# 70: The "Rough Sex Defence” For MURDER: Grace Millane’s Tinder Date From Hell

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 16 Apr 2024, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6822345222.mp3

Today’s case is about Grace Millane, who was strangled to death by her Tinder date in Auckland, New Zealand in 2018. Grace’s case shocked the country and held a mirror up to a society with a problem of violence towards women. Trigger Warning: rape, sexual assault, domestic violence Resources: https://linktr.ee/usualdisclaimer Please take the time to visit Love Grace - the handbag appeal set up by Grace’s family and friends as a legacy in Grace Millane’s name, to help women that have been affected by domestic violence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

## Transcript

[0:00] Grace Mullane was just 21 years old when she graduated
[0:03] university and went travelling the world.
[0:06] While spending time in New Zealand, she went on a Tinder
[0:09] date with one of the locals, an older man, but she trusted him.
[0:13] The two could be seen kissing in bars, cuddling and giggling into
[0:17] the night. But after that date, nobody ever
[0:21] heard from Grace Mullane ever again.
[0:23] CCTV followed the couple as he took her back to his hotel room.
[0:28] But the next day when he believes again it's not with
[0:31] Grace, it's with a suitcase. Today we're talking about the
[0:36] case that shocked the world, the cruel and tragic murder of Grace
[0:41] Mullen. Quickly before we get into the
[0:47] case, I just want to give my usual disclaimer that I mean
[0:49] absolutely no disrespect to anyone that we talk about in
[0:52] this episode. Everything that I'm about to say
[0:54] is publicly available information that myself and my
[0:57] team have found online and compiled into this piece.
[1:01] And we are about to cover a lot of sensitive topics, including
[1:04] discussions of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
[1:07] So if that sounds too triggering or intense for you, I would
[1:10] click out of this episode. Now hopefully I'll get to see
[1:14] you another time with a different episode, but look
[1:16] after yourself in the meantime. While we make every effort to
[1:19] Fact Check our sources and make sure that all of our information
[1:22] is correct, no action should be taken in reliance upon the
[1:26] information in this episode. All opinions stated are mine and
[1:29] mine alone. And with that being said, let's
[1:32] get into the case of Grace Mullane.
[1:33] This case actually takes place in December 2018 in New Zealand,
[1:39] but it actually starts out in Essex in the southeast of
[1:42] England when local girl Grace Mullane decides she wants to go
[1:46] travel in the world. Grace was 21 at the time of this
[1:49] case, but she was born on December 2nd, 1996 to mum
[1:53] Jillian and dad David. She had two older brothers named
[1:56] Declan and Michael, and all five of them were a super happy
[2:00] family. Everything that we found on
[2:02] Grace's childhood and her upbringing was so positive.
[2:05] They had a really big family. Given that her dad was one of
[2:08] ten siblings, that's a hell of a lot of cousins.
[2:11] Her dad was a successful builder who had his own business.
[2:15] So Grace, his family were pretty well off.
[2:19] They lived in what they described to be their dream
[2:21] home. Grace was a very creative and
[2:23] outgoing person. She was incredibly talented at
[2:26] art. She loved painting and drawing
[2:29] and lucky YouTube viewers, you get to see pictures of these on
[2:32] screen. There's loads of Grace's art
[2:34] online because she actually ran an Instagram account where she
[2:37] used to post photos of all of her different pieces called Art
[2:40] by Milan. And I guess I'll share this with
[2:43] you now that the last photo that Grace ever, ever posted on that
[2:47] Instagram account was a painting of a skull that she'd done.
[2:51] And the caption was two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
[2:55] An incredibly eerie foreshadowing of what was to
[2:59] come for Grace less than two months later when she went
[3:02] travelling the world. She'd just graduated from the
[3:04] University of Lincoln with a degree in advertising and
[3:07] marketing, and she was now ready to spread her wings and fly.
[3:12] Not that uni hadn't been an incredible experience for her,
[3:15] because it really had. She'd had a wonderful few years,
[3:18] making some lasting friendships and playing a lot of hockey.
[3:22] Grace loved hockey. Umm, well, she loved sports in
[3:25] general, but especially hockey. When she was in uni she was a
[3:28] very active member of the Hockey Society and when she graduated
[3:32] in 2018, Grace's heart was set on taking a gap year.
[3:36] And so in October, her parents dropped her off at the airport
[3:40] and off she went on her solo travel adventure, solo
[3:43] backpacking trips like the one that Grace went on a very
[3:46] common, um, they're not for me. I will say like living like a
[3:50] tortoise with everything you need on your back is not, it's
[3:54] not how I roll. I respect it, but just know that
[3:57] you won't ever catch me doing it.
[3:58] I need my hair dryer and a microwave at all times.
[4:02] I guess there's an appeal to going so far away from
[4:05] everything you know and figuring out how to live and communicate
[4:09] in foreign places. You would grow a lot as a
[4:12] person, wouldn't you? And you'd get to meet some
[4:13] really interesting people in all different walks of life.
[4:17] And that was one of the things that Grace was most excited for.
[4:20] She was a very social person. She loved making new friends.
[4:23] She got on with everyone she ever met so she never worried
[4:27] about being able to make friends on this trip.
[4:29] She was really excited. So she flies out in the October,
[4:32] but she plans to be back in England for the following June
[4:35] because there was a family wedding.
[4:37] So All in all, she would be gone for about 9 months.
[4:40] So her first stop was in South America, Peru to be more
[4:44] specific. She told her family that she was
[4:46] particularly excited about visiting the chocolate factories
[4:49] over there because did you know that that part of the world
[4:52] produces half the world's chocolate?
[4:54] She also went to the ancient city of Machu Picchu, which is
[4:57] at the top of a trail that takes five days to climb.
[5:01] Again, not for me, but like, I kind of wish it was.
[5:05] I bet it was great to see those things.
[5:07] But five days of walking, do you think they do an Uber?
[5:11] Do you think I could call an Uber to Machu Picchu?
[5:13] Grace joined a trekking group and she made so many good
[5:16] friends through that five day walk.
[5:18] And when they got to the very top, they all took a celebratory
[5:21] group photo together. But even though Grace was having
[5:24] an amazing time, she was making sure that she was still
[5:27] maintaining regular contact with the people at home because her
[5:30] family missed her. Her dad said that they would
[5:32] hear from her every single day, whether that was a text message
[5:37] or a FaceTime or her sending some photos of whatever she'd
[5:40] been up to that day. And it was very comforting to
[5:43] hear from her so often because everyone at home was a little
[5:47] bit worried for Grace. As exhilarating and enriching as
[5:51] this whole experience would be, we can't ignore them.
[5:54] Grace was a young woman alone in a foreign country.
[5:58] Solo travelling as a woman can be so dangerous and it requires
[6:03] a very high level of awareness. There are criminals and seedy
[6:06] people that will be specifically on the lookout for solo
[6:09] travellers, especially female solo travellers because they
[6:13] don't know the area well and they would be easier to
[6:16] overpower or rob or rape. There are so many horror stories
[6:22] and Grace was well aware of the dangers out there.
[6:24] But travellers, especially in groups like this, you know, like
[6:27] her hiking group, they tend to stick together and they have
[6:30] each other's backs, so she didn't worry too much.
[6:33] She had a great time in Peru and after that it was time for the
[6:37] second leg of her trip in New Zealand and that is where this
[6:40] case really begins. She landed in Auckland on
[6:44] November 20th and she set out to explore the whole country,
[6:47] starting with the North Island. She was top in for a while.
[6:51] I don't really know what's up there but I'm presuming
[6:54] beautiful beaches that like white sand.
[6:57] You know that white sand in the Clearwater?
[6:59] Blue ass water. And because New Zealand is so
[7:01] far away from like all the other countries north of it, then you
[7:06] wouldn't be able to see anything.
[7:07] It'd just be water for as far as the eye can see.
[7:10] Sounds breathtaking in my mind's eye.
[7:12] But anyway, after 10 days of exploring these like mini
[7:15] islands at the top, Grace was back in the city of Auckland on
[7:19] November 30th. She checked into Base
[7:21] Backpackers Hostel, which is a company that caters to
[7:24] travellers like Grace. They have locations all across
[7:27] Australia and New Zealand and it's perfect for young people or
[7:31] just people looking to save money on their travels.
