Grace Millane was a 21-year-old from Essex, England, with a bright future ahead of her. After graduating from the University of Lincoln with an Advertising and Marketing degree, she decided to set out on a solo backpacking trip around the world.
But, upon leaving Peru and traveling to New Zealand in November 2018, where she planned to ring in her 22nd birthday, she was brutally murdered by a man she met on Tinder. Following her death, it came to light that the same man had also been guilty of abusing two women prior.
While in New Zealand, Grace decided to use the popular dating app Tinder to connect with new people. It was on the platform that she matched with Jesse Kempson, 27, before meeting him for the first time on December 1, 2018.
“I click with him so well. I’ll let you know what happens tomorrow,” she texted her friend.
Grace was set to turn 22 the next day. However, when her loved ones sent her bunches of “happy birthday” messages and received no response, they began to panic and reported her missing to New Zealand authorities.
Soon, though, her disappearance turned into a murder investigation. That’s because Grace’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase and buried in a shallow grave inside the Waitākere Ranges, a remote region of West Auckland, just over a week later.
It only took investigators days to identify Jesse Kempson as a suspect and nail down the chilling timeline of events. He and Grace had met up at Sky Tower, where they hugged before traveling to a burger bar. The pair then had some cocktails, later relocated to a Mexican restaurant, and spent a few more hours there.
Jesse and Grace reportedly got along well, and shortly after 9:30 p.m., they decided to head back to his hotel room at CityLife Hotel. Inside his room, number 308, Grace was ultimately strangled to death.
And instead of contacting the police for help, he subsequently purchased cleaning supplies and a suitcase before disposing of her body.
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When Jesse was initially brought in for questioning, he showed up in a three-piece suit and had no clue investigators had already used CCTV footage to track his movements.
They learned that, while Grace had been sending pictures of Christmas decor to her family before their date, Jesse had drunk several beers and left a comment on her new Facebook profile photo, which read, “Beautiful, radiant.”
During questioning, he told authorities that he and Grace went their separate ways at 10:00 p.m. Afterward, he claimed to have fallen asleep and woken up hungover the following morning at 10:00 a.m.
Yet, the police knew he was lying, as CCTV footage showed him dragging a suitcase out of his hotel room at 8:00 a.m. So, during his second interview with the police, Jesse ultimately admitted that he’d killed Grace. But he alleged it had not been murder.
Instead, he attempted to say that Grace was interested in violent romance and had actually asked him to choke her while they were consensually sleeping together. This led Jesse to allege that her death was accidental.
Even if that were true, though, Jesse’s behavior afterward didn’t add up. He never sought help, he took pictures of Grace’s deceased body, and he made strange internet searches, including “Waitākere Ranges” and “flesh-eating birds.”
Moreover, he initially lied to the police and, just one day after Grace’s death, had already begun messaging a new woman about going on a date.
Jesse was arrested and charged with Grace’s murder, but due to his rough love defense, her case made global headlines and forced her family to watch as the 21-year-old was essentially blamed for her own slaying.
Nonetheless, the jury did not buy Jesse’s victim-blaming tactics, and following a three-week trial, he was found guilty of killing Grace on November 22, 2019. Then, in February 2020, he received a life sentence behind bars with a 17-year minimum non-parole period.
“Manual strangulation is a particularly intimate form of violence… cold-blooded. Your actions reveal a complete disregard for your victim,” said Justice Simon Moore, who oversaw Jesse’s sentencing.
“You didn’t ring an ambulance or call the police. Instead, you embarked on a well-planned, sustained, and coordinated course of action to conceal any evidence of what had occurred in your room.”
Grace’s parents video-conferenced into the courtroom, and her mother, Gillian, detailed how losing her daughter had thrust her into depression.
“The tears I shed are never-ending at the thought of never having the chance to be able to kiss my darling Grace goodbye. Grace was never just a daughter; she was my friend, my very best friend,” Gillian said during her victim impact statement.
“I torment myself over what you did to my Grace, the terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands. As a mother, I would have done anything to change places with her. I should have been there, but she died terrified and alone in a room with you.”
In the wake of Jesse’s conviction, it came out that he had a pattern of making past Tinder dates “uncomfortable.” One woman even attempted to press charges against Jesse, who’d threatened to kill her. But, New Zealand Police allegedly stated there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute at the time. She was just granted a protection order and a property order instead.
Still, after Grace’s murder, her case was revisited. And Jesse was later found guilty of abusing that woman, as well as another female victim, prior to meeting and killing Grace.
First, in October 2020, he was convicted of numerous crimes committed against a previous partner, including threatening to kill and assault with a weapon. Those crimes earned him a 7.5-year prison sentence.
Next, in November 2020, he was convicted of assaulting a woman he met on Tinder and sentenced to 3.5 years behind bars.
“Jesse’s trajectory of where he was headed, and his journey in life, was always going to end up the way it was, but it could have been avoided if they had taken me seriously,” the initial complainant said.
After being convicted for Grace’s murder, Jesse was granted name suppression so the juries wouldn’t be prejudiced during his next trials. Even so, he opted to have the trials take place in front of a judge instead. And once he was found guilty in the subsequent two trials, the Supreme Court denied his application to keep his name suppressed.
As for Grace’s family, they have launched a charity, Love Grace, in her memory, which donates purses filled with essential items to women who have been affected by domestic violence.
By Katharina Buczek
Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing in... More about Katharina Buczek
