The murder of Grace Millane

poster wrote:
New Zealand has quite a small population. Would Grace have agreed to meet this individual if she had been someone living locally?

You make a good point here, Poster. Everyone here is only one or two steps removed from each other. The defence lawyer for the 
 
accused used to play in a band with one of my mates, for example. However this rotten strangler had been living over in Australia

for a while (a few years?) and had then been staying in the Auckland CBD which is backpacker and tourist territory. 

That'd probably be the only place in New Zealand where one could be anonymous. 

You wouldn't know that wasn't normal to live there if you weren't from here.

Rosa canina wrote:

poster wrote:
New Zealand has quite a small population. Would Grace have agreed to meet this individual if she had been someone living locally?

You make a good point here, Poster. Everyone here is only one or two steps removed from each other. The defence lawyer for the 
 
accused used to play in a band with one of my mates, for example. However this rotten strangler had been living over in Australia

for a while (a few years?) and had then been staying in the Auckland CBD which is backpacker and tourist territory. 

That'd probably be the only place in New Zealand where one could be anonymous. 

You wouldn't know that wasn't normal to live there if you weren't from here.

Interesting. I wonder why the accused chose to live there, in a hotel room, of all places? To be anonymous? Which might beg the question of what had happened in Australia prior to his arrival in New Zealand?

The cctv of the pair going up in the hotel lift is interesting (albeit chilling and desperately sad). The suspect has managed to get Grace to agree to go to his apartment.

If this man was, say, a 'pick-up artists' (PUA) who was into 50 Shades type of stuff (which appears to be the case based on what several other women have said) then getting Grace to agree to go back to his hotel apartment within a few hours of a first (Tinder) 'date' would be something of a coup.

There must have been some prior discussion around this, even if both of them were quite drunk. Judging by what Grace's friend had texted on that fateful evening, there was an element of excitement around going back to his apartment at the hotel. The friend texts that it could be the pent-house apartment (I think - haven't got exact words). But the point is, was Grace impressed by the fact that he told her he was living in a hotel? It appears that her friend was. Did he 'big' this accommodation up in some way to get her agree to go back with him? What was he telling her was there or they would do there? I would suggest that at this stage Grace is simply having a fun evening and has no particular agenda apart from, it seems, getting smashed with him (as she texted her friend).

We know from police interviews that the suspect talks about his own safety on that 'date' quite a bit. Which shows quite a high level of cunning, I would say (I've heard that expression before somewhere). I wonder if this was a ruse the suspect used with Grace, in order to get her to 'put her guard down' (say) and agree to go back to his place?

Watch in the apartment lift as the suspect appears to have the room swipe for the hotel door in one hand and his wallet in the other hand. Something causes Grace to noticeably  turn right away from the suspect and face the wall. This must be in response to something he says, imo.

If, say, the pair had been in the throes of an intense mutual passion I do not believe that Grace would have turned away like that.

I reckon he threw in a few 'negs' (PUA term for teasing) to get her guard down. For instance, 'I don't want you seeing what's in my wallet, you might only be coming back for my money'. Or: 'I never let girls I've only just met look inside my wallet'. Or something to make her turn right away for a second or so.

Bear in mind when Grace left the table earlier on in the evening at one of the bars they visited,  the suspect is captured on camera going through her handbag. That says quite a bit about the man's character, imo. I bet Grace would never have rifled through his wallet like that,  had he left it on the table. But I bet he would never have left it on the table in the first place. The FACT that Grace left her bag on the table with a man she had only just met demonstrated that she was a trusting person. A character trait that would not have been lost on the suspect, imo.

In PUA terms, getting Grace into that lift; getting her to turn away as he has his wallet open and the hotel swipe out, and getting her into his hotel apartment on the first 'date' demonstrates a high degree of  'compliance'.

ETA: Complete speculation of course. I have no idea what he said to her. But it is a fact that she died in the apartment of course.

A total psychopath, imo. This stuff should be taught in schools.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/11/cant-way-die-grace-millane-murderer-suffocated-woman-sex-court/

Gosh.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/76020121/controversial-pick-up-artists-cancel-new-zealand-event-plans

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12287551

Guilty verdict just in. I'm not sure why he's still got name suppression, though?

