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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Well, I guess, I know last time we said that the live was over when we were recording, which it was, but now officially the live is over now that we're recording this and oh
my gosh it was so awesome I'm still riding a high from that night like seriously it was so fun celebrating the 100th episode with you guys I loved the comment stream it was so fun like talking to you guys hearing what you had to say I mean like like I said I'm still riding a high from it
Yeah, thanks everyone who came and everyone who continues just to support and listen. It means a lot to us. And then before we get to your 10 seconds, I did just want to remind everyone that the Strangey Dangery merch and the Where Are The Cameras merch is available right now. So if you haven't got it, go and check it out. It's at...
Fanjoy.co/mwmh or the link is in the episode notes and also on our social media channels. - And also it'll be up for another, I wanna say two weeks maybe. - Right. - And then we'll be doing another drop in a few months. - Yeah, we actually, I saw someone commented and was like, "Hey, can you guys do crewnecks?" And we did crewnecks last time. So just if this drop doesn't have what you want, stay patient, stay tuned. We'll be doing different ones each time. So, all right, Gare, what's your 10 seconds?
So I still need to post a picture of my truck. I had a couple of people ask me and I haven't posted a picture yet. So I'm so sorry. I'm so bad at like posting stuff on Instagram. So I need to do that. And also, I don't know, the pickleball tournament coming up next weekend. It'll just be fun. It'll just be for fun. Nothing. I'm not that good, but it'll be fun. We're going to go to Vegas and play in the tournament and.
Not we. You. I mean, we're going to Vegas, but I'm not playing in a tournament. We tried playing together, and I'll tell you what. It did not work out very well because we're both a little competitive. It's been snowing a lot. It's reminding me how much I do not like the cold. And, oh, I just remembered. People keep, like...
asking about different sour candies. Oh yeah. And so I don't know, I'm gonna have to do something, but keep sending the request over because I love trying new sour candies. Okay. All right. Let's get into it. Today's case sources are bbc.com, theguardian.com, heritagehotels, nzherald.co, which there's a lot of these sources actually have
multiple articles under one source. So I'm not going to, I'm just going to say the source and then we'll list the articles. Okay. Pointsofflight.gov.co, littleprincess.org, Daily Mail, legislation.gov.nz, courtsofnz.gov. All right. So before we get into this, I did just want to preface this case by saying that we are
kind of in a day and age where meeting strangers, not in person, but online is very common. And it's almost like you can get to know someone before you know them. You know what I mean? Totally. I mean, we texted and DMed a couple of times before we went on our first date. Right. Like this, I feel like this is kind of a newer thing that's happening. And to go with that, if it's happening in everyday life, it's definitely happening in the true crime world. Totally. And that has everything to do with today's episode.
So our case begins on December 2nd, 1996, just eight days after I was born. Another little girl named Grace Emma Rose Mullane was also born in Brentwood, Essex. If you don't know, Brentwood is a town in the borough of Brentwood, which is the country of Essex, which is in the east of England. So I looked it up for everyone in America, if you didn't know, or anyone listening that's not there.
Little Grace Mullane was born to her parents, Jillian and David. David actually already had two younger sons named Michael and Declan from a previous marriage, so Grace was Jillian and David's first child together.
Michael and Declan adored Grace. She was their brand new baby sister. And as she grew up, Grace became a force to be reckoned with as the only girl in her family. She loved to play hockey, which we are a big hockey family over here. So I think that is so cool.
Grace also acted as a mentor at hockey for the younger players as she got older, always teaching them, making them feel included and was always very kind to them. By her teenage years, Grace really felt like she could achieve her dreams and never felt like a dream was too big. And she kind of kept that attitude all the way to university. In September of 2018, Grace actually graduated from University of Lincoln in England, East Midlands with a degree in advertising and marketing.
And after graduation, she decided to leave the country for a gap year. She wanted to travel and really start living those dreams that she had dreamed. But before she left, she decided to cut off her long brown hair and donate to the Little Princess Trust, which is a charitable organization that provides free
real hair wigs to children and young people who have lost their hair through cancer treatments. And I mentioned this because Grace really had her life together and had a sweet and kind soul. Like I think, I mean, maybe not all women feel this way or men, but my hair is something that, you know, I've loved growing up my whole life and to cut it off and be able to donate it to someone else really says something about who you are.
