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Grace Millane murder - do we believe the accused?

The rest of the pathologist cross was essentially
1. There was no preexisting condition apparent, she was a normal healthy 22 year old
2. Her blood alcohol was 122 mg per liter
3. There was no damage to bones
4. There was a deep internal bruise about 8 by 6 cm present only on the left side of the throat.
5. Sustained pressure for 4 to 5 minutes would be needed to cause death.
6. Similar coloured bruises were constrained to both inner arms suggesting solid restraint.
7. Fingernail scrapings were taken but no data was presented in court. Conclusion, no accused dna found to suggest she was fighting him off.

Good point about the fingernail DNA unless there has been evidence about that you didn't hear.
 
I don't think the absence of fingernail DNA proves she wasn't trying to fight him off, depending on how she was restrained. It's just that its presence would have been a fairly good indication that she had in fact tried.
 
I'm not sure the legal distinction is framed like that. Murder requires a mens rea, an intention to commit the act. If the accused succeeds in creating reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that he had the mens rea, then as far as I know it's not murder.

I don't think there was premeditation here, and I have a great deal of doubt as to whether there was actual mens rea even for the instant it takes for that to happen. However I have a lot of sympathy with the view that says, if the negligence that led to the death was extreme then it's arguable that it should be murder. It's just that I don't think that's what the law says. I think the law would put it on the high end of culpable homicide and perhaps the sentence might be comparable to a murder sentence. Maybe we're talking about how we think the law ought to be as opposed to how it actually is.

Under NZ Law being reckless with disregard for the outcome, whether the outcome was intended to be death or not, constitutes the legal definition of murder. If the intent is established as not being reckless as to whether death 'ensued or not' a person may be found guilty of manslaughter.
 
I think it's more probable that he was recklessly indifferent as to whether he harmed/killed her than that he planned to do so. Once the indifference reaches a certain level I don't know that there is that much distinction morally between not caring whether you are harming somebody or not and intentionally harming them.

I don't see how the actions afterwards could make it murder, but it might cause the jury to be likely to see it that way - that is, attempting to conceal what happened could be taken as an indication of guilt.
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Yes or panic.
 
The prosecutor did not ask about fingernail evidence, but defence did. I was all ears to hear what the evidence revealed, but it was simply established that they had been kept as always, and defence did not ask what was found. Then pretty soon it was lunch break, and me back to work. I can't rule out further discussion but from memory there was another subject following. I must check my notes.
 
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I haven't read all of Samson's links. But one woman called to give evidence said she met with the accused and had sex during which he put pressure on her neck which was 'just right.' Another said she panicked and slumped in order that he may have thought she was dead. The 2nd witness was exposed somewhat during her cross examination for exchanging 705 texts with the accused after their meeting. She claimed she did that because she was scared, she also admitted knowing details about the man before her police interview which she had earlier denied. Defence counsel put it her that she may have been exaggerating her story because of the embarrassment of a 'hook up' with was to become an accused murderer. She also had a boyfriend and so on. But both those witnesses evidence was a surprise favouring the defence telling the Jury that it was a consensual act gone wrong.
With certain reservations I'd say there may have been other times in NZ where police might have 'hidden' the type of evidence that the first lady gave.
 
This from this afternoon, this passage needs reading, almost a Coen brothers script

The jury is now hearing from the woman the accused went on a date with on December 2.
They met at about 4pm at the Revelry bar in Ponsonby after earlier matching on the dating app Tinder.
The accused at the Revelry bar on December 2.
She told the court the accused mentioned all his mates were police officers, whom he would enjoy barbeques with.
"I thought it was strange that all his friends were police officers, I thought that was a bit odd," she said.
The accused, the woman told the court, also said he was "trying to find a really large duffel bag".
"He really wanted to find a big bag with wheels on it."
The accused, the woman said, also told her one of his friends had come to New Zealand to be a Crown prosecutor.
The woman said she was a former journalist and had covered murder trials.
The accused, however, recalled a story about how a man had killed a woman during rough sex and was later convicted of manslaughter, the woman said.
"It's crazy how guys can make one wrong move and go to jail for the rest of their life," the accused allegedly told her.
She told the court the accused appeared "very intense, he was quite calm though".
"He seemed to have empathy with this man that he knew."
But, she added, the accused also seemed to be aloof.
"I think he was just kind of in his own world telling this story."
The woman said: "I just felt a bit uncomfortable."
The accused then allegedly told his date the police were "having a really tough time out in the Waitakere's cause a lot of bodies are out there".
"There are a lot of bodies going missing in the Waitakeres," the woman recalled the accused mentioning.
She said the alleged killer also told her police dogs can only smell bodies if they are buried four feet or less underground.
"I thought it was an unusual thing to say on a date but people say strange things on dates," the woman told the court."


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12284844
 
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Under NZ Law being reckless with disregard for the outcome, whether the outcome was intended to be death or not, constitutes the legal definition of murder. If the intent is established as not being reckless as to whether death 'ensued or not' a person may be found guilty of manslaughter.

yup, here's the actual law...