[7:34] These dorms have bunk beds in that you can book like a space
[7:38] and they have a kitchen and and laundry facilities.
[7:41] Essentially, this was a proper base that Grace could kind of
[7:45] temporarily live out of while she was in the city, and she
[7:48] could kind of refresh and recharge and get all her washing
[7:52] done and have a proper meal before she went out, like
[7:56] exploring on foot again. She planned to spend like quite
[7:59] a few days in the city. I'm not sure how long before she
[8:02] like went back out onto the islands and went back proper
[8:05] backpack in. At least here she could leave
[8:07] her bag at home and she could kind of get dressed up and go
[8:10] out and enjoy city life because city travelling and exploring is
[8:15] so much different to like island hopping in a city.
[8:18] There's almost too much to choose from and you don't know
[8:21] what's good. You don't know how to best make
[8:23] use of your time there. So Grace decided that she wanted
[8:27] to meet and befriend some locals to help her make the most of
[8:31] that experience. And if she was going to go out
[8:32] and meet someone, why not make it a little bit of a holiday
[8:36] romance? Hey, a girl has needs after all,
[8:39] and she'd been traveling for a while at this point.
[8:41] Plus, it was getting closer to her 22nd birthday, December 2nd,
[8:45] and who would want to celebrate their birthday alone?
[8:48] Well, probably some people. But that doesn't sound like
[8:51] Grace Miller and the social butterfly that her parents and
[8:55] and her loved ones knew. So she turned to the dating
[8:57] apps, Tinder specifically, and we know that she'd had some like
[9:01] successful dating app meetups while she was in the UK, so she
[9:06] probably felt quite confident using it.
[9:08] But not everyone that uses those apps has good intentions, and
[9:13] Grace was sadly about to find that out for herself.
[9:16] On November 30th she matches with a man on Tinder and the
[9:20] next day on her birthday eve, she goes out on a date with him.
[9:24] And forgive me if I'm wrong on this, I've never personally met
[9:27] up with someone from a dating app, but is that not a pretty
[9:30] fast turn around? Like to match the night before
[9:34] and a message the next morning? Because they didn't actually
[9:37] talk on that night that they matched.
[9:39] They started talking the next morning and plan to meet up that
[9:42] same night. I'm sure it does happen, but
[9:45] that that just feels quite fast to me.
[9:47] I guess Grace is only in the country and specifically in the
[9:51] city for a limited amount of time, so no time like the
[9:54] present. So Grace's date is on December
[9:57] 1st and the very next day was her 22nd birthday.
[10:00] And of course, all of those messages start flooding in.
[10:04] But Grace doesn't respond to anyone.
[10:08] Her birthday. And remember, this is the girl
[10:11] that would update her family every single day on what she was
[10:15] doing. Like, there was no reason that
[10:17] those updates would have suddenly stopped, especially on
[10:20] such an important occasion. On her birthday of all days, you
[10:23] would expect photos of her like, I don't know, getting up to
[10:26] something fun. Her family probably tried to
[10:28] call her or FaceTime her. But of course, time differences,
[10:32] that was such a huge aspect of this case.
[10:34] New Zealand is like 14 hours ahead or something crazy.
[10:38] It is completely the polar opposite to us.
[10:41] So when she didn't pick up her family's calls or respond to
[10:44] their messages, they probably didn't worry right away given
[10:47] the time zone and the fact that after all it was her birthday
[10:51] and they hope that honestly she was out there enjoying her time
[10:54] too much to message people back. Her family probably tried to
[10:57] call her or first time her, but I guess with the time
[11:00] differences, if she didn't pick up they wouldn't have gotten
[11:03] worried straight away would they?
[11:04] After all, it was her birthday, so there was no rush for her to
[11:07] communicate with anyone really. She could go out and enjoy
[11:10] celebrating the Big 22, Taylor Swift style.
[11:13] People understood that replying to her birthday messages might
[11:16] have just slipped her mind, but the longer this silence went on,
[11:21] the more everyone was starting to panic because this wasn't
[11:24] like their Grace. December 3rd rolled around and
[11:27] her family were panicking even more because when they woke up
[11:30] that morning, Grace still hadn't gotten back to her birthday
[11:34] messages. At that point it didn't seem
[11:37] like she was just too busy to respond.
[11:39] Her family grew more and more worried, trying to contact
[11:42] everyone they can, trying to contact Grace, but with nothing
[11:46] working. Finally, on December 4th, they
[11:49] submitted a missing persons report to the city of Auckland
[11:52] on the other side of the world. Grace's case shot to the top of
[11:56] police's priority list. Given that she was a young woman
[11:59] solo travelling in a foreign country and she was missing, she
[12:02] probably definitely needed help right now.
[12:05] Whether that was because she'd gotten lost, not knowing the
[12:08] area. Backpackers do tend to go lost
[12:11] sometimes, and sometimes they can be missing for a good few
[12:14] days. Like they didn't know if she was
[12:15] out there needing water or food. She could have been injured, or
[12:19] maybe, and this is what they feared, something awful might
[12:24] have happened to her. Grace's picture and her
[12:27] disappearance were on the front page of every newspaper, news
[12:30] website, on every news channel. Her story was all over social
[12:34] media. I'm sure a lot of you remember
[12:36] it. I remember I'd only been doing
[12:38] this job for about a year and I was getting a lot of requests to
[12:41] cover that case as it was kind of developing and I knew that it
[12:45] was going to be a big one. So I just kind of held off until
[12:48] everything was final and I get and here we are now, Oh my God.
[12:51] Five years later, nearly six. This year would be the 6th
[12:55] anniversary. In December 2, or three days
[12:57] into the investigation, on December 7th, Grace's father,
[13:01] David Milan flew into New Zealand.
[13:04] Well, he arrived in New Zealand because it's a whole like 24
[13:08] hour over 24 hours of travel from Britain to Auckland.
[13:12] Her father joined the police to make a public appeal for Grace's
[13:15] safe return. He was begging people to think
[13:17] back to that night on December 1st, just in case they saw
[13:21] anything or knew anything that they didn't think of at the
[13:23] time. And maybe it could help to bring
[13:25] Grace back. And New Zealand actually has
[13:28] insanely low crime rates. It was actually ranked the 4th
[13:31] safest country in the world in 2023.
[13:35] Everyone was just shocked to their core that a woman could
[13:39] just vanish like this from the middle of a city.
[13:41] This kind of thing just didn't really happen, especially in New
[13:45] Zealand. But luckily Auckland has a lot
[13:48] of CCTV and as we go on, you'll see that CCTV is such a huge
[13:52] part of this case. Police first check the cameras
[13:55] at Base Backpackers, You know, the hostel that Grace had been
[13:58] staying in and they do have footage of her leaving there for
[14:01] the very last time in the evening of December 1st when she
[14:05] goes out for her date. But the camera never sees Grace
[14:09] return home. So the search for other CCTV
[14:12] footage of the rest of her night was underway, while some other
[14:15] police officers were searching through Grace's social media
[14:19] profile files to see if there was anything of interest.
[14:21] And there was a very interesting revelation actually, that on the
[14:25] night that she disappeared, the night that she was last seen,
[14:28] there was a new comment left on her profile photo on Facebook.
[14:32] It was from a man named Jesse Kempson.
[14:35] And he wrote Beautiful, very radiant.
[14:38] And it was the timing of this compliment that really
[14:40] interested police, literally on the night that she's never seen
[14:43] again. And there's this, this guy, I
[14:46] don't know. So they click on his profile
[14:48] just to have a look at who he is.
[14:49] And he looks a little bit older than Grace.
[14:52] And his profile said that he was based in Auckland.
[14:55] So police theorize that this is probably a friend that she'd met
[14:58] while she was backpacking or whatever.
[15:00] Maybe he had something to do with her disappearance, or maybe
[15:03] he didn't, but police thought that he could help them in their
[15:07] investigation either way. So on December 5th, police call
[15:18] Jesse and leave him a message saying we're looking into the
[15:21] disappearance of Grace Mullane, Please could you contact us?
[15:24] We think you could help. The next day he calls the
[15:26] officers back and he says that he does know who Grace Mullane
[15:30] is because the two of them went on a date on December 1st.