She came from an amazing and loving family who wanted nothing but the best for her. Yeah. So I assume this is recent then because she's going to university or college. Right. So it's in... And 2016, 2017? 2018. Okay. Perfect. So finally in October 2018, Grace begins her year-long backpacking overseas excursion around the world.
And she started with a group tour from Lima, Peru, before traveling on her own toward the Patagonia region, stopping in Bolivia and then flying to New Zealand. That's awesome. After arriving in New Zealand on November 20th, Grace spends 10 days traveling around the upper North Island, including the Bay of Islands, before finally heading to Auckland. Where's that?
New Zealand. Okay. The Bay Islands. Is it like a bunch of different islands? Yeah. So the Bay of Islands actually encompasses 144 islands. So it's definitely...
It's definitely a big bay of islands. You did your research today, didn't you? Yes. Well, I know the questions you're going to be asking a little bit more. That's funny. So by December 1st, 2018, Grace checks into City Life Auckland, which is a hotel. And this is where she is staying on this leg of her trip in New Zealand. And it's safety
to say that it has been a busy but eventful two months for Grace. She has visited so many different places, met so many new people, and the gap year of her dreams was really everything she had hoped it would be.
After checking into the hotel, the next day, December 2nd, 2018, was actually Grace's birthday. Friends and family began blowing up her phone with birthday wishes. They wished for her to have the best day and to keep enjoying her travels. But as morning turned into afternoon and Grace had not returned even one message from anyone that day, her parents began to wonder where she was.
They called and called, but there was no answer. And this was immediately strange to Grace's father back home because Grace had been bombarding the family with photos and messages of her adventure the whole time that she had been gone. So why was she now radio silent, especially on her birthday? But I mean, Grace is a 22 year old university graduate who had been traveling the world on her own for the last two months.
She doesn't necessarily need to respond right away. She's independent, trustworthy, and thriving. For all they know, she's spending a couple days hiking or touring out of service and just forgot to mention it or didn't know she would be out of service. As Grace's birthday comes to a close and no one has heard from her, friends and family try not to overreact. Which I guess is a little weird, though, because if you think about it,
Like I always talk to my family on my birthday. Usually you always talk to your family. I know everyone's different, but it seems it sounds like it was normal in their lives too, to talk on their birthday. I think it was definitely quite alarming for her parents to not be receiving a text, but they didn't want to overreact because she had been gone traveling on her own for months. Yep.
So all of her friends and family go to bed that night with Grace in the back of their mind. Three days later, when Grace's phone is still going straight to voicemail and no one has heard from her, her parents decide to reach out to the police to report her missing.
New Zealand police listen to Grace's parents and begin the investigation into her possible disappearance. So you have to remember they're back home and they're having to call New Zealand police and be like, so our daughter's there traveling alone. This is the last known place we knew. Can you go check it out? I mean, that's such a complicated situation. It is. And I wonder, I don't know much about it, but I wonder when someone calls from another country and ask for help, I wonder if the cases aren't taken as serious. It is just like you're in a whole nother country.
- Right, right. - So it's just like, it seems like it would be really difficult to navigate that. - Exactly. And I don't want to spoil anything, but I do feel like New Zealand police does a really good job with that because I think that was a worry on my mind as well, but it's definitely not the case here, which we don't see often. Now this is going to seem fast, but not even a day later on December 6th, police announced that they have brought in a 26 year old man for questioning in the Grace Mullane disappearance.
but they leave him unnamed. So not even a day after her parents have called police are like, yep, we went and checked it out and we've brought a man in. What in the world? Right. So they're kind of like what, but they're not naming the man and it's covered on the local media in New Zealand. And so everyone's like, oh, this British traveler came over here and she's disappeared. And now they're questioning a man from our area. Yeah.
Everyone is pretty confused how they had gotten here so fast, but that was only the beginning. Because two days later, on December 8th, 2018, Auckland police declare that Grace's missing person investigation has now become a murder investigation. But they haven't said that they've found anything yet? No details. Okay. They do announce that the man that they had questioned was also being charged with her murder. Okay.
