A former flatmate of Grace Millane’s (pictured) killer was so scared to be alone with him that she slept with a knife in her bed
A former flatmate of Grace Millane’s killer was so scared to be alone with him that she slept with a knife in her bed for protection, it has been claimed.
The 27-year-old, who was found guilty of the murder of the British backpacker in New Zealand on Friday, shared a house with three female flatmates in Auckland in 2016.
One of the women, who has not been named, told Radio New Zealand she soon became uncomfortable around the ‘troubled’ man when he moved in after responding to a Facebook advertisement for a roommate.
She claimed the man would have a ‘change in mood’ after he drank, and often brought women he met on Tinder straight to his bedroom.
The killer’s former flatmate, who now lives in the UK, added the women were so uncomfortable with his behaviour that one of the roommates once slept with a knife in her bed.
‘My flatmate messaged me when she heard me arrive home and asked me to come into her room. I went in and saw her and she had a knife in her bed’, she said.
‘I asked what had happened. She told me that [the man] had been drinking and that she felt uncomfortable around him.’
The 27-year-old, who was found guilty of the murder of the British backpacker (pictured) in New Zealand on Friday, shared a house with three female flatmates in Auckland in 2016
5.45pm, December 1 2018: CCTV footage shown to jurors the defendant (whose face is obscured) walked into view and open his arms for a hug with Grace Millane as they met for the first time on December 1 in Auckland, New Zealand
The killer, who was described by his former flatmate as a ‘prolific liar’, told the woman he owned a £450,000 BMW and a £650,000 house in Sydney – despite renting a $170 (£85) room.
One night, she said, the three women met when they believed he wasn’t home to discuss how to get the man to leave their house.
The man, who had been in his room, then emerged and told his flatmates he needed to return to Sydney as his mother had died.
All his possessions were quickly removed from the house and the flatmates decided to change the locks, she said.
The 27-year-old was found guilty of the murder of Miss Millane – a former student from Wickford, Essex, on a gap year – in an Auckland hotel room after a Tinder date last December.
6pm: The CCTV footage followed the couple through their date, including their first stop: A casino containing Andy’s Burger Bar
At 7.12pm, the footage aired in court shows the couple left the burger bar and walked through the casino atrium and down the escalator walking out onto the street and past the Christmas tree
He was found to have throttled the British backpacker to death, before photographing her body, stuffing her in a suitcase and then dumping it in bushland, after just five hours of deliberations by the jury.
The killer was described by his step-brother on Friday as a ‘pathological liar’ who would have ‘enjoyed the power’ during her murder.
The serial fantasist made up a series of lies to feed his obsession of having violent sex with young women, it also emerged.
The guilty verdict brought to an end an 11-month saga of pain for the Millane family, who waved goodbye to their daughter in October last year as she set out on a world tour after graduating from Lincoln University.
After spending time in Peru, she arrived in New Zealand in mid-November and arranged her fateful Tinder for the night of December 1, planning to celebrate her 22nd birthday the next day.
8.30pm: The pair (seen stood at right-hand end of the bar) were paying after spending an hour at the Mexican Cafe
CCTV footage from inside the hotel lift captured the last time Grace was seen alive not knowing she was in the company of her killer
Pictures of the bedroom where Grace was strangled to death during sex were shown to the jury
She greeted her killer with a hug, standing beside a Christmas tree in the courtyard of the SkyCity casino. They toured several bars, drinking cocktails and, as she told one of her best friends in a text message, she was clearly impressed.
‘I click with him so well,’ she wrote to her friend Ameena Ashcroft. ‘I will let you know what happens tomorrow.’
By the morning, however, Miss Millane was lying dead in the £190-a-week third-floor apartment at a hotel in central where the killer lived.
She had been strangled during sex and the 27-year-old had taken a series of intimate photographs of her naked body before watching hardcore pornography through the early hours.
A photo issued Auckland City Police showing the use of luminol to highlight the blood stains on the floor of the killer’s apartment
The killer was then seen wheeling the trolley across the lobby of the hotel and out of the door
Shocking pictures played to the jury reveal the moment police discovered the body of murdered British backpacker Miaa Millane dumped in this muddy hole in the ground
The man began December 2, Grace’s 22nd birthday, by buying a suitcase to transport her body to a shallow grave in remote bushland.
But even before he did so, he was arranging another Tinder date for that afternoon, in which he told a woman a bogus story about a supposed friend who had killed a woman during sex.
He was first snared by a message he left on Miss Millane’s Facebook profile page the night before, as he waited to leave the Bluestone Room bar around the corner.
Contacted by police, he wove an elaborate web of lies, at first claiming he and Grace had parted as friends, planning to meet the next day.
Trapped by CCTV showing him buying the suitcase, however, he changed his story, claiming Miss Millane had told him she had learned BDSM sex games with a former boyfriend and had asked him to choke her during intercourse.
He said they had each taken photographs of each other’s private parts on their cellphones and that after sex he had fallen asleep, drunk, under the shower without suspecting Grace was in danger.
His lies were exposed by data recovered from his mobile phone which showed he had searched for ‘Waitakere Ranges’, the hills where he later buried Grace, and ‘hottest fire’, minutes before taking the photos of her.
That, the verdict confirmed, was proof that, as Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey had told the jury, he had ‘eroticised her death.’
‘It’s not safe sex play that killed Grace Millane, it’s strangulation,’ said Mr Dickey. ‘At some point of which she lost consciousness and would have become limp and lifeless and he had to carry on.
‘And if that’s not reckless murder someone will have to explain to me what is.’
Miss Millane’s killer will be sentenced in February. He faces life in prison with a minimum of 10 years without parole.