Morbid: Episode 468: The Tragic Murder of Grace Millane

You're listening to a morbid network podcast.

Mike Williams set off on a hunting trip into the swamps of North Florida where it was thought

he met a gruesome fate in the jaws of hungry alligators, except that's not what happened

at all.

And after the uncovering of a secret love triangle, the truth would finally be revealed.

Binge all episodes of Over My Dead Body Gone Hunting right now, ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Alayna.

And this is Morbid.

It sure is.

Today is surely morbid.

Today is the most morbid day one could have.

Yeah, it hasn't been a great day.

But you know what?

This probably won't make it better because I'm sure it's a very sad tale.

It is.

So there's that.

But you guys are here and that's exciting.

Judy calls.

I can feel your presence here and you it makes me happy.

Yay.

You know, love and positivity and also Mikey made lemon champagne cupcakes

and they are literally the yummiest thing I have ever put in my face.

They are really fucking good.

You can't have the recipe.

No, I'm just kidding.

You can't have.

You can't have the recipe.

They're delicious and refreshing.

And I'm sorry that you're not eating one right now.

Me, too.

I want to be eating one right now.

I just, you know, it's been a crazy day.

I guess I had to go to explode a little bit.

But yeah, pick up the pieces.

Pick up the pieces.

You know, you know, like it happens.

It happens.

It happens.

Everything is OK.

We just have like family stuff going on.

Yeah, we're fine.

You know, but we're OK.

We're fine.

We're going to be just fine as well.

All right.

Well, honestly, I have a pretty sad tale to tell you.

Great.

So let's get into it.

This is an example of a Tinder murder.

Oh, so very sad.

Those are those are sad and scary.

They are very scary.

They are cautionary tales for sure.

Let's go.

In early October of 2018, Grace Maline left her home

in Wickford, Essex, United Kingdom and headed to South America.

She had this really big plan.

She was going to spend six months traveling around the area,

and then she was going to head to Auckland, New Zealand.

She wanted to travel the world.

Damn.

She just graduated from the University of Lincoln.

She got her bachelor's degree in advertising and and marketing as well.

It was like a month earlier, and this trip was going to be the beginning

to her gap year. OK.

And she wanted to spend it back past backpacking across the world.

And she was super duper excited just to learn about, you know,

all the different cultures and experience them.

And basically she was having a little eat, pray, love situation.

Get it, you know.

Now, while she was in Peru, Grace was obviously making an

appointment to keep in regular contact with her friends and family back home.

She would send them daily updates through tech.

She was posting the social media so everybody could see the cool stuff

she was experiencing.

Her best friend, Amina Ashcroft, later told reporters,

Grace was really loving her travels and I could feel her positivity.

I think Grace was happy in her life because she was achieving her long term

goals and realizing her dreams. Good for her.

She's like so beautiful.

And actually what made this even more special is that Grace's mom

had done a similar trip during her own gap year.

So it had even more of a special meaning to her

because she was retracing her mom's footsteps.

I love that. That's really cool, right?

So after six weeks in Peru, where she'd been traveling with a group

of other young tourists and backpackers, she left South America.

And this was when she made her way to New Zealand.

And she spent a little over a week traveling around the Northland region

before moving on to Auckland on November 30th.

Now, during the first 10 days of her trip around the Northland,

Grace was still sending regular messages to her family, to her friends,

still posting pictures of the trip, sharing that with everybody.

And just in sharing everybody, she was really having the time of her life.

Her brother, Michael, later said she was just sightseeing and traveling around New Zealand.

She was in good spirits and was enjoying herself.

Good for her. This sounds great so far, which is really upsetting me.

Yeah, it's yeah, because I don't I know it's not going to continue that way.

It's not, unfortunately.

So on December 1st, 2018, which was the day before her 22nd birthday,

which makes she's so young, even worse.

And also, she's a Sagittarius, which, like, of course, she's traveling the world.

Oh, yeah, you're always saying that Sagittarius humans just want to get out of here.

We just want to explore. We just want to go crazy.

And that makes sense that she was one of them.

Yeah. So Grace texted her best friend, Amina, from Auckland to let her know,

actually, on December 1st, that she was going out on a date with this guy

that she had met through Tinder.

She said he was the manager of an oil company.

All right. And Amina thought to herself, she was like,

it's kind of weird that you're like looking for a date on a dating app

on what is essentially a vacation, but whatever.

Yeah. And just to stop along the way.

Exactly. And Amina had just gotten off a long flight herself, and she was like,

I'm not going to like ruin Grace's night by being like, what the heck are you doing?

And I'm not going to complicate things.

She's just having fun.

So as the night went on,

Grace would text Amina updates about the date whenever she could.

If he headed off to the bathroom or if she did, she was like, it's going great, you know?

She told Amina that he was also spending time traveling

and he was currently living in a hotel in Auckland, the guy that she was on a date with.

In a few months, she said he actually had plans to travel to London.

And in her last text message to Amina, Grace wrote, literally, I click so I click

with him so well, I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.

But that would be the last text that she sent.

Oh, my goodness, to anyone.

Now, the next day, her family and friends, because again, it's her birthday now,

are all sending her birthday wishes to like, happy birthday.

Hope you're having the best day.

Everyone's texting her.

Everybody's DMing her, sending her message alerts on Facebook.

But hours and hours and hours are going by and nobody's getting a response from her.

So at first, her family was like, OK, I mean, she literally just got to New Zealand.

Maybe she's getting settled.

Maybe she's out celebrating.

So at first, they didn't see any cause for concern.

But the next day, the day after her birthday,

all the birthday messages Grace had gotten were still going unacknowledged.

And that was just totally out of character for her.

Her brother told reporters on Monday, it was weird that we hadn't heard from her.

So yesterday, we started to make inquiries down the right channels

and realize the last time she was seen was on Saturday by one of her roommates in a hostel.

So they're starting to like fully panic.

I was just looking at pictures of her.

She is so beautiful. Oh, my God, she's gorgeous.

Oh, it's like, oh, it just kills me.

It's so sad. And I'm just like feeling the panic for her loved ones here,

especially on her birthday.

Yeah, seriously.

She's just about to turn 22 like has the whole rest of her life ahead of her.

Wild. So two more days went by with absolutely nothing from Grace.

And that was when her family really started to lose it.

Yeah. So they decided to contact the British consulate in Wellington

and an official Missing Persons report was filed now with the Auckland police.

So now there was going to be an investigation into this disappearance.

And with that, Grace's father hopped on the first plane he could to Auckland

so that he could aid the investigation in any way possible.

That's a dad right there.

That's a dad.

Now, a day later, Auckland police detective Scott Beard told the press

since receiving a Missing Persons report around lunchtime yesterday,

police have been piecing together Grace's last known movements

with the last sighting being on Saturday night.

Using the extensive CCTV footage captured from cameras around the city.

