying to figure out a way of disposing her body".

1.31am: He searches "hottest fire", again because he is trying to figure out how to dispose of her body, the Crown allege. Several pornography sites are then accessed and videos viewed.

Between 1.45 and 1.49am: He takes the first photo of a naked Grace, which the Crown described as "trophy" photos.

"If those photographs weren't taken after she died... Then he planned to kill her," Dickey said at the trial.

6am: He searches "rigor mortis" and "extra large bags" and "carpet cleaner".

The man does not discuss these Google searches in his interview with police and instead says that he woke up the next day and saw Grace lying on the floor, blood coming from her nose.

"I screamed, I yelled out at her. I tried to move her to see if she was awake."

A pathologist later finds that Grace died from pressure to the neck.

About 7.51am: He messages a woman he met on Tinder to check their date that afternoon was still on.

About 8am: The man leaves CityLife and walks to The Warehouse on Elliot St in central Auckland. He buys a large grey suitcase.

8.14am: He returns to his hotel room. He later tells police at this point he tries to overdose on medication.

"I was at the point where I just wanted to end my own life - I'd had enough, I was finished."

He then tried to put Grace’s body in the suitcase.

"I was just in shock the whole time, I couldn't put her in it because it just didn't seem right. It just didn't seem right.

"So I left and Grace was half-in half-out of the suitcase at that stage. I couldn't do it."

8.35am: CCTV footage shows the man leaving his apartment again and walk to a nearby Countdown supermarket. There he buys several items, including Janola Power Clean, a twin pack of small gloves and a packet of gum. He pays for all the items with cash before returning to the hotel at 8.40am.

10.33am: The man walks towards Queen St and catches a taxi. While he’s in the back of the cab, he smiles and uses his phone.

10.42am: He arrives at an Apex car rental shop and hires a small red car for 24 hours. He pays with a credit card and later returns to CityLife.

At some point during the afternoon, he Google searches "flesh eating birds" and "are there vultures in New Zealand".

2.53pm: The man leaves CityLife again and about an hour later is shown on CCTV arriving at Revelry bar in Ponsonby. He meets the woman he messaged on Tinder earlier in the day.

The woman later gives evidence he told her a story about someone who accidentally killed a woman during rough sex and was later convicted of manslaughter.

"It's crazy how guys can make one wrong move and go to jail for the rest of their life," she says he tells her.

5.25pm: The man leaves the Ponsonby bar.

About 7.30pm: He’s next sighted parking the rental car at the Countdown supermarket on Quay St and looking at a Rug Doctor stand.

About 7.45pm: He returns to CityLife but then leaves again at 8.11pm to hire a Rug Doctor machine. He wheels it to his room then returns it about an hour later.

9.26pm: The man gets a luggage trolley from the hotel lobby and takes it to his room. He leaves carrying two suitcases, one which contains Grace’s body, and a black sports bag and puts them in the hire car. He moves it to a nearby Wilson car park before he again goes to a supermarket to buy gloves and stain remover.

Meanwhile, Grace’s family in the UK grow worried about her whereabouts when she doesn’t respond to birthday messages from them.

December 3

6.14am: The man gets to the hire car and starts driving toward the Waitākere Ranges.

6.50am: He stops at the Western ITM in Kumeū and buys a red shovel and four bolts.

He continues onto Scenic Drive to bury Grace in a shallow grave. He then loosely covers it in punga branches.

9.30am: He drives back to CityLife and parks the red car. He goes back to his hotel room barefooted.

9.58am: He drops off bags at Mint Drycleaners on Queen St before heading to The Warehouse store at St Lukes mall, where he buys another suitcase. He then heads next door to a Washworld car wash and cleans the rental car and a pair of shoes. He leaves the red shovel leaning up against the wall at a car wash bay.

December 5

Grace’s family file a missing person’s report with the New Zealand police after her uncharacteristic continued silence.

Police start making inquiries. Detective Constable Diana Levinzon contacts the man after seeing the comment he left on Grace’s Facebook page on December 1.

About 4.50pm: The man takes Grace’s belongings to Albert Park and puts them in a bin.

December 6

5.18am: The man is seen leaving CityLife again with a sports bag and taking a trip in a white Uber to Mission Bay. He returns about 5.58am.

The purpose of this trip is still unknown, but Dickey told the court it could have been to discard Grace's cellphone which police have never found.

8.43am: The man leaves CityLife wearing a navy suit and returns at 11.48am. At some point he speaks to Detective Constables Changee Han and Thomas Heimuli at the Crown Plaza and tells them he and Grace went their separate ways after their date at SkyCity.

At some point the man calls the detective back about the Facebook comment and tells them he'd been with her on Saturday evening.

Police continue with other avenues of their investigation into Grace’s disappearance and release a CCTV image of her - the last known sighting - to the public.

Detective Inspector Scott Beard speaks to media at a press conference during the investigation into her disappearance.

