What started as a birthday trip turned into a heartbreaking tragedy. Grace Millane, a young traveler exploring New Zealand, vanished after a night out—only for CCTV footage to reveal the chilling truth. In this video, we break down the case, from her final moments caught on camera to the investigation that led to justice. How was the killer caught? What really happened that night? Watch till the end to uncover the full story. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more true crime content.
Chapter 1: What happened to Grace Millane?
While she was in New Zealand, Grace was using Tinder to meet up with different guys and go on dates with them. This just seemed like a casual thing that she was doing to get out there and meet different people as she was traveling. She first matched with a man who she had been messaging with on Facebook and after talking for a bit, she met up with him on November 30th.
The two ended up going back to the man's apartment in downtown Auckland to watch a movie and she did end up staying the night there. But other than that, the date didn't really seem too remarkable and nothing really out of the ordinary happened. Then on December 1st, Grace matched up with another man on Tinder.
This guy sent her a message and the two started chatting pretty much just about how their days were going. He ended up asking her if she had plans for that day and she said no. So he ended up asking her if she wanted to meet up with him for a drink at Sky City and she agreed. So at this point, a lot of the date with this man was captured on CCTV footage.
We know a lot of the things that she did that night and we have a pretty extensive timeline. I will mention though that for quite some time, we did not know the identity of the man who she went on a date with. So for now, I'm just going to be referring to him as the man that she went on a date with because again, during this specific time, nobody knew who this guy was.
So by 5.37 p.m., Grace is seen leaving base backpackers and heads towards Federal Street. By 5 45, she arrived outside of Sky City wearing a black dress with white tennis shoes. Once she got there, she took a photo of a Christmas tree that she saw outside and then texted the picture to family members. On CCTV footage, we see her date show up.
The two greeted each other with a hug and then went inside. They took the escalator up to Andy's Burger Bar where they ordered drinks and chatted for about a half hour before leaving Sky City at 7.12pm. After this, they headed to Mexican Cafe which was right across the street. Once they were at the Mexican Cafe, Grace ordered a sangria and the pair sat in the corner.
The two just sort of people watched those around them and talked about themselves and got to know each other. At this point in the date, Grace appeared to be enjoying herself. She was seen walking with her hand on his lower back and touching him as they were talking. Also, throughout the date, Grace was texting her friend about how the date was going. She wrote to her friend, And texted,
And then she texted, he was like, it's my birthday tomorrow. We're getting smashed. So her birthday was December 2nd, so the very next day. And her date was basically saying that they were going to drink a lot and get smashed for her birthday. Her last message to her friend was, I click with him so well and I will let you know what happened tomorrow.
These were the last text messages that she sent to her friend about the date. So the two had stayed at the Mexican cafe and drank a good bit before they went up to the counter at 8.27 p.m. to close their tab. Her date paid the bill, which included two jugs of margarita and one of sangria. Still, at this point, Grace appears to be in a great mood. She was happy and chatting with the waitress.
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Chapter 2: Why is this case emotionally impactful?
One witness claimed to see her alive and well at a grocery store while another one said that they saw her hitchhiking on the southern motorway. But these sightings were not able to be confirmed and the more police looked at surveillance video, the more suspicious they got of the man that she was last seen with.
So police used all of the surveillance video that they were finding to finally pin down the apartment complex that she was last in and they searched it. This is when police came out and said that they found evidence that Grace was no longer alive. They took a vehicle of interest and had a man in custody as their prime suspect.
But like I said at the beginning, for quite some time, police would not reveal who this man was. Apparently, they had found out who he was pretty easily because of this comment that he had left on Grace's profile picture. So when police initially found this man, they actually sent him a message over Facebook to ask to speak to him.
this was a very informal interview and he told police that he was with grace that night but that they went their separate ways at 10 p.m that night and he doesn't know what happened to her after that and he hasn't seen her since so then after exchanging these messages another detective planned to go ahead and get in contact with him for another interview they actually went over to the city life complex and just to their surprise they actually did see him there but
He also noticed police so he started running. Police chased him until they caught him at a nearby store. So this is when they took him in for a real interview and he was sticking to his story that the two parted ways at 10 p.m. But he was confronted with the fact that police had CCTV footage of his complex. So he changed his story.
So this is what this man said happened the night that the two went to his apartment.
so according to grace's date once they got into his apartment the two were pretty drunk and they started kissing for a bit while doing so the tv was on so grace had asked him to turn the tv off as well as all of the lights after this he says that the two started talking about 50 shades of gray he said that she was telling him all sort of these
sexual things that she used to do with her exes he said that there were a lot of explicit things that she was talking about so after this the two started to have sex once they started getting into it according to him grace brought up bondage he said that she started biting him and asked her to bite him so he did he said that he stopped and asked her is this really what you want me to do and she said yeah and she said that she wanted him to get really rough with everything
He said that she was the one pushing him down, making things very violent, but it was consensual. I am trying to be more vague. I'm not trying to be graphic, but you sort of know what I'm talking about. There is a lot more detail of what I'm talking about in a lot of the sources below, and you can go ahead and read that if you want to get more into it.
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