[15:33] But actually he says that was all he could tell police on the
[15:36] phone right now because he was at work.
[15:37] So they asked him if he could come round to the police station
[15:40] later and he said of course. And later that day, of course,
[15:44] he turned up and he was very cooperative.
[15:46] He seemed very genuine and willing to help the
[15:49] investigation. So right off the bat, police
[15:52] weren't too suspicious of this matter.
[15:54] He sat there and patiently answered every single question
[15:57] that police had for him, starting from the very beginning
[16:00] when he and Grace first matched on Tinder.
[16:02] If you've never used Tinder before, I'll give you a little
[16:05] quick lesson. You can only speak to people if
[16:08] you both like each other. You both have to let the app
[16:11] know that you're interested in the other one through looking at
[16:14] their profile that will probably have like 4 or five photos and
[16:17] usually a bit of a bio about the person.
[16:20] So you can't receive messages from just any old Tom, Dick and
[16:23] Harry like you have to allow them to send you messages.
[16:27] So Grace and Jesse had both liked each other and been
[16:31] connected. It was Jesse that made the first
[16:33] move and message Grace the following morning on December
[16:36] 1st saying hey Grace how are you much planned for your weekend.
[16:40] Grace responds hey I'm good thanks and it's actually my
[16:43] birthday tomorrow but I have no plans.
[16:45] Jesse says oh happy birthday for tomorrow much planned this
[16:49] evening. Then Grace said haha thank you I
[16:51] haven't. And in my opinion he's coming
[16:54] off a little bit strong in these first messages.
[16:56] He is clearly pushing to meet up with every message, even the
[17:00] first one that he sends and Grace doesn't seem to be giving
[17:04] him much back. She's she's quite basic and her
[17:07] replies like haha thanks I don't know it's quite bold of him to
[17:10] be so forward. He ends up asking her a again, I
[17:14] think a bit more explicitly this time, if she wanted to meet up
[17:17] with him that night and she said she might be interested.
[17:20] And then Jessie says that if she does, he would buy the drinks,
[17:24] saying it's my shout as a celebration for her birthday.
[17:28] That basically means that the drinks are on him.
[17:29] He offers to meet her at Sky City, which is this big
[17:32] entertainment complex and casino in the middle of Auckland.
[17:36] It had restaurants, bars, all sorts to choose from.
[17:39] According to Jesse, the two of them met at Sky City and went to
[17:43] Andy's Burger Bar, a restaurant that where they had a good few
[17:47] drinks. Jesse said that he chose this
[17:49] location on purpose because he was a little bit worried about
[17:53] being catfished. You know, people aren't always
[17:56] what they say online. And so he said he wanted it to
[17:59] be in a public place where there were a lot of people around and
[18:02] and it would be safe. He said that of course, when
[18:05] Grace turned up, she she was as she'd presented herself online,
[18:09] and the two of them had a great night.
[18:10] They had a burger, they had a load of cocktails at that bar,
[18:14] and he said that they left rather tipsy at around 9:40 PM.
[18:18] He says definitively that despite having a good date,
[18:22] Grace didn't invite him back to her place, and he didn't invite
[18:26] her back to his place. There was absolutely no
[18:29] discussion of them spending that night together.
[18:31] This was just he said that that evening ended with a kiss on the
[18:35] cheek, a hug and a nice to meet you.
[18:38] But Jesse said that he was very interested in Grace.
[18:40] He was very attracted to her and they had some great
[18:43] conversation. And so he actually told her to
[18:46] let him know if she was free the next day and if she wanted to
[18:49] meet up the next day. She apparently said OK and the
[18:53] two of them then parted ways. After that point, Jesse says
[18:56] that he stayed out in Auckland. He wanted to keep drinking, so
[18:59] he walked a few streets away to a sports bar, and he had a few
[19:02] on his own. He claimed he never actually saw
[19:04] or heard from Grace again. After having a few more drinks
[19:07] at the sports bar, he walked back to the hotel he'd been
[19:10] living at. Put a pin in that.
[19:12] We'll talk about that later. And he continued to drink at the
[19:14] hotel bar on his own. Jesse says that he did try to
[19:18] contact Grace the following morning after their date.
[19:21] He wanted to meet her again, obviously, as he'd said the
[19:24] night before. But when he went onto the Tinder
[19:26] app, Grace had unmatched him, and he was shocked and a little
[19:30] bit offended. He thought they'd had a really
[19:32] good night the night before. He was confused why she why
[19:36] she'd taken such a drastic measure to stay away from him.
[19:39] Importantly, he told the police that he woke up that morning
[19:42] after the date with Grace at around 9:00 or 10:00 AM, and he
[19:46] was still like a bit drunk and very hungover at the same time.
[19:49] You know, those kind of mornings.
[19:51] He said that he was so drunk the night before that he doesn't
[19:54] remember leaving the sports bar and arriving back at the hotel
[19:57] room. He literally his memory, he goes
[19:59] from leaving Grace, going for a couple more drinks and then all
[20:02] the next thing he knows he wakes up the next morning at like
[20:05] 9-10. But despite his memory blackout
[20:08] due to alcohol, Jesse felt very confident in every answer that
[20:12] he gave the police. And at this point, with no
[20:16] evidence to contradict him, there wasn't much reason for
[20:19] police to doubt Jesse's story. But then the interrogation gets
[20:23] a little weird. The police asked Jesse if he
[20:26] will voluntarily Hello. Voluntarily give his DNA over
[20:31] for the investigation. And Jesse says that he's happy
[20:34] to provide that because he knows that he hasn't done anything
[20:37] wrong. But then when a police officer
[20:39] gets up and leaves the room, he gets up, knocks on the door that
[20:43] the police officers just left through.
[20:44] The police officer comes to him and he's like, yes.
[20:47] And Jesse says, am I being arrested for something I didn't
[20:50] do? And the cop is like, no, this is
[20:54] a missing persons investigation. You're not being arrested.
[20:56] We're just trying to find this missing 21 year old girl.
[21:00] And then Jesse sort of like half breaks down into tears and he
[21:04] says holy shit. And I don't know what this is.
[21:07] I don't know if this was him pretending like trying to put on
[21:11] a front that he was worried for grace or I don't know if he was
[21:14] just worried for himself and he was like realizing the gravity
[21:19] of this situation. Like holy shit, this girl I went
[21:22] on a date with is now missing and I'm being questioned by the
[21:25] police. They must think I had something
[21:27] to do with this. But this was only the tip of the
[21:30] iceberg when it came to Jesse Kempson's strange behaviour.
[21:34] Police actually later found out that he was unemployed at the
[21:37] time of this case, despite him telling them that he was a
[21:41] lawyer. There was a different police
[21:43] officer that he told that he was the manager of Woolworths, which
[21:47] in itself is so stupid that he told two different police
[21:51] officers that he had two different jobs.
[21:53] Of course they're going to figure out that you're a liar.
[21:55] But I actually don't think that came to the surface at the time
[21:59] of this case. I think that was just something
[22:00] they realized in retrospect with like, I think it was brought up
[22:04] at court time. At this point in time, Jesse
[22:06] Kempson gave police no reason to doubt him or question his
[22:10] intentions, but he was just like a serial con man and liar and
[22:17] dosser. He barely ever had a job.
[22:19] He was just always taking money off of other people or on Social
[22:22] Security checks so that he could get drunk all day.
[22:24] He had quite a problem with alcohol, but he did actually
[22:27] have a job. Quite recent to this case that
[22:30] he had been sacked from around the time that he met Grace
[22:33] because he was actually a call centre guy like a salesman over
[22:37] the phone and his company found out that he had been calling up
[22:41] his own mobile phone saying that he'd got on a sale so he got
[22:46] fired. The reason that he was actually
[22:48] living in a hotel room at the time of this case, remember we
[22:51] put a pin in that time to take the pin out.
[22:53] He was living in a hotel despite being, I don't know if he was an
[22:58] Auckland native, but he was like, he wasn't new to the area.
[23:01] He had been living there for a while.
[23:03] So it was quite interesting that he was living out of a hotel.
[23:06] But it makes more sense when you realise that he is unemployed.
[23:10] He was on Social Security checks and it can be kind of hard to
[23:15] rent in that situation. Landlords can be Dicks.