So they're going right into it. Dude, three days. Like that's what I'm saying. We didn't have to worry about it because they really did go all in. And I know you are overwhelmed and confused just like the public was, but I have to keep going. One day later on December 9th, 2018,
around 4 p.m. Grace Mullane's body is found in some bushland around 12 miles west of central Auckland. Now I looked this up and this was an estimated 50 minutes away from the hotel that Grace had last been staying at. Dang, okay. So basically her parents report her missing and then boom, they found the body. It's 50 minutes away from where they had said she was last seen and now everyone's like,
Well, how did this happen so fast? How do we get here? How did police know where to find her? So I'm going to tell you now. Like I said, the last known place that Grace had been was the City Life Hotel.
And the thing about 2018, a hotel in a very busy city, they have the one thing that Garrett is always asking about. Cameras. Extensive CCTV footage everywhere. And this is exactly where police. Thank goodness. Finally, there's a case. I mean, there's some cases. Right. But where there's cameras and you can see what happened. Right. And I mean, police are like, well, we know where to begin. Right.
Her parents said she was here. So that's where we begin looking on all of our CCTV footage. Now, I don't know much about Auckland. And I tried to look it up, but they have like serious cameras. Really? Way more than any anywhere I've ever, I would say it's similar to like Vegas, maybe. I would say that in the United States, Vegas, the Strip probably has a ton of cameras. And that's what this area that she was missing in kind of feels like.
The CCTV footage in this case has definitely exploded the coverage on it. Very, very rarely do we have the possibility of knowing the exact time, even down to the exact minute of when events in a crime took place. And this case has it. Police quickly found this out. It would be solved, obviously, very fast once police located Grace on the cameras and began tracking her movement. There
There is a 55-minute compilation of all the footage involved in this case from the NZ Herald on YouTube. Now, I watched the whole thing and narrowed it down here. 55 minutes? That's how much footage there is. So what does that mean? Is that her just...
Like a camera of her walking to here, then a camera of her walking to here, then a camera of her walking to here. Correct. Okay. It's almost like watching a movie because they keep cutting to the correct camera. Yeah. So you could almost follow her exact movements. That's crazy. Okay. You can check it out. The link will be in the episode notes. But like I said, I'm obviously just going to narrate it here. So if you're watching on YouTube, we're not going to play all 55 minutes, but there will be sections clipped in.
Now, watching this footage is so unnerving because it's like watching Grace's murder play out in real time. You just want to scream through the screen, like to warn her, like, don't do that. But we can't. And I'll tell you where this all started and how police discovered what had exactly happened to Grace Mullane on December 1st, 2018.
Police eventually find the footage of Grace walking out of the hotel that her parents had told them she was at.
And she's walking out alone on December 1st around 537 p.m. She's wearing a black t-shirt dress, white flat lace-up shoes, a white watch, and she's carrying a purse. And that wasn't described in a case source. I'm telling you that because that is how clear the footage is that I was able to see that she was wearing a white watch. I was just going to ask. So it's in color then? It's in color.
Most of it's in color. There's one place that's black and white. It's clear. Like you could almost see facial expressions. That's awesome. Yeah. So Grace makes her way to on foot to Sky City, Auckland, which is an entertainment complex and casino in the central business district in Auckland. Now, the whole complex includes the Sky Tower, the Sky City Theater, many bars and restaurants and three different hotels. Wow.
Sky City is a point two mile walk away from the City Life Hotel she was staying at. The images and footage almost make it look kind of like I was saying a Las Vegas strip. So think of it that Grace is walking from her hotel to a neighboring one which is very normal in Vegas and here as well. Grace is then tracked on camera to an open area around the dining in Sky City where you can see her walk into this area. She stops and
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Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash husband, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash husband now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash husband. At 5.54 p.m., a man in sneakers, jeans, and a light blue unbuttoned shirt seemingly walks up to Grace and then they share a very quick awkward hug.
Together, they begin walking through Sky City and you can watch them the whole way on various clear security cameras. They seem to be making casual conversation. They aren't holding hands. They're walking side by side, kind of sharing smiles here and there. The footage then shows them entering into a bar called Andy's. They walk up to the bar smiling and they quickly read through the menu while standing there. They are talking the whole time and they even talk to the bartender for a minute.