So luckily there's like so much CCTV, I feel like, in other parts of the world.

Oh, yeah. I know we have it here, but I feel like it's way more.

It's everywhere.

Seriously. So luckily they were being able to like put together her night

through this footage.

And investigators also released an image of her that had been captured

from a camera at Auckland Sky City Entertainment Complex

on the night of December 1st, the last night she'd been seen.

OK. And that image luckily generated a ton of leads from the public.

In one instance, a resident told police that she had seen Grace standing

on the side of the Southern motorway and Manukau, I think is how you say it,

which was about 14 miles outside of Auckland.

The woman told police, I can honestly say 100 percent.

I saw a young girl absolutely so close to her description that it's not funny.

And no, there was no way I was going to stop.

She was in a very unusual place to stand.

I looked at the photo and I was quite adamant I had seen that girl.

She had like a raincoat.

She had a bigger sort of jacket, not a fashion like one.

What was weird is like, I don't really think that tip led to much.

But oh, that's weird.

Super, super adamant that she had seen Grace and described what she was

that she had a jacket on.

That's so wild to me, because I think about it.

I could never tell you if I saw somebody or not.

I don't know. I'm so unobservant.

What I wore yesterday.

Yeah, I have like I don't remember.

Like I'm observant in the moment, but like it's not sticking around.

Sometimes I'm I think it just depends on like where I'm at that day.

I think there was something that you changed recently,

maybe like in your kitchen or something and me and Drew were talking about it.

Like I mean, you're like, oh, like, did you change that?

And you were like, no, we've had that for a while.

Like, oh, sorry, we're not very observant.

Yeah, I just think about it.

And I'm like, if somebody put up a picture of somebody and they were like,

did you see this person in Boston yesterday?

I'd be like, I don't fucking know.

I have no idea. Maybe.

Seriously, I like who knows how many people you pass the day that I'm

always I'm so you're not paying that much attention.

Thank goodness, some people do, honestly.

But then what sucks is that other people who don't actually pay attention

say they do and then they give you like a false take. Exactly.

But investigators also discovered that all of Grace's belongings

were still in her room at the hostel,

which indicated to them that she hadn't left the country at least.

Yeah. Detective Beard told the press

we've spoken to a number of people at the backpackers hostel

because she was in a room where there was at least four people staying.

OK. Now, this thing was the sad thing

was that none of those people she was staying with had any additional information.

Yeah, they were like, she went on a date and that's the last we saw.

Yeah. But back in Essex, Grace's family was working to aid the investigation themselves.

They were able to access her social media

and they saw that still she hadn't read any of the messages

that had been sent to her since December 1st,

which again, very out of character for her.

And in addition to that, they also found that her itinerary, this is a quote,

her itinerary had been changed from her original bookings

and she planned to stay in Auckland until the eighth

and had paid for the hostel until the eighth, which she hadn't reported to anybody.

So that was kind of strange. Yeah.

Now, at the time of the press conference,

which was five days after Grace had gone missing,

police were not totally ready to assume foul play.

But between the unread social media messages

and the abandoned belongings and no contact, there was cause for alarm.

Yeah, they weren't ready to go right to foul play,

but they were tiptoeing that line essentially.

Our day later, investigators released additional CCTV footage

that was captured from a camera at City Life Hotel in Auckland.

And it was recorded about two hours after that original footage from Sky City.

And in that new footage, Grace is seen with a man

getting off an elevator on a higher floor.

Investigators reported having spoken to the man

and they said that they, quote, conducted forensic tests at an apartment

at the City Life Hotel.

So things were starting to go wrong. Yeah.

But still, they said they didn't have any other information

that they were willing to share.

But the case was not going to go cold

because on the night of December 8th, Auckland Police made an arrest.

At the time, his name was being suppressed,

but they had arrested a man, the one that Grace had just gone out with

on the night before her birthday, 26 year old Jesse Kempson.

According to 26 and wait until you hear

what this fucker had done in his 26 years of life.

According to Detective Beard, Kempson had come to their attention

because of that CCTV footage and said that, quote,

an examination of Kempson's vehicle and of a room at the hotel

where Miss Malaine was last seen had led officers to conclude that she was dead.

Oh, no, she'd been murdered.

So in his statement, her birthday, like this, yeah.

Yeah, this kills me.

So in his statement to the press, Beard said, we still do not know where Grace is,

but we are determined to find her and return her to their to her family.

Oh, that changed the next day because Grace's body was found.

Oh, no, she was found in a suitcase.

Are you kidding me?

Along an access road in the Wai Takere ranges,

which is a popular hiking area, just like 12 miles about outside of Auckland.

Piece of shit, this guy is fucking garbage.

So obviously, the discovery of Grace's body

was completely devastating for her family.

Yeah, they were hopeful throughout the investigation

that they were going to find Grace alive.

And this was literally their worst fucking nightmare.

Luckily, their community rallied around them

and the memorials and outpouring of support began literally as soon

as the discovery was reported.

Actually, the mayor of Wellington at the time, Justin Lester,

tweeted about what a terrible nightmare this murder was.

And similar sentiments were also shared by the New Zealand prime minister

at the time, Jacinda Ardern, I think it is.

In a public statement, she said that Grace's murder caused, quote,

an overwhelming sense of hurt and shame that this has happened in our country.

On behalf of New Zealand, I want to apologize to Grace's family.

Your daughter should have been safe here and she wasn't.

And I'm sorry for that. Oh, that's awful.

Also, why we need more women leaders.

Yeah, right. They get it.

They get it.

Like the fact that she took the time to actually

like apologize that this happened in a place that she was in charge of.

And to say like she should have been safe here and she wasn't.

And I'm sorry for that.

And I'm sorry.

So investigators, they were able to find

Jesse while they were scanning Grace's social media pages

for any indication of her whereabouts.

Auckland detective Diana Levinson was scrolling through the comments on Grace's

photos. She was on Facebook and she saw one from Jesse Kempston.

The night that Grace disappeared, he left a comment on one of her pictures

that said, beautiful, very radiant.

Are you shitting me?

Nope. What the fuck?

The night she disappeared, like very clearly did that after he did

what we will find out he did. Wow.

So the detective reached out to Kempston and explained they were trying to locate

Grace, which is then when they learned that he had met her through Tinder

and that the two of them had gone on a date Saturday

and the Saturday that Grace went missing.

So he told the police and this is a quote,

we drunk a lot of cocktails at the burger bar and we were having good

conversations, but he said the date ended a little after 9 30

and that the two went their separate ways and that he ended up meeting up

with a colleague from work.

False liar, not true liar.

And the thing was to the detectives to Beard and Levinson, the fact that Grace

mysteriously disappeared less than an hour after supposedly parting ways with this guy.

Yeah, like shut up. They were like, no way.