[23:19] I mean, the rental economy and evil landlords is a whole other
[23:22] topic for another day. And we don't know if that's
[23:25] specifically why Jesse Kempson struggled, but we can imagine
[23:30] that a lot of landlords wouldn't want to accept him into the
[23:32] property. And so maybe it's just easier
[23:35] for him to spend his Social Security checks on paying a
[23:38] hotel rather than going through that whole rental process and
[23:41] having to try to impress landlords.
[23:43] Basically, the point is that Jesse Kempson is a dirty liar.
[23:48] But at this point in time, police have no idea.
[23:50] They would also later find out that Jesse Kempson was a
[23:53] borderline dating app addict and a lot of the women that he had
[23:59] met up with in his early 20s often didn't have nice things to
[24:02] say about him. He would lie to impress people a
[24:05] lot. Like he would say that he had
[24:07] great jobs that he didn't have, as we've seen here.
[24:10] He would tell people that his brother was famous, like a
[24:12] famous rugby player. He wasn't, but there was some
[24:15] even weirder lies that he made-up.
[24:17] Like he would tell girls that he had gang connections, which I
[24:21] don't know what like I personally wouldn't find that
[24:23] attractive and find that quite scary.
[24:25] I probably wouldn't see that person again.
[24:27] And there was an even weirder lie.
[24:29] He told another girl that he had cancer when of course he didn't.
[24:33] Many of the girls that met up with Jessie through dating apps
[24:36] would end up ghosting him after his strange behaviour and his
[24:40] lies became apparent. But Grace wasn't aware of his
[24:43] past. Of course, Tinder doesn't have
[24:45] like a ratings function or anything like that.
[24:47] Profiles are just basic information and photos.
[24:51] All she saw was a guy that she found attractive enough to swipe
[24:55] right on. But very quickly police were
[24:57] catching on to Jessie's insincerity and they were about
[25:00] to get some cold hard of his lies.
[25:03] The police officer leaves the room again and when he returns,
[25:07] he has a photo in his hand, some CCTV evidence.
[25:11] And this is where things get very interesting.
[25:13] The picture is of Jesse in the elevator of his building on the
[25:17] morning after the date on December 2nd at 8:14 AM.
[25:22] Now some of you with good memories will realize that
[25:25] police have already caught him in a lie there because remember
[25:29] Jesse said that he woke up around 9:10 AM in a in a
[25:33] hungover drunken stupor, but now they have proof that he was up
[25:38] and out of the house by 8:00 AM. He walks into the lift and for a
[25:41] split second he looks directly at the camera and it's really
[25:45] eerie. Jesse left his apartment all
[25:47] alone. So he had entered his apartment
[25:50] with Grace Mullen with his date the night before and this
[25:53] morning he is seeing leaving alone.
[25:56] He goes out for about 10 minutes, and when he arrives
[25:59] back in the elevator to go back upstairs, he is now carried a
[26:03] suitcase. Now, I have covered enough true
[26:06] crime cases in my time to know that a suspect walking around
[26:10] with a suitcase is never a good sign.
[26:13] So police show Jesse this picture of him in the elevator.
[26:16] And they say, what do you have to say about this disproves your
[26:19] story? And Jesse is baffled.
[26:21] He insists to the police, no, I did wake up at 10 AM.
[26:24] So they're like, well, explain this photo.
[26:28] Then officers asked about the suitcase that he was carrying,
[26:30] and they said, was it his? And he said, yes, it was.
[26:33] And it was actually still in his hotel room if police wanted to
[26:36] see it. He was actually quite forward
[26:38] with offering up this suitcase. He was like, honestly, I can
[26:41] bring it into the police station.
[26:42] You can test it or whatever. He was always trying to appear
[26:46] helpful and cooperative. He said he'd gone out and bought
[26:49] the suitcase that morning because he was planning to move
[26:51] out of the hotel room and move into, like, a proper apartment.
[26:55] So he was, you know, starting to pack up his stuff.
[26:57] Of course, this meant that he had to finally admit that he
[27:00] wasn't in bed until, like, 910 o'clock.
[27:04] He had to admit to the police that he must have been up
[27:07] earlier than he thought. So the office is like, right.
[27:10] So you bought a suitcase that morning around 8:00 AM Why
[27:13] didn't you just tell us that? And Jesse, still very calmly,
[27:17] he's like, oh, yeah, now that you've shown me, I do remember
[27:20] going out and getting that suitcase now.
[27:22] Yeah, Like, come on. His story is all over the place.
[27:25] How do you go from thinking that you were still in bed at 10 AM
[27:28] to remembering that you were actually out of the house by 8
[27:31] and you'd bought a suit case as well?
[27:33] That's 2 completely different mornings.
[27:35] The police were so incredibly suspicious of Jesse Kempson at
[27:38] this point in time. All of his lies, all that
[27:41] contradicting evidence, it all made police think that he must
[27:45] have had a hand in Grace's disappearance.
[27:47] A few years later, in a documentary about this case, the
[27:50] police said that even at the time we knew he was a liar.
[27:53] At this point, he was very comfortable and plausible with
[27:56] his lies. Police had to be very tactical
[27:59] about how they went about this case because Jesse was a sneaky
[28:03] one. They didn't want to let on to
[28:04] him that they were too suspicious of him because they
[28:07] didn't want to risk that he shut down or started lying even more.
[28:11] And then the lies got so out of control that they were hard to
[28:14] pick apart. So right now, police know that
[28:16] this man is no good. They don't really know how to go
[28:19] about it. And let's just zoom out for a
[28:22] second because this investigation had been going
[28:24] incredibly fast. Grace was reported missing on
[28:27] December 5th. Jesse came into the police
[28:30] station on December 6th for his first interview.
[28:33] And that was where police already started unraveling his
[28:36] lies. They're already suspicious of
[28:37] him on the second day of the investigation.
[28:39] The third day, they get a search warrant to search his hotel
[28:44] room. And you know what?
[28:44] I do just want to say this is one of the very rare cases of
[28:48] police work. The police that worked on Grace
[28:51] Mullins disappearance and for the rest of the case from here
[28:55] on were brilliant and you can tell by how quickly they got
[28:58] this shit done. But now it's time to talk about
[29:01] the search of Jesse Kempson's hotel room and what they found
[29:05] was horrifying. When they first walked in there
[29:08] was nothing really amiss. There were no obvious signs of
[29:12] something awful happening there. There were no like big blood
[29:15] patch on the bed or clumps of her hair on the floor.
[29:18] There was nothing immediately suspicious.
[29:21] And so they decided to bring in like chemical testing techniques
[29:25] like luminol. And you're probably familiar
[29:27] with luminol if you've ever watched CSI.
[29:29] It's that liquid that they spray onto different objects or onto
[29:32] carpets or walls. And when a UV light is shone on
[29:36] it, it will show up where blood has previously been, even if
[29:40] it's been cleaned up. Luminol is a great invention.
[29:44] And when they sprayed luminol in this room, they found footprints
[29:49] all across the carpet. Someone had stepped in blood and
[29:53] walked it all over that hotel room.
[29:55] There were actually some small splatters of blood found on the
[29:58] fridge as well on the hotel fridge, which was a bit random.
[30:02] But All in all, analysis of this blood confirmed that it was
[30:06] female DNA in this man's hotel room, so we can guess that it
[30:11] wasn't his blood. The tests obviously couldn't go
[30:15] much further than that because all the blood had actually been
[30:17] cleaned up. We only know that it was there
[30:19] because of luminol, so it's not like they could take a sample of
[30:22] it and do some DNA tests. All they were going to know is
[30:25] that it was female blood. And of course, while they
[30:28] couldn't confirm or say for certain that it was Grace's
[30:31] blood, it certainly looked like it.
[30:34] So after this discovery, bear in mind, it's only two days after
[30:38] his first interview. Jesse Kempson is arrested now on
[30:42] suspicion of Grace's murder. And he's brought back to the
[30:45] police station for another interrogation.
[30:47] It's now 6:10 PM Saturday, the 8th of December.
[30:50] A whole week since Grace Mullane disappeared.
[30:53] Almost exactly a whole week. And in his second interview,
[30:57] Jesse knows that he can't hide from police anymore.