After getting drinks here, they then make their way to the Mexican cafe for more drinks around 7, 16 p.m. And at this point in the footage, you can tell they're bar hopping. Like they're kind of just going from place to place to get new drinks. After spending roughly an hour at the Mexican cafe, you can see them paying for drinks and they are definitely more comfortable than they were before. They're standing closer. They're brushing arms, kind of placing hands on elbows. Okay, so it's a date.
- Yes, and police are assuming that as they're watching. At 8:30 PM, Grace and this man end up at the Blue Stone Room, this time for dinner. This is definitely the most blurry footage so far, but it still puts like most footage that we see to shame. It's the first footage in black and white.
At this point, Grace and the unknown man have definitely loosened up over dinner. They are sitting together at a high top table and they eventually end up sharing a couple kisses. The man throws his arm around her and they continue talking and laughing, looking like they're having a good time. At 8.56 p.m., the man leaves to use the restroom but gives Grace a kiss goodbye before he does. And to me, this was a big signal that the date was going well. Yeah.
She, as he's gone, gets her phone out of her purse for the first time and kind of hangs out on it until the man gets back. And when the man returns and Grace gets up to go to the bathroom, she leaves her bag on the table. So they kind of took turns like, I'll stay, you go, now you stay, I go.
And as soon as Grace walks out of frame, the man can be seen grabbing Grace's purse and shuffling through it before then placing it back on her seat. What? Yes. So this is the first sign of strange behavior from the man as police are like watching. They note that...
Up until now, it seemed like a normal date. But for this guy to take her purse as she's in the bathroom and shuffle through it is really weird. We've been married for almost five years and I don't even touch your purse now. Right. I can't imagine on the first date just grabbing it and shuffling through. Hey, what's going on in here? Yeah. That's weird. So Grace and the man then leave Sky City walking with their arms around each other, holding hands all the way back to Grace's hotel city life.
They make their way through the lobby and into the elevator up to Grace's floor, which is the third floor. I will say that this part in the footage goes on to become the most eerie and infamous part of all of this security footage because as police soon discover that
Grace and him go up the elevator to her floor and Grace will never be seen on camera again. Oh my gosh. Okay. Question before we keep going. Is there cameras in the stairwell as well? Yes. Okay. So I said elevator, but stairs, she'll never be seen coming down from that floor again. Police have obviously searched the hotel at this point. Like the second they got the call, they went to the hotel. They searched her hotel room and they couldn't find her.
So when they realized that they couldn't place her on any camera after this, they are confused. If she's not in the hotel, how did she leave without being caught on camera? As police realize they can no longer trace Grace,
They begin scanning for the unknown man. He had to have come back down at some point unless he too has vanished with grace. No way. Police discover that at 8 a.m. the morning after the apparent date. So after they've gone up the next morning, they spot the man in the elevator going back down at the City Life Hotel. Okay. All right. So now it's starting to all make sense where they charged him and so on and so forth. And
And the man in this footage is no longer wearing his blue button down shirt that he had unbuttoned that he wore up to the room. He's just wearing the black undershirt that he was wearing underneath on their date. - And you know, I just, I still can't comprehend the fact that like, dude, did you not know like where you were? - Like I said, it seems like a mini Vegas. So there's a camera on every corner.
- And for me, I think the biggest telltale while watching this is that when the man enters into the elevator that morning, he glances at the camera, like makes eye contact with the camera upon entering the elevator very quickly and then turns around and keeps his back facing it for the whole way down.
Security footage tracks the man entering, leaving the hotel and entering the Atrium Mall, which is right nearby at 8.07 a.m., where he then enters a store called The Warehouse. At The Warehouse, the man is seen shopping around and eventually taking something up to the counter to check out.
That item was a large suitcase. Oh my gosh. No way. Yeah. Footage then tracks the man rolling the suitcase all the way back to the City Life Hotel where he once again enters the elevator and uses a hotel key to
Which keep in mind, he was not checked into this hotel, so it has to be Grace's key to get up to the third floor that she had been staying on. That is so brutal. This is horrible. Yeah. The next time the man is seen as at 8.32 a.m., again on the elevator going down without the suitcase. He makes his way to the countdown metro where he can be seen purchasing cleaning supplies.