(everyone here knows who it is)

More details of the ratbag in tonight's papers : 

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12287282

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12287491

Second article :

A woman who dated Grace Millane's murderer says he is a "narcissistic liar" who stalked her after she ended their brief relationship.
The woman has been watching the murder trial in horror - and believes she was lucky to escape the brief relationship unharmed.
A jury found the man, 27, guilty of Grace's murder on Friday afternoon. He cannot be named for legal reasons and will be sentenced in February.
"I can't even look at him, he still terrifies me," the man's former partner told the Weekend Herald.
"When I ended things he would turn up unexpectedly at the train station the same time as me -just watching me. He wouldn't say anything to me which made me uncomfortable.
"In the end I moved because he knew where I lived and I didn't feel safe."
READ MORE:
• Grace Millane murder trial: a timeline from date to death
• Grace Millane verdict: Guilty of murder, justice for her family
• Grace Millane murder trial: The key people and what to expect
• Premium | The girl behind the headlines: 'Brightest star in heaven'
The pair matched on Tinder in early 2017 at a time the woman says she was "vulnerable and at a low point in her life."
It didn't take long for her to realise the man was a fantasist - and a compulsive liar.
"He told me he was born in Wellington and his parents were drug addicts. They locked him in the car and set the car on fire while he was in the car but he got saved. He went into care and was adopted by the CEO of BP and his wife."
The woman, a sales manager, believed the murderer was a business development manager.
His Tinder profile when she matched with him falsely claimed he was a "senior corporate lawyer" who had studied at the University of Sydney.

"He always wore suits that was 'his thing'," she said.
"The other weird thing is he never ate food. He only drank juice and alcohol. He told me he didn't need food to survive. He cried during sex which was odd."
The man was private about his personal life - but pushy about extracting details about her life.
Grace Millane's murderer was a sharp-dresser and at first seemed like a good guy - but quickly changed, a former parter says.
"I think that was his tactic to try and make you vulnerable to him. Every time you asked him a question it was like the answers were already mapped out, they would roll off his tongue. He was a natural talker and easy to believe."
But as his lies escalated, the woman grew suspicious.
"He would go 'MIA' [missing in action] for weeks- you wouldn't hear from him and then he'd start phoning again. He told me he had been in Australia for his nana's funeral. Then a week later his words changed. He told me, he had just buried his dad.
"He is sick and twisted. I mean who lies about their nana or dad dying?"
She now knows it was all lies - the man's father lives in Wellington and his grandmother is alive.
(more to come)

Is it usual in New Zealand, Rosa, for the name of every murder suspect to be withheld until they are found guilty - assuming that they are?

Maybe he faces other charges and his identity has to be kept secret in the meantime?

He's been named now.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7714279/Grace-Millanes-killer-Jesse-Kempson-tissue-lies-fuel-sex-obsession.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

No, it's not usual here for murder suspects to have their names suppressed, Freedom.

Maybe you are right and he is facing other charges? I don't know.

The Daily Mail link doesn't show up for me, it must be blocked here.

Strangely, other links available in the U K still say that his name can't be given.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-50512163

Freedom wrote:Strangely, other links available in the U K still say that his name can't be given.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-50512163

I wonder if there are other cases pending with this individual? It could also be to protect his daughter (if it is correct he has a daughter?)

The lying stuff is consistent with a personality disorder, down to just lying for the sake of it.

It is said that one of the ways of uncovering someone on the spectrum of narcissism/sociopathy etc is to, at an early stage, reasonably refuse a request or demand and watch the reaction. It would appear that this individual did not take 'no' for an answer.

Many people are brought up to be people-pleasers or just give people the benefit of the doubt and have a low index of suspicion regarding other people and their motives. It would appear that Grace fell into this category,  with one of the men she connected with on an online dating site describing her as 'trusting' or 'naive'. This can, of course, be a charming quality but poor Grace appears to have paid for it with her life.

I find it of interest in this case how quickly the suspect escalated the date by moving to multiple locations which involved lots of drinking but no eating, it would seem. The pair met at 5.45pm and by shortly after 9.15 were taking the lift up to his apartment in the hotel. That's three and a half hours.

It is on record that the convicted murderer watched hard corn porn that evening after Grace's death. A feature of hard corn porn is the strangulation of women following sex I do believe.