So they kept him in mind as a potential suspect

and they continued to chase down other leads, but he was at the forefront of their mind.

Hey, weirdos, before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming,

I wanted to let you know that Wondery's shocking true crime podcast

over my dead body is back for a fourth season that will literally give you

literal goosebumps.

The newest season covers the story of Mike Williams.

It was Mike's sixth wedding anniversary when he set off on a hunting trip

into the Gator infested swamps of North Florida.

He figured he'd be back in time to take his wife, Denise, out to celebrate,

but he didn't come back.

Friends and loved ones feared he met his fate through bad luck

in a group of hungry alligators, leaving his young family behind.

Except that's not what happened at all.

And after 17 years, a kidnapping and the uncovering of a secret love triangle,

the truth would finally be revealed.

Enjoy over my dead body, gun hunting on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Now, using CCTV footage, the credit card receipts and then, of course,

the communications like the ones between Grace and her friends.

Investigators were able to put together a pretty thorough timeline

of events on the night she disappeared.

On November 30th, she used the Tinder app.

And that was when she matched with Jesse Kempson.

They chatted pretty briefly and then they arranged to meet for a date

the next day at five forty five outside of a Christmas display in downtown

Auckland, like just met up in front of a Christmas display.

Now, as far as anybody could tell between five forty five

and when she was last seen at nine forty p.m.,

Grace and Jesse seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

They drank at the Bluestone Room, which is a bar near the City Life Hotel

where he was living.

And Amina told a reporter from Radio New Zealand,

I sensed Grace was having a good time and she seemed to be pretty drunk

and and really enjoying herself.

That's so scary.

Like she just thought that she was having a good date

because they were just having a good date.

Yeah, that's what's so scary about this.

Like he wasn't this sounds like it was just you would have no way of knowing.

No, absolutely.

Just having a good date.

You're just texting your friend about your good date.

Like and it's also like, dude, like it's even scarier because you're like,

did he know that she was texting her friend?

And it's like if you knew that she was texting people,

like if you like she's connecting with people as this is happening.

Right. And also you're still going to do like what?

And you would also assume that like you're probably one of the last people

that she matched with like like you're what is wrong with you?

Like, damn, there's so much wrong with him.

Now, it was in the course of their investigation that detectives discovered

that footage from city the city life hotel lobby.

And in that footage, Grace can be seen going into the elevator with Jesse

Kempstin and getting off on the floor where his apartment was.

The pictures are chilling.

Chilling because she has a smile like oh, yeah, they are super happy.

She thinks she's just going back to this guy's apartment that she's really

hit it off with. I mean, I speak for myself how many fucking times have I done that?

It's a very it's a very normal thing to do.

It is. It's it's just so sad to think that like you can't hit it off

with somebody anymore and go back to their place.

No, you can't trust anyone.

You literally can't.

It's like how do people date anymore?

I honestly don't know. I wonder that all the time.

It's so true.

But the thing was the footage alone was proof that Kempstin had lied to the

investigators when he said they parted ways around 9 30.

So they went they went back to question him a second time.

And that's when they were given a very different and way more elaborate story

than the one that he told them previously.

Excuse me.

According to him, everything he told the detectives about his night with Grace

up until 9 30 had been true.

But he was like, you know what?

I was lying when I said we parted ways after dinner.

But now I'm ready to tell you the whole story.

Oh, good.

That's real nice of you.

Gee, thank you for wasting our fucking time.

He said they met up a little before six on the night of the first of December.

They went to that Sky City entertainment complex.

And then they moved on to the blue, blue stone room for dinner and drinks.

And he said the date was going pretty good.

So around 9 40, once they finished up dinner, he invited her back to his apartment and

basically said that he implied that they would hook up.

OK.

And it's here that the story changes from the previous version.

When they got to back to his room, he said he put on a music channel on the television.

And he and Grace started kissing.

It gets a little graphic here.

Just if you're listening with people, you don't want to hear graphic things with.

OK.

He said they were kissing and talking, but things escalated.

And he told them, this is a quote, she asked me to turn off the TV.

She told me there's a few things she likes doing that she had done with an ex partner.

We started having sex at first.

It was normal.

It was very placid.

And she's then she started biting and she asked me to bite her.

So I did.

I stopped at first and said, is this really something you want to do?

And then at that point, he claimed that they stopped having sex and they started discussing

bondage.

And then he said it was at that point that Grace mentioned the book, 50 Shades of Gray,

and told him that she did have an interest in BDSM.

So he said she told him that she had been exploring that kind of sex with a previous boyfriend

before they broke up.

OK.

And then Jesse said after they had that like quick conversation about

going through with that kind of sexual act, they kept having sex.

And he went on to say she was holding my arms above my head and just biting.

And then she hit my butt.

Then she held me around my neck and pushed down.

She indicated that it made me harder.

We swapped over.

I got on top.

We started having more, I guess, violent sex.

Then we ended up on the floor and then we kept going.

She told me to hold her arms tighter.

And then she told me to hold her throat and go harder.

So he said the two of them then took nude photographs of each other, which is not true.

And when they were done having sex, he said he went to the bathroom

and he alleged that he fell asleep in the shower after all that.

OK.

Yep.

According to him, he woke up still in the shower a few hours later.

A few hours.

Oh, he took like a full nap.

Sir, you would have drowned.

Yep.

Woke up in a few hours later and he said it was still dark,

so he crawled back into bed and he fell asleep again

and did not wake up until the next morning.

He said to the detectives, I thought Grace had left.

I woke up the next day and saw that she was lying on the floor.

I saw that she had blood coming from her nose.

I screamed.

I yelled out to her.

I tried to move her to see if she was awake.

I was in shock and I didn't know what to do.

I took a whole heap of tablets that I had.

I realized she wasn't alive and I just wanted to end it all.

Literally not one part of that makes sense.

None of it makes any sense whatsoever.

No, one part of that is believable.

So clearly he was trying to say just like if, you know,

that this was an accident gone wrong.

They had too rough of sex and that she had been killed in the process.

So he is trying to tell us right now

that they had this like violent whatever sex

and that when they were done, he just got up and went into the shower

and she was dead.

Yes.

But he didn't realize that.

He didn't notice that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

That makes so much sense that you would just get up

after having sex with someone and not realize

that you had killed them in the process.

Yeah.

And basically what we will try, what we will see

is that he is saying it happened while he was choking her.

Like she died during that.

You would know.

If you killed someone like that, you would know.

And also it takes a long time to manually

strangle someone, my guy.

We'll see exactly how long.

And it takes a long time with consistent pressure.

She would be showing pretty much what the medical examiner said.

Yeah, she would be showing a lot of signs of being in heavy real distress.

She'd be struggling.

And you would be having to sit there with constant consistent pressure.

That doesn't make literally any sense.

No.

And after minutes and minutes of doing that, you don't know that she's dead.