The man then takes the supplies back to the City Life Hotel and once again makes his way up to the elevator with the supplies in his hand. I'm just so, I'm beyond confused at the fact that he thought he was going to get away with it. Right. Just beyond confused. Like the
- The fact that they were able to track this man, he leaves, he goes down the elevator, we track him out the hotel, we track him going right, then left, then to this store where there's cameras. And then we see him, you know what I mean? - Open and shut case, it seems. - Yes, which is, I think explains why it happened so fast. - Yeah.
At around 1025 a.m., a little over an hour later, the man leaves once again. And this time, for the first time, there are other people in the elevator with him. Remember that he's gone down two to three times already and he's been alone. But now there's people in the elevator with him. And I know that you are assuming to know what this man was doing at this point in this timeline. But to be those
innocent bystanders in the elevator that have no idea what this guy is doing. Does he have the suitcase with him? No, he's only gone and got the suitcase and carried it back up. We haven't seen it again. Well, I was going to say that's, that's bad, but if he had the suitcase and then he's in the elevator with other people, that's just horrible. Right. And I think for these people, this, this footage is pretty famous. Like I said, to watch this footage and be like,
Oh, that's us in the elevator with him. You know what I mean? The man, you know, goes down and then catches a taxi, which literally has cameras in it that are pointing right at the man's face. And then he ends up going to a rental car place where he rents a red car. He takes the car back to the City Life Hotel and once again goes up to Grace's floor. So this has been like up and down multiple times that the police are tracking this guy.
At around 4.29 p.m., the man makes his way to the revelry bar and purchases a drink. He leaves said bar with a woman. So he goes to this bar, meets a woman, and then leaves the bar with the woman. Oh, my gosh. He just... Right. I mean, I don't know. Okay. He killed someone. He just killed someone and then now just went to a bar and met another woman. On another date? And now he's leaving with her? Right. Right.
So eventually the man ends up alone again after he spent time on this date. And later that night is seen driving the red car to another store. He rents a rug doctor. That's a big old carpet cleaner machine and takes it back to the hotel. Now it's just like, it's,
- It's comical that I just can't believe he's doing all this and it's being caught on camera. That's insane. - And it kind of, to me is like you couldn't just make all these in one trip, like go to the store, get the suitcase, get the cleaner, get, you know what I mean? It's like 10 times up and down. But to me, I mean, I just don't think he's very smart. Like we were talking about there's cameras everywhere.
So I'm not sure how he is able to get this rug doctor into through the hotel lobby, busy place into the elevator without being stopped. I mean, I think they just assume, oh, he's he works for the hotel, you know, he's going to clean carpets. Right. But at 824 p.m., this man wills the rug doctor into the elevator and makes his way back up to Grace's floor. And people get on the elevator with him as he's just standing there with this carpet cleaning machine. Yeah.
At 8.56, he wheels it back down and returns it to the store. So he rented it. The next time the man comes back up, he grabs a baggage trolley, like the ones from Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and takes it into the elevator with him. I was going to say, a baggage trolley is a baggage trolley everywhere. I know, but... Suite Life of Zack and Cody is a good one. Well, because they ride them.
write them on that show. That's true. No, you're right. I'm a Disney Channel kid. You are, you are. At 9.30 p.m., the elevator doors open on the third floor once again. And this unknown man wheels the trolley back into the elevator with him. And this time it has two large suitcases and a sports bag on it. And police now realize as they're watching this how Grace Malane left the hotel without being seen.
The man then unloads the bag into his parked rental car and then goes back up to the room to sleep the night. No, he sleeps in the same room? Yes.
- That's insane. I don't know what you guys else want me to say sometimes, but that is insane. - Yes. And can I just stop right here and say that like we're tracking this man or whatever, but when you actually think about what he's doing, Grace is a real person. She's a real person and she's a real victim. And as you think about him, just like bringing these suitcases down and no one knew what was happening, but we know what is happening. - So sick.
The next morning, December 3rd, the man can be seen on footage leaving the hotel around 6.14 a.m. and driving his red rental car to a hardware store where he purchases a red shovel. I don't know what his obsession with red is, but he just gets the red car, the red shovel. You know, the more you go on about this too, it seems like, I know we're going to get into all of it, but that it wasn't premeditated. And I'm only saying that because...