The messages exchanged between Grace and her murderer prior to that fateful evening have been released.

Sadly, Grace's openness about it being her birthday the following day but with no plans as to what to do reveals very early on indeed to her killer that she is far away from family and friends, with no-one nearby to keep an eye on her safety. Effectively, a stranger in a city she didn't know.

It is really very difficult to wrap one's head around the fact that Grace's killer knew that their 'date' was on the eve of her birthday. I can only imagine, then, that there might have been some banter around what birthday present/s Grace would get, perhaps even from the killer himself. It takes one's mind to places that I don't want to go but just how depraved can a person be?


The verdict seems to have hinged a lot on what the killer did after Grace's death which I would agree places what happened in a particularly heinous light and does not indicate that he was in a state of panic or distress. In the interviews with detectives he is as cool as a cucumber and has the audacity to claim (and lie) that some of the actions taken on the 'date' with Grace were to do with his own personal safety.

IMO this case should raise some discussion among young people (of any gender and sexual persuasion) around trust, sex and boundaries.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7720977/Grace-Millanes-family-NO-compensation-death-outside-EU.html

I admit that the stories of random sexual encounters with complete strangers did cause a few raised eyebrows - though of course I'm sure it always did go on - but I'm a bit long in the tooth now!

Freedom wrote:I admit that the stories of random sexual encounters with complete strangers did cause a few raised eyebrows - though of course I'm sure it always did go on - but I'm a bit long in the tooth now!

Agreed. I've been told that on some university campuses there is a kind of revolving open door policy with certain students. Who am I to judge? But the difference in the latter type of situation is that the students are known to each other. They are living on a campus in some kind of cushioned 'student' bubble where some of the norms of adult life don't really apply for a few golden years. That is a very different scenario to this case where Grace was travelling in a strange country. Perhaps she was still in 'student mode', having only recently graduated? And lulled into a false sense of security by the laid-back Kiwi culture. Her killer was clearly operating in a quite different zone, was older, probably with a dubious past and I think on a mission. I think in the days before cctv, social media etc he could have been a serial killer in the making, judging by events before and after this terrible murder.


It is a credit to the NZ Government and authorities, imo, that this case was dealt with so intelligently and without the hideous type of main-stream media hysteria that we can have in this country.

IMO as always.

I think there was hysteria on the part of the media though as the earliest posts here show - it was treated as something completely unheard of and horrific with everyone (so it seemed) in the NZ from the Prime Minister downwards weeping and wailing publicly.

Freedom wrote:I think there was hysteria on the part of the media though as the earliest posts here show - it was treated as something completely unheard of and horrific with everyone (so it seemed) in the NZ from the Prime Minister downwards weeping and wailing publicly.

These types of crimes involving (almost) complete strangers are relatively unusual though, thankfully. Statistically, they are not the norm. Just as, statistically, children who disappear in mysterious circumstances are not usually taken by complete strangers but by people known to or trusted by the child.

Yes, domestic violence is a huge problem but this wasn't a case of domestic violence where the victim was under the control of the perpetrator over a period of time. Domestic violence tends to happen over a period of time not just after a few hours spent in someone's company.

Grace, unfortunately, went back to the murderer's hotel room. We really don't know what happened after that. She might not even have consented to sex for all we know. All we do know is that she was strangled in that room.

I think a case like that would get large coverage anywhere, irrespective of race. This was a woman with no history of being a victim of domestic violence or having grown up in a chaotic or disadvantaged environment.



IMO!

Freedom wrote:I think there was hysteria on the part of the media though as the earliest posts here show - it was treated as something completely unheard of and horrific with everyone (so it seemed) in the NZ from the Prime Minister downwards weeping and wailing publicly.

One might say the same about the Madeleine McCann case of course. We have the wife of the Prime Minister phoning Kate; Rome and the pope preparing for their visit; Madeleine on the front page of every newspaper for months. The difference is, of course, that in Grace's case the perpetrator of the crime was swiftly identified and charged. One cannot say that about the Madeleine McCann case. The perpetrator/s of the crime are still  'out there' somewhere as is, according to her parents, Madeleine, although there is not a shred of evidence to support their version of events.

