It can be put another way, how well can any person remember the details leading to or following a panic attack. As often happens we decide how a person acted and judge that, we also judge what they say - ok when asking what side of the road did you park the car on? Compared to, 'did the windscreen smash before the air bag inflated'. We have a ritual with the upstairs is locked when asked 'did you lock the door,' and being quite sure that it happened 'just to going to check' and finding it locked. This situation is a whole lot ramped up past that.
But a Jury may not see it like that. If one looks for details that are inconsistent in this case there are many, there are also many consistent details between the 2 statements and what pathologists said in particular. Some commentators have fixed on the 'maximum' time of neck pressure when it may have been far less. So far I've heard nothing about immediate unconsciousness by applying pressure to the neck - something taught in unarmed combat and which might by mistake might be applied by a person not knowing about it.
Overall total outrage should be tempered by the fact that Grace had a preference for pressure on her neck during sex, that should not be forgotten. Did it just happen her killer attacked her neck, or was it an invitation to apply pressure that went wrong?
Firstly, for my part, there's no outrage involved. It's simply my view of the case. As I think I wrote before, I don't "want" or "need" this man to be convicted. But IMO he should be convicted, based on my understanding of the most important evidence.
Secondly, I believe that all relevant evidence around choking and suffocation is consistent in the relevant timings: that a person can be choked/suffocated into unconsciousness within a time period going from as little as several seconds up to around 2o seconds (and that also depends on the severity of the choking etc). But once the person being choked/suffocated has become unconscious and gone limp and unresponsive with eyes closed, it then takes a
significant additional period of time of continued choking/suffocation to actually lead to death. Again this is somewhat variable depending on the "victim" and the method/strength of the "perpetrator", but the minimum is something like 40 seconds longer (I'll search for a relevant cite tomorrow - it's 1.15am here now).
So whatever the defendant did to Millane to choke/suffocate her, he
must have continued with it long after Millane closed her eyes and fell unconscious, limp and unresponsive. I simply cannot see any other explanation for that other than that the defendant intended to cause Millane serious injury or death (the test for murder).
And in addition, as I wrote in an earlier post yesterday, the defendant
by definition must have seen that Millane was entirely lifeless at the moment he released his hands from her neck or face - because it was the very prolonged application of his hands which caused her death. But if we're to accept his version of events, we are to believe that he felt zero concern for Millane's welfare at that point, and only "discovered" that she was dead when he "came across" her body at a much later time. For me, that quite simply does not, and cannot, ring true. If he'd claimed that he choked her for that time period, then released his grip and waited for her to regain consciousness, and then panicked when he realised she was not in fact simply unconscious but in fact dead, I'd be much more ready to believe that. But that's not what he claimed.
And lastly, you write of a panic attack, and of course I understand that people can do irrational and contradictory things when they're in the middle of such an attack. But I'd venture to say that panic attacks cannot last for 36 hours or longer. And the defendant in this case, having (by his account) come across the accidentally-dead body of Millane in his hotel room, took at least 36 hours - and a good deal of methodical planning and purchasing/hiring - to conceal the body in a suitcase he bought for that purpose, transport it out of his hotel and into a car he hired for that purpose, and bury it using a shovel he bought for that purpose. And furthermore, he went on another Tinder date the very next evening, while (I believe) Millane's body was inside the suitcase inside the boot (trunk) of his hire car...... Oh and then he repeatedly lied to police, only changing to a different version when confronted with evidence which proved his lies.
Those actions, to me, do no seem like the product of a "panic attack". As I wrote previously, I could accept the "panic attack" version if, for example, he'd said he discovered her body and he fled the hotel more-or-less immediately. And if, either once her body had been discovered or there was a missing-person inquiry underway, he'd been open with the police from the start. But that's not what happened of course. What happened is what I wrote in the previous paragraph - and what happened took place over a period of well over a day.
