Beard had previously worked on the investigation into the murder of Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen, two Swedish tourists who disappeared in 1989 leading to an intense investigation under the name Operation Stockholm which attracted substantial media interest and became the largest land-based search undertaken in New Zealand.
“I thought back to the Swedish couple – and thought we need to get on to this, and we need to get on to this now,” Beard told the Between Two Beers podcast. “You’ve got to get staff in place straight away. We couldn’t afford to miss anything. It was too important.
“We knew it would be international media and the media focus would be big – and it was.
“One of the first things we were told was that Grace’s father, David Millane, was flying over and he was a multi-millionaire and he was bringing the media with him – and I just thought, ‘oh geez’.
“So I told our family liaison officer, ‘when he arrives in my office, I need to talk to him, bring him straight here’.
“And I had to be upfront and honest with him, I said ‘I’ll tell you everything before I tell the media’.
“He was a family man, just like me. He had interest in English football, just like me. And we got on really well. He was here by himself, I just had to be there with him.”
When the police started closing in on the whereabouts of Millane’s body in the Waitakeres a few days after she went missing, the media quickly appeared on the scene which made the situation more stressful for Beard.
“On the Sunday morning, we’d sealed the area off and put tents there. The media had obviously been tipped off because our staff were just getting calls and calls about what was going on in Waitakere.
“So you can’t lie, I don’t want to lie to the media. We say we’re not sure, we may have found the grave site.”
Beard said he planned a media stand-up for 4.30pm, to give the NZ media time to edit and prepare for the 6pm news.
“But everything ended up taking so long because we had to get our whole team up there. And eventually, we got the suitcase out and we had an X-ray machine and the pathologist opened it up and saw the female body in the suitcase.
“By this time it’s 10 to 5. And I’d said in the media briefing 4.30pm. But before I could talk to them I had to make sure David knew.
“And we were in the Waitakeres so it was hard to get signal. Eventually we got hold of him.
Beard described the press conference as the hardest of his career, and he was visibly emotional speaking to their discovery.
“One minute I was there with the suitcase and Grace, the next I’m telling David and then the media person handed me some notes and said you have to say this.
“There’s no prep time. Usually, we’d have prep time to get in the zone. In this case there was no time. So within five minutes of seeing Grace in the suitcase, I told David and was then in front of the media.
“There was just this crime story playing out in the media. And it just got sadder and sadder and I think people knew where it was going. It was just so intense.”
In the long-form interview for the Between Two Beers podcast, Beard also talked about his experiences training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, what makes a good leader, the best and worst of 42 years on the force, and how he’s achieved work-life balance.
Show notes | Scott Beard
1:50: Titles are important: Detective Inspector Scott Beard, Scotty B, Beardy, Beardy’s dad
5:30: The Shrine
8:14: Feats of fitness past 50
12:36: Spending time at the FBI Academy at Quantico
17:25: 42 years in the police force
23:10: The 1981 Springbok Tour
27:34: The 1984 Queen Street riot
30:50: Joining the Criminal Investigation Branch
35:14: Operation Stockholm
43:37: Good cop, bad cop and the mystery of the whodunit crime
47:16: The Grace Millane investigation
56:36: Breaking the news to the media after discovering Grace
1:02:29: Work life balance
1:08:14: Thoughts on leadership
1:12:27: Changes over the years: child protection and adult sexual assault
1:15:55: The global media interest in Grace Millane
1:19:27: A battle with cancer and the impact you can have on others
1:31:03: A life after the police force
1:32:28: Last words from Steve, Seamus, and Scott
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