Freedom wrote:I've given this one its own topic as there are weird McCann type elements about it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6486979/Shovel-linked-murder-Grace-Millane-detectives-New-Zealand.html

I did say in my post from 14th December last year that there were some McCann similarities.

Rosa canina wrote:https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12177080

"Two former prime ministers are among prominent women calling on men and the Government to make changes in the wake of English backpacker Grace Millane's death.
The call is made in an open letter signed by more than 40 women including Helen Clark and Dame Jenny Shipley, former governor-general Dame Silvia Cartwright, business leaders Theresa Gattung, Joan Withers and Dame Trelise Cooper, along with stars from the arts, science and media.
The letter, which will be sent to the Prime Minister's office today, makes a promise to Millane "to do better as a nation". She was last seen alive on December 1 on the eve of her 22nd birthday. A 26-year-old man was charged with her murder on December 8 before her body was found the following day." etc

https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/109295862/grace-millanes-murder-has-tapped-into-an-underlying-fury





Dad getting a cop hongi.



Pointy-fingered politicians doing their bit.

The 'art by millane' picture on social media is very creepy in the context of what happened, dated 23 October. Very weird. 'Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead'. Yikes. And it got 323 'likes'. I wonder what the context was for that? Did Grace draw it, or what?

But apart from that I don't see anything else that weird about the case.

Maybe more will come out after sentencing or when the culprits name is no longer suppressed.

I do think that the witness who spoke about her ordeal with this man had a very lucky escape. She managed to remain cool and I think that probably saved her life. I wonder what would have happened if she had gone to the police following this incident? I can understand why she wanted to keep him 'on side' as it were but perhaps there were already quite a few red flags around him?

In any event, she had a horrible experience at the hands of the accused, made the decision to speak out (which she didn't have to - I doubt the accused was going to volunteer that kind of information) and was then subjected to a grilling in the witness box.

https://theconversation.com/grace-millanes-murder-trial-shows-social-attitudes-continue-to-minimise-gendered-violence-127796

I expect that you will remember how, in rape trials in the U K, the alleged victims' past sexual history was given and they were named too. Goodness knows why my mother used to buy the News of the World and let me read it!

I think that like a lot of things, attitudes have gone from one extreme to the other. Nowadays, the silliest cases get to court - usually those where both parties were blind drunk and one of them later thinks it wasn't a good idea. They should just learn not to get so drunk again that they don't know what they're doing!

I'm not in anyway denigrating genuine rape victims.

Rightly or wrongly, alcohol seems to be one of the few things that can lower inhibitions to the extent that complete strangers take off their clothes and have sex with each other. The whole issue of consent thing is a minefield.

I remember once when I was very young and very naive flirting with a man from the wrong side of town at a party. I was with my boyfriend at the time but I just felt like flirting with a 'bad boy'. Boyfriend had to go off and pick up a friend from the station and the young man decided it would be a good idea to drag me outside into a dark part of the garden, force me onto the ground, straddle me and try to take my trousers off.

Call me old fashioned, but this wasn't quite what I had been expecting from a few bats of the eyelids at a teenage party in the host's parents' house.

I remember thinking: 'He's going to rape me'. My mind ran through different scenarios - asking him to get off me wasn't effective and I wasn't strong enough to push him off. I started telling him I was having an asthma attack. I kept repeating it and eventually a small group of people came into the garden. They sort of strolled around so I raised my voice and they ended up looking over at us while I yelled.

It was a bizarre situation as I think the group of people must have been totally befuddled. But the man eventually got off - it took a long time though - and disappeared.

Boyfriend arrived back with the friend who he'd picked up from the station, looked at me as I staggered inside covered in mud and said: 'You look like you've been raped.' I told him what had happened and he was very kind and caring and asked if he should call the police.  I couldn't face that so we left with me in shock.

But I learnt my lesson. Afterwards I was told by someone who knew him that this was what the 'bad boy' did. I guess it sometimes worked. I was amazed. I also heard that he told other people that: 'I had made a fool of myself'. An interesting response.

Another British backpacker has died in New Zealand - maybe an accident though.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8003259/Missing-British-backpacker-32-dead-disappeared-hiking-New-Zealand.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

Is the killer still not being named in New Zealand, Rosa?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8026017/Grace-Millanes-mother-reads-emotional-statement-confronts-22-year-old-murderer.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small