No idea.

And then you just crawl back into bed and you don't see her on your,

like even if that had all happened and you had no idea that she was dead,

which like that didn't happen, it never would.

But in an alternate universe where that was possible,

then you just walk back into your bedroom and you don't see her

where you had just had sex and you just crawl into bed.

Literally nothing.

That is the stupidest fucking story I've ever heard in my life.

And then he said he took the heap of pills and tried to end his own life

when he realized what he had done.

But then he also claimed that in a panic, he went to the warehouse,

which is a store on Elliott Street in Auckland, and that's where he bought a suitcase.

So you said that you just took this whole heap of pills,

but then you're saying that you went to a store and purchased a suitcase.

You did that after you took the amount of pills that you were saying

you were using to end your own life?

Yeah.

No.

Yeah, it all adds up.

Like what?

Very legit.

What?

He said, I went back and at first I didn't know what to do.

I just put the suitcase on the bed and I think I left again.

Could I remember?

It was literally a couple of days ago.

Love that you planned, you went there and got a suitcase with a clear plan

and then was like, I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know what to do.

Really, you just bought a suitcase?

Didn't really have any idea what you were going to do with it?

He said, I just was thinking that me and Grace had such a great night.

Oh yeah?

We were talking about catching up in London.

Shut the fuck up.

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

Yeah, you're not going anywhere, idiot.

So Detective Ewan Settle.

Oh, I love that name.

I know you do.

Ewan Settle interrupted Kemson at one point to ask why if the death had been accidental,

did he not call for an ambulance once he realized she was dead?

Exactly.

And he said he did put the number in his phone, but he didn't follow through with the call.

Oh, so close.

He said, there's a dead person in my room.

I thought it looked terrible.

Yeah, I mean it does.

It does look pretty fucking terrible.

That is the one thing I can say that you are correct about.

But you know what looks worse?

You purchasing a suitcase because that pretty much implies that that's how you're going

to get rid of the dead person in your room, you fucking asshole.

So rather than call emergency services or literally any other person on this planet

who could help him, Kemson loaded Grace's body into that recently purchased suitcase.

He said, I was just in shock the whole time.

I couldn't put her in it because it just didn't seem right.

It just didn't seem right.

So I left and Grace was half in half out of the suitcase at that stage.

I couldn't do it.

So that's worse.

I'm without words for this thing.

Yeah, me too.

So according to him, he then left the apartment to buy cleaning supplies,

which is true.

It was captured again on CCTV.

Wow.

Once again, we're doing great with the not suspicious thing here.

Yeah, seriously.

And then when he returned, he texted a friend to chat because he said,

I didn't think it was real.

No, I think you were just looking to make sure that you had some little paper trails.

Here, there and everywhere to make sure that you were like, what?

I was just talking to my friend.

I wouldn't be doing that after I killed someone.

This isn't even the kind of paper trail you want.

He was just trying to explain something away because through the course of their investigation,

police would learn that the friend he was talking to was actually just another

Tinder match that he was planning to take on a date that night.

Wow.

You just murdered a girl you said you really connected with in your room

and you're so upset and distraught and you took so many pills

and you don't want to be here anymore.

But you're planning a date for tonight after you dispose of your date's body from last night.

Wow.

Psychopath.

Also, imagine being that girl and finding that out later.

That's really funny because I literally wrote,

imagine finding out you were the poor person on that date with him that night.

Jesus Christ.

Because he did go on a date that night.

Oh my God, he did?

Yep.

When he returned home from his other date that night.

So this man is still claiming after the, he went on a date that night.

He went on a date that night.

And he's still going to claim later.

That that was an accident and he was devastated by it.

Sadness, all of it.

Wow.

The stupidity.

Riny, a fucking fake ass regret.

Wow.

So yeah, when he got home from his date, that was when he managed to get Grace's body into the suitcase.

And after cleaning his apartment, he took the suitcase down to the parking lot

and loaded it into his car, which is also on CCTV.

So you can literally like, he's carrying the suitcase out of the hotel lobby.

Oh yeah, I saw those pictures.

Fucking haunting.

It's horrifying to look at because you're just looking at that being like Grace's in that.

Yeah, she never left that hotel.

Yeah.

Like you, we see her walk in and we never see her walk out.

So fucked.

So he takes the suitcase down to the parking lot, loads it into the car, which again, also captured.

And the next morning, he drove it out to the Waitaki.

I think that's how you say it.

Waitakari, excuse me, ranges.

And he took the suitcase out of the trunk.

He said that he went to the brush and started digging.

And then he said he took 20, maybe 30 paracetamol tablets because I didn't want to be around

if Grace wasn't there.

And I didn't think I deserved to be around because of what happened.

I love that.

He's like, yeah, I just keep taking pills.

It's they just don't affect me.

Yeah, it's wild.

I'm just taking so many pills.

And also, you know what?

You don't deserve to be around.

Oh, you're disgusting.

You fucking asshole.

So he dug a hole and then placed the suitcase inside and covered it up

and then drove over to a nearby reservoir.

And he claims he sat there and waited for the overdose of drugs he'd taken to end his life.

But it just didn't.

Just didn't.

So he drove back to the city and went to his apartment.

So now he has taken two overdoses of pills and neither has taken effect.

Yeah, and they've done nothing.

Nothing.

He's been able to drive, function, all of that.

It's like, I think you're lying like a liar.

I think you are.

Now, when detectives asked why he decided to change his story until this new version,

he said, because I want her family to know that it wasn't intentional.

But I also want her family to have closure.

And the other night when I was questioned by police, I was still shocked.

And I apologize for misleading.

Wow.

You put a woman in a suitcase and buried it and you think that's giving the family closure?

Yeah, closure.

What?

And then he still claimed that he had absolutely no intention to kill Grace,

but it didn't matter.

He had killed her.

And now he was officially being arrested on murder charges and taken into custody.

Wow.

So it did not take the investigators long to poke holes in his story

and conclude that he was not being completely truthful.

Fuck no.

They were able to theorize that Grace had been murdered sometime between 9.40 p.m.

when she seen getting off that elevator and 1.29 a.m.

when he logged into his computer to use the internet.

Directly after what had happened.

What?

His first search was for those whitehawker rearranges followed by a second search

six minutes later for hottest fire.

And also he spelled hottest wrong.

Wow.

And then he made further searches to find out whether there were flesh eating birds

in the whitehawker rearranges.

Yeah, that's not real.

That's real.

He wanted to know if there was flesh eating birds.

He searched for flesh eating birds in that range.

Are there flesh eating birds in the whitehawker rearranges?

I'm without words.

Yeah, he has an explanation for that later.

Don't worry.

Oh, good.

I'm eager to hear that.

Or his lawyers do, which like I was like.

Even better.

Wow, that was a reach.

