JURORS in the Grace Millane murder trial have been shown pictures of her shallow grave where her body was found stuffed inside a suitcase.
The Brit backpacker’s naked body was found folded in a foetal position in the Waitakere Ranges, near Auckland, New Zealand.
15
15
15
She was found after allegedly being strangled in an Auckland hotel room while on a Tinder date with the man accused of murdering her.
In pictures shown in court, forensic officers are seen digging where the suitcase was found on December 9 last year.
The grave site was shown to jurors along with CCTV footage of young Brit’s suspected killer that tracked his movements on the day she was allegedly murdered.
Images showed the moment the suspect, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, smuggled her body out of the hotel in a suitcase.
15
15
15
15
The video shows the suspect using a hefty porter’s trolley to wheel two c ases into a lift.
The powerfully-built man was first seen wheeling the trolley into the elevator at the CityLife hotel where he lived full time and going up to his £ 190 a week room.
Shortly afterwards, he returned with it laden with two suitcases, one of which he has since admitted contained university graduate Grace’s naked body folded into a foetal position.
FOETAL POSITION
Minutes later he is seen emerging from the elevator and pushing the trolley across the floor of the lobby.
The Brit backpacker’s parents were seen wiping away tears in the public gallery as the clip was shown in court.
15
15
15
Property developer David Millane, 61, and his wife Gill, from Wickford in Essex, have sat through every day of the harrowing murder trial hearing how their daughter died the night before her 22 nd birthday.
Yesterday they saw how cameras captured her date, a 27 – year-old local man, buying a suitcase and a shovel and transporting her body in a red Toyota hatchback he rented the day she died.
And a former journalist told how she shared a date with the suspect as Grace’s body lay in his hotel room.
After leaving the bar, she went out of her way to avoid him after becoming “uncomfortable” at the suspect talking about women being accidentally killed during sex.
She claims he told her: “It’s crazy how guys can make one wrong move and go to jail for the rest of their life.”
15
She told jurors: “He said he had heard of a guy who asked his girlfriend to have rough sex with him including strangulation or suffocation and it had gone wrong and she had died in the process and he had got done for manslaughter.
“He was very intense, quite calm though. He seemed a bit aloof and not quite judging how I was responding to the story.
“I just felt a bit uncomfortable. I changed the topic to traveling in the south island.
“I felt uncomfortable with him so I just lied and said my car was in the opposite way.
“He wrote to me later by text saying, hey, I had a really great time would you like to do it again? And I said no, I wouldn’t.”
15
The tr ial has already heard claims he used the case to transport Grace’s body in a car to remote woodland where he buried it in a shallow grave.
Jurors were also shown images of the shocking moment detectives found the suitcase with Grace’s body inside buried in a wooded area outside Auckland.
Gripping video of the suspect’s first police interview was earlier played to the jury at his murder trial.
For more than an hour, the 27 – year-old gave an account packed with details of how he said he had spent the night of his Tinder date with Grace five days before.
With a photograph of the young university graduate, then being treated as a missing person, on the table in front of him he claimed he had said goodbye to Grace with “a hug and a kiss on the cheek”.
He added that he had hoped to see her the next day to celebrate her 22 nd birthday.
Latest
‘APOCALYPTIC ”
Two dead as Venice hit by 2nd-worst floods ever sparking state of disaster
TOO SCARED TO TELL
Teen dies after going to bed without telling parents she’d been stabbed
GRACE’S SUITCASE COFFIN
Grace Millane ‘killer filmed smuggling body from hotel in suitcase ”
Warning
DEATH PLUNGE
Workman plummets 131 ft to his death after antenna he’s working on collapses
LEOPARD’S SPOTS
Can you spot FOUR snow leopards sunning themselves on Mongolian mountain?
Grace’s body was discovered a week after her death when police tracked the man’s cellphone
He denies murder. The trial continues.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings