The man who has been on trial for the death of Grace Millane has been found guilty of murder. He cannot be named due to a suppression order.
On Friday, a jury came to the unanimous decision that the 27-year-old man murdered the 21-year-old woman after meeting her on a Tinder date.
The New Zealand Herald reports that Grace’s parents were in the courtroom and “embraced” when the guilty verdict was passed down.
The man is due to be sentenced on February 21.
Grace Millane, from Essex, was on an around-the-world trip when she arrived in Auckland, New Zealand. She was only there for 10 days before she met a man on the dating app Tinder who killed her on their first meeting, the day before her 22nd birthday in December 2018.
The court heard that she met the man on December 1, when the two visited a number of bars in the city centre.
They kissed, before walking arm-in-arm a short distance to the lobby of the CityHigh hotel where the man was staying.
CCTV footage showed Grace follow him out of the lift at 9.41pm toward his apartment.
Sometime that evening or early the following morning Grace Millane died as a result of pressure on her neck.
During a police confession prior to the man's arrest, the man said he had sex with Grace, and later woke to find her unresponsive. He claimed he then "panicked" and disposed of her body.
Evidence was presented in court which suggested Grace was interested in the sexual practice of BDSM, which stands for bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism.
Auckland Crown Solicitor Brian Dickey told the court that while Millane "had a modest interest" in BDSM, "so what?"
"She didn't ask to be killed," he said according to the Herald.
"You can't ask to be killed in this country, you can't consent to murder."
And today, the jury of seven men and five women confirmed that Grace Millane did not die by accident. She was murdered.
At the start of it all, in an opening address, the defence's Ron Mansfield described Grace as a "loving, bright, engaging, intelligent and well-liked woman".
"That is her reputation," he said, "and that should be her reputation and memory at the start of this trial and at the conclusion of it."
For more:
Almost a year after Grace Millane's death, a jury is dissecting the final moments of her life.
Top Comments
It had came out in the trial that she young women had memberships on fetish sites and had a special interest in being throttled. I am terrible sorry she has lost her life however Sadomasochism is not something to practice on Tinder. Given the high risk nature of many the activities. When you are dealing with physical torture or especially throttling,
defining boundaries over a period of time to determine your limit is crucial, not random hookups. Get to know someone before hopping in the sack.
Victim shaming, how helpful.
You don’t need to define death as a limit. He strangled her for 3-5 minutes while she was unconscious. It’s not a tragic accident because they didn’t know their limits, he murdered her and he would probably go on to murder other women regardless of any kinks they expressed an interest in. And since tinder have a way for him to be tracked down immediately it was actually the best way she could have met him.
Short of taking security with them every time they have sex, there’s no way women can protect themselves from men determined to murder them. So let’s focus on stopping men from murdering.
You've got to be kidding me. She didn't have an interest in being throttled. It's BDSM and it is very different. Yes, I know all about it from experience and, to be honest, I'm sick of people slut shaming. Yes, that's exactly what you were doing with the line "given the high risk nature of many of the activities," and "get to know someone before hopping in the sack". Disgraceful, victim blaming comments that are not warranted or helpful. And who is to say they didn't agree on limits, safe words, immediate stop actions etc... In fact, we don't even know if his story about rough sex gone wrong is true because Grace isn't here to tell us. It could have been just plain vanilla sex and he decided to kill her. The fact is he strangled her to death. That involves extreme force for a prolonged about of time. She would have been unconscious and clearly not ok. Not to mention what he did afterwards.This was no accident and there was no way Grace could have prevented it. Coincidentally, going on Tinder is no different to meeting a guy at the pub, or the supermarket or while you're walking your dog at the park.
Ugh, gross. Read a bit more about what actually happened to her before commenting.