But he signed out about 20 minutes later at 1.46 p.m.

and then spent three minutes taking intimate photographs of Miss Maline's body.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah, no, I'm not.

But that is exactly why he said they had taken photos of each other while being intimate.

He obviously knew that police were going to find his phone, search it,

find these photos.

And apparently he didn't realize that the detectives were going to know whether or not

she was alive when the photos were taken.

You dumb fuck.

You think people can't tell if she's alive or dead, you idiot?

You sick fuck.

Holy shit.

He took photos of her.

He's a sick fuck.

And tried to say that that was like something they did in the course of their BDSM.

Disgusting.

Like that's not BDSM at all.

Wow.

Now, a search of his apartment turned up even more evidence.

During their initial search, crime scene technicians found traces of blood,

quote, on the foot of the bed, in the footprints walking towards the bathroom

and in small splatters on the fridge.

Oh, yeah.

And if you they have pictures online of the luminal.

Yeah, light up.

That's a lot like a Christmas tree.

That's a lot.

According to the technicians, quote, somebody had walked in with had walked in blood with

their left foot and transferred blood around the room.

And then they believed that the smaller strain stains were likely spill over from a bucket

like somebody would use to clean a mess.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

Now, because the body had been left undiscovered for nearly a week, the autopsy technicians

couldn't be precise in the measurements and conclusions.

But the medical examiner was able to conclude that the cause of death was manual strangulation.

Holy shit.

They estimated that the killer had, quote, applied sustained strength and unrelenting pressure

for somewhere between five and 10 minutes.

This is why that's like the stupidest fucking story he could have told.

Five to 10 minutes of sustained strong pressure.

While somebody struggles.

And he's claiming that like fuck off.

Like even right now, I just thinking about that.

I had to take a breath.

Yeah.

Five to 10 minutes.

There's no way she wasn't struggling.

No.

And they also noted that there were burst blood vessels in Grace's face and particular hemorrhaging

in her left eye, deep bruising on her upper arm's neck and left shoulder that is described

as being, quote, typical of restraint.

This was not sex.

No.

No drugs were found in her system.

But due to the time that had passed, the medical examiner also couldn't determine

her blood alcohol level at the time of her death, which in this case to me, it doesn't really matter.

Yeah.

Now, digging into Kemp's personal life, detectives found a tangled, confusing web of lies,

half truths and oddities, I guess you could say, that provided very little insight into

who Jesse was, what his personal story really was.

But this is what we do know.

Okay.

He was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1992.

And he was raised in and around Waianuiowmata and Powruua.

I really tried and I literally put phonetic spelling.

Wow.

He was raised around there.

But when he was nine, his parents divorced and his mother ended up moving away from the

family and she moved overseas.

Okay.

And after that, he had little to no contact with her.

And eventually his father met and married a woman and they kind of blended families.

Okay.

From what investigators could tell, he had a very poor relationship with his family.

According to one former acquaintance, they were all, quote, appalled by his constant

dishonesty and thievery.

Makes sense.

No.

Not shocking.

The tensions between him and his father and his stepmom eventually led to them giving

him an ultimatum.

And we don't know everything involved here, but basically they told him he could get

psychological help or he could get the fuck out of their house.

Wow.

So he chose the latter.

And in 2013, he moved to Australia where he lived until 2016.

And in 2016, he then returned to New Zealand.

Now, while he was living in Sydney, he was arrested multiple times for disorderly behavior,

which was a pattern that continued when he returned to New Zealand because he was arrested

in New Zealand for drunk driving.

Okay.

Yes.

Basically, his issues seemed to follow him wherever he went.

Yeah.

When he returned to Auckland after leaving Australia, he found a shared apartment situation

and told his new roommates that he, quote, was coming over to New Zealand to buy bars to add to

the franchise his father owned.

That was not the case at all.

The roommates' problems with him also began almost immediately.

He failed to pay his rent on time constantly.

His former roommate said there was always an excuse.

He was waiting on money from his accountant in Australia.

Eventually, you stop believing the stories.

There were so many stories that you start to say, really?

It stopped making sense.

And then other roommates even found his behavior to be odd or sometimes threatening.

One of them, a female, was so freaked out by Jesse that she kept a knife by her bed

whenever she was in the house alone with him.

My God.

Another roommate elaborated and said,

He came home drunk and broke some furniture and she was scared.

When he was drunk, the facade goes just a little bit.

Damn.

So for detectives, the picture of Jesse that was coming through from their investigation was

that of a troubled and most likely mentally ill chronic liar who struggled to maintain

relationships with anybody.

Damn.

Now, it was his criminal history, though, that convinced them that Grace's death was not an

accident.

In 2017, his former girlfriend went to the Auckland police and reported that he had violently

raped her.

Oh, my God.

And repeatedly threatened to kill her over the course of several months.

Oh, so he's an actual full blown in every gender, like every direction you could possibly

reach piece of absolute garbage.

Garbage.

Yeah.

And actually about eight months before he met Grace on Tinder,

he made another date on the app with a woman that he ended up sexually assaulting at the

end of the night.

She told reporters, I was just frozen.

I let him do what he needed to do so I could try and go to sleep or go home as soon as possible.

Oh, that's awful.

I wish there needs to be like a central place where people can report.

Yeah.

This stuff about specific people.

I know.

I don't know.

I wonder if that like I don't know anything about dating apps because that was like way

out of my time of dating.

I wasn't on them long enough to luckily have to report anybody.

I feel like there should be like some central place at each site that like you can report

a profile and they should really regulate it.

Yeah.

If there's even one report against you, you should be kicked off that app.

Because I know you can report profiles, but I don't know how it works like after you've

reported them.

Yeah, there needs to be a very specific and it needs to be a fucking like put the hammer

down kind of thing.

Seriously.

It's so fucked.

It's horrifying.

It's so scary.

I you couldn't pay me money to online date ever again.

Seriously.

And that's so scary.

And it's for people who actually are doing it to meet someone.

And think of the people that do.

I mean, I know people who have gotten married after meeting on Tinder or Hinge or any of

those, you know, like it happens.

Yeah.

But then you have to think that this could also happen.

Yeah, it's true.

It's so scary.

But it makes you even it makes you further realize that the internet and like social

media and stuff is so fucking toxic now and the grid needs to just crash.

Because even like it's the same thing as like you're like when you meet someone in a bar,

you don't know that person.

No, they're brand new to you.

So if you give your number to them, that's it's essentially the same thing.

But something about the internet makes like the more nefarious aspects of it become real.

And it's like they it makes it more.

It's so weird.

It is.

It really is weird.

Yeah.

I don't know what it is.

I think it just gives you a little more power to people can hide and to and to put like an

alter ego in some.

Yeah, exactly.

He could put on his profile that he's interested in because he saw that Grace was interested

in.

Exactly.

That's exactly what it is.

