The man accused of killing Grace Millane was due to go on a date with another woman that night
A woman who intended to meet up with backpacker Grace Millane's alleged murderer on the night of the 22-year-old's disappearance has spoken out about her contact with the suspected killer.
The woman, who has chosen not to be identified, told the Sydney Morning Herald she had been regularly messaging with the 26-year-old man who has been charged with Grace's murder for six months. The pair had connected via a dating app, and had agreed to go on a date on December 1 - the night Grace disappeared - to meet for the first time.
The planned date should have taken place in West Auckland, but the 30-year-old woman ended up postponing because she was busy.
Grace, a British backpacker from Essex, ended up meeting the man - who cannot be named for legal reasons - at SkyCity in central Auckland on December 1 instead. She was last seen alive at the CityLife Hotel in Auckland at 9.41pm that night, the eve of her 22nd birthday, but could not be traced after that.
Following a week-long search, Grace's body was found near to a country road in the outskirts of Auckland.
"I'm quite upset," the woman who should have gone on the date that night told a reporter. "Obviously angels were watching over me."
She also said that her communication with the suspected murderer had been "legitimately all normal" prior to her discovery of what happened to Grace. "The only weird thing I thought about him was that he asked me for feet photos and of me with my high heels on," she said.
The couple had rescheduled their date for today (Tuesday 11 December), and she told the Sydney Morning Herald she was surprised when she hadn't heard from him for a few days. But on Monday this week, police informed her about what had happened.
The 30-year-old woman said she was "very sorry" to hear about what happened to Grace.
Grace, who graduated from Lincoln University in September this year, was on the second leg of a round-the-world trip. She had toured South America with a group previously, and had only been in New Zealand for two weeks prior to her death.
Grace's family are said to be "devastated" at their loss.
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