[31:01] Blood evidence was found in his hotel room and he was going to
[31:04] need to give police some sort of explanation.
[31:06] And this is when he finally admits that Grace had come back
[31:10] to his hotel room after the date and something had gone terribly
[31:14] wrong. Now that he was being truthful
[31:16] with police, he started from the very beginning again, because
[31:19] obviously they hadn't parted ways after Andy's Burger Bar.
[31:22] He hadn't gone to a sports bar by himself.
[31:25] He had to tell them from the very beginning, they'd gone to
[31:28] Andy's Burger Bar, had a good few drinks, left a little bit
[31:31] tipsy, and then they went to a Mexican restaurant, had a couple
[31:34] more drinks there. They went to another bar, I
[31:36] think it was like a Blues bar, had more drinks there.
[31:39] And there's CCTV footage of the two of them in each of these
[31:42] locations. And they are all over each
[31:46] other. They look like they're having a
[31:47] really good day. The two of them have their arms
[31:50] around each other. They're like leaning on each
[31:53] other in the bar. They're kissing a lot.
[31:56] It's like PDA city. And you know what?
[31:57] Grace looks really happy. She is leaning all the way into
[32:01] him. His arms are all the way around
[32:03] her. You can tell that she trusts
[32:04] this man and she felt safe with him.
[32:07] She felt safe enough to be in his arms.
[32:09] And it was actually around this point in the date when they'd
[32:12] gone to a couple of places, that Grace texted one of her friends,
[32:15] who knew already that she was going on a date with this New
[32:18] Zealand boy. And she texts this friend saying
[32:21] I click with him so well. And she does look really excited
[32:24] on the CCTV. She's always smiling, She's
[32:26] giggling. The two of them, as I say, look
[32:29] to be having a really good time. The vibes look really good.
[32:32] So what the fuck what happened? After texting the friend saying
[32:35] that they clicked so well she said I'll let you know what
[32:37] happens tomorrow. She's just so fucking sad man.
[32:40] That is the last time her friends ever heard from her and
[32:43] she sounded so excited. Once Grace and Jesse are done at
[32:47] the final bar they leave and they head towards his hotel and
[32:51] they're all over each other again.
[32:53] In the footage of them leaving, they're like leaning on each
[32:55] other and on the short walk back to Jesse's hotel, he has his arm
[32:59] all the way around Grace the whole entire time.
[33:02] And by the the time they walked through the lobby of his hotel,
[33:05] I mean it was only a few minute walk, but they were caught on
[33:07] CCTV again there. And Grace is actually holding
[33:10] his hand. He has his arm all the way
[33:12] around her shoulder and she's holding onto his hand and it
[33:15] looks so sweet. Well, she looks so sweet.
[33:18] She's looking up at him, smiling, enjoying his company.
[33:21] She looks enamoured with this man, but little does she know
[33:25] that she can't trust him. It's always so horrifying to see
[33:28] when there's actual footage caught of people's last moments.
[33:32] Grace had absolutely no idea what she was walking into.
[33:36] When the two of them get in the lift and travel up to the third
[33:39] floor together, we see the last recorded footage of 21 year old
[33:44] Grace Mullane. She is never seen leaving that
[33:47] apartment ever again. But before we get too ahead of
[33:50] ourselves, let's talk about what Jesse said happened once they
[33:53] got into the hood. He said that they started
[33:55] kissing. Things were getting a little bit
[33:57] steamy. And then Grace brought up 50
[34:00] Shades of Grey, which is one of the most famous books ever
[34:04] maybe. Well, it was a trilogy, an
[34:06] erotic romance trilogy that was made into 3 movies.
[34:10] The stories follow a young woman that meets this kind of like
[34:13] older, dark, handsome, mysterious man who has some very
[34:19] specific interests in the bedroom.
[34:21] He basically gets her into BDSM. I mean, I've never read the
[34:24] books or watch the movies, but like, I'm sure we all know the
[34:27] premise of 50 Shades of Grey. And apparently Grace brought up
[34:31] this movie, this book in the moment and said that she was
[34:35] interested in doing all of that kinky stuff like they do in the
[34:38] movie. So they start having sex.
[34:40] And this is a quote from Jessie. He said at first it was just
[34:43] normal. It was very Placid.
[34:45] And then she asked me if we could get into bondage and she
[34:48] started biting. And then she asked me to bite
[34:51] her. And so I did.
[34:52] I stopped at 1st and said, is this something you really want
[34:55] to do? And she said, we're in the
[34:57] moment, let's just go with it. I said I'm new to all that sort
[35:00] of stuff. Jesse said that the two of them
[35:02] engaged in more violent sex. Those were his words.
[35:06] He said that Grace asked him to pin her arms down and to squeeze
[35:10] them tighter. And then according to Jesse,
[35:14] Grace asked him to choke her. Now this is where it all becomes
[35:17] quite tricky to talk about because we obviously don't know
[35:20] if that was true. No one else was in the bedroom
[35:22] with them at that point in time. We can only go off of the words
[35:26] of a man who has already been proven to be a liar.
[35:30] Keep that in mind. But it could have been true.
[35:32] Grace might have asked for bondage or to be choked, or
[35:36] both. The point is, it doesn't matter.
[35:38] As long as both parties consent, then you know whatever you
[35:41] choose to do in the bedroom is up to you.
[35:43] But I think it's important for us to establish what choking in
[35:46] a BDSM sense really is because it's not just completely
[35:50] crushing some ones neck and like, I don't know, it's, it's
[35:53] more than just grabbing all the something and squeezing, isn't
[35:56] it? The aim of choking during sex is
[35:58] to cut off like some of the blood supply to the brain.
[36:02] I mean, maybe cutting off some of the air supply as well.
[36:04] Maybe the gasping for breath adds to it for some people, but
[36:07] I think the main gist of it is to cut off the blood supply.
[36:10] That's why they say press like here and here.
[36:12] Is it because it gives you that kind of like dizzy, woozy,
[36:15] lightheaded feeling like you get when you stand up too fast
[36:18] sometimes? I know it all too well.
[36:20] I mean, anemia girly right here and instead of Armenia.
[36:23] But basically some people like getting this lightheaded feeling
[36:26] during sex sometimes. Like the lack of air is part of
[36:30] it. I suppose that's very like
[36:31] individual case by case basis, whatever each person
[36:34] individually likes. But to do it safely and
[36:37] responsibly, you should always have like a safe word or like a
[36:42] tapping out system that's basically like, if you don't
[36:44] want a safe word, you can do it through taps instead.
[36:47] You could do like means stop. My point is is that there is a
[36:52] line. Consensual choking is in
[36:55] absolutely no way the same as violent strangulation that would
[37:00] lead to murder. Those two things are not even
[37:04] remotely similar because it actually takes between 5 and 10
[37:08] minutes of constant strangulation to actually kill
[37:12] someone. And who's doing that during sex
[37:15] accidentally? You know, without meaning to do
[37:18] that, there's no way you can do it by accident.
[37:21] If someone has died as a result of rough sex, then there's a
[37:25] very high chance that their partner meant to do it.
[37:28] Jesse tells the police that they finished having sex quite
[37:32] normally, and then he got out of bed and went into the shower,
[37:36] where he proceeded to fall asleep standing up.
[37:39] That is ridiculous to me. I mean, he says that he was
[37:42] still very drunk at this point in time, but I've never fallen
[37:45] asleep standing up before. He claims that he woke up
[37:48] obviously still in the shower when it was still dark.
[37:51] And so he just dried himself off and crawled back into bed in in
[37:55] the main hotel room. He didn't turn on any lights.
[37:57] He didn't check on Grace. He didn't speak to her or
[37:59] anything, just crawled into bed. He said that he initially
[38:02] thought she'd left actually, because when he got into bed, he
[38:05] didn't feel her. But when he woke up the next
[38:07] day, he realized that she hadn't left.
[38:10] She had been laying on the ground all night and there was
[38:13] blood coming out of her nose. He said that he yelled to her
[38:17] thinking that she was just asleep on the floor with blood
[38:21] coming out of her nose, and of course she didn't wake up so
[38:24] went over and he starts shaking her as you would with someone
[38:27] that's asleep. Again, there is blood coming out
[38:29] of her nose and surely her body would be cold or stiff at this
[38:33] point in time. But he insists that he thought
[38:35] she was just asleep and it was only at this point, when no
[38:38] amount of shaking or yelling could wake her up, that he
[38:41] realized that something was majorly wrong.