He's doing all this stuff. I mean, I know people do this stuff after, but like he didn't even have a shovel. You know what I'm saying? Like it seems the whole thing's just weird to me. It's almost like he had the opportunity. He took it. He's always wanted to. And he had the opportunity. And now he's taking the steps to. Right. Yeah. Right. But yes, if you're saying that he had a kill kit when he went on this date. No, obviously not. And then.
Then at 9.30 a.m., roughly two and a half hours after he purchased that shovel, the man is seen on camera returning to the hotel. And they don't know where he went at this point because he left camera like range basically, but he's back again at the hotel. And this time when he walks in, he's barefoot.
Okay. Now these next few scenes can kind of get redundant. So I'm just going to sum it up here real fast. Basically, the man retrieves two more bags from the hotel, drops some of those off at the dry cleaners, buys another suitcase, washes the car, washes the shoes that were inside of the car. So now we know why he's barefoot because his shoes were in his car and then washes the shovel and actually leans it up against the wall and leaves it at the car wash. It's like one of those handkerchiefs.
car washes. Yeah. So two days later, the man is seen dumping items out of a bag into trash bins. This whole time he's staying at the city life hotel in the same room on Grace's card because Grace's card is the one that is charged to that room. At this point in tracing the cameras,
Auckland police have identified the unknown man. They were like, we found out who he is. We got his picture out. We know who he is. And on December 6th, they find him near the City Life Hotel where he's still staying. And they bring him in for questioning. Hola. Como esta? Hola, como estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain and live there for the rest of your life.
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- CBdistillery.com, code husband. CBdistillery.com, code husband. - So real quick, how long from the time that her parents called? Okay, wait, so the time she went missing to her parents called? - She went missing on the first. - Okay. - Her parents called on the fifth. - Okay. - He's being brought in for interrogation on the sixth. - Whoa, so were they already in vest, like were they already looking into her or did they just within that one day get all this information? - So within that one day they got
Footage of him at the hotel. I don't think they got him going to the stores yet. They hadn't pieced together, but they saw them together on their date. That was, they started tracking her. And the first time they track her from the time that her parents said she went missing is on that date. So when did they charge him for murder? Two.
two days after they're about. So they're bringing him in now on the eighth, they charge him with murder. So first to the fifth to the sixth. Now we're the eighth. Well, we're at the sixth now, but yes, we're soon going to be at the eighth. Okay. So the man who gets brought in for questioning on the sixth, now keep in mind, like I said, police don't know everything that I just explained to you yet, but they're gonna find out soon because they're still working on footage, but they just needed to identify the man on the date with her first.
And the man alleged to police that the last time he saw Grace was at 8:00 PM, December 1st, after their date. And he tells them, "We met on Tinder, we went on this date, and then I said goodbye to her at 8:00 PM and we ended the date." Now, as they're questioning him, they're still looking through and they knew at this point that he had stayed the night.
So obviously this contradicts the CCTV footage. As we know, he spent the night. Police catch him in all of his lies because of the camera footage and they confront him. They're like, hey,
We know you're lying. And as the footage keeps going more and more, they're like, now we found this out. Now we found this out. Two days go by. And then on December 8th, they charge him with Grace's murder and searches on his phone that they collect once they charge him, led them to her body. He had searched the exact place where he had dumped her body on his GPS, on Google, everything. And so they were like, okay. So they drove out there and immediately found her.
That is unbelievable. Right. I'm glad and I'm super glad that they were able to find her, but it's just what? After finding Grace's body, her funeral service was held at Brentwood Cathedral in Essex.
Hundreds of mourners gathered and celebrated Grace, and a lot of her paintings were used to decorate the service. Apparently, she was a very talented artist, and so they used her own work to decorate the service. Her remains were buried in the village of Ramadan Bell House, and Grace's family was obviously just devastated.
devastated, angry, and confused. I know we just went through all this footage, but to them, they just called about their daughter not even a week ago, and now they're burying her. Like imagine just how fast and devastating that was.
How could this happen? It all felt so random, so unnecessary. Now, like you are probably wondering, the public was outraged at the murder of a British traveler and they wanted answers. What had happened? And who is this mystery man that police are talking about who had done this? And why wasn't he being named? How did no one know who he is, even though he's already been arrested and charged? Yeah, that's weird.