It's like they can cater themselves to it's honestly a bad person's kind of what

Haven there because it's like they can really cater themselves to be what you want them to

be.

Yeah.

And then a lot of times they do.

It's really bad.

Let's just let the grid crash everybody.

Let the grid absolutely crash.

See you later.

There's a sunspot on the sun, which is why all that sunspots can go on the sun.

Yeah, just say hey.

But it's four times the size of earth and apparently it has the potential to cause a

lot of solar flares, which could crash the grid.

Yeah, let's just go back to like researching out of books in the library and shit.

Unfortunately, I think everybody would lose their fucking minds of the grid.

Oh yeah, for sure.

So I would just like hide in a bunker somewhere.

We're too deep now.

Yeah, far too.

But one can dream.

Well, in his first court appearance, Jesse Kemp's in and his defense team petitioned to

have his name suppressed in all the public records and media.

Fuck you.

Which I'm very confused about why because he was 26 years old.

It's not like he's a juvenile.

No.

But the request, it actually was initially denied, but that decision was later reversed

due to oh, this is why.

I do know why.

I do know why.

Due to the open investigations into the other assaults that he was now accused of committing

before Grace was killed.

That's why, but I don't really get it.

Bye.

Maybe it's because it would influence that decision.

Yeah, it's like one of those things where I think it's they they don't want those things

being part of the new trial kind of thing.

I mean, they like being.

I hate that shit because it's like, I'm sorry if you're a terrible person and a rapist.

Yeah, we should be able to take that into consideration when looking at how you

murdered a woman in a hotel room.

Yeah.

I don't think we should be like, just forget all that.

Luckily, the jury was able to find out like we'll see.

But it's so weird, right?

It's very strange.

The justice system is weird.

It's very strange.

And all of them are so different.

Yeah.

And remember, this is New Zealand.

That's true.

But in the thing, then this is the thing.

So this ruling was only enforceable in New Zealand, like keeping his name out of it,

which immediately caused problems in the case because it was being focused on all around

the world.

Yeah, of course.

Now, there was also a big leak of Jesse's name because it was through Google when Google

sent out their like news roundup.

I don't know if you get that.

They named him to users across the world.

Of course.

And it caused this massive like issue and like tension within the trial.

That's so crazy.

And like, I never thought of the fact that like somewhere like New Zealand would even

have that be a thing.

Like an adult, their name could be kept out of it.

Yeah.

And I think their name was kept out of it like we were just saying because of other cases.

It's just interesting.

It is.

And the New Zealand legal system was fucking pissed at Google, like really mad.

But then Google said that they never received any kind of suppression order and it pretty

much went nowhere.

There was like discussions that were had about how fucked up that is that we couldn't

name people, but whatever.

So Jesse Kempstin's trial did start on November 4th, 2019, almost one year after Grace's death.

And the trial was overseen by Justice Simon Moore.

And he put unusually tight restrictions on the local and international media in the courtroom

because of that situation with Google.

So that's why I had to mention it.

The crown was being represented by Brian Dickey, a crown solicitor with more than 24

years experience and prosecuting major criminal cases, like at the highest courts,

which I think is cool when like there's multiple courts.

High courts.

High courts.

Now Kempstin's defense team was led by Ian Brookie, a private solicitor who actually

had a history of prosecuting cases on behalf of the crown.

So that was interesting.

In his opening statement, Dickey told the jury the facts of the case and noted that even though

Jesse Kempstin claimed Grace had died accidentally, his actions afterwards were not those of somebody

experiencing panic.

Uh, no.

They were deliberate acts of a murderer trying to cover up a crime scene and just cold, careless

acts.

Yeah.

He was like, he did not regret this one bit.

He photographed her body.

He searched for ways to dispose of her, stuffed her into a suitcase, and then went back on

Tinder to find a date that same day.

That's outrageous.

And he argued.

Incredible.

Incredible.

And he argued that he was eroticizing Grace's death by taking intimate photographs of her body

and looking up pornography while she lay dead in his room.

Oh, come on.

Absolutely fucked.

He's a fucking monster.

But in their opening statement, the defense, of course, argued the opposite.

They said that Grace and Jesse shared dinner or some drinks, went back to his apartment and

engaged in consensual sex.

Shut up.

It's like, no.

They said it was then that Grace, it was Grace's fault.

Of course it was.

She asked Jesse to choke her, which resulted in her accidental death.

And they said, as for Kempstin looking at porn and searching for random things later, those were

quote, unquote, random drunk searches.

And they said him searching for the white talkery ranges could have just been something as simple

as him searching, quote, somewhere the pair had planned to go for a day out.

So wait, let me just get this straight.

He's drunk.

And how do you spell that?

Ready.

W-A-I-T-A-K-E-R-E.

OK.

So you're, we're being very serious.

When we say that he is drunk and searching that particular place.

Yeah.

And just looking at porn after he already had sex, because that makes sense.

Yep.

OK.

Yeah.

And when, you know what, when I'm, when I've had a few drinks, the first thing that I think

of is like, I wonder if there's flesh eating birds out there.

And that's the other thing.

I'm like, oh yeah, it's just my curious mind.

He's just making sure that there's no flesh eating birds that will get them while they're

out on their date.

That's literally all I think about when we go on a hike.

Me too.

I'm like, I hope there's no flesh eating birds around because they're so common that.

What?

Wow.

What?

Wow.

And it's just a coincidence that you buried her body out there, huh?

Just a coincidence.

Just a coincidence.

So weird that that, I know it looks, it looks so bad.

Totally.

But please believe me.

So it was clear that the defense was going to portray the murder as just rough sex gone wrong.

That old defense.

But thankfully the prosecution was very prepared for that.

Their second round of witnesses, they hoped, would show that Jesse Kemp's in was a sexual

sadist with a history of violence against women.

In total, the prosecution called three women to the stand.

And each of them had varying degrees of contact with him.

And they all had their identity suppressed for their own safety, thankfully.

Yeah.

The first woman testified that he had contacted her through Tinder and quote,

told her he liked rough sex domination and strangulation because it made him feel more

superior and in control.

I literally, I can't say right now, I was just going to say I have so many thoughts right now.

But she said they went on a date and they did engage in consensual and consensual sex.

But at some point he became more aggressive during that than she had anticipated.

And she told the courtroom he grabbed my forearms and put all the pressure on my arm.

So I couldn't breathe and I couldn't move my arms.

I started kicking trying to indicate that I couldn't breathe.

I was kicking violently.

He would have helped me fight.

He would have felt me fighting.

I was terrified.

And later when she confronted him about the incident, she said,

he told her in an accusing in cold tone, you don't think I did that on purpose.

Did you?

Ew.

He's so disgusting.

Yeah.

Did you see him?

Yeah.

He looks like a fucking asshole.

Yeah.

He's repulsive.