[38:45] Jesse tells the police that he was in complete shock.
[38:48] He was terrified. He said he put 111 into his
[38:52] phone and was about to dial it, but he didn't because he
[38:56] realized how bad it would look when they got there and saw that
[38:59] there was this unresponsive, maybe dead girl in his hotel
[39:05] room. So he just didn't call for help.
[39:07] She could have still been alive. I mean, he must have known that
[39:11] she wasn't. If you're panicking because
[39:12] you're in a situation like that thinking, Oh my God, it's going
[39:15] to look so bad. I look like I've killed this
[39:17] girl. If you think there's a chance
[39:19] that she can survive, why would you not call the ambulance?
[39:21] So then you wouldn't be in that situation where there's a dead
[39:24] girl in your hotel room. You know what I mean?
[39:26] He must have known that she was already dead.
[39:28] And as he's telling all of this to police, all of the emotions
[39:32] that he was feeling at the time supposedly start coming back to
[39:35] him, and he gets very overwhelmed and quite choked up.
[39:38] He actually has to pause the interview there to go outside
[39:41] and have a bit of a breather, which I thought was interesting.
[39:43] I thought I might as well include.
[39:45] Bear in mind, that's kind of the only time he's really shown any
[39:48] emotion or stress or panic throughout this whole case.
[39:53] In the first few interviews he was cool, calm, collected, cool
[39:56] as a cucumber. But now he wasn't so good at
[39:59] keeping all those emotions. And it was.
[40:01] It was a lot for him. Jesse told the police that once
[40:12] he realised Grace was dead, he didn't know what to do.
[40:15] He he could hardly believe that this was reality, that he had
[40:19] killed someone, quote UN quote, by accident.
[40:21] Because that's what he's having us all believe, isn't it?
[40:23] That's what he wants the police to think, that this was just
[40:26] rough sex gone wrong and she essentially asked for it.
[40:30] He said that he didn't know what to do now that he had this dead
[40:34] body in his hotel room. One thing's for sure, he didn't
[40:36] call an ambulance. Instead, he decides to just
[40:39] leave his apartment around 8:00 AM.
[40:41] He's completely on his own, nothing with him.
[40:44] He does look weirdly calm though.
[40:46] For someone who supposedly just discovered a dead body at the
[40:49] foot of his bed, he looks absolutely fine.
[40:51] So he leaves his house and he goes straight to this place
[40:54] called the Warehouse and buys a suitcase.
[40:56] And then comes straight back to his apartment building and we
[40:59] get even more CCTV footage of him returning up with said
[41:03] suitcase. Now he didn't admit to this part
[41:06] in the interrogation, but this is something that we've found
[41:08] out a bit later on. Was that the case?
[41:11] Wasn't the only thing he purchased that morning.
[41:13] He also started shopping for the cleanup job, too.
[41:16] While Grace laid dead in his hotel room, Jesse was buying
[41:21] spray bottles and cleaning products and bleach from a local
[41:24] supermarket to get rid of all of the evidence that Grace was ever
[41:29] even that. He eventually returns to his
[41:31] hotel room about 3 hours after he left and he'd actually driven
[41:34] back in a rental car. He'd gone out, rented a car for
[41:38] the day and then brought it back home and he confessed to police
[41:41] that this is when he went back to his hotel room and began
[41:45] contorting and stuffing Grace Mullen's dead body into that
[41:51] suitcase that he'd just bought. He insisted to police that this
[41:54] was horrible thing to go through, almost traumatic for
[41:58] him. He said that he vomited a couple
[42:01] of times because it was just so grotesque.
[42:04] He claims that the whole time he was squishing her body into
[42:08] different positions and pushing it in this bag.
[42:11] He said that the whole time he was saying, I'm sorry, I'm so
[42:13] sorry. I would like you to keep in
[42:15] mind, as we're saying all of this, that this is a proven
[42:18] liar. Time and time again, Jesse
[42:20] Kempson has been proven to be a liar.
[42:22] So if you start to feel any sympathy towards him at all, can
[42:25] get rid of it. You can get rid of it right now.
[42:27] Later that same day, it was now like the evening time.
[42:31] Jesse made another trip out to the local supermarket where he
[42:34] hired a carpet cleaning machine. He took it back to his hotel
[42:38] room and he stayed there for the rest of the night.
[42:40] The next time he is seen leaving his apartment is around 6:00 AM
[42:44] the next morning. Only this time he was Wheeling
[42:47] two large suitcases out with him.
[42:51] And of course, one of these suitcases held the body, the
[42:54] corpse of 21 year old Grace Mullet.
[42:57] We're not entirely sure what was in the other suitcase.
[43:00] We've tried to have a look. My guess is that it was probably
[43:03] a bunch of cleaning products because as far as I'm aware,
[43:06] none of that was ever found. You know, like towels and stuff
[43:09] like that that he must have used with the carpet cleaner.
[43:11] Maybe some of it was like Grace's belongings as well.
[43:14] I'm not entirely sure that her handbag was ever found.
[43:16] Her phone was never found. So we know that he definitely
[43:20] disposed of that. But anyway, he takes these two
[43:22] suitcases down to his car, loads them in and and then about 10
[43:26] minutes later he's caught on CCTV at a different shop.
[43:30] Now he's buying a spade. The next time Jesse is picked up
[43:33] on camera, it's three hours after that.
[43:36] He's back at his hotel room now and for some reason he's
[43:40] barefoot. My guess is that the shoes were
[43:42] probably covered in mud. This man just went out and
[43:46] bought a spade and was gone for three hours with those suitcases
[43:50] and then he comes back with no shoes on in mud maybe.
[43:53] In fact I think he was wearing a whole different outfit when he
[43:56] was seen again, just no shoes and he had gone out and got a
[44:01] whole outfit dry cleaned earlier that day.
[44:04] Probably all of the clothes were covered in mud.
[44:06] Police also found a chunk of CCTV footage I think a bit later
[44:10] on, but I'm going to talk about this here.
[44:12] They found CCTV footage from a self-service car cleaning thing
[44:19] just a few blocks away. Jesse had taken his rental car
[44:22] there and was caught on cameras housing a load of mud off it
[44:26] before he returned it later that day.
[44:28] And throughout every single bit of CCTV footage of this man
[44:32] doing his murder cleanup job, he looks so calm.
[44:37] He never for one moment looks panicked or stressed or worried.
[44:41] He's not pacing around or rubbing his hands.
[44:44] This guy doesn't give a fuck. But ironically, it seems that
[44:47] the only thing that he he didn't plan for was all of that CCTV
[44:51] footage. He'd done everything from hiring
[44:54] a rental car to buying a suitcase to all this kind of
[44:57] shit, forgetting that it was all caught on cameras.
[45:00] And with all of that, 26 year old Jesse Kempson was charged
[45:03] with the murder of Grace Malone. It doesn't seem like he was very
[45:06] resistant to the charge. He went quite easily with
[45:09] police. I guess at this point, what can
[45:11] you do? What can you argue against when
[45:13] there's pictures of you on every single part of your cleanup
[45:16] journey? Cleanup journey?
[45:18] Did I mean clean up job? On his clean up journey one day
[45:22] after he was charged, Jesse quite freely took the police to
[45:26] where he had buried Grace Mullane's body, still inside the
[45:31] suitcase. He'd driven her body out to the
[45:33] White Hachary Ranges, which is a beautiful scenic like hiking
[45:38] trail, but there were a lot of bushes, a lot of places to hide.
[45:42] He knew that he could probably take these suitcases there and
[45:45] dig holes as deep as he needed to without being seen by anyone.
[45:49] And this was actually quite a way from where Grace had
[45:51] disappeared from in the centre of Auckland.
[45:53] This was about 32 kilometers out.
[45:56] Police spent the day digging up this suitcase.
[45:58] And with that, they finally had the body of Grace Mullen.