Grace’s distraught father flies 18,000km to Auckland to help police.

2.19pm: Detective Toni Jordan and another detective speak to staff at CityLife who say the man lives at the hotel. The detectives later meet the man at a 2degrees store on Queen St and take him to Auckland central police station to be questioned.

About 5.30pm: The man’s first police interview with Detective Sergeant Ewen Settle starts. He continuously lies about his movements and says he left Grace after his date with her at SkyCity. He is asked to provide a DNA sample and says: "Yep, 100 per cent, I haven't done anything wrong."

Settle says: "It's possible that someone has killed her ... We don't know if she's been murdered or not, we don't know yet, she could be found, but she could be dead.

"And it could be that you've done it."

Settle then briefly leaves the room.

The accused, however, quickly knocks on the closed door and asks: "I just wanted to ask a question, have I been arrested for something I didn't do?"

After returning, the detective says: "We've reached a point where we need to advise you of your rights."

December 7

Police hold a press conference with Grace's father David, who arrived that day. They say they have "grave fears" for Grace and that they’ve spoken to a person of interest but at that stage didn’t have any evidence of foul play.

David pleads for anyone with information to contact police and says no detail is too small.

"Grace is a lovely, outgoing, fun-loving, family orientated daughter. Grace has never been out of contact for this amount of time and is usually in daily contact with either her mother, myself or her two brothers ... we are all extremely upset and it is very difficult at this time to fully describe the range of emotions we are all going through."

Grace's father David Millane makes a heartfelt plea for any information about her disappearance.

December 8

Detective Scott Beard tells media: "Grace is no longer alive. This is a murder investigation."

2.43pm: Police meet the accused at the Attic Backpackers and tell him they want to speak to him about Grace. He is read his rights and he asks for his lawyer.

6.10pm: The man is interviewed by Detective Sergeant Settle for a second time and he admits Grace is dead. He tells them about the night she died and where she’s buried.

At the end of the interview. Settle asks: "Did you kill Grace Millane?"

He responds: "No."

"You're under arrest for the murder of Grace Millane."

He then leads police to where he buried Grace's body.

The man's second police interview where he tells police what happened to Grace. It greatly differs from what he said in the first interview.

December 9

Detective Scott Beard gives an emotional press conference from the scene of where Grace's body was found.

"Obviously this brings the search for Grace to an end," he says.

"This is an unbearable time for the Millane family and our hearts go out to them."

December 10

The man accused of Grace's murder appears at the Auckland District Court. His identity is suppressed.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tells media during a post-Cabinet press conference that all New Zealanders will feel the heartbreak for the Millane family as we pride ourselves on our hospitality to those visiting our shores.

"My thoughts and prayers are with her father David, who is in the country, and her mother who cannot be here, and her wider family and friends and loved ones.

"The overwhelming sense I get is that this is something where we feel immense heartbreak for the family and the sense of collective shame. We pride ourselves on being a place where people are welcome, where they are safe and this hasn't happened. I feel a sense that New Zealanders are carrying this quite personally."

Grace's father releases a statement describing their family’s grief and thanking New Zealanders for their support.

“Grace went off to travel the world in mid-October and arrived in New Zealand on the 20th November. By the amount of pictures and messages we received she clearly loved this country, its people and the lifestyle.

"After the disappearance of Grace on 1st December 2018 our whole world turned upside down.

"I arrived in Auckland on Friday 7th December, followed by my brother Martin on Saturday 8th. From that very first moment we have been astounded by the level of concern, sympathy and selfless help from every person we have met.

"Auckland Police have carried out the most concise, stringent and thorough investigation. The team, consisting at times of over 24 officers, have worked arduous long hours without a day off, little sleep or rest in helping to resolve this heinous crime.

"The media and press have been superb in their coverage and reporting of the events surrounding Grace's tragic final days. They have not intruded into our life and have been respectful and courteous at all times.

"Gill, Michael, Declan and myself would sincerely like to thank everybody involved and express our most profound gratitude.

"In this difficult situation where everybody is a true hero it is sometimes difficult to single out certain people. Despite this we would like to offer our most sincere thanks and everlasting gratitude to:

"Detective Inspector Scott Beard, who has been a most measured, selfless, human and professional face of Auckland Police. His emotional media statements have made him many fans both in New Zealand and at home in the UK.

"Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Brand, the hidden driving force of the investigation and a true police professional.

"We all hope that what has happened to Grace will not deter even one person from venturing out into the world and discovering their own OE.

"Martin and I had the privilege of attending the traditional Māori blessing of the site, which was a lovely and peaceful experience.

"Finally we would like to thank the people of New Zealand for their outpouring of love, numerous messages, tributes and compassion.

"Grace was not born here and only managed to stay a few weeks, but you have taken her to your hearts and in some small way she will forever be a Kiwi. My brother Martin and I leave for the UK this weekend to take her home."

A video made at the time of Grace's funeral