Man found guilty of killing Lincoln graduate Grace Millane
He will be sentenced in February
Lucy WoodhamThe New Zealand man accused of killing Grace Millane has been found guilty.
The jury took five hours to decide the 27-year-old was guilty of strangling 22-year-old Grace Millane.
The high court rejected the defence’s claims she had died accidentally during “rough sex”.
Grace Millane’s father said despite the man being found guilty, it would “not reduce the pain and suffering we have had to endure over the past year.”
He continued: “Grace was taken from us in the most brutal fashion. Our lives have been ripped apart. This will be with us for the rest of our lives. Grace was a beautiful, talented, loving daughter.
“Grace was our sunshine. She did not deserve to be murdered in such a barbaric way in her OE [overseas experience] year.
“We must return home and try to pick up the pieces of our lives, day to day, without our lovely Grace.”
Grace Millane was found buried in a suitcase in bushland outside of Auckland, NZ.
The Lincoln graduate has been backpacking around New Zealand, when she met the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on Tinder.
She had gone back to the man’s hotel room, where he strangled her to death.
In their closing statement, Mr Dickey of the prosecution told the jury “it’s not safe sex play that killed Grace Millane, it’s strangulation”, adding “you can’t consent to your own murder.”
“The person doing that must have known that they were hurting her, causing her harm, that might well cause her death, but they were reckless and carried on, and she died”, Mr Dickey told the jury.
The defence claimed Grace’s death was an accident, and that the man “was not experienced enough to actually know how to do this properly and what the dangers actually were.”
The man will be sentenced in February.
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