[46:02] And this was about to offer a lot more evidence than Jessie
[46:06] was offering. We'll get back into her autopsy
[46:09] a little bit later on in this episode, but for now, I want to
[46:12] let you know that her remains were eventually flown back to
[46:15] the UK, where on January 10th, 2019, her family were able to
[46:20] lay her to rest. Jesse Kempson displayed so many
[46:23] tendencies of a cold, calculated sociopath in the way that he
[46:28] went about this, especially the way that he disposed of Grace's
[46:31] body and all of the evidence. He really thought he'd covered
[46:34] every angle. For example, when he returned to
[46:38] his apartment on the day that he had buried Grace's body.
[46:41] So remember, he leaves his apartment with two suitcases
[46:45] that we can assume had Grace's body in and probably a bunch of
[46:48] clean materials. He goes out and then we're later
[46:52] that evening when he's obviously done the horrible thing, he
[46:55] returns and is seen on the CCTV footage going back up to his
[46:58] room with two suitcases again. But how could that be?
[47:03] Because Grace's body was buried inside one of the suitcases.
[47:06] Where did he get this other suitcase from?
[47:09] Well, it turns out he'd only gone out and bought another one.
[47:12] He had gone to that same store and bought the exact same
[47:15] suitcase 2 days in a row so that he could do this, so that he
[47:19] would be seen on CCTV returning with the same suitcase, quote UN
[47:24] quote, same suitcase that he left with.
[47:27] He hoped that that would quell any suspicions, but all it did
[47:30] in the end, when it was exposed, all it did was make him look
[47:33] like an absolute sociopath. And now it makes so much sense
[47:37] why he was offering his suitcase up to police so much.
[47:40] He was like, honestly, if you want to search it, I'll bring it
[47:42] down like you can test it. And police were a bit like, it's
[47:45] all right mate, we don't want your suitcase.
[47:47] It makes sense. It was brand new.
[47:50] It had never even been in the same room as Grace Mullane, so
[47:53] of course he knew that they weren't going to find anything
[47:55] in there. He really thought he was going
[47:56] to get away with this, didn't he?
[47:58] But he didn't, and off he went for his trial, his murder trial.
[48:02] The trial was actually kicked off with Jessie Kempson pleading
[48:05] not guilty to the charge of murder.
[48:08] He still insisted that it was just a tragic accident, just
[48:11] rough sex gone wrong. Grace's autopsy was read out for
[48:15] the jury, and there were nine fresh bruises on her body from
[48:20] the night of the murder, 12 in total.
[48:22] But I think three of them were just, I don't know, travel,
[48:25] traveling bruises, I get them all the time.
[48:27] But nine bruises that happened at the same time as her death,
[48:31] and most of them were on her arms, her shoulders and, of
[48:34] course, her neck. These bruises were consistent
[48:38] with, you know, being pinned down and held down.
[48:41] But Grace's official cause of death was from prolonged
[48:44] pressure to the neck, something that we've already said takes
[48:47] between 5 and 10 minutes. So yes, while some of the
[48:51] bruises on her arms could have been consistent with with
[48:54] consensual rough sex, being strangled to death certainly
[48:58] fucking isn't. All of the physical evidence was
[49:01] going against Jesse. The autopsy itself said that he
[49:04] must have sat there applying serious pressure to Grace's
[49:08] throat for at least 5 minutes. It wasn't a spur of the moment
[49:12] accident. Jesse's trial sparked a huge
[49:15] conversation about the way that society treats victims,
[49:19] particularly female victims in cases like this one.
[49:22] Jesse was claiming the rough sex defence, which is very much
[49:25] rooted in sexism. It basically means that men are
[49:28] able to manipulate situations, use a woman's sexual preferences
[49:32] against her to get away with the most heinous, often premeditated
[49:38] and perverted crimes possible. Jesse was trying to tell the
[49:42] court that Grace asked for it, that the rough sex was her idea
[49:47] and so he should be allowed to get off Scott free for murdering
[49:50] her because she'd what, asked for it?
[49:53] Even if she did say choke me in a sexual situation, for you to
[49:57] think it means 5 minutes consistently pressed to the
[50:00] neck, you're either a fucking idiot or a conscious murderer.
[50:05] Pick it. Pick which one you want to be
[50:06] known as. Because right now I'm thinking
[50:08] both and I just want to cast your minds back to his first
[50:11] ever police interview. Do you remember when he was
[50:13] talking about Grace potentially being a catfish and wanting to
[50:16] meet up in public so that he was safe the whole time?
[50:20] He's implying that Grace is the dangerous 1.
[50:23] He could be potentially A victim.
[50:25] She's a predator. He is the one that ended up
[50:28] murdering her. That whole time that he's giving
[50:31] this spiel to police about how she could have been.
[50:34] He had the knowledge that he had murdered her.
[50:37] He was the predator. He had strangled her to death
[50:40] and then contorted, squished her cops into a suitcase and then
[50:45] buried it out in the middle of the woods, hoping that no one
[50:49] ever found it. He then went and sat in that
[50:52] police station with all of that knowledge, with all of those
[50:54] memories, with all of those still images in his brain of
[50:57] Grace's dead body. He sat there and said that she
[51:01] could have been a predator and that he was in danger that night
[51:04] and that he needed to be careful.
[51:05] How sick and twisted is that? It's so scary to see how lawyers
[51:11] still use this rough sex defence and how juries still buy into
[51:15] this idea that somehow a woman can consent to being strangled
[51:20] to death. No woman has ever consented to
[51:23] being murdered when she has asked her partner to choke her.
[51:26] The court had been told by Jessie's lawyers that Grace was
[51:29] very much into BDSM. She'd used BDSM hookup apps in
[51:34] the past, one called Whipler and she'd met up with some guys and
[51:38] said on that she was interested in various fetishes.
[51:41] They even brought in Grace's ex-boyfriend as a like character
[51:45] witness who sat there and said that they had engaged in BDSM
[51:49] sex before. They've used safe words in the
[51:52] past. But again, I would like to
[51:54] reiterate her previous sexual activity and her preferences
[51:57] have absolutely nothing to do with this man choosing to murder
[52:02] her. For you to still be there
[52:03] replying pressure at that point when clearly the person that
[52:06] you're doing this to cannot consent.
[52:08] They've passed out, they're not in it anymore.
[52:10] You must know what you're doing at that point in time.
[52:13] I mean, I'm not going to lie, I don't believe Jesse story at
[52:16] all. There's a part of me that
[52:17] wonders if they ever even got round to having sex that night
[52:21] because obviously Jesse has lied about absolutely everything.
[52:24] So I personally don't believe pretty much anything he said.
[52:28] As far as we're aware, he could have murdered her within seconds
[52:31] of getting her inside of that hotel room.
[52:33] But let's just take his story at face value.
[52:35] He choked her too hard and it was rough.
[52:38] Sex gone wrong. If Jesse Kempson was willing to
[52:41] take the risk of Grace dying because he wanted to strangle
[52:46] her for a prolonged period of time during sex, then he should
[52:49] be guilty of murder. He did that willingly, knowing
[52:53] what the outcome was probably going to be.
[52:55] Now, there are two bits of information that I actually
[52:57] haven't told you about yet, and these came to light during the
[53:00] trial and these just further show how much of A vile person
[53:04] Jesse Kempson is. Do you remember when he said
[53:06] they finished having sex and he went and got in the shower and
[53:09] he like, fell asleep standing up?
[53:11] Of course, that was bullshit. Shock and horror.
[53:14] He lied again. Turns out he wasn't asleep.
[53:17] He wasn't in the shower. He was looking up porn.
[53:21] And not just any porn like violent, disturbing, grotesque
[53:25] should never be seen by human eye as kind of porn after he had
[53:29] just murdered this innocent young woman.
[53:31] He wasn't distressed or upset like you would expect.
[53:34] He was horny and going to look up porn.
[53:39] And like I said, not just any porn.
[53:41] Some of the porn he was looking up was scat porn.
[53:44] And if you're not aware of what that is, I'm really sorry, but
[53:47] I'm about to make you aware. It's shit porn.
[53:51] It's people messing with human feces.
[53:53] You know, when people are into like shitting on each other's
[53:55] chest and like, I don't want to kinks him.
[53:58] I'm not going to kinks him. But I am going to say be careful
[54:01] because there's a lot of bacteria in feces.
[54:03] Please be careful, guys. But let's take it back to the
[54:06] point in the fact that he was sexually aroused after murdering
[54:10] Grace, which I believe he did very willingly and excitedly.