Now, according to the witness, she did stay in contact with him for months after because she

was quote concerned that she had given him too much information about her life

and that he would stalk her if she cut off contact.

Oh God.

That's how afraid she was.

Yeah.

Now, on the morning of December 1st, 2018, just hours before he went out with Grace,

he was trying to get in contact with this witness to get her to agree to a date.

But she declined and said she had other plans and he kept up with her all day asking,

let's head out, let's head out, let's head out.

Even in the days after Grace's death, but she repeatedly declined.

He would have killed.

He wanted to kill another woman.

A lot of these women.

Not a doubt in my mind.

Yeah, not a doubt.

He wanted to kill another woman.

Now, the next witness called for the prosecution,

claimed that she had also matched with him on Tinder and that they had been exchanging

messages for weeks, but she declined his request for a date because she said,

she said, quote, she turned down his offers of a date because of some of his sexual requests,

which included strangulation, made her feel uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Now, like the last witness, he also contacted this girl on the morning that he went out with Grace.

Jesus.

And then a third woman, who he met through Tinder nine days before Grace,

had a similar experience in which consensual

asphyxiation was introduced by Kempston.

So after the prosecution had presented the three witnesses,

the defense still tried to portray what happened to Grace as an accident.

They said that she had a sexual history involving BDSM,

and they actually called several witnesses to the stand to testify as to her sexual

interests and preferences.

That's fucked up.

Like how fucked is that?

You are brutally murdered by a Tinder date,

and then their lawyers go on to make your sexual history public to everybody

and making it seem like you asked for this.

Imagine going home and laying your head down on the pillow at night

after doing that to a dead girl.

No, I wouldn't.

Yeah.

The attorney, Kempston's attorney there,

presented the jury with forensic evidence that he collected from Grace's laptop.

Basically, she was on a BDSM website talking to people,

which she is perfectly allowed to do.

She is a consenting adult.

Yeah.

The chats were between her and two separate men,

and they occurred between August and September in 2017.

The transcripts were read aloud to the courtroom.

She is dead, everybody.

And was killed.

And this is nothing to do with it.

Nothing.

All they were trying to do was prove that she had an interest in BDSM.

And it's like, okay, she liked BDSM.

Does that mean that she should get murdered for it?

No.

That's not BDSM.

That's not BDSM at all.

Like I can promise you that.

It's crazy.

So one man that she had been talking to was called to testify about his conversation with her,

and he told the jury everything.

And then a second witness for the defense made similar claims that

she was new to this world of BDSM, trying it out,

and she did enjoy being choked.

That was a preference.

Not to death, everybody.

Exactly.

And then in a statement, again, read aloud for the court an unnamed female friend of Grace's,

which like, you did your friend dirty.

She said Grace enjoyed her partner putting his hands around her neck.

And again, sure, maybe she did enjoy that,

but it didn't mean that Jesse Kempzen had the right to strangle her for over five minutes

and then take photos of her dead body, because that is not part of BDSM.

Okay, I'm like, I love that they're trying to be like,

well, she liked 50 Shades of Grey, everybody.

Yeah, a lot of women do.

It's like, I'm sorry, what part of 50 Shades of Grey is this?

Can you point me to the part?

Can you point me to that?

Because I don't see it.

Ridiculous.

Like this is fucked up that they're pretending that this is anything to do with her sexual

preferences.

And her family is sitting there in that courtroom,

and you're essentially desecrating her name.

Her family, this is what kills me with this shit,

because it's like this girl got fucking murdered after going on a date.

And now her family is sitting there, and she gets to have all of her shit laid bare.

When she's dead, she was murdered.

And she's not here to tell us actually what she liked.

And these people just get to go up there and talk about her however they want to,

and talk about her sex life, and say that she liked this.

Like, you don't know.

You have no idea.

Do you know these fucking men either?

Like, you don't know any of them.

It's so fucked up.

It's like, how you can do that to a girl who has been murdered is beyond me.

Beyond.

But they did, and they did it up until-

To try to do it to get this guy out off, too.

That's what's wild to me.

Who you know killed her.

Not only you know killed her,

you know has assaulted at least three other women.

Yes.

And how about all the women that were probably too terrified to come forward?

A violent rapist.

You're trying to get off on murder that he has admitted to.

He raped his own girlfriend.

Yeah.

So, and again, they did it all the way to the end.

In his closing arguments, Ron Mansfield, who was a member of Kemp's defense team,

reinforced their position that Grace, excuse me,

had initiated and encouraged the sexual behavior that resulted in her death.

That's what they said.

Wow.

I have like no words.

I have many words, but I'm not going to say them right now.

Beyond.

They said everything Kemp's did after was out of fear.

Mansfield told the jury people do things when they're stressed,

when they're panicked.

No matter what he did once he realized she had died,

unless he called the authorities,

that was not going to look good or stand him in good stead.

Because who was going to believe him that the death occurred during a consensual activity?

No one.

Just like no one's going to believe it now, you blundering idiot.

And also like, sure, yeah, you're correct.

People do do things when they're stressed and panicked,

and no matter what he did other than calling the ambulance would look bad,

him looking up porn is a lot more than bad.

Him looking up the place where he buried her body is more than bad.

Him then doubling down to see if the birds would eat the flesh off of her bones.

Horrific.

Yeah.

Those aren't just things people do when they're stressed.

No, when I'm stressed, I like, I knock things over, I trip.

Yeah.

You don't Google weird shit.

I don't, I don't kill someone, look at porn.

And then take photos of it.

Take photos of their dead body.

So in his closing arguments, Brian Dickey disagreed with the defense's case entirely.

He pointed out the medical examiner's estimation that the strangulation

lasted between five and 10 minutes until the jury, this is a quote,

this isn't just a little bit of sex gone wrong,

because the person doing that must have known that they were hurting her,

causing her harm that might well cause her death,

but they were reckless and carried on and she died.

This is not an accident.

No, of course it's not.

And they've shown a pattern that he's the one who likes doing that.

She is interested in BDSM obviously, but it's showing,

like he's making seem like, oh, she wanted me to do that.

I just, I was, I was so wholesome.

I had no idea how to do this.

He has a longer history than she did.

You have a long history of doing this.

And actually the defense for him only kind of fucked themselves there,

proved that because she was super new to this.

Exactly.

Nice job.

Yep.

Now, the Dickie there, the one that we like,

he also noted more importantly that the evidence presented at trial

didn't even support the defense's claim of an accidental death.

He partially, or excuse me,

he particularly pointed to Jesse's actions right after Grace's death.

He said the internet searches and the taking photographs

were specifically undermined by the defense.

Yeah.

And said either Miss Malaine was dead when they were taken,

or he had searched for the White Hockery ranges

where he buried her body while she was still living,

thus showing he planned to kill her.

Yeah.

It's like, so do you really want to go with that one still?

Exactly.