Now, despite orders, most of this information came out roughly a year later when the trial for Grace's murder began. Was he famous? Was, I mean, that's my only thought process is he was someone famous or something strange in that way. Right. Well, he wasn't famous. There was actually a suppression order in place during the trial, during all of this, since the second they found out who he was to keep the killer's name out of the media. Okay.
In fact, it's about a 50-50 split of the sources now, like as I was researching, who report this case still keep him unnamed and they blur his face in the footage. Why? Now, this is for, according to New Zealand, this is for protecting and preserving fairness to this case. So the jury wasn't affected by the media coverage or incorrect information. I'm surprised it even went that far with all the cameras.
Like it was so obvious. Yeah. Why, why wasn't he just like, why would, why did it even go to trial? So he pled not guilty. So it had to go to trial, but this suppression order. And I, you know, we obviously, I don't think we could get away with, with this in America, but there have been cases. I mean, most recently we're seeing Scott Peterson. I mean, this will have already aired, but he is starting a hearing on Friday because he's trying to get a new trial basically because of the
Because the jurors were involved with the media and spoke to the media. And so this is kind of what they're trying to prevent is another Scott Peterson situation. It's crazy to me that you plead that he pled not guilty after all the evidence. At that point, it's just, you know, it's ego. It's yeah. So maybe I'll get away with it. He obviously has to explain the footage. So I'll tell you exactly what he says at trial.
But despite the court's best efforts on this suppression, the killer's name was finally revealed to the public after trial via overseas media, which means America said there's a suppression order in New Zealand, but not here. So we're going to say his name.
And I want not just America, other countries as well. And I want to note here that despite the suppression order, overseas media could legally report the killer's name. Individuals in New Zealand, however, could face up to six months in prison or a $25,000 fine if they were to break suppression. So if you see sources who still refer to the man as just the accused or the prosecuted, that was why. Now suppression ends once he's convicted, right?
But I had to look all this up just to make sure I could legally still say his name. So Jesse Shane Kempson had matched with Grace Mullane on Tinder back in December of 2018. And after their date, he murdered her in her own hotel room and spent the next five days trying to cover it up. Almost all of those events were caught on camera.
Jesse was born on December 28th, 1991. According to one nine news from Australia and the daily mail, Jesse's parents separated when he was young and he was raised by his grandparents. When Jesse was in high school, he played softball, but would go on to tell a future landlord that he played professional softball in New Zealand. Okay. Now I, like I said, I don't like to go into the, I don't want to give these murderers any more details,
attention than we need to but sometimes their backstory really has a tell of who they go on to become and this is jesse's case which is why i'm including this jesse told his landlord this lie that he was a professional softball player because he didn't have rent money and he promised him that his contract money was coming in soon so like just just hold off for a minute
When Jesse never ended up paying rent, the landlord actually called the New Zealand Black Sox team and they informed him that they had never heard of Jesse Kempson and he definitely didn't play for them. According to Jesse's stepbrother, he thinks that Jesse was definitely a pathological liar. He often lied about his potential partners having cancer or that his parents were dead. Basically,
any lie that he could tell to make someone have an emotional response. His parents being dead? Oh my gosh. Jesse was trying to get people to feel bad for him or help him. It's all very, very manipulative. Jesse had a son with a woman that he dated but didn't maintain any contact with them and also had no contact with his father. A woman that met Jesse told interviewers that he claimed to have been in the process of buying up all the bars that
to add to his already existing restaurant franchise. There was no such thing. Jesse did not own a restaurant. He went on to claim that he had a bachelor's degree in international law and that he came from a family of millionaires who owned chain restaurants. He also told multiple people that he was buying up the top restaurants in Auckland's Viaduct Harbour, which is a waterfront mixed housing and commercial development area. It's like a morgue.
crazy version of the Tinder swindler. Exactly. He's just lying, which is why I feel like I had to include this. I had to include this detail about him buying up the waterfront property because he's basically telling people that he's buying all the restaurants in the fanciest part of town. This isn't diagnosed that I saw anywhere, but it feels very narcissistic type that he lies about grandiose and fake ideas to convince people to like him.
