Well, this is my first time posting here, and this case was my motivation for doing so. Like many of you, I have been following this unfortunate and sad story from the start, as a backpacker myself, on and off for the last 12 years. This will be a little long winded but I hope will add some value to the disappearance and ultimately murder of Grace Millane from Wickford.
In this post, I would like to centre the crux on the early part of her backpacking trip, and whether that could shed new light on what actually happened to her on that fateful Saturday night, two and a half weeks ago in Auckland.
I think we can gather from various news reports that Grace Millane was not an experienced backpacker, comfortable with the medium of the Spanish language, nor with the rather different culture of South America in general; which I hypothesize was the main reason for her deciding to book her onward ticket to New Zealand during her Machu Picchu trip, to something perhaps more familiar with back home.
From what I have read, Grace flew into Lima from the UK in late October, did her organised Machu Picchu trip during the early part of November, and when the tour finished sometime in mid-November, she must had either returned to Lima from Bolivia, (where the tour apparantly finished), or flown from bolivia to Lima and then caught her onward flight to NZ.
Grace apparantly only really visited Peru from what I have read, she missed out on much of the continent while she was there. I am sure had she been with a friend she would visited much more of South America and certainly would have felt more secure. Peru, however in my opinion, is one of the more safer backpacking nations in Latin America. I can only assume the language barrier had spurred her on to NZ rather quickly after her tour had finished.
In my humble opinion, Grace Millane was too young, inexperienced and vulnerable to be doing an overseas tour of this scale on her own. I certainly would not have wanted her to do such a trip on her own had she been my daughter; she seemed to have had many friends from uni and her school days:- we can only assume they were all unable/not wanted to join her, or she simply wanted to do it by herself, (more likely).
In any case, had she been with a close friend on her travels I find it highly unlikely she would have been swiping on Tinder or meeting high risk guys in Auckland. Had she spent a little longer centered at the large hostel she was staying at, I think she would have made many new friends and possibly joined a group venturing south. Girls after all bond much more quickly than us men do.
More than likely, it was a simple case that she let her guard down, made a naive mistake and it has cost her her life. It is deeply upsetting to all of us, but we all have to recognise that young, beautiful white women on their own are at high risk. Some men will never respect a single woman's right to be safe, and will choose to prey on their vulnerability for a chance to secure sex.
I can't unfortunately ever see that order of some men changing. I can only hope that in future:- single, young, beautiful, women travel in pairs, groups, or gain extensive short-duration travelling experience closer to home and take on board the potential risks and threats that they face before marauding the other side of the world. That said, I do not blame the poor girl for what happened to her.
I want to take this opportunity to send the family my sincerest condolences, love and strength for this senseless and wicked act that has been apparantly exacted upon their daughter. It is a dispicable crime, and I for one will be following the concurrent developments. I truly hope that the family secure genuine justice, in the following trial that is scheduled to run later next month.