Because then we're going to have some premeditation here.

So.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So after almost four weeks of graphic, graphic testimony,

and very disturbing evidence,

the jury retired for deliberation.

So before they headed out,

Justice Moore reminded them that they were not deliberating

whether Kempston was guilty of having caused Grace's death.

We all knew that was true.

Yeah.

He said, you're deliberating whether he intentionally caused that death or not.

And he said to them, consent only comes into your deliberations

if you have rejected murder on either the basis of the murderous intent

I have described above.

It is not relevant to the murderous intent inquiry.

No person under our law may consent to their death

or the infliction of the sort of actual bodily injury

that could well cause death.

And that is the reason why if you find either of the murderous intentions

proved thus proving the murder,

the question of consent does not arise.

Okay.

Now, the jury deliberated for just about five hours

before returning a unanimous guilty verdict.

Oh, thank goodness.

Okay, you took a second and looked at me

and I was like, if you fucking tell me.

I'd just like to see where you're at.

I will be very angry.

Unanimous guilty.

Good.

The decision was obviously bittersweet for Grace's parents, David.

And I think it's Gillian, but it could be Gillian, Maline.

It's with a G, which I think it's Gillian.

Who told reporters, the verdict of the murder today

will be welcomed by every member of the Maline family

and friends of Grace.

It will not reduce the pain and suffering

we've had to endure over the past year.

Grace was taken in the most brutal fashion a year ago

and our lives have been ripped apart.

This will be the rest,

this will be with us for the rest of our lives.

Grace was a beautiful, talented, loving daughter.

Grace was our sunshine and she will be missed forever.

She did not deserve to be murdered

in such a barbaric way or on her gap year.

We must return home and try to pick up the pieces of our lives

without our beloved Grace, which I have chills reading on.

Yeah.

In February of 2020, actually, which is crazy,

Jesse Clemson was sentenced to life in prison

with a minimum of 17 years

before he could ever be considered for parole.

Good.

And in the months that followed,

he was also found guilty in two sexual assault cases.

Good.

And he got sentenced to 11 years in prison for those

to be served once he was done for the murder of Grace.

Good.

I like that they did that.

So, tacked it right on to the end.

Of course, he and his lawyers appealed to the sentence

and they argued that there was a quote,

credible narrative of consent,

basically saying that he believed Grace consented

to the act that resulted in her death.

Shut up.

But the justices rejected the claim on the basis

that an individual does not have a right

to consent to their death.

No, of course they don't.

We don't have euthanasia around here.

You fuck.

Get out of here.

And the appeal also alleged that the prosecution

didn't present enough evidence or a credible argument

that could sufficiently warrant a guilty verdict.

Honey.

But the justices also rejected this claim.

Yeah, they've rejected that outright.

Are you kidding me right now?

Exactly.

Like, wow.

Okay, glasshouse.

No, absolutely ridiculous.

They said by their verdict, the jury showed

that they were sure that if the applicant did not

intend to kill the deceased,

he at least intended to inflict bodily injury,

which he knew was likely to result in death.

Yeah.

The most that could be taken from Kemp's account

is that Ms. Malane may have consented to the application

of manual pressure to her neck for the purposes

of sexual gratification.

But there is nothing in what the applicant told the police

to suggest she consented to, or he believed she

consented to the infliction of bodily injury

of a kind likely to kill her.

No, of course not.

No.

So on June 29th, 2021, the court rejected that appeal

and they upheld the court's ritual ruling.

Good.

Stay there.

Now, outside of the courts, Grace's murder

brought up a lot of questions about the safety

of female tourists and backpackers in New Zealand

and just the safety and protection of women

in the country in general.

Now, like overall, New Zealand is seen as a very safe

and progressive country.

They've actually even had three female prime ministers

in their history.

And in fact, I'm pretty sure that the reason

this was probably brought up after this case

is because it is such a safe place

that they do it the right way, where something like this

happens and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Like what are we doing here?

We got to take a look at what's happening here.

Well, what's crazy is when it comes to domestic violence

and violence against women in New Zealand society,

recent reports found that, quote, 35% of New Zealand women

had suffered physical or sexual violence

in their relationships.

Wow.

And that the country lacked a comprehensive strategy

to tackle the problem.

Damn.

So according to an associate professor of criminology

at Victoria University in Wellington,

a woman named Jan Jordan, New Zealand had, quote,

lauded and valued an incredible toughness in men,

which in turn had created an insidious culture of violence.

And she went on to say, we get lulled into thinking

we're actually quite an equal society,

but those women who have made it to the top

are actually a tiny minority.

Wow.

So after the trial was finished,

people were completely appalled by the rough sex

gone wrong strategy that the defense used.

They called it what it was, ultimate victim blaming.

Yeah.

And according to Fiona Mackenzie,

founder of We Can't Consent to This,

the argument Kempston's defense used meant, quote,

he gets to tell her story.

He gets to tell the story of what she liked

and how she asked for it.

Families not only lose their loved one,

but these men steal the public perception of them

and destroy their reputation.

Yes, exactly.

It's appalling.

It is.

So thankfully, once Jesse was convicted,

things kind of like this case shook things up.

And activists in New Zealand started advocating for change

in the laws that allow the use of such defenses,

because that is a real defense.

Yeah.

And Fiona Mackenzie told reporters,

with nearly 40% of women under 40

saying they've been violently assaulted in sex,

the criminal justice system needs to be ready

to respond if these women report

and not just dismiss the violence

as something they asked for.

Now, as of 2023, the laws have not changed yet,

but it's very much still ongoing debate.

And I'm actually going to include a petition

calling for the end of the rough sex defense

in the show notes.

Good.

So definitely make sure to check that out

and sign if you are well.

Yeah.

I signed it, so you should too.

Do it.

But yes, that will be in the show notes,

and then I will see if our girl Avery

can also put it on social media.

Yes, absolutely.

But that is the tragic, tragic story of Grace Millen

and how the legal system really tried to defile her name,

but didn't end up working out for them.

Damn, that's an awful story.

Such a sad story.

I hope something good comes out of it.

I hope that law gets changed.

I hope that law gets changed too, like big time.

Yeah.

It's time.

That was a brutal one.

It really was, but we love you guys,

and please stay safe out there if you're using dating apps.

Yeah, be careful.

Go on double dates.

Yeah, there you go.

Oh my gosh, my friend has this really cool boyfriend.

I think you'd hit it off.

Let's go.

But you want to do a double date

because I don't want you to murder me.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, perfect.

Or have your friend just go on a date

with her significant other.

At the same.

At the same place as you, just so they can keep an eye.

Yes, love that.

Follow you.

Yes.

You know?

I love that.

I like that a lot.

Yeah.

All right, guys.

Well, that's your tip of the week.

Um, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

But that's where your voice cracks at the end.

Bye.

Yeah.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.