At trial, it was reported that Grace was murdered via manual strangulation. The defense said this was an accidental murder of rough play gone wrong. Oh my gosh. Which is why I was telling you this is how he pled not guilty. It's just so disrespectful to me.
To claim that. Right. So disrespectful. We're going to get into that. But yes, evidence, however, would indicate that the crime was not accidental because of the extent that he went to cover it up.
The Tinder messages were also released like their Tinder exchange and the jury was shown how persistent and aggressive Jessie was trying to convince Grace to go on a date with him. She didn't really want to go out. Grace was found inside a suitcase buried in a shallow grave. The trial was horrific for Grace and her family because all of her sexual past, her behavior was brought up when it had nothing
to do with what happened. The trial took almost three weeks and a jury made up of seven women and five men returned a guilty verdict after five hours of deliberation. The prime minister at the time actually issued an apology to Grace's parents right away for what had happened on their soil. She said, your daughter should have been safe here and she wasn't. And I'm sorry for that.
After the trial ended and the name suppression was lifted, it was reported that Jesse Kempson had sexually assaulted another British tourist just months earlier who he had also met on Tinder. He also faced eight charges of sexual and other violence against his current girlfriend. Oh, he had a girlfriend at the time too? Yes.
I don't know if they were like on and off again or whatever. Up until June 29th, 2021, Jesse Kempson has tried to appeal his verdict multiple times, but all have been denied. In the UK alone, seven of the 17 killings of a woman in the last five years that went to trial found the man not guilty.
38% of UK women under 40 years old report being assaulted and experiencing unwanted violence during consensual sex. That equates to 3.6 million women under 40 in the UK who have experienced unwanted violence in sex.
In the U.S., as reported by Stop Street Harassment, it found that 81% of women and 43% of men have experienced some form of sexual harassment during their lifetime. Those are such high numbers. Grace's murder is added to the list of cases, this is what you were talking about, where the defense team tries to argue the use of rough sex against
to justify violence or murder among women. And as you might know, this isn't even new. It's been going on since the Jack the Ripper murders and how the fixation was on the women who were sex workers and therefore familiar with danger and all sorts of other very toxic portrayal of victims. I think this also speaks to how women are often blamed for the crime despite being the victim. He blamed Grace even
though he's the one who killed her. And that was what you were saying. It's so disrespectful. Love Grace at Love Grace underscore UK on Instagram is a charitable organization that has been raising money and awareness of male violence towards women.
It was set up in Grace Mullane's honor by her cousin Hannah and her mother Jillian. They accept donations of handbags, which are then filled with toiletries and little luxuries for women and are donated to women's abuse shelters in Essex. So I would highly suggest going and checking it out. We did it. I mean, if you can donate, do. It's awesome.
Michael and Declan, Grace's half-brothers, actually posted many sweet messages on their social media channels in the early days of Grace's disappearance. And they continue to post about her to this day. Grace's friends describe her as having an infectious smile and being the happiest person and the brightest star. Her friend Samantha Ramsey said that Grace had big dreams and encouraged everyone around her to do the same.
And she was just out there trying to see the world, trying to further her education, trying to live out a dream when she met horror. And that is the story of Grace Mullane. What's crazy, horrible. That's so sad. What's crazy is the fact too that Grace, if it wasn't Grace, it would have been someone else. Exactly. Which is horrible as well because, I mean, it's so sad that it was Grace.
but it's scary to me that if it wouldn't have been Grace, just like the girl before her, she wasn't killed, but she was sexually assaulted. - Yeah. - It would have been somebody else. Almost like he, like you said, he wanted to kill someone. He was just waiting for the right- - Opportunity. - Opportunity moment, whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, I think this guy would have definitely become a serial predator had he not been caught, but he just got caught. Good. So most of the footage that we talked about will actually be inserted into the YouTube. So if you just listen and you want to go check that out, that would be an easy option to check out the footage. If not, it's linked in the episode notes. If you want to watch the security camera footage,
But yeah, I think today we will think about Grace and her family and just understand that, you know, you've done nothing wrong when you're the victim of things like this. She was just minding her business, trying to go about her life and evil met her. Agreed. All right, you guys, thank you so much for the continued support and we will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.