[54:15] I think he got a lot of pleasure out of murdering Grace and then
[54:18] wanted to go pleasure himself while watching people shit on
[54:22] each other. It just gets weirder after that,
[54:25] it gets even worse. Jesse proceeded to take seven
[54:29] photos of Grace and these have been described as intimate
[54:34] photos in the in the court trial.
[54:36] And we can imagine that intimate means naked, which again, makes
[54:41] me think that he got some sort of sexual gratification out of
[54:45] doing this to Grace. He's taking photos almost like
[54:49] trophies, something to look back on.
[54:51] If he did get away with this murder, who knows what he would
[54:54] use those photos for. He probably planned on using
[54:57] them the way that he watches people shit on each other.
[55:01] At the same time he was searching up that pawn, Jesse
[55:03] had also done a search for the white tackery ranges, which is
[55:07] where he ended up burying Grace's body.
[55:10] He probably already knew of their existence, he might have
[55:12] even been there a few times. He did live in the area and so
[55:16] he was probably searching it up to get an address, get some
[55:19] directions, get some ideas on which part of the White Hachary
[55:24] Ranges he could bury her body in.
[55:26] The other thing that I haven't mentioned is that while Grace
[55:29] Mullan's dead body lay on his hotel room floor, Jesse Kempson
[55:34] went on his phone and organized another Tinder date for that
[55:39] night. It's honestly another level of
[55:41] fucked up. On December the second his
[55:44] murder victim's birthday, he goes out and meets another girl
[55:47] in a surely he wasn't planning to take this woman back to his
[55:50] hotel room too, was he? Graces body is laying there cold
[55:54] and dead and this day said that she didn't have a very good time
[55:58] with him. Honestly, he was quite weird.
[56:01] Creepy. One of the things that he
[56:03] mentioned to this day that didn't seem weird at the time,
[56:06] but obviously is very weird in retrospect.
[56:08] He was telling her that he'd spent the whole day looking for
[56:12] a large duffel bag with wheels to carry his sports gear in.
[56:16] Not sure why he would bring that up.
[56:17] You know what one thing about Jesse Kempson is that he likes
[56:21] kind of putting his foot in it a bit, doesn't it?
[56:23] I think on this day he was kind of like trying to relive the
[56:27] murder that he'd just committed last night.
[56:29] And he was like hint into it in little ways.
[56:32] He wasn't majorly giving it away, but he was saying things
[56:36] like a lot of his friends were police officers, line number
[56:39] one. Well, line number 700 at this
[56:41] point, a lot of his friends were police officers.
[56:43] And he was telling this woman that they were having a lot of
[56:45] issues at the moment because they were having to recover a
[56:48] lot of dead bodies and a lot of missing hikers from the White
[56:52] Thackery ranges. And he makes another comment
[56:55] that shows that he's clearly been doing his research when it
[56:57] comes to like homicide investigations.
[57:00] He told this woman that police dogs are unable to sniff out
[57:04] buried bodies if they're buried further than four feet deep.
[57:08] Should we just remind ourselves that this is a first date?
[57:11] What the fuck are you talking about?
[57:13] Dead bodies and burying dead bodies for a first date?
[57:16] I feel like the only person in the whole entire world that that
[57:18] would impress is a true crime content creator, and even then
[57:21] I'm running away. That's really scary.
[57:23] Like I said, this woman had a terrible time with Jessie
[57:26] Kempson. She said that he was really
[57:28] weird and really tense. His energy just like made her
[57:32] feel uncomfortable. So much so that she actually
[57:34] lied to him as they were leaving the restaurant about where she'd
[57:38] parked her car because he was planning on going one way and
[57:42] she actually had to go the same way.
[57:43] So she was like Oh no my my car's parked on the other end so
[57:47] they could actually park ways there so he wouldn't have to
[57:49] walk her to her car. Bear in mind that after leaving
[57:52] that date, he then went and loaded Grace's corpse into his
[57:56] rental car and buried her body in the exact location that he
[58:00] just been telling his date all about.
[58:02] Thankfully, Jesse's trial led to a murder conviction.
[58:06] Even though he was pleaded not guilty, he got done for murder.
[58:10] He showed absolutely no emotion as his sentence was read out.
[58:14] Life in prison with a minimum of 17 years.
[58:18] After his sentencing, it was found that Grace wasn't the only
[58:21] girl that Jesse had terrorized. He actually had a long history
[58:26] of being violent towards women. That all came out now that he
[58:30] was locked away for good. There were a lot of women that
[58:33] crawled out of the woodwork saying that they had had
[58:36] experiences with him and they only now felt safe and
[58:40] comfortable enough to be vocal about them and to tell the
[58:42] police. A lot of these women had been
[58:44] keeping it in for a long time because they were worried of
[58:47] what Jesse Kempson was capable of and now those worries had
[58:51] been confirmed that he could have murdered them.
[58:54] There was one case about 8 months before the date with
[58:57] Grace where he had met another British backpacker from Tinder.
[59:02] Exactly how things went with Greer.
[59:04] He invited this girl out for drinks and then they went back
[59:06] to his hotel room for another drink and at this point the girl
[59:10] refuses sex. He must have come on to her and
[59:12] she said no and he wasn't having it.
[59:15] So he proceeded to rape her. There was another girl that came
[59:19] out who said that she was Jessie's ex-girlfriend from
[59:21] 2017. The two of them had lived
[59:24] together for a while and he was so incredibly abusive with her.
[59:28] He would rape her often. He would subject her to violent
[59:32] assaults. Chaser around the house with a
[59:34] knife. He would hold a knife to her
[59:36] throat. The abuse actually got so out of
[59:38] control that at one point he was telling her that he had been
[59:41] sent by the CIA to kill her. What this ex-girlfriend said
[59:46] that Jesse just needed power and control at all times and when he
[59:51] didn't have it, that was when he would become violent.
[59:54] She said that she had a lot of experiences with him holding her
[59:57] throat so tight during sex that she would pass out.
[1:00:01] He would do it for way too long and she would tell him that she
[1:00:04] didn't like it, but he would keep doing it.
[1:00:06] She believed that whenever he would do things like this, hold
[1:00:09] a knife to her throat or press her throat so hard that she
[1:00:12] passed out, he was just. Trying to remind her of the
[1:00:16] power that he had over her. He could kill her at any moment
[1:00:20] if he wanted to. This ex-girlfriend actually has
[1:00:22] a theory that maybe Grace Mullane went back to his hotel
[1:00:25] room but then said no to sex because it seems very in keeping
[1:00:30] with Jesse's character to completely lose his shit and go
[1:00:33] violent whenever he's told no. If one good thing did come out
[1:00:37] of this case, it's that in 2020, England and Wales finally ruled
[1:00:41] that rough sex legally could not be considered a defence to a
[1:00:45] violent crime. There's since been a charity set
[1:00:48] up in Grace's memory named Love Grace, and the whole idea is
[1:00:52] that they accept donated handbags and they fill them with
[1:00:55] essentials for women in need. We'll leave the link in the
[1:00:58] description of this episode for you to check out.
[1:01:01] Of course, you can donate physical items, but another
[1:01:04] thing that I love about this whole system is that they have
[1:01:06] an Amazon wishlist where they've put up like different items that
[1:01:09] they need. So moisturizers or wipes or
[1:01:13] makeup remover for these women and you can go on and and
[1:01:16] purchase them and they'll be sent straight to the charity,
[1:01:19] which I think is amazing. So please, if you can, do check
[1:01:22] out the charity. Love Grace.
[1:01:24] And that is all we have for this case.
[1:01:30] Thank you so much for listening to usual disclaimer.
[1:01:33] At this point, I just want to say that if you've been affected
[1:01:36] by any of the topics we discussed today, please check
[1:01:39] the description where we've left some helpful resources.
[1:01:42] If you want to hear more cases like this one, make sure to
[1:01:45] follow Usual Disclaimer on your podcast app so that you get
[1:01:48] notifications when we post new episodes.
[1:01:50] And if you really enjoyed, I'd love it if you could leave a
[1:01:53] rating and a review too. Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor
[1:01:57] Neil is an Audio Boom Studios production.
[1:01:59] See you next time.

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