Grace’s death joins long, sad list
The death of British backpacker Grace Millane has made headlines the world-over since she went missing in Auckland.
News of her disappearance on the night of her 22nd birthday, and subsequent death, not only shocked the New Zealand public, but also her own community on the other side of the globe.
In other tourist killings in New Zealand similar stories have played out – all of them at the hands of men, and at least one case remains unsolved.
In 2012, Czech hitchhiker Dagmar Pytlickova, 31, was taken to a remote North Otago forest where she was murdered resisting a sex attack by Waimate man Jason Frandi, who had picked her up. Frandi, who had a history of sex crimes, took his own life at the scene.
On January 17, 2008, Scottish woman Karen Elizabeth Aim was bashed to death with a baseball bat in a Taupo¯ street.
The 27-year-old was living in New Zealand on a working holiday and was minutes away from where she was staying when the attack happened.
Police found her lying in a pool of blood 50 metres from her door and she later died in hospital from head injuries.
Aim had planned to stay for a year and was working as a supervisor at a Taupo¯ glass-blowing studio.
Her killer, 15-year-old Jahche Broughton, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum nonparole period of 121⁄2 years.
On September 20, 2005, the body of 28-year-old German woman Birgit Brauer was found in Lucy’s Gully, southwest of New Plymouth.
Four years later, Michael Scott Wallace was found guilty of her brutal murder, an act that took place while she was on the holiday of a lifetime.
Wallace had picked up Brauer as she hitch-hiked between Whanganui and New Plymouth.
Driving her to Lucy’s Gully with a sexual motive, he beat her in the head with a metal bar and dragged her into the bush.
He then stabbed her once through the heart.
Wallace, who was 46 at the time, showed no emotion as his non-parole sentence of 18 years was handed down.
He had been using drugs, including pure methamphetamine, and said he could not tell what was real and what wasn’t.
In 1998, Japanese tourist Kayo Matsuzawa’s body was found inside a cupboard in a downtown Auckland building in 1998.
The 29-year-old woman’s killer has never been found.
In 1992, English tourist Margery Hopegood, 32, was stabbed to death in a Hamilton toilet block on the banks of the Waikato River.
In April 1989, Swedish tourist Heidi Paakkonen disappeared with fiance Sven Hoglin while tramping in the Coromandel Peninsula, sparking the largest landbased search ever undertaken in New Zealand.
David Tamihere was convicted of the murder but has always maintained his innocence.
In 2017, a crucial key witness was found guilty of lying at the 1990 double murder trial in which he had told the jury that Tamihere had confessed to butchering the couple after sexually assaulting them. Heidi’s body was never found. In 1989, British backpacker Monica Cantwell, 24, was raped and killed by Charles John Coulam at Mt Maunganui.
Cantwell had been out walking near Mauao when Coulam dragged her into bushes near the track and attacked her.
Her body was found about 50m from the track.
On New Year’s Eve 1969, a
25-year-old Welsh teacher named Jennifer Beard disappeared while hitchhiking down the West Coast.
She was on her way to meet her fiance but never made it, her body found 19 days later under the Haast River Bridge.
Her death sparked the country’s biggest manhunt at the time.
Police searched for a middleaged man in a greeny-blue Vauxhall – the description of the person she had last been seen with – but nobody was ever charged with her murder.
In 2009, Korean hitchhiker Jae Hyeon Kim, 25, was decapitated and buried in a white supremacist-linked murder.
In 2014, tourists Michaela Brandl and Niki Honda were the victims of an alleged robbery and assault by Aaron McDonald on the West Coast.
Brandl, 28, was stabbed three times in the neck while Honda,
27, suffered severe pelvic injuries. The pair had been picked up at Whataroa and were found injured near Franz Josef, 30 kilometres away.
In a statement issued by police on behalf of the travellers, Brandl and Honda expressed their ‘‘deepest gratitude’’ for the support and compassion they had received from strangers following the incident.
McDonald was later jailed for the murder and sexual violation of a Christchurch caregiver.
Brandl and Honda said they intended to continue their travels.
In other tourist killings in New Zealand similar stories have played out – all of them at the hands of men, and at least one case remains unsolved.