Murder defined
Culpable homicide is murder in each of the following cases:
(a) if the offender means to cause the death of the person killed:
(b) if the offender means to cause to the person killed any bodily injury that is known to the offender to be likely to cause death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not:(c) if the offender means to cause death, or, being so reckless as aforesaid, means to cause such bodily injury as aforesaid to one person, and by accident or mistake kills another person, though he or she does not mean to hurt the person killed:
(d) if the offender for any unlawful object does an act that he or she knows to be likely to cause death, and thereby kills any person, though he or she may have desired that his or her object should be effected without hurting any one.

b) is a pretty good case in this one as causing injury through strangulation is likely to cause death and is reckless.
 
I realise we've just heard (part of) the prosecution case thus far, and we don't know what his actual defence will turn out to be, but as far as I am concerned, stick a fork in him, he's done.
 
Yup. After reading Phantom Wolf's quotes of the actual law (I assume of New Zealand), I concur.
 
In terms of the thread title, it is worth noting the few soft tissue injuries, arms and left throat, and the unblemished fingernails ( a point the pathologist noted when I referred to notes), are consistent with what he told the arresting cop in the second interview. Shades of grey is pretty out there for those unfamiliar, I have just seen some of the second movie and not read the books.

Then, the accused claims, Millane began talking about 50 Shades of Grey.
"She told me that there's a few things she likes doing and that she'd done with her ex-partner.


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12285173
 
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https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/nati...ive-family-closure/ar-BBWICgF?ocid=spartandhp

Another link hope it works.

In one of NZ's controversial cases Mark Lundy fingernail DNA of 2 males is ignored, here the lack of any male DNA under Grace's nails supports as a lack of defensive injuries.

Overall this case appears finally balanced. I'm interested to know if 'Tinder' has algorithms for what has been described as 'hookups' indicating what the parties are looking for in a partner. I'm told 'hookups' are by design meant to be sole meetings.
 
Can't believe a word he says. On his date number two after the death he told the woman that he knew of a guy who had asked her for asphyxiation during sex and she had accidentally died.

In his version to the police it was supposedly Grace asking him because she like '50 Shades of Gray'.

He also claims he fell asleep in the shower to explain how come he didn't notice straight away she was dead.

I am frankly sceptical that a 21/22-year-old woman from a sheltered background would be experienced in kinky sex and especially not on the first date with a complete stranger.
 
Can't believe a word he says. On his date number two after the death he told the woman that he knew of a guy who had asked her for asphyxiation during sex and she had accidentally died.

In his version to the police it was supposedly Grace asking him because she like '50 Shades of Gray'.

He also claims he fell asleep in the shower to explain how come he didn't notice straight away she was dead.

I am frankly sceptical that a 21/22-year-old woman from a sheltered background would be experienced in kinky sex and especially not on the first date with a complete stranger.

It seems important on this forum to confront the evidence as it unfolds.
I might have had a sheltered background, without internet, but the shelter has been expunged for myriads of millenials and later who are now apparently being nursed through an epidemic of depression. Is this case an extreme iteration of what can go wrong?
Or is he a cold blooded killer?
 
It seems important on this forum to confront the evidence as it unfolds.
I might have had a sheltered background, without internet, but the shelter has been expunged for myriads of millenials and later who are now apparently being nursed through an epidemic of depression. Is this case an extreme iteration of what can go wrong?
Or is he a cold blooded killer?

His lies and changing alibis are a red flag IMV.

He says he disposed of the body because finding a dead body in his hotel room 'would look bad'.

Well, why is his ID being kept secret. Has he done something similar before?
 
I think his entire story stinks to high heaven. But I don't think the possibility of a young woman from a respectable background being experience in "kinky sex" is all that remote these days. There's the internet. There's the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. There's the fact that she had been a student, presumably living on campus, for at least three years. And there's the fact that she was on a solo backpacking trip.

I'd say it was at least within the realms of possibility.
 
yup, here's the actual law...

Murder defined
Culpable homicide is murder in each of the following cases:
(a) if the offender means to cause the death of the person killed:
(b) if the offender means to cause to the person killed any bodily injury that is known to the offender to be likely to cause death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not:(c) if the offender means to cause death, or, being so reckless as aforesaid, means to cause such bodily injury as aforesaid to one person, and by accident or mistake kills another person, though he or she does not mean to hurt the person killed:
(d) if the offender for any unlawful object does an act that he or she knows to be likely to cause death, and thereby kills any person, though he or she may have desired that his or her object should be effected without hurting any one.

b) is a pretty good case in this one as causing injury through strangulation is likely to cause death and is reckless.

This is what I was wondering, as I know some laws are worded this way in relation to recklessness (the same with sexual assault, where some legal systems regard reckless indifference as to whether the other party was consenting as sufficient rather than requiring knowledge that there was no consent).

This would still require proof of intent to cause bodily injury likely to cause death.
 
I had an ex girlfriend who was into the choking thing, but I really didn't like doing it. And she wanted to be choked to the point of passing out, which I was just flat out never going to do. But I mention it for those who are saying "how could you not know something is wrong?" These things can escalate rather quickly. The same girl also asked to be smacked in the face during sex, which I wouldn't do either. I'm just too much of a prude I suppose.
 
Imagine how that girl he went on the second date with must be feeling. Jesus christ. If that were me, I don't think I'd ever be able to comfortably meet a new acquaintance again.
 

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