Mother of slain British backpacker Grace Millane says killer ‘destroyed our family’ as she breaks silence
23 October 2023, 11:12
The mother of British backpacker Grace Millane has broken her silence over her daughter’s murder.
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Gillian Millane has spoken out five years after her daughter was killed, describing Grace as her best friend and telling her killer ‘he destroyed our family.’
Speaking about her daughter’s killer Jesse Shane Kempson, Gillian told The Extraordinary Ordinary podcast: ““]I don’t think about him, I don’t care what happens to him.
“He came into our life and destroyed our family. I don’t care about his name, I don’t care about him,” she said.
Grace was last seen alive in central Auckland, New Zealand on December 1 2018.
Her body was found eight weeks later in a shallow grave in shrubland in West Auckland.
Her Tinder date, Kempson, strangled her to death in his hotel apartment claiming they engaged in ‘rough sex’.
He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 17 years.
Following the trial, it emerged Kempson had a record of violence against women and had raped another British tourist eight months before he murdered Grace.
Grace’s mum described her fondly in the podcast as an amazing young girl and her best friend.
Grace was only in New Zealand for two weeks after spending a six-week period in South America.
During Kempson’s initial trial in 2019, Grace’s dad was diagnosed with cancer that spread to his brain. It went on to claim his life in November the following year.
Following the deaths Gillian told the podcast she was “in such a dark, lonely place and I pushed everybody away.
“Trying to find your path on this road of grief is a very difficult thing to do,” she said.
“You get to a point when you realise that you're the only one that can get you out of there.”
“I can say that my toes are always in the darkness and sometimes my feet and waist but my head is probably more in the sun now,” she said.
